About that bit at the end on firing a gun in real life with negative edge not making sense, there's actually a mechanism that does that! They're called release triggers, and as the name suggests, the hammer (or striker) is only released when the trigger is. People usually use them in shotguns for skeet shooting, so using one in a revolver is a bit odd, but its definitly not impossible.

They should make the vertical tracking slower, so the opponent can more reliably jump to approach if the Happy Chaos player isn't anticipating it. As it stands, Happy Chaos plays himself once the player has the execution to pull off the reload loops.

My main issue with Chaos is that they 100% made him an absurd mix character with almost no defense and then gave him a button that makes him +40 from full screen so it doesn't matter he uses resources, or requires exploiting the mix. Like come on bruh.

I wish his moves got more answers. You can literally only jump the curse and only block the gun. Every other zoning in the game lets you pick at least two options among block, negate, or dodge, but Chaos seems to give you one option only at all time.

No one KNOWS from the beginning, but there's definitely always an assumption that every character will develop past what you see week one. If anything I'm shocked when a character stays exactly the same from launch or basically the same. Like, you don't look at week 0/beta zato and think "This is exactly what the character will look like a year from now".

Pretty straightforward. He just doesn't let you play 😂

What makes me tight is comboing into super through his main mechanic (gunshots) does decent damage even after 5+ shots along with reloading your bullets, but when it comes to comboing off Jack-O's main mechanic (minion attacks) the scaling is so bad it's literally not worth spending the meter unless it's going to kill or wall break. At least Zato's sword is low damage because it both lets you position Eddie right next to your opponent and completely refills the gauge; Elysion pauses minion meter on top of doing no damage, which is just salt on the wound. idk how this just turned into a Jack-O rant but yeah

The thing that bothers me the most is him being able to shoot on whiff making your whiff punishes rng and how fast the steady aim tracks you when you're not cursed. He doesn't really bother me aside from those 2 things but my character also doesn't have movement issues so idk

Well, i havent fought a HC yet but from the vids ive been watching (hotashi's analysis, romolla's how to fight hc, this vid, and even that one reaction sonicsol had of deb vs daze), it seems to me that the issue is that HC can zone you more consistently than axl, has damage comparable to may, can lock you down better than ram, has the chip potential of goldlewis, and the conversion ability of a top tier bbcf character, and most importantly, he can do this to you all at the same time from anywhere on the screen in relation to you

8:46 Well it is a double action Revolver. So when you pull back the trigger, there is a long pull as the hammer is raised until you feel to a break point. Pulling past the break point drops the hammer and the gun fires. So, not perfect a translation, but the negative edge kinda makes sense for the hammer of a double action. Not defending the absolute state of HC tho

Can you expand on what you were talking about with taking away negative edge shots?

Just on the note of getting rid of his negative edge, it's actually possible for him to still do guard crush loops without it. I know, because that's how I learned how to do them. Didn't feel comfortable learning negative edge at first and I ended up making the process way harder for myself in the long run. That being said, it is fucking mad difficult and the timing is way, way, way tighter by comparison. Would def make for an interesting nerf though! I think you'd see HC's screwing up the input way more often as a result at the top level or just opting to not do it because of consistency issues entirely.

You know, I got a simple fix to HC... take all push back from his bullets. He'll get some combos from it but with his lack of defense it'll help with closing the distance without taking away his core design or the skill of reloading the way people have learned

The video title and liquor shelf in the background is all I needed to see.

2:30 i might be wrong but is that combo 5K > 2D ATR H ~ 214H Clean hit H ~ 22P(2) > 66 > 6K ~ 236S > 6K > 6S > 66 > 5K > 6S > 214S H ~ 22P > 632146S?

I don't know if getting rid of negative edge would actually fix the issue; what negative edge does is allow you to special cancel from gunshots instantly essentially (since the shot happens on release, you do 5S[H] > 214]H[S, for example, to link normal gunshot into guard break gunshot stance or 214S[H] > 22]H[P to instantly cancel guard break gunshot into reload and be plus enough to loop it over and over again). If you made gunshot happen on H press and not release, but still kept this property of being able to instantly special cancel, then you would just do 214S > 22H~P, which would make the execution even easier and fix nothing. So you would have to make it so that after guard break gunshot there's a small delay before the special cancel comes out which would mean that he wouldn't be plus enough to loop that shit in your face and characters with slow dashes can actually approach him as he wouldn't be able to loop gaining back his resources as easily. I think keeping the instant special cancel on regular gunshot could be fine cause the normal gunshot to stance gunshot link is already very precise, and you would keep his conversion ability/combos from things like hitting mid range buttons like 2S intact. You would mostly be nerfing the oppressive win conditions by making the special cancel from stance come out delayed.

Mu-12 gang appreciates the shoutout, we know it's scrubby AF and we love it. God bless autobattler neutral. Funny enough, the accidental nerf they did before (when they changed the reticle) is almost the same as getting rid of negative edge while keeping the execution aspect. It took longer for the reticle to focus for guard crush, so HC had to overextend on close-range offense or not use Steady Aim up close.

He has hit scan in a fighting game he can by pass projectiles so can't really be counter zoned he can full screen pressure assuming you don't fumble an input and generally he has a gimmick that makes him good but not well designed.

I'd prefer if they just made guard crush zoom take longer because I enjoyed learning negative edge, but that would be fair.

I hope they just make gun not count as aggression (I'm not sure how to define it) so that he gets negative penalty for zoning the way other forms of zoning do

Guard crush on Steady Aim bullets is wild, if there were a way to have guard crush only occur on point blank fully charge shots, that would nerf the zoning but keep him versatile and leave his blockstrings the same.

0:49 Yup I agree with this take absolutely. Fighting games, hell LoL, people have kneejerk reactions to new characters all the time. In fighting games there tends to be an archetype of characters where you see them and you just know they'll need time to be mastered, and so any initial "factual" placements are straight bs. Hell a new game drops and day 2 I'll see people in FGC twitch chats asking for tier lists or going "__ is top tier?" Jack-o, Zato, and Happy Chaos I could tell from the start that they're clearly meant to reward creativity and with the right #'s they'd likely be strong. Does that mean I knew they'd be strong patch 1? Absolutely not, because for all I knew, a bit of Zato's #'s could've been held back just to prevent him from being the best character or overwhelming. Even Arcsys didn't know where exactly he would've landed on a list once players got a hold of 'em, you just gotta wait. lol

Yo, I didn’t know shit from the beginning. But between that theme, design, and PeRsOnAlItY he’s still gonna be top tier after nerfs bruh.

A good happy chaos nerf would be that his steady aim uses more concentration meter. So that he can do it like 2 max. The regular shots is the same amount. That would limit the full screen spam without the meter gain super. He's a cool character but most celestial players just go full screen and just play the shooting simulator game. I've played some choas' that got ACTUAL cool setups and combos. However they are rare online unfortunately

I agree its cool that he got figured out but its the full screen guard crush I don't hate it too much in the game but at least with Pot when he memes you he had to get in and you can play the guessing game with HC .... you don't interact you just get chipped out and block till round 2.

Not sure about taking negative edge away, rather maybe have a better defensive option against gaurd crush. Or make heavy shots only gaurd crush standing opponents and is slightly plus against crouching opponents.

I think dashes should remove the auto-zoning for 0.05 seconds or something so you can actually dodge the gunshot and land a counterhit; making it a strong mix-up tool instead of just auto-zoning.

i think a reasonable nerf for HC would be making steady aim shots cost mor bullets, 2 or 3, then even reloading you coldn't spam the guardcrush, and maybe making so you can't cancel out of reload before fully loading the gun, but i think either one or the other would be fine, but not both, also maybe making shots less precise when the enemy is not cursed.

idea for a hc change: his shots should only connect if he hit another button just before or if he's in steadyaim. i think the character could be great if he was built around that idea. im pretty new to fighting games and have no idea if that would be better.

I learned how to use guard crush loops without using negative edge, and honestly you'd be meeting in the middle of the two methods difficulty by changing to strict fire on press.

They could try playing around with how hitstun works with his gun. Maybe the gun only can combo if the enemy is in the air or something, but while on the ground it doesn't give any hitstun.

I have like 2 main issues with HC, The first one being that reloading bullets becomes so free that that bullets barely count as a resource to manage. and being able to reload multiple bullets and still be plus causes the counterplay often leading up to just trying to dash and block in the split seconds you have and if you mess up you lose half your life and have to start all over and any potential opening can be made moot due to steady aim causing guard break. the other thing being the amount he gets away with from using his gun. weather its being able to get full combos off of anything or able to make normals safe on wiff.

Something really silly about Chaos that surprised me is curse does NOT go away on hit. Chaos can literally eat a combo, get up, mash jab, and still convert because curse is still on. On its own, it might be fine, but this goes against how almost every other character in Strive works. Zato, Jack’O, and Testament all lose their momentum if they get hit. Chaos, a zoner who is supposed to be weak on defense like Zato, still keeps curse after getting hit.

Something small that you can do that might make HC a biiit less scary after gb is fuzzy throw tech. Throw tech window is pretty big in this game and he doesn't have a command grab, so even though you don't have throw protection, you can still stop a throw after blocking. The issue is that you don't get to blow him up for throwing you and if he baits you you're in CH recovery and are about to die. Which is why I said might make him less scary.

im by no means an axl main and do even less zoner stuff in other games but when i do play axl like. the whole fun of the character is about using his huge variety of hitboxes to defend urself as u and the opponent move around the screen, and u can choose different tools of his to force positions and approach and back off and what not. and then HC is just. shoot gun. sit in back of map and shoot gun. walk forward while shooting gun if u get bored. like.

Make curse give the other player health or meter gain. It would go with the chaotic fighting style. Like HC wants to make things more interesting by helping u fight back.

short answer: gun go pew pew long answer:

I think the most you could nerf chaos without putting him in the ground would be something along the lines of Reducing his meter gain overall Slowing down the rate at which he's able to reload bullets beyond the first And reducing the travel distance of his 6S

As someone that loves playing zoners, the fun for me is having to put shit on thr screen and sometimes it hits and sometimes it doesn't. When it DOES hit (i.e. random venom ball that I accidently hit) it feels that much better. I also dislike auto zoners because I don't feel as rewarded for my zoning because it ALWAYS works

I find it funny that his status is entirely explained in his gameplay sentence: "Gunslinging *Broken* Messiah"

Not letting you negative edge would be interesting cause its a buff to usability, if a nerf to high level techniques. Itd make the character a lot more popular at low level, the same way Zato would be if he had this change. I myself would also like it a lot as when trying to learn Chaos that is one of many things I cant get down

Hotashi did a good review of HC too, check it out after you watch this.

A funny comparison you can make is that HC just has testaments stain state on opponents all the time. Except that it has way more utility than stain state does because the use of being stain state for HC is not even its main draw.

I love HC and have been learning the ways of the cow for maximum salt. Feels good

Tbh I feel like there should be a limit on curse. It should be it’s own resource. Or it should be made slower and easier to avoid. Also they should remove guard crush on steady aim. I shouldn’t be guard crushed from across the screen at any moment and not ever be able to approach or even MOVE for that matter. Like why am I being punished for just existing in neutral lmao. Tweak curse, his meter gain, and remove his guard crush and he’ll be fine.

Love these kinda videos. Hearing about it is one thing but ACTUALLY seeing it is another. I see the execution btw nice job LK. As for how I feel about him, I love this character ( not being sarcastic). Yes hes extremely cheap but his design and gameplay is so much fun. I have never seen a character like him before. I dont main him since if you make even one mistake you can lose.

Yeah, the low risk aim-assist/auto-zoning is one of the main problems. Like you said, a traditional zoner has to pick the part of the screen they want to defend and if they choose incorrectly then they get blown up. This guy doesn’t run that risk, he pulls the trigger and chips you hard + guard crushes you or gets a full combo from full screen.

fighting happy chaos is for me pretty fair and really fun because he doesn't have really good defense options, and his inner defense is low, so you can really bully him in a good phase. also, his pressure is limited by his reloading, so there's always a way to get out. and finally, the fullscreen jail can be beat by characters like nago, but the only problem is that there's too many characters like goldlewis who has too bad matchup against him.

My opinion is that his concentration regen is too good. He's not too too hard to block, he just has infinite bar so that if you start blocking, you pretty much have to keep blocking and HOPE for a slip up so that you have a gap somewhere in there. Maybe its a skill issue on my end though so idk.

I don't agree with the Negative Edge part just because I think that's punishing players for learning a technical skill (I play HC, so yes, kinda biased). I do think they should change his zoning to be more "interactable". Like you mentioned, Zoning with Testament and Axl requires you to make the choice of what to cover. With HC, his gun practically beats all of your options aside from dash block. I'd like more options to beat his aim. Maybe Dash or Backdash throwing the reticle off so opponents can just run at you if you're too predictable.

The only problem I have with HC is that he can just full screen guard crush you and constantly loop it. You can get past it but its easily the most annoying match up to play. HC just plays by himself

Just make concentration not as effective the more you use in a set period like 1st use 100 >70> 50>25

As an Axl main HC can be a real pain, but not impossible, it usually comes down to the HC players skill, but even against the strongest I've found openings during the matches, I do feel for a GL player against HC though. HC also gets run over pretty hard if you have a character that can keep him on defense and you get him locked down, I don't play him, but I feel like he doesn't has a lot of reversal options other than to try to play his way out of a corner. At this point I don't really want to see any nerfs outside of damage for some characters. I would like to see buffs to the lower tiered characters for obvious reasons, and if for no other reason than to maybe increase the variety of characters commonly seen online.

Steady aim while cursed is basically a hitbox that covers the full screen

Watch out cows gotta gun

wow tat really is a galaxy brain solution, never thought of that

I think they should somehow force HA to interact with the opponent... In current state, it feels like he can, but he doesn't have to interact with the opponent.

Low key Goldlewis was one of those secret good characters but then FD got buffed before he got developed fully whidh was a huge nerf to him. I think a lot of us assume that it was mainly to deal with Sol f.s and Pot Garuda, but they may have also considered Goldick having a legit infinite. I never thought HC was bad, but I definitely didn't expect him to glow up like he has. I still stand by what I said on an earlier video that good and easy now is way more valuable than weak now with potential later, because executional difficulty always becomes easy with practice. I'm probably one of the rare people that would be ok with HC if he remained untouched in the patch. I'm ok with him being strong and even possibly the best. Despite how vocal the community is about their disdain for him, top players have been able to show that they can both fight and beat HC players of equal skill. This doesn't mean that he doesn't deserve a nerf, but that counterplay is being developed and people are learning how to fight the character which helps a lot in determining what a strong character's actual distance is from the rest of the cast in terms of strength and analyzing whether they are too strong or not. If I HAD to nerf him, the [LK] negative edge nerf is a good one, I'm always down for getting rid of guard crush in some manner[Hotashi], and I also like the idea of giving him the reverse Goldlewis buff--where he is forced to reload every bullet that is missing with each bullet adding more cool down so that the bullets are an actual resource that he has to manage.

Happy Chaos is such a weird character. I played fighting games all my life and I don't remember character having such a high skill entry treshold. New player sees "Oh, nice design, maybe I try this character" and they have to check ammo, concentration, does not have reversal, cant burst because that's your only ability to escape from "unga bunga" in the corner... and next 1 frame links??? I love the design and character, that's why I play him but man, today tried to do his combos on pad and Im dying xD

I like playing ino so I think that should cover my opinion

A good nerf for Happy Chaos that I actually haven't seen people propose too much is making it so that non-curse steady aim tracking is worse. That'll make it so that the opponent can actually interact interestingly with Happy Chaos full screen and makes it so that doing steady aim in neutral is actually more of a risk. Good movement options can outmanuever the steady aim easoly, but Happy Chaos can also land the curse for if he wants to counter. I think it's a more realistic change than just outright removing guard crush or reducing his meter gain

I honestly think a good nerf would be to give his gun lock on range so it takes him longer to lock on to enemies further away

removing negative edge for the bullets actually is galaxy brain LOL i can't imagine that it'll be what actually changes about HC but i don't think i would've even considered it as an option prior to this video

As a viewer I personally hate Happy Chaos as a Character. Its a very boring character to watch and he definitely seems a bit overpowered. I really hate the fact he also has auto-aim which definitely shouldn't exist in fighting games. They could have just gave him an Angle Up or Angle Down to make him more fair and adds timing as well as situational awareness to make the character more skillful. I love in depth videos in general but, you honestly make the best fighting game content out there in my opinion and you upload consistently which is great. I just wanted to let you know I wish you an your channel the best in life and I appreciate the fact that you keep it real when voicing your thoughts be it displeasure or otherwise. Thanks for all the great videos!!! P.S. Speaking of displeasure I have a question regarding Guard Break. Do you hate Guard Break entirely as a mechanic in fighting games or just the dumb special moves that cause it? I say this because games like Street Fighter Zero/Alpha 3 have a guard meter which I personally love as a mechanic in fighting games because it forces players to not play overly defensive. Sorry for the long post and I hope to hear your thoughts on this.

very insightful video C o l o n e l 🤴🏻 T H I C C 😩😩🥵

Maybe they could either A. decrease his range to half-screen, nerf reload speed a tiny bit and get rid of guard-crush, pushing him to be a mix-up character. B. make pew-pew negative on block unless done from range, nerf reload speed a bit, remove auto-aim but let him ricochet off the ground or opposite wall, pushing him to fully a zoner.

I honestly wad more shocked to hear that people didn't think he was that good, I was like a character that can convert from anything, constantly keep you in strike\throw mix, and can remain safe if not plus if their resources are kept in check can't be bad. And then they discovered the whole guard crush in made pressure while we loading bullets thing which almost invalidated one resource(bullets cuz you pretty much always have them)... Wild

Chaos being broken was insane to see unveil if you’re going nerf him (Which I have no idea how to since i’m not a game dev) it’s probably going to be towards his zoning. But if you nerf his zoning you have to buff his mix IMO. If I had to say anything maybe just drop the meter gain so chaos can’t close out a match after a wall break.

Love when people from floor five come out the wood work saying they knew nago was stier from the start "wowow I knew he was good from the start, look how far his heavy slashes goes!!!....when he counter hits me in blood rage he takes 80% my health with super so op!!" Like ok bro that's def why he's so good.

Imo It would be fine if they just take away the auto aim and make him shoot straight only. He would be on the same level of Ramlethal like that I think, still a really strong character you just can't play a single player game anymore

I think chaos having negative edge is just the way he is designed to be chaotic Just like his back dash move command is unusually 236 not 214 and his forward role is the opposite His trigger for a gun is also reversed

As you said, his gimmick allows you to: >Loop (guardbreak) pressure >Convert of any hit (as long as you have resources) >Auto any screen 'zone' (as long as you have resources) And alongside this his meter options are very very good and building unique resources is not particularly hard He's tricky to use at first but after that a walk in the park to win with

It would be cool if HC had penalties to his resource recovery if his opponent is at half screen or farther. He's interesting to watch when he brawls, but when he takes 40 seconds to whittle people down that's slow and painful.

At least Elphelt had to aim a little bit with her gun.

I hate his auto zoning because it means I can't just monkey vortex it like I do with everything else

I just picked this character up today he is easy and hard all at once

I think your hypothetical nerf and mine are both designed to do the same thing, but I'd make it so that he can't get concentration back while reloading. He's got concentration and bullets that are supposed to be limiting resources, and he's got a roll and a clone to run away when he doesn't have those resources, but being able to reload mid-zoning and replenish a bullet and a little bit of concentration between each shot is insane. He's got a revolver that shoots six bullets, but he can reload between each one and shoot 8 before he runs out of concentration. Absurd. Everyone else's pressure gets reset after two FD'd melee hits, and he gets a ton of meter for 8 straight shots that he can use to replenish concentration for 8 more.

The guns i heard

Look what you did Romolla ? (Casually eating her borgars ahah). I love HC tho, even playing against him

another issue with HC is that sure he can combo off anything, but why is he allowed to deal HIGH dmg like Sol Nago Ram May when HC is a ZONER?

As a Nago player, the wall that he creates of nonstop bullets basically means every Rd is 60+ secs. Nago (and other big/heavy chars) doesnt have the mobility to double jump or dash cancel. If Chaos went into danger/negative quicker and they nerfed the meter gain from his inputs I think it'd make him a bit more honest and force Chaos players to do more than to shoot 20 times before getting in close enough to play the game lol

Id honestly love if he couldnt negative edge, just so that I could pick him up and not have to learn how to negative edge.

I disagree with happy's zoning is no skill but he is absurd. might buy him

I think guard crush the mechanic is the problem. I straight up don't think the character would be broken tier without it given their strongest shit is tied to guard crush. I'd prefer if they tweaked this wack ass universal mechanic instead of getting rid of negative edge, which is a unique defining part of his execution and what makes him fun to play imo.

Oh my god I can just see NRS noticing a character like Happy Chaos, peeing themselves with excitement and inspiration and designing a character with an auto-lock on mechanic with a projectile in the next MK or Injustice game.

Man, LK learning HC stressed him out so much he getting the white hairs

I think making Steady Aim a more committal stance would do a whole lot to curb his memey shit. If he couldn't cancel it into reload, that alone would weaken a lot of his ability to maintain his goofy ass Steady Aim pressure. Hell, he *has* a move with its own animation dedicated to cancelling Steady Aim, and it's made way less useful because it's *slower* than cancelling into reload????? I don't understand why that is, but it's another reason I think it'd be a good call to remove cancelling Steady Aim into reload lol I don't think I agree with the removal of negative edge (assuming I understand exactly what you mean, which could be false lol), since it feels like it's too major a part of the character's identity to just toss out. Like, the surface level appeal of the dude's unique mechanics is that you can whip out his gun whenever you want and throw out a shot, just like that. I don't think tampering with that is a great idea, and instead would prefer they focus on chipping away at his ability to do these gun tricks near-infinitely.

I don't like the way LK uses the term "win condition" because too me, that implies that as soon as the condition is met, you've won the game. What LK is describing is what I would consider a character "goal".

LK leading the way in producing useful content that encourages healthy discussion instead of exaggerated simplification? pog

Shooting via negative edge makes perfect sense when you consider hc is actually playing mgs1-3.

No lo van a nerfear ni de coña, si bufaron al Nago me da miedo que me harán al Happy.

I actually did know Happy Chaos was top tier ever since the breakdown for him.

Yeah, heavy nerf to his zoning and clone would be nice.

Vegito’s been cracked as fuck since day 1 but fighting game elitist swore up and down he was mid-bottom tier when it was OBVIOUS he wasn’t. 5M buff was huge but the assist and neutral has always been cracked as fuck

These are some of the worst comments i've ever seen, pouring one out for anybody that makes the mistake i did

as a faust main i find that he is truely the highest potential zoner but the rng is always your worst enemy

I love Chaos as a character in the story, I hate fighting him in the game though. Because of the way he works all the high level players i've fought play him the exact same optimal way. it gets boring fast.

LK with the best education

Leffen moment

Players: So HC has infinite advantages and there is nothing I can do about it? ArcSys: Yes Players: What are his downsides? ArcSys: When he's on the other side of the screen where you can't reach him sometimes he can't block for like 10 frames maybe.