Skullgirls' Annie balance update includes brand new moves for Eliza and Robo-Fortune along with substantial mechanic changes
Skullgirls players were greeted with the fighting game's largest update in years last night in early access form with the beta release of Annie of the Stars as the first DLC character of the Season 1 Pass, and it also came packing a fairly substantial balance rework to boot.
Hidden Variable released the patch notes now for 2nd Encore's beta update which includes some big changes to Eliza and Robo-Fortune with both receiving new moves and mechanic overhauls alongside more character adjustments.
Eliza's skeletal partner Sekhmet now works completely differently than before seeing as she'll now drain the fighter's life bar instead of meter while out on the field.
To help literally stop the bleeding, Sekhmet has a new blood mechanic as well that allows her and Eliza to pick up the droplets and restore their health.
Robo-Fortune's Systemic Circuit Breaker is also changed quite a bit from what it was before, and to help make it work as intended she can use the newly added Warranty Extension move that increases the Super's timer at the cost of health and heads.
These changes are currently only available in the beta version of the game on PC, but they are scheduled to hit the standard version of Skullgirls in May alongside Annie's official launch.
You can find the character change patch notes below.
Skullgirls 2nd Encore Beta Patch Notes Character Changes
Filia and Parasoul
• First pass at implementing "lenient button dashing" has been done for Filia and Parasoul. During the first frame of any (P) normal, you can press another (P) to cancel into a dash as long as you would normally be able to dash using the previous logic.
• Numerous bugs and exploits have been taken care of up front, including meter gain being moved to frame 2 instead of 1 for affected normals, plink dashing being impossible, etc.
• If this implementation has no bugs or issues, I'll do it for all characters. Please let me know if you come across any exploits or differences in dash behaviour for these two!
Painwheel
• In the spirit of the above lenient button dash changes, Unfly now has 1F leniency when hitting PP as well.
Cerebella
• Fixed a bug with Diamond Deflector where the projectile would pass through opponents without hitting them.
• Diamonds are Forever is now post flash blockable on DHC by clearing hitstop from the opponent on DHC if they are not attacking, blocking, or in hitstun.
• Added a buffer for the first follow up punch in JLP, making it feel like other chained normal cancels.
• JdMP always goes through its start up before going active, removing a bug where J2MP could come out in a single frame if done too close to the floor.
• JdMP advances the combo stage to stage 2, making the follow up hits stage 3.
• JHP's forced damage scaling (75%) has been removed and restored to 100%, but it is now a mid hit.
• Normal throw leaves Peacock and Valentine closer to Cerebella.
• Pummel Horse hitbox slightly lowered to hit all characters OTG reliably.
• Note: The previous two changes give Cerebella universal midscreen normal throw conversions. Throw → Pummel Horse connects on everyone.
Eliza
• cMP recovery reduced by 4F. -6 → -2 on block. 0 → +4 on hit.
• Osiris Spiral (M) metergain greatly increased.
• The 2nd hit of sMK is a restand rather than a knockdown.
Sekhmet (General)
• Sekhmet (and related mechanics) have received some big changes. I realize this may come as a shock to some, but this "rework" is intended to make Sekhmet feel more interesting to play with, and against. Hopefully, Sekhmet now feels more like a complete tool in Eliza's kit. Please approach it with an open mind and give it time. I expect further tuning will be required.
• Sekhmet no longer drains meter over time when attacking. Instead, she drains life over time, and loses chunks of health when using attacks.
• Her life drain over time starts small but ramps up the longer Sekhmet is active. Hitting the opponent with any Sekhmet attack resets the drain back to its minimum value.
• As an assist, she will always lose life at the fastest rate, and this also locks her assist out for longer as if it was hit.
• Any hit from an armor breaking move (Sweeps, Cilia Slide, etc) revert Sekhmet to Eliza form and put her in a special trip state that allows combos. This also applies to her assists.
• The recall to anchor input is now QCB only, instead of QCB or QCF.
Sekhmet (New Moves)
• Sekhmet can now backflip to safety during any normal that makes contact (hit or block) with a backdash input. This drains a huge chunk of life, but can be used to keep her attacks safe. (Play Sekhmet neutral for as long as you want, but the longer you go without getting a hit, and the more your hits are blocked and cancelled into backflip, the more life you'll lose. If that's not your style, just using Sekhmet moves to bait opponents is safer at the cost of health.)
• Sekhmet has a new Lv1 Super (QCF+KK) that performs a jumping hitgrab neck bite, crumpling the opponent, creating blood, and healing for the damage dealt. It also repositions the anchor nearby so she can convert into Eliza combos even if she was far from the anchor previously.
Sekhmet (Blood Mechanic)
• "A" Blood Mechanic, but perhaps not "The Blood Mechanic"
• Any Sekhmet attack involving her red blood weapons creates blood if it hits a character, which flies somewhere behind them. Blood can go off camera, but not off stage.
• Only 25 blood drops can be out at once, and each one lasts for 15 seconds. Collecting a blood drop restores 200 health to Eliza. (Tips: Use LLL and M to make a lot of blood to create health positive combos and situations at the cost of damage and granting meter to your opponent. Opponents, try and stop her from getting to the blood to heal!)
• Eliza's taunt pulls all blood in front of her for easy collection, as long as it's within 1400 units. All other taunt effects are removed.
Peacock
• Lonesome Lenny's hitstop doesn't carry over on DHC anymore.
• While Lonesome Lenny is active and Peacock is the point character, meter gain is reduced to 33% like Painwheel's Hatred Install, Robo-Fortune's Systemic Circuit Breaker and Double's Cattelite Lives.
• The Hole Idea (H) will become The Hole Idea (M) and teleport in front if used while any of Peacock's assist are on screen attacking, removing cross-up teleports for all assists rather than only keeping it for slow ones.
• Bang! (M) recovery increased. It's now -17 on block, previously -9. Knockback on block reduced. Knockback on hit slightly reduced.
• Bang! (M) hitbox lowered to prevent characters low profiling it.
• George (L)'s very good hitbox reaching far behind only appears for 1F when George spawns. If the opponent is in hitstun, the good hitbox stays out to keep her combos (ex: GDO loops in the corner) the same as before.
• George (L)'s lob height slightly reduced. As an assist, Peacock spawns in front of the point character instead of behind.
• Fixed a bug where Peacock's bombs would only vanish if they hit something, not when they are hit. Most notably, this fixes a bug where two bombs couldn't be destroyed by a single projectile.
• Peacock's Air Throw leaves the opponent slightly closer for more consistent and stable conversions.
Robo-Fortune
• Robo-Fortune has a two frame double jump lock out when jumping, this removes her "Instant Double Jump Cancel" overheads. (This change will come for other characters as well later)
• Increased Magnetic Trap's hitstop before active frames from 4F → 6F. Opponents can't act before the active frames now if it's released immediately.
• Danger! (M) will stagger when it is used outside of a chain, like Beowulf's sHK or Cerebella's sMP.
• Danger! (M) is now -17 on block, previously -12.
• Danger! (M) has bonus hitstun against assists, allowing them to be hit by Catastrophe Cannon after.
• All hits of Danger! (L) knockdown now.
• Grounded (L) Theonite Beam, and ground and air (M) Theonite Beam are 25% wider.
Systemic Circuit Breaker
• Similar to Sekhmet, Systemic Circuit Breaker has received some big changes. The design direction for Circuit Breaker is now more "all in" towards accomplishing an offensive gameplan with appropriate strengths and weaknesses. Again, I ask that you please approach these changes with an open mind and give it time. I expect further tuning will be required, as Circuit Breaker Robo-Fortune is extremely powerful right now.
• She loses access to her double jump but gains access to an air dash.
• Her remaining time until detonation is displayed on new art over her head.
• Once per combo, Magnetic Trap will floor bounce the opponent for a combo opportunity, and she no longer automatically explodes at the end of it.
• L and M Beams (Ground & Air) have less recovery and tuned frame data.
• L and M Beams (Ground & Air) have special hit properties once per combo, similar to Painwheel's Hatred Install Buers.
• Fixed a bug where one second on her timer was 70F instead of 72F.
• Circuit Breaker's timer counts down at half speed if the opponent is in hitstun, reflected by the slower animation on the timer. (I suspect this will be too much, but we'll start with it.)
• The explosion vacuums opponents towards Robo-Fortune on hit, instead of knocking them away.
• IPS and Damage scaling are reset on her explosion if she's hit out of the recovery, but Undizzy is still frozen.
Warranty Extension
• Robo-Fortune has also received a new move, "Warranty Extension" that helps her maintain Systemic Circuit Breaker's benefits for a longer time, at the cost of health and heads. Being a "Systemic Circuit Breaker specialist" requires you to find time (or build team compositions) to create Heads, and sacrifice life, heading towards a "glass cannon" paradigm.
• QCB + P during Systemic Circuit Breaker will make Robo-Fortune consume one head and self inflict 750 damage.
• Each consumed head adds 6 seconds to her detonation timer. The detonation timer cannot exceed 20 seconds.
• LP / MP / HP determines the number (1 / 2 / 3) of heads consumed at once.
• Robo-Fortune's meter gain penalty (x0.33) increases towards x1.0 by 0.15 for each head consumed. After consuming 5 heads, her meter gain penalty will be fully removed for the remainder of Circuit Breaker.
The full list of patch notes for the other changes to the game can be found here.
