Potential Buffs For Sarah In VF

Hey everyone! It really seems like Sarah Bryant, dispite being one of the most engaging and interesting characters in the game (at least in my opinion), she's also one of the most unfairly treated and underpowered. I was thinking about some cool buffs for Sarah and I'll list them in a moment. But I'd like to get feedback on this. Please reply if you think my ideas are flawed and if so, how. Also if you have your own ideas. Here's my list:

• Remove her step stance and make her able to do all of her step moves from switch step.
• Put her catch throws back into flamingo stance as well.
• Make her forward slide more useful and not able to be interuppted on reaction so easily.
• Allow her to enter backward slide outside of forward slide which would both really open up her options and make her far more well rounded as a character.
• Change some of her highs into mids, such as the last hit of PPP8+K and 3+P and others.
• Make her throws do more damage.
• She doesn't have very many defensive moves as a character, but buff the ones she does have.
• Make her risk/reward more in her favor, such as making moves safer or giving them higher reward. For example, making 6+PK lead to full and damaging combos even on normal hit and making 2+P+KK -12 instead of -15, and make the first hit -7 instead of -10.
• Make her moves less specialized.
• Give her more moves like a chargeable guard stagger like just about everyone on the roster.
• Make her a force of nature at the wall.

 

Agree with the charge move that stagger on guard, and maybe the back slide being accessible other than from forward slide

 

I'll ask: what do you think is Sarah's Schtick?

Aoi is Reversals
Eileen is Cancels
Vanessa is TWO Characters


This will explain whether the criticisms make sense, or not, the characters can't have all the tools, if you don't play to her supposed strengths you are using her wrong.

 

Sarah is normally relentless agression, but I think she should be more of an all rounder, with a focus on relentless agression.

 

Sounds like you want Jacky with boobs

 

Isn't Jacky supposed to have a focus on defensive play since his slide shuffle stance and his long reach sinergize well for a footsies whiff punishment character. It would be interesting for Jacky and Sarah to both be all rounders, but Jacky being a more defensive character and Sarah being a more offensive character. Or the other way round. I also don't care much for her boobs.

 

I don't know man seems like JAcky is all solid for offensive or defensive play. Making the Bryant siblings "shotos" of each other... might be a hard sell with VF philosophy (small roster bias).

Not shaming here, I won't lie I would take rule 63 Jacky (done properly) over Sarah. If Sarah was a dude would you play them over Jacky?

 

That Jacky is, but he is focuses more on defensive play than agression, even though he can be played aggressively. Perhaps maybe Sarah could be an all rounder and be like Brad but have low damage and be lightweight to make up for it.

I like Sarah because of her backstory. Also for some reason, I woud rather have her be female other than her body shape. I definitely play as both Sarah and Jacky very frequently though.

One thing that I think about lightweight characters. I feel that a lot of lightweight characters are underrated because they're lightweight. I don't think that being lightweight is that big of a problem for the character. I mean unless it means that they are susceptible to monstrous damage combos that other characters aren't.

 

I assume you mean her Flamingo Step? Remove that and give her access to the moves from normal FL?

She immediately is OP. She would now have access to yet another launching mid and an unbreakable 60 point damage throw that can ring out over half fences.

She has 2 in FL, maybe I misunderstood this one?

I agree with this. I hate that it takes her 30 frames to move through FS. Can easily be launched out of this from normal play. However it is great for oki. After certain knockdowns, FS can be mildly scary.

I say "mildly" because none of her options from FS are really worth the effort. Give her some sort of crumple move here would be great. Literally anything to make my opponent afraid to stand up.

This would make her OP instantly.

She'd have access to a parry that eats single handed/elbow highs and mids and leads to full combos. A full circular mid. A mid that crumples on normal hit. A high that crumples on normal hit. And a low that crumples on counter hit, is +3 on normal hit, and staggers if the opponent is next to a wall.

She'd be a much better version of Jacky. And Jacky is an asshole.

I agree with this. There are some moves that have absolutely no reason to exist because they are highs. I'd love to know what the devs were thinking 15 years ago.

Meh, I dunno on this. She does have a few 60 damage throws. And her neutral throw does 25 damage, which is pitifully weak, but it does give her very good oki, which is more important for her. She is supposed to be an over aggressive glass cannon. Giving her high damage throws would just be too much.

She doesn't need defensive moves. It'd be nice to have, but she is supposed to be a glass cannon that gets on offense and stays on offense. Giving her defensive moves like Vanessa for example would make Sarah legitimately unstoppable.

I do think her risk reward is too skewed against her. But not really sure how to fix this without breaking her. She could definitely use a few quality of life changes...

Meh...I like it. That's my opinion however.

I remember VF4 Sarah having this, and boy was she a bitch. Her only guard stagger in VF5 is her off the wall attack. And that can easily be struggled out of.

I wouldn't mind having it, but I don't think she needs it. Maybe. I dunno...

Sarah at the wall in FL stance is definitely a force. She's just missing a few tools that are locked behind stances.

Sarah's 2 biggest weaknesses are her lightweight status and her best moves being locked behind stances. But fixing either of those immediately makes her OP. VF6 Sarah needs a rework. I'm just not sure what.

 

I do mean her Flamingo Step, and I do wish to remove it. Those moves should be put in either Flamingo stance or straight from her switch step.

Okay maybe not from her switch step. But from Flamingo definitely.

She used to have 2 in FL, but they put in step stance. I say those throws should be put back in flamingo.

Then perhaps her forward slide moves should be buffed.

Then maybe her moves from backward slide should be more unsafe. This would make her move from BS be high risk, but very high reward.

The low damage on her throws and relatively useless catch throws make her throw game very weak. Most low damage throws often guarentee a free down attack but not Valkerie Rage. This can be tech rolled, which removes 5 damage from the throw and doesn't really give that good oki because of the positioning. Her wall throw does literally the exact same damage as her Full Moon Heel Rush, which requires the exact same motion to do, meaning there really isn't much of a reason to add it. Most of her throws are average damage though.

I think she should be given not superpowered defensive moves, and not a lot of defensive moves, but useful defensive moves. Her P+K and her P+K from step are near useless, and her P+K from Flamingo is okay. These should all be made more useful.

Too many of her moves are designed for very specific situations, many of which for a counter hit. This can make her very predictable and relatively easy to play against.

Maybe not this one, but Sarah's ability to open up defensive players is quite lackluster. Her nitaku mix-up game is garbage because of her low damage throws and smaller toolkit of mids. A lot of her pressure tools are too high risk by virtue of either being a High, or being linear. She lacks any powerful way to open up defensive players so far as I've seen. So maybe a better wording would be buffing her in that department.

She's mostly dominating at the wall, but her damage potential is arguably the worst in the game, being the only character being incapable of passing 180 damage without risk of the opponent tech rolling. Focusing on making that more powerful might make a difference.

Maybe these weaknesses shouldn't be fixed. But her best moves should be locked behind stances that are actually completely useful in the neutral. I don't even use her Flamingo Step stance at all because it's so useless. She's already bottom tier in my opinion because of how bad the ladder weakness is.

Okay, so maybe I am pretty biased about Sarah, but I think she should be buffed immensely. It very much seems like Vanilla VF5 Sarah was stronger than VF5FS Sarah because she was nerfed terribly in FS. VF as a whole is almost always supremely balanced, but still has large gaps between the characters. With Eileen and Sarah being massively outclassed by Akira and Jacky.

There. That's my two cents.

 

I agree with the fact that, she needs more faster/quicker mid attacks. And yeah, Sarah was actually stronger, in the previous games.

 

@Solomon Rayland

I agree with a lot of what you're saying. I just disagree on how to "fix" her. Honestly, I don't believe she needs to be fixed. Just reworked in a way that her moves are available to her without her having to go through a bunch of shenanigans to get there.

• I don't think she needs defensive moves because she's not a defensive character. She needs to be singularly focused on offense.
• The very few defensive moves she has only exist to make her opponent hesitate to press a button, which is all Sarah needs to continue her pressure.
• Think of P+K as a 13 frame elbow that leaves her with advantage and in flamingo stance on hit or block.
• Yes her throw game is weak. But, in my opinion, her best throw in the middle of the ring is her neutral throw. Even if the opponent quick rises/rolls she still has great oki which allows her to continue pressure.
• All Sarah wants to do is continue pressure. Literally everything she does should be in service of continuing pressure. However, that unfortunately leaves her at a disadvantage against opponents with great defense and who can use defensive moves effectively.
• She needs more taunts.

Honestly, I agree, her Vanilla version was far superior. But that's why she got nerfed to hell in FS. She was too good in vanilla. Sadly, this version of the game is 8-ish years old. It ain't gonna change. We can only hope Sega returns her to her former glory in VF6.

 

• I agree with almost everything your saying here. But making her defensive moves a bit more threatening would make opponent's afraid to challenge her. I also feel that this should be exascerbated by powerful counter hit tools, and ones that are designed specifically for that scenario.
• Perhaps you're right about the continuing pressure thing. But maybe make her pressure high risk/high reward instead of high risk/low reward, like her 6+PK.
• I don't think she needs more taunts though, but that's my opinion.
• That's what I'm saying. Sarah should not be nerfed to absurdity in VF6 like in VF5FS, she should be made a strong, solid character. Virtua Fighter Anime stripped Sarah to a generic damsel in distress, and I don't want this to be the case in the games as well. In every game before VF4, Sarah was living in the shadow of her brother, and in VF5, she became extremely terrible. Even more so than in the games where she was in Jacky's shadow.

 

I think Sarah needs more quick mid hitting attacks. Like a fast punch that hits mid, and a fast mid hitting kick with good recovery too.

 

That would be pretty good. Technically, she has the Serpent Smash Cannon, which is a 15 frame launch punisher that hits mid. But it would be nice to have other punishment options for lower advantage after a block. The other one is a pretty good idea too.