Clairen#28

I am very tired of how time and time again Clairen gets away with not being balanced in the same impartiality as other characters. I don’t get how another balance patch has went by and nothing about her was changed to make her feel like a logically balanced character.

This patch every other character had more than 1 of their hurtboxes increased. Which I appreciate for ones like Kragg, La Reina and Galvan since they actually match their models now. Somehow once again, Clairen coincidentally only had her lower body hurtbox increased in size. It feels comical looking at Ranno’s next to Clairen with how much bigger his limb hurtboxes are compared to his actual model. Especially since Ranno already had his hurtboxes increased previously.

Similarily I noticed in the Gouie update when majority of standing grabs were nerfed. All of the adjusted ones do a good job of actually being infront of the character, and match where they are actually grabbing. But Clairen’s for some reason covers her entire torso behind her, when no other character’s shown was like that.

By far my biggest problem with Clairen is her speed. I do not understand how it’s been so long and nothing has been done about how fast she is on the ground. I heard a commentator during hitfall this last weekend talk about how they were “surprised at how fast she feels in this game” (something along those lines). The other commentator seemed uncertain if she really was that much faster in this game compared to Rivals 1 (she is).

I’m surprised people still don’t know that Clairen is the 2nd fastest character on the ground in Rivals 2. It has been this way for well over a year and it is very frustrating. She is slower only behind Maypul on the ground (and slip stream Wrastor). It makes no sense why she is tied with Ranno’s dash speed, runs faster than Ranno, is far faster in the air and gets to be a disjointed swordie. All of this while having a mechanic that freezes their opponent in place. The fact that you guys previously buffed Clairens run speed and then nerfed Ranno’s runspeed to what they are now is a joke.

Honestly I still feel like the runspeed nerf for Ranno was completely undeserved. His whole philosphy is fast on the ground, slow in the air. He has the slowest air speed in the game. But is only the 4th fastest character on the ground. Ranno is not slow by any means overall. But when he’s getting out ran by a swordie that doesn’t feel right, I don’t see the logic for having him slower than Clairen and Orcane. Fox and Sheik aren’t getting out ran by Marth.

From looking at both of their run animations, Ranno looks like he runs akwardly slow, meanwhile Clairen looks like she runs oddly fast. Both from a visual and game feel perspective.
What would make sense to me is:

Buff Ranno’s run speed from 19.25 -> 20.5 (still slower than pre-nerf) so he actually follows his philosphy and is only getting outran by Maypul who is supposed to be the fastest character. Which feels logical to me.

Nerf Clairen’s speed from 20.1 -> 18.5 which makes her just faster than Wrastor. That feel like a much more sensible placement for her.

Another continuing problem is her Up-Air hitbox, I can’t believe this has existed in it’s current state for so long. Countless times I have seen this sweetspot when her opponent is below and to the sides of her. The fact countless other hitboxes has been adjusted meanwhile this coincidentally has slipped by patch after patch is extremely frustrating. The hitbox makes sense in Rivals 1 (hitboxes in general are more accurate to the visual in Rivals 1 and I wish this game followed the same design) so it’s really baffling how the same move in Rivals 2 became so egregious.

It’s sad the amount of times I’ve read people bring up various egregious pain points on Clairen and nothing about her seems to meaningful change ever. Not to say she has never been nerfed or anything. But the effectiveness of her nerfs have overall been far less severe than what any other character would recieve. A surprising amount of times I’ve also read people say they don’t like playing her in this game because she’s too easy which makes her boring. Despite said people maining her in Rivals 1. In the same vain I’ve also read countless times people randomly picking Clairen and doing way better with her than their main because of how easy she has it in this game.

There are other characters and aspects about this game that make me question the teams balancing decisions. But Clairen being how she has been for so long frustrates me greatly and is a big reason why I don’t play this game much these days. With how common she is online I would rather do something else than deal with her. I say this as someone who played Marth in Melee. Marth has very clear weaknesses and disadvantages while being a very good character when used by a skilled player, Clairen does not follow this same design.

It took the haters literally 12 hours to start seething. Because how could this character receive lesser nerfs compared to the others from the cast? Does that mean she didn’t need them as much? No! That’s a clear sign of privilege, amrite? She should always be the one that gets hit the most! Every patch! For 10 years at least!1!one 😭

I am very tired of how time and time again Clairen gets away with not being balanced in the same impartiality as other characters. I don’t get how another balance patch has went by and nothing about her was changed to make her feel like a logically balanced character.

And I am very tired of how time and time again haters come to this nolt and other socials flexing how you’re all so absolutely BLIND. You’re talking about a character that received at least 2 or 3 huge nerf patches, and then an avalanche of smaller ones patch by patch. She even got nerfs in hotfix patches. And we’re out here claiming the character gets away scot-free??! What? Her tournament pressence got impacted by them, her pickrate got impacted by them but guys she slips away! What a load of bull.

The point about grabs.
Oh my god bro the grab ranges. Are we seriously complaining about her grab despite it got toned down twice by now? Let me tell you why it’s like that. Because she leans forward a ton while going for a grab. That’s it. It’s so she wouldn’t whiff at point blank range during the transition from her wide stance to the leaning position. Go overlay her grab pose with grabboxes onto her idle stance.

The point about her speed.
They DID tone her speed down. The aerial one the most. There is no point nerfing her ground speed though because she needs it to reach the enemy because she only has her close range moves for reliable neutral use. I’ve said that to people time and time again and somehow it never clicks. Speed nerfs will drastically nerf her ability to reach the enemy between the hits that is already strained asf to be close to frame perfection.
…Also did you just beg the devs to buff a top tier contender? Son… 😭
I beg you. You got a falco laser that can be charged to have massive cone range, a disjointed command grab that reaches half a stage and renders the enemy hopeless, a powerful slingshot to get back to stage in a blink of an eye, insane range on his close range moves and easiest combos that can be made even easier, A PLOT ARMOR BUBBLE and you still think he needs buffs?! Dear lord…

The point about her ranges
Ah yes. The eternal debacle. Where the zelous ones bring up RoA1 ranges as if the devs weren’t absolutely random with Clairen’s design. In RoA1 she had at least 3 models of sweetspots despite being designed around a char that had pretty much only one. She could have sweetspots at the end of her sword which all her animations indicated, then she could have sweetspots at the tip of the swing trail instead and then she even could have sweetspots on the damn middle while ignoring the tippers altogether. Those two latter models were absolutely never reflected in her spritework at all btw. Now in RoA2 they finally decided to be consistent by tying her sweetspots to her boosted tip. Why would we go back to the inconsistent BS that was RoA1 Clairen?
As for why the devs don’t really listen to the range comparison feedback? One because of what I said, and two perhaps because that crowd loves their double standard. When a dev pointed out that in RoA1 Clairen’s dsmash also could reach very high so it was an intended design and why nerf it, they just said that it was an absurd bs in that game too and needs nerfs anyway. Either ways, the “range in RoA1” argument has been abused to extremes and honestly dumbs down any discussion.

The last points just sadden me. With how many times this character ate a nerf mostly because of an angry crowd is astounding and yet there are still some out here claiming you aren’t heard. Why? Because they don’t listen to every whim y’all say? Or is it because they don’t put your feedback 1/1 like you want? The effectiveness of the changes ARE felt. Her tournament results have taken a dive, her playability has too taken a dive. Loads of Clairen players have expressed how unfun she is to play AS right now because she keeps getting restrained on everything. Hell, even how her glitches are handled is insane. If a glitch harms her then it stays and gets incorporated into her kit solely because of complaining, meanwhile when a glitch helps her then it’s fixed in a lightspeed. But guys, she is privileged.