if all help turtles to defeat cranes, the cranes need help to pass preliminars in budokai, the style of cranes its imposible.
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cranes cant defeat karmas, similar that turtles vs cranes. but in karma its 90% win karmas.
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you make a valid point with budokai prelims and crane vs karma.
budokai prelims 1v1 do not favor cranes, dendes, swordsmen, pokos, chefs, ultimates, dark warrior, karma, plasma, only 3 classes thrive turtle, sk and fighter. The rest can get in with dojo seed. This is an inherent mechanic. now with the new client comming out maybe it be possible to add ring outs to score points as well inprelims, this would help classes like crane and swordsmen. sadly this would not help the other classes i listed above. the prelims mechanic may need to be change or removed for a better system but i dont know daneos limitation with new client only time can tell.
karmas vs cranes is a different problem compared to cranes vs turtles. The inherent problem with crane v turtle is that cranes are guarranteed 20+ seconds of prep time with sleep since they can get the first stun.the inherent problem of karma to most squishy dps players is the ability to instant stun then skill lock for the remainder of the match. these are karma moves that are necessary to defeat tanks.
if per say a skill lock reduction move was given to crane it affects not just karma but turtle as well, turtle a class that struggles against crane.
crane is not the only class that struggles with karma, you could try nerfing ultimate shout skill but this affects plasma (the worst pvp 1v1 class in the game in my opinion) i believethe inherent problem of karmas brokenness lies with karma not crane. I can summarize 2 possible solutions .
1.easiest one is to make shout skill 45m a plasma only move and removing shadow knights immunity to confusion, this way karmas will have to get 35m to cast confusion which can be counter with gears. the 35m range alouds cranes to cast speed restrain, and try keep the fight far away as possible out of the range of hesistation. this idea would help turtles as well since they suffer from similar issues against karma! this will hurt karma extremely against sks thou a class they have trouble with since sks have immuned to confusion and will guaranteed get the first stun off. so another change would be needed in this time sk r (removing immunity to confusion. this idea is terribly messy and involves changes 2 skills but doable.
2. change the mechanics of skill lock. this skill is abudantly the problem that dps class have with karma. but its a needed skill against tanks. so duration nerf will not help karma because there counter class will shit on them even more. to be honest i cant see a viable solution to skill lock changes without nuttering them against tanks.
Foolish people will say change resistance to favor the resistance classes but honestly that only will favor fighter and ultimate majin and will make all other classes weaker. keep resistance and % resistance items capped as is.