Has Sophie been balanced out?

[Dullyanna]

I've been examining her moves, and it seems like she lacks a lot of the punch she had in previous games. Her unblockables took a big hit, and she seems to have had gotten a lot of new crap in her moveset, with emphasis on the crap. I'm curious to see the opinion of people who've been using her since the game came out, since they've been messing with her a lot more then I have.

 

[LunarAura]

Yes and no. There are still people who say Sophie hits a tad too hard but you know what? Her mixup and oki are so limited that she has to rely almost exclusively to punish game. But I'll be honest in that two 236236B combo doing way too much damage. I've done 15 hit (shakeable) combos with her and they do nowhere near that much damage as that simple 2 hit.

 

[Dullyanna]

@LunarAura: Yeah, her oki game's been smacked with the nerf bat, hard. I don't know about about 236236B, though. It does retarded damage, but it's not like she has anything from that stance to make you block low or something (236236AA doesn't count, since the first hit is mid).

Edit: On the other hand, her punishing game still gives her fucking fantastic matchups against a lot of the cast. I'm not sure if it's that much better than Cassie's, though.

 

[Suirad]

It depends on how far people have to leave themselves open to play their game properly. A good cass is going to get at least as much damage out punishing at i16 in close range as sophie will. On the other hand Sophie can get 236Bs modest damage on slightly less laggy moves like 2K and at much better range. I'd say all in all her punish game is better if you can hit the JF 4s all in all, but not amazingly.

In general it seems hard to fight anyone who blocks a lot with her. She has good choices for TC, TS and TJ but your opponent has to actually attack you for any of those to work. Grab damage, range is not amazing either. Frames very condusive to pressure though. I think the patch hit her CF game too hard and she needed it, at least a little bit to get opponents to stop turtling. Her Unblockables certainly won't do that job.

 

[Dullyanna]

I'm hoping Bamco fixes the CF situation, since it's application towards pressure is only relevant to a handful of characters. I think Sophie's SG damage was too strong post patch, but she does jack shit to it now. Again, I hope Bamco fixes this and gives a necessary boost to certain other characters... *CoughNightmareCough*

Edit: This is mostly irrelevant, but interesting, IMHO. Sophie, along with Mina, Yun, Siegfried and Hilde, is the only character I've been able to do a legitimate CF with post 1.03 patch. I've only done it once with Sophie and Siegfried, and my opponent clearly panicked in both situations, instead of reacting properly.

 

[Zalriel]

Quite honestly I think Sophie needs her CF were it is. I mean she can eat the shit out of peoples SG but with her limited mix up and what not she needs something on her side. A lot of people still complain about her being to cheap and all as well when I just don't think she is that amazing as people want to whine about. don't get me wrong it not like she sucks or anything...she just has been a lot more powerful in other games. Either way I have been using her since soul edge and tho making her SG damage lower would upset me a bit I would never stop using her.