You might think Twelve is a lore related name, but it is actually a subtle nod to how many interactions you need to win in order to deal as much damage as any other character.
@Future Pants agreed but those games worked because they minimized necessary interactions by making damage incredibly high making for easy TOD’s: Twelve is more like a failed attempt at bringing that back in a game where damage is only a factor with decently sized BNB’s
@Future Pants agreed, stuff like that is why I love games like Guilty Gear Strive, Tekken, Samurai Showdown and even Third Strike: they test interactions with your opponent rather than long combos, as long as you know the basics you can easily keep up with fellow players
You forgot the most important aspect of Twelve: if you attempt to X.C.O.P.Y. the SUV in the bonus stage, he'll just grab his head and scream. This hidden tech makes him utterly broken and by far the best character in the game.
i was like 5 when this game was on dreamcast i think. i remember only playing arcade mode and not against friends (at least not coherently) i used to think twelve was the coolest and best character in the game until 3rd strike online came out when i was more aware
I youtube started recommending me your fighting game garbage series and I became a big fan. That plus bad balance are some of my favorite fighting game content.
Yeah, Twelve's problems weren't design flaws, but poor execution. He's easily fixable by adjusting his hitboxes and damage. That Capcom had every opportunity to rebalance him and Sean after Third Strike but left it at that is baffling. They could have easily done something like KOF XI's arrange mode on the PS2 where the game received further balance tweaks, or you can opt to play the arcade version.
I’ve always had the opinion that Twelve is an extremely interesting character with a lot of cool ideas. I really hope they’ll come back to the series, a good more fleshed out Twelve keeping the ideas from Third Strike would be amazing
@@tammid8423 It's possible. I like to listen to a lot of TH-cam while I'm working and while I'm procrastinating on working. And while Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is the game I play more, I still have a lot of love for 3S. =) Feel free to say hi when you see me!
Oh wait, we do have a “Twelve” in SFV called Eleven, and his entire move set is X.C.O.P.Y, meaning he actually has no moves besides morphing into a random character.
Thank you for mentioning that parries reward some characters more than others. I think the discourse around parrying being an equalizer and that tiers somehow doesn't exist is so dumb.
@@Unit_00 they would be MORE unbalanced, but that doesn’t mean the game has amazing balance with their inclusion parries help the problem, but they don’t fix it completely
@@Unit_00 People that never played the game and just watch Maximilian playing it tend to say that sort of stuff a lot lol, it's kinda of why this game is treated like a masterpiece even tho it really isn't
@@nickkiller-0710 "who said that 3s has perfect balance (...)" was a rhetorical question. I was trying to say that I never claimed such a thing, so it was an unrelated thing to point out. 3s is a masterpiece. What is a masterpiece anyway? It all depends on opinion.
I'm getting some hilarious ad breaks in this video. First hit of Ken's SA3 cancelled into ad break. The "Supers" title card was followed up by an ad that started with a "content not appropriate for children" warning.
As somebody who just started playing sfv dhalsim, your point at the end about Twelve as an experiment that paved the way for better balanced low-damage neutral-dominant characters totally made sense. Very insightful, great video
At the very least, I've come across some pretty funny move names when discussing Twelve with other players, including Super Prickly Pear and EX Wiggles.
I used to play a twelve player in 2DF era who would start every match by typing \ _ / One time I asked him what it was and he said it was twelve's face.
It's always nice to see more videos on the Bad Balance series. Do take your time if you have to though, because they're always a great thing to watch, even for people who are completely out of the loop when it comes to SF, such as myself, due to how informative and in-depth are. I feel like a lot of people want Twelve to come back, not just because of his intrinsic weirdness, but because they want his legacy to be more than just a laughingstock in SF3. Overall, great video, maybe one day we'll see the blob shine
Your conclusions at the end were really interesting. I really wouldn’t have expected twelve to have a lot in common with chun. And your point about his neutral is really interesting. It makes it feel like twelve is one good special move or one good cancel to super away from being a pretty strong character actually
I don't play any fighting games, much less street fighter, so I dunno why I've been recommended this, but I can tell it's a very well put together video, so good job
I remember playing Twelve so much back when Third Strike was new, and being disappointed to learn he was the worst character in the game. His animations are wacky, smooth, and an absolute masterclass in spritework - I sincerely hope he comes back reworked, since imo he's one of the best 'morphing' characters ever produced animation-wise.
Excellent video, Baf. I love Twelve and often get frustrated by people saying there's nothing good about the character. Not that I don't think he's bottom-tier, but the idea that none of his design works has always been flagrantly uninformed. And the Chun-Li comparison was excellently demonstrated. Thank you for putting this video together!
I always like to think of Fighting Game Characters in terms of "Points." When designing a character, or even an individual move, how many "points" do you put into its startup, its damage, its safety, its cancel ability, so on. When you give a character a plus-on-block move, it likely loses its point-stock in range (a la most Lights). For every Frame 2 Command Grab, those points come from endlag if you whiff. Either way, what I'm saying is that Twelve's points all went to his animation and design, then they shook around the remaining 4 points in their hand and said "Well we can't *un*-design him"
I've been waiting for this one. I wrote an extensive analysis on Twelve on TV Tropes a while back, looking at his numerous flaws. I still play as Twelve regularly, just for the sake of changing the pace (Chun, Akuma, Sean, Hugo, and Elena are my other characters) and throwing opponents off. One of the most underutilized aspects of Twelve's SA1 is the invincibility it gives his upper body. If timed well, it will let you dodge and counter projectile Super Arts like Ryu's Shinkuu and Denjin Hadoukens, Akuma's standing Messatsu Gou Hadou, Sean's Hadou Burst, etc. It will also go through Urien's Aegis Reflector (!), Oro's Yagyou Dama, Chun-Li's Kikosho at certain distances, and beat out Necro's Electric Snake. It can also counter Remy's Light of Justice, but you need to be mid-range and trigger it before the second wave of projectiles come out. In short, it can be used as a counter Super Art in certain matchups. That's very much in line with Twelve's overall design; it's not about big damage or combos, but outmaneuvering opponents via unpredictability and countering by punishing whiffs and missed parries. Anyone who jokes that XCOPY is his best Super hasn't spent enough time experimenting with SA1. Also, one of his most overlooked tools is his neutral medium kick. That awkward close-range knee is surprisingly good at racking up stun. Seriously, give it a shot. It can be linked into by using aerial heavy kick in the corner. It also has better recovery time of some of his other moves. One other thing worth noting is that his instant air dash makes him highly susceptible to air throws due to the slow speed, especially if he's changing directions. Hugo is the obvious matchup that comes to mind (though that can be countered with Twelve's aerial medium punch depending on the spacing), but Chun Li is absurdly good at it due to her superior jump speed and range. Seriously, even if you have only a little bit of experience using Chun Li's air throw, you should be able to stop most of Twelve's air dashing antics cold.
After posting this, I decided to go back into training mode and experiment. A few interesting things: -Most of his instant air dash enders can combo into his normals. All of his fierce, roundhouse, strong, and forward ends can combo into his weak/short attacks. But more importantly, they can also combo into his neutral forward kick. This is the high-stun knee move I mentioned in the previous message; not only can you easily rack up stun and keep the opponent on the defensive, but it also hit confirms into SA1. This is absolutely essential for his pressure tactics. I haven't tried this on all the characters yet, but it does work on all the shotos. -His back dash has some unique properties if your opponent is in the corner and you're using aerial attacks. Let's say you try go in for an instant air dash and end it with a fierce, roundhouse, strong, and forward. If your opponent gets hit or blocks, watch Twelve's animation carefully. As soon as he lands on the ground, input a backdash immediately. If done correctly and depending what attack you used, he'll backdash somewhere between half and all the way across the screen. This can be used to discourage opponents from trying to counterattack on block. When combined with the combo ability of his aerials to his normals, it becomes clear that Twelve's strategy was never about high damage; it's about maintaining pressure, keeping the opponent off balance via unpredictability, racking up stun (which is very easy to do with the knee), and finishing with a super. -Lastly, he has an OTG super via his matchup with Hugo. Do his neutral throw, and perform SA1 or 2 immediately after Twelve lands on the ground. It's obviously extremely risky against Hugo, so only do it if Hugo is dizzy and you want to show off.
@@vicetube As in Chun-Li level broken? Hmmm... Off the top of my head: -Give him the ability to parry during his air dash. That alone would fix his biggest vulnerability. -Increase speed of air dash, especially turning. -Give him an air throw. It makes no sense for a character that spends most of the time in the air _not_ to have an air throw. -Improve his ability to grab on to corners. Instead of just quickly bouncing off a corner after air dashing, he could simply get close to a corner (either via air dash or jumping from the ground) and crawl up or down the wall and still attack. -Double his crawl speed. He could even have an EX ground dash. -Increase damage of all attacks. -Improve priority/speed/stun on all normals. For example, his roundhouse is unsafe on _hit_ against Chun-Li, which is ridiculous. The range of his ground pokes needs to be increased, and at least a couple of them should be able to combo into each other and/or a Super Art. His only multi-hit attack shouldn't be just AXE. At the very least, the hit box of his knee should be increased. -Fix the input timing/hit box for aerial roundhouse so its crossups come out consistently. Give it an EX version with two hits. -NDL should be able to track opponents (including attempted crossups) as a default ability, not just via EX. It should be able to juggle multiple times in the corner, a la Necro's back fierce, Dudley's crouching roundhouse, etc, -AXE's should be the same as Necro's Electric Blaster; simpler input and can be done infinitely, but obviously with pushback on block. -DRA should two hits on default, three on EX. It should also let him go past the opponent, not bounce off of them. -Increase max amount of hits/stun on neutral throw. -Make XNDL & XFLAT OTG for all characters who don't quick stand after neutral throw, not just a glitch against Hugo. -Make XNDL able to activate immediately after a teched throw, a la SA2 Chun-Li. -Make XFLAT have two bars instead of one, and have more ways to combo into it. Make the damage the same regardless if it connects on ground or aerial opponents. The 4rd Strike game mod has an excellent version of this. -Decrease the meter for XCOPY, but give it multi-hit properties a la Yun and Yang's SA3s. Again, the 4rd Strike mod has an excellent version of this. -Increase recovery speed of his post-XCOPY and taunt animations.
I really appreciate the work you do to put out such matter of fact videos on fighting games. I always go to you first to sit down and learn about characters. Thanks a lot for your efforts!
28:55 Not to play devil’s advocate here, but could you not say that one of the reasons Twelve gets so many hits is because the opponent doesn’t have to fear those hits?
Really wish Third Strike would get a revision, it's a great game but the balance can be so frustrating specially in cases like this. I really like Twelve on paper, a character with unusually good air-mobility but weak combos who on theory doesn't get that much reward from his combos but can harass the opponent frequently due to his airdash. For me what kills him is that he ALWAYS does garbage damage, even when you decide to spend half of your resources the damage is just little more than what other characters get for free. Personally if 4th strike or whatever was ever released I wish they would keep Twelve with weak combos but make his damage in neutral good and make his specials/super not laughably bad/situational.
Unfortunately that's unlikely to happen because a bunch of 3s stans decided to go against a rebalance for some ungodly reason, but I guess we can still hope
Honestly the problem isn’t truly his damage, it’s that he never gets knockdowns. If Twelve could get slightly more damage off of axe cancels and actually get like, a knockdown, he would be like 20 times better
That's a really fascinating perspective as to why he is the way he is. It sort of makes sense to see him as an experiment which explains why Chun is the typical neutral dominator with regular damage while Twelve has the most laughable damage of any character ever. They couldn't have not known, you would think at least. Though I wonder if any dev would waste so much development time into an experiment, especially considering the high quality spritework in this game.
Omg I was so sure this series was finished! I’m so glad to see it back! Take your time. School and real life is infinitely more important! We love you anyway and want you to succeed ❤️
Thanks for this vid, Baf. Ive been maining Twelve for a while now and I was getting really tired of “Why Twelve is bad” videos that just cherry pick his worst aspects and don’t go into any of his unique abilities Edit: For the record you can combo into EX DRA out of EX NDL in the corner but why would you ever do that
I wonder how many 3S characters you could reasonably make a bad balance video on, cuz I think there’s honestly more candidates than not lol. Twelve definitely feels like they were really scared of what his airdash *could* do, and imagined he’d be getting a lot of pseudo jump-in combos, so balanced his damage around that, but the problem is that he isn’t getting most of his damage from airdash
Yeah, I'm by no means an expert, but it seems like 3S has worse balance than the Mortal Kombat games. MK, mind you, being a series that hasn't really cared to heavily about balance (or at least were unable to do so) until MK:X
@@Oh-Ben Getting used and good balance aren't the same thing. Just cuz someone knows how to deal with the burden Remy, Q, Necro etc. doesn't mean that they're well balanced, not to mention that it doesn't really represent the other side of the Chun, Yun, Ken dominance
I look at Sean and see what happened easily; over compensation. He was a high tier character overblown as a top tier simply because Sean lore wise is the weakest character in lore. His sa3 had 2 bars and then they nerfed it. Dp had incredible range and in 3s now it’s awful. Tornado kicks comboed into super in 2I. Now they’re unsafe on hit. Sean’s most glaring weaknesses come from trying to tone him down too much which makes his atrocious design understandable. I can’t even begin to perceive what they were doing with 12. Nothing seems to synergize or gel with other tools in his kit. He gets low combos but low damaging normals. He gets middling pokes but no combo opportunities. It just doesn’t add up how we got 12 in this state.
@@willow7610 considering how there’s unblockables and characters like necro and remy don’t play even remotely how they were clearly intended to play I doubt that. That’s giving the team that made a tatsu punishable on hit too much credit.
I enjoy this series of videos a lot and it's how I discovered your channel so keep up the good work man! Also on another note the timing of the ads made this video more enjoyable for me XD
I love to play twelve man 😭 He's so cool and fun I genuinely wish he wasn't so bad, you have to try so hard and win neutral so many times. Fortunately his neutral is quite good if YOURE good but nonetheless is prey to Akuma and Ken air tatsus and the like. Very cool character, I find him cute :3
FINALLY got a chance to see this... I completely understand life getting in the way. I've been a fan/player of 12 ever since 99, and it's always been interesting to me how they designed him. Thanks for the insight and the playlist - definitely checking that out!
I honestly think you should expand the series to any character you want to do rather than just overpowered or underpowered characters. If people can use this to improve their Twelve, they can use it to improve any character they play. SF3 is pretty hard to get into as well, so in-depth tutorials across the board could help people get into it. Just a suggestion. Overall, amazing video.
I ain't Baf, but from what I've personally played in 3s and 4rd, Twelve actually does damage and a lot of his normals/minus on Hit issues are entirely gone. He gets vacuum on his A.X.E and proper damage meterless, with meter it's even better. Also SA2 is really good this time around and has a ground version which let's you convert any far st.MK into damage especially from jump ins.
Its sucks how Twelve has decent moves but just needed some tweaks for knockback and damage output to be decent. Great video as always though, its always fun watching new videos of your Bad Balance series
One really unfortunate thing about Twelve is that he would actually have a really decent kara throw with his far MP (on par rangewise with Akuma's) if they had just made his close MP into a back+MP input like Necro's. I mean it's not huge, but at least it'd be something, you know?
Thank you so much! Hey, school work is more important. I'd much rather wait and have you be well. We can all wait. Also, I somewhat relate, I hate uploading. I have like 300 videos lol . This is one of the better series on YT 💯. Stay well Baf!
I actually compiled a spreadsheet of nearly every universal normal (no shared normals, between far and close stands and angled and neutral jumps I took the one with the higher damage) and I found that Twelve does about 15% less damage than the rest of the roster. For every 14 damage that the average character does, Twelve does 12. Ironically.
He's twelve cuz he dozen do damage :(
BARS🔥🔥🔥
best comment in youtube
🤣🤣🤣🤣
oh my fucking god
I love this so much
You might think Twelve is a lore related name, but it is actually a subtle nod to how many interactions you need to win in order to deal as much damage as any other character.
Well done XD
“Look at what they need to do to replicate a fraction of our power” -every character in Third Strike
@Future Pants agreed but those games worked because they minimized necessary interactions by making damage incredibly high making for easy TOD’s: Twelve is more like a failed attempt at bringing that back in a game where damage is only a factor with decently sized BNB’s
@Future Pants agreed, stuff like that is why I love games like Guilty Gear Strive, Tekken, Samurai Showdown and even Third Strike: they test interactions with your opponent rather than long combos, as long as you know the basics you can easily keep up with fellow players
@Future Pants you seem like the target audience for Fantasy Strike, I think you'd enjoy it. Pretty tiny community though.
“How bad is this character, from 1 to 10?“
“Twelve.“
Twelev
Tewvel
Twevle
Tvlewe
Eeltvw
Ironically, this greatly improved my twelve
This video is making me want to play with twelve
@@folknerdragon4113 He's for some reason fun to play casual matches with.
@@almightyegg8667 'cause if you win to your opponent, he gonna be mad for a so long while
@@eliasblanco3842reminds me of the one time where I defeated an Oro player and they rage quit. Which did make me laugh lots XD
This vid did help me yeah. Knowing Twelve better has improved my play considerably
Imagine a character being so bad that you can say “in fact, if you just *doubled his damage* across the board, he’d probably be a solid mid-tier.”
You forgot the most important aspect of Twelve: if you attempt to X.C.O.P.Y. the SUV in the bonus stage, he'll just grab his head and scream. This hidden tech makes him utterly broken and by far the best character in the game.
Is this on YT
@@thepants1450 th-cam.com/video/9JNWNhE6OHw/w-d-xo.html
@@thepants1450 yes th-cam.com/video/9JNWNhE6OHw/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=cancerthedragon
@@thepants1450 Yes.
Wait really lmao
I remember playing him in college and thinking I just needed to "Get Good"
...turns out he is just Really hard to win with
Yeah, but it looks awesome though
i was like 5 when this game was on dreamcast i think. i remember only playing arcade mode and not against friends (at least not coherently) i used to think twelve was the coolest and best character in the game until 3rd strike online came out when i was more aware
You can still get good with him. The odds of winning will just typically be lower.
Sometimes you gotta get good, but this time you gotta get gooder.
@@aegisScalenot just gooder, you have to be goodest
So, basically he’s a mixup loop character but without a knockdown to loop with.
Yes actually.
Well his throw is good for that but only throw. Good mixup
Thank you.
@@Point5_and that sends far away so not always.
instant airdash@@BackOff_xd
Ya know I’m not big on third strike, so I’m curious why everyone thinks 12 is so ba-
“12’s best meterless combo is literally just a raw special move.”
Twelve: the Holy Saint of the Chicago Punish.
This deserves more likes than it'll ever get.
Someone watched Max stream lol.
I had to google that shit to find out why it was so funny and it is.💀
Still bummed Eleven was just cooler random in SFV, Twelve deserves another shot
Agreed
I youtube started recommending me your fighting game garbage series and I became a big fan. That plus bad balance are some of my favorite fighting game content.
@@blastfire21
Same here
Can't wait for FG Gold lol
@@blastfire21 same, youtube recommendations pushed their channel like crazy
Yeah, Twelve's problems weren't design flaws, but poor execution. He's easily fixable by adjusting his hitboxes and damage. That Capcom had every opportunity to rebalance him and Sean after Third Strike but left it at that is baffling. They could have easily done something like KOF XI's arrange mode on the PS2 where the game received further balance tweaks, or you can opt to play the arcade version.
I’ve always had the opinion that Twelve is an extremely interesting character with a lot of cool ideas. I really hope they’ll come back to the series, a good more fleshed out Twelve keeping the ideas from Third Strike would be amazing
Completely agree, but I feel like Seth from SF5 is SF4 Seth + Twelve.
X.C.O.P.Y. would be a sick V-Trigger actually
I actually have a full concept moveset idea for Twelve in SF5
SFV has "Eleven" closest thing to a return so far. Hopefully we will see Thirteen in SFVI
It would be cool if 12 had a free bar or 2 to use some ex moves while in x copy.
No worries at ALL about the wait, man. It is 100% worth it to see these again. Thanks so much!
I swear to god I see you everywhere 💀
@@tammid8423 It's possible. I like to listen to a lot of TH-cam while I'm working and while I'm procrastinating on working. And while Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is the game I play more, I still have a lot of love for 3S. =)
Feel free to say hi when you see me!
Dude the second I finish binging this series a new one comes out, love the content!
Nice pfp
SAME
@@usernameluis305 Thanks bro, you too. Spy is one of the cooler tf2 characters.
i hope twelve comes back in a future game
Same
We have Eleven, but they don't have the same move sets.
@@elistiagel642 Not really a new character.
Just random select with a pricetag...
Oh wait, we do have a “Twelve” in SFV called Eleven, and his entire move set is X.C.O.P.Y, meaning he actually has no moves besides morphing into a random character.
@@elistiagel642 Maybe they created 11 because 12 wasn't born yet in sf5. After all sf5 is before sf3
Twelve’s idle animation is him showing how big his damage is
"Yeah, I've been waiting for this!"
"Alright! That's cool!"
"I get the picture"
@@foursix32 "Yeah, that makes sense!"
“Let’s Go!”
Ah, because Chun-Li actually has a win con with the ability convert great neutral pressure into big damage with meter, while Twelve does not.
21:09 an alternate timeline Evo moment
evo moment 12
Thank you for mentioning that parries reward some characters more than others. I think the discourse around parrying being an equalizer and that tiers somehow doesn't exist is so dumb.
Parrying is kind of an equalizer tho, some matchups would be more unbalanced if it wasn't for them
@@Unit_00 they would be MORE unbalanced, but that doesn’t mean the game has amazing balance with their inclusion
parries help the problem, but they don’t fix it completely
@@shieldlesscap6124 who said that 3s has perfect balance and that parries just fix balance?
@@Unit_00 People that never played the game and just watch Maximilian playing it tend to say that sort of stuff a lot lol,
it's kinda of why this game is treated like a masterpiece even tho it really isn't
@@nickkiller-0710 "who said that 3s has perfect balance (...)" was a rhetorical question. I was trying to say that I never claimed such a thing, so it was an unrelated thing to point out.
3s is a masterpiece. What is a masterpiece anyway? It all depends on opinion.
I'm getting some hilarious ad breaks in this video.
First hit of Ken's SA3 cancelled into ad break.
The "Supers" title card was followed up by an ad that started with a "content not appropriate for children" warning.
*Ken parries my attack*
*Super flash to start SA3*
We'll be right back
As somebody who just started playing sfv dhalsim, your point at the end about Twelve as an experiment that paved the way for better balanced low-damage neutral-dominant characters totally made sense. Very insightful, great video
At the very least, I've come across some pretty funny move names when discussing Twelve with other players, including Super Prickly Pear and EX Wiggles.
I used to play a twelve player in 2DF era who would start every match by typing \ _ / One time I asked him what it was and he said it was twelve's face.
@@Bafael That's amazing commitment to the character.. Haha.
@@BafaelThe weirdest thing is that I think Twelve's head is a reference to Griffith's helmet from Berserk
EX Squidward Hands from Leon Massey is my favorite.
It's always nice to see more videos on the Bad Balance series. Do take your time if you have to though, because they're always a great thing to watch, even for people who are completely out of the loop when it comes to SF, such as myself, due to how informative and in-depth are. I feel like a lot of people want Twelve to come back, not just because of his intrinsic weirdness, but because they want his legacy to be more than just a laughingstock in SF3. Overall, great video, maybe one day we'll see the blob shine
Wdym his standing animation is top tier
Right? Play Dudley or Q's themes and it looks like he's vibing.
He's dancing with an invisible woman
@@briana.9395 ima need to make a video of that
Facts
don't forget that S-tier walk too
he Schmoovin
Sounds like Twelve was an attempt to design a character that was supposed to be strong in the air, weak on the ground.
In a game where you can only hit an opponent in the air once
Your conclusions at the end were really interesting. I really wouldn’t have expected twelve to have a lot in common with chun. And your point about his neutral is really interesting. It makes it feel like twelve is one good special move or one good cancel to super away from being a pretty strong character actually
I wonder if that’s why I like twelve because im a chun main
I don't play any fighting games, much less street fighter, so I dunno why I've been recommended this, but I can tell it's a very well put together video, so good job
I remember playing Twelve so much back when Third Strike was new, and being disappointed to learn he was the worst character in the game. His animations are wacky, smooth, and an absolute masterclass in spritework - I sincerely hope he comes back reworked, since imo he's one of the best 'morphing' characters ever produced animation-wise.
Twelve is on the character selection screen
Bafael, Leon Massey, and Big Yellow: How many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man?
Excellent video, Baf. I love Twelve and often get frustrated by people saying there's nothing good about the character. Not that I don't think he's bottom-tier, but the idea that none of his design works has always been flagrantly uninformed. And the Chun-Li comparison was excellently demonstrated. Thank you for putting this video together!
Theres a lot of love in this character. Makes me wonder if they felt he was OP pre-release, so they rushed a nerf by lowering the damage.
With a kit like this I think it's wholely unsurprising if they had no idea how good he was or wasn't.
Well this came out sooner than expected... also did you seriously get this all edited in a day because if so that’s actually insane
I always like to think of Fighting Game Characters in terms of "Points." When designing a character, or even an individual move, how many "points" do you put into its startup, its damage, its safety, its cancel ability, so on. When you give a character a plus-on-block move, it likely loses its point-stock in range (a la most Lights). For every Frame 2 Command Grab, those points come from endlag if you whiff.
Either way, what I'm saying is that Twelve's points all went to his animation and design, then they shook around the remaining 4 points in their hand and said "Well we can't *un*-design him"
I've been waiting for this one. I wrote an extensive analysis on Twelve on TV Tropes a while back, looking at his numerous flaws. I still play as Twelve regularly, just for the sake of changing the pace (Chun, Akuma, Sean, Hugo, and Elena are my other characters) and throwing opponents off. One of the most underutilized aspects of Twelve's SA1 is the invincibility it gives his upper body. If timed well, it will let you dodge and counter projectile Super Arts like Ryu's Shinkuu and Denjin Hadoukens, Akuma's standing Messatsu Gou Hadou, Sean's Hadou Burst, etc. It will also go through Urien's Aegis Reflector (!), Oro's Yagyou Dama, Chun-Li's Kikosho at certain distances, and beat out Necro's Electric Snake. It can also counter Remy's Light of Justice, but you need to be mid-range and trigger it before the second wave of projectiles come out. In short, it can be used as a counter Super Art in certain matchups. That's very much in line with Twelve's overall design; it's not about big damage or combos, but outmaneuvering opponents via unpredictability and countering by punishing whiffs and missed parries. Anyone who jokes that XCOPY is his best Super hasn't spent enough time experimenting with SA1.
Also, one of his most overlooked tools is his neutral medium kick. That awkward close-range knee is surprisingly good at racking up stun. Seriously, give it a shot. It can be linked into by using aerial heavy kick in the corner. It also has better recovery time of some of his other moves.
One other thing worth noting is that his instant air dash makes him highly susceptible to air throws due to the slow speed, especially if he's changing directions. Hugo is the obvious matchup that comes to mind (though that can be countered with Twelve's aerial medium punch depending on the spacing), but Chun Li is absurdly good at it due to her superior jump speed and range. Seriously, even if you have only a little bit of experience using Chun Li's air throw, you should be able to stop most of Twelve's air dashing antics cold.
After posting this, I decided to go back into training mode and experiment. A few interesting things:
-Most of his instant air dash enders can combo into his normals. All of his fierce, roundhouse, strong, and forward ends can combo into his weak/short attacks. But more importantly, they can also combo into his neutral forward kick. This is the high-stun knee move I mentioned in the previous message; not only can you easily rack up stun and keep the opponent on the defensive, but it also hit confirms into SA1. This is absolutely essential for his pressure tactics. I haven't tried this on all the characters yet, but it does work on all the shotos.
-His back dash has some unique properties if your opponent is in the corner and you're using aerial attacks. Let's say you try go in for an instant air dash and end it with a fierce, roundhouse, strong, and forward. If your opponent gets hit or blocks, watch Twelve's animation carefully. As soon as he lands on the ground, input a backdash immediately. If done correctly and depending what attack you used, he'll backdash somewhere between half and all the way across the screen. This can be used to discourage opponents from trying to counterattack on block. When combined with the combo ability of his aerials to his normals, it becomes clear that Twelve's strategy was never about high damage; it's about maintaining pressure, keeping the opponent off balance via unpredictability, racking up stun (which is very easy to do with the knee), and finishing with a super.
-Lastly, he has an OTG super via his matchup with Hugo. Do his neutral throw, and perform SA1 or 2 immediately after Twelve lands on the ground. It's obviously extremely risky against Hugo, so only do it if Hugo is dizzy and you want to show off.
If you could retool Twelve to make him top tier, what would you give him?
@@vicetube As in Chun-Li level broken? Hmmm... Off the top of my head:
-Give him the ability to parry during his air dash. That alone would fix his biggest vulnerability.
-Increase speed of air dash, especially turning.
-Give him an air throw. It makes no sense for a character that spends most of the time in the air _not_ to have an air throw.
-Improve his ability to grab on to corners. Instead of just quickly bouncing off a corner after air dashing, he could simply get close to a corner (either via air dash or jumping from the ground) and crawl up or down the wall and still attack.
-Double his crawl speed. He could even have an EX ground dash.
-Increase damage of all attacks.
-Improve priority/speed/stun on all normals. For example, his roundhouse is unsafe on _hit_ against Chun-Li, which is ridiculous. The range of his ground pokes needs to be increased, and at least a couple of them should be able to combo into each other and/or a Super Art. His only multi-hit attack shouldn't be just AXE. At the very least, the hit box of his knee should be increased.
-Fix the input timing/hit box for aerial roundhouse so its crossups come out consistently. Give it an EX version with two hits.
-NDL should be able to track opponents (including attempted crossups) as a default ability, not just via EX. It should be able to juggle multiple times in the corner, a la Necro's back fierce, Dudley's crouching roundhouse, etc,
-AXE's should be the same as Necro's Electric Blaster; simpler input and can be done infinitely, but obviously with pushback on block.
-DRA should two hits on default, three on EX. It should also let him go past the opponent, not bounce off of them.
-Increase max amount of hits/stun on neutral throw.
-Make XNDL & XFLAT OTG for all characters who don't quick stand after neutral throw, not just a glitch against Hugo.
-Make XNDL able to activate immediately after a teched throw, a la SA2 Chun-Li.
-Make XFLAT have two bars instead of one, and have more ways to combo into it. Make the damage the same regardless if it connects on ground or aerial opponents. The 4rd Strike game mod has an excellent version of this.
-Decrease the meter for XCOPY, but give it multi-hit properties a la Yun and Yang's SA3s. Again, the 4rd Strike mod has an excellent version of this.
-Increase recovery speed of his post-XCOPY and taunt animations.
@@Polymathically Absolutely glorious.
Why TV Tropes tho
bad balance series blowing up is destiny! bafael has been giving me amazing tech with his videos since i was in my freshman year of high school!
dont worry bafael, i am willing to wait for quality videos
If twelve x copies into another twelve and taunts he will do the pose but won’t go invisible
I really appreciate the work you do to put out such matter of fact videos on fighting games. I always go to you first to sit down and learn about characters. Thanks a lot for your efforts!
28:55
Not to play devil’s advocate here, but could you not say that one of the reasons Twelve gets so many hits is because the opponent doesn’t have to fear those hits?
You can say that lol look at how people in fightcade play against him
Twelve: Are you watching P8rn by yourself????
Twelve: 10100.10111.00101.01100.10110.00101
Really wish Third Strike would get a revision, it's a great game but the balance can be so frustrating specially in cases like this.
I really like Twelve on paper, a character with unusually good air-mobility but weak combos who on theory doesn't get that much reward from his combos but can harass the opponent frequently due to his airdash. For me what kills him is that he ALWAYS does garbage damage, even when you decide to spend half of your resources the damage is just little more than what other characters get for free.
Personally if 4th strike or whatever was ever released I wish they would keep Twelve with weak combos but make his damage in neutral good and make his specials/super not laughably bad/situational.
Capcom: "they want more Super Turbo remakes? Can doooooo!!!!!!"
Unfortunately that's unlikely to happen because a bunch of 3s stans decided to go against a rebalance for some ungodly reason, but I guess we can still hope
@@ppDeelr6574 Because the balance changes only killed a midtier and didn't touch an actual problem.
Honestly the problem isn’t truly his damage, it’s that he never gets knockdowns. If Twelve could get slightly more damage off of axe cancels and actually get like, a knockdown, he would be like 20 times better
@@NeoBoneGirl or just like, an actual combo. Ever
That's a really fascinating perspective as to why he is the way he is. It sort of makes sense to see him as an experiment which explains why Chun is the typical neutral dominator with regular damage while Twelve has the most laughable damage of any character ever. They couldn't have not known, you would think at least. Though I wonder if any dev would waste so much development time into an experiment, especially considering the high quality spritework in this game.
The funny thing is that Chun is his best match. Chun doesn't have the best anti-air game, so he's supposed to take advantage of that.
12 is literally the perfect character. He has keep away, can turn invisible has long range attacks, and can fly!
but he’s held back due to his damage.
I cant belive i see the all 30 minutes of vidio of character i dont use.. nice vidio thats why im here
Baf-sensei strikes again with another excellent Baf Balance video. Oh yeah.
Thanks in advance for the great work and highly entertaining content.
If nothing else, I thank this weird oddity character for giving me a username that aged well
Incredible video! Thank you for all your hard work, this is pure quality content.
HOLY SHIT BEST BIRTHDAY GIFT I COULD ASK FOR 30 MIN BAD BALANCE
Omg I was so sure this series was finished! I’m so glad to see it back!
Take your time. School and real life is infinitely more important! We love you anyway and want you to succeed ❤️
Thanks for this vid, Baf. Ive been maining Twelve for a while now and I was getting really tired of “Why Twelve is bad” videos that just cherry pick his worst aspects and don’t go into any of his unique abilities
Edit: For the record you can combo into EX DRA out of EX NDL in the corner but why would you ever do that
I wonder how many 3S characters you could reasonably make a bad balance video on, cuz I think there’s honestly more candidates than not lol. Twelve definitely feels like they were really scared of what his airdash *could* do, and imagined he’d be getting a lot of pseudo jump-in combos, so balanced his damage around that, but the problem is that he isn’t getting most of his damage from airdash
Yeah, I'm by no means an expert, but it seems like 3S has worse balance than the Mortal Kombat games. MK, mind you, being a series that hasn't really cared to heavily about balance (or at least were unable to do so) until MK:X
@@no64256 You'd think 3S's balance is bad, but really is Twelve and Sean that never get used, with Elena in front of them. The rest see normal use.
@@Oh-Ben The balance in this game is still really bad, though.
@@Oh-Ben Getting used and good balance aren't the same thing. Just cuz someone knows how to deal with the burden Remy, Q, Necro etc. doesn't mean that they're well balanced, not to mention that it doesn't really represent the other side of the Chun, Yun, Ken dominance
I hope he does bad balance videos on Chun-Li and Yun.
I look at Sean and see what happened easily; over compensation. He was a high tier character overblown as a top tier simply because Sean lore wise is the weakest character in lore. His sa3 had 2 bars and then they nerfed it. Dp had incredible range and in 3s now it’s awful. Tornado kicks comboed into super in 2I. Now they’re unsafe on hit. Sean’s most glaring weaknesses come from trying to tone him down too much which makes his atrocious design understandable.
I can’t even begin to perceive what they were doing with 12. Nothing seems to synergize or gel with other tools in his kit. He gets low combos but low damaging normals. He gets middling pokes but no combo opportunities. It just doesn’t add up how we got 12 in this state.
There's a theory that he was a test to see how mad a footsies character's moves had to be for them to not instantly be high tier
@@willow7610 considering how there’s unblockables and characters like necro and remy don’t play even remotely how they were clearly intended to play I doubt that. That’s giving the team that made a tatsu punishable on hit too much credit.
I enjoy this series of videos a lot and it's how I discovered your channel so keep up the good work man! Also on another note the timing of the ads made this video more enjoyable for me XD
6:38 third hit of sweep does a little more damage than the other hits, why? Who tf knows
Maybe as some kind of punish in case the opponent doesn't parry or block it
Hell yeah. I love this series immensely. I've watched each episode 3-4 times. I know this one's gonna be a banger
I absolutely love his design. Every day I pray to the capcom lords to bring him back and every day I recieve no answer
As a twelve main in training, this is great and fully comprehensive knowledge.
Thanks for this, this series is tight. Keep doing what you’re doing.
This Bad Balance episode is the literal definition of "devil's advocate"
I love to play twelve man 😭
He's so cool and fun I genuinely wish he wasn't so bad, you have to try so hard and win neutral so many times. Fortunately his neutral is quite good if YOURE good but nonetheless is prey to Akuma and Ken air tatsus and the like. Very cool character, I find him cute :3
On paper his kit could work as a low damage mixup character, if they just made his special confirms and normals more reliable
FINALLY got a chance to see this... I completely understand life getting in the way. I've been a fan/player of 12 ever since 99, and it's always been interesting to me how they designed him. Thanks for the insight and the playlist - definitely checking that out!
Great stuff. Also liked the little talking point at the end a lot!
Let's fucking goooo, I love this series. I'll wait for whatever amount of time is required for more of these.
Damn Bafael you don’t miss with this series
wake up babe new bad balance episode
i think his D.R.A is suppose to stand for dragon. im just assuming this cause his SA2 looks like a dragon, and those things fly/dive.
Hope school is going well Baf!
Twelve's wakeup throw is nuts because of how fast he gets up, but that's about it LOL
I honestly think you should expand the series to any character you want to do rather than just overpowered or underpowered characters. If people can use this to improve their Twelve, they can use it to improve any character they play. SF3 is pretty hard to get into as well, so in-depth tutorials across the board could help people get into it. Just a suggestion. Overall, amazing video.
i really love this series, totally worth the wait
babe wake up, new bafael bad balance dropped
20:35 nice punish combo, we love you baf
When I saw Akuma taunt as Twelve reverted, I immediately knew where that was going.
Dear god, why.
That 3d render of twelve spooks me
Blows that Twelve has to win neutral like 10-12 times to win while you could just play as Ryu and remove 40% of your opponent's life with one parry
I had no idea SF3 had proximity buttons
God I love twelve so much , he makes me so happy
Thoughts on how 4rd Strike AE deals with Twelve's issues?
I ain't Baf, but from what I've personally played in 3s and 4rd, Twelve actually does damage and a lot of his normals/minus on Hit issues are entirely gone. He gets vacuum on his A.X.E and proper damage meterless, with meter it's even better.
Also SA2 is really good this time around and has a ground version which let's you convert any far st.MK into damage especially from jump ins.
Oh boy, a treat from Baf!
Been waiting for this every since the Leon Massey video
Love these. Was rewatching the deejay and Elena one yesterday.
Its sucks how Twelve has decent moves but just needed some tweaks for knockback and damage output to be decent. Great video as always though, its always fun watching new videos of your Bad Balance series
Yama is a god for running Twelve
Awesome work as always!
Awesome video Baf.
I cant wait for the next one!
Bless your content, always brings a smile to my face
One really unfortunate thing about Twelve is that he would actually have a really decent kara throw with his far MP (on par rangewise with Akuma's) if they had just made his close MP into a back+MP input like Necro's. I mean it's not huge, but at least it'd be something, you know?
I love flying around with 12
This video taught me a few things
Great to see the series coming back. Ever thought about doing a "Good Balance" spinoff?
Im sorry for asking you to stream baf, take your time with finals and other stuff
Great video as always Baf, keep it up!
I love these in depth videos
I'm sorry - school stuff? Sir does your schooling somehow matter more than my consumption of SF3 meta knowledge??
Thank you so much!
Hey, school work is more important. I'd much rather wait and have you be well. We can all wait. Also, I somewhat relate, I hate uploading. I have like 300 videos lol .
This is one of the better series on YT 💯.
Stay well Baf!
most high skill character confirmed
14:58 this is the tech I needed! thank you
It's so unfortunate because twelve was always one of my fav street fighters especially in third strike. They just look so damn cool
Deep lore: Twelve makes an appearance in Guilty Gear as Ramlethal's clothing.
i like the effort put into the thumbnail
I had help
I actually compiled a spreadsheet of nearly every universal normal (no shared normals, between far and close stands and angled and neutral jumps I took the one with the higher damage) and I found that Twelve does about 15% less damage than the rest of the roster. For every 14 damage that the average character does, Twelve does 12. Ironically.
probally his intended design, like bafael said, if nothing changed in his kit, but he got double damage on his normal, he would be a mid-high tier
This find is a solid case for numerology.