Free Step Dodge

Hey, HEY! There's nothing wrong with being better with another character. I am better with my subs than I am with my main.

*sigh* Hayate...

Yea, Hayate is pretty balanced in this one. There's a few things that would be nice to have changed so that there's more incentive to use them.

Examples: 2K - Pointless because 2KK no longer exists.
Wind Dash K - Should be and launcher and 4H+K should come back as a raw move
H+K - If H+K is going to stun it should be a bit deeper and push farther away then be given a wind dash cancel so he can 50/50 off of the launchers.

2KK and 4H+K especially would be nice. But in all honesty I was wrong about Hayate. He actually does really well for himself in this game. Maybe it's because it feels like most characters got weak but after playing with Ein and even Akira, I feel empowered whenever I switch to Hayate.

...Then annoyed because I put in so much more work in matches with my two mains and then I switch to my 3rd and wreck even good opponents for half the effort.

I honestly think it's because other characters were leveled down and not stepped up in areas that they probably deserved. Ryu for example does not have a solid mid kick launcher at max threshold. 6K is there and 9K is... kinda there. I voted that 66K launch like 4K height on threshold break or post CB so that he can run a real mix-up.

WR H+K doesn't even seem good in my opinion, it's just kinda there and as far as damage goes, H+KKK still outclasses it. As a launcher it's ok... but still not great. I don't think it has a place... but if anything it've been nice if his 2H+K got its trip stun back on NH so that he could run 2H+KKP and 2H+KKK from DOA4...

But yea all in all, Hayate isn't really bad at all in this game. He's solid and with a few tweaks and additions he could become a very useful character. Someone like Ein needs some true work and Akira needs love.

Ein most certainly needs work and no matter how good a player is he is going to struggle against a lot of characters where that same player would be better off using someone else. He needs buffs period. Just going back to DOA4 status would be enough but as it stands he is a prime candidate for buffing in the next patch.

Considering the japanese have him at the bottom of their tier list, I'm staying optimistic.

Akira on the other hand has love and on paper is still a good character but he can't be PLAYED comfortably like he could in vanilla. Every character in this game can buffer just about anything from a move after it's whiffed or blocked but in 5U around 7-15 frames of recovery were added to just about all of Akira's moves on block and whiff.

Effectively negating frame traps for the most part and forcing players to use him in an unnatural way since you can no longer flow moves into eachother. If you try to buffer a move after P or example, if you don't wait until he completely returns to neutral, he WILL stand there and your input will be kaput.

He's still a good character on paper but he feels so stiff and awkward now that he's a chore to play more than anything. Nevermind his awful balance nerfs. Of my 3 mains, Hayate's pretty much the best at this point.

"pretty much" is an understatement

If playing Akira didn't feel like trying to control a tank, I would probably feel differently.

DOA4 Ein was alright at heart, but in the end he was only good because he could actually play offense. On standing guard 2H+K could open up his opponent and cause them to have to either hold or slow escape. In addition to that 3K was a better stun than it is now so that he could follow up with any launcher he needs to (which usually would be 9P, 4K/Dash in 33K, or WR K)