Dragon Ball FighterZ Season 3 Is On The Way!

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Conor Evans
February 11, 2020
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I hope you guys managed to watch the Dragon Ball FighterZ this past weekend. It could have done with a few less GT Goku’s, but otherwise, that was some damn good DBFZ! So, we have some fun stuff to talk about, as a good amount of information on Dragon Ball FighterZ Season 3 was given to us during and after the event. Firstly though…

THE WORLD TOUR CONTINUES FOR ANOTHER YEAR!

This event was brilliantly well run with very few technical hiccups, delays or other problems of a similar nature. So, hats off to the guys behind the scenes managing all of this, your hard work is much appreciated!

It all kicked off on Friday with the Last Chance Qualifiers. A gruesome battlefield where players will come from all over the world to try and grab their last chance at a spot in the Finals. The winner of this was none other than Tachikawa from Japan. A truly phenomenal player who only just missed his chance at qualifying for the finals through the leaderboards. This man has been to almost every qualifier event this year, so it was wonderful to see all his hard work wasn’t for nothing. The top 8 results of the finals were as follows:

7th – Steve “Supernoon” Carbajal

7th – Naoki “Matoi” Yasuda

5th – Tsubasa “Maddo” Imai

5th – Vineeth “Apologyman” Meka

4th – Tachikawa “BC|Tachikawa” Toru

3rd – John “Dekillsage” Coello

2nd – Shoji “CAG | Fenritti” Sho

1st – Goichi “CAG | GO1” Kishida

There were some serious upsets and breakthroughs from certain players. SonicFox, arguably the strongest player in America, didn’t make it out of the group stages. The previously mentioned, Tachikawa, not only made it through in the LCQ, but came 4th! Dekillsage had a phenomenal weekend with some of his best performances all year. GO1 and Fenritti making it to the grand finals was definitely not a surprise. These two have been machines at the game since the very beginning. GO1, in particular, has been the strongest player in the game since day 1.

The event was great overall. Incredible comebacks, upsets, perfects, reverse-perfects, you name it, this tournament had it. If you didn’t manage to catch the games, please go and check out the VODs on the Red Bull Gaming channel.

https://www.youtube.com/user/RedBulleSport/videos

Okay, let’s get into the announcements now shall we? Get yourselves ready, there is some INSANE stuff coming up.

Dragon Ball FighterZ Season 3 Trailer:

Dragon Ball FighterZ Season 3 Changes

Z Assist Select

Finally, DBFZ is giving every character multiple assist attacks. Now, you might not think this is that big of a deal, but I assure you, this is so big that it will most likely change the way the game is currently played. Let’s explore that for a minute.

In the current version of the game, most players will build their teams in 1 of two ways:

3 characters, all with strong assists, who are also good on their own. Examples of these are: GT Goku, Cell, Kid Buu, Bardock, SSJ Goku.

Or 2 characters whose assists help your main ‘point’ character.

Even with these 2 options, the former is the most dominant way that top players build their teams. This is all because each character is limited to their single assists. Super Saiyan Goku is a widely popular team member due to his strength, but also because his assist is a Kamehameha, which is great for pressuring your opponent when trying to open them up, but also very easy to combo from. Whereas say, Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta who has what is considered the worst assist in the game, is never picked.

With each character gaining 2 additional assist options, players will be able to pick from a wider variety of characters which they have a genuine attachment to, as opposed to picking GT Goku just because his assist is good. Hopefully now, it will be a case of finding the best assist for each character that works with each team, instead of finding the 3 best characters who also happen to have the 3 best assists.

There will always be a strongest character and tier lists will still exist. But these 3 vs 3 games are too deep to count anything out. Marvel vs Capcom 3 fans, remember KaneBlueRiver winning EVO with a team people thought couldn’t compete?

This is a fantastic breath of fresh air for both casual and competitive play. Players will be able to show some individuality now!

Sparking Changes And Tension Gauge

The current version of sparking works as a comeback mechanic for each player. The power of which grows the less characters a player has on their team. Level 1, level 2, and level 3 sparking, 3 being the most powerful and lasting the longest amount of time.

Sparking is now being changed in a way that works alongside the new tension gauge located at the top of the screen, in between both players health bars. It wasn’t explicitly stated what the changes were, but from the footage shown and the way the tension gauge reacted, we can determine that sparking now changes in strength proactively depending on the state of the match.

In the footage shown, we see a sparking Teen Gohan use his level 5 super on Cell, before this attack begins, the tension gauge is leaning heavily towards player 1’s side, but when the super attack finishes, the tension gauge has balanced out. Considering it’s mentioned that they wanted matches to end a little faster, I would guess that sparking is overall a stronger comeback factor, but it changes through the match, so that if the player who was originally behind manages to even the playing field, the power-up will even out as well.

Ki Charge, Fuzzy Guard, More Dragon Ball FighterZ Season 3 Patches

Let’s start with the Ki Charge upgrade. Originally, Ki Charging was a mechanic that a player could use to gain super attack meter. Outside of a very few select characters, namely Gotenks and Frieza, players saw almost no purpose in this mechanic. It has always felt like something that was added purely because it’s a Dragon Ball thing, right? You squat a little, clench fists and scream. Boom, power-up. Besides the ol’ “Nakama power-up” it’s the classic.

Now, however, Ki Charging will block ki blast projectile attacks. As it is right now, charging ki has a decent amount of start-up and recovery to it, so until we see the patch notes when Dragon Ball FighterZ Season 3 goes live, we won’t know exactly how practical it is.

Next up, the changes to fuzzy guarding. So quickly lesson on some fighting game jargon. In the game, you can block crouching or standing. If you manage to block an overhead, you remain standing for a little bit afterward. A fuzzy takes advantage of that, essentially as you get someone to block an overhead, land on the ground, jump back up, and hit them with another overhead while they are standing.

This works especially well on tall characters such as Broly(DBZ). These attacks that hit like this are being removed, which is a huge buff to these tall characters. This is a good thing as players will no longer hesitate to play certain characters that may have previously been susceptible to these fuzzy attacks.

Lastly, Hiroki-san mentions that patches may come a bit more frequently than in previous years. She did also mention that nothing is set in stone for this at the moment. This most likely means that if they believe something needs adjusting during the middle of the competitive season, they would consider releasing a patch. This has most likely come about due to the controversy revolving around GT Goku during 2019 and whether the character should have been banned.

That about wraps it up for everything that was mentioned at the event… JUST KIDDING, WE GOT KEFLA BABY! MORE WAIFU’S LET’S GOOOOOOOO!!