[Ray2064]

I'd say they are amongst the strongest in the way their very gimmick makes it so they essentially erase any remaining fighting chance of classes that VA commonly fares well against. (Those being Mage classes, Tankier builds, and Bards too because why not) , on-top of dishing extremely high damage in usual VA fashion.

Though that imo is pretty bad game design. SL2 has a pretty glaring issue where the game is built in such a way that a lot of mechanics, skills and passives serve little other purpose than to dig further into an already existing gap between counters and the countered, letting the latter with little to no other option than to cry and weep.
(See - The BK- Duelist matchup with Watchful Eye, On-dodge passives as an existing mechanic that punishes you for...being punished, Elemental Resistance working the way it does...)

A Hikage- Tsukikage VA effectively wins thrice as harder against any archetype that VA fares well against in the first place. Sure it may not exactly be good at teleporting behind an evade but thanks god it isn't- that's supposed to be the one thing barely holding daggers back in the first place, let alone removing it on a pair that specifically works in a way where it's downright oppressive to play against. And that again can be counteracted by things like Vanishing Strike, Rough Tumble, Shadow Gi, Quick Slide that allow for a flanking bonus or to ease up the farshot penalty ( already being quite watered down due to a dager user obviously having no issue building GUI)





I would say that the argument of VA instantly being rounded down in any teamfight is not really a valid one and moreso stems from the fact most of those are built in an extremely glass-canony way. That in fact applies to any kind of frailer builds, though I'm sure can be avoided by just not building in such a way where you just immediately die the second you step in. I would go as far as to say VA's STR critting melee cousins suffer even more from that same issue due to sharing the niche of high single-target damage, except with stats spread way thinner.

That, and the very specific issue you state can be fixed by, y'know. Not rushing in blind. Having a minimum of preparation or thought before an action.
Things like swapping to a shuriken/other weapon before striking.


Band-aid fixes such as making it's status inflictions roll a check beforehand won't work as the most affected parties oft don't benefit from it all that much.

Making it so there has to be a build-up that can possibly be counteracted by the opposite party before the status can be applied is a good solution, much like toning the range down a bit.