A
Kirby is currently considered to be one of the weaker characters mainly by process of elimination. Has anything happened in this game's meta so far that indicates that Kirby is a fundamentally flawed character or does he just happen to be a bit worse than most others? So far I have not seen a good reason to assume that it's the former, rather than the latter. Maybe at a later point somebody will be able to point out a very specific character-related problem to Kirby that needs to be fixed but right now we'll just have to live with the fact that he is considered weaker than other characters for whatever reason. Calling for straight-up buffs would be premature and unwise in my opinion.
Actually, Kirby is a bit of a flawed character. He's not horrible (I actually think he's quite good in this game), but he has some... problems.
Kirby is bad against disjointed hitboxes, projectiles, fast characters, and heavy weights. Due to Kirby's lack of range on his moves, especially with the fact that his feet were halved in size, he has quite a bit of trouble against disjointed hitboxes, whether it's a character like Marth and Lucina who carry them at all times, or a character like Pac-Man who only has a couple disjointed hitboxes. Kirby has trouble with projectiles as he's one of the slowest characters in the game, whether on the ground or in the air. Characters who can spam projectiles are hard to deal with while playing Kirby, as you can never actually touch them. Faster characters, such as Greninja and Sheik are considered some of the worst characters for Kirby to go against. He's so slow that he can never catch them if they're running away, as shown by the E3 Invitational Grand Finales, they can easily chase Kirby around the map as he tries to run away or protect himself, and most of the faster characters come with a projectile, so they can camp out Kirby. Kirby is the third lightest character in the game, so the heavier characters can easily kill Kirby at lower percents. He has horrible troubles killing opponents, and usually has to wait until 120%+ just to kill the medium weights. As @
Asdioh
has said multiple times, fighting against heavy weights as Kirby is as if you have one less stock than them at all times.
Along with that, Kirby has no priority on his moves, and as none of his moves (other than his punishable, horrible special moves) are disjointed, he can easily get punished for landing a move. Maybe it's just me, but this is pretty stupid:
http://youtu.be/yquMqKNNuS4?t=6m23s. This ruins most of Kirby's combo game, which is one of the things he's good at. He can start a combo, but easily be taken out of it because he has no priority. Along with that, despite having some nice combos, Kirby has so much endlag on his moves that he's one of the easiest characters to shield grab in the game. While playing against @
GrnFzzTgr's Kirby while I'm playing Robin, all I need to do is sit on a ledge and shield his approaches. The easy solution for this is to use Kirby's dash grab, but, like most other characters, Kirby has no grab range to actually help him out.
There's a LOT more that's bad about Kirby, but those are some of the more glaring things.
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There's a multitude of things that could be done to fix these problems, but of course, Kirby must still have weaknesses.
Here's a couple things I personally think should be changed or altered.
Inhale Changes - Less Endlag, Cannot be Shielded
In his own games, the only way Kirby can actually put up a fight is by copying his opponents abilities and using them to a greater extent. Now, this also carries over to Smash Bros. titles as Kirby's main gimmick. Some match-ups are greatly changed by using the opponents ability, such as Shulk or Villager. The biggest problem, though, is that Inhale is one of Kirby's most punishable moves. In Smash 4, for some unknown reason, Inhale was given
EVEN MORE endlag than before, making it even less safe than before. Due to how laggy and punishable the move is, the safest place to use the move is while somebody is on the ledge. Even with that, both a ledge aerial and ledge hop will beat the move. To help with this, the move should have decreased endlag. The fact that Kirby can barely use his main gimmick without getting punished severely for it completely ruins some possible MU advantages. Another change that should be made is Inhale against shields. Despite the move being a Command Grab, opponents can sit right next to Kirby as he's doing the move while sitting in their shields without being sucked in. How in the world does a vacuum-like whirlwind get stopped by a little round bubble? Due to the fact that the move is shieldable, this makes shields even more effective to counter Kirby.
Air Speed Increase
Despite being talked about as an "aerial master" in all of the games tips and guides, Kirby isn't good in the air. He has nice aerial moves to help him with his multiple jumps, but he can't catch anybody in the air. His air speed is atrocious, and is one of the worsts in the game. The only characters who have a slower airspeed than Kirby is Luigi, Ganondorf, and DeDeDe. Luigi has aerials that combo straight into each other while inflicting tons of damage, such as F-Air, along with good priority on some of them. Ganondorf has strong, bulky aerial moves that are bound to send the opponent away from him so he can't be punished. King DeDeDe has an enormous hammer, which covers a huge spot in front of him... and he's incredibly fat. Kirby's aerials have no follow ups or combos, have no range, and are incredibly punishable. Being an air-based character, not being able to properly maneuver in the air completely hinders his potential while in the air.
B-Air Landing Lag Decreased
One change that has affected several Kirby mains and made the move far less useful than before is the landing lag increase on Kirby's B-Air. Previously, Kirby's B-Air was considered his best aerial move, having fast startup, low endlag, and barely any landing lag. Compared to his B-Air, his other aerial moves were useless. However, in this game, Kirby's amazing B-Air now has horrible endlag, having the same amount of landing lag as his D-Air does. This removes the purpose of this move, as now it is incredibly punishable. Along with that, the fact that the knockback on B-Air was nerfed doesn't help either, as it has trouble killing. To help Kirby, B-Air should be restored to it's former glory by decreasing it's ending lag. Of course, to keep developer changes in-tact, and to make it so the move isn't generally overpowered, the knockback reduction could easily stay the same.
Copy Ability Changes - Custom Move, System Change (everything in this column is likely not going to happen, but it's worth mentioning)
As stated before, Inhale has several problems with actually landing the move in general. To help with certain match-ups, I believe that Kirby's second Inhale Custom, Ice Breath, should be replaced. Instead, it should be replaced with a different "variation" of Inhale. Kirby will enter the match with the opponents Copy Ability, and won't be able to lose the ability. However, Kirby would no longer be able to Kirbycide, and has the chance of getting a Copy Ability that doesn't actually help him. This would help with Kirby's Inhale problem, allowing him to better fight against certain characters. In 1v1s, Kirby will take the opponents ability. In FFAs, Kirby will take the second players ability. In Team Battles, Kirby will take his teammates ability.
An actual mechanic change to Copy Abilities that should be made is instead of losing Copy Abilities at random, Kirby should have an invisible health bar for his Copy Abilities, such as how Luma dies after taking an amount of damage. The main reason for this is due to the fact that Kirby could have just gotten a useful ability, been hit, and then detrimentally lose it. This is incredibly frustrating, as getting an ability in general is already hard enough. While it would be developer choice to decide how much damage Kirby could take before the ability is gone, I believe 50% or so would be fair, as it'll let you keep the ability for quite some time.
One other mechanic change to Copy Abilities is "getting rid of them". In actual Kirby games, when an ability is lost, it will bounce around briefly before going away. While it's bouncing around, the ability can either be swallowed to re-gain it, or can be spit out at the opponent as a projectile. I feel that this mechanic should carry over to Smash Bros., too. When an ability reaches it's end point and is lost, it should bounce around as it does in Kirby games. This wouldn't be too difficult to add to the game, as Kirby already has a star model when he spits the opponent out, which can be used for when he's spitting a Copy Ability at an opponent. The same model could also be used for when the ability is bouncing around. To balance this mechanic out, an opponent could easily punish Kirby as he tries to get his ability back, which makes it a risk/reward to go for your ability.
Anyways, that's all I have for now.
I'm going to tag some other Kirby mains so they could give any feedback they have:
@
Asdioh
, @
t!MmY, @
JetX818
