So I'm not sure if this will help or anything, but I figured I'd post my thoughts and experiences with the characters. I use the following code set:
- No Tripping
- No Replay Time Limit
- Auto L-Cancel
- Hitstun at 8.75%
- Lagless Ledges
- No Decay with Fresh
- Up and Down Gravity (Whatever is in the OP)
- Dash Dance
- 60% Hitlag
- Shield Damage (from the OP)
- Shield Stun 13/22/5
- Crouch Canceling
Mario- Is now a combo machine. Much better then before. Has a lot of potential but still feels very middle of the road. An excellent character to use as a balance point.
Luigi- Not enough experience here
Peach- She's much better. She has trouble killing but she can wrack damage up very well now. Her aerials are nasty. Have we considered giving her second jump some vertical recovery?
Bowser- Atrocious. He's back to being like he was in Melee, which isn't good. He has very low combo potential, gets juggled very easily, is really slow, and the list goes on. I'd hate to leave a character as pure crap, but it'll be tough to buff him up IMO.
Link- Besides his awful recovery, he's an overall very solid character. The bombs do good stun and can lead to low percent combos. His pansy boots are also quite good combo moves. It would be nice to let his hookshot hook to any surface ala Melee, but it can't happen
Zelda- She's didn't seem to really change from my experience. What worked with her in vanilla still works in B+.
Shiek- F-tilt, nuff said.
Toon Link- He's way too floaty for the new system. He still has a lot of things going for him, but it can be tough to string aerials together (minus his B-air off course). If we really get into character specific changes, I'd say making Tink less float would be something to look into.
Ganondorf- He probably has the most combo potential of any of the heavies, DK comes close. He is still easy to spam projectiles on and easy to juggle, but if he catches you it's almost always gonna end in a combo for massive damage. Two or three good combos and he's ready to kill. His F-air went from a useless move and is now back to it's Melee glory.
DK- DK had a great spacing game and he still does. His tilts have great combo potential as does his down-B. The down cargo throw to spike seems to be working a lot more then it did before, so that might be due to hitstun on it. If that's the case, it's a little too good because it's very easy to set up.
Diddy- Diddy has sick combos. Everything seems to link to something now. Besides his light weight, I really feel Diddy has nothing against him, maybe range I guess. Characters with a good spacing game are trouble for Diddy, but if he gets someone he can rack damage like a fiend. Might be too good, but we'll see.
Yoshi- He is still way too floaty. The eggs have sick stun on them but otherwise I really feel is kinda weak. If we get a DJC code I think he'll be a whole lot better.
Wario- Wario is great. His d-air is even better then before and his up-air has some good combo potential. His d-throw links to a F-smash at almost all percents which is a great finisher. Overall I think he is one of B+ best characters.
Samus- Long story short, is she can build damage but can't finish. A specific SH code for her is also almost required. We need to buff one of her smash attacks or her charge shot to have decent KO potential.
Pit, Olimar, Ice Climbers, ROB, Lucas, Pikachu, and Jigglypuff- Not much experience here.
MK- He's still too good and he feels even better. I'd say we just up and ban him instead of messing with lines of code to balance him. Then again I'm biased cause I hate the Kirby series.
D3- He has some all right combo potential but I feel he went from best Big Guy to 2nd worst. Maybe I forgot the timing or something but it seems his d-throw chaingrab is gone or at least much tougher to do. Either way, I feel he is all right, but is one of the few characters that got worse with B+.
Fox- Basically, when we fix the tech window Fox should be brought down a few notches, which is probably a good thing. His u-tilt is a nasty combo starter. If you connect with a d-air at the start of an opponents fresh life, it seems to be pretty much a guaranteed 50-60%. That might be something worth looking into.
Falco- Maybe I'm no good with him, but he seems worse. I can't really figure out very many good combos with him. I also can't really combo into any KO moves. As I said, it's probably cause I'm bad with him.
Wolf- Much like Falco, I'm finding trouble comboing with him. His u-tilt is a good combo starter as is the n-air though. He still is a solid character and the no-decay helps his game a lot.
C. Falcon- It's almost like the whole B+ thing started because people wanted the Captain to be better. Like Fox, once we fix the tech window he'll be brought back down a few levels. Comboing into the knee feels oh so good.
P. Trainer- Playing him with the switching is still a nifty idea in theory, poor in practice. Also, none of them seem to play any different. I feel the no-stam and seperate pokemon code will be required to make him a playable character.
Lucario- He already had combo in Vanilla, they have just now become easier to string together. Like Snake, he can play a mean defensive game still. I like the idea of the higher the damage the more knockback you have, but it ruins his low percent game. Is it worth trying to figure out a happy medium to leave his aura powers?
Marth- Still a shade of his Melee glory, but he has gotten some nice buffs with B+. His f-air spam seems less godly but his n-air seems a lot better and more useful. With the shield damage code his B does too much shield damage. It only needs to be half charged at that too. What's Marth's aerial killer, cause I'm finding he can have a tad trouble KOing without a d-throw to F-Smash.
Ike- He needed these buffs. His n-air is still godly and his f-air is a great spacer. Maybe it's just me, but his n-air to a moving up-smash seems like a great combo. He doesn't have the combo potential like G-Dorf and DK have so that keeps him down a bit. Overall though, I feel he's good where he is.
Snake- Hasn't changed much from B+ but that's not a bad thing. He plays differently than any other character and I really like that about him. He's still really good, undoubtedly one of the best characters, but he's not unbeatable. If the concenus is we have to nerf him then just nerf the u-tilt, otherwise I feel he is fine.
Sonic- SHFF F-air is almost too good. How do you guys DI out of the u-throw to avoid getting combo'd further? Really there is no point to writing anything up about Sonic, he a whole lot better now and anyone with two eyes can see his amazing buffs.
A lot of writing and some of it was pointless but I hope a few of these might help out the code designers. I really feel the only two codes I'll probably be adding to Brawl will be the larger tech window and a nerf to Shiek's f-tilt. Maybe in another post I'll detail why I feel my code set really works best.
