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[collapse="Ico and Yorda"]Seen you lurking in the thread at points, but a formal welcome to Make Your Move is in session none the less. Quite a lovely little moveset here - really, really good job on capturing the limited yet incredibly atmospheric feel the duo provide with their backstories. They pretty much have nothing to play off but themselves, which makes the otherwise redundant nature of the attacks work for them for characterization reasons. Both characters feel very well fleshed-out with the nature of their tag team (which has never actually been done before I believe) that really makes you feel you can just go all-out with Ico since he doesn't take damage but doing so puts Yorda in danger - even if this doesn't completely make sense in logistical manners, it really helps flesh out the characterization and make the player feel they need to protect Yorda given the team loses a stock if she dies. You also hit the mark with the weak attacks that Ico is forced to use, and they really do feel quite weak. Not using props also really helps with the set's atmosphere, and you do a fairly good job at describing the attacks without going too overboard. Really, this set is surprisingly and extremely well-characterized to the point where I can forgive what would otherwise be typical newcomer traits such as the somewhat bland and redundant nature of the moves, the empty grab-game (it perhaps MIGHT be possible to replace the current Grab with the Side Special and replace the current Side Special with the Dash Attack if you could imagine Ico actually grabbing onto enemies and throwing them, but I'm not sure what that'd do for characterization), all of which fit the nature of the set to a T.
For what you have you do very well in making an interesting moveset experience of which really does feel as if you're stepping into the shoes of the characters themselves and their somewhat futile struggle. The set is pretty much perfect the way it is for the characters in my standards - the nature of which probably won't work all that perfectly well with another kind of character, I mean the shortcomings which I overlooked, but what you have here is very good. It'd be interesting to see you take another shot if you'd be up for it.[/collapse]
A flat elevator platform rising up through the glitzy bowels of the Space Pirate Ship. The platform is bordered either side by the curved structures shown in the image (the big spiked scythes are thankfully just background dressing). Basically, the brawlers are riding in a big space bowl, which makes it kind of tricky to get back onstage once you've been knocked off. As the evelator rises, it passes by a few of the ship's key areas, none of which affect the match in any way;
The ship's glittering translucent core. It's a rounded glass container with what looks like an entire galaxy inside. It almost looks like you're in space at this point, as the lighting becomes particularly dim, with the core itself being almost the only source of light.
The ship's galactic store-room, where the space pirates keep all the stars they've plundered. They've all been shrunken down to the form of metallic, orange, patterned balls. Some are just in piles, while others hover in midair. In constrast to the stars' luster, the room itself is unimpressive, even a little grimy.
The ship's main Deck. Basically the elevator shaft opens up to reveal the deck itself, with the elevator still continueing upwards towards the Observation deck high above. The deck , other than being much bigger than the platform you're on, is similarly patterned, and has similar jutting pieces of architecture as decoration. Since the deck is on the exterior of the ship, this is the first time the players can see parts of the ship from the outside, along with the Galactic Sea, which the ship is currently sailing
Generic elevator shaft. At least as generic as you can get in a Space Pirate Ship. The colouration is still that rich palette of pristine blue that evokes luxury and whatnot.
The ship's Observation deck. Similar deal to the main deck, albeit smaller, and with a much nicer view of the Galactic sea all around
After those areas, the elevator rises one last time, to the ship's Crows Nest, which I totally just made up for the stage, and is the elevator's last stop. It's a massive crystalline dome that overlooks the Galactic Sea. It's halfway full of a steaming yellow liquid and the elevator platform comes to rest just above the liquid's surface. The hatches surrounding the main platform open up, and that same yellow liquid gushes out, filling the platform up to ankle height.
You see, the Crows Nest doubles as a gigantic Hot Spring! Standing in the ankle deep water restores 1% damage every second (1.5% if you crouch). If you leave the main platform, jumping into the deep pool of water that surrounds the platform, you'd restore 2.5% damage per second. Be careful though, as that water's deep enough to drown in.
Actually, it's way deeper. It's deep enough to hide...
A Kraken!
After a while, the Space Kraken is unleashed, rising up out of the spring. It stays in the background, but can attack the players on the main stage with a couple of different moves.
The Kraken fires a gigantic piercing laser beam from its mouth. Like the Halberd stage, a reticule will appear showing where exactly this attack will hit
The Kraken slams a tentacle into the stage, dealing some mean damage. Again like the Halberd stage, players get somewhat of a forewarning as to when the Kraken will attack
The Kraken extends one of its tentacles around, and lays it onto the stage. It waits, patiently for someone to stand on the tentacle, then yanks it offscreen, KOing the happless foe (if a player is KO'd this way, the Kraken is shown tossing that player into its mouth. Yummy!). The tentacle doesn't cover much of the stage, only one of its edges really, and the Kraken will eventually give up it no one falls for its trap. Players can also attack the tentacle to make it retreat, also causing the Kraken to nurse its wound for a while.
The space kraken remains for the rest of the match, though there will be periods where the Kraken submerges itself to recouperate.
Incidentally, for the purposes of the following Event, which takes place on this stage, ignore the Kraken... and everything else too. It takes place at the Crows Nest at the top, with the platform prefilled with hot spring water.
Stage:Space Pirate Ship Stage (At Crows Nest Hotsprings, no Kraken) Items:Mega Milk (low) Description:It's a hot spring photoshoot! Use your taunts and charms to hog the limelight. Match Limit:2:00 minutes Match Goal:The goal is to have Anne, a neutral character that you cannot hit nor be hit by, take more snapshots of your gorgeous bod than M.Trinity's. Using a Taunt will usually make Anne saunter over to take a snap. M.Trinity can make Anne come to her more often by strewing the area with panties, which Anne will gravitate towards. Likewise, XP Tan can coerce Anne over more often by accrueing many Mega-Bites, the unit of energy she uses as a special mechanic. Players consuming the Mega Milk items, will also affect Anne's 'loyalties', for reasons of mammory proportions.
In snapshots, the girl who is closer to Anne's POV is the subject of the snap. Two exceptions to this rule. First, if one girl is taunting and the other isn't, the taunting girl is the subject. Second, if one girl is striking or grabbing/throwing the other, in the former case the photo is 'ruined', and in the latter, the thrower is the subject of the snap. Tactics:The hot spring waters, along with the healing mega-milks, make damaging the opponent fairly fruitless. So you can't just knock M.Trinity far offstage then taunt while she swims back. Instead you have to use your zoning and traps and windows to keep M.Trinity away from your photo-shoot. Likewise M.Trinity can use her panties to limit your movements (with the added bonus of them attracting Anne to her). Since XP Tan's stage control comes at the cost of her Mega-bites, you have to be careful not to overspend rendering yourself flat and unattractive. Difficulty changes:On Hard difficulty, Anne is accompanied by Luigi, who acts in her stead to attack players who ruin Anne's shots. Care must also be taken not to make XP Tan 'too' attractive, as Luigi will lose control and rush in to grab-fondle you (with a speech balloon appearing above his head, depicting two beachballs). This act ruins almost every photo opportunity.
On Easy difficulty, M.Trinity stops fighting smart, and just tries to clobber you every time you taunt.
Oogie Boogie
I really wish you had focused a tad bit more on the mass manipulation and goop than the dice/traps. The traps are reasonably creative if tacky (some of them are on aerials, and then you can just upgrade the Down Smash wheel and the rock wall for whatever reason in upgrades that don't even make especially much sense for them), but the dice just feels really awkward. The main use I see for it is getting rid of the goop when you really need too, which is... alright as a defensive measure, but it just really feels kind of awkward/bad on a whole, and doesn't really make any logical sense. To be fair, you seem to be aware this set is pretty tacky, I'll give you that, and it's not nearly as bad in that sense as Agiri. And at the very least, it does require Oogie to be very smart with his trap placement. The soup/mass manipulation stuff is extremely fun I feel, and you take good advantage of it on the inputs you dedicate too it... my problem is again, it doesn't really flow that well into the trapping game, which feels like the center focus while being far less interesting. Ultimately I guess my lack of farmiliarity with the character probably just makes this worse, I wouldn't even know what he's like in the actual movie so I can't judge if certain actions are really fitting to him.
That said, I do actually like this set a fair bit, contrary to the above comment. When you are focusing on the goop, it's really pretty awesome how it works, especially how you manage to make Oogie fear it. Not to mention while turning into the bugs is very bad, you at least manage to give him some rather clever defenses and manners to use that form so he doesn't feel utterly gimped then. Though the fact that all cleaving attacks do that too him make him feel a bit underpowered against those types of characters (Kyoko pretty much 100/0's him). I suppose my favorite thing here is the risk-reward factor to all the decisions Oogie makes, what with the traps being able to backfire on him(and horribly), alongside with growing making him more vulnerable to them, yet making him enormously more powerful. The set's sort of disjointed at points and I don't feel it is as good as it could be, but you have to remember this is a one day work. And considering that along with how darn ambitious the set is, I have to say that I find myself still rather impressed. It's not nearly my favorite of yours Kat, but it's still pretty darn solid.
Iron Tail
This is a very, very easy set to hate if you really want too. It's got tackiness oozing out of it to a degree I think your tacky problems are becoming worse David. At least you removed the Forward Smash, but the other two smashes are among the most awkward moves you've ever written. On top of that, the set is really simplistic at points while still managing to feel incredibly forced, what with stuff like the random trajectory on the jab whirlwind and the teleport swapping items. At the very least, the set avoids being flowchart without even having much flow like Once-ler and is a lot less ridiculously basic than Hook, but it still doesn't come across as a good set on the surface.
But, perhaps for the first time I feel with a David set, there's actually a lot more here than meets the eye. The simplistic "tacky" moves actually feel very relevant to the playstyle with their implications in just tossing the eggs between minions and stalling the foe out, it plays out a bit like a wild goose chase and ultimately seems way more fun in practice than on paper. Sure, some stuff like the pitfalls is stupid no matter how you put it and stalling isn't exactly the most... entertaining playstyle, but the way the items work into it at least makes it a lot more enjoyable and interactive, I feel. You even almost made me cave and like a prop stealing move with the item shenanigans going on in this set(though you will never get me that easily). On top of that, the set becomes considerably better in FFAs, with more people to throw around eggs between, and you even put in a boss mode on the character, who feels very suited to such a mode. All things considered, I wouldn't call it one of my favorites in the contest, but after Once-ler and Hook this is a very pleasant surprise. I was pretty sure I'd never compliment another set of yours again, but this has definently restored a lot of my faith in you. Here's to Discord. (B)
Hockey Man
Holy crap UserShadow set. You have no idea how glad I am to see you back, Scarmiglione was my favorite MYM8 set and I still look back on Specter with fond memories. So now you know I have high expectations of you... though not really, I know you missed 3 MYMs and are probably kind of rusty. The missing 3 MYMs part probably explains the problems with this set. It actually flows pretty well, being a set based around a hockey rink where you can send pucks ricocheting off the ledge walls, not to mention all these attacks which supplement your constant approach nicely (the Ice Shield, the stunning projectiles, the pucks you can slide around and manipulate on the ice in a very hockey-esque fashion). Back in MYM7 I'm sure this set would have been very well liked... but that's just the problem. This is MYM12, and I hate to break it to you but this playstyle you're attempting here of a character who is in constant motion on a slip n' slide track(AKA a hockey rink in this case)... yeah it's been done about 30 times in the last contest. Grounding the foe aerial game, projectiles and shields to defend themselves and assist their approach and all. I feel Hockey Man is actually one of the best attempts at the genre since he is a bit more versatile than usual and the whole style feels like a really smooth transition of hockey into Smash, but it's a bit hard to respect a set you feel you've read 10 times before. That said, if this is you shaking the snow of your joints(harr, harr) then I look forward to seeing you get serious again, and it's especially admirable when you realize you've missed 3 contests.
You definitely have a great understanding of playstyle and flow in the Junker Bot – you have a bunch of move interactions in there even, for pete’s sake, and it avoids being too textbook in the playstyle it flows into even by the ridiculously high standards we have in MYM. Grabbing people/trash-cans with the Neutral B before shooting them out and throwing stuff inside of the garbage cans to hurt people inside is very cool and contributes to some very fun to imagine brawls. Just how long have you been lurking around in MYM, man?
To give you some criticism, the set lacks a forward air, the set could do with a tad more detail (Though you do great with what you are given), and the usmash and bair feel a little too much like props on a character that doesn’t really need to have props. A random Thwomp and Bob-omb appearing doesn’t feel that natural for the Junker Bot when everything else is done so beautifully in this set. There's a bit of stuff that doesn't contribute to his very cool game as much as his other stuff in the set too like the dsmash, though how much you've done already is very admirable for a newcomer, and the inputs are all at least trying to do something creative and unique on their own.
Von Karma is the primary antagonist of the first Phoenix Wright game, having mentored Edgeworth along with having a 40 year winning streak. Von Karma obsesses over his perfect prosecution record to the point that he go to ridiculous lengths to distort facts and forge evidence – he even re-trains a pet parrot over the course of two days to not state some vital information to win his case. It is only through a large amount of dumb luck and help from multiple people that Von Karma is ever found out, considering how ridiculously elaborate he is. Of course, the stakes for this particular case were rather high, so he was more motivated than usual – he was covering up the fact that he was so obsessed with his perfect record that he was willing to murder.
At the start of the match, during the entrance animations, a murder will briefly take place at the middle of the stage. The killer remains in shadow, while the victim is a generic NPC. The murderer will shoot the victim with a single bullet in the leg to wound them so they can catch up before dicing them up with a knife. Out of shock of the playable characters entering the match, the killer will flee the match, never to be seen again. The killer is in fact so shocked they they’ll drop the two murder weapons on the ground before fleeing.
Both of these weapons can be picked up by any player. The knife is a simplistic weapon that is rather fast but very short ranged, dealing 7% and weak knockback per hit. If you hit a foe in the back with the knife, though, you’ll deal 16% and knockback that KOs at 120%. The gun shoots bullets that travel as fast as Shiek’s needles, but have a bit of lag on both ends to shoot. The bullets are quite powerful, dealing 18% and as much stun as Zamus’ dsmash. The attacks of these weapons overwrite the character’s jab and nair, rather than their jab, dash attack, and fsmash. The bullets fired from the pistol can be picked up and used as horribly weak throwing items by foes, but if picked up by Manfred he will put the bullet in his pocket laglessly. If a bullet actually hit someone, including the corpse, it will be embedded inside them, Manfred having to specifically take it out of their body.
The murder victim’s corpse can take knockback, though it’s rather heavy considering it’s as heavy as Marth at 0%. Knocking the corpse around deals as much damage as knocking a character into someone – not much. The more relevant purpose of knocking around a corpse is it causes the blood on the corpse to spread wherever the corpse goes. If Manfred grabs a corpse, he will drag it around the stage at a 2/10 dashing speed until you press a button to let go of it.
Stepping in blood and getting the blood covered corpse knocked into you are two different status effects, as one will simply cause the character to leave bloody footprints while the other will cause your character to get covered in it. Being covered in blood will wear off after 10 seconds, after which the status effect changes to simply having bloody footprints. The bloody footprints status effect can be “cured” by simply walking a platform’s worth of distance on clean ground – if there’s very limited ground left, you can simply dash dance in place. What does this “status effect” do? Nothing. It’s not slippery, nor does it send Jack the Ripper into a homicidal rampage.
One last thing that spawns at the start of the match are two other generic NPCs, who serve as witnesses. Due to the amount of variations in these generic NPCs, their weight can vary from Peach’s to Ganon’s at 0%. Considering bullets from the gun can shoot through one person and into another behind them, the witnesses don’t really shield foes from any “projectiles” Von Karma has, so foes will generally want to dispose of them as soon as possible. Witnesses will actively avoid foes who attack them so much as once, moving about randomly otherwise, while they are immune to all of Von Karma’s attacks. The witnesses have both a spot dodge and rolls to defend themselves with to a degree, though they will never jump (And they have rather bad jumps) unless forced to recover/move along with a stage.
After 30 seconds of this, the judge will appear in the background, invulnerable to all as he sits ready to pass his judgement in his seat 2 Ganons in the air. A box for the witness will also spawn, which is 1.25 Ganons tall. Any witnesses Manfred has prepared (Done via his pummel) will take the stand and testify over 10 seconds, during which they can be attacked and knocked off the stand. The witness stand is in the background and is not a stage obstruction, but the witness standing there can be attacked none the less, similar to how the statues in Castle Siege work. If interrupted, they will attempt to make their way back to the stand, having to start their testimony over from the beginning. Interrupting a testimony causes a single police officer to begin chasing after the foe, while letting a witness finish one will cause three of them to begin chasing the foe. Von Karma can potentially prepare two witnesses if he’s particularly ambitious, in which case the second will get up after the first one is done.
In addition to the previous things described in the background, there is an evidence box with a bailiff. If Von Karma places a gun or knife that the foe has picked up in the evidence box (Done by pressing up like an SSE door in front of it), two cops will begin chasing the foe. If he places a bullet that specifically went through the victim’s corpse in the box, two additional cops will chase them. If you’re wondering why Von Karma isn’t getting accused of these crimes just as easily as the foe, he wears gloves until the judge shows up, at which point he discards them.
As far as blood, grabbing a foe covered in blood will cause Manfred to automatically point out this simple and obvious fact, causing three cops to chase after the foe. Note that this will not occur if Von Karma himself is covered in blood, as he obviously would not want to draw attention to himself in this scenario. In the case of bloody footprints, Von Karma will lift up the foe’s leg to show the blood on their foot, causing a single cop to chase after the foe. If there is a trail of blood leading from the foe’s current position to the victim’s corpse, though, Von Karma will point this out, getting the full three cops as usual.
Cops have the moveset and stats of Captain Falcon with a handful of changes, and fight the foe with an AI 3 levels lower than the lowest AI enemy in the match. If there are no AIs fighting, the cops will fight as intelligently as a level 5.
Only 5/10 Dash Speed
Halved weight
No shield (Can still dodge)
Up Special does flinching hits as the cop goes up instead of having a grab hitbox
No Side or Down Specials
Neutral Special is replaced with a gun, functioning the same as the murder weapon pistol.
Grab is replaced with a hand-cuff tether grab. If grabbed, foes will be able move around normally and attack, but cannot move more than half a platform away from the cop. Double grab escape difficulty.
All of these various things summoned will vanish upon Von Karma’s death, and it will start over as he respawns, with another murder taking place as Von Karma comes back on the respawn platform. If there are multiple Von Karmas in the match, note that there won’t be extra murder victims/witnesses/judges/etc.
No method of summoning cops can be used twice on the same foe, with the exception of having multiple witnesses testify against the same foe. Summoned cops will only pursue the foe you provided evidence against to summon them specifically, and will vanish once the foe gets KO’d, at which point the method you used to summon those particular cops becomes functional on that foe again.
SPECIALS
Neutral Special – OBJECTION!
Von Karma says OBJECTION! in an uncharacteristically deep and demonic voice for the sake of being more intimidating than he already is, causing the word balloon pictured above to spawn in front of him. The balloon is as tall as Wario and as wide as Ganon is tall, and floats 1.25 Kirbies off the ground. The objection deals no stun or damage whatsoever, but serves as Manfred’s primary direct KO move, dealing knockback that KOs at 100%. This move unfortunately has severe endlag. While the starting lag is small, it does exist.
The move dealing no hitstun can actually be somewhat beneficial, as this move doubles as a counter. If Manfred is hit during the move (From the front, that is), he will say “Objection Sustained!”. All this will do is give the foe enough hitstun to cover Manfred’s ending lag, no damage or knockback, unfortunately. If the judge is already out, though, this will cause a single cop to begin chasing after the foe.
Side Special - Camera
Von Karma takes out a camera and takes a picture. This is a near lagless move that deals hitstun to the foe if they’re facing Von Karma, though no damage or knockback. The quantity of hitstun is determined based off how close the foe is to Von Karma. Right next to him, the stun is as strong as Zamus’ dsmash. The move will not stun foes if they are further than 3 platforms away from Von Karma. The fact that this only works on foes –facing- Manfred can actually flow quite nicely into using the murder weapon knife against the foe, as if you predict their camera prediction you can just backstab them instead.
As you’ve probably guessed, if you get a photo of the foe holding a murder weapon, you can press Side Special in front of the bailiff to submit the photo as evidence to the court to summon 2 cops. Getting a photo of the foe standing next to (Within a Kirby width) the corpse also works. Be aware of the fact that the photo must be a clear shot – the foe must be within a platform of you for it to count.
Up Special – Handcuffs
Manfred takes out a pair of handcuffs before swinging them in the desired direction in a laggy fashion. If on the ground, this will be straight forwards, while in the air it will be diagonally upwards. Either way, the handcuffs have a decent length of a platform. On contact with a minion (Such as a witness/corpse), item, foe, or ledge, the handcuff on the other end will lock around them, while Manfred holds onto the other end. In the case of a ledge, Manfred will use the handcuffs as a tether recovery.
If Manfred grabbed something other than a ledge, it will be tethered to him. In the case of a foe, weight and movement are both factored in to see who has more control over the movement – essentially, your weight and dashing speed stats are added together, and whoever has the higher total can pull the other foe around when they dash. If the gap is bigger, the character with the higher score can pull the other around more easily. Von Karma has 3/10 movement speed and 6.5/10 weight, so his “score” is 9.5/20 – not all that good. In the air, aerial speed obviously replaces movement speed in the equation. Von Karma has far better air speed, coming in at a solid 6/10 for a 12.5/20 total. Foes can escape from being cuffed by dealing 50 damage to the chain link connecting the handcuffs.
Manfred simply holds onto the cuff on his end rather than cuffing it to himself – by pressing Up B again with something cuffed, Manfred extends out the cuff he’s holding onto, at which point he will attempt to cuff what he’s holding onto something else – Manfred can at this point choose to cuff foes to himself if he so chooses rather than cuffing two separate objects together, though holding onto the cuff has the same effect anyway. If Manfred cuffs himself, pressing Up B again will cause him to take out the key to the handcuffs and free himself, leaving the single handcuff on the other object as useless, vanishing away in about 5 seconds.
You can cuff a foe to yourself to try to prevent them from destroying your various evidence, though having the foe constantly stuck to you and possibly being able to pull you around is rather annoying. Instead, try cuffing the foe to some evidence – they won’t be able to destroy it without killing themselves in the process! If Manfred has already summoned some cops, he can handcuff the foe to one to save the cumbersome level 5 AIs the trouble of landing their grab. Alternatively, Manfred can handcuff himself to some evidence to more easily prevent it from being knocked off-stage. The corpse is most obvious, as not only will you spread blood all around the stage, you’ll constantly have a corpse flailing around you that’ll be turning into a hitbox.
Down Special – Taser
Von Karma takes out his “stun gun” that he used on Phoenix before zapping forward with it. This has as much start-up as DK’s Side B, though thankfully no ending lag. Hitting successfully with it will deal 11% and cause foes to get stunned for 1.5x as long as Zamus’ dsmash, but also cause their bodies to go entirely limp, making them fall into prone.
The use of this stunner cannot be understated – it enables Manfred to buy time to talk to witnesses, for said witnesses to deliver their testimonies, and to potentially save the corpse from being knocked off the stage. You’ll be using this move throughout the entire match, considering the fact that once the cops arrive you can serve as support for them by stunning the foe with this move.
GRAB-GAME
Grab - Grab
Von Karma’s grab is more competent than the majority of the grabs in brawl, though that’s not saying much considering how horrible said grabs are. While not the fastest grab, it’s far from the slowest, and the important thing is this grab has actual range, something completely foreign to characters that aren’t Dedede. Note that Von Karma can grab, pummel, and dthrow witnesses and cops. Inputting any other throw will have him release them early.
Pummel - Exchange
Von Karma’s pummel has a variety of potential effects. If Karma or the foe are holding an item, he will exchange items, stealing/giving the foe an item or potentially making a trade if they’re both holding items. Note that all you have to do to incriminate foes with these weapons is make them hold the weapons, so foes will have no qualms about using them once you’ve forced it into their hands. . .Note that fresh cops count as holding a gun, and if taken will rob cops of their Neutral Special, but enabling Manfred free access to another gun identical to the murder weapon one if the foe has thrown that off-stage. If the law is acting particularly incompetent, nothing is stopping you from taking matters into your own hands. If neither Manfred or the foe are holding an item and the match is a 1v1, he shakes the foe angrily, dealing 2% to them.
Von Karma can grab witnesses, though can simply quit the grab by pressing a button other than Z rather than throwing them. Pummeling a witness will cause Karma to talk to them and give them a prop or two, convincing them to testify as he sees fit. This process takes 3 seconds total, though if this is interrupted Von Karma can pick up where he left off if this used on the same witness. If there are multiple foes, an arrow will pop over the foe’s head you want the witness to testify against, and Von Karma can scroll through which foe he desires to frame.
In a FFA scenario, you can have one foe testify against another foe. Note that they will have free control over the scrolling arrow that chooses who they’re going to testify against alongside Von Karma, though it can’t scroll over Von Karma obviously. This period generally means you and the foe must reach a conclusion on which foe you’re going to testify against, as if the foe doesn’t like who they’re testifying against they can just decide to not testify at all. In order to testify, all the foe whom Von Karma has prepped has to do is press “up” in front of the witness stand like an SSE door. They can still attack to defend themselves while on the stand, but moving off of it will cause their testimony to end.
Forward Throw – Toe Stub
Manfred lifts up his cane before stubbing the foe’s toes with it, dealing 10%. This causes foes to hop on one foot while holding their foot Manfred attacked in pain, going backwards a platform before falling over onto their backs into prone (Von Karma is too busy smirking at them to re-grab while they’re jumping back). If the character is particularly large (Larger than a Brawl character), they will skip the embarrassing animation and fall into prone immediately.
While mere blood isn’t slippery enough to trip up characters under normal circumstances, it can be awkward to deal with when hopping about on one foot. If a character hops about on blood, they will trip early and slide backwards an additional 3 platforms. This will give them the blood covered status effect (Falling into prone on blood at any time does this) if the stage they cross over is covered in blood as well. If it’s not, though, the blood on their backs will wash off onto the stage they pass, covering that in blood instead while they themselves are free of the status effect.
Back Throw – Turnabout Throw
Von Karma grabs the foe by the wrist before spinning around in place with them in tow with his arm fully extended. He will circle the foe around him 4 times like Mario’s bthrow before releasing them, causing them to get sent flying with similar knockback to said throw and 13%. This is of course Von Karma’s best KO throw, but Von Karma obviously is not nearly as physically fit as Mario, so this throw requires a significantly longer time to pull off, having a longer throw animation than any of the Brawl throws. It’s only possible to do in FFAs due to the foe being a weak hitbox that does 5% and set knockback while they’re being spun around. The point of this throw outside KOing is the long animation being useful for stalling, either for the Judge to show up or for Cops to come over.
Up Throw – Uncultured Swines
Von Karma takes off/takes out one of his gloves before slapping the foe with it across the face. This deals 10% and vertical knockback that kills at 180%, though has some fairly competent base knockback of about 2.5 battlefield platforms. This throw is largely important as a means of getting the foe into the air, as Von Karma has minimal options for doing so. Getting the foe into the air by itself is fairly meaningless unless you’re handcuffed to the foe, in which case bringing them into the air means you’ll get brought into the air along with them. From there, you can keep knocking them up to avoid letting them touch down onto the stage, the handcuffs making the foe’s knockback unusable as a means of escape from Von Karma.
Down Throw - Bribe
Manfred takes out a contract and pen with one hand and a wad of cash with the other hand. He gives the wad of cash to the target, dealing 20% to himself, before the target will sign the contract. Used on witnesses, this will cause them to be willing to testify instantly. Used on cops, this is how you can –directly- control them if their AI is getting too predictable – they will stand right alongside Von Karma like Nana, slowing their movement speed to his to stay alongside him and using whatever move/action Manfred does when he does. If they are separated from him, they will use their full 5/10 dash speed to get back to him. This lasts for 20 seconds.
Used on a foe, this will cause a small bit of text that says “A YES B NO” to appear over the foe, giving them an actual choice in whether or not they accept the bribe, with the default being rejecting it. If they refuse, Manfred backhands the foe, dealing 12% and knockback that KOs at 165%. If they accept, not only does Manfred take 20% damage, the foe will heal 20%. This throw becomes unusable until the foe breaks the terms of the contract.
Just what are those terms? Attacking Von Karma’s witnesses. If they do, Von Karma gains the ability to use this throw again to take back his money to deal 20% to the foe and heal himself of 20%. If he uses the throw after getting his money back again when the Judge exists, he will take out his contract and show it to the judge in the background saying “I’m filing a lawsuit!”, which the Judge slams his gavel to in response. This causes Manfred to take even more money from the foe, dealing 10% to them and healing himself of 10%.
Why would foes ever accept the terms of the contract? They’ll certainly be more likely to do it if the witnesses have already testified, for one, but they’ll also be more likely to do it if both you and them are at high percentages and they think they can finish you off without having to deal with any lawsuits.
STANDARDS
Neutral Attack – Fingerprint Stamper
Von Karma takes out a fingerprint stamper and jabs it forwards. By itself, this attack is pretty pathetic, dealing 4% and flinching the foe regardless of being fast. In the least, Von Karma’s arm is completely controllable during this move, enabling him to move his arm around in such ways to easily shield poke foes.
Note that if you make this move hit a foe’s hand, foot, or similar tip of some sort of limb, that this will clash with the foe’s move regardless of how strong the priority on said move is. If you manage to hit a foe’s foot/equivalent in particular, this will cause them to trip.
If you do manage to hit a foe’s hand/equivalent, you can use this to get the foe’s fingerprints on the murder weapon gun/knife without actually making them hold onto it by simply stamping the weapon. While this sounds easy, beware that foes can intentionally get in the way of this move when you try, letting themselves get hit just so you get a print of a worthless part of their body.
Getting the foe’s footprint doesn’t mean anything unless you got a –bloody- footprint, in which case you can create a trail of bloody footprints as long as you like until you hit an actual foe with this move again. If you cover enough of the entire stage in bloody footprints, it won’t really matter where the foe is so long as the corpse is on-stage when you’re trying to create a bloody footprint trail between them and the corpse.
Dashing Attack – Cane Drag
The only reason an elderly man with no supernatural powers doesn’t run as slowly as Ganon is because of his cane. Here, he decides to get even more mileage out of said cane by dragging it along the ground behind him. This deals 8 hits of 1% and flinching over the brief duration, and drags foes very slightly in the direction Von Karma’s going, though possible to DI out.
If used on prone foes, this functions as a grab hitbox, making it impossible for foes to DI out and avoid the hits. Of course, the real use of this move is against corpses, as it lets you not only carry them around but use them as a shield against foes who are attacking behind you. If Von Karma grabbed a corpse/prone foe with his cane like this, he’ll fling them forwards afterwards for knockback that KOs at 220% and deal 5% extra to them, as well as making them a hitbox to outside foes.
Forward Tilt - Headwall
Von Karma headbutts the opponent in frustration, dealing 10% and horizontal/downward knockback that KOs at 150%. The downward knockback won’t actually mean much due to foes being on the ground already (Unless you use this next to the edge) but the fact that this move deals no hitstun to foes means that as foes take their knockback and sort of slide along the stage backwards, they won’t be able to jump. Sure, foes are generally able to defend themselves as they retreat automatically without jumping, but if you’re handcuffed to the foe then you’ll be taken along for the ride, with the foe unable to do anything to change their position. They can still attack and dodge, but this can still very easily become a pseudo “chain-grab” of sorts as you hit foes with this move repeatedly and makes a very effective means of bringing foes away from various evidence that you don’t want being tampered with.
Up Tilt – Case Files
Von Karma takes out a stack of papers, looking at the one on top before throwing the whole stack above him in frustration with a hoarse grunt. The papers split up to amount to a whopping 40, each one dealing 0.5% and flinching. They cover up a space of about half a smart bomb blast above Von Karma, with some stray papers drifting a bit out of the range, taking about 5 seconds for them to drift to the ground. Using this move with papers already out will cause the amount of papers out to be subtracted from Von Karma’s new stack of papers.
This move is useful for blocking off an aerial zone temporarily, useful if both you and the papers are blocking a testifying witness or something. If the foe is already in the air, this is also a perfectly fine anti-air, at which point you can pressure them from inside the papers with Up Special and your juggling uair to push them towards the side you want them to DI towards, making it much easier to choose where they land to keep them away from evidence you don’t want being tampered or onto a pool of blood. This is far easier if the foe’s already handcuffed, of course, as you can simply walk over to the side you want them to DI out on and the foe will have no real choice in the matter, less they want to take more damage.
Down Tilt – Dust Off
Manfred turns to the camera and dusts himself off with a single sweeping motion, creating a hitbox on either side of himself with his hands that deals 5% and knockback that KOs at 200%. This is quite a fast move, serving a purpose similar to most GTFO dsmashes, but faster and weaker thanks to it being a mere tilt.
If Von Karma is covered in blood, this causes blood that deals pushback like FLUDD (AKA, very very weak) to shoot out half a platform to either side of him, dealing no damage or stun but giving them the covered in blood status effect. Aside from enhancing the GTFO, the lack of stun on the move can cause foes attempting to use laggier moves more punishable. Using this causes 3.3 seconds to be taken off Von Karma’s timer for his own blood covered status effect.
SMASHES
Forward Smash – Fili-Buster
Emulating his assault on Phoenix and Maya, Von Karma barges forwards past the foe with his shoulder, shooting forwards .7-1.25 platforms based on charge. If he buzzes past somebody in his lurch forwards, they will be dealt 17-25% and backwards completely horizontal knockback that KOs at 155-120%. The leap is useful for the sudden burst of movement it gives even if you miss with it if the foe is chained to you via handcuffs, as it can suddenly jerk foes in the other direction unexpectedly much faster than if Karma simply dashed that way. If you actually hit them with it while they are chained, the foe’s backwards knockback will end up getting you pulled along with them, at low percentages probably to the position you initiated the move from, making it a very very good way of spacing the foe about the stage. This move works wonders if mixed in when spamming the ftilt, particularly if you dragged the foe to one edge of the stage – use this to finish the job and start your trek back to the opposite side of the stage.
Now, if you use this move a second time to pass by the foe before they reach the opposite side of you or break the handcuffs, the foe will get tied up in the handcuffs, only taking half the usual knockback. While tied up in the cuffs, foes must escape at 1.5x grab difficulty. Von Karma can drag them around at this point or even cuff them to something else. Foes will be tremendously pressured after being hit by this move the first time to get to your other side in the context of handcuffs. This move becomes a good deal easier to hit with a second time if the foe was facing you when you first used it, as it means that you and the foe will have your backs to each other. While you can simply C-stick in the opposite direction, the foe will have to either predictably roll towards you (Not all backward rolls turn you around) or iniate their turning lag. This presents some obvious opportunities with the murder weapon knife.
Up Smash – Warning Shot
Von Karma takes out his personal handgun in a laggy motion and points it skywards before firing it off. The bullet travels upwards at the speed of Shiek’s needles, and deals 24-35% on contact and stun slightly worse than Zamus’ dsmash reregardless of charge. The knockback dealt by this move is purely vertical and set, ranging from Kirby’s height to Ganondorf’s. If a foe hits the ground while in hitstun from this move, they will enter into prone. This hitstun is obviously quite useful for juggling foes in the air. The bullet comes down 10 seconds later at half the speed, dealing 10% and flinching.
Note that if foes pick up the bullet on the ground and it actually hit them, they can submit the bullet as evidence and sic 3 cops against –you-. . .But that’s only if you’re using your personal handgun. If you’re using the murder weapon gun or a cop’s gun, the bullet won’t match that of your personal gun and the judge will dismiss the evidence.
If you use this behind a witness, it will startle them and cause them to run away an amount of platforms varying based off how close you used this to them. Right behind them, they’ll run 3 platforms, while 1.5 platforms away they’ll run half a platform. This is useful alone for getting them out of harm’s way, but if you’re handcuffed to the witness you can essentially use this as a way for the witness to drag you about the stage while you’re still capable of attacking. Unfortunately, if you use this 3 times in 10 seconds, the witness will crouch down to the ground holding their hands over their heads, refusing to move at all for 12 seconds as they cower. You can still make use of even this limitation, though, as this will greatly reduce their hurtbox, and since you’re probably already handcuffed to them anyway you can move them about to return the favor they provided you earlier. If the witness is on the stand, they will only respond to this move if used 3 times in 10 seconds, in which case their crouching will make them briefly invulnerable (They crouch down low enough that they’re not visible) and pause their testimony, but will cause them to continue it 5 seconds laser as if nothing happened.
If this is used when cops are on the field, this will cause them to all regroup to Von Karma’s current position, useful if they’re being too stupidly aggressive or to bring them to the foe if they’re too busy attacking MYM minions/traps/etc.
Down Smash – Cane Whirl
Von Karma kicks his cane while it’s still in his hand, causing it to spin about as he holds onto it as if he were in a Barber Shop or something. The cane deals 8 hits of 1% and flinching per second for anywhere from 3-7 seconds. This sounds like a terrible attack until you realize that Von Karma is only standing in place for the first second, and after that is free to move as his cane still spins about in his hand. The cane will spin until the duration is up, Von Karma takes hitstun, or uses another cane move. Using this move when the cane is already spinning will add half the usual amount of time to the time the cane will continue to spin, making it awkward to keep it going forever even if it is your number one priority.
This can be used as a simple defensive measure, but keep in mind foes have plenty of other objects around to attack if they for whatever reason don’t want to deal with Von Karma with this constant hitbox up. This makes the move more potent in the context of a handcuffed foe so they have little choice – his ftilt/fsmash game of pushing the foe about the stage becomes much more powerful when the cane is spinning around to punish spot-dodges.
AERIALS
Neutral Aerial – Block
Von Karma holds his cane in front of him with both hands. For as long as the prosecutor holds the A button, he’ll continue to do so, while being able to lean forwards and backwards with his cane. Releasing A causes Von Karma to jerk the cane forwards from wherever his position is, dealing a quick 6% and knockback that KOs at 190%. This move has no landing lag unless Von Karma leans back too far forwards/backwards, in which case he’ll enter prone upon hitting the ground.
Before you release A, Von Karma’s hands and arms aren’t hurtboxes, and if an attack hits his cane he’ll take no damage from it and only half the usual knockback. The main purpose of Von Karma’s leaning here is the fact that it enables him to choose what trajectory he’s going to take the knockback in significantly better. It serves as a fine generic defensive move, but with handcuffs it’s surprisingly good at juggling – get above the foe and position the cane below yourself, then drag them up with you with your upwards knockback. The fact you won’t take any hitstun from their attack means you can potentially fastfall through them to get below them afterwards during the end lag of their attack, ready to juggle them more directly, or to simply punish them with another move.
There is yet another use of this move – if a character or “minion” gets knocked towards your cane and they still have a decent amount of momentum, they will get caught by the crook of the cane, halting all their momentum and dealing 7% to them. This can be used to save witnesses and cops who the foe is going to kill, and even potentially the corpse. Using this property of the move on foes becomes relevant in 1v1s once cops are out and about – you can prevent the foe from taking the knockback of the various attacks of the cops so they’re ripe for even more punishment if you still need to damage rack them.
Forward Aerial – Snap
Manfred snaps his fingers in front of himself for a fairly quick move. Von Karma’s snapping fingers are a sweetspot on the move as powerful as Captain Falcon’s beloved Knee of Justice fair, but unfortunately the sweetspot is just as tiny and impractical to make use of. The move has the added boon of generating a Bowser sized invisible disjointed hitbox in front of Von Karma that deals no damage, but causes foes to flinch. If it interrupts a foe’s attack, it will cause a bit of extra stun, but not nearly as good as his various other stunning moves.
If used within a platform of the judge, this will cause the judge to have a look of alarm on his face briefly before he squints his eyes and looks more serious, pounding his gavel. Anybody next to the gavel will be dealt 20% and knockback that KOs at 80%. Considering the very specific position of the judge, hitting with the slam is a bit impractical, though you can draw the foe to that general area of a witness is testifying and then use your juggling game to get the foe up next to the judge.
There is more use to the judge then this rather situational KO move, as he will shout “Order! Order!” as he slams his gavel. This will cause any foes within a Smart Bomb Blast of the judge to freeze in place for half a second, as well as all cops and witnesses on the stage (Though witnesses will continue their testimonies). The “order” of the judge can be dodged, which is why it’s highly recommended to pressure foes with Manfred’s personal hitbox on this move when your primary goal is to hit with the judge’s giant disjointed hitbox. The judge will only react to this move once every 10 seconds.
Back Aerial – Cane Pull
Von Karma extends out his cane behind himself, attempting to grab somebody with the nook of the cane (This is not an actual grab hitbox) before pulling it back towards him, causing the cane to deal 9 hits of 1% and flinching as the foe gets dragged towards Von Karma. This is far more useful due to the fact it’s an aerial, as it enables you to DI away from the foe so they won’t be on top of you when the move ends, meaning this can be used to poke foes and drag them without particularly endangering yourself thanks to the long range on the cane. Foes will also typically be doing a lot of rolling behind you if they’re handcuffed to you, especially if their fingerprints are already on the murder weapon knife, so shorthopping this aerial is a decent enough response there.
If this is used on a witness or cop, Von Karma will actually grab them with the nook of the cane and drag them towards him. Having such a quick and easy influence on witnesses is useful when you’re handcuffed to somebody else, especially when they’re on the witness stand as you pull them ever so slightly out of harm’s way. Used on cops, the spacer is more invaluable than you’d think it is because it does not interrupt what the cops are doing – you can pull them out of the way of a foe’s attack while they respond with their own.
Up Aerial – Cane Spin
Von Karma hoists his cane above his head and starts spinning it around. This does 10 hits of 1% and flinching knockback over the duration of the move, as well as pushing foes towards the top of the cane in a similar manner to Dedede’s ftilt. This is a very fast and nice move for juggling foes, which is obviously more useful when handcuffed so you’ll go up into the air with them. This is also a useful move for defending witnesses testifying on the stand without getting too high into the air – aside from being a fast move to interrupt foes and block witnesses with a disjointed hitbox, this move blocks projectiles.
Down Aerial – Cane Flip
Von Karma turns to face the camera as he goes to hold his cane upside-down. He then reaches down with the cane before flipping it upwards in a broad motion. This deals 8% and vertical knockback that kills at 175%, and with the long range of the move it makes a fantastic way of scooping people up into the air. Aside from starting your juggling game, this move can be useful for more general positioning if the foe is handcuffed, as you can just fastfall to the ground as the foe gets knocked up and drag them wherever you desire if they have poor air speed.
If used on a prone foe (Or a corpse), this move will cause Manfred to flip them over like a pancake (Sadly, Mouse Man is not here to whale on the foe) as he tosses them into the air, dealing more hitstun to them than usual. If they hit the ground again before they exit hitstun, they’ll enter prone on their opposite side. This normally only works at low percentages when the foe won’t take much upward knockback, but if the foe is handcuffed (To anything, not just you) this will work regardless of said percentage.
FINAL SMASH - MURDER
This Final Smash causes the murderer from the start of Von Karma’s stock to reappear. While you still can’t make them out, the murderer looks a bit more rugged and rusted than before. . .Here, the murderer will attempt to do the same thing he does to the murder victim at the start of Von Karma’s stocks to the foe. First, he’ll shoot the victim, causing them to fall over into prone, take 30%, and a bit of stun. He’ll then stab at the foe en mass with his knife, dealing 5 hits of 5% and flinching over a second before dealing a final strike that deals 12% and knockback that KOs at 115%. Afterwards, the murderer will run off as usual, dropping his weapons behind to give Manfred more evidence to incriminate foes with. Aside from this bonus, this Final Smash is somewhat comparable to Link’s, though Manfred’s stunning moves makes it more possible to hit the foe with it.
PLAYSTYLE SUMMARY
One thing that immediately sets Von Karma apart from sets that attempt to get the foe to do certain things in order to KO are that Von Karma has many, many different methods of advancing his mechanic with several sub-mechanics in it, meaning his playstyle won’t be invalidated in nearly as many match-ups. On the other hand, none of these various “KO mechanics” actually KO the foe, instead simply helping Von Karma along to his goal by summoning cops. Von Karma will want to succeed in as many ways as he can in incriminating the foe to get as many cops out as possible, though keep in mind he can work with just a few, given his excellent ability to support the cops and the fact that Von Karma is a functional, though bad character if his mechanic is entirely ignored – even then he’d certainly be above the likes of Samus, Link, and Jigglypuff, though. Which methods for summoning cops Von Karma pursues largely varies on the match-up, and god forbid, player preference, though ideally he can attempt to use as many ways as possible.
During the 30 seconds before the judge shows up, your primary goals are to coat the stage in blood, get the foe to hold the murder weapons, and get your witnesses ready to testify. The foe’s goals on the other hand will generally be more geared towards disposing of your evidence than you, as this is much easier for them and it’s best to get it out of the way immediately, especially MYM characters. Von Karma will have to do a good deal of defending his witnesses, the corpse, and the murder weapons. It’s almost inevitable that some of them will be lost, though if Von Karma is paranoid he can take very, very extensive measures to prevent himself from losing any of these tools – handcuff one witness to yourself, hold one of the murder weapons, and handcuff the other murder weapon to the foe. The corpse and the second witness are probably the easiest remaining things to defend, with tools like the bair and uair to save them. You can also use the usmash to herd around the other witness, while using the foe’s desire to knock the corpse off-stage to help cover it in blood, and use it as a chance to get some incriminating photos of them. If the foe decides to breathe down your neck due to some kind of arbitrary desire to rushdown (Say, they’re forced to because they’re Doppelori or Venom) then you can still get them to use weapons by using the jab as a counter then using the fingerprints on a murder weapon.
Of course, if you do nothing but defend your various evidence, you’ll struggle more to incriminate the foe with it, especially if you handcuff a witness to yourself, as that means you won’t be able to handcuff the foe to yourself and pull off all sorts of shenanigans with fsmash/ftilt to slide them across the stage/juggle them with your aerials to position them as you see fit to incriminate them. Handcuffing the foe can also serve as a method to drag them about to keep your evidence from being tampered with, and it really boils down to what kind of character you’re fighting against.
Once the judge arrives, it’s very preferable if you already have some sort of evidence against the foe outside of witnesses ready to testify, as getting some cops on the job will make defending the witness during their testimony far, far easier. Blood is generally the easiest way to get cops out at this phase, and even if the corpse was knocked off the stage, if it was knocked off only shortly before the judge arrived you can potentially grab the foe and use the blood covered status effect against them by grabbing them. If you happen to still be covered in blood but not the foe, a quick dtilt is all that’s required. Of course, the corpse is likely to still be there anyway, seeing how difficult it is to knock it off-stage without Manfred getting a picture of it.
If you don’t have any cops to help you defend the witness, either by lack of evidence or the foe simply doing a good job of resisting being grabbed, get the foe in handcuffs if they aren’t already, then when the foe jumps up to attack the witness make use of both your nair and uair to defend them while simultaneously attempting to juggle the foe up to the judge (Nair can potentially simultaneously work for both these purposes) so you can use the fair to get the judge to slam his gavel down on the foe. While the 20% damage is nice and knocking them away from the witness is very nice, it’s doubtful the foe is ready to be KO’d yet – the real benefit of this is more keeping foes very paranoid of jumping up to attack the witness, constantly on their toes in fear of pressure from Von Karma. If Von Karma is in a big risktaking mood, he can attempt to jump in the way of the witness to block the foe’s attacks with an Objection.
Once witnesses have testified or are dead, there’s very little point for foes in bothering to attack your various evidence, as it’s all other done away with or been used against them. At this time, there is very little chance that they will focus anybody but you, at which point you have little to fear – Von Karma is pretty good at being defensive while the cops do most of the work, with the long range on his cane attacks being a boon. His more aggressive method of stalling by forcing foes to fight him with his handcuffs isn’t particularly necessary anymore, and he can instead opt to chain the foe to a cop – though handcuffing them to both you and a cop or two can prove to be quite hellish for the foe as they’re barely able to move at all, though they kind of deserve it if they manage to be hit by so many tether grabs in such a short time frame. In any case, Von Karma’s plenty good on the defensive here, either zoning foes with his long range cane moves or constantly keeping his dsmash up for protection. Most notably, when foes are gunning for Von Karma during this phase above all else, Objection finally shines and punishes the foe’s overly aggressive nature, functioning as not only a KO move but a counter that summons yet another cop to dogpile the foe with. If he’s somehow struggling, Manfred will typically get by fine if he simply bribes a cop to act as his bodyguard. If Von Karma feels like being more supportive instead or the foe is swarmed with a too hilariously large amount of cops to have any chance of resistance, Von Karma can just use stunning moves on the foe and save the odd cop out that the foe almost kills with nair, among other supportive moves.
MATCH-UPS
VON KARMA VS. SMOT – 62.5/37.5, VON KARMA’S FAVOR
To give some basic clarification on how Von Karma’s blood and Smot’s goop/goop in general, neither of them overwrite the other. Instead, Smot’s goop absorbs Von Karma’s blood and becomes visibly more grimy, causing it to have the (Very few) properties of both the blood and the other type of goop. The more awkward thing related to blood with Von Karma is the fact that Smot can turn the stage into a slope to cause blood to constantly slide off the stage, though if Smot makes a substitute to prevent his own goop from being washed off then Von Karma’s blood will also be saved, making it a very difficult choice for Smot. . .Or rather it would be, if Smot didn’t need various crap on the ledge to properly climb back onto it.
Smot is almost impossible to juggle, taking out a fairly large part of Von Karma’s pressure game, and while you’d think this would mean Smot would struggle to attack witnesses he can just make platforms to attack witnesses from. He’ll struggle more significantly to so much as touch a witness earlier on, though, making this a necessity for Smot. Von Karma can prepare his witnesses very easily at the start of the match, though the real difficulty for Manfred lies in what to do after that as he has to get past Smot’s Poison Gas without making much use of his air-game due to Smot’s resistance to vertical knockback. Von Karma will struggle to approach through the gas and get past Smot’s ranged attacks and minions, but it generally can be done, and once Karma handcuffs the fat lard he can pull him out from behind his gas, at which point he cannot generate more for 30 seconds. Von Karma can use his ftilt/fsmash/dsmash game to push Smot to the edge with the actual intention of KOing him very early, though this likely won’t be successful if Smot was intelligent enough to put some goop over the ledge to grab onto. Smot can potentially escape handcuffs by turning into a puddle, though Von Karma is fast enough to prevent him from doing this most of the time.
If Von Karma’s more intelligent, he will simply wait for the judge to show up, as Smot is a very reactionary character and cannot do much during the 30 seconds Von Karma gives him, leaving it very easy for Von Karma to defend his various evidence. If Smot gives up and goes to start terraforming, that’s an excellent time to go in and get his fingerprint with the jab, as it can easily clash with the very laggy Poison Jab and Smot will never catch up to you to attempt to push his fat ass into the way of your fingerprint stamper.
Things are starting to sound pretty negative for Smot, but his one saving grace is the stupid nature of the cops (Who will inevitably show up in large quantites) to attack his substitute only for them to blow up in their faces. Von Karma will have to do a lot of herding the cops around with his usmash and will inevitably have to bribe one with dthrow. With a cop synched to Von Karma and his dsmash cane spinning around (It’s not like he has a reason to use his aerials in the match-up), he’s generally able to pressure Smot to the edge and to his death a lot easier. If Von Karma is damaged at this point (Possible), making a deal with the cop may be the last little bit of damage Smot needs to finish him, though it still favors Manfred by a comfortable margin.
VON KARMA VS. DEMYX – 35/65, DEMYX’S FAVOR
Von Karma has the number one thing required to fight Demyx – a strong move that has him travel a decent distance with a hitbox on it throughout, AKA his fsmash, which can have him travel .7-1.25 platforms while destroying every single water clone in his way. Needless to say, his fsmash is going to be horribly, horribly staled by the end of the match-up.
While Von Karma isn’t that afraid of getting KO’d by the KO mechanic, he still finds the water clones increasingly annoying, particularly the two bulkier 40 HP variants, for simply getting in the way of his grab, handcuffs, and fingerprint stamper. The sheer quantity of minions that are going to be out also makes it much more difficult than usual for Von Karma to protect his witnesses, and they also tend to get in the way of his grab, making Von Karma badly want to kill them . Thankfully they can’t pick up his murder weapons, but he’ll still want to kill the water clones for the purpose of just being able to more easily incriminate the real Demyx. With them still up (And the two 40 HP ones will generally be a pretty big issue), the only real method of incriminating Demyx is via covered him in blood, which is actually exceedingly easy in this match-up – not only does the water help the blood spread (See the Smot MU), but Von Karma can grab and fthrow the water clones to help them spread the blood around, or even knock a blood covered one into Demyx to give him the status effect. Once Manfred gets cops, even if from this alone, Demyx’s advantages in numbers is turned, as the cops are much stronger than the water clones, even the 40 HP variants.
What keeps the match-up in Demyx’s favor is his alternative kill method without his mechanic of gimping his foes with his many water based FLUDD push effects. Manfred’s recovery is a tether, and he has no other methods of gaining height in the air whatsoever unless already handcuffed to somebody. Manfred will be making it a very large goal to handcuff himself to Demyx to avoid him exploiting this crippling weakness, but again, the water clones will typically block Manfred from hitting Demyx himself with the handcuffs – Demyx can play defensive if he wants to ensure he doesn’t get hit by them, making extensive use of the part of his game where he manipulates notes, something he learned in Equestria from Octavia. Demyx has to make sure that he doesn’t get handcuffed when he’s pushing Manfred further and further off-stage, but one he doesn’t have to take them that far, and some of the stupider 10 HP clones may stupidly come off-stage and prove useful by acting as meat shields for the handcuffs. While Von Karma’s threat to Demyx is also strong with the blood, it doesn’t come into play until 30 seconds in, and Demyx still does have the threat of winning via the weaker water clones being up as a looming threat in the background to keep Manfred on his toes.
VON KARMA VS. LUXORD – 55/45, VON KARMA’S FAVOR
Von Karma really has to keep the pressure on Luxord – he cannot afford to spend much time talking to his witnesses, as if Luxord is permitted too much time to himself he can get out one of his dreaded insta kill cards. The lucky thing for Von Karma is Luxord is pretty bloody easy to pressure, being so incompetent at melee combat that he makes Manfred look like Meta Knight. Luxord will mainly be attempting to run away with his dashing attack to get the set-up he needs, hiding among many useless cards. If Von Karma keeps up the pressure, Luxord will probably have to give up on getting insta death cards and instead have to opt for just mass producing his explosive cards. While this does mean the judge will show up rather quickly, that doesn’t mean much if Von Karma has no evidence ready to use. With how much Luxord is running, though, it’s typically worth it to bribe the witness and take 20% at the price of them being able to testify instantly. Luxord’s uair is quite good at knocking witnesses off the stand though even if Von Karma does this, making matters much more awkward for him. As for other methods, Luxord can “float” over blood and not get the status effect while in card form, has to be knocked out of card form to be grabbed and thus makes matters difficult for Von Karma to force a weapon into his hands. Von Karma will have to rely on his usmash to get the foe to dodge attacks and potentially even directly act as a meat shield for the witness to get them to finish testifying.
Once the cops –DO- show up in any quantity, matters become significantly more complicated for Luxord, as Luxord can’t just respond with an insta death card when Von Karma goes to set stuff up due to the cops being around to pressure Luxord in his stead. Not only this, but the cops being around to constantly pressure Luxord out of his card form means he is vulnerable to blood on the ground and being grabbed, making things landslide very quickly if the witness manages to complete their testimony. Granted, getting this far is easier said than done for Manfred. . .Or rather, it would be, if it wasn’t for the handcuffs we haven’t talked about yet. Not only can Luxord not flee remotely far when he’s handcuffed, it’s pathetically easy for Manfred to pick him out among the other cards should he go into card form. Thankfully for Luxord, It’s not particularly difficult to avoid being handcuffed when he already is trying to be very evasive anyway, making this more of a threat than anything in a rather tense match-up.
VON KARMA VS. ZEXION – 40/60, ZEXION’S FAVOR
Zexion’s duplicates make it rather difficult to tell who the real Zexion, making it difficult for Von Karma to get Zexion’s fingerprints on a murder weapon. While it’s not that difficult to spread blood about the stage, when it comes time to actually grab the real Zexion to showcase the fact that he’s covered in blood, things become more complicated once again – in the least, Manfred can easily figure out fakes by grabbing them during this time if they have any blood on them at all, even on their feet, as he won’t attempt to yammer on about it. The easiest way to get cops here is undoubtedly witnesses, and Zexion easily gives you enough time to prep them. If you mutually agree to give each other a couple of seconds to yourself, though, Manfred will struggle more to protect his witnesses – while the clones cannot do damage, they can do knockback, which is more than capable of killing them. Most notably, Zexion can even attempt to invalidate this method of incriminating him by trapping the witness inside a book. Zexion will generally only attempt this once you already have prepared a witness, though, so you can pull out Von Karma’s secret weapon early on – handcuff Zexion so you can keep track of who’s real. This isn’t that difficult to pull off, though it’s not a cakewalk, as Zexion isn’t totally incompetent at close combat. . .Once he’s handcuffed, though, he’s generally a few marks below Manfred, and he also heavily struggles to deal enough damage to break the chain.
Zexion has to go out of his way to avoid being handcuffed to make full use of all his other advantages in this match-up – one thing that becomes rather appealing to him is a nice, quick, strong projectile to stun Von Karma from afar with to give him more set-up time – AKA the murder weapon gun. This is a massive boon for Von Karma if he can get his hands on it, though the gun flows quite well into Zexion’s game and gives him a lot more breathing room against Von Karma. Once he has enough duplicates to defend himself from being handcuffed, he’ll typically attempt to dispose of the gun. It’s not that hard to just pull off a regular grab on Zexion, though, as opposed to the handcuffs, even with duplicates out and about, so it’s still certainly very possible to wrestle the gun away from him. If Von Karma wants to go high risk high reward, he’ll let Zexion use the gun to attempt to wrestle it away later, but picking up the gun for himself is also very useful for this match-up in quickly disposing of the duplicates and reducing the match-up back down to where it favors him. It’s kind of a pick your poison situation with Von Karma, but he can certainly pull his way through no matter what he does, it’s just going to be a bit easier for Zexion.
VON KARMA VS. LARXENE – 45/55, LARXENE’S FAVOR
Handcuffing one of the Larxenes might seem like a good idea to desynch them, but all this really does is make it easier for them to combo you, as one will constantly be dragged along with you wherever you go. If you run away significantly from one of them once you have the other one handcuffed, then you’ll have a 1v1 against Larxene as if she never used her Down Special, as it doesn’t weaken her in any way, while there’ll be another Larxene at the other side of the stage inevitably attacking witnesses or something. This can be played to your favor later on in the match when cops are out, as if you separate them the Larxene player will find it horribly awkward to micromanage them properly as their inputs control a Larxene fighting Manfred and cops in two different scenarios. What’s worse, an AI may eventually take over for the Larxene fighting the cops, making that Larxene fight even more stupidly.
But can Manfred get far enough to summon the cops? Larxene is a rushdown character, after all. . .If they do their usual on Von Karma, they’ll be met with some moderate success, but the main thing that makes Von Karma more difficult to juggle than a Brawl character is the fact that he can very well turn it around and start juggling you instead, making heavy use of his nair to space himself about in ways Larxene won’t be used to and end combos, as well as using his dair to force Larxene to be above him instead of visa versa – being above somebody is pretty consistently a very disadvantageous place to be in this match-up. The knives embedded in the ground are more beneficial for Larxene, though, as when she calls them back she can typically put the hurt on witnesses/cops/corpses as well as Von Karma, making use of the long distances they have to travel to reach her to hit multiple enemies and leading to more feasible comboing against Von Karma. Because she doesn’t have enough knives, the murder weapon knife can actually help Larxene significantly, as the fact that there are two Larxenes means if they can surround Manfred it’ll be very easy to get in plenty of backstabs.
This can backfire on them, of course, as Manfred puts the knife into evidence, though it’s still so bloody useful that they’ll still probably use it, especially since their goal is to kill Manfred early on. The other main method Manfred has of summoning cops is much more reliable in the blood, as two Larxenes moving about means there will be countless bloody footprints, and the stray knives flying every which way will cause plenty of blood from the corpse to get directly splattered about the stage. Perhaps best of all, Von Karma can grab either of the two Larxenes to sic cops on her if she is covered in blood/has bloody footprints, due to both being “real”. Due to how little point there is in handcuffing Larxene early on, Manfred can handcuff himself to the corpse to spread even more blood around. Forget about the witnesses – you’re not going to get enough time to prepare them, and you really don’t want to tack on an extra 20% to your percentage by bribing them. If they’re still alive when you get some cops out, then they might prove useful. It’s a very tense match-up for either side, though the main thing that hands it to Larxene is just the fact that Manfred’s recovery is pretty bad.
VON KARMA VS. MARLUXIA – 65/35, VON KARMA’S FAVOR
Combo characters generally prefer to attack Manfred himself over his witnesses, but Marluxia can do both with his leaf tornado pulling along witnesses along the stage and potentially all the way off it. Considering it’s generally a very poor idea to tether yourself to a combo character anyway, Von Karma’s best course of action is to handcuff himself to one of the witnesses. He’ll get the time to prepare said witness most probably, if not all at once, as Marluxia has to take a small bit of time to create projectiles to aid his approach before he comes at Manfred – they’re really the main thing that enable him to beat Von Karma thoroughly in close combat, as otherwise Von Karma can actually resist decent enough, given that Marluxia has no true melee based combos.
Due to wanting some actual space to get up these projectiles (At least after Von Karma has prepared a witness), Marluxia will typically be making some space at occasions, meaning that he will be running about the stage and spreading plenty of bloody footprints. Von Karma will want to make sure that the corpse stays on stage to summon more cops if at all possible, though since all of his attacks hit the corpse this isn’t that terribly hard, as opposed to saving a witness from the tornado. It’s not even that out of the question to grab Marluxia and force a murder weapon into his hands, though it’s not quite as easy as the other things.
So how does Marluxia deal with the inevitable cops? A lot better than he does with preventing them from showing up, and if he doesn’t bother trying to prevent their arrival outside a couple Leaf Tornados he’ll have gotten a bit of damage on Von Karma. The main thing that lets Marluxia be competent here is that his projectiles will go through cops and damage the cops behind them, as well as Von Karma himself. Unlike corpses though, cops are intelligent enough to dodge properly, so he’ll still have his work cut out for him if Von Karma comes over and starts supporting the cops with his stunners and such.
VON KARMA VS. IRON TAIL – 35/65, IRON TAIL’S FAVOR
Iron Tail’s two pets not only have massive stage control to get rid of the witnesses and the corpse, the pets can somehow pick up the two murder weapons and use them against Von Karma without even getting Iron Tail’s personal pawprints on them. If Iron Tail wants more melee defense, though, he might take the knife for himself, given how horribly incompetent he is at melee combat to the point he gets curbstomped by Von Karma if he manages to catch him/handcuff him so he can’t run off to his pets. If the judge shows up or Iron Tail is otherwise afraid of having the knife used against him, he can just stick it to the web like an egg to prevent Von Karma from stealing it and using it as evidence. While Iron Tail won’t spread about much blood due to his aerial nature and Montresor, the spider typically will do a good enough job, if the constant whirlwinds pushing about the corpse don’t do the job already. Von Karma really wants to pressure Iron Tail as badly as he can, as if he just camps on Montresor things will almost inevitably turn out poorly for the prosecutor, especially with one of the pets constantly sniping Von Karma down with the murder weapon gun.
Von Karma will struggle to a degree to get out cops for either the murder weapon knife or a bit of blood on the stage, and it will almost always be done by limiting Iron Tail’s evasive options via the handcuffs. The main thing that lets Iron Tail resist Manfred’s onslaught aside from the knife is by stealing Manfred’s cane – things get turned around significantly when Manfred loses many of his better melee moves and spacers and Iron Tail gains them, though in the least Manfred gets to keep his ftilt/fsmash/handcuffs game to push Iron Tail towards the corpse/edge or whatever. Of course, Iron Tail loses horribly when the cops show up as the spider at least won’t be able to handle the pressure and Iron Tail will cave incredibly easy to pressure if Von Karma bribes a police officer to become his bodyguard, but it’s increasingly difficult to get that far into the match-up.
VON KARMA VS. THE FLYING DUTCHMAN – 55/45, VON KARMA’S FAVOR
The Dutchman doesn’t make bloody footprints, but he can easily be covered in blood – sending the corpse at him is in general a good idea, as it can act as a meat shield for some of his ranged attacks – the projectile reflection on your uair can’t cover everything, and you might be able to snag a photo of the Dutchman next to the corpse if you’re lucky. The Dutchman is very good at knocking your witnesses off-stage with his spacers, and will in general be trying his best to camp against you – the best solution is typically handcuffing him so he can’t just push you away once you get close, as otherwise there’s almost no way you’ll be able to grab him to force a weapon into his hands and take it back.
If you get too much evidence against him, he’ll push you into the fly when the judge shows up to avoid the cops entirely. Even if you’re handcuffed to him, while he can’t camp, the Dutchman will be able to push you around the stage much more easily than visa versa. Once inside the fly, you’d think things would be over for Von Karma. . .But it surprisingly isn’t that bad for him, as his main vulnerability to being gimped is his terrible tether recovery which isn’t a factor here. The main way to gimp people off the stage here is upwards, and we’ve established time and again that Von Karma is very good at juggling people in the air – his dair was practically made for this match-up, as it puts the Dutchman into the disadvantageous position instead of him, and he can use his nair to avoid being knocked off the blast zone and instead to a more favorable location. Of course, the Dutchman is not to be underestimated in his natural element and can even attempt to gimp off a blast zone other than the top one (Though that is a bit awkward due to the stage scrolling upwards), making things a rather heated match-up inside the fly, though the thing that tilts things in Von Karma’s favor is his handcuffs. While difficult to hit with, it means that knocking Von Karma upwards will knock the Dutchman upwards, and can very easily make the Dutchman kill himself or have Von Karma turn things around on him.
And there you have it. The first match-up actually written where the Dutchman loses, and it’s only 45/55. Go figure.
ASSIST TROPHY
YANNI YOGI AND POLLY
When summoned from the assist trophy, the “crazed hobo” and the parrot will largely do nothing for 5 seconds, Polly mounted on Yogi’s shoulder as he drunkenly walks about at random at Ganon’s walking speed and Polly squawks annoyingly.
After 5 seconds, Yogi will fall asleep, standing in place, causing a snot bubble to be generated from his nose. This becomes Polly’s que to fly about and attack whoever is the enemy of the assist trophy summoner, circling foes from above before pecking at them to deal an annoying 8% and knockback that KOs at 160%. This can last for up to 30 seconds if Yogi is ignored. If he is attacked by anyone other than his summoner, though, the snot bubble will pop, dealing 17% and knockback that kills at 120% to anyone nearby. This will cause Yogi to shake his fist angrily at Polly, blaming her for waking him up, causing her to come back onto Yogi’s shoulder as he walks about for 10 more seconds – he and Polly will last for 30 seconds unless they scroll off the stage or Yogi drunkenly stumbles off it (He does not turn about at edges, and his movement is 100% random), as they’re invulnerable.
I set my ATM card's number to '0001' because I'm number one!
[collapse="Manfred Von Karma"]The first and most obvious thing that comes into mind is Inspector Lunge, whom I'm still rather fond of and realize that this is essentially take 2. The opening mechanic is surprisingly ambitious and very elaborate in how it does things, with the pay-off surprisingly abiding by the in-smash rules of Brawl with the cops instead of pulling a Lunge or Burgermeister and doing a special KO method - it gives off a somewhat anti-climatic feel when you end up relying on not so much props as cane-based melee attacks. For one the entire set-up of things certainly gives Von Karma a much less independent feel than the former and delves into his manipulative nature. Certainly not an easy set to get a grasp on with the many, many portions of the main mechanic - it's understandable that you didn't exactly specify the locations in which they appear (you probably presume we'd presume they'd appear in the middle of the stage), though it makes the set just that slightly harder to imagine.
Getting past that point however, the main appeal to the set, or at least to me, appears to be the elaborate use of the handcuffs in which you can go past their usual nature of simply setting them on foes to suicide and actually put them on your witnesses and cops, "summons" - aside from that, the set actually doesn't play around with the presented mechanics of the blood, knives and guns as much as one would expect. In that case, at worst I kind of question the idea of Von Karma actually using handcuffs and going out to murder the opponent with his super-headbutt of death and cane, paired together with the assistance of the cops the player will strive to summon in the set, but given the presented source material it seems like something he would willing do were he in the situation.
I'm probably stepping on a landmine here, but even with all the elaborate stuff presented in the playstyle section, set and what not, it seems as if Von Karma would be fairly competent as a melee character and it wouldn't really be that hard for a player to just ignore all the law stuff going on and fight the enemy head-on with those counter-moves like the Neutral Special, even with all the stuff that would've been littered on the stage from your mechanic like your knife, gun, two witnesses and the corpse. This is all before the judge arrives, which takes 30 seconds and during that time you won't have access to your precious cops. If Von Karma has gloves and takes them off by the time the judge arrives as to not get caught red-handed and can only have cops go against him if a bullet from his U-Smash is picked up (or at least from what I gathered), would it not be convenient for the prosecutor to just take the gun and shoot the enemy? On that note, I don't remember seeing any moves that interact with the bullet embedded in the enemy's body and actually use it as evidence - I might have missed something with this, so feel free to call me out on that.
This is just from what I've gathered, but Von Karma's elaborately very complicated mechanic doesn't seem to tie in with the necessities of the prosecutor all -THAT- well, so what would otherwise be the next Pennywise or Lunge in terms of gameplay can actually be played as a fairly simple tether character of sorts, though in some ways that might have been your intention were it not for the great deal of attention you give to the mechanic. It will obviously come into play at some point and there will be consequences for the actions of the players, but if foes can kill you within 30 seconds you'll have to start all over with that (he does have a pretty weak recovery despite his defensive moves). The nature and idea behind the Up Special tether is certainly a cool one with some very good execution in how it works with the other parts of the set, but the entire elaborate basis seems a little anti-climatic as I said before after going through and thus this isn't necessarily my favorite set of yours, even with the interesting juggling game - for Warlordian standards the set still has a fair amount in which it redeems itself with that example. I might have missed a thing or two though, but I'll leave it at that for now.
Also, I have totally made a huge movesetting landmark by for the first time getting one of my sets placed in a match-up of one of yours. =]
EDIT: just realized you made an edit right after posting this[/collapse]
I definitely could have made this set a much tackier one with lots of hard interactions throughout that are required to play it, but I was going for a more In-Smash approach with this moveset while still having some actual Warlordian worth - the ideal middle ground between Lunge and a moveset that's nothing but irrelevant briefcase attacks (MYM 8 Edgeworth). You could argue a comparison with the cane attacks, but they actually contribute to other parts of Manfred's game, and aren't just him opening and slamming the briefcase in X direction. There are some blander inputs in the moveset largely due to the mechanic handling itself fairly well. There seems to be less flow largely due to the varying methods of getting evidence against the foe - something I was priding myself with on with this set was how there was absolutely no flowchart. A more Lungish set would've also come across a lot tackier for Manfred's character, though with how you tend to force supernatural abilities on realistic characters, I guess you wouldn't know. I still think this set has plenty of flow regardless, just in several separate playstyle branches - everything is optional, and I'm doing a set that generates a bloody court trial. The Insta KOs of Lunge and Burgermeister were something I particularly wanted to avoid, as it'd probably build up to Manfred having to get all the types of evidence to generate it, or at least a good chunk of them. I didn't want to doom Von Karma in certain match-ups.
Can he be played as a standard Brawl character without it feeling remotely awkward? Absolutely, that was a large goal, and I don't see how this is particularly bad - it's still more effective to go for the cops. Perhaps he's a bit stronger as a Brawl character than the likes of Link, Samus, and Jiggs, and I agree he shouldn't be that good to put more focus on collecting and defending evidence, but I still don't feel he's that good played totally straight if only due to his recovery, and even if he's a bit too strong for my liking which I don't believe he is his power could be very easily number crunched down. The mechanic is very good at getting out of the way for casuals, while not being all that complicated to figure out after you've brawled with him a few times.
As far as the "interaction" with bullets embedded in the foe's body, you take them out and present them as evidence. Simple as that. In any case, the moveset you're looking for is Lunge, I already made that. The general public has grown to dislike his obscene complexity and tackiness, and it's even aged for me, though I still appreciate it for what it is.
The bob-omb was done in a rush to get the move set out...it does seem a bit awkward considering that there is already a bob-omb item in brawl. I've changed it...thank you for commenting Junker Bot and thank you for pointing out the missing forward aerial!
Warrior of many faces:
I think it's not really a problem that the cans can only get foes above them...The Junker Bot has a lot of methods of getting foes into the air already. Enough to get foes into the cans with no problem. as for the issue of it being short...i conciously made this set so i could get out some good play style without adding filler or making it overly long. i consider it an experiment...the next set i make should be a bit longer.
Masterwarlord:
This seems like a lot of praise coming from you considering what I've seen of your comments...they tend to be harsh at times. i agree that including the bob-omb was a stupid idea, but i will defend the thwomp considering the summoning method was taken directly from the boss fight. i already covered the detail issue with warrior...i actually feel like the down smash does a bit for his game. it gives him a direct killer that doesn't involve him grabbing
First MYM12 Geto set in Weird Rider, a fun set, simple at its core and largely works fine too. The protective bubble shield and its adaptability in multiple modes of play is strangely unique in Make Your Move in terms of defensive play, or just how immediate its potential becomes in the right environment. You do an okay job of playing off the shield, mostly going for a rushdown or combo feel that seems appropriate for the character and surprisingly grounded. It's a noticeable improvement in your sets that it's that self-aware and this is very much why I feel the filler is comprised of some interesting options, rather than either being absent or too wacky like in your older sets. Apparently, not too interesting, as it entirely focuses on the projectiles bouncing off of the shield, setting up for combos off the shield and creating bullet hell lite bubbles within the shield. That it plays directly into the core of the moveset, though, makes it palatable, and means it amounts to more than the sum of its parts.
Saku and Hima are just another good quality set from you, Kat, I'm almost tired of giving you positive comments – almost. This set works primarily as a tag team set, but also an anime set and doesn't have quite as many oblique over-creativity problems like something such as Yutaka had, the closest it comes to that being the random anime lightning strike. The constant use of each other as battering rams and constantly destroying each other's dignity, as well as the foe's at time, is enjoyable and fitting for the characters, and never comes across as irrelevant to the playstyle or breaking other movesets' inner logic either. As usual with your work, it has a certain charm to it, as it keeps chiselling away at the unique aspects of the pair until the set feels spot-on in-character.
Largely, the set plays it straight, which does right by the complex system of interchangeable rivalry between Saku and Hima. It's brave of you to go as direct a route as you did, as the set does have some big faults that are the result of this kind of concept being constantly pushed up against the confides of Brawl. But you are largely able to keep things under control. You still implement the odd bad mechanic like in the down smash and also the up throw which are the two big examples of messing with the KO system, which effectively does what intended, while at the same time feeling a bit unnecessary. The way they work is imaginative and fun, I merely dislike how their buffs are executed. In the least, these weak points are absorbed well into the rest of the set. Through a stack of really well thought-out moves and creative concepts, this moveset excels in creating an on-off tag team, even if it is sketchy competitively. At its worst it's only perfunctorily in-smash, and with that I'm content.
Oogie Boogie is very clever and takes advantage of the character's body shape in surprisingly innovative ways, even going so far as having a Swalot-like inhale at his biggest, but at the other extreme, being broken down into many tiny hurtboxes that have to merely stay alive. This is combined competently with the many ways to change the way his unresponsive bugs move, while not detracting from the main playstyle at all. The way the traps work are great for the most part – even the random gate smash is redeemed by the roulette board in a very Katian manner, and the implied combination of the soldier minions with the board is indeed a really good, in-character combo. You also managed to fit in the hook, the soup [which was really great] and even the spinning Santa move while making them relevant, with limited tackiness in all.
By far the best part is when you are still in control of Oogie Boogie when he is breaking apart, setting yourself up for a desperate escape without it feeling a contrived for-character mechanic... though the latter of which leads to my big problem with the set, that it feels rushed when the main focus is eventually pretty irrelevant. The die and how it affects the match aren't too important, or evocative, on this extremely bombastic villain. Personally, I feel it would've been better on the neutral special, getting rid of the minions (they clutter the set up a bit) and giving the die a completely different purpose. This would also allow the set to focus more on a playstyle that isn't reliant on uncontrollable butt monkeys eventually putting him back together. It'd be risky compared to what's there now, but that is Oogie Boogie through-and-through. It's certainly a really good one-day moveset, though, and a welcome character choice from you; it's easy to tell you had fun making the set.
Junker Bot shows off your core talent and I am anxious to see you attempt another set, Lucidthought. You have good ideas here – using the minions as a running grab hitbox and then forcing the foe up into the air, with plenty of variation on that one defining strategy. Not to mention that Junker Bot himself has plenty of ways to screw up the opponent simply by sucking them in with his neutral special then throwing them away, giving him palpable pressure, which is amazing on a first set. In fact, there's little to criticise on this set, besides the couple of times he summons stuff that seems out-of-place – the thwomp and bob-omb namely, both seem utterly random compared to all the other good stuff in here. You also have a couple of missing inputs – one thing not mentioned so far is the grab, which people usually mention in terms of animation, if only to say “yeah, it's a normal grab.” Even the few moves that do seem more filler-ish, have some relevance with the neutral special in particular. What I will advise is that you simply keep on doing what you're doing, dumping stuff like the aforementioned two moves, because I think you're on the right track.
I was mostly confused by Grox Empire, I think you need to better focus your ideas – your style is so similar to Majora's I would dare say you are him in disguise. The set's core problems are that it lacks focus, the main mechanic of “allying with the opponent” being badly-executed. Either you get them on your side, at which point you win, or you make them hate you... which requires just fighting against them normally. The problem with a mechanic like this is that it assumes too much about the opponent's own moveset and personality. Certainly, no two mechanics like this could ever mesh, and it doesn't lend much to giving Crox individuality. The other big problem is that there's a lot of redundancy. It's okay to have simple moves, as long as they all serve a separate, useful purpose, but here many of the moves are pretty much the same, and a lot of the time merely react differently with his already boring mechanic, dragging the set down. The set doesn't say anything really interesting about the Grox as a playable character, it's more representative of Spore, or of the “relationship” mechanic in that game, when really it should be about what makes the Grox interesting as a species and as a villain.
Regulus I don't recall, but that game is so nostalgic for me – glad you made a set for it, Koric, and that you're not lost to us. This set is certainly an improvement for you Koric, but I still have to insist on saying you can do far better. The potential is set up here more than in any of your other sets – bombs, bombs, bombs, and it's a little underwhelming that the rest of the set doesn't play off of them nearly enough. I think my problem with your style is that you usually go from move-to-move and distinguish them as unique in a vaccuum, but you don't relate them to the overall playstyle of the set, which means it lacks flow. Here it seems obvious – play tennis with the bombs, whether it's keep-away or kicking them right into the opponent. It's also a bit silly just how much you lock up in the neutral special – the bomb jump and gravity bombs, which could easily be on other inputs. While bland, the moves in this set work fine, they just don't particularly play into Regulus' bombs. In the least you have stuff like the dark bat, and mindgames in there [as usual with a Koric set, I may add] that lets you trick the opponent into spacing roundabout where you want them. The problem is, without that aforementioned flow, this comes off as lacking direct control for the player. Some logical interactions – just stuff like, “this does X to bombs,” would be great, though you should be aiming even beyond that and distinguishing inputs with unique tactics, thus giving versatility to the set. I must also commend you on improving your writing style, though the awkward phrasing can be jarring. Just try running it through Word Check or proof-reading it more and it should stop being a barrier to entry.
And don't bombs in Bomberman, generally blow up other bombs? RVSP.
Hockey Man is alright, its problems stemming from the prolonged absence of its author. The moveset has a well-envisioned playstyle, there's not an awful lot to it, yet that seems a striking fit on a meat head like Hockey Man. The summary's completely right – you become a wall, slowly pushing your foe back at a pace and eventually pushing them off the stage, treating them as if they are a puck. This isn't wholly unique, but what hurts it is how grounded in mechanics it feels. Most ostentatiously, the superficially long start lag is immediately fixed by the set's neutral special, and the way some of the logic works with the frozen ground can be questionable at times, inevitably so when you put this sort of effect on so many different inputs. The focus on these icy patches – which aren't established that well in the first place – seemed to conflict with the frenetic feel of the playstyle, where he's barging the foe forward. Having to create the ice doesn't really fit anywhere in his game plan – notably, his neutral special creates it wherever he goes, but that's obviously not where the opponent or Hockey Man are going to be in the immediate future. What the set tries to do to make itself more creative, does end up meaning the playstyle isn't simply sliding the foe off the stage, but it's not executed in a way that truly expands what the character can do, merely echoing itself, and not really taking the opponent or match into account. Still, overall I don't hate the set, its simplicity made it extremely clear what it was going for, which is telling of its good points. I wouldn't be this harsh if I didn't have absolute faith in your capacity to produce better sets.
Ico & Yorda is an interesting idea stretched out to the point that a newcomer couldn't be expected to pull it off super well, but you kept it together impressively all things considered. What makes a character like this so hard is that Ico only has his melee attacks and Yorda's magic isn't really used all that effectively. So in the end, you get a lot of boring close-range moves with Ico, supplemented by Yorda when she's there, but not so much changing anything as just making it stronger. Certainly, this does not interrupt the focus of the set from the start, but it doesn't work well to port over control mechanisms like this one into fighting games, due to the competitive edge. In an actual match, you'd have to imagine Ico would simply stick to Yorda at all times given she buffs him, and he can't really get her out of the way particularly fast relatively to the tempo a normal match will go. In this atmosphere, it's also hard to imagine stuff like the neutral special working without it seeming unbalanced one way or another [either he constantly protects her from damage, or not enough], and the move having to be used tactically just detracts from any other defensive option he has. Saying all this, the set still has some good ideas behind it, just not the right mindset, and I look forward to seeing where you go from here.
So, Manfred Von Karma, this is a set long in the making and one I've enjoyed working on for a while now, and went back and re-read all of it to refresh my memory on it. The playstyle here is really strong, being one of the best defined ones in recent memory – the summary helps, as do the match-ups (though I will randomly point out that Smot and Marluxia are pretty unsubstantiated as losers here, ratios probably need to go more than anything). I love the way you handle the character, without ever sacrificing the sensibilities inherent to this awesome villain, or carelessly tossing in an input that barely serves as an option. He's very versatile, but also interesting to imagine in just about any match-up, because of his duplicity, his multitude of ways to incriminate the foe and his see-sawing pressure. This is improved on by the fact he's simple enough to work alongside nearly any other character imaginable. Particularly when the match will generally end in Von Karma's favour due to the trial, it starts to turn into its own match-specific story. This kind of thing, to me, is really fun to imagine playing out in its own way each match, and that aforementioned versatility means you aren't too limited in how you influence it, while still being in-smash enough that the opponent gets to have some fun too.
That's obviously the big shocker here. This set is about as in-smash as it could possibly be with the mechanic. You don't try to strike a perfect unison of melee moves and trial-centric incrimination, but even separate, these playstyles are open-ended enough that they regularly converge. This is probably thanks to all the interactions with cops, witnesses, the corpse and that awesome forward air interacting with the judge, all the while being meticulous about how this affects both sides of Von Karma so that it never detracts from either. The handcuffs being such a large part of the set is a bit strange at first, but it does make some sense considering how prosecutors work in the series, and, like with other parts of the set, strikes a certain kind of goofy at times that seems befitting of Von Karma and other Phoenix Wright characters. That part is probably unintentional, yet the other aspects of his characterisation aren't: I greatly appreciate the obsessive nature of the set, the violent tendencies, lashing out and so on. At its core, it's an extremely deep set, which through trial – and error- is able to build on the initial building blocks without ever losing sight of that initial spark.
Some of you have probably noticed that I have not been in the chat lately. My computer has been going through hell the past week or so and I need to send it in to have the whole OS reinstalled. Great way to start the summer, yes? My only connection to the Internet is through an iPad and it doesn't support flash.
If you guys need to reach me, feel free to shoot me a message on Facebook or PSN, or here of course! I'm just letting y'all know that I'm still alive!
Hey there. My name’s Teru. Teru Mikami. You probably know me as the guy who loves to DELETE! things, like people. That was the old me, but I’m not the same man today. Recently, I started working for a guy named Tom Nook at his little store, Nook’s Cranny. Now I’m all about DELETE!ing high prices to get you the best deal on new furniture and clothes. Oh, and of course, that means I’m not longer wearing that stylish get-up you see above. These days, I wear one of these wacky shirts:
But hey, you know, that’s what being an average joe is all about, I guess. I’m just trying to get by, making whatever money I can working for Mr. Nook. He works me till I’m blue in the face some days, but I don’t mind; the pay’s at least decent--hey, you! What are you doing?! You didn’t pay for all that!
Heh, sorry, man. I’m a little short on cash right now. I’m trying to curb a stripping habit, so I’m gonna need all these. I’ll come back and pay you for ‘em when I’ve got the money (not like that’ll ever happen, with the way our team’s jobs always manage to turn out...) Anyway, later!
Oh, no you don’t!
Event Match: DELETE! the Thief
Play As: Teru Mikami (Work Uniform) Play Against: Gray Fullbuster (Heavily-clothed) Match Type: Timed Stock (1 stock, 5 minutes) Stage: Smashville Objective: Use your grab to capture Gray.
The objective here is simple, using Mikami’s grab to handcuff Gray, but it can’t be done quite so easily. All those extra layers Gray’s wearing will protect him from Mikami’s attacks, so you’ll have to DELETE! all the stolen clothes before the grab will work. Gray’s wearing exactly 20 extra layers, and each of Mikami’s DELETE! attacks that connects will delete a layer of clothing rather than one of Gray’s moves. With 16-20 layers, Gray also has constant superarmor, while from 6-15 layers he takes reduced knockback from attacks. That’s not such a bad thing, though, since KOing Gray will result in you losing the match. After all the layers are DELETE!d, Mikami’s grab can capture Gray and you’ll win the match. However, for every minute that passes, Tom Nook will bring out an additional stack of five shirts at a random location. If Mikami can get to them first and use a DELETE! move, they’ll all disappear, but if Gray gets to them first, he’ll laglessly put them on, requiring another five DELETE! moves on him to get rid of them.
Goku Ginyu is heavier, but slower than Vegeta statistically
Goku Ginyu's final smash summons the Ginyu Force
SALZA
Clone of Captain Ginyu
Ginyu's Body Switch is replaced by Salza Blade
Galactic Dynamite is now Scatter Fingerbeam, which basically amounts to more control over each shot and them being explosive
Salza is lighter than Ginyu, but faster statistically
Salza's final smash summons his crew
Event: Grudge Match? Player: Goku Ginyu Opponent(s): Salza Stage:Wartime Namek Timed?: Yes Description: "Help Ginyu to fool his old rival, Salza, or he'll be frog spawn!"
Goku Ginyu apparently got the one-up on Goku without his friends noticing, as he's now back at a Namekian settlement, perhaps goading the group - that being Gohan, Krillin, Bulma and some generic Namekian survivors - all together so that he can kill them off. Interrupting whatever is going on, Salza appears overhead, his scouter beeping audibly. "Vot iz zees? Zat is Ginyu! I vood know zat reading anywhere!"
The aim of the event match is a game of Traffic Lights. Salza will periodically search this medium-sized stage's different parts for you, while you, and the rest of your new friends have to hide. He will stand in place for a few seconds before moving on, scowering the level. The AI for your new friends is smart enough to hide when Salza is near enough that they would see him, but the rest of the group will engage if Salza attacks Bulma or Gohan. Not Krillin. This is a timed event, in that if you are able to survive this, you summon the Ginyu Force to help you in the ensuing bout, whilst the opposite true if spotted, as Salza summons his own thugs who act as fodder for him more than anything else. The most easy route to take is goading Bulma or Gohan into getting hit, then running up and hitting Salza while he's distracted with your strongest long-ranged attacks.
Once Salza inevitably engages you in battle, the match begins, blastzones being on the top and sides. At this point, you can actually start using Body Switch the way it's intended, to force another member of your party to fight Salza. As you'd expect, Salza is onto Ginyu here - if you try an obvious switch, he will simply start attacking the new body, which are far weaker than Goku's. Fortunately, you have Krillin on your side in this fight... at least, on the sidelines. By taunting in the nearby vicinity of Krillin, you OOCishly command him to use Solar Flare. If successful - and this is far harder if Salza summoned his crew, of course - the time when Salza is stunned allows you to switch bodies without him noticing. The new body user will have an AI level of 1, 3 and 4 for Bulma, Gohan and Krillin respectively. Of course this is eventually leading to you Body Switching with Salza while you're Bulma, who has no moveset except running away and crying, letting you get the victory in heroic fashion.
My fellow Nobodies. It has come to our attention that there are many worlds out there that are completely enveloped in water, and the Organization has no means to collect Hearts from them. Therefore, we are all going to engage in a compulsory Organization activity and sign up for a competition at a beach.
Why do WE have to waste our precious time in some stupid competition? Don't we have Nobody Submarines or something?
Do not question the Superior's decisions. And no, we don't have Nobody Submarines in the Organization.
Indeed, we have found ourselves lacking in but a single department necessary to traverse the Worlds, but no more. Once we triumph over this challenge, we will have one less obstacle standing between us and the completion of Kingdom Hearts.
We as an Organization don't usually go out in public, but we're making an exception this time since you'll all be wearing swimsuits in order to participate and blend in with the crowd. The Superior and I are no exceptions to this.
The whole thing may seem pointless, but I have special suits prepared for you all which'll gather data on our actions that I can use in the future.
Our opponents for the contest will be of particular interest, and would possibly make good candidates for the Organization with their Heartless and Nobodies. The location was recommended by Demyx of all people.
Doesn't hurt to go wandering the worlds now does it?
Would you be so kind as to inform us of the rules in question?
We will be engaging in a number of water-based activities of which you can familiarize yourself with once we get there.
And so, the members of Organization XIII got changed, somewhat reluctantly, and headed out through a corridor...
Whoa...it's pretty.
Ain't it Roxas?
We did not come here for viewing pleasures. Take a good look at your opponents, for they stand before us in the distance...
[COLLAPSE="Looks into the distance..."][COLLAPSE="Looks a little further into the distance"]
[COLLAPSE="Looks towards the ocean"]
[/COLLAPSE][COLLAPSE="Looks towards the beach"]
[/COLLAPSE]
[/COLLAPSE][/COLLAPSE]
What gives? They're only small girls.
Indeed, but our thorough research on the worlds has indicated that they're starting to become a serious threat on their own. If we can turn the likes of them into Heartless, we can use their Nobodies to trick others like them and gather up many more Hearts and thus members for the Organization. Us being here serves two purposes.
Shouldn't we keep the Organization with only men?
Hello? I'M a girl! Besides, we could sure do with some more diligent members unlike a certain no-one we all know.
Making their hearts succumb to darkness shouldn't be too difficult, providing we beat them.
The Dusks performing espionage have informed us that those two groups came together separately. The ones out at sea were originally going to come in a group of 10 but 7 of them couldn't make it due to outside circumstances. They have four on their group, while the girls on the beach have 3. These two groups met with each other prior to our arrival so they could gather enough girls to form a group of 10 for the competition. Which is where we come in...
Uhhh, why you're looking at us guys like that?
Roxas. Axel. Demyx. Go to those girls on the beach and offer to join up with them for the competition.
Huh?
Each team requires 10 people, and you 3 were ranked the lowest on Warlord's Rankings so we've decided to kick you off.
But we're Nobodies...and besides, how do we converse with GIRLS?
Our intel has told us that none of those girls have men in their lives. That's where you fill the gap for them.
Thus, the 3 "losers" of Organization XIII were forced to walk along the beach towards the anime girls while the other 10 members went to register for the competition.
Those guys are gonna regret kicking me off the team! Did they forget that water's MY specialty, and that we're playing in water!?
Those girls look like they're having fun...must be nice to have a heart.
Probably. But we'll know once the Superior completes Kingdom Hearts, right?
I suppose.
Guys, I propose we talk with the 4 girls playing in the water. There's a black-haired one on the beach who has a stare that looks as if it could kill.
Guess we'll have to be swimming out there...
Meanwhile, back at the Organization, who were standing watching their 3 cohorts blend in with the 7 girls.
To think that even without Hearts, we Nobodies are still capable of pretending to be whole. And they don't suspect a thing.
That trait will be useful for increasing our ranks.
Destroying the "enemy" from within. An interesting recruitment plan.
Revealing the true nature of our Nobody cohorts siding with those girls for the competition shall surely break their fragile hearts, if at least damage them for our use.
And that'll make this otherwise boring trip all the worthwhile...
Match 1 - BaseBrawl
I've confirmed our other seven opponents for this competition: Konata Izumi, Ayano Minegishi, Yukari Takara and Yutaka Kobayakawa, Homura Akemi, Sayaka Miki and Kyoko Sakura. The last three of them are what appear to be called "Magical Girls" whom can produce powerful Heartless and Nobodies upon feeling true despair. The other four are somewhat unnecessary, but could prove useful to our Organization if we break their hearts, since they seem to be looking for good male company. Minus the pink-haired one.
We're playing a game known in many worlds as "baseball". It's usually played in a stadium on land, but a lighter variation is being played on the beach here for added thrills. Each side chooses 5 members from their team to participate, and one is chosen to go out among the sand dunes to pitch while the other stands on the beach and bats. Our team is supposed to be pitching for this game. One of us throws the ball towards the opposition holding the bat, who tries to send it flying as far as possible. If they fail to hit it 3 times the next batter comes up, but if they succeed they have to drop the bat and run past the 5 of us to retrieve the ball and get it back to their post.
All and all we just have to stop them from getting the ball back?
Exactly. The further they send the ball flying the further they'll have to travel to reach it, but if they don't send it flying far enough they risk it coming into one of ours hands. I should also mention there's a 2-minute timer to each round, and if the batter isn't able to retrieve their ball in time they'll lose. The match is decided by a best out of 5.
You simply have to pick 5 out of the 10 Organization XIII members to play in this match. The computer will pick 5 out of 10 of your foes to line up at the right-hand side of the screen with a home-run bat where one character is on the screen at a time. The first character you picked stands 4 SBBs away from the batter and has to throw a baseball at them with similar properties to a item capsule, except you pres A to throw it and can charge for up to one second to increase the speed and distance. The foe swings the home-run bat with A and can charge their swing, even angle it, which they must do with good timing. Because you're facing a CPU however they will almost never fail to hit the ball, which will be sent out around an area similar to Home-Run Contest but not nearly as far, with your other 4 allies being 12 SBBs away from you. If one manages to catch the ball it'll be shown but if it lands near one they'll attempt to dash towards it and capture it - it is for this reason you should pick a fast member to stand at the back so you have the ball in your possession.
Rather than have all 5 characters out at once, you have to deal with your CPU opponent in "tiers". Each tier is 10 SBBs wide in which is composed of two 1.5 SBB wide sand dunes which are safe to stand on, along with there being water that slows down any character who's forced to trudge through it aside from Demyx. The CPU only needs to KO or move past you to reach the next tier, which will change the stage and put you in control of the character next in line. If the CPU character is ever KO'ed they'll simply respawn with no damage done on that tier and with an even better AI via determination, to which the only way to actually stop them is to stall them for 2 minutes and keep damages minimal. If there's another member at the tier next to the one holding the ball when the CPU tries to enter that tier, that member will attempt to toss the ball towards that other member, which will have the CPU be forced to change tier. Yes, this seems like a way in which you could forever stall your opponent and win, but as a rule your character must hold the ball for 5 seconds in which they lose access to their grab-game, and they have the ball knocked out of them more easily when they've just recently caught it.
What also makes this Match more challenging that it seems is that the AI will actually choose characters who would benefit or help win. It has a large tendency to pick Homura for her time-stopping and traps which allow her to easily travel past the members and pick the ball from their hands with no problem, Sayaka for being able to summon swords for her allies to use (mostly Lucky Star characters with virtually no melee game like Ayano and Yutaka), Ayano for being able to very easily kill off the Organization members if they so dare to hit her Rirattanu into the water and also forces them to hold it instead of the baseball (thankfully she cannot access another tier until she's calmed down so she can't just kill all the members at once), Konata for actually being probably the fastest character and having a great projectile despite being rather generic and of course Demyx for has water clones which can distract the Organization members while he moves past them, but the timer is increased to 30 seconds instead of 12 to prevent it from being too broken. The AI may also choose Yukari over Konata or Sayaka sometimes due to she being able to summon traps or easily catch the ball with her vacuum or use her B-throw on a member with the ball to summon more balls to take back. If all Organization members are KO'ed there'll be no stopping the opposition from taking the ball back, but when the next round starts they'll all have respawned and the next in-line will become the pitcher. If any character from either is KO'ed 3 times during the match they'll be "injured" and you'll have to replace them with a member you did not use for the match - if you somehow go through all your stand-bys without anyone to stand-in for an injured character the first character to be injured will be available for you to use again.
The event in which occurs after you win the Event Match is solely for your imagination to decide...do the girls fall to despair and join the Organization? Or do the members of the Organization fail to break through to them and realize they have more they need to know about certain kinds of hearts?
Also, if you complete the Event Match once you get to play as the anime girls instead and see their story. Both the Lucky Star and Puella Magi Madoka Magica characters decided to go on vacation and compete in the competition at the same time - the former group would have had enough people to participate upon Konata's insistence but 7 of the girls who would have come were unable to. Likewise, Madoka and Mami could not make it in time to come to the beach, but even so they would have had to get some random magical girls off the street or classmates to help them. In that case they randomly decided to go join up whoever was available.
You also totally get Basebrawl as a game mode for winning, along with altys for your characters involved in the match.
major reason is because 2 the next 3 sets I had planned...were done.in this topic. as a MYmini and a set(that's in the title.) so I had to come up with something new, and I stillhave one backup, but i'm saving that for lucky 13.
as for this one: the hint is that they create that stuff that's course, rough and gets everywhere.
This variation of the named historical figure comes from Hidan no Aria (Aria the Scarlet Ammo), a Japanese light novel/anime/manga franchise about a police/mercenary school of sorts in which the protagonists attend. Jeanne herself is neither a main character nor protagonist, but rather an antagonist who used the alias "Durandal" in order to lure one of the main protagonists with supernatural abilities into joining the criminal organization she works for, I.U, the main antagonists of the series. She doesn't hesitate in revealing her supernatural power of ice manipulation, nor that she is in fact the 30th descendant of the original Jeanne D'Arc whom had a double burn at the stake in her place...yeah, the series quickly deviates from its otherwise interesting base fairly quickly and turns itself into a crazy story about descendants of historical figures both real and fictional like Sherlock Holmes and Arsene Lupin (in which is essentially a cliche in the world of Japanese anime) fighting it out with supernatural abilities in which they have for no elaborated reason. Under a cool and serious personality (that picture was taken from an eye-catcher and is the only good one I could find), Jeanne made use of the area around her by attempting to drown the protagonists and disguised herself as one of them in which seemed to be a shape-shifting power of sorts, along with an icy breath and of course the Legendary Sword Durandal which is said to cut through steel. Despite having these cool powers however, she was defeated in a 3v1 battle in which her sword was destroyed, to which she was arrested and ultimately forced to go to the same school as the protagonists as part of her plea bargain - she admitted to being the weakest in her organization. With no real reason to go against those who defeated her, Jeanne's role is reduced to that of giving the generic lead male advice in fighting the next antagonist and tells him some important story-wise information; she maintains her ability to control ice and is seen playing the piano, putting on a pair of glasses and doing a really bad drawing. This set displays Jeanne at her prime however, she wielding her sword Durandal seen next to her in the picture.
Fairly tall for a teenage girl, Jeanne has pretty good movement speed and is nimble like Meta Knight, but her amour weighs her down to fall like Wolf despite being on the light side. She possesses a wall-cling and wall jump similar to Shiek's, but furthermore is actually able to run up walls for up to 5 seconds if she dashes into them from the ground. And because ice is her natural affinity, Jeanne does not trip over ice and is able to break out of being frozen anytime she likes by performing any action that doesn't involve shielding - bad for those who rely on it to KO.
☨Specials☨
[[[Down Special ~ Cold Disguise
Jeanne never showed just how she was able to take her captor's form, but her ice powers may suffice an explanation for a fighting game. An icy prison completely covers and obscures her, only to shatter moments after to reveal her form to be that of the nearest opponent - she'll copy that character's stats, shield and passive mechanics if possible, but otherwise she keeps her own HUD, damage percentage, attacks, ability to scale walls and freezing immunity (Durandal remains hidden when she's not attacking with it). The execution of the ice prison is very similar to Zelda's Transform, only the ice in which Jeanne is covered in acts as a counter and shatters upon being attacked, flying out and dealing half the damage and knockback of the attack that hit the ice as Jeanne prematurely transforms. The initial transformation can leave you open to punishment if used at the wrong time, but turning back to normal with another input is no problem as Jeanne's body quickly turns to ice, shatters and reveals her true form. Jeanne will remain in what form she's in between stocks, and if you hold B at the start of the match she will mimic the opening and form of the nearest character.
[[[Neutral Special ~ Aquatic Condemnation
Jeanne made use of water pipes and sprinklers to flood the underground area in her battle. She replicates this effect by stabbing Durandal into the ground before her, infusing it with her ice that begins melting along the way as it seeps in. Jeanne does this for as long as you hold B, and she can move along the ground whilst dragging her sword at 3/4s her normal movement speed. 3.5 seconds after you finish the attack, all areas Jeanne covered with her sword have a geyser spout from them that's 1 SBB tall plus 0.1 more for every extra 0.1 seconds spent tending to one area for a total of up to 4 seconds. This geyser of water lasts for 7-20 seconds and pushes whatever's above it to its peak, making descending to the ground below it temporarily impossible. As the water pours out from the ground it begins to flow offstage and fill it up, gradually flooding the entire stage at a rate of 1 SBB per 7 seconds of a 2 SBB geyser. The water gives every character 4 extra mid-air jumps, doubles their movement in the air but halves it when moving downwards - water does not leave the stage until Jeanne is KO'ed, though it helps that she has plenty of ways to manipulate it with her ice...which she never actually did in her fight. If a geyser would overlap with water flooding the stage it will add to its capacity right away without losing its pushing effect.
If you use this move in mid-air, Jeanne will hold Durandal before thrusting it forward and flying 2 SBBs through the air with the help of her ice to briefly solidify the ground beneath her. Foes hit by this will take 16% with downwards horizontal knockback and are frozen (KOs at 160%) as Jeanne rebounds off them in a similar manner to a footstool jump - this works as a nice recovery to surprise enemies with, but it's a little laggy on both ends without Jeanne successfully hitting despite she not entering helpless either way. If Jeanne hits a wall with her sword she'll transition straight to dashing up it and infusing it with her ice, providing you're holding the control stick forward while doing so - you can use a wall to recover or gain higher ground by doing this.
It's worth noting that if a geyser is hit by an ice attack it will freeze over based on how much of its horizontal area was hit by the attack, to which Jeanne can freeze over 2 SBBs worth of horizontal area with (the aerial version of) this move by using the provided momentum to rip through before she's carried to off to the top by them. Geysers frozen this way become permanent walls which can only be damaged by a move that deals at least 6% or decent knockback, but in doing so that struck area of the ice breaks to the point where you can carve it out in unique ways if you're clever enough or have the right kind of hitbox. Uniquely enough, the ice created stretches out into the background far enough to not collapse no matter now much is destroyed and cannot be seen through until that entire vertical/horizontal section in which was caved is destroyed all over as to balance the entire ice structure's shape. You can freeze other kinds of water with your ice attacks such as that flooding the stage from the geysers, in which doing so from this attack will create a thin ice platform across the area Jeanne traversed that floats to the surface at Ike's dashing speed- if you've filled up the entire stage this platform can be quite hellish for enemies above Jeanne as it has the potential to take them all the way to the top of the screen for a KO. Creating ice from your water will subtract it from its overall amount, along with your other moves that turn the water into ice, though it'll obviously take a while for it to run dry depending on how large the created structure was - not to mention if your ended up filling the stage with more water than necessary to fill it up you'll be able to take from that overfill of water and keep the stage at maximum capacity for a while so you can use it to gimp your foes. This also lets you control how much water is on the stage, as there are times in which having the stage partially flooded can be useful if for the ice structures floating off the water. (hint - you can lower the stage's ceiling by doing this)
And yes, if you freeze a foe underwater the ice they're in will float to the top of the surface until they break out.
[[[Up Special ~ Gray Air
Jeanne lowers Durandal before slashing it upwards, essentially a laggier version of Marth's recovery with more power, dealing 18% with great diagonally upwards knockback that KOs at 125%. Jeanne can only use this once per air trip and it doesn't create ice, though you wouldn't need to with the power behind it. This attack is a tad quicker when used on ground, a great way to surprise attack enemies trying to avoid entering a smoke cloud. It doesn't cover a lot of horizontal distance for a recovery, though you have your Neutral Special for that.
[[[Side Special ~ Smoke Grenades
Jeanne takes out a smoke grenade which she holds as an item. Once thrown the pin is pulled and acts as a combination of Snake's grenades and a smoke bomb - it will bounce off surfaces and explode within 4 seconds, creating a veil of smoke which no player can see through that lasts for 5 seconds. Using the Side Special again will make Jeanne pull the pin while she's holding the grenade, and if she uses this move while dashing she'll drop off a smoke bomb behind her - there is no limit to how many can be dropped off like this. The smoke doesn't last for all that long, but it massively helps that Jeanne can easily litter the stage with them and use their cover to transform into her enemy and potentially trick them, or even set-up geysers without them knowing.
Jeanne's shield and dodges, including the foe's of who she takes the form of, let you know where she is inside smoke and other obscuring veils randomly enough, in which she'll create frost around her that's thick enough to be of note. This also serves as somewhat of a weakness for her as trying to use these defensive tools inside a smoke cloud will let foes know where you are - they could very easily just shoot a projectile inside the cloud to point out where you are. This might work for you however, as you can lure enemies towards you and ambush them when they least expect it.
☨Standards☨
[[[Dash Attack ~ Cold Traverse
As Jeanne dashes, her frilly outfit flutters behind her, bits of diamond dust scatter out and the floor freezes over weakly for aesthetic effect (it disappears after 3 seconds). It looks quite remarkable on a whole. For her attack, Jeanne will jump into the air and hold Durandal overhead before bringing it down for a mighty blow, dealing 16% with great base knockback that KOs at 100%; a very powerful Dash Attack indeed, but telegraphed and easily punished if whiffed. The moment Jeanne slams her weapon into the ground, the area she's standing on shimmers, and with her magic she sends a quick shockwave of ice along the ground that covers 8 SBBs, 6 behind her and 2 in front. This ice stays around for 8 seconds, and freeze items within 2 SBBs, making them unusable unless players shatter the ice to set them free, though they deal 1.25X more damage but don't travel as far. The ice also obscures the item, so players who think they're getting a Pokeball might end up setting off a bomb instead. Item timers are halted while they're frozen, which is good with smoke grenades. One interesting thing about the attack itself is that since Jeanne jumps at the start of it she won't be pushed around by her ice until she lands, making it a nice way to catch foes off-guard.
You can also freeze an area where a geyser would erupt to halt such until the ice goes away or even freeze the geyser itself if it came into existence when you used this attack. Also, since the actual sword slash in itself is an ice attack using it underwater will create an ice structure shaped in the same manner as the entire area in which the attack hit, similar to a crescent - this structure deals the attack's impressive damage whilst floating to the surface before laying on its side and becoming a curved platform until it's destroyed, providing the entire stage wasn't submerged.
[[[F-tilt ~ Chilled Breath
Jeanne uses her powers to make her breath icy and freeze anything in front of her - this only reaches out as far as Ganon's grab but is not to be underestimated as it's surprisingly difficult to make out and Jeanne can keep breathing in place for up to half a second. You can use this to freeze items (smoke grenades) in front of instead of behind you (the move can be angled), although you'll also end up freezing any item you're holding. Double-tapping or simply inputting the move again after holding it out will make Jeanne freeze herself should you feel such to suffice as deception against newbies or hiding inside a smoke cloud with the foe's form - whatever the case, getting the jump on a foe always feel great. Using this move won't freeze the water strangely enough but will instead make the frost travel upwards and freeze anyone it comes into contact with.
[[[U-tilt ~ Up-kept Legend
Jeanne thrusts Durandal above her with both hands, but is intelligent enough to be aware of the dimension in which she's fighting in and that keeping it held up there will prove a hazard for foes. The initial thrust deals 11% with mostly upwards knockback that KOs at 200%, one of Jeanne's faster attacks, and will continue to deal 4% with set knockback similar to SBB spikes until you release A to bring it down. Even more attacking options are available however is you thrust the control stick to the sides, which will have Jeanne violently swing Durandal down in a similar manner to Ike's U-Smash albeit dealing the same damage as the initial thrust of the attack but letting you cover your sides if you don't mind the lag involved. You cannot hold Durandal above you from this however, but you can keep swinging him around you for protection if you hold the control stick in the opposite direction. The nature of this attack makes it particularly nasty underwater because it will send out an ice-shaped projectile in the shape of Durandal's lingering hitbox that floats up to the surface and deals the same damage to anyone hit along the way as Jeanne can keep the attack out forever as to make the sides of the ice act as a wall, but if the stage isn't completely covered in water and the ice-sword reaches a known surface it'll stay up as a wall with a lingering hitbox that deals the 4% with spike knockback - using the attack in the same place from there will prove meaningless. Swinging Durandal to your sides underwater will have the same effect and make a rising wall that hurts anybody who touches it directly, to which you could possibly make 3 walls if you were given the time.
[[[D-tilt ~ Frost Finisher
Jeanne gets down on one knee for her crouch, which she follows up by stabbing Durandal into the ground before her as if giving the finishing blow to a downed enemy. The blade is close enough to her that it won't harm anything next to her, but those beneath her are quite prone to being stabbed through platforms and take a surprisingly strong 13% with spiking that kills at 90% - holding A after the attack will make chills emanate from the area in which the sword stabbed through which deal flinching hits and keep foes away for the 2 seconds in which Jeanne can hold it in at the cost of suffering severe ending lag (were you to hold it for in for all that time). With the icy structures you can create you'll be hitting with this attack more often than you think, and can also use it to easily release your sealed geysers and freeze them with the after-chills if you like. Using this attack underwater will actually make a blade-shaped ice structure appear after the attack hits which falls downwards instead of floating upwards and shatters once it hits ground as a deadly projectile to enemies trying to reach you. The chills in which you can activate as an afterthought will solidify the area beneath Jeanne as to block it off from foes, though it's not always that convenient when it floats up to the surface and can potentially kill you, along with blocking off the area in which Durandal struck.
[[[Standard ~ Cold Presence
The area around Jeanne freezes over at a rate of 1 SBB per second, and will continue to do so on its own until it has covered 6 SBBs of ground, with or without Jeanne around. This particular ice is similar to Dash Attack and freezes items and geysers it travels over, only it also creeps up along a foe's body and freezes them if they stand in place for 3 seconds. This freezing stays in effect while the ice is traveling, and is essentially a trap; subtle enough that foes who stay in a smoke cloud carelessly will end up being frozen, though Jeanne can only spread ice this way every 8 seconds. Using this underwater causes the surrounding water to more or less be frozen into the shape of a wheel depending on the structure of the stage, a small hole where Jeanne initially spread the ice. The wheel is fully formed once the ice has finished spreading and makes its way to the top of the screen slowly; any foe caught inside the wheel must break the ice around them to be set free or risk being frozen and carried off to the top of the screen to their deaths - Jeanne of course doesn't have to worry about being frozen. The ice breaks according to the hitbox that struck it too, so the bigger the better.
If you hold A to use this as an actual jab, diamond dust will envelop Jeanne and swirl around her, spreading far enough to prevent most hitboxes from reaching. The diamond dust deals typical damage and flinching that stops foes in their path, but shrinks a lot faster than Bowser's fire breath and takes longer to recharge. A good move for catching foes off-guard in smoke, though it also reveals your location. The cool thing about this move though is that Jeanne just stands there when the diamond dust swirls around her, making it feel awesome to use.
☨Smashes☨
If Jeanne starts up a Smash Attack in the middle of being frozen there will be no visual indication as to whether she's even charging the attack. She will break out of the ice once she releases the attack.
[[[F-Smash ~ Glacial Spiker
Jeanne bends down before swinging Durandal through the ground and upwards, using a mass of her power to send icy spikes out of the ground that stretch out 1-3 SBBs forward and stand 1.2 SBBs tall. These spikes deal 20-25% and a tremendous amount of knockback that can kill anyone hit by them from 80-50%, lingering for nearly half a second before shattering. This attack has a gigantic amount of starting lag as Jeanne summons energy into her weapon (and to compensate for the huge range), but actually has almost no end lag. So much so that if Jeanne wants to take her deceit so far, she may want to run into the spikes she created while in a foe's form to make them think they were knocked away, or even as a practical method of spacing. The summoned spikes are all jagged and send characters flying in a relatively random direction, so one can't be certain where they'll be shot off to or if they were.
[[[U-Smash ~ Ice God
Jeanne drives Durandal it into the ground before her, creating an icy shockwave with her powers that covers the entire stage and freezes it into icy terrain. Via logic inconsistency, the ground, walls and ceilings connected to where you used the attack are frozen along with all your geysers, but items like your smoke bombs are spared. This isn't just another way to freeze over the stage or your geysers however as Jeanne continues to massively freeze over every section of the stage, adding on 0.1 SBBs worth of icy terrain for every 0.2 seconds spent charging the attack - once the stage has 0.5 SBBS of ice added onto it players will no longer be able to grab ledges aside from Jeanne and other ice-based characters, nor will those unfortunate norms be able to wall-cling or wall-jump. Once you fully charge the attack after 3 seconds however, Jeanne will thrust Durandal out of the ground with a mighty swing that destroys all ice terrain connected to the stage the attack was used on in a powerful burst of ice shards, inflicting a devastating 26-34% with great upwards knockback (KOs at 75-45%) to any other character touching part of the iced terrain as it shatters. Uniquely enough, this move is impossible to shield or dodge via standing on a piece of ice as it will be destroyed by the attack and the foe will be forced into the air to eat the lingering duration of the shards - the only way to avoid the attack is to jump when Jeanne performs the telegraphed animation or to be on non-icy ground when the attack hits and shield/dodge from there. If Jeanne uses this attack while standing on iced terrain she'll skip straight to the ice-shattering bit with the lag of Ike's F-Smash as a way to make use of the ice she's spread on the stage.
If you only want to use this attack for the sake of spreading ice simply don't fully charge it - you can use the ice on the stage to your advantage by caving it in for hiding purposes and give your foe incentive to destroy it so they don't get killed by the sheer power of this attack. Note that you can only add a SBB layer of ice to any area of the stage at a time so don't expect to be able to completely smother everything.
[[[D-Smash ~ Diamond Dust
Frost surrounds Jeanne as she faces the screen and holds Durandal above her somewhat ominously in which her supernatural abilities create a cyclone of frost around her. This cyclone is slightly taller and wider than she is with no charge but it reaches the top of the screen and is 2 SBBs wide with full charge, and pulls everything within the area of its size on either side towards it at Ganon's running speed - even the likes of wind and water are bent towards it such as that of your smoke and geysers, the latter of which can help pull foes in. Getting hit by the cyclone's edge deals a sharp non-flinching 7% as aerial characters are treated as if being in low gravity and move upwards at an inversion of their falling speed - being dragged up to the top of the screen will result in a Star KO for that character, but if it didn't reach that far it'll act like a geyser and keep that character afloat. The likes of items and traps can also be dragged to the top of the screen but they'll come back down once it ends. There can only be one cyclone out and it lasts for 5-15 seconds.
The cyclone might somewhat defeat the purpose of your mindgames, but it in itself is extremely invaluable and potentially allows you to create even more confusion for the foe. The cyclone will break the ice encasing items such as your smoke bombs from your attacks and trigger them at the same time with its hitbox in which the smoke will become concentrated at the area of the cyclone in which it touched and will stay there until the cyclone ends instead of the usual timer - having multiple frozen smoke bombs out will very easily let you fill a cyclone with smoke as to confuse the enemy to where they're located and attack them from there. For the cause of gimping them to the top of the screen, it massively helps if you have a geyser nearby to drag enemies into the cyclone with. With all this you can easily pursue an enemy into the air and finish them with your Up Special, and you won't have to worry about being dragged to the top of the screen easily either as you have your aerial Neutral Special to escape with. The cyclone doesn't gain any buffs underwater oddly enough, but it will make things somewhat annoying for your foe when they're dragged to the top of the screen more quickly by the water physics as you beat away at them via spamming your U-tilt or using the aerial Neutral Special to escape outside and make a platform of ice from the inside to drag enemies to the top of the screen with.
☨Aerials☨
[[[N-air ~ Cutting Blizzard
Jeanne holds Durandal slightly overhead with both hands before slashing it furiously all around her within the same duration as Yoshi's D-air whilst dealing 14% with knockback in the opposite direction from where the attack hit (hitting an enemy below you causes them to be knocked up and so on - KOs at 155%). While this attack has far more range and reliable power behind it compared to Snake's, it has a lot of start-up lag (DK's F-air) and needs to be used with good timing to make the most of Jeanne's falling speed and at the same time make sure not to land on ground too prematurely. This is one of Jeanne's few non-ice based attacks, but that's probably a good thing since the value behind a lingering attack you can use on top of your geysers without freezing them is tremendous, as is the move's ability to cut through your own ice if it's in the way such as that underwater or simply to free your frozen items. Not to mention the move is rather terrifying inside smoke atop your geysers as foes will most likely end up wandering into it and be sent flying away from the direction from where they approached you - this move is also great for approaching from the air and launching grounded enemies there for you to mess around with via geysers or underwater ice projectiles.
[[[F-air ~ Ice Cutter
Jeanne performs a simple two-handed slash that deals a quick 13% with mostly horizontal knockback (KOs at 190%) given how she needs a simple attack like this in order to be able to approach and break enough of her ice so that she can actually fit in - having only a Dash Attack and aerial Neutral Special for approaching just isn't enough. Much like the N-air, this move isn't ice element so it won't influence your water or anything. Using this move on a frozen character will knock them away and out of that state, so if you happen to freeze an enemy with your F-tilt or something feel free to batter them with this move - easier than you think with some of the crazy options you have.
[[[B-air ~ Winter Sheet
Jeanne puts those metal boots to use for once and kicks back with one foot, dealing 9% with low knockback (KOs at 350%) in exchange for being very fast to throw out like Lucario's F-air. If you continue to hold the control stick back after the attack Jeanne will freeze the air and make an icy wall at her outstretched foot that protects her from behind as she slides down at half her falling speed whilst dealing low downwards-horizontal knockback to any foe hit by the faint wall as it travels down with Jeanne as to push does down into the smoke without them ever knowing since the move deals no damage. The wall itself protects Jeanne from attacks that deal less than 15% or don't deal high knockback and is generally a real pain to get through when you have all the time to float on top of your geysers - not to mention Jeanne can actually wall-jump off the ice wall as a pseudo-recovery after the likes of a gimping attempt, though she won't get her second jumps, walls jumps and recoveries back if she's already used them and she cannot use this move again until she touches stage ground. As an ice move, it gains a rather significant buff underwater in that the wall is created as Jeanne travels down and will stay around and float towards the surface once she finishes the attack - if there's a visible surface from the stage not being completely filled with water this wall will stay out as an obstacle to foes, though you can only produce one at a time in which using this attack again underwater will yield the normal effect. This is Jeanne's only move that produces an obvious wall aside from frozen geysers in which you can run up and plant more geysers with to mess around with things, or simply gain aerial vantage over your foe.
[[[U-air ~ Frostbiter
Jeanne swings Durandal overhead in an arc that hits above her, dealing 15% with great horizontal base knockback closest to the side the foe was hit by (KOs at 165%) - being hit at the very tip will make the foe be knocked back in the direction Jeanne was facing. The attack is a bit slow and beefy, but it has great range and power in which you can use the knockback to mess around with foes via pushing them around to places they don't want to such as inside your smoke bombs or geysers, as you already have a fair few moves for juggling like the U-tilt and Up Special. This move has ice properties, so using it will underwater will create an icy projectile that doesn't so much carry foes to the top of the screen as it pesters them by knocking them into other structures or places they don't want to be.
[[[D-air ~ Icefall
Jeanne freezes the air to create a platform of ice beneath her feet 0.5-1.5 Platforms wide based on charge (0.5 sec), but it doesn't quite defy the laws of physics and starts falling with her, dealing 14% with a mostly-downwards spike (KOs at 135%) and a flinching 4% when the platform shatters into small pieces once it hits the ground. It's possible for Jeanne to attack whilst standing on the platform, but given her falling speed she won't really get much time unless you have it positioned above a geyser or on top of water to keep it afloat (using it underwater will make it float to the surface). Jeanne can jump off the ice platform and use it to recover, though she won't get her second jumps, walls jumps and recoveries back if she's already used them and she cannot use this move again until she touches stage ground. This move gives you control over whether you want to use your ground game or aerial game over water, and if you've set-up geysers across the stage to keep you and your foe afloat you could easily deceive them by using this move whilst inside smoke to make the ice platform near them and wide enough so they're treated as being on ground with you or such when they move towards you. If you use this attack underwater the platform will travel up to the surface instead of downwards, but the same restrictions apply.
☨Grab☨
Jeanne reaches out with one hand and holds the foe away from her with Durandal blocking their way, as if to cut them up at any moment. She will in fact copy the foe's grab if she's taken their form, but if it's not a grab or it's too impractical she'll transform back to grab herself (any tether grab will make her revert to normal). After the grab she'll re-take that character's form so you don't have to do so again.
[[[Pummel ~ Poison Ice
Jeanne places her hand on the foe's chest and freezes their body for rapid hits of 1%. Unlike other Pummels you don't have to mash A but rather simply hold it, and Jeanne is able to turn around if you tap the control stick in the opposite direction. Good for confusing or positioning for a throw.
[[[F-throw ~ Icy Wind
Jeanne shove the foe away before following up with a blast of chilly wind from her hand. The wind pushes foes back half of Battlefield and can be held out for up to 2 seconds to push them away at Ike's dashing speed. Afterwards, the wind dissipates into frost that prevents any character inside it from taking damage or inflicting damage onto characters with their attacks at the cost of taking a rather large 2% every 0.5 seconds in which Jeanne and other ice characters are immune to. The chill serves multiple purposes, such as spacing foes into geysers and keeping them there until they activate and/or prolonging it so enemies are forced to jump in order to reach you, and from there you can use the chill as amour as to attack your foe or find out where they are inside your smoke if they're taking damage. The inability for characters to take damage can be used to your advantage as to mind-game enemies - they may think you used your F-Smash because you're not taking damage. If you use this attack inside a cyclone it will affect everywhere inside it for multiple purposes, though characters will still take damage going inside and outside it.
[[[B-throw ~ Cold Cutter
Jeanne suddenly chills her opponent in place before executing them with a solemn slash across that inflicts 11% whilst knocking them behind her for great base mostly horizontal knockback that usually knocks them 2 SBBs away at early percentages (KOs at 135%). The chills placed on the foe beforehand are scattered along the path the foe was knocked back, falling to the ground after 2.5 or so seconds and turning to ice the moment they touch the ground that makes ice terrain for 8 seconds - if a foe happens to make contact with one they'll end up being frozen for slightly longer the next time they're frozen and will make them have to hit ice structures with two solid hits to destroy them for 15 seconds, but they will not be able to tell this. These chills generally give foes incentive to approach Jeanne through the air and be exposed to her aerial game, in which her position and the fact that she used this attack in the first place will be obvious from the chills she left behind. This attack is even scarier underwater, as the chills will instantly turn to a single slanted ice platform that rises to the surface the moment the foe's knockback has reached its apex. A valuable set-up/KO move if you don't mind being exposed to the open, but in any case you don't always have to assume you'll be grabbing inside smoke.
[[[U-throw ~ Holy Divider
Jeanne chills the area beneath her foe to knock them up into the air slightly with some hitstun. From here she'll hold Durandal raised before leaping at the victim and performing an overhead slash that deals 12% with knockback in the opposite direction (KOs at 150%) as Jeanne falls to the ground with her weapon outstretched the whole time. If you continue to hold the control stick down Jeanne will keep on charging the attack with 4.5% flinch resistance and will travel 1 SBB and deal 1.1X more damage and knockback for every 0.5 seconds charged at a max of 2 seconds. The attack becomes avoidable when the move is charged this way, though it allows Jeanne to cover quite a lot of area to the point where she'll end up jumping out of the range of her smoke as to scare enemies who've been left in the air. This move has ice properties in which have it create an ice structure shaped sort of like a hook due to the attack initially hitting behind and above Jeanne in which deals damage to foes, covering quite a lot of area if you managed to charge the attack for a good while.
[[[D-throw ~ Execute
Jeanne crouches and slashes Durandal across the ground, dealing 11% to foes with low scaling knockback on a high angle. This is a fast throw that allows Jeanne to combo into her aerials for quick damage or position foes, but gets fun to use when there's water; Jeanne's low-sweeping slash will create a platform (length) of ice ripe to lift foes off the top of the screen if they don't move away, and the tip of this platform is a static hitbox like with Jeanne's other ice structures. This throw can even be used to convert an area of a geyser into ice if you used this on top of it from a D-air ice platform.
☨Playstyle☨
Jeanne may come off as being chivalrous from her appearance, but she's perfectly willing to trap and deceive her foes to overwhelm them despite having a competent melee game. While she won't quite be able to completely fool them even if she takes their guise at the start of the match, things can get pretty confusing for them when you have the stage covered in smoke and they're suddenly knocked away out of it, or so it would seem. Those overwhelmingly powerful moves and lingering hitboxes don't help either.
Jeanne is capable of being either a set-up character or offensive character whether either situation calls, though she lacks any basic projectiles. If you have the time to, don't be afraid to set-up a geyser for as long as you feel the need to since you can make one go pretty high - the geyser itself won't save you from being knocked back unless it's frozen, which you could easily do with your F-tilt or U-Smash to screw around with the entire stage. You could even take a smoke bomb, toss it up onto the geyser and freeze it with your ice breath or Standard, whatever tickles your fancy.
Setting up is easy enough albeit with a fair amount of options, though Jeanne can also do this while on the offensive. She can set-up geysers and/or smoke bombs as she's travelling towards her foe and choose to freeze them with a Dash Attack to start an assault, or simply use her aerial Neutral Special or F-air - moves like the F-tilt can be used as well, especially since Jeanne will slide around on ice terrains but won't trip over them to which she can use to her advantage. Planting smoke bombs behind you is a great way to start a mind-game fest or discourage your foe from entering that particular area to which you can easily apply pressure to them - escaping into the smoke is also a viable option, where you can set-up more smoke bombs or geysers if your foe is too afraid to venture inside your territory. If they do decide to come however, know that you can easily trick them with their own form and use the likes of your F-Smash to trick them into thinking they've taken damage and have them needlessly jump/use their recovery to have them be revealed from the smoke. If they really do fall for this, you can use your aerial Neutral Special or other aerials to intercept them, or use your Up Special and U-tilt to pursue them out of nowhere if they were the ones knocked out of your smoke. Tricking the foe into jumping or using their recovery really only comes into play when you have the stage submerged in water however, as the falling speed of characters will be reduced and when your foe is in the air you can spam moves like your U-tilt and so on to create hitboxes and platforms to force them off the screen. Another interesting trick, albeit a rather hard one to pull off, is to transform into the foe while you're inside a smoke cloud and attempt to use the counter of the ice to knock them away and leave them rather dumbfounded at your new form when you emerge.
Jeanne doesn't necessarily have to flood the stage with water, but her moves become massively buffed with any around at all and it's really not that hard to do if the foe insists on giving you set-up time from being too afraid to approach you inside your smoke. Flooding the stage all the way to create platforms to gimp your foe with off the top of the screen seems like the best way to go at first glance, but the value of partially flooding it is not to be overlooked either. With all the ridiculous amounts of ice you'll be able to create you'll have no problem filling up the entire surface with ice structures in which you can use to lower the ceiling and ultimately gimp your foes with via using an attack that deals upwards knockback to bounce them off the ice ceiling and down to the stage's abyss.
The mindgames in which Jeanne can create are somewhat minimal in serving the main playstyle since they only really serve to utterly confuse the foe, but the act of taking the foe's form for this matter is something you can use to your advantage. Most obviously, you can use the speed of a foe faster than you are to quickly spread your geysers and smoke bombs as well as to approach at a much more frightening rate, but you can even use the speed of a slow foe to your advantage by being able to spread more smoke bombs as you move around and not move around too quickly for when you use the Dash Attack - you can add some geysers with those smoke bombs into the mix with the extra time you'll be moving around for. Copying the weight of a foe who's heavier than you is also obviously a good thing, and you can use the falling speed greater than yours to fall more quickly from knocking yourself with the F-Smash or for the N-air or use a more floaty speed to stay in the air for longer and create more projectiles when you're underwater. You can basically use almost any stat to your advantage, especially when the foe you're facing will most likely have their stats be beneficial to their playstyle.
One thing I haven't touched upon is the ice terrain in which Jeanne will end up creating with her attacks. She cannot trip over them but she'll slide over them like any other character would, which is great for blending in with other characters when you're taking their form. This also means she can actually use the sliding to her advantage for her F-tilt, F-Smash, Dash Attack, Side Special - not all her moves allow her to make use of it given they're somewhat awkward, but she can still use them. Jeanne can even use her foe's attempts to slide on the ice to her advantage: if they've become predictable you need only to use the counter of your somewhat under-elaborated transformation Down Special to use their attack against them for punishment. This is partially a reason why you'd want to stay in the form of Jeanne as using your foe's form won't give you this counter when you transform back into yourself. Performing a shield + grab combo via sliding forward from your dash is also an interesting way to do things, in which you can set things up with your F-throw or B-throw.
We've only really talked about how impersonating a foe benefits Jeanne in a 1v1, but just how does it work for her in FFAs? Well for one, she'll have more characters' stats to copy much like Kirby would copy a foe's Neutral Special, and can even go as to outright trick the other foes into thinking she's the foe she copied for as long as she doesn't use any of her attacks...think of the joy you'd feel upon the foes' surprise when you attack them with a move that the character you impersonated isn't supposed to be able to use! Because of her competent melee game and decent approaching options Jeanne works wonders when taking the form of a character who has a crappy melee game as to surprise foes with, though she has to be careful to try and stay in-character or else she'll be found out. It doesn't quite help that her foe can use an attack to reveal that she's the impostor, but then again that's why you're able to use your F-tilt or F-throw to freeze your foe inside your smoke clouds as to steal their form and use it to fool the other characters. Also note that Jeanne's HUD will always remain the same and that if she or her impersonated victim take damage she'll be found out as well. People's attention spans aren't all that super amazing in chaotic FFAs though, so foes might just end up randomly thinking you're the foe you impersonated if they fail to keep track of things in which you can confuse the hell out of them - you need to be careful that you don't mistake yourself for the foe either.
Can't forget Team Battles either. You can outright deceive your foes by transforming into one of their allies and hitting them when they least suspect it, or even transform into your ally! Jeanne works wonders with other mindgame characters, especially ones who obscure the screen as to help make it even more confusing for your enemies since Jeanne can't quite put her smoke grenades up on demand. You could easily hold B at the start of a match to automatically transform into your ally in order to confuse your foes to which moves they'd expect of you. And while it may seem rather deviant from your proper playstyle, you could try to lure one of the enemies into a smoke cloud and take their form before knocking them away so the foe won't be able to know that you used an attack. If the other character comes towards you, use this to your advantage and attack them - be sure to have your ally use the smoke cloud to their advantage as to help force an approach from them. If you want to go for this kind of deceitful playstyle, making Jeanne and her ally stick together is rather essential, though there are many other ways to make the two play.
Jeanne is a deceitful character. She has the looks of a knight, but is far from one in terms of fighting style and attack methods - she'll do whatever she can to win and try to trick her foes and can even steal their stats, but that doesn't mean she's an incompetent fighter as her sword attacks are deadly to get hit by. Don't just leave her to her own devices either, or else you'll find yourself fighting in an area she has complete control over. Jeanne's only true weaknesses is that she has no practical projectiles to use, a somewhat slow melee game and needs to set-up before she can really get going. Defeating her is quite possible, especially since she can't mimic your attacks and that's what really makes the character.
☨FinalSmash☨
[[[Frozen Flower of Orleans
Jeans gets a smug look on her face as she says "I'll show you...". She raises Durandal overhead, following up with "Frozen Flower of Orleans. Become silver ice and scatter!" as the legendary sword glows a bright blue as Jeanne slashes it downwards, converting the glow into a powerful energy projectile that travels as Mario's dashing speed and deals 48% that KOs at 25% upon contact with a foe - usually an instant kill. The attack is more telegraphed than the likes of Ike and Link's Final Smashes however due to the obligatory anime empowerment scene, which is more than made up for with the attack being powerful enough to freeze over the entire stage for the rest of your stock to use with your U-Smash the moment the projectile hits anything or travels off the screen. The air also becomes frosty and ice attacks deal 1.35X more damage/knockback along with characters being frozen for twice as long for 15 seconds.
☨BossMovset☨
Jeanne had to fight against 3 protagonists at once in which could hardly be considered a fair fight, but our icy friend has proven that she doesn't quite play fair when fighting. This boss set is mostly designed to blatantly showcase Jeanne's ability to impersonate others, which she puts to better use than in her normal set by being able to use the moveset of whoever she's impersonating by double-tapping B when transforming or double-tapping the Down Special when you've transformed into a foe to cycle through their moveset and yours. While this may seem like I'm overstepping the boundaries of Jeanne's powers, if one takes careful note they'll see that all the elemental attacks of her foes' Jeanne tries to use are in fact ice element, meaning she's using her ice powers to replicate all their attacks along with their form. To make things even more confusing for the foes however, Jeanne doesn't even have a visible HUD!
None of Jeanne's stats have changed, but she takes half damage and hitstun from all attacks thanks to her ice powers creating frost that constantly chills the area around her...providing she's in her true form and not impersonating another character. On that note, Jeanne is able to transform even if she's in the air or being attacked without suffering any hitstun. There is no longer a counter for when foes attack you when you're transforming into them, but doing so is virtually lagless. Jeanne's own attacks deal 1.2X more damage and knockback, and her Durandal attacks have a fractionally larger amount of range. Foes frozen by Jeanne are encased for 1.5X longer and will take knockback from an attack that would KO them. Jeanne has the option to freeze her foe if they're holding her by tapping A, or use her ice powers to chill that character and grab them herself with Z. She has the option to allow herself to be grabbed and thrown normally unlike other bosses as it allows the player to blend in with her foes and trick them into thinking she's being grabbed. Jeanne moves at her regular movement speed when dragging her sword across the stage with the Neutral Special. All geysers created will be at their max capacity, and they can be triggered at any time, even if Jeanne is being grabbed or attacked, by pressing B as to control when they activate. The geysers will stay out until you press B to stop them, so you can flood the stage at an alarming rate unless your foes have an ice attack they can use to freeze your geysers. Ice floats up to the surface 1.25X more quickly than before while underwater, and are slightly bigger than before due to the increased sized of Durandal's attacks. The ice also takes foes two solid hits to destroy instead of one. The smoke from smoke bombs is 1.5X larger than usual and lasts for 8 seconds. Smashing the input allows Jeanne to throw one to the ground where she is to put up a smokescreen instantly. Up Special is now as quick as Marth's and takes Jeanne 1.2X as far, making it a much faster killing move. It can be used twice in a row in the air. Standard covers the entire stage within 3 seconds and you can stop it at anytime, and you only have to wait 4 seconds to spread more. Foes are frozen if they stay in place for 2 seconds. F-Smash now knocks Jeanne away at the same rate it does to her foe if she's impersonating them, and she won't ever be KO'ed by the knockback. The U-Smash attack no longer destroys the ice used for the attack and will always be initiated no matter how long you charged it for. Ice can still be destroyed in other ways though. D-Smash cyclone is 1.5X wider and lasts for twice as long - 15-30 seconds.
☨AlternateCostume☨
Jeanne D'Arc as a "Transfer Student" and converted protagonist! She seems more cool and serious than in her prime, and doesn't seem to mind the fact that her precious sword was destroyed...because it was reforged into a saber. She still has her awesome battle outfit, though you can use this one too if you like. Not that many would.
Characters: Spiderman (2) Vs. King Hippo (1, Spiderman alt) Vs. Gluttony (1, Spiderman alt) Vs. Manfred Von Karma (1) and J. Jonah Jameson (1) Stage: Scaffold Scuffle Description: Spidey’s been set up! Get rid of the impersonators before you’re incriminated! Unlocks: King Hippo and Gluttony alt costumes
Yes, it’s five characters. The Smash engine can handle not only 6 out at a time as seen in things like Multi Man Melee, but far, far more. You’d be surprised.
If you didn’t get the memo, King Hippo and Gluttony are (Very badly) dressed up as Spiderman. Gluttony in particular rips open his bloody costume when he brings out his stomach cannon, leaving nothing on but the mask and some shreds. If you’ve played Phoenix Wright or know anything about comic book prisons, though, you’d know how stupid fictional police are – in this match-up, any evidence that is used to incriminate King Hippo or Gluttony, whether by JJJ or Von Karma, will cause the cops to chase after you specifically. While Von Karma and JJJ can be killed, killing them will not get rid of the cops they have already summoned to attack you, and you aren’t required to kill them. Only King Hippo and Gluttony must be killed to win the event match.
While Von Karma won’t summon any cops until 30 seconds in, things become absolutely hellish once they do show up. JJJ until then will have to get very involved in the fight to incriminate people, so either you can try for an early win by blocking off JJJ and ignoring Von Karma as you directly kill the Spidermen, or you can try to let the two teletubby Spidermen duke it out (They are unallied to both each other and JJJ/Von Karma) while you try to kill off Von Karma if you don’t think you can kill them quickly enough.
Player: Kyubey Foe: Yukon Cornelius Stage: A Giant BOULDER! - it's roughly the size of Final Destination on the top, but it has no edges due to being a BOULDER! The background is quite psychedelic, almost being comparable to Giygas - but it is made up of BOULDERS! The music here? BOULDER! Canyon.
You've infuriated the Great BOULDER! Lord! For that, you shall suffer! In this Event Match, Yukon is dressed in a BOULDER! costume, though with little armholes so he can wield his pickaxe and a belt wrapped around so he can grab his knife and whatnot. All of his effects are replaced with ones related to BOULDERS!, his snow is now a giant swarm of mini BOULDERS! His pickaxe is now a BOULDER! on a stick. His gun is now a BOULDER! that shoots miniature BOULDERS!, his dogs are BOULDERS! with legs, his sled is a flattened BOULDER!, his whip is now made up of BOULDERS!, to make a long story short: everything here is BOULDERS! In this match, as you might expect, his AI has a great fondness for using the interaction with pitfall circles - you know, the one that makes BOULDERS!
Kyubey on the other hand, is much different - he is now incredibly obese, and his body is adorned in a terrible Ash Ketchum cosplay. He's quite a fat cat, wouldn't you say? Still, someone has to make a public outcry against the terrible BOULDERS! You're just the cat to do it!
In this event match, Kyubey has 2 stocks with which to engage Yukon Corneli- er, I mean, the Great BOULDER! Lord. Yukon has exactly one stock, though considering how underpowered Kyubey is, it's needed. The problem here is though, that Yukon can never be KOed by normal means. If he is KOed in this BOULDER! realm, he will respawn 5 seconds later with no questions asked.
The only way to defeat the king of BOULDERS!? is to grab him. Instead of offering them a contract...our favorite fat cat, begins to read from a list the many different reasons that he despises BOULDERS! At the end of the grab, he threatens to quit PTA if the BOULDERS! are not taken away. This causes Yukon to give up, as he removes the BOULDER! costume instead of becoming a magical girl (in actual matches, however, this becomes Kyubey forcing the foe to join PTA, which has them wear a Pikachu costume.). To celebrate winning the event match, you not only gain the costumes, you gain the PC Soda item!
This refreshing beverage will allow those who pick it up to drink it in a 4 second animation, being attacked during it will cause them to spit the soda forward in a hitbox that's a direct clone of FLUDD, not gaining the buffs. What are the buffs, then? Your movement speed is increased to Sonic's for 8 seconds, and you gain resistance to hitstun. However, after the 8 seconds are up, you suffer a sugar crash that slows you to Ganon's dash speed...still, worth it to celebrate a defeat over the BOULDERS!, right?
Play As: Karkat Vantas(Knight of Pizza outfit, 6Stock) Play Against: Pokemon Trainer(Pizza Trainer outfit, infinite Stock), Doc Scratch(Pizza Manager outfit, 0Stock)
Stage: Final Destination
Timed?: 30 minutes
Description: "HEY *SSWIPE. THIS IS MY NEIGHBORHOOD. TAKE YOUR PIZZA-FACE LOW CHEESE HARDLY A GODD*MN PIZZA SELLING SELF OUT OF HERE."
Karkat will appear in his KNIGHT OF PIZZA outfit in this match. Before ascending to Oven Tier, this change is relatively small looking, with his normal symbol on his shirt merely replaced by a SUCCULENT PEPPERONI PIZZA. However, his bleeding is replaced by releasing DELICIOUS PIZZA SAUCE, which does the exact same thing but is way tastier. Ascending to Oven Tier causes a more drastic change, as his cape becomes a mighty crust, his Knight's outfit covered in yellow and pepperoni shapes combined with his sauce-y release to truly become a ONE-MAN PIZZA. Unlike normally, you do not need to sacrifice a stock to ascend the OVEN TIERS, but instead merely eat a pizza on your QUEST PAN. The button usage is exactly the same.
Pokemon Trainer on the other hand will appear in his PIZZA TRAINER outfit, his cap signalling his allegiance to the OPEN 'TIL MIDNIGHT CREW, a notorious conglomerate of BREAD GANGSTERS led by four powerful DOUGH DONS. His firm DOUGH SQUIRTLE releases out torrents of FRESH AND READY DOUGH, pushing you away with it's UNCOOKED STATE. The deadly CHEESE IVYSAUR releases torrents of HOT CHEESY GOODNESS to melt your HEART AND YOUR SKIN instead of stupid dumb pollen, it's leaves replace by the goodness of cheesesticks for maximum taste. But by far the most important is the monstrous SAUCE CHARIZARD, whose RED-HOT SPICY TOMATO SAUCE melts right through you, breathing it right out of it's terrible mouth or leaving them to incinerate your tongue with one grand flap, not to mention the deadly sharp PEPPERONIS released from his notorious MEAT SMASH attack!
No this does not change the moveset in any way.
The goal of this match is to KO Sauce Charizard at least 3 times before the 30 minutes are up, lest the delivery not only be free, but their secret sauce cause you to lose this neighborhood's business. Score is kept both as how fast you KO 3 Charizards and how many you KO before 30 minutes end. Yes, you can KO more than three, if you want to continue playing after that: You simply cannot lose after KOing 3.
Pizza Trainer will never switch his guys out until two minutes are up, but once they are, will IMMEDIATELY do so, without much regard of where he is. If he is in the air, he will wait until he reaches the ground. This will make for potentially easy KOs, but you'll need to wait a while to get to Charizard...
Of course, you could also just KO Squirtle and Ivysaur to get to Charizard faster, but then you only have 2 minutes to take out a 0% Charizard...and of course it will start at 0%.
Complicating matters is the ever watchful eye of your employer, DOC SAUCE. His ever-watchful yet non-existant eyes will always be on your performance and at periodic times(About every minute and a half), he will come on to the stage, having evaluated your performance based on various factors. You know, dodging attacks, dealing damage, KOs and the like. Do good and he will reward you by attaching enemies, be it intentionally with his powerful CINNABUN GUN or unintentionally by simply SWEEPING THE FLOOR of this FINE ESTABLISHMENT(Doc Sauce is an excellent h-...Manager). Sometimes he may set out a bowl of DELICIOUS PIZZA BAGELS, which you can eat just like his secret taunt, except this will HEAL YOU. Normal taunting heals you only 20%, but if you go all out and do the crazy grabbing eating, you'll heal up to 60%, depending on when you get interrupted. That sort of support.
Do bad, on the other hand, and he will sternly express his disapproval, such as through repeated BROOM WHAPPINGS, firing UPON YOU, ****ing with his stage control to mess with you and GRABBING YOU TO SEND YOU INTO ANOTHER DIMENSION WHERE YOU WILL SLOWLY SUFFOCATE TO DEATH. Somehow, the UNION sees NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS.
That's really all there is to say about this mini.
For this particular event match, Nappa has been hired by Jin-Gitaxias to take care of a problem. He has a cow that needs wrangling. Nappa has in fact brought along his trusty Diglett to help him in this fight, after all the group needs something that resembles brains right? Anyway, you will be playing as Diglett in this event match, with Nappa as your ally. As a matter of fact, Nappa is in his awe-inspiring Boss Mode for this match-up as well, which you would think makes things very easy. So who is this cow you need to wrangle?
This is pretty much Jin's scheme to murder one of his rival Praetors, as it turns out. Nappa, being his amusingly stupid DBZ Abridged self, will assume that Vorinclex is a cow just because Jin told him it was, and you will see a cow's face awkwardly shooped over Vorinclex's head throughout the entire match. And on that note, you don't get the joys of playing as Boss Nappa. Instead, you are playing as his pet Diglett. And the AI controlling Boss Nappa is quite possibly the stupidest AI you will ever meet, he will frequently just kill you for lulz, and will walk right into the "cow's" most powerful attacks. You have 3 stocks for this event match, but if Nappa dies even once, you also lose, and he is very likely to die given his completely stupid AI. Fortunately you only have to take one stock off the cow too, but that's kind of difficult considering he can manipulate the very dirt you move around in.
On the plus side, if Nappa does die you get to hear Jin swear "GOD. DAMNIT. NAPPA." before you get a Game Over. And hey, if you win you unlock the ability to play as Nappa in a cowboy hat and a cow. And who doesn't want to play as a cow?
MYmini Week #14 The continuing Adventures of [Your set here]
[13th May-19th May]
The goal this week, is to devise some small SSE (or other Story Mode) role that encompasses at least 2 MYM movesets (1 of which must be your own moveset), and guest stars at least one Brawl character (Mario, Link etc). It can be as focused on story or gameplay as you like.
Warrior of many faces:
I think it's not really a problem that the cans can only get foes above them...The Junker Bot has a lot of methods of getting foes into the air already. Enough to get foes into the cans with no problem. as for the issue of it being short...i conciously made this set so i could get out some good play style without adding filler or making it overly long. i consider it an experiment...the next set i make should be a bit longer.
Okay, so this is a fair set, all things considered. Perhaps it’s not the most creative set ever, but he’s bomb-focused, and there’s only so much to be done with bombs.
On the other hand, what you have done with them is pretty good. Charging the Neutral Special bomb stands out especially, since it prevents foes from doing the obvious and just throwing the bomb at you or off the edge. Plus, with the bomb-jump thing, it gives him a good way to get into the air to harass foes caught by the bat. Which, by the way, was the best part of the whole set. A good way to inconvenience people while you charge a bomb… or getting them in a good position to hit them with a bomb.
The Side Smash was interesting as well; essentially a delayed smash that waits until someone’s in range to unleash itself. It’s one of the few trap attacks that I actually like.
What the set seemed to be missing, though, was personality. Sure, you can present a set effectively the way you did, but it feels a little bland. Ideally, a set should reflect both the character’s and the maker’s mindset. This may reflect Regulus’s mindset, but I don’t see much of yours.
Nonetheless, a very solid and enjoyable set with many satisfying explosions. XD
HOCKEY MAN
Weird character, but a great set! Easily the best icy set so far (except maybe Jeanne), with a more workable playstyle than sliding a foe off the edge. Why slide them off when you can push them off? After all, you are a big burly robot.
Something I particularly liked was the way you did the music. A bit hard to find, maybe, but it also does an admirable job of spacing the music and is far more elegant than the usual playlist method.
The icy mechanics are what makes this set shine. Pretty much every move revolves around the ice, but the true genius of it you mentioned yourself: you don’t have to worry about it much, because most of your attacks help you out there automatically if they have anything to do with ice! That’s one of the better mechanics, because you don’t really have to spend much time mastering it, which allows you to master his moves instead.
Something else I quite like is the fact that he doesn’t actually attack much with ice, which is quite unique for ice sets; instead he just freezes the stage to his advantage, with a great many moves to capitalize on that. It’s a much smarter way to fight with ice rather than the somewhat clichéd frozen foes or icy projectile attacks.
This set doesn’t sync with most of MYM, but even here you excel, because this set really feels like it pays homage to the character beyond anything else.
Despite being for a somewhat weird character (a hockey-playing robot? Seriously?), this is still an excellent set. Good work!
ICO AND YORDA
Reverse Ice Climbers is just about right, and I really like what you did here with Ico immune but Yorda being the one to KO. One has to wonder why Yorda’s so helpless when she can power up Ico’s staff like that, but failing further evidence, I’ll just take that for a source plothole and move on.
The set reads very well and is actually quite simple in concept, but it becomes more complex as you look further into it, which I love. It’s a delicate balance, dealing damage and keeping Yorda safe (even if she has a smart AI controlling her), and it seems like this’d make a challenging but fun set to master. The myriad moves with significant knockback help keep foes off of Yorda, but this is made up for since Ico has practically no moves with significant damage unless he has Yorda by the hand, which has its own risks.
Something that I’m not so sure about is the recovery; it’s rather reliant on Yorda or Ico being close enough to help the other. On the other hand, it is very symbolic of their relationship, so even that works.
Overall, a very well-executed if somewhat conservative set.
MANFRED VON KARMA
This was just plain weird. I realize that it’s a character from a lawyer game transplanted to Brawl, but with all the trial stuff, the cops, the witnesses… it feels too much like you’re overusing the original source, forcing everyone to play Phoenix Wright with a little Brawl mixed in rather than the other way around, which I prefer.
Still, I can appreciate that a lot of effort went into this, with the main payoff being those cops. Get blood on the foe or handcuff them to a murder weapon and voila, you have unwitting minions to do much of the dirty work for you. The more the merrier, for you at least, and once people are occupied with cops, you can use your otherwise less useful moves to pressure foes into slipping up somehow.
Overall, the set isn’t inherently bad; it just seems to overwrite Brawl too much with the source material.
JEANNE D’ARC
Another icy set? Guess it must be ice this time of year (yeah, I know, Incredibly Lame Pun).
Anyway, this set distinguishes itself with some odd but interesting changes, especially that Down Special. This could be good for confusing opponents, making them unsure of which them is the one they’re controlling… and I confused myself writing that sentence. Anyway, it’s a very good mindgamey option that isn’t particularly complicated, which is nice… yeah, I’ll stop now.
Those geysers are also very good, giving Jeanne some solid ice walls to work with, or possibly just a lot of water to slow people down, allowing you to mess around with ice chunks. The smoke bomb was a bit random, though. Still, it all fits together quite well, especially with all those standards that can freeze; this works really well with those smoke bombs, with the foe either giving you an opening by unfreezing the bomb or, in not doing so, keeping the floor slippery for them to slip on. Either way, Jeanne’s advantage.
I can see how every input contributes to the overall strategy, but this time it isn’t overcomplicated, which is very gratifying. Great job here, Kat!
SIZE: 10 Very big. A head taller than Ganondorf but about Bowser’s width.
GROUND SPEED: 2Slow for now…
DASH SPEED: 7 …but when he gets going, he is fast.
TRACTION: 7 Just does not slip often.
FIRST JUMP: 3 No high jumping yet.
SECOND JUMP: 3No high jumping yet.
AIR SPEED: 5 Decent air speed.
FALL SPEED: 8 Falls pretty fast.
CROUCH: 1 Doomsday does not crouch much at all. It almost looks like it’s preparing for a headbutt.
WALL JUMP:No.
WALL CLING:No.
GLIDE:No.
If Doomsday loses a stock, it will gain 10% attack power and speed on its next stock. This stacks infinitely, but suicides don’t count unless something else was involved (i.e. you get the effect if you walk into a Bob-omb and get KOed, but you won’t get the effect if you just walk off the edge). Obviously, this won’t work in a stock match because Doomsday players will want a lot of stock while canny opponents will want only one or two. To alleviate the argument, play a time battle so that this mechanic is less broken; that way Doomsday has little reason to KO itself.
Also, if Doomsday takes any given attack at least three times in a five-second period without taking any other attack, it develops an immunity to that attack for the remainder of the match. This includes Jab combos and mostly applies to fast moves such as the aforementioned Jabs and Fox’s blaster; the odds of Doomsday taking three Warlock Punches in five seconds are phenomenally low, even if he's fighting three Ganondorfs.
Doomsday reaches down with one hand and minor startlag and pulls up a section of the stage approximately the length of two SBBs but half the width of an SBB. This leaves a corresponding indentation in the ground which inexplicably refills when the section is destroyed or thrown off-screen. It also displaces any loose items on it; items that cling (i.e. the Unira, Motion Sensor Bombs, Sticky Bombs) remain there and retain their effects. If a foe was on the section when Doomsday pulls it up, he gets damagelessly launched into the air about a Ganondorf.
Once Doomsday has the section in one hand, it moves at 90% ground and air speed, and nearly all of its attacks change from whatever it was to smashing the foe with the scenery. Exceptions will be noted in the corresponding attack description. Direction remains the same while attack speed is cut in half, but this adds 10% damage and 1.5x the knockback on every affected move in addition to extending the hitbox. Plus, Doomsday stops and uses this to block all incoming frontal attacks unless he’s in the middle of a non-walking/running animation already. Quite deadly, of course, but it can only do so much. The section has 50 HP and will shatter once that limit is exceeded; additionally, if Doomsday uses the segment to deal more than 50% damage, the segment will shatter. Once shattered, Doomsday must wait ten seconds before he can rip out another section.
Doomsday can throw the scenery, but it doesn’t fly very far, only traveling one SBB at Bowser’s dash speed. It does deal a good 15% when thrown, but considering that sufficiently powerful characters (Bowser-strength on up) can then pick it up and use it against you and that there are more efficient ways to dispose of the scenery, throwing it is usually not the best idea unless you’re using it to keep another character from getting back to the stage. The scenery retains its HP and damage dealt when thrown, and can also take attacks when not being used.
On a side note, if there is a sufficiently large item or trap nearby (Crate size or larger) when Doomsday uses this, Doomsday will grab and attack with the item instead. Functionally, this does nothing except change the hitbox to the length of said item/trap and omit the indentation in the ground… unless you picked up an exploding crate, in which case it will explode on the first hit with its usual power and radius.
Neutral Special:Spike Extension
Doomsday roars as its bony spurs begin to extend in length. This extends Doomsday’s hitboxes on any move involving spikes comparable to Marth’s sword hitboxes; increases spike damage by 3%; and causes 3% damage to any foes who attack directly with any part of their bodies. This transformation takes about a second to enact and lasts about ten seconds. However, if Doomsday takes 20% damage while its spikes are extended, they will break off, becoming battering items that deal 3-12% melee damage or 8-14% throw damage with low knockback. If this happens, Doomsday cannot extend its spikes again for twenty seconds; otherwise, this has a five-second cooldown.
Naturally, this doesn’t stack well with Down Special, so pick one depending on the situation.
Side Special:Grappling Spike
Doomsday extends its fist and fires its fist spikes in a harpoon-like manner up to three SBBs away with noticeable startlag. If this doesn’t hit a foe, Doomsday suffers from quite a bit of endlag as it reels its spikes back in. If it hits a foe, however, the foe is impaled on the spikes as Doomsday reels them in over two seconds. Foes can try to escape at 1.5x standard grab difficulty; if they succeed, Doomsday continues to reel in the claws for whatever time remained. If they don’t escape, Doomsday winds up for a punch with its other hand that it unleashes once the foe is in range; this deals a whopping 24% damage with similarly impressive knockback that KOs at 120%.
In addition, Doomsday’s spike shot is tipped in a venom which deals 3% damage per second for three seconds, even if the foe escapes.
If Doomsday has scenery on hand, this attack becomes very deadly indeed damage-wise as he hits the foe with the scenery; however, the effort of not hitting its own spikes increases the lag by 50%.
Speaking of hitting those spikes, if these spikes take 20 HP worth of damage, they will shatter, dealing Doomsday a major blow: Doomsday becomes helpless for three seconds, roaring in pain, until he regrows his knuckle spikes. The foe will be instantly freed and the spikes become items similar to the results of breaking the Neutral Special, albeit with more length and less power and knockback; at maximum length, these pretty much become long-distance Fans minus the high speed, while at the shortest length they are functionally the same as those from the Neutral Special.
In short, this is excellent in 1-on-1, but needs to be used cautiously if Doomsday is facing more than one foe.
Up Special:Power Jump
Doomsday crouches with minor lag and leaps, fists towards the sky, for an impressive distance of three Ganondorfs. This leap is in a parabolic arc, covering a horizontal distance of half of Final Destination. Additionally, anyone who comes in contact with Doomsday on his way up takes 10% damage and moderate upward knockback; contact as he comes down will have the same effects except that the foe is knocked downwards instead.
This doesn’t work nearly as well in midair, however; Doomsday leaps upward without horizontal recovery for only one Ganondorf, although the damage remains the same.
If Doomsday has scenery when it uses this, it drops the scenery before jumping as if it had been thrown. However, this deals no damage and is the worst possible way to dispose of the scenery.
A simple roundhouse punch. Somewhat slow, but deals a surprising 8% and knocks the foe to the ground.
Jab Combo:Elbow Stab
After a second roundhouse, Doomsday elbows the opponent with its spike, dealing 12% damage and flinch. Not likely to connect due to the knockback of the roundhouses, but it might connect if someone comes in at the end of a combo.
Forward Tilt:Swat
Doomsday swats the foe with the back of its hand, dealing 6% damage and knocking the foe one SBB away. A relatively quick attack, though it’s still a little slow.
Up Tilt:Upward Swat
Doomsday swats upward in an arc, about as speedy as its other swat. 5% damage and minor knockback.
Down Tilt:Knee Stab
Knees the foe with a large spike. 14% damage with flinch. Another relatively quick move, but suffers from minor endlag. This move is completely unaffected by scenery.
Dash Attack:Running Punch
Prepares a punch while running. One second later, delivers the punch, converting his momentum to power. 17% with moderate knockback, but suffers from minor endlag as he slows to a stop.
Doomsday smashes the foe with a double uppercut, dealing 15% uncharged and a whopping 30% when fully charged, KOing for sure at 170%. There is some endlag to this and it’s somewhat slow, but this is still a smash to be reckoned with. This may also deal 5-8% damage to a foe just above Doomsday. When holding scenery, Doomsday simply swats to the side, negating the last effect.
Up Smash:Lunge
As Doomsday charges this attack, it crouches, fists at the ready. It then lunges upward about half a Ganondorf, both fists extended. Uncharged, it does 12%, while it deals 21% at full charge, KOing at 200%. Minor endlag as it lands and straightens up.
With scenery, Doomsday simply smashes its weapon upwards with the usual adjustments to damage, knockback, and speed.
Down Smash:Quake
Doomsday smashes the ground with two fists, creating a small groundquake around it. When uncharged, this deals 10% damage and flinch if you’re a Bumper away from Doomsday; fully charged, it extends two SSBs away and deals 20% damage with upward knockback which KOs at 250%. Notable for its lack of significant lag, but it only works if the foe’s on the ground.
Additionally, if Doomsday has any scenery when initiating this attack, Doomsday crushes it instead, causing a small shrapnel explosion about one SBB to either side that deals 10% damage and flinch. Obviously, this destroys the scenery, but if it’s about to shatter anyway or if you just want to get rid of it, this is an option.
Doomsday smashes its knee towards the opponent, stabbing them with the spike on its knee. Surprisingly quick to start, but comes with slight endlag. 8% damage and slight upward knockback.
This is completely unaffected by Doomsday’s possession or lack thereof of scenery.
Front Aerial:Smash
Doomsday draws its fists backwards with minor startlag, then smashes its two fists together in front of him, dealing 10% damage and minor horizontal knockback.
With scenery, Doomsday swipes the weapon in front of it with the usual adjustments.
Back Aerial:Toss
Doomsday reaches behind it; if a foe is within reach, it grabs them and tosses them in front of it. This deals no damage and is simply a repositioning tool, although it also out-prioritizes everything, so it can disrupt an air combo if timed correctly.
If Doomsday has scenery, then it simply uses it to swat behind it in a powerful but laggy strike that deals 17% damage and moderate knockback.
Up Aerial:Throwdown
Doomsday reaches above it, grabbing any foe in reach, then throws them down hard. The foe won’t stop until he hits the ground or is hit by something else, which would make it a great KO tool if Doomsday wasn’t so heavy. Deals 15% damage and hitstun if the foe hits the ground.
With scenery, Doomsday smashes its weapon upward, dealing 16% damage and moderate knockback. Too bad about the lag.
Down Aerial:Drop and Crush
Doomsday immediately drops at Sheik’s dash speed, fists held above it. When it hits the ground, it smashes the ground with its fists, creating a small quake about half a SSB in front of it. The quake deals 5% damage but has impressive upward knockback that KOs at 150%.
Additionally, if a foe was right below Doomsday’s landing point, they will take 30% damage and a two-second stun, giving Doomsday adequate time to hit them with another attack. Combos well with the Up Aerial if you’re not too far up: throw them down, then land on them before they can get away.
If Doomsday has scenery, it throws it down at Sheik’s dash speed. Anyone hit by the scenery as it falls takes 5% damage and mild knockback; once it hits the ground, it creates a shrapnel explosion that functions exactly like the one in the Down Smash. Another option if you really want the scenery gone.
Doomsday uses its large hand to grab the opponent’s head. A slow grab with short range, but it’s also 1.3x as hard to escape from it.
This can be performed with scenery, since Doomsday wields it one-handed. Most throws are unaffected by scenery; exceptions will be noted in said throw.
Pummel:Skullcrusher
Doomsday squeezes the opponent’s skull (or analog thereof) over three seconds, dealing 12% damage overall. Additionally, if the opponent would have escaped from the grab during the pummel, they escape immediately after the pummel ends. A strong pummel, but it has a two-second cooldown, so Doomsday is unlikely to land more than one of these per grab.
This is unaffected by scenery, since Doomsday would be unlikely to actually land a hit on anything other than itself with the scenery. Just because it’s mindless doesn’t mean it’s stupid, and it only wields scenery with one hand anyway.
Forward Throw:Underhand Toss
Doomsday tosses the foe underhand three SSBs away, dealing 15% damage when they hit the ground. Additionally, if they hit another foe, that foe takes 6% damage and is knocked to the ground.
Back Throw: Throwback
Doomsday hurls the foe behind it without looking; the foe is beaten, so it thinks. 8% damage when they hit the ground, and the knockback’s pretty low.
Up Throw:Toss Up
Doomsday flings the foe upward about a Ganondorf and a half into the air. From there, Doomsday can choose either to leave the foe alone or leap upward after the foe by pressing A, smashing into him and dealing 15% damage. The downside to this second option is the moderate endlag Doomsday suffers from when it lands.
With scenery, Doomsday has a similar option, only instead of leaping after the foe, Doomsday tosses the scenery at the foe, dealing the same damage and knockback as if Doomsday had thrown it normally. This halts the lag, but forces Doomsday to either pick up the scenery again or risk a foe picking it up.
Down Throw: Headsmash
Doomsday smashes the foe’s head into the ground, dealing a good 13% damage and stunning them for two seconds. Hit them while they’re down, or maybe grab them again. Up to you.
Doomsday roars loudly, then launches itself at Sonic’s dash speed towards the nearest opponent and grabs him. This can be dodged if timed carefully, but it’s difficult.
Once Doomsday has the foe in its clutches, the monster then proceeds to give a no-holds-barred beatdown to said foe, causing the foe to look visibly battered and bruised. After three seconds of this, Doomsday smashes the foe off-screen: an unavoidable KO. Doomsday is invincible during this time.
If another foe gets too close to Doomsday during the beatdown, he might take a hit that deals a good 20% damage and moderate knockback.
As an added bonus, if the foe that Doomsday grabbed has a cape or similar analog, a picture of said cape analog atop a steel pole/stick/whatever makes sense on the stage is briefly showed, a la the top picture. This has no practical benefit; it’s just there for the cool factor.
Doomsday, at first, looks really simple. Just smash whatever poor soul gets in your way, taking advantage of its enormous weight to avoid getting KOed while dealing tons of damage on the foe.
Of course, nothing is ever that simple.
Doomsday has two choices for buffs, his Down Special or his Neutral Special. The Neutral Special has less benefits, but less detriments also; grabbing the scenery increases your damage output by a lot, but makes it somewhat harder to land those hits to begin with due to reduced speed. If you’re already having trouble landing Doomsday’s many laggy attacks, scenery may not be the best option. On the other hand, if the foe isn’t prone to dodging or just isn’t equipped for it (i.e. Ganondorf or some such), scenery may be a great idea, especially so that you can absorb some damage. It’s not as if Doomsday is big on dodging either.
Alternatively, use the scenery and when it shatters, use Spike Extension while you wait for the cooldown.
And then you smash everyone in your way.
Of course, the methods will vary quite a bit depending on the foe. Doomsday, oddly enough, works best against the heavier foes, since they are far less likely to take advantage of Doomsday’s abundant lag. These you don’t need to put much thought into unless they have some gimmicks or traps to even the playing field. It’s the lighter foes that Doomsday has trouble with, as they will be able to take full advantage of his laggy attacks. Doomsday’s faster moves, such as Forward Tilt, Up Tilt, or Down Smash without scenery, could be useful in knocking them off-balance long enough to land a more solid hit.
Alternatively, you could try to anticipate their attacks and time your own strike accordingly; Smash Attacks would be good for that since they can be charged, assuming the foe doesn’t wait for you to use up the charge and then move in. Again, Down Smash sans scenery helps here, groundquaking the distant foe. This requires a lot of familiarity with playing Doomsday, though.
Another possibility, if you see an opening, is the Side Special; grab the foe from a distance, reel them in, and smash them. As noted, if Doomsday has scenery, this becomes an even better strategy, assuming the foe doesn’t escape during that extra lag.
Speaking of which, if Doomsday lands a grab, the foe’s in trouble. Down Throw is absolutely horrifying if you spam it; short of another foe attacking or a Bob-omb walking into you, the foe will have a very hard time getting out of it, and at 13% a pop, this becomes a fairly efficient way of racking damage. Of course, with the lag on Doomsday’s grab, only a stupid or preoccupied foe would let himself be hit by it.
On the subject of projectile characters: Doomsday tends to have trouble with these, especially when they have multiple ranged weapons at their disposal. Characters such as Fox, Pikachu, or Diddy with one ranged weapon, good as it may be, runs the risk of getting walled if you hit Doomsday too much too quickly with it, forcing you to come in close where Doomsday excels. On the other hand, characters like Samus have a number of ways to keep Doomsday at a distance, especially if they can charge a projectile. Still, all of this becomes rather moot when Doomsday has scenery, since it can approach without having to worry about getting flinched or damaged by attacks for a good while. However, if you have fast projectiles, you can pin Doomsday down, forcing it to either stop blocking or get rid of the scenery; scenery isn’t a foolproof way to deal with projectilists.
Overall, the best strategy with Doomsday is to apply whichever buff is best for the situation, then smash the foe as appropriate. Quick or ranged characters will need more thought, but ultimately Doomsday’s weight and power will make it a force to be reckoned with regardless.
A small yellow canary appears near Doomsday, stupidly flying into Doomsday’s outstretched hand. Doomsday then proceeds to smush the poor bird in its fist with a gruff and cruel laugh: “Ha… ha ha ha haaaa!”
Side Taunt:Roar
Doomsday roars loudly for .5 seconds, its chest puffed out as if daring foes to attack. A fairly long taunt, so use carefully.
Down Taunt:Say My Name
Doomsday growls deep in its throat, then growls the name of a random foe as it turns toward said foe. Ex. “Su-perr-man!”
If any Kryptonian is currently in the battle, Doomsday will always say the name of said Kryptonian; if multiple Kryptonians are in the battle, Doomsday will always say Superman’s name or, failing his presence, a random Kryptonian.
Idle Animations: Fists clenched, Doomsday remains in a fighter’s crouch, always wary and ready to attack.
On-screen Appearance: A metallic pod crashes to the ground, which Doomsday smashes its way out of. The pieces, with true Brawl logic, inexplicably vanish after Doomsday emerges.
Symbol: Superman’s tattered cape on a stick, a la the first picture again. Default symbol color is red.
Upon Selection (Wiimote): Doomsday growls “Su-perr-man!” Never let it be said that Doomsday is inconsistent.
Kirby Hat: Kirby’s skin turns grey. He also gains spikes along his jawline, Doomsday’s weird white hair, and Doomsday’s Side Special.
Victory Pose:Death of a Legend
Doomsday laughs cruelly and triumphantly, brandishing a recognizable but tattered piece of Superman’s cape. If Superman was in the combat, he will not appear among the losers.
Doomsday has no other victory poses.
Loss Pose:Mythology Gag
Doomsday, clearly dead, can be seen far in the background, with the Cyborg Superman strapping him to a large asteroid. Cyborg Superman then proceeds to throw the asteroid into space.
Alternate Costumes: Only the color of Doomsday’s shorts change, from a dark green to either dark red, dark blue, black, white, or dark purple.
Snake Codec:
Snake: …I can’t beat this guy.
Mei Ling: Snake…
Snake: C’mon, Mei Ling, you know what he did.
Mei Ling: Yes, I do. But think about it: you’ve fought and defeated Ganondorf by yourself. You helped take down Tabuu! How could this guy be a bigger challenge than that?
Snake: …none of them killed Superman.
Mei Ling: “Those who hesitate against a stronger foe know the ultimate hesitation of death.”
Snake: …that one of your Chinese proverbs?
Mei Ling: A really morbid fortune cookie, actually.
Snake: …whatever. Now, let’s take this monster down!
Mei Ling:That’s the spirit!
Trophy:
Doomsday: A merciless creature from Krypton genetically engineered to survive and to see all life as a threat. Best known for (temporarily) killing Superman, this merciless being can return from death immune to whatever managed to halt it last time.
Decimate: Doomsday launches itself towards an opponent and pummels him mercilessly. The creature then smashes the foe off-screen. A simple, brutal move that is very difficult to avoid. If the enemy has a cape, you might see a short cutscene…
[COLLAPSE="Notes and Disclaimers"]Well, here's an offering a little more in the spirit of MYM! This'll teach me to estimate when I'll have a set out; I'm pretty sure I'm a couple weeks past where I anticipated having this out. XP
On another note, I deliberately left this set overpowered; anything else doesn't do the character justice. However, I did try to balance it so that it didn't turn into a 3v1 set like Kang. Please let me know how I did on that front.
Oh, and I'm aware that I used the Return key a lot during the intro, Warlord and Dreamcatcha. It's for effect.[/COLLAPSE]
Aside from switching to a far less ominous coat, Ienzo's attacks have also traded any darkness effects for more neutral ones. Repeated use of darkness tends to be unhealthy for beings with hearts, after all. His Forward Tilt and Down Smash take on a more elemental appearance, while anything else that would use a dark aura reverts to a silver illusory one. It's no less potent, however.
All those Twilight recolors than Hasbro keeps on releasing in the toy line seem to have banded together and teleported themselves into a library than nopony else knew about. That landed them straight into the library of the Evil Academy (didn't you know? There's a portal to Tartarus on Equestria, so those Netherworlds aren't really far off) where an irate Raspberyl on volunteer duty and an Ienzo on a research trip just happened to be at the time. Then the Twilights did what anyone else would have done: panicked and run out of there with as many books as they could carry. But there's only one two-Ganondorf-tall open door on the rightmost part of the stage, and two player-controlled characters who aren't going to let a bunch of unicorns get out with those books. Not without proper library cards, at any rate.
The Twilight Sparkles will stream out of the left of the stage, which is nothing but the flat ground of a library. Thankfully, they're not as smart as the real Twilight nor as difficult to KO - they'll fly out as though at critical percentages, something Ienzo's clones can't really make use of but ideal for Raspberyl. There can be as many as six Twilights onscreen at once, each trying to exit the door on the right with the book in hand. Of course, if they get too close, they'll probably overwhelm the duo with their grabs and pseudo-grabs, and it's GG from there, but that's assuming you let them get close enough and don't, say, distract them endlessly.
But it's not enough to perpetually knock these Twilights out! When hit by a particularly strong attack, or grabbed by Ienzo, the Twilights will drop their stolen books on the ground; if they weren't KO'd, they'll run back past the left blast zone, then try again with another book. After that, it's a matter of either Ienzo or Raspberyl, or any of their duplicates actually, walking over the book to store it away into hammerspace. If they can rescue twenty books from the Twilights without letting at least three out of the library door, the event match is won. Raspberyl is the better equipped of the two to do this, able to dash somewhere quickly or use her Dash Attack to barge ahead and break forcefields as well. Not to mention she'll also build up RADS as she takes care of the library, which will certainly help against this unicorn stampede, so may as well let her do all the cleaning up.
Outside of library cleaning, Ienzo will likely be more on the front lines rather than Raspberyl. He can send his clones ahead no problem to soak up the projectiles, whack off the approaching Twilights or trick them into wasting their time by grabbing his clones. If he's lucky, his lexicon can strike multiple Twilights at once and build up a massive health charge, giving him some really healthy clones to work with. Ienzo can also give one the clones his real lexicon if only to able to directly control someone that he can toss into the thick of things, at the risk of losing the lexicon in the jumble of pseudo-grab-happy unicorns. Then again, he can also comfortably use his grab and smashes from the far end of the stage, incapacitating the Twilights while Raspberyl runs in and cleans up all the books left over before they break out. On the other hand, he can't do much about the forcefields except for trying to break them all with a full Forward Smash, but that'll keep his clones busy too as they charge the attack as well, so it's better to leave that to his partner.
Raspberyl, on the other hand, is much better at taking down forcefields with her long-range not-exactly-projectile attacks, which is good because there's a LOT of force fields that those Twilights will pull up to try and get through. It's also important to set up at least one Delta Extreme sigil by the entrance. Wouldn't want that one Twilight smart enough to try her teleport Dash Attack to escape, would you? If Ienzo can keep enough pressure off, Raspberyl can build up tons of RADS in order to really lay the hurt on the Twilights, as well as quickly setting up defensive sigils with the help of her duplicates. She's also capable of dealing with a few Twilights at close range with her own inputs, and can even use them for donating some health. Not like they'll be sticking around long enough for it to be important.
Like I mentioned, when a tag team can just use duplicates to take the barrage of projectiles that the Twilights will no doubt be conjuring, they should be more concerned about spacing them away far enough to make better use of Ienzo's impressive grab. If one Twilight gets close enough, it'll be up to the partner to knock her away before the other Twilights follow suit. Ideally, just grab them all and send the oversized lexicons straight into a Volunteer Vortex, which will chew them out skywards. Of course, that's an ideal; your most practical course is really to just keep KOing them as they come.
Thanks for the Jeanne comment, WOMF. The smoke bomb may have seemed random but she does actually do that in her appearance. Minus the cyclone, she pretty much does -almost- everything she does in the set albeit with some creative liberties in terms of their execution.
[collapse="Doomsday"]That's one helluva opening you've got there - really helps to bring in the suspense, minus the disclaimers in which could do with going at the end of the set (now I already know to expect his overpoweredness). Even without the introduction I've already heard of this character and in which it seems like he'd be monstrously hard to balance to a degree - that mechanic certainly does make him frightening to imagine in a long match, and makes him rather anti-comboish fodder. Definitely makes slow, powerful attacks more effective on him and pretty much nulls the likes of chain-grabs (speaking of which, you might want to do something about the whole infinite thing about DOOMSDAY'S D-throw - it possibly knocks them away a little?).
I can say for sure that this set has more playstyle than the likes of Azula - stage terraforming is a pretty big step for you and really, to me, showcases what you've soaked in with all those sets you've consistently commented on. They way in which you're able to use the stage as a weapon without getting too complicated is especially commendable, but rather atypical for your style given how much you favor simplicity. There are times where not everything is made clear however or as obvious as you'd like to think it'd be, such as the standard attacks not making use of the stage piece you toss up as a basic melee weapon, though I guess it allows him to defend himself with such and tank the foe's attacks - somewhat interesting to me is that the foe probably wouldn't want to use their attacks that have been nulled by your mechanic to break the stage piece in fear of being punished by you, which is somewhat interesting to imagine. If that does happen, you can just grab them. Said Pummel in which you can initiate is also interesting since you can use it to stall to cancel your buffs and to me is a pretty good example of a move that helps with the playstyle in which would otherwise be a generic damaging move.
The writing can get a little confusing to read, such as when you state that Doomsday is an "it" when he's referred to as a "he" in previous parts of the set - it makes me think you're talking about an object. Also a little unsure as to the wording of the effect of using the scenery with the side special spikes as to what it means - does he extend his spikes along with his scenery? Surely he's not just hitting the foe with the scenery just for that one attack when he obviously has others to do so with. I understand you favor simplicity, though you do have quite a lot in which you can exploit such as the stage indent you create and spikes, but given you clearly state Doomsday is mindless I think making him mechanic-driven is very, very fitting to his character. His moves don't seem massively powerful at times, but he does have massive reach with his stage piece - even so however, I don't think he's all THAT overpowered, especially since he's not conceptually broken in any way and his stage piece is surprisingly well-balanced. Extras are great to see again, though I should probably say that while random canaries hold tribute to what Doomsday did in his series it seems very proppy and scripted in an actual fight. Aside from that, everything else is fine.
Definitely a step-up from Azula in terms of ideas and playstyle. There are areas in which you still need to improve on, such as perhaps your writing to a degree and exploitation of your given ideas, but this is still good stuff and a promising sign from you. Very good indeed.[/collapse]
Just sayin': Doomsday totally would have been prime for 3v1, all things considered (it DID take the entire Justice League to take him down, after all!)
Anywho, Doomsday is not a bad set, though that's not to say there isn't much that could be strengthened.
Let's start positive, shall we? You've got a good idea of what playstyle is, that's for sure. You at least know what you're going for, and you do accomplish what the set sets out to be: scary as f*ck to fight. Again, 3v1 would probably be the way to approach this guy, as overpoweredness means less and there are cool options that would be super broken in 1v1 available. Another thing you've got down is characterization - this FEELS like a Doomsday set, and a reader gets a good feeling of what he's all about from the attacks and such. He's a killing machine, and it's shown well.
Now for the negetive, I unfortunately have to say that while the set has definite good ideas, the execution is a bit sloppy. The ideas are just kind of there, and there's not too much played off of them. Yes, you extend the hitboxes, but why? All it really does is give him a bit more damage. You can pick up the scenery, but again, why? It does basically nothing but give you a battering item (a damn good one, though) and there's not much done with it. The core of MYM is ideas: get one, and play off of it in any way possible. Here, the ideas are, while kept in mind throughout the set, never played with. I realize this is only your second set, but don't be afraid to step out of the Brawl box and use some out-there ideas. It doesn't have to be totally insane and complicated like Von Karma (which is a very cool set, if out there), but don't be intimidated by experimentation. Kat got my feelings on the Writing down, so I feel no need to say anything besides maybe try reading the set out loud to yourself-you'll catch more grammatical errors and awkward sentence flow better that way.
On the whole though: nice set, just keep working at it.
Did you read Von Karma? Or did you take the word of WoMF and glance at the large mechanic section at the start? He's easier to play than most Junahu sets hovering around. The mechanic largely handles itself, or in the least, the player can just use as few parts of his playstyle as they want and get by fine.
I'll ask you find a better set to carelessly toss labels onto (Of course, there are plenty of other examples made by me).
WoMF said:
MANFRED VON KARMA
This was just plain weird. I realize that it’s a character from a lawyer game transplanted to Brawl, but with all the trial stuff, the cops, the witnesses… it feels too much like you’re overusing the original source, forcing everyone to play Phoenix Wright with a little Brawl mixed in rather than the other way around, which I prefer.
Still, I can appreciate that a lot of effort went into this, with the main payoff being those cops. Get blood on the foe or handcuff them to a murder weapon and voila, you have unwitting minions to do much of the dirty work for you. The more the merrier, for you at least, and once people are occupied with cops, you can use your otherwise less useful moves to pressure foes into slipping up somehow.
Overall, the set isn’t inherently bad; it just seems to overwrite Brawl too much with the source material.
His actual moveset can fight the foe like a Brawl character fine (He functions better than some of the bottom tier Brawl characters as a generic Brawl character), and he doesn't arbitrarily arrest them or anything, he just summons cops to aid him to help KO the foe via knockback. Almost none of the moves have overly specific purposes that are impractical to use for actually harming foes - the mechanic takes care of a lot more of the unsmash stuff and leaves most of the inputs free. And even then, when you're ready to interact with the mechanic, you can do just a handful of interactions to win the match, though the more the merrier.
Was he supposed to be bashing them over the head with his cane for the entire set? I thought I implemented a bloody trial into Brawl pretty much as well as it could have been.
DOOMSDAY FOR MYM
Fitting this moveset comes out now.
This moveset is a vast improvement over Azula in terms of flow and creativity, with the scenery mechanic being something to add to his various moves in general. That said, it still doesn't flow into that coherent of a playstyle and the playstyle summary makes it clear that he's intended to fit in with the standard issue Brawl cast, hence assuming that the standard for a heavyweight is somebody as hopelessly incompetent as Bowser. Still, it's a step in the right direction.
What more bugs me about this set is the intentionally overpowered state of it. Not making it a 3v1 when you are fully aware of the genre and that the set is overpowered (You intentionally made it so) is just bizarre. Making an intentionally overpowered character feels like a distant cry from your style of setting to pander to Brawl, as even if he's simplistic he doesn't exactly fit in that well, especially seeing you didn't really take any precautions to avoid his huge size being exploited (He's well over a 10 from what you describe). And yes, I am kind of trying to figure out how you can say what you did about Garbage Man being OP when that's a garbage truck that can't be nerfed without making it not a garbage truck, while this guy is essentially just a villianous Hulk. Should all canonically powerful characters be OP? 3v1 is the obvious way to go if you're adamant about this route.
And no, I don't think the set is actually that OP, outside that random chaingrab dthrow. It's more your intentions.
Did you read Von Karma? Or did you take the word of WoMF and glance at the large mechanic section at the start? He's easier to play than most Junahu sets hovering around. The mechanic largely handles itself, or in the least, the player can just use as few parts of his playstyle as they want and get by fine.
I'll ask you find a better set to carelessly toss labels onto (Of course, there are plenty of other examples made by me).
Yes, I read Von Karma. I was more referring to the mechanic than set itself, really- which is still pretty insane and complicated compared to actual brawl, which I was drawing reference to in my comment. Misunderstandings abound.
Since I took up 2 posts on Von Karma's page, it's only fair that I give it a comment.
I was put off when I first skimmed it because of that huge mechanic section, but upon taking a closer look I actually really enjoyed it. It's just passive items that spawn with him and some ways of getting a summon into play, really. The fact that it also self-regulates itself means Von Karma gets to have a full moveset of actual, you know, MOVES (shock). The zanier attacks felt fun and natural to the set and the cane moves added a nice bit of simpler stuff to round out the set. Unlike MvC3's Pheonix Wright, Von Karma can actually do something besides run away and hope he even gets to the "abuse your awesome power-up!" part. One thing I do have to bring up though, is that you mention backstabbing the foe in the side-special, but I see nothing in the mechanic section (or really anywhere for that matter) that mentions a backstabbing mechanic. Since you talk about the way the opponent is facing I'm assuming this is a literal feature and not a "Von Karma betrays his teammate" kind of thing.
I think this is also one of the few set-up characters that might be more fun in a FFA setting. Who doesn't want to help testify against Meta Knight?
One thing I do have to bring up though, is that you mention backstabbing the foe in the side-special, but I see nothing in the mechanic section (or really anywhere for that matter) that mentions a backstabbing mechanic. Since you talk about the way the opponent is facing I'm assuming this is a literal feature and not a "Von Karma betrays his teammate" kind of thing.
Ampharos, the Light Pokemon, is a staple of many an in-game Johto team, serving as a reliably powerful Electric-type in the middle of the adventure. Unlike its other lightning fast competitors, however, it's a pretty slow attacker, just outpacing a certain fifth-generation eel in the Electric fully-evolved stats race. And it's rather detached from its previous evolutions in terms of appearance, having lost all wool on its body and resembling more some strange giraffe with flippers. But hey, this species can substitute for freakin' lighthouses with those light beams they emit; that should clue you in on the kind of voltage this guy's packing.
Statistics
Size - 6
Weight - 6
Ground Speed - 2
Air Speed - 7
Traction - 6
Jump Height - 6
Fall Speed - 7
Remember when I said Ampharos isn't very fast? Well, I'm not kidding, and its stats reflect that sluggishness, save perhaps some passable aerial speed. Its bulk should be able to keep it alive, at the least.
Amped Shield
Hey now, that's a pretty sweet shield you've got there, Ampharos. Powered by your own electricity and light, is it? Well, I can see that it doesn't shrink as time goes on, but doesn't have the break-out lag that Yoshi does. I'm going to guess that the shimmering that it does indicates how much power it has left, seeing as it does so with greater frequency until it's broken. It takes half damage from projectiles, you say? But it still only has as much health as any other shield? At least you won't go flying like poor Jigglypuff over there if it breaks.
Specials
Side Special - Signal Beam
Ampharos' forehead orb blinks once. Then Ampharos leans forward and fires of a potent Pokéball-thick light beam from the orb, the beam stretching across the stage horizontally towards the blast zone in an instant, then disappearing almost as quickly while Ampharos recovers from the attack. Aim it with the analog stick? Don't be so lazy and just match your vertical position with the foe, Ampharos.
At full power, the beam will send any foe it hits [18%] into a dizzied state if they're grounded, or a tumbling state if they're in the air; any less, and it'll only damage and flinch the foe depending on the leftover power [10%-1%], it being dimmer the weaker it is. Full power, you might think, must mean the power runs out on use and has to be recharged, right? Nope. The power of this move depends on Ampharos' shield power level. So if Ampharos never uses its shield, it can keep punishing campy foes, since anyone close enough can probably interrupt it before it fires off such a light beam.
As another feature, any energy projectiles this beam of energized light hits will veer of slightly by about 15 degrees. Not exactly a reflector, but it should keep most enemy projectiles from reaching their intended destinations (that is, straight at Ampharos).
Neutral Special - Charge
Ampharos attempt to build up an electricity charge, closing its eyes and keeping its arms to its body. Static will build up around its body as it does so, crackling with greater intensity the closer it gets to completing the charge. It takes a full second and a half to build up a single charge, though Ampharos can dodge or shield out of charging to store what it has and build from it later; it'll also lose whatever charge it has if it gets hit while charging.
Only a full charge is any good to Ampharos, which is indicated by it flashing a lighter hue once the charge is built up. To use a charge, Ampharos only needs to re-input this move, which will have it seemingly absorb the electricity it had built up. What did that do? Why, fully replenish its shield health!
Up Special - Electro Ball
Ampharos quickly surrounds itself with a sphere of electricity that surges upwards (or in a swiftly tilted direction). Ampharos itself only travels a short distance, just a bit more than Yoshi does with his Up Special, before flinging the sphere onwards with its tail. The sphere then travels about a BFP at the speed of Luigi's fireballs before sparking out.
Any foes it hits will be shortly stunned [14%], and that's the extent of it. When used on the ground, Ampharos will only travel left or right across the stage before flinging off the sphere in whatever direction, while using it in the air ends in a helpless state after traveling.
Down Special - Thunder Wave
Ampharos instantly emits a wave of electricity as large as a Fan either straight forward, or in a very quickly inputted direction. Any foes hit by this (it can pass through foes and stage, by the way) will flinch and become incredibly slow. As in, the paralyzing static going through their body will triple the duration of all their animations, from moving, attacking, grabbing, blocking and even just flinching. Needless to say, all their movement stats are cut to a third.
Then again, the electric wave itself moves as slowly as Luigi's fireballs. Worse yet, it only travels a stagebuilder block in distance before fizzling out, so Ampharos would need some quick skills and a close-range foe. But the worst part is that using this move actually drains Ampharos' shield by a fourth of its full health. Ampharos can't use this move if it has less shield health to work with than that.
Standards
Jab - Thundershock
Ampharos rapidly waves its hands in front of it, generating a lot of flinching static that hurts foes [20 hits of 0.5%] for the duration of a second. The static doesn't reach too far, so Ampharos will probably use for punishing foes before going for a grab. Jab 'em with static!
Dash Attack - Light Screen
While dashing onwards, Ampharos makes a rounded barrier in front of itself; so long as A is held down, it'll keep the barrier in front of itself as it moves forward. The barrier is actually a more concentrated version of Ampharos' shield; it'll block any attacks that come its way, and also push any foes it might run into, but the extra power also lets it reflect projectiles that hit it. An incredible approach method to be sure, but be warned: Ampharos is using its shield for this move. Sure, the concentrated power keeps it from losing more shield health should it be hit, but Ampharos will still end up with a weaker shield to use out of it, and risks using it up completely and entering shield stun. There'll be a moment of ending lag once the move ends as well, so approach when the time is right.
Up Tilt - Static Ball
Ampharos hastily makes an orb of static before throwing it upwards. It's not nearly as solid as the one from the Up Special, and actually dissipates after traveling half a SBB in distance. Still, if Ampharos doesn't get hit while making the orb, the decent hitstun (11%) should be able to do something about those foes that like to jump a lot.
Forward Tilt - Thunderpunch
Pow! Ampharos punches forward with one of its thunder-charged hands (14%), dealing some nifty mid-range knockback up to almost a SBB in front of itself. The knockback here actually scales pretty well and does the job of any old smash attack against anyone at 120%, so Ampharos can get a lot of mileage out of this by using it as its KO option. Yeah, there's a smidgen of lag on both ends of the move, but hey! Punch things in the face with thunder!
Down Tilt - Tackle
Ampharos crouches on all fours a bit like the Mareep it used to be, changing its hurtbox alignment while raising its tail behind it. With an input press, it suddenly tackles forward a SBB, headbutting anyone in the way (10%). The knockback sends them far, but not enough to really KO; it hardly scales up in power either, so don't expect it to be any more effective against much higher percentages. The ending lag's more than enough for any foe that spot-dodges in time, so Ampharos can't afford to be predictable with this when he can just punch foes instead.
Aerials
Neutral Air - Tail Spin
Ampharos spins around just like Charizard does, using its tail to whack foes away (9%). It's a bit faster in execution and does more knockback, even perhaps KOing those high in the air at a medium percentage, but it's pretty much the same and does its job as "hitbox all around" attack. We already passed the specials, so don't go back up there for any information that might be relevant.
Up Air - Discharge
Ampharos tilts its body back so it can face upwards, curving its tail as though it were lying in a hammock. It then packs together a bunch of static between its hands, releasing it upwards all the while. The static fizzles out a bit wider than its jab, but the disjointed hitboxes made (10 hits of 1%) should beat out most stall-then-fall aerials and also flinch foes upwards. Of course, it's kind of laggy to start up, and Ampharos also doesn't want to land on its back before it can get the chance to tilt its body upright.
Forward Air - Thunder
Ampharos raises its right hand and brings it down from above; as it does this, a small cloud appears in front of its head, and a capsule-sized thunderbolt shoots down from the cloud which will then dissipate. Said thunderbolt travels down at the usual falling object's pace until it hits either a floor or a blast zone, dealing some decent throw-you-a-diagonal-direction-upwards knockback to anyone it strikes (15%). It counts as a projectile, and Ampharos can use this as much as it wants, though the medium starting lag means it probably won't have more than two of these out at once.
Down Air - Static Clap
Ampharos flips to face downwards, its tail now facing up as its arms clap down. It takes Ampharos a few moments to get into position, but the attack itself releases a burst of static (8%) that flinches foes enough for Ampharos to realign itself. The arms themselves reach just below Ampharos, but they serve as a spiking sweetspot (13%) if the attack's landed just right.
Back Air - Warning Signal
Ampharos turns the other way and and makes the orb on its forehead flash. The sudden burst of light comes out as shockingly fast as many other Back Airs, and Ampharos recovers pretty quickly from using it too. The attack itself covers a radius the length of a Fan in front of Ampharos' headlight, and knocks foes a short distance away with its near-solid brightness (5%).
Grab Game
Grab - Feedback
While Ampharos' grab has a standard range and end lag, it also involves a paralyzing jolt that it sends out right in front of itself before grabbing. Obviously, anyone who gets hit by the jolt will be stunned and immediately grabbed when Ampharos actually reaches out with its arms. There's a bit of starting lag before the jolt which may give alert foes enough time to dodge away, because spot dodging within range will just get them grabbed by the Pokemon who can pummel them every third of a second with static (2%). If the jolt, which does have as much range as the grab itself doesn't hit anyone, Ampharos basically sets itself up to get punished.
Then again, Ampharos can use this grab out of its shield. In which case, Ampharos converts the energy in its shield, one half of the maximum health, into electricity for the initial jolt, which it sparks out in a Fan-length radius around itself. This won't hit spot-dodgers, and Ampharos doesn't follow up with another grab, but it does paralyze anyone hit for a good one and a half seconds, which'll be enough for Ampharos to grab them for good or some another shenanigan. Ampharos really doesn't want to miss with this, since its shield will be pretty much shot right afterwards, and it can't use this option if it has less shield health than required.
Forward Throw - Flash
Ampharos rears its head back, then smacks the foe with its forehead (13%), making its head jewel flash and releasing them at the same time. The struck foe will slide across the ground while standing in a dizzied state, skidding perhaps a good BFP away before recovering a few moments afterwards. Foes can button-mash to break free of the dizzied state, but Ampharos will probably have made use of that space by that time.
Down Throw - Fall
Ampharos tosses the foe to the ground, then jumps up to fall rump-first on them (12%). This ends with the foe slightly bounced back up into the air and also pretty much within range of almost anything Ampharos can dish out, though that becomes less true the higher their percentage becomes.
Up Throw - Fizzle
Ampahros throws the foe upwards by about two SBB, then follows up by sending up a Beam Sword-sized jolt of lightning,. If the jolt connects (as in, the foe doesn't DI in time), the foe will be stunned in the air (16%), stuck until they break out while Ampharos gets away with who-knows-what. If the jolt connects with any other foe, that foe will be stunned instead, but a 1v1 just makes this throw better spacing the opponent about.
Back Throw - Fling
Ampharos flings the foe back before whacking the foe with its tail (18%). As perhaps the only attack where Ampharos whacks the foe with its tail, this has a surprising amount of knockback, sending foes a long distance and perhaps even KOing those at 150%. If it doesn't, Ampharos is at least in a good position to make sure that it does.
Smashes
Forward Smash - Power Gem
Ampharos's forehead orb starts blinking as it rears it head back, facing ahead all the while. On release, it headbutts forward (not a hitbox, by the way) as a white hexagon of light shoots out of the orb on its head. The hexagon flies straight forward at the speed of Lucario's Aura Sphere while leaving behind a faint trail of afterimages, and disappears once it hits anyone in a burst of light (12%-16.8%), otherwise flying straight past walls and into the blast zone. It's worth noting that uncharged, the hexagon is the size of a Poke Ball and flies a Capsule length above the ground, so many foes can duck under it. However, the more charge Ampharos invests into the attack, the larger the hexagon shot out becomes, reaching the size of a Bumper at max charge. The knockback is decent for a projectile, KOing foes at 170%-135%, and Ampharos can shoot out as many of these as it is able to.
There's some more use Ampharos can get out of it. If he fires a Signal Beam straight at the hexagon (and assuming that's it's on the same ground level, that'll happen even with an uncharged hexagon), the hexagon will stop the beam and reflect it in a light burst twice its size, dealing the same effects that the beam had. Of course, a fully charged hexagon can turn Ampharos' beam into a bomb, but such an attempt would be easily foreseen and spot-dodged by even the campiest of opponents-
Hang on, what's that, Ampahros? I left something out back in the specials? Lemme check…oh yeah, the thing I left out because it wasn't relevant until this point. See, if Ampharos has a charge built from its Neutral Special, and uses any of its smash attacks, Ampharos will use that charge to immediately fire off a fully charged smash attack! It's just like tap-smashing it, except the the resulting hitbox deals the kind of wallop that one would usually only dream of landing on a foe.
Up Smash - Gigavolt
Ampharos looks upwards and raises its arms as it builds up static in the air above and around itself. Instead of damaging foes, however, the static forms the outline of an upwards-facing cone that starts off just covering Ampharos, but becomes taller as the move charges, reaching up to twice Ampharos' height. Upon release, Ampharos brings its arms down and fills the whole cone outline with a massive outburst of electricity (20%-28%), jolting any foes for some incredible KOs-between-100%-to-140% upwards knockback. Of course, with a charge, Ampharos instantly releases the maximum-sized gigavolt.
If there isn't any foe for the electricity to flow into, the attack will crash back down into Ampharos, who can handle this kind of electricity anyway. Static will crackle around Ampharos' body for 2 to 6 seconds depending on how much charge was put into the attack, during which all of Ampharos' electricity-based attacks will double in size and range! This should make it easier for Ampharos to strike the opponent with larger thunderbolts, bigger electric spheres and wider-reaching static, so it can take a more offense-based playstyle while it lasts.
Down Smash - Blinding Beacon
Ampharos looks towards its tail orb, which starts to flicker as Ampharos charges electricity into it. At the end of the charge, its tail orb fills up with bright light, which Ampharos raises up a bit to admire before resuming its battle stance. There's some start and end lag to deal with, though it's not really that laggy on either ends.
The moment the tail orb lights up, it becomes a hitbox. Should the orb come in contact with a foe or the stage, it'll instantly emit a blinding Party-Ball-sized flash of stored light (14.5%-20%) that'll stun any grounded foe or spike airborne foes within its range. The duration of how long the foe is disabled ranges from half a second to two seconds depending on the charge, but the real use is to make Ampharos able to hit foes with the simple of act of turning around. Its aerials make the best use of this extra hitbox, and its Back Throw allows it to follow up with another attack. Ampharos' stance and animations ensure that it's not going to accidentally set off this light by tapping its tail upon the stage by itself, not unless it messes up with its aerials. And of course, the whole deal can be just a full charge away.
Final Smash - Lighthouse Amps
Ampharos' tail light suddenly starts flickering something really bright. You may want to close yours eyes, players-BLING
The whole screen flashes white before fading, revealing a battlefield of stunned and/or spiked opponents. The further an opponent is from Ampharos, the less time they'll spent being complete KO bait (that is, between twelve and five seconds), taking less damage as well (40%-10%). It's not too different from Peach's Final Smash, except that instead of healing, Ampharos can just build up all its charges before sending foes straight into the blast zone.
Playstyle
Own everyone until everyone plays Ampharos
Ampharos has a fine tune on the lightning it dishes out; it can throw out quick jolts or waves to slow the foe down, generate static to rack up damage, or focus that thunder into much more potent KO moves. It may have a ton of stuns, but it doesn't have the long range attacks to really take advantage of it except a light beam. And said light beam is only good if the opponent doesn't man up and come within close quarters, forcing Ampharos to use its other defensive options. Of course, if you can maintain a close-range fight without shielding or using your grab or Down Special, then good for you! You must be really, really pro at this.
For everyone else, that kind of defense is what lets Ampharos keep a leg up in the melees. In those moments where Ampharos temporarily knocks the foe away, it'll want to build up its charge at every opportunity, which it can then invest to either refill its shield and thus refuel its defensive options, or pump up one of its smash attacks and turn it into a more capable fighter. Ampharos wants to sustain itself while keeping the foe's damage on the rise, then use one of its quicker attacks to knock the foe away and follow up with a well-timed aerial, either spiking the foe or sending them skywards.
Foes won't be stunned forever, so Ampharos does need to choose what to do with all its energy. Is it better to have an active hitbox behind it, which may be hard to land but gives it enough time to take control over whatever situation should it connect? Or maybe Ampharos needs to reach further with all the thunder it's discharging, including its grabs and stunning shots? Perhaps the foes are just playing too campy and need a giant light hexagon to flash in their faces. Ampharos should really hang onto its charge just to keep all three options open, thought if it wants to use them at a moment's notice, it should probably stay on the ground.
Ampharos defends so it can attack. Signal Beam is just to goad foes to come closer, where it can make good use of all the lighting and thunder at its arsenal, backed up by its multipurpose shield, to send the foe straight into the KO zone. Then victory becomes a blink of an eye and a well-timed Thunderpunch away.
Commenting Ampharos randomly out of a probably not entirely serious bet you made in the chat. I'll see that set on Sunday, thank you very much.
This set immediately scores point with its shield-based mechanic, which in typical Peanut fashion, is simplistic, but also very relevant to Brawl and has some profound effects on the moveset in the smallest of ways. The writing style is also as usual, very to-the-point and manages to get the point across throughout the moveset without going into much detail, the humorous tone surprisingly fitting on this Pokémon. I can't say much for the set's playstyle, though... while made up of very smart individual moves, the flow between them isn't there for me. To me, it seemed to amount to stunning, then hitting with a powerful move. You do have a good amount of knowledge in the set about countering certain approaches, and make the constant paralysis seem somewhat balanced, which is commendable, but in the end this seems pretty boring. You have some clever individual moves in there, best example being the forward smash, but then you have stuff like the grab which is Thunder Wave again. If I were to play armchair moveset maker, I would say this set could've been enjoyable for me had it actually played around with the idea of the shield-based ammo bank more. You were in the right mindset with how you discussed the defensive capabilities of most moves, but the same logic should have been applied to how your a foe would react to the change in your moves, and some more moves affected by the mechanic would also have been appreciated. Not for me, though.
None of Jeanne's stats have changed, but she takes half damage and hitstun from all attacks thanks to her ice powers creating frost that constantly chills the area around her...providing she's in her true form and not impersonating another character.
