3.6(B) Captain Falcon Changes Discussion

[Tlock]

Aerials
-Down Aerial
--The Nipple Spike now uses the fire element.

Throws
-Up Throw
--Adjusted to match Melee better in hit, release, and IASA.

3.5->3.6/Melee u-throw has 2 more endlag, release point is lower to the ground and more outward so DI away can make knee not guaranteed on the characters that fall fast enough for that.

-Down Throw
--Release point adjusted to better match Melee.

Specials
-Side Special (Raptor Boost Aerial)
--No longer a spike, is now a meteor smash. Stats matched to Melee.

-Down Special (Falcon Kick)
--Landing hitbox
---Hits only grounded opponents.
---Damage increased from 6 to 10.
---KBG decreased from 83 to 35.
---Hitbox size decreased from 6 to 5.

Other
-Powershield size multiplier increased from 0.73x to 0.75x


In short:
Up throw - small nerf
Down throw - not sure on the effects of this change atm
Raptor Boost - small but logical nerf
Falcon Kick - damage buff, but from my small testing last night - it no longer pops people up for free knees or up airs. Will have to test more to see full effects of the changes. Seems like a nerf on first look.
Powershielding is slightly easier

 

[lordhelmet]

I was anticipating side-b nerf for a long time lol. Uthrow is actually a lot worse now, no one really abused the PM chaingrabs.

Still don't like how side-b auto grabs ledge (when you side-b off the stage). Might be alone on this thought.

 

[Mr.Pickle]

You're not

 

[Nixon Corral]

Nothing earth-shattering here, but I wish they hadn't nerfed Raptor Boost. Not a big deal, though.

 

[Scuba Steve]

I was anticipating side-b nerf for a long time lol. Uthrow is actually a lot worse now, no one really abused the PM chaingrabs.

Still don't like how side-b auto grabs ledge (when you side-b off the stage). Might be alone on this thought.

It feels dumb because Falcon can do good stuff off the ledge. It basically makes what is supposed to be a risky move really dumb in some situations.

Perfect example of being rewarded for a dumb raptor boost when I shouldn't have:
https://youtu.be/1aCGyu9HtBM?t=339

 

[DMG]

I was anticipating side-b nerf for a long time lol. Uthrow is actually a lot worse now, no one really abused the PM chaingrabs.

I'm not sure who got CG'd before, that did not get CG'd in Melee by it. I can only think of heavy FF like maybe DK or Ganon at low %? The changes seem to be more of an impact on aerial follow ups than CG's: Haven't done extensive testing but I'm not sure how different doing Uthrow CG on Roy would be for example (aside from needing to be tighter on execution)

PM Uthrow I believe released characters from higher up + closer to Falcon than Melee / 3.6 Uthrow. That may have changed some CG %'s or potential in a negative way (DI upwards / above Falcon would probably place them higher than now)

 

[SilentDeadbolt]

Honestly I don't get why they nerfed him. Yes I get that he was very good but he was still outclassed by the top tiers (fox, Falco, wolf, shiek, Roy, lucario) and yes I realize fox was 'nerfed' but let's all be honest for a second, it's not like people were ever winning majors with falcon lol and I don't think fox's nerfs are gonna stop people from winning tourneys with him.

I know it's a small nerf but I don't see why you would nerf any character that isn't even a top tier character. Oh and his raptor boost still doesn't go through projectiles. If they're just gonna port him from melee he should get that back.

 

[Scuba Steve]

Honestly I don't get why they nerfed him. Yes I get that he was very good but he was still outclassed by the top tiers (fox, Falco, wolf, shiek, Roy, lucario) and yes I realize fox was 'nerfed' but let's all be honest for a second, it's not like people were ever winning majors with falcon lol and I don't think fox's nerfs are gonna stop people from winning tourneys with him.

I know it's a small nerf but I don't see why you would nerf any character that isn't even a top tier character. Oh and his raptor boost still doesn't go through projectiles. If they're just gonna port him from melee he should get that back.

I'm curious as to how you think he was nerfed. If you consider upthrow a nerf, then yes by the strict definition of a nerf it was one. Is upthrow still really ****ing good? YES. It matches Melee upthrow, WHICH HAPPENS TO STILL BE REALLY ****ING GOOD. Same **** with dthrow.

As for raptor boost, it is nerfed from 3.5 to 3.6, but not really unjustly so. The only things these nerfs took away were really dumb unintentional kills while recovering. It was basically Falcon's version of the Sakurai combo. It wasn't impossible to cover or beat out, but flubbing even a small bit in the execution on the edgeguarders part could lead to really early dumb kills. With the all around buffs to meteors in PM (the meteor cancel window doesn't start until 16 frames in PM. In Melee, you can meteor cancel as soon as 8 frames), Falcon's raptor boost still has much greater killing power than it did in Melee. You don't need to worry about hitting somebody offstage with it for a sick suicide kill when they're at like 50% but then they just meteor cancel and live. If you're using it reasonably deep, it's pretty much always a kill on characters with reasonable recoveries

Falcon kick changes looked like a mixed bag. It makes sense for a landing hitbox to not hit airborne opponents so I think that is more of a design decision rather than any intention making him stronger or weaker as a character. It got a bit more damage on the landing hitbox and less knockback growth. I think this might actually make stuff like edge cancel falcon kicks combo better. Who knows? Hardly anybody messes around with stuff like that yet and are making huge claims about the future of this patch instead of trying the new stuff out lol. All that said falcon kick has never been a core component of Falcon's game. If they did something like make his dash slower, then I would consider that a nerf. Falcon is still Falcon.

patchnotes also say that his powershield thingymabobber went from 0.73x to 0.75x. That's a small buff right there.

TL;DR
Falcon got fire on nipple spike so he already got the best buff of 3.6

 

[Vegerot]

Aerials
-Down Aerial
--The Nipple Spike now uses the fire element.

-Down Special (Falcon Kick)
--Landing hitbox
---Hits only grounded opponents.
---KBG decreased from 83 to 35.
---Hitbox size decreased from 6 to 5.


In short:
Up throw - small nerf
Down throw - not sure on the effects of this change atm
Raptor Boost - small but logical nerf
Falcon Kick - damage buff, but from my small testing last night - it no longer pops people up for free knees or up airs. Will have to test more to see full effects of the changes. Seems like a nerf on first look.
Powershielding is slightly easier

Hell yeah, Fiery nipples.

No more badass Falcon Kicking people in the air. And that's a huge nerf to KGB.

 

[Rachman]

Thank God they fixed his throws

 

[Lil Bucket Hat]

Thank god for red snes skins