3.6 Changes

[Serj28]

Tilts
-Forward Tilt
--IASA increased to 33 from 30.

Smashes
-Up Smash
--Adjusted pop-up hitboxes to have reduced vertical range.

-Down Smash
--SDI multipliers on multi-hits normalized from x0.9 to x1.0.

Specials
-Side Special (Grounded)
--ROBs Set Horizontal Momentum set to 0.25 to keep him nearly stationary.
--Animation adjusted to reflect this change.
--Reflector Active Frames: 6-28 -> 6-29 to match when regular hitbox ends.
--Multihit hitboxes replaced with a regular hitbox that is stronger during the initial 2 frames.
---Strong hit: Frames 14-16, 10 DMG, 361 Angle, 35 BKB, 75 KBG, Size 4
---Flub hit: Frames 17-30, 6 DMG, 361 Angle, 20 BKB, 75 KBG, Size 3

-Down Special (Gyro)
--Max Velocity changed from x1 to x0.7225.

Aerials
-Neutral Aerial
--Additional Boost % decreased from +2% to +1% (16% -> 15%)
--Late hit (active frames 23-28): 14% -> 12%, 50bkb -> 30bkb

Throws
-Down Throw
--Angle lowered to 80 from 85.

-Forward Throw (and Back Throw)
--Both throws release on frame 12, previously from frame 5.

Other
-Weight lowered to 104 from 106.
-Terminal Velocity increased to 2.0 from 1.65
-Fastfall Terminal Velocity increased to 2.55 from 2.4.
-Changed special fall animation to fix some clipping and have smoother arm rotations.
-Fixed some odd clipping with ROB's arms going through his head during down air.
-Fixed grounded side-B's graphic effects. Arm spin graphic appears properly on Virtual Boy ROB, and fixed arm spin graphic not disappearing properly on costumes other than default. Also fixed a broken loop that wasn't ever appearing due to overlapping timers.
-Applied arm trail for Virtual Boy ROB during Ground Side Special.

 

[DrinkingFood]

Just want to remind everyone that some changes seem to be inherently nerfs but aren't necessarily
dthrow, for example, I'm pretty sure we can still combo of it easily
faster fast fall speed means better SH and faster fall speed means some throws let us tech now where we couldn't before

I am disappointed though on a few of the changes that were made with seemingly little sense, I don't think anybody in PMDT really plays ROB well
why does upsmash launcher have reduced vertical height lol, it can't even hit aerial opponents

 

[Serj28]

Just want to remind everyone that some changes seem to be inherently nerfs but aren't necessarily.

I can get behind this, I just tried him out and am finding the speed changes very nice, he seems to move a bit more crisp too.
Just tried the chaingrab on falcon and he seemed to go too high just before 70 which is almost normal.

 

[DrinkingFood]

I'm very surprised that you can CG him at all with the angle change

 

[Serj28]

I'm very surprised that you can CG him at all with the angle change

he almost traveled higher than normal which made it a bit easier, maybe my roommate wasn't jumping out as soon as he could.
going to go and try it in debug mode!

 

[Sneez]

ya i think the increase in fall speed is probably a really good thing. what's the difference between terminal velocity and fastfall terminal velocity? is terminal velocity just from being hit?

 

[Bstuk]

Stuff to test:

Can ROBs dthrow still combo/chaingrab if they DI away? This is kinda hard to test by yourself but it seemed much harder to cg falcon when I was DIing away with him. Might just be me trying to manage 2 controllers at once.

Is it possible to SDI ROBs dsmash on reaction? Its much easier to SDI out of but it might not be able to be done on reaction.

Does ROBs backthrow/fthrow have more cooldown after the throw? I know the throw comes out later but I feel like its a little bit later until I can do something (such as shoot a laser). I might just not be used to it yet.

 

[DrinkingFood]

Stuff to test:

Can ROBs dthrow still combo/chaingrab if they DI away? This is kinda hard to test by yourself but it seemed much harder to cg falcon when I was DIing away with him. Might just be me trying to manage 2 controllers at once.

Is it possible to SDI ROBs dsmash on reaction? Its much easier to SDI out of but it might not be able to be done on reaction.

Does ROBs backthrow/fthrow have more cooldown after the throw? I know the throw comes out later but I feel like its a little bit later until I can do something (such as shoot a laser). I might just not be used to it yet.

dthrow can definitely still CG, but the window will be very tight, and maybe not possible on fox at early percents. His dthrow now has the same angle as his uthrow, awhile back I did testing for uthrow percents that had percents scaled equivalent knockback for certain percents of dthrow uses. Although I don't think it's that big of a nerf, I don't really like the way ROB's dthrow was handled because he now basically has uthrow twice over but staggered by like 50% which is pretty dumb. Uthrow also has 2 frames less endlag than dthrow. It's probably better to just uthrow now on a lot of characters now at 0%. idk how the release points compare, brb testing

 

[DrinkingFood]

So now that they have the same angle, here are how their KBs compare. Red line is uthrow, blue line is dthrow. X axis (bottom numbers) are percent, Y axis (left numbers) are the corresponding KB values at those percents. At 0%, dthrow has approx. 95.5 KB at 0 and uthrow has exactly 97.2. That difference is very small, it's less than a frame hitstun (it ends up rounding to 1 extra hitstun frame), but you also get a tad more launch distance/speed from that too, and since the throw is mostly vertical, most of that launch speed is expended sending them upwards. this may be particularly helpful for spacies. So uthrow's release point is about the same height off the ground as dthrow, but it's slightly further from ROB's center. Funnily enough, uthrow's endlag is 2 frames less than dthrow (14 frames vs 16) and that's about the time it takes ROB to dash that distance (I think it actually takes him 3 frames to dash that far but I'm eyeballing, seems dthrow is generally better tho). For consistencies sake, I'd recommend just always using dthrow as your combo throw, it will make keeping the same timing for the instant dash-after-endlag easier; the only exception would be times when you specifically need the extra knockback.

Also I have to say, this change was really badly implemented. I know they probably wanted to rid ROB of his stupid CGs on spacies and make his follow-ups less braindead, and that's fine, I don't have an issue with that, my issue is that they just made a really lazy change that ended up making dthrow into Up-Throw Lite.



EDIT: So something about throw release points seems to have made ROB's uthrow regrab on fox impossible at 0%. It was a one frame window before (and did not work on falco for some reason). It is also impossible off dthrow at 0. I will test some other percents, tho.

edit2: at 20%, regrab on uthrow is possible, it is a 3 frame window, you must dash immediately after endlag of uthrow for 12-14 frames, then JC grab. That's a lot of inputs to hit correctly, with only 2 frames of leniency on the jump->grab input. Chances are, any numbers lower than 20% have tighter windows and any numbers higher have higher windows, until the fox is airborne long enough to jump out. I'm going to test dsmash now as a follow-up instead; dash->tilt pivot->dsmash comes out 2 frames faster than JC grab with the same timing and has further reach and hits lower

 

[dettadeus]

Someone please explain why they trashed robocopter in this patch. I might as well be powershielding projectiles at this point, and the "strong hit" they replaced the multihits with isn't even safe on hit.

Other than that and the nair nerfs, none of the changes are particularly big IMO.

Also I have to say, this change was really badly implemented. I know they probably wanted to rid ROB of his stupid CGs on spacies and make his follow-ups less braindead, and that's fine, I don't have an issue with that, my issue is that they just made a really lazy change that ended up making dthrow into Up-Throw Lite.

Yes, get rid of a chaingrab on spacies... which is a balancing point for them that the majority of the cast takes advantage of. Entirely sensible.

 

[Sneez]

i think i might like his new grounded side-b better. now you don't have to commit so hard when you wanna reflect something, and using it in the opposite direction will make it even safer. wondering if it might be useful as a combo extender in certain situations.

 

[DrinkingFood]

His side-b is really now one of the worst reflectors lol, if not outright the worst
All other reflectors have some utility outside of reflecting and usually have less start-up than ROBs or reflect almost til the end of the animation. ROBs hitbox on his is a weak generic sakurai angle, even the sweetspot isn't that strong and gets CCd for awhile, never mind that it's slow as ****
I guess it's an okay reflector if you want to guarantee a reflection on a highly telegraphed projectile and don't need the chance to follow up on it
So basically useless for anything but strong charged projectiles lol

 

[M Murphy]

I seriously hope for the full release of 3.6 they bring back his old side b. It was really useful in some matchups and it now basically one of the worst reflectors in the game. Are you guys still able to combo out of downthrow it seems MUCH harder for me now.

Edit: Even if it's not the exact same as it was, I would like for something to be done to make it an actually useful special attack again.

 

[Zaa]

Tried him out and the nair change seems really bad. It has such bad kill power now, at least thats what it seemed like from playing some games.

 

[Sneez]

--Late hit (active frames 23-28): 14% -> 12%, 50bkb -> 30bkb. so you gotta hit it earlier for the strong hit. after testing out the grounded side-b it seems a lot worse than i expected. however, i feel like his boost dair is more viable now due to the faster fall speed.

 

[Deleted member]

I actually kind of like the new nair. Even though the later hit isn't as good at killing, it has a cool little niche of being able to combo. Late Nair landing -> U air is oddly satisfying.

... wait I don't main ROB

*flies away*

 

[DrinkingFood]

I actually kind of like the new nair. Even though the later hit isn't as good at killing, it has a cool little niche of being able to combo. Late Nair landing -> U air is oddly satisfying.

... wait I don't main ROB

*flies away*

how on earth are you comboing with a frame 23 hit lmao
unless you mean STARTING a combo, then yeah it can do that if somebody is stupid enough to run into a frame 23 hit

 

[Jity]

The nair hit was really unnecessary. I got a late hit Nair on Pit at over 150% halfway to the blast zone on Smashville and it didn't kill. It's not that I mind the concept of having the hitbox get weaker over time; it's a stupidly meaty move anyway, even as laggy and unsafe as it is, but the angle that the strong hitbox comes out at is almost never relevant in any sort of followup or combo situation, so you virtually never end up getting it. It just makes it into a very mediocre kill move.

Reflector is also useless; 13 frames of startup, 17 frames of end lag, not even safe on hit, barely worth even using to reflect. Not to mention that it doesn't even reliably reflect items; sometimes they just collide with the hitbox instead. It's completely worthless now, imo.

 

[bubbaking]

Welp! Looks like ROB was absolutely nerfed for the third time in a row (I say absolutely 'cause I know he ended up being better last patch due to everyone being nerfed, but he was still nerfed quite considerably). They always seem to hit his boost aerials, too. That move is slow to come out, starts out behind him, and is minus on block. What's the problem?

About dthrow, it seems like a lot of characters have a bit more trouble comboing off their dthrows (or respective counterparts), so it's probably just a result of the universal throw changes.

Faster fall speed does give us some nice things, but it also means we get comboed/juggled harder now.

I'm going to test dsmash now as a follow-up instead; dash->tilt pivot->dsmash comes out 2 frames faster than JC grab with the same timing and has further reach and hits lower

By "tilt pivot", you mean the 'true-pivot', right? As in pivot during initial dash and dsmash? Also, wouldn't the opponent simply be able to SDI out of dsmash, especially with the SDI nerf and the fact that, after being thrown, the opponent can just fully focus on S/DIing whatever you try to hit him with?

the "strong hit" they replaced the multihits with isn't even safe on hit.

The old multi-hits weren't safe on hit either...

 

[dettadeus]

So I got to play some friendlies yesterday and try out the new sideb.

When playing vs a Pit, I tried to reflect his arrow once and instead, the hitbox clanked with it. Which is definitely wrong. The point of a reflector is to reflect. The reflecting hitbox should be much larger or have higher priority than the actual hitbox.

Also... the strong hit doesn't kill Mario at 200% from any part of the stage. How is this a "strong hit"? Other characters that have moves to deal with projectiles, like shines or absorbs (ness/lucas/g&w) have nearly no drawbacks using the move for its original purpose but have a plethora of other options with the move. And ROB gets... a terrible, immobile reflector with little range and a useless hitbox. Might as well get rid of robocopter completely and instead make his grounded sideb like Pit's, where it puts him into aerial sideb around ground level.

@above: the multihits may not have been safe on hit, but if you reflected a projectile on your way forward and it hit the opponent, that made it positive.

 

[DrinkingFood]

I would love getting a grounded side-boost tbh
Imagine going offstage/off platforms with that, wave landing out of it, etc

 

[shagi_10]

OMG, i don't like this R.O.B, the side B it's the worst! also the movement just doesn't feels right, i miss project M 3.5 R.O.B u.u

 

[Jams.]

I think the PMDT just looked at ROB's old sideb, decided he doesn't need an reflector+hitbox that also served a movement option (which he really didn't TBH), and nerfed it into the scrap heap.

Also, a ton of people in my region complained about nair, so now I'll just tell them it got nerfed and hopefully they'll be satisfied. >.>

 

[Deleted member]

how on earth are you comboing with a frame 23 hit lmao
unless you mean STARTING a combo, then yeah it can do that if somebody is stupid enough to run into a frame 23 hit

Oh I just like using boost nair to land and start combos w/ it. People don't run into it, you run into them

don't always have to be so negative dawg

 

[Zaa]

As Lunchables said, although the kill power seems almost non existent I find I can pull off a boost nair >land > up air follow up that kills as well. Not all bad I guess.

 

[bubbaking]

No good player should be getting hit by a nair approach unless he's being way too overzealous in an attempt to stuff you.

Other characters that have moves to deal with projectiles, like shines or absorbs (ness/lucas/g&w) have nearly no drawbacks using the move for its original purpose but have a plethora of other options with the move. And ROB gets... a terrible, immobile reflector with little range and a useless hitbox.

Was right about to completely agree with you until I remembered Pit's Mirror Shield. I mean, sure, it's also an unbreakable shield (only if you're facing him, though), but it's not particularly useful. I still agree with you for the most part, though. Either rework the move into something completely different if the concept of a moving reflector is too troublesome or give it its utility back.

Also, a ton of people in my region complained about nair, so now I'll just tell them it got nerfed and hopefully they'll be satisfied. >.>

A bunch of people in my region also. That's just what happens regarding the characters that one of the better players uses. You should have told them it was already nerfed in 3.5, and you'd have been completely right.

 

[Sneez]

lol landing a nair isn't that hard cmon guys. it used to combo into uptilt at low percents but not combo at highish (~80%) percents, looks like now itll combo into upair at highish percents for kills. and im glad lunch doesn't seem to hate rob anymore yay. now i wait for someone to say im wrong in some way or some **** yayaya

 

[DrinkingFood]

no trust me lunch will still hate ROB next time I play him lmao
He thinks the dthrow angle change helped, the only thing it'll help is me CGing him for even longer because he's too stubborn to DI in

 

[Deleted member]

no trust me lunch will still hate ROB next time I play him lmao
He thinks the dthrow angle change helped, the only thing it'll help is me CGing him for even longer because he's too stubborn to DI in

... I'm right here y'know.

I actually like 3.6 rob lol

 

[DrinkingFood]

I can chaingrab you to 30% now if you DI away, I just tested it
I mean, you can and always could escape onto a platform
and with GHZ+FD always bannable as a pair, I don't see why you dislike CGs
what I'm trying to say is, I want 3.5 dthrow back. the only matchup this affected drastically are spacies why is the only good tool for punishing spacies "degenerate"

 

[illdub89]

The only change I'm salty about is his side b. Pretty much useless now. I like the new fall speed. Fast fall down air is soooo much easier now. I probably underutilized his n air to begin with so it wasn't a huge loss to me. Can't decide if I like or dislike the down throw changes. Follow ups are definitely not as easy with it though

 

[bubbaking]

lol landing a nair isn't that hard cmon guys. it used to combo into uptilt at low percents but not combo at highish (~80%) percents, looks like now itll combo into upair at highish percents for kills. and im glad lunch doesn't seem to hate rob anymore yay. now i wait for someone to say im wrong in some way or some **** yayaya

Lolz, nobody's saying it will never hit, but you can't really expect to reliably start combos with it. The late hit, which you will be comboing with, hits on frame 23. Average human reaction time, when prepped, is 10-12 frames. It's just not a very good way of starting combos against competent opponents. Also, uair was already nerfed last patch, so that move won't be killing until very high %'s on everyone except the lightweights anyway. No matter how you slice it, this is just not a very good change for us. We got better at damage-racking, which was never an issue for us, and worse at actually killing, which was always an issue.

 

[Zaa]

I don't think anyone was arguing that the changes were good for ROB, but his nair has a new sort of niche it can fill now is all I was saying at least.

 

[DrinkingFood]

Average human reaction time, when prepped, is 10-12 frames.

This is not true, that only applies to twitch reaction time. Decision based reaction time is much more complex and can easily exceed 20 frames. Twitch reaction time is any time that your decision is always the same, IE as soon as you see [any stimulus] you respond with one particular action, which is basically never true in fighting games
http://shoryuken.com/2015/05/21/hum...hting-games-or-why-blocking-isnt-always-easy/
http://www.teyah.net/MilliaBlocker_v0.3.swf
that said, getting late hit nair often is more of an issue because jump+rising time+boost start-up+soft hit frame is more than 40 frames lol. I have occasionally been able to land it and when I do, I think the rewards at mid percents are much better because you can get a guaranteed combo off to send them offstage, whereas old nair, at mid percent they often when to high for the combo to be guaranteed, and you'd instead try to push advantage from a staggered state, whereas sending them offstage with soft nair->up air gives ROB access to his edgeguard game. At low percents (like sub-30 or so idk when soft nair actually starts comboing well) and kill percents (100-130 depending on character) old nair soft hit is better. Either way it's a marginal change, mid level players and lower get hit by this way more than top level players, who rarely take the hits of raw boost nairs at all.

 

[Juushichi]

Millia blocker is hard.

 

[bubbaking]

This is not true, that only applies to twitch reaction time. Decision based reaction time is much more complex and can easily exceed 20 frames. Twitch reaction time is any time that your decision is always the same, IE as soon as you see [any stimulus] you respond with one particular action, which is basically never true in fighting games

I am aware of the difference between T/F and multiple-choice reaction time, but the two aren't exclusive. You can turn one into the other once the situation has passed certain parameters, which can be set by the person. Personally, I don't usually have trouble with ROB's boosts because once he jumps, it's easy to twitch-react and hit the shield button if he starts a boost towards me (and then WD OoS away if he boosts away after that). If we are talking about hitting with nairs in other situations, then I completely agree that it's much more of a multiple-choice scenario, but as you say, the start-up time is effectively much more. I was simply assuming that ROB was already in the air, where his options are much more limited and one can basically treat his boost aerials as a T/F scenario.

 

[DrinkingFood]

I am aware of the difference between T/F and multiple-choice reaction time, but the two aren't exclusive. You can turn one into the other once the situation has passed certain parameters, which can be set by the person. Personally, I don't usually have trouble with ROB's boosts because once he jumps, it's easy to twitch-react and hit the shield button if he starts a boost towards me (and then WD OoS away if he boosts away after that). If we are talking about hitting with nairs in other situations, then I completely agree that it's much more of a multiple-choice scenario, but as you say, the start-up time is effectively much more. I was simply assuming that ROB was already in the air, where his options are much more limited and one can basically treat his boost aerials as a T/F scenario.

"If he boosts towards you" is exactly the criteria for decision based reaction, because there's the possibility he won't

 

[Sneez]

oranges are orange. "no they're not they got some green on the stem you stupid idiot nerd"

 

[DrinkingFood]

except that's not even an accurate representation of this discussion; decision based reaction time being extraordinarily slow is extremely significant, a lot of people tout moves as being bad or w/e because they have a certain amount of start-up and you can "react" to them, but there's definitely a reason overheards work in fighting games lmao, on top of a lot of things that aren't exactly quick in smash yet you're not going to be powershielding them for reasons of shielding not being the right decision every time you see your opponent move/change animation

 

[bubbaking]

Sneez, if you have nothing intelligent to add to the discussion, then please don't chime in with ridiculously inaccurate analogies.

DF, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree at this point. When ROB jumps, the 'two options' to me are boost towards you or not. If the other options were as equally threatening as boost towards aerials at mid-range, then yeah, there would be more choices to worry about, but at mid-range, the non-boost towards options can all be umbrella'd under a similar reaction of 'don't really have to worry about it'. IMO, overheads are a bad analogy because of the situation they are used in. Overheads are used in CQC, where you also have to worry about lows, grabs, and certain cross-up set-ups.

That being said, most overheads, with the exception of instant aerial overheads, are actually completely reactable (and they are purposefully designed to be so). They are usually done alongside 'something else' (assists, jump-in fireballs, etc.) to mask them; they're actually not that useful when done raw. However, I don't want to deviate this into a conversation about overheads, lolz.