All of his moves have very fast startup,
Captain Falcon, Diddy, (Dr.) Mario, Falco, Little Mac, Luigi, Lucas (outside of his Smashes), Meta Knight, Ness, Pikachu, the Pits, Ryu, Samus, Sonic, Wii Fit Trainer (outside of her Smashes), Yoshi, and ZSS all have relatively fast startup on their moves. EVEN Ganondorf has (relatively) fast startup on his moves. Your point being?
Fox has been fast since day one of Smash. That's his shtick. He's pretty much the Ken of Smash who goes in to pressure you hard and if he really needs to, can at least challenge at range, but would rather be in your face using his fast movement and moves. Fox being any slower in any way would ruin what makes Fox himself.
smashes have intangibility - they shouldn't have as much disjoint as they do. Up-smash is frame 1 intangible.
Up Smash and Down Smash. Side Smash doesn't have I-frames and why Down Smash has I-frames is beyond me, but it's been like this since Melee and does it really matter? The I-frames are only on its 2 active frames; Down Smash has coverage, but not the raw power, range, or lower commitment of other Down Smashes. It has 46 recovery frames for a frame 6 attack. You want a stupid Down Smash? Luigi's. Frame 6, 4 total active frames split into 2 hits so it's 2(6)2 -- parentheses denoting a frame gap -- and only 23 recovery frames. 23 recovery frames is tilt range of recovery not Smash range of +30.
Up Smash? It should have I-frames since it's an anti-air and basically a Flash Kick. Why they gave it invincibility on the wrong part, his head, in Melee and removed it in Brawl is beyond me. Fox just manages to make it more of an offensive move through confirms rather than defensive like Falco does with his Somersault Shell Up Smash. I-frames on Up Smashes isn't an uncommon thing and if you don't have I-frames, you might have raw speed or disjoints like Diddy or Link's Up Smashes, respectively, or both like the Pits and Toon Link. Considering not all Up Specials are attacks, Utilts or Up Smashes have to be anti-airs. The fact they have "up" in their name hints to that. Smash 4 is just the first game that figured out maybe invincibility or transcendent priority on them might be a good thing to help with anti-airing so characters with slower Utilts or Up Smashes don't get royally screwed over. You want to complain about I-frames? Complain about Falco's. Here, it's been reported to only have I-frames from 7-11, but in Japan? sixriver reported it as 7-20. That's the entire goddamned attack. Oh, and remember the second hit lingers for 8 frames and can KO reasonably around ~125% without the first hit. Have fun. sixriver's page on Falco:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...CsgOKWHVREdoDwnB43BFU/edit?pref=2&pli=1#gid=0.
Back to Fox, his Up Smash has the highest recovery out of all the flip kick Up Smashes at 45 frames. Everyone else clocks under that with Falco's clocking at 30 frames. He cannot and should not being throwing Up Smashes around like a moron. Players who fish with his Up Smash will die despite his speed. Really? Why are you even challenging Fox when he's running around like that? It's like running up to Guile knowing he's going to expect you to jump over his Sonic Booms and oops, invincible Flash Kick to the face. The fact Fox players only use Up Smash for KOs makes it seem stronger than it really is since they're not using it all willy-nilly. It's a powerful tool, but nothing close to the stupidity of other tools. Mario, Mewtwo, Palutena, Rosalina, and Yoshi's Up Smashes are stupider than Fox's because they're more abusive as they have much more range, have more active frames, and/or are much safer. Should we complain and nerf theirs? No.
In fact his up and down smash are competitive with many characters' jabs.
Yeah, frame 7 Up Smash with 45 recovery frames and frame 6 Down Smash with 46 recovery frames are totally more competitive with other jabs. Startup? Yes, and for only 14 characters: Bayonetta (9), Bowser (7), Ganondorf (7), Link (7), Lucario (6), Mega Man (7), Meta Knight (7), Mewtwo (6), Mii Swordfighter (6), Palutena (8), Rosalina (8), Toon Link (6), Triple D (10), and Zelda (11). That's not really "many" and they all have other moves to work with since since some of them aren't going to be using them up close like why would the Links want to combat anyone up-close when they can play mid-range and long-range? Utility and safety? No. 'Cause the way I look it, Ganondorf's frame 7, 21 recovery and Zelda's frame 11, 9 recovery jabs are much more flexible than Fox's Up and Down Smashes... Why are you even comparing jab with Smashes? I swear if people start comparing Ryu's Shoryuken to goddamned jabs. No **** it's going to be stronger, but Ryu's going to commit way harder to Shoryuken than say, Marth and Roy will when they jab.
Stuff like up-tilt hitting below the stage is absurd (Why?!?).
Meanwhile, Captain Falcon -- ever been hit below a platform by his Dair? -- Diddy, DK, (Dr.) Mario, Falco, Ike, Little Mac, Lucas, Mewtwo, Ness, Palutena, Rosalina, Ryu, Samus -- I am pretty damn sure her Dtilt can hit below --, Sheik -- Dair --, Wario, and sort of ZSS. Your point being? A lot of characters can hit below the stage to edgeguard and some do it in really stupid ways. (Dr.) Mario, Fox, and Wario just have high enough active frames during key edgeguards such as (Dr.) Mario's dash attack, Fox's Utilt, and Wario's dash attack. Helps that those moves are fast which brings in Diddy's Dtilt and Ryu's Down Smash. Now, Palutena... Her Up Smash covers the ledge and platforms if you're on Battlefield, Duck Hunt, Smashville, T&C, etc. It's slow, but it lasts 8 frames without the hitbox ever changing as in the case of Fox's Utilt. Similar case with Lucas and Mewtwo's Down Smash. Have fun.
D-air is similar to Mario's D-air and hits well away from the actual animation.
Smaller hitbox than Mario's Dair as it only hits where his legs are; probably waist down while Mario's is probably his entire body or waist up and further out since he's spinning with his arms out while Fox is spinning with his leg down. Then again, we're talking about a game where it's implied you should not be able to challenge below you ever considering most of the cast has slow and generic Dair spikes which doesn't help when some of them really have trouble with being juggled and it's a bit boring since if they manage to hit, it's either going to be a spike to the stage or a 361 degree late hit. You're not going to see something stupid like a Dair sending you straight up or at a shallow angle. Characters who do have good Dairs tend to have to really relatively fast ones like Cloud, Fox, Lucario, Luigi, Mario, Meta Knight, PAC-MAN?, Peach, and the Pits. In most cases, Dairs are extremely situational even if they're good like Pikachu, Yoshi, or Zelda's. Few manage to be good while being slow Dair spikes like Kirby's auto-cancelable and landing hit makes it more versatile or Rosalina's lingering disjointed Dair.
Up-air could also be less safe to just throw out. He might as well have a sword, and it makes no sense. It's frame 9 but it's extremely safe because of the disjoint. He needs to trade a bit more, win a bit less in exchanges.
It's a linear hit. If Fox's Uair was like Captain Falcon's where it arcs, Cloud's where it has huge horizontal range, or even Palutena's where it has a large body hit, then sure it would be busted, but it's not. It's a small hitbox compared to those. That small hitbox gets rewarded by high damage and knockback which makes it one of the most unique Uairs in the game with only Yoshi coming to mind as another small hitbox, high damage and knockback Uair. The problems is that because nobody else has this move and most characters have more generic Uair juggles or in the case of Falco's, made generic, it looks really strong and the other problem is that some characters don't give a damn when they can easily get up to the blast zone and setup an Uair or better yet, an Up Special finisher to boot you in like Bayonetta, Meta Knight, and ZSS. If Captain Falcon had his 64 Falcon Dive setup, Corrin could setup her Dragon Ascent up top, Mario's Super Jump Punch KO'd earlier, Samus's ability to Uair juggle more consistently and Screw Attack KO'd earlier, and Roy could setup his Blazer up top like that, people would be really, really pissed as more characters get to ladder the hell out of them.
It's only disjointed because the first hit is with his tail assuming people are right... Even then, its a small disjoint since his tail is about his leg length; it has nothing on Ryu's which is intended to be disjointed considering the in-game tip and that Ryu's only hitting with his arm that goes up a little over his head unlike Fox doing a front flip to hit with his legs while he's under you. It's not really safe if you manage to get to his sides since it only hits up and if you get up high enough, he can't reach you since Fox's jump is only average. Why are people even bothering to try and land on-stage or predictably when they know how fast Fox is? That's what makes his Uair so strong: Fox's movement. He can chase you on the ground and he can mess with you with his empty movement. If he commits to it and misses, he's not going to be able to do much except maybe try to catch you with a double jump or better yet, fast fall back to the ground and chase you again. All of that gets countered by its hitbox. Is it a bit too strong? In (total) damage? Maybe since only Mega Man?, Mii Swordfighter, and Zelda's Uair do +16%. In knockback? Considering Fox's shtick is to KO vertically, maybe not, especially since his other aerials don't exactly KO well except for Bair which is a similar case for his Smashes as he only really has Up Smash as a KO move while Side and Down Smash are weaker, utility moves. Also, Ike, Ness, Palutena, Rosalina, Sheik, and Zelda have powerful Uairs too. Speaking of which, Ness's Uair would be more busted than Fox's considering its arcing hitbox. Should we complain about that? No, since it's not broken, it's not KO'ing at 30% or doing 24% and it's getting really, really annoying, but if any of you want to complain about Fox, keep it coming and I would refute all of them if I'd be bothered to. Emphasis on being bothered to.
(but forreal, she defiantly doesn't need a nerf. She's isn't dominating the game. She could stand a nerd and so could the rest of the top tiers, but there's no way they absolutely need one).
