Are recoveries really better in Smash 4?

[Piford]

So something that gets thrown around a lot is that recoveries were majorly buffed going from Brawl to Smash 4. I wanted to see if this was actually true, so I looked for some data on recoveries and here's what I found. Now some of this could be wrong so feel free to correct me. Also I can't get video comparisons, but that would be really cool if it was somehow possible.

Cape doesn't lift him up as much in the air

Air Speed is higher, but his Super Jump Punch has less horizontal and vertical recovery. Luigi Cyclone also doesn't raise him as high

(From Melee) Air Speed drastically reduced, but jump hight is higher. Sheet doesn't boost him at all anymore, Super Jump Punch doesn't travel as high, and Dr. Tornado doesn't travel as high

Double Jump has more height. Her umbrella covers more height

Double Jump has more height. Whirling Fortress gains more height.

Egg boosts him up a bit, but his aerial speed is a bit lower

Aerial speed is significantly slower. His corkscrew has increased height, but his Fart gains less height.

Faster Speed, and spinning Kong gains more vertical distance

Rocket Barrel needs to charged longer, but it covers more angles

Air Speed increased, along with his Spin Attack gaining more height. Tether Recovery Boosted.

Air Speed Reduced and Spin Attack gains less height and distance. Tether Recovery Boosted.

Teleport goes farther

Air Speed Increased. Tether Recovery removed.

Air Speed Reduced. Removal of Grab Armor makes Ganondorf easier to edgeguard.

Air Speed Reduced. Tether Recovery Boosted.

Air Speed Increased. Tether Recovery Boosted. Her new recovery move doesn't gain as much height as her old one.

Air Speed Reduced

Falls Faster. Jumps don't go as high. Air Speed increased. Glide removed significantly hurting recovery. Mach Tornado goes significantly shorter distance, has more ending lag, and cannot sweetspot the ledge anymore.

Jump height increased. His up special can now grab the ledge on the way up.

Illusion no longer puts Fox in a helpless state, which significantly boosts his recovery. He loses the ability to shorten Illusion, which is a slight nerf. Fire Fox covers a greater distance. Air Speed increased. Fall Speed increased.

Phantasm no longer puts Falco in a helpless state, which significantly boosts his recovery.

Skull Bash travels farther, but has more lag. Quick Attack is slower, has more ending lag, and covers less distance

Pound doesn't covers as much range

Glide removed significant hurt recovery. Fly goes a bit higher

Extreme Speed now gains distance as Lucario takes more damage, significantly boosting recovery.

Raptor Boosts doesn't travel as far in the air. Falcon Dive covers more distance, but the removal of Grab Armor makes Captain Falcon easier to edgeguard.

PK Thunder was significantly buffed making it harder to edgeguard Ness, and PK Thunder 2 goes further

Air Speed reduced. Dancing Blade has more ending lag, reducing it's recovery potential.

Air Speed Increased. Double Jump goes higher. Quick Draw goes farther. Quick Draw no longer puts Ike in a helpless state if the attack connects. Aether can no longer grab the ledge from behind

Fire covers more distance

Air speed reduced. Mid air jumps don't go as high. Glide removed significant hurt recovery. Upper Dash Arm adds new recovery option, although it doesn't make up for the loss of glide. Power of Flight replaces Wings of Icarus

New Recovery move significantly boosts his recovery, but requires him to sacrifice pikmin to achieve the best results.

Air Speed Increased. Robo Burner is significantly slower, doesn't gain as much height from repeated use.

Air Speed Increased. Spring Jump has reduced distance and Spin Dash is less safe of a recovery move.

So overall we have a mix of buffs and nerfs. Some are huge improvements like Olimar, while other's are big nerfs like Charizard. Overall we have 17 characters nerfed and 17 buffed. So it seems as if recoveries were more rebalanced in Smash 4 as opposed to buffed significantly. There are of course a lot of new Characters who have impressive recoveries like Villager, but there are also ones that have very unimpressive ones like Little Mac.

 

[Raijinken]

In most cases, recoveries are such that if you aim low, it's relatively easy to recover at the cost of risking being stage-spiked. Horizontal recoveries, which were the ones most-reliant on stalls like Cape and Dancing Blade, are pretty terrible in a lot of cases. In all cases, it makes it worthwhile and somewhat skill-intensive to guard offstage. Fortunately, with the awesome removal of oldschool edge-hogging, the ease with which most characters can make it back from near-stage to on-stage is pretty pivotal in their offstage game.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Mach Tornado has never sweetspotted the ledge. /nitpicking.

Recoveries' improvement is mostly due to the new ledge mechanics.

 

[Shaya]

Recoveries' improvement is mostly due to the new ledge mechanics.

This this this, but a few things for the sake of exercise.
The removal of RCO lag helped a lot of characters too. However, it now at least exists on ZSS' Up-B, which she didn't have to deal with it before.

- Cannot alter their side-b lengths, heavily nerfing their mix up abilities for recovering. This hurts Falco a lot more as his up-b is poor, not allowing him to mix up low recoveries with side-b.
- doesn't have his aerial mobility stunted if hit out of his up-b anymore (existed for other characters too I'm sure)
- his glide was quite useless. His side-b swap out/replacement is a lot more helpful to him. Up-B is a lot safer to use (and scarier to deal with).
- bouncing fish is a fantastic recovery move. Vanish goes significantly further than it did in Brawl and has a hitbox on reappearance.
- their grab boxes on their up-b's are larger. Attacks beating them is probably less common now than before. In ganondorf's case, his up-b grab multihits no longer give an opponent a free attack (yes, getting up-b'd by Ganondorf would be a free punish for characters with 4? frame or faster aerials).
- Tornado priority is significantly less.
- bomb timer is shorter I believe, allowing renewal chances.
- could be wrong but the Up-B has more start up and less vertical distance?
- A lot more angling "range" than in Brawl (I believe)
- not near instantaneous invincibility. Probably longer lasting invincibility than Brawl.
- Hammer not helping recovery anymore (?). Up-B larger/more priority.
- Has a sweetspot on his up-b I believe, which he definitely didn't have in Brawl.

 

[Dre89]

Recoveries are better in general because there's no RCO lag and you can't get edgehogged

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

G&W's up special is significantly worse at grabbing ledges than it was in Brawl, and while I don't know if it's "recovery", bucket braking was a mechanic that really did a lot for his survivability that is no longer in play.

Among the new characters...

Rosalina has a fantastic recovery overall. It can be exploitable, but the distance is top notch.
Bowser Jr. has an extremely good, diverse recovery with no real downsides.
Little Mac has the worst recovery in the game by far.
Palutena's recovery is very good; Warp is an excellent move. Super Speed and Jump Glide are also really good options she might have.
Robin's recovery gains a lot of distance but is pretty exploitable. The resource limit doesn't really matter.
Duck Hunt has a very large recovery that is pretty exploitable. His customs let him trade raw distance for less exploitability.
Greninja's recovery is pretty massive and pretty impossible to gimp.
Wii Fit Trainer has what I would call an average recovery.
Villager's recovery is essentially infinite, somewhat exploitable with default and not so much with Exploding Balloon Trip.
Shulk's recovery is probably around average when you factor everything together (including the Jump Monado arte).
Pac-Man has an essentially perfect recovery; that side special is way too good at what it does.
Mega Man's recovery lacks distance but is extremely flexible. He has the option to use Beat that is somewhat exploitable but is essentially infinite distance.

All around, I feel like the new characters mostly have pretty good recoveries (Little Mac is really the only bad one), but they also on average have more exploitable recoveries than veterans or have to accept custom move trade-offs to avoid those kinds of issues. It was clearly a plan for the question in this game not to be "can you make it far enough to get back?" and more "can you get past your opponent's attempt to intercept your recovery?".

In terms of the feel, I feel like recoveries are about on Brawl's level when you average everything out, but I feel like off-stage survival is generally less because the off-stage game is a lot stronger.

 

[Raijinken]

Little Mac has the worst recovery in the game by far.

I agree with basically everything else you've said, but I've seen some Dr Mario... happenings that make me think the gap is significantly less than "by far."

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I agree with basically everything else you've said, but I've seen some Dr Mario... happenings that make me think the gap is significantly less than "by far."

Dr. Mario's down special alone is better than all of Little Mac's options put together, especially with Soaring Tornado (Little Mac has no option analogous at all).

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

This this this, but a few things for the sake of exercise.
The removal of RCO lag helped a lot of characters too. However, it now at least exists on ZSS' Up-B, which she didn't have to deal with it before.

I was wondering what that was! Thank you!

****ing stupid ****ing glitches **** **** **** ****.

 

[Shaya]

It's fate that I'm going to spend another however long dealing with RCO lag all over again.

At the very least I'm pretty sure it's not to the same extent all those characters in Brawl had to deal with it (primarily the whole grabbing the ledge with it part).
Landing with aerials/etc would still be laggier, it would carry over through other special landings, and grabbing the ledge didn't remove it.

 

[ZephyrZ]

Don't forget to include that Charizard's Flare Blitz is an awesome recovery move. It's armored, covers an awesome amount of distance, and doesn't leave Zard entirely helpless afterwards.
Sure, you'll take a little bit of damage, but that's nothing considering Zards weight class. It's totally worth it.

 

[RadianB]

Charizard's recovery got much better in this game. His glide was too slow to be helpful in Brawl. His Flare Blitz recovery allows him to recover any horizontal distance and he's covered in super armour during the move making it hard to gimp. Also his Up B got more vertical distance and super armour in this game.

 

[Darklink401]

Sweetspotting ledges now can be done from like a mile away.

That and edgehogging, plus the sheer fact Villager, Olimar, Lucario and Rob exist are strong argumental characters for that.

But even without that, no edgehogging makes it so much safer to go out.

 

[The21stSmasher]

*sigh* Too bad Dr. Mario's recovery sucks in Sm4sh. I don't know why they gotta nerf him THAT much just to make him more different from Mario.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Lucario's is better is distance and has a hitbox but still has the issues of just out spacing and hitting him. But still a buff.

Charizard side B >>>>>>>> anything he had before.

Peach is better but in specific areas. More or less the same.

Ledge mechanics do wonders either way for everyone but it's less with edge hogging and more how edgeguarding still in a grey area for a lot unless your name is Sheik.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Recoveries on average are slightly better than Brawl, though some of the more ridiculous ones, like MK and Pit, have been given much needed nerfs. Edgeguarding across the cast is significantly better, to the point where even a character like DK can runoff Fair people and make it back. Ganondorf specifically is a huge beneficiary, as he doesn't mind improved recovery distances for his opponents due to the fact that simply hitting them while offstage just KOs them. He does greatly appreciate the ability to go deeper more safely to secure the kill, as this allows him to put his meaty powerful aerials to use. Tools like Villager's Bowling Ball are very scary and would be very difficult to avoid with Melee's ledge mechanics and poor recoveries. Meta Knight and certain spikes(RIP PK Footstomp) have been nerfed, and ledgehogging has been replaced by the less consistently useful ledge trump, but in general it's much easier to go offstage to get the kill than it was in previous Smash games, which balances out the recovery buffs fairly well.

 

[FullMoon]

*sigh* Too bad Dr. Mario's recovery sucks in Sm4sh. I don't know why they gotta nerf him THAT much just to make him more different from Mario.

They didn't nerf him as much as they made him what he was supposed to be (a stronger, slower Mario). Even in Melee his recovery was worse than Mario's but that was pretty much the only thing that Mario had better (maybe he had a better projectile too, I don't know which is better between pills and fireballs).

I wonder just how they overlooked that design flaw on Doc before.

Greninja's recovery is pretty massive and pretty impossible to gimp.

At least when people remember that Shadow Sneak exists. I've seen people claim that Greninja underestimate his recovery despite the fact that Shadow Sneak and Hydro Pump offer so much mix-up choices that you're only going to gimp Greninja with a hard read for the most part.

Shadow Sneak can also make chasing Greninja off-stage for a spike or whatever hilariously risky.

 

[Mazdamaxsti]

Just gonna put here that Kirby's airspeed was actually BUFFED and not nerfed.

 

[Terotrous]

You missed Bouncing Fish for Sheik, which gives her another jump. Vanish also now has a hitbox, making it harder to stuff.

You're also missing Flare Blitz for Zard.


In addition, a number of characters have customs that they can use for recovery. For example, Kirby's Upper Cutter custom is much better for recovery than his regular UpB since it snaps the ledge on the way up.

 

[LimitCrown]

Just gonna put here that Kirby's airspeed was actually BUFFED and not nerfed.

Kirby's air speed was decreased from 0.85 to 0.8.

 

[Mazdamaxsti]

Kirby's air speed decreased from 0.85 to 0.8.

Did it? I was told that his airspeed was actually buffed, but its still bad. I'm gonna look it up.

 

[1FC0]

R.O.B.'s recovery has been nerfed big time, I can tell you that. Robo Burner is much slower and to make it worse you can not keep using Robo Burner while using an aerial which makes R.O.B. much easier to gimp.

How I long for SSBB Robo Burner....