Balanced Brawl Version 2 Release

[ぱみゅ]

Ignore posts, somehow they posted themselves.... 3 times?!

 

[ぱみゅ]

Ignore posts, somehow they posted themselves.... 3 times?!

 

[Steeler]

wolf's side b is ridiculously good for running away and camping.

 

[Ussi]

Well... You can always make sing a guarenteed high % (like 140%ish that you have to be doing extreme button mashing to get out) set up for a kill of jiggs is having trouble killing..

 

[Mit]

I've always felt like Sing could only be used if you managed to put someone to sleep with the end of the move, requiring you to predict something well in advance and punish a landing or something. That way, she finishes singing right when they fall asleep and allow you actually punish.

Not sure if that's true though. Does your opponent stay asleep for the same amount of time no matter when they are put to sleep during Jigglypuff's sing?


And what matchup did you encounter that in, Steeler? I feel like it's not that much of an issue against most characters. It's not like his laser is the best for camping, and most stages don't offer that much room to run away in.

 

[Ussi]

button mashing wakes you up faster

 

[Steeler]

dedede...

i got quite a few people to try balanced brawl out yesterday. everyone was okay with the changes...except that one. even for characters that have average mobility, the wolf buff is a pain in the ***.

 

[Mit]

In that case I'd assume that'd go the same for Fox and Falco. I actually use it to run away with Fox quite often. Resets your situation a lot and gets you out of bad ones very nicely. That, and it goes much further than Wolf's.

Then again, if you do the b-cancel so that it keeps forward momentum at the end of the illusion (but still travels a long distance), it was always pretty good for that, even without the jump cancel... But now Wolf can do it too.

 

[Sidoran]

I'd love to try this out, but I'm not the least bit computer savvy and I'm having some problems. Would anyone mind helping me out with detailed step by step instructions on how to get this to work? I deleted my custom stages and put the files on the SD card already, but I may have done something wrong. I'm using a mac by the way.

Edit: Alright nvm guys, I got it worked out. For some reason the private folder wasn't showing up at first. Time to brawl

 

[Thinkaman]

Oh, and by the way, when is Balanced Brawl getting the Wi-fi waiting room and the new stage selection setup?

Soon, as soon as I get some graphics figured out I'm gonna redo the download section.

So, what was the point in giving Jigglypuff the ability to generate items?

Ultimately Jigglypuff is about chasing your opponent after you hit them; she's has the speed and agility to both follow them through the air and be at an advantage until they regain their footing. However, Marth & G&W in particular can't really be chased as Jigglypuff due to a combination of attack speed and disjointed range on their aerials.

The slow (104 frame) item spawn gives Jigglypuff *something* to do to push her advantage in these matchups. Against anyone else in the game, I'd strongly suggest using every spare second to chase them down.

I saw that AA didn't place too bad in the brackets. I didn't see you Think D: I wasn't looking for either of you though, I just happened to notice AA's name (was looking for all the MI players, who didn't do so hot :\ ).

I did alright, barely lost to Chibo and then YoshQ after beating MK-main-playing-under-Bowyer's-tage-who-wasn't-Bowyer. Me and TP had a very dramatic doubles match involving a 1v1 Ganon ditto with Fonz.

I was happy though, because for the most part I played extremely well in friendlies; I won every money-match and did pretty well against some really cool people. It was a good time and it has motivated me to get back into attending tourneys consistently.

Big tourneys like these make me hate vBrawl even more. Even if MK didn't exist vBrawl would be a much more fun game, with a lot more character variety (especially since it's actually possible to counter Snake with some characters). It's just stupid -.-

Actually, character diversity at MLG was pretty high for the second time in a row. There were 19 unique characters in the top 32! There were probably more Bobs in Tekken 6 than MKs in Brawl, lol.

But there's also the underrated characters. DK's case is lame because of DeDeDe... and GW seems to be losing popularity as people learn to deal against aggros....

Everything I think DK is fading into a decline or coming back into style, I end up wrong. Who knows.

G&W's problem is more of the proliferation of MKs and Snakes.

Some [really] quick feedback:

MK is too nerfed. The changes on tornado are perfect. The change to shuttle loop (aerial and grounded) is perfectly fine. Nerfing dsmash that much really hurts, a lot. MK has very very few kill moves now (never had many to begin with). You'll see it in the vids; it just doesn't feel right. Infinity was having way too hard of a time killing me even at 150% while I could easily kill him at 70%

As always, thanks for the feedback. Now the fun part where I get to play devil's advocate!

So MK d-smash is a frame 5/10 move. I just started to type out a big thing comparing it to other 5 frame down-smashes, only to realize that there aren't any. (The closest direct comparison is Wolf, who is over 50% slower.)

MK's d-smash by default does proportionately less damage in the front (unlike most double hit d-smashes, it is stronger in the back), but similar knockback to it's slower cousins on other characters. I think the only basic attack in the entire game that has this level of knockback on a move that fast is Snake u-tilt. (Which comes out 1 frame slower and has a couple more cooldown.)

Keep in mind that the stronger back hit is still no slouch. In your first set Infinity landed one at 130% and it killed you soundly, even with perfect DI and attempt to cancel. Not too bad for a frame 10 move with only 25 frames of cooldown, even ignoring the faster half!

In terms of KO power, nair is still a useful tool, as Infinity made use of. F-smash is still his outright strongest move, and is still a mostly safe way to attempt specific reads. Down-b is weaker than f-smash but more flexible, including aerial usage. (Mostly air-to-ground or chasing people doing just that.) And if things really get bad, MK does have the luxury of a throw that does kill at very high %s on most stages.

Ultimately, I think your numbers are a bit exaggerated for the videos. When Infinity did land KO moves (including d-smash) he was killing at 110-140% depending on the move. You were generally killing him anywhere from 90-130%, usually with some sort of partially charged smash. Lower than that, like the 50% fair kill off-stage, are going to be the exceptions.

Imo, I still don't think DownB is a viable option for killing.

I'd put it on par with f-smash honestly--a legitimate tool but not his bread-and-butter.

I think it's interesting that you think nerfed Shuttle Loop is fine but d-smash is too weak, while Infinity indicated the opposite view. I guess it's fitting given which of you is wielding the turtle.

MK still has two kill moves, glide attack and fsmash.

And nair as well as down-b, plus the back hit of d-smash. Dair is as good off-stage as ever, and shuttle loop is actually still one of the game's better gimping moves. U-smash, u-throw, and fair can all kill at very high %s too.

Metaknight clearly is disadvantaged to Olimar in BBrawl. That is probably his worst overall matchup in this game, salvageable through counterpicking, but overall still unfavorable since Olimar does better on neutrals.

I'm not so sure. D-smash and shuttle loop still get Olimar out of his element very easily, much better options than some characters have. Olimar enjoys better counter-pick options if wi-fi waiting room or mushroomy 1-1 (or any walkoff) are legal, but I'm not sold on neutrals being completely in Olimar's favor.

As if it wasn't clear enough, Falco beats Metaknight on stages like FD. In fact it's pretty hard for me to say that Falco loses on any neutrals against Metaknight. Because he probably wins the matchup overall.

Actually, I'd imagine that with specific DI and dair MK is one of the view characters that has a reliable punish option for Falco d-throw if Falco is greedy and always wants the DACUS. Still an improvement for Falco though, for sure.

Wolf doesn't lose to Metaknight in this game, and probably does in fact beat him. He can get in pretty easily on Metaknight, is VERY good at shutting down any aerial approach Metaknight attempts, and kills Metaknight very very early, while his improved recovery guarantees he lives long against Metaknight.

This one I really disagree with. MK is still on the whole a great character to fight Wolf with, and one of the few that can still easily gimp him thanks to dair.

Snake probably beats Metaknight, and is probably Metaknight's most "annoying" matchup for the simple fact that Snake refuses to die.

Yeah, although MK really enjoys the u-tilt nerf even more than most characters. I'd put Snake positive against MK.

The above matchups imo are the "clearly uphill" matchups for Metaknight imo. It's unlikely other characters besides those ones have the advantage against him.

I don't think G&W beats Metaknight. In that theoretically, Metaknight still has a better spacing game and more consistent punish options. Oh yeah and Metaknight can in fact edgeguard G&W, and that hasn't changed in the matchup, although G&W in exchange is one of few characters who is able to safely edgeguard Metaknight. What will really help G&W in this matchup however is the increased frame advantage of his Jab, which should make Jab canceling much more reliable and harder to interrupt. I demand more research on that move just to check what options there are for other characters to interrupt G&W's Jab cancel grab. The frame advantage from my experimentation does not exceed +5 as I recall, which is the exact frame advantage necessary to crouch and link back into Jab1.

I think G&W/MK is pretty even right now. Shuttle Loop's nerf clearly makes a huge difference in this matchup. (More than any other?)

I think for the most part everyone has a fair chance at winning under a skilled player who knows all the matchups. At a glance, I would say the weaker characters in this game are Bowser, Lucas, Kirby, Sonic, and Ganon.

Bowser's awful recovery is still going to give him a lot of problems and make him a more fragile character than his design begs for. Like Metaknight for example doesn't really need to gimp Bowser. He can just opt to punish a forced on-stage landing with his buffed Down-B.

I can't speak for AA, but Bowser is one of a couple character I am interested in investigating closely for future revisions. (Keyword: Investigate.)

Lucas still needs a lot of shenanigans to consistently score a kill, since as rPSI keeps telling me, he has some of the worst options in the game for pressuring people who just roll away from him (buffed PK Fire...I guess helps slightly there). The rest of his game is decent enough, although he probably could use more grab reward since none of his throws really do anything extremely remarkable, minus some kills at moderately high percents with D-throw and some okay chip damage from pummels. And his grab is terrible. Starts up slow, and is only active for 1 frame.

Tethers aren't all bad, and Lucas's throw damage is nothing to scoff at. He's no DDD or Ness, but he still has high damage and good KO power for his attack speed. Also, being able to force opponent's back is never a bad thing.

Kirby reeeealy doesn't have much on G&W, Marth, and Metaknight who have a lot of options for destroying his recovery for free and outzoning him and his buffs....are mostly pretty situational gimmicks reserved for punishing mistakes. In those matchups, his saving grace is his pokes, which are something that did not get buffed.

Thanks for the input; I want to see more Kirby matches. I need to go play Zoze, he has a good Kirby and actually lives nearby...

Sonic like Lucas requires a lot of shenanigans to score a KO in most matchups.

Yep. Isn't that uh, Sonic's style? I need to see more play from good Sonic players, but experience so far is that he is perfectly competitive. (And really annoying.)

Ganon well...he's still going to have a lot of problems since he is still very bad at getting grabs and technically doesn't have any safe ground pokes, and he STILL gets screwed by intelligent spotdodges.

Wait a second. You just used the words "Ganon", "screw", and "spotdodge" in the same sentence, but managed to turn it around. Even "intelligent" dodging is gambing with your life against Ganon.

Fundamentally his entire gameplan is a guessing game that is statistically not in his favor. He does have the best overall grab reward in the game though in terms of raw damage, and that F-air buff is pretty awesomely versatile in all situations where Ganon has his opponent in a disadvantaged position.

I think it really is in his favor, mostly due to dair and the improved choke options. Seriously, you mess up a modest amount against Ganon and you can easily expect an average of 32-40%. Mess up serious, and you are just dead.

I actually think DDD has better overall grab reward than Ganon. (still) Ganon's is high though.

I personally think that one of Ganon's worst matchups in this game is actually Mario. Mario has a pretty easy time shutting down Ganon with projectile camping or rushdown especially since Ganon's grab range doesn't pose a threat, and Mario's D-smash pretty much is virtually unpunishable in most situations, and it really isn't simple to just wizkick Mario for doing fullhop fireballs. Mario's Jab game is devastating to Ganon up close especially since Ganon's 7 frame shieldgrab isn't fast enough to grab between hits of Mario's Jab combo. Mario has a lot of options for easily killing Ganon in this game as well, ranging from strong Smashes to easy gimps from N-air/Cape/FLUDD/edgehogging and B-throw at high percents. And on top of that Mario combos Ganon at low percents extremely well. In short, Mario can do pretty much everything gay to Ganon.

Interesting, I want to try this matchup out sometime. I really hadn't considered it much, I was too obsessed with Ganon against Olimar, Sheik, MK, Marth, Samus, Falco, and Wolf.

Lastly the only thing I think Link needs in order to be a top contender is better grab reward, since probably his biggest problem aside from that recovery is still being pretty limited in terms of setup options. His Jab cancel is okay but kinda slow, and everything else is a lot more situational and bordering on shenanigans. Link as of now however pretty much has by far the worst grab reward in the game. Ike used to have the worst grab reward until that N-air came along (which probably should be toned down while in exchange improving the speed and autocancel window of his B-air slightly).

Both Link and Ike have been doing pretty good every time I see them used, though I would agree that throws are a decent untouched area to investigate if Link starts coming up short. (Mostly in matchups where he can tether their normally safe pressure moves.)

Thank you for answering. I kinda wish she had another buff to a move she already has though, like (dare I say) Sing. Changes her playstyle a bit this way.

Why not just do what Brawl Minus did for Jiggs, and increase the hit box on Sing? Just not to that absurd magnitude.

- Rest doesn't kill until high percent
- Combos aren't prevalent, so high damaging follow ups are unlikely
- You can block the hit box easily
- Sing is highly punishable on block
- Sing doesn't effect aerial opponents

From experience, I can tell you B- Sing is mostly to punish rolls. It's hard to hit with Sing against an opponent who is watching for it while approaching, or camping, even with that massive size.

I think with a discrete increase in size, it could compliment her game (both in theme, and in play style).

So, it'd be nice if her signature move was good. However, Sing really is one of the worst designed moves in the game. Thing is, the gmae is probably better off that way.

Moves that disable people, especially COMPLETELY, just aren't fun. That's the first strike.

Second, Sing's current animation length and hit timings make any viable use for it nearly impossible without totally redoing the move. It's just way, way too long for it to have any valid function for 1v1. Even if the animation was shortened (hacky and jarring) or the "magnitude" of the sleep was increased (really annoying), it's going to end up putting a ton of emphasis on people's ability to mash awake. I promise you that if we made the sleep strong enough so that amazing mashers couldn't wake up before merely Rest against most players (even good ones) I would have time to fully charge Rollout of an f-smash every time.

Third, what Jigglypuff is capable of with grounded frame advantage is... really awkward. She has a frame 2 move that reliably KOs at high %s and can't be used otherwise. (unless it's teams!) She has a 6 frame grab that results in ~14% total, similar aerial options in the 12-18 frame range, and then mediocre smashes. Untimately, Sing is always going to set up Rest, and unless you really want it to set up smashes, otherwise it's nothing but an over-glorified grab...

Also for the record, the first hit of Sing is really easy to land--it's almost perfect for catching rolls and spot dodges, especially coming from frame advantage. The second and third hits are nearly impossible to land.

While being a primarily mobile aerial character, the goal is typically for Jiggs to land a Rest. Possibly a Rollout.

News to me!

Talking about stupid things (sorry, but no one answered a question I did before)... Isn't stupid to have all of Balanced Brawl discussions in this single topic? Are you thinking on having a forum or sub-form for Balanced Brawl. I think it deserves it and it needs it.

For now, I think we are okay. Thanks for the input though, and interest in the project.

wolf's side b is ridiculously good for running away and camping.

dedede...

i got quite a few people to try balanced brawl out yesterday. everyone was okay with the changes...except that one. even for characters that have average mobility, the wolf buff is a pain in the ***.

In that case I'd assume that'd go the same for Fox and Falco. I actually use it to run away with Fox quite often. Resets your situation a lot and gets you out of bad ones very nicely. That, and it goes much further than Wolf's.

Then again, if you do the b-cancel so that it keeps forward momentum at the end of the illusion (but still travels a long distance), it was always pretty good for that, even without the jump cancel... But now Wolf can do it too.

So Big O was specifically curious about Wolf being able to run away from Ganon before release. I did a lot of Wolf Ganon matches with various people whenever I got the chance (both sides), and ultimately running away never seemed to work that well for Wolf. It came down to "Ganon is eventually going to read him and get a uair in while Wolf doesn't even have time to laser."

Ironically, with both Fox and Wolf we had much easier times running away with old-fashioned Sakurai-cancelled side-b then the BBrawl double jump version: it's much more horizontal movement.

Edit: Alright nvm guys, I got it worked out. For some reason the private folder wasn't showing up at first. Time to brawl

Good to hear, let us know what you think!

 

[Steeler]

good post thinkaman, as always. i think we need to look at wolf more before we come to a conclusion on the buff...interesting comparison to the sakurai side b cancel.

 

[Hunch]

I haven't thought about this too in-depth, so I apologize if an obvious reason for not doing this comes up, but perhaps giving Sing the small buff of a flower effect could help out. Of course, this wouldn't be game-changing for Jiggs, but it'd be nice to get SOMETHING out of a botched (read- "hit too early") Sing. Food for thought.

 

[Thinkaman]

I haven't thought about this too in-depth, so I apologize if an obvious reason for not doing this comes up, but perhaps giving Sing the small buff of a flower effect could help out. Of course, this wouldn't be game-changing for Jiggs, but it'd be nice to get SOMETHING out of a botched (read- "hit too early") Sing. Food for thought.

The problem is that "botched sing" is redundant.

 

[FinalDoomGuy]

Maybe giving it some super armor? 7% or something. Probably wouldn't help, but it might make a bit more reliable. I suppose what you can't do is make it so that the damage and knockback is reduced so that you can just Rest and win, and then buff the Sing accordingly. Probably out of your bounds.

 

[Hunch]

Just out of curiosity, how much emphasis was placed on keeping the game balanced for doubles matches? 1v1 was definitely the priority and for good reason, but I was just wondering how doubles factored into your work.

 

[SmashBrother2008]

I'm in no position to discuss character balance at the moment. However, I would like to bring up other points (that most of you may not care for).

- The Waiting Room icon for the stage selection screen still has square corners while the originals all have rounded edges. I understand that there may be limitations to that but it would be a more clean presentation if they all matched.

- Also, some items, including the Unira, are capable of hitting teammates with team attack turned off. I don't believe this happens in Unbalanced Brawl... Was it done to further balance doubles matches?

Other than that, I feel you guys are doing an excellent job! I never thought I'd see the day a balance update was made to Brawl. Keep up the good work and godspeed!

 

[Mit]

I was pretty sure the Unira hit all players on the field. From the SmashWiki: "In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, you can attack an Unira to send it bouncing away. Any fighter it hits will go sprawling. If it hits a wall, it'll bounce back, and if you hit it with a powerful attack, it will transfer the attack to whomever it hits and launch them."

That doesn't completely confirm it, but it sounds like it turns into a hazard after thrown and not so much an item belonging to someone. More like a bob-omb. Someone'll have to make sure. It's been a while, but I thought it could hit teammates in vBrawl as well.

 

[libertyernie]

Yeah, Unira hits even yourself, so it makes sense that it would hit your teammates as well.
And I'm sure adding rounded corners to the WWR icon wouldn't be hard.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I dunno about Ganon honestly. He's good enough to get away with if you know your matchups for the most part since he has the tools to capitalize on bad positions for a kill.

At any rate though by design, he really can't grab you the majority of the time unless you screwed up. Unless you're playing a character who just has bad tools to stop approaches, but then again, he still has that problem where actually doing anything to someone with a healthy shield is a major headache, since he really can't poke them safely in most situations, and if he tries to grab, it can be reacted to and punished. So all Ganon can really do is just make a really good guess and shut down standard poke attempts. Wizkick and F-tilt make this strategy viable, and thus make Ganon not worthless, but he can't win his matches if those are the only attacks he's able to land.

As for who Ganon actually might win against...his best bet currently is Bowser, who not only has trouble walling Ganon, but is very easily gimped and set up for kills. His weaknesses play perfectly to Ganon's strengths for the most part.

Ganon also does better against Ike in this game as well, since both the F-tilt and wizkick buff make it much harder for Ike to wall Ganon, and Ganon's MASSIVE reward off of grab - which he can legitimately get against Ike - is not something Ike really appreciates. Eating 18 damage (pummel -> F-throw) for getting shieldgrabbed out of a Jab is not to be taken lightly in this matchup. Eating over 20 damage and possibly getting killed off a good read from D-throw has obvious implications as well.

Ganon actually should be pretty good against DDD, who has trouble approaching and more trouble walling out Ganon due to the limited and punishable nature of his zoning options. Getting D-throw D-tilted kinda sucks, but it won't kill Ganon too early as long as he DIs well. On the other hand Ganon Flame Choke -> tilt/DA on DDD is a huge problem for DDD. And at any rate, Ganon is in fact able to outspace DDD's shieldgrab. Not as reliably as other characters, but he has that option since D3's huge frame allows more spacing shenanigans against him.

Luigi also has a fairly hard time against Ganon since Ganon is able to not only outrange Luigi, but poke him with decent safety (assuming Luigi is shielding, as opposed to spotdodging or even rolling). Retreat B-air and fullhop F-air also are not things Luigi wants to run into while approaching Ganon. The main thing Luigi has in this matchup is a safe fireball (which lacks the advantage of arcing due to gravity), but at Ganon's tilt range, he's at a noticeable disadvantage. As long as he doesn't let Luigi get in close range for free, he's good in the matchup. Luigi unlike Mario doesn't have as many good spacing or gimp options, which are the tools that give Ganon more trouble.

Otherwise I can't really say Ganon has very many good matchups. I'm fine with Ganon in this game for the most part though. While it's pretty obvious to me he has mostly bad matchups, I don't think the current Ganon should lose to anyone who doesn't know the matchup in this game.

I do think however it's dumb that Kirby gets to duck under a lot of his stuff. Specifically his grab as I recall. That alone pushes the matchup out of Ganon's favor.

As for those other characters who I think are weak, his matchup vs Lucas isn't much different. Ganon has buffs, but Lucas has a gay spotdodge that Ganon isn't going to like dealing with. Lucas's D-tilt pretty much destroys all of Ganon's options in close range just because Ganon lacks a 6 frame option lol.

Vs Sonic...Ganon is pretty easy to gimp with the spring. If anything that should probably make the matchup better for Sonic overall, since I don't exactly get the impression Ganon's buffs are very useful against Sonic, except for the D-tilt buff, since most of Ganon's game against Sonic is baiting him into D-air, U-air, and Flame Choke as I recall.

 

[FinalDoomGuy]

Hardly anyone goes on chat anymore. I think we need a more permanent place for talking.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Just out of curiosity, how much emphasis was placed on keeping the game balanced for doubles matches? 1v1 was definitely the priority and for good reason, but I was just wondering how doubles factored into your work.

Hmm, I missed this question a while back, but it definitely mattered. We assumed doubles was mostly self-balancing (due to team mechanics, characters can have much more varying attributes in doubles and be fine), but we added in a few things that are more for doubles. Lucas's Pk Freeze change is a good example; it's still very seldom useful at best, but in doubles, it is a real factor. Ganon's Warlock Punch is beastly in doubles, and it's part of what makes up for his inability to do longer chases and how awful his gimpability is in doubles (seriously, gimpability is a much bigger problem in 2v2 than 1v1 contrary to "common knowledge"). We originally had a really nifty (and "secret") Bowser change that was exclusive to 2v2 even (when swung by Mario or Luigi's bthrow, Bowser did a huge amount of damage and knockback), but we ended up not being able to port it to the .pac format. We tried to make sure every character had something it could add to a team, and experience tells us 2v2 in Bbrawl is pretty interesting! My only major concern with 2v2 Bbrawl is that maybe Ganon is a little too good in it, but we haven't had enough play to really say for sure.

 

[CT Chia]

I did alright, barely lost to Chibo

not really

one match was close-ish i suppose where u got me to one stock mid percent (like 60?) and the other match was either a 2 stock or 1 stock very low percent, i forget

 

[Thinkaman]

not really

one match was close-ish i suppose where u got me to one stock mid percent (like 60?) and the other match was either a 2 stock or 1 stock very low percent, i forget

Uh, first match when to 106%. I had you off-stage, missed a fair, and you nair'd me.

Why is this being discussed?

 

[Hunch]

Hmm, I missed this question a while back, but it definitely mattered. We assumed doubles was mostly self-balancing (due to team mechanics, characters can have much more varying attributes in doubles and be fine), but we added in a few things that are more for doubles. Lucas's Pk Freeze change is a good example; it's still very seldom useful at best, but in doubles, it is a real factor. Ganon's Warlock Punch is beastly in doubles, and it's part of what makes up for his inability to do longer chases and how awful his gimpability is in doubles (seriously, gimpability is a much bigger problem in 2v2 than 1v1 contrary to "common knowledge"). We originally had a really nifty (and "secret") Bowser change that was exclusive to 2v2 even (when swung by Mario or Luigi's bthrow, Bowser did a huge amount of damage and knockback), but we ended up not being able to port it to the .pac format. We tried to make sure every character had something it could add to a team, and experience tells us 2v2 in Bbrawl is pretty interesting! My only major concern with 2v2 Bbrawl is that maybe Ganon is a little too good in it, but we haven't had enough play to really say for sure.

That's good to hear. Casual doubles are popular with the group I play with, so the buffs to C. Falcon and Ganondorf in particular were very well-received (my friend and I often use them in tandem, affectionately referred to as "Team Man"). Now, winning decisively with them is both easier as well as more satisfying. Armored PAWNCHes galore!

As for actual tactical discussion, in my experience the new unblockable counters of Marth, Ike, and Lucario actually play a bigger role in 2v2 than 1v1, particularly when one player is fending off two enemies at once. It could just be my player pool, but it seems like opponents are less eager to attack together when throwing up a shield no longer stops a counter that a teammate triggered. I've found it also helps these characters against the deadly combination of a close-up fighter and a projectile spammer. Instead of using up shield health or getting "trapped" in a dodge, the Marth/Ike/Lucario can use their counter on the projectiles to deliver unblockable attacks to the character in their face. These situations don't happen all that frequently, but I've noticed the effect they've had on doubles (or free-for-all 2v1 situations) in my circle.

 

[FinalDoomGuy]

Yes, I gotta say, the Captain Falcon and Ganon buffs are amazing.

 

[Latias]

Luck isn't nearly as bad in games as the hype would lead you to believe. Peach's turnips are still the best luck based move in the game, and the way they play out helps the game in a way only randomness could. When Peach is being left alone, she is cycling turnips. Odds are, if she only gets a little free time, she doesn't get anything too dangerous (normal turnips are still good, but that's probably about all she gets). If you leave her alone for a while, she probably gets a Beam Sword or a Bob-Omb, and then you are really in trouble. However, when she's pulling those turnips, there's always a sense of urgency since her next one could always be that Beam Sword. Of course, if she does get it, it's not the end of the world, and with certain kinds of smart counterplay, you can even turn it against her (seize the Beam Sword for yourself!). It's just a local advantage to her. The amount of randomness in overall game results the turnips introduce, as a purely anecdotal statement, is very small. I have never seen a better player lose to a worse player because the worse player was a lucky Peach.

A month ago a peach pulled out a bob omb and killed m2k in a 3 stock match :|

 

[dansal]

Did m2k lose the match?

 

[War&Peace]

I like this mod. MK is fair, and Wolf's sideB is too good (for me). However, the planking idea, while having good intentions, is annoying whenever I'm edgeguarding/hogging...

 

[Latias]

Did m2k lose the match?

yes. he did,

also did you fix olimars tether?

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Did Mew2King allow the Peach player to pull a lot of turnips? Honestly, if you get Mew2King low enough in the first place a Bob-Omb wins you the match, you obviously played pretty well in the first place!

Anyway, Olimar's tether isn't broken to need fixing. It's highly gimpable. This is just how it works, and Olimar's design really wouldn't work very well at all if it didn't work this way. Consider that Olimar is already a very solid character, and I am going to contend he would be a very stupidly good character (like probably the best in the game) if he didn't have to worry about his recovery. Even though good Olimars don't really get gimped all that much, they do have to center their general approach to combat around avoiding those situations. Even though Olimar's aerials are pretty decent, he can't safely jump much due to the risk, and he has to stick tighter to center stage than most characters.

As per the anti-planking code, it shouldn't get in your way too much while edgeguarding if your edgeguarding efforts are informed by it existing in the first place. Just don't grab the ledge way more than you need to; it's kinda like playing at tournaments with a LGL except you are being careful in fear of giving up a minor advantage, not in fear of losing the entire game automatically.

 

[Ulevo]

Did Mew2King allow the Peach player to pull a lot of turnips? Honestly, if you get Mew2King low enough in the first place a Bob-Omb wins you the match, you obviously played pretty well in the first place!

The set he's referring to, I believe, is the set against Armada on Battlefield as Fox. If it isn't, well this is fairly relevant too. It was the third round of the set of best of three, and M2K had been knocked off stage. While Fox was trying to return, Peach pulled a Bomb-Omb and killed M2K for it.

Whether or not Armada played well that match (clearly he did) isn't relevant. The fact is that M2K did not have any reasonable way of avoiding the projectile in question; had it been a Turnip, there may have been a chance for M2K recovering back on stage after being hit and proceeding to win the set. Instead, luck factored in and gave Armada an advantage he did not attempt to influence on his own; it was just given to him.

I'm not going to john for either player, but M2K could have very well won that entire set had the Bomb-Omb not taken his stock. Instances like that should be avoided in competitive play.

 

[FinalDoomGuy]

I gotta agree with ulevo.

However, making changes to things like the G&W hammer will probably just make far too drastic changes which is what the Balanced Brawl mod tries to avoid. Hopefully in the next SSB, Sakurai takes out the luck-based attacks.

 

[ぱみゅ]

It's supposed to be mainly a party game. Luck makes things funnier, and fun is an important factor in any videogame.
I actually think luck in Brawl is fine, and futher games should keep that level (even more?).


Anyways, I'll request it again: any chance to have the Spear Pillar .pac's for both Palkia and Dialga, or even Cresselia?

 

[FinalDoomGuy]

Warioware is a awesome stage. But the best part is that if you want a proper match, then you have Final Destination. Items are pretty cool, yeah, but I have the choice to turn them off. The luck in them is optional.

However, characters with luck based attacks don't have a non-luck attack as a alternative. That's the problem.

Also, I think luck gets far too much credit. Brawl isn't good because it has luck in it, it's good for many other reasons.

Wouldn't it suck if Samus' B attack was changed so that instead of charging it up, it just randomly became a powerful blast or a weak blast? Well, why should, say, DeDeDe's forward B have that? It had potential as a way of getting independet characters (Think Waddle Doo) onto the battlefield to open up oppounities. Instead, it was just some other projectile that randomly became far more powerfull (Gordo).

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Wait, this is obviously melee. In Brawl, M2K could have airdodged the bob-omb safely. Melee Peach is a stupid character for a lot of reasons. Forget she exists. Focus on Brawl Peach.

Secondly, Armada DID make it happen. He used down special which pulls an item, usually a turnip but maybe not. Had he not chosen to do that (and not created the situation in which pulling a bomb was going to score him a kill), it wouldn't have happened!

Thirdly, Mew2King obviously chose not only to allow the situation which put him off-stage in position to be killed by a bomb (and knowing Fox, even a turnip would be decently likely to lead to a gimp in that situation; it just would have been less flashy, but he even chose a particular DI after being hit by Peach that put him at that angle.

Fourthly, this is seriously a million times more likely to happen in Melee than in Brawl since in Brawl you usually can work your recovery to include an airdodge to avoid such things. The lower flexibility in the after the hit game that Melee offers obviously makes random turnips cause more variance in that game, but luckily, we don't have to worry about that game.

Lastly, all that being said, this was all really unlikely, and the numerous good things Peach's turnips add to the game that simply would not have the same interesting dynamics without randomness are worth this happening once in, well, the entire near-decade long tournament life of this game. If one game is "sullied" by an unfortunate random event and thousands more are made significantly more dynamic and interesting, is it worth it? I'd say, yes, it obviously is. There was nothing to be avoided in a competitive sense here. A mostly good mechanic played out in a possibly negative but not even definitely negative way (Mew2King very likely would have died to any item Armada pulled). The solution to this situation is "do nothing since it's still a mostly good mechanic, and the proposed 'improvement' does more harm than good".

It's kinda like a basic balance principle. We consider non-even matchups bad in the abstract since it's somewhat unfair to the person who picked the disadvantaged character. We could easily fix this problem by making every character the same. However, this would be awful design since the upsides of having different characters are much greater than the downsides of having non-even matchups.

I could even further point out many factors influence matches that are technically non-random but might as well be. For instance, human reaction time is pretty fast, but it's definitely non-constant (all the numbers you see thrown around are just averages). You can improve your reaction time in a sense, but no matter what you get it to, it will always be somewhat variable based on many factors totally beyond your control (like based on the pattern of your heart beat or breathing or your involuntary eye blinking). If you fail to react to something in time but are just one frame late, you might as well have been hit randomly. If physiological factors that are impossible for you to control had gone slightly better, you wouldn't have been hit! I guarantee high level matches have been won or lost on this, but it's okay. It's just the nature of all competitive games that sometimes factors outside of the players' control changes the outcome, especially in games that are otherwise close.

For a small conclusion here, I'd like to point out that Samus is balanced around her Charge Shot working like it does. King Dedede is balanced around his Waddle Dee Toss working like it does. In the instance of King Dedede's design, the randomness makes him a better and more interesting character. This does not mean all characters could be better designed with random elements or that randomness in all cases always makes things better. It means in this particular case, being random is better than being non-random. This goes along well with the theme of "not all characters are the same, and that's a good thing". It also does go along with players having a choice; only a select few characters have moves with random effects so you could always use any of the myriad characters not like that if you wanted your character to be more deterministic. Having the characters who do have moves with some randomness in them is just a way for the game to be even more diverse.

 

[Ulevo]

Wait, this is obviously melee. In Brawl, M2K could have airdodged the bob-omb safely. Melee Peach is a stupid character for a lot of reasons. Forget she exists. Focus on Brawl Peach.

He may have fallen to his death from that range had he attempted to air dodge. I am not sure, it's fairly close. In either case, I see no reason why Peach being a "stupid character" is really relevant at all. I didn't imply she was. If you're bringing it up, well, I see no reason to. The point still stands to reason whether or not it's Melee or Brawl. I only mentioned Brawl because I thought that was the reference someone else had made. I could possibly search for another, Brawl specific example.

Secondly, Armada DID make it happen. He used down special which pulls an item, usually a turnip but maybe not. Had he not chosen to do that (and not created the situation in which pulling a bomb was going to score him a kill), it wouldn't have happened!

The players can create the situations, but they cannot generate the advantage given or taken away from the players in these particular circumstances intentionally on their own. Armada purposely pulled an item, but he did not pull the bomb-omb himself; the game did that for him. The moment a player is granted that advantage, the entire match shifts and changes pace without warning to either players.

If you want to ignore Melee examples (even though this still applies to Melee), Luigi's misfire and Dedede's Gordo are even worse because at least with Peach's item pulls she has to pull the item before she can use it. Both Luigi and Dedede's attacks are not only altered in power, but in speed too. The reaction time required to block, counter or dodge a misfire or a gordo is completely different from their conventional attacks, and neither player is prepared to either abuse these, or prevent them from happening.

Thirdly, Mew2King obviously chose not only to allow the situation which put him off-stage in position to be killed by a bomb (and knowing Fox, even a turnip would be decently likely to lead to a gimp in that situation; it just would have been less flashy, but he even chose a particular DI after being hit by Peach that put him at that angle.

I feel as though I may be misunderstanding your context Ampharos. If I am, I apologize. But assuming I am understanding correctly, you of all people (coming from a Pokemon community) know you can't assume intention under scenario or circumstance, even if it seems like it's obvious. I'm not going to argue M2K did anything purposely because I honestly don't know, and nor does anyone else really.

I also don't know if a turnip would have killed him. I do know the bomb-omb did kill him, and would have regardless of DI. There may have been other measures to prevent that stock loss. I personally don't feel it altered the match drastically (at least on a non-psychological level) because on paper, he was at a high percent and ready to die anyway, so it may have been a bad example. I still feel like these circumstances are unnecessary, even if they are exciting to watch. I enjoyed it.

Fourthly, this is seriously a million times more likely to happen in Melee than in Brawl since in Brawl you usually can work your recovery to include an airdodge to avoid such things. The lower flexibility in the after the hit game that Melee offers obviously makes random turnips cause more variance in that game, but luckily, we don't have to worry about that game.

Although I agree with the points you've made, I still feel that luck can and will play a drastic roll in matches. As previously pointed out, Peach is probably the mild case because her item is telegraphed the moment she pulls it. Other instances that I've mentioned, or even the extreme case (tripping) still prove to be a problem.

Lastly, all that being said, this was all really unlikely, and the numerous good things Peach's turnips add to the game that simply would not have the same interesting dynamics without randomness are worth this happening once in, well, the entire near-decade long tournament life of this game. If one game is "sullied" by an unfortunate random event and thousands more are made significantly more dynamic and interesting, is it worth it? I'd say, yes, it obviously is. There was nothing to be avoided in a competitive sense here. A mostly good mechanic played out in a possibly negative but not even definitely negative way (Mew2King very likely would have died to any item Armada pulled). The solution to this situation is "do nothing since it's still a mostly good mechanic, and the proposed 'improvement' does more harm than good".

Supposing I give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that because of the possible rarity of these kind of instances (especially in a competitive sense) they're not an issue to be dealt with, I do not see what is good about these luck based mechanics that is not subjectively defined. If you claim to argue that it adds excitement or entertainment, as an example, that may be true for some. It will also give others a bitter taste with their inclusion. At least by removing luck based mechanics we are ensured that the purpose for removing them has been served.

It's kinda like a basic balance principle. We consider non-even matchups bad in the abstract since it's somewhat unfair to the person who picked the disadvantaged character. We could easily fix this problem by making every character the same. However, this would be awful design since the upsides of having different characters are much greater than the downsides of having non-even matchups.

Logistically there are no upsides to creating a diverse roster of characters that are not equal to each other. We play these games despite this because we as players prefer diversity, and without that element retained, we as a community would not flourish. If more than 90% of the players are not in if for financial purposes (which they're not, since they're not winning), then we can only assume it's for entertainment. If that isn't present, and the game does not appeal to them, we have no community.

That is a huge consequence for ignoring game diversity for the sake of a logistically speaking "better game".

However, not only is your example completely dwarfed in comparison to what we're currently discussing (since players aren't going to drop Smash if Peach pulls Bomb-ombs every once in a while or not), I could argue for similar reasons that removing said mechanics would be preferred on the basis that more players, at least competitively, would prefer they be removed.

I could even further point out many factors influence matches that are technically non-random but might as well be. For instance, human reaction time is pretty fast, but it's definitely non-constant (all the numbers you see thrown around are just averages). You can improve your reaction time in a sense, but no matter what you get it to, it will always be somewhat variable based on many factors totally beyond your control (like based on the pattern of your heart beat or breathing or your involuntary eye blinking). If you fail to react to something in time but are just one frame late, you might as well have been hit randomly. If physiological factors that are impossible for you to control had gone slightly better, you wouldn't have been hit! I guarantee high level matches have been won or lost on this, but it's okay. It's just the nature of all competitive games that sometimes factors outside of the players' control changes the outcome, especially in games that are otherwise close.

I'm aware of all this, I assure you. It's just not entirely important in the scope of competitive gaming. Competition is pitting two players against one another, and using the game as the medium. When players are no longer in control of the outcome, it no longer becomes competition. While some people confuse this as "luck" or "random" in inappropriate context, this is generally what players aim to avoid in competitive gaming.

For a small conclusion here, I'd like to point out that Samus is balanced around her Charge Shot working like it does. King Dedede is balanced around his Waddle Dee Toss working like it does. In the instance of King Dedede's design, the randomness makes him a better and more interesting character.

This is subjective to your opinion, potentially shared by others. But not everyone shares those sentiments. I would believe that would be fairly obvious.

This does not mean all characters could be better designed with random elements or that randomness in all cases always makes things better. It means in this particular case, being random is better than being non-random. This goes along well with the theme of "not all characters are the same, and that's a good thing". It also does go along with players having a choice; only a select few characters have moves with random effects so you could always use any of the myriad characters not like that if you wanted your character to be more deterministic. Having the characters who do have moves with some randomness in them is just a way for the game to be even more diverse.

Then who's to decide what situations call for being random and not random? Would making the concise decision of either including random elements for all characters, or removing it from the game entirely (competitively speaking) not make a lot more sense?

I won't argue that having specific characters with random elements doesn't make the game more diverse, but there are other alternatives to diversify gameplay while not compromising competitive play.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

The game designer decides what mechanics are random and non-random and all other mechanical elements of the game. We can later judge his decisions, but this is his role in any competitive game (or non-competitive game for that matter). That part of the inquiry is simple, and problems with this are usually what shoot more grassroots projects in the foot. People are much more inclined to try to "fight" designer decisions instead of trying to optimally play the game as it is, which leads to the game ultimately falling apart (since a game becomes very unstable if its rules [rules include mechanics] are non-constant).

The player's role in competitive games should also be clarified. The player simply seeks to win. Players only seek to avoid randomness or any other thing within the scope of the game if doing so is the correct choice to maximize winning odds. The game designer will care why one player or another wins, and individuals considering whether to become players may judge the game on why someone is likely to win, but once someone is a player, his only concern is winning by any means.

Next I should address why the diverse characters actually do make the game better since I saw disagreement there, and it's striking at a fundamental point. A competitive game does indeed test skill between two (or more!) sides (Brawl, whether 1v1 or 2v2, always has just two sides). However, which skills are tested is determined by the nature of the game, and the game's quality could be measured by how interesting and diverse the skills tested are. Having a wide variety of characters (instead of either just one character or many functionally identical characters) introduces a severely enhanced test of valuation skills and comparison of asymmetric abilities. It takes some skill to evaluate which characters will allow you to win, and you can be better at some aspects of the game than others and make up for it with smart character choices. It also just plain increases the number of viable approaches to the game which makes the game deeper and therefore makes being a master of the game more interesting.

To illustrate with a clear example, arm wrestling is definitely competitive, but most would agree it's a bad competitive game. Why is arm wrestling a poor competitive game? Well, for one, the skill test is very narrow; it's just about who can apply more physical force in a very specific way. There's one very specific way to go about a game of arm wrestling, and it's just a question of who can do that one thing better. We might say it has almost no depth. We might also point out that the skill arm wrestling tests is a fairly uninteresting skill; it tests physical strength which I would assume most smash bros. players don't value too highly in comparison to mental skills.

The random elements help Smash as a game because they introduce new skills to be tested and increase the diversity of the game. Diversity naturally leads to depth, and the skills added are skills I think most of us could agree are interesting. When Peach is pulling those turnips, you have to figure out the optimum strategy to counter even though you can't know what the outcome of a specific turnip pull is going to be. If you try to stop her from pulling any turnips as you would if she always pulled bombs, you are putting yourself at a big disadvantage, but if you are unconcerned with her turnip pulling as if she never pulled bombs, it's also going to work out poorly. Note that if she only sometimes pulled bombs but did so via a predictable algorithm, it would be a major game changer as you would handle her pulling based on the algorithm which would doubtless entail an entirely different approach and thus test very different skills. For instance, if she pulled based on the amount of time since her last pull, you would attack her with such a pattern to make it harder for her to pull turnips at times she would get good things. The game already tests similar skills though in the way it handles R.O.B.'s laser and Wario's Wario Waft. In reality, there's no way you could remove the randomness without fundamentally changing the nature of the skill test in fighting Peach (since her turnips are one of her most key moves!). Note this of course works both ways; the skill tests are just as intense when you are playing as Peach and having to decide the optimum way to use turnips, and the game is a more diverse (and thus more deep) competitive game for allowing players with those (legitimately interesting) skills to prosper by using Peach and compete with players who have different (and also legitimately interesting) skills (and use different characters!).

The reason randomness in games is sometimes seen as "bad" is because of a greater flaw competitive games may have. We've already hit up two big pillars of competitive gaming: depth (how diverse the skills tested are, which also inherently means how much content the game has to explore) and skill quality (how interesting the skills tested are, which is subjective). The pillar you are hitting up is consistency. That is, how often will a player who is overall more skilled at the game beat a player who is less skilled at the game? This is obviously a fairly complex function that weighs various different skills and the differences between the two players. Two players who are overall very distant in terms of skill will probably have games that essentially always have the same outcome. Tow players who are overall very close to identical in terms of skill will probably go back and forth in even the best of games. As a general rule, it's good for a game to be as consistent as possible with the main unpredictable element as far as match outcomes are concerned being uncertainty over the ever changing skill levels of the players. However, no game is 100% consistent; both physics and basic human biology make that absolute. Sometimes basic skills have probabilistic outcomes. If a game has hidden information (which all fighting games do; the opponent's inputs are hidden to you), your "lucky guess" about whether a particular piece of information is true or not (like whether that Marth hit up + B at a particular time) could easily change the game. Being able to "guess" correctly more often via pattern analysis, superior understanding of risk-reward, etc. is definitely a very interesting skill, but it doesn't change the inconsistency. Of course, we obviously introduce inconsistency via random (or as it turns out in all electronic games, pseudo-random) events. Our question is how much inconsistency we add versus how much we improve the game via added depth or improved quality of skills tested. In the case of BBrawl, I feel the currently present random elements (such as Peach's turnips) add way more than they take away.

In any case, on the grand spectrum of games, all the smash games are very consistent (with tournament style rules that remove items and degenerate stages). Any unpredictability they contain via either mechanical randomness, prediction-style probabilities, or biological inconsistencies in players are utterly trivial even compared to the biological inconsistencies alone of any athletic competition or the mechanical randomness alone of a still good game like Texas Hold'Em. I know this has been long, but I hope it has proven a comprehensive summary of my position on the random elements in smash and a good outline of our approach to game design. Indeed, improving balance in Brawl was simply a very powerful avenue to improve both the depth of the game and how interesting the skills tested are (your skill to "not pick Ganondorf" is a pretty boring skill...).

 

[ddonaldo]

just want to say congrats on such a good job with this. needs to be said ^_^

 

[A2ZOMG]

I'm going to say while Mario is definitely good in this game, one of the things that's going to hinder him a bit against the better characters in this game is his low damage per hit on a number of his moves. Especially on his forward options. Mario's KO power however is balanced in this version and the D-tilt change...I think I can live with at this point.

I haven't fooled around much with Mario's F-air, which I would assume has a low chance of being more useful as an "approach" due to its extra base knockback (which helps him start low percent combos beyond guaranteeing gimp kills on Snake and some other unlucky people). But just a lot of the options Mario has to hit forward are pretty weak in general. N-air, F-tilt, and Jabs specifically, and to a lesser extent Up-B, D-air, and his F-air for that matter still only does 13 damage when sweetspotted.

Mario does have some solid traps to work with when he does get in, but some of his best traps do lousy damage. D-air is an amazing juggler but doesn't kill anything and the final hit only does 7% max (12% if you land every hit, and the hits don't properly hitstun combo into the final hit which means Marth I believe can Up-B out of it). N-air is an AWESOME edgeguard/trap minus the fact that it does 10/5 damage. Mario's Jab traps spotdodges pretty well through autojabbing and his Jab cancel is good but hinges on being able to hit confrim a sweetspot into the 2nd hit, and the full Jab combo only does 9 damage (it does wall lock to about 70% though, which he can really only set up with F-throw at 0%, but still). At any rate, Mario's best matchups are the ones where he can get people to work past fireballs and play into his spacing game, especially if they have limited forward options that are easy to punish with F-smash. Hence why Ganon is very bad against Mario, on top of being one of the easier characters for Mario to combo and gimp. Also why Mario is really good against Bowser, Donkey Kong, Yoshi (less so in this game due to Yoshi's shield damage), Ike, and why he probably goes even with Luigi in vBrawl.

Oh yeah and Mario's U-tilt is tricky, since it only starts juggles after racking up a tiny bit of damage on most characters (usually around 8%) or if you D-throw -> U-tilt someone. It's a useful anti-air as well, but the damage on it is also low. It was low in Melee at around 8%, and it was nerfed to 7% in this game.

PLUS, Mario's shield size is terrible. It's the real reason why he's bad against G&W and kinda has obvious implications in his gameplay in general. That probably balances him out against Yoshi in this game at least, but as for a list of buffs that I think Mario should have to compete with certain space animals, Metaknight, G&W, Marth, Peach, Pikachu, and ROB...who are on my short list of characters who are obviously better off...

*1% more damage on N-air (both hitboxes, adjust knockback on sweetspot so it kills at about the same percent), F-air, D-air (final hit), F-tilt, Jab hit 3 (do this for Luigi too as well since it helps against spotdodges), Dash attack weak hit, U-tilt
*Extra shield damage on F-air
*Mario's Up-B should be tweaked to either have safe middle hits, or extra damage on the initial/final hits, or more damage in general anyway. 16% max
*adjusted knockback on D-air multi hits to properly combo and double shield damage

That's pretty much all Mario could ever ask for to balance his remaining matchups imo.

And the only two things you need to do to Ganon to give him balanced matchups:
*10% damage on Jab sweetspot (9% other hitboxes) and more shield damage on all hitboxes
*Dash attack on block pushes towards Ganon, making it work somewhat like Samus's DA, currently a much better approach than most of Ganon's options.
*Alternatively to the former option, Ganon maintaining full momentum after Wizkick connects with something, which will make the move safer in close range and make his edgecancel shenanigans more consistent. Reducing the invincibility on grounded wizkick may or may not be necessary after this change.

 

[TreK]

I still think that -2 frames of lag on Luigi's jab1 would've been the most logic change you could've made.