By gay, I mean he is centralized around one strategy and everyone pretty much plays him the same way as there is no other reason to play him differently. All Wario ever needs to do is double jump and air dodge away to fake people out or double jump and do x aerial until you find an opening in which once he gets inside, he'll do about... 34%-40% just off of Dair and Uair combos. His Uair does 17% and chaining it twice does 34% and add in a fart and he's already done about 40% or more (don't remember how much fart does right now). And that's only off of doing two moves.
damage nerfs sound reasonable, as it's the only way to keep his playstyle the same it is, so i kinda agree with that (though i would start with just nerfing upair first and see how that works out, since if u weave in and out with dair it does only 10-12dmg). fart is used for killing and not for damage racking. and upair doesnt chain very well on non heavies/fflers. u basically have to hit them at 0% or with ffling the clap while they are grounded, which is risky most of the time.
Then we have Dair, it's SDIable but actually pretty hard to do so. This does 16% and is one of Wario's most used aerials for the fact that it's safe on block (weave in and out) and does a lot of damage. There's no reason to not use this move, at all. It completely overshadows Fair and Bair, which both only have situational uses. The only other aerial that has about as much use as Uair and Dair have is Nair which leads into bite and Fsmash easily. What we've done to Wario so far is toned down Uair to 15% and Dair to 14% so he doesn't do nearly as much damage with Uair and Dair.
that's just wrong.
a) fair is great for baiting and poking, great for comboing offstage/getting them offstage, has more range than dair (though it's not much, that's a huge plus for wario), trades hits with high priority attacks (which priceless against luigi fi) and combos into grab at certain percents.
bair is a great move against marth and other chars that outrange wario since combined with his air movement it has a lot of (pseudo) range. it is also great for finishing people off offstage.
btw, bair is also safe on shield if u autocancel it after weaving out.
nair is a great combo (as u mentioned) and gimping move.
b) less damage on dair/upair wont cause u to use fair/bair more, since they only do 7%/10% which obviously is still less
c) there arennt many characters that use their aerials to the extent wario does. look at g&w fi. he does very well in the air, but nair and bair are his staple moves, while fair and dair are rather situational, but there's nothing wrong with that. heck, wario uses 3 of his aerials all the time, 1 (fair) still reularly and the last one (bair) depending on the matchup. that's
veryversatile imo
The next problem with him is Fsmash, the SA on it allows him to get away with just simply spamming it after a spot dodge and you really can't stop him from doing it. It's safe on shield and KOs a lot of characters earlier than most other smash attacks that are slower than his. It's a good smash attack after every aerial, so like I do Dair past their shield to go behind them and then I'll Fsmash them and either hit them or hit their shield and make them take a lot of shield damage and get pushed forward so I can't be punished. What we've done to his Fsmash right now isn't a heavy nerf, it just tones down the SA making it so moves 10% or below can't hit him out of it, so Ike's tilts and Snake's second Ftilt hit CAN hit him out of it but, things like lasers and jabs can't. This makes his Fsmash not nearly as good because he can't just spam it or use it without much thought otherwise he will eat a smash attack against him, get grabbed, or get tilted depending on the damage. It's a fair nerf, tbh, because you have to remember he's top 3 in vBrawl so in a game where there's combos he has to be better overall. So the only way to nerf him, without hitting him too hard or changing his playstyle completely was some damage nerfs and toning down Fsmash without taking away its KO power and/or adding lag onto it or more startup onto it.
first i have to say, sa on fsmash is very unique to wario and thus should be left alone imo (but that's more of a personal opinion than anything else).
second, fsmash is very punushable if u predict it or dodge it. it has tons of lag after it has hit. and if ryoko (no offense) can call zelda's usmash balanced (clearly an anti-air move) because it isn't safe on shields, then wario's fsmash (which is his only good smash btw - except for dacus, but that's relatively situational compared to other usmashes) definetely not op.
due to its winddown lag it cant be spammed mindlessly if ur opponent knows the matchup. slikvik even does it in the wrong direction on purpose if he thinks hey can react in time.
and third, removing the sa wont reduce fsmash usage. jab>fsmash will still work since fsmash has high priority and wont clank vs aerials. plus, sa is just one frame before it hits (sa on 8-11, hits on 9) so there wont be much difference.
the only thing that changes by removing sa, is that he cant plow through recovery that easy (easy is meant relativley, since 1 frame difference is very little and most recoveries dont kill anyway, so sa doesnt make that much of a difference), which, again, is very unique to wario and thus should be kept.
He warrants the nerfs because all you really have to do with him to win are Dair and Uair, with Fsmash and some grab combos. And not many characters have answers to Wario's Dair and Uair unless they have range on him. I mean Wario is obviously top 10, so if Fox got damage nerfs and Squirtle got damage nerfs, with everyone thinking they are top 10 then why shouldn't Wario if his playstyle is centralized around those 2 aerials?
u cant really compare what wario does to repetitive dair>utilt by fox. plus, jc shine isnt really much of a nerf, just a trade-off. fox didnt get worse, just harder imo.
Basically the idea was to nerf him without getting rid of the playstyle so that when he Fsmashes the Wario realizes he can't get away with it that much anymore and he'll start doing something differently from his aerials like using Fart more or killing with Ftilt instead. And maybe with the damage nerfs he'll start to use his other aerials a little more. If these nerfs aren't enough, then we'll probably just lower the damage some more on Uair and Dair and then see how that goes.
fart is still his number one kill move, without any moves imo. ftilt is good for its range and wont be used more than it is now after those nerfs.
finally, though wario is good and probably top 10 (biassed since i main him - keep in mind that although he is top10 material, there can only be 10 chars in top10; and i can easily think of 15 chars that are top10 material) there isnt enough footage to know if he deserves nerfs yet. u dont nerf oli blindly, do u? also, wario is one of the few character's that actually got worse in the course of the transition to b+ (relatively speakin; of course he gained comboes, but he didn't increase his options as much as other chars and he had no problems approaching).
plus, he'll probaly get hit hard by the ad changes that are in plans....
lastly, i'd like to know how comes up with that kind of stuff. did u discuss this with plum and slikvik, smk? one opinion alone shouldnt be enough for such drastic changes, especially w/o anyone asking for them (3 nerfs without tradeoffs is just insane imo, especially since fox, who is probably top2, only got 2 plus an excellent trade-off). kinda reminds me of the recent rob changes, just because shanus (who i rspect a lot btw) thought he was top10...
i think this needs some discussion, before anything is done.