Character Competitive Impressions

[san.]

You're not forced to damage Lucario into high percents, so I don't see how it's anti-competitive. There are viable strategies available to you at each stage of aura.

I have a larger problem with rage, more specifically how rage works on attacks assumed to have set or low scaling knockback and how it applies to the design of every character and not just Lucario. (I actually like rage a bit, but it's just confusing why it's there).

 

[TTTTTsd]

In regards to RosaLuma change, it doesn't really make the character weaker, it rather rewards smart play on both ends. You have more time to capitalize on mistakes, Luma is given more priority but she can still survive on her own fairly well, etc.

Really it gives slower chars a chance to catch up, and it rewards good play on both ends.

 

[Iron Kraken]

Aura is actually gradual, it doesn't "kick in" at any percent, it just progressively gets better as he gets higher damage.

I think a much better change is just to remove the mechanic and make him have 75%'s worth of Aura all the time.

Oh yeah, my bad. Well, I guess what I'm saying is that assuming the aura mechanic will be kept, then its effectiveness should be scaled back across the board. That is to say, Lucario's current strength at 100% should be his strength at 125% after a patch, his current strength at 75% should be his strength after the patch of 100%, etc.

And my reason for saying that is because KO'ing can be so difficult for many characters in Smash 4. It feels like Lucario's aura mechanic was designed for a Smash game in which characters in general are dying at much lower %s.

 

[InfinityCollision]

Remove aura scaling on up-b distance, nerf range scaling of aura attacks. That's "good enough", and probably about as good as we can realistically hope to get if he gets nerfed at all. It's still a bad mechanic, but at least it's not completely degenerate at that point.

 

[Jaxas]

Aura is actually gradual, it doesn't "kick in" at any percent, it just progressively gets better as he gets higher damage.

I think a much better change is just to remove the mechanic and make him have 75%'s worth of Aura all the time.

As a Lucario main, I'd probably prefer Brawl's hitboxes and 75-80% non-changing aura; and I wasn't even a Brawl Lucario main (played him a bit, not too seriously)

EDIT:
Also, just going to throw in that this isn't because I don't like the Aura mechanic (I'm not a huge fan, but I don't hate it) but because Lucario feels like a pretty lackluster character were in not for the aura gimmick. His range (excluding high-percent AS and FP) and speed on most attacks are pretty dang bad, things like that.

 

[popsofctown]

Some characters

You're not forced to damage Lucario into high percents, so I don't see how it's anti-competitive. There are viable strategies available to you at each stage of aura.

I have a larger problem with rage, more specifically how rage works on attacks assumed to have set or low scaling knockback and how it applies to the design of every character and not just Lucario. (I actually like rage a bit, but it's just confusing why it's there).

Aura has a remarkable effect even at what Bowser or DK considers kill percent. It's not possible to kill him without triggering some amount of Mario Kart mechanic unless you kill him with High Pressure Fludd at zero%.

"You have the option to minimize the causticness" is inadequate defense of the mechanic.

 

[san.]

Some characters

Aura has a remarkable effect even at what Bowser or DK considers kill percent. It's not possible to kill him without triggering some amount of Mario Kart mechanic unless you kill him with High Pressure Fludd at zero%.

"You have the option to minimize the causticness" is inadequate defense of the mechanic.

His recovery, damage, and range are terrible at low percents. That makes him prone to gimps by design at an early percentage. They all become excellent at high percents, but then he is susceptible to kills off the side and top blastzones. This is unlike comeback mechanics that are typically unavoidable.

Compare Lucario at 100% to Bowser and DK at 100% and I can't really see much of a difference since the latter two should be able to kill at 80-90% easily with their kill moves.

I also don't understand why you put your interpretation of my post in quotes as though I have said any of that.

 

[popsofctown]

I should have used asterisks, I wasn't trying to parody you.

 

[Radical Larry]

(I feel with the buffs, Link will be a hard counter to Rosalina now, instead of a soft counter.)

Against Rosalina, from my experience, Link has the capability of stopping Luma in its tracks by a simple attack, no matter it it's hit out of or during Luma Shot. I also find Luma Warp to be slim effective against Link, due to his Spin Attack and OOS Spin Attack causing it to tumble. He also has quite the range and slew of attacks at his disposal to not only hit Luma, but also Rosalina.

His Dash Attack is very effective at KO'ing the Luma as well, since Rosalina would have to dodge to get out of the way, and Luma would still be hit no matter what. Of course, there's also F-Tilt that can work as well.

Link definitely has the options of defeating Rosalina, and with time and more discovery, I feel he could surpass other characters well, as well. (I've been playing him for a month now, so I know my stuff)

 

[Mr. Johan]

Robin might see a better time with Rosalina with the Luma respawn nerf. His Fire Jab can send a Luma offstage from the center of Battlefield real quick, so all he needs is two seconds with the thing to make the fight a good 15 seconds of Levin goodness that kills Rosa at 100.

Speaking of Robin, may be a good idea to check his own tome and Levin Sword respawn times and see if they've been extended.

 

[san.]

I should have used asterisks, I wasn't trying to parody you.

Was trolling a bit, I knew you weren't

 

[Emblem Lord]

3ds version was a beta for balance testing. We all paid nintendo over 60 bucks to beta test for them.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

i aint even mad, nerf rolls 6 frames​

 

[Emblem Lord]

Remove macs armor on forward smash. **** is unneccessary.

 

[Luco]

Remove macs armor on forward smash. **** is unneccessary.

Nerfing mac's ground game with nothing to compensate would be pretty fatal for a character as... specialist, as he.

 

[Emblem Lord]

He doesnt need it. Its a braindead response to whenever his opponent attempts to short hop during footsies.

 

[Radical Larry]

He doesnt need it. Its a braindead response to whenever his opponent attempts to short hop during footsies.

You're asking to have Bowser's removed too, then?
Little Mac's armor is vital to him, because without it, he would be considered next-to-bottom as a character. Think of it this way; Little Mac is a character with one of the best ground games, but horrible aerial games; sure, the only way to keep him balanced was to give him Super Armor on his standard Smashes. Sure it may be annoying, but that's what Little Mac needs to compensate for the terrible aerial game and recovery he has.

Of course, the attack has its counters, such as another Super Armor attack, Bowser's Forward Smash, Link's D-Air (bouncing), getting away, ranged attacks, etc. It's all in a matter of predicting his attacks, and despite their fast speed, you can still predict and counter them.

Oh, and you're complaining even though you have Lucina as your main? Ever heard of using Counter? (I do not mean to mock you on this, though)

Actually, quick question, can Counter work against Little Mac's KO Uppercut? I'm curious about that.

 

[Conda]

Nerfing mac's ground game with nothing to compensate would be pretty fatal for a character as... specialist, as he.

Just gonna engage in a friendly rant for a bit No hard feelings, take it with a grain of salt.


Samus is a projectile 'specialist' and her moveset is pretty crummy and unsafe as a result of her apparently strong ranged game. A lot of attacks are built to not connect 100% of the time, like usmash and up B, leaving your opponents safe and with barely any damage. Jab doesn't connect at low to mid percents. Your bombs dont blow up on contact. Your attacks have huge lag. Your ftilt is slow, has low knockback, and does small damage. Your dtilt cannot kill. Etc Etc.

However, with all of these CQC drawbacks, she ALSO has huge endlag and drawbacks on her projectiles. She isn't really rewarded with awesome projectiles due to having a reduced-effectiveness melee game.

Even though she is balanced with 'projectile master' in mind, she is in reality still quite lackluster in melee range when parttaking in regular CQC combat. Like many characters, she has to focus on her few moves that are reliable and safe, and has to rarely (if ever) use the rest of her moveset.


Megaman is a small arms specialist, yet his projectiles do small damage and cannot kill. He has 3 less moves than everyone else too, but you don't see him with superarmor or strong moves that 'make up for it'. But little mac as disproporionate amount of strong properties that make up for his lacking air game, more than any other character has whom has a lacking air or ground game.

Little mac gets to be the one with speed, superarmor, damage %, kill power, and range on his main toolset, something no other character really gets.

Many characters can choose to not fight in the air (or ground) because they are easily defeated if they stick to that area of play, but their ground (or air) game is not super powerful to compensate.

A lot of characters have specialties and focused designs yet don't have his treatment. A lot of characters don't actively use their ground game or air game due to them being worse options than the other, yet their good options aren't as powerful as Mac's.

Sure, Mac has a crappy airgame and doesn't use it, but many characters ignore large portions of their moveset in favour of strong and safe options. Jiggly's air game is not 'little mac' quality even though her ground game is barely used compared to her air game.It doesn't matter much that her ground game is better than Mac's air game, because it's not really being used all the same.




Plus Mac has a counter, quick fast fall, and a superarmor side B - these all help you get back to the ground quickly and safely. You're not as helpless in the air as little mac mains tend to make it out to be. Yeah, you have to ignore his aerial moveset, but a lot of characters have to ignore big bunches of their moveset, it's normal.

So yeah, being good AS little mac means avoiding being tossed offstage and getting back to the ground safely. On the ground, you have the upper hand against almost everyone, and as long as you focus on developing a skillset that keeps you on the ground, you'll perform at peak levels.


TL:DR: Other characters who similarly have to rely on their air or ground game, and ignore a large amount of their moveset in competitive play, don't have the strengths little mac does in his forte. He's fine.

 

[Luco]

Just gonna engage in a friendly rant for a bit No hard feelings, take it with a grain of salt.

Little mac gets to be the one with speed, superarmor, damage %, kill power, and range on his main toolset, something no other character really gets. Many characters can choose to not fight A lot of characters have specialties and focused designs yet don't have his treatment. A lot of characters don't actively use their ground game or air game due to them being worse options than the other, yet their good options aren't as powerful as Mac's.

Sure, Mac has a crappy airgame and doesn't use it, but many characters ignore large portions of their moveset in favour of strong and safe options. Jiggly's air game is not 'little mac' quality even though her ground game is barely used compared to her air game.It doesn't matter much that her ground game is better than Mac's air game, because it's not really being used all the same.

Plus Mac has a counter, quick fast fall, and a superarmor side B - these all help you get back to the ground quickly and safely. You're not as helpless in the air as little mac mains tend to make it out to be. Yeah, you have to ignore his aerial moveset, but a lot of characters have to ignore big bunches of their moveset, it's normal.

Don't worry i'm not one to take things personally unless I think people are being personal. Which is to say, i'm happy to discuss it hahah.

Mac has a few usable moves in the air, but all of these are countered by grab and aren't incredibly safe against projectile spam. His strengths lie in a very particular area and nerfing these hurts him a lot.

The difference is, most characters have moves that they don't really use that are spread out across their moveset. Seeing as he's my main, i'll use Ness as the example. Ness has a strong aerial game and a decent ground game, but he also has plenty of moves that he doesn't really use. Dair is very situational and so is Dtilt, his Dsmash is used less frequently than usmash and at higher levels of play it's rarely as useful, and his PK Flash is seldom used at any level of competition.

But the thing is, Ness has other things to supplement his game that cover for it. PK Flash might be impractical for edge-guarding, but Ness can use PKT and hit the person and probably get an aerial on them afterwards too. His smashes might not be so crash dang hot, but his rewards off a grab are bloody fantastic and his SH aerials will cover for him whilst allowing him to space (somewhat) as needed. Dair is very situational for ledge-guarding, but Ness can filler that out with Nair if a person is recovering from the ledge. As you can see, Ness' game is spread out across different areas of gameplay and although yes, he certainly has unusable moves and his strengths are certainly placed in certain baskets moreso than others, he's still able to contend in the major stages of gameplay, whether it be ground, aerial or offstage.

Little Mac on the other hand has a plethora of moves on ground that are almost gamebreakingly ridiculous, yet his strengths are all placed here. Some characters have weaknesses in their aerial game but Mac's are ridiculous. I can't think of a single character who would not be able to outright beat Mac in the air (save for the ditto ) if they can get him there. It's one thing to have strengths in certain areas but Mac takes this and goes to the moon with it. In other words, he doesn't have anything to cover for his weak aerial and offstage game, and as such, nerfing that massive strength I think would damage the character as a whole. It would be like if you were to say Ness' aerial combo game was very strong and you thought it needed a nerf, so now Ness can't get Fairs off the Dthrow and Fairs no longer combo into each other. That would be a serious nerf for Ness to have to work around because now his grab reward game is bad, his grabs are bad and most of his direct ground game has been seriously nerfed as well as his major strength; his aerial game. He now struggles to rack up damage even though he has a plethora of viable kill moves and his strengths have not only been polarised but where he shines the most has now been nerfed.

It's not the best example because Mac is already in a delicate state atm but it illustrates more or less what i'm trying to say. If characters are already heavily polarised, nerfs will mean a lot more to them then they would to any other character.

 

[Emblem Lord]

You're asking to have Bowser's removed too, then?
Little Mac's armor is vital to him, because without it, he would be considered next-to-bottom as a character. Think of it this way; Little Mac is a character with one of the best ground games, but horrible aerial games; sure, the only way to keep him balanced was to give him Super Armor on his standard Smashes. Sure it may be annoying, but that's what Little Mac needs to compensate for the terrible aerial game and recovery he has.

Of course, the attack has its counters, such as another Super Armor attack, Bowser's Forward Smash, Link's D-Air (bouncing), getting away, ranged attacks, etc. It's all in a matter of predicting his attacks, and despite their fast speed, you can still predict and counter them.

Oh, and you're complaining even though you have Lucina as your main? Ever heard of using Counter? (I do not mean to mock you on this, though)

Actually, quick question, can Counter work against Little Mac's KO Uppercut? I'm curious about that.

If mac gets countered he eats the damage and goes no where thanks to armor.

Btw its not annoying. Its degenerate to what the game is. The game is footsies. He can ignore footsies. Btw i said remove armor on one move. Just one. It would not break him. It would mean he has to use his brain when someone sh approaches him.

Also who said i was complaining? You are quite presumptuous.

 

[Thinkaman]

It has already begun.

Now those of you who are uninitiated will understand...

...the dark price of these blessings...

It is a price we pay gladly, and yet one that is inescapable.

Never-ending, never relenting...

An endless stream of tormented echoes...

...but not normal cries: the rare wail that grows louder with each reverb, until they become a shriek...

The entitled, the bitter, the furious, the cynical, all united in a common chorus.

But we expected this.

Hell's is the only chorus befitting of warriors, after all.

Yes, this is the price we shall pay.

 

[zeldasmash]

I hope Link doesn't get hurt by this too much. I don't want to see him end up in the low tier sections AGAIN.

 

[Z'zgashi]

@ Conda : I like your post, but theres one fatal flaw. Samus IS NOT a projectile specialist and is NOT a long range zoner like people seem to think (she was in the past, but they've severely nerfed what made her good at keepaway and given her other tools, so now her gameplan is totally different). She's a mid range zoner/spacer now who focuses more around short hop mixups, landing/grab punishes, throw combos, and landing mixups. She has projectiles to use to help close the gap and pressure the opponent into approaching, but she is no longer a 'sit back and spam missiles' character.

 

[Muster]

If mac gets countered he eats the damage and goes no where thanks to armor.

Btw its not annoying. Its degenerate to what the game is. The game is footsies. He can ignore footsies. Btw i said remove armor on one move. Just one. It would not break him. It would mean he has to use his brain when someone sh approaches him.

Also who said i was complaining? You are quite presumptuous.

I have never had Little Mac shrug off a counter with his smash attack armor which leads me to believe this is a rare occurrence, assuming it happens at all.

They're definitely not going to remove armor on that move anyway, it's almost a character defining move in how it behaves.

Actually, quick question, can Counter work against Little Mac's KO Uppercut? I'm curious about that.

No. I believe it is treated like a final smash in how the properties of the move are.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Its happened to me a few times.

KO punch ignores shield properties which counters seem to have. I countered a KO punch with marth and the punch phashed through him and marth did nothing. My guess is that counter also has invincibility so the punch didnt effect him.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

You are correct, Emblem Lord. Counters do have invincibility in this game. I've actually mis-timed a few grabs at the peak of various counters (notably Marth and Lucina) and have phased through them.

Smooth Criminal

 

[A2ZOMG]

If mac gets countered he eats the damage and goes no where thanks to armor.

Btw its not annoying. Its degenerate to what the game is. The game is footsies. He can ignore footsies. Btw i said remove armor on one move. Just one. It would not break him. It would mean he has to use his brain when someone sh approaches him.

Also who said i was complaining? You are quite presumptuous.

This is why Sonic and Pikachu need to probably be nerfed due to their ability to totally disregard footsies.

 

[Radical Larry]

Well, aside from the topic of the new update, it's quite fascinating that Ganondorf's Wizard's Foot is a game changing move that can:

1) KO Meteor aerial opponents by bouncing off the stage at ~90%
2) KO aerial opponents at low percentages, such as ~40%-50%, when you do not meteor them at the beginning of the attack.

The latter of the two is definitely a game changer, as I've managed to KO Bowser players at 50% damage by using the attack in the air. It has some extremely high knockback and could defeat opponents who are too keen on trying to get an aerial on him. While it may be nothing new, using it on an opponent such as ZSS or Sheik, who have their hitboxes and hurtboxes clash, will definitely be useful.

It's great at stopping combos from non-disjoint hitbox characters, and KO'ing any combo-happy opponents.

Talking about attacks with great KO'ing ability that relate to this, Ganondorf's D-Air is capable of the same properties:

1) KO Meteor aerial opponents by bouncing off the stage at ~110%.
2) KO aerial opponents ~60%-80% when you hit them with his upper body portion.

 

[Shaya]

Sonic needs to stop being Falco's normals (the DAMAGE spread and general range/hitboxes: seriously all of sonic's **** is in the 10-15% damage range; doesn't make much sense) with better than Fox/everyone movement specs. Balance team didn't seem to have any idea on what they were doing with him in terms of numbers. They made him taller in line with newer Sega designs, and now he has longer-than-sword-range tilts and smashes. He had average dodge specs in Brawl, likely a compensation to his movement specs, but now his roll (definitely) and spot dodge seem to be in the upper echelons. He has tons of thrown invincibility on his moves that seemed kinda necessary to make him work with his sub-average normals in Brawl, but now just seem like tacked on/unneeded power.

I don't know what they're going to do with Sonic without massive structural change, which at this stage I assume isn't really going to happen. He'll always be cheesy/dumb/bad design, and how his numbers will go will depend on whether or not he times you out because he stops winning the % wars in trades (or is completely unviable) or that he just bulldozes you with little-counter-play available usually telegraphed option spamming.

characters like Pikachu/Sonic/Sheik/Diddy need to just stop having landing or other lag animations that make them excessively smaller than they normally are, often allowing them to 'dodge' attacks with them in ways that do not make sense.
Tell me you haven't had everyone of pikachu's aerials land straight in front of your face and you've grabbed or jabbed and have them whiff right through their laggy bodies.

Anyway, ughh, rebalancing speculation is really dangerous.

We all know a few things, but we should be holding out for more real things@_@

 

[DavemanCozy]

Link a hard counter to Rosalina?

I don't think so. He got his projectile game and flexibility nerfed too. Just like Greninja can't Side-B out of D-air, Link can't throw bombs to cancel his landing lag anymore. I played with Joe's copy of Smash Wii U on Sunday at the York U tourney he hosted, I can confirm that it's gone for Link, Toon Link, and Peach as well.

 

[Shaya]

But can't they invincible drop their projectiles again without zairing? That's super big. With Toon Link's super bombs (I think regular link has them too), that's a super scary low risk/high reward option.

Cancelling landing lag is one thing, being nearly unapproachable in the air is likely better

Seriously, in Brawl you would have to play so carefully/baity with Toon Links holding a bomb, your best bet was to punish them pulling it, as otherwise invincible-drops were practically just pure invincibility attacks that you could still zair out of.

Air dodges are 30 frame this game on average it seems too. Brawl ones were 40 or 50ish frames.

But yeah, before I get ahead of myself, can someone confirm you aren't forced to zair when you drop a bomb from an air dodge anymore?
If that's the case, I'm like 200% certain your characters got buffed rather than nerfed, cheer up!

 

[Smooth Criminal]

I'm glad z-dropping is back, tbh. I always felt that the Links were kinda awkward without it.

Smooth Criminal

 

[A2ZOMG]

Sonic needs to stop being Falco's normals (the DAMAGE spread and general range/hitboxes: seriously all of sonic's **** is in the 10-15% damage range; doesn't make much sense) with better than Fox/everyone movement specs. Balance team didn't seem to have any idea on what they were doing with him in terms of numbers. They made him taller in line with newer Sega designs, and now he has longer-than-sword-range tilts and smashes. He had average dodge specs in Brawl, likely a compensation to his movement specs, but now his roll (definitely) and spot dodge seem to be in the upper echelons. He has tons of thrown invincibility on his moves that seemed kinda necessary to make him work with his sub-average normals in Brawl, but now just seem like tacked on/unneeded power.

I don't know what they're going to do with Sonic without massive structural change, which at this stage I assume isn't really going to happen. He'll always be cheesy/dumb/bad design, and how his numbers will go will depend on whether or not he times you out because he stops winning the % wars in trades (or is completely unviable) or that he just bulldozes you with little-counter-play available usually telegraphed option spamming.

characters like Pikachu/Sonic/Sheik/Diddy need to just stop having landing or other lag animations that make them excessively smaller than they normally are, often allowing them to 'dodge' attacks with them in ways that do not make sense.
Tell me you haven't had everyone of pikachu's aerials land straight in front of your face and you've grabbed or jabbed and have them whiff right through their laggy bodies.

Anyway, ughh, rebalancing speculation is really dangerous.

We all know a few things, but we should be holding out for more real things@_@

Man, this man.

Also grab hitboxes need to universally be buffed to beat crouching, because let's be real. Crouching under grabs is total toxic BS. And if for whatever dumb reason they are afraid of people grabbing characters from really weird positions from the air, they could always specifically make the low grab hitbox specifically unable to hit aerial opponents.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Well, I guess all I can say about Sonic is the classic saying....

**** happens. I mean, unless they change him which I highly doubt will happen at this point, s'how it is. It's about right though as far as what you said, @ Shaya . Also hitbox oddities have always been a thing in Smash, I'm used to jank when I play.

 

[Zero Suit Senpai]

Also grab hitboxes need to universally be buffed to beat crouching, because let's be real.

Crouching? Poor WFT can't even grab Kirby when he's standing. Sad life.

 

[Conda]

@ Conda : I like your post, but theres one fatal flaw. Samus IS NOT a projectile specialist and is NOT a long range zoner like people seem to think (she was in the past, but they've severely nerfed what made her good at keepaway and given her other tools, so now her gameplan is totally different). She's a mid range zoner/spacer now who focuses more around short hop mixups, landing/grab punishes, throw combos, and landing mixups. She has projectiles to use to help close the gap and pressure the opponent into approaching, but she is no longer a 'sit back and spam missiles' character.

That is my exact point! Her cqc options are balanced with the idea of her being projectile focused (that's my way of saying her cqc options are weak and have clear intentional drawbacks). But she is NOT a projectile-focused character, since her projectiles are slow and unsafe to use often. That's why she's in a weird spot balance-wise, her options have so many drawbacks and you wonder what the reason for it is, as there's no other side to that coin.

 

[Mr. Johan]

It actually seems that hitboxes got nerfed universally in size. There's little disjoints unless the move is clearly disjointed, and even then the hitboxes don't come out until they're at the point in the animation would they would realistically sting. I cringe every time I use Robin's Utilt right in front of someone and see the Bronze Sword just go right through them.

No invisible hitboxes to go around, for the most part. Unfortunate for those like Bowser and Falcon whose hitboxes are strictly within their fists and feet. Not so much for Sonic and Diddy who throw their entire body in nearly every move they have.

 

[The Real Gamer]

I'm glad I'm not alone in my frustration with Sonic's character design. Fighting that character feels more like an overly tedious test of my patience rather than a true showing of my skill.

Has nothing to do with him being a good character. I can deal with Rosaluma/ZSS/Yoshi/Diddy's shenanigans just fine and I've beaten plenty of Sonics. However, at the end of the day I'm playing Smash 4 to have fun. Fighting against Sonic just isn't fun for me.

 

[GalaxyWaffles]

Hope they buff WFT's grab cause it's terrible. Like it's a struggle to grab Pikachu and other small characters, especially when they aren't even crouching -.-

Do you guys see them nerfing the top 5?

 

[NairWizard]

Outside of a clear glitch, I think that a character must win a (Nintendo-sponsored) tournament in order to get enough attention from Nintendo to receive a balance-patch nerf. Zero won with ZSS, and apparently some of ZSS' moves were nerfed going from the invitational version to the final version. Dabuz won with Rosalina, and now Rosalina is being nerfed? Seems suspiciously coincidental to me.