Character Competitive Impressions

[Locke 06]

I have no idea what I'd do to Sheik. Like, sure, you could nerf any of her 30 moves in a dozen different ways (like anyone)--but I'm saying I am not sure what is reasonable or effective to change. I see Sheik as a tightly built machine where it seems like everything is just vaguely too good. Nerfing fair or further nerfing Bouncing Fish would impact her a lot, but I don't want to do either of those things.

Increased end lag on Vanish and slower charge on needles would be an interesting way of nerfing Sheik that doesn't disrupt the machine. First things that came to mind when I read your post.

 

[Thinkaman]

Increased end lag on Vanish and slower charge on needles would be an interesting way of nerfing Sheik that doesn't disrupt the machine. First things that came to mind when I read your post.

I have slightly increased cooldown on Needles and slight damage/knockback nerf to bair in my for-fun notes.

 

[Locke 06]

I was thinking cooldown on Needles, but I like how annoyingly disruptive they are at 1%. Damage/knockback nerf to BAir makes a lot of sense too in order to diminish its effectiveness as a kill move... but I was worried about the repercussions of having another tool to chain with like the "nerf" to FAir. >.>

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I have no idea what I'd do to Sheik. Like, sure, you could nerf any of her 30 moves in a dozen different ways (like anyone)--but I'm saying I am not sure what is reasonable or effective to change. I see Sheik as a tightly built machine where it seems like everything is just vaguely too good. Nerfing fair or further nerfing Bouncing Fish would impact her a lot, but I don't want to do either of those things.

(Disclaimer: I don't play as Sheik, apologies if these end up being stupid.)

Adjust fair's knockback to be high base/low growth. Enough to mess with onstage strings but still work as an edgeguard.
Single needles don't cause hitstun, need to hit with 2 or more from the same button press to make the target flinch.
Something to Bouncing Fish. Helpless on midair whiff? No bounce on shield? Something else entirely?

But honestly I don't use Sheik enough to have more than a passing knowledge of what makes her work so grains of salt.

 

[Chuva]

What about Sonic? How do you change Sonic's gameplay to something more healthy and interactive without removing the traits that makes him unique and authentic to his character, such as Spin Dash?

 

[Conda]

What about Sonic? How do you change Sonic's gameplay to something more healthy and interactive without removing the traits that makes him unique and authentic to his character, such as Spin Dash?

Perhaps no Up B out of spindash, and a bit of a cooldown when you jump out. This will help make Sonic actually punishable sometimes when he hits someone's sheild, as he won't be able to just up B to safety.

Also, more grab endlag if you whiff a grab. His grab game is for-no-reason stronger and safer than most other slower characters with weaker killpower.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Sonic actually could have been reasonable if most hitboxes weren't so damn tiny in this game. In Brawl you could just auto-jab predictable spindash approaches because you'd either clash or beat the spindash. Smash 4 doesn't give you that option because the hitbox of spindash seems to be bigger than any auto-jab in this game.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Best way to deal with the top tiers is to buff lower characters. Bring back brawl mk please.

 

[Kofu]

Perhaps no Up B out of spindash, and a bit of a cooldown when you jump out. This will help make Sonic actually punishable sometimes when he hits someone's sheild, as he won't be able to just up B to safety.

Also, more grab endlag if you whiff a grab. His grab game is for-no-reason stronger and safer than most other slower characters with weaker killpower.

All of Sonic's grabs are good. FThrow and BThrow kill, UThrow starts combos/can set up for a kill, and DThrow is a techchase. The combination is pretty dumb.

 

[Ffamran]

Well, I'm watching more VGBootCamp stuff and Wii Fit Trainer's range and angles aren't much of an issue with characters with large hurtboxes, but that's like... 4 characters? DK, Bowser, Triple D, and maybe, just maybe, Ganondorf out of the current 52.

Anyway, what do you think of using Deep Breathing when recovering? TKBreezy did it during his match against Blur and it seems like a way to make edgeguarding WFT more risky since if you do something wrong, then she's going to get a good punish. Here's when it happens in the match for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=j7QjL3_DR9M#t=405.

Granted, WFT was in rage, but still, it seems really risky to challenge her off-stage like that if you're not sure like challenging Ness's PKT2 if you're not sure you can get the hit in time. Also, it's not going to take someone that long to get back on stage compared to trying to get that hit on-stage.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

What about Sonic? How do you change Sonic's gameplay to something more healthy and interactive without removing the traits that makes him unique and authentic to his character, such as Spin Dash?

I can't tell his side and down specials apart, but I know you can cancel one or the other (or both?) before you actually start moving. Killing that property would be a good start IMO, force him to actually commit to something. </salt>

 

[Sinister Slush]

Oh, I know how nasty Sheik is, I've seen a lot of Denti

I just wanna point out he only really played Sheik in the 3DS when she was actually pretty dumb/ holding the top spot comfortably and definitely dropped after nerfs. He may have played her a few times but he was already implementing Dthrow to Uair the character and now has completely made the switch over the past couple months.

 

[Quickhero]

Best way to deal with the top tiers is to buff lower characters. Bring back brawl mk please.

While I would love for Meta Knight to get buffed, but not to Brawl level, no PLEASE NO. Making characters stronger as an attempt to balance out current "OP" characters will just cause massive power creep, making standards of a trait so high that a slightly weaker character will be unable to compete. Nerf the characters that are too strong to a minimum and buff characters that are on the weaker side slightly stronger with buffs where it matters.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

While I would love for Meta Knight to get buffed, but not to Brawl level, no PLEASE NO. Making characters stronger as an attempt to balance out current "OP" characters will just cause massive power creep, making standards of a trait so high that a slightly weaker character will be unable to compete. Nerf the characters that are too strong to a minimum and buff characters that are on the weaker side slightly stronger with buffs where it matters.

No nerfs the game becomes watered down and diluted. For instance look at sf4 they nerf top tiers all the time. Just makes the game more boring. Characters should be given more tools instead of taking tools away from them. There's always going to be a top tier and bottom tier. That's just the way things go.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Sheik I would reduce the range of needles/add more ending lag/add more time between each needle added while charging + reduce the knockback on Vanish/add more ending lag + slight knockback nerf to Bair

Diddy is easier: increase the knockback of Dthrow + slightly reduce the hitbox of Uair. Done.

Sonic I honestly wouldn't touch. I have no problems with him, even when playing against two of them back to back in tournament.

Then there is probably a massive list of buffs I'd add but lets not go into that.

 

[Z'zgashi]

You dont need to do anything to Diddy besides nerf the knockback on uair.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

You dont need to do anything to Diddy besides nerf the knockback on uair.

I'd rather keep it as a powerful option/combo, but make it harder to land.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Nerf his fair start up, Uair/dthrow obvious nerfs, change his recovery a bit.

 

[san.]

What about Sonic? How do you change Sonic's gameplay to something more healthy and interactive without removing the traits that makes him unique and authentic to his character, such as Spin Dash?

Can't charge spindash indefinitely and remove its startup invincibility.

 

[Shaya]

Small changes can mean a lot.

Sheik's needles being shorter range? Sounds great.
Nerf bair? Not feeling the necessity beyond maybe reducing active frames, adjusting hitboxes displacements so it's less "massive disjoint that beats everything" (have it follow her leg rather than being a constant position). But even then, that's a lot.
Fair needs to have its auto cancel frame adjusted. It's frame 11 on a 3-5 frame active move with 9 frames landing lag. What's the point of having landing lag on a move like that? ZSS and Falcon's up airs have mid 20 to 30 frame auto cancels. If it was made slower in regards to start up or landing lag that would be good too But yeah, you shouldn't be able to essentially have only 9 frames of lag at worse no matter how you use her fair.

Diddy's fair and uair have really stupid properties as we're all aware.
Fair hitbox is active for 11 frames and auto cancels 9 frames after. It's 6 frames start up and I believe it was 8 or 9 in Brawl.
Up air's hitbox sizes are way too large, making it double up almost as a neutral air as well. 15 frame auto cancel on it makes lag negligible, even with its very low landing lag already on fast fall. I thought Master Core was fixed already but unless it hasn't, Up air has up to a 10 unit (I don't know how large his 0x3 bone is) horizontal disjoint given to it for some bizarre reason as well (marth's sword is around 9 to 10 units).

 

[Quickhero]

As a person who plays Sheik as their secondary, I agree that Sheik has an fair that chains way too easily and too early. I honestly think the grenades and needles aren't a problem as Sheik's f-air is really what allows the stage control to become such an extreme thanks to the chain. For this reason, and I know this sounds crazy, but they should increase the knock up, with a slight damage increase to compensate. That probably sounds a ridiculous "nerf" increasing something that is supposed to be really good on a character, but hear me out.

Sheik can easily start the match vs most characters simply by throwing out a short hop f-air and simply jump again to do a second...then a third and sometimes even fourth, and drag the character already into Sheik's greatest fighting area. HOWEVER, if you increase the knock back, you will now AT THE WORST be able to pull two f-airs at the beginning and not already be dragging characters off-stage. This provides Sheik with a LOT less damage and stage control, so I think slightly increasing the damage by around 2% is enough to make sure Sheik can still do the job.

Nerfing needles range to just a little bit more than an instant grenade will probably work well alongside this change to make sure Sheik will have to be more risky versus melee characters, and I think having bouncing fish just bounce straight upward if hitting a shield may actually be appropriate options alongside this, but I think making sure we don't nerf all of Sheik's harass options and offer nothing to compensate is way better than just weakening f-air so it's weak AND hard to chain as well as this seems kind of silly.

 

[Ffamran]

Couldn't you add end frames to her Fair to make it less chainable? Just an idea here.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Eh I'd just throw more recovery on Diddy's grab and make it so if he whiffs he'll hate himself.
The extra risk from failed grabs would probably balance out his reward and put more emphasis on command grabbing.

 

[Ffamran]

Eh I'd just throw more recovery on Diddy's grab and make it so if he whiffs he'll hate himself.
Inb4 Samus level lag on Diddy's grab.

Or Pac-Man's grab lag...

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Lol you could make Sheiks Up special have more start-up and She'd fall right in line immediately.

 

[Nu~]

Or Pac-Man's grab lag...

That's just torture

 

[Paper Maribro]

Or Pac-Man's grab lag...

If you wanna make Diddys grab more like Pacs dont forget to make it so that the animation doesnt match the grab box at all and also make sure there is a spot in the grab closest to Diddys hand where there is no grab box so just when you think you have grabbed someone they dont get hit at all and you are stuck in the animation that takes 1000000 years to end and your opponent is in your face ready for that juicy punish.

Yeah, that should put Diddy in line.

 

[Ffamran]

That's just torture

Is there a reason for Pac-Man having that kind of grab (animation)? I don't know where Mega Man's grab animation comes from specifically, but I believe there was a power-up for Mega Man to pick stuff up.

 

[Nu~]

It's from galaga. Represents Classic Namco

 

[Ffamran]

It's from galaga. Represents Classic Namco

But is there a reason why it's slow a sin and has a skewed hitbox? Even Yoshi's tongue, (Toon) Link's, and Samus's grab's aren't that messed up and they have more range.

 

[Z'zgashi]

But is there a reason why it's slow a sin and has a skewed hitbox? Even Yoshi's tongue, (Toon) Link's, and Samus's grab's aren't that messed up and they have more range.

We went over this a long ways back, but basically its for balancing issues, Pac with a normal grab would most likely be the best character in the game by a bit of a gap.

 

[Ffamran]

We went over this a long ways back, but basically its for balancing issues, Pac with a normal grab would most likely be the best character in the game by a bit of a gap.

I know that, but this game having a lot of weird hitboxes concerns me at times like I don't see much of an issue with Falco Phantasm having a full hitbox since it's telegraphed enough that people can avoid it or how before the 1.04 patch the claw on Link's Clawshot had no hitbox or the tip of Meta Knight's sword not having not having a hitbox. Those dead zones just seem sloppy to me.

 

[Kofu]

If you wanna make Diddys grab more like Pacs dont forget to make it so that the animation doesnt match the grab box at all and also make sure there is a spot in the grab closest to Diddys hand where there is no grab box so just when you think you have grabbed someone they dont get hit at all and you are stuck in the animation that takes 1000000 years to end and your opponent is in your face ready for that juicy punish.

Yeah, that should put Diddy in line.

Although to be fair the weird "grab" visual appearing behind the grabber is usual for pivot grabs for some reason.

 

[Yonder]

We went over this a long ways back, but basically its for balancing issues, Pac with a normal grab would most likely be the best character in the game by a bit of a gap.

Imo, people tend to blow out of proportion how good Pac Man would be with a better grab. He'd skyrocket yes, but to say he would be the best, and by a bit is a hyperbole to me. Sheik, Diddy, and Yoshi, the undisputed best 3, would knock him down a few pegs.

 

[IsmaR]

Pick Pac-Man in training mode and set the speed to 1.5. Then imagine everything else was normal speed.

 

[Lavani]

or how before the 1.04 patch the claw on Link's Clawshot had no hitbox or the tip of Meta Knight's sword not having not having a hitbox. Those dead zones just seem sloppy to me.

Those still exist, only MK's uair/dair had their hitboxes and animations adjusted.

Link's clawshot matches the pivot grab range though, I guess they were just lazy and didn't adjust the visual to match the different grab ranges.

 

[Ffamran]

Those still exist, only MK's uair/dair had their hitboxes and animations adjusted.

Link's clawshot matches the pivot grab range though, I guess they were just lazy and didn't adjust the visual to match the different grab ranges.

Wow, really? Meta Knight's range is short enough as is. His sword doesn't even cover that much; it's like Kirby and Jigglypuff's feet and stubby arms when they attack, but a little more. That's nothing compared to his shenanigans in Brawl.

Oh, and what's the point of the claw and hook on the Clawshot and Hookshot if they do nothing? Seriously?

None of this is game-breaking, but it is sloppy. It's like if Mario throws a punch, but his arm is the only thing that has a hitbox while his fist is just there or those hitboxes in old video games that didn't really mean much since you could kill them easily or jump over them, but when it does happen it feels incredibly cheap that your foot touched thin air and you die.

 

[Nu~]

Imo, people tend to blow out of proportion how good Pac Man would be with a better grab. He'd skyrocket yes, but to say he would be the best, and by a bit is a hyperbole to me. Sheik, Diddy, and Yoshi, the undisputed best 3, would knock him down a few pegs.

This is funny because we beat sheik, and go even with both diddy and yoshi by playing keep away even with our terribad grab.
A decent grab would be overkill.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I don't think Sheik needs nerfs; I think she's being overrated because her neutral is so good. She lacks explosive kill power like most of the other good characters; she really only takes stocks if you either make multiple mistakes in quick succession (to get drug off-stage) or get to over 150% whereas most of the other strong characters have ways to kill starting at 80-100% off a single mistake. That's kinda a big deal; I have to play around Sheik's complete package of pressure, but I don't actually have "that button" I have to look out for like Diddy uair, Sonic usmash (or bthrow really), Ness "half his moveset", ZSS Boost Kick, etc.. The closest thing is getting sniped by Vanish; if I were going to nerf Sheik (which I wouldn't do), I'd slightly reduce the kill power on Vanish. Really though, I think she's built just right; she's a good character, but she makes the very real trade of the ability to get wins very fast for her consistent threat level. Characters like Sheik have been dominant in past smash games which probably increases her appeal, but precedent

Of course, the only nerf I'd implement in this game if given the driver's seat would be a very, very slight nerf to Diddy uair kill power (would kill probably about 8% later in most situations). I feel like most characters are viable in the current environment and that it's much easier and more likely to make a good game to focus on bringing in stragglers instead of tearing down leaders in this kind of game. I think the "only buff always!" philosophy is simplistic at best for game design, but this game's particular balance is well suited for it. With custom moves being a system as well, you really have a lot of ways to push characters in different directions without having to make sacrifices. Oh this game would be fun to play with the balance, but that's not really possible so I'm not sure it's the most useful thought experiment.

---

I don't really want to have a long Pac-Man argument, but I'm definitely +1 to the side of Pac-Man being bad and don't really think a better grab would suddenly make him good just decent. I just look at him, see hydrant as one of his strongest moves, see how easy it is for hydrant to hurt him more than help him when he puts it out (usually he tries to land behind it and, before he gets a chance to take advantage of the cover, has an fsmash'd hydrant flying at him), and really struggle to see him as good. The good characters don't have their strong tools so easily turned against them, and how just flat out unimpressive his normals are doesn't really do much for me either... I simply don't believe he beats Sheik and goes even with Diddy and Yoshi; on what game theory does that even work? I foresee Sheik and Diddy just rushing him down and winning on the basis of having better buttons than he does and Yoshi kinda doing the same but also winning the long range game since eggs are better than all of Pac-Man's projectiles. If Yoshi catches a fruit especially and just holds it while chucking eggs, that's going to be a nasty situation in which Pac-Man will be forced to approach...

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Imo, people tend to blow out of proportion how good Pac Man would be with a better grab. He'd skyrocket yes, but to say he would be the best, and by a bit is a hyperbole to me. Sheik, Diddy, and Yoshi, the undisputed best 3, would knock him down a few pegs.

I don't think yoshi is top 3.