OK, I tested it and his Fmsahs can still outrage counter. He can't hit Marth if Marth doesn't counter at that spacing, but I don't think he ever could. I also just did a pre-patch video to now comparison and I'm seeing no obvious differences in range on Fsmash or Dsmash. Could you give sources on this? I've never heard or noticed these changes until now. Usmash obviously got nerfed, but it's still pretty crazy.
In any case, a reversal on Greninja's nerfs still wouldn't make that much of a difference aside from the Shuriken nerf and maybe the Umsash nerf. He'd be a better character obviously, but only the old Shuriken really addressed any of the major problems of the character. He always had some trouble approaching and he always had bad out of shield options. Only the old Shuriken would help him deal with these issues to some extent. Everything else would just be overtuning the character IMO.
A reversal of his nerfs would make a massive difference but FullMoon kind of already covered it. Shuriken and Usmash would indeed make the biggest difference but any buff from pre-patch would be welcome.
If Greninja really lost range on his water sword moves, it's the first I'm hearing of it and the hitbox data from 1.0.3→1.0.4 is unchanged outside of usmash (unless this was a 1.0.6 thing). Guess I'll look into it next time I turn my 3DS on...on that note, where's the 1.0.6 data dump? I've been refreshing MasterCore every day for a month and a half
Pre-nerf Greninja usmash was dumb, but it never comboed into itself unless your opponent just put the controller down after being hit by it. What it
did do was allow Greninja to combo a uair after it though, which was really overkill for a move that hit with disjoint above and to the sides of Greninja, with kill power on both the sweet and sour hits, and 19% total damage with the ability to follow up after for even more. It may not have been truly safe, but it had the same end lag as Ganon's usmash with more area coverage and disjoint on a much more mobile character (who also slides a lot when using it, to boot). It was a low-risk ridiculous-reward move that worked for pretty much all situations; now its endlag is average, its range is nerfed, and the sourspot doesn't kill as well so it doesn't outclass dsmash on its
weak hit anymore. I guess you could argue it was overnerfed (I feel like Sheik's usmash has more disjoint now, for one), but it definitely warranted a nerf of some sort and its new endlag isn't excessive or anything.
In response to both of you, it
is possible that his range has only been nerfed on the Wii U version. There are still differences between the Wii U and 3DS versions after all, I'm told that Mii Gunner is different on 3DS and this could be another example. But yeah, on the Wii U version I am 100% sure that his range has been nerfed from pre-1.0.4 3DS. Are you both testing on the 3DS or Wii U? Is there any way you could provide footage of his Fsmash making Marth's counter whiff on the 3DS? My 3DS is broken so although I do have the game still, I can't test anything.
The range nerf would have been from 1.0.3 to 1.0.4. Also yeah it's not in any of the data collected about the patch and I don't know how it was missed, Smashwiki makes some comment about Usmash's hitboxes getting smaller but that's all. When in reality all of his Smashes have smaller hitboxes and animations. You can even
see it. Watch old videos, or videos of Greninja's Wii U build at E3 last year, you will see that his Smashes had significantly more range. The fact that Marth's counter no longer whiffs his Fsmash (or Usmash for that matter) is pretty definitive proof as well.
Data from patches is stored in a very strange way in this game, frame data is tied to animations for example so it's always hard to discern changes. It's possible that the raw hitbox data has not changed, but the animations for his Smashes have changed and within that are the hitbox changes.
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Lavani Pre-patch Usmash did combo into Uair yeah, I do remember that and it registered as a true combo in training. I... don't think it was that big a deal though. It only worked at a somewhat specific percent range and it's not like Uair deals huge amounts of damage. Also with our increased understanding of hitstun as of late it may have been possible to airdodge out of this combo, which no-one really tried in my experience.
I'm fairly sure pre-patch Usmash had more ending lag than Ganon's Usmash, I'm the first to admit I could be wrong on that but even so it didn't deal as much damage on the sides and thus dealt less shieldstun and shield pushback, so it wasnt safe on block. I still stand by the fact that despite being "dumb", there was reasonable counterplay to pre-patch Usmash. It may have been low risk but it definitely did not have
ridiculous reward, even the sweetspot did not kill until about 100% on average. Either a range nerf or ending lag nerf would have been better, but both is overkill, and frankly I think it should have been left alone because it was far easier to deal with than most of the top tier nonsense even now. We've got people arguing over whether you should block Luigi's fireballs with your face and all you had to do against pre-patch Usmash was press R and enjoy your free dashgrab.
