Thanks to Guybrush for pointing me towards this thread! (It used to be it's own thread because I'm still a smash boards nub.) Here's my concept for Eevee! I know some people might not like it because it uses Eeveelutions, but I personally hope that Eevee will not be placed in Smash alone because I'd hate to see him get an uninspired tail-head-smackity-smack moveset (because let's be honest, Eevee is cool because he's the Evolution Pokemon).
OP:
I've been meaning to post this for forever, but kept telling myself I would look into the damage percentages more to flesh it out. Maybe I will do that eventually, but as of now that probably won't happen. My hope is that by posting this in-depth character concept that I spent weeks working on that Nintendo may notice the awesome potential Eevee has as a fighter in Smash.
Eevee's most noticeable attribute is its Eeveelution transformations. In this Eevee theorycrafting build, I wanted to avoid the traditional approach of assigning down special to a boring and strategically useless transformation move. Instead, smash attacks and specials will each cause Eevee to switch to a certain specific Eeveelution form until a different smash attack or special is used.
Moveset*
Jab Combo — whack, whack, headbutt (2%, 3%, 5%) [slight upwards knockback]
Side Tilt — lunges forward w/ claws and rake downwards (13%) [medium 60* knockback]
Up Tilt — double kicks w/ front paws up into the air above Eevee’s head (6%, 8%) [no knockback]
Down Tilt — sand-attack; stirs up sand w/ tail (sand bombardment causes sub-1% increments of damage for ~1 second until 7%, tail tip causes 5% damage and trips, tail body causes 3% damage) [no knockback]
Side Smash — *Vaporeon* aqua tail; slaps ground in front of Vaporeon with tail, causing small twister proportionate to charge (impact with tailfin causes 13%, impact with tail’s body causes 5%, impact with twister causes stacking 3%) [high knockback, kill potential; sour spot short bop upwards ~1 Pichu; and flinching]
Up Smash — *Jolteon* pin needle; bristles fur and shoots several spines up into the air at an 80* angle above Jolteon’s body over the area of a 20* arc (each spine causes 6% damage to a maximum of 32% fully charged) [knockback scales exponentially with charge from very low to immense]
Down Smash — *Glaceon* ice beam; charges for a few frames and fires a short beam into the ground in front of Glaceon’s feet; has significant DI and can be maneuvered to a 30* all the way to an 80* angle in front of Glaceon (damages in several ticks, each causing 3% until ~15%, then roots (normal root) enemy in place; this can be DI’d out of) [no knockback unless used on already frozen target; on already frozen target, low knockback]
Neutral Special — *Flareon* fire spin; charges for up to 4.5 seconds, then unleashes a twister of fire that grows in size and duration according to charge duration on a 1:1.5:2 scale {1 second charge = 1.5 second duration and 2 Flareon lengths’ size} (touching twister’s rings causes 6%, staying within twister’s body causes stacking 3%) [little knockback, almost a trip; no knockback or flinch whatsoever]
Side Special — *Umbreon* pursuit; leaps forward, disappears, then reappears when special button is released to execute a powerful bite (18%, does double damage to shields) [enormous kill potential]
Up Special — *Leafeon* leaf tornado; spins and encases itself in a cyclone of leaves, branches, and other plant matter, gaining upward momentum akin to Wario’s Waft ability; at the end of the tornado, Leafeon kicks at a ~185* angle if any enemies were caught in the ability’s wake (~%1.5 per second in cyclone’s body, %1 for any hits by debris on the side, %12 for final kick) [flinching, flinching, medium knockback with kill potential at above 100%]
Down Special — *Sylveon* charm; shows off its cuteness and fragility, partially blocking any attacks with its ribbons (Sylveon takes roughly 1/3 of countered abiliies’ damage); any enemies that attacked Sylveon during this ability’s duration are stunned for a short duration proportionate to the damage countered {exists to punish overextending and to create a counter with risk that isn’t just punishable ending lag}
Neutral Aerial — Eevee curls up in a ball and spins, then unravels (%6) [flinching]
Forward Aerial — double slap (kinda); boxes the air with one paw, then the other (5%, 7%) [flinching, light knockback]
Back Aerial — iron tail; swings iron-clad tail in an downwards arc (15%) [top sourspot causes flinching; middle of arc causes medium knockback; bottom sweetspot has light meteor]
Up Aerial — double kick; twists around, punching the air above Eevee once with one forward paw per rotation (8%, 9%) [flinching, medium knockback w/ kill potential at high percentages]
Down Aerial — pound (kinda); twists and slaps the air beneath Eevee (16%) [enormous meteor smash] {miniscule hitbox}
Grab** — rhythmically bobs head forward, telekinetically reaching for enemies in front of Espeon {while holding an enemy, Espeon stays sitting down, looking for all the world like a cat only mildly amused by the struggle going on around it, and only stirs herself to action when throwing an enemy}
Pummel — slams captive enemy on the ground (5-6% per slam) {Espeon moves her head, specifically her eyes, to move the captive enemy}
Forward Throw — turns head back and forceably pushes captive enemy with kinetic energy (13%) [decent knockback, relatively fixed] {eyes and forehead gem glow to indicate the force put behind this and each throw}
Back Throw — calmly turns the front of her body to face the other direction, letting her head drag behind, then jerking it forward to build up momentum, flings the captive enemy out in front of her, giving them a push like the forward throw (2% from drag, 13% from the push like before) [better knockback than the first that scales a bit more with damage]
Up Throw — bobs head, and thus the captive opponent, down to the ground, then flings them up into the air (16%) [low knockback]
Down Throw — slams enemy into the ground and fires a ~1.75 second psybeam into them, then daintly tosses them away in front of her
{Eevee’s grabs are meant to be more of zoning tools than killing moves.}
Taunts***
Down — frolics about chasing an insect (bug Pokemon?)
Side — bares teeth and raises haunches like a cat
Up — bounces up and down, crying “Ivui, ivui!!” {gotta have that adorabedes factor}
*Jab, tilts, and aerials are all Eevee’s base damage percentages and knockback, which are modified slightly per Eeveelution
**Grab, pummel, and throws all activate and maintain Espeon transformation, which acts as all the other Eeveelution transformations, lingering after the throw to modify stats until another Eeveelution is activated.
***Taunts could automate a shift to Eevee, which would give them more of a risk and thus more of a burn when executed properly (as players will rarely want to stay in bare Eevee form for long), or could change slightly based on Eeveelution; e.g. Espeon would prance fashionably rather than frolicking (down), and stretch out leisurely while yawning out, “Pee —on” instead of being cute
Brainstorming Eeveelution backstage numbers
Umbreon
- Reference “Inner Focus” hidden ability by having high weight and some abilities with invincibility frames
- Stats indicate that Umbreon should be a heavyweight, tanky character (like Melee/Brawl Bowser)
- All moves could deal slightly increased damage to shields, or deal Shadow damage; or perhaps gain additional knockback and damage if Umbreon and the opponent are within a threshold of similar damage percent (referencing Synchronize)
Eevee
- Could reference Adaptibility’s STAB increase by simply increasing Eevee’s damage output to by slightly above what would otherwise be average, but a baseline change to the very base seems counter-intuitive, so I might just ignore Adaptibility for now.
- Run Away could be referenced with a higher-than-average air mobility and run speed
- Anticipation could be referenced with a higher-than-average shield health, or by Eevee gaining extra shield health or invincibility frames on shield breakage; or by a tiny base knockback modifier
- Stats indicate that Eevee is painfully average, but this could be worked around using one or more of the above tweaks, to make Eevee situationally useful, as opposed to being simply the “bad version” of the character
Vaporeon
- Stats indicate that Vaporean should be a somewhat slow, high-damaging, floaty-ish middleweight (kinda like Mewtwo, but slower and harder to kill)
- Water Absorb and Hydration abilities will be hard to emulate in Smash, but perhaps an effect like Vaporeon self-healing a small fraction of its own potential damage as health for every move that involves water could capture their effect.
Jolteon
- Volt Absorb could maybe grant self-healing on electric attacks like Vaporeon for Water Absorb, but that seems redundant and overpowered.
- Stats indicate that Jolteon should be relatively easy to kill, but very fast with decent enough damage. Of course this will have to be modified for balancing in Smash, but for now I am imagining Jolteon to be in the same general archetype as Zero Suit Samus, Sheik, and Bayonetta.
Espeon
- Synchronize and Magic Mirror at first appear to be effectively useless in the Smash backdrop (copying stun, burn, etc. Espeon’s opponent would be hugely overpowered)
