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You speak of justice? Of cowardice? I will show you the justice of the grave... and the true meaning of fear
There are certain games, which come to define a genre. Mario bros for the Platformer. Street Fighter for the Fighting Game, Final Fantasy the JRPG, Metroid, for Metroidvanias, Pokemon for the Mons genre. For the MMORPG, that game, is World of Warcraft.
And of all the Heroes, all the Villains, that have come to define the game, none are as iconic as Arthas Menethil, Blizzard's most iconic character. And who better than the Lich King himself, to represent the genre?
Is he really that important in Warcraft's lore? I'd argue that in the current state of the game Wrynn or Sylvanas would be the better pick, if not both.
Hell yeah
Arthas is my favorite Warcraft character, the Wrath of the Lich King cinematic trailer still sends me goosebumps to this day. I completely support his inclusion.
Is he really that important in Warcraft's lore? I'd argue that in the current state of the game Wrynn or Sylvanas would be the better pick, if not both.
If you want a character to represent the entire franchise, you don't just pick what's topical, especially not for third parties. Hence why Simon Belmont, the original, is the main rep, and the original Mega Man was added instead of X or EXE or something, and so on.
Heroes come and go. Wrath of the Lich King was WoW's highest peak, in subscriber count and in general opinion of "when was WoW at it's best".
Also, Arthas is the player character for two of WCIII's campaigns, and the arguable main character for the entirety of WCIII's expansion, plus the titular character/main villain of WoW's biggest expansion. Throughout the first part, he reshapes the entirety of Azeroth, and sets everyone up for the current situation of the Alliance and the Horde at the beginning of WoW, which has lasted till now.
Also, one of his boss mechanics is to have one of his Valkyr grab someone out of the raid, and drag them off the edge of his boss arena to fall to their death.
Here's a quick mock-up of a suggested "Height". I just took an old size chart I found from smash 4 came out and stuck a cropped image from WoWhead's model viewer into it. Couldn't find a better height chart with relevant characters.
Arthas should be roughly the same height, boot-to-eye as Ganondorf, with his bulkier armor and pointed crown making him appear larger (ignore the back foot, that's a result of me caring more to get the perspective on his head right than his legs).
Realistically, if adapted into Smash, I'd expect his proportions to get a once-over, with more emphasis on being accurate to his cinematic design, which is leaner and sleeker than the chunky, somewhat deformed appearance he takes in World of Warcraft. This would also enable shrinking frostmourne slightly to avoid making his disjointed hitboxes too silly. Here's a good shot of his overall proportions outside of the game.
Alright enough ignoring this. Time to post a whole moveset.
Arthas' central mechanic is his Down Special, Presence Shift, allowing him to change between Unholy,Frost, and Blood. Arthas has a unique passive ability, neutral special, and side special for each presence. This reflects the classic WoW mechanic of "Stance Dancing" where each class has their own unique "stances" that allowed them to shift their role and abilities.
In Unholy presence, Arthas is driven into an Unholy Frenzy that improves his attack and movement speeds. In this stance, Arthas plays the most traditonally, and is the de-facto "Default" stance that he starts every match in and resets to after respawning.
His neutral special is Death Coil a powerful damaging projectile formed of dark energy. Death coil flies straight and does damage with minor knockback and comes out quickly. It's a fairly simple move that nontheless plays into your mindset when in Unholy presence. Play the neutral game. Try to close in and enable your other tools to do their part.
His side special is Raise Dead which raises an undead ghoul from the ground. Once raised, the Ghoul will charge forwards in a blind rage, clawing wildly at anything that comes near it. If hit with enough damage or knockback, the ghoul falls apart. Use this tool to absorb hits and pressure opponents with a layered approach. Run right behind the Ghoul, letting it take the hits and force your opponent to give way and let you get in.
In Frost presence, Arthas calls upon the icy winds of Northrend to suround him in a veil of Remorseless Winterthat deals low, steady damage to anyone in it, and slowly freezes them over. The "freeze timer" is based on a character's weight, and does not count down while the target is already frozen. This is the most dangerous, and arguably most important of the three presences in Arthas' aresenal. It enables a dangerous vortex mixup and significant damage racking, as well as powerful finisher options like winding up a smash attack while his opponent is encased in a block of ice.
His blue Neutral Special, Howling Blastis a charged projectile, much like Samus's Charge Shot and Lucario's Aura Sphere. However, unlike most of these moves, the main purpose of Howling Blast instead is to inflict a long-duration freezing effect, which loops back into the main theme of Frost presence, racking damage and securing kills by repeatedly freezing someone into a deadly Vortex situation. When Arthas has a charged Howling Blast in his back pocket, it adds significantly to threat level posed and gives him a powerful tool to reset the situation back into his favor.
On the other hand, Artha's Side Special, Path of Frost isn't about giving him more options, its about removing enemy ones. When input, Arthas throws down a blast of ice that doesn't damage, or even impact players, reflectors, or other objects, only platforms. On impact, it freezes an area into a solid, slick surface that improves Arthas' speed across it, but trips enemies that try to move onto it. (So if you wake up on it, get up, and start trying to walk or sprint normally, you'd trip, but if you jumped or rolled off, or used a dash move, you'd be safe). Path of Frost's angle can be altered by shifting your directional input after starting the move, and serves to cut off options for an opponent and make it easier for Arthas to continue looping freezes.
In Blood presence, Arthas gains the Red Thirst, causing him to regenerate for a portion of his damage dealt. Blood Presence is at the same time both the most and least important of the three, where Frost is an immediate capitalization and has terrifying damage racking and kill pressure and Unholy is by far the best option in the neutral game, Blood is about setup. Both of it's specials are long-lasting and it's ability to trade blows and sustain just adds to that. You want to leave Blood presence in a better state than you entered it in.
First off, is Arthas' final neutral special. Bone Shield. With it, he channels for a long duration, pulling three whirling bones around him. The first comes relatively quickly, the second and especially the third take longer. Each one represents a "charge" of Bone Shield and will grant Arthas armor when he is struck, starting out as near-infinite and quickly scaling down to a more reasonable level. This means it can't be easily stripped by multi-hitting attacks, and requires three "full" hits to fully consume. While using Bone Shield, Arthas takes reduced damage, to facilitate trading attacks...which becomes even better if you're in Blood presence and heal back that damage with your own blows.
Then we have his red side special, the Dancing Rune Weapon. On the first activation, Arthas summons forth a floating runic sword that follows him, which can then be re-activated with a second input to send it flying forwards, cutting through enemies. Uniquely, this feature continues to operate while in other presences, allowing you to fire off an already-summoned Rune Weapon while at the same time using either Raise Dead or Path of Frost to further your pressure game, or stay in Blood Presence and take advantage of a solo Rune Weapon's incredibly short startup and recovery.
Finally, we have his up special, Val'kyr, which summons an undead valkyrie ghost to carry Arthas upwards if done in midair, or simply has the Val'kyr fly forward and diagonally upwards on it's own, grabbing the first enemy she finds and carrying them with her to the apex of her flight before spiking them downwards. Like any good up special, it's a recovery tool, but at the same time doubles as an anti-air projectile and combo ender/kill move. And also, it's one of his annoying boss mechanics and literally involved dropping people off the edge of his arena. So I couldn't not include it.
For his Final Smash, Arthas raises the great Frost Wyrm, Sindragosa by slamming his sword into the ground, creating an eruption of ice and magic that knocks people into the air at a fixed angle. Following this, Sindragosa flies out of the background, heralded by a second, larger burst. Sindragosa will then fly across the screen, breathing a stream of ice that freezes and juggles anyone it hits. Anyone caught by this move who isn't in a position with a wall in their way, will be juggled off the screen. However, Sindragosa is relatively slow and predictable, and her breath can be airdodged through or simply shielded, as it does fairly low shield damage (For a Final Smash atleast.) However, anyone hit by either the immediate blast when Arthas starts his Final Smash, or the second following blast, are essentially trapped and will get caught and subsequently frozen and carried off the screen.
Other notable moves include his grab, which is based on the Death Knight ability Death Grip, which takes the form of a ranged tether grab, made out of two or three "strands" of dark energy that reach out from his hand, and his neutral aerial, Anti-Magic Shell a whirl of runic energy that reflects projectiles and damages enemies.
With Mockrock's latest video on Heavyweights having just come out, I feel this is as good a time as anything to explain where and why I came up with this design for Arthas, and the philosophy behind it as a whole.
Ultimately, Arthas is one of the best-made "Advancing boss of doom" fights I've seen. His encounter in the Halls of Reflection where you simply can't fight him as he slowly marches you down, a maelstrom of frost surrounding him and spelling immediate death for anyone who can't get out in time, was downright heart-pounding. And fitting this and how he generally moves around in all his appearances besides Warcraft III (in which he was riding a horse), Arthas is slow. He lumbers along at a brisk power walk at best.
And that's really the challenge. Is it possible, to create a slow heavyweight, one that doesn't simply do away with the archetype's general defining weakness of piss-poor speed, and make it not only a viable main at top tournament level play, but also one that does it while feeling like a heavyweight, and not breaking casual play in half?
To that, I say yes.
First off, we have Arthas' polar vortex game. If he juggles, grabs or overall just keeps an opponent in reach long enough while in Frost Presence, they freeze over. This leaves them helpless long enough for Arthas to either smash them head-on, or set up for another round of guessing games. This was inspired in no small part by classical fighting game grapplers like Zangief and Iron Tager. When the Red Cyclone spins you into the ground, it's not just the damage that's scary, since most characters combos can usually hit much harder, it's the fact that it resets you to a position where you're at immediate risk of being grabbed again. You immediately have to act to avoid being locked into an endless loop of grabs that leads to your inevitable demise.
What this does, beyond making Arthas scary while also being engaging for both players while he's pulling it off, (after all, a good mind game is the key to any fighting game), is how it works best in a 1v1 enviroment where Heavyweights typically suffer, while attempting this in a casual enviroment would break apart quickly...nothing turns a carefully set up vortex into a fustercluck better than two more fighters ramming into it and causing general pandemonium!
On top of this, the exorbant frame advantage Arthas is afforded while his opponent is frozen is also time for him to set things up. He can pull out a Rune Weapon, charge up his Bone Shield or Howling Blast, throw down a Path of Frost or simply reposition himself and charge up a smash. Giving a breadth of options and adding depth to the general advantage state that would, otherwise, simply be a pure "Do I want to charge up a smash yet or not" question.
But beyond his strong ability to capitalize on being in the lead, there's also the importance of the neutral game and how Arthas approaches it. I won't beat around the bush, he has a lot of projectiles. Five, plus a reflector and a tether grab, (Death Coil, Raise Dead, Howling Blast, Rune Weapon, Val'kyr, Death Grip and Anti-magic Shell respectively). These combined with his heavyweight size and being a swordfighter give him a reach that significantly changes his neutral game matchup, with the specifics of his projectiles (notably his Ghoul being a body that soaks enemy projectiles for him), and the different speeds and sizes of his various tools, gives Arthas a varied set of approaches based on his scenario and which tools he already has prepared, as well as the option to instead, as he will often want, make his enemy come to him with the threat of his projectiles and his ability to setup traps and charge different moves the longer you leave him alone. A fighter that waits until Arthas is well and ready to come for them will find himself in quite a poor predictament indeed.
Add on top of this a superheavyweight's natural weight (Just look at him) and massive power, and you have quite the well-rounded fighter with a variety of tools and a few powerful win conditions. One that becomes threatening without relying on one or two really overpowered tools to compensate for the rest of their kit, and remains clearly a heavyweight with the slow speed, somewhat poor recovery (well, he still has a Fulcrum clone and a tether grab so he's hardly Little Mac), and you have a character I like to believe, will manage to balance being a slow and steady heavyweight, with having the toolkit and the viability of a true tournament-tier main.
Thematically, on top of this, Arthas does what Ganondorf doesn't, in my opinion, in being a true Dark Lord character. A towering figure clad in armor wielding a mighty weapon, while at the same time being capable of wielding vast and sinister mystic powers in the vein of Darth Vader or Sauron. Arthas's powerful physical presence and heavy attacks are paired with a variety of spells that serve to enable his physical playstyle in a way that should feel free-flowing and natural, using both halves to fit into a single, deadly whole.
Speaking of which, how cool would it be if Ganondorf took some notes from Dissidia's Golbez and cast blasts of dark magic while throwing his punches? Like a bolt of energy coming out of his jab as an expanded sourspot?
