G&W in Brawl+

[cutter]

Brawl+ has started to pick up momentum and there has been some discussion for a few characters. I've been starting to watch a lot of Brawl+ vids and it does look like it's fun to play.

From the few videos I've actually seen of G&Ws in Brawl+, I've made a lot of observations on how G&W has changed for better - and for worse.

- First thing that immediately came to me was how G&W suffers from the existance of actual combos. In vBrawl (vanilla Brawl) G&W could get hit by something and only take like 9-12% and that was it. In Brawl+, expect G&W to get comboed taking a LOT more damage than in vBrawl. G&W's just can't take that much punishment, especially when in Brawl+ combos can also lead to kill moves sometimes. This was also one of the reasons why G&W was so bad in Melee aside from his ****tacular shield. I've seen a few vids where G&W would get hit by a move that starts a combo and G&W would end up taking 35-40% from it. That's already a 1/4, if not a 1/3 of G&W's stock right here.

- On the other hand, more hitstun opens the door for G&W to combo on his own (duh!) Utilt becomes a much better juggling tool and you can do more stuff after a Nair assuming you haven't double jumped then you can up B into them. Up B also looks to be a much better offensive weapon especially when you consider you can just autofastfall into another aerial when you read your opponent's DI. G&W's good aerial mobility in addition to using up B liberally will more than likely create many opportunities for some good, efficient combos.

- The increase in shieldstun and cancelling aerials now gives G&W true safe approaches. Bair can now be cancelled reducing the lag even further. Fair now reminds me so much of Melee G&W's Fair being able to L-cancel that shizz. Dair looks a LOT more promising now that there is less of a powershield window and the move is much safer. Uair and Nair can also be cancelled as well making them even MORE lag-free than in vBrawl. It looks so much better than Melee when G&W could only L-cancel two of his aerials (Fair/Dair). Going by our frame data in vBrawl looking at G&W's attacks and seeing the increase of shieldstun and aerial cancelling in Brawl+, I can only predict that G&W's aerials have positive frame advantages.

- Speaking of Bair, it looks to be even more powerful in Brawl+. You know how SDIing G&W's Bair has made it far from the godly attack we thought it would be in vBrawl? Well in Brawl+, two things are fixed to solve this problem where sometimes G&W's Bair would be unsafe on hit. The hitlag on attacks is now next to nonexistant. This provides a MUCH harder window to SDI Bair than in vBrawl. Hitting people with multihit attacks in Brawl+ is almost like hitting air; the attack hits so fast that I barely notice the hitlag. Even if someone does manage to SDI out of the Bair (they will still have taken a good amount of damage to due to dramatically decreased hitlag) the increased hitstun will keep your opponent from counterattacking before Bair ends. There is also the possibility of comboing from the Bair if you get someone with the landing hit; remember you can cancel the Bair and reduce the landing lag even more.

A few more things I've observed but won't too much into detail:

- Dthrow is much less effective. Techroll speeds have increased, making it harder to techchase and the characters that were originally hard to techchase to begin with in vBrawl are probably now impossible to techchase.

- Smashes look like their IASA frames have been nerfed or even removed completely (again I don't have Brawl+ myself so I have to go by watching vids on Youtube). However in exchange, they are grossly safe on block and appear to have much more shieldpushback.

- There are no stale moves in Brawl+. So abuse moves to your heart's content; this will really help with attacks like Fair where they will serve more of an application as approaching and damage dealing/comboing in Brawl+ but also are needed as kill moves.

- Uair still blows enemies and projectiles.

- G&W can still Bucket Brake

I felt like stimulating some discussion for G&W in Brawl+, so here you go. Anyone who has played G&W in Brawl+ can also share their thoughts as well.

 

[Neb]

G&W is pretty good in Brawl+, but he still carts around some attacks that don't contribute to his moveset.
______________

1. Ftilt

Here are my ideas:

Ftilt - Shield Poke Version
• Less Start-up
• Less Cooldown
• More Shield Stun and Hit Stun (G&W lacks a close-up game)
• Less Hitlag
• Reduce Attack Strength
• Reduce Knockback
• Give it frame advantage for actual shield pressure.

Ftilt - Brute Force Version
When you ftilt in Brawl, it already has that mini-smash feel, but its knockback is all wrong, and it doesn't KO for a good while.
I think G&W should be rewarded for landing ftilt.

• Same Start-up
• Make it terrible on block
• Stronger beginning (15%?)
• Apply Super Armor to the ending frames (this way, even though it isn't safe on block, he can stomach attacks, and still follow-up with his moveset, like a backlash)

G&W also lacks ways to land his smashes, so this version is somewhat of a remedy.

______________

3. Chef

• Quicker Start-up
• Less Cooldown
• Get rid of the buffer glitch that auto shoots 5 pieces of food
• For when foods are hit, increase hitlag
• Increase Hitstun
• Increase Shield Stun

Keep everything else the same. The foods trajectory is still random, however, its an entirely different projectile from the entire cast. Its like a built in trap, allowing Game & Watch to bait, apply shield pressure at a distance, and even combo if he's close enough. And just for appearance, maybe add a fire effect to the projectiles when they make contact with hurtboxes, like his fsmash, or the pan-spike?

______________

4. B/Fthrow

The two have seldom uses, aside from flinging an opponent back off-stage, but they aren't even good at that. They send the opponent at a 45 degree angle, and just aid them in recovering. So I'm thinking, make the trajectory more horizontal, with very little knockback at early percentages for set-ups.

______________

5. Roll

Front/Back Roll:
• 1-3 Startup
• 4-19 Invincible
• 20-35 Cooldown

His roll is below-par, which is odd as a glass-cannon type character. I think Game & Watch is too often forced to use his upb as a stopgap; this hurts his close-up game to such a degree, it shuns pieces of his moveset.

 

[Plum]

I do wish bucket braking was as good as it was in vBrawl
But that would make him a bit too good...

The automatic increase in tech speed has made his tech roll more useful but it is still awful.

I do agree that chef should be improved. Generally speaking you can only ever use it at flinging food offstage or if you are on Green Greens (in which case spam away... that stage makes the food too good) otherwise it isn't worth the huge chance at punishment you are taking. Speed up the start up lag and cool down lag and it would definitely see a more common usage at stopping approaches and starting combos from it. If there was a way to remove the buffering that forces you to throw all the food that would be AMAZING. I remember a video of Hylian getting screwed over on Rainbow Cruise because he was forced to fling all the food and the stage dragged him to his death...

The vBrawl player in me can care less about Ftilt because it really isn't ever the best option. Essentially it is a useless move because Fsmash or Dtilt will always be better depending on the situation that Ftilt could be used. This is something that really needs improvement on.

I do miss Dthrow tech chases, but on stages with small platforms, like Battlefield, it is still works fine.

The less aerial lag is great and makes him even more dangerous. IIRC Dair has 100% of its lag from vB (was way too hard to punish with less aerial lag and auto L canceling) but everything else is great with even less lag, especially Fair. Without stale moves it doesn't have to be restricted to off stage kills which is another great bonus.

Whether it is good or bad, he is basically a speed up version of himself in B+. Yeah there are some changes here and there but he does feel similar enough where you can go from vB to B+ with him without getting lost unlike with some characters. I would love to play more G&W in B+ but Mario is just too much fun with hitstun

 

[shanus]

G&W is highly regarded as one of the best chars in B+. He combo's like a machine, and is just deadly overall. MD/VA really fears G&W in B+

 

[Gindler]

From what I've heard, G&W along with MK are the best characters in Brawl+ and that he's looking at getting more nerfs than buffs (sorry neb)

 

[Excellence]

Don't let the bs fool you, he is getting nerfed. Brawl+ was a doomed project from the moment it began, though it was a very hopeful idea.

 

[shanus]

Lol Excellence, you troll every single Brawl+ thread you find. Thanks!

 

[Excellence]

It's not something against you guys but Brawl+ really isn't going to work out. Good effort, but give up.

 

[cutter]

I'm kinda interested in seeing what nerfs would be given to G&W. If you're going to nerf his smashes, don't nerf them *too* hard; they help give G&W his glass cannon nature.

I too would love to see Chef become a practical projectile used more or less to augment G&W's spacing rather than just camping with it.

If G&W is regarded as a fearsome character in Brawl+, how come I barely see anybody play as him or if they do they aren't exactly competent players?

 

[Hylian]

Nerf? I would go as far as to say GW is BAD in Brawl+. I just got done playing it for hours. The fact that combos exist really hinder GW's preformance. GW is WAY to light to take damage that easily.

I could go more in depth, but I'm busy .

 

[xYz]

falcon/ike are top tiers now. bwahahah.

 

[shanus]

Nerf? I would go as far as to say GW is BAD in Brawl+. I just got done playing it for hours. The fact that combos exist really hinder GW's preformance. GW is WAY to light to take damage that easily.

I could go more in depth, but I'm busy .

Please describe more when you aren't busy (just PM me if it isn't here).

In my personal experiences & the feedback from a lot of sources, (barring our most recent changes in 4.0 where we gave him 50% aerial land lag reduction to enable case-approaching and setting dair to 100% aerial land lag reduction), g&w has been an awesome character. His edgeguarding is amazingly good, and he has tons of combos to aid him with.

Also, we barely nerfed his smashes. Only mad it so downsmash had more winddown lag (it still has the same IASA frame though).

 

[cutter]

Hylian already described it in his post; there really isn't too much point in describing it further. With very damaging and powerful combos in Brawl+, G&W suffers. He is a glass cannon character, and he cannot tolerate much punishment at all. This is one of the main reasons why G&W was a low/bottom tier character in Melee (the other reason was his joke of a shield).

 

[Gindler]

That's why buffing him more to make him just a cannon doesn't make much sense. I've played against one and that Nair is amazing, even if you DI after it or during it with the hitstun you'll be eating another 100% of the time (well unless they decide to let you out)

 

[Neb]

That's why buffing him more to make him just a cannon doesn't make much sense. I've played against one and that Nair is amazing, even if you DI after it or during it with the hitstun you'll be eating another 100% of the time (well unless they decide to let you out)

G&W can chain nairs just as accurately in vBrawl. As a glass cannon character, he is light, combo'd easily, with limited evasion capabilities. I'm not asking to change that, just lend him tools that enable a better/safer approach game so he isn't getting ***** every time he slips up, also give his impractical moves application.

I think G&W is being a tad overrated, once again, yes he dukes out good combo's, but its not like everyone else isn't going to be buffed. But so far, I think it was a good decision in allowing box-approaching and making his dair lagless, it vastly betters his approach option so he isn't so transparent.

 

[Plum]

G&W can chain nairs just as accurately in vBrawl. As a glass cannon character, he is light, combo'd easily, with limited evasion capabilities. I'm not asking to change that, just lend him tools that enable a better/safer approach game so he isn't getting ***** every time he slips up, alse give his impractical moves application.

I think G&W is being a tad overrated, once again, yes he dukes out good combo's, but its not like everyone else isn't already getting buffed. But so far, I think allowing box-approaching and making his dair lagless are two good tools to better his approach game, so that's heading in a good direction.

Sadly they put all the lag back on Dair :\

Fair is a big improvement and shield stun does make Dair naturally better.

Chef, Judgement, Ftilt, Fthrow and Bthrow are all essentially useless or at least need improvements. (you can argue that Judgement has uses, but too luck dependent to be worth it.)

He is combod too easily for the second lightest character in the game. He can't really get out of them in a safe way because all his options can be predicted and punished putting him in a worse situation.

I tried G&W for a while in B+ but he doesn't feel right. He dies way to easily and it's harder for him to get off a lot of his essential kill moves such as anything from a techchased Dthrow which is really hard to do outside tiny platforms because characters tech speed is too fast (while G&W still has a pretty bad tech) If he had some more survivability and a few buffs to his useless moves I could imagine using him, but I think that the people who say G&W is among the best in B+ are overrating him. It can be harder to kill (Wario was already hard to kill... Now he usually outlives me by at least 75% a stock) and he dies too easily.

I like his buffs but it I still don't like him... He lost more than he gained IMO and doesn't really need more nerfs; hence the switch to Mario in B+.

 

[CountKaiser]

G&W does fit the bill of Glass Cannon more so than any other character. He really can't take punishment, and can still be killed rather easily.

This may be my own experience, but I find it rather hard to land a smash with G&W, and thus I am forced to kill with fair. In all honesty, I have an easier time killing with Kirby than G&W, but then again kirby can combo into fsmash, while all G&W has is fair to combo into.

Though I can't see G&W being bad, He's certainly good.

Also, if anyone plays as G&W in B+, can you give me tips on how to go about killing someone? G&W is known to kill early, and having to deal with an opponent who constantly lives to the 140-150% range is quite annoying, not to mention slightly demoralizing.

Also, yes his throws are now nigh useless. Dthrow can be teched so easily, and the others send the opponent too far away to do anything.

 

[Neb]

Game & Watch has a hard time landing smashes, same deal in vBrawl. Its an even more tedious effort to land his KO set since he doesn't have the mobility to consistently keep up with his oki.

 

[CountKaiser]

That kinda destroys him being a glass cannon, then. How would you go about making his smashes easier to land?

 

[Neb]

• Slow down his dthrow techchase (increase grab range?)
• Allow him to combo with his food projectiles
• Put SA on the end of his ftilt for backlash options when contacting a sheild (unsafe on block)

That's my opinion.

 

[CountKaiser]

Ya know, since we have a teching code, why do we still have the roll speed modifier. It isn't needed anymore.

Though I don't know if it will help any. The dthrow is still easy to tech.

Comboing with the food projectiles would be nice, but could it lead to someone eating a dsmash?

Also, I'd like to hear Hylian's logic on how G&W is bad now.

 

[cutter]

If you guys are able to buff Ganondorf's side B so he can techchase better, why not do the same with G&W?

Also, for the last time, Hylian basically said "glass cannon = very bad in a game with damaging and punishing combos"

If you want to make G&W the glass cannon character, make it easier to connect with his smashes. Having G&W's techchase game even better would be one way to go about this.

 

[shanus]

The tech chase change is easily doable and would act as a necessary buff to redeem the ability he lost with the techroll speed increase

 

[CountKaiser]

The tech chase change is easily doable and would act as a necessary buff to redeem the ability he lost with the techroll speed increase

Well, you see, dthrow could always be used to techchase something, normally an upsmash. However, with the teching code and the techroll speed increase, it is no longer possible to techchase out of dthrow anymore, since people can tech it and hold shield to avoid the impending smash. It isn't too much to ask that it'd be somewhat easier for G&W to land a kill with his smashes.

 

[shanus]

Lol Kaiser, I said I thought it was a good idea and agreed with it, I think you read me wrong

 

[CountKaiser]

Lol Kaiser, I said I thought it was a good idea and agreed with it, I think you read me wrong

Oh, whoops.

 

[Hylian]

Cutter gets it.

On top of the fact that GW gets ruined by combos, he STILL doesn't have anything that combos into a kill move well save for falling nair > Dsmash or rising nair > Fair. His ability to bucket brake is practically useless now with the amount of stun, and I found myself dying around 60-70% on average vs some characters while I couldn't land a smash on them, no matter how much damage I racked up.

Look at GW vs Marth in brawl+. It's pretty much impossible now. Marth can combo fair to dolphin slash at like 60% and kill GW near the edge. It's insane. You can still DI out of GW's bair pretty easily, and now that GW can be comboed he just fails.

He doesn't even have the mobility to avoid being hit. Try playing a fox, they run circles around you in brawl+.

I also can't stand the thought of nerfing ANYTHING to balance a game. Why not just make all the other characters better?

Do the people "Balancing" brawl+ actually have any experience with top level play? In ANY game? Do they understand what makes things balanced? It just seems like trying to balance something so new would be pure guesswork 99% of the time.

If you want to make GW viable in brawl+ then I suggest either making him heavier, or increasing his running speed and air speed considerably.

 

[shanus]

People like me, TheCape, Yeroc, Bum, (just to mention a few) and others balance it Hylian, and all of us frequent a lot of tourneys (although I stopped going to vB tourneys end of the summer after discovering B+ ). The main thing is that as the community grows, we invite more and more experienced tourny players in to build up a higher caliber balancing team as well. If you want to / plan to express a lot of opinions on B+, I'd be glad to listen as I'm sure most of the BR would.

We also don't just balance on a whim, we take the collective opinions of a lot of repsected members in the community when examining the characters if we don't have a respectable main of that character in the back room (which is an invisible group right now in the workshop). For example, while we are trying to determine what to do with Ice Climbers, we called on Lain and Meep as an example for some insight. We also call on the feedback from people like GIMR, Chudat, and others who host B+ biweeklies and tournies as well.

G&W dair for example was not provided to be lagless as with higher FF speeds + higher grav + no autosweetspot, he could legitimately spam SH Key/Dtilt to the point where it was nigh impossible actually ever recover / sweetspot. Thats an example where a nerf was deemed necessary. We barely nerf anything besides broken tactics and well, metaknight. If you look at the total changelist, you'll notice its mostly character enhancements (lower tiers esp.) and the nerfs are very seldom.

It seems like you were very quick to judge us without examining the changelist or anything in that regards and I hope this reveals a bit more behind how we do what we do. The amount of testing and people that play this is what we use to balance it, not a random guess&check technique. We try and call on what worked well in all of the smash series to make a goal for Brawl+ can become.

I hope this answered most of your questions and things like this help us with balancing G&W by getting feedback from people like you.

 

[Hylian]

People like me, TheCape, Yeroc, Bum, (just to mention a few) and others balance it Hylian, and all of us frequent a lot of tourneys (although I stopped going to vB tourneys end of the summer after discovering B+ ). The main thing is that as the community grows, we invite more and more experienced tourny players in to build up a higher caliber balancing team as well. If you want to / plan to express a lot of opinions on B+, I'd be glad to listen as I'm sure most of the BR would.

We also don't just balance on a whim, we take the collective opinions of a lot of repsected members in the community when examining the characters if we don't have a respectable main of that character in the back room (which is an invisible group right now in the workshop). For example, while we are trying to determine what to do with Ice Climbers, we called on Lain and Meep as an example for some insight. We also call on the feedback from people like GIMR, Chudat, and others who host B+ biweeklies and tournies as well.

G&W dair for example was not provided to be lagless as with higher FF speeds + higher grav + no autosweetspot, he could legitimately spam SH Key/Dtilt to the point where it was nigh impossible actually ever recover / sweetspot. Thats an example where a nerf was deemed necessary. We barely nerf anything besides broken tactics and well, metaknight. If you look at the total changelist, you'll notice its mostly character enhancements (lower tiers esp.) and the nerfs are very seldom.

It seems like you were very quick to judge us without examining the changelist or anything in that regards and I hope this reveals a bit more behind how we do what we do. The amount of testing and people that play this is what we use to balance it, not a random guess&check technique. We try and call on what worked well in all of the smash series to make a goal for Brawl+ can become.

I hope this answered most of your questions and things like this help us with balancing G&W by getting feedback from people like you.

I can't help but to assume the worst when you tell me that they are talking about nerfing a character that has huge flaws already :/. Glass Cannon characters are generally HORRIBLE in stun heavy games. And GW STILL isn't great at killing so he doesn't even have the full Glass Cannon effect :/.

 

[shanus]

I can't help but to assume the worst when you tell me that they are talking about nerfing a character that has huge flaws already :/. Glass Cannon characters are generally HORRIBLE in stun heavy games. And GW STILL isn't great at killing so he doesn't even have the full Glass Cannon effect :/.

A lot of people (MD/VA tournies in particular) felt like G&W was an excellent character and found him to be a brick wall of priority and combos. It's interesting to hear the polar opposites from you guys which is why this is particularly interesting to me and I plan to pay a lot of attention to this thread. After all, we want every character to play well (ambitious, I know)

If you were to make adjustments to G&W, what would you like to see done to him?

We can modify just about everything you can think of. Short hop height, full hop height, FF speed, gravity, frame speed modifications, aerial momentum, move specific changes (damage, base knockback, knockback growth, damage type, launch angle)

 

[cutter]

Is it possible for G&W to get a nice hitstun resistance? I've been watching some more vids on Brawl+ and some of the combos are so devastating that a character like G&W would get his entire stock erased from said combos.

Oh yeah, give G&W viable kill moves that are both powerful and are reliable to land on competent players. Again, I suggest making his Dthrow even more powerful since the increased techspeeds have really nerfed G&W's Dthrow.

You guys do not seem to realize that G&W was a low/bottom tier character in Melee because he was so god**** frail. It sure wasn't fun getting Uthrow into Uaired to your death by a Fox at 60%.

@ Hylian: The problem with just buffing everything is that you completely destroy the game due to power creep.

 

[CountKaiser]

Is it possible for G&W to get a nice hitstun resistance? I've been watching some more vids on Brawl+ and some of the combos are so devastating that a character like G&W would get his entire stock erased from said combos.

Oh yeah, give G&W viable kill moves that are both powerful and are reliable to land on competent players. Again, I suggest making his Dthrow even more powerful since the increased techspeeds have really nerfed G&W's Dthrow.

You guys do not seem to realize that G&W was a low/bottom tier character in Melee because he was so god**** frail. It sure wasn't fun getting Uthrow into Uaired to your death by a Fox at 60%.

@ Hylian: The problem with just buffing everything is that you completely destroy the game due to power creep.

You know, it is actually possible for G&W to suffer less hitstun than everyone else. Though I don't know how effecive this would be.

 

[goodoldganon]

People think G and W is bad now a days? News to me. Rest assured we'll look into it. I do agree G and W lacks a good way to combo into a finisher. Maybe we should look into way to combo into the U-smash or D-smash since they are much less spammable then F-smash.

 

[Neb]

You know, it is actually possible for G&W to suffer less hitstun than everyone else. Though I don't know how effecive this would be.

Depending on how much of a leeway he is given, it could easily assist the use of bucket braking, and also allow him to flee some combo's.
_____________

Another idea for landing his KO set would be to give his fair a tripping attribute, this way he could box-approach, and sneak into the trip with a hyphen smash, dsmash, or grab, which leads into his techchase (may need to consider increasing his grab range).

I also agree that G&W should be more floaty, and have a swifter top speed considering he has nothing weighing him down.

...Slap on a huge hitbox to the beginning of his 'chute. JK, lol.

 

[Gindler]

Well the way I see it is G&W is like Ivy (Ivy's awesome btw), having a particular comfort zone (mid range....) and once someone gets close enough that's the only time you're really in trouble. I guess it would be nice for G&W to be able to finish a combo with a finisher, maybe not a crazy KB move like any of his smashes but at least his Fair.

 

[cutter]

G&W should have the ability to make his smashes easier to land; ie combo into them, speed their startup time up, and/or buff Dthrow. His Fair is ok for a kill move, but it doesn't fit the bill as being a glass cannon character.

 

[Roxas215]

Are people really saying g@w is bad? Since when? From the brawl+ matches i've played he is def one of the better chars in the game. Of course i only played friendlies so maybe this changes at the high level of play

 

[Plum]

Are people really saying g@w is bad? Since when? From the brawl+ matches i've played he is def one of the better chars in the game. Of course i only played friendlies so maybe this changes at the high level of play

It is funny how G&W mains have such an opposite opinion compared to the rest of the B+ community.

I was playing some friendlies as G&W today and I just got beyond frustrated.
My average stock never got over 100%. Probably close to 75-80% until I was stuck in a combo and eating a smash the next second.

G&W is supposed to be a glass cannon, and that was what he was designed to be in Melee as well. I cannot for the life of me land a kill move. Only options I really have are to FF a Nair before the final hit into a smash or Nair into a Fair. G&W should not have to see an opponent live to like 140-150% before they die.

 

[Roxas215]

It is funny how G&W mains have such an opposite opinion compared to the rest of the B+ community.

I was playing some friendlies as G&W today and I just got beyond frustrated.
My average stock never got over 100%. Probably close to 75-80% until I was stuck in a combo and eating a smash the next second.

G&W is supposed to be a glass cannon, and that was what he was designed to be in Melee as well. I cannot for the life of me land a kill move. Only options I really have are to FF a Nair before the final hit into a smash or Nair into a Fair. G&W should not have to see an opponent live to like 140-150% before they die.

Being a peach main in brawl+ thats all i know is my opponent living til 150% lol.

 

[cookieM0Nster]

big block of text here

well said!

Also, I luv ur sig!