G&W side B

[Poilu]

Just something I came up with and I would like to discuss it with you guys.

I don't like the randomness of the side B of G&W, Losing a stock just because you were unlucky seems pretty unfair to me and I feel like G&W should feel rewarded for managing a 9

An idea I just had is something like that :

First side B of G&W is always a 1. For each side B he connects, this number gets +1 + number of side B connected in a row.
Each time G&W miss a side B, it gets -1.

Example :

G&W Connect with 3 sides B, then miss 1 and connects 3 :

The first one is 1
The second one is 1+1 = 2
The third 2+2 (because two side B in a row) = 4
He misses one so the 4th = 4-1 =3
Then 3+1 =4
then 4+2 = 6
then 6+3 = 9
So he's sure the next one has to be a 9 and he was awarded such pressure because he managed to connect with so many side B. On another end, if the opponent lures G&W, he manages to "combo break" his bonus and to lesser his side B count.

It would add a tool on shield pressure for G&W because he could use it to higher his side B and a nice way to lure your opponent but he has to be careful with it so he gets to the 9.

What do you guys think ?

 

[Narpas_sword]

what's the incentive to land the 1?

 

[Poilu]

To be able to land the 2 then the 4 then the 7 then the 9

It's like the 9 has to be charged, but it's a way longer process than charging the Samus' Neutral B or harder than Wario's down B but way more rewarding

 

[Narpas_sword]

I'm not a gaw player, but I know i'd just opt for a nair if i had to land a move that punishes me for landing it in order to get a 2.

 

[Poilu]

Yeah, but if you manage to go as far as the 9, not only you know you will have one (and your opponent knows too, so you can pressure him) but you know that if you land it, the next hit will also be a 9 and even if you miss, you just have to land a side B again to recharge your 9. So in the long term, if you feel confident you can really charge your side B instead of sending your opponent a little farther or combo him to be sure to have this great finisher at hand.

 

[Shadic]

Moving to G&W.

Please post in the character specific threads when applicable, thanks!

 

[Poilu]

Oh sorry, I thought more about a general talk to know what other than G&W main would think so I put this thread here.

 

[UltiMario]

While it might feel cheesy to lose a stock once in a while to a random 9, making a move that's already not great because of how unsafe it is get changed to a Jigglypuff Sing-tier move just to dodge RNG is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard.

It's a silly move, but you also have to get for every frustrating stock where you get cheesed out by a 9, theres like 4 other stocks where RNG was not so much in his favor. High risk, high reward.

G&W is in a really solid place right now and doesn't really need changes, especially not arbitrary ones.

 

[Poilu]

I don't know if it would make the move this good, but the formula can still keep being simple and be changed to balance it.

For exemple, instead of a -1 for each side B failed, it can be a -2.
You say that the move isn't great, so it can still find its utility with adding a constistency and if you think that what I said makes it a "S-tier move" well, nerf it so it would make a balanced move.

 

[ECHOnce]

It's a silly move, but you also have to get for every frustrating stock where you get cheesed out by a 9, theres like 4 other stocks where RNG was not so much in his favor. High risk, high reward.

I'm neutral on this idea, but wanted to point out that it's not high risk - high reward.

It's low risk because there's nothing horrible that'll happen to G&W from side-Bing. Maybe a few % from 1, but otherwise the opponent is always hit away and usually put under some detrimental damage/stun effect. He's also never put into crazy endlag or anything for using it.

And it has potentially meh reward (positive on hit; they usually can't punish you because of hitstun), or high reward if a 9. If you get a 1, it has about as much detriment as a slow/weak tilt getting crouch cancelled.

EDIT: +it's not pure RNG since you do have some indicators you can look for to plan ahead. Again, I'm not taking sides. Just wanted to point out (probably unintended) misinformation/wording lol.

 

[FrankTheStud]

It seems that G&W gets 9's more often then I've seen before in Smash 4. G&W is a super solid character with quite a lot of very unique tools. The only thing I dislike about G&W is how his bucket cannot be reflected or sidestepped. To my knowledge, this move can only be defended against by means of baiting it out or perfect shielding--Both of which are quite difficult when the opposing punishment is an instant kill or shield break.

 

[UltiMario]

I don't know if it would make the move this good, but the formula can still keep being simple and be changed to balance it.

For exemple, instead of a -1 for each side B failed, it can be a -2.
You say that the move isn't great, so it can still find its utility with adding a constistency and if you think that what I said makes it a "S-tier move" well, nerf it so it would make a balanced move.

Not S-Tier move. Sing-Tier move. As in, it'd be about as good as Jigglypuff's Sing. Aka, completely and totally useless.

I'm neutral on this idea, but wanted to point out that it's not high risk - high reward.

It's low risk because there's nothing horrible that'll happen to G&W from side-Bing. Maybe a few % from 1, but otherwise the opponent is always hit away and usually put under some detrimental damage/stun effect. He's also never put into crazy endlag or anything for using it.

And it has potentially meh reward (positive on hit; they usually can't punish you because of hitstun), or high reward if a 9. If you get a 1, it has about as much detriment as a slow/weak tilt getting crouch cancelled.

EDIT: +it's not pure RNG since you do have some indicators you can look for to plan ahead. Again, I'm not taking sides. Just wanted to point out (probably unintended) misinformation/wording lol.

It's high risk high reward because it's a terribly slow move that 7/9 times is a free punish on shield and is a free whiff punish in 99% of situations in anything that resembles neutral. Usually when you go for a Judge, there's a few results you're specifically go for, and if you miss that you're in for a real bad time. A 1 is bad anywhere. Edge guarding with Judge (one of the "safest" places to go for it) can additionally get you killed from landing a 3. A stray bacon could ruin an 8.

You're betting it all on a move that's slower than most smashes and could potentially land a worthless number, forgoing safer and more consistent other options on the off chance that you hit a 6, 7, or 9.

It's high risk, high reward for both RNG and terrible framedata. If you actually land the number you're going for you get rewarded tremendously, but you're taking a massive guess on a move that likely won't even hit and gets you badly punished. The "meh" rewards you're talking about aren't rewards. They're part of the risk as much as 1 is.

 

[Poilu]

Do you really feel it would make that much of a crapy move ?
If you manage to land safely 4 side B in a row on a shield (Which can happen if you use it while shieldpressuring your opponent), not only are you sure your next attack is 8 which has a good KB, but if you manage to connect it, you can now pressure your opponent since you both now the next hit has to be a 9. Against many characters, you can pretty much win a "free stock" as long as he's mid%. I feel it is a nice reward for managing to land that many side B without failing. And should G&W fail its side B the 4th time, he still has a 7 -which he can heal with- and is very close to a 9 since he has to land two more to be sure the next one is a 9.

It's like the Solar beam or the wart. Both of the opponents have the information that you have one of the most powerfull kill move in the game and that you can land it way easier than, say, a rest.
With this, you take away RNG and make a former "for the lulz" attack to a strategic one.

 

[Trollinguy]

Maybe make it -2 on miss, +1 on sheild, +3 on direct hit.

Rng is bad game design in games of skill, so I support the idea.

 

[UltiMario]

Do you really feel it would make that much of a crapy move ?
If you manage to land safely 4 side B in a row on a shield (Which can happen if you use it while shieldpressuring your opponent), not only are you sure your next attack is 8 which has a good KB, but if you manage to connect it, you can now pressure your opponent since you both now the next hit has to be a 9. Against many characters, you can pretty much win a "free stock" as long as he's mid%. I feel it is a nice reward for managing to land that many side B without failing. And should G&W fail its side B the 4th time, he still has a 7 -which he can heal with- and is very close to a 9 since he has to land two more to be sure the next one is a 9.

It's like the Solar beam or the wart. Both of the opponents have the information that you have one of the most powerfull kill move in the game and that you can land it way easier than, say, a rest.
With this, you take away RNG and make a former "for the lulz" attack to a strategic one.

Landing 4 Side-Bs on Shields means you get punished for free 4 times. You can just opt to not use the move and you're better off.

Current Side-B on occasion gives G&W a strong option, this change would be a bad, free to punish option 100% of the time. Removing RNG gimmicks is generally a good thing, but not when the only alternative someone can come up with is not also just as gimmicky, but also makes the move so unusable that's is better off being completely removed from the game since using it is always detrimental, similar to how the only thing Sing is currently doing to Jigglypuff is making rising Pound more difficult to input.

 

[Poilu]

G&W side B is way easier to use in PM than in melee, it can even be used after a throw and connect on almost every characters if I trust a G&W post. There are some setup to be almost 100% sure to hit your opponent.

 

[Shockbound]

The F-Throw and B-Throw setups only work if the opponent has extremely predictable DI. The other one is D-Throw > Jab > Judge, which is only "guaranteed" if they are using a jab-resetable character, they never SDI the jab upwards, and they never tech D-Throw. Not exactly what I'd call 100% guaranteed.

The reason why Judge is so terrible on shield is because it's a frame 16 move that doesn't cancel on landing and takes 49 frames to execute. Some hammers even have special hitlag modifiers that further push the advantage towards the person shielding it.

[collapse="List of Judge's various frame disadvantages on shield"][9]: -30* (Shielder exits hitlag 13 frames early.)
[8]: -23
[7]: -24
[6]: -25
[5]: -34* (Shielder exits hitlag 5 frames early. Note that the electric hitlag modifier does not apply to shields.)
[4]: -27
[3]: -25
[2]: -29
[1]: -30

* This hammer has a special x2 hitlag multiplier that turns into x1 for anyone in shield. The user remains affected by the x2 multiplier regardless of what is hit.
[/collapse]

These numbers make this move a contender for being one of the most unsafe moves on shield in the entire game. In fact, it's so disadvantageous on block that it gives the opponent enough time to release their shield and hit G&W with a smash attack (a slightly charged one if using Up-Smash OoS) before he even gets out of lag from using his own move. One would have to consider shield-pushback of course, but the 9 hammer is the only one that has pushback significant enough to keep the user out of punish range.

I'm fairly sure that the 7 hammer was designed to be terrible on shield because it still produces the apple on contact and gives the opponent enough time to drop their shield and eat it before G&W can do anything about it.

The 5 hammer is difficult to punish before the rest of the hits come out, but any character with a frame 7 grab can actually land it between any of the hits without even needing grab-armor. It still has a disadvantage of 26 frames even if all 5 hits connect, so it's still punishable by every character.

The 3 hammer is the only one that has a notable effect on shields, but it has no effect on its frame disadvantage. While it dishes out a ridiculous amount of shield damage, this means nothing if the shield doesn't outright break from it. The person in shield still gets their free punish.

The 2 hammer interacts very strangely with shields as a result of its unique multi-hit property. It loops a hitbox once every 4 frames after the initial 8% hitbox lands (either on a shield or a hurtbox) and continues looping until the initial hitbox terminates. These looping hitboxes deal 0% damage and inflict no hitlag, knockback, or hitstun on their target; their sole purpose is to apply the flower effect. It's only when they hit a shield do they inflict hitlag on their target, but it calculates this using 0% because that's how much damage the hitbox is supposed to do. This makes it inflict 3 frames of hitlag and 1 frame of shieldstun, which opens up a 2 frame gap where the shield can be put away before the hitbox loops again. If this happens, the next 0% hit that the target takes will only put G&W into hitlag. The 0% hitbox can strike up to 3 times before the initial hitbox terminates and the target's shield can't be put away before the first one comes out, so this means that the last two hits can connect and change the frame disadvantage to -35 (this is on par with Falcon Punch on shield).

I hope this gets the point across that I don't think Judge should be considered even remotely related to shieldpressure. Additionally, I find that it's far easier to land Rest than Judge when playing against an opponent that's paying attention. It's a hell of a lot riskier on whiff, but it's a frame 1 move nonetheless and it's pretty easy to recognize a situation where it will hit.

 

[Poilu]

Thank you for your explanations, I have been misinformed about the "garanteed combo".
So, to put away the RNG, the side B should be buffed on a shield pressure level (By adding Pushback, or lag on shield for example) to make it a safer move when shielded ?
Or some other aspects could be change so it isn't just a useless move that serves only hype during freeplay.

 

[Xtra_Crispy]

Dthrow/ uthrow judge is guaranteed in melee, that might be where you got your info from.

Overall, I don't really like this idea but something to make it better would be to keep the +/-1 but start the hammer on 5. That way he doesn't just spawn in with a useless move (unless you go for 1 jab resets in which case you're a god) but its usefulness still can be increased/ decreased as the match goes on.