How has balloon knockback affected you so far?

[Zoa]

There’s about ten of us here, including a TO who is destroying all of us, and been Smashing since about midnight (three hours of Smashing). The lot of us are finding it hard to get any kind of follow ups off attacks. Kill confirms are seemingly nonexistent, too.

How has the knockback affected you so far, and what do you think?

 

[Sonic94]

Teching is really difficult now. Throw follow ups don't seem to work. I get hit and think I'm dead but then I just stop suddenly off stage and have to recover or I stop on stage when I expected to be off stage. Really confusing tbh. I was hoping I could just pick this game up and still go back to the old ones frequently but I feel like going back and forth is just going to be really jaring sadly.

 

[Ctreasure0124]

I never got very into Smash 4, so maybe thats why... but balloon knockback hasn't really messed with me. All the combos and follow-ups are new, but that doesn't matter for somehow like me who never really got used to the old ones.

 

[Chiroz]

To be honest once you understand the game a bit more balloon knockback doesn’t interefere that much.

It doesn’t start until after tumble (mid %s/knockback disfance) so whenever you attack with attacks that deal low to mid knockback there is no balloon knockback. Also most aerials have had their knockback reduced AND the SH multiplier that makes them deal less damage reduces their knockback even further. Add to that that move staling is much stronger than in Smash 4 so moves start dealing even less knockback when staled and then finish off with all aerials having about 30% less landing lag.

Now you got some crazy air to ground combo or Sheik-esque combos on almost every character in this game, lol. Every is discovering all these aerial -> land -> ground move -> aerial -> land, etc combos.

It’s not Smash 4. Tilts don’t combo into themselves infinitely, U-Airs don’t (true) combo into themselves as much, Down Throws don’t have guaranteed follow ups. But this game has it’s own combo tree that we can all learn and it seems to be more potent than Smash 4.

Also for kill confirms it’s the same thing. There’s much less “Grab to kill setup” or “Tilt to kill setup” but there’s a lot more of “Weak Aerial to kill setup” and “Aerial hit 1 to kill setup”. Almost everyone with a weak hit aerial or a multihit aerial has a kill setup and that is most of the cast. Also gimping and juggling is much stronger which can lead to early kills (juggling because you can punish air dodges hard when they try to escape your juggle).

 

[Emblem Lord]

Yeah what Chiroz said.

Even Ken who has REAL ground chains, also has alot of uair > land > uair > land > ect.

 

[TheMisterManGuy]

While I don't have the game yet, I can agree that Balloon Knockback really doesn't effect combos from what I've seen. Remember, the reason people have trouble doing Smash 4 style combos in Ultimate is more due to the nerfs made to throws and up-tilt/up-air strings than Balloon Knockback. In exchange though, everyone's end-lag and air speed has been improved significantly, allowing you to keep up with the new physics, which also means all characters now have more dynamic combo-trees instead of just up air spamming.

 

[Θνεrτιmε]

It hasn’t effected my combos, it’s more that I’m just off with them (timing, consistency), but I also didn’t play any Smash 4 for about 8 months before the game released so I’m looking with fresh eyes.

Worse part about the balloon knockback is the trail. There’s just a lot of clutter on the screen most of the time.

 

[Career]

I never got very into Smash 4, so maybe thats why... but balloon knockback hasn't really messed with me. All the combos and follow-ups are new, but that doesn't matter for somehow like me who never really got used to the old ones.

Same, I haven't played sm4sh for a minute. I barely noticed any change with knockback lol

 

[S_B]

I love balloon knockback.

We need to understand that BNKB isn't ruining combos because it doesn't make moves with low knockback that follow into combos stop doing so, it just makes attacks that normally carry an opponent far away from the stage do so more quickly.

It keeps the pace of the match going and gets us back to the action more quickly.

I actually can't watch SSB4 any longer because it looks so slow and sluggish by comparison.