If You Could Patch SSB4...?

[SJMistery]

i would do a literal patch. Specifically, remove the 1.0.4 extra hitbox on Greninja, and fix the deadzones on D3's Down Tilt, Greninja's Down and Forward Smashes and Forward Aerial, Little Mac's neutral B, Wario's Nair, etc.

 

[Quazwx]

- Ledge hog instead of leg trump
- Shields need more time to regenerate
- allow chain grabs
:
- Nerf Dair knockback
- Now the time you get affected by witch time depend on the knockback of your move
- Remove 3rd Jump
- Make airdodge frame 3


- Don't obtain limit charge when get hitted
- Decrease Bair and Uair knockback
- give his Dair less frame of active hitbox


- Bananas have a 5 second cooldown before a new one can be placed (Starting from the moment it disappears)
-Increase Dtilt Knockback, so it combo worse


- Increase Utilt knockback


- Hum, i don't know how to nerf spindash without make it useless


- Decrease Uair knockback
- Increase Utilt knockback
- Decrease Usmash knockback

More later :3

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

Since no one responded to my last post, I'll just put up some brief details about my most notable changes...

1. As a Final Smash fighter, Giga Bowser now sticks around for 1200 frames.
2. Giga Bowser's overall offense has been improved to a point where he can actually surpass a 1.7x-size Bowser in the KO department now.
3. Standard attack has less start-up lag, with the first hit's hitboxes becoming active on frame 5.
4. Flying Slam gains collateral damage properties.
5. Grounded Whirling Fortress delivers multiple hits, just like with Bowser's Whirling Fortress.
6. F-throw has less start-up lag, now throwing fighters on frame 24.
7. D-throw can now bury (almost) any fighter that Giga Bowser has grabbed; he releases the fighter before the burying hitboxes become active. It apparently can't bury R.O.B., unless it's a collateral hit.

1. Standard attack has less start-up lag, with the hitbox becoming active on frame 3. The infinite also deals fixed knockback, and can now make Bowser flinch at low damage percentages.
2. F-tilt's hitboxes now become active on frame 6, and has changed into a multi-hit attack that deals up to 7 hits.
3. D-tilt receives a 100% trip rate.
4. F-smash no longer has a sourspot. It instead has a clean hit and late hit period before the windboxes become active.
5. Counter's counter window begins at frame 5, and the ending lag is also shorter. The counterattack also loses its sourspot, and receives much better knockback values, along with unblockable properties.
6. Angelic Missile gains a super armor period to avoid being interrupted too easily.
7. Heavenly Light's high ending lag gets reduced greatly.

1. Standard attack's first two hits now deal fixed knockback to ensure that the final hit connects, even at higher damage percentages.
2. The f-smash receives a super armor period, and the head becomes the sweetspot.
3. A new hitbox gets added for the u-smash so that it's less likely to miss fighters.
4. The d-smash receives a super armor period.
5. F-air now deals consistent damage, with all active hitbox frames dealing 13% damage.
6. Flare Blitz's explosion can no longer be reflected or absorbed.
7. Fly can trap fighters better.
8. Rock Smash deals slightly more damage, improving its overall KO potential. Super armor also becomes active on frame 1.
9. Fireball Cannon deals better knockback.
10. Dragon Rush traps fighters better, and has much less hitlag to help trap multiple fighters at the same time.

1. Standard attack has less ending lag per hit, and transitions over to the infinite faster.
2. F-tilt has a 50% trip rate.
3. F-smash's clean hit can now clang with other attacks.
4. D-air's hitboxes become active on frame 5, and delivers multiple weak hits before finishing with a meteor smash hit.
5. Blaster's lasers deal 4% damage.
6. Fire Bird deals more hits, and becomes more viable as a KO move.
7. Reflector has a 50% trip rate.
8. Explosive Blaster's final hit deals better knockback, making its offensive use more potent.
9. Falco Phase's ending lag is greatly reduced, despite not dealing any damage.
10. Falco Charge gains a super armor duration that lasts until Falco stops moving. Hitboxes no longer clang.
11. Distant Fire Bird gains a super armor period, and when released, the very first frame can pack a huge punch.

1. The standard attack's first hit now deals fixed knockback. That way, Wario is more likely to land the second punch at higher damage percentages. Start-up lag is also shorter.
2. F-smash receives a super armor period, and the hitboxes are slightly larger.
3. U-smash loses its late hit period.
4. D-smash delivers multiple hits, instead of a single hit, making it more difficult to punish.
5. N-air receives a better clean hitbox, which deals better damage.
6. B-throw deals higher damage and better knockback, enabling it to KO sooner than Mario's b-throw.
7. Corkscrew traps fighters better, enabling Wario to properly utilize the move offensively. This also applies to Widescrew.
8. Garlic Breath deals multiple hits, and a new hitbox is implemented, where Wario will damage fighters who are too close to him when he closes his mouth.
9. Wario-Man's standard attack deals fixed knockback for both punches, enabling Wario-Man to deal well over 100% damage quickly against certain fighters.
10. Wario-Man's d-air can now bury fighters.
11. A clean hit from Wario-Man's fully charged Wario Waft is now unblockable, deals 60% damage, and packs 200 BKB and 200 KBG; even a 1.7-size metal Bowser can get 1-hit KO'd on any Omega form stage.

1. Standard attack hits on frame 5, and no longer has sourspots.
2. U-tilt receives a super armor period, and has one less sourspot.
3. D-smash no longer requires Ganondorf to land the second kick for the best results. The first kick and second kick deal the same amount of damage and knockback.
4. N-air's first hit deals better knockback, which helps keep fighters off of Ganondorf's face if he doesn't land the second kick.
5. F-air receives better base knockback so that opposing fighters are placed in hitstun for a longer duration at low damage.
6. D-air only has a meteor smash hitbox.
7. Grab range is slightly better.
8. Throws receive better KO capabilities. The d-throw has more BKB, less KBG, and less ending lag, enabling Ganondorf to perform follow-ups more easily at low damage.
9. Warlock Punch's super armor period is longer, and is even implemented on the aerial version.
10. Ganondorf gains super armor immediately after grabbing a fighter with Flame Choke or Flame Wave.
11. Dark Dive deals better damage and knockback, making it more usable on offense.
12. Wizard's Foot becomes more potent as a KO maker, dealing higher damage, and receiving better knockback statistics.
13. Warlock Blade functions as a high risk, high reward attack. Land the sweetspot for a hit that's more powerful than Warlock Punch. The sourspot deals good damage, but has poor KBG.
14. The first hit of Dark Fists receive stronger fixed knockback to ensure that just about any fighter will get hit by the uppercut.
15. Warlock Thrust receives a super armor period, loses the high ending lag, and is much more practical to use. The sweetspots offer high BKB, and while the KBG may not be impressive, the reverse sweetspot can actually KO sooner than an uncharged f-smash.
16. Dark Vault's damage and knockback are improved, and the grab periods have been modified as well.
17. Wizard's Assault gains a super armor period, and becomes more powerful than Wizard's Foot.
18. Beast Ganon can now pierce through invincible frames and intangible frames, and deals greater knockback to improve its KO potency.

1. Standard attack's hitboxes now become active on frame 3.
2. D-tilt can now be spammed repeatedly, much like with Ness's d-tilt. However, Zelda doesn't kick as frequently as Ness, and while it deals much less knockback than before, each hit has a 50% trip rate.
3. D-smash deals stronger knockback for both kicks.
4. F-air and b-air now share the same frame periods, and they also have the same damage and knockback values. The sweetspot hitbox is slightly larger, and receives stronger BKB at the cost of having less KBG.
5. D-air's clean hit meteor smash hitbox is more potent on offense.
6. Din's Fire still has the sourspot, but it now has the same knockback values as the sweetspot.
7. Nayru's Passion has a super armor period to compensate for its inability to reflect projectiles.
8. Farore's Windfall is more practical to use on offense, with the meteor smash hitbox dealing much better knockback.
9. Light Arrow now deals a grand total of 60% damage, and is also a guaranteed 1-hit KO at maximum damage, even against a metal Bowser who was made giant-sized by the Lightning.

1. Most of Little Mac's attacks receive a shield damage bonus.
2. Grab range is slightly better for Little Mac, while Giga Mac receives a significant buff to his grab range.
3. Aerial Jolt Haymaker regains its original travel distance; 1.5.
4. KO Uppercut's super armor period is made longer, now being active on frame 1. Super armor is only granted on the ground, however.
5. Giga Mac's attacks literally deals 2x more damage than Little Mac's attacks. This also applies to his Slip Counter, where it uses a 2.6x damage multiplier, and its damage range is 20% - 100%.
6. Giga Mac sticks around for 20 seconds.

1. Standard attack has less start-up lag and ending lag for its first two hits. The infinite hits more frequently than before.
2. F-tilt traps fighters more easily, and deals up to 7 hits that add up to 13% damage.
3. U-tilt loses its sourspot, and the hitbox lasts two frames longer. Also receives stronger BKB and KBG.
4. D-tilt gains a new hitbox that covers Dedede's body.
5. Dash attack gains a super armor period, and the hitbox is longer to avoid missing opponents.
6. F-smash gains a super armor period and loses the early hit. The clean hit offers better BKB, but loses all freeze frame properties.
7. U-smash becomes a lot more usable, dealing 20% damage, and hits one frame earlier. A single frame hitbox is also added to avoid missing the shorter fighters.
8. D-smash's KO potency is better, dealing 18% damage.
9. F-air deals 15% damage and has better BKB, at the cost of having less KBG.
10. B-air deals 19% damage and has better BKB, at the cost of having less KBG.
11. D-air hits on frame 14, and is now a pure meteor smash.
12. D-throw deals 10% damage, and has stronger BKB, at the cost of having much less KBG. Knockback is still strong enough so that Dedede can get a follow-up in while fighters are still in hitstun.
13. Inhale's windboxes are now unblockable. This also applies to Taste Test.
14. The Gordo's durability is made stronger in that it can only be reflected back at Dedede when hit by attacks that deal at least 5% damage, or are hit by reflector moves. Attacks that deal 0% - 4% damage won't stop the Gordo anymore.
15. Jet Hammer's mechanics have been improved, with a fully charged hit dealing 40% damage, and being able to KO fighters sooner than a fully charged f-smash.
16. Dedede Storm has a super armor period, and its hitboxes are unblockable.
17. Rising Dedede and Quick Dedede Jump both receive less start-up lag.
18. Armored Jet Hammer is now much more practical to use. Takes 2x longer to reach full charge than Jet Hammer, but a fully charged hit deals 50% damage, and its knockback is strong enough to 1-hit KO most fighters under normal circumstances. Start-up lag is longer, however, which helps keep the attack from being too overpowered.
19. Dedede Burst now deals stronger fixed knockback to make it nearly impossible for any fighter to escape before the final hit is delivered.

 

[RIku434]

It doesn't look like anyone know how to fairly nerf Cloud or Bayo. Here are some nerfs they should recieve.

-Nair has more FAF (33 -> 48)
-Nair Landing lag increased (10 -> 16)
-Bair has more FAF (30 -> 48)
-Bair has more landing lag (12 -> 18)
-Bair can no longer SH autocancel
-Up Air has more FAF (30 -> 41)
-Up Air angle lowered (75° -> 40°)
-Witch Twist top hitbox is moved downwards a few units to make it lwss disjointed
-Witch Twist comes out slower (Frame 4 -> Frame 8)
-Witch Time comes out later (Frame 5 -> Frame 7)
-Shortened Witch Time intangibility frames (5-16 -> 5-8)

So here are my reasoning for these nerfs:
Bayonetta's aerials have low end lag and landing lag and almost all of them can be SH autocancelled. I make half of her aerials have more end lag and landing lag so that her air game isn't stupidly ridiculous. Witch Time and Witch Twist are risiculously good and are even considered OP by most people so I had to tone it down while still making the movws good to a certain extent. Also the Up Air angle change was made to make her 0-to-death combos have a harder time killing so that I doesn't kill vertically right at the top blast zone like it usually does.

-Run Speed decreased (1.97 -> 1.85)
-Air Speed decreased (1.1 -> 0.9)
-Limit Run Speed multiplier reduced (1.1x -> 1.06x)
-Jumpsquat lasts longer (4 Frames -> 6 Frames
-Dair autocancsl window comes out later (43 -> 58)
-Bair can no longer SH autocancel
-Bair has more landing lag (14 -> 18)

Reasons for nerfs: I don't think a character with good kill power and range should have top 10 run speed. So I made it slower but still left or fast so that his run speed is still good. The only reason his air speed was nerfed is to make it harder for him to get back on stage. Jumpsquat was changed so that his SH aerials come out slightly slower. Dair shouldn't autocancel right when the hirbox disappears lol. And finally I wanted to make Bair riskier to use.

 

[link2702]

Ganondorf, increase aerial movement speed, make dair auto cancel from a short hop again, increase the distance flame choke travels both on land and air, decrease startup lag of flame choke, allow shield cancels during the dash animation of ground flame choke, make it impossible for opponents to tech it from the ground anymore, decrease landing lag for all aerials, make wizards kick from the air always shield break, make the spiking hitbox last through the entire move, decrease startup lag for his jab.

Those are just a few off the top of my head

 

[Luigi player]

The way I see it, it would be much better to nerf a top tier character's weaknesses rather than their strengths. Nerfing strength's never really fixes a top tier and just ends up making them feel more boring to play (see Shiek). Nerfing weaknesses actually makes counterplay to a character more consistent, while still keeping their fun elements in tact.

For example, with Cloud, I would balance him by giving his recovery 10 more frames of startup and a weaker hitbox, and increase the endlag of all of his ground moves and throws. This would make edgeguarding his recovery much easier and the endlag increases to his unsafe tilts makes them require even more commitment and worsens his ability to pressure shields. Endlag increases to his throws makes it so that his already unrewarding grabs possess even less benefits since he won't be able to charge limit and the window for follow-ups would be much smaller.

The problem with that is it would make the characters more glass-cannon like. Since they'll have great strengths but really bad weaknesses. Everyone would be like DK, Mewtwo, kinda ZSS and somewhat Bowser.
Why would you want that? To have the game be more exciting because few hits would decide the winner, which would randomize the game more?

I'd rather have everyone be a little more balanced to have solid characters where 1-2 reads at the wrong time won't mean you lose/win, but maybe it's just me who wants more consistency.

 

[xzx]

I cringe whenever I see people defending top tiers. Like, you think they are legit, balanced characters? Also, why are Rosalina mains suggesting Rosalina buffs? That's just ridiculous. How about to actually balance the broken Luma first? Why didn't the Rosalina mains mention that?

And people, please don't pretend like Cloud isn't in need of some heavy rebalancing too - he has a sword weighing 40kg (or something like that) and "nerfing" him in the air is unjustified? With a sword that giant he should have a bad jump squat, poor air mobility and laggy, slow aerials. Sakurai even mentioned in an interview that "it was hard to balance [Cloud's] strength, so [he] had to make him bad in the air", although he is not. Far from it. Illogical. Every air move can be autocanceled and are very fast and he has amazing jumps and air mobility too. How could Sakurai have missed this? And don't even get me started on his Limit mechanics...

I still stand by my standards that every character in the game should strive to be high tier >material<, with the top tiers being the first ones to be rebalanced. That would in turn indirectly buff every bad character. Then, the low- and bottom tiers should be rebalanced to be high tiers. Then it's the mid tiers's turn. From that point the general balancing can be continued.

 

[Tizio Random]

Could you explain why zss needs nerfed?

Yeah, she is more slightly nerfed than totally nerfed, I did a mistake. Btw, this is some changes I did to some of the characters I listed previously (in spoiler because it is very long):

Spoiler

Universal changes
Untechable spinning animation and semi-techable walls are just dumb so remove those. Buff ledge roll because they are a sub par choice among all the ledge options. Rage should only affect KBG so moves with great BKB don’t become incredibly overpowered and this should avoid things like Luma killing at 0 and Mario/Peach/Samus Up B kills but I’m not sure. Shield regeneration and rolls are also incredibly strong in this game, some adjustments should do the trick.

• Spinning animation when >100% completely removed
• Semi-techable walls behave like normal walls
• Ledge rolls:

1. For characters with intangibility that ends between frames 33 and 28 FAF 50 > 40
2. For characters with intangibility that ends between frames 27 and 21 FAF 50 > 38

• Rage effect only affects KBG
• Shield regeneration per sec 4.8 > 4.2
• All rolls have now 3 less invincibility frames and 5 more endlag frames

Top tiers:


The major problem with Bayonetta is that her risk/reward is totally skewed in favour of the second one. Her triple jump gives her a recovery that is almost unbeatable and ungimpable alongside the best punish game in the game (no pun intended) because she can bring you to the blastzone with ease. These nerfs should make her early kills almost impossible and leave more openings to punish her.

• Removed Triple Jump Glitch (or whatever it is)
• Nair active hitbox frames 9-17 > 9-14 and Nair (late) active hitbox frames 18-25 > 15-20
• Fair 1 FAF 27 > 35 unless cancelled by Fair 2
• Witch Twitch active hitbox frame 4 > 7
• Witch Time now scales accordingly to the knockback that the attack deals (Example: jabs and tilts stop you for 40 or so frames while charged smashes for 300, I would have given a formula but it’s too complicated
• Bat Within starts on frame 2 instead of frame 1 on airdodges and spotdodges
• Landing lag for using specials in the air is changed according to the values in spoiler:

Spoiler

Up B = 19 (unchanged)
Side B = 20 (unchanged)
Side B > Up B = 20 > 24
Up B > Side B = 26 > 30
Side B x2 = 30 > 38
Up B x2 = 32 > 40
Side B x2 + Up B x2 = 43 > 54

Diddy’s most overpowered trait is the incredible amount of set-ups and kill confirms he has that are all very safe. Removing Dtilt > Upsmash and Uptilt KO potential makes him more reliant on his banana and mixups while the Monkey Flip and Fair nerfs make his approaches less safe.

• Dtilt KBG 75 > 90, angle 50/60 > 30/40
• Uptilt KBG 150 > 120
• Slightly shrunk Fair hitbox size
• Reduced Monkey Flip travelled distance by 1/3

The best way to change Cloud would be to rework his Down B because charging limit is a mechanic that forces the opponent to approach and gives Cloud a stronger neutral game than he should. Since I can’t change his moveset completely, I opted for a nerf to his air speed, the biggest reason he is so threatening. Also, his air speed greatly mitigates his supposedly biggest weakness in his recovery. His aerials were touched to make it possible for characters to actually get near him and land. Lastly, Limit Cross Slash was nerfed to not be a kill move. The reason of this last choice was to balance the purpose of all his specials having a strong projectile, a strong damage-dealing move, a strong recovery and a strong finisher.

• Air speed 1.1 > 0.98
• Upair (late) hitbox 10-25 > 10-22 and autocancel 26 onwards > 32 onwards
• Dair (late) hitbox 14-42 > 14-36
• Bair hitbox size shrunk
• Limit Cross Slash redesigned to be hard damage hitter instead of a kill move:

1. Last hit KBG 153 > 76
2. FAF 61 > 74
3. All hits now deal more damage (6, 6, 4, 4, 13) and BKB adjusted to still connect

• Untechable non-limit Up B on frames 18-27 completely removed

Rosalina & Luma is an interesting character because of the dual nature of the fighter. Still, Luma has clearly overpowered knockback, so the first thing to do to to balance him in the best way possible is to make him not affected at all by the rage effect. Also, Luma is greatly unbalanced because some characters can dispose him in seconds while others have to deal with him for a great amount of time, so I removed the mechanic that makes a tumbled Luma dying offstage even at 0. The ideal balance would be that Rosalina & Luma being the best character in the game while solo Rosa being the worst. I greatly increased Luma respawn time so people have to actually play with only Rosa and generally nerfed the knockback or duration of some moves to be more fair.

• Changes in Luma mechanics:

1. Luma isn’t affected by rage
2. Luma will not die if it is sent offstage in tumble, it will be KO’d only when his HP reach 0 (so after he receives 50%)
3. Luma rapid jab hitbox size decreased to not being disjointed
4. Uptilt (Luma, early) BKB 120 > 80
5. Upair (Luma) BKB 110 > 80
6. Dair (Luma) KBG 110 > 90
7. Luma has a respawn time of 42 seconds

• Upair (late) of Rosalina active frames 22-29 > 22-25, KBG 98 > 80
• Dair (late) of Rosalina active frames 26-32 > 26-28

Sheik is basically a fine character because of her amazing neutral mitigated by a difficulty to kill and a high learning curve, but there’s still one thing that irks me: her recovery is just impossible to challenge. So, I gave Vanish a narrower intangibility window, less distance and removed her kill potential and reappearance hitbox so characters can at least try challenge her offstage not in vain. Buff to her bair because it doesn't make sense that move is so weak even at 150%. I also removed her Side B free fall because it also makes no sense.

• Vanish:

1. Intangibility 19-53 > 27-53
2. Travels 2/3 of the current distance
3. KBG 102 > 40
4. Removed Vanish (reappear) hitbox

• Bair (early) KBG 100 > 115
• Removed Burst Grenade causing free fall

Sonic has one of the hardest tool to deal with in the game just because of his intangibility on Spin Dash that forces opponents to either guess or wait for Sonic to commit (which he can simply not do ever). So, I removed the intangibility on his Side B. Also, I reduced the intangibility frames on his recovery which still is an amazing escape tool. Fsmash is a bit too good, especially at ledge, just a tiny bit less knockback and everything is fine. BSBS shouldn’t exist.

• Removed intangibility on frames 1-6 of Spin Dash
• Aerial Spring Jump intangibility frames on frames 5-13 removed
• Fsmash KBG 101 > 91, FAF 48 > 52
• BSBS removed

Upair does a bit too much damage considering it is both a combo and a kill move, so nerfing the damage should do the trick. I also removed the Fair > Footstool combo giving Fair more endlag, don’t use the move offstage. Decreasing the sizes of some very generous hitboxes was the last thing to do.

• Upair hit 2 damage 11 > 8
• Fair FAF 50 > 62
• Slightly decreased Dair and Uptilt (horizontal range behind him at the start-up) hitbox sizes

Flip Kick is a move that can be combo’d into easily, ends stocks incredibly early and has a very generous hitbox. Also, her ladder combos can be really hard to deal with, so I nerfed her upair a tiny bit to be harder to ladder combo. Dtilt on the other hand is incredibly underwhelming so I compensate for the nerf with it.

• Flip kick KBG 100/100/102 > 75/50/78 and hitbox size slightly shrunk
• Upair autocancel 25 onwards > 30 onwards
• Dtilt FAF 36 > 26

Now, for low tiers:

Kirby really just needs some mobility to not get camped constantly because his attacks are great. I also removed some lag on his aerials just to be more combo friendly.

• Run Speed 1.57 > 1.7
• Air Speed 0.8 > 0.96
• Dash attack FAF 54 > 48
• Nair FAF 73 > 53, autocancel 56 onwards > 42 onwards
• Upair FAF 40 > 34
• Dthrow second hit damage 1 > 4

Bowser Jr. and the Koopalings are a cool idea for a zoning character but have many undertuned attacks. These buffs should address the problems. Also, his grab and throws are trash, so I buffed him to have a mini-tether with a combo and some kind of kill throw.

• Bowser Jr. can reuse his recovery after getting hit by any attack like the other characters
• Increased hitbox sizes of Jab, Dtilt and Ftilt
• Dsmash FAF 60 > 48
• Dash attack damage per hit 1.5 > 2
• Nair landing lag 18 > 15
• Greatly increased grab range to match his animation
• Active hitbox frames for all grabs increased by 2 frames (12-13 > 12-15, 13-14 > 13-16)
• Clown Cannon (No Charge) FAF 81 > 61, Clown Cannon (Full Charge) 141 > 114
• Dthrow angle BKB 80 > 50, KBG 110 > 80
• Bthrow KBG 65 > 80

The only real problem with Wii Fit Trainer are her/his trash hitbox sizes. Other than that I generally buffed some difficult to hit or unsafe options the character has.

• Added scooping hitboxes on her/his grab, smashes and tilts to hit low characters
• Slightly increased general sizes on most of her hitboxes (smashes and tilts mainly)
• Decreased FAF on all her smashes by 7 frames (55/51/50)
• Jab 1 and 2 connect better to Jab 3 to always bury opponent
• Bair active hitbox frame(s) 5 > 5-7, Bair (late) active hitbox frames 6-11 > 8-11

Falco has horrible mobility, a trash projectile and a horrible Dair (like many other fighters) because of reasons. Nothing to really explain here.

• Run Speed 1.472 > 1.52
• Air Speed 0.93 > 1.03
• Dair (early) active hitbox frames 16-19 > 11-14
• Dair (late) active hitbox frames 20-30 > 15-25
• Blaster FAF 59 > 46, Blaster (aerial) FAF 50 > 40
• Given a hitbox during the whole animation for Falco Phantasm like Fox

A “heavy” clone of Mario that is not heavier. Just a tiny bit more air speed and an adjust to all his moves’ damage and general endlag, safety and combo game should make this character at least on par with the original. Also I want to give him a dthrow > fair kill confirm to make his grab at higher percents really threatening.

• Weight 98 > 104
• Air Speed 0.943 > 0.96
• Damage on all of his moves rounded up to the next integer number (e.g. 19.04 > 20)
• Dair landing lag frames 21 > 15
• Megavitamins FAF 53 > 42
• Dr Tornado gives a slightly higher boost after a mid-air jump
• Dr Tornado (last hit) KBG 130 > 150
• Dthrow KBG 45 > 20
• Bthrow angle 45 > 40

Alongside Jigglypuff, the most neglected character of the cast. The buffs should be self-explanatory, unfortunately.

• Reverted all nerfs from 1.0.4 and 1.1.4:

1. Air speed 0.63 > 0.72 (more than pre-1.0.4)
2. Fair damage 12% > 13%
3. Dthrow KBG 82 > 60
4. Gordos have to be hit with a 2% > 4% attack to be rebound (more than pre-1.0.4)
5. Gordos hitbox size is bigger by 0.4%

• Fixed Dtilt and Bair hitboxes to match the animations
• Bthrow angle 60 > 45, KBG 79 > 82
• Jet Hammer:

1. Added super armor during swing animation (like Kirby's Side B)
2. FAF 77/70 > 62/55

Ganondorf has some of the best moves in the game trapped by a trash mobility. Also, his grab range is terrible and his throws are mediocre at best. A little bit more mobility and better grab and throws that put the opponent seriously in disadvantage should make him a good character. Uptilt also buffed to be at least usable in some situations aside from an edgeguard only now and then.

• Run Speed 1.218 > 1.3
• Air Speed 0.79 > 0.85
• Greatly increased his grab range
• Upthrow KBG 105 > 120
• Dthrow BKB 70 > 50
• Bthrow BKB 30 > 60
• Uptilt:

1. Hitbox active frames 81-84 > 51-54
2. FAF 115 > 84

The princess of Hyrule has some good tools but, not unlike Ganondorf, she has trash mobility and some questionable design choices. With these buffs that make her more agile and capable of threatening both afar and close combat she should become a worthy fighter.

• Run Speed 1.3 > 1.42
• Air Speed 1.04 > 1.1
• Jab:

1. Hit 1 active hitbox 11 > 9
2. Hit 2 active hitbox 13 > 11
3. Hit 3 active hitbox 15 > 13
4. FAF 24 > 20

• Aerials:

1. Nair autocancel 38 onwards > 32 onwards
2. Fair landing lag frames 23 > 18, Fair (late) BKB 5 > 25
3. Bair landing lag frames 25 > 19, Bair (late) BKB 5 > 25
4. Upair landing lag 19 > 16

• Upsmash FAF 64 > 54
• Din’s Fire:

1. Removed free fall in the air
2. Increased hitbox size and the fire travels faster (like 3/2 of what it is now)
3. Zelda can act out of it sooner (I found no data about this, 10 frames after the explosion?)

• Farore’s Wind FAF 81 > 60 (so you don’t die because you misplaced by 1 pixel)
• Phantom Knight can be shield cancelled before the end similar to Sonic's Spindash

Jigglypuff is a very unfortunate case of make-it or break-it character. I gave her a uncontested air mobility and very good aerials like she should have. Also, now she has reward for grabbing an opponent at low percents making her Upthrow and Dthrow combo throws (so I nerfed their damage because they would be overpowered). I just hope I haven’t create a true combo into Rest at kill percent meanwhile by accident…

• Air Speed 1.269 > 1.3
• Slightly increased mid air jumps height
• Aerials:

1. Slightly increased hitbox sizes on all her aerials
2. Fair autocancel frame 28 onwards > 26 onwards
3. Landing lag on all of her aerials reduced by 2 frames (Dair by 4)

• Upthrow:

1. BKB 110 > 70
2. KBG 30 > 60
3. Damage 10% > 7%

• Dthrow:

1. BKB 100 > 70
2. Angle 80 > 55
3. Damage (hit 1) 4% > 2%

• Rest KBG 66 > 69 and always Star KOs
• Rollout FAF on hit 74 > 50

 

[Scarlet Jile]

If I could (I can), it would look kind of like this (it does):

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hWJkG4FEJt_YiHkwG9TlEAN94k2gYxt9dKO-r2sy5Iw/edit?usp=sharing

 

[Lil Puddin]

I have an entire document with very specific changes to all characters I would apply, but if I had to do one patch without touching every single one of them it would be like this.
Heavily nerfed:
Nerfed:
Slightly nerfed:
Slightly buffed:
Buffed:
Heavily buffed:

All the not listed characters have either counterbalanced nerfs and buffs to compensate or are left intact.

End of topic. :^)

But for real, so much can be done. It's a shame they use Doubles/FFA/The entire game to balance characters. Which in the end doesn't make sense. Anyone good at 1v1 will be good at everything else in this chaotic game. *eye roll* Ironically, though, Jigglypuff is SSS+ tier when it comes to dealing with 9.0 Classic Mode thanks to how cheesy she can be with the final boss(es). Overall I would like to see Ledge Canceling gone, which mostly just effects the teleportation gorls/Pogeymun. While it's an amazing tech, it's also one that just begs the question of "Why not just lower their endlag a bit anyway so they can use their teleports for stuff?"

Some changes I'd like to see:
1) have their SideB range reduced when used midair, but they no longer go into freefall. If they hit someone they bounce upward. Since it no longer sends them into freefall, they'll fly off the side of the stage ooops.

2) have their SideB range increased when used midair, but they DO go into freefall... Unless they hit someone. Then they kinda just bounce off the person as if they did a footstool jump (but send the person flying with the normal KB angles). If they use it while on the stage, they'll stop at the ledge with the "Who-whoaaaa" tilting animation and all.

3) SideB has the momentum reduced so he doesn't fly halfway wind up in Canada despite being in a different time. And place. And dimension. Instead he will travel further on the initial SideB and charging up his SideB kinda lets him float a little bit in the direction he's facing (think like a weaker version of Zelda's glide during her awful SideB). If he hits someone midair, he does a spin slash of sorts, sending the person towards the normal KB angle. It gives him a tiny bit of height. If he doesn't hit anyone, the ledge, or the ground. OOPS RIP BARA BOY. Like above, if he uses it on the stage he slashes and ends with the WHOADAMNCLOSEONE animation at the ledge.

Anyway, I'l just talk about my magic gorls a lot more because I am bad at this.


1) Just a smidgen more range for her DSmash or I suppose a better vacuum effect.
2) Slightly faster startup time for her Nair OR slightly more range.
3) Less end lag in the air/landing for Bair.
4) Faster startup time for her Uair OR increase the 2nd's hit KB.
5) More range on Toad's counter activation (it's weaker when further away anyway)
6) Increase Dtilt's hitbox slightly downward and push her forward.
7) Slightly faster turnip pluck rate OR allow them to fly a tiny bit further/a bit faster.

tbh Peach is mostly balanced. For her it'd be more like fine-tuning. She lacks range but has mobility through decent ground movement and above average aerial movement options. When she gets momentum she's capable of being scary, but not any scarier than the top tiers. Getting that momentum isn't too hard thanks to her multiple tricks, but then again, it isn't too easy. An option would be to nerf half the upper roster to be more like her in terms of balance, but that's never going to happen. So the more feasible option would be just to polish her kit and give her a little more OOMPH.



1) Increase Dash Attack's hitbox, add magic if thou must to extend it a bit.
2) Increase the poor tactician's run speed like holy ****, and a tiny bit more aerial speed.
3) UpB performs one giant Elwind, using the same durability, so Robin won't be easy to edgeguard. UpB will also travel faster and turn most of Robin's body into a hitbox with weak KB (no KOing upward or easily shrugging off Meteor Mashers/attacks, but for self-defense against flubs). It will still travel the same overall distance.
4) When there is no Elwind, Robin will perform a spin jump that only travels about 50% of UpB, is slightly slower, and has no hitbox/protection. Being SoL and easy to edgeguard is BS for such a slow character imo.
5) Increase Fire's durability for another Arc Fire usage, since the move is so punishable already. Perhaps increase Arcfire's initial projectile's size so it can better zone and not be easy to jump over.
6) Increase Nosfuratu's durability 4 -> 5 OR decrease regeneration time to 30 seconds.



tbh WFT is almost good, it's mostly the smash attacks that are overly awkward. For some reason WFT and Captain Falcon are pretty much the same, as in, their entire bodies are basically an attack's hitbox. But WFT gets saddled with slowness as the tradeoff and Captain Falcon is Captain Falcon. Oops?

1) Extend the ranges on all Smash Attacks, perhaps using super-glowy-healthy-sun-power to increase the animation ranges.
2) Increase Bthrow/Fthrow's KB growth slightly. Grabbing will still be one of WFT's crap options even with the change, tbh.
3) Dair's starting frame reduced 20 -> 14~15
4) Reduce Dtilt's endlag.
5) Increase Ftilt's and Utilt's range slightly.


1) Slightly further range on her teleportation. She has these magic wings and she even grants Pit the ability to use his for flight, yet she travels half the distance he can. OH OK.
2) Faster startup on her counter.
3) Faster Dsmash/Fsmash attacks OR bigger windboxes for protection.
4) Better KB growth on Fair so it can be deadly at high percents.
5) Slightly better range on Dair, extend with magic if thou must.
6) Slightly better Nair vacuum effect.
7) Cause reflect to break if an enemy attacks it with anything it won't reflect, breaking outwards away from Pally (almost like Naryu's Love).
8) Hold B to cast 3 "autoaim" autoreticles. Tap B to release one giant blast that is about x2 the size of the normal autoreticles, travels the same speed, travels straight in front of her, deals x2 damage and x3~x4 knockback, but only travels 33%~50% of the distance.
9) If she uses Teleport on the ground and ends up in the same spot, she'll have less end lag than normal. You know, so she can actually use it for the mind games that the game occasionally suggests for us to do. jajaja
10) Allow Dtilt and Ftilt to have a sort of vacuum effect, with multi-hits, and reduce the damage except the final hit (which will have KB changed so it's about the same as it is now with the new damage). I like the idea of her being a vacuum/wind heavy character and I think the devs left that half-baked.


OMG WHERE TO START WITH THIS GORL??? She's not necessarily bad, it's just being a glass cannon with low movement speed, OK aerial speed, and startup or endlag galore really doesn't work. Her and Mewtwo basically have the same role, except Mewtwo can actually defend itself, reflect things easier, and move a lot faster. The thing that makes Zelda fun is she has mind games galore and rewards the player for being DA BETTER SMART N WISE GORL of the fight. Though it's basically "hard read everything or die" since she's sluggish and has no decent self defense. So... Increase her ability to play mind-games to keep her a unique character and give her a few more close range defensive options.

What I don't like about her is she's basically the tricky gorl, but people do not have to think at all to fight her. They just have to go "watch out for UpB and wait for her to use pretty much 80% of her kit to punish her." Wow. So thought intensive!!! She's so difficult to fight because the Triforce of Wisdom means she's super smart and has ALL THESE various tricks... Like Bayonetta, ZSS, Diddy Kong, Rosalina, or Ryu! So many different spooky options! Hahahaha I am literally crying right now because she does not and I am very sad about that.

1) Slightly faster run speed, like, ever so slightly. tbh her run speed wouldn't be an issue if she had less endlag overall. She's basically ENDLAG THE CHARACTER as far as SSB4 is concerned. lol
2) Slightly more range on Usmash in all directions, or perhaps create a magical vacuum. Keep in mind it's easily punished. As is Fsmash and even Dsmash if the person jumps.
3) First kick of Dsmash is unchanged, the 2nd back end hit knocks opponents slightly further and slightly downward. The 2nd hit would of course deal more damage than the 1st hit. Her Bair is stronger, so I kinda like the idea of her back-kicky-things in general being stronger and more fatal.
4) Fsmash needs a slightly bigger hitbox, but towards her and downward/upward.
5) Fix the deadzones in Ftilt/Jab.
6) Jab startup decrease from 11 -> 6~7. It's supposed to be a combo starter and has minimal range like a jab and low endlag of a jab, but starts at frame 11? um excuse me wut r u doin pls dun do det ok thnx.
7) Slightly less endlag on kicks, but make it so the sourspots have better damage (which should increase their KB too) so if she flubs she can create some distance. She can still be punished by enemies with range or speed, of course.

Now for the mind-game enhancing buffs/changes Maybe just 1 of these. Or all of them if she's still bad after the changes OOPS. Her previous DownB basically gave her an entirely new kit and entirely new mindgames to work with. So since she now cannot change into a faster but extremely less sassy version of herself... Just let her B moves do 2 things. It doesn't even have to be strong things. Just things to make the opponent go "omg maybe I shouldn't approach her ez pzy like I did in the past if I want to live!!!"

1) Allow her to extend the duration of Naryu's Love by holding B. So the broken shards will swirl around her for up to 1~2 seconds longer than they do now but she can still be hit from above or below. After Naryu's Love original duration ends, the 1~2 second longer duration's attacks will just deal 1% per tick and have NO KB at all. Followed by the normal slightly lengthy endlag of Naryu's Love. If she misreads the situation, she can get punished with attacks or grabs, but it gives her options against zoners/spammers (IE: one of the things she should be good at dealing with).

2) Allowing her to hold a fully charged Phantom Knight. The catch being she can't save a half-charge and continue to charge like Salute the Sun or Thunder. After using a fully charged Phantom Knight makes it so she can't charge up for another 5~8 seconds so she can't just keep charging and spamming. Using a low/mid charged Phantom Knight reappears as normal. A fully charged Phantom can deal significant shield lag, but less shield damage than it does now. So she can't use it to easily break shields or force people into taking the hit to save themselves from a broken shield. If need be, releasing the held Phantom can take 25%~35% longer than it would if she just fully charged and let it go as she does now.

3) Din's Fire no longer puts her into free fall. D U H OF COURSE IT SHOULDN'T AAAAAA this change should happen regardless of any other buffs tbh. The only change here for mindgames would be to screw with someone who's closing the gap. If she just taps SideB, she will extend her palm but not assume the sassy pose. A lvl 1 Din's Fire will erupt in front of her, creating kind of a wall. So it'd be like a fire version of her jab with only 1 hit, slightly more range (around it), and upward KB.

4) Farore's Wind. If she starts using it midair she will have half the endlag, half the damage, and very low KB. She can use it to return to the ground or close the gap. If she starts from the ground, she will use it as she does now. Perhaps with slightly lower KB so she's not sniping 60% kills ez pzy. tbh this change in itself would probably help her a lot, since her old way of closing the gap was using FW. Though new FW's endlag is so intense that she can't really do that, not as safely as before anyway. Sure the KB means if she hits the person she gains a lot of space or kills them, but using it to close the gap as someone flies 80% across the map won't help much without ledge canceling. :T

 

[KuroganeHammer]

I dont think a game needs to be balanced to be competitive. Some characters have movesets that are unbalancable (jiggs, zelda) without ridiculous numbers attached to them making them unfun or uninteractive.

Edit: i looked at luigi players bowser changes and ignored the rest of the post because they were bad. Back to bottom 5 you go bowser for no reason at all ohhhhhh

 

[Guido65]

-Decrease Air Speed (1.15 -> 0.98)

This is way too harsh.

 

[BSP]

Universal: Remove rage from the game

For all of rage's "benefits", at the end of the day I ultimately see it as a mechanic that punishes you for playing the game. You literally take more knockback because you damaged your opponent, and it also leads to stupid, "jank" kills for multi-hit moves. Overall the mechanic hurts more than helps imo.


+ Revert trampoline to its original version, where opponent jump height scales with trampoline's color (just like Pac-Man's).

This change makes trampoline safe on hit at all % and increases the zoning strength of the move. I'm not sure why it got nerfed in the first place tbh, but it was Pac-Man's biggest nerf IMO and really gutted the character's strength.

+ Revert Galaxian back to 11% per hit

This projectile takes ~2 seconds to charge, doesn't travel quickly, can be cancelled rather easily, and can be used against Pac-Man. I think this nerf happened prematurely due to vine combos that looked flashy but only work once.

+ Revert Fire Hydrant health back to 12%

The health change to hydrant is useful in some cases but overall more detrimental than helpful. For 95% of projectiles that it's supposed to wall, the 1% doesn't make a difference. That 1% makes a world of difference for Pac-Man's launching ability though (Fresh Bair , Melon, and fully charged power pellet would instant launch again).

+ Change Pac-Jump's Early launch angle from 92 degrees to match whatever direction Pac-Man is travelling in when the move is initiated (Pac-Man is running right when he trampolines you? You get launched diagonally towards the right.)

This change will give Pac-Man positional advantage for landing the trampoline. As is, it's just 7% that people are willing to take.

+ Increase Pac-Jump Trampoline duration so that Pac-Man can plant a trampoline, immediately place a hydrant, and then have both spurts of water from fire hydrant activate before the trampoline disappears.

Pac-Man is supposed to be able to set traps. This change would give him a lot more flexibility in using his hydrant and trampoline together to ruin the opponent's day.

+ Make grab hitboxes' sizes match the animation
+ Change grab hitboxes from 12-14, 22-24, 32-39 to 12-39
+ Increase grab hitbox size for the F12 hitbox (Pac-Man's arm is a dead zone currently)

These are just grab fixes tbh. Notice how I did not suggest improvements to FAF or startup. This is because Pac-Man isn't a grab based character and he already has his trampoline to pop people out of shield, and he can hinder movement in general. A respectable grab would be too much.

+ Increase range of Dtilt to have slightly more range than Ftilt.

The Dtilt range increase serves to give the move purpose over Ftilt. As it stands, Ftilt is faster than Dtilt and does more damage. The downsides are less BKB and slightly less shield safety, but that leaves Dtilt outclassed in most situations.

+ Remove Ftilt glitch

Bug fix.

+ Decrease Bair startup from F9 -> F7

Pac-Man is a completely new zoner type to smash, so I think the devs took a "better safe than sorry" approach with his normals. Some of them are a bit undertuned, Bair being one of them. As a brawler/zoner, it baffles me how Pac-Man's bair is comparable to swordfighters' in terms of startup. This change would make it faster but still slower than bairs of pure brawlers like Mario, Peach, Luigi, etc.

+ Increase the sizes of Nair F6-19 hitboxes so that Pac-Man's hurtbox isn't bigger than them.

The move is supposed to function like a sex kick. This change would help to carry out that purpose.

+ Increase Dair 4's KBG so the move isn't pointless

This is another undertuned normal. As is, it barely has any purpose. I don't think it should be a combo starter, so at least make it a somewhat respectable KO option.

+ Reduce the gap between dash attack hits by 1 frame and adjust FAF accordingly (so 42 -> 40)

This change would prevent anyone from grabbing Pac-Man between dash attack's hits, but would still leave him vulnerable at its end and to F5 or faster OOS options between the hits.

+ Remove the "floor-wall-miss" from side B, and change all instances where it would happen to the standard "you crashed into something" lag

Pac-Man shouldn't die for aiming is side B a bit incorrectly.


+ Dair hit 6 from F25 -> F22 (removes gap that allows characters to dodge out and/or trade with Mario for landing the move)

Rizen I disagree with Mario needing nerfs. The character is in a fine spot with clear strengths and very clear weaknesses. His smashes aren't safe to throw out as is (I need to make a .gif of MKLeo tipper Fsmashing Ally for Usmashing his shield...)


- Witch Twist startup from F4 -> F6
- Witch Time slowdown adjusted to scale with the type of the move that triggered it (jab < tilt < aerial/special < smash, something like that)
+ Witch Time does not decay from use
- Witch Time does not remove accrued landing lag from special usage
- Slight reduction of Witch Twist's hitbox size
- Remove triple jump glitch (can't believe I forgot about this lol)

's jab shouldn't kill and Luma could use some BKB reductions, but I'd like to see the character with rage completely gone first before she got changed much.

is ******** fast for his reach and power. He needs a nerf or two but I'm not exactly sure just where or how badly he should be hit. I'd start with movement speed nerfs but IDK how extreme.

For , I'd adjust his Dtilt to knock opponents higher so that Dtilt -> Bair/Fair/maybe Uair is a thing at high %s, but he loses the ability to confirm into smash attacks from a F4 move that's -2 on drop. He already has banana for confirms.

I'm sure lots of low tiers need buffs but I don't understand the characters enough to comment on them.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

I know about only one character: Charizard. He needs substantial buffs but since his weaknesses are so varied I'll keep his buffs general.

1. Improve zard's traction, zard is supposed to be played in a bait-and-punish style but his moveset along with his traction makes the punish element almost non-existent. Having better traction will allow zard to shield punish giving him better MUs against relevant threats.
2. Improve the damage output on all of zard's moves. Zard is a super heavyweight, there should be no reason as to why his damage percentage output is lower than that of most middle and lightweights.
3. Give zard some kill set-ups outside of his upthrow, DK has ding-dong, Bowser has koo-pah, zard needs something identical to that.
4. For arceus' sake improve zard's air speed. A lot of the high and top tiers outpace zard while in the air allowing them to circle camp zard for free. Zard needs a way to keep up.
5. None of zard's moves should be so easy to miss either. It's very easy to beat zard at his own baiting game since some moves don't connect properly and allow the opponent to fall out of the move even without DI or SDI. This needs to be fixed.
6. Make zard's side b a hybrid of his current flare blitz and blast burn, give it the damage armor that flare blitz has but also give it the explosiveness and shield breaking capabilities of blast burn. Also cut the range of the move in half to make it more fair, this gives him a horizontal recovery that isn't completely unfair (the damage should be the average damage from flare blitz and blast burn, add the two damage outputs together and then cut it in half. Remember we want 'fair' not 'game breaking'. The speed that the move comes out at should be cut in half as well).
7. Give fly more height to make it a slightly more viable recovery move, zard is easy to gimp if he ends up too low before grabbing the ledge. The amount of extra height shouldn't be all that much though since we want fly to be a combination recovery/offensive move.

 

[Scarlet Jile]

I dont think a game needs to be balanced to be competitive.

I agree completely, but the game needs to be competitive to be competitive.

Right now, the win conditions for some characters are so skewed compared to others that it trivializes the skill element, which for most people, is the most important element of competition.

 

[FeelMeUp]

Why did you make Sheik physically incapable of killing anything in a game with rage?

 

[NairWizard]

1 Welcome to the life Robin and other zoners have to deal with.
2 You're grossly exaggerating like when you said Cloud would be worse than Ganon; that's simply untrue.
3 Link's fastest ground attack is frame 7 jab and his grab is 12; it's not that good.
4 I never said that; try reading this post.
5 This is a huge misunderstanding of limit breaks. Cross slash starts frame 10 and doesn't kill. Limit CS is intangible frames 6-11, can't rebound and kills at 65%. Same basic changes for all cloud's specials, suddenly blade beam kills instead of doing 8%. Limit is very powerful even without added buffs; Cloud's already more mobile than Marth, he shouldn't get faster than yoshi with that huge sword.
6 like I said in the previous post, Cloud is 10th in run speed, 14th air speed, without Limit- faster run than MK, sheik's air speed, all this with a huge sword and good frame data. That beats every other sword character in both categories. Meanwhile Robin gets the worst run in the game, even butterknifes like pit are 24th and 50th. There is no reason he should get any faster.
7 14th best is not "mediocre" air speed.
8 his recovery without Limit is as good as CF's and he has a huge sword to protect him.
9 first it was "worse than Ganon", now it's "as good as Ike". Except Cloud's more mobile than ike, can force approaches and has better frame data.

When designers talk about nerfing or buffing they don't do so in the sort of increments that you're proposing. No sane competitor would believe that these are reasonable changes. Look at Lavani's post for an example of reasonable balance changes. This appears to be your criteria for balance:

Is the character considered top tier? If yes ->
is the move/mechanic one of the character's best traits? If yes ->
nerf it!

I'll continue to address your points in detail because this is a rather naive approach to balance and deserves to be addressed as such for general edification.

1 Welcome to the life Robin and other zoners have to deal with.

Cloud isn't a projectile zoner. Robin's speed is limited for a reason. Same with Link.

2 You're grossly exaggerating like when you said Cloud would be worse than Ganon; that's simply untrue.

Would you care to prove how untrue it is? I can back up my case with numbers, and I'll do so below. I'll keep the comparison about Ike because it's easier to compare the two, but the numbers wouldn't be difficult to produce for Ganon either.

3 Link's fastest ground attack is frame 7 jab and his grab is 12; it's not that good.

His grab has more range than Cloud's entire kit, and he has projectiles. I don't understand the comparison.

5 This is a huge misunderstanding of limit breaks. Cross slash starts frame 10 and doesn't kill. Limit CS is intangible frames 6-11, can't rebound and kills at 65%. Same basic changes for all cloud's specials, suddenly blade beam kills instead of doing 8%. Limit is very powerful even without added buffs; Cloud's already more mobile than Marth, he shouldn't get faster than yoshi with that huge sword.

Limit Cross Slash is a very strong move, but it has one-time usage before Cloud is unable to do anything with it again, and clear counterplay at top level. In Tweek v Salem you'll often see Tweek refuse to throw out a Limit Cross Slash at the edge when Salem is trying to punish his recovery because he's afraid to whiff, get hit, and be unable to recover.

The only reason that Cloud gets to use LCS often is because of the airspeed buff that lets him recover without wasting it. It would be more usable than Little Mac's KO Punch with your proposed changes, but it still wouldn't scare me much. If I respect it one time, and make him whiff, then it's offline for a solid chunk of time, and Cloud is extra vulnerable to death.

What's scary about Limit Cloud isn't Cross Slash. It's the combined threat of Cross Slash plus a Cloud who dances around your shield and punishes your rolls with a surprise falling up-air.

9 first it was "worse than Ganon", now it's "as good as Ike". Except Cloud's more mobile than ike, can force approaches and has better frame data.

You misquoted me. I didn't say "as good as Ike." I said that the Cloud you proposed is notably worse than Ike. There's no reason to play the proposed Cloud over Ike, and they'd be awfully similar characters, down to the jumpsquat frame.

The Cloud you proposed would indeed be more mobile than Ike, but forcing approaches with better frame data? Both of these claims are dubious.

Blade Beam is not enough of a reason to approach Cloud; it's an easily powershieldable projectile which can get Cloud punished at midrange by about half the cast. We're not dealing with Robin or Link here. Cloud and Ike can't force approaches. The reason that people approach Cloud right now is because of Limit being overtuned. The threat of Limit Cloud in neutral is so vast and overwhelming that most characters feel compelled to approach him when he charges. With your proposed changes, there'd be no reason to approach Cloud. Imagine a Sheik without Needles. Would you approach such a Sheik? No. Of course not. You'd let her come to you, open herself up with a mistake trying to position around you, and then whack her in the face.

Better frame data is straight up false. While on average including smashes Cloud's frame data numbers come up better, you need to consider what moves are actually being used in neutral by either character when comparing frame data. Let's do an accurate comparison on key moves.

Let's start with fundamental ground tools, like jab/grab/pokes. Their grabs have the same startups down the board; Ike trades 2 frames of endlag on each (standing, pivot, dash) for a better dash->shield and a far better tomahawk to get those grabs (Ike can tomahawk jab, tomahawk d-tilt, or tomahawk grab). But the big kicker is that Ike's grab reward dwarfs Cloud's. Cloud's getting less than 10% per grab whereas Ike is regularly getting 25+ with footstool combos (watch san for examples of this) until high percents where his followups aren't guaranteed. Most of Cloud's grab followups are Limit-based, but ah, you removed the Limits stat buff, so yeah, he's got nothing outside of Cross Slashes landed on bad DI at early percents.

Meanwhile, Ike's jab is leagues better than Cloud's jab; the jabs starts on frame 4 for both, but Ike's jab1 has a FAF of 24 into a frame-3 jab 2; Cloud's jab1 has a FAF of 30 into a frame-5 jab 2. The jab 2->3 transition is 33/6 for Cloud and 28/5 for Ike. With these differences and combat walking, Ike's jab game is not just superior to Cloud's; it's vastly dominant. For an example, Ike can jab1->2 to stuff out a Mario's short hop approach, whereas Cloud can't.

For poking, Ike has d-tilt--f7-8 with a FAF of 29, which is relatively safe on shield though susceptible to whiff punishing at high levels; Cloud's d-tilt has the same startup but a FAF of 41, so it's neither safe on shield nor very good when whiffed. Cloud's d-tilt is a punish for short hop landings against highly disjointed characters such as Marth and Lucina, certainly, but you're not throwing it out to poke. Cloud can use f-tilt to poke, but it's not as good as Ike's d-tilt, and Ike's own f-tilt when perfectly spaced is about as good as it is anyway, with worse startup but more range (a good supplement to Ike's d-tilt for his kit).

So Ike's better at grounded boxing and footsies. On Cloud's side, he has way better smashes but smashes aren't fundamental parts of their kits. His up-smash is marginally more useful than Ike's up-tilt (faster with fewer active frames so it's worse in some situations but better in others). Cloud's d-smash is fun to catch panicked people with sometimes, but so is Ike's up-smash. Ike's d-smash and f-smash are almost useless. That's about all that can be said about those moves.

Cloud does have a better dash attack (both DAs kill, but Cloud's is faster, albeit with less range) and better overall mobility, but Ike seems to have a better ground game in pretty much all ways.

What about aerial frame data? Ike's f-air has more range than Cloud's entire kit and starts on frame 12 with a FAF of 55, and it's a n-air, u-air, and f-air mixed in one. Cloud's f-air is much slower and has a worse hitbox so we can't compare it at all. A better comparison is Cloud's n-air. 5-15 (starts from the back) with a FAF of 39 and much less range. Cloud doesn't extend his hand during the animation, though, so the proportion of disjoint is greater. I'm willing to give this one to Cloud, but it's a slight win--Ike's f-air is better than Cloud's n-air for certain things like followups and batting away potential edgeguarders (Pikachu can't f-air Ike as easily offstage as he can Cloud). b-air, though, no way, Ike wins. Cloud's is 11/42 and Ike's is 7/55. Ike's has more endlag but hits harder and is so quick as to be unreactable (meaning you can't powershield it easily at all even if you watch him turn his back and jump). Cloud would kill for Ike's b-air, even with his own autocancel. Not to mention Ike's awesome tomahawk game.

And then Cloud has d-air mixups whereas Ike has n-air mixups. Without Limit's stat buffs, falling up-air isn't really a thing, and d-air is generally bad in the current meta, so shrug. I'd say that they're about the same aerially when it comes to frame data. It looks to you like Ike is slower, but on key moves, they're doing about equally well.

So we've got an Ike who is significantly faster than Cloud on key ground moves and about the same aerially (remember that you nerfed Cloud to have the same jumpsquat as Ike!). Ike has better reward as well. Cloud has... a better foxtrot and run speed? I'm not impressed. Ike exchanges that for a better recovery--Cloud's recovery without Limit is worse than Falcon's and certainly a lot worse than Ike, who has mixups between side-b and up-b, as well as a f-air with more horizontal range, and a Counter--not to mention better weight.

Ike in the current game is way better than the Cloud you suggested. That's not an opinion, that's evident from the numbers. Ike does more damage, has a more functional neutral, has a better recovery, and has more range. Cloud is... faster? Not cutting it.

I didn't even take your full balance change into consideration. I omitted the part where you said to nerf end lag and up-air landing lag. If you implemented your full list of balance changes, Cloud would be worse than Ganon. I stand by that claim. If you want to continue this discussion I can certainly dive deeper into the stats.

 

[R3D3MON]

I know about only one character: Charizard. He needs substantial buffs but since his weaknesses are so varied I'll keep his buffs general.

1. Improve zard's traction, zard is supposed to be played in a bait-and-punish style but his moveset along with his traction makes the punish element almost non-existent. Having better traction will allow zard to shield punish giving him better MUs against relevant threats.
2. Improve the damage output on all of zard's moves. Zard is a super heavyweight, there should be no reason as to why his damage percentage output is lower than that of most middle and lightweights.
3. Give zard some kill set-ups outside of his upthrow, DK has ding-dong, Bowser has koo-pah, zard needs something identical to that.
4. For arceus' sake improve zard's air speed. A lot of the high and top tiers outpace zard while in the air allowing them to circle camp zard for free. Zard needs a way to keep up.
5. None of zard's moves should be so easy to miss either. It's very easy to beat zard at his own baiting game since some moves don't connect properly and allow the opponent to fall out of the move even without DI or SDI. This needs to be fixed.
6. Make zard's side b a hybrid of his current flare blitz and blast burn, give it the damage armor that flare blitz has but also give it the explosiveness and shield breaking capabilities of blast burn. Also cut the range of the move in half to make it more fair, this gives him a horizontal recovery that isn't completely unfair (the damage should be the average damage from flare blitz and blast burn, add the two damage outputs together and then cut it in half. Remember we want 'fair' not 'game breaking'. The speed that the move comes out at should be cut in half as well).
7. Give fly more height to make it a slightly more viable recovery move, zard is easy to gimp if he ends up too low before grabbing the ledge. The amount of extra height shouldn't be all that much though since we want fly to be a combination recovery/offensive move.

Honestly I just wish side-b allowed you to tech ;_;

Also buff it so it has a similar functionality to dark pit's side b. But give it much less startup and endlag so it is actually threatening.


I would happy be for f-throw/b-throw mix-up options for zard (similar to his PM incarnation) or just a better combo d-throw for zard (similar to melee/PM ganon).


EDIT: Also bless the mod who moved this garbo from competitive discussion to general

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Honestly I just wish side-b allowed you to tech ;_;

Being able to tech with side b would make the move much more forgivable while also making it so you'd have to be wary not to launch yourself off the stage. tbh I have no idea why it wasn't made techable in the first place.

 

[R3D3MON]

Being able to tech with side b would make the move much more forgivable while also making it so you'd have to be wary not to launch yourself off the stage. tbh I have no idea why it wasn't made techable in the first place.

Also edge cancelling with zard side-b would be sick af.

 

[origamiscienceguy]

Also edge cancelling with zard side-b would be sick af.

You already can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoXLMTglwwk

 

[TDK]

How would you balance top tiers?

I'm going to be honest here: Nerfing top tiers substantially while buffing low tiers a bit to have everyone meet in the middle doesn't create an interesting game to me. I'd much rather minorly nerf the top tiers and buff everyone to be around high tier, or wherever you put top 16 at majors viable at in this game. That being said, I also just only think Cloud and Bayo are overtuned and the other top tiers are fine the way they are, but I still minorly nerfed the others to show you what I would do.

Spoiler

- Bat Within on all dodges takes 1 more frame to start up, putting her air dodge in line with Mewtwo's
- Up Tilt KBG increased: 40/27/60 > 45/32/65
- Down Tilt FAF increased: 27 > 30
- Down Tilt BKB increased: 70 > 80
- Neutral air FAF increased: Frame 33 > 35
- Forward air 1 Active hitbox decreased: Frame 7-9 > 7-8
- Landing Dair BKB/KBG decreased: 80/135 > 70/130
- Witch Twist Startup increased: Frame 4 > Frame 5
- Reduce Aerial Witch Twist hitbox slightly
- Reduce After Burner Kick hitbox slightly
- Make Witch Time slow down the opponent proportionally to the damage of the move that triggered it

My goal here was to make Bayonetta a character that required more precision than just having all her moves lead into each other. With increases to BKB/KBG on her tilts, it makes it so they still combo effectively but at a lower range of percents. Fair's mostly left alone but with only a 1-frame window, you have to time it better, which to me makes sense considering the reward she gets off of it. Decreasing the hitboxes on aerial Witch Twist and After Burner kick means that Bayo has to position herself better, and the witch time change puts it in line with the other counterattacks in the game. Still a very viable character, but with more precision required for her reward.



- Remove Limit charging by dealing/receiving damage
- Neutral air Landing Lag increased: 15 > 18
- Back air Landing Lag increased: 14 > 17
- Remove Up Air's hurtobx flattening
- Up Air hitbox: Frame 7-9 > Frame 8-10
- Up air damage decreased: 12 > 9
- Up Air BKB/KBG increased: 42/82 > 46/86
- Up air landing lag increased: 15 > 18
- Down Air autocancel window changed: 43> > 45>
- Limit Cross Slash (Final Hit) KBG decreased: 153 > 145

The idea was to make Cloud less overbearing, but still strong in the air. He can still abuse his amazing foxtrot and overall mobility to pressure your shield with his massive sword, he just needs to be safer. Up Air is no longer a combo breaker since it no longer flattens Cloud's hurtbox on frame 1, and down air has a slightly worse autocancel window. LCS also kills somewhat later (but still early).



- Down tilt Angle changed: 50/60 > 70
- Down tilt BKB decreased: 15 > 10
- Down tilt KBG increased: 75 > 80
- Up Smash hit 3 BKB/KBG reduced slightly: 50/126 > 48/124
- Up Air KBG reduced: 89 > 86

FeelMeUp suggested the Down Tilt change, where it should hopefully now only combo into death around 140 and not 100. Weakening up air and up smash ever so slightly also makes him less potent, but still very strong.


- Fair BKB/KBG increased slightly: 40/132 > 42/135
- Forward Tilt FAF increased slightly: Frame 25 > 27

I'm going to be honest here: Sheik doesn't need nerfs. Hell, I think all the top tiers (bar Bayo and Cloud) are fine, and at most need slaps on the wrist. Balancing Sheik is also extremely delicate. There's no point in making her bad killing power even worse, that'd destroy her. and if you made her combo game worse, that'd screw her too. So I made it slightly worse, not enough to really hamper her but enough so it's not as overwhelming, but slightly.


- Luma Jab 3 KBG Reduced: 150 > 140
- Luma Up Air BKB Reduced: 110 > 105

I don't think Rosa needs nerfs either. Luma might, but that's another matter for debate. Even then, only Luma's Jab 3 and Up Air actually need nerfs, if anything. This is a sharp decrease in kill power for her jab and up air, but it should still leave her viable, even with these moves now killing 10-15% later.


- Dash Attack knockback angle: 70 > 75
- Up Tilt active frames decreased: 3-5/6-7 > 4/5/6-7
- Up Air damage reduced: 5/11 > 3/11 (Total: 16 > 13)
- Up Air FAF increased: 36 > 38

Goal here was to make fox's vortex slightly less effective, but still very easily possible. Nothing else to say, really.


- Forward Smash KBG decreased slightly: 101 > 99
- Up Smash final hit KBG decreased slightly: 168 > 165
- Spring Jump intangibility decreased slightly: Frame 5-13 > Frame 5-12

I'm getting to the point where it's hard for me to nerf these characters since I fully believe only Cloud and Bayo really need nerfs, and the rest of the top tiers shouldn't be nerfed or need a slap on the wrist. This is that slap on the wrist, making him kill slightly later and it easier to punish a springing Sonic. And 1 frame doesn't seem like a lot, but it made a world of difference for 2-framing.


- Up Air Knockback angle: 80 > 70
- Boost Kick final hit KBG decreased: 209 > 205
- Flip Jump Kick Intangibility decreased: Frame 3-12 > Frame 5-12

I tried to make her ladder combo less guaraunteed by changing the up air KB angle to be more in-line with MK and made Boost Kick a bit weaker. She's still going to get it often, because unlike MK her air speed lets her follow up more reliably, but it should be easier to get out of now. I also did the same think to flip Jump Kick as I did to Sonic's spring, make it easier to punish on startup.


- Up Smash FAF increased: 40 > 44

Mario, like Sheik, is a bit precarious to balance. He's in a similar boat to Sheik to where he's an excellent damage racker with a killing problem, but has a slightly easier time killing in exchange for less damage. The only thing I'd really want to do to Mario is to make up smash less spammable, which I did here.


- Increase Shadow Ball's start charge time: Frame 6 > Frame 8
- Decrease damage of uncharged Shadow Ball: 2.5 > 2

slight decrease to Mewtwo's zoning game with Shadow ball being a slight more commitment for less reward, but not by too much.

Also, here's my Dedede changelist:
- Make Back Air's hitbox match the attack animation, maybe decrease the damage a little to compensate.
- Up Throw BKB/KBG increased to around Greninja's
- Make Smash thrown Gordo always wall stick and tilt thrown Gordo never wall stick instead of 50-50 chance
- Increase percentage to send Gordo back slightly (Maybe 4%?)
- Remove down tilt's weird blindspot right in front of him
- Remove Up Smash's weird blindspot right in front of him
- make Rapid Jab and Ftilt not as easy to fall out of
- Decrease Forward air's landing lag so it's not completely useless compared to back air

This is how I would buff characters: Keeping them true to design but shoring up their shortcomings a bit. Dedede's easy because half his kit doesn't work.

Lastly, a word of advice to those who come to this thread: When nerfing, your goal should be to be a surgeon, not a demoliton crew.

 

[R3D3MON]

You already can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoXLMTglwwk

I wish it happened without the recoil part.



EDIT: Dedede with pre-3DS-nerf d-throw would be so much more satisfying to play.

 

[Phoenix502]

looking through this thread, I'm kinda bummed that it's either specific character adjustments or a discussion on the mentality of patches. I could care less about the characters themselves, since I figured I'd be better off just doing some extre credit lab work and figuring things out myself... yes, I am punishing myself for being old-fashioned "figure it out" instead of sending prayers to the patch gods...

I think if I were to make the patch, I'd leave the characters alone unless it's in utter extreme cases, such as launch Bayonetta being popularly dominant everywhere very suddenly in anything but top tier tournaments. I won't give a flying crap about what the internet at large whines about, either, unless there's proof in more than just the number of emails/comments, I'll leave it be. Instead, I'd be focusing on the major mechanics that I feel could use a little tweaking... nothing overtly drastic (that I think, anyways).

The primary one would be the Rage mechanic... we all know what rage is and how it affects attacks, but some of the wackiest KOs I've seen on youtube that leaves everyone totally flabbergasted... is when a fighter with high rage uses some sort of move with knockback intended to link with the remaining hits but instead suddenly gets the kill, sometimes with the red sparks included. I would probably discuss with whoever's tweaking stats to either include more hitboxes that stay at a set amount of KB, or at least make absolutely sure that it's either gone, or possible to do consistently... no more "accidents".

I'd probably make other changes to the game that would really just be for my own wish fulfillment... for instance, edit the RNG on custom items so that if you unlocked a custom special, the game would never grant duplicates, and perhaps think it funny to hide an optional Special Smash mode for players to screw around with character stats (if you know about Rivals of Aether's Dev Mode, you know where this is going), limit it to special smash only. and hell, I'll go out on a limb and perhaps undo that Special Smash glitch fix, but limit it to only battles with friends.

but, hey, that's my two cents, cause what do i know about game balance, being a main with a secondary and / .?

 

[origamiscienceguy]

If someone is looking for serious buffs to to make her tournament viable, while keeping her fun to play against (no melee puff, essentially) here is what I would suggest:

Specials:

Rollout:
-If she hits something, make the "rebound" animation last a max of 120 frames (2 seconds, long enough to punish at low percents), after which she can act again. No more SDing because you hit someone while offstage. If she lands during these rebound frames, normal landing lag applies. (74 frames)
-Make her able to turn around while on downward slopes (as supposed to rollout gliding to her death. Seriously, don't use rollout on lylat)
-increase hitbox size to the size of her body. Right now, the hitbox is smaller than rest.
-remove rollout leaping and rollout warping glitches. (The former can result in an SD)

Sing:
-Right now, this move has three hits. The first two last for 4 frames each, while the last one lasts for 12. Make them all last for 12 frames.
-Make this move immune to triggering counters.
-Reduce FAF from 180 to 160 (last hitbox ends on 134)
-Make sleeping duration a constant 120 frames. (mashing no longer affects duration) In this case, the first hit will leave the opponent with the frame advantage, but the second and third hits give jigglypuff the frame advantage.
-Increase the size of the second and third hitboxes such that each successive hit increases in size.

Pound:
-Remove the Pound brake glitch.

Rest:
-If the opponent is on their last stock, rest always results in a normal KO.
-If the opponent is not on their last stock, rest always results in a Star/Screen KO.

Aerials:

Nair:
-No changes

Bair:
-Increase Shield pushback.

Fair:
-Decrease landing lag from 15 to 12.

Uair:
-Increase KBG from 100 to 105.

Dair:
-Slightly Increase hitbox size beneath her.

Tilts:

Jab 1:
-no changes

Jab 2:
-Reduce FAF from 20 to 18.

F-tilt
-Adjust knock back and angles such that it is able to jab-lock at until 40% (not high enough for rest to kill, except on platforms)

D-tilt
-Reduce Startup from 10 to 9
-Make Jigglypuff lower to the ground during the attack.

U-Tilt
-no changes.

Smash attacks:

F-smash:
-increase BKB from 10 to 25. Lower KBG such that it kills about the same time.
-Reduce startup from 16 to 15

U-Smash:
-Increase weak hitbox size to include slightly behind her and farther in font of her.
-Increase the size of the sweetspot to about 3/4 the size of her body (right now, it is the same size as rest)

D-Smash:
-Increase the horizontal size of the hitbox.
-Increase KBG from 69 to 75

Throws:

F-throw:
-Lower the launch angle from 55 to 45.

U-Throw:
-Increase KBG such that it kills medium-weights at around 180 (as opposed to 310)

D-Throw:
-Decrease BKB such that u-air is true on medium-weights under 10%

B-Throw:
-No changes

Attributes:
-Slightly increase Shield health above the rest of the cast.
-Decrease initial dash length from 14 frames to 10.
-Reduce airdodge startup from 4 frames to 3.



And that's all. Honestly, I do not want most of these changes. I wouldn't mind the bug fixes for rollout and pound, but I like maining a weak ball of cotton candy. This is what I think a tournament-viable jigglypuff would look like, though. Please share your thoughts.

 

[Rizen]

All my opinion: I prefer a lower powered meta because I played Brawl competitively and it sucked. You eat 80% in 10 seconds trying to get past 's lagless huge grab. Play with precision RAR Bairs, B reversed blaster etc chipping away for 2 minutes only to die off one grab from , or eat a frame 6 Utilt the size of Montana from at 80%. Don't even get me started on and . Jank sucks.


Playing keep away from 's grab or being DK and fishing for grabs because they beat all your other options in ssb4 isn't a fun meta. I'd much rather bump up the ding dong %s and give DK faster fall speed, an armored uncharged giant punch for disadvantage and play footsies. Rosa's also going to have to live with slightly smaller rings for this to work.

Lower powered metas mean more skill and less cut and paste B&B. Play a mid-tier and learn a little something about reads and spacing.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

I just want to mention a few things to those who are making changelists for King Dedede.

A fully charged Hammer Flip from Kirby can KO Mario as early as 25% damage at the center of any Omega form stage. Dedede's fully charged Jet Hammer doesn't even come close to KOing Mario that early, and is practically useless as a whole when compared to a fully charged f-smash. If you want to make Jet Hammer worth using, its full charge has to be able to KO sooner than a fully charged f-smash.

As for KO power, small damage buffs aren't going to be enough to make Dedede's attacks more usable. In some cases, you'll have to give the damage dealt a big buff, while also altering the BKB and KBG values during the process. For an example, making Dedede's f-air deal 15% damage, and have 60 BKB and 76 KBG, enables it to KO Mario at 119% damage on the center of an Omega form stage; that's 1% sooner than Peach's f-air.

Similarly, making the b-air deal 19% damage, and have 60 BKB and 72 KBG, enables it to KO Mario at 97% damage on the center of an Omega form stage; that's 2% sooner than Bowser's b-air.

And before I forget, the u-smash would KO Mario at 88% damage if it deals 20% damage, has 40 BKB and 80 KBG, and sends fighters flying at an 85 degree angle. Of course, it would still KO later than Bowser's clean hit u-smash, which KOs Mario at 86% damage. Still, as a whole, it just never made sense to see Dedede's u-smash make KOs later than his u-tilt.

 

[BSP]

All my opinion: I prefer a lower powered meta because I played Brawl competitively and it sucked. You eat 80% in 10 seconds trying to get past 's lagless huge grab. Play with precision RAR Bairs, B reversed blaster etc chipping away for 2 minutes only to die off one grab from , or eat a frame 6 Utilt the size of Montana from at 80%. Don't even get me started on and . Jank sucks.


Playing keep away from 's grab or being DK and fishing for grabs because they beat all your other options in ssb4 isn't a fun meta. I'd much rather bump up the ding dong %s and give DK faster fall speed, an armored uncharged giant punch for disadvantage and play footsies. Rosa's also going to have to live with slightly smaller rings for this to work.

Lower powered metas mean more skill and less cut and paste B&B. Play a mid-tier and learn a little something about reads and spacing.

I know the feel, but the only thing that sm4sh has that approaches brawl stupidity is Bayo imo. Other than her, I think the top tiers are pretty close to where characters should be in terms of power.

NairWizard Would you nerf Cloud at all right now? I agree with some of your points and think Rizen's initial list might be a bit much, but I also don't think Cloud is fine right now. I think he's too fast for his reach and power, and then he gets even faster with limit. Plus F4 jumpsquat because....idk, I can't tell what they were aiming for with Cloud half the time. Like I said in my other post, I think his speed should be lowered a bit but I don't know how much.

 

[MercuryPenny]

i'd personally nerf cloud's speed so that when he has limit, his speed increases to vanilla cloud's non limit speed. non-limit cloud by himself is already very fast by sword standards, so making that his limit speed instead while nerfing his normal attributes to be closer to average would be ideal.

barring maybe his walk speed. that one's already pretty average.

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

I'd do something Sakurai never did; Buff Puff

 

[Rizen]

I know the feel, but the only thing that sm4sh has that approaches brawl stupidity is Bayo imo. Other than her, I think the top tiers are pretty close to where characters should be in terms of power.

NairWizard Would you nerf Cloud at all right now? I agree with some of your points and think Rizen's initial list might be a bit much, but I also don't think Cloud is fine right now. I think he's too fast for his reach and power, and then he gets even faster with limit. Plus F4 jumpsquat because....idk, I can't tell what they were aiming for with Cloud half the time. Like I said in my other post, I think his speed should be lowered a bit but I don't know how much.

Yeah, don't get me wrong, SSB4 is a very well balanced game. IMO it's fine with no patches but it's fun to work with hypotheticals. I'm trying to make it so characters utilize their entire move set. IMO top tiers, and others, have a lot of potential in options that get overshadowed.

 

[Scootch]

I'd nerf Puff big time. She's broken.

 

[R3D3MON]

Yeah, don't get me wrong, SSB4 is a very well balanced game. IMO it's fine with no patches but it's fun to work with hypotheticals. I'm trying to make it so characters utilize their entire move set. IMO top tiers, and others, have a lot of potential in options that get overshadowed.

Another contradictory statement.

 

[Pyrover]

Thought I'd give this a shot. Mostly just minor tweaks to the top and bottom tiers. If a character wasn't in either group, then I thought they were fine. Furthermore, some top tiers like Marth really don't need to be changed at all.

Spoiler: Changes

Bayo:

• Remove triple jump glitch.
• Witch Twist startup 4-->5.
• Reduce vertical hitbox on Witch Twist.
• Bullet Arts are can be reflected.
• Nair FAF 3 frames later.

Bayo is honestly not that bad. Just a few minor tweaks to make her more manageable.

Cloud:

• Remove speed buffs from Limit.
• Reduce Limit Charge Time down to about 5 seconds.
• Limit Blade Beam kbg increased slightly.
• Up Air damage 12-->11.

Cloud's speed buffs are frankly absurd, and the reason that he's so overwhelming. However, we don't want to hurt him too much, so I made Limit Charge go by much faster so he wouldn't be too hampered trying to get it. Buffing Blade Beam is also to compensate for this. Up air hits very often, and could use a slight damage reduction.

Rosalina:

• Reduce bkb on Luma's up air so that it doesn't kill people at 20% for no reason.

Pretty self explanatory. She's strong in the way a top tier should be, but has obvious counter play.

Diddy:

• Remove intangibility on his Fair so that characters can trade with it.

His neutral should otherwise be left intact. I feel like this alone makes him a lot easier to fight without changing how he fundamentally works.

Mario:

• Up Smash FAF 4 frames later.

Just making this less spammable.

Fox:

• Reduce hitbox size on up tilt so that it doesn't scoop you off ledges.
• Up Air damage reduced by 2% on second hit.

Making his vortex slightly less obnoxious, but otherwise he's pretty okay.

Sonic:

• Remove last 3 frames of intangibility on Spring Jump.

He's honestly fine, but shouldn't be able to recover for free.

Shiek:

• Remove intangibility during startup of Vanish.

This is strictly because no character should have a totally invulnerable recovery.

ZSS:

• Make the multiple hits of Boost Kick connect better so that she doesn't get dumb rage kills when people pop out of it.

Just removing a bit of jank.

Jigglypuff:

• Reduce FAF on Sing by 10 frames.
• Buff Up Throw kbg to kill Mario at around 140%.
• Up Air kbg increased slightly.
• Increase damage on all aerials by 1% to increase their safety on shield.
• Rest always star KOs.
• D-Tilt should have her remain as low as she is during her crouch.

The goal here is to make her better at dancing around shield without making her into Melee Puff again. Slightly improved on her killing options as well, and attempted to make Sing more usable.

King Dedede:

• Revert his previous nerfs.
• Add vacuum effect to F-tilt so that people don't fall out.
• Remove the blind spot from D-tilt.
• Make it so that Smash Throwing a Gordo guarantees that it sticks to ledge.
• Dramatically reduce end lag on Gordo Toss.
• Buff F-Throw to kill Mario from ledge at about 110%.
• Reduce kbg on D-Throw to combo slightly longer.
• Reduce landing lag on Fair by 4 frames.
• Controversial Change: Without touching damage, basically remove dash attack's kill power, but reduce its startup to 4 frames.

Most of this is just making Dedede's kit consistent and giving him a bit more kill power. Dash Attack was changed to act the way it does in his home series, while giving him one very fast option to work with. Gordo Toss change is to make it so that he can volley back reflected Gordos, which is more interesting than making them harder to reflect.

Zelda:

• Increase shield pushback on F-tilt.
• D-tilt damage increased by 1%.
• Make Phantom Slash shield cancelable.
• Din's Fire has freefall removed. It also explodes instantly, rather than having its current delay.
• Jab startup 11-->7 frames.

Honestly, Zelda is almost good. She just doesn't have a way to make people approach her so that she can use her anti-approach game. Buffs to projectiles give people a reason to approach her, while the other changes help her maintain spacing or improve CQC.

Wii Fit Trainer:

• Reduce cooldown on Deep Breathing to the point where she can use it again normally after 10 seconds without it.
• Soccer Ball always has a hitbox unless it's been hit back.
• F-tilt FAF 3 frames earlier.
• Scooping hitbox added to F-tilt and grab to catch shorter characters.

Also a character who doesn't need that much. Just gave her some quality of life changes to let her use her more interesting tools more often.

Pacman:

• Reduce end lag on D-tilt to be safe on shield.
• Dash Attack shield damage increased. FAF made 2 frames earlier as well.
• Revert Trampoline changes to bounce opponents varying heights.
• Fair damage increase by 1%.
• Dair landing lag halved.

So rather than fixing his grab, I made his D-tilt safe and his dash attack eat through shields so that he would have more interesting ways to play around shields. Dair was changed to assist in landing.

Charizard:

• Rock Smash super armor starts on frame 1.
• Flare Blitz is now techable.

Not sure how to change air speeds on him without making the character broken. These are just things that should have been there from the start.

Kirby:

• Run speed and Air speed slightly increased.
• Nair startup 10-->8.

He literally just needs a bit more speed and he would be viable.

Shulk:

• Reduce end lag on all tilts by a few frames.

I don't know what to do number-wise, but he needs to have safe grounded pokes.

Bowser Jr.:

• D-tilt end lag reduced to be safe on shield. Startup also reduced by 3 frames.
• Fair and Bair damage increase by 2%.
• Give him back his UpB when he gets hit.

D-tilt change is to give him one move that functions at close range. His wrecking ball attacks should actually hit hard, given that they are wrecking balls. Otherwise improving his recovery would do wonders.

 

[origamiscienceguy]

Another contradictory statement.

You are just sh*tposting for the sake of sh*tposting. If you have some personal vendetta with Rizen, please settle it in private messages.

 

[NairWizard]

NairWizard Would you nerf Cloud at all right now? I agree with some of your points and think Rizen's initial list might be a bit much, but I also don't think Cloud is fine right now. I think he's too fast for his reach and power, and then he gets even faster with limit. Plus F4 jumpsquat because....idk, I can't tell what they were aiming for with Cloud half the time. Like I said in my other post, I think his speed should be lowered a bit but I don't know how much.

Cloud is intended to be very strong onstage and then have a highly exploitable weakness in recovery. At top levels he does get edgeguarded but it's frankly not very easy and sometimes even risky for the edgeguarder because of his huge sword. What I'd probably do to maintain his design while still weakening him is remove his ability to snap to the ledge (from above or from stage level).

Also I'd definitely nerf up-air; it's too powerful for what it does. I'd reduce its damage by 1% and cut 1-2 frames out of the animation. That should make his neutral less insufferable.

These two changes should make him fall to low high/high mid tier range.

Fixing Cloud in doubles requires so many fundamental changes that I don't think it'd be too easy to do. The problem with Cloud in doubles is his combos from throw and out of throw. The recovery change would help but it wouldn't be enough.

I guess one change that'd be cool is if whiffing Limit specials did damage to Cloud (like say he takes 20% for whiffing Limit Cross Slash).

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

I can't say a whole lot about fighter nerfs, since fighter buffs should probably be the bigger priority.

 

[R3D3MON]

You are just sh*tposting for the sake of sh*tposting. If you have some personal vendetta with Rizen, please settle it in private messages.

So why are you ****posting?

His statement is contradictory because nerfs don't open more options for a character, in fact it's just the opposite. I have no idea why people like Rizen think with that mentality, because it is really irrational.

Look at the amount of options lost for S4 characters compared to previous smash titles, for instance. Need I say more?

EDIT: U AINT A MOD BOI

 

[RonNewcomb]

If you were in charge of a balance patch for SSB4 what changes would you make? The idea is to make the best competitive experience possible. Check here for the current data:
http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4

- allow mapping tilts and smashes to entirely different buttons
- tilt stick shouldn't grab. (Currently, pressing the tilt stick when shield is still up (or not fully dropped) performs a grab. If I press it too early, it should do nothing.)
- grab button shouldn't jab. (Currently, pressing jab-jab-grab performs jab3. If I press it too early, it should do nothing.)

- hadoken should have HP, like Pacman's Hydrant and Rosa's Luma. HP should equal the amount of damage of a fully stale hadoken. This means hadokens will always destroy each other, but no one can just stuff it with jab/nair outside a few swordies or Zangiefs. And we can relax the angle on that obnoxious up-tilt.

- pressing neutral-B with one of the jump, grab, block, tilt, or smash button should instantly turn on/off that Monado Art.

& - swap their side-Bs

- reduce his max airspeed and max air acceleration. This hits his recovery, landing ability, juking ability, and b-air poking ability all at once. And make all his aerials transcendent so his MUs against zoners aren't so darn lopsided in his favor.

- fix triple jump glitch and set up-B startup equal to her jab startup.

- swap down-B with custom down-B. Seriously, we won't miss yet another counter. (Omitting side-B because Reflect Wall, while niche, is more unique than the good one.)

& - swap their up-Bs

- make f-tilt safe on block

- hell, make f-tilt safe on hit

- ya know, also make side-B safe on hit

- make landing n-air and all his other moves safe on hit

- ok, we get it. We accused you of overbuffing your own characters, so you made damn sure we couldn't say that again. We're sorry. We're really sorry. It won't happen again. We promise. Can we please add these characters to the game now?

- nerf Sheik.

- powershield to reflect projectiles. Playing ping-pong until he messes up is in several of his source games, and the army of FG trolls who play Ganon won't get as much benefit from the buff as competitors would.

& - swap their f-airs. yeah i said it. Also from the "will never happen" department....

- ya know how FE games are all about leading people, particularly into battle? And how Roy is the most charismatic FE character in Smash (waifus excluded)? 1) up-taunt increases chance of in-game crowd chanting, "Roy's our boy!" 2) while crowd is chanting, decreased FAF on all A-button attacks.

 

[EthanSnackUy221]

Heavy Nerf: Bayonetta
Nerf: Mario Diddy Kong
Slight Nerf: Cloud ZSS Fox Rosalina And Luma Sonic
Slight Buff Pit Dark Pit Corrin Lucario Peach Villager Little Mac Ryu Duck Hunt Sheik Pikachu
Buff Ness Lucas Olimar Greninja Falco Shulk ROB Samus Mr Game and Watch Toon Link Roy Meta Knight Ike Jiggs King D3 Link
Heavy Buff Robin Luigi Zelda Palutena Yoshi