I'm dropping Mega Man in Ultimate. Change my mind.

[cot(θ)]

The first thing I noticed about Mega Man was not even a direct change to him, but the way the new auto-shorthop interacts with his pellets. For those who aren't aware, in Ultimate, you can perform a guaranteed short-hop by pressing attack and jump at the same time. In other words, this means that either a jump-cancelled attack or an aerial buffered during jump-squat will guarantee a short hop.

This seems to interact in a weird way with Mega Man's pellets. It feels like the window for getting the auto shorthop is much wider than for a normal attack. I'm rarely bothered by accidental short-hops as any other fighter, but I'm constantly getting accidental short-hops as Mega Man. Whenever someone uses a zone-breaking move during my lemons, I try to full-hop over or away. Now, I'm getting hit by stuff like Falcon Kick because a short-hop comes out.

Pellets are the cornerstone of Mega Man's neutral game in a lot of matchups, and the match centers around limiting their approach options with lemons so you can predict and punish them. Sometimes that response requires a full-hop, and now I can't do it. Practically every other fighter I've played feels great and their style clicks with me right away, but my Smash 4 main feels very uncomfortable to play.

Also what the heck is up with leaf shield? Of all the moves to make even more useless, they went and nerfed leaf shield? I don't even know. Tell me why anyone should play Mega Man in Ultimate.

 

[YELLO]

Im gonna have to disagree with you, megaman is a LOT better

FAIR kills now
UPAIR kills reliably now
we can now run up and uptilt punish (OP af in my opinion)
lemons travel insane distance now
leafshield is actually still useful and does more damage too, and when you get hit it automatically cancels preventing any SDs
its super safe on shield now and can actually be used to blocked projectiles reliably now
leafshield can still gimp when you get used to it
hold the special button after using it to keep it longer

I think you just need to chill and get used to the new mechanics
It hasnt happened to me yet so Im not sure so maybe its your control?

 

[Tesh]

I understand how megaman "feels" wrong, but I think you should just try to get used to it. The buffering in Ultimate is kind of weird, but pellets seem to be better if you can get better control of your jumps.

Realistically, leaf shield wasn't that hype in Smash 4. A lot of the fast characters would just keep hitting you even when leaf shield was hitting them and many of the heavies could outrange it with a grab or attack through it anyway. Leaf shield was basically useless against top tiers in smash 4, it just had some situational gimmicks. If they improved the hit rate and startup, obviously it would be OP if we got to keep all the freedom to pull off shenanigans while its active.

Crash bomber got a nifty improvement where if you stick it to the stage, it auto detonates on proximity. Uair seems more consistent, Fair is STRONG, Bair links better and seems to have combos if you fast fall it into people.

Directional airdodges are especially good with megaman's sort of recovery.

 

[ForteX]

I agree automatic shorthop attacks are really bad. I wish they'd patch in an option to disable them, as I have not only encountered the same problems, but I feel like it's taken a lot of freedom to nair at any jump height away without putting far too much thought into how I'm tapping the jump button. I also entirely agree that leaf shield is unusable and people are trying to give it way too much credit. I don't need to grab out of it, as nice as it would be, but for christ's sake why doesn't it just expire instead of forcing it to be thrown? It's not even good for offstage jank thanks to that obnoxious and entirely unneeded change.

Not to mention the ZIGMA upper seems to be harder to land, despite the improvements to utilt, dsmash is still worthless, usmash seems worse than Smash 4... They really did a lot to mess up a character that outside of a few tricks that'll only work once or twice was tragically underpowered. There've been some improvements, sure, but overall he still has no combo game, his zoning game feels nerfed, has only gained one new kill option at the cost of the only kill confirm he had and every one of his shenanigans.

I'm not gonna be the one to try to convince you to keep playing the character. For some people, the win screen isn't worth the effort when it could be used to more effect elsewhere and I totally understand it - I'm starting to dislike him, too.

 

[Tesh]

His zoning game feels improved to me with leaf shield tearing through other projectiles so easily. I'd be a bored just doing it over and over, but its pretty satisfying when there is a richter or k rool that just wants to throw stuff nonstop. Fsmash seems improved too, but maybe thats just people being more likely to be jumping around in this game.

 

[cot(θ)]

Im gonna have to disagree with you, megaman is a LOT better

FAIR kills now
UPAIR kills reliably now
we can now run up and uptilt punish (OP af in my opinion)
lemons travel insane distance now
leafshield is actually still useful and does more damage too, and when you get hit it automatically cancels preventing any SDs
its super safe on shield now and can actually be used to blocked projectiles reliably now
leafshield can still gimp when you get used to it
hold the special button after using it to keep it longer

I think you just need to chill and get used to the new mechanics
It hasnt happened to me yet so Im not sure so maybe its your control?

I'll have to try playing him with fewer pellets to take advantage of the other buffs. Maybe use a metal blade style instead of a pellet style in more matchups. I'm not convinced the buffs are that huge (although I was really surprised by fair's kill power when playing against a Mega Man online). In general gameplay is faster and people are drying earlier, so his buffs might just be in line with changes to other fighters.

His zoning game feels improved to me with leaf shield tearing through other projectiles so easily. I'd be a bored just doing it over and over, but its pretty satisfying when there is a richter or k rool that just wants to throw stuff nonstop. Fsmash seems improved too, but maybe thats just people being more likely to be jumping around in this game.

I'll try leaf shield in the Belmont matchup. It sounds like it could be pretty strong to dash in after a leaf shield. Maybe a good counterpick for that MU.

Some thoughts after messing around for a little while.

Leaf shield is ass, even against the Belmonts. Holy water will still hit the ground after it bounces up from the leaf shield, and there's a short window just as Mega Man is about to throw the leaf shield. A single lemon or crash bomber will block cross much faster.

Forget Z1gma Upper. Metal Blade throw to run-up utilt is the new hotness. It combos against grounded opponents from a variety of ranges and percents.

Most matchups are safer to play with a metal blade in hand, since being unable to full-hop out of lemons makes Mega Man very vulnerable against a fast shorthop approach, a fast zonebreaker like Falcon Kick, or a super-armoured approach like Upperdash Arm.

Mega Man isn't too bad to play if you only use pellets mindfully, to stuff specific attacks or approaches. If you really on them too much in neutral, you're bound to wind up accidentally short-hopping when you want a full-hop

 

[Tesh]

I wouldn't rely on throwing things at holy water, its an item, you can just catch it.

 

[YELLO]

treat holy water the same as you would treat robins fire pillar move, it has a huge amount of end lag and thanks to the fsmash properties you can shoot right through it. If you have good reaction speed you cant shoot an fmash right after they throw the holy water and nail them every time

 

[Wunpee]

megaman's potential is through the roof right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NTcBtA_4Vw

 

[noe3]

cot(θ) A note about the short hop pellets stuff. If you use z for the second and third pellets, it will never auto buffer a short hop. That said, with macro cancelling you will usually be doing that for some obnoxious damage with leaf shield or other things

 

[CharacterCrisisKing]

I picked him up recently, and he's damn well pretty much my main now. Haven't fired a pellet once. Dunno about this "cornerstone" business.