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I've become a believer in the King of Swing.

Xandercosm

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But this is what I've been saying. HWs have always been stupidly balanced. And, you'd think that after them being garbage in all the Smash games they've appeared in, Sakurai and his team would have noticed a pattern and balanced them. But nope. HWs are still the same useless characters that they have always been.

It's such a shame because it's really just a missed opportunity. HWs have the potential to be really unique, viable characters, but instead they keep getting inadequate treatment. They just end up being characters that are godly in casual play due to lack of knowledge of basic dodging and shielding and generally awful in competitive play due to being slow and having little reward to make up for their weaknesses.

At, the end of the day, they don't work for casual OR competitive play. They're at this awkward middle ground where they're too strong in casual play because if you don't know how to dodge, shield, and combo they steamroll you but they're too weak in competitive play because anyone with basic knowledge of how to play Smash competitively will know how to counteract they're strengths. So, they're not good for casual or competitive players. Basically, what I'm saying is, there isn't any reason why Sakurai shouldn't try to balance them more. They need to make them more palatable for all types of players and, move them away from both extremes.

Anyway, that's why I think HWs are really disappointing and I don't know why they weren't fixed AGES ago. It's very annoying.
 

Duck SMASH!

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Bowser's dashgrab range is so long that it'll outspace many hitboxes. That's why he's so good at getting grabs, and why his grab reward has to be kept in check.
His grab already takes 10 frames to come out, which is slower than the faster grabs from the lighter characters, and it has twice the endlag anyway. That IS the balancing factor - if you miss, you DEFINITELY will be punished.
Also, MK's grab is faster at frame 9, has faster endlag, and his range is larger proportional to his body, and he has HUGE rewards off of grab, from throwing you offstage to exploit his excellent edgeguarding game, to carrying you to the blast zone with Uairs and then killing with Up B.
I agree that the risk/reward for grabs should be proportional to how good they are, but as long as MK's dash grab is superior to Bowser's, and he can get kill confirms off of grab, I fail to see why Bowser can't have anything similar.
 
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Xandercosm

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His grab already takes 10 frames to come out, which is slower than the faster grabs from the lighter characters, and it has twice the endlag anyway. That IS the balancing factor - if you miss, you DEFINITELY will be punished.
Also, MK's grab is faster at frame 9, has faster endlag, and his range is larger proportional to his body, and he has HUGE rewards off of grab, from throwing you offstage to exploit his excellent edgeguarding game, to carrying you to the blast zone with Uairs and then killing with Up B.
I agree that the risk/reward for grabs should be proportional to how good they are, but as long as MK's dash grab is superior to Bowser's, and he can get kill confirms off of grab, I fail to see why Bowser can't have anything similar.
I completely agree. As a person who's secondary is MK, I can definitely say that the plethora of things he can do once he's grabbed his opponent is amazing for the range and low lag that his grab has. So, take a character like that, who can get easy grabs with long range and little lag and compare that to Bowser whose grab may have good range but lots of lag and very little reward. I think you have to put it in perspective.
 

Duck SMASH!

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I apologize for contributing to putting this discussion way off topic.
Bowser is not the focal point of this thread. DK is.
but anyways, yes. Coming fresh off of maining Bowser, DK plays better, with faster options and better rewards for every read. Safer pokes, better walk speed, less landing lag, and excellent power in every attack means that every hit from this guy HURTS.
Crazy stuff like ding dong, cargo stage spiking, the Mew2Kong combo (cargo uthrow into an aerial then up B), giant punch killing before 60% on everyone, and FOUR spikes give me plenty of reasons to love playing as this character, and every match can be turned around in seconds if the DK knows what they're doing. 8D
 

Xandercosm

Smash Lord
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I apologize for contributing to putting this discussion way off topic.
Bowser is not the focal point of this thread. DK is.
but anyways, yes. Coming fresh off of maining Bowser, DK plays better, with faster options and better rewards for every read. Safer pokes, better walk speed, less landing lag, and excellent power in every attack means that every hit from this guy HURTS.
Crazy stuff like ding dong, cargo stage spiking, the Mew2Kong combo (cargo uthrow into an aerial then up B), giant punch killing before 60% on everyone, and FOUR spikes give me plenty of reasons to love playing as this character, and every match can be turned around in seconds if the DK knows what they're doing. 8D
The whole point of a thread is to evolve as the discussion evolves. Don't worry.

I agree, though, DK is much better than Bowser. I think he should be the example for the way Bowser should be.
 

S_B

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I feel like we should start another thread somewhere on how to fix HWs, but I don't know where we'd put it, really.

They could fix HWs by any of the following means:
-Making HWs take less hitstun based on their weight.

-Make all characters take less hitstun for each move that counts as a combo into the next move: so by the fourth Fair in her Fair carry, the player would essentially have SA where they could Fair Sheik right back, thus breaking the string.

-Make each additional combo hit give more and more DI control to the victim until they could even DI into their opponent and push behind them in the middle of a combo string.

Basically, don't let combos invalidate the primary advantage of being a HW and I think HWs will be a LOT better off...
 

Xandercosm

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I feel like we should start another thread somewhere on how to fix HWs, but I don't know where we'd put it, really.

They could fix HWs by any of the following means:
-Making HWs take less hitstun based on their weight.

-Make all characters take less hitstun for each move that counts as a combo into the next move: so by the fourth Fair in her Fair carry, the player would essentially have SA where they could Fair Sheik right back, thus breaking the string.

-Make each additional combo hit give more and more DI control to the victim until they could even DI into their opponent and push behind them in the middle of a combo string.

Basically, don't let combos invalidate the primary advantage of being a HW and I think HWs will be a LOT better off...
Yes, we should make a new thread for this. General Discussion is probably the place.

I like your first idea. The others would mess up the meta-game too much. But, the first one was cool. Why should a gigantic beast like Bowser take the same hitstun as a little kid like Ness?
 

Aninymouse

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I think it's cool that Bowsser got his own ding-dong. Reading through this thread, one must wonder if perhaps the developement team doesn't listen to us at times, after all...
 
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