King Koopa's New Digs 3.0 Edition

[GeZ]

This thread was created to discuss the current state of our Spiny Koopa based King in 3.0 as well as the changes he's undergone and your opinions on them from a personal and metagame perspective. So, without further ado, let the skull cracking begin!

To start, I really dig his new Fair as it rewards proper spacing and gives us back our insane swat to kill from 2.5. It's pretty insane. Also, Dry Bowser best skin

 

[Frost | Odds]

I'm A-OK with the reduction in movement on the Klaw. Still play 90% melee, so it was always confusing as hell for me when I'd fly across half the stage when trying to grab someone more or less under me.

 

[deadjames]

Well I can't say I'm too happy with 3.0 Bowser, I'm thinking of dropping him, but I suppose I'll spend some more time with him until I can decide on a new main.

 

[9bit]

Is there a trick for the new up-B ledgehog or do you just need to be going slowly to do it? Cuz so far that's the only way I've got it working.

 

[cmart]

At close to mid range, you can bleed a bunch of momentum by reversing direction before you slip off the edge. Imagine trying to pivot off the stage or something similar.

 

[Jacob29]

Yo cmart, I'm really not getting offstage bair and by offstage I mean low down.

It was what I used to stop tether characters from coming in low but now it seems like bowser can't stop them at all.

I'm pretty much dropping bair completely from my game and solely relying on fair as it is so much better especially offstage.

 

[Chaos_Blasta]

Dear PMBR:

3.0 Bowser is terrible in several aspects.

First off, i would like to start with: why did Bowser have to get such degrading, humilliating nerfs? Wasn't the general concensus that Bowser was a low tier, or that atleast he wasn't very good in competitive, high-level play in the first place? Why does the PMBR, or whoever was in charge of Bowser's design, feel it's proper to change the mechanics and gameplay of a character that dedicated players have spent more than a year and a half using?

Worst change of them all: Fortress hogging. I've heard arguments that it was too easy, or that it was spammed too much that certain players, or that it should require some level of finesse, but nothing has convinced me of why such a basic, integral mechanic to bowser's gameplay had to be changed to be harder for Bowser mains, to the point in where one actually has increased time to get the ledge due to the slight speed drops needed near the ledge to be able to snap it. I don't think "Needs some finesse" applies in comparison ot techniques like moonwalking, l cancelling or wavedashing when the punishment for getting it wrong is completely losing a stock.

Then, a little less important but still disheartening, are Bair and Nair's nerfs. Bair lost a lot of utility both onstage and offstage due to the much larger IASA frames, to the point in where it's not really viable to use it onstage anymore since you need to always l-cancel it, and offstage because the timing to get out a bair and still get back onstage is ridiculously strict, not to mention that it hardly covers the things it did before this way. Nair having reduced knockback is quite annoying, as it makes most early-percent combos much harder to execute due to the reduced hitstun the opponent suffers.

For ending notes, I also heard that Up B didn't lose its invencibility frames, but the reduced hitboxes on grounded Whirling Fortress really seems to affects the kind of attacks that bowser can get through on its very startup. Particularly, and to give an example, something i do often is Up B into Spacies' own Up Bs while they recover, then ledgegrab jump bair, which was always safe due to up b's previous mechanics. Now, it seems it always trades the hit, which is quite frustrating. And although Fair got a change that was positive for Bowser, it seems pretty redundant given how Bowser's Fair was already a very solid move, so a power increase/decrease balance seemed hardly neccesary.

In conclusion, I think that virtually every Bowser change does nothing to genuinely balance Bowser, and instead, It is of my belief that these particular changes help in no way but to slap dedicated bowser players in the face. If one wishes to reduce this post to a nutshell and just call it "salt", then so be it. I'm not gonna drop Bowser anytime soon, but i sure would like to see some of those changes reverted. A single voice doesn't count for much, i suppose, but i want to express these opinions.

Best regards:

-Jorge

P.S: #BuffBowser

 

[Frost | Odds]

Chaos_Blasta: I'd thought (from hearsay, I'll grant) that Bowser had the best tournament winrate of all characters in 2.6b: a couple nerfs were pretty appropriate.

Fortresshogging is easy with a little practice. The bair and fortress feel a little weird; but we'll see how much that actually affects gameplay.

 

[Chaos_Blasta]

Fortress hogging is farily easy even now, indeed. But one is forced to slow down and overall be very careful when doing it. Which would be absolutely no problem, if the punishment for whiffing it was an entire stock.

And if that's the case, i would like to take a look at overall tournament results during 2.6b. As far as i'm aware, Kirk is the only player that was scoring wins with Bowser.

 

[Mr.Random]

Dear PMBR:

3.0 Bowser is terrible in several aspects.

First off, i would like to start with: why did Bowser have to get such degrading, humilliating nerfs? Wasn't the general concensus that Bowser was a low tier, or that atleast he wasn't very good in competitive, high-level play in the first place? Why does the PMBR, or whoever was in charge of Bowser's design, feel it's proper to change the mechanics and gameplay of a character that dedicated players have spent more than a year and a half using?

Worst change of them all: Fortress hogging. I've heard arguments that it was too easy, or that it was spammed too much that certain players, or that it should require some level of finesse, but nothing has convinced me of why such a basic, integral mechanic to bowser's gameplay had to be changed to be harder for Bowser mains, to the point in where one actually has increased time to get the ledge due to the slight speed drops needed near the ledge to be able to snap it. I don't think "Needs some finesse" applies in comparison ot techniques like moonwalking, l cancelling or wavedashing when the punishment for getting it wrong is completely losing a stock.

Then, a little less important but still disheartening, are Bair and Nair's nerfs. Bair lost a lot of utility both onstage and offstage due to the much larger IASA frames, to the point in where it's not really viable to use it onstage anymore since you need to always l-cancel it, and offstage because the timing to get out a bair and still get back onstage is ridiculously strict, not to mention that it hardly covers the things it did before this way. Nair having reduced knockback is quite annoying, as it makes most early-percent combos much harder to execute due to the reduced hitstun the opponent suffers.

For ending notes, I also heard that Up B didn't lose its invencibility frames, but the reduced hitboxes on grounded Whirling Fortress really seems to affects the kind of attacks that bowser can get through on its very startup. Particularly, and to give an example, something i do often is Up B into Spacies' own Up Bs while they recover, then ledgegrab jump bair, which was always safe due to up b's previous mechanics. Now, it seems it always trades the hit, which is quite frustrating. And although Fair got a change that was positive for Bowser, it seems pretty redundant given how Bowser's Fair was already a very solid move, so a power increase/decrease balance seemed hardly neccesary.

In conclusion, I think that virtually every Bowser change does nothing to genuinely balance Bowser, and instead, It is of my belief that these particular changes help in no way but to slap dedicated bowser players in the face. If one wishes to reduce this post to a nutshell and just call it "salt", then so be it. I'm not gonna drop Bowser anytime soon, but i sure would like to see some of those changes reverted. A single voice doesn't count for much, i suppose, but i want to express these opinions.

Best regards:

-Jorge

P.S: #BuffBowser

Not salt. I agree with every sentence. Bowser is my tertiary character and he feels clunky now. #BuffBowser

 

[GeZ]

I can agree with this. After the initial hype of Dry Bowser and the new Fair Tipper, Bowser didn't get much of anything and lost a lot, though I don't think fortress hogging is really an issue as it was pretty much reverted to its melee difficulty.

 

[9Kplus1]

Not salt. I agree with every sentence. Bowser is my tertiary character and he feels clunky now. #BuffBowser

Perhaps that's because 3.0 has only been out for a two days? "OMG my character feels different; therefore, they need buffs!" Welcome to the world of Sonic mains~

Many of the things that were changed were the result of bad design before. I don't see much of a problem in removing toxic aspects of a character; doing so should positively contribute to said character's development--you know, addressing Bowser's REAL problems.

and FH timing in 3.0 is definitely a lot more lenient than Melee's

 

[GeZ]

Perhaps that's because 3.0 has only been out for a two days? Many of the things that were changed were the result of bad design before. I don't see much of a problem in removing toxic aspects of a character; doing so should positively contribute to said character's development--you know, addressing Bowser's REAL problems.

and FH difficulty in 3.0 is definitely a lot more lenient than Melee's timing

We have the changelog so the time he's been out matters drastically less. Bowser didn't have any toxic aspects of his game, as he was a low tier hero. Played well he could win but none of his tools screamed "Victory!" And I think you're making a faulty leap of logic in saying that nerfing Bowsers more powerful tools lets the devs focus on his real problems, in that his tools are what he applies to those problems. And in regards to FH I was more saying generally, I know it's much easier than melee.

 

[Chaos_Blasta]

As far as Bowser's toxic aspects go, i'd say Up B is one of the biggest. Even if it completely holds Bowser together being able to counter virtually every attack on shield is way too much. I wouldn't completely agree on changes involving this but perhaps they would be needed.

Not sure about Bowser's ledge mechanics being toxic, however. Specially given he has no true safe options to use to get back onstage. And surely you have to understand that making a technique harder is kinda pissy when it's been the same way for a long time. And specially after Bowser players have been using that timing for so long. If Bowser is to be rebalanced to not be so toxic, then so be it, there are many mechanics that could be changed about the character to not make him rely so horribly on playing defensive and instead be more aggresive, while phasing out some of his negative aspects.

 

[JOE!]

They nerfed him because he could beat falco, and they could have NONE of that bull****

 

[Overswarm]

You guys are crazy, Bowser's nair was buffed. You can combo and tech chase out of it. It's awesome.

 

[Abeebo]

In all honestly, I don't have much of a problem with all his changes BUT bair. Fair is still full of power, Nair feels the same which I LOVE (it really is my favorite move of his, though I wish it gave 14% for better combo breaking), and while Whirling Fortress is more...'involved' for a lack of a better term, it still has it's basic utilities.

But bair...Bair has got to be the big stink in the ointment. Bowser always had limited combo options, but with those awesome IASA frames, his air game in 2.6b was SO good. I've mentioned before that both his side aerials having good IASA allowed him to stay a threat in the air for all his jumps AND STILL have recovery time to land with many options, which included flame cancel which is even better for more flame cancel use. It gave him decent mixups too. Now it's relegated to not much more than a killing/gimping move. I don't know about you guys, but this particular change feels a little empty to me. Now I have to use upb and nair even more onstage, and nair doesn't last THAT long.

Sorry PMBR. I don't mean to have such a gripe on one change. I just THOROUGHLY enjoyed your previous works with Bowser.

 

[Nazo]

Lookin' like the Sonic boards up in here.

 

[Abeebo]

^
I got a nice hot chilli dog in my front pocket for ya.

 

[deadjames]

Lookin' like the Sonic boards up in here.

No, unlike 2.6 Sonic, 3.0 Bowser is probably still viable, we're just salty because unlike Sonic, Bowser's nerfs were completely unwarranted.

 

[Nazo]

2.6 Sonic was very much playable, only in the hands of the most handsome players however.

 

[Ace55]

They nerfed him because he could beat falco, and they could have NONE of that bull****

Every single post of yours is about Fox/Falco... With 50% of them being a GIF of Falco's Dair. We get it, you dislike spacies. But who is gonna take you seriously as a poster if you're basically an anti-spacie spambot?

Excuse me, had to get that off my chest.

@ Cmart or any other PMBR'er:

The other nerfs, fine, I might not agree with them (I don't but as a Boozer main I'm not exactly objective), but I'll deal with them. You felt like it was necessary and I'm sure you had your reasons for them. But can someone please explain why I've been spending almost the majority of my time playing 3.0 perfecting a technique that just accomplishes the same thing I could already do? What does making something more difficult while easily keeping it in the realm of 100% consistency accomplish?

 

[deadjames]

Every single post of yours is about Fox/Falco... With 50% of them being a GIF of Falco's Dair. We get it, you dislike spacies. But who is gonna take you seriously as a poster if you're basically an anti-spacie spambot?

Excuse me, had to get that off my chest.

@ Cmart or any other PMBR'er:

The other nerfs, fine, I might not agree with them, but I'll deal with them. You felt like it was necessary and I'm sure you had your reasons for them. But can someone please explain why I've been spending almost the majority of my time playing 3.0 perfecting a technique that just accomplishes the same thing I already could? What does making something more difficult while easily keeping it in the realm of 100% consistency accomplish?

It creates artificial barriers to make the character less accessible, I could live with the nerfs, but artificial barriers are something I strongly disagree with as a design choice.

 

[Abeebo]

I was kinda hoping 3.0 would bring him a new side-b option (Tombstone!) or put side taunt attack to some edgeguard use.
Anyone figure out new uses for flame breath yet?

 

[Chaos_Blasta]

Every single post of yours is about Fox/Falco... With 50% of them being a GIF of Falco's Dair. We get it, you dislike spacies. But who is gonna take you seriously as a poster if you're basically an anti-spacie spambot?

Excuse me, had to get that off my chest.

@ Cmart or any other PMBR'er:

The other nerfs, fine, I might not agree with them (I don't but as a Boozer main I'm not exactly objective), but I'll deal with them. You felt like it was necessary and I'm sure you had your reasons for them. But can someone please explain why I've been spending almost the majority of my time playing 3.0 perfecting a technique that just accomplishes the same thing I already could? What does making something more difficult while easily keeping it in the realm of 100% consistency accomplish?

Exactly.

 

[JOE!]

Every single post of yours is about Fox/Falco... With 50% of them being a GIF of Falco's Dair. We get it, you dislike spacies. But who is gonna take you seriously as a poster if you're basically an anti-spacie spambot?

Excuse me, had to get that off my chest.

True, I have copious amounts of salt towards Falco mainly because he seems to be able to get away with really weird design choices due to just age and the chance that the Falco can screw up. Which is why I post that Gif whenever somebody mentions how a particular move is too good or goofy, that gif sums up that there are goofier moves than what they are mentioning that stem from melee. Plus, it is often just kinda funny.


If you wanna discuss it more, send me a pm.

@ Cmart or any other PMBR'er:

The other nerfs, fine, I might not agree with them (I don't but as a Boozer main I'm not exactly objective), but I'll deal with them. You felt like it was necessary and I'm sure you had your reasons for them. But can someone please explain why I've been spending almost the majority of my time playing 3.0 perfecting a technique that just accomplishes the same thing I could already do? What does making something more difficult while easily keeping it in the realm of 100% consistency accomplish?

This doesn't make much sense either, unless somethin changed with the new hitboxes that made the 2.6 snap too good?

 

[cmart]

I see everyone is appreciating and enjoying the Bowser changes.

I'm going to be honest. Fortress hogging in Project M has been a piss-easy, fraudulent "AT" for forever, and was never a good design choice. When I actually got around to looking at how it was coded and worked, I was appalled to discover that I was trying too hard to do something that required literally no effort. I don't know how many of you guys came from Melee Bowser, but PM's fortress hogging was a joke - and I don't regret reverting it to something more reasonable for a moment. The current Fortress mechanics are still really easy, and allow fortress hogging in almost every situation. So why was it made harder? Because it never should have been that easy in the first place. There was a strong sentiment in the backroom to fix it for 2.6, and it was only put off because we didn't think we'd have enough time to assess the effects it might have on his neutral game.

That's the short and easy answer - looking at just that change without accounting for anything else. There are of course, more factors at play. While Bowser mains might like to believe they are playing a low-tier hero who wins against better odds, the reality is that Bowser is mostly disdained as an easy-to-play character that you don't have to practice to excel with. This is ignoring the mental effort that goes into Bowser's macro game, but when it comes to executing with Bowser, it's difficult to put up a defense. I've had more people rage and salt over losing to me - blaming my character, than I have when I played Jigglypuff in Melee. I've had people rant and rave in my face about what a terribly designed character Bowser is - with and without knowing I've worked on him.

From a design standpoint, we've known for awhile that Bowser is a lumbering hulk that compensates for a poor neutral game with overwhelming punishes. This is part of where the salt comes from - no one likes putting in a lot of work to outplay the other guy, and then losing a stock cuz they ****ed up once. To address this, there was a point where we were experimenting with a huge overhaul to Bowser's design, but we held off because we didn't want to alienate the Bowser playerbase like we did with 2.1 Ike and 2.6 Sonic. So we opted for smaller changes, designed to target rewarding precise and proper execution over sloppy play. 3.0 Bowser can do almost all the same things previous Bowser can, and he's still rewarded greatly for it. He even got a slight neutral buff in an improved flamebreath and even longer dash grab range. But he won't be able to get away with as much sloppy fair spacing, or live from haphazard bairs offstage or autopiloting a fortress at a ledge. And these are all positive changes that make the game better, even if you guys don't agree and hate us for implementing them.

As a closing point, remember that everything is still subject to change. If in the coming months you guys can show that these changes make Bowser #unviable, it's always more effective to go back and rebalance with targeted buffs now that some of the design fat has been skimmed off.

 

[Frost | Odds]

Agreed with every word. Thanks, cmart.

 

[GeZ]

I see everyone is appreciating and enjoying the Bowser changes.

I'm going to be honest. Fortress hogging in Project M has been a piss-easy, fraudulent "AT" for forever, and was never a good design choice. When I actually got around to looking at how it was coded and worked, I was appalled to discover that I was trying too hard to do something that required literally no effort. I don't know how many of you guys came from Melee Bowser, but PM's fortress hogging was a joke - and I don't regret reverting it to something more reasonable for a moment. The current Fortress mechanics are still really easy, and allow fortress hogging in almost every situation. So why was it made harder? Because it never should have been that easy in the first place. There was a strong sentiment in the backroom to fix it for 2.6, and it was only put off because we didn't think we'd have enough time to assess the effects it might have on his neutral game.

That's the short and easy answer - looking at just that change without accounting for anything else. There are of course, more factors at play. While Bowser mains might like to believe they are playing a low-tier hero who wins against better odds, the reality is that Bowser is mostly disdained as an easy-to-play character that you don't have to practice to excel with. This is ignoring the mental effort that goes into Bowser's macro game, but when it comes to executing with Bowser, it's difficult to put up a defense. I've had more people rage and salt over losing to me - blaming my character, than I have when I played Jigglypuff in Melee. I've had people rant and rave in my face about what a terribly designed character Bowser is - with and without knowing I've worked on him.

From a design standpoint, we've known for awhile that Bowser is a lumbering hulk that compensates for a poor neutral game with overwhelming punishes. This is part of where the salt comes from - no one likes putting in a lot of work to outplay the other guy, and then losing a stock cuz they ****ed up once. To address this, there was a point where we were experimenting with a huge overhaul to Bowser's design, but we held off because we didn't want to alienate the Bowser playerbase like we did with 2.1 Ike and 2.6 Sonic. So we opted for smaller changes, designed to target rewarding precise and proper execution over sloppy play. 3.0 Bowser can do almost all the same things previous Bowser can, and he's still rewarded greatly for it. He even got a slight neutral buff in an improved flamebreath and even longer dash grab range. But he won't be able to get away with as much sloppy fair spacing, or live from haphazard bairs offstage or autopiloting a fortress at a ledge. And these are all positive changes that make the game better, even if you guys don't agree and hate us for implementing them.

As a closing point, remember that everything is still subject to change. If in the coming months you guys can show that these changes make Bowser #unviable, it's always more effective to go back and rebalance with targeted buffs now that some of the design fat has been skimmed off.

This is totally fair. Bowser has had a lot of aspects that encouraged auto pilot play and taking those to make players think more is good. The only thing I have to say is that Bowser shouldn't get as much flack as he does. All but one of my friends hates him with a passion and I think it's actually a good show of a lot of players unwillingness to take the blame for their own mistakes, as Bowser is basically your opponents mistakes incarnate. The flak he gets is really just because as a character he plays largely off of what your opponent does wrong, and people don't like playing a game where that's thrown at them. A good parallel is Bison in street fighter, as a lot of his game plan is to kick you in the face for spacing jumps/ dashes/ moves in general, poorly, and I've raged at a good friend of mine who mains Bison because of it. But I (and other players who aim this hate at the character) needed to temper this because it was a good way to gauge what I was doing wrong and improve. Plus when it comes down to it, characters that want to punish mistakes look for those mistakes and can get fooled themselves for pushing too hard, Bowser is no exception.

 

[Jacob29]

I get that some of the changes are to make bowser less auto pilot but that still doesnt explain the fortress change.

If you are a solid player you will eventually get it down to work 100% of the time.. So what does this change accomplish? All it does is make the game artificially harder for no real reason.

If you were to make some other change some other nerf to bowsers fortress ledge game then it would all make sense. I wouldn't agree with that either but it would at least make sense.. But to just add something like this seems really off


Also can you show me how to bair off stage and live.. Do you have to bair on your first jump frame or something? Because I SD nearly every single time.

 

[Frost | Odds]

I get that some of the changes are to make bowser less auto pilot but that still doesnt explain the fortress change.

If you are a solid player you will eventually get it down to work 100% of the time.. So what does this change accomplish? All it does is make the game artificially harder for no real reason.

To restate what cmart said, it's for the reason that Bowser is (even after the change) one of the easiest and most rewarding characters to master in the technical sense.

Also can you show me how to bair off stage and live.. Do you have to bair on your first jump frame or something? Because I SD nearly every single time.

Same way as in melee.

 

[Jacob29]

So the change is purely for the casual base? That is a little disappointing. While understandable I was hoping the game would maintain its nicheness so that it could be a game balanced around solid high level play.

I didn't play Melee so telling me that is pointless.

 

[cmart]

It's essentially the difference between manual and auto l-canceling. If you wish to have a certain effect happen, you must actively input the cause. Giving the player a task and rewarding them for accomplishing it are not strange concepts. It feels good to fortress hog and know that you grabbed the ledge because of something you did, rather than the game doing it for you. The old fortress rewarded you for doing nothing but steer Bowser off a ledge. The new one punishes you for not paying attention to your positioning and momentum. You can argue that all players will learn to fortress hog 100%, and nothing will change. You can also argue that all players will learn to l-cancel and it should be automatic. I don't agree with either stance - I think there's some intrinsic value in there being execution barriers for a game - otherwise what's the point in practice? What's the reward for dedication? And if you do screw up, that's a sign that maybe you're not putting in enough effort, and an encouragement to get better.

Really the only problem with this change is that it wasn't like this to begin with, and for that (along with other mistakes we've made along the way), I can only sincerely apologize.

 

[Frost | Odds]

I didn't play Melee so telling me that is pointless.

Ah. That explains a lot.

 

[Jacob29]

The only real thing I can say to that is the different risk-reward comparison.

If you miss an LCancel you MAY get combod and MAY lose a stock.

If you miss a fortress hog then that stock is completely lost.

What I'm trying to get at is also a feel good comparison, how bad do you feel if you miss one or a few l cancels? Then compare to how bad you feel if you miss a hog, its pretty bad.

Ah. That explains a lot.

Or at least I didn't play Bowser in Melee I dabble in melee a bit but bowser wasn't an interest of mine.

 

[Frost | Odds]

If you miss an LCancel you MAY get combod and MAY lose a stock.

Have you, uh, played Bowser? You may not lose a stock, but if your opponent is awake you're *definitely* going to get comboed.

If you miss a fortress hog then that stock is completely lost.

Don't miss.

What I'm trying to get at is also a feel good comparison, how bad do you feel if you miss one or a few l cancels?

Dead.

Then compare to how bad you feel if you miss a hog

I don't miss.

I'm sorry; I actually don't intend to come across as hostile, but there's not much more to say. The rewards for fortresshogging are *HUGE*: it often results in straight up kills from the ledgehog, or via the ledge attack (like against spacies). The reward is easily worth the risk, twenty times over. Fortresshogging is still incredibly easy in PM. In the time that you've spent ******** about it, you probably could've gotten your consistency up to 95%.

 

[deadjames]

I still don't feel like the reason given for the fortress change is valid, if the PMBR really feels that way, then why can Ganon, Falcon, and Ike still mindlessly ledgehog with their side b's? For that matter it's not like ledge-hogging is difficult to do with any other character you just have to WD offstage and grab ledge, I always felt like Bowser's fortress hog was to make up for the fact that the unique timing for his WD made traditional ledgehogging very hard to do.

 

[hotdogturtle]

It would be helpful if instead of saying "do this thing the same way it was done in Melee", people actually explained how to do it, because I would say that the majority of people did not use Bowser in Melee.

 

[Frost | Odds]

It would be helpful if instead of saying "do this thing the same way it was done in Melee", people actually explained how to do it, because I would say that the majority of people did not use Bowser in Melee.

What am I supposed to say? Jump off the ledge, bair, and jump back. It's not like there's some secret tech skill that lets Bowser teleport through the air. I cannot fathom what the problem is.

As for fortresshogging, this is it. I think it's still probably more forgiving in PM than in Melee, but couldn't really tell you. The only ones I've missed in the last month in either game were just after the 3.0 release when I'd gotten lazy and expected the auto-snap.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGgg8YomIDI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JndHdWYgeo

 

[Jacob29]

I still don't feel like the reason given for the fortress change is valid, if the PMBR really feels that way, then why can Ganon, Falcon, and Ike still mindlessly ledgehog with their side b's? For that matter it's not like ledge-hogging is difficult to do with any other character you just have to WD offstage and grab ledge, I always felt like Bowser's fortress hog was to make up for the fact that the unique timing for his WD made traditional ledgehogging very hard to do.

This is a very good point.