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Copying the foe's moveset, especially while retaining your own, is always a tricky balancing act. At a purely theoritical level, it renders all MUs with the character a 50/50 or better, which isn't very balanced. But realistically speaking nobody will ever be able to master enough movesets for that to be true. It's accomplished...okay here, and Shang Tsung does make some use of it, but I don't really like the rest of the moveset. Hot Escape needs number editing, as one second means the foe is given so much advanced warning they're liable to grab you or just dodge. Body Switch has a lot of the same issues most of them do: It utterly screws over some characters even if you give them a midair jump and recovery because of how far away you can place them.
Damage is somewhat low on this set, as even stringing together three attacks from the tilts only deals 15% if they're all fresh, so you'll need to be quite a combo master to deal with foes, while the tilts themselves don't sound like they combo too well...the aerials do sound like they have some legit possible combos of at least some interest, though. The fireballs are somehow somewhat odd feeling, or at least Down Aerial is.
Grab game is weirdly messed up. F-Throw healing messes up the B-Throw/D-Throw dichotomy, it randomly has no pummel(why?) and Soul Steal feels like it should be a Special Command Grab or a Pummel rather than a throw.
Overall, a dissapointing moveset...though there is worse.
Heavy breathing is now my favorite instrument
This moveset is just funny. The music video itself is amusing, but the writing describing these actual attacks is fun and the mixture of straight-laced damage percentages/knockback and the moves zaniness creates a dissonance that makes it an enjoyable moveset. Sure, it doesn't have much in the way of playstyle, though it does have some surprising interactions(Like how the knife's trajectory and staying out time changes while big because it goes as far as your height). And besides, who said George Washington needed playstyle? George Washington does not PLAY with his enemies, he ****ING KILLS THEM.
The cocaine move seems a bit odd the way it's put out, though. The rainbow's effect makes up for it. Also, that losing animation is amazing.
WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON...
HE'S COMING
HE'S COMING
HE'S COMING...
The Maid of Orleans
Tabitha actually has a pretty interesting base that is fairly unique from other ice sets, as she has the ability not to just terraform with her ice or shoot it as projectiles, but turn the projectiles into terraforming or the terraforming into projectiles, letting her seamlessly intermix the two.
...Hehe, Cold Enchanting.
This moveset has a cool base concept, but there are some things that bother me. For example, the forward aerial greatly bothers me, as it feels very much like a special and it feels very overly flashy without contributing all that much to Tabitha's flow or playstyle. The dash attack has playstyle and flow relevance, but it somehow felt very odd as a dash attack when combined with the rest of the moveset, it left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth but I don't know exactly why since it cannot have just been that. Up aerial similiarly feels somewhat odd, creating a platform that can exist independantly of the ice wall(but would feel awkward needing to be used next to the wall) and with limited relevance to the rest of the set...it feels like just general terraforming without a purpose, I suppose. Down aerial is also quite odd...
Still, what Is there is pretty fun. Again, turning the terraforming to projectiles and back seems fun, while DSpec gives some chill setups and some tricks like Forward Smash make for some fun with doing something with all the stuff you make. So it does have some nice points...but a good amount, to me, of counterweights that bring it down as well.
GLaDOS
I sincerely wanted to like this set Geto, given the fact that I really like the character and the base concept is fairly agreeable. The character has a unique condition to be killed, specifically throwing 3 cores into the reactors, and she preoccupies everyone by creating test chambers. It's a very in character way of prolonging foes' progress, and I feel the Vol Opt-esque lockdown box set-ups actually feel much more appropriate in the context of a boss. The set is not as open ended as you probably intended given, I feel, the lack of actual attacks somewhat limits the ways to actually abuse her set-ups. Still, the ability to screw around with the various gels, stage redesign, and projectile manipulation/portals feels like it'd be at least interesting, even if it is ultimately just a jumble of MYM cliches.
What makes the set less appealing though, beyond the somewhat lacking creativity and the lack of combat moves, the later very justified by the character choice at least, is the fact that the set is a stamina box. The foes have stamina, you basically have stamina, and knockback is no longer an issue relevant to either player. Knockback is probably the best part of the Smash Bros engine, and the thing that distinguishes it so much from other fighters. I can understand a boss that doesn't take knockback, but Ameno had shadow clones which the foes were knocking around and at least dealt knockback to foes. Even Ashens can claim that much. But no, this set totally removes knockback from the picture, and for that reason I cannot approve of it. Aside that, I disliked the addition of the Self Destruct and to be perfectly honest? I think a boss should be allowed to use more than 2 systems of portals. Maybe like 4 or so? I guess maybe you ran out of colors, but portal sets become much more fun when you can create bigger systems of them.
Michael Reynolds
I have to disagree with Froy to start off, as this is actually my favorite set in the entire contest. A self admitted trap character is something that's rather rare in MYM, but I actually like Reynold's approach of putting them all on one input. It allows the rest of the set to be actual attacks, dear god, and not leave the trap character some pathetic gimp who must set up or die, losing if the foe can out-pressure them. The traps wouldn't be fantastic on their own, of course, but the fact that they work on a consistent system allowed you to create this unique "trigger" system for them, which you proceed to use to blow the doors wide open for crazy stuff in the DSpecial, allowing you to create a truly ridiculously customizable set up, but at the same time one that never feels like it'd be ideal one way or another. It's not as if the traps have to stay in their fairly basic original state(though they're sort of fun even then), you can give them upgrades via Jab and turn all of them into much more creative and useful variants of themselves. That's not to overlook the fact that the Jab actually is fun and viable as a defensive move even when not used to upgrade stuff.
The potential for mind blowing stuff isn't over there, even after the already amazing base, when you give inputs like the Smashes to further go insane with your set ups. That's not to say the tilts aren't fantastic either, the basic Side Special monoliths suddenly turning into something entirely unique to utilize Reynold's traps. And yes, all of these moves are functional as actual attacks shockingly enough, though ones you have to use with your set up in mind(not to say they can't be used without it, either, he wouldn't survive playing a straight up Brawl character but he can for as long as he'll really need too). A point I could see turning people off is the aerials and grab game, given they aren't really jaw dropping like the other inputs. But they are every bit as relevant to Reynold's game, giving him the stuff he needs to be proactive and actually utilize all his hard work, as well as utilizing all those minions you've put around the stage working on stuff in interesting ways, such as allowing multiple of them to be set off at once or creating a rain of them down upon the stage or boosting their speed and making them into time bombs.
I won't say the set's above criticism, I recognize the kind of playstyle here may not be everyone's cup of tea. The Down Special downright gets into the realm of the abstract, a very bold move but one that pushes the set's already steep learning curve into being ridiculous. Then again, this is the sort of mastermind/creator character who would demand such a complex, intricate playstyle. The characterization here is wonderful. There are a few more minor nitpicks I have, I still dislike the one grab on an aerial, and admittedly while the effects are interesting the throws and aerials do run into the problem of occasionally feeling... unnatural. Inflating the foe and making a circus pen come to mind. I can't really nitpick the set too deeply though, as when it gets past a few minor technical glitches the execution is masterful.
Cuty Mary
Yay I get to stop being obnoxiously positive now. My main problem with Cuty Mary comes from a pretty built in prejudice I have against it... it's only a bloody set for an entirely different fighting game. I know 3v1 and CtF don't exist in Brawl, but they have the courtesy to use the same engine, and I find PSABR's engine shallow and bland, with very few upsides if any upsides over Brawl's. The actual set is ultimately a... fairly bland trap character, yes, but I did actually find a few bright spots in there. Specifically, I enjoyed the ability to make the cake/share the AP gain for FFA purposes, allowing Mary to play politics in a setting that is a bit more suited to it than Brawl. The traps at least manage some semblance of creativity and Mary at least shows her psychotic side with the knife moves. That said even as a PSABR set it has problems. The diaper throw is abominable and really should not have been in the set for any reason, players might find it funny but moves that exist solely for humiliation purposes are stupid from a gameplay perspective. And in MYM, we're creating gameplay, not trying to be funny in a rather obnoxious way. I'm a little weirded out by the jacks causing the foes to drop AP, it seems like a bizarre effect and I'm not sure that's something PSABR actually allows for normally. Plus how would that even be visually represented. Lastly, the invisible traps on what seems to be the centerpiece move of the set are incredibly obvious in their destruction of the foe's characterization(though if that was an attempt to get at me, I honestly just found the move hilarious, though I certainly don't approve) and feel really boring when you try to introduce a lot more awkwardly "creative" traps later on. I also dislike the Supers a great deal, but considering how terribly they're handled in the game itself I'm not too surprised they come across as badly as they do. Given it's PSABR, I could see it being vaguely appreciable for what it is, but I don't approve of PSABR or the set even ignoring the terrible engine it runs on.
Lastly can I just say that if you were going to post a PSABR set in our movement, why the heck didn't you at least ask first? I'm not sure if this was a deliberate attempt to annoy the people working on the movement, but it can come across that way when you just surprise us with this and give no warning.
Trent
The base system of the set with the roots, while admittedly not the most revolutionary mechanic I've seen(remember doing something quite similar with Grim Poppet's arms), feels very appropriate for a boss in allowing him to fight multiple foes at once and not requiring standard boss resistances. The set also creates a swarm of minions to create what you describe as "bullet hell without any actual bullets" which feels fairly interesting, especially in the context of the minion's intelligence. The most appealing part here though, really, is the absurd risk reward factor of the set. Trent has a lot of truly incredibly all or nothing gambits he can pull off, with a buzzsaw or Wood Coffin Tornado or the tethered version of the Dair, the techniques require a ton of strategy and proper use of your roots to use correctly and can prove a complete disaster if you don't, but at the same time the rewards for success are absolutely glorious. A stand out input, aside from those, has to be the Jab, which gives Trent some pretty crazy customizable root defenses that put what I tried to do in Elsa Maria to shame. This is undoubtedly the best boss set in the contest, which may come off as a bit of a shallow compliment given I don't like bosses as much as some people do and the general quality of this contest being low, but this is a plenty remarkable set.
Patchouli Knowledge is a Touhou character, the librarian of the Scarlet Devil Mansion and a youkai magician. She's constantly in the library finding out about magic, but that makes her very physically frail. She's known as the "One-week wizard" or "One-week girl" due to attributing each of the seven elements she uses to one of the seven days of the week. She is long time friends with the vampire master of the Mansion, Remilia Scarlet: They call each other by the nicknames of "Patchy"(Sometimes "Patche") and "Remi". Marisa frequently steals her books, which of course leads to Danmaku battles and shipping.
Patchouli has appeared in the third most games of any character in the series, behind only main characters Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame.
Statistics:
Patchouli isn't really particularly tall, but she is not particularly short, either. Think around the size of Pit, but with a lighter weight attached, sitting right in-between Sheik and Marth weight-wise. Aerial-wise, she is extremely floaty, comparable to the big guns like Samus and Jigglypuff, with excellent aerial control as well. However, she is very slow in the air, so travelling on ground is usually more enviable speed-wise.
This is not hurt by the fact she has ground speed comparable to somewhere between Toon Link and Marth, giving her good but not great ground speed. She floats a little with her magic while dashing, giving her excellent traction.
Patchouli is not nearly athletic enough to wall cling or wall jump and lacks any crawl, nor do her powers afford her a float or glide. How very vanilla.
Specials:
Neutral Special: Force Lasher
Patchouli strikes her foe, Reisen, with the blades from Force Lasher.
This spell falls under the element of Metal and the day of Friday.
Patchouli raises her hand back as a bit of magic pulses in her fingertips, causing six metal swords to appear over her head from the earth, shapeshifted from the raw metal material. They are pretty long, a little shorter than the width of Bowser, while being incredibly thin. Each sword deals only 5% damage, with knockback depending on if the foe is in the air or on the ground: Enemies in the air are hit with a decent strength meteor smash(KOs at about 130%), while grounded opponents recieve no knockback at all, but the swords stick the foe to the ground for a moment, increasing the hitstun they take from the attack a little for each sword that gets hit by them.
The swords have another peculiar property and that is the fact that, despite being shot like projectiles, they function as a physical attack, allowing them to go through reflectors, but in turn, stopped by things that stop physical attacks.
Another thing to note is how they are fired. By default, the six swords will shoot in front of Patchouli at a downward-diagonal angle, in the end covering about 3/4th of a Battlefield platform over the six swords, with a small blind spot right about in the middle. However, by moving the control stick while holding down the Special button, you can aim it. Left rotates the swords clock-wise, right rotates it counter clock-wise, up causes the swords to bunch up more and down causes them to spread out more. Bundling the swords up more will cause them to deal more damage/hitstun on hitting obviously, but lowers how much they can hit due to covering less area. Likewise, spreading them out causes them to cover more area, but offers more blindspots and less damage/hitstun output from it. The higher you aim the swords, the further they travel.
However, this has one final, simple and yet extremely important fact: This does not immedietely fire. Summoning the swords with B causes them to appear and while you hold B you can adjust them, but after that, the swords stay aimed however they were in place until you press B again, which causes them to shoot out with almost no starting lag. While you can simply double-tap to instantly fire them off, allowing them to hang around provides a nearly unparalelled stage control tool. With the ability to aim the swords in so many directions and hold them indefinitely, entire sections both on land and in the air can be cordoned off at Patchouli's will, unless the opponent either takes the hit or has a way around it. Or is just too fast to reply too.
As a note, it only shoots when you press B without a direction, so you may still use other specials.
Up Special: Spring Flight
This spell falls under the element of Wood and the day of Thursday.
Very, very simple move here, with low lag on both ends, activating it allows Patchouli an obscene 10 seconds of totally free flight. Simply move the control stick in a direction and you'll start going! The speed is a bit slow, probably around Ganondorf's dash, maybe a smidgeon less, but it last for ten seconds and does not send you into helpless, so Patchouli's survival rate is high unless her low weight sends her flying right off the edge of the stage. You can also use this to cancel into aerials and then, since you do not go into helpless, use it again, making Patchouli a master in aerials.
This move runs on a charge timer like R.O.B.'s Up Special. You have to stay on the ground equal to however long you were in the air to get back the time. So if you're in the air a second with this move, you need to be on the ground a second to regenerate that time. So be careful of flying around TOO much.
Side Special: Stream Burst
This spell falls under the element of Water and the day of Wednesday.
Patchouli raises one of her arms, before pointing forward her hand with one finger pointing forward, sending forth a watery projectile. What kind it is depends on if the attack is inputted as a smash or not.
The non-smash version sends out a floating, watery blob, which moves VERY slowly over one and a half Battlefield platforms: Think Ganondorf's walk speed. Maybe even slightly slower. It is, however, pretty big, about the size of Jigglypuff sans feet and arms. Aside from that, it is a very basic projectile, dealing 11% damage upon impact with a foe with some very light knockback. The key thing is mostly the speed at which it goes: Since it is so slow, it essentially functions as a slow moving trap. And with no limit to the amount you can have out at once, you can make the stage quite the trial to traverse, cordoning off areas with your Neutral Special and forcing them into a corner with this move.
The smash version, on the other hand, is your bread and butter basic projectile. Sending out a thin stream of water made out of 11 water drops, this move traverses the same distance as the non-smash version, but at a speed just a bit faster than Wolf's blaster, making it much more of a true projectile. It has some light spread on it, so you won't quite hit with all of it further away, but at close-to-medium ranges will. This deals 11 hits of 1% damage, dealing the same amount of total damage as the non-smash version, with very weak knockback. But it has fairly quick startup and not too much ending lag, so it is a very effective projectile.
Down Special: Sun Wood Sign "Photosynthesis"
This spell falls under the element of Wood and the day of Thursday. It also falls under the element of the Sun and the day of Sunday.
Patchouli puts her book in front of her, arms over it, as seen in the image above, which causes a green spotlight of energy to shine on her. As the name suggests, Patchouli is using the power of Photosynthesis, in this case using it to regenerate her vitality and energy, healing her 3% per second as long as she stays under the spotlight, which lasts for ten seconds. While this does sound suitably absurd, it does have a key weakness, in that the beam does not actually stay on Patchouli if she moves. Rather, it moves along and attempts to follow her, moving at half of the speed of Patchouli's dash. If Patchouli wants to heal a significant amount, she is going to either move slowly or not at all, not counting the fact the foe can hit Patchouli away from it.
You are also thinking about just using your jumps and Up Special to camp for healing. While possible, this spell finds its root in the wood and ground, so it heals at half the rate in the air as it does in the ground, meaning that you only heal 15% if you were in the air the entire time. This move can also only be started on the ground.
All the same, this move is amazing for forcing approaches or simply healing up, especially when combined with superb stage control elements like Force Lasher and Stream Burst, making it difficult to safely traverse to Patchouli. Combined with her absurd recovery, Patchouli can survive far past what her tiny frame suggests.
Standards:
Jab: Summer Breeze
This spell falls under the element of Wood and the day of Thursday.
Patchouli points her finger in front of her, causing a somewhat small wind hitbox to appear. It appears at about chest-high to Patchouli and is sort of thin, but the wind hitbox extends all the way from there to the ground. It is very quick to come out and has little cooldown, as a proper jab should. When it initially comes out, it pushes anyone it hits about a Battlefield platform back via wonderful wind physics. Afterwards, though, the wind sticks around, and changes its effect a little.
First off, foes who run into it won't be pushed back by that, but rather simply be quickly turned around, as if hit by a Cape. Since it's easy to jump over, this isn't too bad, but it still gets the foe into the air, which is good for you. The other thing, however, is that it will also reverse direction of your projectiles, allowing you to...say...reflect your swords to send them flying elsewhere. Or if the opponent is in front of one of these, you can punish spot dodges or certain rolls, because it will reflect right into them. Nice, hm?
The breeze stays out only about four seconds, give or take, so be quick about it!
Forward Tilt: Summer Red
A witch burning a witch? Madness.
This spell falls under the element of Fire and the day of Tuesday.
Patchouli opens her book in front of her and shoots out a Kirby-minus-feet sized fireball. This fireball chugs along as Zelda's dash speed for a little over a Battlefield platform, exploding on contact with any solid object or foe for 11% damage and knockback that KOs at 160%. Its starting lag is incredibly average, but its ending lag is incredibly short: You can spam out 3 of these before the first disappears to make approaching a pain with perfect timing, though 2 is much easier, or use it as an approaching option...which is good, because Patchouli doesn't have that many options for approaching, but for breaking opponent's approaches.
Something to note is that it has a very slight homing ability to it, as it'll try to curve towards foes if they get somewhat close to it. It isn't very great homing, but the fact it'll curve towards shorthopping foes makes shorthopping the fireballs very hard and can help keep foes off-balance, aiding it as an offensive and defensive measure.
Up Tilt: Solar Stun
This move falls under the element of Sun and the day of Sunday.
Patchouli raises her book above her head, causing a burst of light to flash out around her, the hitbox being her body and about 1/4th of a Battlefield platform all around her(including above/below). This deals a solid, if low, 7% damage to all foes around her. Aerial foes are popped up lightly, while grounded foes are lightly pushed back and more lightly stunned. Its start-up is quick, but its end lag is somewhat dissapointing, though follow-ups are possible. It has IASA frames into itself, which means using it again after using it once lowers its startup lag. Mr. Game & Watches' Forward Smash is an example of IASA frames: use it in a row and you'll notice the second comes out faster when timed right. This is not a projectile, so it's Patchouli's go-to defense against people getting in her personal space.
Down Tilt: Summer Flame
This move falls under the element of Fire and the day of Tuesday.
From her crouching position Patchouli waves her arm forward, creating a wave of flame that arcs up and then down over the course of 3/4ths of a Battlefield platform. This flame wave will cause dragging hits of 3% as it goes, difficult but not impossible to DI out of, with quick start-up and average ending lag. It doesn't deal any knockback that is notable. What is notable, however, is the fact that the projectile doesn't disappear after a set distance, but rather when the arc hits the ground. So you can use this off the side of a stage or platform and it'll keep going until it hits the ground: the edgeguarding implications of this are obvious, but the ability to use it from up high on foes down low on the stage cannot be underestimated, and this move gains more utility...as you'll see later.
Dash Attack: Lash Force
This spell falls under the element of Metal and the day of Friday.
Patchouli creates a blade from Force Lasher in her hand while dashing, before performing a vertical spin slash, which causes the dash to end. The blade disappears when the move is over. It has two hitboxes: The first is when the attack first comes out, which deals 5% damage but is a powerful spike, though on grounded enemies this will only equate to weak upwards knockback, while the resulting upswing deals 10% damage that KOs at 150%. This move has quick start up lag and is one of Patchouli's strongest melee moves...but Patchouli suffers some amazingly bad end lag after this move, due to needing to recovery from such a physical exertion.
The two hits will combo into each other until hit %s, making it a 15% dealing attack with good knockback, but the fact the first hit is a spike should not be forgotten, as you can hit foes close to sweetspotting a ledge with this, foes jumping on to platforms and so on and so forth. The high ground, with your down tilt and this move, can be a very nice place for Patchouli.
Smashes:
Up Smash: Emerald City
Patchouli shows the Wizard of Oz how to make a REAL Emerald City.
This spell falls under the element of Earth and the day of Saturday.
Patchouli raises her arm to the sky and slightly back, causing two emerald crystal spires to pop out to each side of her, a little taller than Ganondorf. They look sort of like Skyscrapers, actually. Anyway, the initial popping out deals a solid 15% and knockback that KOs at around 145%. While it hits high and to both sides, it fails to hit directly above Patchouli, so prediction is needed to knock foes out of the air before they get to you.
These emerald skyscrapers don't retreat into the ground once used, but remain on the stage as walls, with tops you can jump on. They have 35 HP that can only be broken by the opponent. While it might seem a bit counterintuitive to make walls when you're using so many projectiles, the nature of Patchouli's projectiles often make this less of a hindrance to her than opponents, such as the aimability of her Neutral Special, her Side Special's ability to be slowed...and so on. Your Forward Smash, which we will get to in just a moment, is especially useful here. Charging it increases the height of the skyscrapers, up to two Ganondorfs tall total at maximum charge.
Aside from helping stop counter-campers it also forces foes into the air more as they approach, a place Patchouli is more comfortable fighting, and can further make it hard for foes to get to you during Photosynthesis or for Diamond Hardness/your D-Smash(which will get to). The higher vantage point can also be used to mix up the angle of your projectiles, especially the non-smash version of your Side Special. You can also rain fiery death on your foes from above via your down tilt.
Forward Smash: Autumn Blade
This spell falls under the element of Metal and the day of Friday.
Patchouli makes a sort of throwing motion with her arm, casting a spell to cause a giant metal buzzsaw to appear in front of her. It is slightly taller than herself and slightly wider as well. The throwing motion then causes it to go forth and, well, buzzsaw things, attached to the ground. It deals 16%-21% damage and has nice knockback, KOing at 115%-85%. However, it has some unique properties among projectiles.
See, it sticks to the stage like a hothead, never losing its deadly power along the way and staying out for a pretty decent time. Rather then being measured in time, it is measured in distance, and at no charge, the Autumn Blade can make two trips around Final Destination before it disappears. Fully charged, it makes four. The buzzsaw can still only rotate around stages where it is possible, though, like Final Destination, Smashville and Battlefield. You can also only have one on each level or, in other words, two buzzsaws cannot exist on the same platform. So you cannot put two buzzsaws on the main part of Battlefield, but you can put one on it and one on each of the platforms.
If it wasn't obvious, the buzzsaw will rotate around platforms, too. It will also go up walls, meaning the Emerald City platforms aren't safe in the least. It does not have heavy start-up or end lag, so it is pretty safe to throw out, as well. A very useful projectile.
Down Smash: Diamond Hardness
Patchouli activates her Diamond Hardness spell.
This spell falls under the element of Earth and the day of Saturday.
Patchouli floats lightly up from the ground, book high in the air, as rock spires shoot out diagonally around her. The spires are actually not very tall, only about half as tall as Patchouli herself, but they come out quite forcefully, dealing a keen 17% damage and knockback that KOs in the 140% range. While this is all well and good, it's not the point of this move.
After the spires shoot out, they will quickly turn in, covering Patchouli head to toe in rock. After a brief moment, most of it will return to the earth, the rest remaining on Patchouli and giving her a sandy tone all around. It has formed a protective shield around her, which is what the charge affects: How strong it is!
With no charge, this earthen shield has 10 HP. At half charge, it has 20 HP and at full charge, 30 HP. So you add 1 HP to the shield every 1/10th of a second you charge. The shield will absorb any and all damage you would take up to that amount, in addition to giving Patchouli perfect super armor: You're a walking tank now!
This does come with some downside. The heavy burden of the earth slows your dash speed by half and makes you, instead of floaty, an insane fastfaller, falling just faster than DeDeDe. Your Up Special even has its speed halved! Finally, the hit that breaks the shield, while still doing no damage or knockback, will deal double hitstun to Patchouli, due to the shield breaking around her. Still, unless you got hit by a strong attack, you might not even notice.
Still, this gives Patchouli approach unshatterable, allows her to seat up her Force Lasher without reprisal(along with other projectiles) or just live a long time with her recovery and healing plus this...but do note that, while it has little end lag, it is a bit heavy on the starting lag, so you won't want to just spam this, or you won't get any armor and just be hit out of it. Intelligence required!
Grab Game:
Grab: Grab
This does not fall under any element or day. Patchouli grabs in front of her, trying to get an enemy in her grips. Quick, short range.
Pummel: Gravity Charm
This spell falls under the element of the Moon and the day of Monday.
Patchouli whacks the foe with her book in a slow pummel, which deals 3% damage. This places a charm on the foe, a page from the book, which sticks to them for five seconds or until they are hit by a projectile from Patchouli. What does this charm do? Well, when the foe is hit by a projectile, it causes all nearby projectiles to home in on the foe. The homing starts off as fairly weak, though still quite annoying, but you can add more and more charms to the foe with repeated use of the pummel, which will cause the homing to become better and have a larger range to bring in projectiles. At higher levels, they might even turn around complete to go after the foe. Patchouli has some throws that use projectiles, so she can cause this to activate ASAP with those if she wants.
Yes, this will work with Force Lasher.
Forward Throw: Sticky Bubbles
This spell falls under the element of Water and the day of Wednesday.
Patchouli throws the foe forward for 7% damage, pointing a finger forward as the foe is flying to send out about 5 sticky bubbles of moderate size. These bubbles do no damage, but instead stick to the foe. What do these bubbles sticking to the foe do? Well, they slow them down, in addition to making them more floaty. The slow down is not major, but it brings them to a little less than 3/4ths of their normal ground speed, while making them much more floaty and a tad slower in the air. The benefits of slow ground speed should be obvious for someone like Patchouli with decent speed and great approach breakers, but the floatiness is a bit less obvious...their control doesn't go up any though, so the aerial combat of a fastfaller with not much control can be quite awkward, while Patchouli also can buy time easier by knocking them into the air, not to mention the up tilt can go excellent with floatiness or fastfalling and that it makes avoiding projectiles harder...
The bubbles stick to the foe for 5 seconds before popping. Patchouli can stack sets of bubbles past 5 by re-grabbing them and using this again, but bubbles past five slowly become less effective...so you can't just bring a foe to almost no movement speed by spamming this. This move will not activate the pummel, as the bubbles don't deal damage, knockback or hitstun.
Down Throw: Moonlight Scar
This spell falls under the element of the Moon and the day of Monday.
Patchouli tosses the foe...up? A down throw that hits the foe up? It deals 5% damage, as she casts the spell for an incantation...and calls down a beam of moonlight to strike the foe as they are thrown down, spiking them to the ground and dealing 10% damage to them, putting them into prone unless they tech the ground ala Mr. Game & Watch's D-Throw. The beam always goes wherever the foe is, so DIing away from it is impossible.
Patchouli can actually toss the foe slightly to the left or right by moving the control stick that way while going down, allowing her to spike foes off the stage if grabbed near the ledge...or put foes who escape your Up Smash city with jumps back into them. The fact that it'll activate your Pummel can also make it very difficult to decide what to do when you hit the ground and leave the foe without safe options. Plus, it's a 15% damage throw, that's really good.
Back Throw: Patchouli Toss
This move has no element.
Patchouli grips the foe with all her might and flings them behind her for 10% damage and knockback that KOs at 160%. This throw doesn't really have any special properties...but it does good damage, is your only throw that can really KO and doesn't set off your pummel, giving it use as a general utility.
Up Throw: Moon Sign "Silent Selene"
It silences opponents, too..
This spell falls under the element of Moon and the day of Monday.
Patchouli lightly tosses the foe up before quickly entering that calm pose you see above, the spell activating silently. This causes the foe to take somewhat slow hits of 3% damage, 5 in all for 15% damage. DIing out is impossible at lower levels due to a weak wind hitbox around the beams as they swirl around that pulls the foe in and can help pull in other nearby foes...at higher damage it's possible due to taking more knockback, though. Still, you won't be able to DI out immedietely. Keeping the foe in place can be amazing since the beam will activate your Pummel, though it's trickier to set up than the down throw for that. It is also a great crowd control move as you can drag many foes into the hits and it has decent range both horziontal and vertical...
One should also consider the fact the hits are a bit slow. You can use this to "combo" into a Forward Smash that is coming around and hit them for massive damage and/or killing knockback. You can also use it to have the slower Side Special projectiles catch up to this. It's pretty rad. The knockback on this move is quite weak from the last hit if it's not mixed with something else, though...
Aerials:
Forward Aerial: Fire Sign "Akiba Summer"
This spell falls under the element of Fire and the day of Tuesday.
Patchouli swings her arm in front of her, summoning a huge whip of fire that travels two Battlefield platforms of distance in front of her. This whip of fire lashes out in front of her at an arc that will cause it to hit the ground if said ground is there, though it'll dissipate all the same if it is used off-stage. This whip does a keen 12% damage while also dealing decent knockback...though it will not KO until 170%. But this move's massive range is its good selling point anyway. Its start-up is actually quite quick, but Patchouli can't move until the whip dissipates (though she'll still fall slowly), which leaves her very vulnearable if foes avoid the move. Ending lag is also a bit high.
This move leaves behind a fire trap when it hits the ground which lasts for 3 seconds, covering most of the move's span...some of the fire near the end dissipates before hitting the ground and forming the trap unfortunately. These traps deal 4% damage and some decent non-KO knockback in the direction they're facing. I say "the direction they're facing" because you can use this move to create the fire traps on, say, the walls of your Up Smash towers or the side of the stage, which can make escaping said towers very precarious...though if they predict you'll use this, they might use its long duration to become free. Patchouli making them on the outer side can also let her use them to further her control over the foe, pushing them towards it with projectiles, or even hit the foe into it. Beware, though: Patchouli is NOT immune to her own fire traps, so the tables can be flipped if this move is used carelessly.
Up Aerial: Static Green
This move falls under the element of Wood and the day of Thursday.
Patchouli raises her hand, causing lightning to spark out of it in both direction's until it hits the blast zones ala a horizontal Thunder. Start-up is a bit slow ...but during it, you can hold the A button. By doing so, you can adjust the trajectory of this move! Specifically, you'll move the lightning clockwise. Holding it for the entire start-up will cause it to fire vertically, while holding it for less can cause it to fire someone in-between depending on how long you held it. This makes this move an incredibly versatile tool, ideal for anti-air maneuvers and striking foes on the ground. Just like Thunder, natural stage obstructions will stop the lightning...but your Emerald City towers are perfectly fine with conducting the electricity and letting it continue on its path, allowing fun with striking foes inside. Since one fires out on each side, it can actually become a terrifying attack to hit people on the ground with too. It deals 14% damage and shallow knockback that KOs around 160%...though characters with poor vertical recoveries may find themselves dying quicker than the listed numbers due to the shallow nature of the knockback. A grand tool.
Neutral Aerial: Water Sign "Jellyfish Princess"
This spell falls under the element of Water and the day of Wednesday.
A bubble forms around Patchouli after a moment of concentration, which deals 4% damage and some weak knockback that has enough of a base to be a basic GTFO move. The bubble will stick around for just over a second after being made, though it won't immedietely do anything. Patchouli is free to move while the bubble is around her.
Upon the bubble being hit by an attack or after a second passes, the bubble pops and shoots out eight decently sized bubble projectiles around Patchouli, each going about half a Battlefield platform. These bubbles deal 7% damage and decent knockback in the direction they are going, though they pop fairly quickly into oblivion. Patchouli can land while the bubble is active, which while it might mean the bottom bubbles just pop against the stage allows some grounded protection. Projectiles will let foes pop the bubble early and harmlessly, but physical attacks will give the foe some damage...even if their attack does still go through. Using this move while the bubble is already out causes it to pop and shoot bubbles prematurely.
Down Aerial: Spell Force
This does not fall under an element.
Patchouli raises her book up high and opens it, channeling some more generic non-elemental magic into it before thrusting it down, creating a very powerful spike that deals 15% to foes who are smashed by the magic enhanced book. This move has some decently fast start-up, but its ending lag is a bit large...use it as you would use most spikes. Oh, also, you can use it to actually spike your projectiles down...pretty useful.
Back Aerial: Steel Lash
Patchouli forms a blade from Force Lasher and stabs directly behind her quite quickly, giving this 12% dealing aerial good start-up. It'll launch foes straight off the blast zones around 160% ans the blade has excellent range: Patchouli can use it for basic Wall of Paining at lower levels or against shields and appreciates this ability even as a light approach. Ending lag is not very long. Press A during said ending lag and Patchouli will turn around during it, allowing Patchy access to an easy way to change direction. Yep.
Final Smash: Sun Sign "Royal Flare"
This spell falls under the element of Sun and the day of Sunday. It is one of Patchouli's most iconic Spellcards.
Patchouli raises her spell book up high, a searing flash of sun energy flying out after a moment's start-up over the entire stage, dealing 10 rapid hits of 5% damage that knocks the foe up each time to the entire stage. The only way to stop this move is to shield, though shields with some damage will be broken, or hit Patchouli during the start-up lag. The move itself has decent KO power: most foes will die to it around 60%. Royal flare!
Playstyle:
Patchouli's playstyle is all about approaches. She can break them lots of ways and loves to do so: By utilizing correct placement of your Neutral Special, mixing your Side Special projectiles, unevening the field with your Up Smash and other such tricks, Patchouli forces foes to play a more cautious game...even though they'd prefer to be right in Patchouli's face. How you arrive at this is somewhat open-ended, as Patchouli has a lot of variance in how she places her key NSpec swords and a lot of set-ups might be stage or character specific. For example, your NSpec and proper Up Smash placement become much more key against a character like Falco, while someone like Meta Knight requires key placement of SSpec traps and has an increased importance on your Down Smash.
Patchouli's Up Smash provides a great tool and foes do not want to get trapped between them, as Patchouli has plenty of ways to keep the foe down and force them into comfortable positions: Down tilt is one of your greatest tools, but dash attack should not be underestimated and she can lace the walls with fire via Forward Aerial. It can also be used to buy time for your Down Smash, preparing for an approaching push or using Photosynthesis to heal up from a brutal battle.
Patchouli's weaknesses lie in her lack of ways to approach. She has three decent approaching moves in Back Aerial, Forward Tilt and Down Smash...but Down Smash takes much time to use properly, while back aerial requires a specific aerial approach and Forward Tilt is very predictable since you need to follow the fireball. This means enemies have a lot of time to react to Patchouli's attacks, especially her primary Forward Smash KO.
If Patchouli can get a foe off the stage, she has excellent edgeguarding options due to her gratuitous recovery, a multitude of useful edgeguard moves such ad Down Tilt, Dash Attack, Neutral Aerial, Forward Aerial and so on. At the same time, her recovery has no hitbox and her weight is low, so she herself is vulnearable to edgeguards if she does not vary up her Up Special's movement. Healing may be a better way to prolong her longevity.
If foes are getting particularly dodgy, try using your Pummel on them and add some homing into the mix. Your grab is your primary melee-range option, so it's a good idea to use it anyway, but again particularly against good dodging foes...so you'll need to melee them more, which is tough. Enemies with high evasion or blocking abilities really suck to face.
But with her combination of magical tools, Patchouli has solid ability against a wide range of foes with some pretty unique setups and games. Don't underestimate her just because she's frail!
Not the most accurate image in the world, but I kid you not, this is the only relevant thing I could find searching for "electric golem" on both Google and Deviantart. (hippo) Basically just imagine a collection of rocks of various sizes in a vague humanoid shape, held together by electrical currents.
Stats
Movement Speed: Slow walking, average dash Traction: Perfect First Jump: Below average Midair Jump: Bad. Dedede's midair jump without the extra jumps. Fall Speed: Slightly above average. Air Speed: Below average Air Control: Average Size: Big. Technically twice the size of good ol' Ganondorf, but he's normally hunched-over or curled up so he's rarely that huge on-screen. Weight: Heavy. He's a pile of rocks!
Animations
Idle: The Thunder Golem stands hunched-over, propping itself up with its hands like some kind of monstrous gorilla. The rocks that compose its body will shift in seemingly random directions as time goes on.
Crouch: Thunder Golem essentially falls-apart into a pile of rocks on the ground, subtle electrical currents the only way to discern its identity.
Walk/Run: The Thunder Golem continues its gorilla-like movement, with the only notable difference between a walk and a run being the speed it moves.
Dash: Thunder Golem's hands and feet transform into make-shift "wheels", rolling along the ground to carry the rest of the body forwards.
Jump: Thunder Golem clumsily jumps into the air.
Midair Jump: Thunder Golem...vaguely moves upwards. Normal aerial movement is NOT this thing's strong point.
Air dodge: Just like its Nimble Fighter dodge, the Thunder Golem spreads its rocks into the foreground and background. On that note, when performing a Nimble Fighter dodge, it glows yellow instead of the usual "invincibility white".
------------------------
Mechanic Proposal: Empowered Specials
The now-classic fighting game mechanic, Empowered Specials are exactly what it says on the tin: stronger versions of a character's special attacks. Characters can use Empowered Specials through pressing the attack and special attack buttons simultaneously, as long as they have at least one Smash Charge. Smash Charges are represented as 4 segments of a border surrounding the character's portrait, and one is acquired for every 50% a character deals.
Empowered Specials tend to either negate a weakness in the regular version of the move, or crank a strength to 11. For example, Marth's Counter when empowered could also counter grabs, or Luigi's Super Jump Punch could have the sweetspot on the entire move. Note that Special Smashes cannot be empowered, though a move that has a tap-input secondary effect could be empowered (i.e. setting a trap with a tilt input, detonating it with a tap could be considered 1 move).
Since this week's MYmini involves creating animations and stats, my own choice of mechanic somewhat forces me to outright assign a character to this.
D.E.S.C.O Desco is an artificial being, created by a doting father to fulfill his daughter's two childhood wishes;
To have a little sister
WORLD DOMINATION
Desco is a multifaceted weapon of destruction and hopes to one day be the final boss. It is her dream to crush heroes beneath her feet and threaten all of existance with her power. But in the meantime, Desco will settle for being big sis' little sister.
Desco is a bizarre mix between eldritch tentacle monster, and moe underage pixie girl. And yes, the creepy implications of this are all too deliberate.
[COLLAPSE="Desco"]
This is Desco's main body. While it looks like she's propped up by her prehensile tail, Desco is actually hovering in mid air. The tail simply tangles down behind her, flopping hither and yonder based on the way you hover around. Because of its dangling nature, if you simply idle, it will droop to the floor where it can be easily clipped by low attacks. If it weren't for this, then Desco would comfortably hover above these low attacks. In terms of size, Desco is just slightly taller than cute little Toon Link. But that's just Desco's body, not including her tail, and not including...[/COLLAPSE]
[COLLAPSE="Desco?"]
This thing, this flying monster, closely hovers behind Desco at all times. Though it isn't directly connected to Desco, and can take knockback independantly of Desco, it is still a target foes can hit, and thus counts towards Desco's actual size. All things accounted for, Desco has a little less total volume than Donkey Kong. Weightwise, Desco and her bizarre monstrous satellite are both as heavy as Mario. This is not all that bulky, especially considering Desco's foes can knock the two "halves" around, seperating them.
Desco need not worry too much for her monstrous half; despite being both a smooshy meatbag to throw in front of attacks, and an indispensible partner with its own executable attacks, the flying tentacled creature cannot be KO'd unless directly lauched beyond a KO barrier, and can fly straight back to Desco from literally anywhere. It does not take stocks from Desco's stockpool, is only worth half the usual points (rounded down) in a score match, and respawns with Desco whenever Desco is KO'd[/COLLAPSE]
[COLLAPSE="Stats/Animations: Desco"]
A Toon Link tall (for her main body), and a Mario in weight. Due to her hovering, Desco technically towers at 1.5x Toon Link's height, with the lower third simply being empty air where her prehensile tail may occasionally dangle. With her tail touching the floor, it is subject to triggering traps, suffering damage via goop (damage which is all Desco's to live with), and catching low flying attacks that would otherwise miss the mini miss. In the case of something like a pitfall, the tail itself suffers the effects (in this case, it is buried, limiting where Desco can move severely).
Desco's main idling pose has her extending one open palmed hand in a welcoming gesture, with her other arm limp by her side. Overall, Desco looks like such a cutey final boss. Whilst idling, Desco might;
1)Bring her dominant hand to her mouth, placing the tip of her forefinger innocently in her mouth. Desco glances toward the camera with doe eyed childishness
2)Smack the base of her tail with her limp arm, causing the tail to gyrate slightly across its entire surface, ending with a little flick at the tip of the tail.
3)Stop still briefly, whilst every eye on her body (including the two real eyes she had) blinks twice in puzzlement
When "Walking", Desco leans forward with her hands against her hips, and uses levitation to glide herself across the ground in that direction. Her tail, encountering a little air resistance, begins lagging a little behind her, not quite lifting off the floor, but not simply drooping right behind her legs either. The faster Desco moves, the more air resistance there is to lift her tail off the floor.
Progressing into Desco's dash, Desco leans further forward, with her arms spread wide, gliding forth like a mighty, happy, eagle. The tail lifts from the floor, straightening out horizontally from the movement. This keeps the tail handily away from low attacks, thus making Desco all but immune to such attacks, and even ground-traps, like Pitfalls, and ground hugging projectiles. The dash is in no way fast, falling short of Metaknight's, whilst suffering worse turning traction to boot. Turning about face is an event if you're in motion, but at least this way her tail doesn't droop back to the floor.
As for crouching, Desco kneels on the floor and leans forward, with her forehead against the ground, and her hands covering her cowering head. Regardless of what state her tail may be in, it endeavors to lay out flat behind her as soon as possible. The crouch is very low, but the lounging tail makes her a pretty wide hitbox to target.
Jumping may sound wierd for a deadly dinky diva who is already technically levitating, but Desco still springs her legs and pumps her arms as if she were kicking off of real ground. The effort causes Desco to descend very slightly just before the uplifting jump occurs. Of course, Desco's tail follows along for the ride, trailing behind whatever mid-air motions the player chooses to make. This can naturally be a bit of a bother if her tail ends up getting hit by an attack you otherwise dodged with ease, or if it isn't somewhere when you really need to use the tail to attack. In terms of jump height, Desco falls neatly in line with Marth's first jump. Ascending, Desco is fast, yet when falling, Desco's little girl figure grants her a more average fall-speed.
Midair Jumping sees our Desco rise whilst performing a quick ballerina twirl, relying a bit more on her tremendous boss powers this time to make a significant second jump, a few good shades shy of Falco, but impressive nonetheless
Dodging is... well.. you'd just have to see it in motion. Her entire body splits down the middle, then forcibly spreads out into the foreground and background. Nasty purplish tendrils spray out, making it almost look like Desco exploded into gore. It's still as instantaneous as other dodges though, and she reassembles just as fast with a pleasing schhhhlop.
For rolling, Desco splits into two halves again just like with her dodge, the two halves then perform a backwards flip, or a forwards cartwheel, taking Desco to her new destination before recombobulating. The slopping tendrils sit this one out, because a butchered little girl doing cartwheels is terrifying enough.
Whilst sleeping, Desco kneels on the floor, and snoozes whilst hugging her tail close to her and sucking the end of it like a pacifier. [Please note that Desco is a manufactured weapon, not a real little girl][/COLLAPSE]
[COLLAPSE="Stats/Animations: Desco?"]
Roughly 1.5 times the mass of Desco (plus tail), this 'thing' weighs as much as a portly plumber. Its movement, of which it has unlimited flight to play with, acts similarly to the momentum and turning of a Nikita missile. Though unlike Snake's controllable ballistic, this monster acts of its own accord when moving. If Desco comes close enough to the thing after becoming seperated, it "latches" onto the space directly behind her back, following her very closely and accurately, without the horrible turn lag. There are numberous ways to part with this mushy munster, some manually triggered by Desco, but most of the time, they are pried appart by an enemy attack hitting Desco or the monster (but not both symultaneously).
The monster stalker that floats safely behind Desco's back like a demonic backpack is not exactly emmotive. It can shapeshift, and the two "ears" at the top can stretch out into demonic maws, but it otherwise simply hovers, with its tentacles jiggling about based on how fast it's currently moving. Whilst it can be commanded to do things that are useful via Desco's attacks, it also reacts to some of her animations
For instance, if hovering behind Desco as she crouches, the creature layer's itself over the top of her, like a nice blanket. This action does not happen immediately, so fast foes can grab their rare chance to hit her with a low attack, in the brief moments before she is sandwiched. Naturally, after being covered, Desco is protected from a single hit that isn't from under the ground, as monster simply takes the hit in her stead.
Perhaps more useful that being a tortoise shell, the monsterous carapace also allows Desco to crawl (which she can normally cannot). The tenctacles all slither incoherantly, as Desco and company scuttle across the ground. The scuttling speed is a full third faster than Desco's normal dashing speed. Too bad you can't jump whilst covered.. well, at least Down Tilt and Down Special are at your command
The malleable creature does not follow Desco's lead during a roll, instead waiting for 0.2 seconds after it ends before flying back to her (back)side. This is the simplest way to deliberately split the duo, though it rarely lasts any longer than a few seconds
As for straight up dodging, the monster rapidly melts into an intangible purple fog, before just as quickly pulling itself back together again. The small mass of fog, for its brief moment in the sun, has a detrimental effect on opponents touching it. That effect... sadly Desco doesn't know what it is yet.[/COLLAPSE]
Bonus MYmini:
Proposed Mechanic: Aerial Priority
A basic addendum for the system of priority for direct attacks (anything that doesn't count as a projectile/trap/summon/transcendant-banana) used in midair. As it exists in Brawl, Aerial attacks cannot be cancelled out except by either hitting the user before they hit you, or using a high priority projectile.
This proposed mechanic adds a height based priority to aerial attacks. Basically, the player who is higher in the air has an increased aerial priority over other aerials. This doesn't mean that the higher player will always win out; unless the player was 0.7 stagebuilder units (or higher) above the opponent when the player inputs his attack, the player's increased priority will not cancel out the hitbox of the opponent's aerial.
When the player manages to outprioritise the foe's aerial through this mechanic, the opponent is additionally frozen in his current position for a brief instant (4 frames). This gives the player a better opportunity to follow through with their advantaged attack.
Even if the player wasn't 0.7 stagebuilder units higher than the foe, they will still benefit from this mechanic when using aerials. When the aerials cross paths, the foe is still frozen still briefly by the player's increased priority (albeit for a variable number of frames based on how much higher the player was. So just being a "little bit" higher will only grant the player 1 frame of aid).
And for players who enjoy bombarding foes from even greater heights than 0.7 stagebuilder units; in addition to nullifying the foe's hitbox, they will be frozen in position for even longer than 4 frames (potentially up to 15 frames). If the foe is frozen for any longer than 8 frames, an audible, low-tone, "ching" noise is played.
Note//attacks that are super armored or have significant invulnerability frames ignore the defensive aspects of this mechanic, meaning they won't magically have their attack nullified by an attack from up high.
Incidentally, this mechanic also aids in giving aerials more potential to outprioritise projectiles. Each 0.35 stagebuilder units higher the player is to the projectile in question when they perform their attack, grants 1% extra Priority against the projectile. This isn't extra damage mind you, simply temporary priority to be used against projectiles.
If the projectile didn't exist when the player began their attack, the projectile will use the height it was created at in the calculation.
[COLLAPSE="older, less eloquent, and ultimately dumber and shallower system. Please ignore"] Proposed Mechanic: Aerial Variance (AV)
This mechanic is intended to give an incentive towards aerial play by rewarding risky aerial situations with boosted attacks.
Aerial Variance is a numerical multiplier applied to the damage/base-knockback of aerial and aerial special attacks. AV itself is determined by a number of factors, and is visually represented by a colour tint applied to the attack's visual effects (e.g. the slice visual of swinging attacks, or the hit effect when an attack lands). A high AV results in a red tint, and a middling AV results in a yellow tint (low/no AV results in no tint)
The factors that modify AV are:
1) Time spent airborne: If the player hasn't been airborne for at least 1 full second when he uses an attack, AV will always be 1. If the player walked off a platform instead of jumping, then this time requirement is reduced to 0.6 seconds. If the player has been airborne for 3 seconds or more, a minor multiplier of 1.2x is applied to AV (unless AV has been set to 1 due to failing one of the other factors)
2) Current position in jump arc: If the player is travelling upwards at the moment he uses any attack other than up-air or up-special, AV will always be 1. Once the player passes the peak of the jump and begins falling, 0.13 is added to AV.
3) Mid-air jumps: If the player is incapable of performing any more regular jumps in mid-air, 0.2 is added to AV. For characters with special air actions, like Peach's hover, or a wall jump, performing these actions will reset "Time spent airborne". This means the player will have to remain airborne for an additional second if they want any AV.
4) Fastfalling: If the player is fastfalling, 0.2 is added to AV. This bonus may also be applied if the player is travelling especially quickly in any direction (via a momentum mechanic, via touching a bumper, or via other means)
5) Ongoing Aerials: For aerials with durations longer than 0.4 seconds, AV increases by 0.1 after 0.3 seconds of the hitbox being active.
6) Landing:AV defaults back to 1 whenever the player lands on the ground. If the player was in the middle of an attack, then the hitbox retains its AV boosted properties for 4 frames.
The maximum value of AV is 1.95 ([1+0.2+0.2+0.13+0.1]*1.2), roughly doubling the damage and knockback of the attack. To do this requires being airborne for more than 3 seconds, using all mid-air jumps, then using a lengthy aerial whilst fastfalling.
If AV surpasses 1.6, then the attack gains additional frames of hitlag and hitstun, and a deeper hit sound upon impact.
While AV is primarily used for modifying knockback and damage, it can also be used to modify other properties of attacks. For example, the wind that gusts out of Toon Link's Down Aerial when he lands may increase in severity if the player has a high AV. There may even be aspects of attacks where AV is applied negatively. For instance, with the wind gust of G&W's Up-Air, AV is used to dampen its strength rather than increase it.[/COLLAPSE]
Movement Speed: Slow Traction: Perfect First Jump: Average Midair Jump: Great [same style as Lucas] Fall Speed: Average Air Speed: Average Air Control: Average Size: Large [similar vertices to Snake] Weight: Above-average [comparable to Marth]
Idle: Sparks fly as the doppelganger patiently watches Crouch: Lowers to one knee and slightly dips into the shadow beneath his feet Walk/Run: A quiet and effortless journey, only small signs of movement Dash: The doppelganger slides across the stage on its shadow Jump: A carefree single-footed leap into the air Midair Jump: Dark energy forms below doppelganger and gives a boost
‡
REALISTIC GRAB PHYSICS
Grabbing is now based on size, weight and reach. While in Brawl, grab hitboxes can hit lower characters when the actual grab animation would logically be too high or holding them in place when they're not even touching, grabbing now only works if the hand / claw / whatever used for the grab physically touches the opponent. This has some leniency, so it's not impossible. Grabs can also now be angled to hit lower characters, think Luigi's forward tilt. Opponents are now physically held by grabs. Weight and size are taken into account too, strengthening or weakening the grab's strength. Characters who are the same size and weight remain unchanged, but a large character will hold a smaller character for as long as 1.5x, while vice versa it can be up to 1.5x weaker. This gives a needed advantage to the combo-food bigger characters, now far more viable out-of-shield. Smaller characters can still grab big characters just as easily, but at a cost.
At least you're upfront with an admission to being prejudiced. Your honesty is appreciated.
The diaper throw is abominable and really should not have been in the set for any reason, players might find it funny but moves that exist solely for humiliation purposes are stupid from a gameplay perspective. And in MYM, we're creating gameplay, not trying to be funny in a rather obnoxious way.
Well, thanks for dictating what MYM is or what an MYMer's goals have to be. And as much as I don't want to use this word.. you are wrong about it having no gameplay presence. People will use this throw, even if it doesn't bring them much closer to victory, it's just human nature. Besides, I didn't say it was functionally useless, it could have utility that I had deliberately neglected to mention.
I'm a little weirded out by the jacks causing the foes to drop AP, it seems like a bizarre effect and I'm not sure that's something PSABR actually allows for normally. Plus how would that even be visually represented.
Yes, AP drops from players in orb form in PSABR. It happens when struck by items, thrown, or hit with a stage hazard. There's even a stage hazard that is simply a mist that causes the player to drop AP when standing in it.
Lastly, the invisible traps on what seems to be the centerpiece move of the set are incredibly obvious in their destruction of the foe's characterization
PSABR specifically is about contrast, so it's entirely fine for cute and wuggly to stand toe to toe with tall and fugly. Brawl is a bit more consistant, so your opinion holds a tiny bit of weight there. But seriously, stop making this complaint, you've already drawn your humourless line in the sand. You'll have to accept that some people aren't literalists.
Also, centerpiece of the set is the jump rope. And invisible traps are muyo interesting, both in relation to general spacing, and in conjunction with the jumprope.
Lastly can I just say that if you were going to post a PSABR set in our movement, why the heck didn't you at least ask first? I'm not sure if this was a deliberate attempt to annoy the people working on the movement, but it can come across that way when you just surprise us with this and give no warning.
I admit I was a little surprised to learn this was a huge concern with everyone who participated in the movement. I didn't think it was serious enough to make a Scapegoat Mary out of, but a chat with Smash Daddy cleared that misconception right up.
Well I am a confrontational soul when it comes to what a moveset is allowed to be. But I do have a few reasons for making Cuty Mary this way.
1) This was the best way to serve her character and implementation in the time I had to create the moveset. Without knockback to worry about, I could focus on creating simple ways for her to play with her foes. The way PSABR movesets are structured naturally inclinates itself to movesets like this.
I am not someone who would compromise a moveset as a petty prank. It's PSABR, because it serves the moveset. That's really the only reason I should need.
2) I feel being in an unfamiliar engine helps Cuty Mary feel more like Illbleed does, insane, disjointed, contradictory, foreign. Surely that's the reason for some of the other 'bad' decisions, like how the movement has no explanation at the start to inform people of what Illbleed is, right?
3) I want people to look at the moveset and start thinking about how our movesets must sound to the layman, or even to the kind of then-casual Smash fan who stumbles across the thread. It's not the most pleasant thing, reading something that centers itself around alien mechanics.
4) I think PSABR has merits and deserves to be a viable way to "MYM". It has an audience, even within MYM. So if you dislike it, and hate what it does, you can at least look at it, learn from it, then apply and stretch its ideas to better yourselves as a moveset designer. Ignoring it is a quick way to regressing back to the rut we're stuck in.
5) If I asked, the answer would have been "no", so... um... of course I kept it a secret. Plus, you know I like to keep my intentions with movesets secret in general, right?
2) I feel being in an unfamiliar engine helps Cuty Mary feel more like Illbleed does, insane, disjointed, contradictory, foreign. Surely that's the reason for some of the other 'bad' decisions, like how the movement has no explanation at the start to inform people of what Illbleed is, right?
This is simply bad design, it ignores the rest of the Illbleed sets. Clearly all these weeaboo games you make sets for also aren't foreign.
As far as the backhanded comment at the lack of an introduction on Illbleed, every set already has some form of one. It would be totally unnecessary, and this is a very misplaced attack on the movement.
You don't read movesets. It is insulting to hear this rant when everyone has been trying to be more in-smash and this has been a growing trend for years. The newest friends you've made in the community have been around since Make Your Move 3, stop the pretence that you know what newcomers think and that lazy design is in their defence.
Counting the readers, it's an audience of about one person and if we are stuck in a rut, this was hardly going to change anything.
SSB4 mini still exists, you are a terrible person for saying this and not posting anything for it. That is a way we can realistically expand MYM, by appealing to our neighbours, not by sneaking a bizarrely out-of-place PSASBR set into a movement.
5) If I asked, the answer would have been "no", so... um... of course I kept it a secret. Plus, you know I like to keep my intentions with movesets secret in general, right?
Frankly, the moveset itself I don't think anything of, it's your response that is offensive. What I take from this post is that the set was politically-motivated, contrary to what you've told me in private. Lets get this straight. You are not appealing to newcomers, this set would confuse them more than any other, nor are you appealing to readers, besides one other person who reads and has played the game. If you make gimmicky sets for other engines out of personal enjoyment, don't do it in someone else's movement for political reasons, it's horrible to combine politics and movesets.
(Image by my friend Tessa. Fairly good approximation. Only real difference I can think of is more armored arms or slightly larger sword, but what's there might work better in st-ANYWAY Thanks! : D)
Weight: 10 (More than Donkey Kong, less than Bowser)
Size: 10
Speed: 2 (Faster than Ganondorf and Jigglypuff, but not much more than that)
Fall Speed: 9
First Jump: Below Average
Second Jump: Poor
Multiple Jumps?: No
Aerial Speed: 5
Crawl?: No
Glide?: No
Wall Jump?: No
Wall Cling?: No
Float?: No
Shield?: Yes
Armor?: Yes
The Dark Knight is a character from the (currently non-existant) novel The Dark Knight. Once a stable boy for a grand kingdom, he was pressured into theft by his father and so forced away from the castle and the princess he had developed a crush on. Hurt by this injustice and with his future in the clearly high end stable boy industry ruined by such an instance of royal betrayal, he began to train as a knight in hopes he might both seek out true justice and atone in the eyes of the princess for his crimes.
Later, a great Light Knight would come to the kingdom, his marriage to the princess arranged. Though seemingly the paragon of light on the outside, the Dark Knight had heard and knew of the cruelty he truly possessed: he could not allow this union to proceed and ruin the princess' life. Donning a dark helm fitting for a dark lord, he gathered power slowly...and, on the eve of the wedding, kidnapped the princess to save her. Now he awaits the Light Knight to come and rescue her, so that he might destroy him...no matter the cost to himself.
The princess herself might have something to say about it.
The Dark Knight's idle stance depends on if he has his shield up or not. If he does not have it up, then he will twirl around his sword without any effort at the ready. If his shield is up, he will simply check his blind spots without moving the shield.
The Dark Knight's walk stance has him take slow and confident steps forward, each step resonating a light metal "clank!" with each step. Running produces a slightly quicker and more battle ready, still clanking movement. His dash has him break into a slow full sprint, the clanking of his longer steps coming less frequently but louder, signalling the foe's impending doom to them. If he has his Shield up, he'll duck slightly under it while dashing and lead with it.
His jump animation is a crouch followed by a strong leg-based jump, while his mid-air jump is an awkward looking half-jump that doesn't go very far at all.
The Dark Knight's crouch animation depends on if his Shield is up or not. If it is not up, he will brace himself by bringing his shield arm to the ground. If it is up, he'll crouch behind it with his sword at the ready.
Global Mechanic: Clash and Parry
Clash and Parry is a universal mechanic introduced in the same Smash Brothers game as The Dark Knight.
The Clash and Parry mechanic comes into effect when two characters have their attacks clash. The player whose attack had higher damage % may hit a button to parry the clash and strike back with a special attack while the foe is still in their clashing lag!
Let me use an example. Marth uses his forward tilt and Lucario uses his jab for an easy instance. The jab deals 4% damage and the Forward Tilt deals 11%, the attacks clash. Since Marth's attack would have deal more damage, he can use his Parry. As an example, he might use his A parry, which is a retreating slash, to strike at Lucario while gaining distance from him, while his B parry might be an advanced forward lunge with his sword. Clash and Parry does not work if two attacks have the same priority when clashing: For example, if Marth's Forward Tilt of 11% hits a Marth forward tilt of 11%, neither player may parry.
All characters have at least one parry, which is done by hitting A. Most characters also have a second parry which is activated by hitting B. Depending on the character, one of them usually advanced and the other retreats...though this is not a hard rule. Particularly defensive or counter-based characters may have even more parries, such as with directionals + buttons (IE a character might have an Up B parry that sends them into the air). The Dark Knight is not one of these characters with a multitude of parries. He merely has a basic A and B parry.
Projectiles may not be parried, though disjointed hitboxes can be. Since the parry requires clashing, it also can't be used against air attacks. The parry can be used as an offensive tool, pressuring the foe into a clash and then using a Parry, or as a defensive tool, breaking a foe's attack via clash and parrying back, and it favors characters with stronger hitboxes over weaker hitboxes due to how priority works. The Dark Knight is able to use both offensive and defensive parries nicely, with defensive parries being a particularly useful tool when The Dark Knight must deal with a foe too nimble to effectively use his Shield, while his offensive parry is one of his better tools for approaches and movement when Shielding.
Well, thanks for dictating what MYM is or what an MYMer's goals have to be. And as much as I don't want to use this word.. you are wrong about it having no gameplay presence. People will use this throw, even if it doesn't bring them much closer to victory, it's just human nature. Besides, I didn't say it was functionally useless, it could have utility that I had deliberately neglected to mention.
Depends on the person, I'm sure there are some people who'd want to humiliate the foe with it at the cost of putting themselves further behind or less far ahead and it may have a very situational competitive purpose. As you presented it in the set though, the other 2 throws have clear uses, this one doesn't other than humiliation. Aren't you always the one who goes on about how we present things being important?
Yes, AP drops from players in orb form in PSABR. It happens when struck by items, thrown, or hit with a stage hazard. There's even a stage hazard that is simply a mist that causes the player to drop AP when standing in it.
That much is good to know. Most of us aren't farmiliar with PSABR though, and frankly I think it'll take more than a little article to introduce it fully to MYM. Not that I suggest you do, look at the logo of this site. This is not a PSABR site, this is a Smash Bros site, and working towards the Smash Bros crowd is more our objective than the PSABR crowd, as that's not what the site is about.
And if you want to say the rest of Illbleed appeals to neither, Mary really doesn't either. She's from an obscure game with no relation to Smash Bros or PSABR or their respective systems.
PSABR specifically is about contrast, so it's entirely fine for cute and wuggly to stand toe to toe with tall and fugly. Brawl is a bit more consistant, so your opinion holds a tiny bit of weight there. But seriously, stop making this complaint, you've already drawn your humourless line in the sand. You'll have to accept that some people aren't literalists.
Also, centerpiece of the set is the jump rope. And invisible traps are muyo interesting, both in relation to general spacing, and in conjunction with the jumprope.
I find it a stupid way to humiliate foes even if that's a part of your character in question, it's a bit disrespectful to how the designer made their character if the character's intention was to be serious. Make of that reasoning what you will, we don't have to debate this point out if you're not interested in doing so, but know that it's a a negative factor for me when reading sets.
As for the invisible traps, we've seen them in MYM before all over the place, and done better than they are here. If the jump rope is the centerpiece it never really came across as such, probably because you had the teleport that directly interacts with the invisible traps.
I admit I was a little surprised to learn this was a huge concern with everyone who participated in the movement. I didn't think it was serious enough to make a Scapegoat Mary out of, but a chat with Smash Daddy cleared that misconception right up.
If someone posted a Tatsunoko vs Capcom moveset or something along those lines in the middle of a movement comprised of people who hate Tatsunoko vs Capcom, how do you think they'd react? As that's pretty close to what your doing here, making a moveset for an irrelevant game in the middle of someone else's project. That's why some of us got upset. At the very least I'm glad your intents weren't clearly malicious.
I never formally agreed to do Cuty Mary, it was always "if I find time". By the time I'd finished my other prep for Halloween, there was almost no time left, and my ideas for Mary lacked any believable KO methods. Rather than shoehorn in some kind of catapult, or bizarre KO mechanic with the rope, PSABR's Super System was much more appealing to try. And it was honestly an interesting engine to explore, it allowed me to express Mary more believably.
Hm, the guy who ransacked the Stadium would not lower themselves to a prank. Sure...
I'm honestly sure Cuty Mary's contrast had no negative repurcussions on the movement's reception. My first instinct with ILLBLEED was that it shouldn't have any consistancy at all. That's kind of its point. You might not have noticed but, without guidance, I tend to make my own assumptions about how a movement would be best expressed.
As far as the backhanded comment at the lack of an introduction on Illbleed, every set already has some form of one. It would be totally unnecessary, and this is a very misplaced attack on the movement.
Banballow, the first moveset there, leaps straight into his stats. And the other brawl sets explain the scenarios of Illbleed, but not Illbleed itself. The Horror Amusement Park, Illbleed, more than probably any game world out there, needs an introduction. The park map is awesome by-the-way, it would be just better served with a textual intro to ground readers so that they know what's going on.
The lack of an introduction struck me as being a deliberate act of obfuscation, so what I said wasn't an insult.
I acknowledge pretty readily that I'm very poor at reading and formulating outlooks on other people's movesets. That's something I can definitely improve on.
Frankly, the moveset itself I don't think anything of, it's your response that is offensive. What I take from this post is that the set was politically-motivated, contrary to what you've told me in private. Lets get this straight. You are not appealing to newcomers, this set would confuse them more than any other, nor are you appealing to readers, besides one other person who reads and has played the game. If you make gimmicky sets for other engines out of personal enjoyment, don't do it in someone else's movement for political reasons, it's horrible to combine politics and movesets.
OK, just stop now. I refuse to allow you to dictate to me what my reasons for doing something are. Movesets are expression, and you won't stamp on mine to make an apology come out. I've outlined my reasons, but to be honest, the only one I should ever need, is the first one.[/COLLAPSE]
[COLLAPSE="ForwardArrow"]
ForwardArrow said:
As you presented it in the set though, the other 2 throws have clear uses, this one doesn't other than humiliation. Aren't you always the one who goes on about how we present things being important?
Indeed I do mention that a lot. But it's not always a case of being clear and honest, sometimes the big thing I want the reader to take from a move is that it puts a diaper on the opponent, not that the throw ends with the foe standing on the ground a specific distance in front of Mary (maybe standing on some jacks, or in the pool, or underneath the drinking bird so they can't jump Mary's rope. Or all four so they're trapped in a kind of rube goldberg machine where they're bleeding AP from the jacks, flinching from the rope, and can barely move around because of the pool and the drinking bird that can be rotated to block their way.)
Make of that reasoning what you will, we don't have to debate this point out if you're not interested in doing so, but know that it's a a negative factor for me when reading sets
That's entirely fair. You're entitled to your own opinions.
If someone posted a Tatsunoko vs Capcom moveset or something along those lines in the middle of a movement comprised of people who hate Tatsunoko vs Capcom, how do you think they'd react? As that's pretty close to what your doing here, making a moveset for an irrelevant game in the middle of someone else's project. That's why some of us got upset.
It's hard to argue against that without making myself to be a jerk that likes hurting people. Honestly I was not aware there was a hatedom for PSABR. I thought it was tolerated when I made Cuty Mary.[/COLLAPSE]
Patchouli
You've been on a roll with posting sets lately, and Patchouli here is a lot better than Asura. Yes, they both are projectile spammers, but Patchouli's emphasis on survival and more interesting interactions makes me feel that it holds a fair bit more merit. Also some of the moves stand out to me as satisfying, particularly the lightning and the fire whip, which have cool implications with Emerald City as well. This is all perfectly decent stuff, but the set then gets into a lot of parts that are really just fairly standard camping, with her absurd flight and healing being the main things that distinguish her. I do worry that she might be a bit broken given her stalling ability and healing, not to mention plenty of massive disjointed hitboxes that aren't even that slow. The set's also a bit on the bland side once you get past a small number of interesting moves, there's fundamental flow here don't get me wrong but it struggles to keep the reader's interest. It's an okay moveset, but it doesn't really feel like it's on the same level as Skull Kid.
SSB4 mini still exists, you are a terrible person for saying this and not posting anything for it. That is a way we can realistically expand MYM, by appealing to our neighbours, not by sneaking a bizarrely out-of-place PSASBR set into a movement.
This part in particular needs to be addressed. After all, I'm pretty sure calling someone a "terrible person" really makes outsiders looking in on this conversation want to join MYM more, amirite?
For someone who constantly talks about expanding MYM, you don't seem to realize the effect that the constant arguments and negativity in the thread seems to have upon outsiders. Even people who are somehow interested in MYM by the "SSB4 mini" will look into the thread, view the petty drama in which a leader is gleefully contributing to, roll their eyes and leave.
Addressing the actual issue, you've yet to name a legitimate reason why PSABR sets are so "harmful" to the community, and seem incredibly defiant in the issue of finding positives with it. Especially when you seem so against them that you've yet to add a PSABR section to the set list, perhaps in the fear of it finding an audience. Besides, you can't just specifically expy "one person" with me, Smady. HR is intending to make one and MasterWarlord already has.
You two both have access to mainchat. Take this garbage there and leave it out of the thread.
[COLLAPSE="Standard B: Counter"]
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As I said, the best counter in the game, it comes out much faster than Marth's however, the timing is a bit more tricky, you have to be skilled in order to use this. Like all counters, she's invincible when DOING the counter. Also, in addition to using this technique, you have the opportunity to follow up with one of 4 commands, each one doing something different.
-Not doing a command will cause her to parry her opponent's attack and leave them open to a counter attack, she sets them up at her sweetspot, but does practically no damage doing this (1%-2%).
-Pressing A right after she counters her opponent's attack will cause her to counter attack with a rapid slash, it does decent damage (13%-17%) and knockback allowing you to pursue your opponents.
-If you instead choose to press B, Lyn will vanish and appear behind her opponent and slash them with a powerful slash, this is a very quick move, however, the slight delay does allow your opponent some time to block if they see it coming, this is where the mind games come in as this is MUCH more powerful attack than the A variation, doing 16%-21% damage and very good knockback, still not quite a killing move, but at high damages it just might earn you a KO.
-Your final option is pressing Jump and any direction (or no direction), with which Lyn will vanish and reappear a short distance away in the direction you pressed. She doesn't cover mush ground with this, but enough for evasive maneuvers. This is essentially her defense against Powerful Ranged Attacks and Explosives, but it can also be used for mind games.
Now, in addition to all this, whiffing Lyn's counter has less delay than Marth's, Peach's, Ike's or even Meta Knight's. This is done due to how tricky the timing can be on it (about as tricky as Hakumen's drive), but she's still open to a counter-attack from quick attacks. Also, her counter works on everything from attacks to projectiles to command grabs (like Bowser's Side B), not Normal Grabs (Z/Shield+A) though.[/COLLAPSE]
[COLLAPSE="Side B: Amakakeru Ryu no Hirameki (someone more creative can rename this)"]
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She pushes the ground with her front foot and vanishes appearing a certain distance from her starting location. It has much less range than Fox's Illusion, but it is an effective killing move. She only attacks if she catches an opponent with it, so outside of that, it's an OK recovery move as it can also be used in mid-air. It has landing lag on both occasion, but double if she attacks, and the knockback only happens when she sheathes her sword having a delayed effect, so she DOES leave herself exposed to attack for a bit, but you have to be quick.[/COLLAPSE]
[COLLAPSE="UpB: Secret Technique: 15 Lethal Strikes"]
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She kicks off the ground doing a high leap. If she catches an opponent with it, she'll stop at their height and draw her sword, the moment it's drawn, they're immobilized and she does 15 rapid strikes at their weak points, each strike does 1%-3% damage, the last strike having heavy knockback. After that, she falls like every other character.[/COLLAPSE]
[COLLAPSE="DownB: Suio-ryu Iai Kenpou"]
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She draws her sword and does a rapid slash. This move is delay-able allowing her to concentrate, thus increasing the damage, knockback and range a bit. The high angle of the move makes it a good Anti-Air move, and the fact that you can delay it makes for good mindgames. You can only delay it for a maximum of 2 seconds.[/COLLAPSE]
Addressing the actual issue, you've yet to name a legitimate reason why PSABR sets are so harmful to the community, and seem incredibly defiant in the issue of finding positives with it.
Never said that or complained about PSASBR at all in my reply. The argument was also over and you've pulled it onto the new page, "making newcomers roll their eyes and leave."
In relevant news, I'll try and post some comments today.
The vigilante is a troubled man with a dark past and a history of violence. He fights forces far out of his league, and his battle may well be never-ending. He fights on not out of passion, charity, or even necessity, but simply because he knows nothing else but his own private war. His ground movement and dodges are superior as a result of his dangerous lifestyle, but his shield is poor, as are his aerial capabilities. His ability to Take a Knee allows him to battle evasively and prolong his death.
The vigilante is a man of extremes, and is capable of either dragging out a fight or throwing it all away and trying to take the opponent down with him. His weakness lies in his inability to find a middle ground between guerrilla and kamikaze.
Mechanics
Basic-The Vigilante weighs as much as Diddy Kong and is about the size of Ike. Rather, he would be if his posture were more erect. His hurtbox is effectively of a shorter, wider shape as he stands by default in a slightly crouched, wary position. When allowed to idle, he will swivel his head periodically to keep an eye on his surroundings. Note that the Vigilante carries a small pistol that relies on ammunition. If the pistol needs to be reloaded, he will quickly do so at the start of his idle. Otherwise, he keeps movement to a minimum. When crouching, The Vigilante rests his weight on one knee and draws his pistol from its holster to point straight ahead, holding his arm down against his raised kneecap to steady his aim. His crouch is not quite as short as it could ideally be, but it makes up for that somewhat with the utility of his Take a Knee mechanic.
Movement-The Vigilante's walk is as slow as they come; he proceeds cautiously so as to avoid triggering any kind of hidden defense or trap. He can put on quite a turn of speed when necessary, however. His dash is an all-out sprint every bit as fast as Sheik's. The Vigilante does have a crawl (Though you'll have to be careful to tilt the analog rather than tap it if you want to use the crawl; tapping will initiate a dodge, thanks to the Take a Knee mechanic. When exiting a crawl, the Vigilante will enter and remain in his crouch, following the rules of the Take a Knee mechanic). The basic army crawl is not the Vigilante's quickest mode of transportation, but it does keep him extremely low to the ground. The Vigilante is less adept at aerial movement. His jumps are poor, his fall speed is average, and his maneuvering is among the worst in the game. He looks and feels slightly out of place in the air.
Defense-The Vigilante crosses his arms in front of his face as his bubble shield comes up. When rolling, he dives forward and does a forward roll, popping up in either his crouch or basic stance (see mechanic). The roll is quite quick, and carries him forward just slightly farther than Lucario's roll would, providing you don't cancel out of it.
Engine Alteration Shield Drain
This mechanic takes effect when a fighter presses (and holds) the special button while shielding. This has the effect of causing the fighter's shield to shrink at 1.2x the usual rate. That may sound like a bad thing, but it grants the fighter a bonus to damage on all their attacks. The bonus is equal to half of the HP drained from the shield, to a maximum of a 7% bonus. When the bonus reaches its maximum, the figher's shield will flash white. The attack bonus will last until the fighter takes damage or has their shield broken.
Your character has been approved! Now to move onto the fun part, their signature moves. This week you need to think up the following:
Neutral Special
Side Special
Up Special
Down Special
Their use of the SPECIAL MECHANIC (TBA)
Final Smash
A summary of their strategy/playstyle if you were to explain to someone why they would pick up / main your character
Be sure to try and supplement / create a playstyle with the specials only, with the other moves expanding on it later. You should also take care to look back on the core defensive ability you have for your character, and decide how it plays into their gameplay overall.
EXAMPLE: THE TREASURE HUNTER
Neutral B: Shoot
The treasure hunter stands still and can aim his gun around much like Pit can with his Bow until he presses B again to end the stance. Pressing A while like this will fire his chosen weapon with variable results based on gun.
Side B: Auto-Turret
The Treasure Hunter deploys a turret about 2 character lengths in front of himself that is about 3/4 his height, but 2x as wide. The turret will fire a small barrage of bullets adding up to 12% every other second or so, but only fires at targets in front of it and up to 45* above itself. The bullets hit like Shiek's needles, but have a range of Final Destination. The turret lasts for a total of 10 seconds, and cannot be used again for 4 seconds after it deconstructs, but TH can go up and use Side B on it again to recall the turret and reduce the time between deployments down to as little as 1/4 of a second based on how long it has been out!
Up B: Healing Grenade
TH pulls out an odd, green and yellow grenade from a slot on his belt and throws it in an arc, much like Yoshi's egg. On impact with a floor or enemy, the grenade explodes in a radius covering a platform for 15% and decent upwards knockback. Interestingly, red orbs of energy will fly off of foes who are hit by the grenade and fly back to TH, healing him for 1/2 the damage dealt!
The grenade can also be used as a make-shift recovery when used mid-air if you hold down the B button, keeping it in his hand for 1 second until it explodes, sending him upwards. Luckily, his Restoration Shield should be able to eat the 15% as he gets knocked upwards.
Down B: Gun Swap
TH has 4 guns he can choose from: An Assault Rifle, A Shotgun, Sniper Rifle and a Pistol.
Assault Rifle: Can be held down and fires a continuous spray of bullets that deal 1% and no flinching with range comparable to Fox's Blaster.
Shotgun: Has range similar to Lucario's Forward Smash and deals 15% and high KB in the direction fired, however it's fire rate is comparable to Link's bow (if you ever tried to spam it) and from afar deals less and less damage. Also has a blade on the end of it.
Sniper Rifle: Has the slowest fire rate with about 1 shot being able to be dealt a second, but deals an incredible 25% and high KB. The bullet fired has infinite range.
Pistol: Fires as fast as you can press A, but has range comparable to Luigi's fireball. The bullets fired from it deal 2% and hit-stun.
Mechanic: Elements / Restoration Shield
TH incorporates 3 different elements with his Down Special, as each of the guns (barring the pistol) carries it's own elemental effect.
Assault Rifle: The AR has the Fire element, and deals bonus damage in the form of DoT every 5 rounds or so. Dealing an extra 5% total over time, the fire rate really heats up approaching foes, but Fire is trickier to activate vs armored opponents.
Shotgun: The shotgun has the Electrical Element, and deals x3 damage vs any sort of Absorption (including the standard shield!). Electrical attacks also deal increased hit-stun.
Sniper Rifle: The Sniper has the Corrosive Element, and as such will apply a slow DoT for 10% total over the course of 2 seconds, as well as eat away at any sort of negation the foe has. Interestingly, while a foe is corroding contact with them by other foes will spread the DoT!
Pistol: The Pistol has a simple Explosive Element to it, meaning each shot bursts upon impact. Explosives usually just have slightly bigger hitboxes, but also have the neat effect of halving existing resistances when damaging foes with the explosive attack. This means the pistol can do some reliable, if not too exciting damage!
His Restoration Shield is a passive mechanic he has that is a normal-shield augment. He has a set 25% worth of absorption on at nearly all times (indicated by a light blue number over his % gauge) that must be dwindled down in order to actually hurt him. While the shield is full, TH will regenerate his HP at a rate of 1% per 1/2 second. If his shield is depleted, he will take 10% more Knockback from any attack for a full second, and must be undamaged for a whole 3 seconds for it to shoot back up to full (this also applies to if it is just damaged). If you press the Shield button, TH will simply enter a defensive position where he gains full Super-Armor, letting his shield take the hit and allowing him to near-laglessly counter attack. Of course, he cannot do this when his shield is depleted, but holding shield can take a second off the down-time if the shield is damaged and you don't get hit for a whole second.
Final Smash: Super Turrets
TH is able to send out 2 turrets at once! These super-turrets last for 10 seconds like normal, but deal random elemental (Fire/Elec/Corrosive) damage when they fire, as well as periodically shoot mini-rockets for 15% explosive damage! These turrets have an increased fire-rate and can turn a full 180*, but TH cannot use his normal Turret during this, and must wait 4 seconds again after these ones deconstruct.
Playstyle: Run and Gun
TH is primarily a defensive zoner, who has access to meaty punishing moves and can open up a world of hurt on foes when he sees an opportunity. Ironically, he has very low survival due to lack of an actual recovery beyond blowing himself back to the stage, but his Shield and plethora of hi-tech weaponry should keep you standing when used right. To get the job done he has 4 different "stances" available thanks to his Weapon-Swap Down Special, which each changes his Neutral Special and Smash attacks to better suit the situation at hand, and when all else fails: his trusty Auto turret can pick up the slack while he recuperates.
Ground Movement: 7/10 Traction: 2/10 First Jump: 10/10 Midair Jump: 7/10 Fall Speed: 6/10 Air Speed: 7/10 Air Control: 10/10 Size: 10/10 Weight: 9.5/10
Crovault is a giant of a mutant, his massive legs giving him a height taller than Ganon. His legs are quite scrawny on the ground, though, meaning his horizontal hitbox down on the ground isn't quite as terrible as you'd expect. It's quite awkward to defend his strange hurtbox in the air, but his superb aerial and jumping statistics, along with his mechanic, enable him to be awkwardly evasive for such a character.
Idle: Crovault stands tall with his hands clenched into fists. If left alone, he shifts about a lump in his throat back and forth. Crouch: Crovault lowers to the ground in a traditional stance for a frog, doing an excellent job of decreasing his massive height to a little under that of Wario. Walk/Run: Crovault's walk has him move his fists in front of him as he walks, in a very overconfident matter. Dash: His dash has him actually pump his arms as he runs, giving him a surprisingly fast dash but making his hurtbox huge. Jump: Crovault crouches down into his crouch very quickly before bounding up into the air, his legs and arms dangling underneath him as he propells himself very high into the air. Midair Jump: Crovault extends out his arms and legs before slamming them against the side of his body as if swimming in mid-air.
RAMPAGING
Dashing is a rather predictable stance to be in, what with your limited availability in attacks to your dashing attack/dashing grab/DACUS and difficulty in turning around. This technique gives some actual bang for your buck, giving you superarmor while you dash. The superarmor is specifically only from the front, and even then characters can still be grabbed from the front. The superarmor does not apply while characters are turning around in mid-dash.
It's not as simple as you getting universal superarmor while dashing, though. Once your character takes a certain amount of damage, they lose this luxury. How much damage you have to take varies based off your weight and dashing speed. Each point out of 10 in your statistic gives you an extra 5% you can take while still having access to dashing superarmor.
For some examples, Jigglypuff has a paltry 1/10 dashing speed -and- weight, so she loses access to dashing superarmor when she's at a mere 11% or over. Ganon in the least has some weight at a 9/10, but his pathetic 1/10 dashing speed means once he takes 51%, he loses the superarmor. Bowser, with 5 in dashing speed and 10 in weight, as well as Sonic with 10 in dashing speed and 5 in weight, can take up to 75% while still being able to dash with their superarmor in-tact.
Looks like we lost another one with 7 entrants this week, wonder who amond the remaining will stick through to the end?
The grading criteria:
Creativity: The entry's originality or imaginative qualities. Slightly subjective yes, but clearly the effort put into some of them will show in this category.
Practicality: The entry's ability to actually be implemented and/or balance. A bit trickier than the others, it can be summarized as "can it actually work?".
Execution: The entry's attention to the rules as well as the presentation itself. If an entry is hard to decipher and/or does not follow the guidelines given, they get points off here.
Appeal: The overall "feel" of the entry and how well it meshes with either the whole project, smash, or just within itself. An entry with high appeal will generally be seen as cool by the community (Falcon.....), whereas low appeal can be seen as "cheap" or "awkward" (MK's Brawl Tornado).
Total: Lastly, each category will be scored from 1 to 5, with 1 being poor and 5 being great. The Total is then added up to a score out of 20, which can also be converted to a raw % with 1 point = 5%, if you feel like it.
This week I will be grading the mechanics presented, and unfortunately say goodbye to Katapultar and ForwardArrow, both of whom will no longer be participating.
Creativity: 3/5
Aerial Priority as you have it here, based on height, is an interesting idea for sure, but at the same time isn't terribly innovative as it just gives aerials a similar system ground already uses.
Practicality: 1/5
Unfortunately, a host of factors mess this idea up. First, many attacks in the air are too fast to cover the 0.7+ SBB distance required for this to take effect while the character falls. Second, aerials do not follow the same priority as ground moves to allow for air and ground moves to hit each other given the commitment of going to the air and attacking a grounded opponent vs using an anti-air in the first place.
Execution: 4/5
That said, the ideas here are rather well presented and thought out, if flawed.
Appeal: 2/5
On the whole this isn't really something I'd consider a "must have" feature, sorry.
Creativity: 2/5
Adding a new defensive option to the game in a sort of momentum-based manner is certainly neat, especially when tied in to both speed and weight! However, it also doesn't add anything incredibly new outside of making everybody's approach easier...
Practicality: 4/5
As far as implementation, this is completely fine outside of edge cases where the right mix of speed and weight (and other such things as dash attacks/whatever) could be abused.
Execution: 5/5
Well presented and easy to apply to everyone, good job.
Appeal: 3/5
Certainly likeable on it's own, but as a global change it is lacking something...
Creativity: 4/5
Reminiscent of my own Super-Smash, this mechanic provides a means of augmenting specials with a whole new layer of depth!
Practicality: 5/5
Very interesting, only concern would be the individual moves and how they boost.
Execution: 3/5
Unfortunately, you didn't provide too much info on various smash charges and what they do. Are you only limited to 1 smash charge per special, or can you stack all 4 into one super-special-charge? And example also would have been nice. (Also, do you keep them between stocks?)
Appeal: 4/5
I can see a lot being done with this mechanic, but at the same time it could also make some moves a tad awkward based on the direction it's taken with either 1 charge per use, stacking charges, and/or carrying charge between stocks.
Creativity: 5/5
I can't help but feel like I've seen something like this before...
...hmm. Anywho, the ability to actively try to clash and react as a defensive or offensive action is very fun to think of, and even gives 2 new moves to think about!
Practicality: 3/5
I had to subtract a few points here however as no mention is given that you actually change parry windows to occur more often to allow this to be more relevant or not. Bisharp did it through his unique hitbox mechanics (and Metal Burst) to ensure he'd clash often, would this occur as frequently to be made use of?
Execution: 5/5
Great explanations. Even though the disjointed part didn't matter as that only comes into play when things don't clash lol. (that and aerials)
Appeal: 5/5
Adding two (or more!) inputs to the entries while a tad daunting, does a great deal to add to the overall theme of the Challenge Mini as well as benefit everyone creatively. Great job.
Creativity: 2/5
While not adding too much, this is a great way to balance many grab-issues seen in smash!
Practicality: 5/5
10/10, would want.
Execution: 5/5
Great ideas to balance it out.
Appeal: 3/5
All said and done, unfortunately this doesn't appeal much as a sweeping mechanic to use with the other entries as much as I'd like, as its more of a balance tweak (an awesome one at that) than a brand new mechanic. :/
Creativity: 5/5
An interesting take on trading defense for offense in similar vein to early entries to the defense mechanics, the subtle but useful change is cool.
Practicality: 3/5
Practically speaking, wrecking your shield for a bonus that goes away the moment you're hit isn't very user friendly. I'd imagine only a few characters could get away with getting "great" use of it, and even then only a select few still would be able to pull it off consistently.
Execution: 4/5
Just missing some details such as how shield HP halved would equal like... 35% bonus in reality.
Appeal: 4/5
The idea has merit definitely, but the small issues here and there with it ultimately drag it down for me.
Total: 16/20
Congrats to FrozenRoy for pitching the most interesting mechanic! Be sure to include Clash and Parry in your Week4 entries!
Runner Up Collaboration:
That said, we did have two interesting entries tied for second place that I think we could salvage as a group. So as an optional part of your Week4 entry: try and combine aspects of both Smash Charge and Shield Drain into a secondary mechanic proposal. Like with Clash and Parry, the best take on it wins!
Creativity: 3/5
Aerial Priority as you have it here, based on height, is an interesting idea for sure, but at the same time isn't terribly innovative as it just gives aerials a similar system ground already uses.
I assumed you would have been able to appreciate how granting extra priority to attacks used from higher up, would change the way aerials are used and reacted to. If that's not your cup of tea though, I can't exactly complain.
Practicality: 1/5
Unfortunately, a host of factors mess this idea up. First, many attacks in the air are too fast to cover the 0.7+ SBB distance required for this to take effect while the character falls.
That was exactly the intention. Letting the mechanic reward safe attacks that require no committment seems counter-intuitive. It's the lengthy aerials that need the carrot. There is also the possibility of the player not falling the required distance, but of the opponent RISING the required distance (e.g. recovering). The 0.7 SBU stipulation is also there to enforce a physical reason why one aerial is outprioritising the other (i.e. the added force of gravity on the attack).
Second, aerials do not follow the same priority as ground moves to allow for air and ground moves to hit each other
And aerials still wouldn't follow the rules of ground priority even with the new mechanic in place. It is my fault for negecting to mention this, but the mechanic would not be a factor in determining Air Vs Ground exchanges.
[/COLLAPSE]
Manny Pacquiao I gotta apologise for not jumping on this the moment you posted it, but flus and such ... Ultimately, the greatest joy in MYM is seeing someone else take your idea or base, and stretching it out in their own way. Makes a person feel appreciated, ya know? So, thank you for making this moveset. Seriously.
You were very diligent in capturing the style and pacing of Calzaghe's moveset, from the colour and paragraph structure, all the way down to some of the quirks in how the set is written. More impressive perhaps, is that you took all the various mechanics and concepts from the MYM6 boxer, and reimagined them for a more modern, more design-savvy, audience.
Structurally, Manny feels more cognisant of the set's ideas than Joe was of his. TKOs are thankfully absent, leaving the moveset to concentrate on the climb towards the real KO. And it sounds like quite a climb too, Manny has a difficult time getting the foe offscreen. Though that was one of Calazaghe's soft-spots too, so I can't complain. Feinting feels like a good replacement for Joe's awkwardly finger cramping shuffling, and that makes Manny more about the timing of spacing, than simply the spacing of spacing (if that makes sense). Something I particularly enjoyed was the brazenly simplistic throws, three of which were spacers, and the last one being a Junahu style "reposition the grab without leaving it" throw. They're not too exciting to read, but are very true to the sport, which is exactly the kind of approach I approve of.
Also, your Final Smash wins. It wins all of MYM. Here's your trophy
\_/ ¦¦ ---
One nitpick on the moveset though; perfect shielding an attack automatically sends the player into a forward roll, which may or may not be the best out-of-shield reaction at the time. It would be quite annoying to accidentally perfect shield a projectile and roll right into the opponent's clutches. Perhaps he should parry the attack instead, so that he has some kind of lag advantage (if he wants to roll, he can just... roll normally).
This moveset is also screaming out for a Pacquiao Vs Calzaghe matchup
Sorry the language of the mechanic was unclear; I know that shield HP would theoretically let the bonus get that high, but that seemed excessive, so I decided the charge should stop once the bonus reaches 7% to keep it from being too ridiculous.
OCs are more than welcome, Waver - you should have seen the original Make Your Move contest, it was full of them! (none of them were as child-friendly as this guy though) He reminds me of the Fruit Loop bird. Pretty awesome drawing.
Being an OC, some extras could have been great to show off his character, as unlike most sets where they take an existing character you're the only one who knows of this guy's source material! Why not show us your little universe if you're going to post more characters from its universe, and maybe make the Ice Reaper into a boss. That'd be cool to see. Just little stuff that'd make your next set more anticipated.
Tigger: an excitable fellow if there ever was one. Though he was one among many stuffed animals within A. A. Milne's original book, his personality took on new life in Disney's Winnie the Pooh franchise. Singing his ubiquitous theme song and 'bouncing' all in his path, Tigger charmed audiences everywhere, though not necessarily those on his receiving end. His enthusiasm often leads to chaos, and his confidence is excessive on occasion. Nevertheless, Tigger's dedication to his friends is second-to-none, and he'll always plunge forth in his eagerness to help them, disregarding potential risks in the process.
Statistics
Jumps------10 Fall Speed------7 Weight------6.5 Movement------6 Size------6 Aerial Movement------4 Traction------2
Unsurprisingly, Tigger's jumping statistic outranks all his others, boosting him far higher than all characters who don't possess multiple midair jumps. Though he can propel himself with great vigor in one direction, Tigger has trouble stopping any momentum he picks up, being a challenging character to control at times. That said, foes must be wary of the sheer energy with which Tigger can come at them, even if they team up against him.
Specials
Neutral Special --- Hunny Pot Tigger reaches behind himself, pulling out a simple white-and-brown honeypot with half a second of startup lag. Immediately afterward, he throws the pot away from him with great force, making a disgusted face. Tiggers don't like honey! By default, he throws his honeypot half of Battlefield horizontally, before it falls and splatters on the ground, though he can angle his toss directly up, down, or diagonally, giving the pot a fair deal more airtime before it plummets. Pots create a two platform wide patch of honey upon landing, which last for thirty seconds each before vanishing. Foes who land in these will enter as sticky a situation as they do when hit by a honeypot full blast. If dealt 20%, however, pots shatter harmlessly, leaving no trace of honey behind.
Should a character step or fall onto a honey patch, they'll find themselves adhered to the ground. To escape, they must pull against the honey for a second and a half, jumping up and recovering to stretch away (this becomes more difficult at high damage levels). Speaking of higher damage, knockback that can KO at 100% or lower will also free a victim. A character smacked by a honeypot, however, will suffer 7-8% and become coated in the goopy substance as its container shatters on them. The honey will stick to them, too, for thirty seconds, though it does not inhibit their movement immediately. Coated opponents do experience slight modifications to their grab-game, as well as when they are grabbed; opponents must pull away from the coated character for a second and a half to escape, instead of mashing free, while the coated character must do the same when grabbed themselves.
More significantly, if a coated opponent comes in contact with another character, whether by simply touching them or by hitting them with an attack that KOs higher than 100%, they'll become stuck together. While adhered, either character can drag the other around, though if their movements are conflicting, the heavier character's movements will win out, in terms of jumping and dashing (though their jump height and speed are curtailed slightly). Each character can dodge, though they'll only move themselves into the background, rather than their partner. If either character is attacked, both suffer the knockback, though either character can free themselves using the same techniques that can free characters from honey patches (they can suffer the knockback either from their partner or from an outsider). All of this is, of course, far more difficult to pull off with Tigger bouncing around the premises.
Tigger may have up to five honeypots' worth of the substance onstage at a time, whether on the stage or an opponent. Bringing out an additional pot causes the oldest honey to vanish. Tigger, while not immune to his own honey, is able to negate its effects with utmost ease.
Side Special --- Scarecrow Tigger pulls out a simple smiling scarecrow from behind him, forcefully driving its post in front of him over .55 second and brushing his hands together contentedly. The scarecrow itself is as tall as Marth and wide as Wario, resting on a post as tall as Olimar's body. Two scarecrows can exist onstage at once, each serving as a solid blockade-of-sorts and possessing a relatively sturdy 50 HP. Should Tigger perform this move in midair, his scarecrow will plummet straight down, dealing 7% and spiking foes weakly, before landing onstage. Scarecrows' posts knock foes up into the air should they become caught underneath as Tigger plunges downward, dealing 7% and putting them in a prime position for Tigger to deal with using the rest of his moveset.
Most importantly, however, is Tigger's use of scarecrows as a surface for his Up Special bouncing. Though Tigger generally prefers facing multiple opponents to spring from, by planting scarecrows against a single opponent, he retains humanoid figures to aid him in his bouncing, allowing him to lunge at opponents from all sorts of new angles at his leisure. If an opponent is hit into a scarecrow, they'll bounce from it as they would from any old wall (though scarecrows cannot be teched). If Tigger pegs one with a honeypot and coats it, however (or coats the opponent), they'll stick to the scarecrow, having to pull away from it to escape. This can come in particularly handy if Tigger plants a scarecrow over the stage edge, where foes will have to jump over it at the very least to begin with.
Down Special --- Hop-penstance Tigger jumps up slightly and starts springing up and down in place on his tail, charging his energy. Upon release, Tigger begins bouncing up and down in place, at a rate of one bounce per second, reaching a height of 1.5 Ganondorf at each bounce's apex. As you might expect, Tigger's charge modifies the height of his bouncing, but rather than setting all bounces to one set height, charging increases the rate at which he bounces higher and higher. Merely tapping the input will cause Tigger to bounce without gaining any height. Holding the charge for half a second causes him to increase the height of each successive bounce by half, while charging a second or longer results in him doubling the height of each successive bounce. Naturally, higher jumps take longer to land from, so the Tigger player can fastfall to return to the stage before reaching his bounce's apex (or to fall more rapidly once reaching it), and can cancel the stance entirely by hitting the input again, likely to prevent Tigger from bouncing -too- unnecessarily high.
Regardless of bounce height, Tigger essentially enters a state of automatic short-hopping, able to DI around before landing from each bounce. This comes in handy during Tigger’s approaches, allowing him to begin a move on the ground and continue while traveling into the air to pressure foes around the stage. In addition, short-hopping around the stage freely is an excellent way to aim the trajectory of thrown honeypots, both in terms of height and distance traveled. And once Tigger has grabbed a honey-coated foe, bouncing around the stage or into the air to position them is yet another invaluable tactic he may enjoy, since he doesn't stop onstage once they're in his grasp.
Up Special --- Whoopty-Dooper-Loopty-Looper-Alley-Ooper Bounce Tigger freezes in place, lifting a leg and twisting his middle around multiple times like a coil. He may hold this animation for as long as he pleases, angling it with the control stick or canceling out of it by shielding. He may also perform the move in midair, though he falls shortly after initiating it, much like Fox’s shine. Upon release, Tigger soars, arms outstretched, in a "super bounce" half of Final Destination in the selected direction, or vertically if none is chosen.
Should he come in contact with an opponent, he’ll circle comically around them, both remaining airborne while he spins between the foreground and background. From there, the Tigger player can tap A and a direction to perform a second aimed "super bounce" off of them, dealing 10% in the process. This second bounce is not only free of startup lag, it propels Tigger's victim in the opposite direction, spinning helplessly as if footstool jumped (even if they're not bounced downward). Tigger can circle a foe as long as he pleases before bouncing off them, though because characters can attack him out of this state, he had best aim his bounce quickly. Tigger can "super bounce" between opponents an infinite number of times, canceling out of the move by dodging if necessary, though he may not wish to do so, as he’d lose all the momentum he gained through his maneuvers.
Tigger initially soars at Fox’s dash speed half of Final Destination before stopping (if no character is in his path), though both stats increase by half with each subsequent bounce, up to twice this speed and distance after four bounces. More importantly, the time an opponent remains in their footstooled state is increased by half with each subsequent bounce, again maxing out after four bounces; the speed at which they travel while foostooled is also increased slightly. Tigger isn't limited to bouncing between multiple opponents either; he can also bounce off of scarecrows to increase momentum (try placing two close together for maximum efficiency), off of the ground or walls (which he will press up against during his angling phase, rather than circling around), and can even bounce off of an aerial honeypot he's thrown, though the damage he deals upon bouncing off may shatter them. To break his momentum, opponents will either have to time an air dodge or attack Tigger out of his flight, though the latter option becomes more difficult as he reaches higher speeds.
Depending on how opponents, scarecrows and honeypots are positioned, either through Tigger's own planning or organically, Tigger can build up this bouncy momentum quickly. Even if he’s not prepared to footstool foes into a gimp to finish them off, the increasingly troublesome stun Tigger inflicts on opponents after each bounce allows him to return to them with an additional bounce, continually pushing them in one direction before potentially finishing them off with an aerial. There's always the option to push the opponent down into a patch of honey as well. And, should Tigger ever become stuck in honey himself, he can launch himself free with little to no effort with this mult-purpose centerpiece.
The move is cleanly depicted toward the end of this video, albeit with Tigger circling around inanimate objects rather than opponents.
Grab-Game
Grab-Game --- Lunge Tigger simply reaches forward with moderate range and speed, holding his foe in a noogie pose of sorts. His highly mobile grab-game becomes automatically more effective on opponents coated in honey, who must pull against Tigger for 0.75 second (half the time of escaping from a honey patch) to escape rather than mashing; as Tigger moves around, his opponent will have to alter the direction they're pulling at a moment's notice. When Tigger grabs multiple opponents glued together with honey, this becomes even more challenging, as the opponents must coordinate their efforts to pull free, rather than pulling willy-nilly in multiple directions. Tigger is capable of grabbing in midair while short-hopping with Down Special, enabling him to handle aerial opponents his own special way.
Pummel --- Top Spin If Tigger is grasping a single foe, he'll simply spin them around in his arms rapidly, dealing 1-2% and a light stun so as to delay their escape. When grasping multiple opponents, however, Tigger spins the opponents to shift his grasp from the one opponent of two or three he's grabbing to another, allowing them to bear the brunt of his upcoming throw instead.
Forward Throw --- Slingshot While holding a single foe, Tigger merely bowls his victim forward along the stage, dealing a light 7% that can potentially boost the character into a patch of honey. Instead of bothering to do this with multiple foes, Tigger begins pulling back on the foe he's holding, allowing them to stretch slightly away from the other victim(s) they're glued to with honey. He can do this for up to a second and a half before he'll pull them free, ruining the throw.
Should he release the input anytime prior to this, however, he'll release the victim, snapping them into their fellow characters for 5-10% and moderate knockback, depending on how far back they were pulled. This throw can potentially backfire on Tigger, although he -can- use it to turn around foes' attempts to escape against them. If a bundle of foes has pulled a fair distance away from Tigger's grab already, he won't have to pull back much at all himself before releasing his victim to deal maximum damage on the whole bunch. If he can launch them all into a patch of honey? All the better for him. In midair, Tigger will launch his victims in the direction they're pulling, which may end up being up or down instead of horizontal, as is typical onstage.
Back Throw --- Reversal Tigger performs a small bounce, flipping in midair while dragging his foe with him, before slamming them into the ground (if onstage), facing the other direction. This deals 5-6%, but is not especially tailored to building damage. Its actual benefit stems from Tigger being able to flip a coated foe (or foes) around while they're trying to pull free. Tigger performs this throw more slowly while holding multiple opponents, barely getting off the ground while bouncing under their weight, but damaging all of them upon landing as a bonus. Regardless of how many foes he's carrying, the sudden shift in direction allows Tigger more time to unleash his other throws on opponents, especially considering he doesn't release his opponents after performing this throw (though he may only use it once per grab).
Down Throw --- Dribble Tigger begins bouncing with his opponent, albeit in a different way than one might expect. Here, he simply pushes them into the ground forcefully with both hands three times rapidly, dealing three hits of 3% as the foe ricochets up and down. Foes are capable of escaping this process early by timing a tech against the stage. Notably, Tigger can bounce around while dribbling his victim (he dribbles approximately once per half second), progressing forward while carrying his foe(s). This comes in handy when you consider that a foe coated in honey creates a small, half-platform width patch of it upon impact (twice and thrice this with two or three foes, respectively).
Because of this, Tigger can either dribble victims forward to create a honey patch by spreading the substance that's already on their body, or dribble a coated foe in place to create a small honey patch, then stick them into it with the second dribble. In midair, Tigger shakes his victim(s) three times, dealing the same damage per shake and allowing any honey on them to drip down onto the stage to create puddles, coating any other foes they land on in the process.
Up Throw --- A Toss-Up Tigger spins around once before tossing his victim into the air, dealing a light 5% in the process. Onstage, this create a simple set-up with which Tigger can build momentum vertically, through using Up Special to bounce between the foe above him and the stage beneath him. If Tigger has managed to use a combination of Down Special's bounces and the stunning properties of his grab-game to get close to the top blast zone with his opponent, however, he can simply toss them up, before springing down toward the stage with Up Special to push them up into a Star KO in a footstooled state.
This is nigh impossible to pull off when carrying multiple glued opponents, whose weight affects Tigger's jump height. Instead, when Tigger releases them, they begin falling freely, becoming able to use gravity to pull free from each other easily. However, if Tigger releases these opponents offstage, the diverse nature of each character's recovery may directly screw them all over; while some characters are attempting to pull free and reach the stage vertically, others are performing horizontal dashes or levitating freely to do so. As a result, all characters may end up glued together until the bitter end, granting Tigger a triple KO as a result. Even if a character or two manages to escape, the opportunistic bastards among them may simply finish off the remaining glued victims on their own, working in a way that benefits Tigger without him even intervening.
Standards
Jab --- Kick Back Tigger bounces onto his tail, aiming his feet forward as he kicks lightly forward multiple times rapidly, laughing 'hoo hoo hoo hoo' as he does so. He may hold this move out for up to seven seconds, with him performing approximately two kicks per second. Each kick deals just 1%, pushing foes back a set platform distance. While this is obviously quite useless for racking damage initially, should he manage to connect with a honey-coated opponent, they'll become adhered to his foot. In this case, the foe will bounce back the set distance, before snapping back to Tigger, allowing for a bit of situational damage-racking. In midair, where this is less plausible, Tigger's kicking can still serve as a decent spacing move; since he's already on his tail due to being in his Down Special stance, the move's slight startup lag is negated, much to Tigger's benefit. Because of this, if Tigger ever needs a single quick move with which to hit an opponent within an offscreen magnifying glass for the KO, this is often his best bet.
Dash Attack --- Sidestep Tigger turns to face the screen and begins sidestepping across the stage at a speed slightly slower than his regular, as he does during his theme song. This is a keep-on-dashing attack, creating a weak hitbox on Tigger's frontside that deals 3-4% and light set knockback. While this is a fine option for hustling past opponents, it comes in most handy when dealing with multiple glued characters. Because the weak knockback will impact them far less than it would a regular character, Tigger can continuously charge into them to shove them around to his liking. When carrying glued victims around with Tigger's grab becomes too sluggish, this is an awesome back-up tool to have, especially if a honey path lies in the victims' path. This is Tigger's one standard move that cannot be performed in midair through Down Special.
Forward Tilt --- Tail Lasso Tigger casts his tail out in front of him over .4 second, with it enlarging slightly so that, when he holds its end, it forms a loop, reaching out slightly less than a platform length. He holds the lasso out for a slightly shorter period of time than Link's grab, with his tail having a miniscule hitbox all the while. Though this merely deals 3-4%, the minimal push it gives opponents can still prove advantageous to Tigger. Should opponents hit the portion of the lasso closest to Tigger, it will stun them directly in front of him, setting them up perfectly for a grab, among other moves. Should they hit its outer portion, on the other hand, they'll be spaced away just enough to be effectively pegged with a honeypot (and stunned so they cannot defend against it). In midair, these spacing maneuvers come in most handy for positioning foes to be bounced off of with Up Special.
Down Tilt --- Stomp Tigger hops forward a platform length and stomps the ground with both feet over .7 second. His feet contain a pitfalling hitbox, dealing 5-6% in the process. Should Tigger connect with the move, the player can tap A twice more during the brief ending lag for Tigger to stomp in place over his victim, increasing the difficulty with which they can mash free slightly while dealing additional damage. Opponents stomped into a patch of honey face twice the regular mashing difficulty to begin with, so Tigger can potentially keep his foes as viable stationary bouncing targets for quite some time, since foes in honey patches must still pull free once leaving their pitfall.
If Tigger stomps on foes glued together with honey, he won't pitfall them, but will rather separate each character, dealing 5-6% each and pushing them back a short distance from each other, stunned slightly. This grants him smaller, more plentiful bouncing targets, spacing them nicely apart so that he may spring between them with Up Special to boot. Used in midair through Down Special, Tigger will perform a stall-then-fall at a slight diagonal angle, pitfalling foes with more force than usual before springing skyward again (albeit at an angle that makes it awkward for him to repeat the move on the same victim).
Up Tilt --- Header Tigger leans down slightly before thrusting his head into the air a Mario height, his vertical range extended slightly by his tail. By default, the move deals 6% and knockback KOing around 200%. Onstage, it's more of a juggler than anything. However, should a character fall or fastfall onto his head's hitbox, these two outputs increase quite a bit. After all, Tigger's top is made out of rubber.
For every Marth an opponent falls, the damage is increased by half, while its KO percentage is lowered by 15%. Fastfalling has an impact on the amount of damage and knockback characters receive, though the extent of this impact depends on the character in question's individual fall speed. Tigger can also take advantage of these buffs by bouncing up with Down Special and executing U-Tilt before he begins to fall. This comes in particularly handy when attempting to boost multiple glued opponents into the air at once, since their combined fall speeds guarantee a higher payoff, at least damage-wise (if all foes involved are too heavy to launch much).
Smashes
Forward Smash --- Pounce Tigger gets down on all fours, snarling comically, before pouncing forward a platform. He'll suffer moderate end lag if he fails to grab an opponent. If he connects, however, he'll begin rolling over and over with them, traveling forward across the stage from two platforms to half of Final Destination, depending on charge time. Opponents suffer 15-21% from multiple hits as they roll, ending in prone as Tigger stands overtop them, ready to capitalize on their next move. They can mash A to free themselves from Tigger's pounce if they're not coated in honey.
If they are, not only are they stuck with Tigger, but they help him out mid-roll; while rolling across the stage with a coated opponent, Tigger scrapes the honey off their body and onto the stage, creating a patch as long as the distance he traveled. Conversely, if Tigger rolls a regular opponent through an existing honey patch, he'll transfer the substance from the stage onto their body, removing the trap but inflicting them with the status effect. Regardless of honey, Tigger can also roll right off the stage with an opponent, setting them up for a gimp or giving him additional time to toss honeypots around. If Tigger uses this move on multiple glued opponents, he'll remove the honey keeping them stuck together, dropping each character periodically into prone until he's ultimately standing over just one at the end of his roll. Though this requires Tigger to keep track of multiple characters' get-up strategies at once, it's yet another option if he wishes to space out opponents for bouncing purposes.
Down Smash --- Tornado Tail Tigger spreads his arms, stands on a single foot and begins spinning around in place rapidly, his tail spinning freely with him. It reaches out approximately three-quarters of a platform around him, dealing multiple hits of 2-3% that can total from 22-28%, depending on charge. Though characters are generally hit outward after three to four hits, an individual coated in honey will remain caught in the multiple hits, racking up damage rapidly.
Should Tigger use this move overtop a patch of honey, he'll fling the platform's worth of honey he's on horizontally to either side, in the form of four Pokeball-sized blobs each way. Though, unlike regular thrown pots, these blobs won't coat opponents, they will deal 3% and decrease their aerial mobility by one statistical unit, preventing them from cruising through the air effectively to avoid honey patches below. Blobs travel in a Ganondorf-high arc two platforms away from Tigger, each creating a mini-patch as large as one character width. Rather than tossing out multiple pots to create patches, Tigger can instead create a single patch, then spread it around to generate multiple ones, all spaced out for maximum sticky chaos.
Up Smash --- Hugging Hurl Tigger compresses his tail down into the stage, looking determinedly upward. Upon release, he bounds from one to two Ganondorfs into the air, arms spread wide. Should he connect with a victim, he'll cling to them, performing three rapid flips in midair before flinging them skyward, dealing 12-16% and knockback KOing from 220-205%. The player can alter the trajectory of Tigger's victim with the control stick while he's flipping. After being launched, Tigger's opponent remains in a dizzied state of histun, falling anywhere from 0.75 to 1.25 second before gaining mobility.
This won't do much to gimp most characters offstage, but it does create a nice temporarily-immobilized bouncing target for Tigger. In addition, he can grab honeypots he's thrown, flipping their contents into the air to fling them around in the form of the honey blobs from D-Smash. This time, however, eight blobs are sent to either side, traveling in a fan shape to either side of Tigger; these are quite effective in peppering foes with 3% hits that whittle down their aerial movement. Barring aerial platforms, these aerial blobs will not land and create patches; a mixture of D-Smash and U-Smash to position and bog down opponents is preferable by far in this regard.
Aerials
Neutral Air --- King of Swing Tigger faces the screen and stretches his arms and legs out for a half second. If he comes in contact with a foe during this time, he'll begin swinging around with them in an increasingly-rapid circular formation (he reaches maximum speed after one second). Much like with his spinning from Up Special, Tigger is able to hold this pose infinitely, though his victim may attack him away after the initial stun they suffer from being grabbed. Upon release, Tigger will use his momentum not to fling himself away, but to hurl the opponent in any direction instead. They suffer 7-11% from being thrown and are sent back roughly half of Final Destination, with slightly more or less distance depending on charge time. Honey-coated opponents require more momentum to throw longer distances, due to their stickiness.
This move comes in most handy when you consider that Tigger can perform aerials while soaring around with Up Special, performing the move while continuing in his trajectory, before returning to his default soaring state. In this case, he'll throw his opponent, pausing half a second before soaring after them with Up Special automatically, his momentum retained. This is an excellent on-the-fly spacing technique, though Tigger's slight end lag before soaring again prevents him from infiniting victims. As a last ditch option for keeping honeypots airborne or changing their flight path, Tigger can fling them as well, though he risks shattering them prematurely in doing so.
Forward Air --- Lunge In an unusual startup for an F-Air, Tigger rears back slightly, as if preparing to pounce. He may hold this pose for up to a second before pouncing, though he does not power up his subsequent attack at all by doing so. If Tigger just pounces regularly (or if a foe automatically triggers his pounce by touching him during his startup), he'll travel forward a platform, dealing two hits of 5% to his opponent, first colliding with them, then kicking them forward lightly enough to not have any real KO potential, but strong enough to push them away, even if they're coated in honey.
When used out of his soaring Up Special stance, the startup becomes a valuable tool with which Tigger can throw off opponents trying to do the same to him. If they try air dodging so that he soars past them, Tigger can simply pause, wait for the opponent to re-enter the foreground, then pounce onto them, circling around them in this instance rather than hitting them away. This is not a flawless option, however, as Tigger will lose his soaring momentum if he pauses for longer than .5 second before pouncing.
Back Air --- Spring Bottom Tigger leans back slightly, thrusting his tail behind him in the hopes of connecting with a target. He'll suffer from a split second of ending lag should he fail to find one, but if he does, Tigger will prove exactly how springy his bottom can be. He'll press into them for a split second, before propelling himself forward half of Final Destination and his victim back the same distance, dealing 5-6% in the process. Both these distances are halved if the foe is honey-coated.
While compressed against an opponent, Tigger may angle his trajectory diagonally up or down. This is one move Tigger ought not to use while building momentum, since it will slow his soaring down by half. However, if he successfully launches from an opponent, he can use Up Special within a second after doing so to start soaring with momentum equivalent to that he has after bouncing off one foe. If Tigger's foes are squeamish and difficult to manage, Tigger can build up a little early momentum by using this off of a scarecrow for starters.
Up Air --- Constrict Tigger undergoes rather different animations for this move when he's soaring or in his default aerial state, though both serve the same ultimate purpose. In his default state, Tigger merely reaches a Mario skyward, aiming for his victim's heels. Should he connect, he'll cling to them, dealing no damage but effectively grabbing them and combining their fall speeds. Foes can mash free (this becomes twice as difficult if they're honey-coated) or attack Tigger to escape, though he can dodge free if he chooses to do so early.
Should Tigger perform this move immediately before soaring into an opponent, he'll constrict around them from his circling state. Now that he's no longer spinning madly, he and his victim will begin falling freely. In addition to dodging, Tigger may also cancel out of this fall by soaring off his opponent, retaining his momentum as long as he bounces off within a second and a half of initiating the move. Falling with his victim allows Tigger to aim his subsequent bounce more accurately, as well as to potentially drop a victim into a honey patch.
Down Air --- Tail Drag Tigger extends his tail a Mario downward, forming a slight hook with it to snare opponents. Rather than immediately bouncing off them, he'll loop his tail around any character he hits, capturing them in a grab-like state from which opponents can escape by attacking or mashing (again, more difficult to mash free from for honey-coated opponents). From this position, Tigger may input the move again to bounce his opponent down after falling a short distance, angling their trajectory slightly left or right if he so chooses. This deals a rather average 8% and knockback that can spike opponents with a fair amount of damage.
Tigger uses this move identically while soaring around, with its key difference being that, once he uses Up Special off his snared victim, he'll drag them along with him, hooked with his tail. Now, he may either spike them at any point while soaring (perhaps over a specific honey patch), or continue dragging them along while circling around other opponents. In this case, Tigger's first victim will slam into his second one as he springs from them, dealing an additional 5% to them along with the damaging footstool they're already receiving. The time Tigger has to drag around a victim depends on the momentum he already has, as well as the victim in question (whether or not they're honey-coated, how heavy they are, etc.).
Final Smash
Final Smash --- Expert Climbing Tigger laughs his trademark 'hoo hoo hoo hoo' as a monstrous tree sprouts from the center of the stage, rapidly sprouting far, far up and beyond the top blast zone. This particular tree is riddled with branches, each two platforms long, solid, and on alternating sides of the tree. Each branch is spaced four and a half Ganondorfs from the next branch; in other words, it's a perfect opportunity for its user to show off that no one can climb up trees like Tiggers! Tigger automatically bounds onto the first branch, beginning the Final Smash.
Over the next ten seconds, the screen scrolls up at an alarmingly fast rate, even slightly faster than the maximum speed on that godawful Jungle Beat stage. Of course, this is no real problem for Tigger, who can use his bouncing prowess to navigate the branch platforms with utmost ease. However, the vast majority of his opponents must double jump and recover, just to make it to the next branch and avoid being KOed off the bottom of the screen. Tigger can either waylay opponents with his various spikes or stunners (honey patches are devilish here), or bounce off the screen top, causing the screen to scroll even faster to keep up with him.
After ten seconds, the screen reaches the tree top, giving characters a second's rest before scrolling all the way back down to the stage over the same time frame. Opponents have a far easier time surviving this phase of the Final Smash, since Tigger cannot fall down to speed up the scrolling, though they can now be KOed off either the top or bottom blast zone. Should Tigger slip up and fall, the screen will simply return to the stage, causing all foes to fall back down harmlessly as the tree vanishes. If Tigger can keep ahead of the scrolling, this can be a highly potent finishing move against sluggish opponents, though against more nimble ones, he may have to intervene more to score an actual KO.
Playstyle
Much as he does into his source material, Tigger inserts a well-needed shot of adrenaline into matches. Whether he's ricocheting through the skies at top speeds or springing around onstage, Tigger is constantly on the move throughout his matches. His preference for handling multiple opponents, whether in a FFA or team setting, becomes apparent when his winning strategies are evaluated. Regardless of the number of foes Tigger is pitting against, his curious lack of emphasis on traditional knockback gives the impression of him being a whimpering weakling. However, Tigger is anything but a paper tiger at the end of the day.
Tigger's gameplay from the start of each match will generally revolve around his honeypots. Through a combination of careful aiming and spacing through Down Special, Tigger can coat both portions of stage and opponents with the substace, bouncing annoyingly out of reach all the while. Against single opponents, Tigger is better off sealing them onto the stage to form a stationary target, while, against multiple opponents, coating at least one opponent in honey before baiting or knocking them into a second or third character creates a mass of hurtboxes, easy to manipulate.
Simultaneously or immediately after this, Tigger can commence racking damage on opponents. Rather than simply charging headfirst into the fray, Tigger's bouncy mobility enables him to spring forward or backward at will with Down Special, initiating moves at opportune moments to counter enemies during their moments of vulnerability. He can continue with this tactic against aerial opponents, bouncing progressively higher to their level to chip away at them, fastfalling back to safety when necessary. Other damage-racking tricks up Tigger's sleeve involve abusing a honey-coated opponent with multi-hitting standards or absorbing their blows with a scarecrow before retaliating. Regardless of how much damage Tigger builds up, he won't be knocking opponents around anytime soon, though a damaged opponent is still plenty vulnerable against him when Up Special comes into play.
Eager to show off his prized technique, Tigger's Up Special factors heavily into his strategies for building the momentum required to propel opponents around the stage. The more damage an opponent has, the further and faster they are 'footstooled' helplessly through the air and potentially even to their doom. A fair chunk of his moveset creates strong set-ups that allow him to initiate Up Special soaring momentum, beyond the clear option of bouncing between two scarecrows. U-Throw, for example, lets Tigger bounce between his aerial victim and the stage, while D-Tilt can push two foes apart so that he may do the same horizontally. More subtle attacks hamper foes' mobility so that Tigger can aim for them within a more finite range; the honey droplets from D-Smash and U-Smash, as well as the latter's dizzy effect, showcase this perfectly. Even against reluctant or slippery opponents, Tigger's aerials grant him an extra few direct positioning options, such as N-Air's fling, U-Air's dropping and D-Air's dragging; even against single foes, the chance to bring them closer to a scarecrow or the stage helps Tigger take advantage of each and every surface available to him as much as possible.
Ultimately, the forceful foostool Tigger's soaring momentum generates will ideally have multiple foes fighting to recover offstage at the same time Gluing foes together can prove beneficial in this pursuit, as can foostooling one foe into another, resulting in both being knocked back (as occurs with regular knockback). Beyond simply allowing his opponents to self-destruct, Tigger can ensure their doom either directly or indirectly, bouncing out himself to finish them off with a D-Air, or perhaps playing it safe and planting a scarecrow on the edge or coating it with sticky honey. If a glued mass of opponents near the edge, Tigger can also use his grab-game to disorient them, immediately before casting them over it. When all else fails and opponents are somehow able to recover, Tigger can coat foes in honey, grab them, and repeatedly bounce with Down Special toward the screentop so that KOs off the blast zone become feasible.
Tigger's ability to adapt to any number of opponents gives him a certain degree of well-roundedness as a character. The sheer energy he brings to matches will prove tricky to manage at first, and, when managed poorly, is not substantial when faced with enemy assaults. Once properly harnessed, however, matches with Tigger become legitimately momentous experiences. Much like Tigger's own personlity, his gameplay revolves around single-minded determination toward a task, but with whimsical creativity strewn playfully into the mix. Hoo hoo hoo hoo indeed.
Extras
Up Taunt --- The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers... Tigger bounces around in place, singing two verses of his theme song with each input of the taunt; slight musical accompaniment plays in the background as he does so, though it does not override the main stage music.
Side Taunt --- Lovable Laughter Tigger strikes the charging pose from his song, tilts his head into the air and laughs: 'hoo hoo hoo hoo!'
Down Taunt --- Fierce Animal Tigger jumps up briefly, then gets on all fours and snarls at opponents. A very basic taunt, unless performed into a mirror, upon which Tigger's own reflection will frighten him and cause him to jump into the air in shock as an additional part of the taunt.
Entrance --- Surprise Introduction Tigger soars onto the stage, using his Whoopty-Dooper-Loopty-Looper-Alley-Ooper Bounce, before declaring, "Hello! I'm Tigger!"
Victory Pose #1 --- Boisterous Bouncing Tigger performs two bounces, before performing a front flip on the third and landing on his posterior.
Victory Pose #2 --- S-p-e-Double Luh-ing Lesson Tigger struts around the victory screen, calling out, "T-i-Double Guh-r; that spells 'Tigger!'" to anyone listening.
Victory Pose #3 --- Offscreen Antics Tigger compresses his tail down briefly, before springing clear off the screen top. He does not fall back down immediately, and instead peeks down, dangling from above. It seems as though he's taken a page from the book of the dreaded 'jagular.'
Victory Theme --- . . . As if Tigger would ever have anything but a clip from this song as his victory theme.
Loss Pose --- Deep Depression Tigger slumps on the ground rather than clapping, his lower lip trembling slightly as he struggles to accept his loss. Quite a departure from his regular upbeat personality...perhaps the promise of future bouncing will perk him up again?
A drinker, a Scotsman, and an arms master of all things explosive - aye, there's a lot that'll describe the Demoman. Out of the nine classes in Team Fortress 2, only the Demoman packs the bombastic force ta smash armies in an instant or crackin' open any barricade with his volatile arsenal. He doesn't even need his other eye or his sobriety to deal with these ninnies, since they're all too bloody scared of runnin' into the blast zone themselves.
Statistics
Size: 8 Weight: 8 Ground Speed: 5 Air Speed: 5 Traction: 7 Jump Height: 6 Fall Speed: 7
The Demoman's as tanky as they come, complementin' his wall-bustin' playstyle. After all, he's only much good takin' part in the raidin' party, and he's dealt with enough force to bomb his way through any obstacles. As a specialty, the Demoman takes three-fifths the usual damage and knockback from any explosive hitboxes, includin' his own. Now there's one terrifyin' Brawler for ya-
WHAT?! ONLY IN CAPTURE-THE-FLAG MODE?! ARE YA BLOODY JOKIN'?! DEMOMAN'S HERE FOR A REAL BRAWL, NOT SOME CAMPFEST FOR THE SCARED AN' USELESS- ahem, seems Demoman can only bring his firepower to CtF. Bloody movement.
Specials
N-Special
The Demoman enters the match with his trademark grenade launcher, switchin' seamlessly between it and his other weapons throughout the set. Tappin' the special button will have Demoman shoot one of those Scottish-grade grenades ahead of him, the grenade flyin' at the speed of a thrown Bob-omb and bouncin' or rollin' appropriately once it hits any surface. If it happens to strike an opponent or anything with stamina, or if it remains untouched for three seconds after bein' shot, the grenade will explode for 25%-10% (dependin' how far the hurtbox is from the center of the explosion), coverin' as much area as most other explosions in Smash Bros. It'll also probably KO someone at 120%-180%.
If ya hold the special button, the Demoman will aim his launcher to wherever ya tilt the control stick. He'll continue to follow any movement input ya last gave him before holdin' down the special button (which includes dashin' back or standin' still), though he can still jump independently. Once ya release the button, the Demoman will fire another grenade and resume followin' yer movement commands.
The Demoman can only fire a grenade once every third of a second, and has a clip count of 4 grenades. Whenever he isn't attackin', he'll reload the weapon by himself to its maximum capacity by one grenade every half-second; this action can be cancelled into any attack, but you'll only reload it if ya let him finish the animation. If ya run out of ammo, attemptin' to shoot only forces the Demoman to fully reload his weapon, though ya can still cancel out of it.
Obviously, this is the meat of Demoman's firepower, makin' him a valuable base raider. What makes this so outstandin' is the fact that Demoman can rain down explosive pain upon the enemy without worryin' about his allies gettin' in the way. These grenades can sail in a wide arc above the raid, bombin' those on the other side and tearin' down fortifications. Grenades pass through screen borders as well, unless the match has yet to properly begin and the Demoman thinks he can throw early-game damage upon the enemy.
S-Special
The Demoman swaps his grenade launcher for his trusty sticky bomb launcher. He can't attack durin' the fifth of a second it takes to do this, and he'll keep the weapon until this input is pressed again to swap back to the grenade launcher.
The Neutral Special input will now allow the Demoman to fire sticky bombs. Sticky bombs fly at the same speed as grenades, but will instead glue themselves firmly upon the first piece of stage they touch. After four-fifths of a second, they arm themselves, ready for detonation. Sticky bombs will drop down if the stage they land on somehow disappears, and will also drop down (or roll on until they hit stage) if they collide with a trap or other solid object that can impede movement, but doesn't count as stage.
Stickies do 20%-10% (again, dependin' on how far the hurtbox is from the explosion) when they explode as a Bob-omb would, KOin' anyone at 200%-140%. Given how many of them there can be in one place, though, that shouldn't be a problem. The sticky launcher has the same reloadin' mechanics as the grenade launcher, although it has a clip count of 8 stickies instead.
The Demoman can have up to 8 regular stickies out on the field at once. If he attempts to shoot more, the oldest of these will detonate - an interestin' way to blow them up in singles. Be warned that if anythin' explodes near stickies, the force will make them roll away dependin' on the size of the explosion (for example, a fellow sticky will knock others away as far as a BFP), potentially messin' up the Demoman's set-ups. Wind, if it moves along the ground, will have a similar effect.
U-Special
The Demoman points whatever launcher he's wieldin' down, firin' at his feet. He still keeps whatever direction he may have saved with the Neutral Special, though.
With a grenade launcher, the grenade will hit the ground right in front of the Demoman and roll forward at his own dash speed. Grenades will cover a good amount of distance as they roll forward, and also blow up on anyone dumb enough to run into them. Demoman can potentially alternate between sendin' grenades flyin' through the air and rollin' along the ground, makin' the task of dodgin' them much harder for his foes.
With a sticky launcher, the sticky will drop right below him. In the air, instead of firin' out, the sticky simply drops down at only slightly faster than the Demoman's fall speed - perhaps a recovery, in some situations?
D-Special
Oh, right, here's the bloody moment we've been waitin' for. The Demoman makes a mock salute towards the enemy nearest a sticky - and then all regular stickies, wherever they are, explode at once. The salute takes slightly longer than it does for Snake to detonate his own singleton bomb, and any stickies not yet armed won't detonate either. The Demoman really shouldn't detonate these right under his allies' feet too, unless that many foes would have been taken out at the same time or somethin'.
The Demoman can do more than just potentially screw up an offensive. He can guard an entrance within from any would-be sneaky foes, firin' grenades forward while keepin' an eye behind him. He can litter the foe's base with them as his allies distract the enemy, then wait before his team backs off before blowin' the enemy up. Best of all, he can dart in and out of screens as he plops down stickies around the enemies traps, eventually destroyin' them all with a single press.
Standards
Jab
The Demoman whips his liquor bottle out of nowhere and swings it in front of him in a leftwards swing (5%). Bloody hell, it's just a jab, mate. Tappin' this input two more times makes him swing back (4%), then swipe upwards (5%). Only the last strike deals decent upwards knockback, with the first two only flinchin' the foe in place.
F-Tilt
The Demoman brings out his signature Eyelander and quickly swings it in front of himself (14%), coverin' an arc one SBU ahead of himself. The attack itself has a bit of lag on both ends, but deals some hefty knockback that'll either throw them far out of melee range or KO at 130%. This is more for keepin' foes out of yer face - Demoman doesn't always want someone in his face all the time, ya know, and it helps to KO anyone in yer way or push back the marauding enemies.
On occasion, the Demoman will pull out Nessie's Nine Iron instead. Cosmetic feature, really.
U-Tilt
The Demoman brings out his - wait a minute, we've been here before. This time, he readies the sword behind him then swings down, coverin' the air above him in one arc (16%). This is about as good for jugglin' as any other U-Tilt, except kind of laggier. Eh, like anyone would try take the Demoman from above in the first place without explodin' for their efforts.
D-Tilt
The Demoman suddenly performs a slide kick, dashin' forward by two SBUs with his side on the ground while his feet punt anyone in the way a short distance upwards (7%). On healthy foes, this'll be a minor setback as they quickly ready their Bairs, but high-damaged foes will fly a few SBUs out of the way before they can act again. Demoman crouches down to a third of his height, makin' him harder to hit as he performs this.
So what's the bloody point of this? Well, for one thing, Demoman can still shoot grenades and sticky bombs while slidin', so that's a plus. On another, the suddenness of this move can be used to knock yer allies into the air, whether as a surprise or to knock them out of the way. Not sure why you'd want to take the bullet for them, but maybe they'll like the view from up in the air.
Dash-Attack
The Demoman dashes forward, screamin' bloody murder with the Chargin' Targe equipped on his arm. With his movement speed briefly changed to 10, he runs across the battlefield, coverin' a Final Destination in distance before slowin' down. If he hits anyone along the way, though (and that's probably goin' to happen), that player will get slammed away (8%) for a good amount of knockback if they're hit at the end of the dash - hittin' anyone before two-thirds of the distance is covered will only do half as much damage and knockback. Once the charge is done, Demoman has to wait five seconds before he can try this input again, respondin' with a mere shoulder shove (6%) that flinches foes and stops Demoahsman in place if the player acts impatiently.
But what's this, lads? Seems Demoman can perform any grounded input he wants during this dash, maintainin' his momentum until half a second after he uses another input. Try a jump, roll or shield option, and watch Demoman skip past the enemy lines. Or maybe, try his bloody attack options! If Demoman uses a jointed or disjointed attack out of this input, it'll deal twice as much damage (though only 1.5 times as much if too early) as he slices through the enemy in his bombastic charge. The DTilt will slide him a bloody far distance, and the Jab lets him land three strike over the duration of his charge. Demoman's explosives aren't affected, though, and just become harder to aim - seriously, don't use this with them unless you're sticky jumpin'.
If Demoman whiffs this attack by not hittin' anyone or slammin' into a wall, he'll suffer about a second of end lag. He'll also be hard-pressed to change his momentum if he runs off a cliff, so keep yer eye out for that.
Grab Game
Grab
It's. A bloody. Normal. Grab. Marth distance, maybe. For a pummel, Demoman socks them in the face (3%) every half a second.
F-Throw
Demoman decides that it's time to share his reserves, pullin' out his alcoholic companion and forcin' the drink into the foe's mouth. This process takes about a second before Demoman kicks the foe away (8%), throwin' them about four SBUs away in an inebriated state.
Ach, don't worry, Demoman didn't bring any of them slide-into-dodge-plane nanny's drink. If an inebriated foe tries to do any attack, dash or shield command, they've got a 50% chance of instead trippin' on their a$ses, leavin' them prime and vulnerable for the bombs to get them. Demoman's only had enough time to inebriate foes for about twelve seconds, though - enough time to make them want to scurry back to another zone, the bloody cowards.
U-Throw
Demoman pulls out a special surprise - the Scottish Resistance! Usin' one of the extra stickies loaded into it, he plops one of them onto the foe's chest before tossin' them upwards (3%). That sticky's impossible to get rid, and makes a bloody good marker for those invisibly ninnies.
A sticky from the Scottish Resistance won't explode if Demoman hits Down Special. In fact, the only way they'll blow up is if Demoman's aimin' at the sticky with his neutral special AND if he presses the Down Special. This'll cause ONLY that one sticky to blow up in the foe's face for the same amount of damage any other sticky would do at point-blank range, leavin' yer other stickies un-exploded. Don't bloody worry, there's about 15 degrees of allowance for ya to catch that sticky within range, and it'll hit every sticky in the way. ya did realize ya could attach as many of these as ya wanted on foes, and even stack them on the same foe if ya grab him enough times? Of course, ya could do the same to allies too, if they like playin' the suicide bomber - but when Demoman's around, that probably won't be necessary.
D-Throw
Demoman brings the Scottish Resistance out once more, though this time he just fires it at the ground. He then kicks the foe HARD in the shin (12%), leavin' them to crumple down in prone while he hops back a short distance. Now ya can-
-oh, that's bloody right, how'd I forget that? Stickies made by the Scottish Resistance have a different design, ya see? They also arm themselves only one and a bloody half seconds later after firin' - a lot longer than regular stickies. There's a beep that'll go off once they're ready, but meanwhile there won't be any blow-them-up-once-they're-out-of-melee-range for you. On the other hand, that foe will definitely roll out of there as fast as he can, and you'll have another sticky up for use.
Trust me, the battle's too fast to be usin' the Scottish Resistance out of throws. Haven't ye got enough explosives? Wait 'til the smashes, then!
B-Throw
Demoman turns around and kicks the foe (13%), sendin' him sprawlin' behind Demoman. Yeah, yeah, yer average Back Throw - haven't had time for a bloody normal throw here, ya know. Besides, it's good for beatin' up on lone enemies if yer allies are around.
Aerials
N-Air
Demoman extends his leg out in a kick, ready to dish out the flyin' Scottish special. Kick lasts for about two-thirds of a second, somehow doin' less damage if some foe runs into it later (18%-12%). It's just good for flinchin', really. Better for flyin' if ya jump after yer dash and immediately press this, though. ya did realize ya could do this with all of the aerials, right?
F-Air
Demoman primes his mighty SBU-length skullcutter upwards before swingin' it downwards in a mighty blow. For obvious reasons, hittin' with the main part of the sharp bit deals more than the handle or the edges (18%, 10%), but they'll be knocked back a good distance anyway. KOs at 140% too. Now if only it didn't take half a second to ready it upwards, the bloody heavy thing.
D-Air
Demoman brings out his battle bottle once more, this time swingin' it below himself (8%). The swing moves towards wherever Demoman is facin', hittin' like a wreckin' ball smashin' ruins because all the good demolition jobs were already taken. Here's a bonus for ya - while the bottle normally flinches, hittin' foes out of yer dash with this will stun them for half a second instead. Between expectin' a front charge with yer sword or a slidin' kick, they may not expect THAT comin' if they're bunched up on the ground.
B-Air
Demoman smacks the air behind him with his Targe (6%), causin' any foe hit to start tumblin' down. Like most Bairs, the attack comes out of nowhere and can barely be punished, although it covers a small area behind Demoman because of the shield's size. Okay, what the bloody hell were ya expectin' for a Bair anyway?
U-Air
Demoman swings his bottle above himself this time (8%), flinchin' anyone hit and stunnin' if out of the dash - yeah, it's like the Dair if the wreckin' ball got drunk and started screwin' gravity. Why do I not bloody care about the aerials? Because we're finally at the REALLY good part.
Smashes
F-Smash
The Demoman swaps to the Loch-n-Load, immediately firin' out a special grenade to wherever he's aimin'. Loch-n-Load grenades fly as fast as a smash-thrown Bob-omb and deal 30%-12% upon impact on an enemy, makin' one hell of a wallop and KOin' anyone at 100%-160%.
Loch-n-Load can only carry two grenades at a time, already stocked at the beginnin' of the Demoman's stock. Pressin' it once fires the first grenade, and holdin' it for a third of a second fires the second one. Holdin' further makes Demoman reload it until full capacity, in which case he fires it once more if you're still holdin' it down. Of course, you're free to hold B to adjust yer aim while all this is goin' on, though releasin' B will swap ya back to whichever default launcher ya were usin'. If ya let go with only one grenade left in the Loch-n-Load, Demoman will reload upon usin' this input again, firin' the second grenade only upon a double-tap.
Interestin' thing to know about these grenades - if they hit a part of the stage first, they shatter without blowin' up. Bloody lame that way, so keep yer aim trained on the enemy if ya want these things to go boom.
U-Smash
The Demoman pulls out his infamous Ullapool Caber, spinnin' it around his hand while chargin' before stowin' it away. Don't know how that charges it up, really, but it works. Anyway, the next disjointed attack (bottle, sword, axe, that Bair with the shield but not the dash) -that the Demoman tries out will be with that bloody dangerous thing instead, even if it's about two-thirds the length of the Eyelander. Said attack will deal some explosive damage (25%-35%) that'll KO at 90%-140%. Pretty bloody impressive - if the Demoman wasn't as bloody vulnerable to it as the foe was.
Actually, he'll only take four-fifths of the pain, since it's explosive. If Demoman misses with the Caber, he'll go back to his usual medieval weaponry upon attackin'; he can use this input again to pull out the same Caber without needin' to charge it, and then try again. Demoman can ready another one once the first one blows up and somehow he's still bloody breathin'.
D-Smash
The Demoman brings out his latest surprise - the Loose Cannon. Pressin' this input once lights the fuse on one of the special bombs this thing packs, leavin' the Demoman free to aim with his Neutral Special. If he wants to fire it, he'll need to press the input again for the cannonball to shoot out of wherever he's aimin', since normal grenades and stickies won't be fired while one of the bombs are lit.
See, Loose Cannon bombs only blow up two seconds after bein' lit - no more, no less. Want to take a bloody guess what happens if it's STILL loaded when it blows? 25% to the face and enough knockback to KO at 120%. That's right, these bombs do just as much as any normal grenade (though they still have the damage decay on the explosion's edge) and more - if they fly straight into a foe, it'll knock them back HARD (12%) enough to KO at 180%, and it'll still be flyin' uninterrupted.
If there's one other thing ya have to watch out for with these things, it's that they'll only do half as much damage if they scratch themselves on the stage. But why the hell would ya be usin' this if ya can't time the fuses with ya firin', eh?
Playstyle
"What makes me a good demoman?..."
"...if I were a BAD demoman, I wouldn't be SITTIN' here, DISCUSSIN' it wit' ya, NOW WOULD I?!?"
Well, hey there MYM, it's been a while. It's been more or less obvious for a couple contests now, but despite the fun times I've had with this contest, I've got other priorities these days, and I'm effectively retired from active set-making and the contest in general. However, don't expect this to be a permanent good-bye. Sure, I don't really have any sets planned now, but there's always a good chance an idea will pop up at some point, and I may drop by the chat every once in a while anyway.
But anyway, before I say good-bye, how about one last set for old times sake?
Sandman:
Willam Baker, aka: Flint Marko, aka: Sandman, is one of Spider-Man's many well-known super-villain foes. As you might have guessed from his name or the above image, his particular power is controlling sand. In particular, his body is completely made up out of individual grains of sand, and he can effortlessly expand/harden/reform/etc at will.
Mechanic: Shifting Sands
The Sandman does not take damage normally. The only notable thing that hitting him does is scatter some of his sand, which he can quickly reform. So, instead of a normal damage counter, Sandman's % display will instead track the amount of sand he has remaining. This will be of the form Remaining sand inside body/Remaining sand on-stage. For instance, at the start of each new stock, as Sandman won't have lost any sand yet, he'll begin at 100/100%.
Now, although Sandman doesn't take damage normally, there's still definitely a purpose in hitting him. As mentioned above, hitting him will scatter pieces of his sand. To be exact, it will break apart the same amount of % the attack would normally do, with the knockback equal to kirby at 0%. (So for instance, a 7% damage F-tilt would break apart 7% worth of sand.) As for Sandman himself, although he won't take any knockback (unless it was from a grab/throw), it will still interrupt any moves the player was using.
One more note before I start the moveset proper:
It has been revealed that, while Sandman can absorb and lose sand, his body must retain one key particle of sand that contains his conscious mind, allowing Spider-Man to defeat him by isolating that one grain from the rest of the Sandman.
Or to translate that into Brawl, if the portion of Sandman that the player is currently controlling is ever knocked off a blast zone, that counts as a stock, even if there's still sand left on the stage. (For balance purposes, any sand left on-stage will disappear after Sandman loses a stock.)
Specials:
Down Special: Sand Pillar
Perhaps Sandman's most important move, Sandman holds a hand out in front of him, transferring sand into a pillar half a SBB wide, with height 5% sand per stage builder block tall. This pillar can be up to 4 SBB's tall, with charge time up to half a second.
Now, regarding properties of this pillar, first off, it's solid, preventing the opponent from moving through it. (Sandman himself can easily pass through it, considering his unique powers.) Secondly, since it's solid, it'll block any sand that the opponent has already knocked loose. This gives Sandman a much needed safety net when using objects such as the sand barrel. The pillar's stamina is equal to twice the amount of sand that went into it (so 10-40%), lag is somewhat bad. There is no limit (aside from the built in sand limit) to how many pillars Sandman can have onstage at one time.
Neutral Special: Sand Spray
Sandman simply launches a spray of sand towards the opponent, blowing them backwards while dealing minor damage. The sand he launches travels at Ganon's run speed in the direction you press the control stick, knocking the opponent back much like Mario's fludd and dealing minor damage (roughly 10% damage per second if they're caught in the spray.) However, just by the nature of the move, Sandman loses 10% sand per second that he continues using this move. Lag is fairly low.
Side Special: Sand Spikes
Sandman holds a hand out in front of him, shooting a wave of 5 small double-edged spike in the direction you press the control stick. (the wave is roughly bowser-sized in height) This move uses up 10% sand , travelling at Ganon's run speed and each spike does 2% damage and decent knockback. However, if the spike hits the ground or something else solid (like a sand pillar), it will embed itself in that surface, retaining its hitbox yet becoming a trap. However, these spikes are rather fragile, and can be eliminated by nearly any attack, which would simply turn them into loose sand. Lag is low.
Up Special: Sand Chain
In a move reminescent of Spider-Man, Sandman uses spare sand within himself (or the environment around him) to create what amounts to a grappling hook made of sand. This move uses up 5% sand per stage builder block of chain, with the length of chain depending on how long you hold down the button (up to half of FD if held for half a second.) If used offstage, Sandman will then throw the chain as a tether recovery to get to the ledge. If used onstage, then Sandman will simply be left holding the chain for use in other attacks. (A quick warning, if the opponent deals 5% damage to any spot on the chain, it will break, dissolving back into sand.) Lag is average.
Smashes:
Down Smash: Quicksand
Remember all that loose sand that the opponent can knock out of Sandman in various ways? Well, when you use this move, Sandman triggers all the loose sand he's currently in contact with, turning it into a grab hitbox and causing the opponent to sink into said sand. At minimal depth (roughly knee-deep, or under 5% sand), this will be merely 1/2 grab strength, which increases proportionally with the amount of sand available. Additionally, this smash does not charge normally, but rather will always act like an uncharged smash. However, if you hold down the input, then after a small delay, Sandman will "suck in" all the loose sand he's connected to, with it moving towards him at the rate of Ganon's run speed. (Keep in mind that the sand will trap most enemy minions or projectiles like Snake's grenades, so this may be less than practical against some opponents.) Aside from replenishing Sandman's sand, if the opponent gets sucked in while in the quicksand grab, then Sandman will go into his normal grab game (included later in the moveset), and the grab timer will be refreshed.
Anyway, to sum up the move, this is mainly good for replenishing your sand, as well as surprising a careless opponent and turning your various loose sand into a weapon.
Up Smash: Sand Surge
Another move that triggers loose sand, Sandman charges up, and once you release the button, Sandman stabs the air above him what's essentially a giant sand spike, doing 17% damage and great upwards knockback. (Think Marth's up-smash, but with a rather over-sized sword.) Additionally, each SBB of loose sand launches a small spike upwards (much like Snake's uncharged up smash), going slightly above the low Battlefield platforms and dealing 5% damage.
Charging this smash will merely increase the range, up to three SBB blocks high. Lag is fairly bad, so if the opponent can get to you in time they can probably knock you out of the move.
Forwards Smash: Sand Hammer
Another of Sandman's more classic moves, he forms his right arm into a ridiculously oversized sledgehammer. This hammer starts about as long as Marth's sword, and can extend to 3 SBB's long at full charge (one second). Once you release the input, he does an enormous overhead swing with it, dealing 20% damage with excellent knockback. Despite rather bad lag, the sheer range of this move makes it one of Sandman's better kill options. Additionally, the head of the sledgehammer (the tip of the hitbox) leaves a roughly triangular "dent" in the stage, a SBB wide and up to a SBB deep at full charge (half of that uncharged). If the sledgehammer misses the stage then nothing of the sort happens. If it hits a ledge/platform, said area of the stage is deformed to create the dent. The purpose of this is obvious, to safely store sand. For reference, the dent will hold roughly 5% sand uncharged, or up to 10% sand fully charged. Additionally, dents will return to normal over 10-20 seconds depending on charge, and will not "stack".
However, if Sandman is holding the up special chain, this move changes. In that case, Sandman will swing the chain overhead twice (once in either direction), in a move suspiciously similar to his nemesis's forwards smash. In this case, the chain acts as a grab hitbox (except at the very end of the second swing, which only deals 5% damage and minor knockback). When a grabbed opponent gets smashed against the ground, they take 15% damage and great knockback, ending the move. The key difference with this is the far lower lag, making it much easier to land as a kill move. Additionally, the claw on the end of the chain can grab other things, namely enemy minions and physical projectiles (such as your sand barrels), in which case the damage/knockback depends on the minion's weight/projectile's strength (in general this will range from 10-30% damage and anywhere from good to amazing knockback. Sand barrels are right in the middle, doing the same amount of damage as the standard version of this move.) Finally, keep in mind that the chain does obey physics, so it WILL wrap around ledges or platforms, which can result in the best stage spike ever. Of all time.
Standards:
Crouch: Sand Form
When crouching, Sandman literally just collapses into a pile of sand. Now, if there's no loose sand around him, then he'll still be pretty obvious, of course, but if there's enough loose sand around, then he'll blend right in. It's also worth noting that Sandman has a crawl (half Ganon's run speed), that is simply himself sliding along the ground. To make a long description short, while crouching or crawling in loose sand that's at least waist high (10% sand per SBB), Sandman is effectively invisible. (Of course, you can still be revealed if the opponent just hits you with an attack, but they'll need to find you first.) If you're holding an item while crouching, Sandman will either drop it in the case of large items (crates/barrels), or conceal it within himself for smaller items (including your sand chain). One last thing, Sandman can charge and use his smashes, as well as down tilt (but nothing else) while in sand form.
A couple more notes about loose sand, it is not considered solid ground, and so can hide certain traps like sand spikes. However, a non-Sandman opponent or minion trying to move through loose sand will have their movement speed cut by a quarter if the sand is waist high (10% sand per SBB) or higher. Finally, if Sandman is hit by an attack that would remove more sand than he has remaining, he takes the knockback directly, being knocked into this form and unable to recover from it until he hits solid ground. This means that although sandman can effectively ignore hits when he has plenty of sand left, once he's running out of sand he can be combo'd and knocked around very easily.
Down tilt: Sand Pulse
Now, although the idea of being completely undetectable is nice, the fact of the matter is that there often just won't be enough sand to truly puzzle the opponent. That's why this move exists, Sandman sends a "pulse" of sand forwards, that's roughly waist high, travels at half ganon's run speed, and does 10% damage with low knockback. In other words, it looks exactly as if Sandman himself decided to crawl forwards. This move uses 10% sand, and the pulse will travel for as long as you hold down the button OR up to the edge of the loose sand Sandman is in contact with before stopping. (If there isn't any loose sand, it will simply stop directly in front of you.) However, if you just tap the button instead of holding it, Sandman will simply create a small sand pile (the same size as himself crouching), and move forwards a SBB, effectively taking the projectile's place (though he won't deal damage/knockback after the initial movement.) Lag is low.
One more thing. While it's still moving, the sand pulse is considered solid... so if a barrel happened to be moving along the ground towards it, it would be launched into the air via the magic called momentum,usually just high enough to reach a low platform. Though not the main point of the move, it's occasionally useful (and can be an entertaining way to surprise an overconfident opponent.)
Forwards tilt: One-two Punch
Sandman lashes out with a right hook, dealing 5% damage and next to no knockback. Tapping the button a second time will cause him to lash out with a haymaker, dealing 10% damage and good upwards knockback. Of course, the main purpose of this move comes if you're carrying the chain. In this case, the first part of the move will have him toss it forwards (it travels at ganon's run speed), dealing no damage, but grabbing the opponent (or minion, or physical projectile) on hit. The second part of the move will have him reel in the chain at the same speed and uppercut the opponent/minion/etc, dealing the same 10% damage and upwards knockback... OR you could simply input a forwards smash instead, going for a deadlier (if somewhat slower) punish. Just keep in mind, while the opponent is attached to the chain, they can escape at grab difficulty, which is obviously a bad thing.. Lag is moderate. One last note, the chain will not attach to the stage or things that are attached to the stage, such as your sand pillars. (Considering he has control over every molecule of sand he's still in contact with, Sandman can indeed do this, so no OOC complaints! )
Up tilt: Sand Storm
Sandman spins around, arms outstretched, doing 8% and minor upwards knockback. More interestingly, if you're standing in loose sand, Sandman stirs it up, creating a cloud of sand completely obscuring things from view. This cloud is a SBB high for every 5% of loose sand on the stage builder block. (The cloud is exactly a SBB wide regardless of how much sand is involved.) The height of the cloud will decrease by 1 SBB every 3 seconds as the loose sand settles back into place, lag is fairly low. The main point of this move is to make your charged smashes and down-tilt/crouch mindgames far more dangerous.
Jab: Sand Barrel
Sandman holds a hand out in front of him, sand flowing from within him out into a simple barrel of sand. This move uses a flat 15% sand, with the resulting construction acting like the barrel item, doing 15% damage with good knockback when thrown. This barrel is one of Sandman's main tools for stage control, with the obvious downside of using up a lot of his sand and being relatively easy for the opponent to get rid of. Also, if the barrel rolls through any sand spikes, the spikes will become embedded in the barrel, thus removing them from the ground... but increasing the barrel's damage (though not stamina) by 2% for each spike it picks up.
Dash attack: Sand Dash
Sandman does a shoulder charge, traveling forwards at... well, his normal dash speed, dealing 8% damage with minor knockback for as long as you hold down the button. More interestingly, Sandman will collect any loose sand you travel over, making this an easy way to regather some of your sand. Also, if you press and hold the B button while using this move, instead of collecting sand, Sandman will leave it behind him, spraying sand behind him (as in his neutral special) at a rate of 5% sand per SBB, as well as increasing his speed to Mario's run speed, and the move's damage to 12% damage with minor knockback. By alternating pressing/releasing the B button, you can alter the layout of loose stage on the stage rather quickly. Finally, if you run into one of Sandman's sand pillars while using this move, he'll knock it over... turning it into a hitbox that does 10-20% damage and good-great knockback (depending on length). The knockback is in the direction the pillar is falling, and it will pitfall grounded opponents, making this a rather effective (if somewhat laggy) surprise move. However, the pillar will turn into loose sand after it's fallen, and doing this removes your main safety barrier, making this high risk high reward.
Grab Game:
First off, rather than a standard grab, Sandman's grab has him stretch his arms out in front of him... they travel at ganon's run speed for as long as you hold down the button, requiring 10% sand per SBB they travel, with end lag proportional to the distance travelled. (The lag is average if you merely tap the button, but if you hold it down for maximum distance and miss, you're extremely punishable.)
Down throw: Encase
Sandman encases the opponent in a layer of sand, dealing 7% damage, increasing their fall speed by a third and slowing their movement speed by a quarter. This move requires 20% sand, and lasts until the opponent knocks the sand off by dealing 20% damage to it. Additionally, the effects of this throw can stack, meaning that multiple down throws in a short time span can absolutely murder an opponent's movement and recovery... although at an extremely heavy sand cost.
Forwards throw: Rollout
Sandman traps the opponent inside a sand barrel, and proceeds to pick it up as an item. This sand barrel requires 20% sand, and behaves much like the one from your jab, except the opponent is able to break out of it at grab difficulty.
Back throw: Sand Spin
Sandman spins around with the opponent, Mario B-throw style, dealing 8% with great knockback. However, you can move left/right at half your run speed during the 1-second throw animation, and any object you swing the opponent into will deal damage depending on weight/pointiness/other trap-like behavior. And of course, if the opponent's already at high percent, this is a decent way to finish off their stock. Just be careful of any minions/projectiles/other stuff they still have on-stage.
Up throw: Smother
Sandman pins the opponent to the floor under a constant torrent of sand, with them taking hits of 1% (at the rate of a slow pummel) until they escape. Escaping is done via standard mashing out of a grab, with the difficulty proportional to the amount of sand Sandman currently contains, where 20% sand = half grab difficulty. However, if this throw is done inside a large enough sand pile (at least 10% sand on the SBB), then the opponent will begin suffocating due to being trapped within said sand, and tripling the amount of damage they take.
Aerials:
Forwards Air: Sand Shot
Sandman makes a fake little "revolver" in his hand, and fires a sand bullet (travelling at Mario's run speed) in the direction you press the opponent. This does 4% damage and minor knockback, and costs 2% sand per bullet. Lag is low. Not the most interesting move ever, but it's an effective way to annoy a distant/recovering opponent.
Neutral Air: Latch
Sandman performs an air grab, trying to latch on to the opponent. If he succeeds, he pulls around them, leaving them still free to move and attack, but increasing their weight and fall speed (as well as decreasing their movement speed) according to the amount of sand you have remaining. At maximum sand you'd increase their weight and fall speed by bowser's weight and fall speed respectively, as well as decreasing their movement by 3/4's. This decreases proportionally with respect to the amount of sand you have.
Now, the opponent can't escape from this like a normal grab, but what they can do is simply attack. Attacks that hit you while you're latched on to them will still cause you to lose sand, and if they hit you once you've lost all your sand, you'll still be knocked away into sand form as per usual. However, what this move does do is make gimping Sandman an extremely dangerous proposition, as he can quite easily pull you down with him using this. Additionally, you can cancel this move yourself by simply jumping, causing you to footstool the opponent and escape. Lag is moderate.
Up Air: Sand explosion
Sandman quite simply... explodes, sending sand in every direction. This sends HALF of Sandman's current sand out in a semicircle directly below him, and if the opponent gets caught in the initial explosion they take 7-28% damage (depending on sand) and good to insane knockback. As for Sandman himself, he's sent roughly a battlefield platform upwards with the remaining half of his sand in the direction you press the control stick (this works like Diddy's up-B, uncharged). However, although this can be a good emergency recovery move, there's a couple downsides to this move.
First off, if you use this offstage for recovery, that's an instant loss of half your sand. Secondly, Sandman gets sent into his sand form once you use this, meaning that if this doesn't let you recover, you're guaranteed to die. Additionally, this move can actually be a rather quick way to spread sand through the battlefield, as well as a great (if risky) KO move. Lag is low.
Down Air: Sandvil
I'm sorry, the pun had to be made. Sandman drops what is quite literally an anvil of sand, taking 20% sand, but also dealing an impressive 20% damage and great knockback. Additionally, assuming you use this over the stage (as you well should), the anvil will remain onstage, acting as what's essentially a solid SBB of sand until broken. (20% stamina). Lag is average, but considering the sand cost, this is nowhere near spammable.
Back Air: Sand jet
Sandman releases a concentrated burst of sand behind him, pushing him forwards roughly a SBB, and dealing 10% damage with decent knockback. this move costs a mere 5% sand and has low lag, making it another way to boost Sandman's rather mediocre recovery.
Playstyle: Operation Desert Storm
Allow me to state the obvious. Sandman is all about sand. Everything he does all but requires it, and it functions as both his "ammo bank" for attacking, as well as his health bar, not to mention the source of his traps/setups all around the stage. The more setup you have onstage, the more damage you can do to the opponent, but they'll also have an easier time knocking your precious sand off the bottom blast zone, and eventually yourself as well.
So yeah, yay for redundant playstyle sections. So long, MYM, it's been fun.
Jarad is a legendary creature from Magic: The Gathering, from the set Return to Ravnica. He is the leader of the Golgari guild, which utilizes green and black mana. The Golgari are all about reusing the remains of the dead or causing rapid decay, Jarad being no exception, with his ability to power up the more creatures die and his ability to sacrifice creatures to hurt the opponent.
Stats
Size
9
Fall Speed
9
Weight
8
Traction
8
Aerial Speed
1.5
Movement Speed
.75
Jarad is rather similar to Ganondorf statistically, being just a hair taller and being REALLY terrible in the air. Somehow, he manages to have even worse movement though, being slower than Jigglypuff by a reasonable margin... without any sort of movement specials or good air speed to supplement this. So naturally, you'd expect him to be camping with this... except his projectiles are pretty bloody terrible for camping purposes, as you'll soon see.
Specials
Neutral Special
Jarad holds up his staff as green mana seems to pulse through it, before slamming the staff down in front of him, dealing 8% and set high vertical knockback. Where Jarad smashed his staff into the ground appears the creature shown above, which is unfortunately downsized to be about as big as Olimar. How disappointing. Luckily, you can charge this move for up to 4 seconds, and store charge in the same manner as Samus' charge shot. The more you charge the move, the larger the minion summoned will be, maxing out at being 1.5x the width of Bowser and Jarad's height. Based on charge, they have 12-60 stamina. This move has above average start up lag, but is actually pretty quick to end, fortunately.
Your minions, which we'll refer to as Deadbridge Beetles, considering not all of them are exactly Beetles as they are in the actual card, are not especially agressive. They tend to stay put where they were made, but will pursue opponents if they come within their own body length of the beetle. It's main attack is stabbing forwards with it's horn, dealing 5%-16% and horizontal knockback that never KOs-horizontal knockback that KOs at 200%. They will also swipe forwards with their front legs for 2 hits of 3%-7% and moderate upwards knockback, which while faster than the horn stab is much weaker and shorter ranged. The Goliath prefers to use that when the foe is at close range. On an enemy behind it, the Beetle will kick with it's back legs, dealing 8%-21% and diagonally upwards knockback that KOs at 300%-160%. Unfortunately, the slower of these attacks have an absolutely painful 1.5 seconds of start lag(and even the swipes take 1.2 seconds), so on it's own the Beetle is never really going to be hitting anyone.
When one of these things dies, it will leave behind it's corpse on the stage. Normally such a thing would be useless, but the Golgari have an exceptional number of ways to reuse the dead. Even in this move, you can press down during charging while standing on a corpse in order to have the corpses dead matter be enfused with the green mana, creating a new beetle at the cost of the corpse, which is the size of the original beetle. This takes about 1.5x as long as a normal summoning, but there is absolutely no charge involved, making it often more convenient.
Side Special
Jarad points his staff forwards, before the end releases 6 spores, each smaller than a Deku Nut. They are spread out in a circular shape the size of Kirby lazily float forwards and slightly upwards into the air at an extremely slow pace, and on contact don't even flinch. Rather, they deal 0.2% per second for... 1 second. And on top of this, Jarad takes a rather hefty bit of end lag, though the start lag on this attack isn't too bad. Heck, players can even blow them around with the force of their attacks, using an attack near them will blow them away with force depending on how much knockback the attack deals. Though do note Jarad can do this too.
That said... these spores will go from completely worthless to significantly more threatening the more of them hit the foe. You see, if another spore hits the foe, it will add it's 0.2% per second on, as well as the full second of worth of time. So with 2 spores it's 2 seconds of 0.4%(which is pretty close to actually dealing 1%, good going Jarad), and if you hit with the full blast of spores it's 6 seconds of 1.2%, eventually amounting to 7%. That's still pretty weak for the amount of time you spent on this move, but it's better than what you were getting before.
Do note that spores linger as what are essentially traps, given how slowly they move. So potentially, spores can actually become somewhat threatening to the foe as their poison damage grows worse and worse. Particularly threatening is the fact that a lot of Jarad's status effects become much more threatening when the opponent is afflicted with spores, to the point that once you have a fair number on you it's suicide to face Jarad in melee combat. At that point... running away is a good option, considering how slow Jarad is and how bad he is in the air, but hell, it's good set up time for you if nothing else.
Down Special
Jarad raises his staff as green and black mana spiral around it. If there are spores near with half a Bowser length of Jarad, Jarad can control them at Mario's dash speed, moving them about freely with the control stick. This gives you an acceptable way to camp at foes, but not something exactly fantastic considering how easily they can bat them away. Releasing Down B in mid air will just have you relocate the spores to where you ended up moving them. This attack is actually very quick to start and not bad to end either, fortunately for Jarad.
That is not the only thing you can do with the spores though. You can actually direct them into a beetle's limb or horn, which will infuse them into the chosen limb. This makes it so that when the beetle hits them with the chosen limb, it infects them with half the number of plague spores put into the limb. This effect is permanent too, so if you hit them 3 times you'll more than make up for it... though hitting the foe 3 times with your minions laughably slow predictable attacks is a bit of an insane dream.
Well, it would be, and that's where this attacks other effect comes in. You see, this move doesn't only pick up spores. If you use it near a corpse, it will remove the nearest body part(torso, head, front legs, back legs are the body parts you can use in question). Given the way the Beetle's body collapses when it dies(it's head rolls back and it's legs are spread in front of and behind it), you have access to every body part on that thing. It will prioritize this over spore clouds, though using Down B again will have it pick up the spore cloud and infuse it into the dead limb(yes even dead parts will keep the spores). You can now freely move it around, not that it does anything on it's own.
...but as it turns out, you can attach the parts of dead Beetles to live ones, and the new limb will start attacking as well. The limb will start acting as another way for the Beetle to attach wherever you place it(and you can place it on any part of the Beetle, including stapling it to additional dead limbs). So you can stitch the legs to it's face and have them lash out during the time the beetle is winding up for it's horn stab. The more parts you attach attacking in different times and manners, the more of a chance you have to actually hit the foe with the Beetles attacks. Who cares if it takes so long for them to wind up their attacks if you have several coming out at different times, so your beetles can potentially be attacking several times per second with enough parts stitched to them.
Torsos are a bit less useful that attaching a new body part in terms of attacking, and will actually weigh down the Deadbridge Beetle if you place them on the end of the previous torso and slow down it's movement. On the other hand, they add half the stamina of the Beetle they were taken from to the one you attach it too, and give you an empty canvas to pile more body parts onto. So between infusing minions and giving them more body parts, you get to build your own mega monster. Now isn't that fun?
Up Special
If Jarad's in the air, the end of his staff will glow before he points it forwards and a vine launches out, tethering him to the edge of the stage. This has a fair bit more lag than Ivysaur's vine whip, and deals 6% and flinching, despite having the same range. It even sends you into helpless afterwards. As such, this is an absolutely pathetic excuse for a recovery and opponents should have no trouble gimping you whatsoever. This will still save you on occasion, though.
On the ground, he will instead raise his staff to cause a single vine to raise out of the ground Kirby's height. This thing has 10 stamina and if the foe comes into contact with it, the vine will wrap around them in a grab hitbox. It's as hard to escape as a normal grab... and free time to plant spores on the opponent. It also pummels the foe for 2% per second while it has them grabbed, and at higher percents can set up a free FSmash. You can have up to 4 of these vines out at a time and given how thin and weak they are, they're not especially amazing traps.
Of course, you can feed them with the dead remains of your minions. Drop a limb on it and depending on the size it will gain 4-15 stamina, as well as growing upwards a bit(another Kirby height with a full sized limb) and causing an additional vine-2 vines to sprout next to it. This doesn't increase grab difficulty of escape mind you, but if you feed these things enough this can essentially create a cage with walls that grab the opponent. Which is of course, something Jarad very much appreciates, getting free time to worsen the opponent's poison... and speaking of poison, they're not going to get their chance to run away from Jarad and heal their poison while trapped in a position like that.
Grab hitbox traps/walls don't excite you? Well, let's make this a bit more interesting, shall we? You can grab vines with Down Special and attach them to your minions, who will use them to grab opponents. This has the same sort of grab escape difficulty as before along with the pummeling, and they'll hold opponents in line of fire for their attacks. It's still a pretty slow grab, but a fair bit faster than the minions regular moves. On a final note, you can imbue a vine with spores whether attached or not attached to a Beetle, meaning that when they have the foe grabbed they give them a single spore every half second for every 4 spores imbued into the vine.
Standards
Jab
Jarad points his staff forwards and fires a small blast of black mana from it, traveling in an arc about 1.75 battlefield platforms. On contact this deals 5% and slightly more stun than a flinch. You can angle this slightly up and down, but the most important thing about this projectile is the fact that it moves so slowly. By that I mean, it travels at Ganondorf's walk speed. So obviously foes will see this coming and it will never actually work as a camping option... however, if you've fired out a few of these, you can actually use them to block a foe from running away, or more importantly, this allows Jarad to actually combo. And when the opponent is covered in spores, they really don't want to get hit even once, let alone multiple times, for reasons you will soon find out.
You can imbue parts of your Beetles with these projectiles by hitting the chosen body part with the move. What this does is when the minion winds up an attack with the chosen body part, it will launch out an exact copy if this projectile around halfway through. This makes it slightly easier to hit with their attacks, although still pretty near impossible unless you've given it several additional limbs/heads. The more important thing is they're generating tons of lingering hitboxes for you as they try to attack the foe, and there's no reason to complain about that. Sadly, you can't imbue your vines with this.
Dash Attack
Jarad charges forwards, holding his staff in front of him as black and green mana swirl around it. This isn't a keep dashing dash attack as it boosts his dash speed to Ganondorf's for a second at maximum before Jarad swings his staff downwards and stops. The charge deals 6% and knocks foes weakly away, potentially hitting more than once, while the swing deals 12% and some solid GTFO knockback. Jarad can cancel out it into the swing at any point by pressing A, but it's still a bit weak as an approaching tool given how slow and predictable Jarad approaching would be.
Rather, this move drags in Jab projectiles and spores as they circle around Jarad's staff, giving him almost a frontal "wall" of pain. The staff swing will disperse the spores and projectiles in a wave around Jarad, setting them up to make close quarter combat uncomfortable for foes lest they hit the nearby projectiles and spores. Of course it's fairly easy for foes to swat this stuff away once Jarad's done dashing, but it allows Jarad to intercept an approach very nicely, and if you capitalize on this moment well you can very well abuse this nice little set up you have around the foe.
Forward Tilt
Jarad swings his staff forwards in front of him, the end of it glowing with green mana. This deals 7% and mediocre horizontal knockback with the shaft and 10% and horizontal knockback that KOs at 280% with the head. Why do I keep bringing up all these high KO percents? Well, Jarad's REALLY lacking in KO moves, and given how much damage the spores do over time reaching such high percents is possible. This is a reasonably fast move and serves as Jarad's bread and butter in melee combat.
What makes this attack more interesting is if you hit with the end of the staff and the foe, vine, or minion limb you hit contains spores, it will generate half that many spores in a circle around where you hit them. This attack will naturally knock the foe into some of the spores and leave more lingering around near Jarad, meaning with a few hits of this the foe's spore count is going to skyrocket. And spores really become quite deadly in large quantities. This is part of why fighting him at close range gets very painful when you've been seeded...
Up Tilt
Jarad stabs his staff up into the air, dealing 11% and upwards knockback that KOs at 255%. This is actually a very good anti-air move given the range, speed, and damage, but it's never going to hit anything other than a foe straight above you. Still it's helpful against aerial characters, since without proper defense Jarad stands no chance in the air.
A second tap of the A button as the staff is at it's peak will cause him to fire a burst of green mana up into the air, which absorbs any spores it comes in contact with. It then begins to condense into a pseudo solid green sphere that floats in the air, not solid and having 10 stamina. The sphere is positioned about a Ganondorf above Jarad's head, but you can hold A to make it go up higher. Any spores that come into contact with it are absorbed into it, which sounds a bit counterproductive considering this thing does nothing on it's own or with the spores contained inside. That is, until the foe breaks it open for you with their attacks, causing all the spores inside to be released in a wave, which will undoubtedly hit a foe still in the lag of an attack. This creates a rather unfortunate dilemma for a foe, as you can leave lingering orbs around in the air that crack open when a foe attacks them, just as they try to bat away other spores. Holding A when using this "projectile" will cause it to instead go a shorter distance into the air, keeping it closer to the ground if that's where you want it.
Down Tilt
Jarad pokes his staff low to the ground, dealing 6% to opponents and knocking them into prone, before releasing a jolt of green mana from the end. The jolt of green mana deals no damage or knockback on it's own, but we'll get to that. At lower percents this doesn't slide the foe far along the floor, meaning it can chain into itself due to being relatively fast. And you can go a bit further if you slide them into a Jab projectile with this...
Hitting any spores with the head of the staff or the extended green mana will cause an additional effect, depending on where exactly the spores were. Out on there own, this causes 3 spores within range to grow out into small plants and entwine, becoming a drop through platform half the width of the ones on battlefield. It unfortunately will fall on the ground and won't just magically float, but you can move it around with the Down Special, placing it on top of Up Special vines to support it, giving Jarad more angles to fire Jab projectiles from, place minions higher up into the air, or follow up foes who have been launched skyward without resorting to your aerials, which are often fairly impractical. The platform has 15 stamina, but additional uses of the Down Tilt will widen it by .2 battlefield platforms and give it an additional 5 stamina per use. You can also place platforms on the back of minions who are wider than the platforms, letting you sort of create a "mount".
If Jarad hits a foe with spores implanted in them, this will cause the spores to stretch out into tiny vines, dealing foes 1% for each spore as the vines poke out of their body. These things hurt the foe when they attack, causing them to take 2% and a flinch after the end lag of their attacks. Additional uses of the Down Tilt will make them grow out further, dealing another 1% per spore and increasing the damage dealt after each attack by 2%. After a while, attacking the opponent might hurt them just as much as it hurts you, bwahahahaha. This status effect will leave the foe when the spores are all gone.
If the green mana hits a vine or beetle with spores in it, the spores will grow out into a layer of thin defensive root. This will protect it from 0.5% per spore per use of this move on the limb you placed them in when the opponent hits that limb. This defense lasts forever and as such will allow you to make your minions a lot more durable against opponents attacks. Of course, there are times when you want them to die, but if there's a particular minion you're holding onto armoring it up is far from a bad idea, and Jarad has a very nice way to kill his own minions should it come to that. Making a minion actually invulnerable to the foe's attacks takes a very large amount of time, just to warn you, and it doesn't stop foes from just going and killing you.
Smashes
Forward Smash
Jarad points his staff forwards and black and green mana spiral around it for a brief period before a Kirby sized version glyph, as shown above, appears in front of him. It also appears a Bowser length away, meaning the move has a huge blind spot and is actually very hard to land. It's actually pretty good for pseudo camping when the foe is approaching due to the range though, but keep in mind the lag is also fairly bad on both ends. You'll really need to work to land this move.
And your prize for landing it is... 11%-17% and some fairly minor diagonal knockback that really won't be KOing until around 300%. That all is admittedly pretty darn bad, but the initial damage and knockback aren't the only reward for hitting with this attack. The foe, once hit by this, will for the next 5-8 seconds rot alive, their skin peeling off and their muscle and bone appearing to decay. This highly unpleasant process deals the foe 3% per second, gives their attacks 1.4x as much lag, causes them to move slower(making escaping Jarad's close range into something actually remotely difficult) and have shorter jumps. This sounds horribly debilitating, and hitting with it again will actually stack the damage dealt in addition to resetting the timer, as well as making the foe appear even more decayed. By 3 stacks they're basically unrecognizable, though it doesn't go any further than that in terms of visual.
Aside from just being debilitating, this has a rather interesting interaction with the spores, basically causing the foe to bleed spores as they move around and stand in place. Well, rather spores build up inside their body and then fall off as those parts of the victim rot off, but that's not something you can really tell that well by the animation. The amount of spores is equal to 1.5x-2x as many spores as the foe was afflicted with over the course of this move, and yes you can stack this with multiple hits. Obviously this can generate a ludicrous amount of spores, which is awesome, but foes can of course just bat the spores away into the air if they're really that worried about them. Though then again, Jarad likes being in the air with a large amount of spores...
Used on a minion, this will cause the minion to also begin rotting alive for the same duration. This isn't nearly as useful as on foes given that debilitating your own minion sounds like a bad idea, but on the plus side, the minion will leak an aura of spores around them, serving as, while not a proper defense mechanism, a pretty good deterrent. And if not a deterrent, a nice way to get the foe more infested without using the terribly punishable Side Special. Though keep in mind it's also a lot more situational and in some cases you may as well be sacrificing the minion to get this done.
There's another benefit to rotting minions in that unlike regular minions, you can actually take off their body parts and place them elsewhere on the stage. Naturally this causes the create immense damage as you rip it's limbs off while it's alive, about a third of it's base stamina to be exact, but the limb will still function after it's been ripped off even if it's just laid on the floor. Or you can cannibalize one minion into another, whatever works for you. Since the limbs will still bleed spores, this also gives you another spore generator elsewhere on the stage if that's what you want.
Up Smash
Jarad swings his staff above him, in a manner rather similar to Ike's Up Smash. It has a bit less lag though, but at a cost deals only 10%-17% and knockback that KOs at 255%-170%. Still, it's not particularly slow and covers a great deal of space, making it a good way to fight off an approaching foe, useful given Jarad himself is so slow in his approaches that the one who tries to engage close range combat with the him will usually be the foe.
This attack has one additional property of releasing a glowing green spore from the tip of Jarad's staff when you use this move. Charging the attack won't change the spore itself that much, but at full charge two are formed instead of one, and they spread out in a V shape. It's very visible at first, but the glow dies down until it looks like any other spore over the course of a second. You can eventually hide this among your other spores, realistically the foe is going to have trouble telling the difference between a these spores and the standard ones. It deals the same amount of damage and time increase on a foe, but unless it lingers in them for 10 seconds you won't get much of a result from this.
So what happens if the spore actually lasts 10 seconds in the foe, it will proceed to sprout into a large mushroom, constantly pulsating with green mana and having it's roots dug through the foe. This will cause them to take 4% per second until they've shaken off all the spore effects they've been inflicted with, at which point the mushroom will crumple and die. In addition, if Jarad or any of his minions are within an area around the foe of 1.5 Bowser widths with infinite height of the mushroomed up foe, they'll be healing 2% as the mushroom steals life from the foe and gives it to them, as well as a slight attack speed buff. These spores also proliferate like regular spores via FTilt and implanting in vines/minions, so you can potentially get multiple mushrooms going at a time for large amounts of healing and attack speed, though that's a bit impractical, especially against a careful foe.
You can make things a bit easier for yourself though, by planting the spores in platforms. If one of these spores lands on the ground, it will develop into a mushroom embedded in the ground as opposed to on the foe. The mushroom can in fact still grow there, sprouting 10 seconds after hitting the ground. When a mushroom grows out of the ground, a foe can actually destroy it, and it really only has 10 stamina. It won't be draining any life while it's on the floor, but just provide a slightly smaller attack speed buff and heal 1% per second to Jarad and all minions in range. You can put these a bit out of the way too, perhaps in between two of your Up Special tentacles or up on high platforms to send the foe on a wild goose chase for them.
Down Smash
Jarad plants his staff in the ground and begins concentrating, if he's charging nothing happens. If he is not charging, he'll continue concentrating and small flares of black mana will begin appearing around him in semi-random positions within a Wario width on either side of him, dealing 7% and decent set knockback away. It takes him a full 2.2 seconds to complete this ritual, meaning that the black flares as a basic stalling measure won't be enough, you'll need some sort of additional defenses in place to protect yourself the full duration. May I suggest jab projectiles, vines, or minions? When you charge this you still have to go through the full ritual, but it increases the radius of the area the flares appear and the frequency at which they appear. And no, you don't have to wait this absurd amount of time if you just want to create a few flares or need to abandon ship because the foe outsmarted you, you can cancel out of this by inputting any other attack.
Upon the ritual being completed, an absolutely massive worm, as shown above and referred to as a Terrus Wurm will erupt out of the ground. These things are the length of Battlefield-1.6x the length of Battlefield based on charge, but will not actually extend to their full length, rather burrowing up and down through their stage and moving forwards, turning around when it reaches an edge. This causes the Wurm to create solid arcs with it's body about the width of Bowser and the height of Ganondorf, which a careless foe can be trapped inside. This thing has some meaty stamina too, 75-125 in total, before it falls apart, leaving behind a rather impressive corpse. We'll go into more detail about that later, for now we need to describe how this thing works.
The Wurm's head is a huge open maw that will grab whatever it comes into contact with, whether it be a foe, minion, or even a platform. It'll hold a foe with grab difficulty and carry them along for the ride as it moves along the stage, though it'll drop them when it comes into contact with the floor as it burrows into the ground, leaving them in prone next to it with an additional 12% on their damage counter. A minion or platform will be permanently dragged along in it's mouth, minions still being able to fight even while it's holding onto them, if anything giving them additional protection and mobility. Touching a segment of a moving Wurm will push the foe away slightly with 3%.
You can infuse a Wurm 5 segments of it's body(a minimum charge has 20 segments, a max charge Wurm has 30) with spores, then potentially apply armor or what have you to them. The mouth can also be infused. Either way, a grab from the mouth will give the foe a number of spores equal to half the amount infused into the mouth, while segments give a quarter that much when they brush against someone. These are also the parts that are left behind by a corpse, which can be stitched onto a minion. In the case of a minion, mouths will simply serve as a close range defensive grab hitbox that gives spores, and clusters of 5 segments serving as additional body space and 10 stamina. The most interesting bit here is that the mouth can still carry around platforms, letting your lesser minions carry around a platform for you as well. That said, the Wurm is definently more useful alive than dead.
Moreso, the Wurm is good for stitching other things too. You can stitch any limb onto it and it will attack as the Wurm passes by another character, or stitch on vine tentacles to allow it to potentially drag along foes for the ride. It's particularly nasty for the foe when they're trapped in a little arc that has several minion limbs attached to it as they all try to wail on the foe. Aside from that, if you infuse a Jab projectile into the mouth, it'll fire that out on a fairly frequent basis, more frequent if it's not currently holding something in it's mouth(it fires it around what it's holding).
Using this move while the Wurm is out won't create a new one, a single Wurm is plenty. Instead, he'll create similar black mana flares around himself while he takes control of the Wurm's head. He can then angle it up to create a bigger arc with the Wurm's body or a smaller arc by angling it down, giving you plenty of room for customization in how this thing moves. If a Wurm would suicide like this, it'll be smart enough to turn around in mid air and burrow into the underside of the stage, weakly spiking foes it smashes into the underside of the stage like this. You can also press A to have it launch whatever it is holding in it's mouth in the direction you choose, dealing foes 12% and knockback that KOs at 290% in that direction. When a minion or platform is launched it also becomes a hitbox, dealing 6%-20% and knockback that never KOs to knockback that KOs at 185% based on it's size.
Aerials
Neutral Aerial
Jarad swings his staff out in front of him, the end of the staff glowing with black mana. The end of it deals 10% and fairly weak knockback, the rest of the staff deal 6% and even weaker knockback. You can hold A to leave out this hitbox as long as you want, though only the end of the staff retains it's damage properties, giving this maneuver a pretty major blind spot. This attack also has some pretty bad end lag, even worse if you land during it.
The good news about it is that it actually draws in nearby spores and Jab projectiles as long as you hold this input out, at a rate slightly faster than Ganondorf's dash speed. This gives you a variable amount of cover when using this attack, but in a more set up scenario it makes this move much safer for Jarad and much deadlier to the foe. If the various projectiles actually come into contact with the staff, it will absorb them until you release A, at which point they'll be fired forwards in a stream. You can fire them diagonally upwards or downwards too by pressing up or down upon release, and while they travel fast initially after being launched they slow down over the course of travelling 1.5 battlefield platforms, before returning to their normal movement patterns. This is fairly predictable as a camping technique, though it's great for repositioning and pressuring a foe dealing with a minion. Surprisingly effective at close range too, given it can provide a nice shotgun blast of damage and spores in one go.
Forward Aerial
Jarad swipes his staff forwards in a wide arc, black mana radiating out of it all the while. While this covers a wide area in front of Jarad, it's very slow, and deals 12% and a spike on par with Mario's Fair. Spiking knockback isn't quite as useful to Jarad as it would be to some characters given his absolutely horribly offstage game, though at the very least if you hit a foe on the ground with this it makes for an early KO by his standards.
The black mana from this turns spores in an area about twice the size of the actual hitbox into... something a fair bit crueler. They grow out into miniature spikes, which fall to the ground at the rate of Fox's fall speed and upon hitting the foe deal 2% and a flinch, as well as applying the spore effect(including the special one from the Up Smash). If they land in the floor they'll just disappear though. This will actually change mushrooms and your created platforms as well, given they are constructs made from the spores. The develop jagged roots coming out the top, dealing 10% and medium set upwards knockback to characters that land on them. You can place these along a minion's back to give it cover on what is otherwise it's most vulnerable spot, atop vines for aerial defense, on the ground as a standard issue trap, etc. Just remember they can still just as easily be destroyed, and Jarad is not immune to their spines, though your minions are.
On a mushroom, this will cause the mushroom to become a bit more... vicious. If a foe comes within a third of a battlefield platform of it, the mushroom will shoot out a spiky protrusion from the ground it's embedded in, impaling it through the foe. This drains the foe at the rate a mushroom embedded into their back would and adds that amount to it's healing/attack boosting properties. This move does have some lag on the mushrooms part so it's not something the foe can't avoid unless they're dealing with Jarad at the same time, but it provides the mushroom with a bit of defense, especially if the mushroom was in one of your created platforms, which is now presumably covered in spikes.
On foe's this has a much simpler effect if they have embedded spores, simply causing a foe hit by this move to have a spike jut out of their body for each spore in them. The spikes deals 2% to the foe each, meaning this move can suddenly have a massive damage output, and bystanders can be hit by the spikes for 2% each as well. The spikes aren't particularly long though, and this will only really come up in FFAs or 2v2. If a minion limb had spores within it this will also cause spikes to jut out of it, creating the same effect minus damaging the minion.
Back Aerial
Jarad creates a vine out of his staff in a similar manner to how he did in the Up Special, though this time instead of using it for recovery, he has it whip behind him, covering a huge horizontal distance nearly the range of Dedede's Forward Tilt. This isn't an astonishingly fast move mind you, and the vast majority of the vine deals only 5% and really weak knockback. There is, however, a sweetspot on the vine near, but not exactly on the end. This deals a whopping 16% and diagonally upwards knockback that KOs at 200%. It's very, very precise and as such hard to hit with, but the result is actually Jarad's best KO move, on account of being usable offstage. Using Jab projectiles to zone the foe into the sweetspot can help with making landing this more practical though.
This move has some rather nifty additional interactions as well. If you use this on a minion or vine, this vine will wrap around it, tethering it to yourself essentially. As it's wrapping around, if you don't want that, pressing any other input will cancel out of this action. This tether has 10 HP, but can also be tethered with knockback on par with Mario's FSmash at 20% being dealt to Jarad, or if he hangs dangling off the edge by it for 3 seconds or longer. Jarad can sever the tether himself, and you'll see why he actually very much wants too. Jarad can tether himself to multiple things at once. Standard tether rules apply, if something is pulled to the limit of where it can go by a tether Jarad can't go any further.
In the case of a minion, if he goes further than the length of the tether away from them, the minion will follow along as Jarad basically drags them along, almost as if he's leading a horse. Wurms are a bit less agreeable than your beetles or other minions(you'll see what they are soon), not allowing Jarad to move beyond their tether length and not budging if Jarad tries to drag them along. Vines will bend as Jarad pulls them past the length of the tether, eventually being pulled all the way to the ground. Severing the tether at this point will cause the vine to swing back into it's original position, dealing 3%-15% based on the amount it was pulled back, as well as low-high set horizontal knockback, as well as half the amount of spores in the vine being implanted in the foe. This move gives Jarad two things. One, it actually allows him to reposition his minions, when in spite of how much he can play with them he actually has very little control of them, as well as providing him with some defense behind him, because Jarad really doesn't like foes behind him that much. It's far from an infallible technique though, given foes can sever the tether at the wrong time if they're playing properly, and vines tethered this way can't really grab foes.
Up Aerial
Jarad raises his staff, and 3 flares of black mana appear in a sequence going diagonally upwards. They're all fairly close to Jarad and each deals 4% and weak knockback that'll knock the foe into the next one in sequence. They all appear fairly fast too, making this attack a fairly good damage racker... but again, really only if you hit with the first flare. If you don't, this move becomes pretty bad for aerial combat in general. At the very least it is Jarad's fastest aerial, so you're not going to get punished especially badly if you screw up with it.
Each black mana flare that hits a Jab projectile will empower it, increasing it's damage by 3% and causing it to explode when it would normally hit the ground, minion, or foe. The blast radius gets larger the more flares you hit with, reaching the size of Wario after 3 flares. You're really only going to get 3 flares when a projectile is ascending though, you'll probably hit with 2 if it's at the peak of it's arc and 1 if it's headed downwards. Buffing one of your mass spammed projectiles probably doesn't sound too great on it's own, but if another projectile is within the radius of the explosion, it will explode in an explosion of the same size and dealing the same damage. A minion limb infused with a Jab projectile will also create an explosive aura around itself if it's caught in the explosion, also dealing the same damage and spreading it to further nearby projectiles. So yes, you can potentially set off a huge chain reaction with this, though as each projectile's detonation is slightly delayed it is something a foe can reasonably prepare for. Though the slight delay makes it more abusable as well.
Down Aerial
Jarad swings his staff below him, dealing 14% and a surprisingly solid spike. This... unlike Jarad's other aerials, is surprisingly quick, making it actually sort of practical if the foe is below him in the air. Especially considering Jarad wants the fight on the ground. This is also sadly his only good aerial on it's own merits, getting knocked up into the air is really, really bad for you if you don't have some spores and projectiles up there to protect you. The end of the staff crackles with black mana when it hits it's target, which serves to make the attack a bit more satisfying to land.
...yeah there's more to that crackle of black mana than just that if you use this on spores or minions. A minion hit by this will have all it's appendages crackle with black mana, and for the next 2 seconds it's attacks will send a pulse of black mana through the foe when they connect. This pulse means that 5 seconds later, they'll take a rather nasty aftershock of black mana themselves, taking 15% and some moderate but set upwards knockback. Obviously this makes hitting with a minion's attacks considerably more powerful, but where you can really reap the rewards is when you have a minion with many parts stitched in one place to make it hard for the foe not to get hit a good few times, IE inside a loop on a Terrus Wurm. If you get a particularly large group of attacks in on a foe in this time span, though it's very unlikely, you might end up scoring yourself a star KO as the foe is juggled off the top blast zone.
If this hits spores it will push them towards the floor as you might expect, but the black mana transfers to them, making them much more deadly for the next 2 seconds as well... you see, instead of them just counting for one spore when they hit the foe, they count for three. This will rack your foe's spore count up big time if used at an opportune moment, and what is especially terrifying is if you imbue a mushroom spore with this, you'll get two mushrooms growing out of the foe for the price of one. Again, this isn't that easy to pull off especially given foes can bat away spores, but what's nice about it is that the move can be used for this in the heat of melee combat when it is most likely to actually work. Just keep Jarad's very vulnerable in the air as a rule...
Grab Game
Grab
Jarad admittedly has a pretty terrible grab in it's base form, being basically the same thing as Ganondorf's grab, but with slightly more range and unfortunately some added end lag. What makes his grab game a lot better is that he can, if next to one of his Up Special vines, order it to grab the foe for him. The vine is chosen by pressing grab and a direction, the nearest vine in that direction grabbing as long as Jarad is within a Wario width of it. This can provide for a tether grab, potentially one with gigantic range with a well fed vine, but suffers the drawback of the vine suffering HUGE end lag if it whiffs. By which I mean the vine will be open and vulnerable to attack for 1 and a half second, basically letting the foe destroy even a well fed vine if this whiffs. That's not to say Jarad has the lag though, so you can still try to defend your vine. If the vine grabs the foe it'll snap back to Jarad and drop the foe in his grip.
Oh, as a side note, you can grab minions with this too, though with them Jarad will simply put his staff on their head, sending black mana pulses to trap it in place. The ranged variant will just have the tentacle drag the minion to him, much slower on a larger minion.
Pummel
Jarad smashes the foe over the head with his staff, dealing them 3%. This is a very slow pummel, but given the foe is likely taking passive damage from spores anyway he doesn't need a fantastic pummel. On a minion he just lets it go back to it's normal business with no lag.
Forward Throw
From the tip of Jarad's staff crawls what looks like a rather unpleasant spined worm, which will proceed to violently burrow into the foe or minion you have ensnared. On a foe this causes rapid hits that add up to 10% and pushes them back slightly. The minion will take the damage too, but not get pushed back, though it is released from the grab. From that point on not much happens, until another 13 seconds are up in the case of the foe or the minion in question dies. Then a Zanikev Locust, as shown above, is going to make it's way out of whatever it was laid inside in a rather brutal fashion.
For a foe, the minion that bursts out of them will be about Olimar's size and have 8 stamina, as well as dealing them another 10% and upwards knockback that KOs at 280%. It will then patrol an area .7x the size of a Smart Bomb blast in the sky, lashing out with 3 different types of attacks. It can slash it's lower claws in an actually pretty fast manuever that deals 2% and a flinch, which it will perform on foes below it. Due to how much faster this attack is than any attack from the Deadbridge Beetles, it will only add a fourth the number of infused spores onto the foe. It's horn can perform an Ike's Forward Smash motion, dealing 6% and weak horizontal knockback, this being slightly faster than any attack of the Beetle's but still horribly predictable. Lastly while the wings don't deal any damage, they'll occasionally flinch the foe as they vibrate and push them upwards, all the while dropping a single spore for every 5 in their once every 2 seconds.
Any interaction with the Beetles apply here too, with the three limbs you have available for restitching and imbuing being the wings, legs, and horn. Minions will have a locust about 2/3rds their size pop out upon death, the maximum size one being created from a max sized Beetle, Terrus Wurms won't create gargantuan ones sadly. This causes more variable staminas and damage outputs, ranging from 6-40 stamina, 1%-8% on the claw swipes, and 5%-17% and knockback that KOs at 220% on the horn, and rare flinching to near constant flinching on the wings. A larger one also has a bigger area it roams, though the increase isn't as large as you might expect, maxing at 1.2x a Smart Bomb blast.
The wings of these minions are particularly interesting as far as parts to restitch, because first of all you can place them in front of other parts to make a foe's approach on a minion much more difficult. In addition, if you place them on a Beetle's back, it will allow it to fly. A Wurm can't really fly and with it's pattern never would want to begin with, but with Beetles you just need a realistic amount of wings. Generally that means the wings of a locust of a slightly smaller size will be enough to get it flying, in which case it will gain the locust's movement patterns.
As a side note, by placing a platform on the back of one of these, you can actually potentially go for a gimp by having it chase the foe off the stage. Given their fragile nature and how terrible Jarad's recovery is, this isn't going to make gimping an easy task, but your Fair and Jab can still provide a pretty big threat to foes recovering onto the stage. With a particularly large custom minion chasing a foe off stage, this can actually become surprisingly good for gimping, meaning Jarad can finally live the dream and not have to rack the foe to some obscene percentage, but that will take some major set up.
Back Throw
Jarad takes the back end of his staff to the foe or minion and stabs it into them, dealing them 7% and weak backwards knockback, but an abnormally long flinch that gives Jarad a bit of a frame advantage over the foe. It's not enough to regrab with, but you know how much Jarad can build a small lead into a big one if he plays his cards right. It also leaves behind an annoying status effect, a bleed wound that deals 1% per second for 3 seconds... except that counter doesn't start until the foe's spore count hits zero. This also stacks, serving as some admittedly redundant poison damage with the spores. Also a spore that hits a wound will cause double a normal spore effect, which is hardly noticable if you have only inflicted one tiny wound on the foe, but as Jarad inflicts more the spores have more wounded spots to infect, making this come up a fair bit more often.
A minion jabbed by this will take the damage, sure, but it will recoil back a short distance, dealing 4%-10 and weak-moderate knockback that KOs at 300% away from the minion. Nothing impressive, but it's a way for Jarad to intercept a foe trying to interrupt him grabbing a minion. A Wurm grabbed by this reacts a bit differently, having all limbs on it lash out and the body do a barrel roll that launches away for 5%. Given the sheer size of the Wurm, this is actually a rather powerful attack.
This attack has a rather nice interaction with an FSmashed minion too, in that he will actually tear off the limb Jarad was closest too when grabbing the minion and attach it to his staff, the limb sort of fusing into it after the staff is impaled through. It will continue to attack and function as normal, even if this particular manuever killed the minion. This gives Jarad a sort of automatic attack/defense as he moves about, the body part serving as a weak shield to him that has a quarter of the stamina of the original minion it came from. Obviously that makes it fairly easy to destroy, but the occasional hit will allow Jarad to make some more advanced combos in melee combat, or the limb will simply absorb an important hit. Aside from that, having the limb attached to the staff means that whenever a buffing effect of some sort, IE Dair or DTilt, would come out of the staff, it will apply to that limb as well, making it a fair bit more deadly than a normal minion limb as Jarad doesn't have to go out of his way to buff it, especially when it's very easy to imbue spores into something that's right there.
Up Throw
Jarad tosses the opponent up with his free arm before bashing them with his staff, the staff glowing green mana. The first hit deals 3% and the second deals 5%. It also causes all spores within a half battlefield platform radius of the foe to home in towards them afterwards, giving them a brief moment to dodge through to the side. Jarad can predict and abuse this, possibly even getting the foe trapped in the spore convergence if things work out for him. They'll return to their original positions if they miss the foe. On a minion, this will, simply imbue the limb Jarad was closest too when he grabbed the minion with every spore in that area before releasing them.
Down Throw
Jarad sends black mana coursing through whatever the victim of his grab is. If it's a foe, this'll simply deal them 8% as he extracts a ball of what seems to be their lifeforce from them, before lobbing it forwards as a projectile that deals 4% and a flinch to outsiders. On contact with a minion, it will energize it slightly, increasing it's attack speed, movement speed and power for the next 5 seconds by about 10% of it's regular value. That's a pretty small increase, but it will come up on occasion.
On a minion... this will, to put it simply, kill the minion entirely. He will then extract their lifeforce and toss it forwards as a projectile, leaving the corpse behind. Unfortunately no this does not make for easy locusts, as they will die with the minion, but provide the attack a slight boost in power. This deals damage equal to half how much stamina the minion had left and knockback based on the amount of damage. It's hard to get this knockback to be impressive, even sacrificing a Terrus Wurm for 42% will only KO at 120%. That said, the projectile will provide a variable buff if it hits a minion, similar to the one provided by the foe's life force. Only much, much stronger, say about 50% of the original when extracted from a full sized Beetle, more from a Terrus Wurm or a Beetle with additional parts. Aside from that, every spore imbued in the minion will be dealt to the foe if they are hit with this attack, or imbued into the part of the minion it hits if it hits a minion.
This will, of course, leave behind a corpse of the minion you sacrificed to generate this projectile, serving as your main way to get a minion's body parts. For that matter, it's also pretty great at actually making your minions competent, making them very deadly in the window they get the buff from their fallen comrade. Jab projectile bullet hell will make hitting with the projectile aspect of this a lot easier too.
Final Smash
Jarad slams his staff into the ground as a huge surge of green mana erupts from the floor below. If he's in the air instead he will raise his staff to the heavens and the burst of green mana will appear under him. The monster depicted above, a Giant Adephage, will crawl out of, being 1.5x the size of a maxed size Deadbridge Beetle, and functions similarly to it in terms of AI, albeit being a bit more agressive. It's attacks are the same as the Beetles, but much faster and dealing about 1.4x the damage and knockback. The difference is, it's horn is replaced with a huge, gaping maw that grabs opponents, similar to the maw of a wurm. It takes double grab difficulty to break out of, unlike the Wurm, and deals 5% per second to a trapped victim, as well as a fourth the spores imbued in the mouth every half a second. After 4 seconds grabbed though, the Adephage will devour the foe and lay an egg, which 10 seconds later will hatch into another Giant Adephage. This gives Jarad a very fine way to kill foes he brings to absurdly high percents, netting him a second giant monster for his efforts. Keep in mind though, that an Adephage cannot eat a foe larger than itself.
These things do not go away with time, but rather are destroyed when their 120 stamina is depleted. The eggs can also be destroyed, taking 30 stamina to do so. And like your other minions, they leave a corpse behind. So yes, feel free to take that maw and stitch it onto another minion. As a matter of fact, that will allow the other minion to go and lay eggs itself if it manages to devour a foe, though eggs of a wurm will not hatch until the original wurm dies. So yes, now whatever sort of abomination you make by combining minions can reproduce. Be very, very afraid. Of course, parts of other minions can be stitched onto the Adephage, and those parts will come out in it's children. For that matter, if your foe is gigantic this will make eating it an actual possibility for the Adephage.
3v1 Boss Mode
Jarad can in fact function as a 3v1 Boss should you choose to turn that on when 3 foes or another boss set is pitted against him. Jarad will laugh diabolically before the battle and emits an aura of black mana to indicate his boss mode has been enabled, although that's hardly the only change he goes through.
*Jarad's weight is upped to 30/10, making him as hard to kill as you'd expect a boss to be. Other standard boss resistances apply, such as status effects and KO mechanics having halved effect, him only taking hitstun up to 3 times in a 0.8 second period before he stops taking hitstun, escaping grabs twice as easily and taking no hitstun from escapes or throws, you get the drill.
*As a general rule, Jarad's damage and knockback is pretty massively improved, especially his knockback. That massive damage output will become less ridiculous when distributed over 3 foes, so he actually needs reasonable KO moves, which plenty of his attacks have turned into given they KO at half the percent they did before.
*Jarad's Neutral Special now summons the Giant Adephage from the Final Smash, albeit downscaled in size to only be slightly larger than the Beetle at any stage in it's charge. It does have 25-100 stamina though, a notable improvement from the original beetles, and obviously the benefit of the maw and vastly stronger and faster attacks.
*The Side Special summons a bigger cluster of spores, about 12 in total, and on top of that is way faster on both ends, about quadrupling your spore output. You'll need it if you want to keep all your opponents debilitated.
*The Up Special gets a huge range increase as a tether and actually spikes foes on the ledge off for Jarad, giving him an at least tolerable recovery. The vines placed on stage actually home in on foes a little, stretching towards them if they come near, making grabbing with them far more likely on a careless foe. They also have twice their size and stamina, good considering Jarad has less time to babysit their growth.
*The Down Special moves objects around at Sonic's dash speed, but is otherwise unchanged.
*The Jab has a pretty huge upgrade, becoming highly spammable, not disappearing until it is outprioritized or hits the ground first of all, piercing through foes and shields(not to mention dealing more shield damage). On top of that, it's way more spammable now, and by holding the A button you can fire a much faster projectile to mix in. All this is pretty necessary when you realize these things are largely how you're going to be breaking up and distracting foes as a boss.
*The Forward Tilt now produces as many spores as the foe had in them.
*The Down Tilt creates much sturdier platforms, having 3x as much stamina as before.
*The Glyph is much larger, being about Bowser's size, and the status effect is a bit more powerful, producing 2-3x as many spores as were originally in the foe/minion and dealing 5% per second.
*Up Smash now produces a mushroom producing spore at the start, peak, and end of it's arc.
*The Down Smash creates way more explosions to protect Jarad, and the Wurm produced is about 1.5x as long. On top of that, it moves considerably faster and has twice as much stamina, creating a fully fledged boss if you've attached some other limbs to it.
*Nair draws in spores and projectiles at twice the rate it did before.
*Fair covers a bigger area of effect, and the spikes FFA effect is vastly enhanced, with them dealing 3% and sticking out a huge distance from the foe.
*Bair's sweetspot is a fair bit larger, making it very practical for melee range camping.
*Uair creates 5 sparks of black mana packed in the same area and is even faster, making it a much more practical damage racker, as well as a source of much larger explosive projectiles.
*Dair's effect lasts for a good 5 seconds.
*In the grab the vine snaps back into place almost immediately, making the vine version of the grab a lot less dangerous to the vine's health.
*In exchange for not having the maw, the locust is massively buffed far more than the Adephage is over the Beetles, dealing twice the damage and knockback on it's attacks and having double stamina, in addition to being considerably faster. Also the one that hatches out of the foe is nearly full sized and deals 24% and upwards knockback that KOs at 120%.
*Back Throw has him jab the foe three times with the staff in very short order, effectively tripling the strength of the status effect. It also causes a minion to thrash three times in rapid succession.
*Down Throw extracts 15% from the foe and given you have much more powerful minions, it will be doing a heck of a lot more damage and providing a bigger buff. Speaking of that buff, it lasts 12 seconds.
3v1 Final Smash
Given the regular version's Final Smash becomes a minion regularly summoned by the boss mode, Jarad is in need of a new, stronger Final Smash. And he has big plans indeed...
Jarad raises his staff and this time a burst of green mana appears... covering the entire bottom blast zone. What rises up is horrifying to behold, the almighty Worldspine Wurm. It is as wide as Final Destination and it's head is located towards the top blast zone. It will only stick around for 12 seconds, during which time it has 3 attacks. For one, it will tilt it's head back and shake the entire stage, bouncing minions and foes into the air, dealing foes 18% and upwards knockback that KOs at 110% if they're caught in the earthquake. The other attack will have it tilt it's head towards a foe and attempt to devour them. If it succeeds it's an instant KO, as well as a KO on any other foes it catches. If it gets Jarad or a minion in it's mouth, it will spit them out back onto the stage, though dealing them 10%, so be a little careful with this given your terrible movement. Lastly, it fires a constant barrage of spines at the stage in the manner of a constant watered down PK Starstorm, each dealing 15% and knockback that KOs at 145%.
For a 3v1 exclusive Final Smash this might seem rather underwhelming, but it's duration can be prolonged to make it a far more threatening obstacle. You can bring a dead limb up to it's mouth and it will devour it, causing it to stick around for another 3 seconds. It'll take some dedication to keep the monstrous worm around for an extensive period of time, but even prolonging it 2-3 times should be enough to get you an extra KO on those pesky challengers.
This mysterious pilot makes even Black Shadow, the evil emperor, shudder with fear. Since the huge accident four years ago, several F-Zero pilots have turned up missing--in all of the missing-persons investigations conducted by the Space Police, Deathborn was the primary suspect. Deathborn has died three times, but each time was brought back to life by exchanging his real body parts for mechanical ones. Through these procedures he has become essentially immortal. A device installed within his body allows him to travel freely through space, making it possible for him to mysteriously appear anywhere at any time. He banishes those he dislikes to the outer limits of space, where they become drifting vagabonds for all eternity. Deathborn is plotting to take over the universe--his plan is to obtain the ultimate power that would allow him to determine life and death on every star as he sees fit. He himself never raced in the Grand Prix, but only in the underground races. He employed Black Shadow to win the races, using whatever means are necessary.
While Deathborn’s high falling speed might seem to work against his aerial heavyweight status, the man has a float that enables him to casually ignore the negatives of such a high falling speed. The float lasts for twice as long as Peach’s, but he moves quite slowly while floating, half of Peach’s speed, so for recovery purposes it’s on par. Note that this floating speed is much slower than Deathborn’s regular aerial speed, and unlike Peach he can cancel out of his float early before going back into it later. Of course, Deathborn can not float longer than the normal amount of time if he just used his float all at once, having to touch ground to refresh his float.
SPECIALS
NEUTRAL SPECIAL – SEIZURE
Deathborn attempts to attack the mind of the nearest foe. To do this, he creates a distorted and transparent duplicate of the foe. The duplicate does not actually exist, and is simply a manifestation of the foe’s brain for Deathborn to attack mentally. The foe’s “brain”, as we will call them from here on out, is a computer controlled player allied to the foe. They’re run by a paltry level 6 AI, or one level lower than the lowest leveled AI in the match if the AIs are 6 or lower. The only exception is that if separated by more than a platform from the owner, the brain will mindlessly attempt to reach the owner, ignoring the usual AI it has. It will attempt to dodge and jump around attacks and obstacles on the way back, even DIing out of attacks if necessary. This all of course gives you the chance to kill the brain the same way you can kill Nana when fighting the Ice Climbers. Foes can damage their brains and their brains can damage them back, team attack being on, but aside from that only Deathborn and other psychic characters can damage and be hurt by brains that aren’t their own.
Foes share the same damage percentage with the brain, as well as their life. If you kill the brain or the body, the other one will die as well. Using the move on the same foe twice will dematerialize their brain, in case dealing with a level 6 AI is somehow beyond you. Some supervillian you turned out to be. . .
SIDE SPECIAL – MIND LINK
A purple beam of energy protrudes from Deathborn’s brain that homes in on the nearest target (The furthest target if double tapped) at Captain Falcon’s dashing speed. If used at melee range like a traditional grab, it’s absurdly fast, while easier to dodge at a distance due to more of a telegraph. Otherwise, you can have as much range as you want but it won’t be all that useful due to how easy it is to dodge the increasingly telegraphed beam. The beam can go through solid constructs, other characters, anything to reach the intended target of the move with infinite range. Foes take a brief flinch when they are first hit by this move.
Once connected, Deathborn and the target cannot move more than the initial size of the beam when it was created away from each other. The character with the higher dashing/aerial speed normally has the advantage in this tether link as in others if both linked characters dash away from each other, but if Deathborn is linked to a brain he will always be able to pull them with him. Needless to say, this can be of great use to drag a dumb brain to the blast zone.
The mental link can never be destroyed by the victim who has been hit by the link, though Deathborn can destroy it at any time by pressing Side Special a second time. However, a third party can hit either of the two characters involved to stop the mind link. It doesn’t matter which one of the two mind linked characters the third party hits, as both mind linked characters will be treated as if they got hit. It doesn't matter if the other party attempts to dodge, they'll still get hit anyway. Computer controlled brains understand it doesn’t matter which one they hit, but aren’t nearly intelligent enough to do a polite poke to minimize damage to themselves and will just go for any old attack.
UP SPECIAL – MENTAL PLATFORM
Deathborn forms a psychic battlefield platform underneath his feet, him on one edge of the platform whereas the other edge is in the direction he’s facing. This enables Deathborn to walk forwards a platform before resuming his float or jumps to get back to the stage. This platform does not refresh recoveries, and cannot have characters pitfalled in it or be terraformed. Deathborn cannot make another platform until touching ground, and even when he does do so it will destroy the last platform he created. The platform lasts a whopping 10 seconds, enabling Deathborn to stand for very long periods of time off-stage for gimping purposes or even to do some weak off-stage camping for the sole purpose of baiting impatient foes off-stage. The move also of course enables Deathborn to use his ground moveset to gimp.
Brains can stand on these platforms, but bodies and regular characters cannot. You may think this is a bit counter intuitive, as this doesn’t help you with gimping the easier and more desirable targets, but you can still just make the platform higher up than brains can recover to make use of this. Bodies being unable to stand on the platform is still useful, as it makes it much harder for them to stop your gimping attempts when you have the luxury of a shield in mid-air.
DOWN SPECIAL – MIND READING
Deathborn attempts to mind read the foe in a counter Down Special. Unlike your other Saturday morning cartoon villians, Deathborn learns from his mistakes, and does not repeat them. This means that Deathborn will automatically dodge this attack if it is ever used on him again, not mattering whether it’s the brain or body that does it. Deathborn can still attack and move during this auto dodge, it not interrupting whatever he’s doing. Deathborn can keep constantly checking the foe’s mind to avoid up to 5 different moves at a time, and will stop bothering to check for the oldest move if he learns a sixth. If the foe -really- wants to hit Deathborn with their move, they still can by hitting somebody mind linked to Deathborn.
If Deathborn gets hit when using the initial move, though, he will still very much so take all of the damage and knockback and won’t do anything to hurt the offending foe in return. Thankfully, Deathborn is actually tanky enough to take some punishment with his weight and recovery. Not only that, Deathborn can still keep things at a neutral stance while still learning how to better fight the foe by having up a mind link, meaning the foe will also be hurt by this attack you choose to not avoid.
GRAB-GAME
GRAB – RESTRAIN
The area around the nearest foe (The furthest one if double tapped) starts to distort as Deathborn attempts to psychically grab them. Foes cannot simply walk out of the way of the hitbox, they must perform a dodge of some kind to avoid getting grabbed. This is an infinite range grab and as such is amongst the laggier ones, but it’s still better than tether grabs for speed. Deathborn can perform his grab in the air, and is capable of grabbing aerial foes. Upon successfully grabbing a foe, Deathborn and the foe will levitate in place if either were in the air, not draining any float timers or anything of the sort, until the foe escapes from the grab or is pummeled/thrown.
Note that if the foe’s brain is out, this is probably the single most useful aspect of having a partner for the foe – you’re still perfectly capable of being hit by your ungrabbed adversary and having your grab-game interrupted. Of course, if you have a mind link with the grabbed foe, this serves as a good safeguard.
PUMMEL – MIND CONTROL
Deathborn mind controls the foe for the remainder of the time until they’d escape the grab. The most obvious thing to do is to have the foe simply go and suicide, since there’s absolutely no limitations on the mind control. Unfortunately, Deathborn has the foe trapped for just the standard grab escape amount, no bonuses, so it’s not going to last that long. Sure, the computers playing the brains are bad button mashers, much worse than a human, but still it’s fairly doubtful you’ll be able to kill them in time, much less without the other ungrabbed character interfering. Of course, if you see an opening, feel free to take it.
The more appealing option with less repercussions consists of just using your mind controlled foe to attack the other one. The only thing you really have to be wary of here is your undefended main body, but if you have a mind link with the mind controlled foe then you can drag yourself around with the mind controlled foe. The mind link can also be useful if you’re mind linked to the one that –isn’t- mind controlled, as you charge up a mighty attack to hit yourself with the mind controlled foe that you can survive but your mind linked foe can’t.
DOWN THROW – LEG NERVE RESTRICTIONS
Deathborn makes the foe think that their legs are broken. Of course, their legs are actually just fine and dandy, but fighting through the mental block means the strength of their jumps and dashing speed is cut in half. If used on a brain, the status effect will apply to both them and the body, this applying to any other status effects as well. Obviously foes are now easier to gimp and easier to keep apart, and if you use this throw with the status effect still on the foe the timer will stack with what they already have. The foe is tripped at the end of the move from the sudden “weakening” of their legs, taking 3%. This throw will not work on a character who has their brain separated from them if you target the body, the throw resulting in nothing but the trip and the 3%.
BACK THROW – ENRAGE
Deathborn enrages the foe, not via some bizarre characterization assumptions about the foe, but by simply tapping into that part of their brain, no matter how locked away or unused it is. This doubles their movement speed and jumping prowess and increases the power of their attacks by 1.35X. As is typical of any berserker rage, though, they will take an additional 1.5X the damage/knockback of any attacks that come their way due to letting their guard down, especially their mental guards against a psychic like Deathborn. . .The status effect lasts 10 seconds. Like the down throw, the status effect timer will stack if you apply it again to the same foe.
The increased damage is immensely useful, especially when if you’re skillful you can hit both of the foe’s hurtboxes at the same time for a whopping triple the amount of usual damage, making Deathborn’s more meager attacks suddenly much more threatening. Of course, it can all go the other way around, what with foes having their own boosts. To deal with the enemy’s boosts, all you have to do is mind link yourself to one of them, meaning if they make use of their power on you they’ll not only be using their own power against themselves but also be taking extra damage for a total of 1.85X the power of their attack! If the increased movement is a problem, you can stack this status effect with the down throw’s, in which case they’ll be moving at their regular speed.
If this is used on a brain, the brain will forget the specific part of their AI where they’re required to constantly regroup back to their body’s side while enraged. If their dodging around everything as they go back proves too annoying, this provides another nice option. Among other things, this enables you to camp off-stage with an Up Special mental platform, where the impatient and enraged brain will go after you, with the foe not able to do all that much to help them due to being unable to stand on the platform with their body. If they intend to wait it out, they’ll have to grab their brain to prevent it from approaching (Assuming they can’t impede it with constructed obstacles), leaving them both pathetically vulnerable to some hit on your end or eventually forcing the body to use one of their throws.
After applying this mental enragement to the foe, Deathborn goes horizontal in mid-air before a purple aura spawns around his boots, propelling him 1.5 platform backwards and dealing 8% to the foe, while simultaneously making himself a hitbox to outside foes that deals 14% and knockback that KOs at 160% in the direction he’s going. If Deathborn wasn’t already next to the foe, he will teleport to their position before performing this throw. Note if you use this on a body with their mind separated, this is the entire effect of the throw, no status effect getting applied. That said, the throw’s still quite useful in said scenario. Say, you’re going to go gimp the foe’s brain who you’re knocking towards the edge while the body is coming towards you from the other side, an incredibly common scenario. All you have to do is grab the body, use the throw on them, then propel yourself back towards the brain to resume your gimping attempt. Nevermind the potential of the teleport. . .
UP THROW – TELEKINETIC THROW
Deathborn does what is largely a shameless rip-off of Mewtwo’s uthrow – he curls the foe up into a ball and levitates them around him at high speeds before throwing them up into the air. The throw is completely identical to Mewtwo’s if you only have one enemy. While the foe is a hitbox that does 8% and knockback that KOs at 180% to outside foes, you’ll never notice that if you only have one enemy.
At the apex of the knockback they take, the foe will still be curled up into a ball if there’s another enemy on the field, in which case they will get shot directly towards their position while still balled up in a stun state. Deathborn will send them towards the nearest foe, though if he used the throw on a brain he will throw them towards their body no matter what. While going down, foes travel at Captain Falcon’s dashing speed, dealing 15% and knockback that KOs at 140% in the direction they’re going. Deathborn is free to move quite early on in the throw, but balled up foes are ungrabbable.
This is probably the best FFA GTFO throw due to the start of the move where Deathborn spins the foe around him (If used with a foe next to you), which has obvious purposes for Deathborn if his mind control isn’t working out for him. As far as using the foe as a projectile, though, try it when the other foe is off-stage. If you do it that way, that means the remaining foe –must- knock their ally out of the balled up form or they’ll be stuck in it on their way to the bottom blast zone. When they go to knock their comrade out to refresh them, they’ll not only be hitting themselves, but they’ll get hit by the balled up thrown foe due to the way aerial priority works for a huge damage pay-off. Note that foes don’t have to get hit by the balled up foe if they have any disjointed hitboxes or projectiles to make use of, as any hit will knock enemies out of their balled up form. Brains know they need to save their allies from this attack if it comes down to it, but they won’t be especially smart with which attack they use to stop it.
FORWARD THROW – BANISH
Deathborn teleports the foe forwards, dealing completely horizontal “knockback” that KOs at 155% with no damage at all due to no brute force being involved. Immediately after teleporting the foe, Deathborn levitates up a large chunk of ground from the stage in front of them, a Wario wide and 1.5 Ganons tall. Deathborn proceeds to flip the ground chunk up vertically before dropping it on top of the foe. There’s enough time for any foe to be able to avoid it by retreating back out of range, though it’s solid status and height prevents people from being able to jump over it casually in most circumstances. If it –does- hit them, foes get pitfalled with 16% or spiked with Ganon dair force if off-stage, so there’s plenty of incentive to avoid it. This is just about the closest thing you have to a “set and forget” boss-style move as you just use this throw on one of your enemies so you can ignore them for a bit, though it can also move them closer to the edge.
Note that the ground chunk will just come up and fall at the end of the stage if Deathborn threw the foe off-stage, but if Deathborn just threw the foe only slightly off-stage it can turn a casual poke off of solid ground that’s insultingly easy to recover from into the start of a more serious gimping attempt. Not that the ground chunk will actually –hit-, but it’ll back the foe up enough and use enough of their jumps for you to have a shot at gimping them manually.
SMASHES
FORWARD SMASH – PSYCHIC PUSH
Deathborn holds his hands behind himself in a charging animation before bringing them in front of himself and opening his palms. This creates a Wario sized hitbox in front of himself that deals completely horizontal knockback that KOs at 90-50%, making this Deathborn’s best KO move by a mile and not an especially laggy one at all, though far from spammable. Unfortunately, Deathborn is putting all of his psychic energy into just pushing the target as far as he can, meaning this move deals no damage or stun. This isn’t a concern when you’re simply gimping enemies, though, and the move can of course be used as a gimping tool thanks to Up Special platforms in a very obvious manner. The move can still be used otherwise as a means of spacing foes apart and sending them off-stage, but it can also be a nice way to blast one foe into the other one due to the stun not knocking them out of their attacks.
UP SMASH – TYRANT’S RISE
Deathborn levitates up a chunk of the ground underneath himself up into the air during the charging of the move, going up 4 Ganondorfs into the air once the move is fully charged. This means the move is actually at all chargeable in a combat situation compared to other smashes, due to you fleeing from foes during charging. The ground chunk Deathborn levitates up is a platform wide and a Wario tall, keeping all of the solid properties of the ground, ripping it out of the stage. Long term terraforming is sadly not done, though, as after the charging is complete Deathborn slams the chunk of ground back down into the stage right where it was, falling at Captain Falcon’s dashing speed.
On the way down, the ground chunk deals 18-30% and knockback that sends foes away from the ground chunk that KOs at 160-120%. If the foe is inside the alcove in the stage created by Deathborn ripping out the huge ground chunk when it falls back down into place, they will get pitfalled instead of taking knockback. If the move was fully charged, they’ll get pitfalled upside down underneath the stage.
Deathborn is free to move immediately after he is done charging (The move has pre charge lag) and he has the ground chunk fall, but cannot use usmash again until the ground is back in place. If Deathborn is interrupted in this move during the charging, the ground doesn’t just vanish and falls with the normal hitbox. This gives you some potential to use the usmash as a lingering hitbox, grabbing a foe as they dodge the falling rock.
Far more interesting, though, is the mind link. If the mind link was short but the foe was towards the end of their leash when you began this attack, they can get stuck underneath the rock you’re raising up, needing their ally to come knock you out of the attack. What’s more, if you somehow manage to pitfall a foe under the stage while mind linked to them, probably through the earlier mentioned technique, they’ll be completely and utterly stuck so long as you stay on-stage and almost a complete non-factor until the mind link is cut. You can of course let it get cut to watch them fall to their demise and go to meet them under the stage for a gimping attempt. Of course, this is all rather awkwardly specific.
Deathborn is immune to this attack unless he deliberately goes into the tomb to get pitfalled, using his high falling speed to beat the ground chunk back to the ground. This is Deathborn’s only means of damaging himself, important because of the mind link. This only deals damage to mind linked foes if they are specifically standing on the ground, in which case they too will get pitfalled. Enraged foes will take more damage than you from this, but the real appeal of this technique is getting the foe to try to stop you from entombing yourself, especially a dumb enraged brain. You can use this as bait to try to get the foe in the tomb, while you go to dodge out of the way at the last second.
If the move is used on a psychic platform, the platform gets raised and lowered. This requires deep concentration from Deathborn, though, and as such Deathborn cannot cancel out of the charging, leaving himself very vulnerable. The platform will also only be raised 2 platforms instead of 4, but if you really need the extra recovery somehow, it exists. There is one exception to the fully charging rule, though, and that’s just using the move immediately, which will cause the platform to immediately fall at Falcon’s dashing speed. The platform can be moved through from below, of course, but if you’re in the middle of an aerial when it does so it’s quite easy to accidentally land on the platform and trigger your landing lag. It’s possible to avoid this with enough skill, but it’s something you can more reliably expect an AI to mess up on, making it a good option for aerial combat/gimping on them.
DOWN SMASH – PSYCHIC BURST
Deathborn turns to face the screen and enters a stereotypical constipated charging pose. Upon release, a wave of psychic energy represented by distorted air shoots out from Deathborn at twice Sonic’s dashing speed. It expires before traveling too far, but it travels so fast that the entirety of where it goes may as well all be considered a hitbox. The blast radius is Bowser’s size to 1.5X that based off charge, and like the fsmash is a push that deals only knockback that KOs at 160-120% with no damage or stun involved. It’s a lot laggier and weaker than the fsmash, though, making the range upgrade far from worth the price of admission.
Deathborn has superarmor during the charging of the attack. He can be grabbed out of the charging or hit during the fair bit of lag during the actual attack, though, so he’s far from invulnerable. If you manage to get hit while charging, though, the knockback of the enemy’s attack will be added to this, and for every platform the knockback would’ve sent you the blast radius will increase by an additional .25 Bowsers. Mind Link is the main thing that makes this pseudo-counter move appealing, but you can also, say, mind control a foe to hit you with a laggy move as their grab escape is about to wear off, then as you’re free to move begin to charge this attack.
AERIALS
NEUTRAL AERIAL – LEVITATION FIELD
Deathborn turns to face the screen, then psychically distorts the air in a Smart Bomb blast sized radius around himself. Anyone or anything that enters the radius will be pulled towards Deathborn wind hitbox style with a push twice as strong as Dedede’s inhale. After half a second of this, the push then shifts in a direction of your choosing (Down by default) and gets even stronger at triple Dedede’s inhale rate, until the levitation field vanishes a bit later, giving the move a total duration of one second (No start/end lag).
Naturally, foes will try to attack Deathborn as they get pulled to him before they can ever get pushed away. Something you have to keep in mind, though, is that the current momentum of the foe stacks with the pushing/pulling from this move, meaning if they’re DIing to the left towards you and you have the levitation field push them to the left that they can very easily whizz on past you and whiff their attack, leaving them vulnerable in the air.
If you have both the foe’s body and brain coming at you, most probably from separate directions, the move gains a lot more possibilities by you bringing the foes together in the middle to hit one another rather than just you. You can screw with the brain’s clingy AI of wanting to stick with the body a lot with this move, as they try to DI towards their buddy right past you as quick as possible, getting their hurtbox obnoxiously in the way of the body. The move also works quite well with enraged foes, as the enraged brain will be too stupid to bother caring about hitting the body if it means hitting Deathborn out of the move, without even bothering to set up a mind link. Further manipulation with the move can be done if the float is abused during it, of course.
FORWARD AERIAL – DARK LORD’S CAPE
Deathborn sweeps his cape in front of him in what is a fairly obvious rip off of Mario’s Side Special, turning the foe around and dealing them 5%. The lag is a lot more painful than Mario’s cape, but the range is more than doubled due to the massively larger size of Deathborn’s cape. The cape isn’t what magically turns the foe around, of course, there being some purple psychic swirly graphics to show how Deathborn is executing the move. Regardless of the lag, this move is feasible to hit with in gimping situations due to Deathborn’s float, letting him casually retreat during the starting lag. If you need a refresher on Mario’s cape, keep in mind that it deals no stun to the foe and doesn’t refresh their jumps, making it a great gimping tool. It has use beyond gimping in the context of Deathborn’s game, as well, by simply turning around one of your enemies mid-attack to hit the other one.
BACK AERIAL – DISTORTION
Deathborn holds his hands out behind him as he starts psychically distorting a DK sized amount of air behind him for as long as he holds down A. This creates a constant hitbox behind him that deals 15 hits of 1% and no flinching per second, only every 10th hit flinching the foe. There’s a wind hitbox in the distortion field that pushes foes towards the center ever so slightly, requiring foes to DI out or deal stun to Deathborn. This alone is already fairly useful for simply dragging the foe along with him due to his float, enabling him to float against the enemy’s DI, especially if they’re a brain who is slightly biased towards meeting back up with their body. Upon releasing A, Deathborn holds his hands in the same position while he levitates his body to be directly under the distorted ball of psychic energy, then throws it forwards, dealing forwards knockback to anybody caught in the distortion that KOs at 130%.
It would certainly seem that the move is a bit bad for dragging enemies around due to them being able to just poke Deathborn out of it with a quicker move, but the part of the move where Deathborn moves downwards below the distorted area is very quick, most of the lag on the toss being after that as he climatically throws it forwards. This means if Deathborn predicts the foe’s attempted interruption, he can move downwards below them as it happens before throwing them. If he predicts they’ll predict this and attack downwards, he can just keep dragging the foe around or cancel the move if he turns chicken.
Deathborn can catch a single projectile with this move before throwing it forward, “reflecting it” by taking ownership of it and doubling the speed and power. This isn’t nearly as effective as a traditional reflector, though, as he has to be facing away from the person who threw the projectile before throwing it in front of him. While this prevents him from casually denying a foe their projectiles, it can work in a scenario with enemies on multiple sides of you as you take a projectile from one side then launch it at the other foe.
UP AERIAL – DARK SCHNEIDER
Deathborn enters the Superman pose and does a shuttle loop with his psychic levitation “flight”, though a much larger one than the likes of Meta Knight’s. In the middle of Deathborn’s shuttle loop is enough room for even Bowser to quite comfortably fit without being hit. Deathborn’s fists are hitboxes that deal 8% and knockback that KOs at 165% in the direction they’re currently facing, and there’s a psychic wind hitbox in the circle around the area Deathborn is doing a shuttle loop that pushes foes forwards a set platform. After doing the shuttle loop, Deathborn will continue to fly forwards another platform before exiting the move, it all happening far quicker than it sounds in a fashion quite like Meta Knight’s Up Special.
Keep in mind you can also float about to change Deathborn’s horizontal position, and you can quite easily combo the wind hitbox into the part where Deathborn flies forwards at the end. If you just want to use the wind hitbox for gimping purposes, you can do the same to specifically go too fast/too slow to hit the foe with your fists as they go forwards. The wind hitbox is admittedly what you usually want, but the rest of the hitbox is quite useful for crowd control for another foe trying to interfere for some multitasking.
Dragging a foe behind you with a mind link can prove quite entertaining in this move, as if they try to DI towards you they’ll just get pushed into the wind hitbox and pushed into your fists as you fly forwards at the end, more likely than not. If they do nothing, they’ll just be getting dragged along like a rag doll and forced to wait. This enables you to largely ignore the foe mind linked to you to try to attack the other one, and you constantly shifting the position of the mind linked foe throughout this move and potentially moving the other one around with the wind hitbox is yet another potential scenario to make foes attack each other.
DOWN AERIAL – SUFFOCATION
Deathborn extends out his palm downwards, causing a platform width of air under himself to psychically distort, being manipulated. While a platform long, this area is paper thin, though this little area does have a downwards push as strong as Dedede’s inhale and will generally require foes to poke Deathborn up through the hitbox it to reach him. It generally does a bad job as a gimper compared to your other tools, seeing even computers know how to respond to this move, but it will at least impede them slightly and more importantly serves as a way to force them to attack you off-stage to regain your jumps/recovery and such. Deathborn can hold this move out for as long as he likes.
If you push a foe against solid ground, they will be forced to enter prone and take 12% from this move. The main time this is actually relevant is on a psychic platform against a brain, which this works perfectly fine on as you crush the brain between your psychic barriers. If they’re jumping up onto a psychic platform from below, this can trigger the landing lag of some aerial they’re attempting to use as they get pushed back down onto the platform before entering prone. You can then proceed to land on the platform and use your usmash to send the platform towards the bottom blast zone for fun and profit. The main solution to this for the foe is to use their Up Special, but they have to be very cautious as the psychic platform will not refresh the use of their Up Special even if landing on it will bring them out of “helpless”.
STANDARDS
NEUTRAL ATTACK - TELEPORTSPASM
Deathborn teleports in place dealing 4% and knockback that KOs at 250% as he respawns for a brief crappy dodge move of sorts. Embarrassingly weak, but if the move is held down Deathborn can teleport up to 5 times per second, able to teleport forwards/backwards a Kirby width if he holds the stick in either of those directions, or simply teleporting in place if he doesn’t hold one. If you hold up or down when no foe is within a platform, it will act as if no directional input was made, but if they are then you’ll appear directly behind the nearest foe, even in the air if necessary as you laglessly auto-cancel out of the move.
AI has no idea whatsoever how to respond to this move, and won’t bother to predict where Deathborn will go next. While a human might actually predict your showing up and use a bair, you can pretty safely use this move to spawn behind a brain unexpectedly and use them as a meat shield, if ever so briefly, improving the already vast defensive/evasive nature of this move. He largely needs such a move to get out of getting whaled upon by the foe and their brain in 2v1 combat, as in such a scenario he has to just get out before he can even really think of trying to set up a mind link, making this a reliable panic button.
DASHING ATTACK - BARRIER
Deathborn spawns a barrier a Bowser width in front of himself that’s paper thin but a Ganon tall. When it first spawns into existence, it deals 6% and knockback that KOs at 200% away from itself. From there, you can hold out the move as a keep dashing dashing attack, but it now only deals 10 hits of 1% and flinching per second. The barrier is completely solid, meaning it can’t be casually dodged through and makes an excellent approaching mechanism.
This is a good move to separate the foe from their brain, as you can ideally use it to push the foe away while the brain goes to rejoin them instead of bothering to knock you out of the attack. While more difficult, it can also work the other way around, with you simply having to cancel out of the attack before the foe goes to knock you out of the move. The move is near lagless on either end to enter and exit the stance, though it’s not exactly good GTFO due to how far away the hitbox is from Deathborn.
FORWARD TILT - DRILLKICK
Imitating another psychic dictator, Deathborn levitates up his body horizontally with his feet first, then covers his body in psychic energy as he goes forwards 1.25 platforms, not stopping at edges (Though he does stop at walk-offs). He moves at Captain Falcon’s dashing speed, and deals 24 hits of 1% and flinching as he goes, obviously unlikely to hit with all of them. He moves quickly enough that it’s quite possible he can go through two foes, even if one of them just shields the attack. If Deathborn is in the middle of the stage with foes between him and the edge, this is a good way to make his way over to the one closer to the edge. The best part is the only negative of this move is some bad ending lag, but if Deathborn ends the move off-stage it is ignored and he enters his aerial state immediately.
UP TILT - TELEPORT
Deathborn holds a single hand above his head, causing a Wario sized purple hitbox to spawn above his hand. If anyone is hit, they take 4% and are teleported onto the ground in front of Deathborn. This deals no stun and thus can’t interrupt attacks or refresh recoveries, but it generally can’t be used for gimping due to placing them on the ground. If you’re facing an edge, though, this can potentially work for this purpose, as some amateur villain prepares to Bowser Bomb you before you teleport them in front of you and off the edge. Needless to say, this scenario comes up a lot more often when a small psychic platform out in the middle of nowhere is the only available terrain, making it somewhat difficult to –not- be at the edge. Either way, the least you can do with this move is trigger somebody’s landing lag as they’re spontaneously brought from the air to the ground.
DOWN TILT – KNEEL!
Deathborn brings a hand in front of himself as he points it diagonally downwards, creating a purple psychic hitbox at his feet. This causes foes to trip and deals 5%, unless knockback that would KO at 200% would knock them 3 platforms or further, in which case they take vertical knockback instead of tripping.
The reason the move does vertical knockback is because it’s actually a spike, meaning it technically can do the knockback earlier on if it hits an aerial foe. Aside from a generic edgeguarding dtilt spike, this works wonders on your psychic platform, where it somehow manages to serve as the only plain old spike in your entire heavily gimping based arsenal, spiking foes as strongly as Ike’s dtilt. Aside from the obvious, it serves as an alternative and more “natural” (easy to use) response than the dair/usmash combo on foes coming up through psychic platforms, making said combo less predictable and thus more potent.
FINAL SMASH
DARK SCHNEIDER
Deathborn brings out his F-Zero machine, the Dark Schneider, in what is largely a clone of Ganondorf’s final smash. Rather than being randomly terrified, Deathborn restrains any enemies in front of him psychically at the start of the move before going to run them over with the Dark Schneider.
PLAYSTYLE SUMMARY
(Coming soon because editing these in after the deadline is allowed)
BOSS MODE
Weight is boosted to 25.
Deathborn cannot be grabbed for 1 second after he is thrown.
Float speed and length are doubled, making his float the same speed but 4x as long as Peach’s.
Side Special Mind Links require at least 21% before they are broken.
Deathborn can Mind Link himself to multiple people.
Up Special can create 2 platforms without needing to touch ground.
Down Special has no limit on the quantity of moves it can store.
Deathborn’s grab is 2.25X as difficult to escape.
If you apply the dthrow or bthrow status effects to somebody who is mind linked to you, all other characters also mind linked to you will also suffer the status effect, as well as their brain/body.
Using Usmash on a psychic platform works entirely like using it on regular ground, albeit with no hitbox.
If any projectiles come into Deathborn’s nair levitation field, they will stop when they come up close to Deathborn before being reflected at double speed/power when he uses the second half of the attack.
Bair can store as many projectiles as you want.
Jab can teleport Deathborn up to 10 times per second, and he can spawn behind a foe within 1.5 platforms instead of just a single one.
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