Make Your Move 13 - Most Recent Movesets: The Advertisement Period Begins

[Nicholas1024]

DrillMan.exe joins the brawl!

Stats:
Jumps:4/10
Air speed: 8/10
Fall speed: 5/10
Walk speed: 9/10
Run speed: 7/10
Attack speed: 8/10
Power: 3/10
Weight: 6/10


Mechanic:
DrillMan.exe, as you might guess via his name, drills through the stage. However, unlike Master Hand, he can't win just by destroying the stage. You see, DrillMan's various attacks leave a narrow (depth-wise) tunnel in the stage, leaving the background completely intact. These tunnels are hardly stable, after half a second of remaining onscreen, that portion of the background will begin to shake, caving in after another half second and returning to the way it was. Should another stage-removing move be used in that portion of stage, its timer will be refreshed. If a foe or DrillMan.exe is inside that portion of the stage when this happens, they'll be pitfalled and returned to the surface. To summarize, The stage returns to normal after one second of being undisturbed, if you're still there after that, you'll be pitfalled.

Specials:

Neutral Special: Portable Drill Hole
One of DrillMan.exe's signature moves from his boss fight, he creates a bowser-sized black hole in the very fabric of space-time, which shoots out a drill. These bowser-sized drills have 20% stamina, making them hard to break, but only do 7% damage and minor knockback on hit, moving at ganon's run speed. Additionally, if you aim the control stick after inputting the move, you can angle the hole itself, letting you shoot the drill in any direction you please. (In practice, this means one of the eight compass directions, due to the limitations of the control stick.) If you use this input again when the hole is already out, it will shoot another drill in the same location and direction. To create a new hole, simply hold down the input, which will create a new drill hole (while shooting a drill), and destroy the old one. Lag for shooting a drill is low, creating a new hole is rather laggy. By the way, when angled, these drills can and do go completely through the stage. If the area where a hole was becomes occupied by a solid object (say... because of a cave in), the hole will disappear.

[collapse=OOC concerns]
For those unaware, this is indeed how drills are created in his boss fight, and it's a minor plot point that DrillMan.exe drills straight through the internet, connecting the science network of Scilab to the dark depths of the Undernet.
[/collapse]

Up Special: Drill Form
Another of DrillMan.exe's signature moves, the navi's top half changes into a drill, and he tears into the fabric of space time... reappearing at the location of your drill hole portal from the neutral special. That's it. One more thing... this move leaves a kirby-sized black hole like the neutral special where DrillMan was, and this hole will stay there for 1 second before disappearing. Until then, the two holes act as a portal, anything that enters one hole will appear out the other one. As you'll see later on, this means that gimping offstage with DrilMan requires a stagespike or at least knocking the opponent away, else they can recover the same way you did. There's only a little lag on either end, this will not send you into helpless, though you have to touch ground and wait for the new hole to disappear before doing it again. If there's no N-spec hole when you use this move, DrillMan.exe will look annoyed while he plummets to his doom.

Down Special: Fissure Drill
DrillMan.exe charges up energy before plunging a hand drill down into the ground beneath him. As an attack this does 14% damage with average knocback. More importantly, this leaves a pitfall trap where you used the smash. However, unlike most pitfalls, if the opponent falls into this one, they'll drop completely through the stage, likely for a KO (In fact, if the stage stretches to the bottom blast zone like on Yoshi's Island or Mushroomy Kingdon, it's a guaranteed KO), and the pitfall will not be removed. This pitfall is also extremely visible, with an enormous crack designating the danger. As a side note, since the pitfall reaches through the stage, if an opponent hits the middle of the pitfall due to terraforming, they'll get spiked anyway. Please note that DrillMan.exe can also get sent into this and spiked (after a half second grace period to move away from the area), although it presents less of a danger due to his great recovery. Finally, if you use this again, the first pitfall will disappear, using this on platforms is a waste of time, lag is notable.

Side Special: RockCube
DrillMan.exe summons a cube of solid rock directly in front of him, a bit larger than bowser, with 25% stamina. There can only be one of these onstage at a time (using this again will destroy the old cube), lag is moderate. On its own, this simply blocks anyone from moving into the space the cube occupies. However, if a rock cube is destroyed (by any method other than being pushed off a blast zone or another cube being summoned), it will break apart into three kirby-sized pieces of rubble, each with 7% stamina. These rubble pieces can be thrown like items, and are considered solid (that is, you can't move through said rubble). Additionally, if a piece of rubble gets destroyed by conventional means (aka: not via blast zone/strange MYM mechanics), it will shatter into 6 smaller pieces (each half the size of a pokeball), which will be propelled forwards (at random angles up to a diagonal) at the speed of Fox's blaster. These pieces each only do 2% damage, but the sheer number of them involved makes this a good way to interrupt camping or nail someone in close by for major damage, especially if you use this on the remains of a recently destroyed rock cube. Just make sure you're the one using these shrapnel projectiles and not them.




Standards:

Dash Attack: Rubble Push
DrillMan.exe charges forwards at pika's run speed, arms outstretched. On contact this does 10% and pushes the opponent forwards. Additionally, this move can be used to push along rock cubes and rubble, and will not do any damage to either of them. However, be warned that DrillMan.exe will move slower as he pushes more weight, down to ganon's walk speed if he's pushing the rock cube and a bowser-weight opponent. This state lasts as long as you hold down the button, lag is low.

Jab: Excavation
DrillMan.exe strikes with his head-drill in the direction you push the control stick, doing 4% damage and minor knockback with a range similar to Marth's F-air. Additionally, you can aim the hitbox up or down by holding that direction shortly after initiating the attack. However, like many of his other moves, this destroys the stage where it hits, letting you carve out your own cave to combo the opponent in. The lag is also fairly low, making this easily followed up. The downside? There's some very punishable extra lag should you come into contact with a shield during this move.

Down Tilt: Shrapnel Drill
DrillMan.exe takes one of his drill-arms and does a low horizontal slash in the ground. This does 7% damage and minor knockback, making it a decent spacing tool. However, considering it also removes a pokeball-thick divot of the stage where its hitbox is, this will also trip a shielding opponent, although the divot isn't deep enough to prevent them from rolling out. Lag is moderate, this is great for starting combos as well as continuing them, being better against grounded opponents and dealing more damage than the jab.

Forwards Tilt: Stabbing Drill
DrillMan.exe stabs forwards with one of his hand drills, doing 6 hits of 3% and low horizontal knockback. This move has average lag and reasonably long duration, and if all the hits connect on a shield, it's likely to cause a shield break. However, this move also has fairly strong shield push, ensuring that you'll normally only connect with one or two hits (even without any SDI). On the other hand, if the opponent is trapped against a wall or rock cube... suddenly you've found a combo move that hits for 18% damage, breaks shields, and outlasts spot dodges. As a side note, if you've excavated a pit behind a shielding opponent, you can definitely use this to push them into it for further followups.

Up Tilt: Drill Flip
DrillMan.exe puts both of his hand-drills to the ground, lunging forwards a stage builder block before swinging them both upwards. The range on this is comparable to Ike's up-tilt (after the lunge), and this does destroy the stage, making it notable for making a nice wall to combo opponents against rather than the slopes your jab would produce. However, if you use this on a rock cube from your side special, the motion will cause DrillMan.exe to flip it over, moving it roughly a stage builder block forwards. Keep in mind that rock cubes obey the laws of gravity, and if an opponent gets hit by a falling rock cube (because you flipped it into a pit, perhaps), they'll take damage equal to the rock cube's HP (which will break apart into rubble around the opponent), and get pitfalled. If you hit an opponent/rubble piece with this, DrillMan.exe will toss them forwards, making them take 7% damage upon hitting something solid. (Opponents can of course double jump/airdodge/etc. out of this unless you use it close to a cave wall.) This lets you use your rubble pieces as a deadly projectile, as well as a combo tool when the opponent is up against a wall.

Smashes:

Up Smash: Spin Drill
DrillMan.exe forms his lower body into a drill and causes his body to spin in place with his hand-drills held out to either side. (Animation-wise, think ROB's side special in Brawl). This does rapid hits of 3% damage, and minor knockback. Additionally, you can move left and right via the control stick at half of Ganon's run speed while using this move. However, the main purpose of this move is in its stage-changing properties, as DrillMan.exe will drill a bowser-wide tunnel downwards, progressing at mario's walk speed for as long as you hold the button. (This smash does not charge conventionally.) This gives you a rather convenient starting point for your terraforming and combos, letting you drill downwards through the stage while following and dealing rapid damage to the opponent. Just be aware that DrillMan.exe is rather vulnerable from above during this move, lag is moderate.

Forwards Smash: Drill Rush
DrillMan's upper body compacts into his head-drill as he rushes forwards 1.5 SBB's (up to a battlefield platform charged). This move does rapid hits of 5% and will carve through the stage (if started underground), as well as instantly destroying rock cubes and rubble. If you hit this, it's pretty likely you'll knock the opponent into the down special pitfall and set them up for a KO. The downside is that unlike some of your other methods, this is likely to send you into the pitfall as well, forcing you to knock them away with aerials before recovering yourself if you want that KO. End lag is notable (unless of course, you get pitfalled.)

Down Smash: Earth Shaker
DrillMan.exe inserts both of his hand-drills into the ground below them, and begins vibrating them rapidly. This rattles the entire stage, causing any opponent standing on the ground to take 10% damage and minor upwards knockback. Additionally, this causes any and all caves to decay at four times the normal rate for as long as you hold the button. That is to say, all tunnels will be destroyed in a quarter of the usual time, so a newly made tunnel will be destroyed in merely 0.25 seconds. Why is this useful? Well, if the opponent is camping in one of your pits, this will force them out in a hurry. Additionally, if the pit is close to the verge of collapse anyway, you can use this to make it collapse on the opponent and pitfall them, giving you plenty of time to set up for a combo. Lag is moderate.

Aerials:

Neutral Air: Drill Fury
DrillMan.exe goes absolutely wild, swinging with all four limbs in various directions for as long as you hold down the button (range-wise, this is pretty similar to MK's jab). This does rapid hits of 2-4% with minor knockback for as long as you hold down the button, with low lag on either end. Additionally, whenever you hit the stage with this, DrillMan.exe will tear up that bit of the stage with these wild strikes. In game terms, this makes it impossible to tech (making stage spikes far more effective and combos somewhat easier).

Up Air: Stalactite Stab
DrillMan.exe thrusts a hand-drill over his head, similar to Link's up air. This does 12% damage and good upwards knockback, making it good for stage spiking purposes in under-stage combat. Additionally, if you hit the stage with this (which would require either extensive terraforming or being under the stage), DrillMan.exe will impale the drill into the underside of the stage, giving him what amounts to a wall cling. You can still use your other aerials from this position (N-air will be slightly slower since DrillMan.exe has to keep one hand in the ceiling), and can even air dodge. Using U-air again will cause DrillMan.exe to detach. Be warned, although this is a great tool for stalling and getting those fissure kills, you are very easily stagespiked from this position. Additionally, after 2 seconds the drill will come loose on its own, and this can only be used once before touching back on solid ground. Lag is moderate.

Back Air: Cave-in
DrillMan.exe swings one of his hand-drills behind him in an upwards arc, similar to Marth's B-air. This does 10% damage and good upwards diagonal knockback, another good move for under-stage combat. However, if you hit the underside of the stage with this, the strike will weaken the point where it hit, causing a shower of rubble to fall from that point a half second later. The rubble shower rapid hits of 2% damage and drags the opponent down, likely for a KO, lasting another quarter second. This is a good way to create an impromptu wall for your own recovery, as it blocks the opponent off from the portal and prevents them from knocking you out of the up-B. Additionally, in its generic function, this move works well as a decent spacing tool and KO move.

Forwards Air: Drill Missile
DrillMan.exe shoots a drill out of his arm cannon, creating a missile (similar in size to his hand-drills) that does 3% damage, minor knockback, and travels at Ganon's run speed. You can aim this shot via the control stick, as per usual. More interestingly, this will travel through the stage to hit the opponent, although it moves at half speed when moving through the stage, and the drill is too small to make any permanent effect on the stage it passes through. Finally, if you shoot this into something solid aside from the stage, the drill will embed itself in the opponent/rock cube/shield/rubble, pushing the thing along at Mario's walk speed until it gets destroyed by an attack (10% HP). Lag is moderate. This is obviously a good way to move around your rock cube, as well as severely annoying opponents from literally any angle.

Down Air: Drill Shockwave
DrillMan.exe forms his lower body into a drill before plunging downwards in a stall-then-fall move. This does 14% damage and spikes (though using it for that is downright suicidal), and when DrillMan.exe hits the ground, this causes a shockwave on either side, doing 5% and minor upwards knockback to set them up for a combo. Surprisingly, this has fairly low end lag, though the startup lag is notable.

Grab Game:
DrillMan.exe's grab is... actually standard. Imagine that. His pummel is also very average, dealing 2% damage.

Back Throw: Drill Piledriver
DrillMan.exe forms his upper body into a drill while still holding the opponent, plunging downwards through the stage and dealing 9% damage. This carves a bowser-wide hole, with the depth depending on how fast the opponent can mash out (DrillMan.exe goes downwards at half Ganon's run speed during this). At high %'s this can definitely be used as a suicide KO, and can also give you a good start on terraforming or combat below the stage. To prevent accidental suicide, DrillMan.exe can break out of the throw early by tapping A.

Up Throw: Drill Release
DrillMan.exe weakly tosses the opponent up for 5% damage and minor knockback. However, unlike the back throw, this gives DrillMan.exe enough of a frame advantage for essentially a followup of your choice (aside from grab, the opponent gets ungrabbable frames to prevent D3-style stupidity.) True, it's a simple throw, but that hardly stops it from being a very useful one.

Down Throw: Drill Shot
DrillMan.exe shoots a drill down through the opponent's foot and into the stage, dealing 10% damage and pinning them to the ground. Until the drill (20% stamina) or the stage it's attached to is destroyed, the opponent cannot be dealt knockback, which can both set them up for combos (or simply give you time to terraform for when they break loose), or give them an easy time breaking your combos, as they'll always be in range to counterattack.

Forwards Throw: Drill Push
DrillMan.exe fires several Forwards-air drill rockets into the opponent, dealing 9% damage to them. Additionally, the opponent is now being pushed around at ganon's run speed by these drills... making it extremely awkward for them to move forwards in the air. This can both be used to help gimp the opponent, or pin them against a newly terraformed wall for combos (though the drills won't last long in this case).

Playstyle: Controlled Chaos
DrillMan.exe is what happens when you combine the concepts of momentum, terraforming, combos, and then dial the speed up to maximum. DrillMan.exe can dominate a stock from beginning to end, constantly pushing the opponent down through the stage he's digging through, always towards some new threat, whether it's a rubble pile you can explode, or a rock cube you can pin the opponent against and push on top of them, the down special fissure, or the bottom blast zone for that KO. To summarize the various moves and their purposes...

• Your neutral special drills are DrillMan.exe's main projectile, and notable for originating from somewhere aside from DrillMan.exe himself. This gives you a unique threat to combo off of, letting you send the opponent right back your way after knocking them towards the hole. This is also a great way to terraform a tunnel, though somewhat inflexible in that regard.
• Your recovery is perfect, making you near impossible to gimp conventionally. However, it's also extremely predictable, once your mediocre jump has been lost, the opponent can just charge F-smash by the hole and wait for you to come out. That said, this can definitely be used as an alternative to the Neutral special in combos, letting you knock the opponent across the stage and appear in front of them to pick up the combo right where you left off.
• Rock cubes are a wall to help deal with camping while approaching, as well as the source of rubble, both powerful combo tools.
• Finally, the fissure down special is your main threat onstage, letting you shoot the opponent below the stage and go down there to finish the job (if needed). Half your game is pushing the opponent either into this, or through the stage conventionally.
• Jab is your main terraforming tool and of course a good standard combo move
• Forwards tilt absolutely murders shields or the opponent when pressed up against a wall or rock cube
• Down tilt will also defeat shields and dodges by removing the ground underneath the opponent.
• Up tilt plays off your rock cubes and rubble to make them dangerous projectiles capable of dealing massive amounts of damage at once.
• Forwards smash is an excellent way to push the opponent into your down special fissure, also letting you destroy large parts of the stage all at once.
• Dash attack fills much the same role, but also letting you push around rubble and the rock cube without damaging it and leaving the stage intact.
• Up smash lets you follow the opponent with a constant hitbox, chipping away at the stage all the while
• Down smash takes care of those times when the opponent is hiding in your holes, preventing them from turning your stage changes against you.
• N-air helps both combos and stage spikes, removing the opponent's chance to tech (aka: not die) and being a perfectly good combo filler all on its own.
• F-air pushes the opponent backwards, away from the ledge. Also notable for being able to hit them from anywhere and pushing around rock cubes from long range.
• B-air sets up a trap under the stage for the opponent, letting you recover in peace, blocking them off from the portal, and of course the attack itself is an option to deliver that stage spike.
• U-air lets you stall under the stage for those DBZ characters, and use other aerials from your perch. Also, it's another move for stage spiking.
• D-air is better used onstage, spiking an airborne opponent back into your caves for more combos.
• Finally, your grab game lets you send the opponent straight down for a combo, push them back into a fissure or a wall, release them to start the combo conventionally, and finally pin them to the spot they're standing so you can (spoilers) combo them.

However, to emphasize the point, although DrillMan can carry his momentum very well, once he loses control of the match, it's extremely hard to get it back. Although his recovery can't be gimped conventionally, it is extraordinarily easy to edge guard, just charge F-smash. Many of his moves need either a wall, rock cube, or rubble to be truly effective, and he'll be easily out-camped by most of the MYM cast. Finally, all that hard work you spent combing the opponent towards the bottom of the stage is completely gone should they get out, as the cave-in mechanic will destroy it in short order, and though he has some moves with decent knockback, DrillMan isn't exactly powerful when it comes to KO'ing conventionally.

In short, DrillMan.exe is a high risk, high reward character who accelerates the pace of the game to his own blinding speed.

 

[Kholdstare]

Aquaman has been re-uploaded here! (click the link)

 

[darth meanie]

Comments Comments Everywhere

Mike Dawson

Mike Dawson is a moveset that is intentionally grating to read, so it is only fair I get my revenge with this equally horrid Sienna text for your comment. Mike Dawson reminds me a little of my own Kenji & Hisao; a moveset designed to offend but smart in how it does so, carefully parodying and tiptoeing the lines between characterization and *******ization, and I wish I was more familiar with the source material to appreciate it.

Like many Junahu sets, I feel uncomfortable judging it because even the flaws often feel like calculated decisions, especially in a set like this. It's obviously not trying to be a Top 50 contender or anything, and the move interactions and playstyle is tongue-in-cheek in a way that I think will be appreciated on a different level by everyone who reads it, as a parody by some and straightforwardly by others. The set is an experience, if nothing else.

Kammy Koopa

Junahu was absolutely right about how clever you were with your single highlighting of the word yellow block, and shows how even the simplest organization techniques can color an entire set. There's little overcomplication, and the air game I found to be smoothly beautiful the more I thought about how it worked. I am concerned about how exactly she moves though; since she's constantly on a broom, I'd think that her jumping and aerial mechanics would be a lot more detailed, but besides a simple affirmation that they're good, I'd like to know how she actually moves.

The Yellow Block mechanics strike a nice balance between simple to learn and difficult to master, with lots of options for players to engage in without getting into very many traditionally nasty overcomplicated mechanics. Stack, slide, shells, occasionally grow or heal. If there's one thing that I really think she could use, it's an effective projectile she can use in the air, as as she is now, she's quite mobile, but has almost no tools to space out opponents who stay in the air and out of her block zone. All in all though, this is easily my favorite set by yours yet Geto.

Magnemite

Magnemite is a no-nonsense set, which instantly wins my favor from the get-go. You make the important choice to make this moveset for Magnemite and not go all out crazy on the magnetic interactions possible, keeping in mind his own animations, but the tilts and standard attacks go a little too far in my opinion, and feel rather lacking. Magnemite is a small creature and doesn't have arms or anything to extend to give him a sizable hibox to attack with; having so many attacks that use only his magnets as physical attacks without any way to make up the distance gap makes him pretty short-ranged and makes it difficult for him to get the spacing he wants.

The biggest thing that holds Magnemite's playstyle back is how purely brainless Lock-On is though. A quick unblockable beam that can travel clear across most stages that can be aimed in any direction? It's child play to use, and carries little to no risk or trade-off for Magnemite to use. It's little better than making it a static effect of all his attacks. Making it more tactical or risky would improve his playstyle by leaps and bounds; lock-on ingame after all uses up a whole turn to get one guaranteed attack. Other than that though, it's a likeable enough moveset.

Madolche Majoleine

I haven't read terribly many of your sets since you've come into your recent prominent stature, and to be honest, I've found them quite difficult to get into. Madolche's mechanic is a great example of why that's been; it's not enough that her air movement is an attack, which I can live with, but that it has a grab hitbox that will enlarge and trap opponents and force them to air dodge an arbitrary number of times to escape? And this is just the beginning.

I really do like the focus on food items here, as far as I know it's never been used in a moveset since Chef Kawasakii, and it's honestly the most natural way I can think of to put healing into a moveset as well with a lot of tactical spacing. It's got elements of the mischeviousness pulled in as well. Honestly though, you do really need to polish your writing style; the interesting details easily get bogged down in minutia, plenty of these wall of text moves could easily be pared down into simpler sentences. Both the moves and the writing simply get so bogged down in the details and little intricacies that it obscures the main point, which isn't half bad.

DrillMan.EXE

I love having MYM13 already be 20% Battle Network 3 sets and I'm planning on getting some more BN sets just to join in the fun. I'm thinking JudgeMan.EXE, CircusMan.EXE... maybe Punk.EXE, MetalMan.EXE, or if I'm feeling Hippoy, BowlMan.EXE

That said, DrillMan.EXE is a moveset that I really wanted to like, but in the end I just couldn't. And I know exactly how everyone is going to react to that. Terraforming. I've been clear how I feel about this before, and I'm willing to admit that I've lost the battle here. And some form of terraforming seems unavoidable with DrillMan.EXE. So I'm not even going to be addressing terraforming in this comment, at least from a viability / playstyle perspective. Instead, I'm going to be focusing on how DrillMan.EXE screws this up characterwise.

If you remember the first time you fought DrillMan.EXE in-game, like I did, you probably remember having to completely redesign your folder in order to take him on. He was almost never standing, constantly rushing at you with that indestructible drill of his, and 90% of your chips couldn't do a thing to him because his drill blocked it. That is what made his playstyle in the actual game, that you had to attack from above or the side in order to hit at his actual body.

In this set though, there is no drill rush attack (except the Forward Smash that fills a completely different role), no indestructible drills, and only a weak shadow of the onslaught that fighting him was in Battle Network. The Side Special, instead of being the drill rush attack which would be completely at home in Brawl, is replaced with a Rockcube of all things. I was eagerly imagining how you would use his drill rush attack in conjunction with his Up Special to fire a drill and then charge behind it himself, but you just leave it there, with the Up Special being an easily countered recovery. As for the terraforming too, in-game he was rushing up from below and above, destroying panels and raining rocks down from above. I will hold no complaints for his drills doing the same thing in this game, in fact, I think it's fitting. I'll even grit my teeth at the Fissure move, which really shouldn't have just teleported opponents to the bottom and been an Instant KO move on Yoshi's Island.

But with moves like the Down Tilt, the Jab, the Back Aerial, you're not making him terraform like he does in Battle Network. He's doing the same terraforming tricks that every other moveset in MYM that uses terraforming does, and it's more complicated and less characterized. DrillMan.EXE was a character with some extreme concepts and the capacity for a truly unique offensive playstyle, but you packed him up in a little MYM box with rubble combos and cave building that, while it fits his physical appearance and his theoretical capabilities, doesn't translate how he fights in Battle Network to how he fights in Brawl. There's stuff I do like here, and I really like how the forward tilt alongside with a rockcube translate with the DrillArm chip in BN5 and how it did multiple hits when it could pin an opponent against something, but it doesn't feel like DrillMan.EXE to me.

whining and strawmen

In your own words, oh for ****'s sake.

Yeah. I like it when things are self-consistent. I like mechanics to be simple, to not break their own rules, and when they can avoid it, not break the rules of Brawl as it exists. And not only that, I understand that sometimes it's okay to break these boundaries and change things, when you have something great in mind to put in its place.

Ashens flamethrower doesn't do any of that. It's an instant KO mechanic that forces opponents to change their behavior in one of the most unintuitive puppet dance mechanics yet. And the only reason it functions the way that it does is to act as the awkward glue to actually give the moveset a working playstyle. That's what makes me mad about it. Not just that it behaves differently than any other fire mechanic in Brawl, but that you made it completely different so you could make it stupider. And that ticks me off when I see this sort of lazy half-baked creativity trying to cover up the fact that there wasn't much actual thought put into the set.

And as far as Hammerhead goes, honestly, the fact that his pitfall mechanic was randomly different than Brawl's chafed with me, but not as much as the other blatant issues that the set had, like how the mechanic was also a very invasive puppet dance that put the opponent into a completely arbitrary game of helplessly trying to get out. And even without that I found the moveset offensive just from the fact that none of the animations made remotely any sense in how he was supposed to do them. Like I said in the comment then, it wasn't a moveset for a cartoon hammer character, it was a moveset for an actual hammer being controlled by an invisible hand. You're taking one minor point out of a litany of offenses that set had, and reducing it to my entire argument when that simply isn't the case.

I really only ask that movesets not go out of their way to change the rules and paradigms that make up Brawl without having a good reason to, characterwise specifically. Changing things just to make writing the playstyle section easier doesn't earn any points from me.

 

[Katapultar]

[glow]

GHETSIS

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Ghetsis is the main antagonist of the Pokemon Black and White series, his appearance being based off the sequel to the first. The true leader and founder of Team Plasma, he's a man who hid his selfish and wicked intentions by manipulating others with the noble idea of liberating Pokemon from humans just so he could be the only one with Pokemon in order to take over the Unova Region, believing himself to be completely perfect. Under the guise of a wise sage, he conducts his grand schemes with such dedication and elaboration that he's willing to wait for many years just so he can catch everyone off-guard in the end, and will go any lengths to do so such as messing up somebody's childhood just to turn them into a "hero" and use "liberated" Pokemon as slaves to build a giant castle for Team Plasma. Even after being defeated in the first game and losing everything, he doesn't give up and with 2 years makes another Team Plasma that is entirely dedicated to taking control of Unova by freezing it over using the Legendary Pokemon Kyurem's power and ultimately steal everyone's Pokemon. Having aged a bit, he appears to require the support of a metal cane with the Team Plasma insignia slapped on the front, but for all we know it could be filled with all sorts of elaborate contraptions that'll aid him in his next diabolical plot...​

[glow]

STATS

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Size: 7
Weight: 5
Ground Speed: 1
Jump: 1
Aerial Speed: 2
Fall Speed: 7
Traction: 10​

Being an old man, Ghetsis' poor stats are to be expected, which is more than made up for with his cunning: whenever Ghetsis leaves the ground he'll emulate his defeat in B/W2 by embedding his cane into the ground where he previously stood, acting as an obstacle just like all items do in the game! A thin wall of Plasma makes this all but possible, a foe's only choices being to jump or roll around the cane lest it impede their path - that said, the cane is isn't that tall as you see in the picture and won't protect Ghetsis from low-hitting projectiles. Ghetsis will take back his cane upon making contact with it on the ground, it being completely impossible for him to have it whilst in the air - in a situation where there's no ground for the cane to occupy it will fall down as a spiking hitbox that deals 10% and KOs at 175% before spawning in front of Ghetsis or at the closest ground to him if he's in the air. Ditching the cane and turning it into an invincible wall might seem ideal, but doing so deprives Ghetsis of certain needs in his old age, namely his ability to dash and a super-powerful plasma-generated shield that doesn't drain over time, takes 1/4 of all damage, stun and pushback dealt to it along with dealing 1.5% to foes who make contact or attempt to grab Ghetsis out of it - with or without the cane however, Ghetsis boasts completely unreliable pathetic rolls and dodges (the former makes Mr Game and Watch's look godly). The cane, of course, serves many a purpose when made to sit in one place...​

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SPECIALS

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Neutral Special - Ice Beam

Ghetsis slams his cane as he orders his off-screen frigate to fire a round of the ice cannon used to freeze Opluceid City. This translates into a blueish energy blast coming down from the top of the screen at a obscenely quick pace, albeit a timeframe in which Ghetsis is vulnerable to attack. Foes struck by the blast head take 25% and are frozen, but not in the typical Brawl fashion: frozen foes cannot take damage from outside attacks or be grabbed and suffer 2% a second, having to escape with 3.5X grab difficulty or by damaging the ice encasing them with melee attacks albeit at 1/4ths of their and 0.2 seconds of lag added onto their attacks (this lag it reduced to a 1/4 of its effectiveness for every 1/4 of the ice that gets shattered) - it pays to note that foes might want to keep the ice around them given it protects them from damage and can't be broken through with grabs, though it also halts the timers of any stats effects (only damaging stats effects will be halted while others of different nature will continue on). If a foe is frozen in mid-air the bottom half of their ice shell will shatter upon falling to the ground and make that area of their body vulnerable to attack.

If the energy blast hits the ground it'll create a large jagged icicle where it struck along with freezing some of the ground nearby. The icicle is half a Platform wide and 1.5 Ganons tall, being laced with 5 tips like a christmas tree that deal 5% with a SBB of set upwards knockback and direct the knockback of anyone sent flying into them so they fly upwards. The tips are placed so one can't be struck by them unless they're taller than Ganondorf, and the ice can be destroyed in the same manner as that which encases frozen foes. Be aware that the ice follows the laws of physics, and if so much of the lower section of the icicle is destroyed that it can't support the higher sections they'll fall and inflict 4-15% with low-good hitstun and downwards knockback depending on how much fell. Needless to say this'll be occurring quite a bit when few attacks will be able to break the icicle in one ago, though to be fair all attacks will out-prioritize the tips so they don't completely prevent players from destroying them. In addition to the icicle, half a Platform's radius of ground around it will become frozen, but instead of acting like Brawl ice it acts like frozen floors do in Pokemon: regardless of the character, they'll be sent sliding across the entire floor at Mario's dashing speed until they jump, hit a wall/character or slide off the frozen floor or stage, though they aren't so helpless that they can't use their ground game while sliding and destroy the frozen floor with it. Ghetsis is free to use this move every 5 seconds to continually freeze the stage (not using it will stack the timer), and in the case where you fire an ice blast onto an icicle you'll end up adding another layer onto it that can stack infinitely. While the blast is normally aimed in front of Ghetsis, using this move while his cane is embedded will instead cause two ice blasts of half the size and efficiency to fire down at 0.3 SBBs from either side of the cane, requiring half the effort to break out from if one ends up being frozen - if Ghetsis is standing where one of the blasts will hit it'll instead be fired further away from the cane so it doesn't end up hitting him. This version is much quicker than the single blast and doesn't leave Ghetsis vulnerable.​

Side Special - Teleport

Ghetsis scans the ground in front of him with a scanning laser from his scouter, revealing a small green pad that's as wide as a cloaking device...it's one of those dreaded teleporation pads all the bad guys have in their hideouts! Step on one and you'll be whisked away to another, the logic of the Pokemon games requiring a player to get off and back onto the pad to use it - it's also worth noting that whatever direction this special was inputted in to make a pad will be the direction a character faces when they re-appear on that pad. The function of having two pads out is simple enough, and having 3 or more will cause the destinations to be randomized. That said, tapping L or R during the creation of a pad will make Ghetsis' scouter blink, and that pad will specifically teleport characters to other pads on its left or right, with a single tap teleporting a character to the nearest pad and a second tap teleporting them to the second nearest and so on. Teleportation pads can only be created on ground, and while you can have as many out providing they don't overlap each other, their HP varies based on how many are active - one pad has 55HP, two pads have 40HP each, 3 will give them 25HP while 4 will cut their HP down to 3/4s and so on. If Ghetsis plants his cane into a teleportation pad he'll end up disabling it for as long as it's there - this subtracts from the amount of active pads you have out so their staying power can be affected this way. Creating a teleportation pad where you cane stands yields different results as it'll be teleported off to another area and at the same time walls off foes from using the pad of its destination so only Ghetsis can use it.

Firing an ice blast onto a pad does nothing to hinder the teleporation process, as anyone teleported onto that particular pad will be frozen in the same manner as being hit directly by an ice blast, only once they've carved through the ice surrounding them they'll have to break out of the icicle from the inside, with their best option being to escape from above given that a horizontal escape can result in the ice falling on them for some damage (something Ghetsis can assist in doing from the outside). Teleportation pads can still be made in front of a icicle in which they'll spawn at the very middle of them so you can only make one inside them at a time.​

Up Special - Agility

For this move, Ghetsis makes use of the Shadow Triad, 3 identical ninja-like individuals that are completely loyal to him after he saved their lives, often acting as messengers of few words or more importantly securing an escape route to give their master a second chance. The latter applies here as one of the Triad appear behind Ghetsis before teleporting him with similar properties to Mewtwo's recovery but with the ability to move past walls and no ending lag. This can be used up to 3 times, but afterwards that individual Triad cannot be summoned for another 5 seconds with this or any other moves - a small symbol with the Triads' faces and a number that starts at 3 is located next to Ghetsis' HUD to indicate whether you can use these moves and how many times. This recovery gives Ghetsis much-needed mobility to place teleportation pads across the stage, and he even has a special option where by holding down the jump button he can call a Triad to teleport him to the location of his cane (preventing that Triad's use for another 3 seconds), though this does not work offstage so you can't just stall under the stage and go back for free.​

Down Special - Glaciate

Ghetsis raises his cane as it glows snow white before slamming it down and embedding it into the stage in front of him to enact his diabolical plan of covering Unova in ice, this move functioning the same even if the cane was already embedded (hint: this places the cane in front of Ghetsis for wallsome protection). Afterwards, the cane will slowly release its pent-up energy into the ground as a hill of ice begins to rise up from the epicenter and take the shape of a blocky pyramid, as if one stacked many Stage Builder Blocks together to form a staircase. A Platform's width worth of ice rises up at the rate of 0.1 SBBs every second left alone until 4 seconds have passed in which 6.5/8s of a Platform's width on either side of the original begin to rise up as well, and after another 4 seconds 5/8s of a Platform's width will rise up next to those to take the shape of a pyramid and so on until it caps out at 4/8s of a Platform's width but still growing nonetheless - the ice will even hug walls and can grow on the walls and undersides of a stage, potentially turning a stage with an abyss into a rough walk-off. The ice pyramid will raise anything with it such as players and teleportation pads, though it will grow Neutral Special icicles of which will speed up the growth with the space they already take up. The entire structure of the ice pyramid is crafted in such a manner that allows players to walk on top of it without being impeded by any major slopes despite the sound of the design, and the pyramid will stop being created once the tip is 3/4s of the way to the top blast zone, but will continue growing even as Ghetsis is attending to other matters, the growth being halted for the duration of a cane-based attack. The ice floor functions exactly how it does in the Neutral Special, though there's naturally a lot more ice to destroy and play around with as such that players can dig into the stage with the hitboxes of their moves to create mazes, providing that they're aware that destroyed ice will regenerate twice as quickly (this can stack if destroyed multiple times) and can grow over objects and players in which case the latter will be frozen (Ghetsis' cane can be frozen, though it'll still function). If you wish to stop the growth of the ice, simply re-input the move or remove the cane from the ground.​

Shield Special - Embargo

Providing he doesn't have it on him, Ghetsis' cane will appear in his hands in a surge of plasma that surrounds 1.2X the amount of space his shield did during the time whilst dealing 9% with enough radial flinching knockback to acquire some breathing space. This is vitally important for Ghetsis not only in the face of pressure but also for re-positioning his cane as it's impossible for him to do so outside his pathetic movement speed and teleporting sidways with the Up Special - at the very least you can't position your cane onto a different platform without this move. Of note is that while the plasma surge can destroy ice, it does not hit the ground so your ice floors and teleportation pads are same from harm.​

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STANDARDS

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Standard - Zap Cannon

Ghetsis taps the ground with his cane as a Pokeball-sized ball of plasma energizes from the bottom and starts travelling across the ground at half the speed of Pikachu's Thunder Jolt with similar wall-hugging properties. The projectile deals 1% for every 0.01 SBBs traveled before eventually exploding after traveling for 5X as long as the move was charged for (min charge 0.2 seconds while max is 5 seconds), the explosion's size varying from Kirby to Giga Bowser and dealing 4-28% with upwards knockback that KOs at 400-65% - you can tell that the projectile is gathering power when it begins darkening and when it's about to explode it'll glow white for some forewarning. Getting that full charge is certainly not impossible given the plasma ball is affected by teleportation pads (it won't damage them) which you can use to limit the space it travels, and the ball will travel past enemies it strikes, actually moving around shields twice as slowly if it hits one - you can also use it to shave icy floors and carve out a small path by teleporting it into a whole block of ice to lower the level of the pseudo-stage among other things. You can have 3 of these plasma balls out at once.​

F-tilt - Wild Charge

In a surprising burst of strength, Ghetsis lifts his cane and hoists it on his shoulder like some badass punk before smashing it forward in a move comparable to Ike's F-Smash but with poorer range - while such a feat might seem impossible for an old man such as Ghetsis given how heavy the cane is, the yellow braces on his left hand are shown to shine during the move of which might provide some insight to his inhuman feat. Nonetheless, the cane deals a solid 17% with high base horizontal downwards knockback that easily puts foes into prone if foes aren't knocked off the stage and gradually KO'ed at 105% (offstage foes are KO'ed significantly earlier at around 70%). It's surprisingly easy to manipulate foes with this move given you can knock them into a pad and have them teleported elsewhere (the move has surprising anti-aerial capabilities), and on ice the foe will actually continue to slide back even when they've taken the apex of their knockback unless they manage to use a get-up attack to destroy the ice or go offstage. If sending foes along the ice isn't to your liking however, the input can be tapped again during the start-up lag to have the cane be imbued with electricity to increase the attack's range to that of Ike's F-Smash whilst giving damaged foes an electric hue that turns their body into a damaging hitbox which deals 1% to anyone who makes contact with them until they've reached the apex of their knockback - this doesn't really make much of a difference when hitting other foes, but it plays a more important role with ice floors given you can smash foes through them, potentially trapping them underneath or causing the frozen section above them to collapse on top of them for massive damage if they break through enough ice. Interesting to note is how this move doesn't hit the ground so you won't end up breaking the ice floor underneath you yet at the same time you can use it to break through your icicles, and it's also possible to exploit the sliding nature of said floor to approach enemies with this move for a deadly attack.

This move also counts as Ghetsis' Dash Attack given he'll never be able to use one practically with his pathetic dash speed, along with the fact that characters cannot use their dash attacks when on ice of would make it impractical for him to have one. He already has a Shield Special anyway.​

U-tilt - Energy Ball

Ghetsis lifts his cane off the ground as the top part pulses with plasma. A ball of crackling plasma is then fired a SBB into the air before erratically coming back down onto a random side of Ghetsis varying from 0.1-1 SBBs, dealing 3% with light downwards knockback (no hitstun) to anything hit along the way as it continues moving past them. Once the ball hits a surface though it'll begin to compress over 0.5 seconds before it bursts out and creates a thin energy spike that reaches out a SBB upwards and deals 5% with upwards knockback that KOs at 90% and temporarily electrocutes foes during the knockback much like with the F-tilt so any ice in the way can be destroyed. Ghetsis is unaffected by these balls via the logic of Snake's own U-Smash and creates one every 0.3 seconds after making the first, making them decent defensive tools he can use whilst sliding along ice despite their effects not taking immediate action - while the knockback of this move may sound unreasonably powerful, the plasma balls are easily dissipated by shields and characters can easily roll away from the energy spike from their downwards knockback long before it happens. The plasma balls can be used to knock foes into teleportation pads and will be teleported by them in the process, they going as far as to drain energy from that teleporter when they're compressing that prohibits its use yet increases the energy spike's power by 1.1X for every 10HP the pad had. Don't expect to kill frozen foes this way as you'll end up freeing them without dealing any damage, though if you can cage them in ice their job can be made all the more difficult.​

D-tilt - Sacred Sword

For his crouch, Ghetsis will bend down on one knee whilst still grasping the handle of his cane with his raised left arm while his right is covering the Team Plasma insignia on the front as if to trigger a deadly function of the weapon - without the cane Ghetsis will appear to bowing to some unseen King, only we all know it to be a farce. Providing he's got his cane, Ghetsis will stab the rod section into the ground whilst triggering a function on the insignia to generate a a blade of plasma around the rod that extends out at Ganon's height. A small amount of electricity is generated around the insignia to damage foes right in front of Ghetsis for 3% and flinching, but the real meat comes from the blade which burns through everything at an obscene rate of 1% every 0.05 seconds for a total of up to 20% a second that deals no knockback or hitstun but burns through shields very easily, spiking anyone hit by the tip for knockback that KOs at 115% (foes will be knocked upwards if they're grounded). Ghetsis can keep the plasma sword out for as long as he likes, and can potentially skewer enemies beneath him when you've set up a nice, tall ice pyramid which you can poke a hole through albeit one characters can't just go through.

This move also has a bit of an interaction with your pads in that the teleportation time via getting to or from that struck pad will be delayed by 0.4 seconds for every 1% dealt to the pad at the obvious cost of risking its destruction as the pad sparks with electricity via malfunctioning. Characters stuck in-between this way are treated as being in the air and can still attack albeit do not gain momentum or generate objects directly from them such as projectiles or traps, giving Ghetsis an obvious advantage over foes when he's capable of performing aerial attacks with his cane and affect the stage even in his absence. This is an excellent trick for having Ghetsis gain "invincibility" for a couple of seconds or banish a foe trying to pursue him after he's escaped with a pad, and if the pad a character would appear from would be destroyed before they re-materialize they'll re-materialize on the pad they came from if the one they came from was not set to random - in the event where there are absolutely no teleportation pads for the character to appear from they'll instantly re-appear on the pad they used.​

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AERIALS

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N-air - Magnet Rise

Ghetsis' Aerials are odd in that his cane is using them rather than him, which is always going to happen given that he'll never have it with him in the air. This emphasizes Ghetsis' weakness in the air, yet at the same time he can be quite dangerous up there when manipulating his cane from below.

For this move, Ghetsis sweeps a hand to his side as his yellow brace flashes, causing oddly colored red and blue sparks to scatter outwards from the cane in a similar radius to a bubble shield for as long as the input is held. These bolts deal 1.3% for every 0.1 seconds a foe is exposed to them whilst cutting their movement speed down by half, greatly punishing foes trying to stay near your cane of which Ghetsis can continue even when he lands - just be aware that the bolts will be impeded by any part of Ghetsis they overlap, the weak individual hits being insulated into the black suit he wears as a good villain always comes prepared. One will also find that the cane will begin glowing after the move is held for 0.5 seconds and continue getting brighter over time until the time caps out at 3 seconds - tapping the control stick in a direction during the move allows Ghetsis to throw out his hand and direct a bolt of lightning from the cane's insignia which travels at twice Sonic's dashing speed across the screen until it hits something. The bolt deals 5% to anyone hit by it (even Ghetsis minus the damage due to his suit), causing the entire outline of them to give off those same bolts for 1-12 seconds of which only serve to be passed onto stages or traps upon contact with them, affecting 1/8ths to all of their outline from where the contact was made based on charge - indestructible objects will have the timer reset for them while those that can be destroyed will keep it on them until they're gone.

This bolt of lightning magnetizes stages or traps it touches, causing certain types of them to be attracted to electricity given out by Ghetsis' attacks - this attraction will even spread to the likes of items, traps and stage portions that are added to magnetized areas. Using your plasma-powered shield (with your cane equipped) will immediately cause any magnetized ice within a SBB's radius to be attracted towards it at Ganon's running speed, the ice actually bending as it comes to the shield and compressing itself before being destroyed by the shield's natural damaging hitbox. At this stage the ice is relatively harmless to foes and only pushes them where it goes, though if they find themselves stuck between Ghetsis' shield (or any surface for that matter) and the ice they'll end up taking 1% per 0.1 SBBs of ice they're hit by along with flinching as it grinds on them rather harshly in the place of being destroyed by Ghetsis' shield, he easily being able to grab them out of it. It only gets worse when the magnetism effect gets stronger with every 0.7 seconds Ghetsis holds his shield up as it spreads out yet another SBB radius as the original area gains a stronger pull at the rate of Zelda's dashing speed. This continues on until the effect becomes drastically powerful at 8 SBBs where ice is pulled towards Ghetsis at Sonic's dashing speed, forcing foes to destroy it for him if they do not want to be pulled in. Actual stages are not affected by this pull nor are stationary traps like teleportation pads, though it's possible to move around stage indents and certain "movable traps" which vary from set to set - even items can be magnetized if they were connected to the stage when it was magnetized and they'll deal damage based off how fast they were moving with slight variations as to how much they usually do when thrown. In addition to your shield, your F-tilt will interact with magnetized ice by being attracted to the electricity on struck foes, only if they're knocked through vast amounts of ice the broken parts will actually close in on them so they'll end up being caged (if anyone is in-between ice closing in on them they'll be frozen in case of FFA situations). Your Standard plasma balls and D-tilt sword are not affected by the magnetism, oddly enough, though other electrical attacks seen in other sets are.​

F/B-air - Thunder Wave

Ghetsis throws out a hand in your chosen direction, triggering a function in his cane to make it glow yellow towards the inputted direction before firing off an orange spark comparable to Pikachu's F-Smash that deals high hitstun along with 17% and mostly horizontal knockback that KOs at 130% (like N-air this can hit Ghetsis but deals no damage to him). In addition to that, the orange spark continues to stay on the struck character for 8 seconds and causes electricity to become attracted to them: as of what's been presented, plasma balls will go out of their way to follow foes (it will stick to them if they stay still and count as "moving" so it can still explode) while hitboxes like those in the F-tilt and D-tilt will stretch to 1.5X their normal width and attempt to bend towards foes up to 90 degrees, making them more difficult if not nigh impossible to dodge - the foe also becomes a magnet for ice that's been magnetized through the N-air. The spark effect is actually applied independently towards foes themselves and their shields, meaning if the initial spark hit them head on they'll have the effect around them when they're not shielding while the opposite occurs if a shielding foe is struck - whenever the spark is not in play its timer will be halted, forcing foes to consider not performing one or the other if it would mean letting Ghetsis get what he wants. Unfortunately for them however, Ghetsis massively benefits from sparking both a foe and their shield as they'll not only have no way to halt the magnetic pull surrounding them but its power will be doubled! The spark will even be applied to ice instead of damaging it until it's destroyed, affecting a SBB portion of it instead of the whole thing in the case of iced floors or an ice pyramid - the worst case scenario applies when a frozen foe will be imbued with double the magnetic pull in addition to whatever they have, potentially quadrupling the magnetic pull if both themselves and their shield have been magnetized, and it doesn't help that those effects will not fade when they're frozen.​

U-air - Hyper Beam

You know this one's gonna hurt. Ghetsis raises a hand to the sky, causing the 4 points on his cane to flash with yellow energy that spikes upwards enough to reach Ganon's height. That's only an aesthetic however, as the cane is absorbing energy from the earth to charge a beam attack of pure devastation similar to Deoxys' Hyper Beam attack only going past all surfaces and making its way to the top of the screen. The beam deals 1% for every 0.1 seconds charged with upwards knockback that KOs at 400% and 7.5% earlier with every 1% dealt for an absolute maximum charge time of 5 seconds that's guaranteed to KO -almost- any character (max charge nets you 50% that KOs at 35% which'll shave off 3/4s of a whole shield). What's particularly beneficial for Ghetsis is that he can continue the charge even when lands on ground and suffers no lag when releasing it, there being almost no forewarning to the attack given it should be obvious to foes not to tread around that area - you can't just air dodge the beam either as it has the same duration as the time spent charging it. What's also interesting is that the beam will not fire if Ghetsis would be in its range, allowing you to potentially delay it with the excellent mobility provided by the Shadow Triad and even use it as a counter against foes foolish enough to get in the range of the beam and knock you away in the process (the beam will still fire even if Ghetsis is hit out of the charging) - should Ghetsis be KO'ed while the beam is firing he will not respawn until it finishes up, allowing you to get suicide KOs this way.​

D-air - Volt Change

Ghetsis holds his hand down as his cane suddenly flashes and sparks with electricity, becoming a Ganon-sized hitbox that deals 16% and KOs at 140% for as long as you hold the input. This is a surprisingly quick and efficient way of punishing foes touching your cane, and even has a little interaction with your teleportation pads that causes a bolt with a similar hitbox to the cane's to appear on the pad one would be teleported to from the pad the cane is occupying (and blocking) - this is a good way of not only catching enemies off-guard but also confirming where the pad your cane is on will teleport players to, where in the case of a pad set to random all other pads onstage will be given the same hitbox. You can use this with your ice pyramids to dig into portions of the stage and freely position the cane at the same time, also being a way to break away at any ice covering a teleportation pad you want to use or as a lure for foes. This electricity doesn't magnetize ice affected by the N-air.​

Triad Aerial - Punishment

This is a special aerial attack accessed with A when you call forth a Triad for teleportation by holding down the jump button. Doing this will have Ghetsis point down, ordering that Triad member to fall beneath him with a fast drop kick that deals 7% and mostly downwards knockback that KOs at 145%. Once the Triad member lands he'll constantly patrol the area beneath his airborne master, teleporting to his destination so he's vertically aligned in the case of the Up Special's use or Ghetsis being sent flying. The Triad member will use weaker versions of Shiek's Standards and Smashes against anyone who gets close to him, though he can be dispelled by being sent flying in which Ghetsis will not be able to use him for 5 seconds plus however many seconds worth of damage he took. Just try not to enter the space between Ghetsis and this Triad member as he'll teleport to your position in a quick grab attempt before dropping you off to the area where you were last knocked away, where you reached the apex of your previous knockback - The Triad member will disappear after doing this and not be usable for 9 seconds, he simply dealing 5% with average hitstun if the foe hasn't been knocked away during their stock. The Triad member will remain at the edge of the stage if Ghetsis is offstage and can even be used as fodder for the Up Special if you have no other members to use, though you'd better be quick lest foes take out your last means of recovery. Once Ghetsis touches down the Triad member will secure him for 0.5 seconds before disappearing, giving the devilish villain temporary Super Amour which one will find useful for countering enemy attempts to intercept you - Ghetsis can also order the Triad member to toss him into the air like a footstool jump for much-needed aerial height before his henchman vanishes. Only one Triad member can be out at a time, though frankly you'd only ever need one given you'll most likely be wanting to use the others for movement purposes - holding the jump button lets you use the grounded Triad for the teleportation.

This move is still usable when Ghetsis has been delayed by a teleportation pad by holding down the jump button and A at the same time. This'll cause the Triad to appear next to the pad Ghetsis would reappear from in the same direction he would, allowing the player a visual clue as to where Ghetsis will re-appear and have that spot guarded as to make arrangements for the next step in his ambitions. Speaking of pads, it's possible to send a Triad member into one, though it generally serves only as a way increasing the gap between them and Ghetsis to make that Triad member pull off their grab.​

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SMASHES

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Can be used in the air.

F-Smash - Charge Beam

Ghetsis lifts his cane with as much strength as he can muster before smashing it into the ground whilst it surges with electrical power. From here, a thin beam of electricity (similar to the tracking one Porky uses) shoots out from the bottom Ghetsis' cane and spans out 1-3 Platforms with surprising abruptness, dealing 13% with mostly horizontal knockback and slight downwards knockback that has no trouble KOing enemies at around 190% and putting those it doesn't knock offstage into prone. Inputting the move a second time and angling the control stick either up or down allows Ghetsis to make the beam rotate in that direction up to 90 degrees at Ganon-Sonic's dashing speed, going through all obstacles whilst dragging foes with it for up to 5-10 hits of 1.5% for as long as there isn't any stage in the way in which case the final hit will knock foes away with more downwards knockback than the first hit - in most cases you'll end up with a foe lying prone when they're exposed to more concentrations of downwards knockback. Shielding foes won't be dragged by the beam if it would lift them into the air, making it a good defense against this move should one be unable to time a dodge for the erratic speeds variants of the beam.

This attack becomes substantially more effective when your cane is perched atop or beneath an ice pyramid so the beam actually has some ground to destroy. The beam dies out before it can hit directly above or beneath it, but by re-inputting the move around that time it'll flash with a shimmer that increases its width to that of Bowser whilst dealing 10% with horizontal knockback that KOs at 125%, giving the move just that extra range needed for additional vertical ice-destruction. Should Ghetsis be in the way of the beam when it fires due to manning the cane indirectly it will instead fire in the other direction, though its not completely impossible for him to be hit by it if some freak mishap occurs (the beam will continue firing even if Ghetsis is knocked out of the attack). Be aware that this attack has a fair deal of start-up and ending lag, the latter being particularly horrid with the first part of the attack - it's possible to camp with this move, but ill-advised, especially when the move is prone to staling.​

U-Smash - Spark

Ghetsis presses a button on his cane that causes it to glow an electric-green as electricity sparks around it during the unlimited charge time. Once released, the electricity sparks outwards spherically 1.5 SBB's distance whilst dealing non-flinching hits of 1% every 0.2 seconds for thrice the time spent charging, the effect shutting down with another use of the move. Ghetsis is free to move around or keep the cane in place while the hitbox is up, and while it may seem insignificant at first glance one will greatly appreciate its ability to destroy ice and keep Ghetsis safe from being encased in his own icicles had he set a pad to teleport players into one - the electricity won't damage the ice encasing frozen characters either, allowing you to break through ice for caging or offstage gimping purposes. The electricity does not damage teleporters and can be used as a source of attraction for magnetized ice.​

D-Smash - Icicle Spear

Ghetsis lifts his cane with as much strength as he can muster before smashing, this time using it to channel cold energy into the ground. This frost covers 1/8ths of the stage around the cane to all of it minus where Ghetsis is standing, surfaces included in this method of covering the stage in ice of which can restrict ledges. The main difference here is how the change is abrupt and the ice can freeze the feet of foes standing where it's created, forcing them to shatter it if they want to move or jump on the spot 5 times to break free for those who have no way of attacking directly beneath them (the foe will go through the frames of attempting a jump, meaning Fox will escape the effect much more quickly than someone like Bowser) - foes crouching or in prone have it worse, both having to lie in place and use their D-tilts/Down Specials or Get-Up Attacks to shatter the ice or escape with 2X grab difficulty. Using this attack on areas iced lets you re-freeze foes' feet, though it does nothing to stack the ice...

If there's a area on the designated platform with at least 2 character widths of ice that reaches a SBB high when you use this move, an iced spike will be created there that's half as tall as that ice reached out, always being a character width as to resemble a needle. This spike actually deals a decent 15% with knockback in the opposite direction that KOs at 100% to anyone stabbled by its tip along with high shield stun and pushback given you can make the spikes reach out from walls with clever manipulation of your ice pyramids. Ice spikes will actually be created during the Smash's charge and spread about for as much space as there is for them to occupy, there being a character width in-between each one and allowing you to control how many you have onstage. They're most certainly not hard to destroy given they're not too wide, but serve as dangerous obstacles you can lace around the stage in elaborate manners - to be fair, characters knocked into an ice spike will cause it to shatter, even if they hit its tip in order to prevent cheap infinites on walls.

Ice spikes behave differently in the face of magnetism, as the moment even one part of it is affected by a magnetic pull the whole thing will break off and have its tip pointing at the area of attraction. In the face of Ghetsis' plasma shield and his U-Smash the spikes will remain stationary even if they have to defy the laws of gravity to do so, effectively acting as traps that move around whenever the source of attraction does (helpful with the U-Smash). It's only when Ghetsis applies the Side Aerial attraction effect on himself at the same time when the ice spikes will actually fly at him at Sonic's dashing speed whilst doing a number on foes unfortunate enough to be hit by the barrage. Having the Side Aerial attraction effect by itself will cause the spikes to fly towards their target relentlessly at Mario's dashing speed whilst dealing 1.15X their usual damage, increasing to MK's dashing speed and 1.3X the damage with both one's self and their shield sparked, and ultimately the spikes traveling at Sonic's dashing speed and dealing 1.5X damage if the character is frozen at the same time. With the right set-up, Ghetsis could easily sic many ice spikes on a foe which will continually pursue them for the kill, putting an end to them just like how he attempted to murder the player with Kyurem in B/W2!​

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GRAB

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Ghetsis makes use of the Shadow Triad for his grab as one of them teleports in front of him and performs the grab in his place - this is as quick as a normal grab and the Triad member doubles as a shield for Ghetsis at the cost of not being usable for however many seconds worth of damage they took in addition to not being usable for 5 seconds if the grab missed (hint: use this in front of a pad to teleport that Triad to a new location and surprise foes - this can even be done inside ice without affecting the Triad's attacking pattern). This grab also acts as a counter of sorts as if Ghetsis uses it shortly after shielding an enemy attack the Shadow Triad will teleport to the enemy's location to grab them, instantly teleporting them to the nearest ground with them if the foe were in the air - in the case of a foe right up in front of Ghetsis attacking his shield the Shadow Triad will appear behind them to grab, and multiple foes can be grabbed this way if you have more than one Triad available to use. Given how little shield stun Ghetsis takes with his cane in-tact this counter is far easier to use than you'd think, though it's easy enough for a foe to dodge the grab if they didn't suffer much ending lag on their attack. It's also worth noting that Ghetsis can still use this grab while holding an item given he's not the one doing the grabbing in which case it can be accessed via standing still or shielding given a directional input or performing a dash will have the item in question be thrown.

If you send a Triad member into a delayed teleportation pad they'll automatically be holding any foe who enters from either side once they both re-appear.​

Pummel - Double Team

Ghetsis will call in additional Triad members to restrain the foe, with the second one grabbing them from the other side and the third coming in from the background (if the foe is sandwiched in-between a single Triad the additional two will both come from the background and foreground respectively). This adds escape difficulty onto the grab and allows for multiple uses of certain throws at the cost of not being able to use those Triad members for 5 seconds, though the benefits gained from going that far can easily outweigh the negatives. Using this pummel when all Triad members are available or holding Z will cause them to knee the foe for 1.5% at an average rate (like how most Brawlers deal 3% with their pummels) which can end up dealing more damage than the average Brawl Pummel - if the foe is sandwiched in-between a single Triad Ghetsis will add his own brand of pain on the pummel via stubbing the foe's foot with his cane for 3%, providing he has it on him. Said Pummel is thrice as slow as a normal Pummel but foes will not be able to escape the throw until it's done in which can provide Ghetsis with some stalling.​

Special Pummel - Thief

Ghetsis orders the Shadow Triad to rob the opponent of their property, just like he gets the Grunts to go around stealing people's Pokemon! Using their magical Junahian-esque robbery powers, an individual member can steal a foe's item or even their stats effects, prioritizing the Side Aerial spark effect over items if they have one - having more members essentially allows you to steal more from a foe in one sitting. If the foe does not have anything on them to steal or you double-tap B, the Shadow Triad jump away from them to hide in the shadows and watch their every move, stealing the first item or stats effect they obtain without fail. Once something is stolen and Ghetsis is in the fray, re-using the input allows him to have a Triad member who stole something appear before him with that item or stats effect: pressing A allows Ghetsis to use it if he doesn't have one while smashing the control stick will have him wave his hand dismissively to have it be thrown in your direction of choice, and using B scrolls to the next Triad and Z cancels the whole thing. The Shadow Triad will keep their stolen objects for as long as you want them to, the ability to steal items mostly being situational yet you're able to steal the Side Aerial's spark effect for yourself to take advantage of in better ways than your foes. Another interesting feature of the Triads' thievery can be accessed by holding B during the Up Special of which will cause that Triad member to give his stolen item or effect to Ghetsis if he has one on him.​

Side-throw - Beat-Up

The Triad teleport 1-3 SBBs off the ground (2 SBBs by default, you needing to aim this) and 1 forward with the foe, going through walls in the process before knocking them down for a meteor smash to the ground that deals 6% and KOs offstage at around 190-150% depending how low you angled the move. There's a slight delay to the throw which lets you move the Triad to the sides a little for more specific aiming at the cost of reducing the knockback a little, which is particularly useful when this attack can be followed-up by using more Triad members via re-using the input during the throw. Doing that will have the second member appear at the apex of the foe's flight and kick them upwards for similar damage to the first move only this time KO'ing at 135%, and a final use of the move will have the last member rip off Kat and Ana via striking the foe from various parts of the screen for multiples hits of up to 8% for one second, not dealing any knockback but keeping the foe in place for 1.3 seconds while Ghetsis gets to do whatever he wants. Finally, if you hold Z during any of the 3 throws you'll get that Triad member to place their held item or status effect on the foe whether they want it or not, forcing any item they were holding out of their hands. A particularly potent use of this move is to make the first Triad knock the foe into a teleporter while the second hit can knock them elsewhere - if a foe is ever teleported into ice and frozen this way the next Triad members can still be used but will only appear once the foe completely unfreezes themselves, not appearing at all if 3 seconds pass.​

U-throw - Vital Throw

The Triad will wrap their arms around the foe and attempt to teleport with them like they do with Ghetsis in the Up Special, only travelling half the distance to make this less effective at gimping given you can potentially use it up to 3 times in a row (teleporting to a location on the ground lets the Triad continue holding the foe while the grab ends in the air if you don't or can't continue it). The throw's basic design is to drag the foe exactly where you want them, as the Shadow Triad do often in the games, so that with a clever enough use Ghetsis won't have to worry about their absence when his foe is too busy dealing with some of his other obstacles such as being dragged inside an icicle. If you hold this input and have a foe grabbed from a distance the Triad will teleport them in front of Ghetsis of which you can make great use of by having a pad in front of you or a similar set-up.​

D-throw - Assurance

The Shadow Triad jump away from their foe to hide in the shadows, secretly watching their every move. The next time the foe attempts to attack or shield that Triad will flash from the sides of the screen to hit them for 5% and decent hitstun Ghetsis can capitalize on but is hindered by in the first place or using an attack with super amour or invincibility frames during the start-up lag, though the Triad are not foolish enough to trigger counters. You can stack this effect on a foe for up to 3 uses, and the Triad will return to Ghetsis after 5 seconds anyway in which case using them will remove their surveillance on a foe. If foes feel uneasy with the Triad on their backs they can always take the easy way out and spam their shield up to 3 times in a row, though the hitstun is enough so that Ghetsis can chain-grab foes foolish enough to do this near him - hence the fairness in Ghetsis having to wait for 5 seconds to use a Triad member right after a throw ends, mind you.​

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PLAYSTYLE

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A selfish and diabolical villain, Ghetsis is a man who plans everything out to take place over long periods of time, all for his own gain. Even being an old man however, Ghetsis shares a similar trait to others from the Pokeverse in his willingness to travel lands far and wide for his own purposes. This translates into your typical set-up villain character, albeit one with many escape routes and ways to use his foes as catalysts for his schemes without really having to do all that much on his own part. We're talking about a man who wants to be the only one in a position of power.

A lot of Ghetsis' game revolves around investing things into certain set-ups which tend to come at a cost at first but will reveal their uses later on. He displays a superb if ordinary defensive game with his powerful cane-powered shield and counter-grab, also being able to fire off ice blasts to create icicles as walls and also use his cane as one on demand. It's also possible to play Ghetsis as a generic camper when his attacks have a large damaging radius, though you'll only get this accomplished with the Standard and F-Smash at best which you can at least you to poke at enemies from a distance. In order to truly prepare for his takeover, Ghetsis must be willing to branch out a little, even if that means exposing himself across the battlefield when he has few practical ways of defending himself - this is easily accomplished with the Shadow Triad via Up Special if you're willing to use them for such a cause, though if you can get some ice on the field with the Neutral or Down Special you'll be able to slide across the stage as an equal to your foes.

Teleportation pads serve as the main foundation of Ghetsis' set-up game, doubling as escape routes for him if you're willing to traverse the stage of which prove to be rewarding for doing so. Providing you don't make too many, you generally don't have to worry about foes destroying them too easily given how close they are to the ground of which only D-tilts and D-airs will have any chance of destroying - given the nature of MYM sets, this is a good way to waste your foe's time and in some cases they won't even have any attacks they can use to destroy them. It goes without saying that teleportation pads have a huge amount of strategy involved in them, especially when you consider the fact that you can temporarily disable one by embedding your cane into it of which serves as an opening to set-ups.

Ghetsis' biggest and baddest set-up move is by far the Down Special of which elevates the stage by giving rise to an ice pyramid over time. You can set-up teleportation pads while doing this, though at the cost of losing the ability to access the cane-based moves which can leave Ghetsis massively prone to enemy attack - you really need to think about how you want to go about using the Shadow Triad, whether you want to use all 3 teleports in a row to cover lots of ground quickly, using 2 teleports and the last to get back to your cane or even using one for self-defense with the grab game. There is the Shield Special as well, though that will cancel the glaciating process of the Down Special if that's active. Aside from giving you destructible stage to play around with, glaciating the stage will bring it higher to the top blast zone where Ghetsis has a bigger advantage over foes given he has no use for being that high up in the air and can knock them upwards for a KO. It's also worth noting that ice will grow out from the sides of the stages as far as the ice on the ground will reach, effectively allowing Ghetsis to create slopes on a stage like Final Destination and turn it into a walk-off in the process given the space between the main stage and the top blast zone of which determines how high the ice will span out - by creating more stage Ghetsis will be able to use a Triad to teleport right back to his cane where he otherwise wouldn't be able to offstage, as well as exploit the ice to create teleportation pads on them and create all sorts of crazy gimping methods.

Ghetsis does admittedly require stalling to see many of his plans through when he does not possesses the means to fight off foes, namely for his ice pyramid, his Standard plasma spheres and Shadow Triad cooldown - thankfully he doesn't require an excessive amount of time, though he can still very easily achieve this through his multiple walls and the ability to delay his teleportation pads to maintain temporary invincibility...the best thing about the latter is that he can still attack his foes in the process!

Once you have some teleportation pads out and an icicle or two, or an well-grown ice pyramid, that's when Ghetsis' plan is able to fall into place. More like many different schemes actually, as Ghetsis doesn't have to go about things in one way. One of your main points however, is to have a teleportation pad stuck inside ice and teleport a foe into the ice - this is a simple cage that can stall for time with the Neutral Special, though you can create a legitimate wall for your foe to break out of or exploit when you have a large enough chunk of ice from your Down Special - this also works in very well with the cooldown for the Shadow Triad among Ghetsis' Neutral Special so he can continue freezing the stage or make a simple obstacle for foes.

The use of electricity is not to be understated in the face of ice pyramids, especially in regards to the D-Smash - it's probably one of Ghetsis' most important moves. Given that ice pyramids will raise items and traps as it grows you won't be able to create teleportation pads directly beneath them (unless you place them in icicles beforehand), but the constant hitbox of the D-Smash lets you dig through ice pyramids and navigate them without having to waste time attacking them, it even granting Ghetsis protection if he would destroy too much of it and the structure would collapse on him - simply create a teleportation pad where you desire and use another one to escape whilst leaving your cane behind and re-glaciate that destroyed part of the stage to make it grow over so foes teleported to that created pad will be frozen and stuck down there. You can also cause mass destruction by magnetizing the ice on the stage at the same time, destroying your entire structure or simply punishing foes who've decided to confront you when they're in-between you and ice.

Ghetsis is particularly good at scoring kills via upwards knockback and has the means to get foes there for those reasons. Trapping a foe at the bottom of an ice pyramid on the stage can force them to make their way up to the top via crafting the ice into a staircase or simply breaking at the top of it, as trying to break out from the sides can cause the upper areas to cave in on them. Foes can also be lured to attack Ghetsis when he's in the air as he'll be completely defenseless, and they won't want to be where his cane is perched. Once foes are up there for the killing, Ghetsis has numerous ways to finish them off like with the U-tilt, U-air, D-Smash's ice spikes or even F-Smash, made all the easier if you had more of the stage covered in ice where foes can be knocked off the top of the screen with ridiculous ease. Ghetsis is no slouch at dealing downwards knockback either and can gimp foes with his F-Smash, F-tilt, U-tilt, D-tilt or Side Throw for such a purpose - given you'll be trying to cover the stage in ice however, your main gimping will come from getting foes offstage where ice has grown over and knocking them through if for a KO. It's very easy for Ghetsis to teleport a foe onto a pad positioned on ice growing offstage, freezing them and then destroying that ice with the D-Smash so they fall through the stage. You could even be really cheap by thinning out ice offstage and using your U-throw to teleport foes through it so they're blocked out and fall to their deaths. Ghetsis has many plans for tasting victory, his most effective ones revolving around the creation of an ice pyramid of which he will rule from as a King - it takes time and a few risks, but is well worth it in the end...providing foes don't manage to put a wrench in your plans some way or another through dumb luck.​

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FINAL SMASH

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If Ghetsis has no ice set up on the stage, he'll stamp his feet in frustration, deciding to finish you off for getting in the way of his master plan...by going Pokemon Trainer and sending out his entire team against you at once! All 6 of the above Pokemon use their movesets as shown, only they're hyper-aggressive and have the staying power of a foe in All-Star mode which makes them surprisingly easy to KO, as well as they being unable to shield or dodge (Drapion has 1/2 of its usual HP and takes flinching). The only exception to this is Hydreigon who has no de-buffs as Ghetsis' main Pokemon, it holding an Life Orb as a badge item that makes its attacks deal 1.3X more damage and knockback at the cost of it dealing 5% to itself with each attack. Ghetsis will stay in the background until all his Pokemon have been KO'ed, the set-up-ish ones making their traps while the main attackers go for the foes given there's 6 of them. He'll prove his strength with them, as to him Pokemon are only tools rather than companions.​

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TRUE FINAL SMASH

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If Ghetsis managed to cover the stage in ice at all, a snowstorm will suddenly envelop the stage, and if any character was frozen or touching ice they'll be transported to Giant Chasm and forced to fight against the big bad Kyurem. This is essentially a boss fight which you must win by depleting the dragon's 660HP (660 more HP is added on for every foe dragged in the FS) - failure to do so can result in Ghetsis winning the match.​

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[Katapultar]

Young Xehanort

One of the main antagonists of the Kingdom Hearts franchise, introduced in Dream Drop Distance but having appeared beforehand in Birth By Sleep as a (very difficult) secret boss under the name of Mysterious Figure. Originally but a teenager with dreams in his heart, he was approached by the Heartless of his older self and given the power to travel through and manipulate time for the sake of helping his older self with his elaborate plot, effectively creating a time paradox. Using his powers, Young Xehanort was able to revive the Heartless and Nobody of his older self, Ansem and Xemnas, whom he is often seen with during the course of 3D whilst enigmatically taunting Sora and Riku with riddles that leave them pondering till the very end. Possessing the ability to wield a Keyblade, use large variants of elemental magic and of course control time, Young Xehanort cements himself as a major threat to the heroes both story and gameplay-wise, being a very challenging foe to take down in the face of his ruthless onslaughts.

One can view Young Xehanort's secret boss fight in Birth By Sleep here, where he uses a great variety of elemental attacks and tricks that change based upon how you attack him. He fights with two energy blades there, though in his Dream Drop Distance fight he uses different attacks and wields an unnamed Keyblade instead of the blades. In Brawl, Young Xehanort starts off unarmed like you see him in the above picture, though he'll magically materialize his melee weapons whenever needed.​

Stats

Size: 6.5
Weight: 5
Ground Speed: 6
Jump: 7
Aerial Speed: 5
Falling Speed: 5
Traction: 8

Young Xehanort possesses average stats and an average build like you'd expect from a teenager in the Kingdom Hearts universe. A gimmick you might not note everyday however, comes from Young Xehanort's mastery over time which prevents him from be frozen or slowed by such effects. Good luck winning if your name is Homura or Chakravartin.​

Specials


Neutral Special

Young Xehanort holds out a hand as he shoots out small light-blueish fireball projectiles that scatter outwards at Mario's dashing speed whilst homing in on foes with surprising effectiveness before disappearing after traveling 6 SBBs or hitting something. One fireball is created every 0.1 seconds and up to 12 of them can be made in one attempt before Young Xehanort goes through some lag - each one deals 1% and no flinching on the first 3, but with each direct hit the foe begins to take progressive flinching and slight pushback. In addition, the fireballs have a strange affiliation to time which cases a clock symbol to appear above a foe's head much like with the boss fight that leaves their movement speed cut down by 1/20ths for 3 seconds per fireball for a potential 1/4 speed cut - this thankfully doesn't affect a foe's attacking speed despite hurting their ability to move around, not to mention slowing how fast they fly when knocked away in the process. It's easy for enemies to forget that they'll take progressive flinching when hit with more fireballs in a row, though if they try to shield them the effect will instead be applied to their shield via causing it to regenerate at 1/8ths its usual pace for 1.5 second per fireball - the speed cut does not stack, though you can continually add to the timer to your heart's content. It's very easy for the projectiles to hit given their homing nature and how many of them you can make, though continual use of the move will cause the damage and flinching to quickly stale to the point where you become easily punished - regardless of whether you hit a foe directly or their shield however, it's not hard to make use of their brief slowness.​

Side Special

A duplicate of Young Xehanort will appear where he last used a Standard, Smash, Aerial or Neutral Special and proceeds to use it in his place at the cost of 8% before disappearing. The duplicate has the same damage Young Xehanort had plus 75% and will keep attempting to use its designated attack to the greatest efficiency it can if not KO'ed, the move keeping any staleness from before in the case of Neutral Special spamming. Once a clone is created the next one will use the attack Young Xehanort used beforehand and so on until all the attacks he's used in the match have been cycled through - you can only have up to 3 clones out at once, and creating another one will cause the most recent one to vanish. Just be careful not to use up too much of your damage percentage when raising Master Xehanort's army, along with the fact that you can be hit by their attacks.​

Up Special

Young Xehanort utilizes his inner cheapness by teleport spamming, something you saw coming from a mile away. Using it after being sent flying will have Young Xehanort re-appear where he was struck, while teleporting after doing the same to a foe will have him re-appear at the halfway point of their flight path and regain his second jump - this works even if it was a clone that sent the foe flying, allowing Xehanort to capitalize on their dilemma. Young Xehanort can even teleport directly beneath a foe who's shield he's just broken should you accomplish that. Any other situation lets Young Xehanort teleport a Platform's distance up to 3 times in succession before he'll need to go back on ground to recover, though he can use the first two variants regardless so long as he meets their conditions. This recovery alone ensures Young Xehanort will be sticking around for a long time, though where he re-appears after being knocked away by a foe is obvious and he'll be taking a lot of damage from creating clones in the first place.​

Down Special

An stylish-looking light blueish clock overlaps Young Xehanort for a moment before it vanishes. If Young Xehanort is hit by an attack he'll rewind time at triple speed until you use an input to play off from a specific point or let the match reset itself from his last stock or point in where he previously reset time. This doesn't come free however as Young Xehanort keeps all the damage he had from before while his foes don't, and cannot reset time for 7 seconds after having done so. Your duplicates are unaffected by the time reversal as they temporarily fade into blurs during such, allowing you to set any number of them you've built up on enemies at an earlier point of the match. This counter greatly punishes predictable attacks when it gives Young Xehanort complete control over time, and if you're desperate enough you can trigger it by being hit by a duplicate's attack to create some interesting combos - Young Xehanort will gain immunity to the rest of the attack's hitboxes from then on so you won't have to worry about suddenly being hit by it.​

Standards


Standard

Young Xehanort draws his energy blades and slashes 3 times whilst stepping forward a little each time. Each hit deals 4% with GTFO horizontal knockback that KOs at 250% (10% less for each successful hit, caps out at 160%) and keeps the foe away from Young Xehanort, space they'll need when he gains an additional 5 attacks, deals 1% more damage with each successful hit and moves a little further in-between each hit. The damage is sparse as you'd expect from a jab, but it can keep foes occupied for quite a while and nicely chips away at shields until the pushback is enough to throw foes out of range after 7 or so hits or when you've pushed them off the stage. This move is also surprisingly deceptive as every 3 or so hits strike behind Young Xehanort given he's using two blades - if he's doesn't have a target in front of him he'll turn around to hit that struck foes instead. Multiple hitboxes ensure your clones won't go to waste when they strive to throw out all the hits they can - if you want to make the most of them it's best to snag a shielding foe whom you can wail on with other moves.​

Dash Attack

Young Xehanort takes his energy blades and drills forward with them as he becomes surrounded by energy, moving at Fox's dashing speed while you hold A and dealing 10% that KOs at 170%, constantly pushing shielding foes backwards and with some good damage but not so bad they can't react with a grab or roll to prevent being pushed off the stage. This is a fairly potent move that lets Young Xehanort piece through enemies if you don't mind some start-up lag, and if he knocks one into the air quickly tapping A will allow him to follow up for a second strike albeit one that deals half damage and can be dodged as the move doesn't deal much hitstun - slowed foes will find the second hit impossible to dodge, however. Clones will travel as far as they can when made to use this move, always performing the follow-up on foes they hit but never doing so on Young Xehanort. The nature of this move works very well for triggering Young Xehanort's time rewinding given the clone will just keep moving past him and can potentially attack foes.​

F-tilt

Young Xehanort holds his Keyblade back before jabbing it forward like a javelin for some surprisingly exceptional range (it's quite long if you've seen the video) that can be angled, dealing 12% with unprecedented impact stall via time magic before KOing at 135%. The impact deals a Platform's worth of shield pushback on average while taking foes out of their shields, but perhaps the most odd trait about the move is how it'll never break a shield - taking a foe out of their shield as they slide back is good enough and can lead into attacks when combined with your clones, but also helps preserve foes in that weakened state so you have more opportunities when resetting time.​

U-tilt

Young Xehanort holds his Keyblade above him and begins twirling it between his fingers in a circle after a bit of starting lag. The spinning deals 4% and low upwards knockback whilst covering a large area above Young Xehanort, gaining some power and range while you continue to hold the input as blue light ebbing from the tip of the Keyblade grows in size. After 1.5 seconds the damage grows to 12% that KOs at 180% as the weapon covers 1.5 X its original distance, while with 2.5 seconds the hitbox covers all of Young Xehanort and finally lets out a blue explosion covering 2 SBBs' distance which deals a huge 28% that KOs at 80% while instantly breaking shields. The attack already has good range that only gets better over time as an anti-aerial, forcing foes to run away from the impending blast or try and stop the early phases of the attack by out-prioritizing it, which isn't too difficult given the low damage output. Young Xehanort doesn't suffer much ending lag which he can use capitalize on the damage done to foes, and he can make a clone use this attack to cut off a large area of the stage available to foes or of course trigger his time reset counter while at the same time preparing a powerful attack.​

D-tilt

Young Xehanort holds his Keyblade to the ground before sweeping it in a circle up to 4 times in a row much like the Ice Climbers using their D-Smash. The attack has comparable lag to a Falcon Punch, though each hit deals a solid 14% with good base upwards knockback that KOs at 125% - this is especially dangerous against shields when it can eat away at almost all its health, though Young Xehanort suffers enough pause in-between each hit to allow foes the chance to roll away. Young Xehanort barely suffers any ending lag in contrast to the starting lag, allowing him to capitalize on the foe's pragmatic decision. This is probably one of Young Xehanort's most dangerous melee attacks, as even when he's interrupted he can just get a clone to use the attack at that same spot with a good chance of hitting since it covers both sides - clones will always use all 4 hits of the attack.​

Smashes

All of Young Xehanort's Smashes reach their full potential once charged for 7 seconds, making them difficult yet rewarding to use without even taking into account that they're as laggy as a heavyweight's Smash attacks. It's obviously a job for clones, one of the many wonders of having them available when they'll always attempt to fully charge the Smash even if Young Xehanort didn't do so.


F-Smash

The ground beneath gets windy as Young Xehanort releases a tornado that travels across the stage at Mario-Sonic's dashing speed for 3-15 SBBs and lasts for an absolute maximum of 2-6 seconds otherwise as they turn around on contact with walls and ledges. The tornado inflicts 5-37% with mostly horizontal knockback that KOs at 200-50%, dealing very little shield damage or stun but potentially insane pushback of 1-8 SBBs which can easily throw a foe off the stage. If the damage output wasn't enough, the tornado will ruthless toss any items in a random direction above with the throwing power of a tiny or even giant character, regardless of whether they were on the ground or a foe was holding it. Tornadoes also have a ruthless tendency to pursue enemies that try to move past them, turning around to chase that individual with a second of turning lag at worst and almost none at full charge - they'll even attempt to trail enemies directly above them and lie in wait until they fall victim, though they can be destroyed by directing an attack of reasonable power to their eye such as a D-air to balance out how long they can do this for. Given how they'd hinder Young Xehanort and his clones otherwise, tornadoes will go right through them as if they were ghosts unless he's using his shield or Down Special to reset time - the former can be a risky yet useful maneuver for spacing on large stages.​

U-Smash

Young Xehanort gains an orange tint as raises a hand before holding it out in a powerful gesture. This causes a meteor to fall on the nearest foe (in front of Young Xehanort if there aren't any) at Mario's dash speed, being the size of a Pokeball or even as large as Giga Bowser with a full charge and exploding the moment it hits something. The result is 3-41% with upwards knockback on ground and downwards knockback in the air that KOs at 400-25%, with the meteor itself dealing 1/3 of that damage with some stun before the explosion takes effect to such a degree that the first hit can break a weakened shield before the meteor kills. This is one move you don't want a Young Xehanort clone successfully charging, and the real one can easily bait you into such just by attempting the move in the first place to set-up his clones for it. Young Xehanort is not foolish enough to be caught in the midst of his own spell and as such he and his clones will briefly vanish for the duration of the hitbox should they be within the meteor's damaging range without having their action interrupted - there's nothing to be gained by having it out just to trigger Young Xehanort's time rewind when the whole point is to bring the attack back in time with you. If multiple meteors are being summoned at the same time they'll come down one at a time, though it's unlikely you'll ever get more than 2 out given how long they take to charge.​

D-Smash

The ground beneath Young Xehanort is set on fire as 3 fiery pillars surround him in a 3D triangle, each being a SBB tall and as wide as PK Fire. These fire pillars move with Young Xehanort and are raised to his height whenever such change occurs, rotating around him so he's covered on one side every 0.7 seconds - flame pillars deal 10% and GTFO knockback on any percentage, dealing horizontal knockback if Young Xehanort ran into a foe, horizontal upwards knockback if he was stationary and upwards knockback if a foe is knocked into a pillar, all knockback being able to KO at 200%. Fire pillars last for twice as long as charged, and are great for defending against grabs or attacks with long durations if foes try to use those when you're trying to charge another powerful attack - fire pillars will temporarily vanish when you're in the middle of an attack or grab to at least give foes an opening however before resuming from their previous position. You do have to be careful however, as fire pillars will remain in place as traps when Young Xehanort is knocked away and he can be knocked into them, though this can end up being a good thing against strong attacks as the knockback from the pillars isn't that great and it can end up saving you in certain situations. Clones automatically use this move when a foe is within 1.5 SBBs of them and will vanish upon creating their fire pillars, which you can amour yourself and add to their timers by re-using this smash while inside one - you can even use their static hitboxes to trigger your counter and reset time.​

Aerials


N-air

Young Xehanort holds out his hands as a 1 SBB area around him begins to blur in which all foes and stage hazards move thrice as slowly. Young Xehanort's fall speed is halved whilst using this move and he can keep it out even when he lands, though suffers lag on both ends regardless - enough so that you're still open to fast attacks even when they're slowed. This move serves as both a way to stall and egg on foes so a duplicate can be created in that area to distract foes, though the effect will not stack with multiple Xehanorts.​

F-air

Young Xehanort performs a horizontal slash with his Keyblade, dealing 12% that KOs at 145%. If Young Xehanort used this move after being attacked his slash will create an energy wave which you can angle that travels 2 SBBs at Sonic's dashing speed and deals half the damage and knockback. This energy slash will even be applied to a clone's attack if you designated such, allowing you to further catch enemies off-guard after using this attack. To make matters worse for the foe, this attack has an second part to it if you succeed with the fist strike in which by continuing to hold A Young Xehanort will brace his Keyblade for 1 second whilst defying gravity and drawing in foes within 2 SBBs. Once the charging is complete, Young Xehahort will perform a lengthy spinning slash with Super Amour frames that continues to draw in foes whilst dishing out 8 hits of 3% before knocking enemies away in the direction they came from and KOing at 100%. At the very least this is an aerial melee attack with obvious implications that become all the more deadly when combined with a clone, especially when you use it as a countermeasure after being attacked to keep enemies off-guard.​

B-air

Young Xehanort turns his body a little and holds out a hand whilst looking behind, charging energy all the while. Once you release the input he'll create a Party Ball-sized sphere that resembles an analogue clock on the insides that lasts for however long you help the input for, and can be done so on ground if you landed there. Characters who fully overlap with this sphere will be sent back to where they were however long ago the sphere lasts for, effectively being a mini version of the Down Special time reset. The sphere can be used against foes for many reasons such as making them loop their recovery attempts or dropping their shield back down to where it was before it started to recover, even keep the slowed effect on them for a while. It can also be used by Young Xehanort to stay in the air for longer by continuously jumping into it or even better spamming clones since his damage percentage will reset and they won't just disappear. Clones will automatically use this move whenever a character is within their range, though do keep in mind only one sphere can be out at a time.​

U-air

Young Xehanort looks upwards and raises a hand, firing a light blueish chain from his palm that travels 1.2 SBBs in search of a target before vanishing if nobody's there. If a foe is struck, they'll begin to take rapid hits of 1% every 0.1 seconds until either character is attacked or they hit the ground as Young Xehanort changes his fall speed to match the foe's - this actually makes it nearly impossible for foes to hit Young Xehanort unless they have a move with greater range than the chain, forcing them to land on ground if they want some actual damage in. Young Xehanort is free to dismantle the chain by using another move or re-use the input to have it shine before exploding of which deals the victim 10% with upwards knockback that KOs at 200%, something they have to be wary of in the midst of the struggle - even worse is that Young Xehanort can keep the chain going and summon clones at the same time. Because this move doesn't inflict hitstun you can use it to damage-rack a foe tumbling in the air from having their shield broken before they hit the ground so you're ripe for a KO - this can also be done on aerial foes with weak attacking range to force them onto the ground all the same given they can't attack you.​

D-air

Similar to his Dash Attack, Young Xehanort dives down whilst covered in thunder. Struck foes take 16% with horizontal knockback that KOs at 150%, and once Young Xehanort hits the ground he'll release a SBB-wide shockwave on both sides that deals 8% with strong hitstun that can hit grounded foes knocked away by the first attack at low percentages. Young Xehanort's impact does quite a number on shields, ripping through about 28% worth whilst footstooling off that character for another strike that easily sets you up above a foe when their shield does break or simply lets you barrage them to ensure that does happen. It's definitely not a good idea for foes to try shielding a clone's attacking attempt when it lets them use the move over and over.​

Z-air

Young Xehanort holds out his energy blade as it extends like a chain that's controllable in a similar manner to Pit's arrows but only travels for 3/4s FD at max. This is a grab hitbox that snatches foes for 3% and hurls them to the same horizontal plane Young Xehanort is, slamming them against the surface for hitstun instead if there's one in the way. Despite what you'd think, this cannot be used as a tether recovery given Young Xehanort would not want to resort to something so lowly.​

Grab

Young Xehanort simply reaches out with one hand, only needing to hold the foe by the scruff of their neck given his older incarnation is surprisingly strong. Remember that clones will not use this move, so you can attempt to grab foes for some damage whilst being able to save a move you've previously used for a clone.​

Pummel

Young Xehanort proceeds to drain their life as white sparks surround them. This is rather slow, but takes 1% from the foe whilst healing Young Xehanort with the added bonus of this damage change being passed on even when time gets rewound.​

F-throw

Darkness seeps Young Xehanort's hand and blasts at the foe, inflicting 12% with low base knockback that won't start sending foes flying until around 100% and will KO at 140%. That low base knockback is better than you'd think however, as after the throw the darkness will fall to the floor as a small yet imposing pool that causes all clones to appear there (bar those using the D-air who will appear from an appropriate height above the pool instead, while those using the B-air will use it facing away) for the 3 seconds it lasts for. During this time clones will not damage each other with their attacks so you're free to go all-out if you're willing to pay with your damage percentage to potentially overwhelm foes - you can get all that health back if you reset time afterwards anyway by having one of the clones create a static hitbox.​

B-throw

Young Xehanort teleports behind his foe before brandishing his Keyblade and striking them for 7 hits in a timeframe of 1.5 seconds. Each hit deals 3% and traps the foe for the next one until the final one inflicts high base horizontal knockback that KOs at 110%. That's some harsh damage for a throw, but the hits can be shielded whilst foes take relatively little pushback - if this move breaks their shield and the foe survives however, their shield will only have 10HP when they next use it, which is especially useful if you do end up breaking a foe's shield and knocking them away with one of the hits. Young Xehanort has temporary Super Amour during the attack via the logic of bosses from his series so foes can't simply pull a fast one on him, and while they can jump to get away from the onslaught he can cancel the slashes at anytime with a teleport similar to his Up Special for pursuing enemies who've decided to get into the air.​

U-throw

The foe is immediately held in place by blueish sparks as Young Xehanort teleports into the background above them whilst facing the screen, as if peering down on them like a god. He surrounds them in blueish electricity for 1.5 seconds before it explodes and they take 12% and upwards knockback that KOs at 150%. If the foe is hit by another of Young Xehanort's attacks via one of his static hitboxes or a clone's attack however, the throw will end and the foe only takes that attack's damage as an ominous VII appears above their head as to remind them to play more Final Fantasy to learn their Roman Numerals. The foe will gain Super Amour to that same attack from now on when they're hit by it, whether shielding or not, but for each time the number drops down by 1 and if it reaches 0 the foe succumbs to the darkness for an instant KO - to be fair, only one number will drop per attack so you can't just spam the Neutral Special and call it a day. The deadly thing about this is that the number will not disappear until Young Xehanort is KO'ed, and it will not go away until time is reset...in fact, all the times the foe was struck by that same attack as time is reset will be taken into account too, so if the foe was struck by the same attack 7 times during the course of the match as it is reset they'll be doomed. Giving the foe Super Amour to one of your attacks might seem like a double-edged sword for your melee attacks when you'll be knocked out of them, though with your clones and what not foes can end up falling into a trap when they no longer feel the need to play defensive. Oh, and feel free to place any number of these death counters on your foe - they're cheap just like Young Xehanort.​

D-throw

Young Xehanort suddenly vanishes, leaving his victim to deal with black and white sparks which rob them of 1% every second for 15 seconds before he returns to the same spot with slight vulnerability. This leaves the foe all by their lonesome and forces them to deal with any incarnations of himself Young Xehanort has around or is able to summon while he's away. For foes who don't want to wait or can't benefit from the time to themselves, shielding will make all the hits strike at a rate of every 0.1 seconds for a total of only 1.5 seconds - this also comes without any shield stun, meaning foes with good timing can attempt to shield grab Young Xehanort the moment he appears. The key to not being counter-attacked in such a way is discouraging the foe from wanting to do so in the first place. Still, this is a very useful move when you take into account the fact that you can reset time to the point where you were invincible with this move and attack enemies with your clones.​

Playstyle

Young Xehanort can play like your basic Brawl character, but there's a lot more to him when you take his cloning and time resetting into account, meaning almost everything you do has a consequence to it, whether it's the order you use your attacks or for how long you can keep a foe shielding for. The idea behind Young Xehanort is to position your clones for an attack by doing it yourself beforehand, though it's not like you always need them to KO enemies with the many ways you can kill enemies.

Young Xehanort can start off and progress through matches in many ways, being able to camp or go offensive on enemies to snipe at their weaknesses without having any glaring statistical weaknesses of your own - it all comes down to your clones and time resetting to make use of your attacks, and how you use these two traits. Teleports, Dash Attack and D-Smash work well for approaching, though your U-Smash make your foe think twice about staying in one spot, something that'll end up working against them later on. Young Xehanort can go offensive on his foe, yes, but at the same time he's fooling them into taking his bait when there's so much to take into account for how simple duplicates are.

There's a lot you can do with the clones, yet at the same time you have to be careful not to do too much with them when making one costs health. One of their main applications is to keep foes on-guard once they've knocked you out of one of your attacks so the clone doesn't end up hitting them with it, effectively forcing them to keep moving around the stage and potentially wasting the set-up time of certain characters who can't do so while moving. Another simple use of the clones is to go on the offensive and use them as "traps" to hit the foe with if they try to go back to that same spot they were struck at, as you obviously won't be able to hit them again in a row unless they had their shield up or took virtually no knockback. Perhaps the most obvious use of clones however, is to have them charge up a powerful Smash attack to doom foes with should they be unable to interrupt them in time.

Young Xehanort can really bring the pain on foes hit by his attacks directly, but he's also good at applying shield pressure for those trying to further resist. This generally comes from his telegraphed attacks, but more so his Neutral Special which can slow down the regeneration rate of any shield it hits - this is a move Young Xehanort will find ideal to spam even when it begins to stale, and if foes choose not to expose their shield to it they'll just get slowed down instead...this is just as bad for them however: foes won't be able to move around as quickly and thus they'll be forced to rely on attacking and shielding both of which are beneficial to Young Xehanort for one reason or another (attempting to attack frantically can risk time being reset while the implications of shielding are quite obvious). In addition, foes will be sent flying at a slower rate when knocked back, letting Young Xehanort teleport to them more quickly and set up his clones on them, or even combo them if they're flying slowly enough. Heckling at a foe's shield with the Neutral Special will give them less incentive to use it, and if you can also slow them down with it they'll be stuck in quite the predicament. Once Young Xehanort has broken a foe's shield, he can easily teleport beneath them and use his U-air to damage rack or N-air to stall while you get a clone to charge up a mighty Smash that'll decimate them before they can even recover.

Last but not least, we get to the time resetting phase of Young Xehanort's game. Unlike other characters, Young Xehanort is not free to simply control time as he pleases, though the fact that he does this through a counter and it's very effective once it happens means foes will not want to throw out anything too predictable. And of course, time resetting in itself wouldn't be much fun if all Young Xehanort could do is simply reset the match, and that would in fact come off as being quite annoying to everyone - what Young Xehanort can do is bring his clones back with him to attack the enemy in a certain point in time. The clones being able to damage Young Xehanort allows him to use them as a trigger for his counter as you should undoubtedly be aware of by now, though at the same time you're not simply gaining something for nothing as Young Xehanort will keep all the damage he took prior to resetting time while his foes won't, even if that damage happened to come from clone-spamming. This is why preserving your clones for later on is sometimes the better option, and really Young Xehanort has more than enough tools to fight back and accomplish this matter.

Time resetting can be used for a plethora of matters much like duplicates, though the most obvious thing to do is return to a point in the past where the foe was most vulnerable and pick at them from there with the attack of your clones - the easiest way to go about this is to pull off an U-Smash Meteor as it'll hit the foe no matter where they are. The interesting thing about shield-pressuring is that it's a lot quicker than simply damage-racking the foe to KO them, and while the foe's damage percentage will go down when you reset time their shield will naturally regenerate over time so you can find a point in the past where it was weak and pick off it from there - this is also where Young Xehanort's Neutral Special really kicks in, and foes might find themselves regretting shielding it when it'll mean more points in the past where they're vulnerable - even worse is that the time reset will cure said move's staleness, something that can catch foes off-guard. Young Xehanort will have likely accumulated some great power from his Smashes which he can use to utterly decimate stunned foes no matter how low their damage percentage is while he remains healthy from all the damage he took from foes providing it wasn't too early in the match.

Overall, Young Xehanort is a foe not to be underestimated when he knows what he's doing and does it effectively, pulling off a whole slew of killers at the same time. You can't just heckle away at him like any other foe, you need to find some openings and hammer away at them just like in any good old boss battle - most particularly, Young Xehanort will be taking a lot of damage from making clones and himself can get a bit predictable at points such as with his recovery. Beating him feels awesome however.​

Final Smash

Young Xehanort says "Time stop." as he floats to the last piece of available ground he was standing on. From here, the screen will flash and a large, mysterious floating clock will replace him as the stage's music is eerily replaced with the sound of ticking. This clock is as large as Giga Bowser and resides in the background while darkness flows out from the ground beneath it...it appears to be doing nothing, but on closer inspection a countdown is beginning from the hour of 12 all the way to absolute 0. The big hand is constantly moving, and the little hand moves to represent an hour gone by for every 10 seconds that pass...if foes fail to deplete the clock's 300HP (another 300 for every other foe in the match) within that time, the match will instantly reset...with Young Xehanort at his prime health and foes taking all the injuries they've received. This isn't impossible to stop given Master Hand can be defeated at 300HP within less than a minute and the clock is a sitting duck, but all the while you have control over shadowy duplicates of Young Xehanort that act just like those from the Side Special - a duplicate will appear on whatever side of the clock you press the control stick in and you'll instantly get control of another whenever one dies or attacks, meaning you could easily get 10 or so charging a Smash if foes don't try to stop them. Young Xehanort's attacks are already powerful, and killing foes with this FS is pretty much a bonus. If the clock is destroyed, Young Xehanort will return from the top of the screen to keep on fighting, with the bonus of his Side Special making duplicates do whatever you made the shadows do. This still costs health, however.​

Extras

Opening - Corridor of Darkness
A Corridor of Darkness opens up from behind, and Young Xehanort steps out.

U-taunt - Cloaking
Young Xehanort covers his head with the hood on his Organization XIII cloak, making him appear as a Mysterious Figure. All his voice clips will be muted, and his name will be changed to "???" until you use the taunt again. This allows Young Xehanort to blend in with others with their heads cloaked by the Organization's outfit to confuse enemies, which is especially useful in Team Matches or CTF. It's even possible to cloak Young Xehanort on the Select Screen by clicking his character portrait, confusing foes you face online when most of the Organization members will use Corridors of Darkness for their openings.

F-taunt - Awaited Destruction
Young Xehanort points ahead, telling his foe "Oblivion awaits...". If his damage happens to be over 100% or he's losing, his eyes will glow and he'll make an angry face while saying "Begone!"

D-taunt - Phantom
Young Xehanort's body becomes eerily transparent, suggesting he may not be of this world.

Win 1 - Thrown Aside
Young Xehanort holds an arm out as if embracing something, saying "Hearts capable of resisting the darkness are of no use to us.".

Win 2 - Fulfilled Purpose
A Corridor opens up on the edge of the screen as Young Xehanort walks towards it while saying I shall return to my own time." before he leaves for good.

Win 3 - Abstract Condemnation
Young Xehanort says "You shall remain sleeping in this wake-less dream." whilst gesturing to his foes. Words that have much meaning...

Loss
Young Xehanort isn't even there. It's as if he was never defeated in the first place...​

​

 

[BladeKnight420]

Garble: From what I understand, the thing people like about this set is the characterization, which is a great angle to come from in moveset making. However, I don’t think this set is all that super in-character (Not saying he’s OOC though), and the mentality seems to be that he has to be a simpler moveset to be in-character. I honestly think that with all of Garble’s games he plays and such, that if things were wackier, he’d be more in-character, considering he doesn’t actually do all that much rough personal fighting. When he’s forced to fight against something on his actual level, he just flees. The buddies feel most underutilized for Garble, though I do really like what you did with the tail wrestling and the kicking up dirt. I don’t really know how you’d do much more to make him fight dirty, but again, those buddies are always there. This isn’t exactly a character difficult enough to “become Warlord’s new nemesis” over.

Ashens: I love 3v1 boss sets, the set’s characterization, and I even got introduced to this guy’s videos thanks to this moveset, so I want to gush over this moveset. There certainly are a lot of positive aspects to the set, such as the two stages to put traps over, and I like the flamethrower mechanic for what it does for the moveset overall, even if I dislike how the fire effect is put out. It is more in the later moves in the set that I think things get a bit too much into overkill territory, that bag in particular doesn’t even contribute that much. I think the set could’ve benefitted from more of a cool off at the end. Maybe the smashes could’ve been moves without props that just used his hands, like the standards? It’s more okay for shield moves to be direct set-up moves since they’re a move category you made up yourself, but smashes should smash things.

Drillman.EXE: I haven’t read that many terraforming sets, but I’ve read and supervoted your own Master Hand from the previous contest, so this one has a lot to live up to for me. And honestly, it really doesn’t hold up. Master Hand’s terraforming made sense to be side effects since you had to get in the actual attacks Master Hand uses in his boss fights, while here, virtually any motion Drillman does results in terraforming if his hand just so happens to overlap with ground. The playstyle doesn’t seem nearly as focused as Master Hand either, so I’m going to have to give a thumbs down on this one.

Ghetsis: Why is he not using his Pokemon? That is the real big question. N is the one who is trying to liberate Pokemon, not Ghetsis, and for some reason I doubt his cane of all things does all of the weird stuff you’re having it do in this set. You aren’t going for a simplistic moveset with all the imaginative stuff you’re having Ghetsis do with his cane either, so I don’t know why the Pokemon aren’t in it anywhere. While there is some likable stuff you’re doing in here to make me neutral on this moveset, I just can’t get past the OOCness of Ghetsis not using his Pokemon. He intends to take everyone else’s Pokemon away so he can destroy them with HIS Pokemon!

Insulting the opposing side’s argument here

(Insert pretentious argument here)

Am I doing it right?

 

[FrozenRoy]

How many Xehanorts does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

I'll be level with you Kat, when you first announced you'd be doing Young Xehanort in your previews, I thought it would be awful. However, I was pleasently surprised to find that this isn't so.

In fact, Young Xehanort is probably my favorite set of yours so far in the contest, and I think that is due to the happy simplicity in the majority of his non-Specials, keeping the set from being bogged down with too many overly complex moves or thick writing style. Y-Xehanort's gameplan is pretty simple and brings to mind the boss fight with him: Specifically, rewinding time to the start of the match. Using it as a counter helps get the fact it's annoying as hell in the actual fight down and makes actually landing it interesting, along with the fact he cannot go back in time past when he first went back in time, making the timing on it essential to get the most out of your rewinds. The implementation of the clones is also quite nice, with the cost of damage which is not healed as a nice overhead cost and their simple re-executing of attacks bringing to mind Gengar in a good way. I also quite like the way the recovery is handled, as while it is theoritically infinite, it is also very predictable and thus, some strategy is required to utilize it, possibly with clones, which works well with it's ability to chase foes when they get hit, giving Y-Xehanort a nice sense of urgency on an attack.

There are some things I do quite dislike, though, most notably the Up Throw: Randomy instant KO mechanic on a throw is already pretty bad, but especially on this moveset, where it sticks out like oh so many sore thumbs, without having much flow in it either. It should, at the least, be something that is not a throw. I do feel the moveset would be massively helped by just removing it or something, though. The smashes randomly being able to be charged for seven seconds is also kinda odd and since clones always try to charge them to max, I question the validity of them in terms of the playstyle, as even keeping the opponent occupied for that long is sort of hard. I also think that the F-Smash could have been a bit cooler if Y-Xehanort had to protect himself from it in some way, or at least when used by a clone, to add some element of strategy.

Still, overall, the moveset is a good one, as Y-Xehanort's pressure game is pretty fun with the neutral special slowing or shield eating, sort of reminding me of a cooler version of Cold Enchanter's crystals. His simple yet graceful attacks flow pretty well while the clones provide a lot of ability to make stuff up on the fly if used in game and exciting combinations. Good work, Kat. Oh, also, I like the extras, they're fitting.

Get This

Ghetsis sure looks cooler in B&W2, apparantly. I never noticed how his coat...cloak...thing had that eye look on it. Actually really cool and creepy looking.

Where Y-Xehanort is the high point of your contest, Ghetsis is your low point, an absolutely horrid set to both read and in it's execution. I'm not going to harp on Ghetsis not using his pokemon: That's a conscious descision and it's at least admirable to try and make a set for a Trainer-esque character without the Trainer part. The problem here is that it just fails in so many other ways.

The moveset is full of some of the most tacky or otherwise nonsensical **** one could think of to throw in the moveset, as Ghetsis' cane suddenly becomes magical for most of the match, allowing him to summon ice pyramids, magnetize foes and MAGNETIZE ICE, all kinds of stuff, not to mention randomly summoning the Shadow Triad on about three moves including the recovery, with very few attacks involving the obvious use of the cane, which is to say, hitting people with it. Ghetsis also gets unique inputs with Special Pummels, Shield Specials, even a Triad special, yet cannot spare time for a single dash attack, as it is just the F-Tilt for a really lame reason.

The playstyle, while existant, really doesn't flow all that well, and the mass of nonsensical nicknacks piles up into a complex mishmash of suck, which only serves to help heap more trash on the arsenic sandwich that is the playstyle, although he at least has a tiny bit of flow between the ice sliding and the teleport pads. Little else really goes all that well together, which doesn't do the moveset any favors, especially when it's resorting to crap like strange ice effects and physics from offscreen frigates or just straight from his cane and, again, MAGNETIZING ICE. While magnetizing ice is possibly, it's a very odd effect, and delves into the mystical and into making Ghetsis a wizard.

This moveset has some minor points I'm okay with, like the Down Special pyramid if it was more logical to make and the Side Special teleportation pads, but it just can't climb out of the cesspool of stuff I don't like in this set, and becomes my first moveset this contest to earn a one star. Couldn't you at least have expanded on the Kyurem FS some more? : (

BreastMan.EXE

Try and tell me the title isn't appropriate with all the nipple abuse in this set.

The first streamed moveset ever is, appropriately enough, the master of the waters himself, Aquaman...better known as Sir Nipple Sea God Viking. Indeed, this set definitely is a jokeset, as Aquaman's playstyle revolves around his glorious nipples, as he uses them to summon torrents of water, fishy friends and stun the foe with the glory of his rechargable nipples.

And in that sense, it suceeds admirably, being quite an amusing moveset despite being on the short side, interspreading decent jokes and fun little jabs inside it combined with the middle brow hilarity of the nipples, which is thankfully usually retired for a move or two before being returned to, helping prevent it from being stale. Gameplay wise, it's not bad either, as it has some decent if sometimes sparse flow and a decent playstyle involving the water and Aquaman's little summons, which work together nicely. The whole moveset isn't too interesting and the flow doesn't get low at some points, but the humor kicks it up a notch and makes it an average to enjoyable read, injecting a little more fun into everything.

Plus it has dat final smash.

Sometimes, a drill is just a drill

Yet another BN Mega Man set? At this rate, we're gonna have Best Mega Man Set in this contest's awards, not that I'm complaining...

Unfortunately, I can't say I liked Drillman.EXE that much. The core of the set as a terraformer is fine, though the uses for this in the set are only okay, and I feel like a little less should have gone into the terraforming moves, as a large amount of Drillman's moves terraform, which can make it hard to keep the "controlled" part of controlled chaos down, I think. A little more focus on doing stuff after the terraforming is complete could have helped the set along, I think.

There isn't too much going on in this set that is TOO interesting and the flow can tend to disappear a bit at times, though I do like that fissure move, even if it is slightly cheap. I do wish he had a non-stall than fall DAir though, given how Drillman actually has a somewhat comprehensive gimping game, and a different style DAir would have helped with that.

Overall, though, as you may have guessed from the short comment, it's not a set I liked, but I didn't dislike it much, either. I could have seen it being much better, but as is, it just kind of exists, there. So yep.

 

[BKupa666]

PRINCESS BUBBLEGUM
The sticky hair concept is pretty sweet, no pun intended, on paper, as it provides Bubblegum with close-ranged options, not the least of which includes her ability to approach foes backwards to capture them. What surfaces as a slight problem here is that Bubblegum's hair, her most interesting attribute, is an attribute, not a move; this results in her moves that allow her to interact with this centerpiece being a bit dull individually.

Of course, this isn't to say the strategies she does have aren't strong when they're not rushed into the set. Her ledge game explores territory left rather untouched by other characters, and I enjoy how she takes advantage of various attacks, specifically F-Smash, while tethered/anchored to the stage with her hair. Her options for severing hair in different lengths, assembling the scraps as hazards, before growing it back also add depth, though said depth does contribute to the illusion that she focuses more on her hair than her foes...the lack of focus the set gives to enlarging and annihilating a foe is also responsible for this perception. All in all, this is easily a better contest opener than Hook, and offers fewer negative tropes than most, if not all older Davian sets.

SOUNDWAVE SUPERIOR
As a rule, it's best to not center a character around a move where a strong effect will randomly appear. I would also appreciate a bit more explanation about how Soundwave must play patiently, since him having powerful moves leaves a lot open to the imagination as to what playing with patience actually means. I commend you for being the first newcomer to post a set in the contest, and hope you will continue to hone your movesetting skills in our community.

 

[Kholdstare]

ASHENS by MASTERWARLORD AND DAVIDREAMCATCHA

CHARACTERIZATION — ★★★★★ — You successfully capture the "feel" of Ashens, mainly by having the moveset essentially a direct translation of his videos into Smash. You make it feel like you're playing with the foe like a toy, and the toy matchups add to that idea. However, I must say the way his playstyle turns out has an un-Ashens vibe. Using the slip-n-slide of a flow of water from an unmade cupcake as a central KO idea? Bringing the foe to his shelf so he can "review" and attack them while they're already on the shelf? Am I weird to think that Ashens wouldn't use his flamethrower on something that's already been deemed an interesting item? I certainly love that his grab game has him "review" the foe, that's as in-character as you can get with this set up, but it seems the moveset turns into "Ashens Hitler the sadist torturer" instead of Ashens the toy reviewer.
DETAIL — ★★★★★ — The moveset certainly is standard detailing from you, Warlord. However, you're not as detailed as your old days, which is actually better, because too much detail is overkill. You tell us what we need to know and how it's best used, and you try to cover most situations that would occur. However, sometimes you make such a mess of the description that I can't really figure out what's supposed to happen and I have to refer back to the videos. This is most notable in the Neutral Special, and I had to outright ask you in the chat what it was good for. Another thing I was wondering: what happens to the other foes when you use your grab to take a foe to the shelf? Are they insta-ko'd? Do they have to stop and watch as Ashens fights their comrade alone? Clarifying this would help.
BALANCE — ★★★★★ — Sorry, Warlord and Dave, but I can't really decide as to what Ashens' balance would be. Some times, especially with the flamethrower, he seems absolutely broken, but other times I think he'd be useless with him fiddling with interacting with his toys multiple times and whatnot in order for them to actually activate and do something. You never really can tell balance with MYM Smash unless the characters are simple or obvious, and Ashens is quite complicated so I have no idea on that regard.
ORIGINALITY — ★★★★★ — Ashens is certainly unique, which is unsurprising since you adore making movesets for unique, fresh ideas. The premise is unique, and you set off to make it different from any other set ever made. This turns out to bite you when you have moves like flamethrower's unique fire effect, but it's certainly original. I'd love to see more ideas from both of you.
PLAYSTYLE — ★★★★★ — Okay, yeah, he can lay toys and such down and tip over his cup and burn the foe and take them to the shelf, but to me it seems like a jumbled mess. It seems complicated and would take ages to figure out. That being said, he does what you say he does, and in that regard he's good at playstyle. Is it user-friendly? No. Is it perfect for a MYMer like Warlord who adores these complicated shenanigans? I'd have to say yeah. I doubt I'd play as him, though.
PRESENTATION — ★★★★★ — Average is definitely the word I'd go for here if it was a normal Warlord set, except you have the pictures and videos for visual aid. Thank you very much for that. Without those the set would be even harder to comprehend. It's a big step up, but then again you'll probably never do another set that needs visual aids like this or draws from a source where you're trying to emulate it in Smash and it has videos to take screencaps of. Dave's organization is usually more pleasing on the eye, but your organization is neither pretty nor ugly, Warlord, so I'm not going to care if you keep it this way forever.​

MIKE DAWSON by JUNAHU

CHARACTERIZATION — ★★★★★ — Needless to say, Jun, you've done an excellent job with characterization. Every animation and move looks right, and it screams "incompetent", exactly what Mike is. In fact, you've captured the awfulness of Dark Seed-type animation with your words. Okay I'll stop gasming now.
DETAIL — ★★★★★ — Now, normally for the attacks being so short as they are I'd give you a lower score, but you walk the fine line between "not enough" and "stylistically enough" detail with your writing. You describe it, and you don't waste any more words on it. I'm not saying it's bad, no, it gives it a certain style. But there's not enough detail in it to warrant a higher rating.
BALANCE — ★★★★★ — Mike is balanced in an underpowered way, which is undoubtedly what you wanted. You wanted him to be a weak, negative-man type character masquerading as a normal one, and I think you achieved it. His side special is one of the few things that lends him any semblance of a strength, or at least superficially, and that's the reason I'm giving you a higher score.
ORIGINALITY — ★★★★★ — Several of his moves have effects I've never seen before, and Jack lends him a nice original flavor. Many of these are generic, but I can't really blame you, considering it's Mike Dawson we're talking about here. I didn't expect a very original moveset in the first place.
PLAYSTYLE — ★★★★★ — Mike pulls off what you aim to do perfectly, and the moves subtly but surely achieve it. The ring toss, Jack, his grab, and his Down Special all tie into a wonderful playstyle that's not hard to figure out, and surprisingly something I'd want to play with.
PRESENTATION — ★★★★★ — While the current moveset is plenty ugly and fitting, I liked that .jpg in a hilariously ironic way. I want it back, then you'll get a five star.​

KAMMY KOOPA by GETOCOOLAID

CHARACTERIZATION — ★★★★★ — I haven't played Paper Mario, so I have no idea how you characterized Kammy. There's not much character present, but I imagine she's a generic Bowser servant? I dunno, I'd have to be a fan of the series to give you a better score.
DETAIL — ★★★★★ — You do a great job with detail, geto, which pleases me. It also pleases me that you use SBUs, so plus one star for that. One nitpick: you referenced moves used by other characters from Paper Mario, but I don't know what these moves look like, so that frame of reference is useless. Just saying.
BALANCE — ★★★★★ — Kammy seems perfect at balance. Not too strong, but not too weak. When you write simple and don't make complex playstyles, it's easier to do well in this category, it seems.
ORIGINALITY — ★★★★★ — I've seen many a terraformer and territorial control in my day, and many of them revolve around building blocks on the stage. Heck, my Concrete Man and Shadow Beast do it. Kammy does have some original stuff in here with the invisibility and healing her blocks, but I've seen the maze of stage before.
PLAYSTYLE — ★★★★★ — Kammy's playstyle is done well, but it's certainly not the easiest to pull off because I can imagine you'd take a lot of positioning and luck to get the blocks how you want. You're essentially playing LEGO while wild dogs try to bite you, and the foe will certainly try to stop you from planting the blocks which could be a pain. I personally don't care for this playstyle, but others might, and it's not that terribly complicated.
PRESENTATION — ★★★★★ — Your presentation is objectively better than the previous two movesets. I love the headers, the stats organization, and of course that singular yellow block highlighted. The purple isn't DarkOrchid so it's easy on the eyes, and it captures the Kammy feel.​

 

[Junahu]

Comments
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My movesets are better than your movesets, but I'll give you guys big bouncy commentry anyway, cuz I'm so squishy nice.

Aquaman
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Since I didn't see the entire stream this set was made in, I've no way of divining how much of this craziness was from other MYMers. But, obviously people had a lot of fun, and that's what the moveset aimed to do, so well done on that front.
The moveset itself makes a lot more sense when you realise the word "Nipple" is one of those substitute nouns, like "smurf". It's mainly there as a placeholder, but also works to keep the tone of the moveset suitably nonsensical. Not sure what the ass is meant to be, other than an ass, but hey... whatever.
I was surprised actually by how well this moveset abused its tone in order to force readers to see the set in a certain way. There's likely a baker's dozen of plotholes and balance concerns in there, but because its all presented in such a ludicrous manner, these anal concerns seem superfluous and the reader sees an adequate underwater moveset with fishy summons.

As a stream-of-conciousness piece of writing, the underlieing moveset does become inconsistant, with each attack almost taking on its own personality, seperate from the rest.
I was also hoping against hope, that this moveset would somehow become more serious and functional than it otherwise let on. But then, it wouldn't have half the nipples it ended up with, so I won't complain.

Ghetsis
​

Don't for a minute think the irony of Ghetsis fighting without Pokemon has escaped me, because it hasn't. Since his eventual goal has always been to convince everyone to release their Pokemon so only he has them, "Ghetsis Sans Pokemon" is more indicative of his ruse than his actual self. There's also the fact that every attack is named after a Pokemon attack, a common practice in Pokemon movesets, but used as a more clever touch here.
Still, this is absurdly complicated, or rather, it's presented in a way that makes it way more complex and tedious than it really is. Interactions stacked on interactions result in entire paragraphs dedicated to extremely situational things. I cannot appreciate that, It's just too much.

Ignoring the specifics of this nigh impermeable moveset that I personally find impossible to enjoy (please, you do not have to mention every interaction that every attack has, we're smart readers, just not patient readers) what I understand of it is actually quite fitting for Ghetsis, who has a lot of set-ups and interactions designed around overcoming his mobility weakness. The spaghetti junction of interactivity all coalesces into making Ghetsis play the long game, potentially even continueing to set-up over multiple stocks before finally enacting his plan at the last moment. Sure, his surprising bouts of strength and magical powers (including the ability to spawn a pyramid of ice using nothing but his staff) are pretty bonkers, but there are some cool (less bonkers) ideas here too, such as the use of the Shadow Triad for most of his defensive and retreating needs.

All in all though, never make a set this notoriously verbose again, or I'll be... very slightly upset about it.

Xehanort
​

My favourite parts of this moveset are everything that isn't the specials. Obviously the clones are used liberally as static hitboxes, and as spell spamming turrets that the foe needs to disable, but it's the attacks themselves that are the highlights here. From the shield lowering F-tilt, to the stage-wide smash attack spells, almost every attack felt both pragmatic and sensible, as well as just itching to be used in tandem with a clone. The b-air sucks though
I don't usually compare one set to another, but this is just too relevant to pass up. Both Xehanort and Ghetsis have quicksand deep movesets, with an abusive number of interactions. But Xehanort has the sense to build these interactions logically, using simple building blocks with consistant rules, and the varying complexities of the elements at play are gradually built up throughout the moveset, instead of dumped in the reader's face all at once.

But, how is this moveset ever supposed to be defeated? I know it's wierd for me to make a balance quibble, but Xehanort can reset the match endlessly until the foe gives in and lets him win. You can even trigger it via a duplicate's attacks for heaven's sake, the foe has no chance in hell of ever having an advantage, ever (unless they somehow manage to KO him in 7 seconds). I wouldn't have mentioned it, but this kind of balance flaw should have been obvious even BEFORE you wrote the move. Besides, its main use isn't to reset yourself when you're losing. No. It's to deliberately rewind the foe so that they're right within range of a duplicate you have ready to go, and for that there's no need to go so far back as to reset the whole match.
​

 

[FrozenRoy]

Randy Johnson

"The Big Unit"

Randy Johnson(September 10, 1963-Present, Playing Career 1988-2009) is a former Major League Baseball player and future Hall of Famer, known for being one of the most dominating pitchers who has ever played, alongside his 6' 10" frame which, combined with his fastball, turned him into an intimidating force in the big leagues and led to being nicknamed "The Big Unit" from a teammate. Randy Johnson's pitch repitoire included his famed fastball, which often clocked in at over 100 MPH and was known to hit up to 102 MPH at it's highest, his nasty low 90 MPH slider, which had nasty late break and was considered his signature pitch, along with a split-finger fastball and sinker which were thrown less but were effective to induce groundouts and mix speeds. Although Randy Johnson spent nine years with the Seattle Mariners, he is probably most famous for his time with the Arizona Diamondbacks, where he spent five years and was part of the sensational story 2001 World Series Diamondbacks and pitched his Perfect Game.

Pitcher's Profile

Randy Johnson was a 6' 10" pitcher, so unsurprisingly, he is quite tall: In fact, his build is essentially the same as Ganondorf's, in both height and width. Likewise, the muscle and build required to be a player of his size makes him quite heavy, the same weight as Ganondorf as well. Unlike Ganondorf, Randy has athleticism, which means he can actually run worth a damn, though he's not particularly fast, sitting right in the middle of the Brawl cast ground speed wise.

In the air, Randy is terrible, most likely stemming from being a real life person. He lacks control, moves slowly and fastfalls at about the same speed as Fox. You do not really want to be in the air as Randy. He possesses decent tracition, but that's all, with a first jump of decent size but a poor second jump.

Randy can Crawl, but it's very poor, as he doesn't go down much at all, making it fairly useless. He cannot do any other special things. As a note, since you might not know, Randy Johnson will have his pitching glove on, meaning he has one open hand and one hand with a glove on it.

On the Mound

Neutral Special: Four-Seam Fastball

The four-seam fastball is the most well known baseball pitch and the most basic. It goes straight forward with little to no movement what-so-ever, relying solely on speed to get strikes. On the plus side, the way it is thrown allows it to be thrown with great speed, and fastballs over 100 MPH have been recorded. Randy Johnson threw fastballs over 100 MPH during his career, though it usually hovered in the high 90s.

Whrn this move is inputted, Randy will take out a standard baseball, which is pretty small. About the size of Fox's lasers, maybe. Anyway, he will somewhat quickly wind up the pitch, before throwing it forward at lightning speed. He throws this pitch from the "stretch", which is the type of windup pitchers go to when runners are on base, due to it's faster delivery. This causes the starting lag to actualyl be not too bad, probably about as fast as Falco's laser, with similiar but slightly better ending lag.

The baseball itself is a bit odd as far as projectiles go. It comes out lightning quick, befitting of Randy's hard throwing prowess, going as fast as Sonic's dash...for about half of a Battlefield platform. After that, it will slow, gradually slowing down to Ganondorf's walk speed over the duration of it's existance. It goes as far as the entirity of Final Destination, however. At the end of this, it will drop to the ground and disappear, having run out of steam.

The damage and knockback the baseball does is directly tied into how fast it was going when it hits the foe. If it hits at it's initial Sonic speed, it does an astounding 18% damage and deadly knockback that KOs at 100%...at the very end of it's lifespan, it deals 1% non-flinching damage, being totally useless. It can be anywhere in-between during that time, but as a frame of reference, it deals 9% damage that KOs at 160% halfway through it's lifespan.

If the baseball hits a foe, it will bounce off of them and fall to the stage as an item, rolling for a bit if it has enough speed. It only rolls about half a Battlefield platform away at max speed, so don't expect it to go too far, and always rolls in the direction opposite of where it hit. So if you threw a baseball from the left and hit a foe to your right, it will roll to the left. The baseball acts as a standard throwing item for the foe, dealing damage equal to...let's say a thrown Ray Gun, same knockback too. Randy, being a pitcher, has his moveset change a little with the addition of not having to pull out a baseball, which will be discussed on a per-move basis. Some moves will cause the baseball to disappear after use or need to be used like this again to once again be an item: A foe who uses it as an item won't cause it to disappear until the normal item disappear time limit, unless they throw it off the stage. Randy won't throw the baseball like a throwing item, unless he uses a move that causes him to throw it.

For this move, it merely cuts the starting lag to 3/4th of what it was before, as Randy does not need to take out the baseball to perform it. This of course causes it to be used for the move and the item is lost. As an side note, the baseball is released about the chest-high level of Randy, so characters with particularly small crouches(Snake, Jigglypuff, Kirby) can dodge it.

Side Special: Slider

The slider is an effective baseball pitch thrown by a fair deal of the league. It is a breaking ball, meaning that it's primary means of getting a strike is fooling the batter with movement, rather than speed. Because of the different grip required to throw a baseball with movement, the slider generally loses about 10 MPH compared to a pitcher's fastball. The slider breaks down and the same direction of the throwing arm of the pitcher. since Randy is a left-handed pitcher, his slider moved down and to the left. Randy's late break on the ball made it a terrifying strike out pitch and hitters would sometimes swing at pitchers that nearly hit their back feet.

The Slider is thrown with the same starting and ending lag as the Four-Seam Fastball, along with the same animation, although people who pay a lot of attention to Randy will notice the difference between the two when he actually throws it, due to his grip on the ball. The baseball comes out slower than his four-seamer, starting out at Captain Falcon's dash speed and only going half the distance of Final Destination, with the same slowdown mechanic, only slowing down a bit faster. This also means that it doesn't do quite as much damage as the Four-Seamer, dealing 15% max, though the knockback still KOs at 120%, with the end of the move still doing 1% non-flinching and midway through doing 7% and knockback that KOs at 190%.

The secret in this move is it's late break. What that means is that, when it gets right in front of an enemy, it will break into the background, allowing it to strike any foes who happen to be dodging. This is important to remember, because the fact that the slider does this means it can't actually hit a foe who isn't dodging. This makes it situational, but important: Remember that it's animation is identical to the Four-Seam, so the opponent does not know which pitch you have thrown until they see it's speed. And, given how fast the fastball goes, this can be deadly...not to mention when you do this up close, where both do more damage and dodge times are short.

Just like the Four-Seam, this move's lag is cut down to 3/4th's of normal while holding a baseball item, due to having a baseball in hand and not needing to take one out. Just like the Four-Seam, since the item is used for this move, it is lost unless it hits.

Down Special: The Windup

There are two types of pitching motions: The windup and the stretch. Generally speaking, the windup takes longer to execute, but it allows the pitcher greater control and velocity, making it perfect for when there is nobody on base. When somebody is on base, however, the slow execution can make it too easy to steal a base, and thus a pitcher uses the stretch. The stretch is generally believed to cause control and velocity to dip down a little, but there's no hard evidence for this, and a fair amount of pitchers actually prefer the stretch in all situations, almost all of them relievers.

When this move is used, and it may only be initialized on the ground, Randy will plant his feet to the ground and brace himself. He has now entered a traditional windup instead of a stretch and will use that for all attacks related to baseball throwing. This causes Randy's throws to have 1.5x more starting lag, due to going through the motions of the longer windup, though they now also have 1.5x less ending lag, as Randy is able plant his feet and recover easier from the windup. The attacks go further, roughly 1/4th the distance of Final Destination longer, and thus take slightly longer to peter out, though maximum speed remains the maximum. In addition, due to needing to keep his position, Randy's ground speed is cut in half, although he is in better position to make an athletic jump and thus the size of his first jump is increased by 1.5x.

This series of buffs are pretty good, though it is a trade-off: Yes, you can recover from the moves faster, but you'll have to use them more sparingly due to the higher starting lag. Note that any bonus lag cuts apply only to the original lag times and will not cut down on lag times that are longer due to the windup: For example, having a baseball item and using your Neutral Special will reduce the original lag to 3/4ths of it's total, which is then multipled by 1.5x due to the windup.

To return to the stretch, merely use the Down Special again, which will cause Randy to shift position back to the stretch, returning everything to how it was originally. Both entering the windup and returning to the stretch are fairly lagless and can be done in a pinch. The windup does not affect aerials, due to Randy not having any ground under him from which to windup or stretch to begin with.

Up Special: Diving Catch

A diving catch is just what it sounds like: A player dives while attempting to catch a ball, usually to prevent it from dropping in the outfield, or to catch it before it leaves the infield to throw someone out. Although Randy Johnson is a pitcher and thus does not usually do diving catches, it's certainly not unheard of. And there's not exactly a lot of recovery options...

Anyway, this move is very simple, so let's get to it. Randy, summoning the strength of Brawl recovery, manages to jump with his glove pointed up, going about...oh...the same distance as Dark Dive in the same manner, I'd say. Perhaps slightly less. Hitting foes on the way causes a mere 3% damage with flinching knockback, making it pretty much useless for anything more than knocking a foe off an edgehog. As an extra note, at the end of the move, Randy will stick his glove up as high as he can, slightly increasing the range of his ledge sweetspot, so you know, that can help save him.

If a baseball overlaps with Randy's hurtbox during this move, he'll catch it with his glove, before throwing it downwards-diagonally as an attempted fastball. Since it's in the air, though, he can't generate as much speed: It goes half as fast from the start, meaning it starts at halfway damage, and goes half as far as the Four-Seamer. Still, it can at least be used against enemy's throwing your own baseballs at you, so that's good. Randy goes into helpless at the end of the move no matter what.

The First Pitch

Jab: Pitch and Catch

Pitch and catch isn't a baseball term.

The move startd with a very simple jab, as Randy simply punches in front of him. It's quick, it does 5% damage, it doesn't have a lot of knockback or ending lag...in other words, it is a garden variety jab. Holding down A, however, allows you to transition into the second part of this move, as Randy bends down a little and puts his glove in front of him, the palm part open.

While in this catcher's stance, Randy will catch any item thrown to his front in the mitt. No damage will be dealt or items destroyed, explosive's won't detonate and so on. Randy will then exit the stance with minimal ending lag, holding the item. From there on, you can use it however you want, that sort of thing. While this is good protection against any item, it's particularly notable in the context of your baseball items, as it makes the foe think twice about taking a weak hit at the end of a baseball's movement and chucking it back at you, as it allows you to simple grab it when they do. This move's primary weakness comes from the fact it only protects the front of Randy: Hit him from behind or above and he can't catch the item. If it hits in front and a bit above him or what not it's fine, just not pretty far above.

Randy can get out of the catcher's stance by either letting go of A, which is largely lagless, or tapping the control stick left or right, which will cause him to rolldodge in that direction, though it adds some lag on the end of the roll, meaning a correctly predicting opponent will likely get off a tilt or a particularly quick smash attack on you. Try to mix up how you end this move to avoid being predictable. Also note that you cannot use the glove part of this while holding a baseball, as it counts as an item.

Forward Tilt: Soft Liner

A soft liner is when a baseball is hit softly, usually to an infield player, but not into the ground, which would be a soft grounder. These are almost always easy outs and are rarely dropped or get past the infielder.

This move is a two-part move, though the second part can only be used if you have a baseball on hand. The first part is a simple, somewhat hard punch, which angles itself somewhat down in the way it's punched. It deals 11% damage and some decent knockback, though it will not KO until 220%, with average startup and, unless the second attack is used, somewhat above average ending lag, making it just a generally decent forward tilt. Tapping the A button after the attack while holding a baseball will cause the second part of the move to be used, like Snake's forward tilt.

This second attack consists of Randy just lightly tossing the ball forward, which deals 5% damage and goes at about the speed of Ganondorf's dash for half of a Battlefield platform. It deals non-flinching damage, so it's not useful for adding on to the knockback of the Forward Tilt, it's a true combo with it until very high percentages, making it an excellent way of tacking on 5% damage for free. In addition, because the toss was such a soft one, the baseball won't disappear when it hits the ground, meaning you can re-use a single baseball item for this repeatedly. The baseball will roll along the ground harmlessly for another half of a Battlefield platform after it lands, however, so you'll have to move a bit to get to it. The ending lag on this is quite low, also making it useful as a lower ending lag alternative to the normal forward tilt.

Up Tilt: Toss Up

We've got another two-part move here, so let's start with the first part, which is a simple uppercut from Randy. What did you expect, some kinda magical do-dad? Anyway, it's a decent if non-spectacular attack, dealing a solid 10% damage with decent vertical knockback, KOs at about 230%. On the plus side, it comes out at a pretty good speed, and it's ending lag is only average, though it's range is decent at best. The second attack, just like the forward tilt, is done by pressing A after the main attack, in a Snake F-Tilt manner. Just likt the Forward Tilt, it also requires a baseball.

Pressing the A button will cause Randy to pretty swiftly give the baseball in his hand a soft upward toss, which deals 5% non-flinching damage, just like the Forward Tilt's second attack. Unlike the forward tilt, it's not a true combo with the normal attack, though it does punish air dodges well. However, Randy will also catch the ball in his glove, so you don't even have to go retrieve it again...well, unless the other part of this attack comes into play, though it's reserved mostly for 2v2/FFAs. Starting lag on this is low, by the by.

What I mean by that is, if you strike the baseball with an attack while it is in the air, the baseball will go flying in the direction of the move's knockback, at a speed based on the strength of the attack. A 20% damage strike causes it to go at the speed of Randy's four-seam fastball, with each 5% less done resulting in 1/4th the length and speed, until at 5% damage or less it hardly moves at all. By tossing the baseball up with a partner around, they can give it a quick jolt to turn it into a projectile. Randy will not catch the baseball after this move and will go into his normal ending lag, which is average in length, as soon as the ball is struck. If the ball is struck by an attack of 10% or more damage, it will disappear at the end of the move, otherwise just rolling softly to a stop on the ground.

Down Tilt: Kick

A generic name for a generic attack. From his crouching position, Randy simply tries to give a downward kick, which works somewhat well. It deals 8% damage and a decent upward-forward pop, though nobody is calling it a KO move any time soon. Still, it has some decent range, definitely more than the tilt, starting lag is okay and ending lag is low, and it doesn't have any baseball interactions nor use them up, allowing you to throw it out freely at any time. In addition, since it's not a neutral attack, it won't accidentally grab baseballs when you don't wish too.

So, while a somewhat boring move, it's ability to be thrown out at any time without fear of messing stuff up is valued, and it's a decent if unspectacular GTFO move. Let's move on to other things.

Dashing Attack: Running Catch

A running catch is just what it sounds like: A catch of a baseball, made on the run. Simple.

Anyway, Randy will dip his glove down like he's trying to catch something on the ground, before flicking it back up in a psued0-punch motion. The attack takes a bit for the hitbox to come out, but it does a surprisingly strong 12% damage and knockback that KOs at around 170%, so it's a shockingly strong attack. The ending lag is pretty normal and not extra punishable, really, though it deals very poor shield pushback and is also a very poor DACUS.

The key fun part of this move is the part where he dips his glove down, however, as he will gobble up any baseballs he runs into along the way. While this might sound standard for a Dash Attack, when he grabs a baseball, you can then proceed to cancel this move into any of Randy's four pitches, which are the aforementioned Neutral Special and Side Special, along with the soon to be seen Forward Smash and Down Smash, with the 3/4th lag reduction of having a baseball in hand included. Just like a DACUS, you will also retain your movement for the move, letting you throw the projectiles on a bit of a short run, though it's still poor movement wise. If you already have a baseball, you can still cancel into those moves. The moves all function as if they were used normally, including lag differentials via your Down Special.

Strike Three

Forward Smash: Splitter

A splitter, less commonly known as the split-fingered fastball, is a baseball pitch. It's held with the grip of a fastball, except the two middle-most fingers are split and a downward snap is applied, causing it to lose speed(Usually in the range of 8-10 MPH off the fastball) and drop down. Thus, the pitch is a breaking ball, with it's effectiveness partially due to the grip it is held, as it can fool hitters into believing a fastball is coming up. In this sense, combined with the speed, it is very similiar to a changeup, and Randy Johnson used it in the same manner one would use a changeup. Some pitchers use a fastball, splitter and changeup, allowing them to confound batters with three different speeds and similiar releases out of the hand.

As with all of Randy's pitches, he takes out a baseball if he doesn't have one, before starting his pitching motion and letting it rip. This move's animation and lag are exactly the same as the Four-Seam Fastball/Neutral Special, meaning that foes will have trouble knowing what pitch it is...until it comes out, because it does not come out at the speed of a fastball. Instead, it has the exact same speed statistics as the Slider, meaning it starts off at Captain Falcon dash speed, travels half of Final Destination while slowing down and does, at most, 15% and knockback that KOs at 120%. It does not have any special effect on top of this, though it does deal a surprising amount of shield damage, and it doesn't need too. And yes, it's lag is cut to 3/4ths with a baseball item in hand, just like those moves.

The key to the Splitter, just like in real life, is the deception of the animation and the deception of speed. When the opponent sees you toss it, they will naturally think you mean fastball, because the animation is the same as the fastball, which is different from the slider. This means they are likely to expect a pitch much faster than what comes out, thus if they...say...roll or spot dodge, they're going to run right into the Splitter due to speed difference, and if they shield...well, shield damage, remember? Not to mention it can be confused for a Slider and, well, one only hits when you're dodging and the other hits when you're not, you can see where THAT is going...

Charging this move up does nothing and you won't flash yellow while you do. Seems sorta pointless. Is it because he's trying to conceal the pitch...?

Down Smash: Sinker

A sinker is yet another fastball variation, which sacrifices some speed for much more downward movement, moreso than the Splitter. Sinkers are often used to induce groundouts and double plays due to this, making them effective when thrown while runners are on base, but they are very easy to hit for home runs when misplaced high in the strike zone, which can make them risky. Some pitchers use this as their primary pitch and are known as sinkerball specialists, known for high groundout and double play ratios but low strikeout ratios. Randy wasn't one of them, but he did incorporate the sinker as a 4th pitch to be used in certain situations.

As expected of Randy's pitches, he'll go through his standard throwing motion, with roughly the same starting and ending lag as his Neutral Special. This move has a different hand animation than the Slider or Fastball/Splitter, though, and thus can be seen by an astute opponent, along with the fact it is chargable and he'll flash yellow doing it, most likely since he can't pretend it's anything else. Anyway. This move, when released, moves at a speed between Captain Falcon and Sonic's dash speeds, making it move at a speed just between the Fastball and Splitter/Slider, and will go for 3/4th of Final Destination as it loses speed. At the start, it will deal 16%-21% damage, but it doesn't deal knockback. You see, when the Sinker approaches a foe, it does exactly what it's name implies: It sinks downwards. This causes it to shieldpoke the average shield, going straight under it, and will trip the foe 100% of the time, making it effective as a temporary stall of the foe or to annoy approaches. It also provides quite the annoyance to people who are willing to eat the Splitter shield damage or the like, and it's unique speed class makes it nice to toss out along with your Fastballs and such.

Of course, since it's sinking down, the opponent can jump right over it, and due to it's unique animation and speed, you can't have the Splitter mindgame with it, so it's sometimes a tad hard to properly utilize. Still, it's ability to be quite strong with a charge and anti-shield/anti-approach ability is not to be underestimated. Also, yes, it has the same 3/4th lag with baseball item thing they all do.

Up Smash: Drag Down

Randy swiftly gives an upward punches with his fist, which as you may have guessed, has quick startup. This punch deals 11%-13% damage and freeze frames in the same style and length as Wolf's Forward Tilt. While these freeze frames are active, if he hit a foe, he will grab the foe with his gloved hand and toss them forward a set 1.5 Battlefield platform's distance, dealing 2%-4% damage. The foe will continue to fall at their normal fall speed during the set knockback, so they'll probably end up on the ground at the end of the move, so it's not a bad move as an anti-air or to space a foe for a baseball. It has pretty average ending lag if it misses, but rather bad ending lag if it hits, as Randy gets back into position after throwing the foe away.

Seventh Inning Stretch

Grab

Randy Johnson reaches out his gloved hand and tries to go grab the foe. Good range and speed for a grab.

Pummel: Pummel

Randy pummels the foe's face with a punch. 2% damage, quick to perform, good for racking up some quick damage.

Forward Throw: The Pitch

Randy throws the foe forward a little, with weak knockback and merely 5% damage, the foe being sent approximately half a Battlefield platform in front of Randy.

At any point during this move, or right after it, you may press the input for any of your four pitches. That is to say, Neutral Special, Side Special, F-Smash and D-Smash. While it isn't a 100% combo with the throw, the fact your opponent has to immedietely react to a pitch can force a variety of responses, such as shieldind and dodginh. The opponent also has to have the speed and animation of your pitches down pat, because otherwise, it is very easy to dodge into the wrong pitch! You could also not throw a pitch and instead retreat or approach to mix it up, I suppose...

Back Throw: Turn Toss

Randy grips the foe and turns around quickly, slamming them into the ground as he does, in a manner similiar visually to Lucario's back throw. This basic throw deals a solid 13% and is your best GTFO throw, KOing at 165%, making it a decent KO move as well. It doesn't have anything special aside from that, serving as a generic way of getting the foe out of your face and into where you want. It also does decent damage so, you know, there's that.

Up Throw: Short Toss

Randy tosses the foe slightly up, dealing 7% damage and extremely light knockback. The knockback is light enough that this move can actually be used as a chaingrab against particularly heavy or fast falling characters, though it's not the most effective of chainthrows: Even the one most easily chaingrabbed, King DeDeDe due to his combo of speed and fast falling, maxes out at 50% damage, and a lot of the lighter characters can't be chaingrabbed at all. This makes it an okay damage racking tool, but it's more of a passive threat against heavyweights then anything else.

Down Throw: Warm-up

Randy...gently sets the foe down on the ground in prone, apparantly deciding to mirror Snake for a moment. Just like Snake, this move randomly deals damage, in this case 6%, and the foe is put into prone with you at frame neutral. Insert generic prone abuse game here.

Ball Four

Neutral Aerial: The Alledged Kick

Randy attempts an aerial kick, figuring he needs some aerial defense, which...goes okay, but it's an awkward looking kick, and that shows in it's somewhat anemic damage for an aerial, 8%, and the fact it has below average knockback, while having a bit higher starting lag than you would expect from generic NAir kick. It has the same property of all sex kicks, the hitbox staying out and getting weaker until the end of the move, but it's not all THAT useful considering Randy is horrible in the air and how weak the move is initially. This move does provide some basic aerial protection though and the end of the kick will allow it to strike someone coming out of an air dodge. It also has surprisingly low end lag, making it fairly safe to throw out.

Forward Aerial: Attempted Aerial

Randy rears back and attempts to imitate the King of Evil his stats are so imitated from, throwing forward a vicious punch. This blow deals 15% and strong knockback that KOs at 90%, making it his strongest aerial, but it's got hefty starting lag and severe ending lag, as Randy rearing back to get enough strength on the punch takes a while and he has to try and correct himself in the air. Landing lag is similiarly severe.

On the plus side, if you hold a baseball item, Randy will throw it during this move, causing it to travel at half the speed and distance as his Neutral Special. While it won't cover the ending lag, the added range can at least be used to extent the attack and make it slightly harder to dodge, though it doesn't help him cover spot dodges...

Down Aerial: Ground Ball

A ground ball is a ball hit by a batter on to the ground, usually resulting in an easy out and, if there is a runner on base, a double play. Ground balls are more likely to be hit on pitches lower in the strike zone, while fly balls are usually hit by balls high in the zone, and sinkers are notorious for a high ground ball rate.

Anyway, Randy will lean his arms back, before sort of trying to combine a pitch and a downward fist slam together, only vaguely suceeding. This initial blow deals 8% damage and is a meteor smash, albeit a weak one, with actually somewhat decent startup, but horrible ending lag.

The key of this move, however, is that Randy will throw a fastball while using this move, just like his Neutral Special, but angled downward. It has the same stats as that, Final Destination in length, speed, 3/4th lag if baseball item in hand, all that stuff. The key difference is that it deals downward knockback, as you may have expected, turning it into a powerful projectile spike! The ability to gimp foes, possibly by even just comboing it with the first hit of this, is pretty strong, but one must keep in mind this move's absolutely terrible ending lag: Improper use leads to easily SDing, let me tell you.

And if you were wondering how he got the force to throw this fastball in the air? He's using gravity to him out, since the downward force of gravity plus a fastball thrown straight down would allow it to be faster, I imagine...

Up Aerial: Random Flipkick

Randy does the namesake random flipkick, flipping and kicking with the worst of them. This random flipkick isn't as strong as your average random flipkick, but it's still one of his stronger aerials, with 11% damage and knockback that KOs at 160%, and it even has pretty quick startup! Awesome! Too bad the ending lag is horrible and the landing lag is even worse...

Back Aerial: Fly Ball

A fly ball is a ball hit by a batter into the air. These often are either caught by outfielders for an out, go foul, land for a base hit or, in the worst case scenario for a pitcher, flies right out of the park for a home run. Fastballs up in the zone are great for hitting these, along with soft breaking balls that catch too much of the plate and don't fool the hitter.

Anyway, Randy twists and turns around with some effort in midair, all while laying out a punch! It's not too strong, 10% damage with knockback that won't KO until 200%, but it does turn Randy around in midair, and it has really low ending lag...though the starting lag is more than you're used to for a back aerial. One of the rare options that approaches aerial "mobility" for Randy.

If a baseball item is used with this in hand, you can press A to have him toss it. It doesn't deal a lot of damage and stays at a constant speed of Ganondorf's walk, dealing 6% damage and weak knockback, but will travel at a downward and forward(after turning around) angle, making it a decent move for the trajectory and the fact it will fall slowly. The slow speed in which he threw it also means that, like Forward Tilt, the weak way it is thrown causes the baseball to not disappear, making it more re-usable. A decent aerial option for the turning around, decent attack and ability to toss a nice little projectile.

The Perfect Game

Final Smash: Perfect Game

A Perfect Game is one of the rarest feats in baseball and one of the most amazing. A perfect game is a game in which a pitcher allows absolutely no baserunners the entire game: In other words, the opposing team does not get a hit, does not walk, does not reach on any errors and is not awarded a free base via hit by a pitch, pitching as good a game as possible, thus making it "perfect". This feat has been accomplished only 22 times in the entire history of baseball, a testament to it's difficulty...for reference, over 1000 baseball games are played every year, and the MLB has been around over 100 years(Wikipedia puts it at 143 years). For reference, more people have orbitted the moon than have thrown a perfecto. Randy Johnson is one of these hallowed few. ...To pitch a perfect game, not, not to orbit the moon.

The Final Smash will change it's effect, depending on how many stocks you have lefted, or how many times you have died.

0 deaths/full stocks: Randy Johnson lights up ON FIRE before just turning back to normal with a determined look. The fire deals 20% and high knockback that KOs at 70%, but also doubles his ground speed, halves all of his lag and doubles both the speed and distance of all of his pitches, allowing you to go twice the distance of Final Destination at twice the speed! This last until Randy is KO'd, everyone is the match is KO'd at least once except Randy or someone is KO'd an equal amount of times(IE One person dying 3 times in a 4 player match, one person dyint two times and another one, etc).
1 Death: Same as 0 stocks, but the distance boost and speed boost is halved.
2 deaths: Same as 0 stocks, but there is no distance boost or speed boost, and the initial hitboxe deals 10% damage that KOs at 140%
3+ deaths: Lag is only cut by 3/4ths, no initial hitbox.
Last place, 3+ deaths: Instead of any of the above effects, you're healed to full! It's a last shot!

How to Pitch

Unsurprisingly, Randy Johnson is a projectile character, about what you would think for a pitcher. However, due to the way his projectiles lose steam at the end, he's not the best at being a pure camper. Instead, Randy wants to fight at the mid-range, where he can shatter approaches with stronger projectiles if they try to approach during them or force them to retreat a little. Suceeding as Randy requires mastery of the three primary pitches: Fastball, Slider, Splitter. The fastball is your primary projectile, due to it's length, speed and strength, but is also the easiest to defend against, making it horribly predictable to fight, while the Slider only works when unexpected, punishing dodgers and keeping the foe off guard. The Splitter is what ties them together, keeping a foe expecting both off their game by punishing shields and pretending to be other pitches, leading to confusion and, hopefully, openings to hit your fastball and other pitchs.

The sinker is much less used, but is valuable for it's ability to bypass shields and use tripping to shatter approaches and retreats. Your jab is also very useful, as your baseball items are a great help to you, but are also liabilities due to their decent item thrown capabilities. Forward Tilt and Up Tilt take nice advantage of this item, the latter especially in conjunction with a strong doubles partner, but Dash Attack's ability to pick them up on the fly and go into a reduced lag pitch isn't to be underestimated.

Grabs and aerials don't play too much into Randy's game, but the ability to chaingrab heavyweights with the U-Throw is a decent if unspectacular damage racking option, with the real meat of the grab game primarily being the Forward Throw, which can get in some nice damage and possible KOs by forcing the foe to recognize your pitch out of your hand and react accordingly. Aerials are terrible due to his aerial terribleness, but the Forward Aerial and Down Aerial provide some decent KO options, despite their heavy ending lag, and the Back Aerial can toss out a hitbox to annoy the foe.

Author's Notes: This moveset was made for fun and meant to be posted earlier, but I ended up stalling at the grab game. Didn't turn out too well, but it wasn't a major project anyway, more a set dedicated to the fact I've been watching and playing a lot of baseball games lately, both real and video. Turned out better than some of my earlier stuff, anyway.

Extras:

Forward Taunt: Staredown

Randy brings his glove in front of his face and glares the opponent down. Intimidating.

DOwn Tilt: Pitcher's Mound

Randy kicks his feet in front of him, as if cleaning the pitcher's mound, kicking up a little dirt and dust.

Up Tilt: Stretch

Randy stretches his arms a little, as if trying to work out any kinks.

Win 1: Fist Pump

Randy pumps up his fist in jubilation over a hard earned victory. Hoops and hollars are made. Cool story bro.

Win 2: Ice

Randy ices his arm after the victory, a common practice among pitchers.

Win 3: Walk Off

Randy just...walks away. He's got post game conferences to do!

Win 4: The Perfect Game

Win Pose 4 is only activated if Randy wins a match without ever losing a stock or, in one stock matches, without taking any damage. Randy will appear carried into the victory screen by two of his Diamondback teammates, as confetti and such streams down the screen in a large manner. A stat on his Brawl stats screen tells you how many Perfect Games you have with him.​

 

[lordvaati]

hello,all.

originally i was supposed to do a moveset based on a certain Smogon favorite, but I was thinking.....I should do a what if? moveset instead.

what if a caertain icon went to the competition? what would their moveset be? that, I shall answer...in my next MYM

also in the SSB4 threads now? that's pretty neat.

 

[Katapultar]

But, how is this moveset ever supposed to be defeated? I know it's wierd for me to make a balance quibble, but Xehanort can reset the match endlessly until the foe gives in and lets him win. You can even trigger it via a duplicate's attacks for heaven's sake, the foe has no chance in hell of ever having an advantage, ever (unless they somehow manage to KO him in 7 seconds). I wouldn't have mentioned it, but this kind of balance flaw should have been obvious even BEFORE you wrote the move. Besides, its main use isn't to reset yourself when you're losing. No. It's to deliberately rewind the foe so that they're right within range of a duplicate you have ready to go, and for that there's no need to go so far back as to reset the whole match.

This is something I indeed did consider, though I only addressed it via he still having the damage from the clones he made if you used them to trigger the counter - if a foe triggers the counter without a clone around he gets the effect for free, which is obviously pretty damaging against a MYM set. I considered having a limit such as only being able to go halfway or three-quarters into the past, but if you set-up before then you wouldn't be able to go back then. Either that or Young Xehanort takes damage from resetting time (20% or so), and to be safe foes have to grab him for the win.

 

[ForwardArrow]

This is something I indeed did consider, though I only addressed it via he still having the damage from the clones he made if you used them to trigger the counter - if a foe triggers the counter without a clone around he gets the effect for free, which is obviously pretty damaging against a MYM set. I considered having a limit such as only being able to go halfway or three-quarters into the past, but if you set-up before then you wouldn't be able to go back then. Either that or Young Xehanort takes damage from resetting time (20% or so), and to be safe foes have to grab him for the win.

If I had to make a suggestion, you could make it so Xehanort and not the foe keeps all his damage and stock loss. It definitely highly gimps the move, but still gives it major strategic implications in how you would set them up, and frankly I don't think it's nearly as important to the set as the duplicate stuff so gimping it heavily wouldn't be crushing to the rest of the set.

Aside from that it's actually my favorite set of the contest so far, and yes I am back, have gotten myself up to date and will be commenting tomorrow.

 

[FrozenRoy]

Having him take a reasonable amount of damage seems like it would work.

 

[Katapultar]

If I had to make a suggestion, you could make it so Xehanort and not the foe keeps all his damage and stock loss. It definitely highly gimps the move, but still gives it major strategic implications in how you would set them up, and frankly I don't think it's nearly as important to the set as the duplicate stuff so gimping it heavily wouldn't be crushing to the rest of the set.

Took this suggestion. Happy that I've got one well-received set since I'd been feeling rather depressed since the start of the contest. If there's one thing this set has taught me in comparison to some other stuff I've made (particularly this contest), it's that an idea that comes naturally will work substantially better than one forced, even if said idea was only very slightly forced - the former sets are also made much more quickly than the latter. The B-air and U-throw show signs of the latter, and when they're not mentioned in the playstyle I almost reckon I could swap them out with more generic inputs that still serve a better and more functional purpose -just that I'm still afraid to put one little generic input in a set, but that's probably the better thing to do. Probably one of the most organic yet functional sets I've ever made however, and its reception taught me one of the right ways for me to make a set.



[collapse="Magnemite"]Given I was probably one of the few who actually read your sets last contest, I know for sure Magnemite is a pretty big improvement in certain departments (though I still greatly enjoyed Hardin whom I still consider your best). And everyone enjoys a Pokemon once in a while given how they can relate to it. Lock-On is a nice move in which provides potential for the rest of the moves to play off, but it feels too easy to use to the point where foes might as well -always- be magnetized. There are some nice, simple interactions that play off each other via the Specials however, and the standard attacks are an improvement too (minus the standards, but they do have a nice little charm to them when the range is non-existent). I only felt certain parts of the set were off via certain aspects: for example, it feels a little strange for Magnemite to drop a metal ball that shoots towards un-magnetized characters and explodes on them via the attack name "Magnet Bomb" when there isn't any reason why it can't just fly at them when they're magnetized and otherwise be a stationary item when magnetizing is so easy to pull off. The magnet bomb being an item works nicely with Lock-On, though I do feel it has rules which overlap that of those magnetizing establishes for items and makes the set clash a little - this also brings to mind the Up Special drawing in items, namely the Magnet Bomb which can kill Magnemite if it's sent offstage and tries to recover, meaning foes can kind of use the bomb to their advantage if they're fast and have good timing. For the rest of the set, there were some oddities here and there with Magnemite flying around the place like a speedster and being rather forceful with certain attacks, but it's not that big of a deal. You're doing well however, just a little polish here and there.[/collapse]


[collapse="DrillMan.Exe"]A set with a pretty promising base via casual terraforming, portals and the ability to OHKO foes via dropping them into conveniently made holes that lead down to the other side of the stage...almost too easy, even more so than SHININGBROWSERCRASHER. I was rather surprised to see that the set evolved into a melee combo character attempting to use the holes he made for such a purpose, especially when putting conventional melee attacks on a set isn't something I'd imagine you're too used to doing and is somewhat commendable for where you are. Can't help but think the holes last for a unnecessarily short amount of time in which it's painfully obvious one wouldn't be able to do something as lengthy as combo within that time - not a big problem with number crunching, however (you do make them sound like they last for a while, otherwise). There are other glaring issues however, even taking into account if the pitfalls did last for a reasonable amount of time: why combo the foe out of them being pitfalled when you can just use the Down Special to send them away for an instant KO? Pitfalled characters don't even take knockback, only sit there as helpless targets to damage-rack, but you have a much easier way of disposing them. I'll admit the shield-pushing into the pit is a nice touch I wanted to do in a set myself, but isn't too elaborated on when the rest of the set is confused in what it's trying to achieve, especially with the stage destruction, the "comboing" (which isn't all that convincing when there don't seem to be many moves for that purpose and they just damage the stage or have another special effect which wouldn't fit in) and a few of these moves which are too effective on their own (not just Down Special, but also F-tilt against shields). There are some very good ideas in the set and it showed a lot of promise as I said, but it turned out to be rather unfocused and messy, the dotted points of the playstyle section of which can adhere to. It's admirable to see you explore new ground, however.[/collapse]


[collapse="Aquaman"]Yet another water-based set to start off the competition...and a lot more hilarious than -that- one. This guy's more like a Master of Nipples than that of the ocean, a truly bizarre experience that gave me amazing material for my Story Recap. In any case, Down Special instantly brings King Ramses to mind, only with a more drawn-out, complicated description....umm, does he NEED to summon the sea creatures from his freaking nipples when he's underwater? As if I need to question the logic of your sets: you said yourself in the chat you'd make sets for characters based on how you thought they'd play, and that's fine by me. The set reads like a simple version of Ashens, spouting unexpectedly funny one-liners and random hilarity from absolutely nowhere, establishing a new logic for a non-existent superhero. Yes, even if I didn't watch the videos because I don't really have access to where they came from or can't be bothered, this was an easy and enjoyable experience. Seriously man, why can't you do things like this more often?

Also, my favorite part of the set was the Final Smash, but I'm sure lots of other people will tell you that.[/collapse]

 

[ForwardArrow]

Soundwave Superior
It's pretty clear you're just getting the hang of moveset making, so I may as well just give you a few tips. The organization is pretty ugly as of now, large solid blue text is a bit of a pain to read. The default size looks a lot nicer. Aside from that, I'd just put more effort into designing your moves. Flesh out the animation more, give them more unique effects, elaborate a bit more on the details of the move itself. Lastly, this is just personal preference, but I'd like it if you kept random elements to a minimum in a future, though I'm well aware they do exist in Brawl. Charging to various levels is a better way to give the player control over what they create, and I'd prefer to have control over which of those minions I summoned. Either way, keep at it, people tend to improve the more they make sets.

Ashens
First of all, I find it really bizarre that Ashens of all people is a bloody 3v1 boss. The man barely even has a commanding presence, regardless of how enjoyable his videos are, so giving this internet reviewer 3v1 status feels more than a tad ridiculous. Second, this is just a personal pet peeve I don't have a logical explanation behind but... I -HATED- Sid's Toys final smash where you just said "lol the Brawl characters are toys." And that occurs in Ashen's main moveset in the grab and the stupid flamethrower move, so that's quite annoying for me.

As for the actual set, Ashens doesn't honestly flow all that well, with fairly little interaction between his stage elements to be quite honest. It particularly bugs me that the Neutral Special of all things is barely even utilized, sans as a way to poke open a bag several moves later. There's a general theme of trapping, slip n' slide, and the flamethrower, as well as the Smashes feel like they frantically try to tie everything together but don't really succeed all that well at doing anything other than creating random prison environments. Then you have the grab game which sans the pummel is irrelevant to everything, standards which don't honestly contribute that much, traps that don't really feel like they contribute much aside from being just another trap... it's a fairly messy set.

The stage transition on the pummel and the flamethrower seem to be the main things that make the set unique. The stage transition is all sorts of awkward due to how it treats the other foes and kind of boring when you think about it, it's just another flat stage where you lay traps that you can utterly decimate foes in if you set-up there. Feels sort of like every cage scenario ever in some ways, and is as unfair as possible to the foe you trap, justified by him being a boss but regardless not making the set more interesting. The flamethrower is infuriating due to how it treats the foes as toys, giving him an instant KO he really doesn't need and doesn't make any sense in the context of Brawl(I don't agree with DM that all fire hitboxes have to behave the same way, but having all Ashens fire hitboxes provide an instant kill status effect is pushing it even for me), not to mention quite broken. Given the way Ashens works it's not like the foe will ever get reasonable time to roll given the stage is just cluttered from top to bottom with traps.

I want to give this set a bit more mercy considering the somewhat ridiculous character choice... but the way you handle this character actually makes it worse, not better. It's a stamina 3v1 boss who requires his own unique stage and transitions between 2 stages. He can generate a mass of props with all sorts of wacky effects as demonstrated via the goop and the bag, or that are multi part like the Neutral Special transformer or the Up Special cupcake, and yet none of them really amount to much beyond what is almost an MYM5 trap character. Warlord, you complain about Chakravartin being high potential, something I admit I agree too, but with all the crap Ashens is capable of I would say he makes Chak look like freaking Rattata. Being this horrifically unsmash too requires some sort of justification in my eyes, Ameno did it for the sake of an amazing mind control playstyle that felt completely unique from anything else in MYM. Ashens goes way further and as I said, has absolutely nothing to show for it. You have all the materials in here to make a potentially amazing moveset, and you waste on something that honestly feels utterly mundane and doesn't even manage to flow. That's pretty pitiful.

I suppose you did it as a tribute to the character, which is something that at least justifies why the set exists and prevents me from disliking every single part of it. But frankly, as a moveset it manages to fail at being interesting while making the character as preposterously out there as possible almost solely for the hell of it. This is definently not a set either of you two should be proud of.

Flashman.EXE
There is no way anyone will be surprised when I say I dislike this set, considering the general reception so far. You basically create a system where the foe can't see you and has to run around guessing where the hell Flashman placed his next flasher to keep them perpetually unable to see while Flashman deletes all their moves from safety. The inputs are redundant as hell and frankly all the smaller blinding areas are worthless when you already have little trouble just preventing the foe from seeing anything. Meanwhile, you're scrambling their controls further in the grab game and just make it freakishly hard for the foe to do anything... eugh. I see no reason to try and stack so many mindgames on top of each other like this when one of them alone would probably be enough to incapacitate the foe, and with them all here it's just beyond overkill and ends up extremely flat and boring to imagine. I'll give you credit though, this seems to be the first time you actually have a full grab game that is at all relevant, considering Bubbleman technically doesn't have a pummel. Sadly, that's basically all I have to compliment about it, really.

Athena
Admittedly, I like that you're trying to come up with a creative use for shields, Athena being able to channel her own to create what is basically a cage and then place the foe inside it. The set really falls flat on it's face execution wise though, the cage is just used as a fairly generic one where you trap the foe inside and destroy them, and here it's in an even worse way than normal, with instant death gas/holes in the floor. It doesn't feel all that bloody broken, but the fact that you just demolish a foe in a cage and they then just die in the cage feels extremely boring in terms of how it'd play out. What makes it worse is that she has a grand total of -4- instant KOs, which feels incredibly silly and redundant, especially when it feels that they would all be pulled off pretty similarly, especially the Dair/Kiss/Gas ones which are all executed the EXACT same way.

What hurts the set even more is it doesn't even really flow. Interactions in the set are awkward and often irrelevant, whilst not really expanding her game at all. There are a fair few mediocre melee moves which do nothing in particular sans teleporting in and out of/breaking open barriers, and just really clunky bizarre stuff like the snake. The writing style here's also really bad, at points I have trouble really understanding what's going on, but from what I'm able to figure out I'm pretty sure it amounts to nothing worthwhile. I prefer it when you're being wackier and actually giving the player stuff to play around with in your sets, as opposed to creating what ultimately amounts to a really boring cage set. Even Ghetsis is better than this, as far as I'm concerned.

Aquaman
I was not there for the livestream, so I have absolutely no idea what spawned this set, but okay sure. Stage flooding hasn't been done all that often... but admittedly Aqua Man does fairly little with it, largely just summoning a few underwater minions and having some moves/combos that work better or only work underwater. The end result just largely feels like if a stock Brawl character was given the ability to flood the stage, although the positively ridiculous animations make it an a lulzy read, at least. Given this is an Aquaman set where he shoots sharks from his nipples, I am not inclined to take it particularly seriously, and I did at least find it kind of funny.

Mike Dawson
I imagine I'd like this set a bit more if I saw the LP, but I can sort of understand who the character is... and given that, I understand why the set is so unbelievably tacky. The characters a wuss who runs around and uses all sorts of stupid nonsensical crap that doesn't really do much of anything in particular. What you introduce with the Side Special is admittedly kind of unique and fun, though I don't feel you flow into it at all, sadly. The stuff like the magnets and machine gun that do almost nothing add to the feel of the character, but at the same time make the set feel more like a novelty than something to be taken seriously. I can't really say I like it at all as a set, but it seems to succeed at what you were trying to do with it, so good job on that, at least.

Kammy
Stage construction is something I very much enjoy, but Kammy doesn't really know how to flow out of it that well. You do have some decent stuff with the grab game to drop the blocks in conjunction with each other or push them together to beat up on the foe, but I don't really feel there's too much worth to the blocks otherwise other than as generic dropping hitboxes and as walls, of all things. Kammy doesn't really play off it well at all, and certainly not in ways other stage creation characters haven't done better. Making them big/invisible had some potential, but given how little output the blocks give it's hardly enough to make the set interesting in my eyes. What's worse is the set has a fair bit of filler, such as the entirety of the aerials, kind of awkward on a character who strikes me as an aerial combatant at that. To be fair, the grab game is admittedly pretty solid and at least she has the Koopa shell to provide some other function, but I can't say it's enough to make the set stand out at all.

[GLOW]Ghetsis[/GLOW]I actually don't think Ghetsis is quite as hideously terrible as some people say, though admittedly it's definitely not good. The ice based terraforming you come up with in the pyramids is actually pretty fun, though you could have afforded to have specified a little bit more on it. The set definently is playgroundy in how it utilizes the ice, electricity, and panels, allowing Ghetsis to create all manner of crazy set-ups that convince me he'd at least be fun to toy around with. As usual with your sets, inputs are never really redundant and frankly quite creative... I'm a little surprised nobody seems to have liked this set yet, given it has a lot of the things MYM asks for. On some level, I even admittedly like the set-up heavy, scheming characterization of Ghetsis, and think the clunkiness helps make it feel a bit more like him, though the characterization is bad overall there are parts that DID feel like Ghetsis.

At the same time, I have to agree that for it's good points, Ghetsis is ultimately a pretty bad set... while the playground elements are there and there are interactions out the wazoo, the flow between elements is very iffy. The teleporters don't contribute particularly much to how he plays, and the ice pyramid really could've been used better, I feel. Magnetism is cool and all, but the fact that he's magnetizing ice into projectiles/cages/shields just feels ridiculous to begin with for the character, and you waste what might be a bigger opportunity in tormenting the foe via use of the pyramid. Not to mention the degree of tacky is pretty bloody ridiculous, with the shadow triad somehow being able to steal magnetism from the foe among tons of other problems. Ghetsis' staff mechanic of him going into the air without it feels very clunky and crippling, making him far more annoying to play.

And really, the biggest problem of all is just the completely absurd degree of magic syndrome here. Building massive ice pyramids, magnetizing said ice with electric blasts, and enormous laser beam in the Up Aerial, him just dropping teleport pads... you're giving him some pretty absurd powers for a relatively normal human, including telepathy to control his staff from a distance. If the set was an OC, I'd say this would be way more forgivable, but it's hard to appreciate the concepts when it makes zero sense for this character to use them to start with. Normally, I don't let characterization kill a set for me, but here it's just so absurdly awkward I think it ends up giving me a very negative impression of the set. Which I feel is a shame, considering there is a fair bit to like in here, and I sort of feel bad for how much it's gotten destroyed for it's faults.

Randy Johnson
What I don't like about this set is pretty obvious to me, it lacks much in the way of a playstyle. Yeah there's... throwing pitches I guess, but there's very very little flow other than throwing ones they can't dodge and the generic buffs from the baseball. I do sort of like that he has a specialized range that he can use to make the best use of his baseballs, but he's got no real way to put the foes in that range, honestly. With such a flimsy playstyle and not much in the way of creativity, there's nothing in this set for me to really get excited over...

Other than the fact that, you know, this is a bloody baseball player and it's clear you're trying to translate him as best as you can. His use of pitches to try and mess with the foes timing, while not creating much flow or interest, is at least a nice way to convey the sport, and the only real way I could see you representing this character. It gets a bit sloppier towards the end, you don't really have much you can think of for this character to do in terms of grabs and aerials, a problem I can admittedly understand but one that weakens the set on a whole. So yeah, you have my sympathies for trying to portray a "character" you love as well as the fact that he is one of the hardest bloody character choices I've ever seen seriously attempted. Even if I don't care for the set at all, that counts for something.

Magnemite
I feel like everyone has already covered what I want to say about Magnemite. Lock-on is far too easy to use, and then it just makes his projectiles home in to make him a pseudo bullet hell character, as well as generically buffing his other attacks. It's not particularly interesting, but there is flow in his projectile spam... into a camper. Camper is probably the most overdone playstyle in MYM, and as such the set's appeal is a bit lost on me, with the concept being so automatic and bland. Still, it does feel a bit like a step up from your previous works, with more creative attacks and a stronger overall playstyle. Just have a stronger core next time, and I think you're on the road to be a solid MYMer, Conren.

Drillman.EXE
The idea of creating temporary tunnels to keep Drillman constantly moving and distinguish him from other terraformers is kinda neat, and it works into a somewhat flowing playstyle of having him stage spike the foe. Compared to other stage-spike sets, the process of getting them through the stage is certainly a bit more advanced than it is in say... Prospector. It's a decent set up for a set, and you play off it well at points with the fissure pitfall, the automated drills going through the stage, and the portals to transport about in the stage. And technically, it's the first set to focus around tunnels since Golem all the way back in MYM7.

Unfortunately, the set really doesn't hold together past the core concept. First thing worth noting is how many moves of his are dedicated to digging, while I really think you could've made a small number of more versatile digging moves and gotten by just fine. Using the tunnels to combo foes feels a bit pointless as well, considering you're trying to drag them through the stage, which doesn't really care about damage percentage. I suppose you can use it to pressure the foe towards the fissure... but the other thing about this set that really annoys me is that if you take it off that he can dig through, Drillman has literally no flow at all. I mean, in similar sets I find they usually have ways around this problem via having other playstyle elements, or some way to redesign the stage so it works, but Drillman is just restricted to a bunch of generic attacks that are quite UP when not used to tunnel about. Not particularly bad conceptually, but I don't think it was really executed well at all.

Garble
I'm not entirely sure how sold I am on your use of minions here. I do think it's pretty unique to have them as a way to supplement rushdown, smacking the foe around between them and using them as a way to supplement Garble's own range. On the other hand, they do feel laughably incompetent, and Garble might have to be a bit too careful with them for my liking, considering you know, he's a pressure character. Either way, I'll admit this set has its charms, with attacks serving some multifaceted purposes and the animations and characterization being really slick. The effort that went in is clear, and for that reason I can definitely see why someone would like this set.

I suppose a rushdown playstyle without a concept that gives it much additional depth to it isn't really for me, as I myself didn't really like the set. The moves themselves, while okay, don't really seem to have as much thought given to their implications in the context of the minions and lava pool as I'd like, more just trying to help Garble beat the foe senseless. The flow between moves is a bit lacking on a whole, and no I'm not demanding move interactions, but really I don't get a strong enough sense of cohesion. It's obviously a set you put effort into, and as such I find it respectable, but it's simply not my type.

Larfleeze
Everyone's complained to you about Larfleeze having bland moves, which is a fair complaint IMO for a pretty simple reason. They don't have much relevance beyond redundant healing/draining of replicas, if the generic attacks had more of a point I could understand, but here they don't contribute enough to the set for my liking. What's worse is that you DO have random creative moves in here with the Forward Smash and Up Aerial, and with Calvin and Hobbes you were willing to put crazy inputs on stuff like the Smashes. I don't demand Larfleeze has to have some sort of world changing move on every input, but it seems that you're more willing to make interesting moves than you think you are, and a few more branching options to expand how he utilizes the minions on the Smashes or something would have been great.

As for concepts in the specials, I actually am not as big a fan as some people. Larfleeze's ability to make duplicates of foes upon killing them in 3v1 is cool as well as make his own minions which feel a bit more interesting than the ones in Calvin and Hobbes that interact with his healing/draining just as well, and then there's the wall to at least give them a pseudo platform. I'd like it if there was some way to make sure your minions don't just get tricked into a stupid suicide, very possible to do that against Brawl AIs, which makes them a lot less effective. The Down Special also feels, while well characterized, a bit ridiculous to me considering how it's never relevant against characters without those types of moves, and too blatantly spiteful against characters who do have them. Still, the added effects on the standards make it so the set has some actually decent flow, and it capitalizes on 3v1 decently with the snowballing player deaths to build an army. I'm not a fan, but there is some good in here and I'd say it's a step in the right direction for you, Warrior.

Princess Bubblegum
The premise of the set is pretty unique, an extensive grab hitbox coming off her that she can use to drag players around. You actually play off it in some nifty ways, she can cut her hair to create sticky traps all over the stage, extend it via growth potions, and swing around with it under the stage. While I confess the aerials are pretty generic, they actually do serve their purposes in conjunction with the tether to help her with her under the stage stuff and edgeguarding. Could they have been better? Yeah, but I would disagree with Warlord that they are outright BAD. It flows pretty well, and completely avoids tackiness, perhaps even better than Engineer. Is this a sign you're finally getting over that? Well, the moves you told me you did in Ashens don't strike me as particularly tacky, so yes you seem to be very much on the right track in that regard.

I don't actually like the set though, as bad as I feel saying that as it's a step up for you in a lot of regards with unique and relevant inputs on a large number of moves. Due to the extremely simplistic aerials and the... to be quite honest, bad grab game, and the fact that a lot of moves serve extremely one track purposes and lack any versatality, Bubblegum just ends up lacking much in the way of options or variety in how she plays. Not to mention while the under the stage/edgeguard tether is cool and all, I sort of don't like how she uses it. You mostly just drag the foe attached to your hair down there with no way for them to interact and then gimp. I think if she had some sort of way to make a hole in the stage it would help her a lot, giving her a bit more depth to her getting the foe through... though all the same it's so easy for her to just drag the foe through. I suppose the mechanic is a bit of a dead end conceptually. Still, while I'm not a fan I can respect the set, and it's a very good sign for your future sets if nothing else.

Sawtooth
I'm not a huge fan of the modus itself, while I suppose you could argue it gives them "rhythm", it does kind of force the set to function on a flowchart a little bit, which is awkward and detracts from it a bit. That said, the set is fun in parts, utilizing plenty of teleportation shenanigans, stunts, and the ability to just use Squarewave as sort of a portal mini-weapon. The moves here are a lot more creative than your usual, and the set's playstyle, ignoring the comstraints of the modus, is open ended while still having some flow to it. Maybe a bit too open-ended, I feel the overall playstyle here ends up being kinda flimsy... which is annoying when the tech top modus restricts the duo so much. It's an okay set, but you've made better on multiple occasions, though I do think it is a step in the right direction with it's wackier nature.

The Thief
If nothing else, this is a set that really shows love for the character it's for. The animations are vivid and make it incredibly fun and satisfying to picture this character in combat, and it feels true to the source material, particularly with the quotes above each section. It's all presentation stuff, but it's still makes the set a far more enjoyable read. I also admittedly like the system you set up here, the backstab to deal more damage in conjunction with a boomerang projectile and the ability to go invisible. The invisibility is balanced by thief being required to take a more slow and cautious approach whilst using it, and is neat with the knife which you can direct around without the opponent expecting what direction it'll fly. In those aspects the set is very likable.

While I largely feel the set is better than your former sets due to the better designed individual moves beyond the specials, the flow between moves is still lacking. You have some nice tricks to hit the foes back in there at points, but I don't feel you quite play off the invisibility as much as I'd like. The concept is a bit more done before than the gas in Darkwing or the team mechanic in Ico and Yorda, but you probably wouldn't know that having not read a ton of sets. That's probably the main thing I'd advise to you, just do more set reading, check out what's been posted, to give you an idea of how we want moves to work together. Still, I did think it was an enjoyable read with some solid concepts, and I think you have potential to make something very good, possibly before this contest is out.

Cold Enchanter
I like how you translate the card's ability into Smash Bros, creating ice spikes to power up Cold Enchanter that he has to plant in a player character. He can hit himself with them to keep them around permanently at the cost of movement speed and some damage, a pretty enjoyable little concept. You play off it decently by restricting the space the foe can go to avoid the projectiles, as well as allowing Cold Enchanter to rush down, and having the wall as something to force the foe to traverse, and then intercept them with juggling. It's pretty neat, but restricting space to land projectiles and the juggling game are the extent of the flow, the overall result being a set that while great conceptually doesn't amount to all that great of one execution wise. Still, what flow there is and the concept are enough for me to say I do like it, just not particularly much.

Madolche
The concept here is actually quite fun, just playing around with food items. You use them extremely well here, as bolsters to free flight and zany projectiles which you can potentially create a storm of via Nair and bouncy custards. The interactions just get nicer as you go along, you come up with some awesome inputs like the Up Smash, most of them contributing something unique and fun to Madolche's game. It amounts to a set that is a fairly unique interaction playground that seems fun and satisfying to play around with. Certainly an enjoyable read, if nothing else.

There is a bit holding the set back for me is probably the fork mechanic and how OP the whole thing is. The fork is just stupid, tacky, and doesn't really feel like it plays into the food aspect of her playstyle at all. The random grab, the whole flinching thing as she flies around... I don't see any need for that random mechanic, aside from making it a bit easier for her to KO. Given the sheer amount of healing she gets, as well as her ability to flood the stage with a ludicrous amount of projectiles via Nair, potentially powerful ones, also worries me a lot in conjunction with the fact that she has bloody free flight for absurd amounts of time thanks to the healing... she's not going to die now is she? It's not enough to make me dislike the set though, the ideas displayed here are great and the execution aside from those two things is just fine.

BeastMan.EXE
Beast Man's playstyle of separating his limbs has admittedly been done before, and Beast Man does it the most simply, but that doesn't mean there's nothing interesting too it. I very much enjoy the prospect of separating your limbs and using them as platforms and such to force the upwards towards the top blast zone via juggling, that's very fun stuff, and it's not all Beast Man can do, him being fairly versatile whilst still flowing together pretty nicely. Admittedly, as with Cold Enchanter I feel it could all come together better, but there's a lot more too this set than there is Cold Enchanter... I do have a quibble though. The control scheme for the limbs is pretty awkward, given if BeastMan wants to defend himself at close range he often has to move the limbs about. Considering how essential the limbs are as assets to him and how his basic melee attacks do that, it seems like it would get in the way a lot actually playing him. It doesn't ruin the set for me, but it is a bit of an annoyance. Still, I would agree with your assessment that this is your best after Alice.

Bubbleman.EXE
While I'm not a fan of your other sets this contest, Bubbleman is actually quite enjoyable. The core is pretty unique of utilizing bubbles which you can fill with missiles, foam, minions, mines, etc while floating them off the top of the screen. It's pretty versatile and fun with all the ways he can utilize the bubbles, with cool stuff like the jab providing a large risk reward move, the extremely enjoyable grab game which actually has all the inputs despite admittedly being unconventional. It's all good stuff, though I sorta wish there was something that stood out and excited me a bit more... and the aerials feel a fair bit weaker than the rest of the set. Stuff like the redundant dair and the "dodge out of the way" aerial kinda bug me looking at it now.

What actually does bring down the set for me though is the lack of actual attacks. Bubbleman has a very, very small arsenal of moves that are actual capable of fighting the foe at close range, and even some of his long range stuff is hardly effective as actual damage racking. His lack of combat ability really kinda makes me feel like he'd be fairly underpowered and difficult to play, which brings down the set in my eyes. Still, it actually adds something to his characterization, in that Bubbleman really is just a coward and a nuisance, which is played off extraordinarily will in this set. So yeah, while I have my gripes with it, the overall product is quite fun.

Master Xehanort
Now that we've gotten that little glitch fixed, I have to say I very much enjoy Xehanort. The use of duplicates here is pretty bloody unique, the only comparison point we have is Larxene and Xehanort's moves tend to create vast expansions of his gameplan, as opposed to Larxene's only providing simple combo fodder. In particular, I like having a duplicate which slowly charges up an extremely powerful attack while you fight the foe yours alongside other duplicates, although really that's just scratching the surface of what can be done in the set with awesome inputs like the Up Special and Bair(screw you Clark Pearce, I like that move), as well as Xehanort's ability to overwhelm shielding opponents in plenty of unique ways. And they will need to shield, as dodging is not gonna stop several clones flying at them at once. If I had to nitpick, there is some tacky in here, such as a move which just randomly cripples the opponent's shield when they get it back if he breaks their shield with it, but all the same it's lighter on the tacky than even in Jeanne. On top of that, far as I'm concerned it basically obsoletes one of the most overrated sets last contest. So hey, what's not to love?

 

[MasterWarlord]

GLUTTONY

Gluttony is one of the more well known villians from Full Metal Alchemist, one of seven homunculi based off the seven deadly sins. Gluttony loves to eat and is always hungry, as he was made in such a way that whatever he eats doesn’t satisfy his hunger. His saliva can burn through anything, and his stomach is a gigantic portal to another dimension. Gluttony can even open up his rib cage to expose this portal and directly dump people in, and can extend the rib cage as much as he pleases. Of course, Gluttony is quite stupid and always looks up to Lust, but once she’s out of the picture Gluttony becomes little more than a killing machine.

Statistics

Weight: 9
Size: 8
Falling Speed: 7.5
Ground Movement: 7
Aerial Speed: 6
Jumps: 6
Aerial Control: 4
Traction: 1

Gluttony’s always had some degree of strength, but the real use of his supernatural strength is in his legs, making him strangely mobile for such an awkward body shape. Combining low intelligence with these factors, he ends up with god-awful traction on par with Luigi’s.

Weight: 10
Size: 9
Falling Speed: 8.5
Traction: 7.5
Aerial Speed: 6
Jumps: 4
Ground Movement: 3
Aerial Control: 2

This alternate set of statistics is for whenever Gluttony opens up his rib cage. Whenever he uses a move involving his rib cage he’ll go to that form, while a handful of moves (Most obviously using his mouth) force Gluttony to turn to his regular form. This is lagless, with no transformation animation, him just suddenly popping into one of the two “forms”. Some moves do not require Gluttony to be in a particular form. With the ribs out, Gluttony’s body shape is too awkward for his stubby legs to give him high movement speed, and this also causes him to lose the bad traction.

SPECIALS

SIDE SPECIAL – GLUTTONY BEAM

Gluttony opens his rib cage and shoots out a gigantic beam that goes forth 4/5ths the length of Battlefield, thick as Wario’s height. This has very brief starting and ending lag, and during the brief starting lag you can even angle the move wherever you want. That said, it has a duration of 1.2 seconds, so you’re vulnerable if you whiff the move regardless.

This beam causes foes who get hit to be treated as if they fell into Gluttony’s portal manually (As such it ignores shields). Whenever Gluttony has his rib cage out, foes can casually walk inside the gaping open hole in front of him to get devoured and thrown into the other dimension of nothingness. Rather than some split screen, this is represented by the foe gaining a dark red tint and appearing transparent, with the foe losing the ability to interact with anything on the main stage. The foe ignores any obstacles on the main stage in this state, able to walk “through” them, and their “ground” will always be on par with Gluttony’s feet. Assuming the foe does nothing, they will always stay the same distance from Gluttony as he moves, but they can move about as they want, being on another stage with the only truly visible portion of it being Gluttony’s stomach as the exit. All the foe has to do is walk back towards Gluttony and walk out of the rib cage to get back onto the playing field.

When a foe is inside of the other dimension, Gluttony cannot automatically transition to moves that do not use his rib cage. Attempting to use one will have Gluttony actually do a transformation animation over 2 seconds. If it’s completed without the foe coming back out of the portal by then, the foe is instantly KO’d.

Of course, the realm of nothingness has nothing in it, so outside of multiple foes you’ll generally struggle immensely to kill them unless the foe is a momentum character or something who slides too far away from the portal in the other dimension. The idea is to get the foe into a nice position for when they come out, or attempt to attack them as they do. The beam itself is also very nice, as it directly brings far away foes directly next to you.

Gluttony’s rib cage can absorb anything. Projectiles, items, traps, the stage. . .It all works the same as absorbing a foe. You’ll need specific moves to absorb the stage, not just walking into it, but this is the most obvious example. Just angle the Gluttony beam through the stage and you’ll absorb all of it into your body. Normally all of these things you eat are not visible, but if a foe enters the other dimension they will pop into vision with the dark red tint and transparency with their positions in the other dimension having been saved. To prevent you from blocking off the exit to the portal with mass solid terrain, every Bowser sized chunk of terrain inside the nothing realm has a mere 10 HP, though if there was more terrain on top of it, the terrain will fall down into place afterwards at Mario’s falling speed (Though getting crushed just generically “pushes” you to the side you were closer to). Some foes may even want to come inside your body to get their essential mechanic items/traps back, or just to get that hammer you ate in casual. Foes/objects will get put back a random distance of .85-1.5 platform from the exit rather than right up against it when eaten with the Gluttony beam specifically, meaning you don’t have to always eat objects after you eat a foe to block them off. The pocket dimension also has a ceiling of 3 Ganondorfs, meaning that if enough stage is consumed to reach this ceiling, anything Gluttony eats will end up popping up behind it inside of the pocket dimension, so you don’t just keep creating an infinitely tall tower. Any stage Gluttony destroys gets restored on his death, and all of the contents of the Gluttony dimension will get deleted.

One final note, is that Gluttony is very vulnerable to chain grabs. Unlike most MYM heavyweights which are just generically assumed to be immune, he is specifically left vulnerable to them. If a foe attempts to chain grab rib-cage Gluttony, though, there’s nothing to grab and they’ll just be walking into the other dimension. Rib cage Gluttony is immune to most grabs (All Brawl grabs) from the front.

With multiple Gluttonies, foes inside the other dimension will have a different tint based off which Gluttony’s dimension they are inside of. If they somehow get stuck in a dimension within a dimension, then they only have the color of the “deepest” dimension”.

DOWN SPECIAL – RIB STACK

Gluttony turns towards the camera before facing downwards, getting on all four if on the ground, before extending out his rib cage, propelling himself upwards. If on the ground, Gluttony can extend up for as long as the move is held, going up at Captain Falcon’s dashing speed. If in the air, Gluttony can only extend himself up 2 platforms from where he was when he input the move once his ribs hit the ground. If off-stage, the ribs will hit some off-screen terrain, considering the bottom of the screen “ground”. This doesn’t have him enter helpless, he’s just prevented from using it again until planting his feet on the ground. The bottom of the extending ribs deal 6% and knockback that KOs at 200% as they extend downwards before hitting some form of ground.

The ribs in this move are solid walls, making the move a very horrifying gimper for obvious reasons. The ribs have a Wario width between them, so larger characters can’t fit in the middle, though you can still block off these larger characters from the stage. A Kirby sized portion of his ribs in this move can be destroyed, though, by dealing 6% to them (Bigger hitboxes can destroy more at once). In the case of projectiles, they must deal 15 damage. If Gluttony continues to hold down B after this point, the ribs will extend from the furthest out portion of them still connected to Gluttony. This happens immediately, so a foe attempting to bypass the ribs will end up getting hit, which is actually good for them in a recovering situation to refresh their recovery.

If Gluttony presses down during the move, he will start retracting the ribs and going downwards towards where his ribs are “rooted” at double the speed he goes up until you either press B or up, at which point he’ll go up again (With the amount of leftover time he had to go up). With Gluttony’s rib cage wide open, this can be a way to close in on foes to put them in Gluttony’s pocket dimension. The most obvious context is to trap a smaller foe inside the rib cage, and move down before they can escape, also very obviously usable for suicide. . .Or it would be, if suiciding with a foe in your stomach just left them in your stomach when you respawned without them losing a stock. If you attempt to block off a recovering foe with the walls, though, you can potentially close in after them when they destroy the first of the two walls before they can get rid of the second, drop them off lower than they were, and still make it back yourself with your other recovery move.

UP SPECIAL – RIB TETHER

Gluttony gets out his rib cage and turns over on his back before extending his ribs upwards 1-2 platforms based off how long B is held. While it’s called a tether, it strangely cannot grab traditional ledges – good thing, because the Gluttony Beam will probably destroy one accidentally. Gluttony’s side is still facing the camera in this move, fairly important for the animation. . .

If Gluttony is under a solid object, his ribs will extend outwards into the Z planes to go around the object before latching onto it at the top of their reach. At this point, Gluttony will lift himself up to the top of the ribs at Meta Knight’s dashing speed, going through the stage as he absorbs it into the other dimension, making a gaping Gluttony sized hole in the stage where he recovered. Gluttony flings himself up very slightly at the end of the recovery with his ribs, making him just a Kirby above where the top of the ground was. While Gluttony has an alternative recovery with his Down Special, it has obvious weaknesses when used as an actual recovery rather than a gimping tool, leaving this as his more favored recovery. The issue is that Gluttony has to be careful to not destroy too much of the stage so he still has something to latch onto. As such, you can generally wait to put a generic wall of stage in your pocket dimension until having to recover with this.

If Gluttony hits a foe with this (Grab hitbox), he will latch onto them before reeling in his body to them, at which point they automatically get put inside the other dimension.

NEUTRAL SPECIAL – PROJECTILE SPIT

Gluttony gathers some saliva inside of his mouth before spitting out a single tiny and very spammable projectile, around half the size of a Pokeball that deals 8% and knockback that KOs at 160% on contact. The move can be charged up to .4 seconds to determine the range. The spit goes in a lobbing half-arch arc from Gluttony, going out .2-1.3 platforms before it’s going entirely downwards. Gluttony’s saliva burns through anything, meaning that the projectile’s arc doesn’t end with the ground, going through it like it’s nothing and burning it away.

This projectile cannot be shielded, and while it can be dodged there are ways to keep up the pressure. Assuming the foe is in closer range so the move needs minimal/no charging, you can just keep spitting at them. If they keep spot dodging in place, they’ll eventually be left with no ground underneath them and start falling, leaving you in a very advantageous position. If you predict they’ll roll towards you, you can use a rib cage move so they roll into your rib cage if they’re in close quarters. If you predict they’ll roll away, you just have to charge up the projectile a bit more, or you can always go for the classic Gluttony beam. This is an insanely powerful pressuring tool, though you have to be careful you don’t lose too much stage.

GRAB-GAME

GRAB – PRIME RIB

Gluttony extends out his ribs at Mario’s dashing speed, able to extend them for as long as he holds the button. Upon letting go, his ribs will retract back to him at double speed, but he can’t move until they do. He can loop the ribs around as much as he wants, and on contact with a foe they’ll clamp together for a grab. From there, Gluttony can continue extending his ribs the same as before he grabbed the foe. To perform throws, Gluttony must input Z + a direction, with neutral Z being pummel as usual. The grab has starting lag on par with Ike’s fsmash, so it’s difficult to use at close range.

Note that Gluttony can bring his ribs inside of his pocket dimension, them gaining the red tint and transparency like anything else. This can allow Gluttony to grab foes inside of himself and move them back further in the dimension, or enable him to grab a foe outside and move them inside.

Like in the Down Special, foes can cut off the ribs by dealing 10 damage. This applies to all but the ends of the ribs which is the actual grab hitbox, and will cause the grab to end immediately. You will generally need to shield the long ribs connecting the end to the body with the hitbox, though that becomes more and more difficult to do the further the ribs go out.

PUMMEL – PIERCE

The ribs holding the foe extend further to jut into the foe and stab them, making the foe drop a bit of blood, dealing 5% in a laggy pummel before they retract back out of the wound ready to stab the foe again. You cannot pummel while moving the ribs, but may of course resume after the pummel is over.

FORWARD THROW – ACID SLIDE

Gluttony retracts his ribs to bring the foe in front of him and grabs them with his hands, then fully retracts the rib cage into his body to go back to regular form. He gives the foe a good lick to cover them in drool, dealing 10%, then turns them around and throws them forwards onto the ground, causing them to slide forwards on their stomachs with knockback that KOs at 180%. If they’re still on solid ground at the end of the move, they’ll be in prone.

Once again, Gluttony’s saliva burns through anything. This means that the foe will be burning into the ground as they slide downwards through the stage at a 90 degree angle, in a twist on the usual Warlordian fthrow. The saliva lasts until they stop taking their knockback, leaving them in a diagonal tunnel they have to come back out from. This will not mess with Gluttony’s recovery as much, as they are getting rid of the insides of the stage rather than cutting out an entire column of it. The portion that the foe burns into the stage will be big enough for them to stand in and dash back out of, but Gluttony is without a doubt in a very advantageous position from this. The foe is left with a very specific place to go and left very predictable in approaching, and things only get worse if they intend to turtle inside of their little hole in the ground.

Gluttony doesn’t care if he’s too fat to fit into a tunnel he made with a smaller character, as they will rarely be able to shoot projectiles up out of the hole due to either having projectiles that go straight or vanish upon contact with solid ground. Meanwhile, Gluttony can spit acid rain down on them from above with his Neutral Special, and he can always just use the Gluttony Beam as an instant win button. Assuming Gluttony shoots the Gluttony Beam straight down the tunnel, he doesn’t even necessarily have to even use up any more terrain to do it!

This can work as a KO move, of course, and it makes for quite the interesting KO. You actually may not want to use it in such a way, though, just because while shooting the foe to the bottom of the stage may sound appealing, they’ll have a new way to recovery back up onto the stage with the tunnel you just made for them. It can still certainly work as a set-up, though.

BACK THROW – ACID TRIP

Gluttony retracts his ribs and grabs the foe with his hands, much like the fthrow. Also like the fthrow, Gluttony licks the foe with his tongue to cover them in drool, dealing 10%, but instead of tossing the foe along the ground instead gives them the heave-ho and throws them inside the rib cage at a 90 degree upward angle, dealing knockback that KOs at 170%. . .Not that foes can ever be “KO’d” by this knockback. The acid spit in this move will cause foes to burn through any solid objects you’ve eaten. Unlike the stage, the solid objects inside of Gluttony’s stomach obey the laws of gravity, meaning they will collapse to cover the holes the foe made when sent flying through them. This is the most direct way you have of placing the foe behind obstacles inside your stomach to block them off and attempt to close the rib cage for your instant KO.

UP THROW – THROW UP

Sadly, no vomit is in this move, as Gluttony simply flings the foe upwards out of the ribs restraining the foe, dealing 8% and knockback that KOs at 150%. The average KO percentage can be raised by lifting the foe closer to the top blast zone before using the move, offering Gluttony his only throw that can be used for direct KOs. That alone is enough for a slot amongst Gluttony’s throws.

A foe high in the sky generally won’t have much to attack Gluttony with, while Gluttony can pressure them severely with the Gluttony Beam and/or his grab. In the case of the grab, if a foe just casually air dodges it and keeps falling, Gluttony can move the grab hitbox to where they will be once the dodge is over with little problem. Foes have to actively move away from it faster than it can chase them, probably towards Gluttony to punish him. The initial angle you attack the foe can help block Gluttony off, though, enabling you to herd the foe around.

Used inside of the stomach dimension, foes will bounce off the top of ceiling of the pocket dimension as if stage spiked, and can bounce back off the floor if they have enough knockback to take until it’s all taken.

DOWN THROW – TORTURE RACK

Gluttony moves his ribs around so that they’re holding the foe’s ankles and wrists, then goes to stretch until a bone cracking sound is heard and the foe falls downwards with 15%. If in the air, they’ll enter the footstooled state briefly as if they were actually footstooled, entering prone if they hit the ground before it expires (Near immediately if next to ground). This is a supremely versatile throw, having an obvious use off-stage that can be combined with lowering the foe down before you use this throw. The prone is also very useful, as it can delay a foe inside of yourself. Outside, you have good tech chasing options simply because of your excessive stage destruction, making foes regularly have their rolls cut short by edges or better yet, your stomach portal.

AERIALS

NEUTRAL AERIAL – 360 SPIN PUNCH

Gluttony enters regular form as he clasps his hands together and raises them above his head. Needing to pick up some actual momentum for the move, the rib cage is removed if it isn’t already. Gluttony then proceeds to do what is essentially a mockery of DK’s fair as he swings his hands in front of him. Gluttony really puts his all into the move as his tongue flails in the wind out the side of his mouth like a rabid dog. . .Perhaps he put too much effort into it, as the swing gives him enough momentum to turn around all the way again! The swing deals 12% and knockback that KOs at 130% in the direction the hands are currently facing, with the fists remaining as a hitbox throughout the entire move. The move doesn’t have much to speak of in terms of actual lag, but if you intend to hit a foe that’s not directly in front of you you’ll have to wait quite a while for the hitbox to get there. God help you if you intend to hit a person behind or above you with this move.

This move’s landing lag exists, but it’s shorter than the whole duration of the move if you hit a foe in front of you at the start before landing. This is the main aerial you have to actually attempt to gimp foes directly rather than just getting them to land in your rib cage. It can also be quite potent off-stage simply because if you throw it out, a foe can’t casually air-dodge through you to avoid the front of the hitbox, as if you DI back with them they can well get behind you. While the knockback won’t be downwards, it’s possible to hit them horizontally underneath the stage.

FORWARD AERIAL – CLAMP

Gluttony clamps his rib cage shut in front of himself, dealing 9% and knockback that KOs at 165%. It’s a fast melee attack that serves as a good GTFO defense, knocking foes directly away from the hitbox. It can function as a slight wall of pain-esque move, though it’s not quite as good as things like Jigglypuff fair or Dedede bair due to having more than zero ending lag. More relevant is the fact that you can hit a foe who has only partially come out of your realm with this move, and it will knock them back into it with the knockback. While you can hit a foe with almost any move as they come out, most of them require them to walk out a bit and not be at point blank, and they’ll be knocking the foe away rather than inwards.

BACK AERIAL – SWING

Gluttony reaches behind himself in an attempt to grab at the foe. While the priority is grabbing, once grabbing onto the foe they can still do everything freely with no stun state, as Gluttony is just holding onto them and not restraining them in any way. During this time, the two characters fall at the faster of their two falling speeds.

Gluttony isn’t holding onto the foe for long, though, as he goes to swing over to their other side to get behind them, then goes to kick off of them if he’s not hit during all that time, propelling himself diagonally upwards 1.5 platforms and spiking them down with 14% and Rob dair power. This is very difficult to ever pull off on a foe unless you can predict a laggy aerial like DK’s fair or something. What this move can do for you is help you recover. If the foe smacks you in the face to knock you off of them, you regain your second jump and recovery moves, and the knockback can even be towards the stage on occasion. If you go too berserk and destroy too much stage, you may have to rely on the foe to help you recover on occasion.

The rib cage version of the move is very different. Instead of grabbing, Gluttony simply thrusts his arms behind himself, losing the grab priority. The foe takes 4% and a flinch from the arm thrust, long enough to cover Gluttony, while Gluttony himself essentially gets hit with Mario’s Side Special. Foes always want to get behind rib cage gluttony so they can beat on him without worrying about falling into the portal, this is the most direct response you have without awkwardly using Side Special in mid-air for no reason other than turning around.

UP AERIAL – SLOBBERING LICK

Gluttony hunches over forwards as he gets his tongue out before whipping his head back and leaning back as he licks his tongue in an arch arc over his body. The tongue deals 10% and vertical knockback that KOs at 175%. It also shoots up a spit projectile from Neutral Special directly up, going up half a platform before it falls back down. The move is fairly spammable in regular form, but has some added start-up and heavy ending lag in rib cage form.

With the rib cage, you have to keep in mind that during the ending lag Gluttony is on his back in mid-air, laying down. This leaves the portal to Gluttony’s dimension wide open for foes to just casually fall in. If a foe attempts to dodge the actual lick/projectile, they can often find themselves falling in because they’re stuck in lag from dodging and can’t attack Gluttony to knock him out of the move. Some foes may even choose to let themselves get hit and punish you worse, though rare is the foe who won’t try to avoid everything the move does at least a few times.

The projectile spit in the move will be caught by rib cage Gluttony before the move is over, enabling him to hit a foe who was attempting to dodge it anyway as it falls into the portal after them. If you actually want to rain down projectiles for some slight bullet hell pressure, regular Gluttony can spam this move quite freely without the ending lag, but will be destroying large amounts of the stage. Of course if destroying the stage is an issue, the rib cage version is always usable.

DOWN AERIAL – BELLY FLOP

Gluttony does a standard issue stall then fall dair. The stall portion of the move actually serves a purpose in this version, as during it Gluttony can choose to change from rib cage/regular forms by pressing the A button a second time. You can choose to change forms at any point during the fall, changing back and forth if you so choose, and you can even cancel the fall by pressing up, but you have to fall a platform after you press up before you will come to a stop.

Regular Gluttony deals 21% and a spike on par with Ganon’s dair on contact with his body. With the rib cage, foes will simply immediately be plopped inside of Gluttony’s stomach dimension, though they won’t take any damage. During a move like this where Gluttony is facing down, the contents of Gluttony’s pocket dimension will “turn” so that everything is lined up with facing the exit portal, but the physics inside all remain the same, this applying whenever Gluttony does anything similar, the most obvious case being turning as the pocket dimension gets mirrored. Go ahead and spazz out with dashdancing to “reverse their controls” if you really feel like it, though if they’re holding a direction they’ll keep running the same way regardless of such silly antics.

Gluttony can do a lot of bait and switch with this move, as foes can dodge regular Gluttony but they can’t dodge rib cage Gluttony. You can also spike the foe with regular Gluttony into the ground before bringing out the rib cage to devour them as they hit the floor. Using the rib cage version on grounded foes is fantastic, as you’ll burn through the ground with the rib cage and place a wall in front of the exit. Of course, if you don’t switch back to regular form before you fall all the way through the stage, you’ll die, though whenever you go back you’ll suffer some landing lag (Not as much as some moves of this type, but still a fair bit) as regular Gluttony crashes on the ground. If Gluttony cancels the dair falling as going through the stage, he will actually suffer less landing lag as he gets upright and falls on his ass.

SMASHES

FORWARD SMASH – RAKING IT IN

Gluttony extends out his ribs .5-2 platforms during the charging of the move, having no post-charge starting lag if he charges the move at least a fifth of the way. Once the lag time is up, Gluttony stabs his ribs into the ground (Not impaling it) and rakes them back to himself at Captain Falcon’s dashing speed. Anyone caught along the way takes 13-41 hits of 1% and flinching as they get dragged along. Foes can DI out of this move if Gluttony was pulling them a long way, though if uncharged there won’t be enough time for foes to escape. If they go along for the whole ride, they’ll get raked right into Gluttony’s portal, though they’ll be smack dab at the entrance. This move has almost no ending lag, needed for Gluttony to not be absurdly punishable even if he –does- hit.

If Gluttony presses a button when the ribs go to stab into the ground, he’ll start pulling himself towards the ribs instead of raking the ribs back towards him, once again at Captain Falcon’s dashing speed. If a foe expected the other fsmash and rolled towards you, you can swallow them up good with this version, though be cautious there’s no hitbox in this version outside of when the ribs first stab the ground, dealing 10% and knockback that KOs at 165%.

The ribs in this move do not extend out in a straight line. Rather, they follow the ground, so they’ll loop around the stage and go down slopes like Pikachu’s Neutral Special. This makes the move a nicer option for hitting foes inside of a tunnel from fthrow or some other random hole in the stage you’ve made, whether it’s intentional or not. On the other hand, if you find yourself at the bottom of such a pit, this move can pull you out while the ground around you prevents a foe from casually getting behind you to punish you.

UP SMASH – MEATY CHOMP

Gluttony takes a big bloody bite out of the foe with his gaping maw by chomping straight up, requiring his regular form and dealing 26-37% and knockback that KOs at 135-85%. The attack comes out quite fast, but this up smash will not hit foes standing in front of Gluttony, only hitting directly above in a fairly small hitbox.

Foes hit by this move get covered with Gluttony’s drool for 3-5 seconds. Every 1.5 seconds, the foe will drop a spit projectile the same as the Neutral Special. In addition, if they land on the ground, they’ll start sinking through it as the spit on them starts dissolving through the floor, creating a hole as wide as the foe at the rate of Pikachu’s dashing speed. Foes can keep hopping around as soon as they hit the ground and not sink that far at all, but this makes it awkward for the foe as they have to awkwardly stay in the air. With how much the foe will have to keep touching down, it’s quite easy to catch them in your gullet. They will typically have enough time to land a fast melee attack on the ground if they want to and they land right in front of you, but if they have to move a bit or the attack isn’t fast, they can quite possibly sink down and attack a wall instead of you.

DOWN SMASH – IMPALE

Gluttony extends out a single rib rather than a large assortment of them, gaining full control of it in a manner identical to the grab, but going 1.35X faster because it’s only one rib. The attack can be stopped like the grab by attacking a portion of the rib that’s not the end, cutting it off just as easily as there. The tip of the rib deals 15-25% and knockback that KOs at 190-140%. Gluttony will keep extending the rib until you stop holding the button. Gluttony will not retract the rib after he’s done moving it, with the sharp tip of the rib remaining a hitbox that deals 8% and knockback that KOs at 170%. The rib will automatically extend as Gluttony moves around to stay connected, and if Gluttony uses dsmash again he can start moving the rib around again.

Gluttony can dig the rib through the ground, at which point it goes at half speed. If he stops extending the rib while it’s underground, then he will become tethered to the ground and not be able to be knocked further than the maximum extension of his rib (Which can be quite far if Gluttony moves around a lot after using the dsmash). The tether is quite easy to destroy, as foes don’t even have to attack where Gluttony tethered himself, just any point along the rib. Of course, if Gluttony tethers himself inside of his portal, it won’t stop knockback.

Normally when the connection of a rib to Gluttony is destroyed, the rib just falls over limp and loses the hitbox before fading away in a couple seconds. If the rib tip is just poking out of the ground, though, it will remain firmly in place when the connection is severed and live on as a spike trap for 45 seconds. You can’t spam these since the foe has to have a hand in helping you create them, but the foe will struggle to not attack your rib at all since they largely have to in order to hit you. Placing terrain with these “spikes” attached can make some actual obstacles inside of your pocket dimension.

Gluttony can change back to normal with another move to withdraw his rib tether if he wants to make a new one rather than continuing to manipulate one he has out. This will not “cut off the rib” and create a trap, though, since Gluttony brings the entire rib back into his body.

STANDARDS

NEUTRAL ATTACK – FISTS OF FURY

Gluttony takes on a brawler’s stance, bringing his fists in front of himself as he gains a smirk, apparently thinking himself clever for the brilliant idea of punching the foe. Gluttony punches with surprising speed for a fairly standard issue Brawl jab, fast enough that he has to go to his normal form to do it to get his fat rib cage out of the way. The Jab is comparable to Captain Falcon’s in range and damage, if slightly better on both accounts and skipping the first hit of Falcon’s version.

Obviously you can abuse such a jab against a wall, but foes can DI up out of this jab easily enough like most jabs. What this jab more is for is to hit foes coming out of your rib cage. Unfortunately you can’t activate it before they come out due to being a regular form move, so you’ll need some actual reflexes to catch the foe at point blank to actually get some damage in, rather than getting them at the edge of the range where they’ll DI out immediately. Aside from just damage, this can help you to push the foe to the desired area you want them as they come out and not have them at absolute point blank. Shielding foes will get pushed just the same as a regular one, and while people who roll will avoid most of the hits they’ll still be going where you want them to go. That said, this far from uncounterable, as the foe still has the obvious way out of the rib cage by jumping.

DASHING ATTACK – RIB CAGE

Gluttony does a belly flop and slides forwards on his stomach a little under a platform’s width. As he goes, he deals 8% and knockback that KOs at 150%. The move has rather bad ending lag as Gluttony regains his posture, though if Gluttony slides off an edge he will immediately go into his aerial state and bypass it, even if it’s just a little hole in the ground. Gluttony will pick up momentum on slopes, going faster and thus increasing the range of the move, as well as the power. Gluttony can reach Sonic’s dashing speed if he goes down the entire slope on the right side of the Melee Yoshi’s Island stage, and the power at that point is 20% and knockback that KOs at 75%. Gluttony will typically want a small hole at the end of his slope to stop his momentum from flinging him off-stage, though a slope that goes into the stage without popping out the other side from fthrow is already perfect.

Gluttony can bring out his rib cage at any time in the move by pressing a button. This will have Gluttony spin around on his belly to face the camera as his rib cage pops out, hoisting up into the air as his rib cage embeds into the ground. The ribs deal several hits of 1% and set inwards knockback in-between the two ribs over the course of the move, bouncing foes in-between them. Gluttony loses his momentum based hitbox here, and will actively lose momentum as he travels this way and grinds to a halt. Needless to say, starting this move in rib cage form won’t accomplish a whole lot unless you slide off an edge/into a hole, as Gluttony falls down on top of the victim to eat them in said case rather than getting back up with bad ending lag. Aside from simply using this to cage and devour the foe, this makes the momentum based version of the move far more viable simply because you can keep swapping your stance to change your speed as needed, not making you easy to casually dodge as you whizz past like in most momentum moves.

FORWARD TILT – LEFT HOOK

Gluttony sticks out his tongue out of the side of his mouth and clenches an eye shut, focusing as he goes to wind up a big punch. He leans back so that he’s standing on only one foot before throwing a large punch forwards that deals 12% and knockback that KOs at 140%. Gluttony’s awkward posture requires him to shift to regular form to perform the move.

This move is faster than it sounds, a great deal for all the power in the move. In addition, Gluttony steps and leans back a good deal during the starting lag, letting him potentially evade some melee attacks before going in for the punch. This lets him use it in a counterish manner like Bowser’s fsmash, but it’s fast enough that it’s a lot more usable. Moreso than using it as a plain old counter, though, you can use it to step back from a foe who’s just popped out of your stomach portal to evade an attack before slugging them in the face.

There’s a big catch to this move’s low starting lag, and that’s the fact that if Gluttony is hit while he’s off balance during the starting lag he’ll fall over backwards on his ass and trip. Gluttony won’t have his rib cage open, and his own pits can be used against him here as far as prone abuse. Gluttony will still take the knockback of the foe’s attack, but he’ll just slide along the ground and not take any vertical knockback unless the knockback was three quarters vertical or more.

UP TILT – WET WILLY

Gluttony goes to suck on his pointer finger to coat it with drool, then lifts it above his head as he turns to look up, grimacing. This creates a single tiny disjointed hitbox above Gluttony, that deals 10% and causes the foe to collapse down onto the ground below them into a heap (Prone) as Gluttony has presumably burned a hole through their body. Unlike the dthrow, this prone can be teched, and we’ve established how Gluttony can take advantage of prone before with his rib cage open and pits to limit the use of rolling up from prone. If a foe techs, they’re preventing themselves from doing a get-up attack, which is often the best option against Gluttony from this stance.

Gluttony can use this move with his rib cage open as he wipes his pointer finger over his tongue awkwardly for increased starting lag rather than sucking on it. This prevents the prone abuse from being quite as good as it could be with using the rib cage to automatically “wall off” one side, requiring more effort to pull off. This is an excellent response to a foe attempting to exit Gluttony’s stomach dimension by jumping out, though, such as a foe expecting a jab.

DOWN TILT – POUND

Gluttony, needing to put some actual force into his arms, gets his rib cage out of the way as he clasps his hands together and lifts them above his head before slamming them in front of himself onto the ground. His hands deal a spike on par with Ike’s dtilt, doing upwards knockback to grounded foes, along with 14%. In addition, a Wario width earthshaking hitbox spawns in front of Gluttony’s hands that deals 7% and vertical knockback that KOs at 180%, making the move reach out further. While the move doesn’t have a ton of lag on either end, it has notable amounts on both of them to the point you could call it laggy. In the least, both of the hitboxes of the move linger on during the ending lag, the earthshaking covering the entirety of it.

Gluttony definitely has ways to gimp and a dtilt spike from on the stage is perfectly welcome. What makes Gluttony’s better than the standard one is the fact that with all the various terraforming Gluttony will end up doing one way or another, there will be plenty of holes in the stage for Gluttony to stand at the edge of and spike people into with this move, rather than just the far sides of the stage. Unlike edges, foes will have to approach over these holes to reach Gluttony on a regular basis (What with the Gluttony Beam existing if they don’t), so Gluttony doesn’t even have to knock the foe to the correct location.

This move is very useful in combination with the usmash, as it can enable you to spike the poor foe directly through the stage while they’re under the status effect. It’s actually easier to hit with than usual as the foe sinks in front of your face, as if their sinking makes them evade the melee hitbox they can get hit by the earthshaking back up into it. While the earthshaking won’t reach down infinitely if the ground in front of Gluttony is low enough, the Wario height of ground it does reach is more than enough for hitting foes in this particular scenario. If they somehow sit in the hole and just sink down, they’re of course more screwed as he just attempts to hit them with dtilt as they come out.

It’s not like you have a single predictable move for this context either, as if the foe gets too used to dodging the fairly laggy move you can try for some nairs canceled against the ground with landing lag for a similar effect to the dtilt. It’s not as good at the dtilt’s specific job when the foe is in position, though it can actually jump up and hit foes who approach high over the hole, as well as hit a foe constantly jumping around wildly because of the usmash, making this move more threatening by proxy.

FINAL SMASH

Gluttony rushes forwards a platform’s reach as time “freezes” attempting to grab someone. Upon doing so, Gluttony takes a giant bite out of their body, dealing 40% and knockback that KOs at 85% and healing Gluttony of 20% damage. Not much else that can be done for a Final Smash when all of Gluttony’s powers are already used so exhaustively.

PLAYSTYLE SUMMARY

Gluttony has a kill mechanic with his rib cage pocket dimension that is pretty crazily unique, but actually killing people with it is fairly difficult. He has plenty of methods to make life more difficult for foes inside and to attack them/prevent them from getting out, but he can’t do any of those as he’s closing the rib cage. All that can net you a kill is just a lot of stage for the foe to have to go through, some dsmash traps, and most prominently the bthrow to knock a foe back a far ways into the dark dimension. The main thing you want to abuse this for is positioning, placing your rib cage in front of where you want the foe to come out, or simply take the opportunity to attack the foe inside of your body/as they come out. The insta KO is more of leverage to help you pressure the foe as much as possible and keep them playing on your terms.

Gluttony is a very pressure oriented character that really doesn’t mind the distance the foe is away from him. His attack plan will vary greatly based off the distance, though the main thing that gives his long range game the threatening status it has is the Gluttony Beam’s ability to transition from long range to point blank in an instant. At close range, the rib cage is a constant threat that makes Gluttony much more threatening than his otherwise fairly average melee moves would give him credit for. Many of them, most prominently the standards and aerials, are more simply pressuring tools to help him better utilize the threat of his passive gaping hole in his stomach.

The most preferable place you want to dump the foe out of your stomach is to a thousand foot drop to their deaths. Gluttony more easily brings the foe to the edge than almost any other character, and he can even jump off with the foe still in his stomach. He can play it safe and just go off slightly, go off farther than he can normally recover and rely on his bair to have the foe help him back, or go under the stage and recover back up with his Up Special from there, though this runs the risk of the foe dragging Gluttony down with them.

Of course, Gluttony passively terraforms the stage by using most of his moves, and creates more than just one edge. This is what gives Gluttony just as much pressuring power as he does, as almost anywhere he bullies the foe to will end up with their back against an edge of some kind. Gluttony very much appreciates having two different on-stage edgeguarders with his dtilt and nair here. He has plenty of other on-stage gimping tools at his disposal in his dsmash and spit, but most importantly his increasingly threatening grab or the Gluttony Beam to simply reset the situation. On-stage gimping is the most reliable and by far safest scenario with which to land your otherwise risky grab, and the pay-off is extreme.

The main thing limiting Gluttony’s omnipotence is that he practically has to use the stage as a resource, considering he’s so powerful he destroys most of it on accident whether he wants to or not. If too much of it is destroyed, you can end up with vertical columns through the stage connecting, combining two “edges” into a single one as far as you’re concerned. A column can also go throw an fthrow tunnel, connecting them and providing them with alternative routes out no matter which one you send the foe down. If there’s columns in the bottom of the stage, foes can potentially recover up through them like Gluttony does, making the strategy of bringing a foe in the rib cage under the stage lose the powerful strength it once had. His Neutral Special spit projectile is also amongst his best early game pressuring tools and will quickly use all the ground up. Gluttony has to make strategic use of what he has before committing to going on all out berserker rage, quickly dying when players use him with intelligence similar to his.

3V1 BOSS MODE

When 3 people are placed against a team on Gluttony, his portrait on the character select screen changes to one of him with the rib cage rather than his regular form, and he gets some large buffs.

• No hitstun from grab releases or throws. Can only be in stun for 1.2 seconds before he gets .2 seconds of stun immunity.
• Gluttony Beam has infinite range. If a foe gets caught only partially in the Gluttony Beam, they won’t enter the pocket dimension until their body is fully inside it. Instead, they will take 50 hits of 1% and flinching per second until their entire hurtbox is covered by it. If their hurtbox is too large to entirely fit, then as much as possible must be within the beam.
• Gluttony’s projectile spit is even faster than before, able to shoot out about 10 uncharged pieces of spit per second. He can angle the spit in any direction he wants and it will shoot out 1-10 platforms at Mario-Sonic’s dashing speed before the projectile bothers to arc, essentially being a Sheik needle and never bothering to arc at full charge. Gluttony can shoot projectile spit upwards and it will rain back down. That alone is very useful, but this enables Gluttony to easily catch it or use the Gluttony Beam on it to hit foes inside of his body with it. 1v1 Gluttony can do this to spit if he wants, but it’s much more difficult and impractical.
• Down Special rib cage walls can no longer be broken, and Gluttony can go as high as he wants with the move.
• The Gluttony beam places objects back twice as far back in the pocket dimension as it does regularly.
• Gluttony closing his rib cage for an insta KO on somebody inside the other dimension is twice as quick as usual. This is needed because other foes can interrupt Gluttony from doing it with any form of hitstun.
• Gluttony passively heals 3% per second with his patented homunculus regeneration. While he has grab and hitstun resistances, he gains no extra weight, with this taking its place. The usual boss playstyle of disabling foes (Which he’s quite good at with his pocket realm) takes a new context for Gluttony, as he can use any spare time to heal up.
• Grab ribs can’t be destroyed.
• Bthrow knockback increased to “KOing” at 100%, knocking foes much farther back through whatever terrain Gluttony has eaten.
• Regular form bair gives Gluttony 10% flinch resistance.
• Nair creates an earthshaking effect identical to the 1v1 version of the dtilt’s if landing lag is triggered and the hands hit the ground as Gluttony does. Of course, you may want to actually keep going sometimes to hit multiple foes, but this makes it a tad safer.
• Uair creates two additional spit projectiles which go out at 45 degree angles to the sides of the main one in the middle.
• Gluttony can hit up during dair to stop falling immediately.
• Fsmash max range doubled, still keeps same minimum range. Gluttony reels the ribs/himself in twice as quickly.
• Usmash gets the size of Gluttony’s head exaggerated to “justify” a magical hitbox in front of Gluttony so it’s not only an anti-air move, very comparable to Dedede’s utilt. While the acid projectiles that drop down aren’t changed, they’re significantly more useful in 3v1 as the victim rains down projectiles on their allies.
• Using Dsmash with a rib already out will have Gluttony use another rib rather than using the old one, still keeping the old one out. To brake a rib tether now requires 50 damage.
• Dashing attack gives Gluttony superarmor if he gains absolutely any momentum above the default, and invulnerability at max speed. This only applies to Gluttony in regular form, the rib cage form gets no bonuses.
• Ftilt cannot cause Gluttony to be tripped.
• Utilt prone is untechable.
• Dtilt triples the size of the earthshaking hitbox, doubles the duration of it, and causes the earthshaking to be able to reach down infinitely (You dtilt next to a pit, the bottom of the pit shakes regardless of how far down it is). Huge buffs, but necessary for 3v1 when it’s one of Gluttony’s laggiest moves.

 

[Katapultar]

[collapse="Randy Johnson"]When I saw this set I died a little inside for a reason which has nothing to do with the set itself...naturally, the set-up brings Joe to mind, but heavy on the trivial side of things...what I like to call fun and educational set. It's a little hard to catch on at times, but that's only a result of the style used for the set...though it's more like an exhibition, an experience than a standard moveset, much like a lot of other sets this contest, especially when it all revolves around performing different actions with a single object - the antithesis of a playground set, something certain people may not think too fondly of. I'm not here to judge it on that level however: you know what you're talking about here, your writing style is more formal than usual. And there are some touches I like, even if small, that take into consideration the fact that Randy is a real life person: namely, your perspective on his stats, but my favorite part definitely had to be the ambiguous visual cue between the Neutral Special and Side Special (and smashes), and how you mentioned "people who pay a lot of attention to Randy will notice the difference between the two when he actually throws it, due to his grip on the ball" - that's a stroke of genius in my books, something that gives those familiar with Randy a huge advantage over those who don't instead of being a flat-out mindgame...being his fan is actually beneficial to fighting him! It becomes apparent that all these moves are designed to counter a different defensive application of the foe's assuming they were going to do such, and in such a way fighting him almost feels like playing a game of baseball. Even the rest of the set accompanies the feel, never going out of line (grabs and aerials obviously don't fit in with baseball, of course, but it's a moveset). A very different and unexpected kind of set from you, it's probably my favorite of your current line-up of fun (I kinda need to get into reading BastMan).[/collapse]

 

[Yitsul]

I'm happy to see guild wars 2 mentioned in this, someone make a moveset out of the engineer preferably a charr or asura

 

[Deleted member]

Tacky is a word that has worn its meaning out through overuse, Madolche able to dodge and weave around pointless interactions for the most part - using her broom as a weapon - this alone a huge improvement on Athena. The set doesn't play out quite as I expected it to, but did convince me by the end that its direction, using the food items as unlikely projectiles in a projectile spam game, is a fitting playstyle for an entertainer like Madolche. And they said to never let you in the kitchen again after Charlotte! What makes a moveset like this resonate is the smaller details, and that's your forte; the personality in this set is palpable, from the whimsical use of established Brawl animations to the touches on move animations, sometimes relevant, sometimes not. Nevertheless, there are faults - niggling details, for example a nonsensical bit about air dodging to eat food [apparently this is in Brawl. That still should have been clear]. They come at the end of descriptions, cluttering up what is otherwise a fine move. The amount of interactions using the food as a trap or homing projectile on Madolche or the foe, does become excessive. That has the drawback of making it a long read, and that's a hard sell when even casual fans of Yu-Gi-Oh, like myself, won't know this character. Granted, this may be a realistic approach considering the wacky character and how she would try to 'cheat' in Brawl. I'd recommend cutting back on your length, not every set has to be an epic.

I am known to like terraforming as a general rule, DrillMan.EXE didn't need to do too much to impress me, but it helps that the effort is so apparent. Immediately dusting off the criticism from BubbleMan.EXE and to an extent FlashMan.EXE, this set has a plethora of attacks and, shockingly, comboing that isn't mind-crushingly bland. The combos themselves are not as blatant as the set-up, and that is an approach I greatly favour when you need a mechanic on the same level as Kabutop's rain dance to make generic combos have interesting flow. At the same time as barging the opponent up against your structures and fighting over created territory underground, or gimping them off-stage, DrillMan.EXE is constantly keeping his own tunnels alive by simply fighting, creating a nice dynamic for an offensive playstyle. The only real flaw is that there's a deficit of moves that don't renew the collapsing tunnels and logically, it doesn't actually make sense - how does drilling part of an unstable tunnel do that? It's forgiveable, but less in larger quantity. I can't say much on the characterisation, though I found DM's main points mostly specific to fans of DrillMan.EXE's game, to everyone else it's nothing offensive. In all, it's a quality moveset and a step-up from BubbleMan.EXE.

I tried to give it a chance, but Ghetsis is nonsense. That is from the angle of a player and analysing the character, who is jumping off the walls in this moveset. The frequency in which he uses his cane as a remote for stage-covering attacks reminds me of a Bond villain in its exuberance. It was sad how the teleport panel move didn't read well, as I loved the idea of using overworld objects from Pokémon, a generic Pokémon mobster character may be enjoyable. It gets to the point in this set that you're summoning all these magical effects and minions and mass interactions are triggering, that the initial point of the set is lost - to make a Ghetsis without Pokémon. He is basically substituting for one in this moveset, which is bizarre. The playstyle also isn't there, in construct or concept. It's impossible to understand how it works due to the turn on / off device that is the cane for certain moves; input sections are unusable on the ground or in the air, there's such chaos that it nears incomprehensibility. Despite its huge downfalls, I'm convinced that the idea is plausible, particularly if you made it like Hugo or Pegasus in having Pokémon accessible though not directly playable, or simply focusing on a Pokémon-flavoured minion or two.

Xehanort derived its fun from the atmosphere he creates in a brawl, piling on the pressure in a match. Sacrificing percentage for duplicates, while whittling down the opponent's shield, is a clever way of burning the candle at both ends and ostensibly works toward a high-pressure ending to matches that favours Xehanort, but only if he's paying close attention to his own movements. Moves are all stretched into traps to add much-needed versatility to everything and gives the set wider appeal – you have the in-smash moveset minus the specials, and when they are acknowledged, you have an expanded playstyle, it only being interesting to me when it's the latter. What's strange is I found it hard to enjoy Xehanort, though I can see that it has big positives. It's down to your eclectic design – it gets tiring to read your sets when I know the next move's going to be another magic spell that has an obvious function in the playstyle. You have a good balance of melee attacks, sure, but it's mostly in aid of shield breaking if not pure spacing. However, I'm not a complete grump, I can respect the set's approach, especially to the character, and you could say the calculated use of magic is actually a feature.

 

[JOE!]

​

That's right, I'm back and this time I have an ALL-STAR team with me!
​

TIME-TESTED TEAM-UP:

Ace Trainer JOE! brings his all-time favorites to the field, 6 in all and one from each generation of the Pokemon franchise! Wait... what's that Z you ask? Well, JOE! has a special, never before seen Pokemon all the way from the Zelend Region he's bringing to Smash to showcase his time in Pokemon Tabletop Adventures! Who said the games all had to be from the handhelds?
​

TRAINER SYSTEM 2.0:

As many of you may remember, the original Trainer JOE! featured the "Trainer System" which allowed you to pick and choose your team of 3 from a roster of 6 in any order you desired. To recap, at the character select screen you will see a okeball: in the bottom left corner of ATJ's portrait. When you click that, you will then be able to select your team from 6 mini-portraits with a number (1-3) indicating their order once selected, with you able to un-select a Pokemon by clicking them again. If you do not click the okeball:, your team will be randomized.

Order is very important as although stamina is gone, each Pokemon has their own HP and Stock! So there is a good deal of strategy in who you'll want out first, or who'll bring up the rear as once a Pokemon bites the dust, you can no longer switch to them for the remainder of the match. The only exceptions to the rule are time matches where there is a 15 second penalty before the defeated Pokemon is revived (starting after the next in line is summoned to the re-spawn platform), and in matches where there are more than 3 stocks, in which case it works like in the Story-Mode if there are extra stocks: the first to die gets the extra stock, and so on. Unlike the first Trainer JOE!, if there are less than 3 stocks remaining, you will only have that number of Pokemon, with each of the 6 actually having a Down Special to use when solo this time around!

Speaking of Down Special, here is the big change in Ace Trainer JOE!: Double Battles. Unlike TJ!, who had one Pokemon at a time on the field, ATJ has 2: the 1st Pokemon you chose as your Playable/Team 1 and your 2nd pick, that moves around the field halfway between the backdrop where ATJ is and the Team 1 Pokemon (which allows everybody to walk around without bumping into each other), that is designated as the Support/Team 2, with the 3rd acting as your reserve.

In play, your Team2 Pokemon will walk around by itself as if it were a CPU in training mode set to "Walk" and occasionally jump on a platform if it is over the main floor, and will hop off of moving ones once they begin to move off-stage. In case they hop off and grab an edge remember they are somewhat in the BG, meaning they cannot edge-guard you or your foe. While in Team2 mode, they actually behave a lot like a Pokeball Pokemon would and use their own Team 2 Special if a foe is in range, make sure to capitalize on these moves with your Team1 Pokemon! Like some Pokeball Pokemon your Team2 Pokemon is attack-able, but immune to Knockback Growth, meaning it will only suffer set KB between Mario and Samus' Ftilts when hit. This is good seeing your AI controlled team member isn't that easy to pick off (if they do get flung off the edge, they will behave like a training room CPU and use their jumps+recovery to get back), but at the same time 3/4ths of the damage from the attack is carried over when you swap them over to a playable state, so make sure to cover both sides of your party at once!

SWITCHING GUIDE:

3+ STOCKS: :stick2:+:bbutton: = Team1 Swap. :stick2:+(:bbutton:+:abutton = Team2 Swap.
While the conventional switch remains for Team 1 and the Reserve Pokemon, you can also swap between the Team2 Pokemon and the Reserve by pressing Down+(B+A), which can then allow you to use the conventional method to make the formerly Team2 Pokemon playable and so on.

2 STOCKS: :stick2:+:bbutton: = Swap control between Team1 and Team2.
Losing the conventional switching, when there are only two Pokemon on the field you may quickly swap control between them with Down+B. Abuse being able to take control of two places at once to try and take back the lead!

Note: There is a half-second cool-down for switching Pokemon at this stage.

1 STOCK / STAMINA MODE / SPECIAL: :stick2:+:bbutton: = Team2 Special.
When down to just 1 Pokemon left, you exchange swapping for a proper Down Special, and play the Pokemon as their own character as you try to snag a victory at the last moment!​

​

SMASH 4 CHANGES:

This being in SSB4 General and all, I feel as if I should point out that Ace Trainer JOE! will be incorporating some features I'd like to see in the next installment to the Smash series, such as the universal removal of random tripping . Some moves will still cause tripping to create a sort of "prone" status to abuse, however.

SUPER SMASHES: :bbutton:+:abutton:
In Brawl, when you broke the smashball you lost the use of your Neutral Special since that then activated your Final Smash. This is alleviated in SSB4 by mapping it to the simultaneous B+A input as well as introducing the Super Smash, a powerful but limited special move, to be used when you do not have a Final Smash handy.

Super Smashes are generally limited by either Ammunition (noted by a counter next to the character portrait, showing how many Armor Pieces ZSS can throw before she's used up her Super Smash), a Timer (Mario's FLUDD Spray/Hover Super Smash can only be used when a bar under his character Portrait is full, with each use draining it only to refill with time), or when a Special Condition is met (such as when Olimar has 3 or more Flower Pikmin, allowing him to perform his "Pikmin Carry" Command-Grab), but a few Super Smashes here and there are a combination of the 3 mentioned here and often vary in power depending on the amount of Ammo (lower ammo = higher power, dont waste it!), Time to recharge (longer recharge, better power) and the Condition that needs to be met (the harder/more situational, the better the reward).

As for Ace Trainer JOE!, each of his Pokemon have a Team Combo as their Super Smash, that both requires Team1 and Team2 to be within a character length of each other to perform (Solo Pokemon lack a Super Smash), as well as usually a timer or other effect between uses. Each different pair has their own unique Super Smash, mix and match Pokemon to see all 15!

DYNAMIC AIR-DODGE:
A compromise between Brawl and Melee, you may only air-dodge once but do not go into special fall afterwards unless you press a direction with it. Pressing :rtrigger: without :stick5: input will do a Brawl Air Dodge, following your momentum. Pressing :rtrigger: and :stick6: on the other hand will do a Directional Air Dodge, which stops any momentum you had prior as you shift mid-air, but also means you have to try and DI back to safety while in special fall. Due to Directional Air Dodge returning, Wavedashing/Wavelanding also comes back via :xbutton:+:rtrigger:+:stick1:/:stick3: close to the ground, allowing for precise spacing while moving between platforms or simply while in combat on the ground. Remember, while only a few characters -really- benefit from Wavedashing, Wavelanding is a handy technique on most stages for proper spacing and evasion.

SMOOTH LANDING:
While most Aerial moves Auto-Cancel when you land with them, some come with landing lag that can range from mild heavily punishable. This is alleviated in Smash4 with the ability to Lag Cancel Aerials by pressing a :ltrigger:/:rtrigger: during the landing lag of a move. Depending on when you press the input, you can reduce the landing lag by 1/4th or even 1/2 the normal time! This makes heavier moves a bit less risky to perform close to the ground when you finally master the timing and spacing for the cancel, and faster moves a tad less overwhelming as it'll be much harder to get their 1/2 lag sweet-spot.

HIT-STUN CANCEL THRESHOLD:
In Brawl, you could cancel hit-stun very early by pretty much any action, where in Melee you couldn't really cancel it until the stun was over (and don't even mention 64's crazy hit-stun). Smash4 introduces a threshold to cancel hit-stun once you are hit hard enough to start leaving a smoke trail as you fly through the air, you can cancel the stun with any action. There is a bit of a catch, however: the harder you are hit/higher %, the harder it is to cancel the stun, acting like escaping a grab in some ways in how you have to mash the input you want to cancel with slightly to escape before it's too late. The new threshold both allows for offensive comboing to take place at low-mid% without it being easily interrupted as in Brawl, as well as survival to be a bit easier once flung off-stage at higher% (with skill) than it was in Melee. On the topic of survival, it should be mentioned that fall-speed in Smash4 is much like 64 in that it is between Melee and Brawl, allowing for a bit more air fighting than melee, but keeping a bit faster pace than Brawl.

UNIVERSAL Z-AIR:
No longer limited to those with tethers, every character has access to a Z/Grab move once airborne. While there are no "throws" from the air, some characters do have a special throw of sorts instead of an attack (Such as Lucario doing a Grab-Only Force Palm that meteors opponents downwards, or Captain Falcon doing his UpB Grapple Attack with 1/2 the damage and Knockback, and no explosion or added movement), others can transition their Z-Air directly into their standard grab by holding on and pummeling the opponent as they fall back to the ground (Such as Diddy's Zair where he pummels the foe like with Side B until they either escape or touch ground), and others merely have an attack like Link or Samus for theirs. Unlike Link or Samus, non-tether Z-Airs do not extend the range of which you can grab an edge. It's a nice addition for most characters, but then again a lot of their Aerials are more reliable to land and/or more rewarding than their Z-Air, but you can always find a use for it with practice!
​

​

FINAL SMASH: TEAM RESTORE

A simple, yet certainly game changing Final Smash when activated: JOE! will rush to the foreground and apply a Full Restore to each of his Pokemon, as well as sending out the reserve once in the backdrop again and using a Full Restore on them as well (he is invincible while doing this/the action is semi-cinematic). This brings the whole team's %'s back down to 0 and eliminating any sort of status effects on them. Using this wisely can easily turn the battle back into your favor by giving the team a fresh start!
​

PLAYSTYLE:

Like his predecessor, Ace Trainer JOE! is a very complex character due to the sheer amount of time it takes to master him and all his various assets (half of learning him is just picking your favorite combination/team of Pokemon). He is probably even harder to master than the original due to the Doubles mechanic giving way to a layered playstyle based on the amount of stocks you have left, on top of the dynamics that come with controlling 2 Pokemon at once through switching/super smashes.

An example of the layered playstyle can be seen by saving your best Pokemon as the reserve, and keeping it there (or in team2) in case you have to go solo with it, allowing you to finish strongly in when your two other team members eventually fall while trying to keep your favorite fresh for battle. Alternatively, you could also constantly switch Pokemon through the course of the match, confusing your foe with a barrage of different characters every few moments, especially when down to two stocks where you can swap back and forth, leading to awesome combo potential!

30 different pairings, and a total of 120 different teams leads to an incredibly deep, yet rewarding character to master. He's not an Ace Trainer for nothing!
​

​

Phew... that was a long intro, huh? Let's take it a bit slow from now on and reveal the team one at a time. Speaking of time... we'll start off back around 1998 in the First Generation games!​

 

[JOE!]

Pokemon Yellow was my first ever outing into the Pokemon world, as a birthday gift back around when it first came out. I of course had some exposure to it beforehand (what kid didn't?) but simply never had a copy of Red/Blue for myself. It was there that I eventually found one of my all-time favorite Pokemon, one of the four that needed a friend's help to get, and possibly the king of Generation 1 outside of the legends themselves...​

ALAKAZAM

A Pokémon that can memorize anything. It never forgets what it learns -- that's why this Pokémon is smart. ​

STATS:
Size: 5 (Similar in height to Falco, even with the slightly hunched posture)
Weight: 5 (Slightly less than Sonic)
Run: 9 (Slightly behind Fox as he "skates" along the floor)
Air: 3 (Poor top speed, but can maneuver well side to side. His jumps are a little odd in that he has a below average ground hop, with an excellent second jump, going almost twice as high due to his telekinesis.)
Fall: 5 (Mediocre but on the more floaty-side)
Traction: 1 (Due to his telekinesis moving him about, he often builds up momentum along the ground, leading to an excellent Wavedash like with Luigi, as well as the weakness to being pushed while shielding.)

Alakazam has a mediocre crouch, and no special tricks like wall clinging or crawling, but it should be mentioned that all his dodge animations have him Teleport, which can lead to some very tricky ways to evade attacks.



SPECIALS:
Neutral Special: Psybeam
Crossing his spoons in front of him in an X, Alakazam then swings them open to send out a multicolored beam of energy as thick as Wolf's Laser, but as long as Falco's. Made of wobbly rings along a center "beam", the projectile travels around at Yoshi's Dash speed and has infinite range, hitting foes for a decent 9% with minor hit-stun and having the peculiar effect of passing right through opponents as well as shields!

Once it actually has hit something or someone, it's hitbox is lost unless it is reflected, in which case it regains it's hitbox. A tricky move for sure, players would be wise to use this as a means of racking damage or as a mind game for faking out foes who think the hitbox is active, and taking advantage of how you can dash faster than it travels. The only downside seems to be that you have to wait till it leaves the screen to shoot another one.


Side Special: Confusion
Raising a hand and sending out a blue pulse of psychic power similar in range to the projectile portion of Lucario's own Side B, Confusion is a Command Grab for anyone unfortunate enough to be snagged by Alakazam. Once caught, Alakazam has 1/2 a second to freely move the foe around with the control stick at Squirtle's air speed, giving you great control and about a maximum range of a Stage Builder Block to move foes. Once the 1/2 second is up, the blue aura fades from the foe as they receive a minor push effect in the direction they were sent, as well as 5% to both themselves and anyone they hit while Alakazam flies them about. Beyond being a great tool to reposition the opposition, Confusion will also work on catchable items such as Pokeballs and even Crates, as well as halt his momentum if he catches something!


Up Special: Teleport
A signature move of his, Alakazam can appear and disappear like magic across the stage, and actually has two ways of performing the trick! The first is the obvious use for it as a recovery, as he envelops himself in multicolored, psychic energy before zipping back to where he first appeared on the stage. When I say where he first appeared, I really mean it since he will appear right where he came out of his pokeball last, either from the spot where he made his entrance animation, where he was switched in, or even mid-air where the re-spawn platform was! While a seemingly perfect recovery at first, you have to take into account two things: 1) his momentum does not halt while the move starts up, combined with his mediocre weight means he'll won't last too long when being knocked around, and 2) if the foe catches on to your trick, it wont be that hard to intercept Alakazam when he reappears.

When on the ground, both Alakazam and his Team2 partner are both surrounded by psychic energy, and switch places with half the lag of the aerial version (granted they also receive half the lag when coming out, whereas the Aerial version is relatively lagless on re-entry)! The uses for this should be readily apparent with how the team dynamic works, especially when you can swap between Pokemon right after!


Team2/Down Special: Reflect
Making an X with his arms again, Alakazam projects a multicolored, circular aura around himself about 2x the size of his shield at full strength, before it shrinks down to the size of his normal shield just a fraction of a second later. those hit by the first part will take about 3% and be lKB'ed in the exact opposite way they were heading when they hit it with about the same strength as Mario's Ftilt. For everything else, namely projectiles, they will also be reflected back just like if they hit a mirror, traveling in the opposite angle they hit the aura.

While Alakazam will do this whenever a projectile comes his way while on Team2, it is important to note that he will also do this to friendly projectiles (remaining friendly to you), including his own Psybeam if you get the positioning right!

Note: Projectiles isn't the only thing Alakazam can reflect with this, as his Synchronize ability can be activated if he is suffering from any sort of status ailment with the first hit of Reflect, passing it on to those it hits!



STANDARDS:
Forward Tilt: Spoon Toss
Alakazam shoots out one of his spoons using his mind (which is comparable in size to a Capsule) about the same distance of Ike's Ftilt, and dealing 4% with minimal knockback on the way out as well as when it zooms back to his hand like Link's boomerang. He is also able to angle it up and down slightly as he tosses the spoon, and can act as soon as it reaches it's maximum distance. This allows him to move around as it homes back into his hand and hopefully score a second hit.


Up Tilt: Spoon Toss
Same as his Ftilt, only without the ability to angle the toss, he will shoot a spoon upward high enough to hover above a platform before homing back into him. He cannot perform another tilt until he has a spoon back in his hands, luckily they return at his dash speed.


Down Tilt: Spoon Toss
His last tilt has him slide a spoon along the ground, reaching out as far as DDD's ftilt and having a decent chance to trip standing opponents for 3%, before acting like the other tosses and returning to him for 4%.


Jab: Kinesis
With an outstretched arm Alakazam makes a small spark of psychic energy that pushes foes back for 4%, as well as tying all his tilts together with his signature move; Kinesis.

When he does his jab after a Spoon has been tossed out, it will also spark with a hitbox for 4%, as well as levitate in place until somebody hits it. He can only have one of these "traps" out at a time, and the Spoon will return to him like normal once he either uses Kinesis again (either normally or on another tilt) or if somebody hits it. Remember to be tricky with your placement so you can bait foes into traps, set up combos, and in general mind-game your foes!

Note: If Alakazam is KO'ed or switched out when a Spoon is active on the field, it will simply teleport back into his pokeball with him. He can also Reflect the spoons when they return to him to "replay" the tilt from his new position while solo.


Dash Attack: Tele-Strike
As he dashes forward Alakazam will teleport forward about the same distance as one of Lucario's rolls, hitting when he disappears and reappears for 8% and mediocre knockback as he skids to a halt. A useful tool to make a quick escape, or to just go through the opposition.



SMASHES:
Forward Smash: Elemental Punches
Back in the day, Alakazam was commonly seen packing these moves since they all counted as special attacks, and they are still important to him here in Smash4! Reeling his hand back as he charges the move, the element engulfing his hand and spoon as he does so, he will then swing his spoon forward the distance of Mario's cape for a devastating strike!

Like with Peach, his Fsmash has 3 different variants but always goes in order of Fire, Ice then Thunderpunch. Fire Punch does the most Knockback of the three, dealing 14-20% in a single hit and killing Mario at around 115%. Ice Punch has added range as his spoon emits an icy aura for 14-20%, but killing Mario at around 150%, and Thunderpunch does the most damage with emitting multiple hits adding up to 18-25%, but has the least power of the three and is best used as a set up or punish due to the high hit-stun as it wont be killing Mario till around 200%. A great Smash all around for him if you land it, but it is a bit easy to see coming with telegraphed beginning and end lag, much like Sonic's own Fsmash.


Up Smash: Psycho Cut
Levitating his spoon a slight distance from his hand as he charges, Alakazam will then charge it with psychic energy like with Kinesis as he swings it in a big arc over his head, just like Ike! Dealing only 12-17%, Psycho Cut is surprisingly powerful and is able to kill Mario at about 130% off the top if he is hit at the highest point of the arc. Otherwise, Alakaam's Usmash is decent as an anti-air due to low knockback growth (it only becomes dangerous at higher %) and it's relative speed, comparable to Wolf's Fsmash in animation time.


Down Smash: Psyshock
Closing his eyes as he charges, his body is surrounded with psychic energy, he will unleash it around himself in a flurry of psychic sparks adding up to a whopping 20-28%! Having great speed and covering his whole body, Psyshock is a punishing GTFO move, but unfortunately has the same kill potential as Shiek's Dsmash, which is nothing to write home about.



AERIALS:
Neutral Air: Psychic
Taking on a "meditating" pose midair, Alakazam focuses his psychic power into bumper-sized sparks of energy on either side of him! Hitting twice each, the first hits occur diagonally up on his right side, and diagonally down on his left for 12% each and enough KB to start killing around 110% near an edge. After those flash briefly, smaller sparks appear on the other diagonals for 6% each, and linger for 2x the duration of the former, but for 1/2 the knockback. His laggiest, but most powerful aerial, Psychic is his go-to moves for aerial kills if you can manage to land it despite it taking as long as Bowser's Dair to pull off (with hefty landing lag, it is impractical to try Short-Hopping this aerial as you usually land before even getting the first hit off).


Forward Air: Kinetic Saw
Holding his arms forward, he levitates a Spoon in front of him and spins it rapidly with psychic sparks each time it rotates. A good damaging move due to it's range and multi-hit properties, adding up to 18% if you manage to keep a foe in for the whole duration like with Fox or Falco's Fairs.


Bair: Psychic Push
Turning around and mimicking Ness with outstretched palms, Alakazam creates a single spark of psychic energy from his palms that deals 10% and can kill at around 140% at an edge. On top of this, the outer area of the spark has a weak repel/wind effect if it doesn't hit a foe directly, and leaves Alakazam turned around midair.


Dair: Gravity
Leaning forward and facing the camera, Alakazam pushes downward with an open palm, the air around his hand warping with psychic force as he pushes down at anyone below him. Foes hit by his hand will receive 10% and be sent downwards with meteor KB, and even if they manage to just get hit by the pulse of psychic force they will receive 5% and automatically Fast Fall while in hit-stun.


Uair: Telekinesis
Looking skyward, Alakazam pushes an arm up forcefully and creates a spark with an open hand, hitting anyone above himself for 9% and mediocre KB that is perfect for juggling. If a foe is hit by just the spark and not his hand, they receive only 4% and find that their fall speed has been reduced while in hit-stun.



THROWS:
Pummel: Psychic Assault
Alakazam has a rather average grab, with a bit of extra range in front of his hand before levitating his target in place with psychic energy before him. Tapping A will have Alakazam assault the foe's head with sparks of psychic power for 3% each at a rate comparable to DK's pummel.


Forward Throw: Blink
Grabbing on to the foe, Alakazam performs his dash attack with them in tow. When they reappear, the foe is tossed forward with mediocre KB and an extra 7% tacked onto their HP. Like with his dash attack, this throw can move the two of them off-stage.


Back Throw: Future Sight
Alakazam swings the foe behind him much like DK's back throw, with the foe flying through the air and having a peculiar spark around their head like with his pummel. Two seconds after they've been flung, the spark will activate and the foe will be hit for 10% and very high hitstun, even if they dodge!

Performing this throw again if the target already has Future Sight on them will simply reset the timer, but that can also be useful for throwing them off so you can be the one who takes advantage of it when it goes off.


Dthrow: Disable
Locking eyes with the foe, Alakazam sends out a hypnotic pulse of psychic energy that puts them into their "broken shield" state! Disable does no damage, but Alakazam's portion of the animation takes as long as Bowser's Dthrow to pull off, which can limit this throw's use until high % when you are sure to take advantage with a hard hit.

Note: Disabled foes have anti-grab armor while disabled.


Uthrow: Lift
Raising his hand like Yoda when he lifted the X-Wing, Alakazam's victim slowly rises up while in their "grabbed" animation to a maximum height of Alakazam himself over his own head while taking 8% over the course of it all. Alakazam has a decent frame advantage with this throw, being able to act about a tenth of a second before the victim is.


Z-Air: Levitate
Repeating his Grab animation midair, Alakazam will simply hold a foe in place in their grabbed animation for 1/2 a second, leaving him free to abuse the situation in any way he pleases, granted he lands the grab in the first place.



TAUNTS:
Up Taunt: Meditation
Alakazam hovers in place in a meditation pose for a moment, before returning to normal.


Forward Taunt: Spoon Bending
Alakazam holds his arms straight out and bends his spoons forward while saying his name, the spoons bending back as he returns to normal.


Down Taunt: Orbit
Alakazam relaxes for a moment and closes his eyes as his spoons orbit around himself momentarily before catching them one at a time.

TRAINER TIPS:

Well, that was a blast from the past. Alakazam's organization is even old-school!

Speaking of blasts, Alakazam's main role on the team is a sweeper using his speed and high-power psychic moves to land KO's when they're most needed. Diving a bit deeper however, you come to realize that Alakazam's game really revolves around memory and mind games when he is on the front lines. Between his Kinesis standards and Confusion alone, you should have no trouble wracking up some damage by tossing foes into multiple hitboxes, especially with set ups like Uthrow and Bthrow to get the ball rolling. When things do go south however, it is best to switch out Alakazam for somebody a bit more durable as even with teleport on his side, his lowish weight and medium frame can make it pretty easy to land kill moves on him.

In the mean time, his Psybeam should be on the stage as a mobile hitbox to keep aware of, especially when swapping him to Team2 so he can reflect it to renew the hitbox and keep it around to help his team mates build up damage. Team mates can also use his Reflect to bounce their own projectiles to try and catch foes off guard, making Alakazam an oddly defensive Team2 choice in regards to his Sweeper role.

All in all, you'll definitely have to keep a sharp mind when dealing with Alakazam on the team to get the most out of this high powered psychic Pokemon.
​

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Next time, we'll be going to the year 2000 to take a look at the Gen2 Pokemon on the team. Here's a hint: You've seen him in MYM before!​

 

[BKupa666]

Willy Wonka​

Mr. Willy Wonka is the eccentric mastermind behind all sorts of innovative candy, which he conceives inside his massive factory. After antagonistic rival candymen planted spies inside, Wonka closed down his business and disappeared. Many years later, he re-opened it to the finders of five golden tickets, leading them on an unforgettable tour in an attempt to find an heir. Though Wonka appears narcissistic and openly showcases his disgust with four of the five ticket finders, he still behaves congenially and warmly, particularly toward his Oompa Loompa workforce. Wonka's confections defy logic on a regular basis, providing consumers with weird and pleasurable surprises upon entering their mouths.

Statistics​

Traction { 10 }
Size { 8 }
Weight { 6 }
Aerial Movement { 5 }
Fall Speed { 5 }
Movement { 4 }
Jumps { 3 }

While a uniquely energetic character, Wonka is still an elderly figure, therefore moving about in a more calculated manner than most. His mind maintains flexibility despite his body's brittleness, lending him plenty of clever strategies to purge the stage of his enemies, just as he rid his factory of naughty children. During this process, Wonka must also take care to preserve himself: he is a tall figure with his top hat, but not a tank by any means. With all of the candy Wonka will be implementing into his matches, one might think his foes will spend most of their time healing, rather than suffering any actual damage. Though this may seem the case at times, there is a method to Wonka's apparent madness that can be seen once he's successfully filled the stage with his various goodies.

Specials​

Neutral Special { Wonka Bar }
Wonka reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out his trademark product: none other than a Scrumdiddlyumptious Wonka Bar. With .1 second startup lag, Wonka tosses the bar a platform to the ground in front of himself, though this trajectory can be altered so the bar travels in an arc. Once it lands, the bar expands in size slightly, becoming a food item that heals 3% to any character who picks it up. Multiple bars can be tossed if the input is continuously tapped, filling the stage floor with the tasty treats, at least until each bar's twelve second duration ends. Though Wonka can potentially gorge himself on his own bars, doing so would be directly counterproductive to one of his primary battle tactics.

At first glance, Wonka Bars are nothing short of a blessing for opponents. One might think Wonka is literally throwing away his winning chances by offering his foes a steady supply of regenerative items. They very well might continue thinking this until they try to attack Wonka around a cluster of bars. Their attempt to input a regular move will result in them simply consuming a nearby bar instead, healing a bit of damage, but remaining momentarily vulnerable to retaliation from Wonka. Multiple bars concentrated in one area of the stage can essentially lock a foe out of using all standards, as the shared A button causes characters to eat all nearby bars before they can attack on that part of the stage. Though Wonka must still be wary of all non-standard attacks that cannot grab bars, scattering the confections around the stage may very well cripple his opponent, offsetting his own offensive weaknesses while biding him time to cook up more crippling candies.

Down Special { I’ve Got a Perfect Puzzle for You… }
Wonka whips out a fife, playing an unusual tune for .5 second to summon one of the denizens of the Jersey Shore Loompaland, the Oompa-Loompa, which pop out from behind Wonka as if they were hiding there all along. These stumpy sidekicks share Mario’s dimensions and movement capabilities, but move around the stage much less seriously than the eternally-glaring plumber. Their AI is qutie intelligent, but not incredibly offensive. In fact, an Oompa-Loompa will only begin approaching a foe once they begin an attack. If the foe is about to perform an attack with moderately laggy startup, the Oompa-Loompa will poke a finger at them and laugh at their strange ways before retreating, dealing a weak 3% but halting their move with brief hitstun. They will only attempt to do so if a foe is using an attack with .45 second startup lag or more, and they are able to reach the attacker before they unleash their move; otherwise, the Oompa-Loompa will trollishly dance around outside the foe’s reach, or run a slight distance away. Oompa-Loompas will also run away if a foe begins aggressively attacking them, as they try to defend their 35 HP for as long as possible.

A total of five Oompa-Loompas may be called to the stage at one time, and although new workers cannot be summoned until an existing one is KOed, an Oompa-Loompa will automatically eat up to three Wonka Bars if its health dips below 10 HP. Of course, their attack pattern, combined with Wonka’s ability to interrupt attacks with placed bars, makes them a bit harder to KO than the average mook. Speaking of Wonka Bars, Oompa-Loompas work fantastically in tandem with their master’s product. By repeatedly blocking foes from using laggier, stronger attacks, Oompa-Loompas are a strong incentive for foes to use faster, weaker moves that they can’t interrupt…faster, weaker moves that are likely triggered by the A button, just like the act of grabbing a healing item. Wonka and his Oompa-Loompas will often find themselves working closely together; Wonka can directly order Oompa-Loompas around through the use of Special Smashes, healing them if they suffer damage, while their interference can prevent foes from getting off crucial KO blows against Wonka in his time of need.

Side Special { Exploding Candy for Your Enemies }
Wonka grabs an open burlap sack of powdered candy, holding it back slightly for .35 second, as if preparing to toss its contents, before doing so. He thrusts the sack forward so the smoking powder inside is cast upon the stage. Though the powder will coat a platform worth of stage if the input is merely tapped, the player can hold it for up to a second for Wonka to toss enough Exploding Candy to cover half of Final Destination. This sizzling substance remains onstage for twelve seconds before fading away, though it can put the hurt on foes in a matter of seconds. Simply passing over an area of Exploding Candy does nothing to opponents, unless they linger around too long. Should a foe stop over a coated area for a second or longer, a Bowser-sized powdery explosion will engulf them, dealing 12% and launching them with enough vertical force to KO upwards of 155%.

One explosion will occur for every character width of space a foe is occupying after their second is up, potentially leading to multiple powerful hitboxes blasting them off again if their attack has them covering a large amount of space. Because a set amount of space triggers each explosion, a character can move around slightly and still get blown sky high. Now, the implications of this are rather simple, yet unpleasant for opponents: they become virtually unable to use Smashes or grabs on top of Exploding Candy, as few characters can grab -and- throw or complete a Smash before their crucial second is up. By coating areas of stage in Exploding Candy, Wonka can gently(?) guide characters elsewhere, preferably somewhere with plenty of Wonka Bars to interrupt attacks. If Wonka is able to land multiple explosions on his foe at once, he might just convince them to run to candy bar-laden territory on their own accord in the hopes of healing before Wonka can reach and punish them.

Up Special { You Stole Fizzy Lifting Drinks! }
Wonka extracts an uncorked bottle of Fizzy Lifting Drink and begins holds it up after .45 second, releasing a horde of the bubbles that have become a recurring staple of many a set in some form or another. These miniature bubbles cover a Bowser-sized area over Wonka’s head, remaining onstage for twelve seconds (or until a character comes in contact with them) before vanishing. With a single input of the move, Wonka shakes the bottle continuously, saturating a set area of air with bubbles, while a second input cancels the move; after the first input, Wonka may walk slowly back and forth to spread the bubbles around the stage. Though any attack can pop a bubble, they often occupy an area of stage large enough for foes to have difficulty clearing them all without getting hit.

Should any character, including Wonka, make contact with the bubbles, they will ingest them, causing them to float up, just like one of those confounded balloons. Though they retain their air dodge and control over their horizontal movement, and can speed up or slow their ascent speed slightly, foes will rise at Mario’s dash speed for three seconds, starting at the exact moment they make contact with the bubbles. This means, if the foe jumps into the bubbles while trying to attack Wonka with an aerial, they’ll likely rise above him before they are able to make contact. Though the drink itself can lift foes toward the top blast zone, its lack of damage means Wonka will have to prod them with a damaging attack while they’re up there to earn a star KO. Wonka himself can rise into the air for a few strategies of his own, though he must beware this same KO tactic being used against him on stages with low ceilings. If things start to look bad, Wonka alone can air dodge, performing a unique animation during which he'll burp, returning him to a regular aerial state.

Should Wonka himself use the move in the air, he’ll open the bottle as he falls, allowing bubbles to exit it and create a column, half as thick as a platform. These behave identically to bubbles sent onstage in one area or in a horizontal stream, with the exception of their vertical nature creating different options for Wonka to use them against foes. Indeed, if he can catch a foe in a bubble column and keep them inside for its duration, they’ll exit its top with the bubbles’ timer fully refreshed and as dangerous as ever. While falling, Wonka may also DI from side to side, creating a diagonal formation of bubbles, with its angle depending on how forcefully the player holds down the control stick. Though directly streaming bubbles in midair does not help Wonka recover, he can release them before inputting his aerial jump to enter them and float toward the stage. This, of course, cannot be repeated, due to Wonka having a single non-refreshable midair jump.

Oompa Loompas can float up as well if they come in contact with the fizzy lifting bubbles. Though they retain their ability to interrupt laggy attacks in the air while executing a few mischievous strategies of their own, they will float off of the top blast zone unless they are directly attacked back down, due to their refusal to belch and glide down own their own. An Oompa-Loompa that has passed the top blast zone is essentially KOed, though it can still aid Wonka from offscreen…stay tuned. They’ll DI around in a similar manner to how their intelligent AI dashes around onstage, with Wario-like movement properties allowing them great flexibility in the skies.

Grab-Game​

Grab { Blueberry Pie and Ice Cream! }
Wonka has a rather unorthodox grab, in that he doesn't actually clutch a victim at close range. Instead, in one of his few displays of physical force, Wonka extends an open palm half a platform's length, holding a strip of his defective Three Course Chewing Gum Meal. Should his moderately slow reach catch a foe, he'll pull them in slightly with one hand, stuffing the gum down their gullet with the other. Though this heals the foe of 10% due to the first two courses, the third and final one transforms the foe into a ovular blueberry. After landing the 'grab', Wonka becomes controllable; he can attack outside his grab-game, or use his throws if he remains within a platform of his victim, observing their fate. It always goes wrong when it gets to the dessert...

Over the next five seconds, the victim fills with juice, becoming a blue ball, roughly twice their regular size. During the first three seconds of swelling, foes can still attack, albeit with increasing lag as the next phase of the status effect approaches. For the next two seconds and onward, they become fully swollen, retaining the ability to waddle around, hop and dodge, with half their regular jump height and movement speed, and twice as much lag, respectively. Now, if a blueberry starts walking, rolling (more to come shortly) or falling through the air, they'll begin the de-juicing process, essentially inflating in reverse. Though de-juicing is, as Wonka puts it, a fairly simple operation, a foe can only begin it after swelling to their full size. Swollen characters lose a fifth of their newfound size for every half second they walk, roll or fall through the air, regaining the ability and losing the negative status effects on their movement capabilities after two-fifths of juice is lost. Three lost fifths later, they return to normal at last. Anytime a character de-juices onstage, they leave behind a refreshable trail of liquid blue, which has a 50% chance of tripping foes who dash over it during its twelve second duration. The juice drips from a falling blueberry in Pokeball-sized droplets, gimping foes beneath them down with minor force.

Characters are able to dash against the victim's body to roll them around onstage, and can footstool from their juicy mass to propel themselves up twice as high as usual. Though rolling characters gain momentum after being pushed for around a second or so, heavier characters take more time to gain momentum than lighter ones, and all characters can slow their momentum to a halt by tilting the control stick in the opposite direction (for a time dependent on how much momentum they had before braking); slopes have an obvious effect on a blueberry's momentum as well. Though Wonka can roll a foe off the edge to gimp them, he may have to follow up on his victim, for a blueberry can regain more potent jumps after a short de-juicing period. Should Wonka wish to keep his foe nice and swollen, he can knock them toward or off edges rather than rolling them, landing hits on their bloated hurtbox to hurry them along. Onstage, rolling still proves useful to Wonka; a de-juicing foe will enter prone if they are rolled as they enter their less swollen state, biding either punishment or set-up time. Wonka can do roll a blueberry to spread juice all over the place so his foe meets their sticky end, one way or another.

Pummel { Furious Fifing }
Wonka whips out his fife again, playing the same hectic tune, this time for a full second. For each input of the move, all Oompa-Loompas within two platforms of Wonka will immediately dash over to the swelling or swollen foe; two inputs, for example, summons all Oompa-Loompas within four platforms of Wonka. The clever minions will circle around the victim, moving into the foreground and background as they observe their condition with humor.

During this time, they serve as a sort of safety net. If a swelling victim attacks with Oompa-Loompas nearby, the nearest little person will pop out and behave as they usually do, interrupting their attack if it has any notable startup lag. In addition, once the foe can start de-juicing, should they attempt to do so by walking, the Oompa-Loompas will press up against them, moving to either side of the blueberry to block it from moving and losing juice. Oompa-Loompas can be difficult to summon from distances, but are generally valuable to have around a blueberry, due to the assistance they can provide during Wonka's throws.

Forward/Back Throw { Berry Roll }
Wonka's throws can be performed at any point during the inflation or deflation process, though the results are generally best once a foe has fully inflated. Here, Wonka simply gives his blueberrified foe a strong push, dealing 5% and knocking them into prone, if they haven’t fully inflated. If they have, his push rolls them forward a platform with enough force that Wonka can build their momentum if he walks after them and continues pushing. On its own, these throws can send a foe careening in a set direction, spreading an initial trail of juice as they go. Any Oompa-Loompas in the rolling blueberry's path will leap over it with a giggle, allowing it to keep its speed as it travels under them.

If Oompa-Loompas have been summoned with pummel, however, they'll leap onto the pushed blueberry as a bonus, barrel-rolling on top of them to spin them 'round and 'round, moving them twice as far. Wonka will generally not be able to keep up with his minions' faster rolling, though they will leap off of the blueberry after it has traveled two platforms. Aside from the increase in rolling distance, the blueberry will enter a dizzied animation for a second and a half after coming to a stop. This prevents them from walking to lose juice, as well as from fighting back against the momentum of an additional roll. A slightly less obvious use of the move is to boost Oompa-Loompas off the ground; standing on a blueberry lets the little guys reach a stream of fizzy bubbles without having to be attacked up into it.

Down Throw { Berry Bury }
In a rare display of physical agility, Wonka leaps up slightly, landing on top of his blueberrified victim to deal 5%. If the foe is not fully inflated, he’ll stop with just one jump, though if they are, he’ll bounce a Mario off their juicy mass into the air. Should he simply remain immobile, he’ll fall back to the ground, sliding off the blueberry’s top harmlessly. If the player times a tap of A, however, Wonka will spring twice his initial bounce height into the air, repeating the move’s damage. He may repeat this as many times as he wishes, doubling his bounce’s height each time. The third time he lands on his blueberry, it becomes pitfalled, becoming an extra large, even more vulnerable target for Wonka when he lands. Should any button be pressed while Wonka is airborne, he’ll cancel out of his bouncing animation, entering his regular aerial state, from which he can practice an even more varied cornucopia of tricks.

Up Throw { Berry Bounce }
Pretending they are one of those candy beach balls in the Chocolate Room, Wonka sticks a foot under his blueberry, kicking them up into the air a Ganondorf while dealing 4%. This is a rather simple throw that can set a foe up for some aerial follow-ups, or, indeed, get them up in the air by forcing them into some fizzy bubbles, whether or not they are inflated. If you recall, inflated foes will only lose juice if they’re rolled or falling through the air, not -rising- up into it. Because of this, Wonka can prepare himself a vulnerable ovular target on which to stack status effects to plague them when they do begin falling back to earth.

Standards​

Jab { Gummy Balls }
Wonka reaches into his coat pocket, quickly pulling out a handful of randomly-colored spherical gummy candies and tossing them forward a platform over .75 second, where they sit in a half-platform width cluster for twelve seconds before vanishing. Though these pellets deal twelve rapid, pushing hits of 1%, they don't just vanish upon hitting a foe; the candies' gumminess causes them to stick to characters, giving them the appearance of a decorated Christmas tree. For every five pellets that hit and stick to a foe, they gain a one-in-three chance of tripping upon dashing, rolling or spot dodging, or landing, as the circular candies slip them up. Characters walking over a cluster suffer the same effect.

Though Wonka can throw out handful after handful of candies onto a character, first to give them a one-in-two chance at tripping, then a guaranteed trip, the candies themselves are simple to deflect. Each individual candy has an absurdly tiny weight, less than that of a generic Mite from the SSE; one hit from anything will knock one away uselessly, whether they are being thrown or sitting in a cluster. Characters can remove candies from themselves the same way, as long as their attack utilizes the area of their body a candy is stuck to (they are somewhat scattered on characters, generally needing two or three different attacks to throw off). Performing any attack at all is difficult when a horde of chocolate bars is nearby to interrupt them, of course, and if Wonka decides to bombard the foe with aerial candies (coming before too long), they may very well choose to endure the sticky candies, depending on what is raining down on them.

Dash Attack { Stretchy Surprise }
Without breaking stride, Wonka takes out a gummy-looking fruit from the Chocolate Room, stretching it out in his hands and holding it in front of him over .55 second. Opponents he comes in contact with while dashing suffer a rather light 5% and are bounced back a platform, giving them about a split second to get out of the way before getting rebounded again, as Wonka keeps on dashing. Foes can attack into the stretchy candy with an attack dealing 15% or more to stretch it back far enough to hit Wonka and end the move, though weaker attacks will simply bounce back at the character, damaging them instead. Wonka may avoid retaliation by playing smartly with his stretchy candy, using it to push foes overtop an area coated in Exploding Candy, where stronger, laggier attacks prove impractical to attempt. Bouncing foes into a location under fizzy bubbles is also an effective way to thwart those trying to leap over Wonka to safety.

Forward Tilt { Giving Him the Gobstopper }
Wonka seems to conjure a multi-colored everlasting gobstopper out of thin air, before casting it forward a platform, letting it travel diagonally to the ground in front of him over .45 second. The gobstopper deals 3% and a split second of stun while airborne, and becomes a food item on the ground. Though the gobstoppers are indeed everlasting (unlike the real manufactured gobstoppers), they only remain onstage for twelve seconds, like other food items, and only three may exist onstage at once (the first disappearing if Wonka throws out a fourth). The gobstoppers are Deku Nut-sized, small enough that, if Wonka throws out enough chocolate bars nearby, they’ll overlap the candy, hiding it from sight.

Gobstoppers heal foes 1% when picked up, but don’t actually vanish from the playing field…they’re everlasting, remember? As such, if a foe is gobbling up chocolate bars to hurriedly remove them from the stage, a hidden gobstopper can prove rather pesky, as the character may not realize they are chowing down on one if it is hidden between bars until it is too late. Wonka himself may eat a gobstopper to quickly heal a peck of damage, though this is far from a speedy process. If a character wishes to move a gobstopper, they may slowly walk against it to push it away, like any item, though if Exploding Candy has already been laid out, this is a foolhardy errand.

Down Tilt { Buttercup }
Wonka kneels, drinking butter from a yellow, flower-shaped cup. This heals him of 1% per second, for a maximum of 12% healed, though the move’s actual hitbox decreases, the longer he heals. During the .45 second end lag, Wonka thrusts the cup forward, casting whatever butter remains in it onto the stage. Depending on how much butter was left in the cup prior to it being tossed, this creates a yellow onstage puddle, covering one character width for every 6% in the cup (two widths maximum). This area turns into the equivalent of Brawl’s ice, sending characters sliding every which way when traversing it. If Wonka manages to spray a foe with his butter, they’ll suffer this effect wherever they try to move. This is especially problematic if they attempt to turn near an obstacle, as they’ll slide helplessly for close to a second before changing directions. Puddles last for twelve seconds, while the status effect lasts two seconds for every 3% in the cup. Buttery foes can have the effect refreshed if they are splashed again, sliding down the slippery slope toward their KO.

Up Tilt { Spotty Powder }
Reaching a palm into the air, Wonka releases a white and black speckled powder into the air, creating a Bowser-sized cloud over .6 second that lingers for three seconds before fading away. This is Spotty Powder, a substance from the book’s hidden chapter; when ingested, the powder temporarily sickens a child, allowing them to leave school on a whim. Here, the powder helps characters leave the stage, though they’re unlikely to want to come as willingly as they would from a classroom. If a character comes in contact with the powder, they gain a sickly idle animation, decreasing their attack priority a small bit for nine seconds.

In addition, every three seconds after gaining the status effect, the character will freeze in the middle of whatever animation they are in and sneeze, essentially just lagging in place obnoxiously. If he’s timely, Wonka can take advantage of the opponent each time they sneeze, pushing them closer and closer to the edge, where they’re most vulnerable in their sickness; a sneezing character still falls through the air, though they are unable to DI for that brief period. Wonka is immune to his own Spotty Powder, which cannot stack its effect on opponents.

Smashes​

Forward Smash { Hair Toffee }
Wonka’s Smashes are unique in that they empower different brands of candy he releases, rather than powering up a powerful hit, since damage is quite irrelevant to him. Instead of impacting foes upon touching them, these candies’ effects are seen when consumed like any other food item. His candies remain onstage from seven to fifteen seconds before vanishing. Here, he releases a Pokeball-sized candy with a red, white and blue wrapper, like those spinning barbershop poles. The candy bounces twice along the ground, reaching Marth’s height with each bounce, before landing onstage half of Battlefield away.

While Hair Toffee does heal a set 3%, the candy’s hairiness is its main attraction. Foes who consume it rapidly sprout a ton of hair all over their body, to the point where they gain one to three units of both weight and fall speed for seven to twelve seconds before it recedes. While one might think the weight gain is disadvantageous for Wonka, he can take advantage of the accompanying knockback resistance by juggling the foe with Exploding Candy or peppering them with jab balls. The fall speed’s usefulness speaks for itself, as offstage foes plummet to their doom with a smaller window to recover, especially if they’re blueberrified after their hair grows out. Up to five of these candies may remain onstage at once, though their effect cannot be stacked. Wonka pockets the toffees he picks up, rather than eating them; this is the case for the following two candies as well.

Down Smash { Buttergin Bonbons }
Wonka releases two Pokeball-sized candies with yellow wrappers to either side of him, with each one bouncing a platform erratically before falling to the stage. Should a character consume one of these (which also heal 3% each), they find that the alcohol content makes them quite giddy, to say the least. For the next seven to twelve seconds, the character will find that they just can’t sit still. They’ll stumble around in place and move further left and right than their player intended, acting as if they had just touched a Fuzzy and gotten dizzy.

Needless to say, this can land them in all sorts of unwanted situations, not the least of which include traveling right into a patch of Exploding Candy, into a grab, off the stage, or into a series of attacks. The best way to fight against this influence is, quite literally, to fight back; characters cannot stumble around while undergoing a move animation. A series of quick attacks will postpone the dizziness in brief increments, while laggier ones will do so for longer periods of time. Of course, inputting many of these attacks will result in characters grabbing any nearby status-afflicting candy, so in some cases, a victim may have to take the course of action they consider the lesser of two evils. Consuming a bonbon while already dizzy will refresh the status effect.

Up Smash { Wriggling Sweets }
For his final candy-related “attack,” Wonka grabs a trio of purple Pokeball-sized candies and tosses them carelessly into the air over .75 second. Two of the candies travel diagonally a platform above Wonka, while the third travels straight up the same distance, wriggling comically; after this occurs over a two second period, the candies descend onto the stage over the next second. Foes who come in contact with these candies may not immediately notice an effect (aside from the 3% healed), at least until they enter the air. From three to five fall speed units are subtracted from characters for seven to twelve seconds, resulting in them descending lazily through the air in most cases (due to most MYMsets being rock-like HMAs). It seems the Wriggling Candy is squiggling against the tops of their tummies so delightfully, it is lightly pushing up against the forces of gravity.

Though this status effect may not appear as inherently negative as dizziness or extra fall speed (it can actually cancel out the latter), it can still prove quite troubling when Wonka remains on the ground. If he manages to push a foe skyward, whether it be with Exploding Candy or fizzy bubbles, Wonka can stroll around underneath the descending character, setting the stage on which they’ll land however he sees fit. That is, if he doesn’t simply fill the air underneath them with more fizzy bubbles or Spotty Powder for a more immediate effect. When knocking a foe off the edge, a little floatiness is perfectly welcome as well, though unless Wonka times it so the effect wears off once they’re offstage, this welcome may be short-lived.

Special Smashes​

Special Forward Smash { Wheelbarrow Ride }
As previously mentioned, Wonka’s special smashes involve him giving a whistle, prompting a number of Oompa-Loompas to provide assistance. Here, Wonka commands the nearest Oompa-Loompa to collect candy; to do so, the Oompa-Loompa pushes forward a metal wheelbarrow the size of Dedede crouching, Depending on charge time, the Oompa-Loompa travels from two to four platforms anywhere from Luigi to Mario’s dash speed, though, if the attack is inputted again during the move’s end lag, the Oompa-Loompa will continue pushing. Should its wheelbarrow come in contact with any edible candy, the Oompa-Loompa will lower its front to the ground, scooping it into its basket. If foes are unable to get out of the way, the Oompa-Loompa will give them a lift as well; fellow Oompa-Loompas may hop on for the ride as well, giggling comically as they do so.

Once the Oompa-Loompa has obtained some cargo, it has several courses of action it can take. Should the Oompa-Loompa travel to the end of its path without continuing, it will dump foes into prone as any passenger Oompa-Loompas hop out unharmed, before scooping all collected candy into a rucksack and stowing it. A second input of Special F-Smash causes the Oompa-Loompa to dump its candy sack onto the floor in a clustered pile, a beneficial trait, as it increases foes’ likelihood of grabbing multiple candies during attempts to attack. The Oompa-Loompa may dump its sack wherever it is, including in the air; in this case, it will rain all of its candy down on the stage, creating a stream of goodies a platform wide that falls at a moderate pace. In case you’ve forgotten, all midair items are automatically grabbed upon an input of A; to attack while under a stream of candy may mean getting pelted, or even better, grabbing a status effect-afflicting candy. Even if an Oompa-Loompa has floated off the screentop after touching fizzy bubbles, they can still dump candy, allowing Wonka to rain candy down whenever he chooses, out of his foe’s view to trouble them further.

Surprisingly enough, Wonka may not want the Oompa-Loompa to lose its load so quickly. You see, if an Oompa-Loompa scoops up maybe seven or more pieces of candy, it forms a pile inside the wheelbarrow; if a foe becomes picked up after this time, they’ll become buried in the pile. Only by mashing A can the foe escape, as they eat the candy pile underneath which they are trapped to free themselves; failure to do so allows the Oompa-Loompa to dump them clean off the stage for a gimp. Escaping may entail eating a status effect candy, thus motivating foes to avoid being scooped up at all costs. Because the wheelbarrow is too wide to roll around, this requires them to leap over it as it passes, though the air may not be any less welcome if it is full of fizzy bubbles or Spotty Powder.

If an Oompa-Loompa manages to scoop nothing into its wheelbarrow, it will simply dump sugar onto the stage, creating a Bowser-sized hitbox dealing multiple hits of 1-3%. Though this lingers for a second, it melts into the stage after being dumped, primarily serving to keep an empty wheelbarrow from being entirely useless.

Special Down Smash { Fudge Packing }
The closest Oompa-Loompa to Wonka extracts an armful of chocolate fudge and begins rapidly packing it into a miniature sloped mountain onstage. A tap of the input causes the Oompa-Loompa to build a mountain as tall as Mario and half a platform wide, while at full charge, a mound 1.5 Ganondorfs high and two Bowsers wide will be built. These mounds last for thirty seconds, though Wonka may only have two onstage at a time, with the first disappearing if he orders the creation of a third. Characters are unable to stand on top of fudge mountains, and while they may stand on their sides, they must continuously dash to stay in place, as they’ll slide down its slope otherwise. Blueberries can’t even do this, instead rolling down the slopes and gaining momentum; because blueberries lose juice based on how long they roll, rather than how far, knocking them to the top of a slope before pushing them down is a great way to maximize their mileage.

For regular opponents, fudge mountains are just as hazardous. They can trap foes into an enclosed arena full of candy if Wonka orders them to be placed closely together, with this effect amplified if he places bubbles or Powder in the air between their peaks. The assistance they provide during gimping attempts is equally impressive. To remove a fudge mountain, Wonka may order an Oompa-Loompa to scoop it up in a wheelbarrow, reducing it to rubble capable of dealing multiple stunning hits of 1% when dumped from a sack.

Special Up Smash { Mirthful Miniature Men }
This Smash impacts all Oompa-Loompas within a set range, varying from two to five platforms to either side of Wonka when he initiates the attack. It essentially modifies these Oompa-Loompas’ AI from intelligent shysters to more aggressively playful blighters. Oompa-Loompas affected by the move will continuously approach the nearest foe at Mario’s dash speed, performing flips a Ganondorf into the air and cartwheeling across the stage. Should they draw near a foe, they’ll continuously bounce against them, dealing downward knockback and hits of 5-8%. Though foes can attack them to push the Oompa-Loompas back temporarily, this can prove difficult when multiple Oompa-Loompas bound forward at once, especially if they surround a foe on both sides.

Though they won’t jump off the stage at foes, they’ll stand in place near the edge, continuing their bouncy acrobatics; foes will have to recover directly onto the edge, since the Oompa-Loompas will spike them down if they attempt to land on the stage. Since Wonka’s relative shortage of physical attacks ought to be apparent by now, this is his primary tool for physically buffeting foes about, calling on the Oompa-Loompas to assist him at close range. Though they are effective in their job, they can only continue as long as they have the HP to do so (they won’t stop to eat chocolate and heal like they usually do). If things begin looking bleak, Wonka can return all Oompa-Loompas within range to their default AI with a second input of Special U-Smash.

Aerials​

Neutral Air { Crooked Cane }
Wonka’s regular cane vanishes as a brightly colored candy cane appears in his hand instead. Over .5 second, Wonka faces the screen and spins the cane around in front of himself, with it reaching slightly past his body, 360 degrees around him. Should a foe or Oompa-Loompa come in contact with the cane, he’ll use the crooked end of the cane to pull them close.

An additional input of A plus a direction results in Wonka using the cane to toss the subject he’s grabbed in that direction with moderate force; tapping A alone results in Wonka tossing the foe horizontally away. Characters, including Oompa-Loompas suffer 5% from being tossed, though the actual toss is the most valuable component of the move. Indeed, if an Oompa-Loompa is floating off the screen, Wonka may save it by pulling it in and tossing it back down to earth, or to wherever he wishes to position it onstage. When used on a foe, however, Wonka can throw them virtually anywhere and, if he’s set up properly beforehand, benefit from doing so.

Forward/Back Air { Restriction }
Very much like he does upon first entering the Chocolate Room, Wonka faces to the side and thrusts his cane out horizontally, with its tip facing the screen. He’s aiming to blockade foes from passing it, rather than to impale them on it. He may hold out this animation as long as the input is pressed, looking quite nonchalant the whole while, until he lands onstage, upon which he suffers a tad of landing lag. If Wonka has much aerial momentum upon whipping out his cane, or a foe come in contact with it while possessing momentum, the cane will greet them, dealing 4-9% and light knockback.

Though momentum from DIing in the air is negligible, the cane can still push back characters attempting this; this comes in most handy when trying to keep foes inside a column of fizzy bubbles. Because Wonka holds the cane out a fair distance from his body, it can also absorb most attacks due to its disjointed nature. A character attempting to attack Wonka may find his cane waylays their attempt to do so, while a character recovering offstage could end up taking a cane to the face, as it impedes their progress past it to the edge.

Up Air { Bouncy Bear }
Wonka holds one of those monstrous Chocolate Room gummy bears above his head for .6 second before stowing it; this cutesy candy is approximately as large as Olimar. Though the bear deals no actual damage to foes, it behaves similarly to the spring drawing on Pictochat, halting the character in the middle of their current animation once they land on it, before rebounding them back upward.

Of course, this doesn’t boost characters nearly as high due to being a simple candy; in fact, it really only boosts foes up about a Mario, a Marth at maximum. In addition, it still maintains some degree of malleability; while a simple D-Air won’t give it much trouble, characters like Bowser or Ganondorf can still bomb or stomp onto the bear for their hitbox to press through its gummy body, hitting Wonka underneath. Despite these downsides, Wonka may still find the bear a useful tool, helpful for pushing foes up into aerial hazards or juggling them closer to the screentop as he rises upward, full of Fizzy Lifting Drink.

Down Air { Lollipop Propeller }
Wonka once again loses his cane in favor of a bright yellow lollipop, with its main portion being as large as Kirby. Holding it beneath him, Wonka spins it around rapidly, creating a Bowser-sized blurry hitbox he can hold out for up to a second and a half. The blur itself deals multiple hits of 3-5%, casting foes horizontally with moderate force once they reach its perimeter. Directly beneath the blur, however, exists a weak, yet effective wind hitbox. This not only pushes characters downwards slightly, but can lower the position of both fizzy bubbles and Spotty Powder.

If a character is already caught underneath one of these substances, having it lowered down on them puts the pressure on them to make a move; dodge through the descending hazard, run to the side (possibly into a zone full of candy), or simply grin and bear their effects. The first time Wonka uses D-Air, his lollipop’s spinning cuts his fall speed in half, a bit like Fox’s reflector, though if it is held out or if Wonka uses the move repeatedly, this effect promptly vanishes. Though its lack of a vertical boost makes this tactic a poor one for recovery, it can still bide Wonka some time offstage if he decides to venture there to bid a foe farewell.

Final Smash​

Final Smash { Boat Ride }
Wonka faces the screen and rolls his eyes left to right eerily, saying, "You're really going to like this!" as the stage fades to black. When it returns to focus a second later, he and his foes are standing on the deck of the Wonkatania, his personal Oompa-Loompa-powered vessel on which he traverses his chocolate river. However, judging by the absurdity of the background, foes can quickly tell they aren’t in any sort of peaceful river. Instead, they are traveling up Wonka’s tunnel of madness, the one part of his factory that seems utterly unrelated to candy-making in every conceivable way. Still, everything seems all well and good until…

OH JEEZ, WHAT THE HELL IS THAT

Random nauseating images begin flashing around in the background, depicting chickens getting decapitated, insects crawling into people's mouths, and even a few victim specific scenes containing their fears. Throughout the Final Smash's twenty second duration, these images pop up at random, stunning foes for three seconds each. This stun continues to plague foes even as they take knockback, making it most comparable to becoming frozen in a block of ice. This state makes opponent management much easier for Wonka, as all he must do is knock his foe off the Battlefield-length boat into the rushing river to earn a guaranteed KO. If, for some reason, Wonka gets knocked into the river, the Final Smash ends early, returning characters to the stage.

As an easter egg, Wonka speaks his monologue from the above scene while on his boat, ending the Final Smash with his maniacal, drawn-out scream as the screen goes dark.

Playstyle​

At his core, Mr. Willy Wonka is a lockdown character, focused on filling the stage with so many sweet candy surprises, his foes have little idea how to react. Using his boundless cleverness, Wonka also puts his foes in situations where they can’t help but sample his candy and pay the price, as he did with the naughty ticket winners. Meanwhile, he brings elements of a playground set to the table, giving him all the creative leeway he needs to design unique candy setups to awe foes all the more. Though his options for these antics are plentiful, Wonka lacks attacks that actually hurt foes, instead possessing a handful of attacks that heal them instead. No matter; Wonka functions independently of the typical constraints damage and knockback place on movesets.

While Wonka must progress through a set-up phase prior to giving foes a tour of his creations, the very nature of the items he places onstage makes this a much quicker and more painless process than the term ‘set-up’ would otherwise indicate. His candy confections, Wonka Bars prominent among them, turn the game’s very engine against foes, as foes trying to attack end up grabbing a bar instead. At the very least, this momentary pause gives Wonka time to continue flooding the stage with candy. Against more aggressive opponents, Oompa-Loompas can provide an additional obstacle between foes and Wonka, giving their master more time to share some mouth-watering candy with them. Though some characters may be drawn to areas of the stage filled solely with chocolate bars, Wonka can specifically deter them away by throwing Exploding Candy into the mix, or by placing a status-afflicting Smash candy among them. The options to order Oompa-Loompas to pack fudge mountains around the stage while he casts Fizzy Lifting Drink bubbles and Spotty Powder into the sky round out Wonka’s menagerie of lockdown options, though they certainly don’t begin to complete it.

Once Wonka’s stage has been designed partially, if not fully to his liking, his foe will have to become much more calculating with their attacks while slowly cleaning away small areas of stage to use. If Wonka has done his job well, however, he’ll be able to judge which attacks his opponent is likely to use with some degree of accuracy, since various moves of his specifically counter various categories of moves. Oompa-Loompas punish laggier attacks, such as Smashes. Candy items hinder the use of standard A attacks. Exploding Candy forces foes to grab and throw quickly, if they choose to risk a grab at all, or are even able to pull it off before being blown sky high. Even without directly influencing his opponent’s movement overtop his candy-filled stage, Wonka can observe where his opponent is traveling, before reacting accordingly. That said, Wonka has several methods for influencing his opponents’ movement should he wish to do so, including a number of pressure-centric aerials, ordering Oompa-Loompas to bounce at foes or push them forward in a wheelbarrow, or even turn them into a blueberry.

One might question the purpose of Wonka’s many lockdown attacks if he cannot threaten a foe with damaging punishment. Though any damage Wonka deals is essentially temporary, due to his vital healing moves, said healing moves’ status effects are deceptively dangerous in their own right once landed. Once again, Wonka can place a predictable, vulnerable foe in a situation where they may accidentally grab a defective candy, or do so because they’re left with no other option. Floating Oompa-Loompas over the stage as they rain down sacks of candy while a foe is attacking (or floating off the screentop and trying to attack repeatedly to slow their ascent, much like regular launched foes), capturing them in a wheelbarrow pile, hiding candy among regular chocolate bars, goading a foe into attacking aggressive Oompa-Loompas away when doing so will result in them grabbing candy…the possibilities to land a status effect are vast, indeed.

As soon as Wonka lands a single status effect on a foe, he places them on a slippery slope on which they will quickly gain more effects to the point where ushering them away is a cinch. Now, in addition to having to work around the obstacles a candy-laden stage presents, an opponent must worry about dilemmas like sneezing laggily every few seconds, staggering onto an unwanted portion of stage, or having to de-juice their swollen selves to decrease the size of their hurtbox. One temporary weakness gives Wonka a window to stack a few additional weaknesses on a foe, increasing the number of windows he has to keep taking advantage of them. The product of these status shenanigans is a hapless foe, stuck with enough status effects that they will be defenseless against whichever method Wonka selects for removing them from the stage.

Depending on the strength of a character’s recovery, Wonka can drag them tauntingly off the screentop with fizzy bubbles if they could return to the stage edge with ease, or go for a more textbook gimp if they cannot. Status effects will continue aiding Wonka, even after he goes for the KO, though he may need to refresh them at this time to ensure their continued effectiveness. Offstage, blueberries are not particularly adept at midair movement, while foes coated in toffee hair have a smaller time frame for returning to the stage due to a fall speed boost. While dealing with fizzy bubbles, foes may find floatiness unpleasant, as it bides Wonka time to lay out more versatile bubble formations beneath them, while sneezing every so often as they continue to rise certainly doesn’t help them DI back toward the stage…nor do floating Oompa-Loompas prodding them around, for that matter. Once Wonka has guaranteed his foe has a nice trip off the top or bottom blast zone, he has little time to rest. If he can successfully salvage the remnants of his old candy set-up while redistributing his products as necessary, he’ll be fully prepared to greet his foe next time they drop by.

Clever, versatile and ever full of surprises, Wonka will embrace you in a world of his creation, where his imagination reigns rampant and all sorts of candy-crazy dreams become realities.

Extras​

Up Taunt { Condescension }
Wonka props an elbow on his cane, putting his head in his palm and grinning smugly for a second.

Side Taunt { Square Candies that Look Round }
Wonka extracts a square candy with a face, holding it out in his palm. The candy's eyes scroll left to right multiple times before he puts it away. Get it? The square candies are looking 'round.

Down Taunt { Berate }
In a rare turn of events, Wonka reveals his temper. He clenches his fists and screams, "You get...nothing! You lose! Good -day- sir!"

Entrance { False Frailty }
Wonka appears in the background, limping gingerly toward the stage. He reveals this to be an act, as he stands his cane in place, falls into a somersault and lands on the stage, posing merrily.

Victory Pose #1 { Benevolent Boss }
Wonka is seen chuckling, surrounded by three Oompa-Loompas dancing to celebrate his win. He gives each underling a handful of cocoa beans for payment, which they promptly devour, grinning happily.

Victory Pose #2 { Take a Bow }
Wonka removes his hat and bows twice to the screen, before returning it to his head and thanking the audience.

Victory Pose #3 { Words of Wisdom }
Wonka faces slightly to the left of the screen, informing the audience that "We are the music makers...and we are the dreamers of dreams."

Victory Theme { Pure Imagination }
A brief snippet of what is essentially the movie's theme plays when Wonka emerges victorious.

Loss Pose { Politeness }
Wonka claps like any other character, his eyes twinkling slightly as if he's amused by the winner.

 

[The Warrior of Many Faces]

Larfleeze starts with huge promise. I loved the characterisation built up by the mechanic and specials, his greed in wanting to control everything in the match, in simple terms, was a fantastic base for the set. I especially loved your approach to these moves, as they seemed distinctively WoMF-ish without any of the negatives - just the little touches like Wario Waft's mechanic altering what minions you summon and walling off segments of the stage to better manage the chaos. However, after the specials the moveset doesn't do anything interesting with what it built up, most inputs being too bland to have a rudimentary link to the playstyle. Individually they are uniform in being an attack in x direction that does x damage and knockback. It's just not interesting, especially when you have room to be super creative in a 3v1, and it's underwhelming after a really great foundation. Let me re-iterate in this comment block, you don't have to be unsmash, there are now more than ever examples of sets that are simple without being boring. If this is not a design choice but a fear of being too flashy or unbalanced, those fears should be abandoned. The balance in the specials was perfectly fine - if you made every move like the specials you'd have made a huge improvement.

Larfleeze
Everyone's complained to you about Larfleeze having bland moves, which is a fair complaint IMO for a pretty simple reason. They don't have much relevance beyond redundant healing/draining of replicas, if the generic attacks had more of a point I could understand, but here they don't contribute enough to the set for my liking. What's worse is that you DO have random creative moves in here with the Forward Smash and Up Aerial, and with Calvin and Hobbes you were willing to put crazy inputs on stuff like the Smashes. I don't demand Larfleeze has to have some sort of world changing move on every input, but it seems that you're more willing to make interesting moves than you think you are, and a few more branching options to expand how he utilizes the minions on the Smashes or something would have been great.

As for concepts in the specials, I actually am not as big a fan as some people. Larfleeze's ability to make duplicates of foes upon killing them in 3v1 is cool as well as make his own minions which feel a bit more interesting than the ones in Calvin and Hobbes that interact with his healing/draining just as well, and then there's the wall to at least give them a pseudo platform. I'd like it if there was some way to make sure your minions don't just get tricked into a stupid suicide, very possible to do that against Brawl AIs, which makes them a lot less effective. The Down Special also feels, while well characterized, a bit ridiculous to me considering how it's never relevant against characters without those types of moves, and too blatantly spiteful against characters who do have them. Still, the added effects on the standards make it so the set has some actually decent flow, and it capitalizes on 3v1 decently with the snowballing player deaths to build an army. I'm not a fan, but there is some good in here and I'd say it's a step in the right direction for you, Warrior.

Smady, I redirect you to a previous comment in which I note that Larfleeze himself is unimaginative and thus the rest of his moves being such makes sense. However, I will try to keep in mind the creativity thing for the future, and I’m glad that you think my Specials are solid; after all, you won the last two contests, so coming from you, that means a ton. :D

As for FA, well, most of your points have been made and noted, so I’ll stick to the new points. First, the stupid suicides… I honestly can’t think of any stupid suicides that wouldn’t be solved by their extra jumps. If I’m missing something, feel free to let me know so I can address it. Beyond that, the Down Special… well, you’re right, but there are enough trap characters in MYM that I feel justified in making that, and besides, if you play with items on, there’s usability. Once again, though, glad to know you think I’m improving.

ASHENS

…this has got to be one of the weirdest sets I have ever seen, and I glanced at Weird Al back in MYM 1!

In terms of actual review, this set would be extremely annoying to actually face. The trains and myriad other obstacles look okay, but screen scrolling at the speed of a Side Special? Or worse, isolating one foe via a really fast grab? Somewhat overpowered even for 3v1 in my opinion. I get that you tried to balance that by making it so that they have to be in the grab for five seconds, but the five seconds don’t have to be in one sitting, which makes the balancing rather ineffective.

Additionally, the presentation leaves a little to be desired. Which is to say, the shield button specials. You didn’t even hint at it beforehand, and while I can figure out through context that it’s a special while shielding, it was a bit confusing.

However, there are some good interactions here; I especially like the possibility of short-circuiting the Popstation with the various puddles you can leave around the stage. In general, the best interactions come from those puddles, playing with the momentum on your other obstacles. The Senile Santa is also a great idea; who doesn’t want portable Wobbuffets? Also, the bag is a nice idea; perhaps one more suited to the Grab input, but that was taken. Nonetheless, this is not a set I’m a fan of.

MIKE DAWSON

Um… for someone so weak, why are his damaging attacks so damaging? On the other hand, I suppose that he does need balance from his bad stats and self-damaging attacks, so there’s a reason; it just seems a bit contradictory. That actually is the main problem with this set: you treat him as weak, but there are actually useful effects on his moves, which is rather jarring.

However, this set has an interesting idea that I think I might have seen on Von Karma as well: get a knife onto the foe so you can get someone else to help you KO them. Besides that, however, the patheticness of the guy and visualizing that on the attacks was the best part, especially since it really meshes with the knife thing. Unlike Von Karma, he doesn’t get someone to help him because he doesn’t want to get his hands dirty, but because he can’t fight any other way. Great characterization there. If nothing else, props for those two concepts.

KAMMY KOOPA

I like this set! A very tangible playstyle revolving around those blocks and manipulating them. The grabgame in particular is a great, but simple, way to manipulate your block structures. Even your KO methods are meant for the blocks; since Kammy’s so light and fragile, it’s only really safe to damage rack with the shell between two blocks from a distance, and KOing is difficult without using blocks due to that same fragility. You carried out the playstyle perfectly, using some very creative ideas with that magic. Not only that, but the implications for Team Battles are fascinating. Making your teammate giant and invisible has horrifying implications for the other team, blocks or no blocks. This is a pretty darn cool set.

 

[Katapultar]

[collapse="Willy Wonka"]Filling the stage with food items to take advantage of the eating input overlapping standard attacks was always something I wanted to do, but it obviously makes a lot more sense here with Wonka than it would for any character I'd attempt it for and fits the atmosphere quite nicely - I also can't help but realize how incredibly fitting it is for Wonka to embody such a playstyle that appears questionable at first only to reveal its true colors later on through the otherwise counter-productive method of healing foes, singing true to the seemingly ordinary nature of his candies on the outside. It's very well-crafted in that manner.

Given the set's special circumstances it's only natural it would resort to two offensive methods independent from damage: status-effects and gimping, both of which make a lot of sense for Wonka too what with all the wackiness his candies contain. His style is a lot less dominating than I expected it to be too, playing more subtlety with candies instead of machines. This translates into a playstyle with understandably small impact, where while Wonka can easily dominate the ground with enough time foes can simply approach him in the air where they'll be immune to his many, many effects where you have to be grounded for them to work...of course I was expecting him to have a way around this in the Aerials, and needless to say they do serve that purpose. You certainly have some interesting things going on with further forcing foes to eat the candies, especially with the Special F-Smash (it's hard for me to imagine the Oompa Loompa carrying a shovel to be set afloat in a bubble and vice versa however) that further helps force candy into the foe's face and in the air for once. The playstyle is subtle in my eyes and may not be the most convincing thing in terms of simply gimping, but the set has excellent characterization, I'd say easily among your best and is massively boosted by its daring nature and willingness to enter new territory. It's a very good set for a very weird character, and possibly an omen of more serious sets to come from others this contest.
[/collapse]

 

[FrozenRoy]

Willy Whack

This set's main problem is that picking up items does not work the way the author thinks it does. Eating food items will prevent you from using your jab, but you can use tilts next to items just fine, as many people who have accidentally blown themselves up on a bob-omb can attest too. If you own Brawl, you can play a match with food to test and you'll see it confirmed. This is not even considering the dash attack, which consumes food items and still continues the attack, making it an excellent way to get aorund Wonka Bars...

That is, of course, unless Wonka bars are eaten differently from normal bars, such so that the foe cannot use the A button for moves, in which case it is pretty tacky how this food item works. Why does the foe suddenly feel compelled to eat this over pretty much all other attacks? Exploding candy also seems really shaky, for the fact most smash attacks actually do allow the foe to move before the second is up, as everything short of D3/Ike/Snake's F-Smashes completes far fast enough to move if done properly, which for reference allow them to move after 79 frames or roughly 1 1/2rd of a second. While it will be useful against laggier characters, it's usefulness seems pretty overstated in the move itself. Though either way, the fact that Wonka can cover the entire stage in this is sorta terrible, since it lasts a very long twelve seconds. It's not too big of an issue, though...

The grab really seems more suited to a special. The actual mechanic is sort of annoying too, not least of all due to a number crunch-y complaint, as it does seem like a foe might have too hard a time recovering after being rolled off, as it takes one and a half seconds to regain normal jumping ability. They'll lose some of the time due to the rolling, but I still can't help but think this is somehow off. The mirrored input Side Throw only helps with this: You pretty much kill any foe remotely close to the edge if you use the Pummel to get Oompa Loompas there once, considering it sends them two platforms plus stun. Two platforms is pretty much half of Battlefield! If the dizzying doesn't work in the air it is slightly better, but the foe will still be knocked fairly far away from the stage, be falling and still need to de-juice some to use normal jumps, making it powerful enough that it sort of encompasses Wonka's game. Maybe intentional, but if so, the way it is overpowered sort of leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Really, I think the big issue for this set is that really, all it's trying to do is be annoying. It's normal KO method, rolling foes off the stage as blueberries, works regardless of damage % due to how momentum works, so the rest of the set is dedicated to making it so the foe can't do anything in multiple ways. He also has the same problem as some other sets this contest in lacking actual attacking moves: Even if any of Wonka's damage racking is temporary, some way to build temporary damage for the grab or just to knock foes who pressure Wonka away is really wanted, perhaps over some of the less stomachable moves in the set like the Up Smash.

Overall, I find Wonka to be at his core at best a boring lockdown character, making multiple ways to incapcitate the foe with with little payoff in terms of excitement or coolness, but is wrapped up in a wrapper of tacky and/or non working moves involving a misunderstanding of Brawl's food mechanics or, even if they do work, simply putting out enough candy to grab a foe three times and use a Side Throw, maybe with slight damage racking to get off the pummel if Wonka is able. This moveset's sole saving grace is it's characterization, as it certainly feels like a Willy Wonka set, strange and wonderous as it is. I suspect other people might like it, but I do not.

But hey, it's gonna be above Ghetsis. That's a plus, right?

Majoleine's Delivery Service

Madolche Majoleine is actually a set I've been looking forward too, though it's...not quite what I was hoping for.

The initial fork hitbox isn't something I mind, but I find the grab hitbox awkward, it would have been cooler as a seperate move...maybe some kind of Float Attack? Still kinda odd to have a Float Attack, but feels more natural, to me.

The creation of food items and their use is certainly an interesting and pretty unexplored territory, in this case, Majoleine creates them to use as projectiles, curse so she gets their buff and, in the case of her fork grab, as a way to make them dislike the air dodging they must do. She also combines this with a wonky little summon of custard, making a spring-like obstacle that takes a bit to run through, being an effective way to transition aerially.

Unfortunately, the set does suffer from a bit of a thick writing style at times, most notably in the Down Aerial, a move I had to read multiple times to get how it worked, which was not pleasant combined with it's length. Sometimes you do delve a bit too much into specific uses of the moves to the point of being too unlikely to be worthy of such long comments: I think looking at sets like Young Xehanort and Yutaka might help in this regard...

I also find that sometimes, moves seems to get too much use out of them, and Majoleine in particular I wish had just a few less "special" moves. Dash attack is a good example, as it's pretty solid without the food coating part which seems oddly out of place. Down Tilt is also a move I didn't really like, layering on something not really necessary onto one of the few odd breaks from the normal Brawl formula for eating food that sorta just mucks with it. I also dislike Forward Smash, because it is too direct of a route to punish the foe for eating the food, as it switches from Majoleine tricking the foe into eating the food she has put under her spell and keeping them from that they haven't, to the opponent being lose-lose anyway. I vastly prefer the Pummel, which seems better due to not being as drastic, but at the same time allowing a way to hit foes with it. There's also a tad of Magic Syndrome here.

Overall, it's not a set I really liked, but despite the negativity, I can't really say I disliked it either, but it was just sorta...there. I think it could have been a lot better with some tweaks and a bit more focus, though, and it'd be great to see you go back to the Madolche sometime, even if I totes wanna do some too. Better than Wonka for me, anyway.

I Don't Wanna Be Like Mike

I found this set very difficult to comment on, so my apologies if it is lacking. Everything about the set seemed so...crafted, even the faults, while stradding this fine line between a set wanting to be taken serious and a joke set, that I felt it was hard to make a compelling or useful comment.

Dawson is certainly a fun read in the vein of Aquaman, having appropriate and amusing move descriptors and names to a high degree of self-awareness. I haven't seen the LP as well, but this set certainly has a lot of amusing character, as Dawson here emulates being a total loser in animation and, generally speaking, battle as well. He retains a few tricks up his sleeve, such as his amusing counter grab, and most notably his Side Special, which lets him accuse the foe of murder in a similiar vein as Manfred, so as to get out good ol' Jack. Or Mike could use the knife on his own, I think...

Aside from that, though, the moveset doesn't have a lot of flow, though this arguably works for the characterization part, as it gives Dawon a really inept and mixed feel, like he's just sort of flailing about. Still, it might have been nice to see one or two little tweaks here and there to add in some flow, maybe messing with the Up Aerial/Back Aerial some. He also has sorta seems strong at times, most notably the surprising KO power of the dash attack, though I suppose it makes sense given the prone stuff.

Still, the simple playstyle of trying to land your ring toss and try to get Jack out by accusing the foe of murdering Rita is at least effective, if sorta eh...the moveset being amusing makes it not bad, though to me, it's still pretty average, though still entirely worth it for the Mike Dawson amusement value. So yeah.

 

[BKupa666]

Willy Whack

This set's main problem is that picking up items does not work the way the author thinks it does. Eating food items will prevent you from using your jab, but you can use tilts next to items just fine, as many people who have accidentally blown themselves up on a bob-omb can attest too. If you own Brawl, you can play a match with food to test and you'll see it confirmed. This is not even considering the dash attack, which consumes food items and still continues the attack, making it an excellent way to get aorund Wonka Bars...

I tested this with Peach's Final Smash before designing Wonka; grabbing food items replaces all standard attacks except U-Tilt (and dash attack eats food during the move, still allowing Wonka to deter it with status candies). Maybe this isn't the case with other items, I wouldn't know since I don't play with them. Still, the food-grabbing component works as I intended it to, and is actually functional in-Smash.

That is, of course, unless Wonka bars are eaten differently from normal bars, such so that the foe cannot use the A button for moves, in which case it is pretty tacky how this food item works. Why does the foe suddenly feel compelled to eat this over pretty much all other attacks? Exploding candy also seems really shaky, for the fact most smash attacks actually do allow the foe to move before the second is up, as everything short of D3/Ike/Snake's F-Smashes completes far fast enough to move if done properly, which for reference allow them to move after 79 frames or roughly 1 1/2rd of a second. While it will be useful against laggier characters, it's usefulness seems pretty overstated in the move itself. Though either way, the fact that Wonka can cover the entire stage in this is sorta terrible, since it lasts a very long twelve seconds. It's not too big of an issue, though...

Wonka Bars are thrown out quickly, making them somewhat of a go-to move for Wonka...foes aren't necessarily compelled to eat them at all, though doing so can clear them from the stage so Wonka has a harder time locking them down. Since Exploding Candy explodes over a set area, a foe can still get caught in its blast if they perform a Smash then, say, try to dash or roll away. If anything, the explosions are least effective against shielding foes...team strategies, anyone?

The grab really seems more suited to a special. The actual mechanic is sort of annoying too, not least of all due to a number crunch-y complaint, as it does seem like a foe might have too hard a time recovering after being rolled off, as it takes one and a half seconds to regain normal jumping ability. They'll lose some of the time due to the rolling, but I still can't help but think this is somehow off. The mirrored input Side Throw only helps with this: You pretty much kill any foe remotely close to the edge if you use the Pummel to get Oompa Loompas there once, considering it sends them two platforms plus stun. Two platforms is pretty much half of Battlefield! If the dizzying doesn't work in the air it is slightly better, but the foe will still be knocked fairly far away from the stage, be falling and still need to de-juice some to use normal jumps, making it powerful enough that it sort of encompasses Wonka's game. Maybe intentional, but if so, the way it is overpowered sort of leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I mentioned this to you in-chat, but the prime targets for blueberrification are those who can actually be gimped due to poor recoveries. Guys with vertical floats or twelve second free-flight recoveries certainly won't find it as threatening as you make it out to be. In addition, those massive, rock-like heavyweights are deeply troublesome for Wonka before he can land a grab anyways, as they have the power to plow through Oompa-Loompas and bring down Wonka before he can accomplish much. Also, since foes take five seconds to become full blueberries, they can still finish off Wonka in the time leading up to their blueberrification, and even then, can jump into fizzy bubbles as a last-ditch option to save themselves from what you consider an instant KO.

Really, I think the big issue for this set is that really, all it's trying to do is be annoying. It's normal KO method, rolling foes off the stage as blueberries, works regardless of damage % due to how momentum works, so the rest of the set is dedicated to making it so the foe can't do anything in multiple ways. He also has the same problem as some other sets this contest in lacking actual attacking moves: Even if any of Wonka's damage racking is temporary, some way to build temporary damage for the grab or just to knock foes who pressure Wonka away is really wanted, perhaps over some of the less stomachable moves in the set like the Up Smash.

Overall, I find Wonka to be at his core at best a boring lockdown character, making multiple ways to incapcitate the foe with with little payoff in terms of excitement or coolness, but is wrapped up in a wrapper of tacky and/or non working moves involving a misunderstanding of Brawl's food mechanics or, even if they do work, simply putting out enough candy to grab a foe three times and use a Side Throw, maybe with slight damage racking to get off the pummel if Wonka is able. This moveset's sole saving grace is it's characterization, as it certainly feels like a Willy Wonka set, strange and wonderous as it is. I suspect other people might like it, but I do not.

Wonka's lack of attacks is entirely intentional, since his intelligence and ability to predict individuals' weaknesses and pounce on them are defined aspects of the character. Having him bludgeon foes around, or even snidely trip them with his cane, would seem out of character, when the rest of the set is centered around the wondrous nature of his creations. I'm glad you at least read and have an opinion on the set though...though your description of him omits tactics of his that I consider among his more interesting ones, such as calling on Oompa-Loompas to handle his candy or duping his foes into grabbing aerial candy with attacks (this works in Brawl as well). I'm interested to hear what you think about those, too.

Also, @Kat, I appreciate your enjoyment of the set. Just to clarify, the Oompa-Loompas don't take their wheelbarrow into the air with them if they touch any fizzy bubbles Wonka has D-Aired toward the ground; the move ends as usual as the Oompa-Loompa floats up, with the wheelbarrow vanishing during this time.

 

[The Warrior of Many Faces]

MAGNEMITE

First off, Lock-on is a great idea, but it shouldn’t be so easy to aim and shouldn’t last ten seconds, not with all the benefits Magnemite gets from it. In fact, that’s my main problem with the set, the balance issues. Conceptually, this is pretty good: use Lock-on to make your projectiles far more effective or just KO the foe when a Home-Run Bat or Bob-omb flies at them. I also like the imagination on some of these moves; the Down Smash in particular caught my attention, although I do have to admit that complete immobilization is a bit much. This is a nice solid set, with decent flow and a coherent, if not revolutionary, playstyle. You just need to fix the balance and you’ve got something pretty good here.

MADOLCHE MAJOLEINE

I have to say, Yu-Gi-Oh! must be a very strange continuum to produce these food witches, because that’s just odd.

Anyway, as for the set itself, the presentation once again is your bane. The ideas are certainly creative enough with the focus on food, aerial control via a flying fork (we encounter weird things in MYM), and on making the normally tasty treats unattractive to anyone that isn’t you (not to mention an aerial counter, which I don’t believe I’ve seen before). I especially like the FSmash for taking away any healing the foe got from all the food floating around and the USmash for getting any unused food back for that very purpose. Not only that, but the playstyle flows fairly well, with pretty much every move being relevant to using the food to your advantage and with forcing yourself to control how much you eat, which no doubt resonates to anyone trying to control their eating habits IRL.

However, your usual verboseness does make this difficult to read (dividing them into more than one paragraph might help), as well as a little bit of vagueness during the specials; I have difficulty telling if they charge or not. So in other words, a fairly good set, but one that’s suffering from your usual problem of packing too much into it and making it hard to get through. I do like the extras here, though; the stage especially is fun, since even people who do extras don’t do stages as consistently as the extras, myself included.

 

[FrozenRoy]

I tested this with Peach's Final Smash before designing Wonka; grabbing food items replaces all standard attacks except U-Tilt (and dash attack eats food during the move, still allowing Wonka to deter it with status candies). Maybe this isn't the case with other items, I wouldn't know since I don't play with them. Still, the food-grabbing component works as I intended it to, and is actually functional in-Smash.

This is most likely my bad, but I think it might just be Peach's, um, peaches. I can't test it due to not having my Wii(If someone else could, that would be swell), but I could have sworned I've Forward Tilted in front of food before. If I'm wrong though, well, then that complaint is entirely invalid.

Wonka Bars are thrown out quickly, making them somewhat of a go-to move for Wonka...foes aren't necessarily compelled to eat them at all, though doing so can clear them from the stage so Wonka has a harder time locking them down. Since Exploding Candy explodes over a set area, a foe can still get caught in its blast if they perform a Smash then, say, try to dash or roll away. If anything, the explosions are least effective against shielding foes...team strategies, anyone?

My Wonka Bar complain was only really if it doesn't work the way you said and works the way I said, as it works fine if food does work that way, I was just saying it'd be bad if it worked unlike any food item in Brawl, which is what I thought.

I mentioned this to you in-chat, but the prime targets for blueberrification are those who can actually be gimped due to poor recoveries. Guys with vertical floats or twelve second free-flight recoveries certainly won't find it as threatening as you make it out to be. In addition, those massive, rock-like heavyweights are deeply troublesome for Wonka before he can land a grab anyways, as they have the power to plow through Oompa-Loompas and bring down Wonka before he can accomplish much. Also, since foes take five seconds to become full blueberries, they can still finish off Wonka in the time leading up to their blueberrification, and even then, can jump into fizzy bubbles as a last-ditch option to save themselves from what you consider an instant KO.

Using the Brawl cast, Wonka can KO pretty much everyone in the game with a simple blueberry F-Throw/B-Throw, save for...Pit, Metaknight, Jigglypuff, Kirby, King DeDeDe, and D3 might die anyway because of his fall speed, so I'm not sure. Wonka should be able to KO all of those if the Pummel Oompa Loompa's stun on the F-Throw/B-Throw works in mdiair without fail and can probably KO D3 and possibly some others with it this way due to the increased distance. While yes, this number goes down if you bring MYM Brawl into the equation, that's because the majority of sets with twelve seconds free flight and long vertical floats are broken, so they shouldn't factor well into the equation of making a balanced move.

I don't really know why you'd use the fizzy bubbles aside from recovery purposes. While they allow Wonka to do some tricks, none of them are as strong as KOing via the blueberry, and he has enough ways to survive via candy-stalling if eating works that he doesn't need them for that. Aerial damage racking isn't useful for him and KOing via bubbles is much harder than KOing via blueberry. So my answer to that is "Wonka shouldn't have fizzy bubbles out at all".

Also, while they become blueberries, they take increased lag and, during the latter two seconds, a lot of movement issues, so it shouldn't be too hard to keep them away from stuff that can help them. Maybe use Hair Toffee to make KOing easier if you need to account for extra time as a blueberry for de-juicing before you get to them. Spotty Powder in particular makes KOing and gimping easier and it's stun can make escaping the blueberrification much harder.

Wonka's lack of attacks is entirely intentional, since his intelligence and ability to predict individuals' weaknesses and pounce on them are defined aspects of the character. Having him bludgeon foes around, or even snidely trip them with his cane, would seem out of character, when the rest of the set is centered around the wondrous nature of his creations. I'm glad you at least read and have an opinion on the set though...though your description of him omits tactics of his that I consider among his more interesting ones, such as calling on Oompa-Loompas to handle his candy or duping his foes into grabbing aerial candy with attacks (this works in Brawl as well). I'm interested to hear what you think about those, too.

I can understand the characterization issue, but it does leave a bit of a sore palette in my mouth, though that's not the primary reason I dislike the set, it's more of a minor thing that might keep it out of much higher tiers if I really liked it.

As for the tactics you mentioned...well, to be honest, I didn't mention them because I felt they were pretty useless in the context of Wonka's game. Aerial candy could be useful, but really, little of it works into his natural gameplan of stun and his KO method(Especially since foes could hit with attacks in mid-air and still attack, or at least with the NAir). Oompa Loompas handling candy didn't seem too useful unless you had a bunch out for the wheelbarrow stun, whereupon you can get some debuffs in or, more hopefully, get a Hair Toffee'd foe off the stage and be close enough to use USpecSmash, though that is too specific to be too useful.

 

[The Warrior of Many Faces]

DRILLMAN

He creates black holes to summon a drill? That’s odd, but since that’s the canon and not you, I’ll move on.

There are some decent ideas here, the tunnel mechanic, the DSmash, and the pitfall being foremost among them. However, this set is just overall kinda bland. Yes, he tunnels; we’ve seen that with the Prospector, so what’s new here? The answer is either the collapsing mechanic (which I’ll grant is fairly good) the teleport, but even that isn’t horribly original (see Doc Scratch). In short, this isn’t bad, but it’s not good either. The collapsing mechanic redeems it somewhat, however, and I appreciate the Jab being playstyle relevant without being overly complex.

***

AQUAMAN

Well, at least you acknowledge that this set isn’t particularly good.

So, my complaints about this set. First, Aquaman doesn’t have water powers. This is forgivable since without water, Aquaman is rather hampered; however, the way you implement it makes no sense, especially since you do it with every single freaking special and smash, and a few other miscellaneous moves. Seriously, what’s with the focus on the nipples? Makes no sense.

That said, there’s some good in this set. The Neutral Special is fairly good, since summoning oceanic creatures to help him fight is right up Aquaman’s alley. The grabgame is good too, since it actually seems like it was made seriously and gives Aquaman some credit for being dangerous, which is nice. Even moreso the Final Smash; who needs description when you have that picture? The playstyle is fairly coherent, actually, flooding the stage and using your aquatic maneuverability to swim circles around the foes. But your focus on nipples and just the general un-Aquaman-ness of most of the set really detracts from everything.

***

GHETSIS

More Kat verbosity here; seriously, how do you find the time to churn these out so quickly with so much in them?

Anyways, I wanted to like this set. I did. It’s Ghetsis, the best Pokémon villain ever made! But I can’t. First, Ghetsis fighting without Pokémon (minus Final Smash) makes little to no sense; he still fights with Pokémon in BW2, no? Why would he need or want to get his own hands dirty? Second, although I actually can see Ghetsis trapping his cane, how the heck is he supposed to do all that with it? Ice, electricity, plasma blade, there’s only so much that can go into one stick. Third, that ridiculously strong FTilt and UAir. ‘Nuff said. Fourth, for a set elaborated on so much, you were surprisingly sparce on the True Final Smash. What does Kyurem do in this boss fight? You never say.

That said, I do like the implementation of the teleport pads; it’s a good way to annoy the foe and a great callback to every Pokecriminal team ever. Similarly, the Shadow Triad helping him out is very Ghetsis, especially the grabgame, although I wish I knew exactly what circumstances trigger that Special Pummel. I was also amused by almost every one of his moves being named after a Pokémon move. However, this set doesn’t feel much like Ghetsis otherwise, save for the elaborateness of his plans and setups. That’s my issue with the set. Well, that and the excessive verbosity, but no doubt you’re tired of hearing that by now.

***

YOUNG XENAHORT

Ah, time travel, the bane of my existence. Usually confusing, and this is no exception. Between the clones and the time travel, this was a befuddling set for me. However, this set was quite well-crafted, with those same advantages coming at the cost of damage, which is a nice little tradeoff. Not only that, but your set actually was easier to read than normal; less verbose than usual, which definitely makes this easier to read than usual, which I’m grateful for.

The best thing about this set is the atmosphere. Even more than Ghetsis and his elaborate plans, this guy feels like a smart villain who knows what he’s doing and how to get it done. Especially that little touch where he fades out if he’s gonna be hit by one of his meteors; that suggests a guy who thinks of everything no matter what. That much gets this set a like, even if this set is somewhat confusing due to time travel.

***

RANDY JOHNSON

Okay, a set for a baseball player; kinda weird, but nothing compared to Count Chocula or Weird Al.

First off, a couple presentation quibbles: I really don’t need or want the description of the pitches and how they work in baseball at the start of the moves. Also, you might want to color the set a bit more. A little bit of red here and there would be nice. Beyond that, there are decent ideas here. The Slider only hitting dodging foes is a particularly good one, reminding me of Feint from Pokémon. I also like the Windup, changing your buffs to fit a given situation. Not only that, but the changes to each move depending on whether you have a baseball is pretty good as well.

However, the main failing of this set is simple: no real playstyle. Granted, this is understandable since this is more of a side project, but this means that this won’t be any more than a decent set.

***

ALAKAZAM

The first entry in Ace Trainer Joe, and I have to say, you started with a bang! Simple descriptions, but with moves that are easy to visualize and is actually very in-smash. Not only that, but there’s some good interactions here, with Kinesis-ing his spoons and using Confusion to throw people into them or reflecting his Psybeams, which brings some nice flavor to this set. Naturally, you didn’t make this set overly complicated since you have five Pokémon to go, which is another nice touch; it will make it much easier to play Ace Trainer Joe if even someone with the complicated potential of Alakazam is kept relatively simple. Well-done!

***

WILLY WONKA

This is actually a pretty good set, despite my initial misgivings about the character choice. Much disruption here rather than straight damage, which makes a good deal of sense for the trickster candy maker. The Wonka Bars especially are a nice idea; instead of using some new mechanic to inconvenience foes, you abuse an already-existing one, which is quite clever. Along with the Oompa-Loompas and Exploding Candy, that’s a great way to lock people down.

That, however, leads to this set’s weakness: the fact that it wouldn’t be especially fun to play against due to all that lockdown-ness. The aforementioned disruptions are good, since setup is required that can be interrupted, but the grabgame, plus the gobstoppers to augment the Wonka Bars, plus slipping people up with butter or blueberry juice, plus spotty powder, plus buttergin bonbons… you get the idea, it’s just too much lockdown to be fun to play against. On the other hand, his lack of real damaging options does keep this balanced. A well-crafted set that’s fun to imagine, even if I wouldn’t want to play against him under any circumstances.

Finally caught up. Go me! XD

 

[Kholdstare]

Don't you dare mention one of my sets while using Comic Sans again, you filthy peasant.

 

[The Warrior of Many Faces]

Don't you dare mention one of my sets while using Comic Sans again, you filthy peasant.

First off, channeling Azula much? (If you haven't seen the series, ignore this; it's an in-joke)

Second off, wasn't that Kupa's set? Not yours? And I never mentioned any other set... so I'm confused...

 

[Kholdstare]

It was enough that it was in the same post. I can feel it from here like tendrils of radiation eating away at my brain.

 

[ForwardArrow]

It was enough that it was in the same post. I can feel it from here like tendrils of radiation eating away at my brain.

No need to be so terribly rude Khold. It's just a font.

Willy Wonka
Unlike Froy, I confess I don't harbor any particular dislike towards this set. The ideas are fun, using healing items to interrupt the foes attacks while making it more difficult for them to use attacks that do not consume items with his minions. It's admittedly lockdown-ish, but I will say it's not a perfect system, with fast specials and smashes being a nice solution to a lot of what Wonka throws at the player while Wonka still has enough to interact. I also admit, I love the Up Special. It gives Wonka actual solutions to aerial opponents through using it on the minions, as well as a functional but necessary close range defense. Your expansions of the concepts are at points pretty interesting too, the gobstopper move is pretty darn funny and would be terribly fun to mess with people with, though admittedly the mindgame isn't as effective as I wish it was.

What brings Wonka down for me are a few things. While you flow into it just fine, the blueberry is horribly frustrating, given how much it limits the foe while transformed. Sure, it takes time for them to become the blueberry, but once it is the set becomes highly flowcharty and obnoxious, and what's more annoying is a lot of moves are solely dedicated to dealing with it. I also rather dislike the smashes, as it feels just to me like they'd be incredibly ineffective given the foe has no real reason to eat them... I mean, it clears stuff out, but they just feel horribly ineffectual taking up 3 inputs. This isn't helped by the fact that due to the way he works, what with having to feed them gum 3 times to get a decent KO method(and even then it's not really certain), having almost no close range defense, and the ways the foe can work their way around Wonka's gameplan if they are smart... I believe he's very underpowered. You also have a few inputs in here which I just don't really care much for, such as the Up Tilt, while providing a necessary aerial deterrant, is really damn tacky and doesn't contribute much to Wonka IMO. Honestly, I can't say whether or not the bad outweighs the good here, so mark me down as a firm neutral on this one.

 

[BKupa666]

This isn't helped by the fact that due to the way he works, what with having to feed them gum 3 times to get a decent KO method(and even then it's not really certain)...

Hang on...did you get the impression you have to feed three sticks of gum to a foe for them to turn into blueberries? Only one stick is required for this...when I said 'first two courses heal the foe,' I meant that the first two of the three courses featured in the gum cause the foe to heal -at the same time- they inflate because of the third. Sorry for any confusion; I assumed this part of the source material wouldn't require much explanation.

 

[ForwardArrow]

That does clear things up and make Wonka feel a bit more balanced, although I do dislike that this makes the grab scenario come up a bit more often.

 

[KlumpKluxKlan]

I wish I knew how to make a moveset for King Ka-Rool. All he does is jump and yell a lot, without any alternate personas or boxing skills to lend him attacks. Maybe I should loan him some explodin' barrels!

 

[Lucidthought]

hey...can anyone help me make a rosalina moveset? I dun know how to make it because n88 did.

 

[DiamondFox]

Mario

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Down Special: F.L.U.D.D.

When Mario is in the air, his F.L.U.D.D. switches into jetpack mode. He is propelled up into the air as water drains from his backpack and pushes foes beneath him. Fully charged, he rises the height of Ike's Aether and pushes opponents an equal distance, although it is possible to DI out of.

Neutral Aerial: Foot Stomp

Mario stomps down in midair, dealing 6% damage and somewhat below average downward knockback. In addition, this attack has the properties of a footstool, propelling Mario further up while knocking opponents further downward and leaving them in a state where they are temporarily unable to act. Against opponents on the ground, they are knocked slightly into the air, allowing for a combo.