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Heyo, Make your Move 13! I've been thinking about participating in the competition and had a few questions:
1. Are there criteria for the length or detail level of a movelist?
2. Are there restrictions on characters? Could I pick a character already in Brawl? Recent discussion suggests multiple sets for the same character is okay so I guess you guys are pretty lenient. Can't hurt to ask though.
3. Are there restrictions on when I can post a movelist?
4. Why does everyone seem to leave out attacks from the ledge or while grounded?
5. Why is there a leadership? What do they do? (just curious lol)
That's all I got. Probably easy to find answers to, but I tend to overlook the obvious. Thanks for any help you can offer
1. Not really, although there is a fine balance between underdetailed and overdetailed. Examples of both have already been seen this contest alone, so if you read the movesets and comments, you'll have an idea where to start. In general, though, you should include standards, smashes, grabs, aerials, and specials. Final Smashes are preferred (by me at least) but evidently not required. It helps if you have an introduction to the character for those unfamiliar with it, at least one picture is a very good idea, and appropriate music helps set the mood for the set. Finally, a playstyle so that people have an idea of how to play the character is much appreciated.
2. So far as I can tell, if it wasn't used in this contest, you're good. (For example, MYM12 sets are fair game, but not MYM13 sets until MYM14 starts.)
3. The contest ends... sometime. Not sure exactly when. XP Once it's ended, you'll want to wait until next contest. (They don't tend to be too far apart, though, at least not while I've been here.)
4. Because we're lazy and don't care about those moves.
5. I think they're here to keep us in check and not derail the thread with arguments or whatever. Could be wrong.
1. Not really, although there is a fine balance between underdetailed and overdetailed. Examples of both have already been seen this contest alone, so if you read the movesets and comments, you'll have an idea where to start. In general, though, you should include standards, smashes, grabs, aerials, and specials. Final Smashes are preferred (by me at least) but evidently not required. It helps if you have an introduction to the character for those unfamiliar with it, at least one picture is a very good idea, and appropriate music helps set the mood for the set. Finally, a playstyle so that people have an idea of how to play the character is much appreciated.
2. So far as I can tell, if it wasn't used in this contest, you're good. (For example, MYM12 sets are fair game, but not MYM13 sets until MYM14 starts.)
3. The contest ends... sometime. Not sure exactly when. XP Once it's ended, you'll want to wait until next contest. (They don't tend to be too far apart, though, at least not while I've been here.)
4. Because we're lazy and don't care about those moves.
5. I think they're here to keep us in check and not derail the thread with arguments or whatever. Could be wrong.
1. Interesting. Very interesting. . .
2. Fair enough
3. Guess I'll just try not to wait too long then. It won't end within the next week or so, will it?
4. That's. . . that's lame
5. Oh, is that all? So they're like little mods, I guess?
1. Interesting. Very interesting. . .
2. Fair enough
3. Guess I'll just try not to wait too long then. It won't end within the next week or so, will it?
4. That's. . . that's lame
5. Oh, is that all? So they're like little mods, I guess?
Well, regular might be pushing it... I've only been around since halfway through the last contest.
3. Oh, heck no. My guess is this contest will last through the semester. (Could be wrong, though.)
4. *shrug* Lame or not, it is what it is. That said, I really doubt anypony will object if you include them and in fact may applaud you for going A and B the C of D.
5. So far as I can tell. I think they also count the votes, come to think of it.
Heyo, Make your Move 13! I've been thinking about participating in the competition and had a few questions:
1. Are there criteria for the length or detail level of a movelist?
2. Are there restrictions on characters? Could I pick a character already in Brawl? Recent discussion suggests multiple sets for the same character is okay so I guess you guys are pretty lenient. Can't hurt to ask though.
3. Are there restrictions on when I can post a movelist?
4. Why does everyone seem to leave out attacks from the ledge or while grounded?
5. Why is there a leadership? What do they do? (just curious lol)
That's all I got. Probably easy to find answers to, but I tend to overlook the obvious. Thanks for any help you can offer
Nice to have you on board. Further elaborating on what WoMF said, there are absolutely no character restrictions and you can make whoever you want even if somebody else has made them in the same competition...though I doubt you'd ever resort to such a need when there are so many characters to choose from. You don't need to worry too much about the contest ending if you're concerned about timeframe via putting all that time and effort into your desired set; the contest tends to last for -at least- 12 weeks if it reaches the 100 set mark, going for longer if leadership feels it sufficient to prolong activity so there's enough quality. Last contest lasted for 20 weeks on that note, but this time around people are hoping for a boom come Halloween time.
A long time ago in MYM5 people used to implement ground/ledge attacks, but they're "situational" as one would put it (their common title) and can't be used on demand unlike the other 23 or so attacks you see in movesets. That, and people generally have a hard enough time thinking of attacks without them in the way.
Leadership typically setmake and comment consistently among the thread as men of inspiration, but have other duties seen outside as well. For one we list all the sets made in-thread on The Stadium's page for viewing convenience, but also handle the political stuff (it does happen) like how to keep the contest alive. The most important parts come post-contest however where we do all the tallying of the votes (it is a contest, after all) and do the decorating, because somebody has to do it and keep things under tabs. You can also ask us questions you may have on certain matters.
Heyo, Make your Move 13! I've been thinking about participating in the competition and had a few questions:
1. Are there criteria for the length or detail level of a movelist?
2. Are there restrictions on characters? Could I pick a character already in Brawl? Recent discussion suggests multiple sets for the same character is okay so I guess you guys are pretty lenient. Can't hurt to ask though.
3. Are there restrictions on when I can post a movelist?
4. Why does everyone seem to leave out attacks from the ledge or while grounded?
5. Why is there a leadership? What do they do? (just curious lol)
That's all I got. Probably easy to find answers to, but I tend to overlook the obvious. Thanks for any help you can offer
Hey, welcome to our dysfunctional community! We're more than a little jaded, and all but the most dedicated MYMers still are sticking around after 13 contests, but feel free to participate! There's a certain metagame-y feel to how people react to movesets these days, but the criteria for making them is loose enough that you should be fine writing almost anything, though it does help to keep it simple, yet detailed. Uh, just a suggestion from me since this kind of my big thing, organization and pictures make your stuff much easier to read, so do that! Oh, and most importantly, stop by our chatroom (link here) and give us a visit! That's where most of the action takes place.
P.S. the leaders are mainly just for show, though they usually know what they're doing
Well, regular might be pushing it... I've only been around since halfway through the last contest.
3. Oh, heck no. My guess is this contest will last through the semester. (Could be wrong, though.)
4. *shrug* Lame or not, it is what it is. That said, I really doubt anypony will object if you include them and in fact may applaud you for going A and B the C of D.
5. So far as I can tell. I think they also count the votes, come to think of it.
4. *shrug* Lame or not, it is what it is. That said, I really doubt anypony will object if you include them and in fact may applaud you for going A and B the C of D.
Witch is a character from the puyo puyo/madou matatori series. She is as it seems…a witch whom specializes in elemental and non-elemental magic mainly focus on electrical type attacks. Though very familiar and is on good terms with almost everyone she knows, she is known for her slight hyperactive personality and tends to have grudges if someone were to rival her in magical abilities. This includes Arle since she would occasionally challenge her into battle from time to time.
Though her magic power in general is quite strong due to her long training with her grandmother, she does not have much physical strength or much defense to support her in battle. Her attacks are all projectiles that either stick to her like an average physical hit box, or will behave like any other projectile.
Walk – 3
Run - 8
Jump – 4
Fall – 2
Quick fall - 3
Weight -3
Movement speed - 4
Almost every one of Witch’s attacks are projectile based, but not all really act like a true projectile. Some are like the standard projectile that can be deflected or absorbed like Mario’s fireball (projectile).
Witch can also use attacks that cannot be deflected, but it can be absorbed. However the projectile will not disappear this way. (Type 1).
And there are some that can be deflected, but cannot be absorbed like Samus's Missile attack. (Type 2).
She also has projectiles that cannot be deflected or absorbed like Ludcario’s aura smash attacks (type 3).
Special Attacks
B – Comet
Type - Projectile
She sends down a fast moving star from above to the target current position regardless if they are in the air or ground. *1 Assuming the size of the map of the stage, it will collide with the opponent in just over half a second. The attack can do 4% damage at most and can knock the opponent slightly upward when hit. If it hit the opponent in the air, they will be knocked downward for a small distance. It can go through small platforms.
*1 In a team battle or a free for all battle, the target for her comet attack is determined from the nearest enemy in her point of view. If there is someone directly behind her and there someone far away in front of her, it will target the person far away. Otherwise if there is nobody in front of her, it will switch to the nearest target anywhere.
It may not look like a good attack as it just falls down, but it can be good on distrusting your enemy’s camping game as well as providing for your own in close combat. It can also serve as a gimping mechanic at times if used properly or to get them to start moving. You can tilt the controller stick during her attack animation to change the comet falling direction. Like if the controller is tilted forward or back, it will change from a straight line to 20 degrees off from that enemy position. Holding up will slow down the comet while holding down will accelerate it by twice it speed. If you main Pit, think of comet as an easy falling arrow.
Down B – meteor
Type - 3
Witch summons a small vortex above her within 7 stage builder blocks above her and a shower of meteors down to her position (9 in total). Each rock can do 3% and can slightly knock the opponent upward if they overlap the meteors while in the air. On the ground, the meteors explode on impact exploding with efficiency. On impact, they are launched forward on collision with an exploding meteor capable of killing at 90% doing 9% each. The launch from an exploding meteor cannot be cancelled or reduced by a falling meteor or any other attack.
Upon using this attack, Meteors will fall randomly within 4/10 around Witch with a high priority. Regarding its range, a single falling meteor alone covers 2/10 of a stage builder block, but the shattering of the meteor can reach as far as 7/10 of a stage builder block each.
When done in the air and/or when launched off stage, the meteors do not stick to her position, like pikachu’s thunder attack. The meteors will continue to fall without any impact as there no ground for it to shatter. This can be used for gimping.
UP + B – broom ride
Type - None
Witch jumps up for 5 stage builder blocks. Afterwards, she will begin to glide using her broom. From there she can use her glide actions and can attack out of it. Unlike many characters capable of gliding, she doesn’t have a very quick recovery upon touching the ground during a glide attack. In any case, she will be in a helpless stage after the glide attack.
Alone her broom ride does no damage, but her glide attack can do some damage. She attacks by jumping off her broom and attack with an electric/light magical attack that can hit two times. The attack can do 9% damage capable of killing at 122%
Side special – chibi
Type - Projectile
She channels her magic using both of her hands and chants a spell to change the size of her opponent. The attack speed is slightly fast, but the attack reaches out rather short covering 3/10 of a stage builder block and has cool down of 27 frames after the attack was executed...so make sure this attack doesn’t miss. At least when it does hit, it makes the opponent has a shrink animation that lasts for 35 frames. This attack can only hit opponents if they are looking towards Witch and standing on the ground.
When this attack does hit the opponent, it will reduce their size just like a poison mushroom for 12 seconds after the shrink animation. Their damage and knockback is cut by half as well as their overall defense. The only negative effect for witch is that they recover 1% of damage for every 2 seconds due to the spell was based from holy elemental magic and if the attack is absorbed, it will make the target grow instead of shrink. At least the grown target loses 5% health per 2 seconds.
Come to think of it, if you have a teammate who suffered heavy damage and capable of camping despite their size, this move might come in handy or to counter an absorb focused player for this moment.
Standard Attacks
A – Sparkler
Type - 1
Witch points her finger forward emitting an electric spark that hits up to three times. Each spark does 1% to 2% damage each as it pushes them with minor force with the last spark provide a moderate knockback capable of killing a foe at 145%.
This attack animation is very quick so that she would return to her normal stance just after the third spark appears…allowing her to follow up in many ways. However with the knockback from her attack, it might only be possible at low damage.
A tilt – mystic wave
Type - 2
She releases a small non-elemental magical wave in her direction traveling a short distance for at least two stage builder blocks. Depending on how the controller stick is tilted, the wave can make an arc on that direction to the point it would bend 60 degrees from its original direction. Upon the first hitbox frame, it can do 7% damage as it has a very low knockback effect.
The priority of this attack is rather high that it can negate moderate priority projectiles and it can travel through walls. Her attack speed is also moderate in execution and recovery as well.
A down – Ice freeze
Type - 3
Witch releases an Ice attack that sends a flurry of ice and snow to the ground front of her. The ice is strong enough to do 5% damage to her opponents as well as making your opponent trip. There is also a chance to freeze her enemies if the attack is done at point blank range if they are badly wounded. Upon using this attack she also able to freeze the ground near her for a short while for a half a second which can decrease the opponent’s traction and increase the chance to trip.
Her attack recovery for this attack is very quick that she returns to her normal position after this attack in 4 frames, so it can be a good idea to dash grab them on the ice to dash grab the opponent near an edge.
A up – whirlpool
Type - 1
She creates an aqua like twister just slightly in front of her covering her front side as it engulfs her opponents near her. The whirlpool spins the opponent around within its wrath until it releases the opponent just before the whirlpool finish. The attack will cover her from attacks from above. The attack hitbox and animation lasts for approximately 22 frames with each hit doing 1% damage per each 2 frames.
Her attack startup is quick that the whirlpool animation appears in 3 frames. However the entire attack animation lasts as long as the whirlpool, so she is very exposed behind her…however by pressing the attack button again during this attack move, she will quickly move the whirlpool behind her just before it ends over her backside. The attack duration is extended and anyone opponent is still trapped in there will stay in there longer. However they will take 1% damage by the prolonged whirlpool per 2 frames.
Smash up – tornado
Type - 1
Witch creates a powerful tornado that covers her entire body as well as cover twice of her size above her. The tornado takes some time to create, but it can bring nearby foes to the tornado like a vacuum and can rip and tear doing 1% each per frame until it ends by releasing them upward doing 5% capable of killing at 103%.
The tornado lasts for 14 frames as it sucks nearby opponents to its center. It can also catch any object and energy projectiles into the tornado and collide them with anything and anyone whom already inside it. If an element was already in the tornado upon the end of the tornado, the tornado will burst with the element that was inside of it. Like if a fireball from Mario was in the tornado when it ends, an explosion will occur doing fire damage around the past whirlwind (not affecting Witch).
Smash down – crystal spikes
Type 3
Witch chants an earth spell that can create jagged crystals rise from the ground piercing the opponent with devastating results. *2 This spell takes the longest to chant (slightly less frames than a Falcon Punch), however it has the most devastating results upon execution. In average it can do 27% damage capable of killing at 73%. This attack isn’t affected by decay. At full charge, it can be more deadly than Snake’s fully charged forward smash, but her charge time takes twice than normal.
*2 On release, it creates 4 crystals with two on each side from her. On each side, there is a smooth spiked giant crystal with its head facing diagonally and a skinny crystal that shaped like a burned tree. Each crystal height is not as tall as Witch, yet the attack expands for 1.3 stage builder blocks.
Upon chanting this spell, she gains super armor half way through completion and the damage she takes goes to the growth of the spikes doing more damage by half of the damage she took. The rocks remain on the field for 2 seconds after execution and won’t damage the opponent after they pop up from the ground…in fact, they can be walked on with additional traction. If someone attacked an exposed tree like crystal, it will tree produce a crystalline that can be used as a one time throwing item that does 2% damage and knockback. Breaking the bigger crystal takes a lot of effort before it disappear as it has like 35% hp, but breaking one will create a bigger crystalline that has the similar properties as Zero Suit Samus armor piece. Each crystalline piece can only be left idle for 4 seconds for vanishing.
If you thinking that Witch may break the crystals for herself. It isn’t going to work. Her attack recovery is also very long that she would return to her normal position just when the crystals vanish.
Smash forward – rolling thunder
Type - Projectile
She chants an electric spell with two arms shifting forward and creates a burst of destructive electrical energy. It then forms into a giant ball of energy. *3 The electric ball rolls forward from her direction for a short while doing 17% damage along it way capable of killing at 130%.
*3 Normally the size of the rolling thunder would be as the same size as Witch herself if its use without any charge, but a fully charged attack would change the size greatly. The total radius of this fully charged electric spell is generally 1.5 times greater than that of King Bowser himself. On execution, charged or not, it will travel around 2.3 stage builder blocks in total before it disappears. This attack is greatly affected by decay for if its not fresh, it will do 60% less damage.
It can only hit the same opponent once and a charge smash will only increase its size and range instead of damage. If this attack is done over the edge, it will still go straight forward defying gravity. (As it is a ball of magical energy.) The attack has a long attack recovery delay, so don’t miss using this attack.
Dash attack – fire trail
Type - Physical
Witch continues to ride her broom as she beings spinning like a drill. From the tip of her broom she cast a flame barrier around her body making herself a living charging fireball as she go through her enemies for 6% damage as it launches her opponents upward. If you familiar with Melee Kirby dash attack, think of it just like it. This is one of her two only physical attacks.
The attack on execution travels in a total of 4 stage builder blocks. It has a high priority rating and good range with a hit box covering 7/10 of a stage builder block around witch both front and back. Keep in mind that the startup time takes long than her usual attacks.
Aerial Attacks
Normal air – gale
Type - 2
With a spell that can bend the wind around her, she surrounds herself with 5 trails of wind as it travels around her with enough velocity that it can cut anyone it touches doing 3% damage per wind shard as well as it can blow back projectiles. The technique isn’t known for killing, but it mainly pushes the opponent forward just slightly. After 160% the knockback becomes to go at least 2 stage builder blocks in distance in average.
The winds is strong enough to reflect light projectiles and able to stop normal strength ones. It can’t stop heavy projectiles however. Also even if the winds doesn’t hit, being close to the powerful winds will slightly push the enemy away from her.
Back air - fire wave
Type - 1
Witch casts a burst of flames behind her position in the air. After the flames are released, it remains in place for approximately 0.8 of a second before vanishing. The flames does 4% damage on the first hit box frame capable of killing at 135%, however it does 1% damage for the duration of the attack as it can push the opponent upward slightly above the fire wave per hit.
Keep in mind that no matter how many times another attack or person overlap the fire wave, it cannot disappear until it lasts long enough or if it’s absorbed. So it might be a good idea to trap the opponent so that you can easily follow up as it can constantly hit the opponent multiple times.
Forward air – water blast
Type - 3
Witch cast a water orb in front of her and shatters it violently capable of doing no damage, but it can greatly knock the opponent away due to the sheer pressure from the attack capable of killing at 87%.
Alone this attack has a wide hitbox that has the size of her own body, but it will only be that strong if the attack hits at the center of the orb before she shatters it. If the attack hits anywhere else of the water explosion, it will knock them based on their position with a knockback that would kill an average person at 163%.
Down air – jolt
Type - Projectile
She fires a small jolt of electricity from her palm quickly 7 times below her doing 1%-2% per hit. Though the damage and knockback is very low on this attack, it can push the opponent slightly upward if they have a high enough damage.
The attack has a side effect that lowers the caster’s decent reducing the fall speed about 60% until the attack is finished. When executed while jumping upward or when she in control while launched upward, the jump or launch will stop.
Up air – lock
Type - 1
Witch raises her left arm above her and fires an electrical wave. It covers a small field in general, but will stun the enemy for at least half a second upon hit. It does 3% damage and has a set knockback depending on weight.
The priority of the attack is rather low, but upon a successful hit may set up for a chain or two depending on the situation.
Barrier = grab attack
Even when witch would grab, she would prefer to use magic instead of using her hands. When attempting to grab, she will cast out a white light that travels 8/10 of a stage builder block. The distance is the same for her pivot grab. During a dash grab, she will use her beam causing her broom to halt almost instantly due to the knockback on releasing that beam. This makes her to have a longer recovery time from her dash grab attack in contrast to the rest of her grabs.
Grab attack – shocker
Type - 3
While Witch has her foe inside her barrier, she distances them from her for at least 1.5 of a stage builder block. To grab attack, she constricts the barrier so that the electric walls damage the foe very quickly and effective for 1%. The shock animation lasts for only 3 frames and can be handy on pushing other foes away from her or to set off items, like grenades or other explosives.
Keep in mind that all of her throws are all Type 3…meaning it cannot be deflected or absorbed.
Throw forward – shove?
Witch can physically grab the opponent and throw them far and wide with sheer force backed by powerful electricity doing 15% damage at the least. It would be a powerful close range attack capable of killing at 79%, but Witch isn’t that type of person to do such a thing mentally, even thought that she would actually have to touch her opponent for it to work. By the time she noticed her action, she became nervous and pushes the opponent far and oddly effective at making the opponent stumble while doing no damage.
Actually if she uses this attack too often (if she recently use it 7 times or above for this move), she may get used to it and use her actual throw despite her fears. She can only use it again after 45 seconds if the mention conditions are met.
Throw up – water burst
Witch forms a water sprout under the opponent’s feet and launches the opponent high to a considerable distance. It does little damage, but it can knock the opponent far in the sky capable of killing them at 92%. The knockback is greatly affected by how many times it used per life instead of the usual decay mechanic. Like if she uses this throw the second time, the knockback will cut by half and three times if it’s used the third time. The decreasing effect is always last until she respawns.
Throw back – wind burst
Witch creates a heavy wind draft from 2 stage builder blocks behind the opponent and attack with the wind rising to the opponent’s central body which is still held by the barrier. It does 10% damage while capable of killing at 155%. There is no set knockback so it distance is almost next to none if she throw an enemy with this attack at full health.
Throw down – pressure
She bends the gravity around her enemy using a spell for this occasion. She increases the gravity surround her opponent by up to 5 times the normal gravity crushing her for rising damage from 1% to 5% respectfully. Afterwards she uses an air blast from under the opponent body to launch them upward just lightly as it does 2% damage.
Final smash – Flare star
Witch uses a heavy amount of her magical power to work on a new spell of hers. In hoping she would summon a cluster of giant meteors, she accidently summons a star…a big flaming star 4 times her normal size. Usually she becomes nervous, but because of how serious this has become she has decided to stabilize the star until she able to place it back into the orbit from which it came.
When the star is out, the player can control the movements of the star with the controller stick as it slowly travels in the direction of your choosing. Upon impact, it does 28% damage with such deadly results killing at 64%. After 12 seconds, Witch will return the flare star back to orbit and the Final smash shall end at that time.
Advice
Witch is more like a power/spacious character. She prefers to fight in mid-range, but not far away or near her opponent. It might be wise to keep her away from the opponent attacking range with attacks of your own to keep the line between her and the opponent very guarded. With her weight, once the opponent broke through her spells and into physical combat, she will be exposed and will take a lot of damage.
With some of her attacks behaving like a projectile, it’s easy to maintain distance while keeping a steady offense on a 1vs1 match. Alone, she can be quite strong against non-projectile opponents. However, she can be very much vulnerable against certain characters that have a countermeasure against projectiles one way or another. If that was to be the case, attack with caution and fake projectile moves to trick the enemy. Taking this into matter, Witch may not do very well in a free for all or a 3vs1 situation.
You could imagine that maybe a person like Witch could be a team player? That would not be the case most of the time assuming characters who has a lot of projectiles tends to be a burden to the teammate as it hits their ally more than the enemy hits them. In regards to this and her moveset, she can be very supportive when in sync with a fellow ally who able to absorb or reflect projectiles. For an ally who can reflect, you can shrink yourself with her side special (chibi) to recover 6% of your health, but you need to rely on your teammate to protect you. In the other hand if your ally can absorb, you can use multiple attacks to not only hit your opponent, but to also heal your ally as well since it’s a Type 1 projectile.
12/09/2012 edited request from several allies who rarely acknowledge a reviewer.
added more details on Crystal spike (smash down) and comet (netural B)
added size detail on rolling thunder and crystal
Okay, you’ve got some good ideas here. The Side Special is a particularly good one, which can either be used to inconvenience a foe or to give an ally some healing. That’s a nice touch. The Up Smash’s ability to suck in projectiles for extra damage is also good.
However, you have some presentation issues, mostly regarding some missing information that would have been useful. Like the Neutral Special: you say it automatically homes in on the target, but how is the target determined? Is it just the closest foe, or something else? The Side/Up/Down Smash: how big is that electrical ball/Tornado/Crystal? The Dash Attack indicates that you ride on a broom for her dash, but that would have been nice to know beforehand. And the Forward Throw is just confusingly worded.
There are also some number crunching problems here. Five SBBs is an enormously powerful recovery to start with, which wouldn’t be a problem if she didn’t get on her broom after that jump. And I’m pretty sure Jabs aren’t supposed to have KO potential, let alone at 145%. Similarly, some of your other moves have ridiculous KO potential: the Forward Air in particular seems excessive. Another problem is that, for us casual players, frames mean little to nothing; I at least would prefer seconds.
That said, you did a fairly good job of remembering to use playstyle and whatnot; not marvelous, but fairly good. Just try to remember clarity and try not to make your numbers go too high.
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!
As a side note, I also didn't make the set itself too complicated due to having to worry more about you, your team mate and the foe's positioning at nearly all times when playing Alakazam. You gotta have a good memory with him to get the most out of his movement and general gameplay
Ah, a good old-fashioned melee combatant. I had forgotten how much I missed those.
This set practically screams Feraligatr, from the surprising bursts of speed and maneuverability, to the pure power he possesses, to the Down Taunt. Seriously, I love that taunt. It’d be fun to spam if you really wanted to annoy the foe.
I also love what you did with Hydro Pump. One move to charge them all. Not only that, but the balancing is very well-done on that, with prohibitive charge time unless at higher percentages (kudos on that use of Torrent, by the by). We also see the team options beginning to show, which are pretty cool, since both characters can make equal use of it. I totally want this guy in Brawl already, and you’ve only done two of his Pokémon so far!
Also, have the same no-saving problem with my games. It bugs me. XP
You’ve done it again, Joe, and with one of my own personal favorites. I always liked Breloom. Pretty cool, decent typing, and with Seed Bomb in 4th gen actually has a grass move that matches his stats. Definitely one of the better grass types in my opinion. I also note that you really like the hard-hitters so far; Alakazam, Feraligatr, Breloom, none of them are really the durable sorts. A team full of sweepers, or are your tanks yet to come?
But,enough about that, let’s talk about the set. First off, kudos on the presentation. I really like the way you used the colors; enough to give the set color, not so much as to be overbearing. As for the playstyle, another nice and simple one that really feels like Breloom, all jumpy and hitty and whatnot. The range with Seed Bomb and the rarely-used-on-Breloom ability to inflict statuses gives the definite feel of the trainer’s hand, giving Breloom tools he wouldn’t normally think to use but that really expand his repertoire. Another nice touch is the general feel of a martial artist to this set with all the varying ways you can use each input by pressing again or angling it. Focus Punch was perfect, rather reminiscent of a certain Warlock Punch. I also liked the way you did Drain Punch; I had always wondered how punching could drain health, so now the question’s answered! Well, for Breloom anyway.
Some things here aren’t so good, though. The last paragraph of Spore was kinda confusing, and the DSmash Leech Seed growing an Oran Berry, although plausible, was jarring. Nonetheless, this was another great set, and I eagerly await the next Pokémon!
Glad you liked it. To clear up the last part tho, Spore is carried over as "effect spore" when Breloom hits people with the seeds on his tail, which will cause a bit of poison damage in reference to how touching him is dangerous in the games. The leech seeds growing an oran berry if they miss is more a fun easter egg than an actual mechanic, I figured the seeds are full of life/etc anyways so having them thrown into the ground could probably take root over time *shrug*
Anywho, so far only Alakazam and Breloom are different kinds of sweepers, with Feraligatr being bulky offense (he lacks the speed to sweep effecitvley till higher %). Well, off to finish set 4!
Edit: Totally didnt mean to steal the page, but at least I made you guys look or whatever thinking I posted a set or sumthin
Yeah, JOE! is gonna start commenting now since I feel guilty about not being as active with the community as I should be... (sad).
Anywho, I'm going to do something a little different with my comments and try and break down the set to get a better "feel" for it's inner workings and design, before coming to any conclusions over it's quality (with stuff like organization, flow, discovery and balance tossed in too). So, without further adieu, let's start with my first Xat-elected set:
SPECIALS:
We already saw that Stromboli is a fairly standard WL-heavyweight with his low movement stats and high fall speed, but his size and air speed seem to suggest he'll be well at home short-hopping aerials to approach, which fits right in with his Puppets. Since they hang just above ground in most cases, or on platforms, you'd easily see Stromboli using them as a defensive tool to hop around and lead foes into tomatoes/capitalize on the KB from the puppet's kicks.
We also see he has a combo of Marth's Shield breaker and Dolphin Slash in his USpec, which gives me the impression that he'd be a great edge-guarder. I can just imagine him say setting 1 puppet right at the edge of battlefield, another on the edge of the platform of the same edge, and then taking command of the space between. If a foe is knocked from there, he could simply do his Grounded Uspec to swat them away while they are trying to avoid the kicking hitboxes of the puppets. Not sure if this is intended, but it is a clever workaround to his miserable recovery: make the foe have just as hard a time!
A part that confuses me however is the Nspec when fully charged, does it only last for 5 seconds as opposed to the 20 seconds of tomato tossing? Do tomatoes still appear when he maxes his gold count? Also does side special have to be held out for him to actually "collect" coins, or does this just sorta happen when he touches them?
Speaking of Side Special, I think the move is a tad borked seeing as they can take knockback while having to escape from a grab. This can easily lead to easy-gimp situations combined with the battlefield scenario I proposed above, or just flat out free-kills if they don't take set-KB at all times. If the latter, that's just dandy for a kind of "reset" move to position yourself for puppet drops and gold-farming, but if not it's just a cheap move of sorts that degrades his game play into: rack % then do side B > win a stock. I do like how the gold is used with the move as ammo for a powerful KO option, like GW's Bucket, just want some clarification here.
GRAB GAME:
In typical WL fashion, Stromboli has a special grab mechanic with his strings (sorry for not mentioning Dave much, is just the stats and this part are WL staples). Let me take a moment here to nit-pick about the HP of the strings though: his Grab-Strings have 26% HP and his puppets have 15%. The latter is a bit more acceptable since it takes usually 2-3 aerials depending to snap through them (with some obvious exceptions like Fox's Fair that does like 23% when ll the hits land), but the 26% on the grab version seems a bit too much, especially if it's something the foe would want to be focusing on while Stromboli is whipping them around with his other inputs. Combined with how the strings must cause hit-lag (like with Castle Siege statues), this just seems a bit -too- rewarding for just landing a grab let alone throwing.
That said, the throws do throw that off a little, especially just the pummel alone. From a victim's point of view, there is no reason for them to try to grab-escape. If they do, they're be stringed up anyways and have to fight off of it unless Stromboli willingly lets them go, and if they try to fight, Stromboli could just press A and potentially KO them (or send them offstage for the super-edge-guard mentioned in the specials). This kinda layers on the "too much reward" aspect for just landing the grab, it's a bad or badder situation for the grabbed foe, and a win-win for Stromboli.
I also fail to see why Stromboli would want to release them, or do any throw other than Dthrow for that matter. Uthrow is a little confusing, you guys seem to imply that he can hold it forever with it only ending once you or the foe let go/mash out, and even then holding Z still has them tethered to you making it really only useful to stall a foe to build up the gold count as Stromboli's weight will definitely be an anchor if he gets KBed a bit by them in return. Side throw is nice, but at the same time kind of lackluster (even while being able to smash foes into puppets) compared to Up/Down/Pummel. Back to Dthrow, this is double-edged in that it not only puts the foe in prone it makes them prone while you have complete control over their actions from then on. Looking at the standards, he pretty much gets a free action with his Jab/Ftilt since the string is so tough, and they cant really resist the tug those moves make. If they try to roll, he can just grab again to pull them towards him or punish if they roll towards him for whatever reason, and get-up attack wont do much since he can just kinda wait there (after scootching back a bit I'd assume) and do his jab/ftilt.
Added up, if I were facing Stromboli and got grabbed, I may as well put down the controller for the next 5 seconds or so, since fighting back will have Stromboli press A, taking up 3 seconds of our play time/sending me flying. Then, he'll either just stall more with Uthrow or do Dthrow to which the only good option is your get-up attack (explained below), which he then can predict and punish. Then again, this could also be risky for Stromboli as he is also tethered to the foe, which I'm sure they could take advantage of (DK doing Down B over and over = lol, or hell just utilt combos > Uair combos for like 80% free on his tubby, FF-ing butt since he can only go a platform away and has to use his Uspec on the string to get away... speaking of, just doing any juggle entirely will absolutely ruin Stromboli's day since he'll need to Up B to escape, which puts him in helpless...), but again is neutralized by his ability to drop the tether on command. I can easily see this being abused off-stage on both ends, but mainly in Stromboli's favor as he can let go whenever, or just suicide KO his new puppet.
Also, can foes grab Stromboli while they're tethered? If so, Stromboli dittos must be ********.
STANDARDS+ AERIALS:
I like to group these two together as for 90% of all smash characters, there are their bread and butter moves. Many may have specials or grabs that they like to use often, but aerials and standards can really make or break a character.
As for Stromboli, I really like the interaction with his puppets here, giving good reason to "sacrifice" one of your puppets for personal use as an extended hitbox. Though utilt is a little weird to think about when a wooden puppet is reflecting stuff like lasers back at people but eh, MYM has seen weirder. Ftilt is also a bit odd for those not familiar with melee, as it should require Crouch-Cancelling to perform out of a dash, but is otherwise fine. Dash attack I really like due to the foe's ability to pick up your puppets as well, allowing Stromboli to reclaim stolen property, so to speak (and then go about his business of using it as a flail).
His aerials are a bit worse in my opinion however. Starting with Nair, it would have just been better IMO to give him super-armor when his belly is jutted instead of the awkward counter, allowing him to just plow through attacks instead (I'm trying to imagine like, him bouncing Ike's Fair off of him and it's just like "lolwut?"). Fair does a much better job of pushing the foe, so I didn't really see the need for this part of Nair. Both Uair and Dair kinda serve the same purpose (Dragging foes down while stringed) with a little nuance between them, an I find Bair just kinda borked both as a projectile, spinning ranged hitbox, and grab hitbox all in one. Don't even get me started on how cheap it is to have an attack that sends foes flying a -Battlefield- away, on an edge that's a free kill on basically anybody.
Where the standards/aerials really fall apart IMO is when they're used after a grab. As mentioned, Stromboli will most likely Dthrow after grabbing a foe, unless they're at a good position to be Pummeled (at high % or at an edge), meaning the foe is prone, and Stromboli is ready to use his standards. Right away, he gets a free 11% from his jab as the foe is pulled up then down, and their only real response to this would be to try and hit with an aerial... which is either swatted away or punished by making them go into the end lag of it. Ftilt, Utilt, and all but Nair also force the foe's position to be somewhere else, with 3 of the aerials potentially being guaranteed KOs! On the opposite end of this spectrum is his Dtilt, which against anybody who knows the match-up is practically useless. As I said earlier, this is the reason a prone foe vs Stromboli's only wise move is to use get-up attack, as it completely neuters this move, and against non-prone enemies, it's just easy to avoid and easy to punish.
SMASHES:
Stromboli's smashes are pretty cool however, but I do have another nitpick: when calculating how much damage a smash attack does, multiply the base damage by 1.4 (then round up/down) to get the charged damage. A little known fact I'd reckon, but I always find it kinda funny when a move goes from like 18-30% when it's just been charged for like a second. Oh, and on that note: smash attacks are only counted as charged when fully charged, but it seems MYM has kinda added on to that by having certain effects hapen mid-charge *shrug*.
Back to Stromboli. I really do like his smash attacks, Dsmash is very rewarding for what you have to accomplish: get both a puppet and a stringed enemy without dropping either, and in this case I approve of the slightly overpowered-ness due to how rare/hard that would be to set up. Fsmash is nice, although kinda easy to avoid IMO due to how telegraphed it is (combined with his slow dash). It's a little odd how only jointed attacks fron the front are blocked, why not make it heavy armor for like... 12%ish to allow him to approach in his rage if he wanted? Then again his puppets act as total projectile shields due to them being attack-able, meaning even like Samus' Charge-Shot will stop at a string as it destroys it, saving you from the impact at the cost of the string.
Lastly there is Usmash, which due to the range of the shockwave I can't seem to find why you'd charge it instead of using the quick Kirby-height version. Especially when a foe is prone (grabbed) it's pretty much guaranteed to hit when it takes up about 3/5ths of BF. And then yeah they're airborne.. you can then abuse aerials/jab to reset the stuff I mentioned in the standards/aerial section.
VERDICT:
Overall I do like Stromboli a lot despite the flaws I found with it, which IMO seemed attached to his special grab for the most part. Without the grab, Stromboli stands on his own as a character that can either play a defensive game via manipulating puppets as defensive barriers of a sort while he builds up his show, literally sacking foes who try to ruin it for him to buy time or flat out KO them. Or an offensive game by using a puppet as a weapon combined with all his other attacks which is something I find quite enjoyable, especially with how easy this would be to do on the fly when the player sees the need to alter his tactics. As I said though, this does get brought down by his grab though as it just brings in too much bad mojo to his moveset with how limiting it is for the foe in the situation, and how just amazingly empowering it is for Stromboli. It's comparable to the Ice Climbers in all honesty, but only you feel as though you can fight back while he just kinda wrecks you. He'd be just fine IMO if say, his pummel attached strings and you could get out of it, or if the strings had much less HP/only stuck if Stromboli willingly let them escape his grab instead of throwing.
As for the actual -set-, I really enjoyed the feel you guys made for Stromboli with his idle animations, taunts, and special victory poses. It really fleshed him out for me and brought him right out of Pinocchio and into Smash.
So in the end, Stromboli is a good read but has just a few things in his act that may keep him strung up from being one of the "greats".
Edit: ...double posted, what happened to the activity guys? Also, made you look again
I dunno about everypony else, but I make sets slowly, so I've been trundling along, working on my set, and commenting when somepony else posts a set.
...I just realized that as of right now, that makes me one of, if not the most active people here. Weird...
Also, I appreciated the "Smash Attacks are 1.4x the damage when charged" tidbit. That's helpful to know. :D Is there a similar way to calculate knockback?
Also, I appreciated the "Smash Attacks are 1.4x the damage when charged" tidbit. That's helpful to know. :D Is there a similar way to calculate knockback?
Well, Knockback is a whole 'nother can of worms...
If you must know, here is the formula from Smash64 (the only one we know of, and we are fairly certain it has remained relatively unchanged, with just slightly different values in melee, and the addition of gravity somehow in brawl)
(((((P/10 + PxD/20) x W x 1.4) + 18) x S) + B) x R
P = The % of the target
D = The damage of the attack dealt
W = Weight of the target
S = Knockback Scaling (KB Growth) of the attack
B = Base Knockback of the attack
R = a ratio based on various factors such as difficulty (Enemies in adventure mode deal more KB the higher the difficulty)
If the move has "Set" weight-based Knockback, P is always 10, and D is the value.
Each hitbox of a move has two knockback values: a base knockback and a knockback scaling (also known as knockback growth). Moves with high base knockback deal high knockback under any circumstances, such as the swing of a Home-Run Bat. On the other hand, moves with high knockback scaling take less damage to reach KO potential, such as Luigi's forward smash.
For example, lets have Mario (weight = 98) get hit by an attack that deals 10%, with 10 KBG and 10 BKB, when he's at 100%.
100/10 + (100x10)/20 = 50
50 x 98 x 1.4 = 6860
6860 + 18 = 6878
(6878 x 10) + 10 = 68790 x 1 = 68790
For a comparison, Mario takes 525.1 Knockback when hit at 0% by Marth's Final Smash. The move we used here would be friggen monstrous.
Simply put though, the way we're doing it with arbitrary %'s of when the average weight foe would die works just fine.
Well, Knockback is a whole 'nother can of worms...
If you must know, here is the formula from Smash64 (the only one we know of, and we are fairly certain it has remained relatively unchanged, with just slightly different values in melee, and the addition of gravity somehow in brawl)
(((((P/10 + PxD/20) x W x 1.4) + 18) x S) + B) x R
P = The % of the target
D = The damage of the attack dealt
W = Weight of the target
S = Knockback Scaling (KB Growth) of the attack
B = Base Knockback of the attack
R = a ratio based on various factors such as difficulty (Enemies in adventure mode deal more KB the higher the difficulty)
If the move has "Set" weight-based Knockback, P is always 10, and D is the value.
Each hitbox of a move has two knockback values: a base knockback and a knockback scaling (also known as knockback growth). Moves with high base knockback deal high knockback under any circumstances, such as the swing of a Home-Run Bat. On the other hand, moves with high knockback scaling take less damage to reach KO potential, such as Luigi's forward smash.
For example, lets have Mario (weight = 98) get hit by an attack that deals 10%, with 10 KBG and 10 BKB, when he's at 100%.
100/10 + (100x10)/20 = 50
50 x 98 x 1.4 = 6860
6860 + 18 = 6878
(6878 x 10) + 10 = 68790 x 1 = 68790
For a comparison, Mario takes 525.1 Knockback when hit at 0% by Marth's Final Smash. The move we used here would be friggen monstrous.
Simply put though, the way we're doing it with arbitrary %'s of when the average weight foe would die works just fine.
Walk – 5
Run - 6
Jump – 4
Fall – 3
Quick fall - 2
Weight -5
Movement speed - 5
Weaknesses
B> wind deals no knock back making Soren vulnerable to attack
Specials
B: Wind surrounds Soren for 5 seconds dealing .5 damage but reflects most projectiles Soren can move during those 5 seconds
B^ A gust of wind Propels Soren up
BV: TBA
<>B Soren has a 1/3 chance of using either Lightning, Wind, or Fire Magic (Wind is Slash, Fire and lightning are self explanatory. If there is a foe in front of Soren the magic automatically locks on to them) Spells are Bolting, Blizzard, and Meteor
Bolting: similar to Pika's thunder except has only one hit box comes at a diagonal angle
Meteor: A small Meteor comes from the sky and strikes the target
Blizzard: Like Suicune's move back in Melee but does no Knock back
Hailing from the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic universe, Trixie is a fairly talented unicorn who works as a stage magician. She’s seen as arrogant, boasting often in her own talents like any good stage magician, but has real magical talent, capable of creating small thunderclouds and of utilizing more advanced telekinesis than your average unicorn.
However, her tall tales of having singlehandedly defeated an Ursa Major led some of the stupider inhabitants of Ponyville to actually lead an Ursa Major (Minor, actually, but who cares?) to Ponyville so she could prove she could vanquish it. Of course, she couldn’t do it, but after giving her level best, she was shown up by that upstart Twilight Sparkle, who defeated the Ursa singlehandedly and made Trixie look like a fool! Her magician’s cart crushed by the Ursa, her reputation ruined, she retreated. She has yet to be seen again in Ponyville. But now she’s back with a new bag of tricks, ready to prove that she is the greatest magician in all of Equestria!
STATS AND MECHANICS
You notice that magician’s hat on Trixie? That hat normally rests on her head to help conceal when she uses magic; normally, her horn glows to indicate magic use, but when the hat is on, as it is by default, you can't see it. This plays into the mindgames Trixie loves to play.
However, should she take 20% damage or more in a single hit, the hat will fall off, landing on the ground. Foes can now see Trixie’s horn glow and, based on the length of the charge and the direction (which always matches the directional input of the move), can anticipate Trixie’s moves better. This isn’t as big a problem with the weaker and quicker moves, but for the more powerful and useful ones like Specials or Smashes, this might be an issue for Trixie. However, since she is no longer having to hold back to prevent the glow from being seen through the hat, Trixie’s move damage and knockback increase by 10%, while her lag drops by 10%.
If Trixie touches the hat at any time after dropping it, she laglessly puts it on, unless a foe is holding the hat at the time, as it can be picked up by a foe and thrown for 1% flinchless damage. Naturally, people may try to throw it off the edge, but the hat falls fairly slowly, akin to Jigglypuff’s fall. As such, a foe may be better served just picking it up and playing keep-away, although this does leave them unable to use A moves without throwing the thing. Also, if they take any knockback whatsoever, they drop the hat.
WEIGHT: 3 Trixie is light, which poses some problems.
SIZE:3Trixie is small, but she is a pony, so what do you expect?
GROUND SPEED:3 Trixie doesn’t need to go quickly.
DASH SPEED:7 If she does, however, she can really hoof it.
TRACTION:4 Not Trixie’s strength, really.
JUMPS:4 Trixie is somewhat below average in this regard, to her chagrin.
AIR SPEED: 5 Once again, Trixie is not exceptional in this regard.
FALL SPEED:7The cape may not allow a glide, but it does slow Trixie’s fall.
CROUCH: 3 Trixie crouches like a pony who rarely has to: awkwardly kneeling without actually getting much lower.
WALL JUMP:No.Trixie doesn’t do such things.
WALL CLING:No. Does it look like she can do that?
GLIDE:No. Batmane aside, capes don’t allow glides, not even the cape of the Great and Powerful Trixie.
FLOAT:No. Not at all.
BASIC ANIMATIONS
Idle Stance: Trixie stands tall and proud, smirking occasionally at the foe. Should she remain still for five seconds or longer, she’ll stand on her hind legs and strike a dramatic, attention-seeking pose.
On-screen Appearance: In a burst of smoke and multicolored sparks, Trixie appears, declaring, “This will be easy for the Great and Powerful Trixie!”
Walk: Trixie trots casually, unhurried.
Run: She gallops as if her life depends on it.
Dizzy: Swaying dizzily, Trixie’s eyes go back-and-forth cartoon-style.
Sleep: Trixie sleeps standing up, like any pony. She snores lightly as she does, twitching her tail occasionally.
Item Grab: Trixie picks up an item with her telekinesis, putting a blue glow around it. Yes, this makes her horn glow, but since grabbing an item is so quick, it doesn’t mean anything.
Dash Item Grab: Trixie grabs the item without even looking at it with telekinesis.
Item Hold: Trixie is always spinning or flourishing the item if not doing anything else, that same blue glow around the item.
Item Throw: With a telekinetic thrust, Trixie fires the item straight in whatever direction.
Item Swing: With some flourishing during the charge, Trixie swings normally when it’s actually time to strike.
Item Shoot: Trixie pulls the trigger with her telekinesis, flourishing the gun briefly when she stops firing.
SPECIALS
Neutral Special: Setting the Stage
Should Trixie’s horn be visible, her horn will glow for a half-second of startlag. At the end of this, her magician’s cart, apparently repaired sometime after it was crushed by the Ursa, comes popping out of the ground.
The cart is about two BFPs long and about the same height. See that wooden platform at the bottom? That is the only part characters can interact with, acting as your typical solid platform. Everything else remains in the background.
Once the cart has been summoned, Trixie can make fire and fireworks come out of it by pressing the input again, like so:
The fireworks at the two ends deal 10% damage and knockback that KOs at 170%. The fire deals no knockback at all, but it does deal 13% damage and 1% fire damage per second for five seconds. Either way, though, Trixie is unhurt. Both fireworks and fire go up about half a SBB. As you can see, the middle of the cart is untouched. Trixie can trigger the fire and fireworks three times; after using it the third time, the cart vanishes, leaving Trixie with a 10-second cooldown before she can summon it again.
However, the cart (or rather, the platform) can be attacked. Should its 30 HP be depleted, the cart will explode with all the damage and knockback of its remaining charges. I.e. if no charges have been used, that’s a whopping 69% damage (the damage doesn’t count the burn damage from the flames) and however much knockback three KO-at-170% knockbacks add up to. This makes this a potential easy KO move, but foes are far more likely to just avoid the cart, or to try and blow it up from afar. This has two downsides: one is that if the cart blows up, this hurts Trixie as well. With her weight, that’s very bad. Two is that if the cart is blown up rather than vanishing, the cooldown increases to 20 seconds.
The best use of this move is zoning: making foes afraid to enter that area due to explosions. Alternatively, should somepony somehow manage to end up in the middle of the platform, you have them trapped, since you can trigger the fire should they try to escape. Sure, they can jump, but if their jump is bad, you can hit them anyway; if not, you know where they are and can hit them in midair.
Throughout the whole summoning of the cart, Trixie calls out “Come one, come all, and see the GREAT and POWERFUL TRRRIXIE!” This move, then, is one of Trixie’s few moves that always benefits from the hat being off, since everypony knows what’s coming anyway and you get extra firepower and less lag.
Side Special:Sabotaging the Competition
Trixie pulls a blue flower, about the size of a capsule, from her cloak with minor startlag and throws it forward with her telekinesis (if visible, her horn glows as she throws it). If the input is tapped, this goes 1.5 SBBs at Mario’s walk speed; if smashed, this goes about half an SBB but a lot faster, going at the speed of a dashing Sheik.
Should the flower hit somepony, that unlucky character will find out to their dismay that the flower is Poison Joke, which takes a crucial trait of anypony who touches it and reverses it to their detriment. In MYM Brawl, this can have several effects, all lasting five seconds:
50% chance: The character’s best stat will be reversed (Sonic will be as slow as Ganondorf, Ganondorf will find that his weight is comparable to Jigglypuff’s, Falco’s jump will be akin to Ganon’s, etc.) Should more than one stat qualify, one will be selected at random. This does not affect attack power.
30% chance: The character will move in the opposite direction. I.e. if the player presses left, the character moves right.
15% chance: One of the character’s Specials will be locked. There’s no indication as to which one it is unless the player presses the input for the disabled Special, at which point nothing happens.
5% chance: One of the character’s Specials is usable, but will treat its user and any allies/minions as the enemy and everypony else as allies. Obviously the most devastating, as the foe can’t tell which one it is until it either doesn’t hurt you or hurts the foe, either of which can really mess things up for the foe. Should the move summon an object, minion, trap, etc, the object/minion/trap will revert when the Poison Joke wears off.
Trixie can throw as many of these as she wants, meaning that things can become fairly chaotic pretty quickly.
Should the flower not hit the foe, it will fall to the ground and remain there for ten seconds, where it can be picked up and thrown exactly like a Mr. Saturn, minus the “Pwaah!” Should a foe pick it up, or stand on it for one second, they will be affected by the Poison Joke, although this can also backfire, since Trixie can be affected by the flower as well, meaning a foe can throw it at Trixie to mess her up as well. Depends on how much of a daredevil the foe is. Additionally, if a foe is already affected, nothing happens when they touch a flower, meaning that if they’re already affected, it’s probably a bad idea to throw more flowers at them.
This is best used when Trixie needs time to set up. Throw a flower and hopefully they’ll be occupied long enough to summon the cart or something. Speaking of the cart, if a flower is caught in the fire or fireworks of the cart, it will be instantly incinerated, making the platform a decent place for Trixie to camp. Alternatively, this can zone as well: make a small area infested with Poison Joke and most sensible people will either avoid it or jump over it.
Up Special: Distract their Attention
Trixie’s horn glows (if visible) for about .35 seconds, and then Trixie… does nothing? No, if you look carefully, another Trixie has appeared 3 SSBs away in a steerable direction (defaulting to straight up). The Trixie that was left behind is but an illusion, which explodes into sparkles if hit by anything that would cause damage or knockback, causing .3 seconds of stun to anypony that happens to be right where it was. If left to its own devices, the illusion will act like a level 3 CPU imitating your previous tactics as best it can; however, it can’t use Specials, and none of its moves do a thing to the foe. Trixie has about .3 seconds of endlag to this move, unfortunately, as teleporting while creating an illusion takes a lot out of her.
But that’s not all! If you double-tap the input during the startlag, the real Trixie will remain behind while the illusion appears elsewhere! Additionally, using the move when there’s an illusion out makes you laglessly switch places with it (albeit with glow if the hat’s off). This adds to the mindgames quite a bit, especially if Trixie’s hat remains on to hide possible switching.
If you’re close enough and good with teleport recoveries, you can aim for your cart to help counterbalance the endlag; even during the endlag, you can trigger the cart’s fireworks to help cover you. Alternatively, if you’re on the cart and it’s about to be blown up, you could try using this to get away. Poison Joke’s not a bad way to deal with the endlag as well, depending on which effect it is.
Naturally, this is not nearly as effective with the hat off, but still functions as a fairly generic teleport recovery. Another weakness of this move is that if people snipe at you from afar, they only lose a brief amount of time if they hit the duplicate.
Down Special: Magician’s Secrets
Trixie rears up on her hind legs for very brief startlag, then smashes her forelegs down to the ground (meaning you can’t use this in the air), somehow creating a large cloud of smoke with 1.5 SBBs radius. This cloud lasts for five seconds, but slowly clears away as time goes on: for the first three seconds, only light-based hitboxes (or Trixie’s glowing horn if her hat is off during an attack) can be seen in the smoke; after that, outlines of the stage, characters, moves, etc, can be seen until the smoke clears away entirely. Trixie’s horn doesn’t glow during this move and as such doesn’t gain anything from the hat being off; maybe it’s just a smoke bomb rather than magic. Finally, Trixie can have only one cloud of smoke out at a time.
This cloud, being big enough to completely conceal Trixie’s cart, is a decent way to try to get foes to hit the cart by accident, or just to hit them with the fireworks. Poison Joke’s not a bad idea as well, since foes may not even realize they’ve been hit by Poison Joke until the smoke’s gone. This also works marvelously with the teleport, since it can cover your start and endlag and conceal the fact that you have a duplicate for a little bit if you do it right.
STANDARD ATTACKS
Jab:Magical Spark
A peanut chunk-sized burst of magic explodes suddenly in front of Trixie’s horn (accompanied by a flash of light if Trixie’s hat is off), dealing 1% damage and flinch. This is a very spammable move, good for damage racking, although the foe can DI out of it. This also ties in to the smoke cloud; since light-based hitboxes are visible in the smoke cloud, this can be a handy way to figure out where you are since it comes out so quickly.
Dash Attack: Exit Stage Left
Trixie’s horn glows (if visible) for the .2 seconds of startlag, after which Trixie teleports forward a BFP, leaving a magical explosion behind where she was. This explosion deals about 7% damage and brief hitstun. Not a bad way to discourage pursuit, or to get to your cart faster, or to avoid a patch of Poison Joke.
Forward Tilt: Pick a Card
A playing card is thrown via her horn (with glow if the hat’s off) with very little startlag. This card goes about a BFP forward, dealing 3% damage and flinch, and like many FTilts can be aimed up or down. Pretty spammable and a decent tool for if you’re camping on your cart.
Up Tilt:Bedazzling the Audience
A small burst of blue electricity explodes right over Trixie, dealing 8 hits of 1%flinching damage to anypony caught in it for the whole half-second it’s there. This comes out quickly and is a good antiair, but since Trixie can’t move while performing this, she’s wide open for a foe on the ground to attack her.
Down Tilt:Refreshments Provided
Her horn glowing if visible, Trixie takes out a hay smoothie with minor startlag and drops it on the ground. Should somepony somehow be close enough to be hit by it, they’ll take 2% damage and flinch. The real point of this, however, is to let it hit the ground and splatter, making a SBB-sized area ice-slippery for everypony except Trixie. Trixie can drop as many of these as she likes, which can assist her in tripping up the opponent, but since the puddles only last for two seconds, she’ll have to move quickly.
SMASH ATTACKS
Side Smash: The Horn is faster than the Eye
Trixie, after the charge (and slight startlag), fires a burst of magic energy forward. Should the energy hit the foe, the foe will begin spinning uncontrollably, going 3 SBBs in the opposite direction and taking 16-22% over three seconds. The foe remains at the same height they were at when hit, so you can’t drop them off the edge very effectively with this, and the foe can try to escape with 1.5x standard grab difficulty. Fairly damaging, but with no KO potential, although this can be a dandy way to knock foes into the fireworks for even more damage or a KO; or into a patch of Poison Joke to inconvenience them more. Or just to give Trixie time to summon the cart or Poison Joke to begin with. Or maybe to give Trixie a chance to teleport and summon a clone, or just make her getaway with said teleport.
Up Smash:Shock and Awe
A mighty thundercloud forms one SBB above Trixie during the charge, making it another of the moves where it’s better to have the hat off, since horn glow or not, everypony knows what’s coming. And naturally, when the attack is unleashed, it’s in the form of a powerful blue lightning bolt that strikes Trixie, electrifying her body as a hitbox. The bolt itself deals 14-20% damage and knockback that KOs at 150-140%, making this by far Trixie’s best chance of KOing. Still, touching Trixie’s electrified body is no picnic either, as they take 12% damage and knockback that KOs at 165-155%. This is a very straightforward KO move; its use should be pretty obvious.
Down Smash:Ensnaring their Attention
Trixie’s horn glows as usual if the hat is off during charge. Once released… nothing happens?
Actually, what’s happened is that the exact area Trixie was standing on has been booby-trapped. Should a foe step in that area, the ground crackles with blue magic, trapping the foe in that same blue energy for one second and dealing 13-18% damage during that time. Should anypony except Trixie touch either the ground or the trapped foe after the trap’s been activated, they will take 5% damage and will be blown back one SBB.
This move is at its best when Trixie has her hat on; however, should her hat be off and you want to take advantage of the extra damage, your best option is to set off some smoke and use this move while all they can see is the glow. Alternatively, you can make sure the foe sees it and use it as another zoning tool. Note that you can have only one such trap at a time; making another one makes the old one vanish.
Naturally, this fairly damaging move has uses beyond damage racking and zoning. The immobility is a great time to hit them with Poison Joke, or if you can manage it, to hit them with fireworks.
AERIAL ATTACKS
Neutral Aerial:Flourish
Trixie waves her cape around in a spinning motion as magic dances around it. This move hits all around Trixie and deals a mere 4% damage. However, it also turns foes and projectiles around like Mario’s cape, with all the uses that implies. One that stands out is that you can shorthop this move to protect your cart from snipers. Do be aware of the slight start and endlag to this move, and that her horn still glows if the hat’s off.
Front Aerial:Shivers of Anticipation
Trixie fires off a crescent of blue magic with slight startlag. The crescent moves at about Mario’s walk speed, but should a foe be hit by it, not only will they take 9% damage and flinch, but the icy cold of this piece of magic will slow a foe to 75% their current speed for three seconds. That’s right, I said their current speed; if Poison Joke has slowed them down already, this slows them even further. And that’s not even factoring in the fact that if they’re in smoke and are hit, they may not be aware of their slowed status until you’ve already set up or hit them with a thunderbolt.
Back Aerial: Tricks of the Trade
This move comes out immediately and with no glow, as Trixie is using no magic here (note that this means that she doesn’t gain any benefits from having the hat off). No, she is instead letting a cloud of small pellets fall out of her cape behind her to discourage pursuit. These pellets, falling at Peach’s fall speed, do nothing if merely touched and vanish upon touching the ground. However, if a hitbox contacts them, they act as a sort of detached counter, all of them immediately detonating for 7% damage and making foes in contact during detonation lose their jumps. You could try to gimp with this, but with Trixie’s jumps, you’d have to be very very good at her. No, this is best used just to keep foes from harassing Trixie in the air. Alternatively, you could shorthop this in smoke to try to get some cheap damage, although the Jab would probably work better.
Up Aerial: Sleight of Horn
Trixie tosses her head upward, causing her hat to fly off. Yes, she indeed has a way to take the hat off if she wants some extra damage and doesn’t want to get hit. Just as an advance warning, however, there’s no hat-summoning move for if you want it back, so use this cautiously.
Without the hat, this functions as a fairly generic attack: she swings her head upward in the exact same way, stabbing foes above and slightly ahead of her with her horn for 4% damage and flinch.
Down Aerial:Dazzling Feat
Without any startlag, horn glow, or any giveaway movements, a capsule-sized round glass container falls from Trixie’s cape and hits the ground. The container will roll if there’s a slope, can be picked up and thrown for a pathetic 1% damage, and shatters uselessly if hit by a hitbox. Or rather, most hitboxes. You see, Trixie stocked that container with highly flammable oil. Thus, if any fire hitbox contacts the container, the container will explode with the radius and approximately half the damage and knockback of a Bom-Omb, even damaging the originator of the hitbox if they’re in range. This naturally is to go with the fire from the cart to make foes regret it even more if they get in range. Not a bad strategy against people with a lot of fire hitboxes, either.
GRABGAME
Grab:Rope Trick
Pulling a coil of rope out of her cape, Trixie’s horn glows briefly (if the hat’s off) for about .4 seconds startlag, making the rope glow as well, rearing up to about Ganondorf’s height. At that point, Trixie can move around freely while the rope remains. However, should a foe come within range of the rope, the rope will coil around them and hogtie them, at which point they must escape with normal grab difficulty. At this point, whatever Trixie inputs next determines what happens: should she push A, the Pummel comes into effect, while if the directional input is moved, the foe will be thrown in the corresponding direction. Obviously, using a Special won’t have any effect on a trapped foe, and using a directional standard will default to the pummel.
This grab has a ton of weaknesses, including the fact that it’s only normal grab difficulty; a careless button press may mess up all your plans; and that if Trixie is being attacked by somepony else, she’ll have to forget about strategic pummeling and throwing in favor of escape. On the plus side, this does help her zoning game somewhat, or can throw a foe into the fire of the cart if you’re good at timing things. Also, after the initial enchantment of the rope, Trixie’s horn will not glow during pummels or throws, adding a bit more mystery to the mix for foes.
Pummel:Tight Situation
The rope visibly squeezes the foe over 2 seconds for 3% damage total. Not an ideal pummel.
Forward/Back/Up/Down Throw:End of the Line
As mentioned, the rope will toss the foe in the direction Trixie inputs. For either left or right, they will fly approximately two SBBs in the chosen direction, taking 7% damage. Up has much the same effect, save for the fact that the foe has to come down afterwards by gravity’s dictate. Finally, the Down Throw just bounces the foe off of the ground, sacrificing distance to boost the damage to 10%.
FINAL SMASH
Ursa Minor
Snips and Snails, the very two unicorns who ruined Trixie’s reputation in Ponyville, appear in the background, running frantically from something. (Note that they’re here purely for aesthetics and have no real bearing on the Final Smash itself.)
What that something is becomes very clear; evidently the duo didn’t learn a thing from last time and have awakened yet another Ursa Minor.
This monstrosity is the size of Giga Bowser, moves at about the speed of Ganon’s dash, and has three attacks: a massive paw swipe which deals 20% damage and insane knockback that KOs at 80%; a roar, somewhat less common, that pushes foes back a good four SBBs and deals 16%; and a powerful bite that, although used less often than the others, deals 30% damage and even more insane knockback that KOs at 70%. The Ursa also squashes any items, traps, or minions that it steps on, including Trixie’s cart. Note that Trixie is completely vulnerable to all of the Ursa’s attacks, meaning that Trixie’s aim during this Smash is to stay out of the Ursa’s way as much as possible. Thankfully, the beast can be confused with smoke or teleported away from.
As for duration, the Ursa will last a terrifyingly long fifteen seconds before vanishing.
PLAYSTYLE
Trixie’s stats aren’t very good. She’s lightweight and floaty, although her sizable speed helps make up for this somewhat. Nonetheless, Trixie isn’t winning on account of stats, especially since she generally doesn’t hit very hard.
So if she’s not going to win because of physical superiority, she’ll have to win the day with trickery.
There are basically two productive routes with Trixie: camping or constant movement. Camping has its advantages: Trixie can put up a cart, throw some Poison Joke around, pour some smoothies onstage, spin the foe away with Forward Smash, and just generally incapacitate the foe while hitting with her projectile attacks. Smoke wouldn’t hurt at all here either, keeping the foe from counterattacking effectively if they get up close, and once you’ve whittled down the foe’s health, Neutral Special or Up Smash can earn you a KO. The problem with camping is that foes don’t have to hit you: they need only hit the cart to ruin everything and possibly earn themselves a KO. Sure, you can teleport away, but even so, that’s your setup gone for twenty seconds at least.
So, that’s when you need constant movement. Here you want to be dashing around, stopping only to throw Poison Joke, use Down Smash, or produce some other hindering factor so that next time you stop, you can hit the foe with something more damaging. Smoke and teleportation are key here: in conjunction, they can help protect you from most counterattacks and keep you mobile. The problem with this strategy is that one of your best KO moves, the cart, takes a half second to summon, meaning you have to hold still for that long. Since you only have one other KO move, this makes you unpredictable while damage racking, but highly predictable when trying to KO.
Thus, a hybrid is needed. Either method is good for damage racking, but without the cart, your already-few KOing options are easily predicted. Thus, if you can find somewhere good to camp when you’re ready to KO, you might try throwing Poison Joke or setting a rope to keep foes away while you summon the cart and then camp until your foes have to come after you. Sure, this is predictable too, but the more options you have, the more likely you are to catch them off-guard. However, should the cart be destroyed, you need to know how to stay on the move and keep foes from capitalizing on your poor stats.
As for Trixie’s hat, you usually want it on at all times, unless you’re trying to KO. Trixie relies almost entirely on bedazzling opponents with speed and trickery, and when she can be predicted, her advantages dwindle. However, when trying to KO, feel free to discard the hat before summoning the cart and attempting to blow them up or use Up Smash on them.
In short, if you don’t want to have to think during battles, Trixie is not for you. But if you favor surviving with your wits and some dirty tactics, Trixie fills the bill quite well.
EXTRAS
Up Taunt: Egocentric
“Nothing is beyond the magical talent of the Great and Powerful Trixie!” she proclaims, looking quite pleased with herself.
Side Taunt:Neighsayers
Sneering, Trixie says in a tone of contempt, “It seems we have some neeiigghhsayers in the audience!”
Down Taunt: Anything you can do…
With a smug, superior smirk, Trixie says, “Anything you can do, I can do better!”
Symbol: Trixie would never deign to share a symbol with any other pony, so her Cutie Mark serves as her symbol, defaulting at blue.
Upon Selection (Wiimote): Trixie yells, “Come one, come all!”
Kirby Hat: Kirby gains Trixie’s hat, mane, and Up Special.
Victory Pose 1: Naturally, Trixie won
Insufferably smug, Trixie says, “Was there ever any doubt?”
Victory Pose 2:The Great and Powerful
Trixie, once again more smug than most would prefer, brags, “Truly this proves that Trixie is the most powerful unicorn in all of Equestria!”
Victory Pose 3: Fireworks
Rather than bragging, Trixie is putting on a show, controlling fireworks with precise magical precision to spell out the words “Nopony can stand against Trixie!” Okay, maybe she is bragging…
Victory against Twilight Sparkle: Who’s Stronger Now?
Trixie looms over Twilight triumphantly. “Trixie told you that you could never match the amazing ability of the Great and Powerful Trixie!”
Victory against Garble:Tougher than Dragons
“Behold!” proclaims Trixie. “Even dragons fall before the might of Trixie!”
Victory against the Thief: The Trickster Tricked
Trixie smirks at the Thief. “You thought to outtrick Trixie? How foalish.”
Victory against Clayton:To the Victor
Packing away several gold pieces in her cloak, Trixie smugly tells Clayton, “Trixie thanks you for your generous contribution.”
Victory against Willy Wonka:Well-Deserved Treat
“Trixie approves of these confections,” muses the magician as she munches on a chocolate bar.
Victory against Koala Kong:You Foal
“You thought to defeat Trixie, you cretin?” Trixie derides. “Think again, foal!”
Victory against Princess Bubblegum:A Task
“Trixie is intrigued by your power,” she declares. “Trixie has a job for you in Ponyville…”
Victory against Ashens: A Toy? Hardly!
Trixie huffs, “Trixie cannot believe that this oversized hairless ape thought Trixie a toy! And a badly made toy at that!” She then kicks Ashens’ hand spitefully.
Victory against Mike Dawson:Trixie Refuses!
“Trixie refuses to stoop to the memetic stupidity that follows you!” Trixie tells Dawson indignantly. For his part, Dawson just looks confused.
Loss Pose:Unfair
“NO!” Trixie protests loudly. “I am the most powerful! I cannot lose! This is impossible!”
Alternate Costumes: Only Trixie’s cape changes, from the basic purple to blue, red, green, white, or black.
Snake Codec:
Snake: …why am I fighting a pony? Otacon: Snake, this is Trixie, though she prefers to be called “the Great and Powerful Trixie”. Snake: Someone thinks highly of herself. Otacon: She has the skill to back her ego up, though. She’s a skilled magician who thinks up clever ways to make her opponents slip up and make her look better. Snake: And you know all this how? Otacon: …
Trophy:
Trixie: Preferring to be known as “The Great and Powerful Trixie”, this talented stage magician’s reputation was nonetheless undone by both her claims to more magic than she actually possesses and by a much more powerful pony, Twilight Sparkle. Her presence in Smash can only be explained by Twilight’s own Smash debut…
Ursa Minor: When Trixie gets the Smash Ball, an Ursa Minor, a creature she tried and failed to defeat in the past, appears. Although this powerful bear can deal a lot of damage, Trixie can be hurt just as badly as a foe if she gets in its way. Either way, best to stay clear of this beast.
Trixie
Admittedly, I've probably seen enough mindgames/duplicate stuff to make a new set based around it rather... unappealing to me. Trixie doesn't really do too much new with it, honestly, creating traps to put in your smoke cloud, doing a Scratch-style attack animation fake-out, and creating a duplicate to distract the foe. The Poison Joke provides plenty of enjoyable effects in the context of said smoke cloud at least, though the random chance hurts the move a little for me(I rather hate randomness, though at least all 4 effects are relevant and useful, and useful in a smoke cloud), the rather nifty platform contributes somewhat naturally to her camping/trapping, and the Bair seems like it'd be a very fun move to use(or capitalize upon when a duplicate uses it to stop the foe from attacking). The fact that the set is legitimately flowing is rather shocking for you too, most inputs do something relevant and occasionally even interesting(though weird that my favorite inputs outside the specials tend to be on the aerials, and something like removing your hat I think would be better to put on a ground move than an aerial). There are a few things bringing down the set for me though, the as said generic invisibility becomes all the more frustrating when you have all 4 throws be almost completely irrelevant and boring. Given this character has no shortage of potential, I'd figure you could've given her some half decent throws, regardless of the unconventional grab. Still, I do think this is a sign of your gradual improvement in that it's better than Larfleeze and leagues above your MYM12 stuff... I wish I could say it was enough for me to like it, but you still have a little further to go, honestly.
[COLLAPSE=""I have only one wish. Box up that memory.""]
[H.N. Elly]
H.N. Elly is a witch from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, an entity that feeds off human despair and causes suicides that serve as antagonists in the series. Elly in particular makes a single appearance in Episode 4, having gotten several people together in an attempt to make them commit mass suicide. When Madoka shows up and prevents the chemical reaction that would've killed them from occuring, she runs into a bunch of TVs, from which several skeleton angel looking creatures come out and drag her into H.N. Elly's own little realm, her barrier. It attempts to kill Madoka and is almost immediately destroyed by Sayaka, thus ending it's role in the series. Seems being both a rather aggressive entity and a weak one was not a good combination for her.
[Stats]
Traction[9]
Aerial Movement[9]
Size[5]
Weight[4]
Ground Speed[3]
Fall Speed[2]
For a witch, Elly is oddly floaty, and even on the ground doesn't walk so much as sort of fly along the ground. She doesn't have the most fortunate set of stats, being fairly light and weak while not having the speed those characters are known for having. At the very least, she has some surprisingly solid aerial prowess, with her high aerial movement and low fall speed.
[Specials]
[Neutral Special]
H.N. Elly's screen blinks as a TV spawns next to her. This is far from spammable, you'll want to use it when you have some space to yourself. The TV is slightly smaller than Elly herself, and is a solid object with 40 stamina. It's screen is off by default. If this is used in the air, the TV will fall to the ground, taking 5% for every Ganondorf it fell, but dealing foes 10% and a moderate strength spike on contact. Elly can damage her own TVs, though it's not immediately obvious why you'd want too...
However if you press backwards or forwards while the TV screen blinks, you can program the TV. Pressing backwards causes the TV's screen to be covered in static, while having it shoot out a small lightning jolt from each side of itself. The bottom jolt unfortunately will rarely hit the foe due to the TVs usually being grounded. They extend only about Kirby's height, last half a second and deal 9 hits of 1%. This will trigger again once every 5 seconds for as long as the TV remains in existence. Programming a TV this way does in fact increase the lag to place it, but the initial electric hitbox makes it a bit safer against approaching foes. Though you'll want to be careful of people sneaking up from behind.
The electricity won't deal Elly any damage, she can't be harmed by her own TVs. However, if the electricity hits another TV, it will cause that TV to take the damage... but shoot out it's own electric jolts as well. You can theoretically get a chain reaction going by placing them next to each other, or stacking them in towers, though this is damaging to the other TVs and will eventually destroy them. Still, being able to create huge hitboxes once every 5 seconds is quite nice... and you can make that more frequent if you place TVs with a different timing elsewhere in the chain reaction.
The other kind of programming can be activated by pressing forwards, which has the TV display a countdown, starting at 40 and dropping as the TV's stamina is depleted. In this case, the TV does nothing until it's stamina is fully depleted... before it proceeds to explode for 18% and knockback that KOs at 80% in a Bowser sized explosion. And yes... this also damages other TVs, so you have more chain reaction shenanigans going on if you blow up a row of bomb TVs, and better yet you can use the electric chain reactions to deplete their health, rather beneficial symmetry that lets you create all kinds of fancy set ups. The only problem is of course that you're destroying your set-up gradually with both of these unless you're very careful, meaning you have to constantly set up with a laggy set up move...
By the way, next to a TV, you can use this input to reprogram it. Just pressing B will revert it to it's off state, while pressing forwards makes it a bomb and backwards will cause it to shoot out static, though the 5 second interval isn't based on the change but rather when the TV was spawned. Therefore, it probably won't end up producing the initial hitbox. Being able to stack TVs and set up several types of chain reaction with them makes this a very versatile stage control tool... now if only there were a use for the blank TVs aside from electric conduits...
[Side Special]
A small flying skeleton, shown above, flies out of H.N. Elly's screen. These things are barely larger than a Pikmin and have 10 stamina. They'll fly around, generally sticking within a battlefield platform of where they spawned and will attack the foe if they come close to them. They strike out with small flinching blows with their limbs, dealing repeated hits of 1% and some very pathetic flinch. They won't rack much damage on you for sure, but at the very least Elly can spawn them in fairly large quantities, as the lag to create them is pretty darn low.
[Down Special]
H.N. Elly's screen brightens slightly as you gain control of her nearest minion. You can now move it around at Mario's dash speed freely through the air until you press B again. If the angel comes into contact with another angel, they will start moving together in unison, and potentially allowing you to group together a large group of angels for the purposes of this move. This is a pretty basic repositioning tool if you to place your minions elsewhere on screen, though it's very good at what it does. The start up and end lag aren't too bad either, although Elly's pretty undefended whilst using this move...
The nice thing though, is that Elly's minions can actually carry things around, be it foes or TVs. TVs require a total of 3 minions to carry, allowing you to place them wherever you want or potentially chase the foe down with electric shocks or a bomb. The thing about cancelling out of this particular state is that they will actually hold the TV in place in the air, allowing you to bring TVs up into the air. You can even stand on them as solid platforms, though to prevent stalling they'll descend slowly as characters stand on them, and Elly cannot move a TV with a character standing on it. Pressing A will instead have them drop the TV to the ground from where they were holding it, and you can continue moving them around. If there are minions holding more than one TV, they'll drop them all together. As a final note, for situations where it comes up when the foe gets smashed between 2 TVs they take 16% and upwards knockback that KOs at 100%.
You can also have the minions carry around a foe, as long as you get 2 or more minions on them. Only 2 will allow them to escape at half grab difficulty, but more will make it gradually harder for them to escape. Still, you'd need to like 20 to gimp with this before some really high percent or a very specific set-up. Likewise with before you can release to let the minions hold the foe in place to stall for time... though that will probably get them killed. You can also press A to have them drop the foe and keep moving along.
Now the real benefit of this move comes when you have 6 minions on a foe and take them in front of your off one of your off TVs. This will have the minions bring the foe in front of the TV... before breaking them apart into pieces and dragging them in. Rather gruesome, admittedly, though this won't kill the foe. Instead, it brings them to another stage for Elly to truly dominate them, her own barrier.
Barrier pictured above
Elly's barrier is actually a very large stage, and inverted from what's shown in the picture, horses facing upwards. The horses are organized into "rings", or more rather a line of them going from left to right in terms of how it actually plays out in game. They have TVs on their backs set to bomb by default, although Elly can reprogram them. You have 4 rings of TVs, with 5 TVs in each ring, making 20 in total you can utilize. The rings are unfortunately spaced far enough apart so even with a single TV linking them in the middle, it won't be able to make the electricity flow between them, although with some set-up pulling that off is possible.
The stage itself functions a bit differently from Brawl stages in that characters within the barrier are essentially given free flight. Elly can move around at her dash speed freely through the air, while foes sort of awkwardly "swim" through at their walk speed. Players actually can't land on platforms due to the lack of conventional gravity in this strange world, the TVs really just getting the way. Ledges can be gripped onto, at least, although it's fairly easy for Elly to knock someone off a ledge given her excellent mobility here. Get up attacks will instead have the foe sort of boost off the ledge and perform their Nair.
Speaking of how players control, Elly can actually use all of her inputs in here, inputting aerials by jumping and pressing a direction. Foes can also use their entire moveset too, but if there is a move they can only logically use with solid ground they're outta luck. There are some other perks for you as well. Specifically, your minions grow to be the size of Marth now, and have much greater capabilities. It only takes one to grab a foe or a TV, they deal mass hits of 3% instead of 1%, and have 30 stamina. And are just as easy to summon on top of that, plus the 6 you had drag in the foe will spawn in the barrier as well.
Your own placed TVs unfortunately suffer a setback, as they have nowhere to land and will merely fall. You can fix this problem by dropping them on existing TVs(which admittedly damages them), or having your minions hold onto them, much easier when a single minion can carry one. If a TV is dropped onto a minion, it will grab it as it falls, meaning you don't have to specifically command them to grab it either. At the very least, TVs are given a buff in that the bolts fire out Bowser's length and the blasts are a lot larger, meaning that they can create chain reactions in an individual ring.
Your minions receive a couple more buffs here too. If you take control of one carrying something and press A plus a direction, it will toss the TV or foe it was carrying 1.5 battlefield platforms in the chosen direction, dealing foes 8% in the process. This also turns TVs into a projectile that deals 15% and knockback that KOs at 125%. And if there's another minion floating where the TV will be tossed too, it will grab it. Likewise with multiple TVs otherwise, they'll all be thrown at once if you are having multiple TVs carried around.
Getting several minions on the foe outside is useful for bringing them in here, but there's utility in having a group all grab a foe in here as well. If you get 4 or more minions on a foe, one will grab each of their limbs and start stretching them in a rather cartoonish(though admittedly somewhat horrifying given they should not be able to stretch like that) fashion. This will last for 3 seconds before a snap is heard and the victim goes flying upwards with 35% and vertical knockback that KOs at 45%. While this is not your only finisher inside your barrier, should you pull it off it's certainly the most powerful. Just make sure there aren't any TVs in the way of the opponent's flight path, otherwise all you really net is 35% for your efforts.
Given the stage is entirely aerial combat, you may wonder what happens when someone goes into helpless. Really, they're just left lying where they were, dazed, for about .7 seconds, perfect time to capitalize on whoever is left like it, but it's not like they're stuck for the rest of their time in your barrier or just outright dead.
A few final things worth note on this stage are that TVs on the horses can be picked up and carried around by minions, or replaced by Elly should one of them be destroyed. Having 20 TVs in a fairly ideal set-up is one of the main reasons why this place is so useful in general, especially given on future visits the place is reset, and given the fact that TVs are frequently destroyed as a result of Elly's gameplan, having a whopping 20 of them that are so expendable is amazing.
Foes are trapped in this alternate hellish realm for 20 seconds before escaping, so make use of your time here. In FFA settings, the actual Brawl going on outside will be shown in shadow behind the fight in the barrier, although clearly visible enough so that they'll know exactly what's going on in their own realm. This is obviously a very very powerful effect, but getting 6 angels on the foe isn't particularly easy, given your attempts to snare them tend to be rather predictable and your minions are so fragile, not to mention they have to overlap the foe for the grab. You'll want to get several in close range of the foe before attempting to bring them into a your barrier, which obviously is going to take a fair bit of work...
[Up Special]
In a similar manner to Lucario's Extremespeed, H.N. Elly will launch itself in a direction that can be curved by the control stick. The main difference is slightly increased start lag, and the changes that occur to this move in your barrier. In there it won't send you into helpless after use, just some minor end lag, and will cause a TV ring you pass through to follow you as far as you traveled through it. Repositioning your TV rings is pretty handy, actually allowing you to link them with a smaller amount of set-up.
[Standards]
[Jab]
Pulses of electricity travel down one of H.N. Elly's appendages as she holds it in front of her, dealing rapid hits of 1% and flinching. This is obviously somewhat more annoying to DI out of when you hold the foe up against a TV with this, as they have to DI up and over instead of just backwards. Used between 2 TVs in a row inside your barrier this gets particularly awkward for the foe, even moreso if you line up your minions correctly. Of course they gain the option to DI downwards, but your options for once they escape are far greater than they are outside regardless.
Aside from that, this will actually buff your TVs as you use this on them, charging them further. On the "off" TVs, it causes them to gain stamina as you use this on them, increasing it by how much damage the TV would normally take. On a static TV, it causes the static to be fired gradually faster, after 2 seconds of this move being used on it the TV will max out and shoot out electric bolts once every 1.5 seconds. On a bomb TV, it increases the power of the blast up to a maximum of 30% and knockback that KOs at 50%, as well as increasing the blast radius to a maximum of double it's original size. This is all very convenient, especially if you can trap the foe and do this at the same time, but keep in mind increased stamina, number of bolts, and blast radius/power can potentially be dangerous to your TV set-ups as well, particularly against a crafty opponent.
[Dash Attack]
H.N. Elly simply swats the ground with both it's appendages, dealing 11% and upwards knockback that KOs at 175%. It's a fairly slow move, but the nice thing about it is you can use it out of your free flight in your barrier, a nice little benefit to it. It's also a spike in that context, with half the power of Ganondorf's Dair. Admittedly it's a somewhat predictable move, but what can you do.
[Forward Tilt]
H.N. Elly swats forwards with one of her arm-like appendages. This deals 8% and mediocre strictly horizontal knockback away from Elly, and is a reasonably quick move. The purely horizontal knockback means you can easily slam them directly into a TV with this move, ideally right before it shoots out electricity for some extra damage and stun.
Used on a TV, it causes the TV to slide forwards a Kirby length and pushing the foe along while dealing 4 flinching hits of 1%. Not very impressive, but it gives her a way of dislodging a TV in a row in your barrier, perhaps for the spiking hitbox or merely to get it out of the way so you can successfully land the Down Special's KO method. You can also space around TVs outside with this, though it's much less effective a way than having your minions carry them around, but sometimes you'll need the ability to do it on your own. The distance and damage is doubled if you have minions the TV, given as a bit of trivia, they decrease the weight of whatever they are carrying. The minions won't disattach themselves from the TV because of this.
Speaking of your minions, swatting one of them with this will send them flying a whopping 2 battlefield platforms forwards. On contact with a foe while flying like this they'll grab onto them and drag them a quarter of the remaining distance, as well as dealing 2%. This will leave the minion right next to the foe, which can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on whether or not this assists you with getting the lethal grab. Note in your barrier they will drag the foe the full distance, making this technique a heck of a lot stronger. It helps that you can potentially have the minion throw a TV, before you swat it right into the TV to have it grab it again and hold it in place.
[Up Tilt]
H.N. Elly spins her arms around her as she rises up slightly under a Ganondorf height into the air, dealing rapid hits of 1% that add up to 10% and flinching, the last hit not doing any more than a flinch. That would make it punishable on hit, but Elly drops back to the ground immediately afterwards with very little end lag, putting her out of harms way as the foe is dragged up into the air. Unfortunately, if the foe is right on top of her this doesn't actually do anything to them other than just push them upwards with a wind hitbox, no damage is done. In her barrier, she won't drop back down, allowing her to use this attack to continually pressure the opponent towards the top blast zone or towards a higher row of TVs. A foe who DIs out a jab upwards can also be hit by this unless they have pretty darn good timing, and even then you still have other follow ups after they air dodge, though none of them is really perfect.
A nice side effect of this attack is if you use it on top of an off TV, or directly above one in your barrier, it will actually allow Elly to teleport to the nearest off TV in a flash of light coming from both TVs. You can choose which TV to teleport too by pressing a direction, which will move you to the nearest off TV in that direction during the brief transition period. If no direction is pressed it will be the closest TV above you, given it's an UP Tilt, after all. So why's this move useful? Teleporting to different minion groups to give you control over them regardless of their placement on stage.
In case you don't want to teleport, you can double tap this input to prevent yourself from doing so.
[Down Tilt]
H.N. Elly claps her arm-like appendages together close to the ground, dealing 5% and very low upwards knockback. So low, it's punishable on hit until around 65%. In your barrier, this can hit a foe who DIs out of your jab perfectly due to it's speed, but it's still a bit slow for a move like this, especially the end lag. You have other options for hitting foes who DI downwards at least, but none of them are guaranteed, giving this at least some use in that regard.
Aside from that, if there is an electric TV within half a battlefield platform, after the clap itself it will fire a jolt of lightning at the ground there, dealing the same damage and lasting for the same amount of time as a normal jolt, just fired right where you clapped. If there are multiple TVs, only the nearest one will fire, sadly. This provides you with a nice bit of temporary stage control, some pseudo stun into your minions grab, and if it hits the top of another TV it will cause a lightning chain reaction in the same way any other bolt of lightning would. The most important part though, is it saves it from the punishability it would normally have. Plenty to do with this fairly simple on the surface move.
[Smashes]
[Forward Smash]
H.N. Elly raises both of her arm like appendages up before slamming them down in front of her, dealing 18%-25% and diagonally upwards knockback that KOs at 140%-105%. This has lag on par with Ike's Forward Smash, so it's not as practical a killer as you'd hope, though there will certainly be times when you land it, such as capitalizing on a shocked opponent.
The nice thing about this is if you hit an aerial TV with this, it will cause it to start spinning around rapidly in mid-air, dealing 13%-16% and knockback in the opposite direction they came into contact with the TV that KOs at 160%-130%. The main problem with using this outside your barrier is how awkward it actually is to set up a TV to do this with, as a TV on the ground won't spin so you need multiple minions to hold it up in the air. Within your barrier, all you have to do is fly up and use this on any existing TV, just keep in mind this move still damages it. If a TV shoots out electric jolts during this, they'll spin around it, not dealing quite as much damage as they pass through foes, but being able to connect to TVs on a diagonal.
One more interesting property of this is it reflects projectiles, such as a minion flung by your Forward Tilt or a TV toss within your barrier. Keep in mind it will damage the TV as you bounce it back and forth, but that's not necessarily bad if it was a bomb. The TV will spin for 5 seconds before coming to a halt unless it comes into contact with solid ground that is not a projectile.
[Up Smash]
H.N. Elly raises both it's limbs over it's head, and they crackle with large amounts of electricity, emanating far beyond the limbs themselves. This gives it a rather huge hitbox, dealing mass flinching hits of 1% that add up to 20%-27%. Unfortunately, the knockback is pretty low at the end and will never increase, and the start up lag is pretty bad, but the range is absolutely huge, far larger than even Lucas' Up Smash.
The other thing about this attack is that it will electrify your minions if they are within range of your hitbox, causing them to spark with electricity. This means they deal 5% and flinching on contact, or if the foe hits them with a non-projectile hitbox. This makes them far, far more threatening, as when they go to grab a foe the foe will have much more difficulty retaliating when their non-projectile are going to stun them when they try to attack. This makes it a lot easier to grab foes and pull them into your barrier or lethally tear them apart, and as a nice little bonus they even deal 1% per second for each of them grabbing onto a foe while they have them grabbed. This effect wears off on minions after 8 seconds.
Oh no, this is Vol Opt's electrifying which is a strict buff and has no cost or risk, right? Well actually, there is a problem with this move that can end up costing you dearly if you misuse it. If there are any TVs caught in the hitbox or within half a battlefield platform of the already huge hitbox... they short out. And cease to do anything, not even let you drag foes into them like normal off TVs or teleport between them, for the next 8 seconds. There are admittedly times when shorting them out isn't explicitly a bad idea, but this requires you to be a LOT more careful with this move. At the very least, it doesn't stop TVs spun by the FSmash.
[Down Smash]
H.N. Elly slams it's body into the ground, dealing 17%-24% to foes that are basically overlapping with it, and vertical knockback that KOs at 140%-110%. This is actually a reasonably fast move, coming out only slightly slower than your average, but suffers a bit from the extremely hard to hit with hitbox. Very impractical move sans at extremely close range... but inside your barrier, Elly's underside is also a hitbox against foes below you, dealing a spike .6x-.9x the strength of Ganondorf's Dair, and a lot easier to hit with considering you can, you know, do this in the air. It still requires you to be pretty close to the foe, but it's quite powerful for it's speed.
Aside from that, using this on top of a TV will cause it's ability to automatically activate. This doesn't mean anything for off TVs, but on a static TV it will shoot out a bolt regardless of the time, and on a bomb TV this will instantly detonate it. In the case of the static TV, keep in mind this will still damage the TV, so it's a bit of a risky maneuver, but none-the-less being able to manually activate lightning chains and bombs will frequently come in handy.
[Aerials]
All of H.N. Elly's aerials command her minions in some way or another, in addition to serving as attacks, which admittedly can become awkward if you want to just attack with them. As such, tilting the aerials or simply tapping A will do nothing, where as smashing in the chosen direction or holding A will actually cause the minion controlling effect to occur.
[Neutral Aerial]
H.N. Elly spins it's arm like appendages around itself, dealing 10% and fairly weak knockback based on the direction the foe hit it from in a similar manner to the spinning TVs from the Forward Smash. Like said TVs, it also reflects projectiles in the same manner, allowing H.N. Elly to manually redirect her projectiles with her own hitbox, as long as you have the right set-up. Aside from that, it's just an excellent positioning move. The knockback taken depends on the angle it hits them from allows you to basically beat the opponent around wherever you want them, especially considering the attack isn't that slow.
If you use this around some of your minions, it will spin them around Elly and cause them to rotate around her for the remainder of her duration in the air or until she controls them via Down Special. Teleporting away with the Up Tilt will also leave them behind where they were. They deal 2% and flinching on contact as they orbit, 4% if the larger minions from your barrier. It's not exactly a super powerful, but it provides her some defense... and if the minions are holding TVs, they'll stay gripped onto them. Ergo you can make a TV shield for a vastly superior defense due to the solid nature of the shields, something that can become completely ridiculous in the context of your barrier with your ability to turn them into the rotating TVs from your FSmash as well as push them around with their solid nature.
[Forward Aerial]
H.N. Elly claps it's appendages together directly in front of it, dealing 7% and weak upwards knockback. This attack is actually quite fast, and at very low percents chains into itself. In the context of your fly, you can bounce them lightly upwards and follow up with Up Tilt. In general, H.N. Elly is a lot better at juggling foes slightly to the side of her than directly above her.
If you have minions orbiting you from the Nair, this will cause them to form up directly in front of you in a wall. The nice thing about this is that now due to the fact that they wouldn't just bump into the ground from rotating around you, they'll actually stay in this formation on the ground until you dismiss them with Down Special or Up Tilt. Note that using Nair during this time will have the minions sweeped in join up in the wall in front of you. This is obviously far more powerful when you just make a wall of TVs in front of you with this, allowing you to push the foe along until they either destroy the TVs(problematic if they're bomb TVs) or dispatch the minions carrying them. While pushing the foe along the stage with a bunch of solids is quite nice, this gets really good in your barrier, where you can potentially have them toss the line of TVs forwards at any point in the process, even better still if you have other minions to catch them or spinning TVs to knock them around.
Admittedly, the TV circling stuff is all a lot more impractical outside your barrier, but even having one TV can be pretty effective. If worst comes to worst, you can use this to keep them out in front of you while you spam Bair on the opponent or something.
[Back Aerial]
H.N. Elly simply stabs one arm backwards, dealing 5% and flinching knockback. It's extraordinarily fast and has pretty good range, but the power is almost non-existent, it taking until pretty high percents for this to do noteworthy knockback, which is upwards like in the Fair. Still, at lower percents the fact that it has to be basically DIed out of if the foe doesn't want a lot of damage can prove quite advantageous when you put solid TVs or some angels in the way, serving as an aerial alternative to the jab outside your barrier and inside it's back-up purpose as a juggling tool becomes much more important, given that becomes a potent KO tool in there.
Your minions that you snagged up from the Nair will this time form into a line behind you and will remain there as with Fair until dismissal via Up Tilt/Down Special. This is actually a great way to keep them protected until it comes time for you to sick them on foes, as they can hide behind Elly on the ground, as well as being placed in a manner that makes it rather hard to kill them en mass. Also, this can sort of function as a horizontal barricade to opponent's movement, something no other aerial really provides as well due to how compacted the TVs are against each other.
[Up Aerial]
H.N. Elly swings her limbs around in an almost full circle, most of it being over the top of her. This is a fairly slow move, but deals 13% and upwards knockback that KOs at 140%, making it one of the most powerful moves in your arsenal. As you can see, bomb TVs, gimping in your barrier, and stretching the foe to their doom in your barrier are a godsend.
This will cause minions circling you or in any other formation to form up above you in a semi-circle, creating a sort of dome over you. What's notable about this particular formation is it is probably the easiest one to trap the foe inside along with you, and as such you can enjoy the pleasure of trapping them in the Jab in a rather difficult to escape prison of solids. DIing out is still possible due to the gaps in the formation, but it's going to take a fair bit longer than in any other formation too, meaning this can potentially be an amazing damage builder. On a side note, something special about this formation is that the minions will move out of the way if you use Up Tilt through this, allowing H.N. Elly to poke through the top of this rather nicely even if you have minions carrying TVs.
Oh but we're not done with this move, as it actually serves an additional purpose inside your Fly. You see, this will actually cause the TV rings to rotate diagonally 30 degrees. So yes, you can potentially flip them to be completely vertical, or at any angle you want to take advantage of, blowing open your options quite a bit. Double tapping this input will have her rotate this the opposite direction, so you can pretty easily undo your handiwork if you want too. Note that when the rings are rotating, if a TV smacks into a foe during rotation it'll deal them 10% and mediocre knockback in the direction it rotated in.
[Down Aerial]
H.N. Elly sweeps both her appendages under her and forwards, dealing 9% and horizontal knockback that KOs at 195%. If you want a spike, go for the Down Smash in your barrier. This serves as probably the best follow-up to a foe DIing downwards out of a jab against a TV in your barrier, as while it's not a guaranteed follow-up it's still pretty close and has a reasonable amount of power by Elly's standards. Aside from that, it's a decently strong and quick move by H.N. Elly's standards, and given she's a pretty bloody terrible camper having decent melee moves is always good.
This is a rather unique minion command in that it actually doesn't have them make a new formation. Rather, it has them maintain their current formation and fly forwards 2.5 battlefield platforms in it, loose minions attacking the foe on the way. The group will then return to Elly like a boomerang. Obviously, having the minions hit the foe and be on top of them is good for Elly, allowing her to potentially order a grab while a foe is being flinched by other minions in the group. TVs, being solid, are excellent at shoving foes around, serving as both an insane GTFO and potentially smushing a foe against another TV. Aside from that, each formation has it's perks, such as the possibility of getting trapped in the middle of some rotating Nair TVs and minions or how a line of minions is harder to kill while a column is more likely to hit. Having one part of the formation hit a rotating TV will cause the whole thing to be deflected. A lot of stuff can be done with this move, to say the least.
[Grab Game]
[Grab]
The creepy female entity within H.N. Elly, as seen in the picture at the start of the set, rises out of the top of the TV and grabs forwards, gripping the foe in both it's arms in what almost resembles a hug. Despite the much higher than usual lag for a grab, this has massive range compared to Brawl grabs, even outdoing Dedede's grab in that regard, making it a lot more practical.
[Pummel]
H.N. Elly simply constricts the foe slightly with her arms, dealing 1% in a pretty fast pummel. Not nearly fast enough to justify the super low damage... but if there is a static TV within 3/4 a battlefield platform of Elly, it will fire a small jolt of electricity towards the foe as well, dealing an additional 1%. This is a pretty darn impressive damage builder when the foe is within range of a fair few static TVs. If you're able to reprogram a few inside your barrier, that's an opportune set-up right there.
[Forward Throw]
H.N. Elly generates what appears to be an ethereal TV around the opponent, which she then tosses forward, the opponent still trapped inside, but being able to attack, dodge, and shield. It will travel along it's path continuously at Jigglypuff's dash speed, and has 60 stamina that the foe has to take out in order to escape. That said, attacks will go through the TV, meaning they're not really disabled in here in terms of attacking you, though you can attack them back at the cost of potentially damaging your little cage. Foes in here don't take knockback but still do take hitstun.
Your little skeleton angel minions can grab the foe in these "TVs", and carry them around, the TV cage continuing to appear around them. Obviously restricting their ability to run away is nice for capturing them in your barrier, particularly in conjunction with the Up Smash and a later throw. Firing this into a spinning TV will cause it to bounce off based off the angle it hit the TV from as well as dealing the full damage to the foe along with some hitstun. They can dodge the damage sure, but being able to redirect this is quite nice.
[Back Throw]
H.N. Elly turns around and sends an electric pulse through the foe, dealing 6% and weak knockback... unless there's a TV behind her, which will instead have her grab the TV alongside the foe and send a blast of electricity through them both. This deals the same damage and knockback... and causes the TV to float directly behind the foe, almost stuck to them, for the next 5 seconds. Obviously, the convenience of this is having to drag the foe less far, having easy access to shocking the foe, or just chaining a bomb to them, or just using it as a conduit... an automatic approach method with your Up Tilt too. A plenty versatile move, despite it's relative simplicity.
[Up Throw]
H.N. Elly tosses the foe she is holding upwards with 6% and moderate set knockback. Not an impressive move, but if used above one of your off TVs this will teleport the foe in a similar manner to how you are teleported with your Up Tilt, you getting to choose where they teleport in the maximum of a half second before they reappear on the nearest off TV. As with before, you need at least 2 off TVs to do this, and teleporting foes to a more hellish part of your set-up or at the very least out of your face for a bit(probably at the cost of that other TV) will often come in very handy for you.
As with Up Tilt, you can double tap this to prevent it from happening in case you want the standard knockback instead.
[Down Throw]
H.N. Elly's color scheme almost seems to start to drip off her and cover the opponent, slowly transferring her color scheme to the foe in a frame by frame as the foe seems to be in pain. This deals 12% and releases the foe directly in front of you, putting you both in frame neutral. The color scheme covers the foe for the next 4 seconds and makes their movement appear almost glitchy, though in all honesty this doesn't inhibit the foe's actions.
What it does do, is cause any minions within half a battlefield platform on both sides of the foe to all go after the foe and attempt to grab them, whether or not you command them too. Now, this sounds suicidal for the minions given their fragile status and how little one of them grabbing the foe means outside your barrier(and even inside it's not like the foe is that worried by this turn of events)... except their attacks no longer damage the minions. As you can imagine, this is going to be a much more dangerous 4 seconds for the foe than usual, although if they can wear it out it puts them in a position to utterly wreck your minions, a rather frustrating prospect. Use this move with care. And no, reuse of this move does not refresh the time, as frankly this is a rather powerful option to snare the foe in your barrier as is.
[Playstyle]
H.N. Elly's playstyle is pretty easy to understand if you read the set. Try to get the foe into your alternate realm, your barrier, so you can utterly destroy them with a massive quantity of support TVs and your extremely powerful stretching manuever, as well as the ability to throw TVs. Getting them in is a matter of making sure the foe is somehow preoccupied when you swarm them with minions. Possibly just by more minions through your aerials, possibly being shocked by a jolt.
A little bit that's worth mentioning is the Jab DI game, which isn't all that relevant on the surface, but actually is pretty critical to Elly. You see, holding the opponent still with it is amazing in the context of the Down Throw, which has all your minions slowly mob up on them and you can hold them down so it gets into far too harry a situation for them to escape. Or perhaps simply stall them into the next lightning bolt, or perhaps even for a bomb to get set off by lightning or an incoming redirecting projectile. Either way, this sort of thing will massively help you capture your opponent and then later on in your barrier kill them.
For all your stage control too, you're shockingly aggressive. Given your minions are admittedly easy to create this may sound a bit bizarre, but a cluster of them is still quite valuable too them, as you can soon prepare them for the lethal grab via your Up Smash and Down Throw. You're not that powerful a character, but you're capable of playing off your TVs and such with stuff like your Down Tilt, pummel, and Up Tilt, to compensate for your weaknesses. In the context of your barrier you actually are probably far more powerful than the opponent regardless of your seemingly inferior abilities, simply due to how much more versatile you are.
[/COLLAPSE]
If 3rd gen is where I dropped out of Pokemon for a bit, 4th gen is where I dived straight into from the drop. After getting a DSi for Christmas, I became curious about the Diamond/Pearl games since all my friends had it, and from what I saw it had cool graphics and Pokemon (yeah I actually like a lot of 4th gen mons, get at me). Luckily, my brother had Platinum lying around and he didn't want to play it anymore, giving me the chance to rediscover an old favorite...
01010000011011110111Porygon-Z01101111011011100101
Additional software was installed to make it a better Pokémon. It began acting oddly, however.
01010011011101000110StatZ01100001011101000101
SIZE_2Hovering just above the ground, Z's frame is as tall as Lucas, though obviously much thinner due to the tail giving the extra height. WEIGHT_2 Z weighs just as much as a certain 2D fighter who also jumped right out of cyberspace. GROUND_6 Above average, Z floats about at around Yoshi's speed. AIR_8 Much like Lucas again, Z has near identical air speed to the mother-boy. Unlike him however, Z possesses 4 jumps as he boosts upwards with what appears to be digital energy, matching ROB for each jump. FALL_8 Offsetting his aerial acrobatics, Z happens to also fall like a rock, sitting between Link and Sheik in this aspect. But at least it makes him slightly harder to KO vertically as well as letting him return to earth quickly with his Fast Fall to avoid aerial combat when needed. TRACTION_10 Polar opposite of fellow team mate Alakazam, Porygon-Z has near perfect traction. This means that his shield nearly ever budges (allowing for prime Out-Of-Shield counter attacks, and approaching), he can tech along the ground and come to a halt much faster, lets him dash-dance very quickly (he doesn't slide at all in the animation), and he has virtually no reason to Wavedash. Really, it only moves him like his own width, and he's pretty skinny already...
Z has a bit of a grab-bag of stats, having overall above average movement, low weight and size, and high fall speed and traction. It will be tricky to get a hold of his odd movement for sure, but it will certainly be rewarding when combined with his moveset seen below!
010100110111000001SpecialZ011000010110110001
Neutral_Conversion
Z concentrates as he becomes surrounded by what appears to be a Color Wheel separated into 3rds. The wheel obscures his head and tail a bit, but a mini-porygon cursor appears to take Z's place while he floats in place (his fall speed plummets to that of Jiggly's while Conversion is active).
The selected color will, as in the games, change Porygon-Z's type from Normal to that of what he selected. In this example, the player selected BUG from Alakazam's wheel, with the other two options being PSYCHIC and GHOST. Z's ability to Download and Adapt to data around him allows conversion to choose types based on the Pokemon in Team2, meaning he can potentially swap from Normal to one of 6 other types! If he is alone however, conversion will switch him to ELECTRIC, a familiar setting to him from cyberspace. Selecting the center of the wheel will turn Porygon-Z back to NORMAL.
As for the actual effects of Conversion, his abilities to download and adapt will change his stats based on type, as well as change his Side Special! See below for details on the stat changes.
Each segment equals a number, so his Weight = 2, has 4 jumps, etc. Fall speed is also important for Z as he gains resistance to Vertical KO's as well as the ability to do potent Short-Hopped aerials combined with L-canceling.
Side_Tri_Attack
Bringing his arms to his beak, Z creates a large pixel at each point (one red, one yellow, one light blue) before bringing his arms and head back to form a white triangle between the pixels as it launches sideways with a "Pory!", spinning so players can see the triangle clearly as the speed of Luigi's fireball and range of Fox's Laser. The start-up animation takes a tad longer than Wolf's blaster, and is the same for all of Z's various Side Specials (though some have exceptions when it comes to their fire rate, they all share the same animation regardless of speed). Curiously all his projectiles have the same SFX as the Ray Gun item.
As for his base attack, Tri Attack will deal 10% with hit-stun to those hit by the sides of the porygon-sized projectile. If hit directly by one of the corners, the foe will suffer from either light knockback instead of hit-stun (Red), added 2% damage (yellow), or experience a large blue "flash" that can hit multiple enemies (light blue). With practice you can learn to space Tri Attack so that the spinning has a better chance to hit with the desired point, but for the most part it is just a great projectile with decent range, speed and damage, even if the fire rate leaves a little to be desired.
As mentioned, Tri Attack actually changes based on what type Porygon-Z is currently as he Downloads TMs from his database to use, with Tri Attack only being his NORMAL attack! Each new projectile adds a new dynamic to the pairing Z got the type from, and can be a real boon when you swap out the other Pokemon to mix and match the effects.
[collapse="Projectiles"] /ALAKAZAM_Types
PSYCHIC_Conversion_PSYBEAM
Psybeam is exactly the same as Alakazam's, special properties and all, though with pink-pixels replacing the waving psychic energy. If you keep Alakazam out along with Z, just imagine the fun you could have with double Psybeams?
GHOST_Conversion_SHADOW_BALL
Z creates a large ball of dark-violet pixels before him that moves forward at the pace of Jigglypuff's walk for 1/2 a second, before launching forward at Sonic's Dash Speed for a max distance of 3/4 FD. Foes hit by Shadow Ball take 12% with mediocre KB in the direction Shadow Ball was moving, but the real strength is being able to stagger the shots for both mid and long range combat, as the slow-moving portion can easily deter close combat from Z, and mess with approaches from afar.
When reflected, it moves slowly again before launching out.
BUG_Conversion_SIGNAL_BEAM
With fire-rate similar to Mario's Fireballs, Z fires a weaving beam of light-green pixels that zig-zags in and out of the main stage, as well as up and down slightly as it travels the distance of Tri Attack. Hitting for 7% and some hit-stun, Signal Beam is sure to confuse opponents with it's erratic movement, making them unsure on how to avoid it!
/FERALIGATR_Types
WATER_Conversion_BUBBLEBEAM
Z sprays a platform-length line of 7 blue, pokeball-sized pixels in front of himself. Each linger in mid-air and float up and down like, well... bubbles. The pixels "pop" on contact with enemies for 1% and matching hit-stun, and seeing as they last until popped, Z can certainly fill the stage with a mine-field of pixels!
ICE_Conversion_ICE_BEAM
With half the fire-rate of Tri Attack, Z shoots a thin, solid beam of light blue pixels the length of 2 platforms that hits all foes in it's path for 10% and light knockback. If an enemy is unfortunate enough to be hit by the very end of ice beam, they will be frozen in place and an easy target for your team mate to wail on.
DRAGON_Conversion_DRAGONBREATH
Z unleashes a Platform-size spray of Violet and Orange pixels as it he were breathing fire at the foe. Dealing 3 hits of 3%, one of the hitboxes will stun the foe like ZSS's dsmash on impact, making the risk of using the closer-ranged move with 1.5x more lag than Tri Attack all the more worthwhile.
/BRELOOM_Types
GRASS_Conversion_BULLET_SEED
Z unleashes a spray of little green pixels mike a machine gun, dealing upwards of 20% in one go! Great for damage, it unfortunately only has Platform-range, and no KO power to speak of (like Ivy's bullet seed in Brawl). At least it's horizontal positioning combined with his multiple jumps should prove useful.
FIGHTING_Conversion_FOCUS_BLAST
Z launches a high-speed, dark red ball of red pixels the size of kirby towards the foe, exploding on impact for 16% and medium KB to all those it his in it's DDD-sized explosion. Focus Blast has range the length of FD as it travels along at Falcon's Dash Speed, but like Psybeam only one can be on-screen at a time. Useful for off-stage or just high-% KO attempts.
POISON_Conversion_SMOG
A bit of a mixture between the previous two, Smog has Z shoot a purple ball of pixels at Sheik's dash speed forward, but with infinite range. On impact, Smog will erupt into a DDD-sized "cloud" of purple pixels, causing hit-stun and 4% initially. The remaining cloud however will continuously deal 1% every 1/4th second to any enemy touching it for the next 5 seconds.
/BISHARP_Types
DARK_Conversion_DARK_PULSE
Z creates a thin, half-moon shaped wave of dark-grey pixels in front of him that moves forward at Mario's dash speed, up to 3 platforms away. As it travels, Dark Pulse will actually grow from Porygon-Z's height to about 3x his height at max distance, making it very hard to avoid. On impact, Dark Pulse hits for 8% and just hit-stun.
STEEL_Conversion_FLASH_CANNON
Z creates a mass of silvery pixels nearly 1.5x the size of himself to be launched with stats identical to Tri Attack in terms of speed/damage/range. On impact however, the ball will explode into a pulsing area of bright, silver pixels the radius of Smashville's Platform, obscuring anything inside for the next 3 seconds. Make sure to take advantage of the confusion!
FLYING_Conversion_AIR_CUTTER
Z creates a crescent of white pixels 1.5x his height (think cutter form Kirby64) that spins forward at Sheik's dash speed up to 3 platforms before fading away. Air Cutter is only stopped by solid parts of stages, and will hit foes for 7% while pushing them about 2/3 of a platform with it's wind effect.
/ARMANTLE_Types
ROCK_Conversion_POWER_GEM
Z sprays out 12, tiny brown pixels in a "cone" that starts as big as his torso, and expands to 3x his height at 2 platforms away at which point it'd become trivial to dodge each pixel as the space between each would be massive. Useful for it's spread-shot with each pixel dealing 2% and minor KB, a point-blank blast is even better, as all the KB stacks together and is able to kill at Mario around 160%!
FIRE_Conversion_FLAME_BURST
Z fires a single, spinning, orange pixel outward with the same stats as Tri Attack when it comes to size/range/speed. On Impact with an enemy, Flame Burst will deal 8% and minor KB to the target hit, as well as emit a huge ring of fire horizontally from the target about a platform in either direction for 4% and hit-stun. Flame Burst will detonate on any solid object that -isn't- part of the stage such as character-made walls and the like.
GROUND_Conversion_MUD_SHOT
Z launches a tan bunch of pixels that's about the same size of a Ray Gun blast out at Sonic's dash speed, striking foes for 9% and pushing them backwards a little. On impact, the tan pixels will fall apart and fall to the ground below where they impede enemy movement in a spot 1/2 the size of a platform, forcing foes to walk across and stopping dashes in their tracks. These pixelated "traps" last for 10 seconds before fading away.
/BASE_Types
ELECTRIC_Conversion_ZAP_CANNON
Z creates a sphere of yellow pixels the size of Bowser before him over the course of half a second, before shooting it forward at Jigglypuff's walk speed where it continues on for 2 platforms before dissipating. IF a foe makes contact with the sphere, it will expel all it's sparking energy into the foe as they take 24% damage, and enough KB to kill Mario at 120%. His go-to move for emergency KO's when he's all alone.
[/collapse]
Up_Trick_Room
Porygon-Z quickly creates a greenish, translucent digital grid 1platform long, 1platform wide, and 1platform tall. Once on the playing field, the Trick Room will last indefinitely until "used" by either Z or his team mates, but more on that in a moment. As for the immediate effects of the TR, any enemy that attempts to pass through it will find that they are slowed to 2/3 speed just like with the setting in training mode! more an annoyance than a flat-out hindrance to the foe, it still helps you and your team out with certain areas being a tad less favorable for the opposition to hang out in.
But what about recovery you ask? Well, this is where the "used" part comes in. There can be as many TR's as you have stocks on the team (with non-stock matches allowing one per 1:30 on the maximum timer, so an 8 minute match would allow 5 for example, but a maximum of 8 may be on the field at any one time) and is indicated by the stock icon becoming a square instead of a circle, and gaining a green glow. While stacking TR's does not increase the slow effect if they overlap, it will increase the area that foes are effected by them. Back to recovery, if Z or one of his team mates happens to be KO'ed, they will instead be backed-up via a TR and appear out of it with a slight push in the direction they got knocked out from, but permanently deleting that TR in the process, returning one of your stock icons to normal. Kind of acts like a net to catch friend and foe alike, doesn't it?
TR also has a 3rd use to Z when it comes to interacting with his own moveset, as his Projectiles will act differently depending if they pass through a Trick Room, as will various other attacks depending who is in the Trick Room! Click below for specifics on his Tri Attack changes.
[collapse="Projectile Properties"]
TRI_ATTACK
|Like with Alakazam, Tri Attack will cycle through Fire>Ice>Electric as it passes through each Trick Room. Fire will cause the entire TR to become a hitbox for 4% that knocks any enemy away with mediocre KB. Ice will turn the TR light blue for 1 second, completely stopping any foe inside in their tracks. Electric turns the TR into a pulsing hitbox that hits like Pikachu's Dsmash, often trapping foes in hit-stun while dealing around 8%. PSYBEAM
|Psybeam will regain and/or retain it's hitbox while passing through. SHADOW_BALL
|Shadow Ball will move slowly through a TR only to speed up again upon exiting. SIGNAL_BEAM
|Signal Beam will ricochet wildly along the sides and corner of TR's before exiting in a straight line once again, though often with a different height. BUBBLEBEAM
|PIxels from Bubble Beam will float freely at jigglypuff's walk speed while inside of a TR, and are not limited to just up and down. ICE_BEAM
|Any foe inside a TR when Ice Beam strikes them will be frozen regardless of range. DRAGONBREATH
|Dragonbreath will "pulse" through all TR's you perform the move through and hit anyone inside for 4% before coming out the other end like normal, but with 1/2 the range it normally has. BULLET_SEED
|Bullet Seed's Pixels ricochet wildly while inside of TR's. FOCUS_BLAST
|If Focus Blast detonates inside a TR, the blast lingers as an active hitbox for the next 5 seconds with the same properties until it is hit again. SMOG
|Smog will turn TR's purple for the next 5 seconds, causing them to damage foes 1% every 1/4 second for the next 5 seconds. DARK_PULSE
|Dark Pulse grows 2x as fast while traveling through a TR. FLASH_CANNON
|If Flash Cannon detonates in a TR, it and all overlapping Trick Rooms will have it's "bright pulse" effect. AIR_CUTTER
|Air Cutter becomes 1.5x faster and longer-reaching after it passes through a TR. POWER_GEM
|Pixels from Power Gem stop spreading at 1.5x Z's height until they exit a TR. FLAME_BURST
|Flame Burst's burst of fire comes out vertically if detonated inside a TR, causing a circle to shoot out in all directions, not just side to side. MUD_SHOT
|The "traps" left behind by Mud Shot last until the TR that they were created in are gone. ZAP_CANNON
|Zap Cannon's "range limit" is put on hold until it exits the TR's it's passing through.
[/collapse]
Team2=Down_Lock-On
With an animation identical in time to Mario's Cape, Z forms a targeting reticule directly in front of him that will then attach to foes until hit by an attack. When on Team2, Z will then fire his SideB a the foe once they've gotten at least a platform away.
The reticule looks like this, with the interior color changing based on what player you are.
To help with hitting his target, Lock-On also makes his Side B home-in on them! The homing is very strong, comparable to Samus' locked-on missiles from the prime series, and it certainly helps that dodging no longer gives invulnerability while the target has the reticule on them, making them either have to manage their shield or eat a hit!
Curiously, Locked-on foes also move at 1/2 speed instead of 2/3 speed while in a Trick Room.
010100110111010001StandardZ011100100110010001
Neutral_Glitch
Z shakes rapidly in place, making a "brrzt!" sound like when a computer works too hard or malfunctions as he shakes about in all directions. While he glitches, Z becomes a hitbox for 5% and mediocre KB to anything he touches over the next 1/4 second, accompanied by an electrical graphic to those he touches.
If performed inside a Trick Room, the entire TR will deal 1% to all it touches with an electrical graphic.
Forward_Tail_Drive
Z lunges his torso and tail forward like Squirtle's Bair, his head and arms staying where they were when he does this, hitting foes for 10% and enough KB to kill around 160% at edge as he first lunges out, and 6% with reduced KB for the remaining time before returning to a neutral pose.
While Tail_Drive can't be angled, it possesses some very unique IASA (Interruptable As Soon As) properties probably due to some sort of glitch in the game's code. Anyways, the IASA Frames just as his hitbox becomes "weak" allow him to perform any of his other standards while the hitbox remains, putting his unused body parts to work! this includes Glitch, but it seeing as it lacks IASA like the other moves, it's best used to "recharge" Ftilt so it does 11% and good KB once again.
Up_Horn_Drive
Z's head spins around a few times as it lunges upwards to strike with his horn, hitting foes for 8% at the lunge, and lingering for 4%. It doesn't do too much KB, only enough to start juggles like with Luigi's with the initial hit, but due to Z's internal positioning system, he'll always perform this move at the center of his torso, meaning it will follow Ftilt as it lunges when you combine the moves through IASA, which combined with Glitch can create quite a hitbox.
Down_Spin_Drive
Z's arms begin to circle each other like rotors as they swiftly dip down to the ground and hit foes for 12%, but rather weak KB, comparable to Utilt's only horizontal. Before returning to neutral the arms deal 8% and much weaker KB like all his other tilts, and much like Utilt his IPS makes sure his Arms are always in-line with his tail, meaning they'll follow Ftilt when it goes either forwards or backwards, allowing Z to potentially "sweep" around himself.
Combine all his standards to create new hitboxes to keep the opposition guessing, as well as away from your fragile frame.
Dash_Agility
As he dashes, Z will streamline his body and jet forward about a platform's distance at twice his normal dash speed! As he does this, you'll notice his body flashing orange, indicating the boosted stat as he plows into foes for 10% and mediocre KB.
Interestingly, if Z boosts through a Trick Room with Agility, it will also briefly flash orange! Any ally that also happens to be inside will also find themselves flashing orange for the next 5 seconds, experiencing the effects of the Bunny Hood item.
01010011011011010110SmasheZ01101000011001010101
Forward_Tackle
Z's arms spin in place, each at opposite ends as his head rocks back and forth while he charges, before launching forward like a rocket! Similar to his Dash Attack, Z will move forward about 2/3 of a platform but without streamlining his body, hitting foes for a massive 18-25% with KB that can kill Mario at 120%... backwards. Yes, tackle's KB shoots the victim the opposite direction Z was facing, it seems he still has that glitch from his cameo in melee. Still, the power alone can make this a good KO option when you are able to line it up right, and it'll certainly throw off a foe's DI!
At the end of the move, Z is still seen spinning his arms for a moment as he re-calibrates his position, giving the move a bit of end lag. Like his standards this move also has a unique "cancel", but it can only be done exactly halfway during his end lag. Pressing any button at that frame will have Z snap to the nearest Trick Room as he recovers, instead of standing there in harm's way. I guess some odd programming can come in handy after all.
Up_Magnet_Rise
Z glows orange like with Agility as he charges this move, causing anybody in a Trick Room he happens to be in while charging both jump and have decreased gravity for 5 seconds. Anywho, upon release Z will rise up as the name suggests, spinning on his Y axis high enough to touch the bottom of Battlefield's top platform before falling down at 1/2 his current fall speed (unless he decides to Fast Fall, regaining his normal speed). Foes hit by Z on his ascent will take 15-21% and rather lackluster KB for a smash, killing at around 180-160%, but with little to no end lag to speak of.
Down_Double_Team
Z vibrates like with Glitch as he charges, though with no hitbox to speak of, before dashing back and forth about 1.5 Platforms at such a fast speed that after images are seen at the center where he started and the two ends! Foes hit by Z as he dashes back and forth with a "whirr" will take 15-21% with Diagonal KB that can kill around 170-150% near ledges. Double Team actually has him snap back and forth so fast, his after images are only hit-able every 3 frames of animation! What this means is that if a foe were to try and hit you out of the move during the half-second duration, there's about a 66% chance they can hit you at any one area, though wide-area or long-lasting moves obviously have a better chance. Like with Usmash, this has little end lag as he vibrates slightly to stop himself.
A trick with this smash is it's ability to be angled like most Fsmashes (although unseen on any other smashes for some reason). Angling the move will change where Z appears when the move ends, holding down or no input will default to the center with the other directions popping him in said direction. This makes Double Team a great tool for evasion as like with his standards, it turns trying to hit him into a guessing game as well as a spacing one.
01000001011001010111AerialZ01100001011011000101
Neutral_Glitch
Z's neutral air is -exactly- the same as his Jab, this means his unique IASA is up here too!
Forward_Beak_Drive
Z pecks his head straight forward for 12% and KB that can kill horizontally around 150% near ledges, and sticks around a brief moment after as a hitbox for 8% and weak KB. During that time other aerials can still be performed, like with his standards.
Back_Rotor_Drive
One of Z's wings will begin spinning horizontally, resembling Pit's Uair behind him as it hits for 12% and medium KB, and lingers for 8% and weak KB after the first hit, with it lasting about 3/4 of a second. Rotor Drive will always stay behind Z's body, which is helpful when using his cancels.
Up_Flip_Drive
Z's body orbits his head vertically and performs a fairly standard "flip kick" maneuver for 12% and mediocre KB away from himself. What's unique about the move however is that the window for IASA is massive, starting right as his body begins to move! Use this to "drag" other aerials along for the arc. Z's torso always goes around his head, meaning it will travel with Fair.
Down_Drill_Drive
One of Z's wings will spin vertically down below himself at a slight angle, reaching lower than his tail as it hits multiple times for a maximum of 20% if all hits connect. This can either be used as normal "drill" maneuvers are used, as a means to Lcancel > Grab vs shields, or as a way to add a lot more damage to Uair due to it always staying in the same spot near his tail.
01010100011010000111ThrowZ01101111011101110101
Grab+Pummel_Selection
Z creates a mini-trick room in front of himself about the size of his head to catch foes with, with speed akin to Marth's grab. Once a foe is caught, they'll be seen frozen in the frame of animation they were currently in while caught, as well as have a personally sized Trick Room containing them.
Pressing A will have Z energize the trick room while rotating it with his arms/wings/whatever you want to call them, they're pretty interchangeable with the little guy. As they rotate you will see their model flipped on their X, Y or Z plane as they are shocked for about 4% at a medium pace for a pummel.
Forward_Drag_and_Drop
Z's electric cage will float forward at Sheik's dash speed after he gives it a bit of a push, and after traveling about a Platform away spikes the foe down at the ground for 10%, leaving them prone if they do not tech the throw. If done off-stage, the foe must quickly meteor-cancel to avoid certain doom. While the foe is traveling, they can be damaged but have super armor until propelled from their cage.
If the Mini-TR happens to go inside a normal TR, the foe will instead be spiked down out of the furthest TR away. If there is only 1 then it won't be teleported and they will be spiked as normal, except with 2/3 speed reaction time as they try to get up.
Back_Recycle_Bin
Z's arms spin slowly as does the caged foe, circling around himself at about Mario's Dash speed after a brief moment. The cage will circle Z counter-clockwise about 3 times before the foe is released sideways for 8%, but in the mean time Z can dash, walk and jump just fine while the foe orbits him as a sort of barrier against attack!
If Z travels through a TR while performing this throw, the foe will be transferred to the new location and will be flung for 8% in the direction they last pressed before being sent to the Trick Room. Z will still have the mini-TR circling him for the throw's duration, able to take one hit for him before going away.
Up_Upload
Z says "Porrryyy...ZZt!" as he uploads data into the foe, dealing a whopping 15% to them, but at the same time dealing 5% to himself before they are ejected upwards for decent vertical KB, it won't kill anyone unless you're already up high however.
If performed in a TR however, the connection seems to be amplified and Z's throw becomes more powerful, able to kill on average at 150%!
Down_Download
Z says "Porrryyy...ZZt!" as he downloads data from the foe dealing only 5%, but in turn gaining 5% worth of healing! After getting the data he needs, Z will simply release the foe a little distance away like with Bowser's Dthrow.
If performed in a TR, like with Upload, the power of this throw is improved as he now steals 10% worth of HP, and knocks the foe a bit further away as well.
Zair_Defense_Curl
Z envelops himself in a personal-sized TR with a tap of Z, which is good for taking 1 hit before fading away into nothingness. Z is immobile while protecting himself in this manner, but falling on people/those who touch it as it first comes out will receive 5% and mediocre KB away. If he manages to actually hit somebody with it, it will also be destroyed, otherwise it lasts for 1 second.
If Z moves into a TR while using Defense_Curl, he will be able to float around freely inside the TR and use his specials until he is either hit or presses a non-special input.
01010100011000010111TauntZ01101110011101000101
Up_Malfunction
Z seems to spaz out a little while saying "P-P-POrrrrrygon" before returning to normal.
Down_Reboot
Z feigns defeat for a moment, before reversing the action to go back into neutral.
TRAINER TIPS:
Porygon-Z is best described as "Support" for the team. His sheer variety of moves that affect both himself, the foe and his team are just staggering (and the sheer variety in general, even the way he plays changes slightly each time he changes type), especially Trick Room alone. It gives you extra lives! That said though Z will need a lot of support from his team in return, as Trick Rooms are his only from of Recovery beyond his jumps, combined with a high fall speed and tiny weight... ick. Make sure to constantly keep the foe guessing with Z to get the best mileage out of him, to both rack up damage quickly and make sure the team is properly upgraded.
Unlike the two "sweepers" we've seen before him, Porygon-Z doesn't really have that much power to his name, but instead has heaps of damage he can lay onto foes from all his projectiles and debuffs, making it quite easy for others to jump in and land a finishing blow. While on Team2 he acts as a sort of support-gunner for your main mon, locking on and blasting away if they dare to get in his sights. Speaking of Team2, if you're playing Z you need to keep a watchful eye on who you're Downloading from with his Side B's being great in some match-ups with certain team mates and all that. For example, against a camper with Breloom and Feraligatr on the team, you could take Smog from Breloom, switch Z to team 2, and swap to Feraligatr to approach the foe with Surf/Waterfall while they're forced to move from the poisonous pixels left behind from Smog. Of course, you could always just swap to the projectile you find most fun, as they all work with all the possible combinations of Pokemon on-screen, he's like a little version of the whole set ain't he?
TEAM OPTIONS & SUPER SMASHES:
WITH ALAKAZAM : NASTY PLOT
Porygon-Z and Alakazam seem to link-minds if both of them have a projectile out on-screen and activate this Super Smash. Until hit, the two will follow each other as one, firing projectiles together with the same input! Whoever is on Team1 has control, with Alakazam or Porygon-Z floating alongside their partner as if they were stuck together as they combine shots, and the Team2 still able to activate their Down Special when the conditions are right.
The coolest part about this Super Smash is how it lingers when one of them switches, with either the Team 2 mon sticking by your side (as best they can) and firing their own projectile with you, or Alakazam/Porygon-Z doing what they've been doing until they are hit out of the move.
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It's only fitting that two Special-Attackers get along great. Both of their Down Specials especially work wonders when paired, able to home in and bounce projectiles everywhere = a bad day to be the enemy. In general this pair will play ultra-offense with Alakazam being more powerful and Z being more campy. They are generally interchangeable throughout the match, but Z will often find himself in Team2 after setting up his Trick Rooms / Passing abilities to Alakazam for him to then ruin the foe's day with with his superior kill power.
WITH FERALIGATR : DRAGON'S RAIN
Feraligatr looks to the sky and opens wide, Z floating behind and creating a mini Trick Room inside his gaping jaw to amplify what comes next: Feraligatr proceeds to shoot a Dragon Pulse through the Trick Room, which shoots out a large sphere of Pixelated Dragon-Energy (violet and orange) to the top blast zone. This whole action takes about a second to perform. Once fired, both Pokemon are free to move about as normal, but the Super Smash won't -truly- activate until after leaving the screen. Moments after it leaves, it will begin raining down Violet and Orange pixels over the area of Battlefield at a rate of 10 pixels a second over the course of 5 seconds. They fall randomly around the stage and pass right through foes, hitting them for 5% each and some hit-stun.
A great maneuver for both offense and defense as foes are pinned down by the falling energy, easy targets for either an approaching Feraligatr or Blasting Porygon-Z, it can only be done every 2:30 minutes.
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As with most of his pairings, Z will often find himself in the backseat for both his own safety and for sheer ranged support, with each of his Downloadable Conversions benefiting Feraligatr's gameplay. Players will often find themselves using Porygon-Z first to set the pace with Trick Rooms and generally keeping the foe at bay with Tri Attacks, before swapping to Feraligatr for most of the fight there on end. Between stocks you may find the time to swoop in with Z and boost up Feraligatr with Agility as well, which can lead to some huge problems for the foes.
WITH BRELOOM : ASSIST
Porygon-Z will rush in with from the air as he performs a flurry of rapid, random inputs towards the foe, becoming a flurry of hitboxes for the next second before jumping back to where he originally was. Breloom can easily capitalize on his lingering Glitchyness to use as either a defensive wall to lob seed bombs and escape pressure, or to combo off of as the foe is hit by the various hitboxes.
Like all assists, this can only be done every 5 seconds.
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Porygon-Z and Breloom are fairly interchangeable here, mainly due to their Assists working off each other to lead into huge strings of combos both up close and afar. In this pair it may actually be Z taking most of the spotlight though as he can soften the foe up from the safety of range and Trick Rooms, with Breloom providing further support from either Poison, Paralysis or Sleep. Once beat up enough, just swap in Breloom to land one of his mighty finishers on the target for the win. In most cases though this pairing is mostly preference based on who is played more compared to most other pairings.
Next up is GenV, the realm of the original Trainer JOE! Here's a hint for who it is: he is based on both a popular Japanese show, and a very old game.
I do indeed think this is rather ridiculous, especially considering that I was the "victim" of the incident in question. ...But it's still better than MYM12's primary post, at least.
D-SMASH: BULLET SEED
Just a little amendment here, his D-smash's ability to sometimes grow berries is not a focus of the move, but rather just a kind of easter egg as it happens gradually over -10 seconds-, and only heals for 2%.
Just felt I'd clear up that it's not as integral as normally hitting the move.
I don't think you got Porygon-Z down right. in the game he was just a pure powerhouse that didn't have the speed or defenses necessary to be of much help unless someone, for example, baton passed agility or something. Even then, his ability really only helped boost his normal attacks. Unless you used conversion (Which would probably be stupid since Porygon-Z doesn't have the defenses to withstand the attack the opponent would likely give)
Well, at the same time you have to realize that in smash, the mons aren't limited to 4 moves.
Once you get that, looking at what Porygon learns naturally, they're the only Pokemon that learn conversion -at all-, which should count for a signature special, no?
Trick Room is also unique with the line, as Z is the -only- Pokemon to learn it naturally, which again I think would constitute as a signature move. Tri Attack (as well as TMs) is again kind of a signature move as well, and mixed with conversion gives a chance to "load" different moves to display how a trainer can customize their Pokemon a bit. Combined with interactions with the Trick Room and Lock-On, Z's main gameplay is still that of a ranged character with a tremendous amount of damage potential, but with some tricks here and there added on from his learn-set from Pokemon.
Bigfoot
I admit, I actually sort of find the stuff you do with the character amusing, with him creating random trees and getting picked up by a UFO. On such a ridiculous character, I think lulzy stuff like that is perfectly acceptable. Aside from that, what the set comes down to is a very, very basic hit and run set. You have trees to warp away with and shake for healing items after running away to give a reason to want to retreat, and the fact that he's awkwardly weak actually works into this alright by giving him a need to use this. This is all that's positive to say about the set unfortunately, as all moves sans the tree input are extremely generic and serve no purpose to furthering this game plan other than just being standard melee stuff, albeit underdetailed and with no attempt to really play off Smash Bros mechanics in any meaningful way. What doesn't help is the fact that you just give him an input that does literally nothing when not used for it's interaction. I recognize I'm being harsh, but I just want you to incorporate more stuff to work into his teleporting based game plan. Still, it's a step up from Soundwave Superior.
Gatstaf Shepherd
I'll say right off the bat that this is far better than my version of the set for obvious reasons. You don't bother with tacky shield breaking and wool parachutes, rather creating a sort of stage construction based playstyle with using the wool to create bouncy structures. Gatstaf can play off these structures by creating projectile hell, comboing foes off them, sending sheep bouncing through the air... it's pretty hilarious how all this is described too, I find this one of your most enjoyable sets to read honestly. The interactions are basic and the set doesn't innovate an absurd amount, but they work into a rather enjoyable playstyle. The wolf form isn't nearly as exciting to be honest, but the prone abuse makes decent use of the walls and such, and you at the very least play off the first forms set-up nicely. I feel that the eating of sheep could've been better honestly, while the super armor coating is nice it doesn't feel like a tangible enough reward in addition to healing, nor does the set really acknowledge it enough for my tastes. This is all just nitpicking though, the first form is very enjoyable and the wolf is at the very least decent.
If I had to complain about this set... I guess I'd just say I feel you mischaracterized Gatstaf in some ways. Yeah, I can understand the cartoony use of sheep in Smash on a more random fantasy shepherd, but this guy comes from a fairly serious block, and if you look at the artwork and then thing "this guy is making wool trampolines", it strikes you as a bit off, does it not? I'm not exactly a guy who cares THAT much about characterization, especially on a character as random as this, but it's very jarring for me, especially having made this bloody character myself. Admittedly, your version is vastly superior(though keeping the sheep based invisibility in the second form was a mistake, I feel), but the characterization does hurt the set a bit in my mind.
Stromboli
I do feel this set strikes me as the logical next step from Bubblegum for you, Dave. You've not only ironed out your tackiness problems, I feel you've managed to create a set that feels a bit more substantial than Bubblegum, with a lot more depth due to the use of the puppets as lingering pseudo projectiles. The character admittedly can't exactly do much, but you do a good job of giving him melee moves that serve the purpose of defending him well as he collects coins. Perhaps the grab game feels like it's a bit too easy for that purpose with all the lockdown it provides, but it's not a huge deal breaker by any means. Not like you don't give him a noteworthy weakness anyway, what with how much he freaking hates the air.
The unfortunate thing the set suffers from a bit is how extremely bland it all is. The flow is very limited, the extent of it really just being "stay still" and "oh you can use this better with a puppet swinging around or a tether". One of his better KO moves utilizing a puppet and a foe slamming into each other once both are tethered to you is alright, but a lot of stuff in here just comes across as extremely boring. He's got a bloody drag down Up Aerial even. I suppose that's because you removed the, admittedly extremely awkward, puppet swinging, but that hardly excuses the move. It also feels a bit too easy, I know the gold sack should be a good reward, but making it nigh lagless means there's absolutely no effort in pulling off a KO with it, when you have swinging puppets around so you could have more depth by giving it actual lag. Part of this obviously wasn't your decision Dave, but I would've liked it if you changed that or something. At any rate, it's not a bad set, especially considering the fairly difficult character and the fact that there is almost no tackiness here(even Ashen's Smashes weren't tacky, and with Engineer and Bubblegum I think you're getting over that problem), but I wouldn't call myself a fan.
Luke Atmey
In a similar manner to Putata, I don't think Atmey made a good first impression with how it introduces Mask deMasque being summoned by a pummel. Especially when it randomly has the foe have an item in their possession. That said, the resulting set has probably the best item manipulation I've seen to date, with the ways to rig the items, store them in safes, create your own sack to carry them in, rain them down on foes with the Dair, and more importantly use the in conjunction with DeMasque. The chase you give him to grab items which kind of has you fight him and yet help him along at the same time is fascinating, and gives Atmey a very deep playstyle that requires him to be constantly involved. I happen to really like the KO method with the safe full of explosives too, especially in conjunction with the frame. That was genius.
The set really could use more items to play off, even one more interesting one would've massively improved the set. Atmey has an absurd amount of ways to utilize items, but when he creates a grand total of 2(technically five, but really they all feel very similar in their purpose, just varying in effectiveness), I sort of feel there was a lot of missed potential. That and the tacky base really hold the set down a bit for me, though it's not enough for me to dislike the set. Honestly, this set in particular makes me think you've got it in you to top Luxord at some point in the future, possibly even soon!
Dark Meta Knight
I initially thought this set was terrible and didn't deserve any thought, but thinking on it I find it a bit more interesting. Charging up the Down Special and the mirrors on the grab game give him the ability to keep around one of his tornados to beat around, potentially spacing his foe into it all the while. He's got some decent moves for that purpose too, and the Side Special for a bit of projectile hell for people trying to dodge around it. I find it pretty damn tacky that the Side Special only hits foes dodging or shielding, however. A lot of the set is just very generic attacks, which is fine for this character, but I think you could've done a bit better when you have him shattering into glass shards, spawning mirrors, and having his sword go into the ground, duplicate itself, and pop out on both sides of him. Though, I confess I actually find that cool from a flavor perspective.
Koala Kong
Your continued use of terraforming, particularly when you already have done earth chunks before, is something I could see annoying people. However, this set distinguishes itself from Nappa in many, many ways once you look past the base mechanic, and I feel this is a vastly superior set, which is saying a bit since I already really like Nappa. The Dash Attack was a stroke of absolute genius, giving him a falling platform off stage to use his ground game from, which you manage to make insanely interesting for gimping. The set never runs out of crazy cool options to utilize the ground chunks, from fusing them together to putting TNT on them to creating a projectile that travels along their surface... it's positively obscene the sheer versatility this set has without feeling redundant at all. I also actually love the way you use pitfalls here. They're rewards for performing a certain degree of set-up or landing difficult attacks, and feel well worth the effort in the context of Kong's gimping game and TNT, which he can embed alongside them. The playstyle summary is really telling of how bloody deep this set is, and it manages to be fairly unique at the same time. By far and away the best set posted this contest.
Trainer JOE 2.0
This really feels to me like a big step up from the original Trainer JOE in a lot of aspects, or at least so far. I think the addition of team-up attacks, as well as the overall way the support characters work makes it a lot more interesting to make teams for this guy. This is largely on account of Porygon Z and Alakazam... but believe it or not, I actually feel that Breloom and Feraligatr were better than the Pokemon I read in the original JOE. Feraligatr has less tackyness, Breloom is more relevant. Now this isn't a compliment considering I despise the original JOE, but it seems you've learned and are assembling something that is honestly very fun to imagine. It'll depend a lot on the last two Pokemon though.
As for the mechanics, Team 2 is obviously good, as are the Super Smashes. The addition of Melee stuff feels random and slightly awkward, but it doesn't feel super central to the sets in question so I can excuse it. The set still suffers a lot though from how uninteresting the Pokemon can be on their own. Alakazam and Porygon have some stuff worth talking about, but Feraligatr and Breloom are devoid of nearly anything, as I'll go into more detail on in a minute. Those two are also rather lacking as Team Support, Feraligatr having some decent team-up attacks and Breloom's assist being okay... but I mean, you have some redeeming to do for both of them. Still, I think the current state shows promise and if the last two Pokemon and wrap up post are good, I can definently see it getting my vote.
Alakazam
Alakazam's support is pretty basic, largely providing a projectile reflector and being able to set up a spoon trap to capitalize on. Alakazam also has Psybeam, which is an interesting idea to capitalize on his own projectile reflector by allowing him to refresh his projectile after it's already hit someone. The set's rather lacking past that, Alakazam's main purpose really just being "that guy with a lot of KO moves", though Future Sight is alright as far as supporting your other team members goes. I get what you're trying to do with making the Pokemon more simple to make it easier to adjust too, considering how players have 3 characters to learn at the minimum, but I wish maybe he did a little more to capitalize on the lingering spoons or something? At any rate, he supports the team pretty nicely, if nothing else.
Feraligatr
Feraligatr is supposed to be an abuser of the two more set-up characters... and I don't really see it. You have a lot of movement possibilities, which having seen competitive Brawl matches with DM recently I can probably make Feraligatr a little more interesting than he looks on paper, but he still lacks sufficient reason to use them beyond some very basic spacing tricks. I don't see how this plays into any of what the other 2 set-up, maybe letting him rush in on a foe in a trick room...? That's some very, very loose co-operation, and I don't feel it's enough to give the set a strong place in the team. Feel free to prove me wrong as time goes on, and I did like the team-up attacks you gave him, but in the set's current state it feels like it doesn't do enough for the team.
Breloom
Breloom lacks Feraligatr's movement tricks and is a tiny bit more awkward with the Oran Berry plant and the Leech Seeds(at the very least, the former is just an easter egg), and makes up for it with... a stunning assist. I'm not impressed. Well, you do give leech seeds too, perhaps to keep essential team members alive for a bit longer by capitalizing on the healing. Still, while Gatr's movement tricks I could see playing into the rest of their game a bit, Breloom's actual gameplan is basically non-existent, while Feraligatr had even a trace of flow. And the contribution just feels so disappointingly minor and bland, compared to what Kazam and Z offer, that I can't say I think it really contributes anything to the team, as a set. Especially awkward when Feraligatr wasn't amazing to begin with.
Porygon Z
This set definently feels like by far the strongest Pokemon on the team in terms of relevance. Z's support projectiles are actually all really interesting, the sync up attack with Alakazam is probably my favorite thing in the entire set so far given how well they work together playing like that, and the trick rooms are a great boon to the team. I sort of wish you gave modifications to the other teammates projectiles in there, it'd be such an obvious way to improve Breloom and Feraligatr's otherwise bland projectiles. It's actual gameplan solo isn't that bad either, with it's ability to reconfigure it's body to create large hitboxes with Glitch and Trick Rooms, providing zoning for Breloom in the only time I actually appreciate it's Team Up attack. Certainly could be better, the grab game and smashes don't play into the whole hitbox changing thing as well as I'd like, and while the interactions with trick room are fine I wish they served a bit more of a purpose. None-the-less, it is fun and I think brings up the quality of the team dramatically, especially with how good it is at support.
[collapse="Witch"]This is a pretty cozy read in certain aspects, only being greatly dragged down by abundant grammatical errors - we're not usually one to nitpick such things but there are times when it's noticeable enough. While I enjoyed Regulus more because of his intriguing bomb attack, there is surprising attention-to-detail among the many elemental attacks Witch possesses, almost like an extreme version of Brawl Zelda or whoever magic character. I can't help but think that some of the attack measurements are a bit extreme however; Witch jumps 5 SBBs for her recovery whence the famous jumpman Mario only covers about 3 with all his jumps and recovery! 4 SBBs is half of Final Destination, which is pretty far but not extremely far for the Dash Attack to cover in comparison to some Brawl stuff...but then again we have Snake's infamous DACUS trick. The grab sees theoretically interesting, but feels awkwardly explained in some parts such as the pummel and f-throw where I wish it weren't, especially when there's a cute little bout of characterization there. This is an alright little Brawl set if you ignore the small prickles in the way.[/collapse]
[collapse="Trixie"]This is a pretty smooth set on most levels, you once again showing to have a very good grasp on the characters you choose to make sets for - the very first attack has a nice allure to it assisted by good use of pictures, though I can't help but think that the cart and platform should be wider than you specify. I like how you handled the effects of Trixie's moves in tandem with her characterization where they can backfire on her, actually making it feel like you're playing as the overconfident Trixie who can mess herself over with her own attacks. The Specials work quite well together with each other, as FA has mentioned, even tying in with a few other moves. Said moves are more of intrigue than seen in Larfleeze. The grab game and awkward props of moves such as F-tilt and D-tilt are probably the only complaints I have at this point, but otherwise I like this set, a fair bit more so than anything else you've posted.[/collapse]
[collapse="H.N Elly"]H.N Elly doesn't feel as atmospherically invigorating as Elsa Maria, though it would have been impossible to incorporate the idea of she preying on the victim's personal feelings into a set. On that note, the TVs obeying the laws of physics and their multi-functions generally come off as being too mechanical and realistic for a Witch for me - there could have been a fair bit more surrealism here (though there is some which I appreciate via the D-throw), but instead it kinda feels like commanding a flock of birds. While I read up that Elly has a covetous nature and as such the fly effect can be considered pretty fitting to character, the set still feels strange as a whole. I think the TVs are the biggest perpetrators here rather than what you do with the angel minions, which is pretty decent.
Possibly because of the sheer quantity of effects packed into the Neutral and Down Special compared to the Side and Up Special, the kind of execution that generally serves to suck attention from the rest of the moves instead of dividing the effects among them, I found the rest of the set a bit basic whether it was simple TV interactions or minion-flocking - it's mostly positioning stuff locking the opponent into a corner so the angels can grab them, with most the interesting stuff being right at the start. While others would probably like it like Warlord did, the atmosphere is a bit tight for me despite the proclaimed versatility. I'm sorry FA, I know you worked very hard on this set, but it just doesn't feel like my kind of thing - I don't dislike it, but I don't -like- it, if that much at most.[/collapse]
I'll wait until all the Pokemon are done to comment JOE!
just an FYI, FA (and WL), the set isn't done yet.... and there is more to come (not to sound pretentious or whatever).
Edit VIA phone: just out of curiosity, what is everybodys smash background here? I know I come from a more competitive / inner-workings backdrop myself, and I can see how that can effect how my sets are viewed and worded.
Edit VIA phone: just out of curiosity, what is everybodys smash background here? I know I come from a more competitive / inner-workings backdrop myself, and I can see how that can effect how my sets are viewed and worded.
I am sorry to say that this set didn’t exactly interest me. That said, I’m not sure why. The barrier was an interesting idea (even if we saw something similar on Ashens, this felt better in terms of characterization), and the various things you can do with TVs was good, what with teleporting between them, zapping people with them, or blowing them up for damage. Not to mention the minions; is it odd that they reminded me of the winged monkeys from Oz? In any event, the minions were well-balanced between too weak to be useful on their own but dangerous in groups. I also liked how you acknowledged the possible problems with commanding minions with aerials and put in a way to compensate.
That said, there were a couple of weaknesses here. I do have to agree with Kat in that, in comparison to the other specials, the Up Special felt a little bland. Effective, but bland. On the other hoof, we have the Forward Special, which seems to be an entirely too easy way to gimp, even at Jigglypuff’s relatively slow dash. As for the presentation… well, the main color certainly fit, but it made things seem more wall-of-texty. Come to think of it, that may be why I wasn’t thrilled with the set; the ideas were good, but the presentation not so much.
I do see the work you put into this, but… I dunno, maybe make the text red next time? It still kinda relates to the character without being so difficult to read.
***
PORYGON-Z
Well, this was a fair bit more complicated than the other Pokémon so far, mostly due to Conversion. Now, don’t get me wrong, I loved what you did with that, but you have to admit that the strategy involved with the whole thing is quite a bit more complicated than everyone else. Then again, what should I have expected from Porygon-Z? Actually, this does feel a lot like the pixel Pokémon: seemingly random, but actually following a pattern. It just takes a bit to figure out the pattern. This is really emphasized in the Tri Attack, with separate effects for everything. And then there’s Trick Room, which seems hugely overpowered (it practically doubles your stock), but is insanely cool anyway. And then every single effect from Tri Attack has an effect from or on the Trick Room! And then after that, we come to some surprisingly interesting standards, throws, and aerials, especially that Forward Tilt, which helps make Porygon-Z even more unpredictable, especially in conjunction with Trick Room. And then the Smashes, which, once again, play off of Trick Room and make Porygon hard to predict as well as giving him some heavy-hitting attacks...
Wow, is all I can say. You put a lot of work into this guy, and I love it. I’d be using Porygon-Z every single time (even if it took me a while to figure out the best time to use each effect).
But then we come to Lock-On, which in comparison feels somewhat dull. To be fair, the previous material was quite complicated, and it wouldn’t make sense to use a different order, but nonetheless, it didn’t quite mesh. Some things were also a bit unclear. You mention a blue “flash” for a normal Tri Attack, but you don’t mention what it does. Is it like a Flashman flash? If so, how long does it last? If not, what does it do? Nonetheless, another excellent entry to Joe’s team. Keep up the good work!
Keep in mind Warrior, that while Trick Room "doubles" your stock, you also limit yourself by using it in both deleting that trick room and making yourself a high% target that the foe -knows- where to look for with a charged smash....
Speaking of options, prediction and the like, here's a new article all about stuff I feel is very relevant and discussion worthy for -all- of MYM!
I am sorry to say that this set didn’t exactly interest me. That said, I’m not sure why. The barrier was an interesting idea (even if we saw something similar on Ashens, this felt better in terms of characterization), and the various things you can do with TVs was good, what with teleporting between them, zapping people with them, or blowing them up for damage. Not to mention the minions; is it odd that they reminded me of the winged monkeys from Oz? In any event, the minions were well-balanced between too weak to be useful on their own but dangerous in groups. I also liked how you acknowledged the possible problems with commanding minions with aerials and put in a way to compensate.
That said, there were a couple of weaknesses here. I do have to agree with Kat in that, in comparison to the other specials, the Up Special felt a little bland. Effective, but bland. On the other hoof, we have the Forward Special, which seems to be an entirely too easy way to gimp, even at Jigglypuff’s relatively slow dash. As for the presentation… well, the main color certainly fit, but it made things seem more wall-of-texty. Come to think of it, that may be why I wasn’t thrilled with the set; the ideas were good, but the presentation not so much.
I do see the work you put into this, but… I dunno, maybe make the text red next time? It still kinda relates to the character without being so difficult to read.
It's a lengthy read probably because there was a lot to explain in the Down Special, and then the rest of the moves are admittedly a bit less interesting on their own(let me tell you it's not easy to come up with things for this character to do that are interesting 6_6). I feel the set's a bit more interesting when you take the Neutral Special into account and the ever present possibility of the TV being a bomb or shooting out lightning. Side Special gimps are probably more possible than I give them credit for though... Regardless, I wasn't thinking everyone would love this set(DM bloody hates this thing), so you're entitled to your stance on it.
As for presentation, dark gray may not have been the best possible choice, but... I want you to take the next set you read, put it in a previous post, and change the color of all the text to red. Then read it. If your retinas burn out I'm sorry.
It's a lengthy read probably because there was a lot to explain in the Down Special, and then the rest of the moves are admittedly a bit less interesting on their own(let me tell you it's not easy to come up with things for this character to do that are interesting 6_6). I feel the set's a bit more interesting when you take the Neutral Special into account and the ever present possibility of the TV being a bomb or shooting out lightning. Side Special gimps are probably more possible than I give them credit for though... Regardless, I wasn't thinking everyone would love this set(DM bloody hates this thing), so you're entitled to your stance on it.
As for presentation, dark gray may not have been the best possible choice, but... I want you to take the next set you read, put it in a previous post, and change the color of all the text to red. Then read it. If your retinas burn out I'm sorry.
just an FYI, FA (and WL), the set isn't done yet.... and there is more to come (not to sound pretentious or whatever).
Edit VIA phone: just out of curiosity, what is everybodys smash background here? I know I come from a more competitive / inner-workings backdrop myself, and I can see how that can effect how my sets are viewed and worded.
I've been playing Smash Brothers since I got the original, back on the N64, the first console I had. I loved it a lot and played it a ton and did the same with Melee when it came out: I attempted to become a pro/semi-pro at Melee, but I couldn't get Wavedashing down pat or find enough tournaments, so I dropped that, but the competitive-ness never stopped being a thing, and I similiarly try to be a more competitive type in Brawl. I do still have a lot of casual fun with my less competitively inclined friends, however.
Lizard is a former Wizard, also known as Cyluth who made the mistake of turning down a Witch's confession of love and got turned into a lizard for it. He kept all of his magical talent though, and being a student at an esteemed university of magic and a genius, he's a very powerful being regardless of his diminutive status. Lizard's preferred method of fighting involves copying the opponent's spells and turning them against them, as well as countering the opponent's abilities, learning the spells inside and out through his incredibly deep understanding of magic and how it works. Aside from that, his favorite spell is Flight, which allows him to fly at Mach 2, and his favorite type of magic is transmutation.
Why have I not brought up the source material this guy is from yet? You see, he's actually an offshot of a bizarre forum game on GameFAQs, where characters are pit against each other and people see who is the strongest. Eventually, they decided just pitting existing fictional characters against each other was boring and made up a good number of their own, with backstories, personalities, and the like to match. Generally, they tried to keep the characters in the contest playing fair and not using any ridiculous reality bending or what have you, before pitting them against each other in polls, effectively, with write-ups and terrains and such. Lizard was one such character created for the contest, which I admittedly have just been lurking. But he struck out to me as deserving of a set, so here you go.
Yes. You read that weight right. Lizard is absolutely painfully light, and will die to moves that have absolutely no right to kill anything, and not even at especially high percents! Smash Attacks and such are essentially the kiss of death too no matter what percent Lizard is at. At the very least, Lizard's movement stats are good, and his miniscule size makes him actually pretty darn hard to hit. Still, he's gonna need a lot if he wants to keep himself alive in this state.
Specials
Neutral Special
Lizard rears up slightly, in position to cast a spell. He does this for half a second, during which time, if he sees a foe performing an attack, he will commit it to memory. What determines if he sees something is if it occurs in front of him within a battlefield platform. This does nothing notable unless you press an input while in this pose that you observed the foe use. When you do so, Lizard will perform a magic based version of the stolen attack. Some sort of ethereal blue force will be conjured that looks similar to the attack itself, and perform the same effect. To perform an aerial, you just use this input in the air. If you copy a grab, you automatically get all the throws and pummel.
Obviously, this is a large portion of why Lizard hides, having the foe swipe around with their attacks to give Lizard fodder to use against them. Note that with multiple opponents, if you copy a new attack to that input, it will overwrite the old one. Using a foe's attack with this will end your period of observation, so if you're fast with your inputs you can play TAC quite well, though having a moveset to yourself obviously makes you far a ways more versatile than that set. While all of your attack inputs and as you'll see, movement inputs, are occupied, you can still leave this via inputting a dodge/shield/roll, with Lizard darting backwards or forwards out of this in the case of a roll, though otherwise he just stops what he's using. Using an input which you haven't copied anything onto also cancels you out of this.
Analyzing the foe perform the same attack multiple times is actually beneficial as well. This will allow Lizard to improve the attack, which by default causes the damage and knockback of the attack to increase a bit. This can stack as much as you please, so if you see Marth using his Down Tilt a lot you might be able to not only snag that move for yourself, but turn it into a KO move! If you hold Down while analyzing, it will instead improve the range. Hold Up and it makes the attack faster. Hold Forwards it will only increase damage, Backwards it only increases knockback, and both in larger increments than before. If you hold a direction in the initial scanning, the attack loses some damage and knockback at the cost of the perk you choose. So, not only do you get to copy the foe's moveset, you can customize it to your personal preference on initial analyses.
Note: If a move has some sort of special property, IE creating a trap as a byproduct, the special property will be enhanced with more analyses.
Side Special
Lizard points one of his claws forwards, an explosion slightly larger than a Bomb-omb blast in front of him, dealing 17% and knockback that KOs at 90%. This is actually quite a fast move, but it requires 3 seconds of recharge time to reach full power again. Using it again before that will have it deal 5% and weak knockback in a much smaller blast radius initially, though it increases in power with time before reaching full strength. Definitely a very powerful move, but one that can't really be spammed either.
The move will actually create send bits of earth flying when used on the ground, which deal flinching hits of 3% as they fly out. They then land on the ground, as pieces slightly larger than a Pokeball. They each have 8% stamina, and if Lizard walks next to one he hides behind it, invisible to foes. This let's Lizard play it safe while he's recharging the attack... as well as serving other purposes that will become clear further on in the set. The debris are packed tightly together when they land and there are about enough to cover a battlefield platform... at full charge. At lesser charges, you'll have a smaller quantity come out, only a single rock at minimum charge.
Beyond the invisibility, there are more uses for these rocks, which we'll get too later. Lizard's favorite technique is transmution, after all.
Up Special
Lizard puts his limbs close to his sides and begins zipping through the air with free flight. At 1.5x Sonic's dash speed, though you can tilt the control stick to make him go much slower than that. It's very easy to control. During this time you can use your aerials and other specials. You get 6 seconds worth of this completely ridiculous free flight, and it recharges at a rate of 2/3rds of a second worth of charge per second while your feet are on the ground. As such, you are going to be using this move a LOT, give how much of a boon such unholy movement through the skies can be.
Down Special
Lizard puts forward a single claw, and if the opponent hits him with an attack, he will counter it with slightly easier timing than Marth's counter. As in, the attack itself will seem to short circuit due to a pulse of blue energy, stunning the foe out of it with 1.5x normal end lag. This does no damage, but it's very possible to capitalize on. Not to mention, being able to counter when the opponent can't even see you is an amazing boon.
Oh, that's not the best part of this attack though. The best part is that when the foe uses the attack again, Lizard will, without stopping what he's doing, counter it again. This will persist for the remainder of their stock, allowing you to completely shut off inputs you counter. You can only turn off 4 inputs with this before this Lizard won't auto counter new attacks you stop with this, but in the mean time it can function as either a way of shutting off a particularly threatening move, or possibly weeding out a move you don't want the foe using so you can copy better stuff. Also, moves are only going to stay disabled for so long, after 10 seconds the auto-countering will wear off.
Standards
Jab
Lizard points one finger forwards and sends out a blue blast of energy that looks vaguely like a missile. It will fly until it hits a foe at Mario's dash speed, upon which point it will explode, dealing 8% and knockback that KOs at 225%. It will also disappear after 2 seconds. Missiles are affected by gravity and are fired in a slight upwards arc which can be increased or decreased by angling, but when they hit the ground they'll bounce back up in the same arc as initially. As a matter of fact, hitting any surface will cause the missile to ricochet off it. Combined with the fact that this is a fairly fast attack, you can probably come up with a ton of ways to abuse it in the context of later moves in the set.
Dash Attack
Lizard teleports backwards a Stage Builder Block width, reappearing in a hitbox of blue energy that deals 5% and flinching. You can then immediately tap A again to teleport back another Stage Builder Block. Opponents cannot tell if you are doing this or not, so it serves as a wonderful way to throw them off your trail while you are using the rocks lying along the ground for stealth.
Forward Tilt
Lizard draws a small rune on the ground in front of him which floats up and materializes into... another Lizard? It will then dash forwards until it comes within half a battlefield platform of a foe, in which case it will run like a pansy. If there are foes on both sides of it, the clone will simply try to escape by jumping around them, though that may prove hilariously ineffective for it. At any rate, this thing isn't real and the foe will find that out as soon as they attack it or touch it, taking 4% and a flinch as it fizzles out of existence.
Pressing Forward Tilt with a Lizard copy out will cause the copy to go on the offensive, chasing down the foe and attempting to use attacks in Lizard's arsenal on them, including ones you've stolen from the foe. He won't use anything that creates set-up, just Lizard's more basic attacking measures and projectiles as well as stuff he stole from the foe. As soon as the foe is hit by any of this stuff it will do nothing and show that it's nothing more than a fake, but you can scare a foe into dodging or what have you by having this thing dart out of the rubble, or make them think they have a chance to kill it.
Either way, this is a useful little mindgame you can use whilst hiding from the foe, but it has a few downsides. These things only last for 2.5 seconds, and then you have to wait a total of 10 seconds before you can generate a new one. Before that using this attack will just create the rune to summon one and have it disintegrate immediately.
Up Tilt
Lizard points his hand upwards, casting a spell. This causes all rocks around him in a stage builder block sized area, as well as the foe, to become extremely floaty. Specifically, the rocks float up into the air a Ganondorf height and form into clouds of debris. This gives you cover in the air in addition to the ground, allowing Lizard to continue his stealthy games in the sky, particularly nice with free flight. On foes, this deals 4% and causes them to be unable to fall for the next 2 seconds, suspending them in mid-air. Not bad if a few of the foe's aerials are auto-countered.
Down Tilt
Lizard creates a small explosion directly in front of him, dealing 7% and weak diagonal knockback. Hardly a powerful move, and not a particularly fast one either.
This obviously isn't the only purpose of the move though. Using this amidst rubble, instead of having him perform the attack, will have him imbue the explosion into the rubble. This means that when the foe destroys that piece of rubble, it will explode for the same damage and knockback as the actual explosion would do. Foes can't see when you're doing this in rubble, as with a good portion of Lizard's moves, so you can make your little obstruction more... hazardous for your foe to destroy. There's a slight delay before the explosion though, so if the foe used a particularly fast attack they may have a shot at escaping it. Note that if the nearest rock is explosive to begin with, he'll just perform the regular attack.
Smashes
Forward Smash
Lizard puts his hands out in front of him, creating a wind hitbox which sucks things in towards him. The radius of this is half a battlefield platform to 1.5 battlefield platforms, depending on charge. Pulling foes towards the admittedly campy Lizard seems counterproductive, but there are times when you want to drag them into a delayed attack about to go off...
The real purpose of this move, however, is that it pulls in rocks, which deal the same old 3% and flinching when they hit a foe. If you manage to pull together 6 or more with this move... it will assemble into a Rock Golem. This golem has 1/3rd the stamina of all the rocks used to form it, and after it collapses you only get 2/3rds of the stones back. It's size is based on the amount of rocks used to make it, maxing out at twice the size of Donkey Kong, with minimum sized ones only being the size of Marth. The golem has it's own miniature moveset, and it's AI in utilizing the moveset is detailed alongside the moves. You can damage the golem as well, in case you want to smash it back into it's original components.
There are a few notable interactions that Lizard has with the golems though. For one, using Up Tilt gives them the ability to freely fly through the air, which will change how they fight slightly, but obviously serves as a pretty big boon to them. Second of all, the golems have their own attacks... which means that Lizard can copy them for himself, just like a player. Or disable the AI from using certain attacks, as you can counterspell it performing an attack to make sure it does not perform that action for the remainder of it's existence. Lastly, if any rocks in the golem were made explosive via Down Tilt, this will cause the golem to explode upon death, though there is a second delay before doing so. For each exploding rock within the golem, the knockback of the explosion increases a bit and the damage is boosted by 3%. If Lizard uses Down Tilt on a golem, he will turn one of the non-explosive rocks in it explosive unless it is maxed out on explosive rocks.
[COLLAPSE="Golem Moveset"]In general, Golems will not go after foes aside from throwing their projectile unless they are within 2/3rds of a battlefield platform of them. Once the foe comes that close, the Golem will march towards them at Ganondorf's dash speed and attempt to clobber them. On another note, all these damage values are for a Golem that is halfway between minimum and maximum size. Half them for a minimum size golem, make it 1.5x as much for a max size Golem. Range is also improved on larger Golems and worse on smaller ones.
Neutral Special: The Golem takes out a boulder the size of Kirby and rolls it forwards at Mario's dash speed. The boulder deals 12% and knockback that KOs at 160% on contact. It will also pick up speed on a downwards slope and slow down on upwards slopes. The faster the boulder is going, the more powerful it becomes, so if you take some time to build a big slope(you'll see how in a bit) this can become a powerful KO move. When it loses all it's momentum, hits a wall, or an opponent, the boulder will disappear. Golems will use this on foes directly in front of them or down a slope from them if they are more than a battlefield platform away. This has a fair bit of lag on both ends.
Down Special: The Golem pounds the ground in front of it, dealing 15% and upwards knockback that KOs at 125%. It leaves behind an earthshaking hitbox for the next 3 seconds that deals 8% and set average upwards knockback. This is moderately laggy. The earthshaking hitbox causes rocks to fly up in the air as long as they are on top of it, dealing 3% and flinching.
Forward Smash: The Golem rears back and performs a huge punch, dealing 20%-26% and horizontal knockback that KOs at 95%-55%. Ducking low can easily avoid this attack, and it is very laggy. Golems prefer to only use this when the foe is somehow preoccupied.
Up Smash: The Golem lunges upwards and performs an uppercut, dealing 15%-20% and upwards knockback that KOs at 150%-100%. This is less laggy than the Forward Smash and has more range, and the Golem's go to move for beating out aerial foes.
Down Smash: The Golem spins it's arms low to the floor, dealing mass rapid hits that add up to 17%-23%, and the final hit deals knockback that KOs at 145%-90%. This is a fair bit faster than the Forward Smash and the Golem's go to melee move. [/COLLAPSE]
Up Smash
Upon inputting this move, a small blue dot appears in front of Lizard, which can be directed freely at a fairly fast speed. The dot does nothing on it's own, but near rocks, one rock will fly to where the dot is every .1 seconds. If two rocks are pulled together, they'll form a small slope the height of Kirby, and three will form a solid block the size of Kirby. A single rock just forms into a point, which serves as a Brawl spike. These slopes and blocks will stick together too, and allow you to create basically freeform structures out of your rocks. You can control this for a total of 1-3.5 seconds, depending on charge, and can cancel out at any point in the attack. It helps that the rocks in this serve as their usual 3% and flinching hitbox, providing some necessary defense.
If the rock structure is made in the air, it will fall to the ground, dealing 3% for each rock put into it, as well as proportional upwards knockback. Structures have half as much health as the total stamina of all rocks put into them, and after they crumble you are given back half the rocks you put in. Using Up Tilt on this will actually cause the structure to float up into the air the same as the rocks do. There's a ton of stuff you can do with all this, such as setting up all sorts of ideal angles and positions to use the foe's attacks from. And of course, build a cage around the foe and some golems to create a cage match with the foe... potentially a spiky, hellish cage match if you're really clever. Aside from that, you can use this as something to intercept your knockback on that situation that you actually do get hit to prevent your death, or just something to roll the golem's boulders with. And obviously, your forward tilt projectiles will bounce off this just fine.
Down Smash
In a similar manner to the Neutral Special, Lizard prepares to cast spells, although this time he seems to be a bit more tensely focused. Charging this attack has sparks of magic crackle in his claws before he goes into this pose. Like with Neutral Special, you automatically exit out in 0.5 seconds or via dodges/rolls/shielding, and you can cast spells as usual. The difference here is that Lizard isn't observing here, and he doesn't cast spells... normally, so to speak. For one, they have only 2/3rds as much damage and knockback, as well as 1.4x the start lag. But they aren't used as traditional attacks here.
By default, using this will cause Lizard to simply lay a small rune with into the ground which disappears with moderate lag, resulting in nothing happening until 4-15 seconds later, when the attack in question is used over where the rune was placed. This more or less allows you to lay attacks stolen from the opponents as traps, though in a weakened form and admittedly the blow is predictable, as the opponent will see the magic "wind up". Thankfully though, this doesn't interrupt Lizard out of what he's doing at the time of the spell going off. The nicest part is you can use this while you're in rubble and foes will have no idea where you've hidden this.
Pressing forwards will allow Lizard to fire off the spell in projectile form with some lag as he prepares a sphere of blue energy. He launches the sphere forwards half Battlefield's length-1.5x Battlefield's length based on charge, activating upon contact with an opponent or some trap they laid. It does go through walls and such, but moves at the fairly leisurely pace of Pikachu's Neutral Special bolts, meaning it's pretty easy to dodge. Upon hitting a foe, the attack that he used will be cast then and there, again thankfully not interrupting Lizard out of what he's doing.
Pressing upwards will allow Lizard to fire multiple spells at once. You have to input 2-5 attacks at once, and after a large amount of start-up lag Lizard will cast all of these attacks overlapping each other in their lag. This will do a massive amount of damage to the foe if they get caught up in it, but they can possibly DI out before the powerful hits come even if you put in fast hits, and even then you have to deal with large amounts of lag as Lizard prepares this. Still, in conjunction with your own set-ups to preoccupy the foe, this can make for an incredibly powerful finisher.
You can use this move to also use delayed versions of both the projectile and multi-casting, by pressing backwards for a delayed projectile and downwards for a delayed multi-cast. These have additional lag on the rune setting, in particular the time spent to prepare a delayed multi-cast is huge and usually very impractical. Still, the fact that you're not going to be punished for it yourself is nice if you can lay it out and have a foe land in it. Still, between the 5 different functions this gives you a very large amount of things to use stolen moves for, even if they are in a vastly nerfed state.
As a final note, with charged attacks all types of special casting will always fire off the uncharged version, and in attacks that are held out it will hold them out for a total of 1 second.
Aerials
Neutral Aerial
Lizard flies in a loop at high speeds in mid air, though the loop is horizontal as opposed to vertical like Meta Knight's shuttle loop. You can hold this out to have him keep spinning at a fairly fast rate. This deals 3% and flinching to foe's hit by this attack, meaning it's far from a gimping move, but the loops are fast enough that you can rack damage with this decently. Not to mention once you stop the end lag is surprisingly low.
Still, the main use of this move is what happens if you hold it out for a second. In that case, it will create a tornado below him, about Kirby's width and it's height depending on how far it was made above the ground. If it's within 3 Ganondorf heights of the ground, it will touch down to the floor and be as high as Lizard was off the ground. If used higher up in the air, it will just be the 3 Ganondorfs high. Tornados last for 3 seconds and deal flinching hits of 1% while foes are caught in them, before launching them up for 5% and upwards knockback that KOs at 160%. These things will last for 4 seconds before disappearing.
Now the strength of the tornado will depend on it's height. The shorter it is(minimum 1 Ganondorf height in regards to this), the more hits it will deal within the same timeframe. Aside from that, this will suck up anything nearby the tornado, rubble being shot up into the air as hitboxes and golems merely being launched out to possibly smack a foe up in the air, using this as a way to boost up and get at the foe quickly. Speaking of rubble, this will actually drag a piece of rubble out of the ground every so often, ranging from 2 per second at maximum power to one every two seconds at minimum power. It requires a lot more set-up and the attack is less powerful that the Side Special, but this is a way you can essentially "mine" rubble in the air, as well as an alternative while Side Special recharges if you desperately need more.
Forward Aerial
Lizard puts both his front limbs forwards and a blast of air shoots out, which can be angled up or down. This blast of air is a fairly strong wind hitbox, and in conjunction with your Up Special makes Lizard into a very functional gimper. It shouldn't surprise you, aside from that, that this move shoves around your floating objects. IE, if you have a floating structure, it will move it in the direction the wind hitbox pushes 1/3 a battlefield platform, rocks and golems flying 2/3 of a platform. Considering otherwise they just float up a default small amount, this move exists to allow you to choose their positions a bit more freely.
Back Aerial
Lizard spins his body around rapidly in mid air before launching himself backwards and slightly downwards a battlefield platform, dealing foes he comes into contact with 13% and diagonally upwards knockback that KOs at 150%. If Lizard comes into contact with some sort of surface with this he will bounce off. Obviously this move will help Lizard gimp in conjunction with his free flight, and it's fairly fast... just keep in mind your weight when trying to utilize this. Still, it's necessary for Lizard to have attacks to fight off the foe with that actually deal damage and knockback no? Sometimes counterspell won't cut it.
Up Aerial
Lizard raises his hand above his head and creates a sphere of wind, which repulses any foes who come near at half Ganondorf's dash speed for it's 3 seconds of existance. Obviously, it's useful protection for Lizard in the air, and Lizard really likes protection. It's unfortunately too large to be obscured by stones though, being slightly larger than Kirby. The main purpose of this move, however, is if you launch a foe into it with any sort of knockback, they'll get blasted away with double as much knockback. You can only have one of these out at a time, and as such the best way to capitalize on it is probably utilizing the wider range of knockback angles provided by stealing the foe's attacks.
Down Aerial
Lizard flicks it's tail downwards, causing all foes within a stage builder block sized area around Lizard to be weakly spiked with 8%. This also disables any floatation effects from the Up Tilt, allowing you to drop rocks back down to the ground. The lag on this is moderate, and it's useful when you want to drop all your aerial stuff objects back down to the ground.
Grab Game
Grab
Lizard holds out one claw and levitates whatever is directly in front of him up, whether it be foe, structure, a bunch of stones, or a golem. All of these things can be pummeled and thrown as a normal character. You'll pick up approximately a battlefield platform width worth of rocks with this. The range on this grab is quite excellent, reaching as far as some tether grabs, but has some pretty annoying start-up lag to compensate. Note that the grab will indeed prioritize foes, then golems, structures, and finally stones.
Note that if a Magic Missile is within a Bowser length of Lizard for this attack, Lizard will absorb it for the throws. If there are multiple of them, Lizard will absorb them all this way.
Pummel
Lizard draws in the nearest possible rocks into the grab as well, more with each tap of pummel. What could he be doing with the rocks? Well you'll see when it comes time to throw...
Forward Throw
Lizard hisses as anything made of rock he currently has grabbed explodes, bursting out into flames. Or rather, all the rocks you have in your grasp become fire traps, golems become fire golems, and structures become bonfires in the shape of the structure but 1.5x as large. The fire traps deal mass hits of 1% and are slightly bigger than the rocks that became them. Fire traps can be manipulated in the same way as rocks by making them float in the air with the Up Tilt, blowing them around with Fair, turning them into fire golems with Forward Smash, and creating bonfires out of them with Up Smash. Heck, they even "explode", flaring up to twice their normal size for 3 hits of 3% and flinching before dying out if you used a Down Tilt to imbue them. In a larger structure, an additional hit is added for each explosive flame. These are more direct threats than your rocks, but die out after 8 seconds and lack the stealth providing capabilities of your rocks. They can also be dispersed by dealing a total of 5% to them. Foes are automatically caught in any of these you make once you use this throw, making it a perfectly good throw for damage.
Bonfires are basically giant fires in the shape of the original structure that foes must DI out of, dealing damage more rapidly than the smaller fires. There's not much more too them than that, they disperse after 12 seconds or when half as much damage as the amount required to disperse the total fires composing it is dealt. As a note with Up Smash, with anything you transmute you pull in the closest object, and then all objects of the same type.
Fire Golems actually have an entirely different moveset from your Rock Golems, as well as 1/3rd the stamina of all flames used to compose them. They move a fair bit faster than rock golems, given their less weighty status. Unlike Rock Golems, they don't leave flames behind when destroyed. They are also extremely aggressive and will actively pursue foes regardless of where they are.
[COLLAPSE="Fire Golem Moveset"]Likewise with your Rock Golems, the values are based off a midsized Fire Golem. A max sized Fire Golem has 1.5x the power, a minimum sized Fire Golem has half of it. Range is better on a larger Fire Golem and worse on a smaller one.
Neutral Special: The Fire Golem launches a fireball in an upwards arc, dealing 10% and upwards knockback that KOs at 200%. On contact with the ground, this turns into a fire trap identical to the ones made when you turn a rock into one. Fire Golem will use this attack as it's chasing down foes, and oftentimes shoot fireballs directly in front of where they are running in order to cut off their route of escape. It's also a much faster projectile than the boulders produced by the Rock Golems.
Down Special: The Fire Golem breaths a stream of fire at the ground, dealing damage at the same rate of Bowser's fire breath with similar range. It also diminishes at the same rate After 2/3rds of a second it will turn the ground below it into Brawl lava for 7 seconds. Fire Golems tend to use this at close range, and will attempt to pressure foes towards a lava pool.
Forward Smash: The Fire Golem turns it's arm into a flaming whip and lashes it forwards, dealing 11%-15% and knockback that KOs at 195%-150%. This has the same range as ZSS' FSmash, and is a bit faster on top of that. The Fire Golem's go too offensive move when in range.
Up Smash: The Fire Golem raises both it's arms up and both burst into a much larger and more violent flame covering it's head. Deals 20%-27% and upwards knockback that KOs at 100%-50%. This is an extremely slow move, but it actually will linger a bit past the initial hitbox in a similar manner to Mr. Game and Watch's Forward Smash. Aside from that the range is pretty nice too.
Down Smash: The Fire Golem collapses into what appears to be a large fire and almost "rolls" forwards, dealing mass flinching hits of 1% that add up to 14%-19% and dragging the foe along for the ride. It will generally use this move to push the foe into lava pits, and on that note it's a pretty fast attack. [/COLLAPSE]
As a final note, remember when I mentioned absorbing magic missiles earlier? If you absorb one, you will create 1.4x as many fire traps, with the additional amount created having no additional properties, or if it's a golem/structure you are changing, you make a 1.4x larger golem/bonfire. The same applies for all throws. With 2 or more missiles, the amount produced increases to 1.8x, then 2.2x, and so on.
Back Throw
Lizard breaks open the rocks/structures/golems again, this time resulting in the creation of water! Structures and rocks both just form into regular water which will wash off the stage at a fairly fast rate, dragging anything in it's path along with it. Rocks(which deal damage as they are dragged along), foes, golems, you name it. This will deal massive rapid damage to anything made out of fire you have, so this could be very detrimental to your fire based set-ups if used improperly. It does get the foe out of your face nicely even with just a few rocks, and with a large number this can occasionally even make for a good gimping aid with some rocks/golems getting dragged along and your aerial game.
Water will prioritize flowing down slopes if possible(and flows down them with more force at that), and will stop at walls/structures, creating an area of Brawl water if it's sandwiched between two structures or at the bottom of two slopes. How much water depends on how much rock went into this, but you can obviously use this to drown opponents with the right set-up. For the record, they'll just disappear and lose a stock after they hit the bottom while under the drowning status effect, they don't get stuck forever. Maybe flame traps floating above it, or better yet dropping a structure on top of the water, trapping the foe down there to drown. If whatever is holding the water is destroyed it will all come rushing out, obviously.
Water Golems have 5 stamina for each rock worth of water going into them, making them by far the sturdiest type of Golem. They are also the slowest Golem type, and instead of going after foes they will stick around and defend Lizard to the best of their ability. They also travel along the surface of water as though it were solid ground. Water Golems on the surface can be bad news for a foe trying not to drown. Water Golems can also explode based on how much of the water composing them was originally exploding rocks, though this explosion is just a powerful push effect, how powerful depending on the number of exploding rocks. Do keep in mind you can still imbue them as well.
[COLLAPSE="Water Golem Moveset"]As usual, these values are for medium sized Water Golems. Max sized are 1.5x as powerful, minimum are half as powerful, range also changes based on size, you get the idea.
Neutral Special: In a move functionally identical to FLUDD, the Water Golem produces a jet of water, propelling foes away with the same strength as the FLUDD. This version can fortunately be angled in any direction, but takes 1.2x as long to charge. Water Golems tend to use this as their main line of defense against an approaching foe.
Down Special: The Water Golem will attempt to surround and envelop the foe. If successful, the foe must escape with 1.5x Grab Difficulty while taking 3% per second. This is a fairly close range move, and if it is successful it's a nice disabler while Lizard does some more set-up.
Forward Smash: The Water Golem it's front forwards and becomes almost an arch of water, flowing forwards towards the front. This drags foes along with it until they are smashes against the ground in front of it, dealing them mass flinching hits of 1%. This lasts for a total of 1-3 seconds, and during the duration it can provide amazing cover for Lizard if he hides where under the arch, or just capture a foe in there.
Up Smash: The Water Golem rears stretches upwards to twice it's height, and deals 1% and mass flinching hits while in this position, which it holds for 1-3 seconds again. This can function as a pretty nice wall, and it will generally use this against foes approaching aerially.
Down Smash: The Water Golem smashes the entirety of it's mass into the ground in front of it, dealing 22%-30% and diagonal knockback that KOs at 80%-40%. This has huge range, but a lot of start up lag and RIDICULOUS end lag as the Water Golem pulls itself back together. Still, this is the best KO move within the confines of Lizard's own moveset. The Water Golem will use this if the foe is pinned down in some way, like with the Rock Golem's Forward Smash.[/COLLAPSE]
Up Throw
The rocks, golems, and structures you have grabbed break apart to reveal what appear to be purple gemstones. This will unfortunately disassemble any Golems and Structures you have, unlike the other 2 throws, but you get out as much as you put in. As the gemstones fall to the ground they deal mass hits of 5% and weak knockback, being more powerful on contact that the rocks despite being half the size. Obviously, this is handy in conjunction with moves that turn the rocks into hitboxes again. They have 10% stamina each.
The real benefit to gems though, is they actually amplify magical power, or in this case, Lizard's abilities. His attacks all get buffed damage and knockback based on how many crystals are nearby. This has other benefits too, such as decreasing the recharge times on Up Special and Side Special, raising the number of attacks you can put into a Down Smash, and for every 10 gemstones that are within a battlefield platform he shoots an additional Magic Missile at a higher angle in the Forward Tilt, plus is able to disable an additional move with the Down Special. Obviously a great perk, but at a cost you lose the stealth that the stones provide, as gems are not big enough to hide behind. It's a risk-reward scenario in which ones you want around you.
When a gemstone explodes, the explosion is similar to the one from the rock explosions, but slightly weaker, dealing 5% and even weaker knockback. However, the explosions will actually linger in a crackle of magic for an additional half a second, and in Golems that you make of gemstones the explosion will linger slightly longer for each stone, as well as dealing an additional 2% and a slight knockback boost.
The Up Smash, when used with gems, does not create structures. Rather, what you build with the Up Smash is a battering item, similar to a Beam Sword. The weapon's range depends on how long you make it, with more powerful points being where you put a larger number of gems. Being able to make customizable weapons is pretty nice, and you can give these to your golems by throwing them at them, and they'll use them as battering items. You can even copy the battering swings to use for yourself! Oh, and yes, like the stones in their raw form, this provides buffs, as much as the stones that went into the weapon would. Just don't let these awesome custom weapons you make fall into the foe's hands.
Gemstone Golems can be made in the same manner as Stone Golems, and unfortunately require twice as many gemstones as a Stone Golem does stones. It has the usual 1/3rd as much stamina as the combined amount of gems, and drops the remaining 2/3rds worth when destroyed. As a payoff for the increased amount of work required, the Gemstone Golems still provide the buff, and have massively buffed attack speed from the Stone Golems. A large Gemstone Golem is a positively terrifying foe, and it has fast battering item swings with the same power as usual, so it's pretty insane if you give it a good bludgeon too.
The other difference between a Gemstone Golem and the typical ones is that it fires a different projectile. Instead it shoots a laser from it's stomach that deals 10% and stuns the foe for a half second, with average lag on each end. It also has infinite range, goes through walls, and if it hits another Golem it gives it an additional 10 stamina.
Down Throw
Lizard tosses the foe towards the ground with his magic, them bouncing off and launching away with 13% and knockback that KOs at 140%. It's very powerful by throw standards, and doesn't end the grab if you have stones grabbed as well. Get the foe out of your face, then transmute, if that's your preference.
Also, you can double tap this input if you want to toss back out any Magic Missiles you absorbed. In case you happened to absorb one and didn't want too.
Final Smash
Lizard ducks into the background as suddenly the HYPERORB comes crashing down onto the stage. The Hyperorb is a 3 million year old sentient sphere of tungsten, a ridiculously durable and heat resistant metal that is seriously a competitor in the contest mentioned at the beginning. He is the size of Giga Bowser and will roll his mass around, crushing everything in his path. If he hits a foe, they are dealt 50% and spiked through the stage with 4.5x the strength of Ganondorf's Dair. He will roll around and try to crush people for 10 seconds before disappearing.
[COLLAPSE="Original Version, in case there are those who prefer it"]
Lizard
Lizard is a former Wizard, also known as Cyluth who made the mistake of turning down a Witch's confession of love and got turned into a lizard for it. He kept all of his magical talent though, and being a student at an esteemed university of magic and a genius, he's a very powerful being regardless of his diminutive status. Lizard's preferred method of fighting involves copying the opponent's spells and turning them against them, as well as countering the opponent's abilities, learning the spells inside and out through his incredibly deep understanding of magic and how it works. Aside from that, his favorite spell is Flight, which allows him to fly at Mach 2, and his favorite type of magic is transmutation.
Why have I not brought up the source material this guy is from yet? You see, he's actually an offshot of a bizarre forum game on GameFAQs, where characters are pit against each other and people see who is the strongest. Eventually, they decided just pitting existing fictional characters against each other was boring and made up a good number of their own, with backstories, personalities, and the like to match. Generally, they tried to keep the characters in the contest playing fair and not using any ridiculous reality bending or what have you, before pitting them against each other in polls, effectively, with write-ups and terrains and such. Lizard was one such character created for the contest, which I admittedly have just been lurking. But he struck out to me as deserving of a set, so here you go.
Yes. You read that weight right. Lizard is absolutely painfully light, and will die to moves that have absolutely no right to kill anything, and not even at especially high percents! Smash Attacks and such are essentially the kiss of death too no matter what percent Lizard is at. At the very least, Lizard's movement stats are good, and his miniscule size makes him actually pretty darn hard to hit. Still, he's gonna need a lot if he wants to keep himself alive in this state.
Specials
Neutral Special
Lizard simply stops in place and stares ahead for .2 seconds. As a result, nothing in particular happens. How disappointing.
Side Special
Lizard points one of his claws forwards, an explosion slightly larger than a Bomb-omb blast in front of him, dealing 17% and knockback that KOs at 90%. This is actually quite a fast move, but it requires 3 seconds of recharge time to reach full power again. Using it again before that will have it deal 5% and weak knockback in a much smaller blast radius initially, though it increases in power with time before reaching full strength. Definitely a very powerful move, but one that can't really be spammed either.
The move will actually create send bits of earth flying when used on the ground, which deal flinching hits of 3% as they fly out. They then land on the ground, as pieces slightly larger than a Pokeball. They each have 8% stamina, and if Lizard walks next to one he hides behind it, invisible to foes. This let's Lizard play it safe while he's recharging the attack... as well as serving other purposes that will become clear further on in the set. The debris are packed tightly together when they land and there are about enough to cover a battlefield platform... at full charge. At lesser charges, you'll have a smaller quantity come out, only a single rock at minimum charge.
Beyond the invisibility, there are more uses for these rocks, which we'll get too later. Lizard's favorite technique is transmution, after all.
Up Special
Lizard puts his limbs close to his sides and begins zipping through the air with free flight. At 1.5x Sonic's dash speed, though you can tilt the control stick to make him go much slower than that. It's very easy to control. During this time you can use your aerials and other specials. You get 6 seconds worth of this completely ridiculous free flight, and it recharges at a rate of 2/3rds of a second worth of charge per second while your feet are on the ground. As such, you are going to be using this move a LOT, give how much of a boon such unholy movement through the skies can be.
Down Special
Lizard rears up slightly, in position to cast a spell. And now comes the part where the Neutral Special's use is revealed. You see, if he was viewing the foe performing an attack, and they were within 1.4 battlefield platforms of him, Lizard will copy it. Then, pressing the input to execute that attack will cause Lizard will perform a magic based copy of the chosen attack. Some sort of ethereal blue force will be conjured that looks similar to the attack itself, and perform the same effect. To perform an aerial, you just use this input in the air. If you copy a grab, you automatically get all the throws and pummel.
Obviously, this is a large portion of why Lizard hides, having the foe swipe around with their attacks to give Lizard fodder to use against them. Note that with multiple opponents, if you copy a new attack to that input, it will overwrite the old one. There's only 1 frame of lag to initiate this, so if your fast with your inputs you can play TAC quite well, though having a moveset to yourself obviously makes you far a ways more versatile than that set.
Analyzing the foe perform the same attack multiple times is actually beneficial as well. This will allow Lizard to improve the attack, which by default causes the damage and knockback of the attack to increase a bit. This can stack as much as you please, so if you see Marth using his Down Tilt a lot you might be able to not only snag that move for yourself, but turn it into a KO move! If you hold Down while analyzing, it will instead improve the range. Hold Up and it makes the attack faster. Hold Forwards it will only increase damage, Backwards it only increases knockback, and both in larger increments than before. If you hold a direction in the initial scanning, the attack loses some damage and knockback at the cost of the perk you choose. So, not only do you get to copy the foe's moveset, you can customize it to your personal preference on initial analyses.
Note: If a move has some sort of special property, IE creating a trap as a byproduct, the special property will be enhanced with more analyses.
Standards
Jab
Lizard puts forward a single claw, and if the opponent hits him with an attack, he will counter it with slightly easier timing than Marth's counter. As in, the attack itself will seem to short circuit due to a pulse of blue energy, stunning the foe out of it with 1.5x normal end lag. This does no damage, but it's very possible to capitalize on. Not to mention, being able to counter when the opponent can't even see you is an amazing boon.
Oh, that's not the best part of this attack though. The best part is that when the foe uses the attack again, Lizard will, without stopping what he's doing, counter it again. This will persist for the remainder of their stock, allowing you to completely shut off inputs you counter. You can only turn off 4 inputs with this before this Lizard won't auto counter new attacks you stop with this, but in the mean time it can function as either a way of shutting off a particularly threatening move, or possibly weeding out a move you don't want the foe using so you can copy better stuff.
Dash Attack
Lizard teleports backwards a Stage Builder Block width, reappearing in a hitbox of blue energy that deals 5% and flinching. You can then immediately tap A again to teleport back another Stage Builder Block. Opponents cannot tell if you are doing this or not, so it serves as a wonderful way to throw them off your trail while you are using the rocks lying along the ground for stealth.
Forward Tilt
Lizard points one finger forwards and sends out a blue blast of energy that looks vaguely like a missile. It will fly until it hits a foe at Mario's dash speed, upon which point it will explode, dealing 8% and knockback that KOs at 225%. It will also disappear after 2 seconds. Missiles are affected by gravity and are fired in a slight upwards arc which can be increased or decreased by angling, but when they hit the ground they'll bounce back up in the same arc as initially. As a matter of fact, hitting any surface will cause the missile to ricochet off it. Combined with the fact that this is a fairly fast attack, you can probably come up with a ton of ways to abuse it in the context of later moves in the set.
Up Tilt
Lizard points his hand upwards, casting a spell. This causes all rocks around him in a stage builder block sized area, as well as the foe, to become extremely floaty. Specifically, the rocks float up into the air a Ganondorf height and form into clouds of debris. This gives you cover in the air in addition to the ground, allowing Lizard to continue his stealthy games in the sky, particularly nice with free flight. On foes, this deals 4% and causes them to be unable to fall for the next 2 seconds, suspending them in mid-air. Not bad if a few of the foe's aerials are auto-countered.
Down Tilt
In a similar manner to the Down Special, Lizard goes into a casting pose. You can then use any of the inputs you've copied... to result in nothing happening. What gives? Well actually, the attack will active... 4 seconds after you used the input. So more or less, this lets you turn attacks into traps, or set-up a delayed attack to assist in an assault or gimp. Being able to delay moves to overlap your other attacks in general is nice. The best part? You can make it so the foe doesn't even know this is coming if you use it in the midst of some stones.
On a final note, if you grab someone with this, Lizard can press Grab to pummel them and Grab+Direction to throw them. For this and other variant types of castings, any moves that would utilize a charge are left uncharged. If the move could be held out, it will be held out until it reaches minimum strength or if it does not loose strength, one second.
Smashes
Forward Smash
Lizard puts his hands out in front of him, creating a wind hitbox which sucks things in towards him. The radius of this is half a battlefield platform to 1.5 battlefield platforms, depending on charge. Pulling foes towards the admittedly campy Lizard seems counterproductive, but there are times when you want to drag them into a delayed attack about to go off...
The real purpose of this move, however, is that it pulls in rocks, which deal the same old 3% and flinching when they hit a foe. If you manage to pull together 6 or more with this move... it will assemble into a Rock Golem. This golem has 1/3rd the stamina of all the rocks used to form it, and after it collapses you only get 2/3rds of the stones back. It's size is based on the amount of rocks used to make it, maxing out at twice the size of Donkey Kong, with minimum sized ones only being the size of Marth. The golem has it's own miniature moveset, and it's AI in utilizing the moveset is detailed alongside the moves. You can damage the golem as well, in case you want to smash it back into it's original components.
There are two notable interactions that Lizard has with the golems though. For one, using Up Tilt gives them the ability to freely fly through the air, which will change how they fight slightly, but obviously serves as a pretty big boon to them. Second of all, the golems have their own attacks... which means that Lizard can copy them for himself, just like a player. Or disable the AI from using certain attacks, as you can counterspell it performing an attack to make sure it does not perform that action for the remainder of it's existence.
[COLLAPSE="Golem Moveset"]In general, Golems will not go after foes aside from throwing their projectile unless they are within 2/3rds of a battlefield platform of them. Once the foe comes that close, the Golem will march towards them at Ganondorf's dash speed and attempt to clobber them. On another note, all these damage values are for a Golem that is halfway between minimum and maximum size. Half them for a minimum size golem, make it 1.5x as much for a max size Golem. Range is also improved on larger Golems and worse on smaller ones.
Neutral Special: The Golem takes out a boulder the size of Kirby and rolls it forwards at Mario's dash speed. The boulder deals 12% and knockback that KOs at 160% on contact. It will also pick up speed on a downwards slope and slow down on upwards slopes. The faster the boulder is going, the more powerful it becomes, so if you take some time to build a big slope(you'll see how in a bit) this can become a powerful KO move. When it loses all it's momentum, hits a wall, or an opponent, the boulder will disappear. Golems will use this on foes directly in front of them or down a slope from them if they are more than a battlefield platform away. This has a fair bit of lag on both ends.
Down Special: The Golem pounds the ground in front of it, dealing 15% and upwards knockback that KOs at 125%. It leaves behind an earthshaking hitbox for the next 3 seconds that deals 8% and set average upwards knockback. This is moderately laggy. The earthshaking hitbox causes rocks to fly up in the air as long as they are on top of it, dealing 3% and flinching.
Forward Smash: The Golem rears back and performs a huge punch, dealing 20%-26% and horizontal knockback that KOs at 95%-55%. Ducking low can easily avoid this attack, and it is very laggy. Golems prefer to only use this when the foe is somehow preoccupied.
Up Smash: The Golem lunges upwards and performs an uppercut, dealing 15%-20% and upwards knockback that KOs at 150%-100%. This is less laggy than the Forward Smash and has more range, and the Golem's go to move for beating out aerial foes.
Down Smash: The Golem spins it's arms low to the floor, dealing mass rapid hits that add up to 17%-23%, and the final hit deals knockback that KOs at 145%-90%. This is a fair bit faster than the Forward Smash and the Golem's go to melee move. [/COLLAPSE]
Up Smash
Upon inputting this move, a small blue dot appears in front of Lizard, which can be directed freely at a fairly fast speed. The dot does nothing on it's own, but near rocks, one rock will fly to where the dot is every .1 seconds. If two rocks are pulled together, they'll form a small slope the height of Kirby, and three will form a solid block the size of Kirby. A single rock just forms into a point, which serves as a Brawl spike. These slopes and blocks will stick together too, and allow you to create basically freeform structures out of your rocks. You can control this for a total of 1-3.5 seconds, depending on charge, and can cancel out at any point in the attack. It helps that the rocks in this serve as their usual 3% and flinching hitbox, providing some necessary defense.
If the rock structure is made in the air, it will fall to the ground, dealing 3% for each rock put into it, as well as proportional upwards knockback. Structures have half as much health as the total stamina of all rocks put into them, and after they crumble you are given back half the rocks you put in. Using Up Tilt on this will actually cause the structure to float up into the air the same as the rocks do. There's a ton of stuff you can do with all this, such as setting up all sorts of ideal angles and positions to use the foe's attacks from. And of course, build a cage around the foe and some golems to create a cage match with the foe... potentially a spiky, hellish cage match if you're really clever. Aside from that, you can use this as something to intercept your knockback on that situation that you actually do get hit to prevent your death, or just something to roll the golem's boulders with. And obviously, your forward tilt projectiles will bounce off this just fine.
Down Smash
In yet another move that has Lizard cast copied spells from the opponent, Lizard prepares to cast, though this time with significant lag. Is he preparing a big spell? As it turns out yes, as you have to input more than one attack for him to execute. Depending on charge, you can input 2-5 attacks for this. Upon release, Lizard will fire off all of the chosen attacks at once, them overlapping each other and probably trapping the foe in multiple hits if they manage to get hit by all of them. Obviously extremely powerful, but at the same time the fact that it has a large amount of lag before the attacks even start going off makes it pretty hard to perform. Still, with all your set-up stuff, it's perfectly possible to land a string of attacks into a death blow on the foe with this move, and again, if your hiding they can't see it coming.
Aerials
Neutral Aerial
Lizard performs his Jab, except in the air. It's a pretty critical move for Lizard, denying him access to it in the air would be painful, no?
Forward Aerial
Lizard puts both his front limbs forwards and a blast of air shoots out, which can be angled up or down. This blast of air is a fairly strong wind hitbox, and in conjunction with your Up Special makes Lizard into a very functional gimper. It shouldn't surprise you, aside from that, that this move shoves around your floating objects. IE, if you have a floating structure, it will move it in the direction the wind hitbox pushes 1/3 a battlefield platform, rocks and golems flying 2/3 of a platform. Considering otherwise they just float up a default small amount, this move exists to allow you to choose their positions a bit more freely.
Back Aerial
Lizard spins his body around rapidly in mid air before launching himself backwards and slightly downwards a battlefield platform, dealing foes he comes into contact with 13% and diagonally upwards knockback that KOs at 150%. If Lizard comes into contact with some sort of surface with this he will bounce off. Obviously this move will help Lizard gimp in conjunction with his free flight, and it's fairly fast... just keep in mind your weight when trying to utilize this. Still, it's necessary for Lizard to have attacks to fight off the foe with that actually deal damage and knockback no? Sometimes counterspell won't cut it.
Up Aerial
Lizard raises his hand above his head and creates a sphere of wind, which repulses any foes who come near at half Ganondorf's dash speed for it's 3 seconds of existance. Obviously, it's useful protection for Lizard in the air, and Lizard really likes protection. It's unfortunately too large to be obscured by stones though, being slightly larger than Kirby. The main purpose of this move, however, is if you launch a foe into it with any sort of knockback, they'll get blasted away with double as much knockback. You can only have one of these out at a time, and as such the best way to capitalize on it is probably utilizing the wider range of knockback angles provided by stealing the foe's attacks.
Down Aerial
Lizard flicks it's tail downwards, causing all foes within a stage builder block sized area around Lizard to be weakly spiked with 8%. This also disables any floatation effects from the Up Tilt, allowing you to drop rocks back down to the ground. The lag on this is moderate, and it's useful when you want to drop all your aerial stuff objects back down to the ground.
Grab Game
Grab
Lizard holds out one claw and levitates whatever is directly in front of him up, whether it be foe, structure, a bunch of stones, or a golem. All of these things can be pummeled and thrown as a normal character. You'll pick up approximately a battlefield platform width worth of rocks with this. The range on this grab is quite excellent, reaching as far as some tether grabs, but has some pretty annoying start-up lag to compensate. Note that the grab will indeed prioritize foes, then golems, structures, and finally stones.
Pummel
Lizard draws in the nearest possible rocks into the grab as well, more with each tap of pummel. What could he be doing with the rocks? Well you'll see when it comes time to throw...
Forward Throw
Lizard hisses as anything made of rock he currently has grabbed explodes, bursting out into flames. Or rather, all the rocks you have in your grasp become fire traps, golems become fire golems, and structures become bonfires in the shape of the structure but 1.5x as large. The fire traps deal mass hits of 1% and are slightly bigger than the rocks that became them. Fire traps can be manipulated in the same way as rocks by making them float in the air with the Up Tilt, blowing them around with Fair, turning them into fire golems with Forward Smash, and creating bonfires out of them with Up Smash. These are more direct threats than your rocks, but die out after 8 seconds and lack the stealth providing capabilities of your rocks. They can also be dispersed by dealing a total of 5% to them. Foes are automatically caught in any of these you make once you use this throw, making it a perfectly good throw for damage.
Bonfires are basically giant fires in the shape of the original structure that foes must DI out of, dealing damage more rapidly than the smaller fires. There's not much more too them than that, they disperse after 12 seconds or when half as much damage as the amount required to disperse the total fires composing it is dealt. As a note with Up Smash, with anything you transmute you pull in the closest object, and then all objects of the same type.
Fire Golems actually have an entirely different moveset from your Rock Golems, as well as 1/3rd the stamina of all flames used to compose them. They move a fair bit faster than rock golems, given their less weighty status. Unlike Rock Golems, they don't leave flames behind when destroyed. They are also extremely aggressive and will actively pursue foes regardless of where they are.
[COLLAPSE="Fire Golem Moveset"]Likewise with your Rock Golems, the values are based off a midsized Fire Golem. A max sized Fire Golem has 1.5x the power, a minimum sized Fire Golem has half of it. Range is better on a larger Fire Golem and worse on a smaller one.
Neutral Special: The Fire Golem launches a fireball in an upwards arc, dealing 10% and upwards knockback that KOs at 200%. On contact with the ground, this turns into a fire trap identical to the ones made when you turn a rock into one. Fire Golem will use this attack as it's chasing down foes, and oftentimes shoot fireballs directly in front of where they are running in order to cut off their route of escape. It's also a much faster projectile than the boulders produced by the Rock Golems.
Down Special: The Fire Golem breaths a stream of fire at the ground, dealing damage at the same rate of Bowser's fire breath with similar range. It also diminishes at the same rate After 2/3rds of a second it will turn the ground below it into Brawl lava for 7 seconds. Fire Golems tend to use this at close range, and will attempt to pressure foes towards a lava pool.
Forward Smash: The Fire Golem turns it's arm into a flaming whip and lashes it forwards, dealing 11%-15% and knockback that KOs at 195%-150%. This has the same range as ZSS' FSmash, and is a bit faster on top of that. The Fire Golem's go too offensive move when in range.
Up Smash: The Fire Golem raises both it's arms up and both burst into a much larger and more violent flame covering it's head. Deals 20%-27% and upwards knockback that KOs at 100%-50%. This is an extremely slow move, but it actually will linger a bit past the initial hitbox in a similar manner to Mr. Game and Watch's Forward Smash. Aside from that the range is pretty nice too.
Down Smash: The Fire Golem collapses into what appears to be a large fire and almost "rolls" forwards, dealing mass flinching hits of 1% that add up to 14%-19% and dragging the foe along for the ride. It will generally use this move to push the foe into lava pits, and on that note it's a pretty fast attack. [/COLLAPSE]
Back Throw
Lizard breaks open the rocks/structures/golems again, this time resulting in the creation of water! Structures and rocks both just form into regular water which will wash off the stage at a fairly fast rate, dragging anything in it's path along with it. Rocks(which deal damage as they are dragged along), foes, golems, you name it. This will deal massive rapid damage to anything made out of fire you have, so this could be very detrimental to your fire based set-ups if used improperly. It does get the foe out of your face nicely even with just a few rocks, and with a large number this can occasionally even make for a good gimping aid with some rocks/golems getting dragged along and your aerial game.
Water will prioritize flowing down slopes if possible(and flows down them with more force at that), and will stop at walls/structures, creating an area of Brawl water if it's sandwiched between two structures or at the bottom of two slopes. How much water depends on how much rock went into this, but you can obviously use this to drown opponents with the right set-up. Maybe flame traps floating above it, or better yet dropping a structure on top of the water, trapping the foe down there to drown. If whatever is holding the water is destroyed it will all come rushing out, obviously.
Water Golems have 5 stamina for each rock worth of water going into them, making them by far the sturdiest type of Golem. They are also the slowest Golem type, and instead of going after foes they will stick around and defend Lizard to the best of their ability. They also travel along the surface of water as though it were solid ground. Water Golems on the surface can be bad news for a foe trying not to drown.
[COLLAPSE="Water Golem Moveset"]As usual, these values are for medium sized Water Golems. Max sized are 1.5x as powerful, minimum are half as powerful, range also changes based on size, you get the idea.
Neutral Special: In a move functionally identical to FLUDD, the Water Golem produces a jet of water, propelling foes away with the same strength as the FLUDD. This version can fortunately be angled in any direction, but takes 1.2x as long to charge. Water Golems tend to use this as their main line of defense against an approaching foe.
Down Special: The Water Golem will attempt to surround and envelop the foe. If successful, the foe must escape with 1.5x Grab Difficulty while taking 3% per second. This is a fairly close range move, and if it is successful it's a nice disabler while Lizard does some more set-up.
Forward Smash: The Water Golem it's front forwards and becomes almost an arch of water, flowing forwards towards the front. This drags foes along with it until they are smashes against the ground in front of it, dealing them mass flinching hits of 1%. This lasts for a total of 1-3 seconds, and during the duration it can provide amazing cover for Lizard if he hides where under the arch, or just capture a foe in there.
Up Smash: The Water Golem rears stretches upwards to twice it's height, and deals 1% and mass flinching hits while in this position, which it holds for 1-3 seconds again. This can function as a pretty nice wall, and it will generally use this against foes approaching aerially.
Down Smash: The Water Golem smashes the entirety of it's mass into the ground in front of it, dealing 22%-30% and diagonal knockback that KOs at 80%-40%. This has huge range, but a lot of start up lag and RIDICULOUS end lag as the Water Golem pulls itself back together. Still, this is the best KO move within the confines of Lizard's own moveset. The Water Golem will use this if the foe is pinned down in some way, like with the Rock Golem's Forward Smash.[/COLLAPSE]
Up Throw
The rocks, golems, and structures you have grabbed break apart to reveal what appear to be purple gemstones. This will unfortunately disassemble any Golems and Structures you have, unlike the other 2 throws, but you get out as much as you put in. As the gemstones fall to the ground they deal mass hits of 5% and weak knockback, being more powerful on contact that the rocks despite being half the size. Obviously, this is handy in conjunction with moves that turn the rocks into hitboxes again. They have 10% stamina each.
The real benefit to gems though, is they actually amplify magical power, or in this case, Lizard's abilities. His attacks all get buffed damage and knockback based on how many crystals are nearby. This has other benefits too, such as decreasing the recharge times on Up Special and Side Special, raising the number of attacks you can put into a Down Smash, and for every 10 gemstones he shoots an additional Magic Missile at a higher angle in the Forward Tilt, plus is able to disable an additional move with the Jab/Nair. Obviously a great perk, but at a cost you lose the stealth that the stones provide, as gems are not big enough to hide behind. It's a risk-reward scenario in which ones you want around you.
The Up Smash, when used with gems, does not create structures. Rather, what you build with the Up Smash is a battering item, similar to a Beam Sword. The weapon's range depends on how long you make it, with more powerful points being where you put a larger number of gems. Being able to make customizable weapons is pretty nice, and you can give these to your golems by throwing them at them, and they'll use them as battering items. You can even copy the battering swings to use for yourself! Oh, and yes, like the stones in their raw form, this provides buffs, as much as the stones that went into the weapon would. Just don't let these awesome custom weapons you make fall into the foe's hands.
Gemstone Golems can be made in the same manner as Stone Golems, and unfortunately require twice as many gemstones as a Stone Golem does stones. It has the usual 1/3rd as much stamina as the combined amount of gems, and drops the remaining 2/3rds worth when destroyed. As a payoff for the increased amount of work required, the Gemstone Golems still provide the buff, and have massively buffed attack speed from the Stone Golems. A large Gemstone Golem is a positively terrifying foe, and it has fast battering item swings with the same power as usual, so it's pretty insane if you give it a good bludgeon too.
The other difference between a Gemstone Golem and the typical ones is that it fires a different projectile. Instead it shoots a laser from it's stomach that deals 10% and stuns the foe for half a second, with average lag on each end. It also has infinite range, goes through walls, and if it hits another Golem it gives it an additional 10 stamina.
Down Throw
Lizard tosses the foe towards the ground with his magic, them bouncing off and launching away with 13% and knockback that KOs at 140%. It's very powerful by throw standards, and doesn't end the grab if you have stones grabbed as well. Get the foe out of your face, then transmute, if that's your preference.
Final Smash
Lizard ducks into the background as suddenly the HYPERORB comes crashing down onto the stage. The Hyperorb is a 3 million year old sentient sphere of tungsten, a ridiculously durable and heat resistant metal that is seriously a competitor in the contest mentioned at the beginning. He is the size of Giga Bowser and will roll his mass around, crushing everything in his path. If he hits a foe, they are dealt 50% and spiked through the stage with 4.5x the strength of Ganondorf's Dair. He will roll around and try to crush people for 10 seconds before disappearing.[/COLLAPSE]
Updated on 10/10/12:
-Jab now only disables for 8 seconds, so as to make him fair for MYM characters to fight
-Down Special/Neutral Special, Down Tilt/Down Smash, and Jab/Nair have all been compressed to one input
-FTilt moved to Jab
-New FTilt, DTilt, and Nair
-Minor tweaks to grab game involving Magic Missiles
Updated on 11/1/12:
-The Gemstone Golem's laser only stuns half a second. You're welcome Froy.
Updated on 12/5/15:
-I don't care if its three years later I am not trapping anyone in an infinite duration stun, the way the water is now changed to just kill people after they drown, they don't need to fall off a blast zone.
[collapse="Lizard"]This is a surprisingly good set with depth and details to it for the timeframe in which it was made (which showed with the writing). Copying an attack from the foe and -customizing its properties- sounds fascinating to imagine, and I give you props for having a way to force foes to attack in order to find you through rock chunks you've made. Making golems whose attacks you can copy only makes this better, and while foes will have to use their D-tilts to kill tiny lizard they'll have to use other attacks to kill the golems which you can observe and copy. It's hard for me not to like this set nor find something to complain about, aside from the fact that the copied attacks don't seem to lead into that much on their own and Lizard already has his fair share of kill methods, so for the most part it's mostly flashy stuff. Had this set been a bigger endeavor perhaps there could have been more open-ended ways to create the rubble which Lizard so desperately needs, as just creating it through an explosion you can only use every 3 seconds comes off as being a bit awkward, especially when you need to be on the ground where foes can kill you easily. Don't mind me however, this is much better stuff than H.N Elly for me as much as I sort of hate to say. [/collapse]
There’s quite a bit of cool stuff here, so much so that I had to remind myself of his insanely low weight every now and then so that I didn’t think he was overpowered. I thought the Keroro Platoon was bad weight-wise! But the copying of foe’s attacks, hiding under rubble, darting back and forth with the dash attack teleport, disabling some of the foe’s attacks (maybe even disabling an attack you don’t want to copy in an attempt to make the foe use one you do), and the making of golems: all of that is really good, although I can’t help but wonder why there were no Air Golems. :D The golems are my favorite part, giving him some necessary killing power and just being a cool way to implement minions, not to mention the ability to modify them via the grab. Not to mention the Forward Tilt, which was just plain amusing. “I wanna use Magic Missile!”
That said, there are a few weaknesses here (most likely as a result of the one-day-ness of the set). For one thing, the Down Special was a little confusing for a while, until I figured out that Neutral Special was the actual copying of the move and the Down Special was what you pushed to perform the copied move. There’s also Kat’s comment about the difficulty in getting rubble (although I suppose if you need to, you can just perform it early to get a single rock, but that means the foe know exactly where you are).
In spite of those shortcomings, however, this is a fun, creative set with more packed into it than I expect from most one-day sets. Good work!
Thanks for any help you can offer
