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Make Your Move 21: The Moveset Design Contest | Top Fifty Is Up! Next Contest Approaches...

Munomario777

Smash Master
Joined
Nov 18, 2014
Messages
3,253
Location
Charleston, South Carolina
3DS FC
0387-9596-4480
Switch FC
SW-8229-3157-8114
I've made some Rex edits:
- Mythra's method of gaining Affinity reworked
- Mythra's EX Down B retooled
- Mythra's Side B writeup tweaked
- Pyra's Side B is now an entirely different move: Flame Rush
- After an uncharged Smash Attack, the Blade teleports back to where she was before
- X!Topple no longer is a true combo into Jab 1 (or any other option), so it's necessary to tech-chase and punish the opponent's getup option out of trip

In response to the other points in the comment (many of which I posted in chat before, but I'll also include here):

re: sword moves canceling Neutral B, of note is that after you use the sword move, the Blade herself still stays at that spot, unless you're in a state where she'd automatically follow you. If you want her to stay in that spot and have the sword in hand for Luma-style follow-ups, then the following attacks are still available:

- Down Tilt (key spacing move)
- Jab 1 (quickest get-off-me tool)
- Dash Attack (main burst option)
- Grab (ranged anti-shield)
-- Back Throw (spacer, situationally kills)
-- Forward Throw (spacer, situationally combos)
- Zair (ranged combo starter)
- First part of Up Air (isn't explicitly mentioned; platform pressure + falling mixups)
- Down Air (premiere combo starter)

So you still have plenty of your key moves available, and should be able to space, start combos, etc just fine, as long as you know which attacks to use. Thematically, it makes sense that your options would be somewhat limited by throwing your sword, and mechanically, having a more durable version of Luma onscreen should have some tradeoff.

re: grabs consuming inactive Blade's Affinity, as I also mentioned in chat, you can press B during the grab to swap the two Blades' Affinity.

re: Affinity being awkward to maintain (with Pyra specifically), the 1/2 FD range plus ability to reposition her with Neutral B means you should be able to keep Affinity up if you know generally what you're doing.

re: back hits, this depends a good bit on how common back hits will be, which is hard to judge given they've been reworked in SSBU. I did however make a tweak to X!Topple as mentioned above, so it's no longer functionally a full-on stun.

re: rewarding good play, I'd say that "good play" with Rex isn't fundamentally different from how it is with any other character, aside from Affinity of course being a good thing. I definitely agree that Mythra's original Affinity system wasn't helpful to this mentality, which I hope I've fixed a little bit with the edits.

re: being unintuitive, I don't have a very specific reply, but I wanted to touch on one goal I had with this set. So IMO the coolest part of Shulk's set is how he has downsides as a character, but also lots of advanced techniques that you can use to overcome them. He has lots of landing lag, but MALLC lets you cancel it. He lacks options out of a run, but MARC lets you cancel your run with an Art activation to use any attack out of a run. He doesn't have kill confirms, but buffered Art deactivation lets you use Monado Purge as a kill confirm.

The problem with Shulk's techniques is that they're too obscure and unintuitive, because they weren't actually intended to begin with. So with Rex's set, I wanted to do something kinda similar, but with mechanics that have the benefit of being intentionally designed. Rex normally can't autocancel moves like Forward Air and Back Air, but he can with Mythra's jump boost. He normally lacks solid get-off-me tools, but could use a Side B to interrupt an opponent's combo similarly to Pikachu using Thunder. Normally swapping Blades causes the old Blade to lack Affinity next time you swap back to her, but if you swap back before that six-second timer ends, you'll still have full Affinity. Stuff like that I found pretty fun to make, because it's almost like you're exploiting the moveset to do something really powerful.

</rambling>
 
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Munomario777

Smash Master
Joined
Nov 18, 2014
Messages
3,253
Location
Charleston, South Carolina
3DS FC
0387-9596-4480
Switch FC
SW-8229-3157-8114
ANNOUNCEMENT: MYM has an official subreddit now! Check out r/MakeYourMove if you like MYM, Reddit, and the combination of those two things. It's pretty handy for stuff like open discussions, posting links to sets to receive direct feedback, and other stuff.
 
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Professor Lexicovermis

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Oct 27, 2015
Messages
273
Location
Pop Star
Megaman. It's a series that's been running since 1987, and is arguably one of the most prestigious platformers in videogame history. After a lengthy hiatus, Capcom did the unexpected and announced Megaman 11 to celebrate the Blue Bomber's 30th birthday. This is of course after his appearance in Smash 4, as well as the announcement of the Megaman X Legacy Collections. Things are really looking up for the Blue Bomber in 2018...!

Now, in honor of Megaman's big 3-Oh, we'd like to issue a challenge...


MAKE A GOOD MEGAMAN SET!​


The name of this new sub-contest is pretty self-explanatory; all you have to do to enter is make a set for a Megaman character! It could be the man himself, one of his friends, one of the series' myriad Robot Masters... heck, it could even be someone from the X, Zero, ZX, or Battle Network series! Sets should follow the same guidelines as a standard MYM set, including the requisite inputs and such. Check the OP for those details! That said, there are a few differences you should be aware of...


MEET THE JUDGES​



PROFESSOR LEXICOVERMIS


SMASH DADDY


[Finalizing judge icon, please wait!]
FORWARDARROW


BIONICHUTE


Each set will be judged on a scale of 1/10 by three judges, leading to a maximum score of 30 if you absolutely blow us all away. Our friend Bionichute is the auxiliary judge, and he'll be filling in to judge sets made by one of the main three judges.


CHALLENGES​


Now, with your bog-standard set, you can get a maximum of 30 points... but it's possible to earn more by completing one or more challenges with your set! Each Challenge is worth a different amount of points depending on its relative difficulty.


Doctor Wily Challenge - Create a set for a Robot Master of your own design; must be YOUR design!
-Difficulty Bonus - 2 Points


Yellow Devil Challenge - Create a set for a non-Wily Machine, non-RM boss from a canon Megaman game. Must be from the Classic series! Examples include Yellow Devil, Bass, Duo, Mech Dragon, King...
-Difficulty Bonus - 5 Points


Doctor Light Challenge - Create a set for Protoman... using none of the same RM weapons as Megaman's canon Smash set! Proto Buster is allowed!
-Difficulty Bonus - 7 Points


Yokuman Challenge - Create a set for a Robot Master from a fan-made Megaman game!
-Difficulty Bonus - 3 Points


Wily Egg Challenge - Create a set for one of the Roboticized Masters seen in the Megaman and Sonic crossover comics.
-Difficulty Bonus - 6 Points


Doctor Hikari Challenge - Make a set for a Netnavi version of a Robot Master without one.
-Difficulty Bonus - 5 Points


Patchouli Knowledge Challenge - Create a set specifically for a boss from a Megaman-styled game set in a non-Megaman universe (E.G. Megamari, Nezumiman, Rozenkreustillete).
-Difficulty Bonus - 8 Points


Double Gear Challenge - Create a set for two (or more?) RMs as a tag-team.
-Difficulty Bonus - 7 Points


Sigma Virus Challenge - Update a Robot Master of your choice into a Maverick befitting the X series, and give them a set!
-Difficulty Bonus - 6 Points


Model a Challenge - Take a Maverick and create a Robot Master based upon them!
-Difficulty Bonus - 6 Points


Copybot Challenge - Create a Robot Master for a NetNavi with no Classic series counterpart!
-Difficulty Bonus - 7 Points


Data Disc Challenge - Create a Robot Master set using mechanics provided by FrozenRoy!
-Difficulty Bonus - 5 Points


Weapon Archive Challenge - Create a set for Megaman (or any protagonist character) using ONLY the RM weapons provided in a single MM Classic game!
-Difficulty Bonus - 10 Points


Sniper Joe Challenge - Make a set for a standard enemy from the Megaman Classic series!
-Difficulty Bonus - 10 Points


Robot Museum Challenge - Choose a set from the previous MYM, convert the character to a Robot Master, and create a set for them!
Difficulty Bonus - 8 Points


Pursuing a Challenge is perfectly optional; we just want to see you make a good set, challenge or no! That said, if you want that edge in points... there's 15 options at your disposal. If you're entering a set that meets a Challenge's prerequisites, feel free to insert the appropriate banner image at the bottom or top of your set!

Want some bonus points but don't wanna take up a challenge? No problem! Just make a set for someone on this list for a cool 2 Point bonus!

MAGMMS will be running until the end of MYM21 itself, the deadline of which is currently not set in stone. Check back here for updates!
 
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Cetus

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Jul 5, 2018
Messages
190
Made a few adjustments to my Oceana set. Changed or spruced up the following moves...
-Gave all her tilts and jab disjointed hitboxes.
-Down Tilt changed.
-Dash Attack changed.
-Up Special now has three possible inputs.
-Side Special changed up slightly.

Gimme some criticisms and help me improve this set plz and I guarantee you'll win my love, affection, and unkeepable promises.
 

Slavic

Ask not the sparrow how the eagle soars
Joined
Jun 5, 2013
Messages
757
Location
taco bell, probablyn't
Cetus Cetus it's great to see more and more fresh faces to MYM so thank you for joining us!! Oceana is a set that interests me quite a bit since I've tried and failed to make a Pokemon Snap set for the past few years I've been here. There's some very general criticism you'll receive about moves being short / underdeveloped, but that (((usually))) goes away with time. No one expects your first set to be your best set (I hope). I don't know much about Endless Ocean personally but I do like the transition of her character into Smash, and she very much feels like how WFT represents Wii Fit in her set. Oceana has more game sense than any of my early sets had, so you at least have a head start there. Moving forward, some useful information to take in is to expand each of your moves. You can think about aspects of the moves like sweet-and-sour spots, how the moves interact with other moves within the set, or any lingering effects the move might have on yourself or the foe. The weakest part of the set is the grab game in terms of content, and you could do a lot of fun stuff with the throws given the grab is essentially a mini-Master Hand. The one thing that worries the most about this set is the Neutral Special, because easy to land second-and-a-half stun projectiles are pretty powerful. It also seems like a gratuitous length for Oceana, because a good number of her moves are described as pretty fast. Oceana could keep the move with a shorter stun period and would probably be able to capitalize on it still. I would also make the Down Special based on a charge time rather than a sequence of item pulls, and the items could be expanded in terms of what they do as well. For instance, given how many of Oceana's moves are fish, perhaps she could store an attack in the treasure chest, able to pop a fish attack out of it once its thrown. The issue with that is she doesn't have any standard fish attacks, so it's not a perfect idea, but would give her something to play around with. Like I said, the focus at this stage should be developing moves more, with the hardest areas for that being the grab game and aerials. Hope this comment helped you develop Oceana and your future sets!
 

Bionichute

Smash Champion
Joined
Jun 30, 2012
Messages
2,151
YOU GOT THE POWER
(HA HA HA HA)
YOU GOT THE MIGHT
(NO WAY!)
GET READY FOR BATTLE
(GIVE ME YOUR MONEY)

BEAT THE BLACK KNIGHT


The Black Knight is the mascot for the 1989 Williams Electronics pinball games Black Knight and Black Knight 2000. He acts as an antagonist that looms over the player as they attempt to defeat him by getting the highest score possible. Not much is known about him, but at some point, between the two games, he somehow gained advanced technological resources, including a dual-sided lightning lance, a decade before that Maul guy showed up. This set uses his design from the art of Black Knight 2000 and is more specifically based around the mechanics from that game.

If you feel like you've heard about this before, then you might remember the game's incredible soundtrack, which has been referenced many places over the internet.

(HA HA HA HA)

Stats
Weight – 107
Walk Speed - 1.19
Run Speed - 1.5
Air Speed - 0.88
Fall Speed - 1.65
The Black Knight is similar to Ike and Link stat-wise, behaving as a mix of them with several aspects. He's a heavyweight with decent land speed and some pretty terrible aerial mobility. In essence, he's a standard armored character with slightly better ground speed than you would expect. The Black Knight is also very tall, around as tall as Ganondorf, if not a bit taller thanks to the feather in his helmet poking up slightly farther. This isn't a part of his hurtbox, so he's functionally slightly shorter than the lord of evil. He stands as wide as Ike does, a bit further if his flowing cape is counted, but this also isn't part of his hurtbox. His jumps are mediocre, befitting his stats. The Black Knight also has a shield, not shown in the image above. Its actually shaped like the above image, actually, though with the game's title, the Blacck Knight Himself, and those two bits on the left and right removed. This shield protects him from projectiles, much like Link's shield, but this actually plays into his playstyle fairly well. We'll be getting to that later.

Specials
Neutral Special - Electro-Ball Launch
The Black Knight juts its lightning lance forwards, firing out a ball of electricity out of it. This opening part acts as a hitbox that directly combos into the electro-ball projectile, which is actively something you'll not want to do, but we should cover it anyway. The thrust is fast and reaches out decently far (The lance has a significant size increase from how its shown on the artwork, more resembling the size of an actual lance), but only deals 2% damage with almost no knockback, which is what lets it combo into the Electro-Ball. Without the Electro-Ball, the move would be unsafe on hit, and even then, the hitbox ends slightly before the ball itself comes out. This is blatantly something you should never use unless you're incredibly desperate.

The Electro-Ball is the main star of this move. On launch, the ball will fly out at some pretty shockingly fast speeds. Its actually one of the fastest projectiles in the game, comparable to the speed of a fully charged Super Scope shot. It also has a pretty massive range of around a full Final Destination, and is fairly large by itself, around the size of a mid-charged Charge Shot. All these aspects make this an incredibly powerful projectile... except for its actual damage. It only deals 3%, with weak knockback that basically only JUST makes the opening hitbox safe. Obviously, this kind of thing is insanely good to have on you... but the Black Knight is also hampered by only being able to have 3 of them out at once, limiting how spammable it is.

This is still the Black Knight's signature attack, which means its still very important to everything else in the set. See, the Electro-Ball has a property to it that acts as potentially both a help and a hindrance. This property is that it cannot deal shield damage and will instead bounce off and continue on. This also applies to walls and the ground, but shields are the most important part right now. No shield damage on a projectile, or on most moves, may seem like an issue, but this is where the real might of the Black Knight comes in. With every bounce, whether it be against a shield, wall, or the ground, the Electro-Ball will gain 1% more damage to its total damage, capping out at 15 bounces with 18% damage. Knockback increases too, with the move at maximum being able to kill at 60%. This is shown by the electricity of the ball growing more and more intense, though its actual size does not change. Also, after each bounce, the Electro-Ball's range will reset.

The way the Electro-Ball will bounce is generally in a realistic way - radial on shields, angular on walls and the ground. However, there is one exception to this rule, that being the Black Knight himself. Or more specifically, his shield. And not his orb shield, his shield shield. If the Electro-Ball hits his shield in any way, it will instantly bounce off straight from the Black Knight, ignoring any angles it had come in on. This turns it into an incredibly controllable projectile, especially when it's fully charged. This only works on the Black Knight's shield, with Link's shield having more realistic bounce. Also, though this might be obvious, by the Electro-Ball cannot deal damage to the Knight. But all this raises another issue. How exactly is the Black Knight supposed to use this to his advantage?

Obviously the opponent won't just shield against the ball and give you free bounces (Though in some cases that is a good counter-play), and Black Knight is slow enough that there's zero chance he'll pass the ball after he fires it. Well, there is a lot more to it, but on a base level, there's enough for the Black Knight to take advantage of. This will generally pressure opponents, and in a lot of cases it turns into whether or not to shield the ball. Shielding it can lead to Black Knight doing more with it and protecting the opponent in the short term, but is the 3% really worth it in the long run? If the opponent is adamant on blocking, then this can lead to some funny tennis matches!

Down Special - Double Knights
Crackling with electricity, the Black Knight creates two energy clones from his body, both slowly phasing out of his body on both sides, roughly a half Battlefield Platform away from him. The clones are rendered in an eye-searingly 80's neon red and resemble wireframes. The only exception to this is their shields, which are FULL neon yellow, contrastingly. This opening part is a hitbox, though it requires opponents to practically be touching the Black Knight to activate. On hit, it will deal 5% damage, which launches opponents back just enough to make this safe. This is a relatively slow attack, taking 3/4ths of a second to fully pull off, but has very little ending lag. Once pulled off, this proves to be one of Black Knight's most useful techniques.

The two clones are functionally identical to the Black Knight in every way - they even exactly mirror his movements as he walks around and are even immune to gravity if the real Knight is standing next to an edge. They aren't solid, however, and opponents can jump through them to prevent very easy ledge hogging. They have shields as well, which act like normal, minus them bouncing the ball off in a straight line. The only thing these clones won't do is shield and attack.

And that's shielding as in the orb shield. They can definitely shield the Black Knight from hits, as they have a rather mediocre 30% HP. It isn't much, but its enough for what they have to do. So, if these clones don't attack, what exactly is their purpose? Well, Black Knight can give them purpose by inputting Down Special again. On input, the Black Knight will let out a laugh, and then shout out "HERE!" in his classic gravelly voice. This doesn't do anything at the moment, but it is an indicator of whats to come. That only happens when Black Knight doesn't input anything, you see.

By inputting left or right during the laughing animation, Black Knight can direct the clones into doing something. The animation depends on which way he is facing, but forward will have him point his lance forward, while backwards will have him point his shield out behind him as he turns around slightly. In both instances, he will shout "GO!". At this command, the clone knight chosen via the direction will dash forwards... and then duck down, shield pointing out. Hm. They will specifically run around a Battlefield Platform away from where they were, and if they were floating in midair, instantly be affected by gravity. They aren't a hitbox during this, so no easy off-stage screwing.

There are a few more extra controls to this. By inputting up, down, or the opposite direction that was originally inputted, they can perform a few things. First, holding the opposite direction will simply have the knight turn around once it reaches its destination. Up and down, however, will cause the knights to aim their shields diagonally up or down, the inputs for which one should be obvious. With one of the knights gone, the other will continue to follow the Black Knight until he is sent off. For more precise placement, this attack can be used in the air, causing the knight to instead drop down and duck rather than run forward. The running is still useful, as they can act as projectile walls. A basic input, with a knight away from Black Knight, will cause the clone to vanish and then appear in its original position, in case you need to fix any positioning errors. They will still retain any damage taken.

So, what does this positioning even matter? It matters a whole lot, but only when there's an Electro-Ball in the field. If a ball hits one of the clone knights, it will be absorbed into them, and then shot out in the direction their shield is facing! This counts as an additional bounce as well, making it especially good for firing an Electro-Ball directly into! This allows for far more advanced uses of the Electro-Ball, especially combined with more aspects of the set that we'll get to eventually. As an example, with what we have so far, and opponent could shield bounce a ball, launch it into one clone, who fires it out to the next clone, who fires it towards the real Black Knight, who uses his shield to fire it directly back at the opponent. Pretty impressive stuff, huh?

The main difficulty with the mechanic is the clone's low HP, and potential disruptions that the opponent could cause to carefully thought out setups. Though its very easy to improvise something in the case of those disruptions.


Up Special - Magna-Save
The Black Knight pulls his limbs inward, much like that one Ganondorf taunt, as red electricity starts to surround him. He then thrusts his limbs out, again, like that taunt, as he lets out a deep evil laugh. As he laughs, the Knight will start to float upwards. This is acts as a decent recovery, as it takes the Black Knight upwards about two Ganondorfs at a relatively decent speed. This is still slow compared to a lot of other recoveries, however. The Black Knight is also capable of moving to the left and right at his walk speed, allowing for more precise movements. Activating this in the air halts all of the Knight's momentum. The attack has some particularly bad end lag, where the Knight remains in his limbs out pose as electricity surrounds him for a few frames, which we'll get to in a moment.

The electricity surrounding the Black Knight acts as a small hitbox, being only slightly larger than the Down Special's, but it does have a weak suction effect on it. If an opponent is sucked in, they will be dealt 10% damage over the course of the move, until they're sent flying at the very end. This is decently strong knockback, but is unfortunately radial, meaning that when it ends the opponent will be flung in the direction they were sucked in. This is still strong, KOing at 110%, but this also makes it much harder to KO off the top blast zone, though it definitely is still possible to do. During the end lag, the hitbox is deactivated, and the Black Knight is fully capable of being hit.

Like the last two moves, this has a lot of interplay with the Electro-Balls. This bit of interaction specifically happens once the Knight enters his endlag. While the suction effect is weak on opponents, its far stronger on any Electro-Balls that might happen to be on stage when used. No matter where they are, the projectiles will be sucked towards the Black Knight, ignoring their range limit while still acting as hitboxes. The balls will head directly for the Black Knight, no matter where he is on the stage, and even go through solid platforms in order to reach him. This gives it a shockingly large range, and the damage that's accumulated on the Electro-Balls will remain. The balls will always make it to the Black Knight before the endlag is over, increasing in speed if they have to. This, however, leads to a bit more that the move can do.

When the Electro-Balls reach the Knight, he will absorb them into his body, which gives the attack even more endlag, unfortunately. However, once the lag has ended, the Black Knight will enter his freefall, now visibly glowing with red energy. Once he lands, not much will change, only his Neutral Special. Depending on how many Electro-Balls the Black Knight absorbed, three at max, obviously, his NSpec will now shoot out that many at once in a fan-shaped pattern (Or straight like normal if he only had one). This resets their travel distance, but NOT their damage. This allows the Knight to save his Electro-Balls whenever he wants, and then prepare for a new strategy. This is incredibly useful for getting things back in order after a play goes wrong, without wasting too much time.

Of course, the Black Knight will still lose the balls if he gets KOed after a Magna-Save, meaning that he needs to learn how to take his losses for maximum gain. Finally, there's what happens when the Knight uses his Up Special while having the balls. It will behave mostly like normal, except for the last part of the hitbox. Depending on the direction that is held before this, which is 12 different directions, the Black Knight will fire the balls out in that direction. They will still be in a fan-shaped pattern, spreading out as they travel, but this can be an incredibly powerful maneuver - albeit a highly telegraphed one. The endlag when using this will, unfortunately, be slightly worse than normal.

Side Special - Drawbridge
The Black Knight stomps his foot on the ground, either grunting menacingly or shouting "BEGONE!" as he does so. As he stomps his foot, a neon purple slab of energy spring up from the ground in front of him. Ir is shaped like a drawbridge, so that's what we'll be calling it from now on. The drawbridge will start off horizontally aligned, before springing up. The drawbridge stands slightly less tall than the Knight himself once it has been sprung, is nearly as thin as a board, and acts as a solid wall. It also acts as a hitbox as it springs up, dealing 5% damage and weak knockback to whoever stands on it. Its a relatively fast hitbox, meaning that it can be used as an effective "get away" move. As a final note on its summoning, the space between where the Black Knight is, and the drawbridge is, is equal to how tall it is vertically.

Once summoned, the drawbridge will remain on the stage for an indefinite period. It has a stamina of 20%, but also has the unique property of only being able to be damaged by physical attacks. Why is this, you might ask? Well, if a projectile hits the drawbridge, it will instead bounce off, while also knocking the drawbridge down flat again. This can affect any projectile and makes it so that the projectile can hurt anybody. This also applies to the Knight's own Electro-Balls, but with the bonus of him not being hurt by them after they bounce off. There's some physics built into it as well, as the reflective properties exist while the drawbridge is springing up as well. Proper timing can help knock the projectiles up at different angles.

That isn't all there is to the drawbridge and the Electro-Balls, however. See, this behaves differently compared to other things that the projectiles can bounce off of. If a drawbridge hits an Electro-Ball while its springing up, it will turn the ball purple, and cause it to fly forward faster than before around twice as fast. In addition to this, this gives the ball an extra 5% damage on top of whatever its stacked already, and now letting it KO at 50% if it reaches max damage. The unfortunate side effect of this is that the ball can no longer bounce and will vanish once it hits anything else. On the plus side, it can deal shield damage now! This is part of the Knight's endgame, as its highly risky and highly rewarding if enough damage has been gathered.

When a drawbridge is down, it will remain that way until the move is used again. This will cause it to spring up and reactivate the original hitbox. If the drawbridge is already up, the Knight can use it again to summon a second one on the stage. He can also summon another one while the first drawbridge is down by holding the button down. Black Knight can only have two on stage at a time and attempting to create any more will erase the earliest one created. The move can technically be inputted in the air, but it will not do anything besides create a small, weak hitbox as the Knight kicks downwards. This only deals 2% and doesn't have any noticeable properties. However, its fast enough to be used out of shorthop, and if used right before the Black Knight hits the ground, he will create a drawbridge (Or not if one is already out).

This is very obviously a great tool for the Black Knight, as it allows him to both protect himself, and bounce his Electro-Balls around, and gives him a finish line for his matches. Its best to use drawbridges wisely, as a wrong move can severely hinder the Black Knight.

Standards
Jab - Lightning Combo
As one might expect, the Black Knight's jab has him using his lightning lance for a fairly basic combo attack. For the animation, he'll start by slicing with the forward most edge of the blade, followed by a sweep with the other end, and then ends it by quickly slamming it down to the ground. This is a rather standard three-hit combo, with the first two hits having the range of average sword attacks. The final hit has a bit more coverage to it, as it covers above the Black Knight slightly, as well as having a bit more range than the previous two hits. The attack is rather fast, slightly faster than most swordsman characters, though there is a noticeable amount of lag between the second and third hits. It also has mediocre endlag, mostly bad for a jab, however.

Hitbox wise,these three attacks are decent. As mentioned, they have the reach of an average sword-based attack, making them decent at actually hitting things. The first hit deals 2% damage, the second hit deals another 2%, and the final deals 4%. The last hit is fairly strong for a Jab, KOing at 140%. There is an extra property, something shared by a lot of the Knight's moves, where the last hit is capable of bouncing the Electro-Ball. In most cases this just acts as a redirection tool, and does not increase the ball's damage. If the Black Knight hits with it, then the ball will be shot forward.

Forward Tilt - Neon Spinner
The Black Knight thrusts his lance out and spins it around quickly. This move, while having a quick start-up, lasts a while. The lance will spin around for a good few frames, and while this doesn't technically act as endlag due to the hitbox being active during most of it, the delay can be troublesome to deal with. In fact, the actual endlag isn't even that bad. The attack has great range to it, essentially a basic sword hitbox but extended to a full circular hitbox. Despite the move being a bit sluggish, its still very easy to hit with.

On hit, the lance will deal 8% damage and radial knockback that tends to KO from 120-135% depending on the area that was hit. Its quick start-up makes it a good "get away" move in places, but obviously has the downside of leaving the Knight open from his back for a while. The attack can be dash cancelled, meaning that this isn't that bad, but it requires some precise timing to fully pull off. Finally, this also acts as a hitbox that can interact with an Electro-Ball. On hit, it will act like it does with a normal opponent, knocking the ball back whichever way it came flying in. This can lead to some fun self-tennis matches at odd angles, but the Knight will obviously still have problems relating to the attack's speed.

Up Tilt - Electro-Popper
At the start of the animation, the Black Knight points his lightning lance down at the ground, and then follows up with a quick lash upwards. There is a bit of lag at the start, delaying the actual hitbox for a few frames. The actual hitbox moves quickly, but the delay can make it harder to hit with. This acts as a pop, knocking the opponent upwards and into the air. It deals a respectable 9% damage, with knockback that can KO at 180%. Its one of the Knight's best ways of getting opponents into the air, which is something he'll want to do considering his main gameplan with the Electro-Ball.

This attack only hits in front of the Black Knight, however, not covering his vulnerable side. The delay at the start can be easily punishable, meaning that the Knight will need to find good times to use it, rather than just spamming it and trying to get opponents in the air. It also has a fairly obvious interaction with the Electro-Ball itself. Much like with the opponent, hitting the ball with the attack will send it straight up into the air, for easy re-directional purposes.

Down Tilt - Lightning Stopper
From his crouching animation, the Black Knight thrusts his lightning lance forwards, and then quickly follows up by thrusting it backwards. Because of this, the attack covers both sides of the Knight when used, though it will always go forward first. The thrust is a rather fast hitbox but has less range than any of the Knight's other Standards because of it. It will only reach about 2/3rds of the way of his lance's normal reach before he decides to thrust it backwards, where the same thing happens. This is an effective attack thanks to its speed, however.

The lance is also a weak attack, however, dealing 6% damage and very light knockback. Its an incredibly small amount, but its still safe on hit. It effectively acts as a "stopper" for the Knight. This follows with its interaction with the Electro-Ball. If he hits it with the attack, then the ball will stop in mid-air (Or rather, it will bounce slightly upwards due to it needing to be close to the ground in order to hit). The ball will remain stopped for a second and a half, during which the Black Knight has a chance to use another attack to knock it in a more desired location. The ball retains its hitbox during this, however, meaning that opponents are very likely to take the hit if the ball doesn't have a lot of damage stacked.

Dash Attack - Lane Strike
From his dashing animation, the Black Knight leaps into the air and thrusts his lance forward. This actually slower than it sounds, and halts all of the Knight's momentum once he leaps up. He puts all that force into the strike, causing a burst of lightning to shoot out from the lance as he thrusts. The attack has the same general reach as previously mentioned, roughly the same length as a usual sword attack. However, this is slightly boosted by the burst of energy at the end, increasing it by a slight distance. It doesn't last for the whole of the attack, only coming out at the very end for a few frames.

The leap at the start of the move doesn't carry the Black Knight forward as much as you would expect, only by a slight amount. The hitbox becomes active at the very end of this however, meaning that the jump isn't useless. On contact, the lance will deal 8-11% damage depending on if it hits with the lance itself or the electric boost, respectively. The knockback changes as well, with the lance only KOing at 160%, while the boost can KO at 145%. The boost functionally acts as a sweetspot, but there's a bit more to it. Like other moves, this can interact with the Electro-Ball. Hitting the ball with the boost specifically will cause it to boost forward at 1.5x its normal speed until it hits something else. Upon hitting another object, the ball will return to its base speed. Hitting the ball with the lance will simply cause it to fly forward if it was hit while at another angle.

Smashes
Forward Smash - Thunder Flipper
The Black Knight jabs his lightning lance into the ground slightly in front of him at the start of the animation, and then starts to charge the move as he prepares to pull it out. On the move's actual release, the Knight will swing the lance upwards until its directly above his head. This is an incredibly fast motion, and is one of the Knight's fastest attacks, let alone the fastest of his Smashes. It has the reach noted on most other attacks, which when combined with the speed can make it a very powerful attack. The attack's hitbox consists of a near half-circle directly in front of the Black Knight, giving it good coverage as well.

The attack is more powerful than you would expect, dealing out 13-19% damage depending on the charge, and knockback that can KO at 130%. Depending on where the attack hits the opponent, it will either knock them backwards, or upwards. The main downside of the attack actually comes from the starting animation, where the Knight jabs his lance into the ground. This is a very laggy part of the animation, and in turn makes the move a bit more telegraphed before its use. Despite the Knight forcefully jabbing it, there is no hitbox either. The endlag is fairly bad as well, but not enough to be terribly punishable.

Like with the other attacks mentioned so far, this can interact with the Electro-Ball. Specifically, it acts like you would expect from its name, behaving a bit like a flipper and bouncing/increasing the ball's speed whenever it hits. This is done with physics almost exactly like with an actual pinball flipper but has the caveat of only being able to knock Electro-Balls in upwards-diagonal directions. The speed the ball is launched at depends on where it hits on the lance's hitbox as well, bouncing it at normal speeds if it hits near the center, and 1.5x speed if it hits the lance's tip.

Up Smash – Power Plunge
The Knight rears down as energy stores in his lance. He then thrusts the lance upwards, creating a flash of electricity alongside it. This is similar to other upward stabbing attacks from swordsman characters, but this has a slightly greater reach on either side of the Black Knight thanks to the electrical bursts. It doesn’t reach out a whole lot, but it allows him to knock grounded opponents and opponents that are slightly far away into the air.

The attack is relatively fast, outside of a relatively laggy opening animation. It has very little endlag, but the opening lag prevents it from being spammable. The attack has two distinct hitboxes, the electrical bursts and the lance itself. The bursts reach out around half a Bowser away from the Knight, and are triangular, sloping up from the ground to just before the tip of the lance. The bursts deal 8-15% damage, with fairly weak knockback that KOs at 160%.

The lance itself acts as a far more powerful hitbox but is much tougher to hit with due to its thin size. When it does hit, however, it will deal 12-20% damage, and can KO at 130%. At lower charges, it can even be good for juggling purposes. If an Electro-Ball comes in contact with any part of the hitbox, including the electrical bursts, it will be shot straight upward at 1.2x its normal speed. It will always be shot up through the tip of the lance, as it will absorb itself into the electricity. This happens almost instantaneously, with barely a pause between the ball being absorbed and firing out.

Down Smash - Translight Blast
The Black Knight turns to face the screen and raises his lance up, one end pointing up above him and the other pointing to the ground. Energy starts to build up in his lance as he charges it. Finally, he stabs his lance into the ground, releasing the energy that was built up as a large electrical burst around him. This is a rather slow attack, mainly during the actual hitbox portion, which lingers for a good while and keeps the Knight from moving for that time. The hitbox itself covers entirely around the Black Knight in a circle, giving it good close range coverage.

This is a powerful move, dealing 17-24% damage depending on the charge, and can KO at 140-110%. The attack unfortunately has a lot of endlag to it, as the Knight will have to pull his lance up from the ground, and then swishes his cape, sometimes letting out a laugh. This ending lag, combined with the attack's already long length, can make this painful to whiff, and incredibly easy to punish. If an Electro-Ball comes in contact with the blast while its active, then it will simply fly back in the exact same direction it was originally coming from, acting as a pure reflector.

Aerials
Neutral Aerial – Bumper Flash
The Black Knight lets out a deep laugh as he flexes, once again in a similar pose to Ganondorf’s one taunt. As he does this, a burst of orange electricity will fly out from him, creating a circle of electricity around him. This blast covers a decent amount of area, as one would expect, giving it some of the best range on an NAir, outside of Megaman’s. This flash only lasts for a few frames, and deals a very weak 3% damage, with low knockback. It is fast all around, making it spammable, even out of shorthop, but that doesn’t really make it stronger.

As you might expect from the name, this hitbox actually has an effect on Electro-Balls, acting as a bumper. However, this behaves like a bumper usually does, briefly bouncing the ball back a bit, before it continues back down its original trajectory. This is a decent way to stall the ball for a second or two, or even hit it into the opponent. The second option isn’t advised, as its very telegraphed. Using it effectively is a bit difficult due to how the Knight needs to be in the air in order to use it, limiting what he can do in that moment… but there is a bit more.

By holding the button down, the electrical ring will be sucked back in to the Black Knight rather than vanish. By doing this, the Knight has now created a temporary bumper, around the size of the bumper item, and will float in mid-air indefinitely. Opponents can’t interact with the bumper in any way, but it can interact with an Electro-Ball. It basically acts the same way as when the Knight himself uses it, but as a prop it can be used to stall the ball so you can set something up.

Forward Aerial – Orbiting Lance
The Black Knigh pulls his lance back, and then swings it forward, throwing himself into a spinning attack that can hit on both sides. The Knight will curve his lance upward, before curving it back downwards as he reaches the other side, giving both ends very large hitboxes. This is a very easy attack to hit with, thanks to it having a massive amount of range, but, while it has a decent start-up, has bad endlag as Black Knight needs to finish the rotation before he can perform anything else.

The attack deals 11% damage, with knockback that can KO at 160%, making it very average for an aerial. It being able to cover both sides, something unique for a FAir to perform, is its greatest strength, and can make for a very effective “get away” attack while in the air. In the context of the Electro-Balls, this acts as a simple rebound on either side of the Knight, allowing him to bounce away a ball coming from either the left or the right. This can be great for redirectional purposes and can also be used as an aerial finisher.

Back Aerial – Rollover Kick
The Black Knight, with the ability to hit Electro-Balls on either side with his FAir, opts for something a bit different on his BAir. The knight will perform a backwards somersault a few times as electricity gathers around him, before letting out a fierce backwards kick that’s charged with said electricity. This isn’t a very fast move, with the spinning acting as some lag before the actual main hitbox. It’s a bit long, but the Black Knight isn’t defenseless during this time, as the electricity will shock out around him briefly once he’s halfway through the animation.

This is a weak hit, dealing 1% and no knockback, but it can hit on either side and flinches the opponent pretty badly. Of course, if you hit it correctly, it can directly combo into the kick. The kick is one of the Knight’s few pure KO moves, dealing 15% damage and KOing at 120%. The main problem with it is actually trying to land it. It isn’t held for that long, meaning you have very little chance to actually hit with it. It is a very potent move however and managing to hit can be very effective. The best use of the move is to hit when the opponent has been weakened by Electro-Balls, or to try and combo into it from the spinning hitbox, which is far more difficult.

Down Aerial – Drop Target Strike
The Black Knight raises his lightning lance upwards as it crackles with electricity, while also looking downwards at whatever is below him. He then thrusts the lance downwards, acting as a spiking hitbox. This is a fairly basic move at first look, a downward strike with decent range and high speed. Being fast, this obviously opens it to the standard applications of a move like this, like it being great off-stage while in an advantage state (I know what im talking about). However, there’s slightly more to it.

Black Knight can actually indefinitely stall the attack by holding down the button, leaving it at the frame before the hitbox activates until the button is let go of or he lands on the ground. The main downside of the move is its actual power, dealing an incredibly paltry 8% damage with fairly low knockback for a spike. Its speed itself can become a hindrance once you try to use it for its other purpose, as well.

As expected, this move can bounce Electro-Balls around. Hitting a ball will cause it to be shot directly downwards, making this an incredibly useful finishing attack in some cases. However, the attack has very little lag to it period, and in conjunction with its very thin hitbox, this makes it very easy to miss with. This is where the stalling helps out, as the stalling only prevents the small amount of start-up lag, potentially letting you hit opponents and Electro-Balls with much tighter precision.

Up Aerial – Magic Post
In a bit of a reversal from the DAir, the Black Knight performs almost the same attack, thrusting his lance upwards now instead of downwards, this time with two hands gripping it instead of one. This attack is similar in most ways, sharing the same range that most other attacks have, yet it doesn’t have the same properties as the DAir. The main thing to note is that its much slower in comparison, though not sluggish by any means. It also doesn’t have the spike, for obvious reasons, and you are unable to stall it.

On hit, the lance will deal 12% damage and upwards knockback that can kill at 150%, making it overall decent as an attack. An upwards attack like this has obvious applications during normal combat, but this can be combined with the Electro-Ball for more fun. This move, like the DAir, has the property of sending one of the balls in another direction, in this case, obviously, upwards. This behaves exactly like it does with the DAir, as would be expected. With a direct shot upwards, you can perform a lot of tricks with the Electro-Balls, like juggling with weaker ones and making KO shots from near the ground.

Grab Game
Grab & Pummel
The Black Knight thrusts his free hand forward, shooting out a bolt of neon red electricity from it. This reaches out fairly far, half as far as most tether grabs do. The electricity itself is the grab hitbox in this case, not the knight’s actual hand. When the opponent is hit by the electricity, they will be “magnetized” and then dragged towards the Knight, leaving them helpless in his clutches. This grab is fairly slow, but nowhere near as slow as Pac-Man’s grab, its closest comparison. It can be slightly difficult to hit with but is otherwise a very good grab.

His pummel has the Black Knight electrocute the opponent, letting out a single deep “HAH!” each time he performs it. This is a slow pummel, dealing 3% with each hit. Its mostly a mediocre pummel otherwise, but pummelling isn’t really what the Knight is going to be doing with a grabbed opponent.

Forward Throw – Skill Shot
The Black Knight lets out another deep laugh, before flinging the opponent forward in a rather basic throwing animation. There aren’t any fancy bells and whistles to this attack, it’s a pure simple throw that sends the opponent flying at an upwards diagonal angle. It has basic speed for a throw, with the laugh acting as the lag before it, meaning it doesn’t have any major downsides there. It doesn’t have major KO potential, however.

It only deals 9% damage, with weak knockback only capable of KOing at 180%. It will, however, consistently get your opponents up into the air, an incredibly useful tool when your main gameplan is trying to hit them with a ball. Instead of moving the ball around, throw the opponent instead! This can be an incredibly useful attack for the Black Knight, for obvious reasons.

Up Throw – Up Kicker
The Black Knight lets go of the opponent, and with barely a split second in between, kicks them upwards. This is a very fast move, his fastest throw by far. There isn’t much to this, but it acts as a very good combo throw. The opponent is usually never thrown that far into the air, but its usually just far enough for the Knight to enter shorthop and follow up with an aerial, or even remain grounded and follow up.

This isn’t a particularly powerful throw, as mentioned before the opponent is never thrown that high. It will only deal 7% damage, and the knockback can only KO past 200%, but it can be used very effectively in combination with the Electro-Ball, as one might expect. Unlike the FThrow, this one is more effective with balls that are closer to the ground, or ones that are far away enough for you to potentially combo your opponent into. Either way, this can pull off some decent KOs.

Back Throw – Jackpot
The Black Knight spins and throws the opponent behind him, still leaving them standing just a bit away from him. He then readies his lightning lance and starts to slash at them repeatedly, before finishing with a final direct stab through them that sends them launching. On shorter characters, the proceeding hits will knock them up into the air before the final stab. This is rather slow as a throw, mostly because the attacking animation takes so long. Its one of the longer throw animations in the game.

However, because of this, the attack deals a great 12% damage, the highest in the Knight’s throws, and can KO at 130%, making it his overall strongest throw. The knockback is rather standard, as this isn’t meant to be used to throw the opponent into Electro-Balls, instead it’s a rather basic KO throw instead. While Electro-Balls tend to be more effective, this throw can come in handy if one doesn’t manage to finish an opponent off.

Down Throw – Target Drop
The Back Knight lets out a grunt, and then drops the opponent to the ground, leaving them in prone for a few frames, similar to Snake’s DThrow. The Knight then proceeds to stomp down on them with enough force to launch them slightly into the air. This is only if the opponent manages to hit the ground in front of him. The move will end at the drop if Black Knight manages to drop the opponent off of a ledge. This will leave them in prone until they hit the ground (Or travel past the point of ground on the stage, where they will instantly snap out of the prone and give them time to recover).

This isn’t an amazingly damaging throw, dealing only 5-8% damage depending on where it ends. The higher amount is when the stomp is added in, of course. The main purpose of the move is to send the opponent falling into oncoming Electro-Balls, as you might have guessed from all of the other throws. This is a rather effective one, as there’s only a slight delay before the opponent is dropped, making the timing lenient in most cases. The actual hard part is getting Electro-Balls to go under platforms, as they will usually want to remain in the air, so they can gather more strength.

(Post-Writing note: i accidentally used the same pinball term for this move on the dair because i wrote this after and forgot. i dont care enough to change it)

Final Smash
King’s Ransom
The Black Knight has the Smash Ball! He lets out another bellowing laugh as the power courses through him, and then proceeds to fire off fifteen different Electro-Balls in a circle around him, all moving at their maximum speed. These Electro-Balls are special, as they have no limits, and will bounce off of anything, including the borders of the screen. They also deal a consistent 15% damage and can KO at 70%. These Electro-Balls will last for 15 seconds before they all explode into large electrical blasts, which deal 20% damage and can KO at 50%.

The Electro-Balls can still interact with objects that the Black Knight has placed around, the only difference is that they won’t gather up more power or increase in speed, but they can be useful for keeping them in a good area. Speaking of, the Knight’s Magna-Save special can be used as well, mostly to help when a bunch of balls get stuck in a useless area like under the stage. This Final Smash is incredibly effective on walk-off stages, or stages without an underside. Overall, this is the ultimate culmination of the Knight’s pinball playstyle.

(YOU ARE CHAMPION...)
 
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Professor Lexicovermis

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Oct 27, 2015
Messages
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Slayer of Wallets


9/10


This is a pretty fun set! I'm amazed this is the very first MYM set to use a pinball theme in such a literal manner, as it works super well. The base concept of BK literally playing pinball while fighting is super solid, and leads to a lot of fun nuances on otherwise standard heavyweight sword moves. A lot of emphasis is placed on good positioning, timing, and aim, which is of course perfectly fitting given the character's origins. Something that I feel is important is that he's still a perfectly serviceable heavyweight even if you're not able to make good use of the Electro-Ball. Sure, not all of his attacks are amazingly powerful, but he's still a credible threat even without his gimmick available, and that is ALWAYS a plus. Other good points are that his pinball table props don't interfere with foes beyond the drawbridge bouncing their projectiles. I fully expected the bumper prop to bounce foes off, which would've been rather obnoxious, but you had the sense to only let them touch Electro-Balls. I almost think it'd be fun to let them bounce ALL projectiles off like the drawbridge itself, but that's just me. All in all, a very solid set, Bio; excellent work!


Petition to Rename Metal Sonic to 'Fonic'


8/10

I don't recall off the top of my head any fragile speedsters with the power to swap to an even faster glass cannon, and it's pretty interesting. Fark is extremely fragile, as the set says multiple times, but he's got plenty of tools on hand to circumvent his paper weight. The Parry on NSpec is a neat idea, I don't think I've seen a counter take Just Frames into account before, and that's a very nice way to reward skillful play. The Burst Dash is a pretty simple movement aid, but it's solid and seems good and versatile. I adore what you did with the grounded Flash Step, that is an extremely novel way to depict a character moving faster than the eye can see, and it's fun gameplay wise. The aerial version is less interesting conceptually, but it does give Fark a compelling gameplay dilemma: does he burn through his Static to kill foes earlier, or does he hoard it greedily until he really needs it to recover? Granted, if he can successfully enter Super mode, he has no worries for a while, as he gains access to the max potential of his recovery free of charge, if only temporarily.

The standards are all good and solid, nothing particularly standout, but nothing bad either. The Smashes and their interplay with the Static gauge add to the offense/recovery dilemma in an interesting way, and give a properly-played Fark frightening capabilities at the cost of requiring expert Static management. Aerials and throws are also solid, with Fark's ludicrous speed lending the throws some very fun flavor. All in all, a nice set. Welcome back, Ivan!
 
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FrozenRoy

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Las Vegas, Nevada
Switch FC
SW-1325-2408-7513
"Make your sacrifice-fice-fice..."

Necalli


An "important", and I use the term loosely, villain from Street Fighter V who was introduced in the same game, Necalli is an ancient Aztec warrior of mysterious origins and powers: Possibly some kind of demon, god, or a herald of the Aztec god Huitzilopochtli. Whatever the case, what is known about Necalli is that he has appeared in the world during the events of Street Fighter V, the "Hour of Battle" foreseen by an ancient warrior prophet, in order to devour the souls of powerful warriors. Three in specific are on Necalli's list: Ryu, for his Satsui no Hado. Dhalsim, for his powers gifted to him by the fire god Agni. And Bison/Dictator, for his incredible Psycho Power. Of course, Necalli is more than willing to eat the souls of any powerful warriors in his path. So, how does he fare?

it is an embarassing performance. Necalli completely fails to eat a single soul on his list, not even Dhalsim who could have easily just came back later with his mystical stuff or only been temporarily eaten (or even killed and had his disciple take his roster spot in future games), and fails to get any notable victories in the story mode. He loses to BALROG, whose power is punching things really hard, in a story which isn't even part of his main plot and which Urien basically just treats as a test for Balrog. He mostly exists as a device for Ryu to go through some developement and throw off the yoke of the Satsui no Hado by attaining the Power of Nothingness. Given that Necalli was heavily promoted for Street Fighter V, it was a disappointment.

What was not a disappointment is Necalli's moveset and cool Aztec inspired design (with a bunch of references I won't get into right now for the sake of brevity). Necalli is a classic, Ganondorf style heavyweight with a brutal command throw (and throw animations in general), a seismic V-Move and a very wild, melee style like a beast with some added wrestling. Necalli is both lacking in gimmicks and yet has one major gimmick: A unique use of the V-Trigger system. For the briefest of explanations, the V-Trigger is a secondary meter resource that is only gained by taking or blocking hits or by hitting with your V-Move and usually gives either a big super attack or a super mode. Alternately, you can spend a bar to use a "V-Reversal" move which is defensive and for escapes. Necalli enters a round permanant Super Mode for his V-Trigger, granting him a new move (as of Arcade Edition) at the cost of being unable to use his V-Reversal and changing the properties of a TON of his moveset, making him a more aggressive and powerful character (while he is more of a footsie-zoner normally). Necalli's super even gets a new animation and improvement in this mode!


Statistics-istics-istics


Necalli is large, but a bit more stout than Ganondorf tall. Think like a somewhat smaller Donkey Kong. He is a traditional heavy, sitting at 110 weight which puts 6th in the game and essentially the "border" between heavies and superheavies. Necalli is more slow compared to say Bowser, tied with Shulk and Pac-man for 35th for dash speed, and has an even slower walk speed at 50th (Ike). His traction is pretty good.

Aerially, Necalli has meh air speed (25th, tied with Mii Gunner) but is actually surprisingly floaty with a fall speed equal to Villager (47th) and gravity equal to Mewtwo (38th). His air control is pretty meh. Both of his jumps are above average, but nothing I would call special. That's about all there is to say when it comes to Necalli's base stats.


Spe-Spe-Specials

Shield Special and Mechanic: The Calling / Torrent of Power / Heart of Gold

Necalli's mechanic works right into all of these moves, so combining them in explanation is very logical. Necalli bring his V-System into the game, with his V-Gauge showing up upon his UI. The V-Gauge is only filled up in three ways. First off, taking damage fills it by whatever damage the move hitting him deals. Secondly, shielding adds 1/4th the damage of the shielded hit to the gauge (IE 2.5% instead of 10% on blocking a 10% hit). Finally, using one of Necalli's non-Shield Special Specials fills the bar by the same amount of damage it dealt (half gain vs. shields). Also, Necalli doesn't gain any meter from hitting minions or stuff like parts of the Brinstar stage with his Specials. 100% damage is required to fully fill Necalli's V-Gauge. The V-Gauge is split into 3 "bars", each representing 33.33% of the damage required to enter V-Trigger.

Necalli can either use his V-Reversal move, The Calling, or his V-Trigger, Torrent of Power, via his Shield Special. His V-Reversal costs 1 bar of the V-Gauge to use, while the V-Trigger requires the full V-Gauge to activate, after which it remains on for the rest of the stock.


The Calling is Necalli's V-Reversal, done by any Shield Special button press without the V-Gauge being full or by tapping the Special Button if it is (holding activates Torrent of Power). Necalli lets out a roar of pure, unadulterated strength which damages anyone around him, with a sweetspot directly in front of him (which is rather large). It has very good 360 range around Necalli and extends out pretty far: It would be difficult for, say, a Marth to space this move out with his Forward Aerial. This comes out VERY fast, it's up there with Mario's Super Jump Punch as one of THE fastest out of shield option (Frame 3), although the ending lag is a touch on the longer side. Nonetheless, it is an amazing out of shield option for a character about zoning and spacing. If the opponent gets into your face, then The Calling is a great way to get them out of it.

The sweetspot deals 12% damage and fairly solid knockback away from Necalli. It isn't a kill move, but it gives him space and frame advantage. Everywhere else deals 8% and radial knockback, with a bit less frame advantage. Since it hits all around Necalli, it is great if the opponent is trying to cross him up or shorthop approaching. It can be used to pre-emptively intercept approaching opponents and coming out so fast makes it harder to be safe on his shield. The real downside to this incredible defensive tool is that it costs 1 meter of V-Gauge to use: Necalli's V-Trigger is a very powerful offensive tool, so delaying it is potentially quite poor descision making. If the opponent keeps getting Necalli to use The Calling out of fear or pressure, then he will never get the V-Trigger and get to go ham on the opponent. In addition, it means that this reversal option is not always open: When Necalli doesn't have even a single bar of V-Gauge, it is a sign to go in. You cannot play defensively forever.

Note that this move is entirely lost once Necalli enters his V-Trigger, depriving Necalli of a valuable defensive tool. V-Trigger Necalli is all about offensive pressure, not defensive turtling!


Before we talk about what Necalli's V-Trigger does, we need to talk about its activation. As mentioned, you need a full V-Gauge to utilize this move. You use it by holding down the Special button when using Shield Special. When Necalli activates this move, the screen zooms in on Necalli slightly (akin to Cloud's Limit moves) and time "freezes" briefly: Everything only moves during a brief starting lag period and a small ending lag period, the rest not let anyone else do anything. In short, the window to punish Necalli activating his V-Trigger is extremely brief and it is extremely safe to do so.

Secondly, Necalli can cancel the ending lag of ANY move he hits into his V-Trigger! This is pretty insane, allowing Necalli to pull off some siiick combos by cutting off plenty of ending lag into his enhanced attacks. You can use it to make hitting a laggy move, say Forward Smash, against a shield safe or even lead directly into a punish (since the strong move likely has lots of hitstun) by cancelling into V-Trigger! You can also, of course, simply activate it raw for as fast as possible use of Necalli's enhanced moveset. Do note this requires a hit, so you're out of luck if you flatout whiff.

This is all important to keep in mind since Necalli stays in V-Trigger for the rest of the stock. You only get one use of this V-Trigger activation in a stock, so how you use it makes it count: A deterrent for approaching opponents? If you Down Special, the time freeze can potentially let you react to something you normally could not. A very damaging combo, perhaps? Avoiding a big punish? There's a lot to do and so few times to do so. It's high end descision making.

When Torrent of Power is activated, many of Necalli's moves gain additional properties, and his stats change somewhat. Necalli gains a crawl and his crouch shifts his hurtbox down more, based on his walking animation in V-Trigger in SFV. His dash speed becomes equal to Ryu's (28th), a walk speed equal to Meta Knight (21st). It should be noted Necalli's crawl is only a bit slower than his walk. Necalli also gets a small traction boost. Aerially, Necalli is still a floaty character, but his air control improves noticeably and and his air speed is now equal to Ryu/Mr. G&W for 12th which makes him a lot more dangerous aerially. His jumps are increased by 1.2x, so he can recover a bit better.

Necalli has a lot of specific move bonuses for being in V-Trigger as well, along with some actual downsides as well. Since there is not a standardized buff here, I will describe each one in whatever moves they affect. In general, Necalli boasts superior frame data, longer reaching moves and more raw power in exchange for worse actual defensive options (like being unable to use The Calling).


No matter how you input it, Necalli only has one Shield Special during his V-Trigger: His Heart of Gold! Who knew he was such a sweetheart, am I right? Heart of Gold is a very short ranged but very long lasting projectile with a strong primary use of being a great prone abuse move. Although it only moves 0.5 Battlefield Platforms, it takes an agonizing 2 seconds to travel it! This gives Necalli some insane spacial control, especially because Necalli can have as many of these out as he wants (although the short range makes them basically useless as a camping tool). The Heart of Gold will negate any projectile weaker than itself when first fired, so he can also use it as a sort of shield against projectiles as well.

This move can be charged for up to half a second, dealing 12%-16% damage with high hitstun but mediocre knockback. Damage is the only thing that changes with charge. The high hitstun means that this move will usually open the opponent up for a small combo or potentially a kill move confirm. It is very good for covering prone options, as the linger puts the opponent in a bind to roll the direction it is facing while it removes getup attack and getup as an option. Starting lag is kinda laggy, but ending lag is pretty short: Ideal for reacting to the opponent. This is Necalli's only true projectile in his set, although Culminated Power basically is a projectile, so it offers some use.

While best used in prone, this move has two other uses: Juggling and ledge control. While Necalli can't use this (or any of his other Shield Specials, for that matter) in the air, the slow moving nature of this move allows Necalli to cover space for the opponent to land for quite some time. This is especially true if Necalli hits the foe high up enough he can launch a Heart of Gold and have enough time to prep aerial options. The other thing this move is great atis ledge coverage: Properly spaced, Heart of Gold will cover basically every ledge option at some point in its lifespan, giving Necalli some great ledge pressure and making it supremely difficult to avoid some kind of damage from Necalli. He's simply one of the most dangerous characters in these corner situations once his V-Trigger gets going. Overall, Heart of Gold is a rather powerful offensive option for Necalli to abuse but lacking the safety The Calling provides and being reasonably useful in neutral but with somewhat difficult to use/punishable starting lag.


Neutral Special: Mask of Tlalli


Seeing as we just got done talking about a prone abuse move during V-Trigger, lets start off with a prone advantage Special! There are two variations to Mask of Tlalli based on if the move is tapped or held and while they look close, they have some importantly different purposes. Necalli reaches out with his hand that looks like it is always ready to grasp something and grips the opponent by their head/hair/scalp/whatever they might have. This is a command grab that goes right through shields, but it has fairly low range. Starting lag is okay with a trend towards the laggier, while ending lag depends on if the move hits or not. It is pretty punishable on a whiff, but the ending lag is pretty fast without a whiff.

The tapped version has Necalli leap into the air and then toss the opponent into the ground as they land, dealing 13% damage and forcing opponents to either tech or be proned with Necalli having a frame advantage: Necalli ends the move on the ground, free to use whatever moves he desires to abuse the opponent. Leaving behind the aforementioned Heart of Gold, Necalli's Side Special has movement that allows him to follow very well, his Down Special has a large amount of variable distances that make getting out of these prone states very stressful and Necalli is perfectly able to go for the Flame Choke classic of "follow the roll and use the proning Special again". While this move is risky, remember that this move is quite punishable on whiff, this kind of prone abuse is very strong. As a Special, this can be used in the air: If you snag an opponent with it, then they will be spiked down with moderate strength. Enough to pick up kills, but not super early. No Ganondorf stomp power levels or anything.

While Necalli doesn't get as much off of the opponent teching, he does still have a frame advantage over the foe as they tech. Two common replies are Down Special, to force an instant shield, and a Side Special to rush at the opponent, which is also shieldable. The opponent might be tempted to just constantly hold up shield, but this leaves the possibility of Necalli instead running up for a grab or Neutral Special. Mix it up with the opponent to keep them on their toes and get in those hits!


in EX, Necalli leaps up but holds the opponent until he lands (or just slightly longer in the air) as it sparks with his dark and red energy (Necalli's color splash colors), then throws the opponent straight forward. They travel about a Battlefield Platform before "bouncing" off the air with an explosion of that same energu and bouncing right back at Necalli! This also deals 13% damage total and basically gives Necalli a free combo starter, primarily into his standards. Necalli cannot use Neutral Special agaon on a foe via grab immunity when using this type of Neutral Special, to keep any goofy Neutral Special loops right out of here. Necalli's stronger moves, like his Forward Smash, are generally too laggy to combo off of this.

Considering this in the air is also nice, as the rebound can potentially lead into a Forward Aerial (which just to spoil you, can potentially spike) or other shenanigans that can be pretty strong. And in general, the fact it leads into so much while dealing 13% damage is really good. If the opponent hits a wall or something before travelling the full distance, they will simply rebound off that and towards Necalli instead of the air while taking a few more frames of hitstun. Oh, and you can totally throw opponents into your allies in2v2s for some sick team combos. Necalli/Jigglypuff duos, anyone?


Both versions of Mask of Tlalli are buffed during Necalli's V-Trigger. While their lag and power remain the same, both gain some notable upsides. The tapped Neutral Special's prone is now untechable, assuring Necalli exactly the advantage he wants, and Necalli can actually cancel the ending lag of the move into Heart of Gold! This allows Necalli to get some truly crazy pressure out and will usually allow Necalli to pressure the opponent with a Heart of Gold out while being able to chase them down. Note that given Heart of Gold is only available in V-Trigger, Necalli normally does not have access to it at all in combination with his best proning move.

The tapped version of Mask of Tlalli has bonuses aside from just some untechability, though, in the form of its startup: Necalli has a small leap forward which gives him some more horizontal range, but importantly it also now has 8% super armor on it! This allows Necalli to power through weaker attacks, snag the opponent into their face and bring 'em down. Throwing out weak attacks close to Necalli can be a pretty painful mistake in V-Trigger due to this: Don't act mindlessly. Do note the range increase isn't all that much, so it is definitely possible to space outside of its range when poking with these moves.

The held Neutral Special gets especially spooky with the one buff it gets: A 1.4x hitstun modifier. Put simply, Necalli will likely be able to link any non-grab move from a V-Trigger thanks to this (low percentage opponents will be better able to avoid it). Most predominately, it will usually work well with Forward Smash as a kill confirm, giving Necalli a pretty potent combo AND kill confirm Special! Straightforward and highly effective.


Side Special: The Disc's Guidance


A chargable dashing strike, Necalli leans down a little while charging, then rockets forward with his arms in front of him a distance determined by charge: Half a Battlefield Platform with no charge, but with the full 1 second charge Necalli can go halfway across all of Battlefield! Well, not quite: That's for if you release juuust before full charge. Full charge is slightly different. Damage and knockback do not increase with charge, dealing 12% damage and moderate knockback that kills at 170% no matter the charge as Necalli whips his arms to the side in a double outwards slash. This move is good for catching opponent's out of position, Necalli moves quite fast during it, for covering landings and rolls and so on, but it is pretty punishable on shield or whiffed and it's starting lag is only okay. This is a prime move to potentiall V-Trigger in the ending lag of, making it safe and potentially getting in another attack on the opponent's shield depending on positioning.


Fully charged is, like I said, a different move in many ways. It comes out slightly slower and Necalli only goes 3/4ths the distance of the near-full charg, Necalli wildly swinging with pure power as he uneasily rushes forward at a slightly slower pace than normal. This deals two hits of 4%, then a final hit of 10% damage that sends opponents flying with enough power to KO at 130%! Every hit combos into itself, so if you get one you'll get all of them, and it brutalizes shields by keeping them in shieldstun for the entire move with the last hit having enough shield pushback to be safe. The multi-hit nature makes it better for covering rolls and spatial control, as a rolling opponent is liable to be hit by the 2nd or 3rd hit for example. The ending lag on this is still somewhat long, so it is still pretty punishable if you whiff and especially if the opponent rolls behind you (where they can then punish your long active frames as well).

A note about this move in the air. The non-fully charged version slows your fall a little when dashing forward and charging and in general can be used as a move like Quick Draw to return to the ledge. The fully charged version only goes half as far and makes Necalli fall a bit FASTER as he performs the three attacks, making it not viable for recovery in most situations: If you're really high up, it could be used as a falling option. Using it as a ledge option is technically possible but not especially viable since you'll dip so low doing it. But the non-fully charged version helps Necalli recover, which is good because his Up Special's distance is unimpressive.


Both of these gain some new properties in Necalli's V-Trigger. First off, both moves gain an extra hit of 4% (on the last hit only in the case of the full charge) with the increased damage making them both a bit safer and more rewarding. Secondly, Necalli can now use the full charge version of this move without charging by smashing the input! This is extremely deadly, as it forces opponents to respect the long lasting, 22% damage Side Special that Necalli now wields even when he does not have time to charge. And charging is easier, too! Necalli charges this move twice as fast while in V-Trigger, making longer distance Side Specials more viable.

The base Side Special has no additional bonuses. The fully charged Side Special now also deals additional shield damage: If the shield is caught at the start, then it will be ALMOST brought to broken. One hit of just about anything will do and the opponent needs to put their shield down ASAP to avoid a shield break, a predictable move Necalli can potentially punish. This is especially potent, however, if you remember cancelling hits into V-Trigger: There are a few hits in Necalli's set that can combo into a V-Trigger activation into this and therefor instantly break a shield! Necalli only gets a single chance at this, so opponents need to be careful about him fishing for it if they don't want to take a shield break. Opponents could even bait it with a perfect shield/parry, then punish this move which is still very punishable on whiff. Alternately, they can try to pressure Necalli so he wants to V-Trigger earlier, or Necalli can want to use the V-Trigger for its numerous other uses because the combos into this are specific. But a shield break is very powerful and well worth constantly considering.


Down Special: Culminated Power


Culminated Power, also commonly known to Street Fighter players as the "Seismo", is a crucial part of how to play Necalli in the neutral game especially before V-Trigger is activated. Necalli lets out a yell, raises his arms and slams them into the ground, causing earth in front of him to rupture and explode upwards. Necalli can angle this attack back and forwards in addition to the default direction, which allows Necalli to modify where the rupture occurs. Back places it directly in front of Necalli, the default is 0.6 Battlefield Platforms ahead of Necalli and forward is 1.2 Battlefield Platforms ahead. The range of the rupture itself is about a Necalli in both width and height, making it solidly large. This move deals 10% damage and has high base knockback that serves well to get opponents into the air for a juggle, but is too high for much in the way of combos (you can potentially jump -> Up Air or Up Special if the opponent is hit by a close Culminated Power). This move deals high shieldstun, but low shield push, and Necalli can potentially pressure with another Culminated Power to force opponents to either move fast or take another shield hit as long as the hit isn't near the edges: The shield push is just that small.

While somewhat laggy to start, the ending lag is pretty low and this is one of Necalli's primary moves in the neutral game. Because the animation is the same no matter what range Necalli picks, it can be difficult to gauge where to be when he is attacking: If you're in the mid range, for example, it can be dangerous to rush in because you'll just get hit by the close version. Stay where you are and you might be hit by him simply attacking where you are. And if you retreat to gain space, you still could be hit by a faraway seismo! That last one is quite rare, though, since the faraway Culminated Power is not usually useful in that situation. There is space between each of these ranges where one can stand and be perfectly safe from them, which is generally the best place to be in a pure neutral situation vs. Necalli (that or close ranges vs. V-Trigger Necalli). Characters who are adept at punishing at these range, for example Marth and his sword, tend to do better in neutral vs. Necalli thanks to this.


During V-Trigger, this move gains some noticeable buffs. First off, the move deals 2% more damage. A small buff but, hey, it helps! The far bigger buff is that this move comes out significantly faster, the starting lag is about half of its original amount. Not only does this allow Necalli to zone even better and make approaching him pretty difficult, but it allows Necalli to mix his Culminated Power into his combos now as well and thus makes it a significantly more well rounded move. Finally, the size of the attack itself is 1.2x its base amount, giving less room for opponents to dodge it. Swole Necalli has trouble if people get in close, but he does gain better zoning to try and help keep them from getting there. Aside from that, the move remains the same.


Up Special: Raging Light


Necalli leaps into the air, slashing outwards with his arms for two hits: One of 4.5% and one of 6.5% for a total of 11%, the latter hit popping opponents into the air as Necalli enters helpless. This move has fairly fast starting lag, making it useful out of shield like many "dragon punch" style options, with bad ending lag (not that it matters much when you enter helpless?). Necalli doesn't go especially high when using this move. He's no Little Mac, but it is still one of the worse recoveries in the game in terms of distance. Necalli has some intangability frames as he rises, although they come out a bit later than your average move of this type.

This move's primary usage is as an out of shield option, coming out fairly fast and having i-frames. While The Calling is a great out of shield option, it takes meter: Raging Light on the other hand not only doesn't take meter, but hitting it will BUILD your V-Gauge instead! So, you want to mix this up as an out of shield option. It can be a reasonable attack in the air, especially if you are under opponents, but is not amazing. The fast speed does allow it to combo from some moves like held Neutral Special for example.


This move changes significantly while Torrent of Power is active. First off, the attack is now a spinning, multi-hit slash move that ends in a strong claw slash. This deals 5 hits of 2% damage each, followed by a final slash which deals 5% damage and knockback a touch higher than the base version. This move now takes longer to come out, being a bit on the laggier end compared to other moves and making it a more mediocre out of shield option. On the plus side, this move's intangability frames now last through a good amount of the starting lag (although still a bit slow to start) and the entire duration of the move (which being a multi-hit is now longer!) which makes it very safe if you get it out.

The primary purpose of this move shifts from an out of shield move into being an amazing tool for catching landings and juggles, as Necalli's long duration makes air dodging it tricky while the intangability makes it impossible to trade with. Getting forced into the air is downright frightening when Necalli has buffed up, and shorthop approaches can be pretty scary as well. Necalli's Up Special no longer causes helpless, but it IS still very laggy. If Necalli whiffs this move, he's going to hit a hard punish. Period. It is very unsafe on shield, as well. It goes a touch higher, but honestly not that much: It's still a pretty lackluster recovery.


Smash-ash-ashes

Forward Smash: Opening Dagger

Necalli leaps forward with a brutal spinning, overhead slash that is full of power. This is your classic heavyweight move: It's slow, punishable on both ends and quite laggy overall, but it is also powerful, dealing 20%-28% damage and killing at around the same strength as Ganondorf's Forward Smash (albeit a biiit later, say 10% later?). Since this move is laggy, you're mostly going to throw this off on things like hard reads, like an errant roll, someone whiffing something laggy, that kind of thing. This move does have some decent range thanks to the leap forward, so Necalli can afford to say a bit more back when throwing out this dangerous move.

It is unsafe on shield unless charged, thanks to the long ending lag. This is one case you definitely want to consider using V-Trigger to make it safe, as Necalli actually gains a ton of advantage if you strike a shield with a F-Smash and go into V-Trigger! Enough that Necalli can go for a grab as a combo or a riskier, non-true Neutral Special. That's about all there is to say about this: It's a straightforward kill move.


V-Trigger doesn't add a lot to the Forward Smash, although it does buff it. The trail of energy adds some range to the move, making it a bit more safe and able to be a bit more rangy, but that's pretty much it. The true buff to Forward Smash is the held Neutral Special: Held Neutral Special into Forward Smash is a true combo (except at very low percents), although you need high damage on the opponent to get much more than a no charge Forward Smash. This is Necalli's primary kill confirm option and allows Necalli to potentially kill veeeery early depending on when you hit them. This is kept in check by the very mechanics of the V-Trigger: Unless you've been landing the perfect blend of Special moves and taking hits, you'll either be getting into V-Trigger when you've taken a lot of damage and the opponent hasn't or you've hit the opponent a lot (and therefor you're killing at a much more normal percent as they're already at 90% or whatever). Those times you do get to utilize it, though, it is very strong. And if Necalli finishes off a stock with V-Trigger still on or ready, it's a big threat.


Down Smash: Valiant Rebellion


Necalli takes a single, strong stomp forward for some decent range and two hitboxes of varying power: The strong hit in the middle of the foot and the weak hit elsewhere. Like most of Necalli's smash attacks, it is pretty slow and reactable (although not nearly as bad as Forward Smash) while the ending lag is more moderate-low. Punishable, but not super so and actually safe on shield as well. The center of the foot is a swetspot which deals 16%-22.2% damage and largely vertical knockback that kills at 100%-80%. The "sourspot" is more of a combo hitbox, dealing 11%-15.4% damage that pops opponents forward light enough but with enough hitstun that Necalli can usually get another hit out of it: A minimum charge Side Special, a Forward Tilt, a Neutral Aerial, that kind of thing. It is not the best combo tool, especially when it is so laggy, but you'll still earn plenty of damage off of it. Against proned opponents, you'll earn a bit more: This move deals 2% more damage if you stomp 'em while they're down, with the KO power killing 5% earlier.

Something to keep in mind is this means that Necalli does not have a back hitting Down Smash, which means he is more vulnerable to opponents crossing him up or attacks from behind. The Calling helps alleviate this some with its all-around hitbox, but it is costly and you'll lose it once you enter V-Trigger. There's the usual back aerial option, but just having BAir isn't a lot! While you do in fact have some other options, it remains true that this is a weakness Necalli must accept and do his best to work around with the tools he does have.


V-Trigger does a lot for Down Smash! First off, the move changes to be a pair of walking stomps. The first stomp now deals 11% across all of it, but combos into the second stomp which has the usual sweetspot/sourspot hitboxes of the original move. The first hitbox combos into the same part of the second hitbox. Which is to say if you hit the opponent in the sweetspot area of the firs stomp, it'll combo them into the sweetspot area of the second hit and the same for the sourspot. This allows incredible damage potential! For example the sourspot might be a slow combo starter and not as good as, say, held Neutral Special, but it'll deal 22%-30.8% damage by itself with both stomps! That's some pretty nuts damage for a combo starter. And the high damage on the stomps means even without any modifiers it'll deal a good amount of shield damage while still being safe on shield. If the opponent, say, tries to hit a quick-but-weak button to get you off of them in this shield safe situation a tap Neutral Special can power through it and bring the damage.

The dark energy left behind by each stomp will seep into the ground, leaving it visibly cracked and bleeding it for 2.5 seconds. After those 2.5 seconds are up, it erupts into a pillar of energy which is pretty thin but 1.2x Ganondorf's height and thus pretty tall. it deals 10% damage and mediocre knockback, but it still has all the normal trap functions like spatial control, being able to get a hit on the opponent if nearby and so on. Even better since the two stomps mean two traps are left behind! While they are ultimately rather brief, they're a free addition to the attack in V-Trigger the opponent needs to deal with.

And some of necalli's moves interact with this, as well. Culminated Power, for example, will detonate the trap early, combining it with its own hitbox to form a messy explosion of darkness and earth that has the width of Culminated Power but the height of the trap and deals 20% damage that kills at a pretty impressive 120% for the type of move. You won't get this off often, given it requires a trap by a laggy starting Down Smash into another move to turn it on within 2.5 seconds and the foe being nearby, but it is very strong and strengthens the ability for Culminated Power to potentially zone the opponent. There will be a few more interactions through the set as well, stay tuned!


Up Smash: Soul Flame / Clouded Mirror

Necalli's only quick smash is his Up Smash, where Necalli thrusts a palm upwards to the sky, releasing a blast of dark energy "flame" above him. This comes out pretty quickly actually with reasonable range, making it a good anti-air option, but it is by far the weakest of Necalli's smashes and only deals 12%-16.8% damage to opponents that it hits. It comes out pretty fast and it isn't especially punishable, which also allows Necalli to work it into a combo game. It doesn't kill until pretty late, like 190%-160%, so don't expect it to remotely be a kill move: Forward Smash and Down Smash provide more of that for you. There isn't much else to say about this rather basic part of Necalli's kit, aside from that it helps his base set defenses.


This move entirely changes in V-Trigger, into the unique move Necalli gains during V-Trigger I in Arcade Edition: Clouded Mirror. Necalli makes a wild leap into the air that is laggy, but the leas laggy of the non-base Up SMash smashes for only somewhat laggy, dealing 15%-21% damage to anyone on the way up that kills at 115%-90%. The way down is a brutal overhead slam which deals 17%-23.8%, while killing at an earlier 105%-77% at a somewhat shallow horizontal angle. While he starting lag is not as bad on this move, it has atrocious ending lag instead (the opposite of Down Smash basically) that leaves Necalli punishable quite a lot on whiff. The additional starting lag also makes this a slower out of shield option, which along with Up Special being slower makes aerial approaches on Necalli a lot more viable.

On the plus side, it is a lot stronger and serves as Necalli's fastest kill move to come out in his smashes anyway, and the two hits can make it tricky to air dodge around which combined with V-Trigger Up Special makes landing against Necalli just super scary (but its a bit slow to deal with shorthops, hence how it is also worse vs. aerial approaches). You can add onto this move by landing on V-Trigger Down Smash's dark earth as well, which will cause it to explode out to both sides as a brief DK Down Special-esque hitbox. This deals 7% damage and mediocre knockback which really only has one purpose, which is to make this Up Smash safer, be it pushing away shields some when you land for lighter punishes or knocking away opponents. Debatable on if it is the best use of said earth, but it works out well enough.


Stand-and-andards

Jab: LP-MP-HP


Necalli performs a quick swipe with one hand, then a quick swipe with his other, clutching hand and ends it on a forwards double palm strike that he leans into. The first hit deals 2% damage, the second deals 4% damage and the final hit deals 6% damage that deals knockback designed to reset the neutral game. These three hits link into each other pretty well with the first hit coming out fairly fast although the third hit has a big longer than normal ending lag (which makes it a bit unsafe on shield). You can stop the jab combo on the second hit to go for mixups or other combos, the most obvious and common being a grab 50/50 mixup. Resetting neutral means a good time for Necalli to go back to utilizing his Down Special to build his V-Gauge for example. If you have a V-Trigger activation ready, the last hit into Side Special is a true combo and you can potentially go for others as well situation depending.


Speaking of V-Trigger, Jab unsurprisingly gain mostly minor buffs from it. Each hit delas 1% damage, bringing the potential damage total to a meaty 15% (3/5/7). The first and second hit now have 1 frame less of ending lag and the last hit deals a bit more shieldstun to make it slightly safer (but it can still be punished frequently). Other moves changes allow new combos from the Jab 2, for example Jab 2 -> Down Special is now a combo Necalli can actually perform, but otherwise this move retains mostly the same properties, save perhaps that Necalli will probably follow the neutral reset more aggressively (Side Special can be a scary approach option in this situations!).


Forward Tilt: Skull Crush Counter


Necalli performs a single, strong kick forward with his foot twisting slightly. This deals a meaty 13% damage and high knockback which can be compared to Ganondorf's Forward Tilt save for the fact it has a more upward angle. This move is laggy on both ends, but not horribly so. The move is safe on shield when spaced properly near the end of the attack for example, and it is one of Necalli's main tools to throw out in the neutral game because it has pretty good range to go with its power. You get nothing combo-wise off the hit, but you do gain stage positioning and hefty damage.


In V-Trigger, Necalli gains only one buff but it is a good one: Crush Counter! Put simply if Necalli's attack strikes an opponent in shield or when they are starting or in the middle of an attack they suffer a large amount of additional hitstun/shieldstun as they spark with black/red sparks. This means Forward Tilt is now safe on shield at all ranges, even point blank, and allows Necalli to gain more stage positioning or even a combo potentially off the hit! The combo usually comes from the fact the additional hitstun is at the start of the knockback and actually keeps the opponent in place until they take it (or get hit by another attack), so situationally combos are possible. These both add to the power Necalli's Forward Tilt has in neutral situations, can give some scary shield pressure (Jab 2 -> Forward Tilt and if the opponent doesn't react/predict they take a big shield hit and get booted out of Necalli's face) but doesn't offer Necalli anything special outside of some specific circumstances.


Down Tilt: Heavy Crouch


From his crouching position, Necalli performs a diagonally angled double palm thrust which looks close to the Jab 3 hit of his, which deals 8% damage and mediocre knockback that doesn't do much for Necalli save give him some space. There are some combos you can perform, but there isn't a ton off of them: A minimum charge Side Special at some percents might work, for example. It does come out pretty fast albeit with average to a touch longer ending lag, so Necalli can throw it out in neutral and unlike Forward Tilt it will catch shorthops better (that's where the diagonal angle comes into play!). Combine it with Forward Tilt in neutral.


This move is a LOT better in V-Trigger! First off, it gains a 4% damage boost to deal 12% damage which is nice...but it actually deals LESS knockback, which means it is now a combo starter! In fact, it is one of Necalli's best normal combo starters, leading into various Side Special, a Forward Tilt, Jab, shorthop Neutral Aerial and you get the idea I think. This move gains high shield push, making it safe on shield (the base version is not, although you need a faster punish) as well which means Necalli doesn't have to worry as much about throwing it out. The dark energy surrounding his strike also gives it juuuust a smudge more range, but it isn't enough you'll notice 90% of the time. Being a premiere and fast combo starter or move to throw into combos (try Jab 2 -> Down Tilt!) is the real buff to this move and allows Necalli's aggressive play to better flourish.


Up Tilt: Sky Serpent

Necalli performss a swift, horizontal slash of one of his hands above him with little ending lag. This only deals 6% damage, but sets the opponent up for a prime aerial combo such as Neutral Aerial or Up Aerial. The move starts slightly in front of Necalli, allowing him to potentially scoop up the opponent into the air albeit at pretty dang close ranges. This is one of Necalli's only actual combo starters before he enters V-Trigger, you may have noticed none of his other standards nor smashes start great combos in base form for example, so getting mileage out of this move is key. Necalli can consider comboing this move into Up SPecial: While it deals less damage than his other options, Up Specialing will allow Necalli to fill up his V-Gauge faster and so sometimes the tradeoff is worth it (especially if, say, it'll move Necalli up to being able to activate V-Trigger).

In V-Trigger, Up Tilt gains the usual trail of ancient Aztec color splash energy that causes the move to deal 2% more damage (although the knockback is tweaked to remain the same). This trail of energy lingers for a few frames after the swipe ends, extending the active frames of the attack just a touch and allowing Necalli an easier time hitting with it. Aside from that however it is the same, it doesn't really get a lot of explicit self boosts to the move.


Dash Attack: Neclawli

Necalli dips down with his hand with a growl, performing a brutal, down-to-up slash with his hand which deals a hefty 15% damage and smashes opponents pretty far away from Necalli and kills at 125%. Necalli lunge-steps forward when performing this move, giving it good range, but it is pretty laggy on both ends. This is a classic punish option designed mostly to hit opponents outside of Necalli's normal range, being stronger than Side Special but not giving V-Gauge. It could potentially be used to catch a landing, but Necalli has better and less risky options for that.

V-Trigger causes Necalli to scrape his hand against the ground while he begins this move, in addition to allowing him to extend his movement forward for up to 1 Battlefield Platform of claw dragging by holding down A. Most of the starting lag occurs before this extension, so the attack comes out pretty fast after releasing A. This makes Necalli's Dash Attack a decent prone chase move, but also a really good roll chasing move as opponents need to predict if he will release like normal, hold it down to catch a roll, or even potentially hold it down to cross up the opponent either way. It isn't the world's scariest option, but it is still pretty good. I should also note the ending lag of this attack has been slightly reduced, although it is still on average laggier than normal.

In addition to the above, Necalli scraping along the ground leaves behind little "embers" of dark energy. when Necalli slashes upwards, these "embers" surge up into little flames of energy that deal 6% damage and hit opponents in the direction Necalli was travelling! They have mediocre knockback, but decent hitstun, and depending on the situation Necalli can potentially get a hit off on the opponent even with this move's ending lag. If not, then the opponent will usually at least be close to Necalli for more offense. Note that if Necalli is hit out of this move, the flames harmlessly dissipate.

If the flames pass over a crack from Down Smash, those flames will surge to twice their normal size (which are usually about the size of a Pikmon sans the leaf/bud/flower) to deal 12% damage, more-but-still-mediocre knockback and some more hitstun. It's a pretty nice boost, although it isn't really very reliable at all. Since you're in V-Trigger, you probably are making two at once due to your new Down Smash, so it can cover a good amount of space with the Dash Attack.


Aerial-al-als

Neutral Aerial: Doomsday Countdown


Necalli thrusts out a leg in a forward kick, dealing 7% damage when it first comes out and knockback that is only okay. This, in true sex kick fashion, goes down to 4% damage and low knockback over time, with the move coming out pretty fast but having somewhat surprisingly high ending lag. The landing lag is variable, as it isn't only the damage that goes down with time: The landing lag does too! if Necalli lands late in the move, this move has practically no landing lag. It has higher landing lag on an early hit than you would normally expect, though. So, there's two main uses for this move. The first is to throw it out as a fast move to get the opponent off you, either drifting away or slowly down for safety. The other is to more aggressively approach with it and plan to land late in the move and hit later in the move for a combo, although even with the reduced landing lag this is not very safe against shields due to the later hit being so weak. Consider crossing the opponent up for more safety.

In V-Trigger, this move comes out with a much fiercer kick which deals 13% damage and knockback that kills at 140% which makes it pretty deadly. It is out very briefly, before it goes down to an 8% damage hitbox that reduces down to a 5% damage hitbox over time (the same hitboxes as before but with +1% damage). Seeing as it still comes out quick, this is a good kill option for opponents in the air and can be thrown out for safety still, but it can be risky given the high ending lag and the fact you need to wait a while for good landing lag. Aside from that, it is the same as the base move except slightly stronger.


Down Aerial: Road Of The Sun


Necalli points a foot down and shoots to the ground as a quick to start, pretty fast falling strike! The start of when Necalli flies down deals 14% damage as a pretty strong spike, while the rest of the dive is 9% damage with more moderate forward knockback and the landing hit makes 7% damage and knocks the opponent lightly away. The landing hitbox is actually unsafe on hit until later percentages, largely due to this move having pretty bad ending lag. Otherwise, it would be a pretty nice combo tool actually. Necalli can cancel out of this move after falling 4 Ganondorfs of height. Ultimately, this move has two primary uses as base Necalli. The first is that this is a fairly potent spike, so Necalli can use it for (suicide, half the time) gimps or to smash someone to the ground. In fact depending on the position, Necalli might be able to spike someone against the stage and into the falling hitbox! The other is that being floaty with a big hitbox, Necalli can have issues getting back to the stage: Down Aerial is his ultimate panic button to just fall to the ground as fast as he can and serves as a landing mixup for him.

V-Trigger is a significant buff to this move, largely in the fact it significantly reduces this move's ending lag. Not only does it become safe on hit, it is now safe on shield thanks to the landing hitbox also being buffed to 10% damage! Necalli now gets combos off of the landing hit and the plus frames on shield allow him to either pressure, throw out a seismo or retreat for space. This actually becomes a really good approach tool, of all things, while in V-Trigger, as Necalli can aim to land forward and it is safe on shield (note that he can aim it out of V-Trigger too).

This move has an additional bonus when landing on the energized earth from Down Smash, which shoots out a dark purple shockwave outwards 1 Battlefield Platform at an extreme speed. This only deals 5% damage, but hits people towards Necalli, so it has some minor uses and it makes defending against the divekicks just that touch more awkward. Down Smash -> Shorthop can threaten right into a divekick to pressure an opponent in shield, for example. It's a useful tool for Necalli overall.


Forward Aerial: Air Heavy Punch


Necalli thrusts a palm forward and down in front of him, dealing 11% damage and moderate forward knockback that will kill at around 170^. It's a lot better for getting opponents offstage than for killing outright, with somewhat laggy starting lag but it is more average ending lag. This move covers a decent amount of vertical space in front of Necalli, but it does not have a lot of horizontal range. At lower percentages, you can mix this into combos and potentially get a last combo continue with something like Side Special. Later on, it is more of a combo ender specializing in getting opponents off stage.


The base hitbox doesn't get affected by V-Trigger, but Necalli gains a sweetspot on his palm when he thrusts out which deals 13% damage and sends opponents down and forward in a manner akin to Ryu's aerial spike. The palm also has somewhat more range than normal thanks to the addition of Necalli's EX energy. This is a safer spike for Necalli than something with Down Aerial and the ending lag allows it to potentially be used in stage smashing combos like Mario's Forward Aerial with some pretty good consistancy. The move overall is a bit more average in Necalli's kit, but nonetheless both uses are solid for either plunging the opponent down or offstage.


Up Aerial: Sky God's Decree


An upwards palm thrust, Necalli's Up Aerial is designed with juggling in mind. It deals 8% damage and knocks opponents into the air with moderate knockback: It isn't enough to call it a kill move, but Necalli doesn't really get combos out of it (although earlier on he can Up Special afterwards). This works well together with moves like Necalli's Up Smash (both of them) and Up Special, and you can falling Up Aerial to do grounded landing chases as well: The move's landing lag is fairly low, with low-moderate ending lag otherwise and average starting lag. The V-Trigger buff is very minor here: 2% more damage and some light range increase, one of the weaker V-Trigger buffs in the set.

Back Aerial: Deific Rejection

Necalli pulls his foot back, then slams it behind him as a potent and crushing kick! This is a brutal blow that deals 15% damage and kills at 110%, which is a very laggy move to start. It is a hard punish kill move to threaten air dodges with, basically. The ending lag is bad, but noticeably less than the laggy starting lag. Necalli doesn't really have actual kill moves in his aerials outside of V-Trigger, which still kills a large 35% later, and spikes. The fact it has such a laggy start is bad for Necalli in one regard, though. Remember how Down Smash doesn't hit behind him? Yeah, Back Aerial being so laggy makes being behind Necalli even better. Expect a lot of Neutral Aerial to get people off your back, which is going to be difficult to do on strong spacers like Marth.

Of course, you could give in and use The Calling. But taking 33.3% V-Gauge just to get someone off your back is kinda spooky, ain't it? V-Trigger won't be helping this move's starting lag, but it does help the ending lag, cutting it down to just around average. V-Trigger also adds two autocancel windows to this move for Necalli. The first is right before the move comes out, which can potentially allow Necalli to fake shorthops (although this is risky because you don't really Back Aerial in neutral: It's landing lag isn't good!) or for some more ways to land. The next autocancel window is just after the move ends, which can allow Necalli to throw it out, but the lag keeps it from coming out of a shorthop. A fullhop, though, that's the saucy spot for hitting it with a fastfall. You can switch between shorthops and full hops to try and mix people up, but its a committing option given the starting lag.


Throw-ow-ows

Grab: Moonlight's Grasp

Necalli's grab is pretty simple: Rather fast, average to just above average range for whatever grab he is going for, and it is a simple one handed grab with his grasping hand. V-Trigger modifies the properties of Necalli's grab in a lot of ways. First off, it now has tremendous range that is on par with good tethers and Bowser at the cost of being one of the slower grabs in the game to start up as Necalli jumps forward with a wide, savage swipe. Not the huge ending lag of tethers, though.

Dash grabs and pivot grabs (RIP Perfect Pivots 2018) are about in the middle of Necalli's two starting lags, but have only pretty good range instead of insane range. They are really good aggressively, but of course you can't use that out of shield. I'm sure you get what that means.


Pummel: Bite

Necalli bites the opponent, like he was trying to eat them, a slightly fast pummel that deals 1.4% damage. Necalli bites twice in the same time period in V-Trigger for 2.8% damage. Fun fact: Necalli was supposed to eat his opponents in the original draft, but they ended up changing it to only making him eat his opponent's soul.

Back Throw: Soul Discriminator


Necalli slams his palm into the opponent's body for 1% damage, crunching their torso with a sickening crunch as if breaking their bones for 3% and then throwing them behind him for 5% damage: A total of 9% damage, the knockback of this move is ideal for forcing the opponent to either tech or enter prone, a situation Necalli is ideal with: And this gives Necalli more reliability in these tech chase scenarios than just having his Neutral Special, especially since you're going to presumably be landing more normal grabs overall. This is also a reasonable move to set opponents up for edgeguards if your back is towards the ledge. Note that this does, in fact, turn Necalli around if that wasn't obvious.

V-Trigger adds two buffs to this move, a very general one and a very specific one. The general one is that each hit having Necalli's mystic energy adds 1% damage to each hit, making this move deal a rather brutal 12% damage given it offers follow-ups. The second is if the opponent is thrown against the Down Smash dark energy, regardless of if they tech it or not, it will shoot out a shockwave of energy: If the opponent rolls or tech rolls on it, it will follow their direction. If the opponent techs in place or attacks, it will follow where they move next which includes shooting into the air if they jump. They only deal 4% damage and light hitstun that keeps the opponent in place, but it places even more pressure on an opponent who is already in a precarious position. Situational, but useful!


Down Throw: Soul Devour

Necalli grips the opponent firmly by the scalp and holds them skywards, energy flowing out of the holdee in question (colored appropriately for them ala SFV's character specific color splashes) and into Necalli as he devours juuust a bit of their soul for 6% damage, before slamming them into the ground for another 4% damage and knockback that doesn't really allow Necalli to follow-up or anything: While it isn't too far, the knockback is a bit too far for any true combos given the amount of hitstun it deals. The soul sucking heals Necalli for 6% damage and is the main draw of this move, since he doesn't get anything out of this throw outside of some potential pressure (Down Special, but opponents shouldn't have much issue dodging it). The V-Trigger for this is very simple, increasing the damage and healing of this move to 9% at the cost of the slam only dealing 3% meaning you get the same 12% damage as the Back Throw. It's your call on if you need some healing, especially if you took a beating to give your V-Trigger, or if a more aggressive option is the more appropriate.

Forward Throw: Soul Sealer


Necalli slams the opponent face-first into the ground for 6% damage, winding up and harshly kicking them in the face for 7% and high knockback that'll kill at 135%. This move has one purpose and that is to be a strong Necalli kill throw. It does a lot of damage, 13%, and it sends them far, so you can also get a lot of space before killing if you want. It is worthless if you want anything aside from that, but there you go. V-Trigger simply adds to this move's unadulterated, raw power by upping the damage on both hits by 2% (A 17% damage throw?!) and killing at 122%. If you want damage and if you want to kill, here you go. But it still is only good for that.

Up Throw: Soul Explosion

Necalli shakes the opponent above him multiple times, dealing 1% damage three times, before blasting them away with a blast of dark energy that sends opponents skywards with 4% damage, high base knockback and very low knockback scaling. The blast can hit people around Necalli. This is primarily to set up chasedown scenarios for landings, as Necalli doesn't have a true combo throw given how strong his held Neutral Special and other moves are for that.

The V-Trigger for this move is actually potentially quite powerful, as Necalli shoves the energy into the opponent as it blasts the opponent up, which adds 1% damage to the blast of the move. More importantly than this, the opponent will be seeping out Necalli's energy for the next 4 seconds which indicates it taking root in them. The next attack Necalli hits the opponent with will deal 1.2x its normal damage, detonating the energy in an inky explosion! This, importantly, even occurs if Necalli hits the foe's shield which can lead to making moves safer or being plus enough for Necalli to combo against the foe's shield or to Neutral Special/Grab them again. The 1.2x damage is going to be tricky to hit with your strongest moves due to their larger lag because you can't use a smaller hit to set it up given it triggers on the first hit, so you can't do Held Neutral Special -> Forward Smash and get the bonus on the F-Smash. The opponent starts in the air, so they can even potentially worry about a Back Aerial on landing, and your V-Trigger Up Smash is a scary landing read after this.


Final Smash: Ceremony of Honor / Soul Offering


Necalli lets out a hungry, gutteral growl as he gets his cut-in for his Final Smash, then rushes forward with a hand outstretched for a Battlefield (in the air) or until he gets to the end of the platform he is on (on the ground), scooping up anyone in his path and dragging them with him for 10% damage for as many people as needed. Once he gets to where he's going, he smashes them against the air and slashes at them so rapidly that they have no time to fall, dealing 15 hits of 2% damage for a total of 30% damage before finishing it off with a final double slash of 10% damage. Opponents in the air are footstooled, while grounded opponents are left in prone with Necalli a single Necalli length away and able to react.


In V-Trigger, even Necalli's Final Smash gets stronger! It has the same start-up, save for Necalli making more animalistic roars at the start and while dragging across, with the same 10%. But this time, Necalli pins the opponent up and charges dark energy in his palm, slamming the palm into his opponents for 20% damage. This evil energy seeps into them for a further 20% as they fall to the ground/footstooled, which sizzles them and deals an additional 10% damage for a total of 60% damage. Necalli gets a stronger advantage state out of this and can usually combo right into a Down Smash: Leading to the very satisfying feel of stomping all over the 3 weak opponents you scooped in an FFA and sending them flying (if they have enough damage).


Playstyle: Devour Hour

Playing Base Necalli​

Base Necalli is NOT a weak character. He is, however, a character with multiple flaws. The most obvious is that base Necalli is actually rather lacking in combo tools, as his Held Neutral Special does not lead as well and moves like Down Tilt do not function as combo enablers. Up Tilt is going to be your main combo move alongside of your Neutral Specials, and the risky option being your Down Smash which can lead into good damage early but is mostly for reads. Neutral Aerial is another option for this with the late hit, but base Necalli is at a lot more risk when he is approaching with it thanks to how it isn't very good against shields.

Your best damage comes from strong neutral play and punishing the opponent. Your Down Special is a strong neutral tool with variable ranges and is especially frightening to opponents due to building up Necalli's V-Gauge. Ideally, this move will pressure opponents to approach Necalli. If opponents retreat, Necalli can slightly follow them and throw out more Down Specials, and threaten to use anti-airs like Up Smash and Up Special if opponents get on platforms to avoid it. Base Necalli is pretty good when opponents approach, as well! Necalli's primary anti-air is his pretty solid Up Special, as it deals damage, fills Necalli's V-Gauge and has invincibility frames to deal with the opponent. Up Smash, however, is a stronger option that offers more immediate reward with less future upside. If the opponent is dancing around your Down Special's range, then Side Special can be a good way to hit them around (especially swordies dancing out of range) while Forward Tilt is a solid move to keep the opponent honest between the close and middle ranges of the Down Special. Down Tilt is a solid option to get opponents off your back if they get in close for comfort, although beware the punish (like some of Necalli's other base approach breakers, actually). Expect most of Base Necalli's damage to come in smaller, 1/2 hit damage bursts (Ike-esque, one might think).

The Calling is Base Necalli's greatest strength and biggest weakness. It is an amazing out of shield tool that delays the gratification of V-Trigger Necalli and can prevent him from ever reaching his full power. Cross-ups are right out when Necalli has it on deck and he can use it as a get out of jail free card when grounded against heavy combo characters such as Sheik, Greninja and Captain Falcon. Necalli needs to use it carefully due to taking 1/3rd of his V-Gauge: Not only does this permanantly make you take 33.3% more damage to enter V-Trigger, but you NEED that bar to use The Calling! If you just use it against the lowest and most common combo, you're going to be caught and crushed by a larger and deadliest combo later. Descision making is crucial: Is the opponent's combo going to destroy me? Mario's going to get that early percent anyway, maybe I should just take the 30% towards another Calling/V-Trigger? Can my opponent get a kill confirm on me here or am I safe? For such a mindless beast, Necalli requires a rather intelligent player.

V-Trigger​

How you use Necalli's V-Trigger is highly dependant on matchup, timing and situation. Some matchups, such as Sheik, might involve Necalli holding off V-Trigger for a long time or even avoiding using it except in certain situations. Others, such as Ike or Bowser, might involve Necalli wanting to get a V-Trigger ASAP. Necalli activating his V-Trigger lessens essentially all of Necalli's defensive options, especially out of shield, in exchange for giving him a significant boost to his offensive capabilities and mobility.

The V-Trigger activation has a few ways to use it to keep in mind. Raw v-Trigger is always a fine choice and is the lowest reward, lowest risk option: All things considered, Necalli can basically V-Trigger for free in neutral while being extremely difficult to react to (although if the opponent manages the prediction and hits him with a fast enough move before the move "starts", it will truly destroy him. This is insanely hard though!). This gives Necalli access to his boosted moveset as soon as he can, but he gets nothing off of the V-Trigger activation itself.

Necalli can play off the fear that the V-Trigger activation cancel presents. Let us take the case of Forward Smash. Forward Smash is unsafe on shield and easy to see coming. You'll probably shield and punish it a lot of the time, perhaps dodge it or hit him out of it. This is not as true if Necalli has V-Trigger on deck: Now, Forward Smash not only can be safe on shield, but it leads into a grab as a COMBO or is a 50/50 with a now very powerful Neutral Special (either they dodge and avoid it, they hold shield and get grabbed, Necalli delays and grabs the dodge or the foe grabs him when he delays etc), not to mention other options like Down Tilt. What was once safe to shield now is not so and only because of V-Trigger. This allows you to more freely throw out a powerhouse move like Forward Smash in situations the foe would usually shield. In short, the THREAT of your V-Trigger might be more powerful than your ACTUAL V-Trigger.

And of course, Necalli can instead burn it for crazy damaging combos on hit. For example, Down Smash's sourspot into V-Trigger into V-Trigger Down Smash Sourspot into Combo, a minimum 33% damage with more to come! Granted, it requires a laggy starting move to hit but it is still crazy. And the sweetspot leads into an instant full charge Side Special on shield for a shield break thanks to the increased hitstun (Sourspot does NOT!), which is a pretty crazy application. You can Side Special into the opponent and cancel into another hit, including another non-full charge Side Special, to threaten a combo from a distance. You get the idea, I think.

At the same time, holding your V-Trigger for the perfect moment leaves you with a less powerful moveset for the most part if you DO plan on V-Triggering, and a Necalli who gets greedy can get punished hard. In addition, it is possible to inefficiently bait V-Triggers or even punish them due to this, the most obvious being something like a Forward Smash that is buffering V-Trigger expecting a shield and the opponent does a back roll, a counter or what have you. Don't be afraid to just raw V-Trigger.

Super Saiyan Necalli​

V-Trigger Necalli is an offensive juggernaut with defensive holes and risky options. Necalli now has a larger variety of combo starters that includes his Down Tilt, a better Jab 2, a significantly more dangerous (if also more punishable) Down Smash, and even potentially Heart of Gold! His Down Special's increased speed allows it to chew through shields and to open up the opponent more offensively, he does increased damage on many moves and has a much more potent KO throw. Necalli's neutral game still involves a lot of Down Special and Forward Tilt, but shielding is now a huge danger as Necalli can crush counter shields with his Forward Tilt or take off a good amount of their health with seismos. Your Neutral Aerial is a slightly safer approach option and you can begin to play mindgames with Back Aerial's autocancels now as well.

Necalli constantly threatens opponents with a held Neutral Special -> Forward Smash kill confirm once opponents get enough damage on them, while he is also extremely powerful in prone-vortex situations which he can set up 100% with Tapped Neutral Special or can go for more often with Back throw. His Tapped Neutral Special is especially dangerous due to the 8% armor it possesses: An opponent, say, throwing out a jab to check a Side Special is going to get powered through, smashed to the ground and put into a Heart of Gold vortex with huge implications. Did I mention his landing situations are chasable with a powerful Up Smash or his long lasting, invincible Up Special? Which all gets the more deadly if an Up Throw is powering up their damage! Being in disadvantage against a powered up Necalli is one of the scariest things in Smash Brothers.

Necalli suffers not from defensive juggernauts, but offensive ones: All of Necalli's out of shield options are nerfed, be it lightly (grab) or heavily (Up Smash is no longer very viable OoS for example). It is actually pretty difficult for Necalli to get people off of him when he doesn't want to, with Necalli usually needing to take more risky options lest he become predictable. Because of this, Necalli still needs to play pretty carefully while using relentless aggressiuon when the time comes. Necalli no longer even has The Calling, and his behind options are difficult: Beware opponents with excellent cross-up power! It should also be noted while Necalli is powerful offensively, he is NOT invincible, and many of his buffs are more to do with his advantage state than his neutral (although the greatly improved Down Special lag + Heart of Gold DO add to that a gooddeal). It isn't like Necalli instantly wins offensively!

In fact, sometimes Necalli will want to avoid using V-Trigger at all or until he can get a kill off of it and instead wants to abuse the powerful approach breaking options that Necalli possesses outside of V-Trigger. Lets take Sheik and Greninja for example. Both of them can open up V-Trigger Necalli hardcore, but don't have great options to get in versus base Necalli without more risk as Down Special is going to generally win out vs. needles/water shuriken. It would be more to Necalli's interest to keep this phase going for longer and getting some more uses out of The Calling and go into V-Trigger at kill moments then to go into V-Trigger fast, as neither will necessarily kill Necalli super fast either (giving him more time to build up V-Gauge).

Now compare the aforementioned Ike and Bowser. Both of them will kill Necalli pretty early, giving him a lot less V-Gauge to work with, and Bowser is even a grappler to make it so Necalli's more powerful out of shield options mean less as he'll grab right through shields! Neither are going to open up either Necalli for huge combos, so the lesser defensive options are often less important (although they can mean even stronger punishes on Necalli!). And both of them have generally lackluster disadvantage states: Ike is going to be a lot more troubled getting out of, say, a vortex scenario than an agile Greninja with a counter, and bowser is going to be pressured and combo'd harder with his big body and both are, say, easier to spike with a Forward Aerial. In matchups like these, you're more apt to go for a fast V-Trigger (which also means perhaps favoring hitting with Specials over immediete damage) and using The Calling is going to be more costly as you'll get more meter.

Put simply, matchup knowledge is an important part of Necalli's surprisingly nuanced gameplay as well.
 
Last edited:

FrozenRoy

Smash Lord
Joined
Apr 26, 2007
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I made some minor edits to Necalli:

- V-Gauge is no longer gained when hitting things like minions, an oversight I missed before.

- Minor textual changes to Heart of Gold, no gameplay alteration.

- Up Throw has a new V-Trigger effect.

- A meaty playstyle section has been added! Hopefully people enjoy!

Black Knight Not King Knight (Black Knight Bionichute Bionichute )

The Black Knight's Specials actually set up a pretty interesting projectile pinball setup for him, in particular the Down Smash trap is actually pretty neat as a kind of savable Electro-Ball reflector and trap. Up Special is a fairly neat use of an Up Special and offers some reasonably solid projectile saving options and the use of duplicates as minions you rush around to deflect the shots is innovative enough as well. There's some cute/nice reflection options as well: Neutral Aerial is an obvious one I enjoy, but Down Tilt is also pretty cool and Dash Attack is neat.

This move also has some instantly fixable errors I see. Neutral Aerial's bumper lasts indefinitely with absolutely no termination clause which means he can currently create an infinite amount of never ending bumpers for his projectiles which is probably bad. Put a time limit on them, even a long one (20 seconds? 10 seconds?). Some of the KO numbers are whack. Forward Tilt randomly kills better than any of his smashes, even a sweetspotted Up Smash, despite having "quick start-up". His Down Smash, his laggiest smash with the least special interactions, kills the latest of all of his Smashes despite dealing the most damage which feels odd. I would bump Forward Tilt's kill power to 140% or 150% and bring Down Smash's down to 110% or even 100% given how laggy it sounds. As a side note, I would increase Up Smash's sweetspot uncharged damage to 14% to make it do 1% more than the F-Smash and make it more logical that it does more damage fully charged.

Another issue I will bring up is that Forward Smash is kind of contradictary, both stating it is super fast and that it has a "very laggy" part of its animation. If its super fast, it really doesn't matter how long part of the animation takes since it is probably unreactable and it doesn't matter much if, say, 7 frames of an 8 frame move are the same animation. Alternately, it can be read as the move being laggy to start while also being fast to start which obviously makes no sense. I'd fix this.

Back Aerial is neat, but to go back to my earlier point it isn't as playstyle relevant when the Forward Tilt can kill at the same percent and is fast to come out. I also like how Down Aerial's speed is somewhat used against it and how it plays into stalling. One thing I'd like to mention is I feel like this set would do better with some expansion on moves aside from interacting with the Electro-Ball, as I do see a theme of multi-hit moves that make things like rolling scary against The Black Knight while shielding of course helps his Electro-Balls. Making Down Smash a KO move would help advance this, but it might be neat to suggest stuff like Up Smash's sweetspot as a hard to air dodge 50/50 from his Up Throw, or giving him a notable strong yet unsafe-on-shield move to make opponents want to shield and thus deflect an Electro-Ball or put them in a Catch-22. This is another area that could be expanded on even just in explanation of moves. I'd also consider spicing up the Forward Throw, which doesn't serve as much of a purpose right now. Maybe The Black Knight could make the opponent static-y and electrified, causing Electro-Balls to home in on foes slightly to play into it being the "Throw them into the ball" throw? Also, a general throw note: Up Throw should probably kill even later as a combo throw given how it sounds.

The Black Knight has some good points. The Specials based projectile pinball is actually pretty solid, there's some fun ideas to play around with it, it has some basics of playstyle outside of it down. But it is dragged down by some weird numerical issues I mentioned earlier, being a bit low in expansion on the sub-themes/non-Electro-Ball themes in the set and being a bit too same-y in some bounces with parts of the grab game being the primary offender. This will probably move somewhere into 6 if the above issues are fixed and maybe a bit of expansion, but for now the issues are just too large for me to feel comfortable doing it when the good isn't necessarily great.
 

Smady

Smash Master
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Von Guu is a fun little interaction playground of creative effects and not always intuitive mechanics. As far as my own sets, it reminds me of my now very aged Garbodor set wherein Garbodor popped off his head in his up special. Obviously Von Guu does the concept far better, though the idea still is very similar and there's pitfalls to this approach that are addressed and yet, feel a little underused at the same time. I really like the creativity you put into every move here, especially at the end of the set when you'd expect it to dial down, you keep creating animations that are pretty fun, for example summoning conductors on the stage as makeshift props is very imaginative. The set also sounds fun to play just from purely being able to throw out all these hitboxes at once, and the playstyle isn't bad.

The core of the set is building up his minions to a dramatic bursting point. The head mechanics do play into this a little as they can get dragged along for the ride, but this is where the set could've really ascended to the next level. If there was some slicker interaction between the ever growing minions and the disembodied head, rather than a fairly perfunctory one, it'd be great. The head mechanic is honestly the most lacking part of the set as a lot of the time when the interactions pop up for it they do feel a tad forced, though I'm glad they're there. If the set didn't have these interactions the head would feel pretty irrelevant, but it doesn't help the set when it's a choice of irrelevant or forced. There probably needed to be some other mechanic to tie them together in a more natural way. Still, I can't really complain too much about the set. It's a well put together and fun moveset. Good job.

Ulrich Hetfield is a pretty extraordinary set in a few ways. For one, that grab game is a big deal, boasting a minion upgrade mechanic alongside what is at times a completely separate set of throws dedicated to the minions. The core of the set is certainly of interest to me as it combines a minion mechanic from my Djimmi set and a bunch of other high concept ideas. Primary among them is an idea reminiscent of Medea, where you switch around ownership of the minion to swap who takes self damage, at the same time completely reversing the implications of the minion. You’ve practically made it your trademark to invent a mechanic and turn it on its head, it’s pretty cool here. That and the grab game is the primary appeal of the set to me, and it’s definitely very fun. The one niggle I have there is the set kind of forgets about the whole self damage aspect, though I suppose it does generally work into everything regardless when it’s as universal as passive damage on you or the foe.

For the most part the set is quite intuitive, though I would point out the down smash as the sole offender. I don’t really like how it interrupts the minion by force and the logic of a minion being forced to do DK’s up smash clap because of a shockwave’s a little tacky. I would much rather the animation just made them wobble around for a similar hitbox. That’s pretty much the one time the set went there, besides maybe the wings being a little weird to visualize. I do also appreciate the aerials provided necessary melee focus and a simpler touch that is a tremendous help to the set. The smashes were good in this way too, giving some nice satisfying KO moves in the midst of a very meaty interaction heavy set. If anything, I might've preferred more moves like fsmash, and I prefer usmash to dsmash to give you an idea of what I liked there.

Overall the set focuses to my surprise on the minions’ status rather than on self damage or projectiles, by status I mean buffing them or filling them with blood in various ways. It has plenty of projectiles and the set manages to squeeze all it can out of the minions. You’re always feeding the beast in one way or another. So this ends up as a strong playstyle where Ulrich essentially has tons of set up in various ways he can either sit and spam given the time, or play with in creative offensive ways. Granted I might’ve preferred a focus on the self damage or projectiles, we have definitely seen this kind of minion playstyle before. But this just works too naturally to complain. While not wholly original, that doesn’t detract from the impressive creativity on display here. It’s a great set and there’s very little to criticize, may be one of your best period.

I did request to see a finished intro section and I was very happy with the results. That was a wonderfully written intro for an edgy original character. I complained earlier about visualizing the wings but it goes a ways in specifying the character's darker taste in aesthetics, plus the weapons like a scythe demonstrating his sheer edge. It's the little touches like that which make the set memorable.

I read Alolan Golem in part a while back and just got back to it, shame I didn't finish it earlier as it's a pretty cool set. The set's main appeal is the characterization, as I've come to expect of your unique style, Alolan Golem largely is the king of the Geodude line who references the whole collection. It reminds me of some MUGEN sets that have a mass amount of summons, though this set does the smart thing of putting it all on one input so it's not taking away from the set's melee. This is a long established concept in Make Your Move by now, but it's still impressive. The core minion and electrical charge make for a nice foundation, and the set doesn't lack any of the expected coolness of Golem rolling around in the aerials or smashes, though I feel this part of the set could be a little stronger.

As in Sucy, I did feel like this set got a bit carried away with going over the changes of the electrical charge rather than focusing on each individual move. Some of these moves don't get the necessary attention as you go over what are many times unnecessary additions or changing the move so much, it feels like two fairly generic moves over one that really shines. In general the charge mechanic, like Sucy's mushrooms, feels like it would be better suited as a universal mechanic. Really if you just focused on Golem rolling around in his muck and zapping things, squeezing all you could out of these simple iconic Golem concepts, you'd have a stronger set. Nonetheless, a good set and glad to see you contributing again Slavic, hope to see more!
 

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Spark the Electric Jester is a game made by Felipe Daneluz, previously known for his successful Sonic fangames in Sonic Before the Sequel, After the Sequel, and Chrono Adventure. It stars the titular fluffball who balances high speed platforming with a variety of different fighting styles, courtesy of over a dozen power ups, to take down dynamic bosses. This moveset is not about him.

Fark the Electric Jester

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd....245/F2BAD1AE6D58EBEC1B5D34D5DE10C7CA32F54AA9/

Enter Fark (Fake-Spark), a robotic doppelganger to Spark who was made to be a mole for the villain’s army to prevent him from creating a robot apocalypse. In addition to all the evil deeds he had done in Freom’s army, he had also taken Spark’s job as a circus performer. What cruelty!


In any case, this jumpstarted the plot of this game in which Spark went figuratively to the moon and back to beat him up for taking his job away. After the smoke cleared and Spark got his job back, he and Fark actually became good roommates and live nicely together until their next adventure.



Statistics:

Size: (Sonic) As a robotic doppelgänger of a Sonic-inspired character, Fark has the same proportions as Mr. Needlemouse.
Weight: (Jigglypuff) For a robot, Fark is not constructed too sturdily. Any sort of light breeze can knock him over, so be careful to avoid powerful hits.
Fall Speed: (Fox) Fark is as fast as lightning, so it makes sense that he drops as quickly too. While this helps him attack from air to ground, this makes him easy to combo.
Jump: (Marth) His average jumping height makes Fark a viable threat going into the air.
Air Speed: (Bowser) Fark’s air movement is slightly below average, making him better at chasing opponents on the ground.
Walking Speed: (Charizard) Fark is surprisingly fluid for a robot, maintaining an above-average gait.
Running Speed: (Little Mac) Sonic will always be the fastest, so Fark will settle for top 5.
Traction: (Sonic) Despite his massive speed, Fark can bring himself to a stop with ease.


Specials:

Neutral B: Parry
Fark quickly raises his arm up in a blocking maneuver. This functions like most counters in blocking attacks, lasting 28 frames with an extra 17 if the counter whiffs completely. What is different about this move is that it’s purely defensive. Fark does not retaliate with an attack upon successful execution. Furthermore, this attack has 3 levels of success depending on when in the active window an attack lands: blue, yellow, and red levels. Starting in the middle level, a yellow flash of light from Fark's hand marks success. Happening for the 15 frames of the counter hitbox, this parry completely negates damage and knockback to Fark. On the opponent's side, they suffer more hit stun then they would otherwise. Since Fark suffers little ending lag, this gives him a good opportunity to retaliate. The worst is the red level, signified by a red flash. Happening at the last 10 frames of the active counter, Fark takes the full brunt of the damage, but none of the knockback. While Fark can still retaliate afterwards, the opponent lacks the extra endlag as well. It is the least ideal situation this move can provide, sometimes more dangerous than whiffing completely. On the other end of the spectrum is the blue level, activated by parrying the first 3 frames of getting attacked. In addition to receiving no damage or knockback, the opponent will receive a large amount of hit stun and Fark will recover 5%. The execution is similar to that of a perfect shield, so it is hard to pull off consistently.

The other function of this move is to fill Fark's static bar, a gauge resting right above Fark's health bar. This bar affects the duration and power of some of Fark's moves, more on that in their respective sections. It can be filled in minuscule amounts by dealing damage (10% for 1/50 of the bar), but the main way to fill it is to parry moves. Blue level fills the bar by 2/5, yellow level fills it by 1/8, and red drains it by 1/8. The meter can provide Fark with projectiles, more versatile recovery, and even a super form. Since Fark is a frail, short-ranged character otherwise, it is important to manage Static wisely. You lose it all upon getting KO’ed, so make it count while you are alive.

Down B: Super Transformation
Surprisingly, Fark's Super form is relegated not to his Final Smash, but instead his Down Special. If the static gauge is below half full, Fark will punch the ground, creating a cyan electric dome around him 1.5 SBB in diameter, expending 1/8 of the gauge. In the air, Fark will flex out his body like Super Sonic’s transformation, the dome appearing around him. The electric dome will stun anyone touching it a la ZSS Paralyzer. While the move is a bit laggy, Fark has Super armor when performing this move, making it great as a second means of avoiding knockback. Unlike Parry, the stunning effect will leave opponents more open to punishment. Take note of the current gauge level though; attempting to use this move with less than 1/8 bar will make an ineffectual attack: the sphere is now 0.75 SBB in diameter and lacks Super armor.



If Fark’s gauge is at least half full, Fark will turn into Super Fark. His Jester hat will turn completely gold and he will gain a staff with large green gemstone blades on both ends. In this form, all of Fark's stats get a boost and his hand-related attacks more than double in range courtesy of his staff. He will cause 1.2x damage and 1.1x knockback on all of his attacks. He becomes heavier up to Zelda’s weight. His mobility increases all-around, gaining Ryu’s Air Speed, Samus’ Jump Height, Sheik’s Walk Speed, and a Run Speed half way between that of Sonic and Captain Falcon. His Fall Speed drops to that of Roy, making him floatier but still overall a fast faller. His traction also decreases to that of Mewtwo. His staff will move in the exact same manner as Fark’s respective hand swipes unless otherwise noted, effectively putting him at a swordfighter’s attack range. To be clear, this form does not make Fark invincible, he just has higher stats. This form lasts between 5-10 seconds, depending on the static gauge. While in super mode, successful Parries will not fill up the static gauge, so you cannot extend this super form. Other techniques using static will cost less energy, so they can be used more freely.

Side B: Burst Dash
This move resembles the dash and air dash from the Megaman X series. Dealing no damage whatsoever, Fark gains a burst of speed in whichever direction he's facing, leaving him running forwards. From a standstill or walking, this burst dash will immediately put Fark into running at max speed, no acceleration required. Performing this maneuver back and forth will make for one heck of a confusing dash dance. This move on the ground can be cancelled into any action, including itself. From jumping to shielding to attacking, this move provides several options to Fark. In the air, this move also cancels into several different options, but no longer itself. It is now a recovery tool as well as a means to chase after midair opponents. This will completely halt his falling momentum for the duration of the dash, but there is a 1 second delay between when the dash ends and you can activate another one. Given Fark's incredible falling speed, this means he cannot use this for indefinite stalling. By alternating between this move and the up special, one can give Fark an impressive range of recovery options.


Up B: Flash Step
In his boss fight, Fark's signature move is dashing around the screen at lightning speeds. This dash takes the form of an up special, one that presents itself in different forms on the air and ground. On the ground, he appears to be moving so fast that all one can see are blurred lines bouncing off all edges of the screen.

This is just an illusion though, as Fark is now just invisible at his starting location. Now this move becomes similar to Dimensional Cape or Shadow Sneak. While invisible, Fark can walk around and perform a grounded jump. He can move mostly undetected, but every 0.5 seconds of invisibility he will visually blink in for 5 frames. Since Fark takes damage as normal, opponents will have to follow these flashes to track him. Projectiles are especially effective because any amount of hit stun will knock away the illusion. He cannot attack while invisible, but by pressing the special button once again, Fark will suddenly reappear and perform a powerful horizontal chop (17%). This move has fantastic horizontal knockback and can kill at 110%, but the endlag on this move is terrible so it is important to be precise. Additionally, if you end this attack in the air, Fark will fall into helpless mode, so this stage should be used for onstage killing. The amount of time you can remain invisible is dependent on your static gauge (1-5 seconds). The static gauge will drain proportionally as long as you keep up the invisibility. Once the meter runs out, you will automatically perform the chop attack. If you have less than 1/5 static bar full or simply tap B, you will warp 2 SBB forward (or to the ledge, whichever is a shorter distance) and perform a weaker version of the chop (11%, KO at 200%). While weaker, this chop can be used more safely via less endlag and no static cost.

The aerial version resembles Pikachu's Quick Attack, except you can only dash once. This might seem like a terrible recovery, but using the static gauge will allow you to follow up with more directional bursts. Each extra dash uses up 1/5 of the static gauge, meaning you can use up to 6 dashes in a single bar. You can delay the quick steps for added unpredictability, making it resemble ROB’s Project M recovery. If you use a dash and the static gauge is not below 1/5 full, Fark will not fall into helpless mode. This means you are able to perform any midair action attack so long as you do not spend more power than your static gauge has access to. However, Fark's recovery is poor otherwise, so it is important to keep the Static Gauge with reserve energy. In Super Form, he gets 2 free bursts in the air. If he uses more than 2 before touching the ground, the standard 1/5 gauge is spent on top of the constant drain.


Standards:

Jab: Fark performs a chop, a roundhouse kick, and then another swipe of his hand. This can transition into a rapid jab, where he tears apart the enemy with innumerable slashes. At the end, he swipes the opponent away with one more powerful hand gesture (3, 4, 3, 0.3 per hit, and 6%). The knockback on these 3 hits while horizontal cannot kill at any reasonable percentages, making them consistently reliable for starting combos. The chop after the multi-jab has good knockback, launching 15* up and killing at 180%. The multi-jab exists to deal a lot of damage and keep foes from acting for a bit. When in his Super Form, Fark’s multi-jab changes slightly. Instead of lightning fast vertical hand slices, Fark stabs his spear forward at an equal pace in a whirlwind of stabs tripling the multi-jab hitbox length and greatly increasing DPS.



Forward Tilt: Fark stabs his hand forwards, his robotic fingers cutting like daggers (10%). Like Luigi’s Forward Smash, this can be angled. It is slightly slower than the jab, but it’s still safe to use. At neutral, this attack is good for continuing the assault at low damage, while the up angled one can lead into air combos at mid-high percentages. The down angled version, while the weakest variant, will commonly trip if it connects. When not angled downwards, the attack deals either 0* or 45* knockback, killing at around 160%.

Up Tilt: Fark swipes his hand above himself (8%). The attack is almost entirely vertical, covering about a 30* arc in total. At around the same speed as the forward tilt, this attack is a good, albeit precise juggling tool. It can be used to get larger foes into the air for combos and juggling, but many small or ducking foes will easily dodge it. This attack is weak, killing at 230% vertically. This is an attack that especially benefits from Super Fark, as the spear’s range greatly improves the scope of this tilt’s hitbox. The extension will keep him safer from downward blows and provide a greater HP threshold for continued juggling.

Down Tilt: Fark punches at the ground, creating an electrical explosion at his feet (7% or 12%). This attack is a laggy attack, but it has a large hitbox (that of a fully charged aura sphere) that easily launches opponents. Hitting the sweetspot in the middle of the explosion will send opponents at an 80* angle kill at 120%. Outside the sweetspot will send horizontally and kill much lower at 200%. This is a good killing move for Fark, but can also make opponents airborne by covering the Up Tilt’s blind spot. On the down side, direct follow ups are not common because of the end lag that this attack brings. Even still, as the opponent is going to land the up tilt gets its chance to shine to meet the falling foe.

Dash attack: While running, he swipes the air in front of him a countless number of times, not unlike his rapid jab's animation (up to 15%). It launches at a 15* angle at the end of the attack, but the resulting knockback doesn’t kill below 400%. In addition to dealing high damage, the number of hits coupled with its length makes the move good for catching opponents attempting to rush in. This applies best if an enemy is committed to an attack animation; due to the longer duration of this move, a foe that predicts and dodges this move ahead of time will have plenty of time to punish Fark.

Smash Attacks:
For all of Fark's Smash attacks, if you press the special button when charging Fark will launch a projectile. The static required depends on the charge: Uncharged projectiles require the full meter, half charge and above need 1/4 meter, and full charge takes only 1/16. While costly in either vulnerability or static consumption, Fark’s only projectiles possess both great range and damage. They are particularly vulnerable to being reflected, absorbed, or pocketed however, so it is best to size up your situation before you think to use these moves. In Super Fark mode, Uncharged projectiles require 1/3 meter and half charged are free. While easier to spam, going in guns blazing will leave you dry when you revert.

Side Smash: Fark will attack with a powerful forward palm thrust charged with electricity not unlike a certain Doctor (20%). Like him, this attack is strong when sweetspotting the palm, but the range is well below average. It has little lag and has average knockback, killing at 90% and launching horizontally. The best time to attack someone is by either predicting the foe’s ledge or prone follow up, or by punishing a whiff. Should you add the projectile, a wave of energy the size of a SBB is launched from the palm that travels 2/3 FD at the speed of Arc Thunder and eats up shields as it hits multiple times (4% per hit, ~36% if all hits connect). The projectile actually has abysmal knockback with no hit killing at any reasonable percentage. This allows it to function similar to Mario Finale in that the multitude of hitboxes will carry opponents offstage. Additionally, this attack is best used to attack recovering opponents and carry them offstage further. Finally, if they do manage to reflect the projectile offstage, Parry the reflected projectile to set up a good static gauge opportunity.

Up Smash: Fark performs a roundhouse kick, arcing all around his body (15%). This move launches vertically and has great coverage since it arcs all around Fark’s body, but is somewhat average in execution speed. Due to the arc, this attack is easier to hit with than the up tilt, but as a smash attack it cannot be used for juggling effectively. It works better either as a vertical killing move at 120% or as a means to launch opponents high for aerial follow-ups. When using static energy, a yellow crescent of electrical energy the radius of Fark’s kick will be sent up 4 SBB's. This is probably the least useful of Fark’s smash projectiles due to its purely vertical trajectory and charge required for the move. Still, it has the same power and damage as the kick that formed it, making it a strong killing tool if it does hit airborne opponents.

Down Smash: Fark crosses his arms and thrusts them outwards, producing electrical explosions from both hands (15% or 19%). The explosions are identical in size to those of the down tilt. The sour spot launches at 45* and kills at 140%. The sweet spot is much like the Forward Smash, launching horizontally and killing at 95%. Compared to the forward smash, it is much easier to hit with. Additionally, the attack width can cover both directions if an opponent chooses to use a get-up roll. It is Fark’s slowest smash attack though, leaving Fark vulnerable on whiff. Mix this up with the forward smash to nail the opponent in any situation. When charged by static, a chain of explosions will be set off in both directions traveling 1/4 FD each. Each new explosion has the center form on the outer edge of the previous explosion, making the hitboxes overlap. It will eat opponent’s shields, but has launching power unlike the Forward Smash. A hit will deal 12%, launches at 30*, and kills at 140%. A large portion of the stage will be covered by the wave of electrical explosions, making it tricky for opponents to land. When used on a platform, the waves will sweep through the air to keep foes from either jumping or landing. Use this risky technique to regain stage control.

Aerials:

Neutral Air: Taking cues from Sonic, Fark curls up into a ball and spins rapidly. Unlike his inspiration however, Fark’s spin produces a multi-hit effect, racking up a lot of damage if the opponent is caught in the entire attack (up to 20%). It does not kill at any reasonable percent, but it starts quick enough to help interrupt foes’ combos. This move is great as both an approaching tool and a combo interrupter, but will leave you open on landing. In Super Form, the spear will double the radius of this attack, making it even more effective at approaching.

Forward Air: Fark performs a vertical chop, slicing downwards (8%). This is Fark’s fastest aerial and can be used multiple times in succession, launching horizontally and killing at 190%. As such, it is the best move for continuing combos either on opponents launched into the air or on grounded foes via shorthopping. It is also great at edgeguarding, but unless you are Super Fark traveling offstage not recommended due to Fark’s poor offstage statistics. Additionally, the range on the attack is short, so it is only effective right in the opponent’s face.

Back Air: Spinning around, Fark performs two spinning kicks behind himself (6, 7%). The first kick has set knockback leading to the second, launching at 20* and killing at 150%. Since this attack uses Fark’s legs it has above-average range for the robotic jester, making for a good spacing tool when not Super. Being decently fast, this can lengthen combos like the forward air. At higher percentages, it becomes less useful for combos due to its power and trajectory. The medium range on this move is its largest draw however, as most of Fark’s regular attacks suffer from poor range without his super form.

Up Air: With both hands, he performs a cross chop above his head (12%). This is Fark’s strongest aerial KO move, killing at 135% straight up off the top. At low percentages, this can pair well alongside the up tilt for juggling. Much like most of Fark’s other moves, this attack has short range. To make it even shorter, the main launching power comes from the sweet spot at the point where the arms cross. Hitting the sour spot will launch the foe at a weaker 50* angle and kill at 210%. This makes it relatively unsafe for launching foes with long-reaching down airs, notably most sword users. Finally, since Super Fark only has one staff, this is one of the few hand swipes that do not get extended by the Super Form. Even with these downsides, this move is essential to Fark’s kit due to not having many strong killing moves.

Down Air: Curling both of his feet up to his chest, Fark stomps down with both his feet (11%). This is a spike, but it is a relatively weak one. Combined with Fark’s risky offstage game, it is unsafe if not disrespectful to spike offstage. On grounded opponents, it launches them upwards with the killing power of 190%. Since the landing lag is low if it hits true, this can lead into juggling opportunities with the up tilt or launching opportunities with up smash and up air. Depending in the foe’s DI, the other aerials can follow up too, but these are the main ones to note. Pay close attention to how you use this move however since if it does not hit a target, the landing lag is significant.

Throws:

Grab: While his grab may be short ranged due to his smaller figure, Fark has a great dashing grab or pivot grab thanks to his tremendous speed. Since shielding can help Fark avoid incriminating hits, shield grabbing can be a good way to retaliate those hits. This is also a reliable action to use after a successful parry.

Pummel: As he is holding the opponent, a burst of electricity zaps out of his hand, shocking them. This is a very quick jab that can dish out a lot of damage in spite of its poor base damage (1%). Fark’s forward and back throw have unusually high damage outputs, so using this a few times before either will rack up a lot of damage for a single throw.

Forward Throw: Fark grabs the opponent then vanishes with them as several dash lines fly horizontally across the width of the screen. Suddenly appearing behind his original location, Fark drags the opponent along the ground as he tosses them forwards (3, 3, 2, 5%). Despite how it looks, this does not carry the foe along the ground like Ridley’s side throw; the throw is just a scripted animation like the Up Special “illusion”. This throw launches the foe at a 45* angle and kills at 220%. Needless to say, this is not a kill throw for Fark. The best use of this move is to rack up unusually high damage for a throw, then follow up with fair chains. To this end, it allows Fark to push an opponent off the stage and begin edgeguarding.

Back Throw: Similar to the forward throw, Fark disappears by zipping across the width of the screen several times, this time without his opponent in tow. Without warning, he appears behind them, impacting them with a drop kick powered by his sheer momentum (10%). Knockback wise, it is Fark’s strongest throw, launching horizontally and killing at 140%. This throw is not only great at knocking out the target foe but also nearby foes. Fark will materialize about 1 SBB away from the grabbed opponent when the kick’s hitbox becomes active and will not stop until he reaches the origin point. Any foe between Fark and the opponent will be hit with the same force of the dropkick as well, allowing Fark to KO many foes in a crowded arena. The main weakness of this throw is the large ending lag. While this is not an issue on 1v1 on a foe with high damage, matches with multiple players can allow those unaffected to punish Fark.

Up Throw: Fark dashes around the opponent 3 times before clocking them with a surprise uppercut (7%). This naturally launches the foe straight up and kills at 250%. Its low knockback and low lag make it the best way to get foes airborne. Low percentages lead to up tilt juggling while higher leads to aerials. In terms of follow ups, this move is Fark’s most versatile throw. This is best used against foes with lower damage percentages as the higher damaged a foe is, the more wiggle room they have to dodge Fark’s subsequent aerial attacks.

Down Throw: Forcing the opponent onto their knees, Fark electrocutes them with a powerful surge of energy from his hand (15% total). Similar to the forward throw, this throw deals a large amount of damage to the opponent at once. It is even weaker than the forward throw however, launching at a downwards 5* angle and killing at over 800%. Since it launches downwards, a launched foe is able to cancel out vulnerability by teching the ground. At low percentages, this leads to an easy tech chase scenario for Fark. Down tilt or down smash are able to cover the foe’s get up options, but as their damage climbs, so does the distance they can roll away from Fark. At these higher percentages, Grounded Up Special or the smash projectiles can provide safe, powerful hits.

Final Smash (Emerald Blast):
Fark suddenly turns super as he slams his Emerald Spear into the ground. If at least one opponent is struck by the impact, then an attack sequence continues. Fark spins around his spear so quickly it cuts the opponent with buzz saw precision. He then does a flip kick that knocks opponents into the air at a 45* angle. Finally, he points one hand at the opponent in the shape of a hand gun and shoots a laser beam the width of Lucario’s old final smash 45* upwards to blast the opponent out of the sky. This deals 43% knockback and kills at low-medium percentages like a Final Smash should. Regardless of whether or not the initial attack catches anyone, Fark will be in his Super Form with full static gauge once he can freely move, so it can help you out in a pinch even if you miss.
Gameplay:

Fark is the quintessential fragile speedster. His attacks while not the strongest have quick execution. In addition, his mobility is great all around, although his air movement is hampered by his falling speed. This comes to his weaknesses, his weight. He is both a featherweight and a fast faller. Any decently strong attack or combo will make him crumble like feta. His recovery moves also do not do any favors if the Static Gauge is not managed properly. He does have a wall cling to help him, (in which he stands straight and perpendicular to the wall) but even then he has trouble getting back onstage. Both his subpar range and lack of quick projectiles force him to be a rush-down fighter. Unlike many of this archetype, his Parry acts as a good means of dealing with projectile campers. If a foe starts to chip away at you from afar, abuse their shots to fill your boost gauge. This will give you access to your own powerful projectiles, recovery insurance, and your super form. The super form in particular fixes Fark’s biggest issues, granting him better weight, range, projectiles, and mobility. Fark’s best KO options are his smash attacks (forward and down especially), down tilt, up air, back throw, and grounded up special. Apart from a well-timed parry, good moves for making an opponent vulnerable or interrupting their advance are down special, downward forward tilt, nair, jab, up throw, or dash attack. Shield grab works well too due to the swiftness of Fark’s grab. Great moves for continuing combos are super up tilt, fair, bair, and the first 2 jab hits.

Palette Swap:

(Standard) Yellow Body, Red and Blue Hat
(Wind) White Body, Red and Blue Hat
(Gravity) Purple Body, Red and Purple Hat
(Edgy) Black Body, Red and Black Hat
(Archer) Green Body, Black and Green Hat
(Fire) Red Body, Red and Teal Hat
(Magical) Pink Body, Yellow and Pink Hat
(Metal Sonic) Blue Body, Blue and White Hat

Taunts:

Taunt 1: He turns away from the camera and crosses his arms.
Taunt 2: Moving his jaw in a very jittery manner, Fark lets out a very mechanical laugh.
Taunt 3: He gets down onto a 3 point pose and starts vibrating quickly enough to become blurry.


Misc:


Victory Pose 1: Looking down at a closed fist, he says: “With every obstacle I crush I’ll get to you.”
Victory Pose 2: He lands, back to the camera and arms crossed. As the screen splashes his name, he does an over-the-shoulder glance.
Victory Pose 3: After a series of flash steps, he lands and says, “Drove you over the edge”
Victory Music: A remix of the Spark the Electric Jester theme.
Entrance Animation: After a series of flash steps, Fark lands, crossing his arms as he faces the background.
Kirby Hat: Kirby gains a red/blue jester hat and a green star tattoo over one eye. Kirby also gains a static gauge from the copied attack, which allows him to produce energy waves from his smash attacks that are identical to Fark’s.
Punch Out Title: Electric Jester’s Replacement
Home Stage: Windy Hill Zone
Series symbol: Spark’s Head


According to my word count, everything above here is 4,990 words.

Edit log:
9-10-2018: Increased Blue Parry's frame window (1->2), nerfed healing effects (10% -> 7%) and static charge (1/2 -> 1/3)
2-11-2019: Removed inaccurate "clashing" terminology from Nair and Dash attack, added the Up B Warp Chop with a manual input option, specified Super Jab dimensions, added pictures
3-5-2019: Added gif, reordered Special Moves, nerfed recovery in Super Form (Using more than 2 bursts at once drains the meter), balanced Smash Projectile static cost (Normal: 1/4 static and 1/2 charge -> Full static and uncharged, 1/4 static and 1/2 charge, 1/16 static and full charge, Super: Free Uncharged -> 1/3 static and uncharged, free half charge), various vernacular changes, increased Blue Parry static charge (1/3 -> 1/2)
3-6-2019: Altered parry [Specified frame data, increased Blue Parry window (2 -> 3 Frames)], Altered Static Gauge [Fark no longer loses Static on taking damage, Static resets to 0 on death, decreased Blue Parry static charge (1/2 -> 2/5), decreased Blue Parry's Healing (7% -> 5%), removed Blue Parry Healing stale negation]

3-15-2019: Halved Super Transformation stun radius (2/1 SBB -> 1.5/0.75 SBB)
 
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Bionichute

Smash Champion
Joined
Jun 30, 2012
Messages
2,151
Wario Deluxe
Brings the Gold!


In WarioWare Gold, the game starts with Wario stealing a mysterious urn from a town named Luxeville. After realizing he has no money to order pizza with, the greedy Mario clone starts up a video game tournament (getting his friends to make the games under the false promise of “being paid”). As the tournament goes on and the player continues to beat all of Wario’s employees, it comes down to the final showdown with the Wah himself.

Upon realizing that he’s about to be beaten, Wario, for some reason, decides to stick the urn on his head. This somehow grants him incredible powers, turning him from merely Wario into… WARIO DELUXE! He plunges the world into darkness using the power given to him by the urn and says that he’s going to take all of the money for himself no matter what! Of course, the player, with the help of a girl named Lulu, defeat Wario, and everyone gets an even share of the money at the end.

Wario Deluxe is notable for being the first real final boss in a WarioWare game, as his run of microgames challenges you at everything you’ve learned, and even throws a few curveballs at you to make things even harder. You can also unlock an extra mode called Wario Interrupts, which has Wario Deluxe interrupting your microgames with a variety of bizarre effects, which have been represented in this moveset.

Also, the urn wasn’t a mystical artifact or anything. It was just a toilet. How did Wario get godlike powers by wearing a toilet on his head? Who knows.

Stats
Weight – 107
Walk Speed – 0.9
Run Speed – 1.6
Air Speed – 1.21
Fall Speed – 1.61​

Unsurprisingly, Wario Deluxe has nearly the same stats as his normal counterpart. The only differences are his slightly faster ground speeds, but his aerials stats remain the same. Deluxe has nearly the same model as normal Wario, but with a slightly taller hurtbox tanks to his new crown. Wario is already stout, so this both makes him significantly taller, but not really that tall. His jumps are also slightly better than Wario’s, though only by a barely noticeable amount.

Deluxe also has different basic animations from Wario, cutting out the choppiness from Brawl and 4 and making him more animated. His animations are more confident and powerful than normal Wario, going along with his new powers.


Deluxe Specials
Neutral Special – Deluxe Lightning

Wario Deluxe pulls his arms back as they begin to spark with blue electricity. He then thrusts them forward, firing off a beam of electricity in front of him. This beam reaches forward 2 Battlefield Platforms, and Deluxe can continue firing the lightning by holding the button down. While it is being held down, Deluxe can aim the lightning in any direction by using the control stick, but only while the button is held. The opening of the attack is a bit laggy, but the lightning itself comes out extremely fast, in only a handful of frames.

When the opponent is caught in the lightning blast, they will take rapid hits of 1% every frame for the next 20 frames. The opponent is stuck there until Wario either lets the button go, or that time runs up. Once either of those happens, Deluxe will shoot out a pulse of electricity from his hands that flies into the opponent, dealing 3% damage and launching them, KOing at 120%. This takes barely any time to happen, making it a lightning fast finisher.

Wario can still aim the lightning while the foe is trapped in it, giving him plenty of opportunities for different Kos. While it might not seem like there’s much time for him to do this, it will usually “snap” to the direction the player had the control stick in when time runs out. Deluxe can also have multiple opponents trapped inside of the stream at the same time, but only one of them will be launched once it ends, with the others being put into bad stun at the end instead, making it safe no matter where the opponents are in the stream.


Up Special – Balloon Flight

Wario Deluxe lets out a laugh and curls up a bit as a cluster of balloons appear from his back. The balloons lift him upwards at a decent speed, making this, obviously, a recovery. The behaves very similarly to Villager’s Up Special, as one might expect. Its noticeably slower thanks to Wario’s… heft, but still fast enough to be useful. The other major difference is that Wario will travel upwards automatically, with no need to hold/mash the special button to keep him going. He can move left or right at will, however. This means it lasts on a more definite timer, around 5 seconds in total.

The balloons are actually a hitbox, unlike Villager’s. It’s a weak one, admittedly, dealing 1% damage and just enough knockback that its safe on hit. It can’t juggle opponents either, except into something else that we’ll get to in a second. Once the time has run out, Deluxe’s balloons will pop, causing him to enter helpless. Wario can also cancel the move at any time by simply pressing the special attack button, which causes the same effect. Wario’s cluster of balloons, unlike Villager’s, can’t be popped by other players

The balloons popping is the main hitbox here, with it covering a large area (The cluster of balloons roughly covers 1.5x Wario’s Width, and around the same height), since it matches up with the size of the balloons, with a tiny extra bit of reach. The balloons will now deal 14% damage, with knockback that can KO at 150%. The final thing to mention is the lag of the balloons appearing, which is incredibly fast and doesn’t interrupt any of Wario’s momentum.

Thanks to this, it makes it very easy to combo directly from Deluxe’s aerials, into the initial 1% damage hit from the balloons, and then directly into the explosion. The 1% hit is useful, as there is a brief period where Deluxe can’t pop the balloons on his own, roughly a half second. The initial hit’s weak knockback makes it incredibly easy to follow up on. The balloons make for a great aerial finisher, as well as a good recovery tool.


Down Special – Deluxe Waft

Unlike his other two Specials so far, Wario Deluxe’s Down Special is almost identical to normal Wario’s. Deluxe turns to have his butt pointing towards the screen and lets one rip. Its still as disgusting as ever, but because of his Deluxe new powers, Wario will always perform a low charge waft, with the same hitbox and dealing 12% damage. This has higher knockback than the base, and it can now KO at 190%, rather than 239%. Its an improvement, at least.

That isn’t to say that there’s nothing else going on in the move, however. The charge effect is there but done in a completely different way than normal Wario. Every 30 seconds, Deluxe will flash, much like how normal Wario does when his fart gets to a decent level. Here, it now represents that an extra effect has been added to his fart, that being a new sort of trap. Before we get to that, this effect does not stack, as 30 seconds is the maximum time for the charge. Once the fart is used after this period, the timer will reset back to zero.

The new effect will cause Wario Deluxe to create a large fart cloud around where he stands, which will then linger in the air for the next 15 seconds. The initial fart hitbox is still there, but now dealing 21%, a fairly major buff, though it now KOs at a much higher 160%. The fart cloud acts as a passive hitbox, dealing 2% every 4 frames the opponent stands in its range. The cloud covers an area of 1.5 Battlefield Platforms in a circular area, making it very large. This is a great way to deal passive damage to opponents as you mess with them, especially if used in the air.

Speaking of the air, the waft will still propel Deluxe upwards slightly, but without the great range of the fully charged one, and with Deluxe’s great recovery, using it is not a necessary part of Wario’s off-stage game. Finally, the fart now has a bit more lag on it than it had before, in either of its forms. This is equivalent to around 2/3rds of the lag that the lowest charged Wario Waft has, making the move unfit for spamming. Use it to get off quick bursts of damage, its not polite to fart in public that much.


Side Special – Splat Ball

Imitating his inferior, red-capped counterpart, Wario Deluxe thrusts his hand forward, but instead of fire he fires… a ball of paint? That’s right, a big glob of blue, orange, red, green, yellow, and purple paint is fired from Deluxe’s hands somehow. This behaves very similarly to Mario’s fireballs, except they move at 1.5x the speed. They still bounce across the ground in the same pattern, however, and are around the same size. The most interesting thing to note right now is that, like some of Wario Deluxe’s other attacks, this has very little starting lag to it. We’ll get back to that in a second.

So, the paintball will deal a really measly 2% damage on contact with the opponent, and also deal very little knockback. SO little, in fact, that it can’t even halt most in progress attacks. Another thing we’ll get back to in a moment. There are some important physics changes compared to Mario’s fireballs, aside from it generally sharing the same animations. The paintballs don’t have the momentum that fireballs have, meaning they can keep a consistent speed for their lifetime. They will also travel a specific distance of 2.5 Battlefield Platforms before they explode into harmless paint.

When an opponent is hit by a paintball, their model will suddenly become covered in the paint! What this means is that the next attack that the opponent performs will be completely intangible, making it completely useless if they were planning to hit something with it. This specifically only works on Wario Deluxe, however, as other characters will still be hit by the attack. This means it can act as a way to get heat off of you in FFA matches, but this particular property means little in 1v1.

In 1v1, the biggest application involves the ball’s pitiful amount of hitstun and knockback, and its incredible starting and ending speed. With this, its very easy to punish heavily telegraphed moves like Falcon Punches or nearly any Smash Attack. Deluxe can very easily hit opponents out of these moves with his own powerful Smashes and Tilts, acting as a major form of disrespect. However, the timing can be a bit difficult to get down, so its best to practise it beforehand.

Due to these applications, the paintball isn’t near as spammable as the fireball, which is frankly impressive. Wario can only have one out at a time, and even with its fast movement, it has a large set distance and missing with it can leave Wario Deluxe without a defensive tool. This isn’t a projectile to be spammed, its one to be savored and cherished. Like a baby.


Deluxe Standards
Jab – Thunder Smack

Wario Deluxe quickly thrusts his palm forward as it charges with electricity, and then follows that up with another smack with his other hand, which he then alternates again. This acts somewhat like a rapid jab, as holding the button will cause Deluxe to endlessly repeat the smacks over and over, but it has a bit of a major difference from other ones. That being that the attack is much slower than every other rapid jab in the game, being around the speed of a normal jab, basically. The hits don’t even combo into each other unless the opponent has very low damage, meaning that’s out.

However, with each smack forward, Wario will move a bit, and by holding the button down he can move at a decent pace with a good pressuring tool always on his side. Each smack deals a good 5% damage with pretty decent knockback for a Jab, and it has nice reach as Wario’s hands expand a bit with each smack, giving him the range of normal Wario’s jab. It has a noticeably slow bit of endlag once you decide to finish your sumo match, which can be punished pretty easily… or can it?

If you quickly input the attack button again during this endlag, Deluxe will finish it all off with a rapid jab-style finishing attack. He’ll quickly thrust his head forward, his large crown acting as the hitbox. It has a rather large hitbox to it, given how big the crown is, and deals 8% damage with knockback that can KO around 200% or so. This isn’t an amazing finisher by even Jab standards, but it is a good way to punish a foe who aims to attack Wario when he’s down.


Forward Tilt – W-Luxe

Wario Deluxe stands on one foot as he pulls in his arms and head, stumbling a bit as he does so. He then thrusts all three appendages out in a sideways W-shape while letting out a powerful “WAH”. This attack has some heavy starting lag to it, around as bad as normal Wario’s FTilt. This makes it rather difficult to use properly, unless you have the opponent directly where you want them. Thankfully, this is also one of Deluxe’s strongest standards, dealing a powerful 15% and KOing at 150% or less depending on how close to the edge of the stage Deluxe is.

The attack’s hitboxes consist of Deluxe’s crown, and his two arms, which extend out cartoonishly for a few frames to increase his reach. This allows him to cover the same reach that a standard FTilt can only get three times per use all at once! Truly deluxe. This obviously fills the same niche as normal Wario’s FTilt, being an incredibly slow but hard-hitting tilt without anything too special. It’s a great KO move, but obviously has its disadvantages in its speed. It has fairly bad ending lag as well, making it easy to punish. Overall, the applications of this should be obvious, and the usefulness of its ability to cover anti-air and edgeguard at the same time can’t be overstated.


Up Tilt – Royal Flush

Wario Deluxe performs a variation on normal Wario’s Up Smash from Brawl, spinning around as a rapid hit hitbox. This behaves very similarly, as one would expect, but has changes due to its shift of position. Obviously, it cannot be charged anymore, but this also makes it a much faster move to use because of it. The attack doesn’t have as many hits on it, only being cut down to five from the 6 hits it previously had. Each hit now only deals 2% damage rather than the 1% plus 10% on the final hit, meaning this can only deal up to 10%, and mostly at low percentages.

Wario’s head also doesn’t grow as much as it did in Brawl (despite the fact he metaphorically has a bigger head now!). In fact, his head isn’t even the hitbox, the hitbox is his new crown, which does in fact expand a bit when used, giving it decent range. The attack can hit from the sides, but its hard to do unless Deluxe gets right up close to the opponent. The attack is fast and can KO at around 170%, if you manage to get the fifth hit off, but it has some minor ending lag that can make a whiff easily punishable. This is mainly a decent damage dealing move, but it can combo into Aerials fairly easily at high percentages.


Down Tilt – WarioWare: Punched!

From his crouching position, which matches normal Wario’s almost exactly, Wario Deluxe lifts up his arm, and then slams his fist into the ground, causing his hand to grow cartoonishly for a moment. This attack has a slightly longer reach thanks to the hand expanding, but it has an almost completely different hitbox attached to it. The hitbox starts above Deluxe’s head, and then ends with him slamming his fist into the ground. It is also noticeably slower than the poke, actually taking a few frames to complete, unlike the instantaneous poke. This makes it a much less effective poking tool, but it can still be used as one.

This is the second most powerful of Deluxe’s tilts, the first strongest being his FTilt. This slam will deal 9% damage and deals upwards knockback to whoever it hits. This knockback can KO at around 160%, and its decent size and speed make it very capable of doing so. The attack also has a small shockwave hitbox in front of Deluxe’s fist, only covering a small area in front of it, which deals a small pop of knockback as well as a much less powerful 5% damage. While weaker, this is also much more useful if Wario Deluxe wants to combo into his air game, as the pop is just strong enough for him to be able to go into a shorthop and follow with an aerial. This is mainly a tool for poking and damage, but the weaker hitbox can be good for combos and mindgames.


Dash Attack – Where’s the Exit!?

From his running animation, Wario Deluxe bends down, his crown aiming forward. He then proceeds to flap his arms as he gins a burst of speed. This mirrors his dashing animation from Wario Land: Shake It! nearly exactly. As mentioned, the dash gives a brief speed boost to Deluxe, pushing him to a 2-point run speed for as long as the button is held. That’s right, this is an indefinite dash attack, functionally replacing normal Wario’s bike. It isn’t as big of a speed boost, but it is also much easier to control. Letting go of the button will cause Wario Deluxe to enter a brief bit of endlag, but he can also turn around with the same amount of lag. Unlike in Project M, Deluxe cannot jump while dashing.

As an attack itself, the hitbox is located entirely on Deluxe’s deluxe crown, meaning that its decently large. It actually has an especially good range for a Dash Attack, and also has no sourspots. The rest of Deluxe’s body is open for attack however, and the hitbox only exists while Wario Deluxe is moving, so its impossible to hit someone out of the turning lag. The dash deals 11% damage, with decent knockback that can KO at around 155%, making it a very good killing move. It is a very good approach tool alongside that.


Deluxe Smashes
Up Smash – Balloon Bomb

Wario Deluxe pulls his arms to his chest, and then flings them upwards, imitating his normal version’s UTilt. Yes, a UTilt has been upgraded to a Smash, and a Smash has been degraded to a Tilt. Life’s weird sometimes. Anyway, this acts similarly to how it does in Smash 4, unsurprisingly, but now with a buff to damage, moving from 10% to 13%. At full charge, it deals 18% damage. Despite these damage buffs, it can’t KO very well, only doing so at around 175%, making it very weak for a Smash. However, this isn’t all it can do.

As soon as Wario’s hands are raised above him, he will also fling out up to three balloons, depending on the charge (1 at no, 2 at mid, 3 at full). The balloons will fly in a random upwards direction, and after around 20 frames of flying, will unfurl their strings in order to reveal the classic WarioWare bomb logo. Once the bomb is revealed, the balloon will float in place wherever it ended up landing, with the bomb acting as a lingering, explosive hitbox the size of mid-charge Scope Shot. If an opponent simply touches one of these bombs, it will explode and deal 15%, with knockback that can KO at 120%. Now that’s more like it!

The string that connects the bomb and the balloon is around a Wario in height, meaning that the bomb will usually be dangling in midair a bit of a distance below the balloon. Deluxe himself cannot interact with these balloons in any way other than throwing opponents into it, but unfortunately opponents can interact with the balloons. By hitting them with any move, the balloons will pop and cause the bombs to drop to the ground, where they’ll explode. This explosion can hurt anyone on the stage, even Wario, but their incoming is rather telegraphed.

After around 5 seconds, the balloons will pop themselves, and drop the bombs automatically. Deluxe can only have three bomb balloons out at a time, and only after one of the three is gone can he set up another one. This is a trap for Wario Deluxe to play around with. Its difficult to set up thanks to the random trajectory, but that doesn’t matter much when Deluxe likes getting in his opponent’s faces… and then hitting them. Throwing or tilts can help a lot with getting the opponents into the bomb’s trajectory better.


Forward Smash – Wario Time

Wario Deluxe pulls his hands back, before pulling a Dk and clapping them in front of himself. His hands grow a bit as this happens to increase the range of the attack a small amount, as you might expect from the rest of the set so far. As Deluxe’s hands clap together, a strange distortion effect comes off of them. Hm. Anyway, the clap deals a very powerful 18% damage, 25% when fully charged. Its capable of KOing at near 110 percent, making it Deluxe’s best kill move in terms of sheer power, but it has bad start-up lag. It doesn’t have that terrible of ending lag, however, but still bad enough to be punishable.

So, what’s that distortion dealy about? Well, if Wario Deluxe misses the clap by a short amount (Either the tips of his fingers or just in front of them), the attack will still manage to hit. It’s a sourspot that only deals 9-12% damage, but it has an added, special benefit. The opponent will be flung back with rather weak knockback – but in slow motion. This slow motion is exactly the same as a Stop Watch’s, meaning that this could be very annoying. Fortunately, the slow down effect only lasts until the opponent either hits the ground, can cancel into a jump, or until Deluxe hits them.

This ability makes it an incredible tool in Deluxe’s combo game but comes with a pretty big problem. This being what happens when you accidentally hit with a hitbox you didn’t mean to. It is very difficult to aim for the KO hitbox instead of the slowdown one, as they are very close together. Hitting with one intentionally requires some very deliberate planning. Final note, hitting with the FSmash while the opponent is in slow motion will not result in them being slowed again. In fact, hitting a slowed down opponent in this state with either hitbox will simply activate the sourspot hitbox. So don’t do that.


Down Smash – Unidentifiable Purple Liquid

Wario Deluxe pulls out a large, fancy looking glass filled with wine Purple Liquid and lifts it over his head. He swishes it around as he charges the attack, and then slams the glass into the ground, creating a burst of the wine liquid on both sides of himself. The wine purple liquid splashes upwards, and act as hitboxes, dealing upwards knockback that can KO at 140%, and deals 12-16% damage. The wine liquid has decent range, on par with most other DSmashes, but with added height that makes it nearly as tall as Deluxe himself. It has decent lag on both ends, making it fit nicely into the defensive roll of an average DSmash.

However, that isn’t all there is to this move. If the control stick is tilted either left or right during the starting lag, Deluxe will instead throw the wine glass in the direction that was inputted. Specifically, he throws it at the ground diagonally to those directions, instead of the ground right underneath him. This isn’t a projectile, and in fact has no hitbox at all. Instead, once the glass hits the ground, the wine purple liquid will rush forward as a wave as tall as it is during the normal use of the move.

It will zip forward at a speedy pace, and cover as much ground as it can until it either goes offscreen or off of the stage. The wine liquid itself also does not have a hitbox, instead it acts like a water hitbox ala FLUDD or Squirtle, simply pushing the opponent along it for a short while. This can be an excellent edge guarding tool, like a lot of other water moves in the game. Well, there’s only one in Smash 4, but you get my point. Regardless, Deluxe can only have one of these wine purple liquid waves out at a time, making it completely unspammable. If you try to use it while one is already on stage, Wario Deluxe will just throw a glass on the ground to no effect. WHAT IS A WARIO!?


Deluxe Aerials
Neutral Air – Wah, Baby, Wah!

While in the air, Wario Deluxe thrusts all of his appendages out, including his head, to form a full, circular hitbox around himself. This acts a lot like normal Wario’s NAir, at least in terms of range, but a more accurate comparison would be Dedede’s NAir, at least for the different animation. This different animation results in less lag for the move in general. The start-up lag is a quick pop, reminiscent of Brawl Wario’s choppy movements. This makes it incredibly good as quick combo material, and especially good out of shorthop. After a few frames where the hitbox remains active, Deluxe will pop back to his normal air animation. The downside to this move is that it deals a very pitiful 8% alongside low knockback, and the hitbox is very easy to miss with.

There is another thing, however. Every once and a while, on a completely random usage, when Deluxe uses the attack, the silhouette of the Baby icon from Mario Paint will appear around him. Yes, really. And yes, this is based on a thing he can actually do. If this silhouette hits an opponent, it will deal 40% damage and knockback that can KO at 40%. It’ll also make the distinctive “baby noise”, as well. Considering this is completely random, even more so than Luigi’s Misfire, it isn’t best to rely on it. Like, at all. Consider it an Easter Egg. The actual use of this move, considering its low lag and knockback, is as an aerial combo starter, something that can very much help with Deluxe’s playstyle.


Forward Air – Deluxe Kick

Wario Deluxe simply performs normal Wario’s FAir, kicking forward with his stubby leg. This acts exactly the same, so I guess we’re done here. Just kidding, there are some major differences. First is that Deluxe’s foot will grow slightly as the kick is performed, granting it slightly better range than normal Wario’s variant. It also deals a buffed 14%, with sideways knockback that can KO at 150%. It comes out fast, and lingers for a while afterwards

After the first few frames, it’ll deal a much less impressive 7%, back to its highest damage from normal Wario’s version. Yep, its definitely still a sex kick. What exactly makes this one more “deluxe”, anyway? Well, Deluxe can hold the kick out for a lot longer than normal Wario can, and even longer than Mario’s. It can be held out for nearly the entire height of Wario Deluxe’s jump height! To make up for this ridiculously long hitbox, it has pretty bad landing lag if Deluxe hits the ground while using it, as he’ll stumble and fall humorously once he hits the ground. Due to the length of this move, its best not used as a combo, and instead as a direct finishing move. At least if your opponent is flying off, you can prepare yourself for the landing!


Up Air – Thunder Clap

Wario Deluxe’s UAir is pretty much like his normal counterpart’s UAir, he moves onto his back and claps the air above himself. However, the animation how has an added bonus of a lightning effect when Deluxe claps, which also signifies its larger hitbox. The attack is, otherwise, mostly the same as it was in Smash 4, a decent juggling tool that deals 13% damage, the same as it is for normal Wario. The major difference is that it now has a much, much faster start-up. And endlag. Its… a lot faster.

This speed is somewhere between normal Wario and Wario-Man (Pre-Ultimate obviously), meaning that Deluxe can rapidly clap upwards, but not to the ridiculous speeds Wario-Man can. It also doesn’t let him rapidly ascend into the air either, though it does halt his downward momentum briefly for the first three uses. After those, he’ll start falling like normal. This is a fine move for aerial combos, as one might expect, but the buffs that Deluxe’s aerials have received have made this one less useful as a kill tool. Aerial juggling is its main priority.


Back Air – Crowned Jewel

Wario Deluxe thrusts himself backwards, imitating normal Wario’s BAir, as one might expect from most of Deluxe’s other aerials. It has the same frame data at the start of it, meaning its of around average speed, but the big change comes in with everything after the initial backwards thrust. Deluxe will continue falling until he spins in a complete circle, with his body acting as a hitbox the entire time. As such, the move takes longer to perform, despite also having slightly less endlag.

There are two hitboxes on this move. The first is the thrust backwards, which will deal 12% damage and can KO at around the same time as regular Wario’s Bair. The second hitbox activates once Deluxe has hit the halfway point of his spin, resulting in the attack becoming weaker and only doing 10% damage, with much weaker knockback to it. Additionally, the first half of the hitbox deals downwards knockback, giving Wario Deluxe an two-in-one heavy hitting defense, and something to knock off stage foes down a peg.


Down Air – Twisted!

Wario Deluxe swings below himself with a single arm, causing him to spin around briefly. This spinning acts as the hitbox of the move and covers all of Deluxe’s body. It does a very, very mediocre 6% and only has enough knockback to barely make it safe on hit. This is basically a functionally worthless hitbox, as it has both bad lag to it AND bad landing lag as well! Deluxe will even let out a pained yell when it happens. This is mainly because this acts as a secondary hitbox to the main course of this attack.

The main hitbox is the arm swing itself. Deluxe’s arm grows a bit as this happens, giving it some added range. If Wario’s arm touches any opponent, they won’t take damage – instead they will be forced into a command grab of sorts, with Deluxe finishing the spin by tossing the opponent up into the air! This will deal a decent 10% damage, and has low knockback to it, but not low enough to not be able to KO from the top of the screen. When the opponent is thrown, they will be flipped upside down until the hitstun wears off.

The start of the move is fast enough to use out of shorthop, and auto-cancels out of it as well. This allows Deluxe to get back on his feet and make the leap up to start a potential air combo with either his USpec, UAir, or NAir, his three best aerial combo starter options. Using the attack also doesn’t put Deluxe into helpless while in the air, meaning he can potentially start up a combo from it from low percents, or use his USpec to get up high and bring some damage.

You can potentially use this move multiple times in a row on an opponent, but its next to impossible to do, considering they will usually be out of hitstun before you can even reach them, let alone get above them again. This is Wario Deluxe’s most useful aerial, as it has tons of potential utilities. Even the missed hitbox can be used as a spike during suicides.


Deluxe Grab Game
Grab & Pummel

Wario Deluxe basically has the same grab as his normal counterpart, and unlike a lot of other moves that are similar, this one is nearly exactly the same. It has the same reach and is fairly fast, making it good as an all-around grab. His dash grab, however, has a bit of added “oomph” to it, with Deluxe dashing forwards a small amount as he attempts the grab. It gives it even better range than the standing version.

When you’ve grabbed an opponent, however, that’s when things get different. Wario Deluxe has a different pose while the opponent is grabbed, as he holds up his free hand, prepared to do something with it. What he does is his pummel, which has him shooting a current of electricity into the opponent, dealing 2% damage, and behaving otherwise like normal Wario’s pummel. As a cosmetic bonus, the lightning won’t stop streaming as you mash the button and will only stop a few frames after you yourself stop mashing, or when your opponent breaks out.


Forward Throw – Upside-down M

Wario Deluxe breathes a cloud of foul gas at his opponent, and then proceeds to do his normal counterpart’s BThrow, where he swings the opponent around several times before throwing them off. This added bit at the start gives it a bit of extra start-up lag, but everything else remains the same, including doing 10% damage. The main difference here comes tied with that breath at the start. Once Wario has done that, the grabbed opponent will suddenly become completely inverted color wise. What exactly does this mean?

The opponent will find out once they’re thrown, most likely by accidentally DIing right back towards Deluxe! The breath somehow inverted the opponent’s movements as well, which is the same status effect that the Ramblin’ Evil Mushroom gives. Unaware opponents will most likely take a second hit as they accidentally head back towards Deluxe, usually right into another attack. The opponent won’t return to normal until a second after their DI has ended, meaning that they’ll have to put up with that weirdness for a quick moment, leaving them open to any trickery.


Up Throw – Shake It!

Wario Deluxe quickly shakes the opponent up and down, mimicking his shaking animation from Wario Land: Shake It! After he shakes the opponent a few times, Deluxe will then toss them directly up into the air, dealing 9% damage. This is a weak throw overall, as it can only KO at high percentages. While this means KOing isn’t much of an option, it does mean that combos out of it ARE.

This is definitely Deluxe’s main combo throw, as he can go into nearly every aerial at low percents from it, and the only one really cut t higher percents is DAir. The speed of the attack, however, is something to be wary of, as its painfully slow. Mostly slow for a throw, however, its nowhere near Ganon UTilt levels of slow, but it can easily be punished if used at the wrong time. It has decent endlag to make up for this, but it doesn’t excuse the start-up period before the damage is ever dealt.


Back Throw – Mad Moves

Wario Deluxe lets out a deep laugh as he tosses the opponent up and then leaps up himself. He grabs them while they’re upside down, and then spin-slams them directly into the ground, with both him and the opponent facing the opposite direction they did when they started. This launches the opponent off diagonally upwards, dealing 10% damage and KOing in the mid 100%s. Its overall a very decent throw. The main problems come with its speed.

While it doesn’t have the worst speed out of Deluxe’s throws, having a relatively quick start-up period, the end lag in return is quite miserable as Deluxe has to hop back to his feet afterwards. The knockback is just okay enough that he most likely won’t have time to combo from anything. The attack itself isn’t punishable, as the spinning piledriver acts as an outside hitbox, dealing 1% damage and safe-on-hit knockback to anyone who gets close. He is still vulnerable before and after this happens, however.


Down Throw – Ground Crusher

Wario Deluxe quickly slams the opponent to the ground, leaving them in prone directly below him, and then holds his fist up for a moment as he builds up an electrical charge. He then slams his fist into the knocked down opponent, causing them to be launched upwards. This animation is nearly directly taken from Wario Land: Shake It!, with that game’s signature ground shake move. This move actually deals damage in two sets, the first being the drop which deals a measly 1% damage, and then the pound, which deals 11% damage. It has a bit of a slow start-up, but the ending is relatively quick.

This is a very good throw overall, especially as a KO throw, since it can KO at a very good 120%. It is not very useful as a combo tool, however. KOing is its main use, but there is another reason why you might want to use this attack. When used, it will not only damage the opponent, but will damage everything else that is touching the ground. This includes minions, items that can be damaged, and, of course, other players. This isn’t a massive deal, as it will only deal 2% damage, and the hitstun is little enough that it will end before Deluxe is even out of his endlag. This also can’t hit opponents that are in the air at the time.


Final Smash
You’re All Number Two!

Wario Deluxe has the Smash Ball! Wait, he’s already a transformed Wario, that means he can’t just use Wario’s Final Smash! What’s this crowned glutton going to do with his newfound powers!?

First, he enters a cinematic scene where he summons up the balloon-carried basket from his fight in WarioWare Gold. The cinematic continues as he and the opponents are teleported to a backdrop full of black thunderclouds, with the opponents hovering beneath Wario Deluxe as he stands in his basket. He then fires a massive bolt of lightning from both of his hands at all the opponents, which deals 30% damage and exits the cinematic.

Once back to normal gameplay, the opponents will find themselves with an electric static around them, and that seems to be all at a glance. However, a worse fate than a lot of damage has befallen these opponents, as they now have to suffer with completely randomized controls for the next 18 seconds! Truly a wretched fate.

By completely randomized, I do actually mean COMPLETELY randomized. All the buttons have been shuffled around, meaning that your special attack might now be mapped to the R button, or your shield button to the A button! The only exception to this is the control stick, which is randomized within itself (EG. Up could be left, down could be right, right could be left, etc.). Deluxe can take incredible advantage in this misfortune, and very easily as well.
 

Professor Lexicovermis

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Oct 27, 2015
Messages
273
Location
Pop Star
Dr. Nero Neurosis


Dr. Nero Neurosis is the main antagonist of the rather obscure Dragon's Lair-esque Brain Dead 13. This massive brain has aspirations for world domination and a sprawling manor packed with ghouls of all sorts, including a shapely, vampiric Southern Belle, a football/hockey/baseball-playing Frankenstein, twin witches, and an extremely tenacious little imp that carries a veritable arsenal on his person. Dr. Neurosis orders his minions to kill the protagonist, Lance Galahad, when he calls the young lad for IT help... only to end up violently insulted when Lance pokes fun at him being such a stereotypical mad scientist type. Despite Neurosis being the main antagonist, it's actually his trusted imp henchman, Fritz, that is the biggest threat in the game. Fritz pursues Lance relentlessly throughout the entire game, killing him in many imaginative (and disturbing) ways if the player hesitates for too long. In the end, Lance only triumphs by manipulating the trigger happy Fritz into blasting holes into Dr. Neurosis's jar.

Brainy Stats:

Height: Mario
Weight: Yellow Devil
Ground Speed: Metal Face
Air Speed: Whispy Woods

When a match begins, Dr. Neurosis spawns inside his very advanced brain jar, which is about as tall as Mario... and totally immune to knockback. That said, it's also completely immobile. Rather than stocks, Neurosis spawns with 80 HP per stock he would normally have. Once that's gone, he's finished. In Time matches with no stock limit, he has infinite HP but coughs up a point for every 100 damage he takes. Dr. Neurosis is fully immune to grabs. Oh, one more thing: Neurosis has no offensive capabilities.

...wait, what?

...and Fritz


Height: Wario
Weight: Mario
Ground Speed: Pikachu
Air Speed: Villager

Alongside Neurosis, Fritz spawns at the start of a match. Fritz is the actual player character here, and has a nasty secret: he's completely immortal. He has no damage percentage, and will respawn no matter how many times he's killed. To rid yourself of this pest, you MUST kill Neurosis. Doing so instantaneously has Fritz vanish in a harmless explosion ala Luma. It's also important to note that Neurosis is NOT immune to Fritz's attacks except in a few cases! One last thing: inputting Shield has Neurosis generate the shield around his jar rather than protect Fritz; Fritz is given a sort of "Street Fighter" type block that reduces knockback from frontal attacks to 0.90x their usual potency. If attacked from behind while blocking, he takes 1.10x the knockback.

In game modes where having an immobile "heart" would be impossible or pointless (Boss Battles, Adventure, Smash Run), Fritz behaves as a normal character. In Time matches with no stock limit, Fritz counts as a point if killed.

Horrific Specials:

Neutral Special: JACKPOT

With startup comparable to Peach plucking a Turnip, Fritz opens his coat to reveal a massive amount of ranged weapons! He then almost immediately opens fire, creating a "stream" of bullets that is as thick as he is tall and covers about 3/4 of Final Destination. This bullet stream deals constant, extremely rapid damage to anyone inside it, about 20% a second! That said, it doesn't deal traditional knockback, instead slowly pushing foes to the end of its length and dishing out occasional flinches like Inkling's Splattershot in Smash Ultimate (complete with the flinches occurring more often the closer the foe is to Fritz). Foes can absolutely wade right up to Fritz and punish him. The bullet stream passes through foes, terrain, and constructs, but doesn't ignore shields. It deals half damage to foes using reflectors and cannot be Pocketed. The massive range of this and the fact that it pierces anything also means that it's extremely dangerous to use anywhere around Dr. Neurosis, as it'll chew him up as badly as your foes! Fritz may hold this stream out for up to three seconds, and suffers extremely poor endlag as soon as he drops it. He may turn around while shooting at the penalty of suffering some lag before the bullets resume firing.

Side Special: Thar She Blows!

Quickly swapping one of his hooks out for a large, clunky gun, Fritz fires a harpoon forward with startup comparable to Samus's missiles! This harpoon is tied to Fritz's gun-hand, and will be retracted once it reaches the end of its two-platform range. He cannot act until it's fully retracted, which roughly leaves him incapacitated for about a second. The harpoon acts as a pseudo-grab that cannot pierce shields, embedding into foes for a nasty 13% and pulling them directly to Fritz. He can follow up with most non-Smash attacks, but cannot grab foes off this thanks to a short cooldown of sorts. Because this isn't an actual grab, Dr. Neurosis takes damage from the harpoon; landing it on him will have Fritz pull himself to the jar. The harpoon may be angled up or down, and can tether Fritz to ledges as well; doing so has him instantly reel himself into his ledge-grab animation. In fact, the harpoon can ALSO lodge into floors and walls, again reeling Fritz in almost instantly. This is an exceptional mobility aid for the little weirdo, and a great way to get back to Neurosis quickly. Just... be careful not to actually HIT Neurosis unless he's got health to spare.

Up Special: You're Fired!

Opening his coat in a similar manner to the image above, Fritz reveals every single weapon in his possession, grinning. He then "claps" his hands together below him, slamming the weapons together and catching wind with his cloak. This sends him upward for a mediocre recovery, and creates an extremely powerful spike directly below him that deals an almighty 31% and is a nigh-guaranteed kill offstage. The hitbox is extremely small, so Fritz almost has to be touching the foe with his feet to land it; there's also a bit of startup lag that can throw him off.

Down Special: Will It Blend?

Fritz quickly equips a blender on one of his interchangeable hands, then performs a sort of "inverse uppercut" motion with his hand, as though trying to push something downward. This is a laggy command grab with less range than his normal grab, but landing it has him somehow cram the foe into the comically small appliance before appearing to blend them into a disgusting grey sludge; he then dumps the foe out with 17% damage and moderate knockback. Fritz then holds the blender full of sludge as an item. He may throw it to deal normal throwing item damage (about as much as Villager's wood chips), leaving a puddle of sludge as wide as Bowser wherever it connects; this puddle slows anyone walking or running through it to half their normal speed and lasts 3 seconds. He may also throw it at Dr. Neurosis to heal him of 15%. In a match without Neurosis present, Fritz can re-input DSpec to down the sludge and heal himself of the 15%.

Average Standards:

Jab: Playing Hooky

In an extremely simple Jab, Fritz swipes forward with one of his hook hands. This is about as fast as Ganon's jab, and reaches slightly farther. It has two hitboxes; Fritz's actual hook deals 7% and pulls foes closer to him, while his arm deals 5% and light knockback. This has little lag on either side, and is a decent option to just throw out. The sourspot can lead into some of his other melee options, and the sweetspot potentially opens up windows to use DSpec.

Forward Tilt: Yet Another Sword User

With surprising speed, Fritz pulls out a random sword and slashes in front of him; this is incredibly similar to Megaman's FTilt in that he may continually use it without interrupting his walk. The slash has slightly less range than his Jab, and deals 8% and light knockback a pop. At low percents it's entirely possible to "bully" foes across the stage by repeatedly walking forward and slashing at them, but this quickly becomes unviable as damage percentages rise. Fritz uses one of a few random sword designs, but the move's hitbox and lag remains identical each time. A good use of this is to simply shove foes away from Dr. Neurosis to protect him.

Up Tilt: Fired Up

Fritz equips a flamethrower before cackling and blasting a gout of flame from it. Unusually for a UTilt, he holds the flamethrower at about waist height, so the hitbox essentially takes the form of a sort of "J" with the flame starting at his hand, curving slightly down, then flying up and tapering off at about a Ganon height. Thanks to this odd hitbox shape, this is more useful for hitting grounded foes than one might think. Contact with the flames will deal extremely rapid hits of 1%, potentially dealing up to 13% over the course of the move, but only a flinch. Landing all 13 hits will force the foe into either prone or helpless depending on if they're grounded or airborne. The flames cannot be reflected or Pocketed. Fritz has little endlag coming out of this move despite mediocre startup. This is an excellent move for chewing up shields, and is a decent followup to Jab's sweetspot.

Down Tilt: Jabberjaw

Fritz quickly dons a shark fin and... "swims" across the floor. He may hold A to swim across the stage at his normal walk speed, with his hurtbox appropriately shrunk, indefinitely, automatically stopping at the ledge. Once A is released, he lunges upwards with a nasty chomp that deals 13% and moderate knockback. This is his slowest, most powerful Tilt, and has sizable lag on both ends; he basically cannot chain Jab's sweetspot into this. It's useful for going under projectiles safely, as well as killing at higher percentages. Fritz heals for 7% if he swims through a puddle of blended sludge, but by doing so devours and destroys the puddle.

Dash Attack: Fleaman Soul

From his brisk dash, Fritz curls into a ball and leaps upward in an arc, spinning rapidly. He travels about a third of Final Destination, reaching his apex at the halfway mark. The attack has two hitboxes, one before and one after the halfway mark. The first half of the move is a simple melee attack that deals 10% and moderate knockback while causing Fritz to bounce back to where he began. The second half has a grab hitbox that has him drag the foe along for a second bounce that behaves exactly as the first. He may harm and even grab another foe on this bounce, and indeed may hold as many foes as he hits. The grab deals no damage until he hits the floor while holding the foe; they suffer 8% per bounce, and are tossed away with moderate knockback and a final 2% when Fritz finally lands. This move can and will be used for suicide kills, but is extraordinarily laggy on both sides. Foes may mash buttons to escape the grab at any point, with the escape difficulty being half that of the average grab.

Freaky Smashes:

Forward Smash: Chainsaw Good

In a rather unique Smash, Fritz merely revs a chainsaw while charging, with it behaving like Corrin's FSmash charge in that it deals rapid hits to anyone touching it. Once the charge is released, he then advances forward at his dash speed, holding the chainsaw out in front; it deals rapid hits of 2% and drags foes along, launching them with moderate knockback at the end of the line. Fritz advances forward for 1.5 times the length of the charge time, and may charge this Smash indefinitely; if attacked while charging, he takes 1.10x the knockback as the chainsaw explodes in his face. His advance halts at the ledge, but he continues to saw at any foe he captured for the full duration. When C-Sticked, this moves Fritz forward about his own width, dealing around 6%; hardly worth it. When charged for as long as a traditional Smash, Fritz covers around half of Final Destination, dealing about 18% in the interim.

Up Smash: Obligatory Ball Of Violence

Fritz crouches and foams at the mouth while charging, giggling madly, only to leap straight upwards, slashing wildly with his hooks, when the charge is released. He becomes a circular hitbox in the process, with a minor vacuum effect around him; foes that make contact are dragged along his trajectory, taking a sum total of 13-20% depending on charge and getting booted away with mdoerately high knockback. Uncharged, Fritz jumps about a Ganon, while he leaps twice that height at full charge. The primary use of this is getting foes onto the ground.

Down Smash: Insert Minecraft Joke Here

Fritz equips a pickax (how much stuff did this freakshow BRING?) and shoulders it, grinnng menacingly. When the charge is released, he very quickly slams it down one to three times depending on how long he charged the move; on the last swing, the tip of the weapon gets stuck, giving this move very poor endlag as he wrenches it free. Each swing of the pickax deals 9%, and only the final one of the bunch deals knockback, with it launching foes with moderately high knockback. This is Fritz's strongest, slowest Smash, and is an excellent kill move for incapacitated foes.

Spooky Aerials:

Neutral Air: Off The Hook (is better than the Squid Sisters)

In an exceedingly simple aerial, Fritz simply swipes his hooks downward on either side of him, performing a sort of jumping jack motion. This simply does 7% and light radial knockback. This move basically serves as a quick get-off-me move, and is one of Fritz's fastest attacks period. ...not a ton to say here, sorry.

Forward Air: Can I Axe You Something?

In a move about as fast as Mario's FAir, Fritz shoulders and swings an axe downwards in front of him. This has more reach than the plumber's fist, and does NOT spike. There are two hitboxes: the handle (7% and light downward knockback) and the head (13% and moderate knockback at a 45 degree downward angle. Landing during this will cause the axe to get stuck, giving this move very poor landing lag. At some percentages, it's possible to lead into a DAir with the sourspot, while the sweetspot is a fantastic offstage kill option.

Up Air: I Don't Have A Joke For "Mace"

In a rather fast aerial, Fritz swings a mace over his head in an arc, hitting slightly behind himself, then slightly in front. This is excellent at defending against DAirs thanks to being fairly disjointed. The mace deals a blanket 9% and pops enemies up for juggling; this move typically only kills at hilariously impractical percentages unless the foe is right at the top blastzone anyway. This is a nice option for when a foe is on a drop-through platform above you as well.

Back Air: Meet Hook(s)

Fritz quickly turns around and performs a two-handed slam similar to DK's FAir; thanks to his hook hands, this results in a slash that covers his whole back. This is fairly quick but low ranged, and is oddly enough a fairly awkward spike. Indeed, landing it weakly spikes foes with 10% damage. This has pretty low startup, but mediocre endlag and poor landing lag.

Down Air: Stop; Hammer Time

In his slowest aerial, Fritz gleefully brandishes a wooden mallet before mightily swinging it directly below him. This hitbox is about the same size as Villager's single turnip DAir, but it is a fairly meaty blow, dealing 19% and a fairly good spike. This is more powerful than the BAir, but has poor lag on all sides, a smaller hitbox, and is generally harder to land. It IS perhaps possible to use NAir to get foes into a better position for this...

Ghoulish Grab Game:

For his Grab, Fritz simply reaches forward with a hooked hand. This has okay reach and speed. The dash grab is more of a tackle, with more lag but very good reach. His pummel has him simply jab the foe atop the head with his free hook, dealing 2% a pop in a pretty brisk animation.

Forward Throw: Rip In Pieces

In his most damaging throw, Fritz steps "behind" the foe from the camera's POV, vanishing. Suddenly, his claws burst through them! He then begins slashing rapidly, cackling as the foe takes a horrifying 17%. At the end, the foe is left in prone as Fritz pants and catches his breath from the exertion. This is very much punishable in a FFA or Team Match, and some quick getup attacks can even punish it.

Up Throw: Beat It

Brandishing... an egg beater(?), Fritz tosses the foe up before ramming the utensil into their gut, spinning them in place before launching them up with moderate upward knockback and 10% damage. Fairly quick, good for leading into Fritz's less laggy aerials. NAir and UAir are fairly evergreen options out of this in most cases, but you could try an FAir or even BAir if you're feeling saucy.

Back Throw: Hammer Time 2: Electric Boogaloo

Fritz roughly shoves the foe behind him before socking them in the back of the head with a large metal hammer. This is his best kill throw, dealing moderately high knockback and 12% damage. There's... not a lot else to say here. The knockback is too high to reliably get any followups at higher percentages, and this is also a pretty quick way to get foes the heck away from Dr. Neurosis.

Down Throw: You Are Dead, Dead, Dead

Fritz hops up, then roughly pushes the foe into the ground, where a tombstone immediately sprouts up. He then gently plants a flower, grinning. This deals 8% and leaves the foe completely buried for a half second unless they mash out. This is intended to give the hectic Fritz a moment to breathe and consider his next move... or at least start charging a Smash, get closer to Neurosis for protection's sake, or simply run away.
 
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KafkaKomedy

Smash Cadet
Joined
May 13, 2018
Messages
69
Location
Florida
Switch FC
SW 8371 3981 5803

My first moveset is done! It's a pokeset since those are easy as pie and I'd like to easy myself into this a lil' bit. As a newcomer, any comments or criticisms are encouraged-- I'll probably be patching it in a week anyways. Enjoy reading!​
 

Smady

Smash Master
Joined
Apr 29, 2007
Messages
3,306
Location
K Rool Avenue
Wario Deluxe was great if only to break the monotony of a dead period. It’s very very dead. In that context I find it hard to be too critical of the set’s downfalls and I’m just glad I could read a new set, as this has its fun moments. Obviously the most fun part is the characterisation and I’ve always tended to enjoy your sets for zany characters. You did a perfect job here of making it not be either a generic clone of Wario and not losing the essence of the character by going too far in the other direction. Though frankly you could’ve gone way further into the tacky area than you did on Wario Deluxe and that’d be a far better set, but I’m not complaining because that might’ve been awful.

I really don’t like the nair “Easter egg.” That’s like calling tripping an Easter egg. The smashes are weirdly Specials Lite when his specials aren’t exactly mind-blowing, between a generic passive damaging hitbox he farts out and a projectile that makes the foe intangible. It’s not hard to see how you’d just put the new fart on say, down smash and move the far more important sounding bombs to specials. I don’t disapprove of smashes trying to be creative at all, but they shouldn’t outshine the specials.

In the end, I also find it hard to see what the greater point of the set it outside of a rather perfunctory remake for Wario. It’s still the best Wario set we’ve had considering the ancient Warlord one and the awkward Brostulip one. It’s surprising how much it feels like a general remix of Wario’s set than trying anything too wacky considering this form of the character. Shouldn’t he be I don’t know, summoning some crazy minigame prop? If anything it’s less cartoony than regular Smash 4 Wario. I guess that might say something more for Sakurai’s own design of Wario and I’m no expert, but I digress. Solid overall set.

Fritz and Dr. Neurosis was not nearly as bad as I expected when you outright said it was made to restart your creative juices. It’s very flawed, but has a very interesting core idea of having a stationary “boss” who your playable character has to defend, at the same time not damaging them using your own set. The first special, while unpolished, does a great job of realizing this as a fun playstyle. Same goes for the hook command grab. The numbers are a little wonky and yet this is legitimately fresh. Again a command grab that can heal the “boss” is another cool idea that’s not polished enough to be really cool.

The dthrow is just unfun as a general rule though it’s not even unfitting for Smash when we have throws like ROB’s dthrow now, so it’s not the worst filler. Besides all the shorter moves, obviously I’d like to see more Dr. Neurosis rather than just Fritz. It’s blatant that Dr. Neurosis could either be involved in certain moves, or hell why not just have Dr. Neurosis follow around Fritz like Pokémon Trainer somehow? Levitating head jar maybe? For a set that outright states it’s just practice, this isn’t unfun to read anyway which is a huge positive in that context. It reminded me of a lot of ideas I had about similar characters like The Master from Fallout that eventually turned into Ameno-sagiri. Imagining a character similar to Mother Brain as part of a moveset is very fun. I might take a crack at something like that in the future.

Welcome to MYM Kafka and good to have you aboard. Zoroark shows you have a strong grasp on the fundamentals of moveset design and is a professional production (outside of the [something] in the down special). You have good ideas for how to adapt the Pokémon’s core moves and while I’m not going to delve into how fitting these moves are, like if they’re in his learn set, nothing stood out as weird to me for Zoroark. The core Illusory Charge mechanic is smart both for its simplicity in execution and for giving a core mechanic for Zoroark who always was a character I’d expect to have such a mechanic. Like Lucario and his aura, it’s inevitable Zoroark has his own thing.

A nitpick: you didn’t absolutely need to use Pokémon moves for move names when they’re not related to the Pokémon move. Doesn’t really matter but it’s annoying for purists about that kind of thing.

The shield special is fairly pointless and I don’t like it or forward smash’s function. The shield special just gives Zoroark a way to camp and add to his mechanic passively forcing the foe’s approach. The punishment isn’t all that bad when he can safely use it in down time such as when the foe is respawning or he’s thrown them a fair distance, frankly defeating the point of the playstyle in waiting out your charges. The forward smash improving upon there being fewer charges struck me as counter-intuitive. The playstyle’s meant to be building up charges then you want less this one time? It’d make more sense if he had an after-effect of using his charges where he got buffed as a universal mechanic, rather than whenever he has none period. That or another way to work off the mechanic would’ve helped the set’s depth.

My main issue with the set is it is on the shallow side for its playstyle. It has good balance, presentation, it’s in character, but it’s a very basic playstyle of charging up a mechanic to buff his moveset. You only need to look at JOE!’s set (link) to see that Zoroark can have a very creative playstyle, but for your first set, this is a really impressive start. Hope you enjoy MYM Kafka.
 
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Professor Lexicovermis

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Oct 27, 2015
Messages
273
Location
Pop Star
Lucario's More Interesting, Less Marketed Cousin
6/10
Welcome to MYM, KafkaKomedy KafkaKomedy ! Always nice to see a new face out and about! Zoroark is pretty straightforward, and it's remarkably solid for a debut set, so congratulations are in order there. You have a nice head for the fundamentals, and Zoroark generally FEELS like a solid competitor; I'd say he's fairly "In-Smash" in that he doesn't do TOO much that's too outlandish for actual Smash. That said, I do have a few nitpicks, mainly revolving around Illusion. Simply put... I would really like to see Illusion DO more. As it stands, the best bang for your buck is to exclusively use charges on DSpec. While that's fine in and of itself... it would be nice to have some more functional uses for charges than just Dspec. Just as a suggestion, perhaps tapping B while charging a Smash could consume a charge and add some effect? You could even address Smash Daddy's complaint with FSmash by making the much stronger slashes work this way; heck, have it consume all your current charges like DSpec does. Other than my issues with Illusion, I rather feel like the set is solid; the only other eyebrow raising choice is the chip damage effect on FTilt of all moves. Not a bad effect, truly it's pretty interesting in a Smash context, but it feels... odd to have it on a single standard. I don't feel it warrants changing, but if you revisit that concept in the future, I'd love to see it expanded in a Special or perhaps even a set's central mechanic. All in all? I'd say this is a very good debut set. Keep up the good work, I hope to see more from you in the future!

Charles Martinet on Payday
8/10
Wario Deluxe is definitely the most interesting part of Warioware Gold, and it's nice to see you put him to use, Bionichute Bionichute . Deluxe is a fun remix of the Wario we all know and love(?), with some fun ideas all around. His Specials and Smashes are all fairly interesting, and build on vanilla Wario nicely while simultaneously bringing in fresh ideas. I personally feel like Deluxe Waft and Mysterious Purple Liquid could probably swap inputs? But otherwise, I don't really see many issues with the set. Oh, NAir's Easter Egg hitbox is... odd. You could perhaps make it weaker, but trigger any time a foe hits a very small hitbox on Deluxe's crown, maybe? All in all, I don't... have a lot to say about this set; it's a fun, solid remix with some fun mechanics, and it adapts the first true Warioware boss rather nicely. Good work!
 
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Plazzap

Smash Rookie
Joined
Aug 24, 2014
Messages
9
Location
The Earth of course
I see you're giving Paper Mario another shot. Love the visuals!

While I can understand the controversy in kicking everything off with Paint and Cards, Color Splash doesn't extend beyond being an RoA Shovel Knight-esque shop system tied to the hammer and I think the general consensus can be happy that Sticker Star never sees the light of day here. Though partners are locked behind cards and grabs, the partnerless inputs they clear room for are interesting and cohesive enough for this to not be a major issue. But representation aside, what do I think of the actual mechanics of the set?

Well, It was certainly interesting how much Ultimate's mechanics were brought up: from directional airdodges to zair sweetspots to even weird cross-up mechanics, it was impressive how much you embraced the new engine. The fact that you even gave delaying fully charged smash attacks relevance with the whole "release them at exactly one second" reward shows how dedicated you were in marrying this set to Ultimate.

It was heartwarming to see you, unlike Rex and Pyra, provide benefits for not playing the "right way". What I mean specifically is encouraging options like placing Bobbery in the opponent's face or not using hammer attacks over nonhammer ones in comboes by making most of them more difficult to hit with. Instead of limiting or discouraging these options, you acknowledged them, and that's cool.

There were a lot of things in this set that were creative without feeling tacky. I was a particular fan of how interesting the grab game was, what with all of the interesting options to start an edgegaurd (Parakarry and Yoshi Kid) and Back Throw's timing varying between characters to keep things fresh, though more of an incentive to intentionally not charge the hammer beyond the shaky "it may catch foes off guard" feels like a missed opportunity. On the topic of action commands, I found the Hammer Throw's follow-up timing an especially intriguing way to translate the mechanic into Smash while providing an interesting gamble between getting even more mileage off of the first hit or forfeiting the advantage that same first hit provided during neutral.

I could continue to gush but for the sake of time and length I'll end here. Besides some nitpicks like Lackiester not feeling especially relevant, I think this was a great set. Astronomically better than your first Paper Mario.
 

FrozenRoy

Smash Lord
Joined
Apr 26, 2007
Messages
1,260
Location
Las Vegas, Nevada
Switch FC
SW-1325-2408-7513
Fark.com (Fark the Electric Jester IvanQuote IvanQuote )

Instantly, a recommendation: Fark should be able to use the weaker Up Special even if he has more than 1/5th charge, since it seems useful and would be fun. I would make it so that holding down B gives you the invisible version (not necessarily through the whole thing, just like to start a smash charge) while a tap B gives you the quick chop. Also, Dash Attack needs an explanation on what "its priority" means, since a multihitting move like that would have "low priority" (as priority is just how much damage the attack does). The same is true of the NAir: A multihitting move with a bunch of weak hits is unlikely to clash with most things. Also, you can't clash with moves when both are in the air.

This is your best set unless I am forgetting one, largely I feel due to being more grounded. Gone are the mass amounts of pitfalls and stun is kept low, instead the focus is on giving Fark a healthy melee game and playing off a centerpiece mechanic more strongly. I liked stuff like the Down Aerial being an aerial juggle tool against grounded opponents and the grasp on comboing and giving Fark a kind of juggle focus ('CAUSE HE'S A JESTER, HA HA), mentions of dragging the opponent off which is risky and so on. The counter being Fark's way to fill up his bar is interesting (and heavily reminds me of my Iku Nagae set!) and in the context of this set encourages Fark to play more aggressively to try to get the foe to react and in turn counter it. The payoff is reasonable as well: The Super Mode is pretty strong, not super flashy but works well, and I like investing in the Smash Attacks or Up Special. The Smash Attack investment does seem perhaps slightly weak, although the Down Smash is pretty strong and Forward Smash's damage is very strong so I might be wrong there. I can definitely see where more could have been done with Up Smash or doing more with it and the other moves, but simplifying it to start with is probably fine and naturally this is a 5k challenge set so considering the confines (4,998 words!) it did just fine.

As a 5k set, it also is a bit shorter to comment. The melee is commendable and fine, but not amazing: You can definitely find a lot of sets with deeper melee both for the foe to play with and the player. At the same time I could see this put into Smash with no issues and being fun to play. The mechanic is interesting enough and explored well enough to enjoy, but could easily be expanded and improved. It's just a solid, above average set that will hopefully fill up votelists nicely.

Mint Chocolate Chip (Paper Witch Mint @UserShadow7898)

I'm late to comment this! Sorry for the wait when I said I would do so a long time ago, UserShadow. (And I'm glad you took my advice to give her some CUTE FRECKLES)

Mint is another addition to our 5k set showcase, although I would say I preferred Mint to Fark overall. Mint really pushes the envelope of a 5k set with what it pushes in there, which is perhaps fitting for a paper witch? Mint is ambitious in attempting to fit in a set that uses move copying scrolls, complete with a small minion and a counter to utilize a move of the opponent, into such a small space, and in that way kind of reminds me in a nostalgic way of older MYM sets with high concepts but low word counts. Unlike those sets, Mint knows to use those words to maximize what you need to know for each move instead of irrelevant crap...while adding in some animation flourishes too.

This system is fairly elegant, primarily focused on Mint's paper frogs which have the moves pop out when they die along with simply tossing the paper like an airplane, which Mint can then alter the trajectory of and mess around with. Mint then mixes this up with, for example, her origami tops from her Down Tilt which function as kind of paper projectile-traps that Mint can go shooting off and which bounces off of walls. This combines with one of Mint's more interesting other moves, the interaction log of her Forward Smash: It being like a wall to allow Mint to bounce stuff like tops off of it, ability to collect multiple papers and the additional uses of the stationary log make it quite a fun move. By comparison the Down Smash offers some interesting options, say sticking stuff to logs, but feels a bit too specific for widespread fun, the fireworks flavor is fun but I'm not entirely sure of the usage of setting everything on fire.

Neutral Aerial used to be worded confusingly but you fixed it on my recommendation so yay. The Forward Aerial is cool, although somewhat flashy for a Forward Aerial on a 5k set. At this point I will bring up one downside to this set: The need to explain finer details of it combined with stuffing it full means some of the more down to earth aspects, like the melee of something like Forward Aerial and how it seems useful for air dodges and what means for other moves etc, can be somewhat lost in the shuffle. I'm a nice fan of the Back Aerial and its melee uses + animation, but I am a bit unsure on its interaction. Up Aerial is also kinda out there.

I'm a fan of Forward Throw's uses, but just slapping it onto the throw is perhaps a bit iffy: It almost feels like a command grab, although for me I wouldn't say it is a big concern. This is definitely a spot where Mint would be served to be a non-5k set, as I am quite curious what kind of follow-ups to this throw might exist given the suction. Up Throw feels incredibly redundant when the much more interesting Forward Throw and the more amusing and reasonably good Back Throw both exist inside of the grab game.

Hopefully this comment is good, as I even reread the set some before making it since the set wasn't "fresh" in my head. While somewhat capped by some self imposed problems, Mint is still in the top tier of 5k sets and should find definite spots on votelists somewhere. It's a solid set and makes me hopeful that you'll be putting out 2+ sets a contest, UserShadow...because it is always a treat when you do!

Not Your Average JOEoark (Zoroark KafkaKomedy KafkaKomedy )

Zoroark's illusions are a reasonable interesting mechanic, forcing a DI mixup whenever he's hit after a period of not getting hit or attaining his Shield Special for a charge of it. He can alternately use it to power up some of his moves. Clean stuff. I wish it was used more and in a few more ways, though: All of the uses for it are pretty much "You don't know which Zoroark is which when used", I would have been interested in some mixups after hitting, or even spending it on stuff that isn't mixups (Snarl is the one that does this kind of). I also somewhat find what the stacks were used on underwhelming, and I'm not sure why Zoroark has a mini-stunning roar to begin with. Payback actually feels like more of a Special and fitting, perhaps if it was expanded or changed such as giving it more than just raw damage for having no stacks (which would add more incentive for some alternative play). Also, illusionary tricks being available with Zoroark's divekick would have been sick and helped elevate it from a more standard divekick.

Back Throw is really bad and what we would term "tacky": An effect which seems tacked on and not fitting the character or animation and so on and so forth. Why can Zoroark kill any buffs, especially with just a simple slash? Not even, like, darkness-y looks or anything, just a slash. It's pretty bad. Leaving that aside, the fact that buffs listed include stuff like rage and no real idea of what it is lead to extremely unbalanced implications. Can Zoroark just flatout kill Lucaro's aura? Not to mention stuff like Cloud's Limit Break, which is extremely broken to just remove. To be honest, it is pretty much never a good idea to throw a buff destroying move on a throw casually without some good reason. I would remove this entirely and rework the throw. If you want a far out example of what buff and debuff purging can do, my Medea set from MYM20 uses it as a core mechanic. And Jamie's MYM19 Magearna set used status effect SWAPPING as a core idea while being more sane than my Medea set.

Forward Tilt's chip damage is neat, but I do think it should have a bit more use outside of it, Leading from that, this moveset in general could use a stronger sense of playstyle, especially outside of the Specials. The basics of the set are fine: Be tricksy, get the foe to shield incorrectly and to evade them for charges or whatnot, but most of the set doesn't lead into much aside from a few combo moves. Forward Tilt works on shields, sure, but what other moves does Zoroark have to mess with shields? What about, say, a move Zoroark has that is good but weak to shields and thus makes opponents WANT to shield more (F-Smash doesn't count as much because of its requirements of no stacks), and then Zoroark can sucker punch their shield when they least expect it! And so on and so forth. It doesn't feel like Zoroark has much interesting to him when he does play his gameplan, perhaps in part because I found the execution on the non-base stuff of the illusions somewhat weak. His defensive side could also be made more interesting with more defensive options and deeper thought on that end aside from "he has a lot of out of shield options". What does a divekick add to Zoroark's playstyle much, for example?

The throws in particular are super barebones, pretty much filling up a checklist of "what throws do you put in a grab game". I wonder if there would be a way to work the illusions here, like a "fake" throw or mixing it up where Zoroark is after throwing an opponent or something. On a more minor note, I would probably make the air Up Special into a grounded one as it could be interesting and feels a bit less cloned: It also would either allow them to be the same or perhaps allow you to change up the aerial version as the fact Zoroark has to go down feels somewhat awkward for recovering since it doesn't seem D3 Jump Big.

Ultimately, Snatch heavily brings down a set with an interesting premise but not enough else to support it. It's still a lot better than a lot of first set offerings, so where you go from here will be interesting. Don't give up!
 

Munomario777

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The same is true of the NAir: A multihitting move with a bunch of weak hits is unlikely to clash with most things. Also, you can't clash with moves when both are in the air.
Small correction: under normal circumstances, aerials cannot be part of a clash period. Some moves such as Palu’s back air have trample priority (and there might be another similar property that I’m forgetting), but otherwise, aerials cannot clash with any move, grounded or not. (For this reason, the nitpick in the quote is especially relevant)
 

Squirtle/Mario guy

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It's set out differently but enjoy :) No stats or percentages

Paper Mario Moveset

Entrance : Flies on stage as Paper Plane

Neutral Attack : Hammer Slams three times

Edge Attack : Performs a dropkick while climbing up

Neutral Special : Hammer Slam
Side Special : Hammer Slam (I was planning to do Paper Cappy but he doesn't exist, only Cappy and Dr Cappy if you've Dr Mario costume in Odyssey)
Up Special : Parakarry carries him slowly dropping letters that damage or Lakilester carries dropping Spiny eggs
Down Special : Shell Toss Kooper or Koops

Dash Attack : Spin Dash

Grab : Thoreau grabs from a distance
Pummel : Carries the opponent with Thoreau, like DK’s pummel

Swim : Paper Mario holds Sushie

Up Smash : Ms Mowz does a love slash
Down Smash : Hammer smashes left and right
Forward Smash : Quake Hammer smashes forward

Up Tilt : Hammer bash that goes around him
Down Tilt : Peels ground in front of him
Side Tilt : Lady Bow appears and smacks the opponent

Down Throw : Vivian drags the opponent down into the portal and spits the opponent out
Up Throw : Slams opponent on the ground
Back Throw : Throws backwards then Bombbette or Admiral Bobbery will explode behind them
Forward Throw : Throws the opponent forward followed by Mini Yoshi charging at it

Neutral Aerial : Cartwheel with hammer
Forward Aerial : Whacks opponent with Hammer
Back Aerial : Madame Flurrie comes out of nowhere and blows the opponent away while pushing Paper Mario
Down Aerial : Ground pound
Up Aerial : Paper Mario Tornado (Basically Mario Tornado but with the hammer)

Final Smash : Papercraft Mario (Paper Mario slams the opponent upwards then jumps on Papercraft Mario which punches the opponent off screen)

Up Taunt : Huey falls in front of Paper Mario (reference to credits of Colour Splash)
Side Taunt : Paper Mario and Kersti takes out Sticker Book and looks at it (needed references to Sticker Star)
Down Taunt : Pixls comes and does a circle shape around Paper Mario

Victory 1 : Goombario and Goombella appears on Paper Mario's side
Victory 2 : Slams hammer on the ground
Victory 3 : Watt comes from Paper Mario and shines on him, blinding Paper Mario
 
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AirMac1

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Sep 23, 2018
Messages
462
9-Volt Moveset


Moveset:

Entrance:9-volt’s mom (5-volt) wishes him luck.

Taunts:
Up taunt:9-volt holds a Wii remote in the air.
Side taunt:9-volt runs on a Wii fit balance board.
Down taunt:9-volt puts on a virtual boy and plays games on it.

Specials:
Neutral B:Homing GBA: 9-Volt kicks a gba with his foot. This move can be charged. As the title says, this move will automatically try to hit your opponent. Like a red shell, no aim is needed. If fully charged, the move will be a one-hit KO. This is a reference to the WarioWare Twisted into.
Side B:Invisible Mariokart:9-Volt picks up a Wii wheel and starts driving an invisible kart. This is a reference to the Mariokart wii intro.
Up B:powerglove Punch:9-Volt jumps in the air and hits the opponent with a devastating punch, using his powerglove.This move not only gives 9-volt a lot of air, but also is very powerful. It may be more of an uppercut, but powerglove uppercut doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Down B:VR Counter:9-volt will put on his virtual boy, and if an opponent hits hits him, Nester from Nester’s Funky Bowling will throw a one-hit KO bowling ball at them.

And of course....The final smash!
Final Smash:8-Bit Remix:9-volt uses an 8-bit version of his opponent’s final smash against them.

PS:This is my first moveset. I do not feel like doing all these airs and stuff like that.
 

Smady

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Cool to see a couple of new setters around. I figured I'd drop a couple of comments for you guys, as these are by our standards very short movesets.

Though I can't comment 9-volt as I have no idea who or what it is, and it isn't anywhere near complete by any standard. Sorry.

Squirtle/Mario guy Squirtle/Mario guy Hello and welcome, I didn't expect another Paper Mario set but this one differs greatly from Muno's so why not. I will say first of all that it might sound like a weird criticism, but the order of your set struck me as a little strange. You have the jab first, when you'd expect it to be with the tilts and dash attack, and you have the grab and pummel together, though separated from the throws. I don't mind a set that has a different order if there's a good reason, but I get the sense you didn't really think about it, and as it's your first moveset it's understandable.

The other problem is that your set is very under-detailed. The bare minimum for a set is to give the hitbox, damage percents and an idea of the knockback a move deals. So for example your neutral attack reads, "Hammer Slams three times," it should at least be: "Paper Mario slams his hammer three times, dealing 3 hits of 3% and strong knockback at the end." There's still a lot of missing details there, such as the hits stringing together in a combo, but the set honestly just doesn't deliver the core basics to make it easy to visualize.

Getting into a more intricate problem now, the fact Paper Mario summons his allies on various more obscure inputs like throws is a bit of an issue. It just feels insulting for a character like Vivian to show up on a down throw. There comes a point in a set where you have to decide to focus on a few specific things, and that does mean you can't throw in every Paper Mario character unfortunately. It's a fine first attempt at a set, my very first set probably looked as basic as this. Even outside of MYM's standards this is a very simplistic moveset. Again I can't stress enough this is understandable when it's your first set. I hope you stick around and try to do a bigger offering next time.

xzx xzx Hi and welcome, this Paper Mario is fairly impressive coming from outside of the MYM community. As I said to S/MG above, you are lacking basic details like damage percents and knockback, but you've clearly got a decent grips of the basics at the same time. I can see what you're going for with a lot of the moves. It's simply hard to visualize these attacks without either an image or some deeper explanation beyond a reference as someone who never played these games. Largely you can look to the above comment for similar criticism in this set, though much less pronounced.

What stuck out to me as particularly good here was the nair, if every move had this sense of detail, scale and creativity, this could be quite a nice moveset! It might be better served on a dair (after all, he's falling on a foe) but it's not the worst nair concept I've seen either, if anything it might be better promoted to a special. Another thing that impressed me after the other Paper Mario offering is you did manage to avoid using the partners as much in other areas such as the throws. It's again very under-detailed and yet has some decently creative ideas pulling from all the Paper Mario games and shows a great amount of insight into the series as a whole. It's very cool seeing you pull moves from the entire franchise in this way.

The specials are another part like the nair that I could see be improved to have a bit more detail and finesse to them to the point they could easily be in a pretty good set. You do at least want to give a general size and sense of the lag on moves such as the partner summon. For example, is Goombella a large character? What damage and knockback does her attack deal? What is this attack exactly? But the core idea is a good one and I have to give you some credit for your creativity. All in all, this set isn't half bad outside of MYM's high standards. I also would like if you posted it in the thread alongside the link (I get why you wanted to link it, that's fine). Or maybe do what Muno does and put it in a Google Doc. Either way, I hope you do some more as I think you have promise!
 

AirMac1

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Messages
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Sorry guys, I mostly only use special moves. Btw 9-volt is a WarioWare character. If someone can make a better 9-volt moveset, it would be cool.
 

Squirtle/Mario guy

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Cool to see a couple of new setters around. I figured I'd drop a couple of comments for you guys, as these are by our standards very short movesets.

Though I can't comment 9-volt as I have no idea who or what it is, and it isn't anywhere near complete by any standard. Sorry.

Squirtle/Mario guy Squirtle/Mario guy Hello and welcome, I didn't expect another Paper Mario set but this one differs greatly from Muno's so why not. I will say first of all that it might sound like a weird criticism, but the order of your set struck me as a little strange. You have the jab first, when you'd expect it to be with the tilts and dash attack, and you have the grab and pummel together, though separated from the throws. I don't mind a set that has a different order if there's a good reason, but I get the sense you didn't really think about it, and as it's your first moveset it's understandable.

The other problem is that your set is very under-detailed. The bare minimum for a set is to give the hitbox, damage percents and an idea of the knockback a move deals. So for example your neutral attack reads, "Hammer Slams three times," it should at least be: "Paper Mario slams his hammer three times, dealing 3 hits of 3% and strong knockback at the end." There's still a lot of missing details there, such as the hits stringing together in a combo, but the set honestly just doesn't deliver the core basics to make it easy to visualize.

Getting into a more intricate problem now, the fact Paper Mario summons his allies on various more obscure inputs like throws is a bit of an issue. It just feels insulting for a character like Vivian to show up on a down throw. There comes a point in a set where you have to decide to focus on a few specific things, and that does mean you can't throw in every Paper Mario character unfortunately. It's a fine first attempt at a set, my very first set probably looked as basic as this. Even outside of MYM's standards this is a very simplistic moveset. Again I can't stress enough this is understandable when it's your first set. I hope you stick around and try to do a bigger offering next time.

xzx xzx Hi and welcome, this Paper Mario is fairly impressive coming from outside of the MYM community. As I said to S/MG above, you are lacking basic details like damage percents and knockback, but you've clearly got a decent grips of the basics at the same time. I can see what you're going for with a lot of the moves. It's simply hard to visualize these attacks without either an image or some deeper explanation beyond a reference as someone who never played these games. Largely you can look to the above comment for similar criticism in this set, though much less pronounced.

What stuck out to me as particularly good here was the nair, if every move had this sense of detail, scale and creativity, this could be quite a nice moveset! It might be better served on a dair (after all, he's falling on a foe) but it's not the worst nair concept I've seen either, if anything it might be better promoted to a special. Another thing that impressed me after the other Paper Mario offering is you did manage to avoid using the partners as much in other areas such as the throws. It's again very under-detailed and yet has some decently creative ideas pulling from all the Paper Mario games and shows a great amount of insight into the series as a whole. It's very cool seeing you pull moves from the entire franchise in this way.

The specials are another part like the nair that I could see be improved to have a bit more detail and finesse to them to the point they could easily be in a pretty good set. You do at least want to give a general size and sense of the lag on moves such as the partner summon. For example, is Goombella a large character? What damage and knockback does her attack deal? What is this attack exactly? But the core idea is a good one and I have to give you some credit for your creativity. All in all, this set isn't half bad outside of MYM's high standards. I also would like if you posted it in the thread alongside the link (I get why you wanted to link it, that's fine). Or maybe do what Muno does and put it in a Google Doc. Either way, I hope you do some more as I think you have promise!
Thanks for the advice *thumbs up emoji here
I don't plan to do percentages right now but maybe i could if i wanted to in my free time
I may plan on changing Back Aerial, Up Smash and Throws (all of them)
I'm ok with Up Special as it is because gliding isn't a thing but i'll remove the Lakilister part.
I'm removing Kooper from Down Special
 
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AirMac1

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Sep 23, 2018
Messages
462
Why did a smiley face emoji replace the p in powerglove punch?
 

Jakisthe

Smash Cadet
Joined
Aug 17, 2018
Messages
58
Before I get into this, I want to break down a bit of how I approach these. What I’m looking for is three things at first:
-How well does it fit in Smash: Does it seem like it’s a bunch of Smash moves, or is this an ASW game. To this end, there is a sort of “maximum complication” calculus I do; any given move in Smash 4 (or Ultimate) can be very complicated, but very rarely do we see every move be very complicated. Some characters might have Smash specials or ranged smash moves, but it’s less common that, say, every special can be smashed. With system elegance being a prime consideration for the series, this is key.

-How well does the character get represented: Are they doing something entirely crazy? Is it all out of, well, character? Is it focusing only on one aspect of the character and not really the entirety of what they represent (not what they can do, as characters typically can do quite a bit more moves than a Smash set allows).

-Is it mechanically interesting: We might have a character who only shoots bullets, and that’s certainly not a particularly wonky move, but if there’s nothing but linear projectiles, that’s…uh…less positive. Add detail! Moves can get canceled out, moves can have special properties, and moves can work in unexpected ways. Also I mean here is that simply adding a bunch of status effects to something which is otherwise quite basic, well, that can seem like a crutch to me. If it’s 3 types of lasers, one with fire, one with dark, and one with freeze, well, why not mix it up? The balancing act here with point 1 is tricky but pretty important.

And then I go from there. Those 3 areas aren’t to call out anyone, just wanted to give an intro before I get into the swing of things with Paper Mario by Munomario777 Munomario777 (does that work?).

So right off the bat, I like the stats. All makes sense for PM, all what I remember, all good so far.

It’s the passives it starts to get weird. The use of meters/ammo/secondary resources which are gained beyond cooldowns in Smash requires, in my view, a very deft touch, and the fact that this is used a currency to essentially open up an in-game store using a very rare Shield B to then unlock *eight different buffs and other special moves* is way, *way* past what I’d consider to be natural in Smash. While there may be the occasional Smash character who has some degree of things like this – Robin with ammo, Inklings with shield B (and ammo), Pac-Man/G&W with one-move-contains-multitudes, and Cloud with “meter which transforms various other moves”, no one combines all of those, and none of them are to this extent. Pac-Man still throws a projectile; Cloud’s moves are basically amped versions of what they normally are. Maybe there's more from a character I'm not as familiar with, but those come to mind.
These are entirely new, or at minimum a significant change up (often individually more complicated than many other Smash moves), and there’s 8 of them. Never mind how wonky this would be to play – if it’s a circular menu, that could still mean Shield+B+3 control stick movements+A (presumably while stationary) to queue up these attacks. Even being aware that you need to get a resource to fuel this, this would instantly place Paper Mario in the absolute upper echelon of difficult to play and learn, far higher than any other character.

Side B: An arcing projectile by itself is somewhat standard, although here is can be Smash’d as well. The fact that it makes paint into an item is…well, I guess it’s unique, but it seems kinda clunky. I know the tactic is to chase down the paint after it generates and create a sort of “area denial” section of the fight, but…that strikes me as a tad too central to just feed into an ammo meter. I mean it’s fine, it's done in things like Pac-Man and ROB, and I can see why you did it, but it’s almost like a more of a MOBA ability than a fighting game one, to be stacked on top of the Smash *and* timing attributes. It feels like the aspects here are individually interesting as they work within the broader framework of the character, but on a single-move level, kinda diffuse.

Neutral B: A buff, followed by a Side-B link (which is fine, and helps alleviate some of the trouble I have with the Side B, although it still seems a little…much for ammo and not a central mechanism of area defense). The buff by itself seems a little simple, although less so with the timed hits thing, which you’d think would be a balance alongside the three other NB options, but because so much of the time you’ll just have the NB, it makes me want a little more within the move itself, outside of how it fuels the…uh…differences as driven by the paint engine. I’m not going to discuss the card specials for this except to say that they are by a one fine, but all together as special selects, well, still in a bit of a need of paring. Also: the timed hits come from A+B attacks, and then need to be timed hit with B? That sounds…involved.

Up B: This is probably my favorite special move. First, the basic mechanics of the move, as I understand it, is: intangible free travel w/ reflects on either side. This is pretty unique among Smash characters, and the double reflect could have some interesting play. The timed hits aren’t crowded together with charge/Smash/meter/partners, and overall I think it works quite well.

Down B: My second favorite special – a movement buff which is a little more involved than “more movement”. Has weaknesses too! Always like that balancing approach. The fact that it parries is a little weird (I’m not sure how much I agree with the premise of “every special needs a timed version”), but it’s nothing too out there. I’m a fan here.

So that’s my thoughts on the specials. All in all, while there are some which I think well, this is a bit much. You see Mario doing area control, and charge Bs, and AI partners which can be defused, and timed hits for almost every move, and ammo control, and Smash specials, and switching out specials, and a Shield-B secret shop with 4 other moves, and I can’t help but wish that it was tied together more elegantly. This needs to be roughly a third as complicated to make sense for Smash and as it stands now it kinda just blends together in a case of “everything and the kitchen sink and also that sink has a gun with option selects”.

Normals: Im not sure that giving up ammo-making makes a 1 frame, potentially speed boosted and(?)/or copied move all that fair. The range is fair, but alongside the speed boost, very much the sort of thing I could see being a far too easy hit confirm series, and that goes along the limited knockback as well. Hammer is fine, Tube is mostly fine (going low profile as long as the player wants into a low ending lag uppercut? interesting), Spin is fine, Twirl is…also mostly fine (I get the sense that between the copy and the speed all of this is up in the air anyway).

Grab: A ranged grab, zair, and a buff? Besides the fact that Thoreau is from the main series…why? Seemed like a normal grab to begin with. Two forward throws seems a tad redundant, but I was never much one who got all the nuances of grab games so who knows. Memorizing timing for every character in the game for the back through does seem…unusual though. Nothing as much as the specials, but unusual. Everything else is fine and well detailed, and I like the ideas for chase/follows you lay out here.

Smashes: This seems open to exploiting, all this “whiff gets paint” stuff. Not completely outside the realm of possibility within Smash (several other characters do something similar), but just something that comes to mind when considering a character whose missed normal attacks make them stronger on top of the hitboxes inherent in such a move. I will say that trying to time for *exactly* one second within [presumably] 16 millisecond increments is very challenging (1 frame links were much derided) and I know it’s meant to be similar to a few other moves in Smash, but boy…for a non-special move, that’s some tight tolerances. Still confused as to how feasible it is to try and hit A and B (for the neutral B) at the same 1 second, but as you said: unlikely. Anyway. Up and Down smashes are fine, and I was worried about but ultimately appreciate the touch of low profile on the up charge. The Down is something that I’d also be worried about with the potential speed boost and how it plays into a wide air range, but doesn’t seem too egregious.

Aerials: Ok, so it is indeed possible to flick to a battle card. Still too much, I’d think, and now it involves a hold, but at least the option is there. Im not sure why anyone would ever buy Tippi, much less twice, outside of fun, and woe betide the person who accidentally wastes their ink on her. Still, it has personality I suppose. Fair seems fine, the projectile deflection on the nair – with long duration, quick start, and low landing, seems less so. For a nair? To say nothing of the copy? That’s a lot (even though, yes, copy requires resources spent like any of the others). Even interpreting deflection as different from reflection (does anything happen to the projectiles?) that’s…huh. Very effective, and on a pretty all-encompassing move. Bair and uairs seem fine, and as ever, I like the color.

And that about wraps it up for Paper Mario. End of the day, some fun ideas, and great explanations, but wow does it need to be simplified for a Smash set. At least, in my eyes.
 
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KafkaKomedy

Smash Cadet
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May 13, 2018
Messages
69
Location
Florida
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I'd like to begin my comments by saying I've made a small patch to Zoroark. Though these don't fix many of the major issues of the set such as the lackluster playstyle integration, it does fix the most jarring issues.

I'll simply be commenting on the two sets from our more established members these times as I'm new and couldn't give too much constructive criticism to the new guys like me that hasn't already been given out. Let's start with the Demon Summoner.

Kazuya
Kazuya is a set that I really love, Idon Idon . He seems fun to play certainly, I love his options, but more over I love this set aesthetically. Every attack has been linked back to a previous SMT protagonist, if not Kazuya himself. The set's formatting is also great, reminiscent of an old black and green computer similar to the COMPs some SMT protags wear. I also appreciate the pictures of each demon summoned, as a newbie to the series wouldn't know what each of these demons look like. Also, the music is a real nice touch since SMT has amazing music.

The only place where the formatting fails is in the grab section, it looks a little odd there because of the bold text and then the bold text again. A minor nitpick though. The only actual issue I have with the set is the lack of solid numbers-- No faf or percents are mentioned, making me wonder how quickly can Kazuya act after a demon is summoned, how long does each charge level take, etc. Overall, this is a character I now really want to see in Smash, he seems immensely fun to play as, with interesting tools that aren't too complex while together giving him a good amount of depth.

Paper Mario
Major props to Munomario777 Munomario777 here on the formatting; it's absolutely stellar. with hand-drawn images for every single attack. Things also all flow together and make sense-- with the exception of Tippi's placement and the mention of the secondary method of accessing the card shop; both should have been mentioned up front at first, when the concept was introduced. Over all tons of detail was placed into this set, it really shows. Maybe too much love was put in though...

Piggybacking off of J Jakisthe there is simply way, way, way too much going on in this set. Timed hits, the card shop with both changed B moves and additional passive buffs AND the copy mechanic is just... way too much. You even specifically mention that some of these combos together are way too damn good. The ability to deal over 60%, an instant kill, in a single hit, is too much. Also falcon's run speed and a 1 frame jab together, especially in ultimate where you can jab out of dash, is immensely unfair. You underestimate how many frame perfect inputs people can do in a match, especially since they can keep Cudgel and have some copies for protection. Also-- how many frames are you given for a Timed Hit? If it's just one that makes the mechanic pretty much non-existent for casual players.

So like I said, tons of love was put into this set. Too much, it seems. You wanted to put in a piece of every single paper mario game but that leaves the set feeling crowded and unbalanced. Still, the absolute amazing writing and formatting do place it far above most other sets anyways.
 

Smady

Smash Master
Joined
Apr 29, 2007
Messages
3,306
Location
K Rool Avenue
Black Knight is vintage projectile tennis, and you don’t have to look far for inspiration here. A big bad warlock who loves to whack a projectile back and forth? Yes, it’s an obvious Ganondorf wannabe. I can’t say I disapprove and I enjoyed all the many, many references to the character as a big fan of him/the moveset, though it got a little weird when you started referencing his taunts (mostly I just didn’t like nair). All in all, it’s a fun if predictable projectile tennis set from you, I think it peaked in the first specials. The way the Electro-Ball works and the clones/minions form a fun dichotomy that is well balanced, simple, logical concepts at play. I would say however I’m not sure I quite understand the point of up special and I thought down special would’ve been a lot cooler if it wasn’t so redundant with the clones’ shields, he hardly needs it defensively. I'd have preferred an offensive special, for example a guillotine attack, perhaps even a OHKO similar to Ridley's down special to push how he’s super hardcore.

The set largely gets into what I’d expect from a projectile tennis set. Moves do tend to fall into one of two territories: making up their own rules, or generically batting the projectile in a direction. I will admit that the fsmash inspired by the pinball flipper was very creative, but largely these moves that don’t follow any concrete logic have effects that aren’t all that interesting. Like for example the ftilt that just reflects the Electro-Ball back at an opposite angle, it’d be a lot more interesting if the move could be angled (as I assume it would be like most ftilts) to mix up whether he hits it forward, or diagonally forward/down. Then a lot of the moves just hit it in an obvious direction you could guess based on the input, to the point I wonder why even state this detail. I didn’t get why the nair wasn’t just a special either, especially given I was not a big fan of dspec. It’s also kind of weird you didn’t give more of a shield focus given how much you benefit from the foe shielding the Electro-Ball, and Black Knight does have a lance.

Largely what I liked here is the Ganondorf/warlock theme with a heavyweight throwing around his weight, the basic Electro-Ball and minion redirection mechanics, and the general characterisation was pretty neat too. It’s always cool seeing an obscure character from an old game like this represented and it definitely was enjoyable to read, so good job Bio.

I wanted to read Necalli for some time and I can’t say I am disappointed. This set is another very cool take on a meter mechanic from you, this time applying the Street Fighter V V-Trigger meter fully to Smash Bros after softer implementations of characters like FANG and Balrog. This makes sense for Necalli as his entire set may as well change in V-Trigger mode and is an obvious choice to sell the V-Trigger mechanic, but this alone wouldn’t be enough for the set to be good. What makes the set good is that you execute a move-by-move buff based on the V-Trigger, and without need for much in the way of flash, construct a very simple, cool playstyle. I really enjoyed how you adapted moves like dspec and dsmash, porting over the functionality to a Smash context was awesome.

Mostly what I found interesting here is the use of the V-Trigger activation to immediately combo and makes any move safe, as this bridged the gap between the normal and V-Trigger sets. This means the entire set is opened up to potential combos as any normal move can be ended by going into V-Trigger, and as you point out in the playstyle, as is present throughout the whole set, the pressure Necalli can apply is a huge part of his playstyle. The pressure is a key to why fairly standard heavyweight moves, i.e. the bair, the nair, the fsmash, become deeper moves. The focus on shielding is pretty subtle, but one of the best shield games I’ve seen in a while, a smart focus for a set where a large part of the playstyle is an activation on the shield. It might sound too powerful to fully shield break in the way this set does it, but as is one of my favourite things in sets, this one manages to masterfully sell it as perfectly balanced.

I do think the set could’ve done with a few more moves like dsmash, and in fact that dsmash justified a spot in the specials, considering it comes up a few times. I thought as well the soul stealing in the throws was fairly under-utilized. Despite some negatives what’s interesting is how appealing it is that Necalli’s entire set undergoes absolute changes. Not only is the set buffed, his dsmash changes to a couple of satisfying walking stomps, his usmash completely changes, and his ftilt/utilt change dramatically too. These are all for the better of course, but not in an obvious or necessarily direct way and that’s the best part of the set. You’re never quite sure what direction his V-Trigger set will go in and it really feels like two entirely different sets at play, despite being almost identical. And that’s basically Necalli in SFV, so I’d say this is a resounding success. If nothing else it’s a perfect showcase of the V-Trigger meter system and no one could walk away reading the set and not understand how it works, which is itself very impressive. I liked the playstyle section too which I read in its entirety.

Paper Mario has caused something of a stir, by modern standards this is one of the most influential sets, getting all sorts of attention. It's very deserved if you look at the set's great use of tablet/tracing to illustrate many of its moves, and I love that you went the extra mile for the melee hammer moves too. In some moves the tracing is obvious, but it doesn't detract from the high production values on display here, the format and image work is sublime. Beyond the images you drew the little details like the Adeleine Kirby hat, the cool effects you did for up special and the UI work you did to illustrate the shop, as well as the smart decision to split up the partners in this specific way are all genius decisions. I don't know if I'd have quite gotten the impact of Dashell or Thoreau if they weren't introduced at that part of the set, and it goes a long way in selling the appeal of Paper Mario's set as a fun, incredibly versatile character.

The set largely comes down to a collection of mechanics, the paint being the central one. I'm not sure if I entirely find the paint necessary, Paper Mario could well just get a partner like Shulk chooses a Monado Art. In the least I think the amount of paint you have to have to buy a partner is too high at 50% of landed hits of 100% of whiffed hits, you might be able to stand in place and whiff (not unlike other fighting games' meter systems) but it's a steep price for what aren't hugely powerful additions to Paper Mario's set. I wouldn't say the set is imbalanced outside of that, it's pretty much the opposite as the set successfully juggles a bunch of difficult mechanics between the timed hits, partners, buffs and paint. It's handled with a deft hand all the way through, for example the way you balanced the hammer-only moves when Cudge is active is nothing short of inspired.

The set continues to impress when you delve into the playstyle. The playstyle section here is one of the first I've particularly liked in a long time as it spells out just how much depth there is to Paper Mario and the choices any particular player might make, at the same time pinpointing his exact playstyle as a paper weight. I also never don't enjoy a set that has a OHKO that's balanced like the fsmash + Cudge combination. There are a lot of neat little combinations that are possible and the extent to which the player can drastically change their playstyle is just awesome. The way Timed Hits are worked into the set and the partners among other things are what help cement this set as one of the only Paper Mario movesets I've read that gives the character the right feel for his series. I really like too what you did in bringing together all the Paper Mario games, not leaving out the newer games, but paying respect to the entire series. There's obviously a lot of thought and effort that went into this set and it shows.

There were a couple of things I wasn't sure about on an individual level. I think the nair is too OP against projectiles characters with its "deflection," rest in peace MegaMan. I wasn't sure about the bthrow only hitting forward, I'd have much preferred him just turning around to do the move first or making the fthrow go backwards as a bthrow, swapping those two throws' inputs. It's kind of fun that you hold back like you're charging up the hammer behind Mario, but still, a functional bthrow would be better. I was wavering on what I thought of partners used in throws here, but they are put to good use. I'm not going to complain about Tippi or Tiptron as those are obvious Easter Eggs, I'm frankly glad they're in the set. No harm done there.

This set has a lot of really amazing qualities and a few bad spots. I'm not a fan of the way the paint mechanic works, it's definitely on the underpowered side. Besides the bthrow, I also felt like the utilt and dtilt were slightly odd for the inputs. I can't pretend that these mistakes drag down the stellar elements that terribly much however, this set's creativity, inventiveness and ambitions to simply be different are very inspiring, especially when you go into some detail later on the playstyle and the set's development process. I almost forgot to say as well, it's an elegant first foray into the world of Ultimate sets. This set is a project you should feel proud of and one of your best sets period! Awesome work Muno. (I'll get to Rex & Pyra one of these days.)

Thanks Idon Idon for finally posting Kazuya, been waiting a long time. And it was well worth the wait because this moveset does an outstanding job of representing the entire line of protagonists in most of the Shin Megami Tensei games. I've only played a few of the mainline games (the ones that aren't Persona) and it's honestly astounding how well you're able to construct a whole set out of generic animations from such eclectic source material here. It starts out giving a great set of animations for everything, even giving a unique shield, dodge and roll animations that are all cool references. Where this impressed me later is in the melee of the set, even the aerials manage to get in tons of references to the entire SMT franchise. I doubt it's possible to do a better job of representing the SMT protagonists in a set without it getting bogged down by the character's own limitations, so this is really a perfect idea for how it could be done in Smash Bros.

I do think the set falters on the details. Kafka pointed out already the set is lacking any damage percents, and it also doesn't give any reference for knockback. This could be as simple as comparing moves like the up smash to similar attacks in Smash 4 like Duck Hunt's up smash or Mii Gunner's up aerial. That and effects like Bufu's freeze effect not being detailed were negatives. The biggest missing detail is that the set never gives the character's stats, for example his height, weight, air and ground speed or jumps, despite the excellent levels of detailing on his other animations. Beyond that, I also felt a little cheated not seeing the specials beyond the first version given some more attention. These could've been a highlight of the set as it would work very well into your playstyle as written in the conclusion of the set, as Kazuya would be able to pick and choose what versions to use and bait foes in who expect him to finish the charge. These powerful spells would then help deepen his playstyle further and could have fun effects.

The set also could've been improved a ton if it referenced the very important specials section later, for example listing moves that worked into his Bufu effect. The most obvious special to talk about in my opinion was the interesting up special dynamic where he wants to attack on the way up, so he's not punished on the way down could've worked great if utilized in his aerials, or at least talked about in the conclusion/playstyle section. As you may have noticed however I find it hard to criticize the moves themselves, partially because I can't criticize the numbers when they're not detailed, but also because the set does such a good job of utilizing Kazuya and the other SMT protagonists' potential. It's a real joy to read through even as a someone who isn't a diehard SMT fan. Last but not least, I agree that the formatting here is great. It's a surprisingly fitting motif for the character that I wouldn't have expected. All around, a good set and one I thoroughly enjoyed.
 
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Munomario777

Smash Master
Joined
Nov 18, 2014
Messages
3,253
Location
Charleston, South Carolina
3DS FC
0387-9596-4480
Switch FC
SW-8229-3157-8114
Thanks for the comments! I've made a few notable tweaks since posting the set.

Strength of Vivian's Fiery Jinx attack has been increased; it's now a KO move. This makes Vivian more of a threat, and more worth spending a whole meter on.​
Neutral Air's landing lag now increases significantly if it deflected a projectile. This nerfs the "rapidly shorthop nair to beat zoners" strategy, while preserving Neutral Air's utility as a defensive tool in a pinch.​
Hammer moves which hit a shield no longer count as whiffing, but as connecting, thus gaining more paint. This makes it easier to build paint by spacing with hammer attacks.​
Wording in Side B's Timed Hit section was tweaked to be more straightforward and less potentially confusing.​
 

JOE!

Smash Hero
Joined
Oct 5, 2008
Messages
8,075
Location
Dedham, MA
1538629545855.png


Fate, Opportunity, Destiny, whatever you call it, Luck has always been a part of games.


If you wish to take your chances with something of a challenge, click on the die above and let us know what number fate has in store for you...

 

JOE!

Smash Hero
Joined
Oct 5, 2008
Messages
8,075
Location
Dedham, MA
(If you want in on this challenge, please DM me here on smash boards or skype)
 
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JOE!

Smash Hero
Joined
Oct 5, 2008
Messages
8,075
Location
Dedham, MA
Fate has chosen the paths of those brave enough to tempt it.....

The challenge is simple. The fates have given each of you a theme to base a Moveset on, with the only requirements being that said moveset encompasses as much of said theme as possible, and includes at least 1 element of luck within.

The results.....




Munomario777 Munomario777


NATURE

Muno's fate is to make a set themed around the element of Nature. Life, Growth, Flora / Fauna, and the Body itself all fall within Nature's domain.


Smady Smady


METAL

Smady's fate is to make a set themed around the element of Metal. Unyielding, Sharp, Precise, and Resistant, Metal as an element is not for the weak of heart.


ProfPeanut ProfPeanut


AIR

Peanut's fate is to make a set themed around the element of Air. Free, Swift, Wild, and Weightless, the element of Air is without limits.



Katapultar Katapultar


WATER

Kat's fate is to make a set themed around the element of Water. Flowing, Torrential, Calm, and Unstoppable, Water is an element that's only constant is that it is always changing.


FrozenRoy FrozenRoy


FIRE

Froy's fate is to make a set themed around the element of Fire. Blazing, Warm, Consuming, and yet Creating, Fire is a dynamic element that can cause either devastation or progress in the wielder's hands.



ForwardArrow ForwardArrow


DARKNESS

FA's fate is to make a set themed around the element of Darkness. Death, Vacuum, Cosmic, and Cold, Darkness seeks to consume all but the most valiant.


Plazzap Plazzap


SOUL

Plazzap's fate is to make a set themed around the element of Soul. Spiritual, Psychic, Nurturing, and Mysterious, the Soul encompasses much of the more powerful, and yet unknown forces.


KafkaKomedy KafkaKomedy


EARTH

Kafka's fate is to make a set themed around the element of Earth. Shattering, Rigid, Tremendous, and Shifting, the element of Earth has strength in both it's insurmountable durability, and its ability to shift when need be.


JOE! JOE!


LIGHTNING

JOE's fate is to make a set themed around the element of Lightning. Powerful, Fast, Chaotic, yet Controllable, Lightning's very nature is that of a controlled chaos.



Professor Lexicovermis Professor Lexicovermis


LIGHT

Lex's fate is to make a set themed around the element of Light. Radiant, Instant, Piercing, and Bendable, Light surrounds and bathes all that we can see, and yet much of Light's force remains a mystery...


U UserShadow7989


FROST

US's fate is to make a set themed around the element of Frost. Slow, Draining, Biting, and Cold, Frost opposes motion on all fronts, stopping all flow.



Bionichute Bionichute


THUNDER

Bion's fate is to make a set themed around the element of Thunder. Deafening, Echoing, Pushing, and Vast, the sonic element of Thunder blasts across wide areas.


K Kzinssie


TIME

Kzin's fate is to make a set themed around the element of Time. Eternal, yet Brief, Fast, yet Slow, Time is a fundamental element that affects all things.




The stage is set, and it is time to please the fates with the results of this challenge!






 
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