Veril said:
I'm glad you understand. Marth is going to be altered, obviously, but the Marth thread really is not the place for the fine tuning to take place.
"wall of text follows"
The fundamental problem seems to be that there are two main camps the marth players are divided between: those that just want to see the SHDF return and those that care about
everything besides the SHDF. It's difficult to come up with a solution that appeases both of them.
I'm personally in the latter camp. I just want to see marth's mobility and fluidity back, and SHDF is really just a side-note. If it happens to come back as a result of fixing his fluidity, then cool. If not, it's not
that big of a loss. I would be perfectly happy if the only change to his fair that was done at this point was adding interrupt for jump and specials at the old IASA point. That's all he needs to be able to retain the large majority of the purposes of the fair.
However, that fails to appease the other camp. They want SHDF first and foremost, and assume that whatever is done to bring back SHDF will also fix their other complaints. Indeed, there is a certain amount of overlap depending on the method used to attain a fix, but in general, most fixes are going to lean more toward one camp or the other. On-hit IASA seemed like the only solution that would completely appease both camps.
Some frame data makes this point clear:
- In melee, marth's SH had a duration of 38 frames. Fair came out on frame 4 and IASA'd frame 30. This gave him 4 frames of error to get out that second fair.
- In brawl+, marth's SH has a duration of 40 frames. Fair comes out frame 4, and before moving the IASA back, was IASA'd frame 34. This gave marth 2 frames of error to get out the second fair.
- In brawl+, after the nerf, marth will need a SH with a duration of 43 frames to be able to execute a SHDF, assuming frame perfect timing. To match brawl+'s old difficulty level of executing a SHDF, he would need a SH with a duration of 45 frames, and to match melee's he would need a SH with a duration of a whopping 47 frames. Obviously, we wouldn't be aiming any higher than brawl+'s old difficulty, as a 47 frame SH is somewhat absurd, although 45 is already pushing it.
I think the main reason marth doesn't feel like marth is not due to how long he spends in the air (he spends more time in the air than melee marth does), but how quickly and how big of a window he has to act after a fair, and the resultant combo potential and mobility that offers. This, combined with getting combo'd like a fast faller results in a marth that doesn't feel like marth.
Making marth feel like marth again should be as simple as enabling actions earlier after a fair and reducing his dgrav slightly. Since this creates balance issues with fair walls, the only way to allow this and also prevent fair walling would be on-hit IASA.
The alternative to this would be greatly increasing his jump time, which would probably end up making him overly floaty, slowing down his shffl game. Which, despite what some may say, always has been and always will be a crucial element to his game. His current shffl game is not what makes him roy-like. His lack of a rising aerial game
is.
His fair
is a centralizing tactic, but it's a centralizing tactic that has defined marth since the outset. He still has a multitude of viable options even with such a powerful fair, so it isn't quite the status of being its own character, and therefore imo not worth trying to decentralize his play any more than necessary to fix specific balance concerns (ie. the fair walling).
Veril: On a personal note: The people claiming that Marth has seen unprecedented across the board nerfs are completely wrong. Marth's up/back throw and up-tilt were buffed. His dancing blade, even after the damage reduction, has benifited enormously from the mechanics changes, and is one of the best moves in the game. His SHFF aerials are amazing, he has spectacular combos. We even increased the size of his f-smash and bair tippers... Marth is really good.
And then there's a character like MK. I'm as angry about his nerfs as anyone is about... anything in this game. I had to really relearn him after the nair nerf, and his lack of KO power is incredibly evident when playing against say... Lucario. But I'm not removing any of them, despite my massive bias as a tournament MK+.
Yeah, I don't think there are very many people that think marth isn't good. Those that do probably shouldn't contributing to the discussion in the first place. It's just that collectively the marth mains don't think he plays like marth anymore, making it something you can't really ignore.
