Meta Knight

[Xiivi]

Discuss all information pertaining to Meta Knight in this thread.

 

[Get Low]

I predict a serious nerf for MK in the next game.

 

[Big-Cat]

Are we talking Sean level nerfs?

 

[Get Low]

Are we talking Sean level nerfs?

Who the hell is Sean?

 

[crow95]

Guess MK will develop like Kirby from SSB64 to Melee.

 

[Nequ]

Guess MK will develop like Kirby from SSB64 to Melee.

i hope MK will develop like Pikachu from SSB64 to Melee: Still awesome, but not that hard.

 

[lordhelmet]

I don't think so. It would be very difficult to make Meta Knight bad given how he is made.

They'll nerf him, but he'll be like Melee to Brawl Marth. **** he's a small character with a big sword, wings, and fast attacks. How do you make that character bad?

 

[BSP]

Maybe if they took out the transcendant priority on every move except a few?

 

[Get Low]

Come to think about it, it would be difficult to make a character like MK bad.
I think if they give him his tornado back, they should make it so that he can't move while it's taking place.

 

[crow95]

Give him few and decent (at best) killmoves at a fair trajectory and let him make minor damage, he can have as big and broken hitboxes if he does not throw out much damage, it is quite balanced I guess.

 

[Omni]

They just need to nerf his specials.

 

[lordvaati]

Who the hell is Sean?

Street Fighter 3.

now with MK, 2 ideas I had were

-cut his number of jumps from 5 to 3

-get rid of Shuttle loop. make mach tornado his Up-B and make a new B move

that helps out a wee bit.

 

[GTA_Hater_331]

You guys are gonna be totally weirded out by this, but while I was good with Meta-Knight, he is far from my best. I expect they'll nerf him, but since Namco Bandai has such good experience with balancing, I imagine the tier gradient won't be as bad as Melee's, so I should probably do okay with Meta-Knight by Smash 4, but he'll still be far from my best.

 

[Claire Diviner]

You guys are gonna be totally weirded out by this, but while I was good with Meta-Knight, he is far from my best.

That just means he's more of a secondary character for you. That's not really weird.

As for MK, nerfing him will be quite a project. For starters, they'd have to nerf his Special Moves. Dimensional Cape and Drill Rush are fine as is, in my opinion, so it comes down to the other two.

Mach Tornado: This needs to be heavily nerfed somehow. The way I can think of for nerfing it would be to down the priority significantly, so that more attacks can hit him out of it, and make it so that once he starts to move in one direction, it will be very difficult to stop momentum to move in the other direction. Honestly, that's the best I can think of.

Shuttle Loop: The speed of Shuttle Loop is fine, as is its power. What needs to change is the knockback of the aerial Shuttle Loop. Rather than give it powerful horizontal knockback, it should have the same knockback at a grounded Shuttle Loop.

Any thoughts or critiques?

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

To start off, Meta Knight needs a nerf to his speed. In Kirby's Return to Dream Land, he runs at a much slower speed, but I guess that's only because he's running by foot.

 

[Claire Diviner]

I'd like to think his running speed in Brawl was based on his speed in Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland (a GBA remake of Kirby's Adventure), where he was unlockable. In that game, he sprinted pretty swiftly.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

Metaknight "runs" like he does in Kirby Air Ride.

I'd love for him to be better balanced, he was my favorite character from the Brawl trailer. Him being reportedly badly balanced was a major turn off for me.

So I ended up using Olimar.

 

[Sunnysunny]

I think metaknight would be alot more balanced if they nerfed his d-smash, Nerf the hitbox of up-b and made it more punishable, and change his d-air to the one he used in the kirby series. (He like, sticks his sword straight downwards Link style, but maintains his normal falling speed instead of plummeting)

Seriously, his up-b is dumb. Invincibility on start up, good hitbox, able to glide right after it making it hard to punish by normal means AND its a kill move? It needs to be more like marth's. Amazing for punishing and escaping pressure, but you should pay if you miss. I also like the idea of his nado staying in place.

Either that or make the hitbox and do less shield damage. Or make it so its a lil more punishable on block? Something.

 

[Aaven]

I like Meta Knight as a general character, and I know Sakurai is a big fan of the Kirby series so I'm sure he'll make another appearance in Smash Bros. 4.

I have a feeling people will like him more with him being nerfed, and will still use him in Smash Bros. 4 to prove the point that they didn't just use him in Brawl because he was broken.

 

[TheFirstPoppyBro]

I like Meta Knight as a general character, and I know Sakurai is a big fan of the Kirby series so I'm sure he'll make another appearance in Smash Bros. 4.

I have a feeling people will like him more with him being nerfed, and will still use him in Smash Bros. 4 to prove the point that they didn't just use him in Brawl because he was broken.

Big fan? He made it.

And I agree with you on this.

 

[Morin0]

I really can't think of a way to nerf Meta Knight. His moveset seems fine but I don't play Brawl enough to know why he's "broken" in Brawl. Make him slower, smaller hitboxes? I don't know. Also, wouldn't Meta Knight play different in a different game engine? I doubt it'll play the same like Brawl so would that be a change in and of itself?

 

[Claire Diviner]

I really can't think of a way to nerf Meta Knight. His moveset seems fine but I don't play Brawl enough to know why he's "broken" in Brawl. Make him slower, smaller hitboxes? I don't know. Also, wouldn't Meta Knight play different in a different game engine? I doubt it'll play the same like Brawl so would that be a change in and of itself?

Theoretically, yes, Meta Knight should play differently, but his moves might remain the same. The hitboxes might change, and they may make him more balanced to boot, but as mentioned, the game engine will most likely make the way he actually plays, and which move of his is useful very different.

 

[Striker X]

Make Nado a single hit move and considerably shorter in duration, make it have hitlag for SDI, make mobility harder, reduce priority significantly, and make it a vertical kill move for less use outside of that.

Make shuttle loop have vertical knockback.

Make D-smash have more ending lag.

Make D-air have more ending lag.

Make D-tilt have slightly less shield lag frames for easier punishes by people like Yoshi.

Baby make it happen...

What do you guys think? :o

 

[Claire Diviner]

Make Nado a single hit move and considerably shorter in duration, make it have hitlag for SDI, make mobility harder, reduce priority significantly, and make it a vertical kill move for less use outside of that.

Make shuttle loop have vertical knockback.

Make D-smash have more ending lag.

Make D-air have more ending lag.

Make D-tilt have slightly less shield lag frames for easier punishes by people like Yoshi.

Baby make it happen...

What do you guys think? :o

His Down Aerial has okay ending lag, it's his Up Aerial that needs to be fixed, either by giving it more ending lag, reducing range/priority, or a combination of both.

 

[FlareHabanero]

I think Meta Knight will stay relatively the same but get royally screwed over by new mechanics, similar to Captain Falcon in Brawl. I mean one of the reasons why he is so broken is because of the hit stun abuse, right?

 

[IhaveSonar]

For tornado, make it possible to SDI out of and give it a LOT of ending lag.

That way, if the MK misses or his opponent shields it, he will be getting punished. Hard.

 

[BSP]

I would go for the additional ending lag. The move should be should be safe on hit at least.

SDI'ing out of multi hit moves should probably go altogether. You should be rewarded for landing a hit, not punished.

 

[t!MmY]

You guys have it all backward - Meta Knight doesn't need all those nerfs, everyone else needs to be buffed so they're about as good as Meta Knight. Also, not everything about Meta Knight is so over-powered that it's 'impossible' to balance him. I'd say that there are only two things that need to be balanced about Meta Knight:

1. Dimensional Cape
2. Mach Tornado

Dimensional Cape is obviously the #1 unbalanced attack because of it's potential to be used indefinitely (noticed I use the word "indefinitely" and not "infinitely"). Even with the potential to disappear indefinitely, it's still not that big of a deal because the amount of effort required to use it doesn't actually pay off enough in practice, only in theory.

Mach Tornado is just dumb. I thought it would be his Final Smash but instead they made it his standard Special Attack. If they want to balance it, the Hit Box size should be dropped and it should be made intangible. It's my personal opinion that they should just replace it with a better special attack.

 

[Dr. Tuen]

Adding a handful of start up frames and ending frames to just about everything will help. Mach Tornado should be made so that it is 1) not transcendent and 2) stops when hit by anything. If you did that, the actual shape and form of the hitboxes could stay the same. It's serve a decent purpose as a recovery, and it could be used as a follow up if you predict air dodges... but it would suck it up pretty hard if it were overused.

 

[Claire Diviner]

I think Meta Knight will stay relatively the same but get royally screwed over by new mechanics, similar to Captain Falcon in Brawl. I mean one of the reasons why he is so broken is because of the hit stun abuse, right?

Captain Falcon isn't broken, but he can do some very unpleasant things to people once he grabs them in Smash 64, usually by doing 0-Death combos. In Melee, he was noticeably nerfed, but he still worked well with the game mechanics thanks to his buffs, including a new Fair (The Knee). In Brawl, it's more than the mechanics that screwed him over, but the hitboxes to his moves having either changed, or reduced in size, and his grab is much shorter, and his overall kill power has also been nerfed.

You guys have it all backward - Meta Knight doesn't need all those nerfs, everyone else needs to be buffed so they're about as good as Meta Knight. Also, not everything about Meta Knight is so over-powered that it's 'impossible' to balance him. I'd say that there are only two things that need to be balanced about Meta Knight:

1. Dimensional Cape

Dimensional Cape is obviously the #1 unbalanced attack because of it's potential to be used indefinitely (noticed I use the word "indefinitely" and not "infinitely"). Even with the potential to disappear indefinitely, it's still not that big of a deal because the amount of effort required to use it doesn't actually pay off enough in practice, only in theory.

You are aware that Infinite Dimensional Cape (IDC) is banned from tournament play. Also, there's a good chance they'll fix the move for Smash 4 so that it cannot be done indefinitely anyway, so as a move by itself, without the glitch, it's perfectly fine.

2. Mach Tornado

Mach Tornado is just dumb. I thought it would be his Final Smash but instead they made it his standard Special Attack. If they want to balance it, the Hit Box size should be dropped and it should be made intangible. It's my personal opinion that they should just replace it with a better special attack.

Mach Tornado is only bad because of the priority, hit box, and maneuverability. Rather than axe the move, they can just reduce the hitboxes, make it so that it doesn't have as much priority, so even Mario's Nair can hit MK out of it, and increase the landing lag by just a little bit; a good recovery option without becoming a beast for an offensive option.

 

[t!MmY]

Tuen, you've got the data mixed up. Mach Tornado is not currently intangible. In fact, if it were intangible it would be a lot less OP and more balanced. Because of it's 'normal' (no intangibility flag) hitbox it can clash with practically anything. If it were actually made to be intangible many more attacks would go right through it and hit Meta Knight. The only reason to reduce the size of its hitboxes is to further make it easy to punish (such as with Ganondorf's F-tilt which otherwise would still get caught by an intangible, normal-sized tornado hitbox).

@Sol Diviner
Calling the 'Dimensinal Cape Glitch' an 'Infinite Dimensional Cape Glitch' is a misnomer because it isn't infinite (I'm not even sure it qualifies as a glitch, either). It's not bannable because it's discreet and hard to enforce. I think you mean to say that excessive stalling is discouraged an indefinitely using the Dimensional Cape to stall out matches is grounds for a penalty.

I'd much rather see the Mach Tornado as a Final Smash (see Kirby Super Star Ultra) since it fits the power level of the attack much more than as a standard Special Attack. There are plenty of better moves to give to Meta Knight (such as this ground blast)

 

[Claire Diviner]

@Sol Diviner
Calling the 'Dimensinal Cape Glitch' an 'Infinite Dimensional Cape Glitch' is a misnomer because it isn't infinite (I'm not even sure it qualifies as a glitch, either). It's not bannable because it's discreet and hard to enforce. I think you mean to say that excessive stalling is discouraged an indefinitely using the Dimensional Cape to stall out matches is grounds for a penalty.

Whether it's a glitch or exploit is irrelevant, what can be agreed upon is that it was not intentionally programmed into the game, considering what needs to be done to perform it. Also, are you seriously going to say it isn't bannable? It is not discreet, due to the noticeable increase in duration of the invisibility and distance that can be traveled compared to a normal Dimensional Cape. And the reason the competitive community calls it "Infinite Dimensional Cape" (it's even in the official ruleset), is because so as long as one is good enough to maintain the invisibility, they can remain invisible for an indefinite amount of time. Even if it isn't used to stall, it can still give the MK player an otherwise unfair advantage of approach, as well as unprecedented defensive and offensive capabilities.

 

[Nido]

prove the point that they didn't just use him in Brawl because he was broken.

M2K does (I just had to), $5 says he uses the most broken character in smash 4

 

[BSP]

You guys have it all backward - Meta Knight doesn't need all those nerfs, everyone else needs to be buffed so they're about as good as Meta Knight. Also, not everything about Meta Knight is so over-powered that it's 'impossible' to balance him. I'd say that there are only two things that need to be balanced about Meta Knight:

1. Dimensional Cape
2. Mach Tornado

Dimensional Cape is obviously the #1 unbalanced attack because of it's potential to be used indefinitely (noticed I use the word "indefinitely" and not "infinitely"). Even with the potential to disappear indefinitely, it's still not that big of a deal because the amount of effort required to use it doesn't actually pay off enough in practice, only in theory.

Mach Tornado is just dumb. I thought it would be his Final Smash but instead they made it his standard Special Attack. If they want to balance it, the Hit Box size should be dropped and it should be made intangible. It's my personal opinion that they should just replace it with a better special attack.

Shuttle loop is pretty dumb too. I'd be fine with the grounded version if it lost some of its KO power, and I think the air version needs less base knockback and more knockback growth to compensate.

@Tuen - like t1mmy said, Mach tornado isn't intangible. I think the move would be fine if had a little more endlag, because in brawl it's just too safe for some characters to deal with, especially if MK autocancels it.

Remove the transcendant priority on every move as well and I think he'd be fine.

 

[Conviction]

I like idea of buffing everyone so it make seem like MK is OP he has good stats and as said, the only stuff that is really broken is Mach Tornado, it ruins so many characters, IDC, and aerial SL's knockback

 

[Claire Diviner]

The thing they need to do with aerial Shuttle Loop's knockback, as mentioned before, is give it the same vertical knockback as a grounded Shuttle Loop, that way, MK can't easily KO characters as low as 40-50% when used off the edge of the stage.

 

[t!MmY]

Like I said, don't go nerfing Meta Knight when you can buff the other characters. Nerfing Shuttle Loop just means that Meta Knight will have to have to play a campier strategy until he gets you to that KO percent. We don't want the next game to be more defensive/campy, do we? No, we want all the characters to be awesome and capable of epic attacks.

As previously stated, the only real problem with MK is his Mach Tornado because it 'dumbs down' the game while simultaneously shutting down more than half the cast's options.

@Sol Diviner
I said the Dimensional Cape glitch is 'discreet' because you cannot tell the exact moment it begins. There's a vague timing between a 'normal' use of the Dimensional Cape and when the exploit kicks in. Either way, I'm against banning it's use as an exploit as much as I am against banning any other Advanced Technique in the game.

If someone is 'stalling', that's a different matter entirely and it's up to a Ref's judgement call for however the tournament handles such things. In other words, stalling with Dimensional Cape is no different than stalling with any other technique, so layering bans on top of bans of the same thing is simply an exercise in redundancy.

 

[BSP]

The thing they need to do with aerial Shuttle Loop's knockback, as mentioned before, is give it the same vertical knockback as a grounded Shuttle Loop, that way, MK can't easily KO characters as low as 40-50% when used off the edge of the stage.

It should keep its horizontal knockback since it is used for gimps, but it shouldn't be able to KO at such low %s given how fast and versatile (and safe) the move is.

Like I said, don't go nerfing Meta Knight when you can buff the other characters. Nerfing Shuttle Loop just means that Meta Knight will have to have to play a campier strategy until he gets you to that KO percent. We don't want the next game to be more defensive/campy, do we? No, we want all the characters to be awesome and capable of epic attacks.

MK would still have insane speed, multiple jumps, and edgeguarding. I don't think nerfing air SL to the point where it won't KO at 40% would be that bad considering he'd still have the best edgeguarding game to back it up.

If GSL lost some KO power, it doesn't destroy the move. It's still one of the best shoryuken-esque moves in the game because its invincible and he can still has options after it. He'd still have Dsmash, Nair, gimps, and Glide attack for KOs.

Also, would you let him keep his transcendent priority? I think that's one of his dominating traits too, at least as far as the characters I play goes. For example, and are actually pretty fast on the ground and could probably beat MK up close if his sword could clash...it's a really dominating trait. Heck, it applies to everyone. It's either outspeed MK's next move or run/shield/dodge.

If he keeps the transcendent priority, I think he needs more frames on everything like Tuen said.

 

[Claire Diviner]

@Sol Diviner
I said the Dimensional Cape glitch is 'discreet' because you cannot tell the exact moment it begins. There's a vague timing between a 'normal' use of the Dimensional Cape and when the exploit kicks in. Either way, I'm against banning it's use as an exploit as much as I am against banning any other Advanced Technique in the game.

What are you talking about? Of course you can tell when the move actually begins and when the player extends it. The reason it's banned is - as said before - it gives the player the potential to stall indefinitely and/or gain an unfair advantage of approach unlike any other character in the game, even if it's extended slightly, the extended frames are still noticeable and it still gives the player the ability to approach the opponent safely than intended.

If someone is 'stalling', that's a different matter entirely and it's up to a Ref's judgement call for however the tournament handles such things. In other words, stalling with Dimensional Cape is no different than stalling with any other technique, so layering bans on top of bans of the same thing is simply an exercise in redundancy.

The difference between Dimensional Cape and other techniques that are used for stalling is that Dimensional Cape can also be used offensively; remain invisible until the opponent's guard is down and then strike with the Dimensional Cape's hitbox. If the opponent uses projectiles to force an approach, repeat the process; extend the cape, make your way to the opponent's position, and strike. Even if it isn't used for stalling, but for offensive purposes, it is still a very unfair advantage that Meta Knight would have if banning the exploit wasn't in effect. This is why stalling is banned, and then this technique specifically is banned, and is the only technique in Brawl to be banned.

 

[Bowserlick]

Shuttle Loop should not be able to kill. The main purpose should be a safer way to enter a glide.

Each special move allows Metaknight to recover. He has four options. Shuttle Loop is potentially the longest. His Mach Tornado can be the most versatile in terms of movement (don't give it hit stun, instead make the tornado large and only deal low damage). His side B is for racking damage and his down B is for a potential counter attack.