My opinion on what happened with customs

[Teshie U]

Good sonics spindash into up-b which makes him extremely difficult to punish unless your character is very fast in the air.

If you character can't punish spring use, the matchup is probably hopeless anyway with or without customs.

 

[Unknownkid]

Good sonics spindash into up-b which makes him extremely difficult to punish unless your character is very fast in the air.

Which require a jump to perform hence lose his "invincibility".

Anyways, I went to NinjaLink and his crew to test something about Sonic's Burning Spin Dash. It is not invincible... it is much much worse. Burning Spin Dash doesn't have a Hurtbox. My pal Liege test this out with Marth's FS. Critical Attack goes right through Burning Spin Dash. We concluded it might be a coding issue like Diddy's Uair, Ultimate Shulk, or Fire Kirby. The second sonic jumps, stops or turns, his hurtbox returns. So maybe this was intended. With that being stated...

I Tested with my brother, I found few things to counter to Burning Spin Dash:
1) Counter - in order for Sonic to regain hurtbox he needs to hit something. Counter moves will allow you to tank the hit and punish Sonic's recovery lag. Mii Swordfighter, Mac, Ike, Greninja, Lucario, and Palutena all have good results for consistently countering BSD. Best ones are Mac, Greninja and Lucario. Marth/Lucina can stop BSD but they counter too quickly to punish sonic. Shulk's vision slow the gameplay down which failed to revert Sonic back to neutral hence whiff him completely. If you going to use Shulk's Vision, make sure to take Power Vision and use the normal slash version. It is the most consistent out of the 6 (normal and forward).

2) Shield - As you already know, you can just shield BSD. This is common sense and imo the best option. Unless Sonic decides to Jump and Up B, you can punish his recovery lag. If you see him jump, you jump cancel out of shield and trade with an aerial.

3) Spot Dodge - BSD only loses his "hurtbox" when he is burning. But at certain distance (3/4 of FD) or when Sonic is turning his Hurtbox returns. If you spotdodge and attack behind you, you will hit Sonic out of BSD. I perform this with Lucina.

4) Mid Jump Aerial. You jump high enough to evade Grounded BSD but low enough to contest Jumping Spin Dash.

5) Distance - As mention in number 3) at certain distance (3/4 of FD) Sonic Hurtbox returns. It was weird how I got this out. I was spamming Gale Strike, Swordfighter's Tornado move, and I manage to hit my brother out of BSD. I was shocked. No way that Swordfighter can beat this "op" move. After some more testing we later realized BSD charge/speed determines how long Sonic is untouchable.

*) Super Armor does not work. Sonic goes right through you.
**) Two BSD against each other result in a clash. But if one of them jumps, the Jumping one takes damage.

New Information -

Burning Spin Dash and its code are just weird. I spent a hour labbing with my friend Liegemaximo and we discover some janky stuff. 1) BSD does have a hurtbox, but I believe it is priority based. Here how we came to this conclusion -

6wx is the only player we both know that use BSD in a tournament. However, he used it on certain matchups. Question here is why? If the move is superior and I guess broken, 6wx should use this move more often. He didn't even use it on Dabuz's Rosalina of all characters. Well... apparently, Rosy or better yet Luma can stop BSD just by Jabbing. No, I am serious!

We ask ourselves... how is this possible? Every time I dash into Luma's constant jab clash sparks appear until I was finally hit out of BSD. After several tries and being mindblown time, I conclude we need to use another character. I know WFT has a super armor explosive move and a multiple hit projectile. BSD should be able beat both right? Hahaha nope! Fully Charged Sweeping Sun Salutation, if shot before, will beat a Fully Charged BSD every single time.

Oh and Volatile Breathing... it was literally WHAT moment. I have never seen an explosion clash out before but this take the cake. YOU ALL NEED TO TRY THIS. Violated Breathing with BSD put both Sonic and WFT into neutral. There is no Explosion! Some how, the great Sonic absorbed it.

tl:dr - Burning Spin Dash is not "broken" nor invincible. Go into the Lab and test it yourself. Do Smart Bomb vs BSD, Marth's FS vs BSD, then move to Little Mac's Counter vs BSD, Luma's Constant Jab vs BSD, WFT Sweeping Sun Salutation and finally Volatile Breathing. Nintendo need to work on its coding. I ask Liegemaximo to get NinjaLink to do a video about our findings. We will post it ASAP. Until then... what is our next broken move?

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Hammer Spin Dash, maybe?

By the way, on the subject of sonic just upBing, that's not "safe". That's "above you in the air with no jump or special available". He can do that with his regular spindash too - punish the landing, or you're going to hate the matchup either way.

 

[Teshie U]

@ Unknownkid go look at the brawl Sonic boards, the custom appears to function exactly like ISDR (invincible spindash rush) so you might be doing duplicate research.

The invincibility just helps vs landings because aerials didnt beat it in brawl. It also helped vs metaknight because 90% of his moveset didnt clash with anything.

 

[Unknownkid]

Oh, I see. You know, someone else said the same thing. If it function completely like ISDR then we can beat it. The move is still silly. Like all things, just need to you know what to do.
Also, sorry about my grammar and sentence structure. It was late night and I was pretty tired when I posted it. I will edit the piece later day or this week.

Haha, I wish Hammer Spin Dash was broken. The stuff you can do with it are pretty cool. Just make sure to shield/avoid the grounded hit.

 

[Deleted member]

@ Unknownkid you left out the fact that BSD isnt immune to transcendent projectiles (unless you wrote that earlier in the thread). Needles were able to stop the spin (even though it may depend again on the coding or how man needles). And NinjaLink elaborated further that Megaman's Fsmash should counter the spin. So whatever is considered a transcendent projectile should shut down this move (hopefully this is consistent since BSD is very strange coding wise).

 

[Unknownkid]

@ Unknownkid you left out the fact that BSD isnt immune to transcendent projectiles (unless you wrote that earlier in the thread). Needles were able to stop the spin (even though it may depend again on the coding or how many needles). And NinjaLink elaborated further that Megaman's Fsmash should counter the spin. So whatever is considered a transcendent projectile should shut down this move (hopefully this is consistent since BSD is very strange coding wise).

Wait... you had an account? Oh you just made one. No I forgot to mention because I was still dumbfound by Rosalina and WFT. Thanks for mentioning it.

 

[Gamebox_64]

all this talk of "we should ban certain moves if they break the game" or are "broken". well guess what they cant break the game because they ARE the game, who are we to say a character can only have these moves because we say so?
i swear competitive smashers are the most entitled people customs are just the new bandwagon to jump on to cry broken until their faces turn blue.
play the game or dont noone bans certain ultras from sf its just how the game is just play it.

 

[Pyr]

all this talk of "we should ban certain moves if they break the game" or are "broken". well guess what they cant break the game because they ARE the game, who are we to say a character can only have these moves because we say so?
i swear competitive smashers are the most entitled people customs are just the new bandwagon to jump on to cry broken until their faces turn blue.
play the game or dont noone bans certain ultras from sf its just how the game is just play it.

In this context, what does the term "broken" mean to you? I want to know because you seem to have a massive lack of understanding here.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

In this context, what does the term "broken" mean to you? I want to know because you seem to have a massive lack of understanding here.

Tell you one thing, he's got a better attitude with regards to bans than 99% of the forum does.

 

[Pyr]

Tell you one thing, he's got a better attitude with regards to bans than 99% of the forum does.

No. He does not. Not only is his attitude derogatory towards the smash community, it's based on false logic and completely lacks an objective view of the possibility of a ban on certain game-degrading custom moves. It's why I asked for his definition of broken. If it's the "op" definition, then I was going to call him out on it and tell him he is wrong. It it's the "degradation of game state" definition, I'd of asked him to clarify further on a few specific moves. And, finally, if it's the literally broken variation where things do not function properly, I'd again ask for clarification.

The "not broken!" stance that fails to really explain their reasoning beyond "it's how it is, get good or get out" is indeed the most common stance in regards to specific customs not being banned. That does not make it a good stance or attitude and does nothing to further discussion on customs in general. If your statement spoke for the fact that most of the Smash 4 Generation of smashers need some humility in matters to which they disagree with a viewpoint, then I'd agree with you. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

Blind acceptance of customs, and the bashing of the community while stating that that is their stance, will never be a positive attitude, and, if that is what you consider "better then 99% of the forum," then I must say that Smash World Forums has reached the same low that a lot of the worst official general forums of competitive games have reached. That is a very sad thing.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

In the games I come from, "broken" means "literally crashes the game." I prefer that threshold when it comes to banning things on sight.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Tell you one thing, he's got a better attitude with regards to bans than 99% of the forum does.

He's pretty much fighting fire with fire when everyone just needs a nice cool drink.

 

[Mr. Potatobadger]

I'm not quite sure if anyone has mentioned this yet, because I didn't read the entirety of this thread.

Aren't some customs technically "Banned" already? For example, Marth (or Lucina) don't have any other options for Side B except for the default in the Custom Moveset Project. Sure, the other 2 alternates aren't all that great, but I actually kind of liked heavy blade, you can do some creative mixup stuff with it. I was planning on using it at Evo, but I can't. The move isn't "Banned", per se, but it's not an option.

I know this isn't a Mathcina only issue, but I know there are other characters where some of their customs aren't available at all on the CMP.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

The CMP allows you to use whatever combinations you want.

EVO does not because they don't want to waste more time in sub-menus than they have to.

 

[S_B]

all this talk of "we should ban certain moves if they break the game" or are "broken". well guess what they cant break the game because they ARE the game, who are we to say a character can only have these moves because we say so?
i swear competitive smashers are the most entitled people customs are just the new bandwagon to jump on to cry broken until their faces turn blue.
play the game or dont noone bans certain ultras from sf its just how the game is just play it.

I mostly agree.

We may yet find a custom warrants a ban, but the problem is that we are MONTHS away from having enough definitive evidence to say that with any degree of certainty. Anyone calling for a custom ban now is doing so extremely prematurely. We haven't seen any of the "doomsday jank" even take a tournament yet. As @ Budget Player Cadet_ pointed out earlier, people were LOVING custom Kirby but he ultimately got destroyed by vanilla Shiek ("I'll have a burger, fries and a large vanilla Shiek, please.", heh...).

Pika's strong headbutt has actually made Diddy players ragequit, and that's progress, to say the least.

After Evo comes and goes and it's won by yet another vanilla Diddy, I hope that the custom chicken-littling will calm way down...

 

[Unknownkid]

We just had a little 24-man tournament out here in Munich with some real talent showing up. Twomix's custom Kirby was insanely hype. That character goes from "obnoxious" to "actually a real character" with customs, and it was awesome to watch... Until he got curbstomped by, you guessed it, default shiek in grand finals. Just sayin'.

Is there a video or stream of this? As a Kirby main, I like to see his performance if you don't mind.

 

[BestTeaMaker]

I'm not quite sure if anyone has mentioned this yet, because I didn't read the entirety of this thread.

Aren't some customs technically "Banned" already? For example, Marth (or Lucina) don't have any other options for Side B except for the default in the Custom Moveset Project. Sure, the other 2 alternates aren't all that great, but I actually kind of liked heavy blade, you can do some creative mixup stuff with it. I was planning on using it at Evo, but I can't. The move isn't "Banned", per se, but it's not an option.

I know this isn't a Mathcina only issue, but I know there are other characters where some of their customs aren't available at all on the CMP.

When people were making the customs list, we made a big deal of "IF YOU HAVE A CUSTOM SET THAT YOU LIKE USING, PLEASE COME HERE AND TALK ABOUT IT". It was cut off at March because that was the deadline Mr. Wizard set. So, yeah, there are sets that people prefer using, but if they didn't talk about it when people were planning it, then we can't do much about it.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Is there a video or stream of this? As a Kirby main, I like to see his performance if you don't mind.

Here's him against my Pikachu:
http://www.twitch.tv/smash_circle/b/645754915?t=5m05s
Here's winner's finals against a Shiek/Diddy main:
http://www.twitch.tv/smash_circle/b/645810141?t=2m58s
Here's grand finals against the same guy:
http://www.twitch.tv/smash_circle/b/645810141?t=52m45s

And there's probably more in that first archive video somewhere, those are just the ones I know about.

 

[DavemanCozy]

This past weekend there was a torunament in Brampton ON with customs on, SQUAD BOYZ. We had a showing of some US players, including San, Kid Goggles, and PikaPika!

PikaPika! was there using heavy skull bash, and it's honestly not as bad as I made it out to be. It's certainly a powerful move, but nothing to the level of ridiculous that Brawl MK's tornado was. The move is punishable when missed and has significant landing lag. He also lost to a R.O.B. player in winners using the neutral2 Wide Angle Beam

Ohhh, you thought Hoo Hah was bad? lool, wait till you fight this R.O.B. getting Hoo Hah's with a projectile.
May I also add that no one knew this guy, he came outta nowhere and sent PikaPika! to losers, messing up the entire bracket. And even then, Wide Angle Beam is certainly not broken. I fought this ROB later in friendlies and found out how to DI to avoid the angle of the move. It's pretty powerful still, but no more than the Hoo Hah or Heavy Skullbash.

I don't really agree with Budget Player Cadet_'s statement that "Customs are a clear improvement," but they're certainly a different metagame and one that I had fun playing in. I am definitely more open to customs now after that tournament. I definitely encourage anyone doubting customs to attend a tournament with an open mind though: you'd be surprised how much you will discover, and how much fun they can be.

However, I don't think we should enforce them as a standard. At least not yet. I would like to see a spread of customs off tournaments (specially with the patch incoming) and customs on tournaments. Just like the game gives us the option to play with competitive 1vs1 rules and play free-for-all items on high, so too should everyone have the option to play with customs on or off as their preference.

 

[S_B]

I don't really agree with Budget Player Cadet_'s statement that "Customs are a clear improvement,"

It'll vary from character to character.

For example, right now Bowser's side-B is bugged and kills him first on some stages and goes to SD on other stages, meaning replacing it with dash slash is pretty much a no-brainer.

 

[DavemanCozy]

It'll vary from character to character.

For example, right now Bowser's side-B is bugged and kills him first on some stages and goes to SD on other stages, meaning replacing it with dash slash is pretty much a no-brainer.

That's not necessarily what I was referring to.

I was talking about the effect they have on the meta. In other words, playing with customs on is better than playing with customs off.

As for my opinion, I think both are fun. I really enjoyed fighting San's Gunner with my James Bond Brawler in friendlies, I really liked using Wario Waft 3 which charges faster and had some close matches vs PikaPika! I think that my favorite moment was watching TO Joe lose a friendly Pac-Man ditto to a kid using a 3DS as a controller: the fire hydrant is nuts. Customs open so many doors, and I honestly loved that tournament (partly too because it was at a bar and the servers were <3 )

I still think that we shouldn't shove aside those who want to play with them off. The game gives us an option to turn them on and off, just like items or playing with time, coin, stock, etc. I'm obviously not comparing customs to these: time is obviously not fit for a competitive tournament. I'm simply pointing out that we have a choice with them, and we shouldn't discredit those who don't want to play with them.

Imo, what was said about "Customs are a clear improvement" is subjective. I certainly do think that Customs are a great way to play the game though.

 

[S_B]

Imo, what was said about "Customs are a clear improvement" is subjective. I certainly do think that Customs are a great way to play the game though.

Ah my mistake. I thought you were addressing situations where certain specials are a definite improvement over others and that certainly does happen for some characters.

I believe Wizard's dropkick is also seen as a straight up upgrade for Gdorf as it gives him more horizontal recovery.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

However, I don't think we should enforce them as a standard. At least not yet. I would like to see a spread of customs off tournaments (specially with the patch incoming) and customs on tournaments. Just like the game gives us the option to play with competitive 1vs1 rules and play free-for-all items on high, so too should everyone have the option to play with customs on or off as their preference.

I think customs should be heavily encouraged as the standard until the community has enough experience with them to really evaluate how they feel about a customs meta. You can't reach a good consensus without informed participants, so I think the "wait and see" attitude is a little backwards.

I'm pushing customs hard in my local scene until at least EVO, and possibly a few months beyond. After that, though, I completely intend to poll our players on whether they'd prefer to keep playing with or without them, or maybe if they want to alternate if there isn't a clear favorite.

My expectation, though, is that once players are used to playing with customs, a lot of them won't want to go back and have to give up tools they've become accustomed to using.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

@ DavemanCozy The problem with having "both" is that for most players there isn't exactly a bountiful supply of tournaments. If you strongly prefer and practice "on", when one of the tournaments in your area runs "off" it just sucks since your character is pretty much just banned at that event and odds are you don't have another event you could go to instead. Your choice is between playing as some character you really don't play (the specials are a kinda big deal) or not playing at all. This results in a large need for players who just care about playing the game to engage in local ruleset politics and such, and honestly, no one wants that. I think the evidence largely supports that the "on" game is better and more diverse than the "off" game and, even if they were about equal, "on" is a better base position since people who like playing default characters can use them in "on" if they want to while the inverse is not true in "off". It's a lot worse for your main to be banned than for your opponent to be able to use a character that you might not like from a player perspective; the two sides really aren't equal in that banning customs hurts the custom using players a lot more than allowing customs hurt the non-custom using players.

Congrats on the successful and by the sounds of it entertaining tournament.

 

[Rikkhan]

I think we should wait to major tournaments to see if something is broken because to be honest I feel no one has exploited customs to the point were we could tell it's broken, I mean I watched Zero on ncr 2015 customs ON he almost 2 stock everyone (not only with diddy also with shulk and falcon), how can we get good input if local tournaments are practically free to top players.

If a top player like zero in a major tournament gets bodied by a suspect custom it will be a good input but still we need to see if pros adapt and develop a counter strat for that custom.

In the games I come from, "broken" means "literally crashes the game." I prefer that threshold when it comes to banning things on sight.

So by that we should allow items and all stages right?

 

[DavemanCozy]

I see what you mean Ampharos. I didn't consider this, since I live in London Ontario and I'm close to the Toronto area (about 1:45 hour drive there), which has no shortage in tournaments. I can't imagine what it's like for others though. The tournament was indeed a fantastic time.

The rules of this game are evolving so fast. This is going to be such a wild ride. Hopefully I can afford the trip to EVO.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

That's not necessarily what I was referring to.

I was talking about the effect they have on the meta. In other words, playing with customs on is better than playing with customs off.

As for my opinion, I think both are fun. I really enjoyed fighting San's Gunner with my James Bond Brawler in friendlies, I really liked using Wario Waft 3 which charges faster and had some close matches vs PikaPika! I think that my favorite moment was watching TO Joe lose a friendly Pac-Man ditto to a kid using a 3DS as a controller: the fire hydrant is nuts. Customs open so many doors, and I honestly loved that tournament (partly too because it was at a bar and the servers were <3 )

I still think that we shouldn't shove aside those who want to play with them off. The game gives us an option to turn them on and off, just like items or playing with time, coin, stock, etc. I'm obviously not comparing customs to these: time is obviously not fit for a competitive tournament. I'm simply pointing out that we have a choice with them, and we shouldn't discredit those who don't want to play with them.

Imo, what was said about "Customs are a clear improvement" is subjective. I certainly do think that Customs are a great way to play the game though.

To add to what AA said, the players who don't want customs? They can still play their character. 1111, the default set, is always present, so the masochist who wants to play 1111 Doc is free to do so. What happens with customs off, though, is that the guy who likes to play 2222 Ike? His character is just gone. The 1111 Ike mains are free to keep playing their character in a customs environment, but the reverse is simply not true. Meanwhile, what customs offer seems to be a much better balance - top tier characters usually gain fairly little, whereas low tier characters gain the tools they need to be viable competitors. When I say it's "better" I mean in terms of things like game depth and balance. Customs on is simply by all reasonable accounts more balanced, not least because Shiek and Diddy get approximately nothing from customs.

 

[Teshie U]

If you think Diddy and Sheik get nothing from customs, you are misinformed at the very least. While none of their original specials are trash enough to see a true "upgrade", they definitely gain strong options to overpower characters that might normally avoid their strengths.

 

[Raijinken]

If you think Diddy and Sheik get nothing from customs, you are misinformed at the very least. While none of their original specials are trash enough to see a true "upgrade", they definitely gain strong options to overpower characters that might normally avoid their strengths.

The relative magnitude of the change is rather significantly different, though. It can't really be argued that the benefit they get has a far lesser (or rather, due to their placement, has zero) impact on their viability than others. They have useful customs, but the characters don't get better since there is nowhere higher for them to go.

 

[Teshie U]

The relative magnitude of the change is rather significantly different, though. It can't really be argued that the benefit they get has a far lesser (or rather, due to their placement, has zero) impact on their viability than others. They have useful customs, but the characters don't get better since there is nowhere higher for them to go.

If you are at the top you can definitely still get better. Being better or worse isn't about tier placement. Its also about the gap between you and the next guy.

If you are arguing that their matchups become less in their favor with customs on, I'd say its pretty early to make that call.

 

[S_B]

Hmm, I didn't see any customs for Diddy that really stood out, but I've not used any in dept...

 

[Piford]

Diddy Kong has some good customs, they just aren't as good as his defaults. Sheik definitely gets some interesting options; her needles go from really good to differently good, and her grenade goes from really bad to slightly less bad.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

It's true that Diddy and Sheik have some customs that are better than useless, but it's awfully hard to argue that somehow they become more dominant than they were before when they get debatable, match-up specific sidegrades when many other characters get substantial and clear upgrades to critical moves. Like in Sheik vs Ike, Sheik has the option of reducing her zoning potential for shield pressure and the option of switching her grenade to a few different but still marginal behaviors. Ike's recovery becomes twice as good, he gains multiple new ways to contest neutral, he gets his choice of powerful edge-guard upgrades to Eruption, and he can upgrade the speed and reward of his Counter. I cannot imagine a world in which Sheik somehow improves her match-up versus Ike when that occurs. In a majority of match-ups involving Diddy or Sheik versus characters who are distinctly not in the top tier, a similar analysis can occur.

 

[S_B]

It's true that Diddy and Sheik have some customs that are better than useless, but it's awfully hard to argue that somehow they become more dominant than they were before when they get debatable, match-up specific sidegrades when many other characters get substantial and clear upgrades to critical moves. Like in Sheik vs Ike, Sheik has the option of reducing her zoning potential for shield pressure and the option of switching her grenade to a few different but still marginal behaviors. Ike's recovery becomes twice as good, he gains multiple new ways to contest neutral, he gets his choice of powerful edge-guard upgrades to Eruption, and he can upgrade the speed and reward of his Counter. I cannot imagine a world in which Sheik somehow improves her match-up versus Ike when that occurs. In a majority of match-ups involving Diddy or Sheik versus characters who are distinctly not in the top tier, a similar analysis can occur.

Exactly.

Many customs have been able to remove some characters' glaring weaknesses. Shiek didn't get a reliable kill option with customs and Diddy...does he really HAVE any weaknesses?

 

[Raijinken]

Exactly.

Many customs have been able to remove some characters' glaring weaknesses. Shiek didn't get a reliable kill option with customs and Diddy...does he really HAVE any weaknesses?

His vertical recovery is predictable and leaves much to be desired for its speed. That's pretty much the only one, though.

 

[S_B]

His vertical recovery is predictable and leaves much to be desired for its speed. That's pretty much the only one, though.

The other thing about his recovery is that challenging it might wind up getting you killed. Last I checked, those barrels can fly off and go pretty much anywhere and they pack a wallop when they explode...

 

[Raijinken]

The other thing about his recovery is that challenging it might wind up getting you killed. Last I checked, those barrels can fly off and go pretty much anywhere and they pack a wallop when they explode...

Absolutely. But assuming you're in a good enough position to warrant chasing off (and probably below) stage to intercept his charge time, I think most characters can probably survive a barrel or two. I was just pointing out that he does have downsides in his kit, even if they're relatively minor compared to a lot of characters.

Also worth noting, he's actually pretty light.