Important Official Custom Moveset Project

[Raijinken]

Please don't say that. I use Extreme Balloon Trip because I like it for recovery. Planking is not the only reason to use that move. You're kind of implying that the best strategy with Extreme Balloon Trip is planking which is definitely not true.

I apologize for the generalization, as it's basically the only way I've ever firsthand seen a Villager play with EBT. Aside from giving you a slightly protected recovery when compared to the default, though, it's just a flat worse recovery move. I am sure there are other good strategies with EBT, but the current rules and our limited exposure seems to suggest that the dominant strategy is to take a percent lead and then force their approach at the edge. With customs essentially gone from streaming, I can't see that perception changing any time soon, either.

On a similar note, though, what about Balloon High Jump for recovery? It gives you a bit of a hitbox and goes very quickly. I feel like it's very underexplored.

 

[Myed]

I know I saw a lot of analysis favoring Dash Vision, but I can't remember seeing anyone list a reason to use default Vision. It's one of the relatively few default specials not present in any custom set currently.

For all intensive purposes, theres really not a reason to. Power Vision is straight up better in almost all situations where you would use default. Its more damaging, KO move, it has slightly greater range (might be mixed up on this, its been a while since i labbed Shulk) and its only downside to note is that it gets stricter timing when spammed, which is never something you want to be doing anyway, and its slow, making it useless against projectiles/moves that dash (Sonic, Egg Roll, etc. which default has a problem with anyway). That downside gets compensated and more by the existence of Dash Vision, which deals with projectiles much better than default.


Vision is a nice middle ground, but I cant think of any MUs where that middle ground is warranted. Maybe theres an MU that requires a lot of Vision uses without projectiles, but as it stands now, we just dont have one.

 

[Ansou]

I apologize for the generalization, as it's basically the only way I've ever firsthand seen a Villager play with EBT. Aside from giving you a slightly protected recovery when compared to the default, though, it's just a flat worse recovery move. I am sure there are other good strategies with EBT, but the current rules and our limited exposure seems to suggest that the dominant strategy is to take a percent lead and then force their approach at the edge. With customs essentially gone from streaming, I can't see that perception changing any time soon, either.

On a similar note, though, what about Balloon High Jump for recovery? It gives you a bit of a hitbox and goes very quickly. I feel like it's very underexplored.

Honestly, I just like blowing my opponents up when they attempt to gimp me. Remember that the balloons can be activated manually, so the opponent doesn't always have the time to hit you with an attack.

 

[Myed]

Honestly, I just like blowing my opponents up when they attempt to gimp me. Remember that the balloons can be activated manually, so the opponent doesn't always have the time to hit you with an attack.

And the manual activation gives you a jump up, reaching ledge from near-blastzone.

 

[Raijinken]

And the manual activation gives you a jump up, reaching ledge from near-blastzone.

No auto-snap until descent, though.

I don't doubt it's a fine recovery (Villager is rather insane on all fronts in this regard), I just haven't seen it actually used for anything besides planking.

 

[Ansou]

No auto-snap until descent, though.

I don't doubt it's a fine recovery (Villager is rather insane on all fronts in this regard), I just haven't seen it actually used for anything besides planking.

Well now at least you know that the move isn't used only for planking. Planking isn't even a very good strategy regardless, so it's far from centralizing...

 

[Raijinken]

Well now at least you know that the move isn't used only for planking. Planking isn't even a very good strategy regardless, so it's far from centralizing...

I completely agree on that note. But a lot of people seem convinced it's nearly unbeatable. And we don't exactly have many avenues of counter-proof right now.

Additionally, I must amend my statement. My thoughts on a lot of moves (and strategies and rules) are changing very quickly these days with all the discussion going on. I do not think any custom move warrants banning at this time.

 

[MrGame&Rock]

does any character actually prefer the "distance over hitbox" up-B custom half the cast seems to get? On the flipside, if they're really so bad, what about characters like Pit and Rosalina who have them as their defaults? Are they going to prefer customs with hitboxes over distance?

 

[Raijinken]

does any character actually prefer the "distance over hitbox" up-B custom half the cast seems to get? On the flipside, if they're really so bad, what about characters like Pit and Rosalina who have them as their defaults? Are they going to prefer customs with hitboxes over distance?

Marth and Lucina have Dolphin Jump on several sets, though no Marth/Lucina main I know can fathom why. Captain Falcon can make use of Falcon Strike, though it has a hitbox and thus isn't quite like the others you mentioned.

As for Pitoo, the strength of his default is the angle flexibility, which is sacrificed for the hitbox if you take Striking Flight. I haven't experimented with it much myself, so I don't know if it's simply that the hitbox isn't typically worth the lost control, or what, but at least it's in a few sets. Same for Rosalina's damage variant.

 

[MrGame&Rock]

Marth and Lucina have Dolphin Jump on several sets, though no Marth/Lucina main I know can fathom why. Captain Falcon can make use of Falcon Strike, though it has a hitbox and thus isn't quite like the others you mentioned.

As for Pitoo, the strength of his default is the angle flexibility, which is sacrificed for the hitbox if you take Striking Flight. I haven't experimented with it much myself, so I don't know if it's simply that the hitbox isn't typically worth the lost control, or what, but at least it's in a few sets. Same for Rosalina's damage variant.

That's fair. It could also be a case of the customs being, well, the customs and not the default. Striking Flight or Launch Star Attack haven't been used as the ending to combos or as a kill move, so maybe they'll be seen in a more positive light as the meta develops, but I'm not sure. I remember hearing some talk about Charizard's hitboxless up-B being used in conjunction with Dragon Rush, but that didn't really turn into anything either.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

does any character actually prefer the "distance over hitbox" up-B custom half the cast seems to get? On the flipside, if they're really so bad, what about characters like Pit and Rosalina who have them as their defaults? Are they going to prefer customs with hitboxes over distance?

Rosalina generally prefers default Launch Star, which lacks a hitbox of any description. Launch Star Attack neuters her recovery in multiple ways (half distance, zeroes her momentum at the apex so she can't drift) and Launch Star Plus has niche use against edgeguard-happy characters since it moves so bloody fast but it can't be angled and doesn't actually get any extra height.

I guess a Sheik who doesn't go for Vanish kills would probably opt for Gale. Maybe. IDK, I don't use Sheik.

Speaking in broad generalizations, I can imagine a player who focuses on edgeguarding and prefers the distance recovery options so that they can go deeper, although whether this is default or a custom varies per character.

 

[Raijinken]

Rosalina generally prefers default Launch Star, which lacks a hitbox of any description. Launch Star Attack neuters her recovery in multiple ways (half distance, zeroes her momentum at the apex so she can't drift) and Launch Star Plus has niche use against edgeguard-happy characters since it moves so bloody fast but it can't be angled and doesn't actually get any extra height.

I guess a Sheik who doesn't go for Vanish kills would probably opt for Gale. Maybe. IDK, I don't use Sheik.

Speaking in broad generalizations, I can imagine a player who focuses on edgeguarding and prefers the distance recovery options so that they can go deeper, although whether this is default or a custom varies per character.

The main difference in moveset choice between myself (Marth) and a friend of mine (Lucina) is that he just runs Iai Counter, while I also take Crescent Slash. Since it affects my vertical recovery, I can't go as deep, and I don't have as strong a combo breaker as Dolphin Slash, but in exchange I can go further horizontally (often easier to gimp than low), and have the throw setup to kill. Neither one is necessarily better in all cases, and there are a lot of other moves with similar flexibility.

 

[MrGame&Rock]

The main difference in moveset choice between myself (Marth) and a friend of mine (Lucina) is that he just runs Iai Counter, while I also take Crescent Slash. Since it affects my vertical recovery, I can't go as deep, and I don't have as strong a combo breaker as Dolphin Slash, but in exchange I can go further horizontally (often easier to gimp than low), and have the throw setup to kill. Neither one is necessarily better in all cases, and there are a lot of other moves with similar flexibility.

*cough*Wizard's Foot vs Dropkick*cough*

 

[Raijinken]

*cough*Wizard's Foot vs Dropkick*cough*

Wizard's Foot is awesome against greedy players who chase you into the air at mid-high percents. I'd personally almost always use dropkick for its sheer flexibility, but Wizard's Foot will kill at like 60-70 against a greedy opponent. It's like Bowser Bomb but faster.

 

[Illuminose]

I guess a Sheik who doesn't go for Vanish kills would probably opt for Gale. Maybe. IDK, I don't use Sheik.

Just for clarification's sake: the hitbox is far too important, Gale is awful.

 

[Raijinken]

Just for clarification's sake: the hitbox is far too important, Gale is awful.

The distance would probably only be relevant if you were at an extremely far and low angle, at which point you may still be able to make it back using Bouncing Fish first.

 

[T0MMY]

It is true that we change something with the game when we set customs to on, just like we change something with the game when we buy a DLC character. However, customization is only adding content, not setting the game to a different mode (see stock vs. time)...

Nowhere did I say that customization is a different "mode". Please reread and reply with the correct parameters; i.e. "change in rules" (not change in mode).

Actually, we're used to special moves as well, but for some reason we treat custom moves differently. The thing is that there is a reason why we allow DLC characters. It's because they are simply a part of the game that needs to be explored, but that exact same reason can be applied to customization. I respect your argument more than probably any other argument, but there is not a big difference between allowing more characters to be used and allowing more special moves to be used.

Actually, it can be seen as a very big difference between allowing more characters and more special moves. Especially considering that the Custom Moves can be toggled ON or OFF with an in-game option and DLC cannot; they are not balanced for competition; linked to non-competitive aspects such as Equipment; need to be RNG farmed; and not allowed in online play (not saying online sets precedence, just that this is a motivating factor when players express how they feel about the option/vote on what is to be used).
Simply saying it is like DLC is not strong enough to make a push for them to be used en mass (not even Miiverse, a free DLC with 1.1.0 patch is used universally).

Also, the big button on the character select screen pretty much implies that switching customization to on is crucial once a player has made some movesets. Although, this last paragraph is obviously very subjective and should be taken with a big grain of salt.

Yeah... got to the highly subjective issue with this before I could. I'd go so far to say it isn't just subjective but just blatantly biased. Interpretation of supposed implications isn't in the scope of rulecrafting. But I guess it is there for what it's worth (though could lead to a valid slippery slope where implication of pretty much any game setting could be interpreted as "crucial").

 

[ZarroTsu]

Open thought:

How much more useful would the no-hitbox customs be if they didn't put the character into vulnerable state after use?

 

[Ansou]

Probably a lot more useful. Depending on the character it could be like Sonic's U-Special which is a great combo tool. Just being able to use attacks (or airdodge) after an U-Special is pretty good.

 

[Raijinken]

Open thought:

How much more useful would the no-hitbox customs be if they didn't put the character into vulnerable state after use?

Like Ansou said, depends heavily on the character, and other properties of the move. I think the key trick would be whether or not you can act out of the move.

For instance, Robo Burner, or Jump Glide. Those give you extra followup or defensive options, and allow you to recover or chase while maintaining moveset control. Spring does that to a degree, but not quite as strongly. Rush Coil, on the other hand, doesn't really work aggressively since you can't act until way late into the leap.

For comparison, if Dolphin Jump let me act out with an uair or bair, I might consider it worth using, since I could follow upthrows at lower percents with extra aerials. Whirlwind Leap for Link lasts a long time and would still hardly be useful unless you could act from, say, any time after half-height.

Tis a cool idea though.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I owe everyone an apology. I disappeared for... a while. What happened is pretty simple. School started, and it turns out the senior year of an electrical engineering degree is no joke in terms of the time commitment it demands. Somewhere in my life, I had to suddenly cut a lot of time, and smashboards was what I picked out of relatively few options (my other option was to stop actually playing the game and only do smashboards stuff which would be a very unappealing option). This ended up making me an awful steward of this project, and it would seem the national standing of custom specials has only continued to deteriorate in the meantime. Given that the latest patch has massively overhauled the viability of a variety of previously poor specials (like I have been saying all along, yes the game is being balanced around them; I doubt anyone can deny that now), the project sets now desperately need updated, and frankly I still doubt I am going to have the time to direct such a thing anytime soon. Given that I literally haven't logged into smashboards in over a month, I dunno who has even been active in the meantime and perhaps able to pick up the organizational slack. I can probably kinda help some, but the hours upon hours of reading through 50+ character boards is just not something I could in any possible way do now.

I'm really sorry for basically flaking; I feel as though I have seriously shirked responsibility here, but life caught up with me in a big way. I hope as a group we can make a set update happen even without me being able to drive like I did in the past.

 

[Thinkaman]

In other news, we just had a patch with mostly changes to customs!

Exclusively tiny buffs to the least popular ones.

 

[Ansou]

I'm sure there are people willing to help. I feel like the character boards should have the most responsibility here and given that we don't have much of a time constraint this time, it should be a bit easier for the boards to come to a consensus.

 

[Pippin (Peregrin Took)]

I don't think I could take over on my own but I could certainly assist.

@DunnoBro's THE custom guy for the MDVA region, a regular at Xanadu, and very active on smashboards. Obviously I can't volunteer him but he's probably one of the first people I would ask.

I could prob help him out as I've got all the customs save one no one ever uses (marth's effortless blade) on my 2ds

 

[ZarroTsu]

Yea we've got work to do if they finally patched customs.

Gonna probably need to wait a few days for the community patch to sort itself out. Maybe spinphony is the new meta now?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I can assist but don't think I can lead.

In other news, we just had a patch with mostly changes to customs!

Exclusively tiny buffs to the least popular ones.

Did any customs get nerfed?

 

[Thinkaman]

No customs were nerfed.

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

No customs were nerfed.

Kirby's Side Special 2 had hitbox priority adjustment to make the sweetspot actually require spacing, which might be a small nerf.

Also, Wii Fit Trainer's Volatile Breathing had a hitbox flag that used to prevent it from dealing damage to something unknown removed. Could be shields, which would be a buff? Could be items, in which case it's pretty much technically a nerf but only where casual play is concerned.

 

[MrGame&Rock]

now if the next update solves the Logistics issue customs can take over the world!

But seriously, I'm really happy with this update (minus leaving sheik alone, that was dumb) and I'm excited about how it'll affect the future of Customs

 

[GUIGUI]

We might get a sudden surge of data and a more organic development for Custom sets, as the last patch bring some good news:
https://twitter.com/cosmowright/status/649318368449810433
the hosted For Glory Tournaments in Tournaments mode have finally made Custom separated from Equipment (Custom special)

And Battlefield seems to be playable too in For glory too, now, not just Omega mode anymore.
Plenty of hours coming from plenty of players actually using the Customs in competitive matches might be jut what we need to take after Amazing Amphoros's work. Nothing like Field test.

Also, this is a dream come true for Palutena mainer.

 

[MrGame&Rock]

We might get a sudden surge of data and a more organic development for Custom sets, as the last patch bring some good news:
https://twitter.com/cosmowright/status/649318368449810433
the hosted For Glory Tournaments in Tournaments mode have finally made Custom separated from Equipment (Custom special)

And Battlefield seems to be playable too in For glory too, now, not just Omega mode anymore.
Plenty of hours coming from plenty of players actually using the Customs in competitive matches might be jut what we need to take after Amazing Amphoros's work. Nothing like Field test.

Also, this is a dream come true for Palutena mainer.

:o that's amazing. In the days of the 3DS version where each person was responsible for their own character's customs, that would be enough for customs to dominate. As it is, it gives us custom players a chance to play online without equips, and that's amazing.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Could be items, in which case it's pretty much technically a nerf but only where casual play is concerned.

Items are not exclusive of casual play.

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

Items are not exclusive of casual play.

Yeah, but items with hurtboxes are almost exclusive of casual play. Only thing I can think of is Link/Toon Link bombs.

 

[Ansou]

Now if they just makes this an option in the regular match lobby, that would be awesome!

 

[ぱみゅ]

Yeah, but items with hurtboxes are almost exclusive of casual play. Only thing I can think of is Link/Toon Link bombs.

Depends on how the game perceives items.
You can "hit" Bananas and Turnips (it looks like you actually clank their constant hitboxes). Bombs seem to outright beat everything.

Then again, Fire Hydrant exists...

 

[Raijinken]

I just wish the rule option for Custom Moves Only was included in player-hosted tournaments. But unless I'm blind, we're still only given the choice of Full or None.

 

[LancerStaff]

does any character actually prefer the "distance over hitbox" up-B custom half the cast seems to get? On the flipside, if they're really so bad, what about characters like Pit and Rosalina who have them as their defaults? Are they going to prefer customs with hitboxes over distance?

The default Uspecial is better because of both angle flexibility and just raw distance. Having enough to go from the bottom blastzone to past the ledge when slightly angled is quite powerful combined with the SA on Fspecial and the three jumps. Against most characters you can just simply react to what they're doing and get to the ledge every time.

And about Striking Flight... It's actually a very powerful kill move at the base. Nobody wants to give up the recovery though, and it's not really special compared to his other kill moves. Can't even go that deep with it since the limited angle sucks.

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

The default Uspecial is better because of both angle flexibility and just raw distance. Having enough to go from the bottom blastzone to past the ledge when slightly angled is quite powerful combined with the SA on Fspecial and the three jumps. Against most characters you can just simply react to what they're doing and get to the ledge every time.

And about Striking Flight... It's actually a very powerful kill move at the base. Nobody wants to give up the recovery though, and it's not really special compared to his other kill moves. Can't even go that deep with it since the limited angle sucks.

Power of Flight would be amazing if you could interrupt it with aerials like his old Up Special though….

 

[LancerStaff]

Power of Flight would be amazing if you could interrupt it with aerials like his old Up Special though….

Probably a little too much so.

 

[Thinkaman]

Explosive Balloon Trip hitbox sizes were nerfed quite a bit; excellent!