Official 'Item Standard Play' Thread (65k views. Not bad for a side project, huh? :P + Poll in OP)

[Cooper736]

He's implying that my point about losing your aerials is moot because it only takes a single frame to drop the shell and free up his attacks. The problem is that many characters have a bit of start-up lag on their aerials, and the only way to hit someone coming at you is to be a few frames into your hurtbox by the time they reach you. If you drop your shell when you would normally start your attack, you'll get hit. If you drop your shell early enough to start an attack, a smart opponent will notice and adapt, and you will have dropped your shell. It's a lose-lose situation.

 

[Zamuel]

I disagree with the Unira assessment. While difficult to do due to the vacuum effect, any opponent can deactivate the Unira with a punch. I'm capable of doing it with Jigglypuff who is known for her stubby limbs. For that reason, I argue in favor of removing the ban from Unira.

 

[Twin Dreams]

ITEMS APPROVED THUS FAR:

(Sandbag) (Food) (Warp Star) (Metal Box) (Bunny Hood) (Timer) (Beam Sword) (Home-Run Bat) (Lip’s Stick) (Star Rod) (Hammer) (Super Scope) (Ray Gun) (Fire Flower) (Motion Sensor Bomb) (Gooey Bomb) (Freezie) (Smoke Ball) (Pitfall) (Hothead) (Mr. Saturn) (Green Shell) (Banana Peel) (Spring) (Franklin Badge) (Screw Attack)



The Timer should be banned. Because it slows down all things, it will almost always guarantee a kill for the person slowed. If not a kill, that a good percentage lead.


Gooey Bomb. Yeah, I'm sure everyone knows my opinion by now.

Hot Head has no risk and can be made very powerful by certain characters.



Think that's it.

 

[SketchHurricane]

He's implying that my point about losing your aerials is moot because it only takes a single frame to drop the shell and free up his attacks. The problem is that many characters have a bit of start-up lag on their aerials, and the only way to hit someone coming at you is to be a few frames into your hurtbox by the time they reach you. If you drop your shell when you would normally start your attack, you'll get hit. If you drop your shell early enough to start an attack, a smart opponent will notice and adapt, and you will have dropped your shell. It's a lose-lose situation.

I can't tell if your for the shell or against it from this. I don't see how it's a lose lose, just throw the **** thing lol.

Plus, have you guys seen the Snake tricksies thread? You can drop an item mid air and pick it up during the aerial pretty quickly. Now you have a flying opponent and a project tile to hit them with, a win win in my book.

On another note, the item list on this thread made me cringe a bit. The smokeball? Cmon, that this is just annoying and useless. And the motion sensor bomb is way too powerful, last time I checked (could be wrong).

 

[Jack Kieser]

Well, I have some interesting things to report from our Game Trade tournament yesterday. First of all, the counterpick system worked very well, but interestingly enough the only two items people ever messed with were the Timer and the Hammer. There were a few matches that kept the Timer on, but I only caught fleeting glances of the fights (unfortunately we didn't have capture devices on hand to record fights).

Something else I found really interesting was, of all things, the turnout. 35 people ended up entering the tournament, and we had some pretty good competition. More than a few people came up to me either during or after the tournament and said that they had never even considered item play before, but that now they actually liked (or at least tolerated) items and praised the listing that we were using (we used the current ban list from this thread) as pretty fair. So, that was pretty cool.

I'm out of town right now, so I'll have to leave it at that for now, but I'll post a full write-up of the tournament as soon as I get home on Tuesday. Oh, and I've read the discussion up 'til now, too; I'll cover that on Tuesday, too.

 

[Dark Sonic]

He's implying that my point about losing your aerials is moot because it only takes a single frame to drop the shell and free up his attacks. The problem is that many characters have a bit of start-up lag on their aerials, and the only way to hit someone coming at you is to be a few frames into your hurtbox by the time they reach you. If you drop your shell when you would normally start your attack, you'll get hit. If you drop your shell early enough to start an attack, a smart opponent will notice and adapt, and you will have dropped your shell. It's a lose-lose situation.

You really did miss the point. Because dropping items only takes one frame, and is done with a seperate button than what people normally use for aerials (A and C-stick), then there is nothing to stop them from simply dropping the item in mid air (much faster than dropping it on the ground) preforming your aerial (which conviniently picks up that same item that you just dropped) and returning to your original item holding position. There is no "well, you got hit since you had to drop your item and couldn't attack," as the two can be done almost simultaneously.

This isn't an arguement against items btw (I don't want to argue that here.) I'm simply debunking the notion that holding obtaining an item would ever be worse than not obtaining it. Because not only do you prevent your opponent from getting it, but you can easily get rid of it yourself in the event that you want to use your A moves again,

Note: Obtaining an item means succesfully picking it up, not "attempting" to obtain an item. If you succesfully pick it up, then you are indeed in a better position (the degree varies with the item) than you were a moment ago.

 

[SothE700k]

I do have a question about the frequency though. What will it be set to for Item play? Low, Mid, or High?

 

[Jack Kieser]

I do have a question about the frequency though. What will it be set to for Item play? Low, Mid, or High?

Low. I'm at work right now, so I can't do it until later, but expect me to post a full write-up of how our 1v1 tournament on the 24th went, including how well our current list worked out (spoilers: pretty well).

 

[Jack Kieser]

Good news, everyone! I got off my lazy a** and did a write-up for the 1v1 tournament that was held on 5/24; you can check it out here. I think it has some helpful information in it, and if you are reading this/it and attended the tournament, feel free to post in the TD 'ISP' thread any information I might have missed, including your own impressions of the day's events.

I'll either post more information regarding 2v2 item impressions alongside the 1v1 list in the OP (god, I hope not), or I'll make another thread like this exclusively for 2v2 item play (man, I hope so) so we can get started on that; I'm sure it will be a lot easier to work out the kinks in 2v2 thanks to our head start from 1v1 discussion.

 

[DanGR]

I'm surprised this thread got comments, I thought it'd die without a post. good job though, though I hate items. period.

 

[SamuraiPanda]

I've decided to sticky this in here for now. We'll see how it goes ^_^

 

[Jack Kieser]

I'm surprised this thread got comments, I thought it'd die without a post. good job though, though I hate items. period.

That's funny, because that's exactly what I thought would happen when I made this thread. Luckily for us, a lot of people from all over SWF came in to help us out, and we're a lot better for it; I don't think things would have turned out half as well as they have so far without all of the discussion and dissenting opinion we've had so far.

 

[Terywj [태리]]

Very nice. 'Nuff said.

 

[Pure-???]

I love items, and although some revisions can be made, it's a great idea overall.

 

[Fire!]

Why was the timer not banned?!?

Really, its worse then the Lightning

 

[popsofctown]

I feel that the super scope is in violation of criterion one.

When tapped repeatedly with A, you can get someone in perpetual hitstun, and rack up a meager amount of damage for free. It's hard to avoid getting stuck in this, especially on a flat stage, you can't spotdodge the spam, it'd take a lot to stay so high in the air the scope can't reach, and if you sheild it then you are still taking shield damage, which is damage.

People usually don't use it this way, they usually charge up shots and try to get a big hit. But the fact they elect to take medium risk/high reward instead of 0-risk/low reward is irrelevant to whether you can use the Super Scope to get unanswered damage.

 

[ipreferpi]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CTVX8vYUP4

The result of timers.
(Not my video. I have no idea whether this has been posted yet in this thread)

It's worth noting that electric attacks like Ganondorf's D-air has massive hitstun and therefore can be used for many combos (there are no combos in brawl! >) with timers.

 

[Ignatius]

I feel that the super scope is in violation of criterion one.

When tapped repeatedly with A, you can get someone in perpetual hitstun, and rack up a meager amount of damage for free. It's hard to avoid getting stuck in this, especially on a flat stage, you can't spotdodge the spam, it'd take a lot to stay so high in the air the scope can't reach, and if you sheild it then you are still taking shield damage, which is damage.

People usually don't use it this way, they usually charge up shots and try to get a big hit. But the fact they elect to take medium risk/high reward instead of 0-risk/low reward is irrelevant to whether you can use the Super Scope to get unanswered damage.

From what little I've played with items, I've been able to powershield the small shots while being hit by them, to avoid taking damage.

 

[BigRick]

Assist Trophy/Pokeball [BANNED] - I wanted to keep these items separate in this assessment, but I just couldn't; they work the same, have the same faults, and affect the match in the same way. Assists and Pokeballs break all three of the criterion for a balanced item: there is no risk to using them (as all you have to do is pick them up and you gain their effects), the Assist/Pokemon summoned is invincible and in many cases can chase you down, and a single Assist/Pokemon can net even low % kills (especially in the case of the Legends and Isaac). No way can they be allowed in a 1v1 fight.

You should know this but I dont know why you dont mention it in your post. Assist trophies are different from pokéballs. Pokéball is a throwing item that turns into a summon while ATs are straight up summon items that forces you to activate them once you picked one up and there's a punishable animation when you're activating a trophy.

You can't say that AT's have no risk, because you can basically kill someone that just picked up an AT if you prevent him from activating it.

 

[Metal]

I might have missed it; did someone show how to escape the Ray Gun? If the Cracker Launcher is banned for juggling, then clearly the Ray Gun should be banned too.

 

[Jack Kieser]

I might have missed it; did someone show how to escape the Ray Gun? If the Cracker Launcher is banned for juggling, then clearly the Ray Gun should be banned too.

The difference between the two types of juggling is that the Ray Gun cheese is actually pretty hard to set up now; both players have to be almost completely stationary, the target must be below a certain % (I've never been able to set it up in an actual match if my target was over 50-65%)... all you have to so with the C. Launcher is land a shot, any shot, and most likely you'll juggle the target. If you are already aiming more than 45 degrees up, there is a good chance you can juggle off the top.

So, one is really quite hard to set up and use effectively in a competitive match, while one is really easy to setup and use (by design).

 

[Metal]

I've seen the Ray Gun work 10%, but I've never known % to be a factor at all. The Cracker Launcher is disjointed, since you can escape an immediately succeeding shot by just dodging without DI. It aims so slow that you can either get out of the way and use a projectile or approach sporadically and jab. I know dodging gets harder the closer you are, but there's a certain range that you should be able to reach. Even if you get hit, DI behind them and attack.

Ray Gun always fires in a straight line, which means a unique approach (repeated Counter? idk lol) or an aerial advance. This can go several ways.

My main concern is, you can escape the Cracker (even from right under you) but I have no idea how to escape the Ray Gun before 16 shots.

 

[Thestlos]

amazing efforts man...it takes so much time to determine these kind of things and write them up. good job.

 

[Jewdo]

Epically long thread, well worth the read. I've been waiting since the ISP project was first announced back in March/April. I wasn't about to tackle the feat of balancing item play myself, though, so I just waited until you guys released your list. ^ ^

The presence of an alternate play style adds real variety to Brawl. The evolution of the meta-game has slowed down lately compared to just a month ago, so ISP feels a little more fresh when I play it. Same old Brawl but with a few extra challenges to spice things up a notch. Bam!

My only points of contention are the Timer (the above YouTube link already explained my reason) and the Gooey Bomb. Like the Bob-Omb, the Gooey Bomb explodes if hit when it spawns, and I've actually died a few times this way. Even though it was a relatively rare occurrence, I wasn't happy when it happened, so I just turn it off.

Don't mind the nitpicks though. Excellent work all around. Maybe a balanced gametype involving Special features could emerge? Who knows. Not to say I'm abandoning traditional play - I simply enjoy a change of pace when traditional is going through a slow period.

 

[Eliasopataso]

I agree with most of the list except for maybe Timer and Raygun.

No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to escape a Raygun juggle with Ganon. I'm pretty sure larger characters won't be able to break free as quickly as the lighter and smaller ones. I don't know if it's only viable at low percentages. That doesn't seem to matter though, does it? If they're high enough, just take that stock and juggle them to death on their next stock.

As said before, some strong electric attacks give really big hitstun(CF knee, Ganon's dair, Zelda's b+fair). Any decent Ganon will know how to auto cancel stomp. Go into training and keep autocanceling his dair on the dummy and end it with an upsmash or something for the kill. 0-200%/death in a few seconds.

 

[adumbrodeus]

As said before, some strong electric attacks give really big hitstun(CF knee, Ganon's dair, Zelda's b+fair). Any decent Ganon will know how to auto cancel stomp. Go into training and keep autocanceling his dair on the dummy and end it with an upsmash or something for the kill. 0-200%/death in a few seconds.

Definately agree...

Thunderstorm (the AT that allows gannondorf to perform dairs with no ground lag, it's not really auto-canceling) to f-smash... 14 hit combo, 310 damage (from 0%), completely and totally inescapable once the first hit gets in, and it's pretty easy.

Not that I mind gannondorf getting something, but this is a bit much, don't you think?

 

[petrie911]

The only objection I have is the gooey bomb. It does explode when hit, which can KO and does a completely unwarranted 22% to your character, as well as interrupting your attack.

Timers I'm fine with. You do have to get to the timer, and there's the risk it will backfire, causing you to be a victim of one of those timer combos. Plus, the really dangerous timer combos seem rather difficult. the rest are just a bit of damage racking and maybe a free smash, which you could get out of the pitfall, anyways.

 

[Drazon]

Very well written.
Nice job.

 

[Dream Chaser]

Nice thread. Are there any videos on youtube showing examples of item battles with these rules yet?

 

[MorpheusVGX]

is there a project with all items ON?

 

[Jack Kieser]

Nice thread. Are there any videos on youtube showing examples of item battles with these rules yet?

As a matter of fact, yes there is. We hosted a tournament in Mesquite, TX on 5/24 and I was able to record some of the matches there. I have a playlist for all of the tournament videos on Youtube.

 

[Homelessvagrant]

very good read, though I have to disagree on one issue and I'm sure people wll think I'm crazy about this. I believe the Assist trophy should actual be approved for gameplay. Yes I know it works much like a pokeball but in actuality there is one thing about it that really sets it aside and brings a risk to using it.

When you use a AT you can not attack until the trophy has been risen and released. There is a small amount of time in where the opposite player may attack the AT user and then the player wielding the trophy can not attack until

1)They release the AT

or

2)they drop the item.

This allows a compotent player to easily destroy At users. I actually use the At as a trap for opposing players because most players go straight for the trophy and the attack range after grabbing it is enough for a good utilt or usmash. Even if te player grabs the AT only a few of the Ats are really deadly (Lyn) so it still is a gamble for the player. That's just my view on the matter. Good job with the list still.

 

[Rhubarbo]

I'm too lazy to go throgh the whole post. At what rate are the items set to (Medium, little, a lot)?

 

[Rhubarbo]

Oh, also, when playing with Dedede, if ANY item is turned on, he can spawn an AT, Smash Ball, or an item of that kind.

 

[Icy_Eagle]

I'm agreeing with those that think that timers should be banned, here are more exsmples of what can be accomplished with it

http://youtube.com/watch?v=oGwdYj1OhNY
http://youtube.com/watch?v=nfUpctFjPrA&feature=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=t4i91XIK9aI&feature=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-WcHxOmZjHk&feature=related

 

[MysticKenji]

Fact: Ganon's Murder Stomp has so much stun, that when the timer is active, you can "combo" a Murder Fist out of it.

And the Timer rarely backfires.

EDIT: Re-tested it. It's a true combo.

EDIT2: Previous edit only seems to work on Metaknight, or I was just lucky.
Auto-cancel.

 

[Jack Kieser]

Ok, wow. Those videos are extremely cool, but yeah, broken to the max. No choice but to ban now; that gives anyone with an electrical attack a HUGE advantage.

 

[Ignatius]

You can smash DI during all those stun frames, not to mention you need to get hit by one to begin with.

 

[BigRick]

very good read, though I have to disagree on one issue and I'm sure people wll think I'm crazy about this. I believe the Assist trophy should actual be approved for gameplay. Yes I know it works much like a pokeball but in actuality there is one thing about it that really sets it aside and brings a risk to using it.

When you use a AT you can not attack until the trophy has been risen and released. There is a small amount of time in where the opposite player may attack the AT user and then the player wielding the trophy can not attack until

1)They release the AT

or

2)they drop the item.

This allows a compotent player to easily destroy At users. I actually use the At as a trap for opposing players because most players go straight for the trophy and the attack range after grabbing it is enough for a good utilt or usmash. Even if te player grabs the AT only a few of the Ats are really deadly (Lyn) so it still is a gamble for the player. That's just my view on the matter. Good job with the list still.

I already posted something similar but it was ignored. So I'm quoting this for truth.

Ok, wow. Those videos are extremely cool, but yeah, broken to the max. No choice but to ban now; that gives anyone with an electrical attack a HUGE advantage.

since it's only a few chars that can do this, I think that the item counterpick rule addresses the issue nicely

 

[Cerozero]

This list is useless Item's random nature makes them unbalanced.