0RLY
A great conversation filler at bars and parties
I've held off on writing this for a long time now, but with 3.5 over the horizon I can't help but get this out there. Also there's like no activity in this board so this might give you something to think about.
Puff is an example of poor design. I will begin with the tl;dr.
1) At her best, she controls the game and forces your opponent to play by her rules. Nobody will combo each other and you will play footsies until somebody dies.
2) Rest is way too good and overcentralizes the character.
3) At her worst, she will be able to do none of the above due to her lack of options in neutral.
Have it my way 1)
Due to Puff's gravity and mobility, she is extremely difficult to combo effectively for majority of the cast. I'm not ignoring the few that are still very good at comboing lightweights, but for majority of the cast this is true. This forces other characters to play by Puff's rules, of poking each other to death. This makes her matches extremely uninteresting to watch, much like brawl.
There are also cases where Puff can successfully combo, the infamous wall of pain. However, even this is uninteresting. It requires the use of only 1 attack used consecutively, is extremely easy to do once you see the opportunity, and looks identical to what she is already doing in neutral: back to back bairs. The rare case where a non wall of pain combo occurs is limited exclusively to fast faller match-ups. These match-ups, which were frequent in melee, are much more spread out in PM and thus limits Puff's capabilities against the large remainder of the cast. This makes Puff boring to play with and against in many match ups.
You may consider Puff's lightweight, floaty stats to be one of Puff's strengths. Rather, I see it as a byproduct of her downfalls. Since Puff is a character with very low combo potential (a side effect of having Rest), she is "balanced" by giving her opponents lower combo potential due to her stats. Project M is a game with much greater combo potential than it's predecessors (except for smash 64 I guess). By having a character designed to do the opposite, leaves her out of place.
As for Rest 2)
On paper, this move looks balanced. In practice, it still looks balanced. In actuality, it's too good. I could describe why, but I trust the Puff boards already understand how their moves work. The reason why Rest appears balanced is because it's on a crappy character. If Rest were on almost any other faster character, it would clearly be too good. Many characters in PM have high combo potential, but Puff can't have high combo potential because Rest is too good. Rest is good because Puff is bad. Puff is bad because Rest is good. Which one of these statements is true? The fact that the question needed to be asked in the first place is the problem.
The issue is that if Puff gets buffed in any way, it may improve Puff's combo potential, which therefore improves Rest. Imagine Puff having a guaranteed dair to Rest against everybody. Now what if some unintended buff allowed Puff to dthrow Rest everybody? If Rest gets weakened to compensate, then all the Puff mains get sad. Puff seriously can't be fixed without something happening to this move. Finding some sort of middle ground will be extremely challenging as it will be impossible to please everyone. There is no 50%+ majority here, there's too many opinions on what is right. A complete overhaul would be my personal fix, but that would just anger all the melee enthusiasts. To be fair, melee enthusiasts don't play as much PM as actual PM players so I believe our community would stay intact over such a change.
Options 3)
PM has made a ton of characters viable simply by making most moves good in neutral. It keeps everybody on their toes, since just about anything could work. In melee, players usually had 3 solid neutral options: some sort of fast attack such as a shffl, a jc grab, or a projectile. In PM, almost every ground attack, aerial, or even special are viable in neutral. If I looked at Diddy, I would have a harder time identifying which of his moves AREN'T usable in neutral. Puff has remained pretty much identical to melee, and thus pretty much only has bair for use in neutral.
This makes Puff extremely predictable. Of course, Puff could always elect for a weaker option, such as a grab. Unfortunately, Puff has no ground speed or range to speak of. For comparison's sake, it's like asking a Ness player to approach without jumping, but worse. Puff is in desperate need of new options, such as jump cancel on rollout. It turns Puff into a mini-Ike, but could be just what she needs to keep the mixups going. Something she sorely lacks.
Wrap-up
Puff grinds the game to a standstill because her stats make her difficult to combo and combo with. She is difficult to combo with because she has the move Rest which is too good and it should not be easily comboed into. This leads to most of her moves being awful to make up for Rest, which leaves her with poor options which makes her bad in neutral. Since she is bad in neutral, she is forced to grind the game to a standstill to make up for the rest of her moveset by playing footsies for 8 minutes.
Puff is an example of poor design. I will begin with the tl;dr.
1) At her best, she controls the game and forces your opponent to play by her rules. Nobody will combo each other and you will play footsies until somebody dies.
2) Rest is way too good and overcentralizes the character.
3) At her worst, she will be able to do none of the above due to her lack of options in neutral.
Have it my way 1)
Due to Puff's gravity and mobility, she is extremely difficult to combo effectively for majority of the cast. I'm not ignoring the few that are still very good at comboing lightweights, but for majority of the cast this is true. This forces other characters to play by Puff's rules, of poking each other to death. This makes her matches extremely uninteresting to watch, much like brawl.
There are also cases where Puff can successfully combo, the infamous wall of pain. However, even this is uninteresting. It requires the use of only 1 attack used consecutively, is extremely easy to do once you see the opportunity, and looks identical to what she is already doing in neutral: back to back bairs. The rare case where a non wall of pain combo occurs is limited exclusively to fast faller match-ups. These match-ups, which were frequent in melee, are much more spread out in PM and thus limits Puff's capabilities against the large remainder of the cast. This makes Puff boring to play with and against in many match ups.
You may consider Puff's lightweight, floaty stats to be one of Puff's strengths. Rather, I see it as a byproduct of her downfalls. Since Puff is a character with very low combo potential (a side effect of having Rest), she is "balanced" by giving her opponents lower combo potential due to her stats. Project M is a game with much greater combo potential than it's predecessors (except for smash 64 I guess). By having a character designed to do the opposite, leaves her out of place.
As for Rest 2)
On paper, this move looks balanced. In practice, it still looks balanced. In actuality, it's too good. I could describe why, but I trust the Puff boards already understand how their moves work. The reason why Rest appears balanced is because it's on a crappy character. If Rest were on almost any other faster character, it would clearly be too good. Many characters in PM have high combo potential, but Puff can't have high combo potential because Rest is too good. Rest is good because Puff is bad. Puff is bad because Rest is good. Which one of these statements is true? The fact that the question needed to be asked in the first place is the problem.
The issue is that if Puff gets buffed in any way, it may improve Puff's combo potential, which therefore improves Rest. Imagine Puff having a guaranteed dair to Rest against everybody. Now what if some unintended buff allowed Puff to dthrow Rest everybody? If Rest gets weakened to compensate, then all the Puff mains get sad. Puff seriously can't be fixed without something happening to this move. Finding some sort of middle ground will be extremely challenging as it will be impossible to please everyone. There is no 50%+ majority here, there's too many opinions on what is right. A complete overhaul would be my personal fix, but that would just anger all the melee enthusiasts. To be fair, melee enthusiasts don't play as much PM as actual PM players so I believe our community would stay intact over such a change.
Options 3)
PM has made a ton of characters viable simply by making most moves good in neutral. It keeps everybody on their toes, since just about anything could work. In melee, players usually had 3 solid neutral options: some sort of fast attack such as a shffl, a jc grab, or a projectile. In PM, almost every ground attack, aerial, or even special are viable in neutral. If I looked at Diddy, I would have a harder time identifying which of his moves AREN'T usable in neutral. Puff has remained pretty much identical to melee, and thus pretty much only has bair for use in neutral.
This makes Puff extremely predictable. Of course, Puff could always elect for a weaker option, such as a grab. Unfortunately, Puff has no ground speed or range to speak of. For comparison's sake, it's like asking a Ness player to approach without jumping, but worse. Puff is in desperate need of new options, such as jump cancel on rollout. It turns Puff into a mini-Ike, but could be just what she needs to keep the mixups going. Something she sorely lacks.
Wrap-up
Puff grinds the game to a standstill because her stats make her difficult to combo and combo with. She is difficult to combo with because she has the move Rest which is too good and it should not be easily comboed into. This leads to most of her moves being awful to make up for Rest, which leaves her with poor options which makes her bad in neutral. Since she is bad in neutral, she is forced to grind the game to a standstill to make up for the rest of her moveset by playing footsies for 8 minutes.
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