Rounding Out: Better aerials, longer range, better grabs, or projectiles?

[PHYTO-1]

Without taking into account how "realistic" it would be for little mac to have any of these offensive* traits or that it goes against his character design, which of these would help him out the most? Which of these would even out his worse matchups?

*not talking about defensive traits like higher jumps, heavier weight, better recovery.

 

[Zodiacx10]

what about better shield damage?

 

[Renegade TX2000]

Better grabs and i feel his down throw should be a tech chase and his up throw should be his down throw that can lead into his up B or up tilt like marios dthrow. His fthrow and bthrow should put the opponent in a bad position... To either force them to waste their 2nd jump or air dodge and suffer landing lag and if they don't air dodge then they just bounce off the ground where they can either tech or just bounce like a ******. =-D

 

[PHYTO-1]

i'm not talking about specific details but more so how this would change matchups.

example: if we had a better grab game, then chars like Ike, Shulk, etc. who love to approach with their autocancel aerials would fear getting shieldgrabbed and rely on different approaches.

example: if little mac had projectiles (throw chocolate bars, aran ryan horseshoes, bikes etc) chars with spammable projectiles would be easier to deal with.

but of these four traits (no, not shield damage.) which would we benefit the most from?

 

[Virum]

i'm not talking about specific details but more so how this would change matchups.

example: if we had a better grab game, then chars like Ike, Shulk, etc. who love to approach with their autocancel aerials would fear getting shieldgrabbed and rely on different approaches.

Shulk's ironically one of the worst examples you could've picked because Shulk doesn't have aerials that autocancel on short hop lol. Infact, he's one of the only characters in the game who can't autocancel any of his aerials on short hop (the other 2 being Megaman and Greninja, though Megaman is odd because his NAir works kinda strange in terms of how it suffers lag). Shulk's NAir/FAir/BAir have to be spaced otherwise it's piss easy to just shield grab him on landing because he always suffers landing lag. The only aerial he has that can autocancel at all at a reasonable time is full hop FAir and even then you can't be in Speed or Shield (due to reduced jump height). The reason why this misconception exists is because Shulk's NAir has relatively low landing lag (12 frames).

Although a better, faster grab would certainly be nice with a little more range would be nice. I don't even think his throws need all that much in the way of changing barring maybe a lower angle on FThrow. Would make his ground mix-ups more threatening. Aerials could also save to be a little better. A slight damage boost and significantly lower landing lag would be nice, again to compliment his onstage game. They should still have bad range and knockback though so Mac retains his susceptibility to being combo'd in the air.

I don't think the character needs more range considering his speed and frame data, and projectiles don't suit him at all both in terms of character and gameplay.

 

[Renegade TX2000]

I just think a great grab game would Maximize his rush down potential. That's all he really needs. Would take me back to the glory days of sf2 balrog

Also I don't find it fair that his up B does the same damage in the air and on the ground. I think in the air it should be 10% but on ground 16-20% and a little bit more killing power.

Then if anything nerf some of the games defense. Like if someone shields near the ledge they will get pushed off regardless if they let go of shield or not, and make ledge climb have 2-3 frames of vulnerability instead of 1. They need to make it a point that staying in middle stage is great and being near the ledge is bad... And grabbing the ledge puts you in a horrible position. So the game would all be about gaining middle stage and not feeling safe being near the ledge.

 

[Zodiacx10]

if his aerials had a very low knock back and were super fast that would be super cool. u could hit people and jump up and smack them with aerials over and over again until u land and then beat them up to open up more combos. or if they were camping on platform or stalling in the air, just jump up there and keep hitting them with your weak aerials til they are on the ground again where u want them or something. so the point of them was never to kill, they would just move people around a bit or continue a combo

 

[TheReflexWonder]

I would prefer that his aerials had lower landing lag over the other stuff, either by cutting the landing lag significantly or pulling back the autocancel window. Platform camping wouldn't be as detrimental to him, and he'd have more aerial harassment options and combos available to him without having to respect the very late autocancel windows. N-Air, U-Air, and D-Air stand to gain a lot in that.

 

[inconspikuous]

to improve stage-wise, i think lower lag aerials would help mac's viability. to improve matchup-wise, though, it's gotta be a faster/better grab. imagine being able to punish even a well-spaced sheik fair on shield with a grab. sounds amazing.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

to improve matchup-wise, though, it's gotta be a faster/better grab. imagine being able to punish even a well-spaced sheik fair on shield with a grab. sounds amazing.

No character can do that, though. Improving Mac's grab speed and range wouldn't do it unless he had far and away the best grab in the game.

 

[inconspikuous]

i get that, but we're theorycrafting. every sheik won't optimally space on every fair. a better grab would be able to take advantage of the not-as-well-spaced fairs. i think it would change a lot of matchups because mac's grab is pretty bad right now imo.

EDIT: actually, in retrospect, i think that having less punishable aerials (i.e. still weak and garbage kb, but less lag) would change his matchups drastically as well. i'm sure you guys would be able to find some creative ways to exploit that. so i'm okay with lower lag on aerials or better grabs.

 

[Renegade TX2000]

i get that, but we're theorycrafting. every sheik won't optimally space on every fair. a better grab would be able to take advantage of the not-as-well-spaced fairs. i think it would change a lot of matchups because mac's grab is pretty bad right now imo.

EDIT: actually, in retrospect, i think that having less punishable aerials (i.e. still weak and garbage kb, but less lag) would change his matchups drastically as well. i'm sure you guys would be able to find some creative ways to exploit that. so i'm okay with lower lag on aerials or better grabs.

I just think he needs more reward when he gets a grab because going for one as mac is risky because you are prone to getting grabbed yourself which is worse for you.