Snake 4.0... What changes do you want from 3.5?

[LupinX]

Snake mains, what do you think snake should have/take away for his current arsenal? Are you satisfied with him right now? Should he be buffed? Discuss away fellas

 

[cisyphus]

Snake is almost perfectly balanced. The one thing I'd like changed is that he loses his cypher hitbox when he is hit out of the up b. It's kinda silly that I can get hit and still cause damage to my opponent.

 

[BND]

The items of my reasonable wishlist's still the same: 2 grenades, one with a short timer, one with a long timer, would be nice. Distinguishability doesn't matter.
(It'd also be nice if his sticky SFX timing was fixed, since there are times it comes out much later than it should.)

...As for my less-than-reasonable wishlist, http://puu.sh/gwioU/e1e85c3a28.jpg.

EDIT: Just an opinion that I've had for a while, but not quite satisfied with Snake's current status. He seems like a pubstomp character whose performance tapers off strongly as players get used to his moveset, to the point where the matchup's more of between player's knowledge of Snake's moveset than a matchup between the characters or player ability. Of course, the characters matter a bit, but a Marth playing against Snake for the first time still has a terrible matchup.
tl;dr the PMDT did a good job designing Snake considering that midlevel Snakes will have reasonable success regarding winrate, but the slope of Snake's performance against other players to player level's way too steep. I don't have any suggestions to fix it, which is why I'm largely "satisfied" with Snake.

EDIT2: Just remembered; Snake's forward smash definitely needs changing. Much laggier than a back-air with less knockback, and as a rekka of sorts, seems to be a lot worse than ftilt. A stronger second hit (As in, the second hit of the initial 1-2) or the ability to combo into the 3rd hit would be great.

 

[LupinX]

I would like jc c4 aerial to come back... I always wanted to try it lol

 

[Sylarius]

I'm not too great so this is more of a wishlist than what I personally think he needs to be balanced, but I'd make his nair do more damage and knockback on the third hit, be able to grab Fox out of his tranq animation (this is kinda lame imo...) and make the first part of his fsmash stronger. I'd also increase his weight just a bit but only because he seems lighter than he should be and not because of balance issues.

 

[MF Viewtiful]

I would like the invincible up-b back. I feel it's a bit too easy for characters like Marth to bully Snake in terms of shield pressure.

 

[LupinX]

I would like the invincible up-b back. I feel it's a bit too easy for characters like Marth to bully Snake in terms of shield pressure.

Not invincible but much faster(kinda like pm fox shine). I think it should only happen oos to prevent spam in neutral.

I'm not too great so this is more of a wishlist than what I personally think he needs to be balanced, but I'd make his nair do more damage and knockback on the third hit, be able to grab Fox out of his tranq animation (this is kinda lame imo...) and make the first part of his fsmash stronger. I'd also increase his weight just a bit but only because he seems lighter than he should be and not because of balance issues.

I think the animation should be the shield break animation (the one where they are up but vulnerable) but with the sleep bubbles in it so it makes tranq worth it.

 

[LSDX]

The ability to keep an extended cigarette taunt if held down.

 

[alphabattack]

The ability to keep an extended cigarette taunt if held down.

If you jump after he gets the percent damage then the cigarette stays in his mouth and you can use it later by hitting utaunt again. Also the big boss skin should use a cigar instead.

 

[doodlmyr]

I like him pretty solid now

 

[EastCoastEddie]

I'd like to see some changes to the tranq gun. It is kinda overpowered against people that have never faced it but anyone who is good at mashing or used to fighting against it, it just seems like it's not really that good unless you can manage to shoot someone point blank with it (with like a jab reset or a tech chase). It's not really that good in neutral. I guess it has a little value when you force people to respect it.

Maybe it could put them to sleep for a set time? Or speed up the projectile speed of the move? Both these things? IDK just feels like a poorly designed move at this point to me.

 

[BND]

Tranq darts work well as a tech chase, since it can cover up to 3 options (potentially all 4 against really fat characters, though I haven't had the time to test this) and supplement's Snake's otherwise poor groundspeed. It'd probably be reasonable to speed up the tranq dart just a little bit, since there's literally 1-3 frames to shoot the tranq to cover these 3 options at the moment, though speeding it up too much would be a bad idea (unless there's an option to "charge" the tranq gun to increase its speed). At the moment, though, it covers half a hurtbox-detection body length per frame. It's not a bad speed, though it could be improved on a bit.

tl;dr they aren't supposed to be used in neutral: just tech chases and punishing really laggy options (For example, if Falcon decides to up-B onto the stage for whatever reason and you can't get there in time for the punish, a tranq would be a good idea to punish the landing lag.)

I do agree that there are issues with balancing it, though, given its polarizing nature. On one hand, some people mash out of it nearly instantaneously at 70, but on the other hand I know other people who are probably bad enough at mashing that you'd probably be able to mostly charge a mine next to them before they wake up. I don't mind the instantaneous mashout, since more often than not they do a laggy move anyways that lets you retranq them, but I don't think tranqs are supposed to give you the equivalent of a rest punish. On the other hand, putting them to sleep for a set time seems a bit boring.

It also bothers me a bit that tranqs do absolutely nothing when they hit an airborne opponent. It helps with balance (since falling asleep in the air would be incredibly broken), but logically it makes no sense and it gives airborne opponents an unfair advantage if you're trying to catch them offguard and there's no good way to get them grounded (*cough* jigglypuff *cough*).

It'd be nice if the tranq were replaced with a gun (though admittedly anything other than a SOCOM makes no sense and I don't know if a SOCOM would actually make much sense here anyways. I also know that Nintendo dislikes violent games, but I don't think they prohibit guns, and Snake already smokes, which I believe violates policy anyways) or something of the sort that knocked opponents upwards with high hitstun but low-scaling knockback (Knockback formula says no to this, but maybe something like the stun from Ike's special quickdraw?). That way it'd provide a fair way to punish airborne opponents without actually making it useless against them, and the method of punish that the Snake can use would be more varied. (There also wouldn't be any silly cant-grab-fox shenanigans)

Admittedly, this has the problem of potentially comboing into itself, though there are probably a lot of ways to remedy that.

 

[EastCoastEddie]

Hey BND thanks for the reply. Those are some good points. I do agree about the set timer being boring but the randomness of the mash can be really frustrating at times. I have seen people mash out and do optimal moves out of sleep and also mash out and air dodge off the stage and die. I feel like airborne or floaty characters just don't have to respect the tranq gun at all most the time. Maybe make the dart do a bit more damage or something? It seems kinda fair to do this since he has to reload after three shots, it takes forever to reload, and there is no way to cancel the reload animation that I know of. Increasing the damage kind of goes with your idea of giving him an actual gun.

Trading the poorly balanced guided missle for the tranq shot seems like 6 in one hand and half a dozen in the other at this point, from a balancing perspective.

Also really like your points about his overall "status" of being a pubstomp character whose performance tapers off at the top level. I feel like the tranq gun is a small example of this.

 

[cisyphus]

the value of the tranq really is from shooting it point blank tho. There aren't that many situations one can successfully land a tranq, but it's devastating when it happens. The ability to do literally whatever you want to an opponent is huge, and distance diminishes that power. Snake is such a fantastic comboer off of his grabs that getting a tranq point blank should equal death (from the top no less, meaning you get to reload, too). I've been retraining myself to avoid using tranq in the neutral and only utilizing it during tech chases and jab resets. My hit percentage actually feels like it's increased since then, so maybe I'm on to something here. Like you really think tranq is underpowered? Run through f-tilt -> jab reset -> tranq -> c4 -> f-tilt -> jab reset -> tranq -> [f-tilt ->] u-tilt -> c4 and get back to me. There's a very specific reason you only get three a stock.

 

[BND]

Just a quick note of advice, but relying on missed techs without any mixups to confuse tech timings seems to be a crutch of sorts. Having the metagame head towards that direction would be a bad thing, I think. Heck, even jab resets are questionable: you can potentially SDI jab upwards (which nobody does and nobody thinks about doing--I haven't actually had the chance to try it due to a lack of Snake mains, so I don't know how well it works and how hard it is. In retrospect, shoulda tried it in the vs. Sheik matchup last week to get a feel for how hard it is, but there's a sense of shame associated with missing a tech. Going to see if I can test it tomorrow with friends--maybe if it's hard enough I'll switch back to jab resetting or something) and get into an airborne position after the jab to prevent the tranq from doing anything.

tl;dr not a big fan of a lot of Prof's meta, tranq meta included, at the moment, unfortunately--it promotes pubstomping, which solidifies the notion that Snake is "cheap", to some extent. At the moment I'm actually going for sticks directly off of ftilt, just so that I can get rid of the muscle memory (which I've been trying to get rid of for months now with partial success)

 

[cisyphus]

idk man, it's pretty consistent for me to get it against most mid level players I deal with regularly. I definitely pulled it off at MegamanorX quite a lot, and I got fifth that day (below 3 PR players and 1 HM, mind you). And it's not like I'd just throw the f-tilt into jab reset out willy-nilly, either. It's a read of sorts based on how often I see them able to tech the f-tilt, as well as an awareness of how surprising the f-tilt would be and their habits about dealing with it. I'm already pretty well-known for my f-tilt to u-tilt combos on floaties in my area as well, so that's a contributing factor as well: I inform people about how that sequence works and let them that ASDI down (crouch cancelling) prevents it. The thing is that vs. floaties, CCing f-tilt can lead into jab reset or tranq depending on percentage. It's a mixup essentially. There are also situations where someone isn't thinking about needing to tech (like while they're mashing out of sleep) or while they're trying to shield or l-cancel.

And I wanna take this time to explicitly state this: There is a best option in almost every situation. That's speaking objectively by adhering to the concepts of positioning, frame advantage, and what have you. That being said, PM, and smash in general, is a game of mixups and unconventional choices. Foxes can tech in place and shine all they want, but every character has an answer to that via disjoints or dashdances or what have you. It's not always good for a spacie to tech in place and shine, even though that gives them the most invincibility and puts a fast hitbox out. Sometimes it's better to roll, and sometimes it's better to purposely miss the tech because it's not what your opponent expects. This is the classic mew2king dilemma: he knows all of the best options, but when he starts to narrow his vision and loses focus of the possibility that the best option isn't going to be selected, he misses things and drops combos. It's akin to running on autopilot while having missing data, in essence. You just can't do it that way.

 

[LupinX]

I think fsmash could do with a little more. Would it be good if he got his rocket launcher back?

Would it be a good idea to make the C4 at least stronger? Or revert his fakeout to 3.02?

 

[BND]

I think fsmash could do with a little more. Would it be good if he got his rocket launcher back?

Would it be a good idea to make the C4 at least stronger? Or revert his fakeout to 3.02?

Not sure if the rocket launcher would be a good idea, TBH: Snake still has tranqs, so it'd be a "what if Jiggs got her sing buffed" kind of deal. Still, I think the first 2 hits should be at least slightly stronger than back air is, or lead into the 3rd hit. At the moment it doesn't seem to have any use aside from an impromptu edgeguard tool/push-person-off-the-stage-to-lead-into-the-second-hit thing.

 

[LupinX]

Not sure if the rocket launcher would be a good idea, TBH: Snake still has tranqs, so it'd be a "what if Jiggs got her sing buffed" kind of deal. Still, I think the first 2 hits should be at least slightly stronger than back air is, or lead into the 3rd hit. At the moment it doesn't seem to have any use aside from an impromptu edgeguard tool/push-person-off-the-stage-to-lead-into-the-second-hit thing.

Do you prefer more knockback or less endlag on the forward smash?

 

[BND]

Less endlag on the forward smash would make it better for "blockstrings", but since it's probably going to be unsafe on shield/whiff anyways (it'd probably be too overpowered otherwise), it'd be useless regardless compared to ftilt, which generally has higher reward under most circumstances. Any 2-hit should be designed so that the first hit is negative enough on block so that following up on it with anything other than the 2nd hit should be difficult/require respect from the opponent, and the second hit should be fast enough to catch mashout/roll at attempts but negative enough on block so that it's easily punishable by a reasonably fast punish move.

With that being said, the current variation of fsmash is next to useless given how telegraphed it is. You can't use the strong 3rd hit as a followup to up throw on fastfallers (unless they DI away a lot, though I haven't tested this) since it moves you forward and botches up the spacing, and the 2nd hit is much weaker than a properly spaced back air. Misspacing the fsmash on shield lets the opponent easily grab (and even without a misspace I'd imagine that a marth could just fair OoS), and even if you space it well I'd imagine that the additional step forward would make the fsmash miss if they wavedash towards you or something. (Long story short it's definitely not reliable at all on shield)

At the moment it's undoubtably the most useless of Snake's moves. I still need to test this, but I'd imagine that walk up ftilt covers as much range as the initial step forwards (with more control), and if you really need a quick move with range you have DACUS or dash attack, both of which are probably more safe on shield if spaced decently (For dash attack you can get out of range of any followup and it puts you into a crouch, while if you have mortar cover from the up smash opponents would have a hard time doing much to you). It's not even cool anymore: I used to love fsmash for the last hit's sound effects and the overhead hitbox, but both are gone.

EDIT (4-2): Never mind, just took a look at the frame data. Apparently the KBG of Fsmash's third hit is stronger than Snake's forward air, which probably gives it a niche usage as a tranq punish against fastfallers. Still, I'd like a better fsmash.

EDIT2 (6-20): Never mind again; forgot that the knockback formula takes into account damage.

 

[LupinX]

So far only snake's forward smash isn't useful at all? What would you suggest should be snake's useful but not broken fsmash??

 

[cisyphus]

I'd actually like to see Snake's Brawl forward smash come back. F-tilt combo serves the same function as the current f-smash and is arguably better for it in 3.5.

 

[LupinX]

Ya, it could add to snake's edgeguard option that doesnt send the opponant up or is at least safer

 

[cisyphus]

I was thinking as a tranq punish actually lol.

 

[LupinX]

oh lol so with fast startup accompanied with endlag thats punishable... I can dig it

 

[Sneez]

i largely disagree with a lot of the pm team's decisions about snake. i think the tranq dart is really lame, and the tranq -> sticky ->upthrow -> detonate combo is so cheesy and ********. i'd rather him have his old sideb. i can agree with him only getting 1 grenade but i think it should take longer to detonate. i also would rather see him have his really good tilts than have a hitbox on his upb. played a lot of snake in brawl but i don't find him very fun in this game.

 

[LupinX]

I heard the tranq was suppose to give snake a better neutral game in exchange for the edgeguard.

 

[BND]

I was under the impression that Nikita was good for the neutral in some sense; it blocks projectiles, you have unlimited ammo, and you can steer it however you want (?)

(Back when I didn't play Snake seriously at all I loved steering the Nikita around in front of me, since it stuffed most approaches and I could up tilt people who came from me from above. It also looked silly, which was a bonus.)

 

[LupinX]

i have never played snake until 3.5, i just read it from other comments. I think the tranq is suppose to promote more of snake's sticky game... though now i want to try out the nikita to see a difference in approaches, punishes, and different options you can do with it.
It got me wondering... why did pmdt take out the nikita in place of the tranq?

 

[BND]

IIRC it was too overpowered and gave Snake too many easy ways to edgeguard (and presumably control the neutral, though I may be wrong on that). I don't remember the exact details, but I remember the word "degenerative" being thrown around a lot, and from what I can remember that does indeed seem true. Edgeguards were literally side-B from what I've heard and neutral game was (probably, taking Snake's current neutral into mind) shove mines everywhere, side-B if they're further than midscreen, and cancel once they get close (or steer it around in front of you for some mortar-esque cover, though I suspect that doesn't actually work against the better players and that was just me).

In any case, I remember specifically not picking up Snake seriously because I also thought that the Nikita was overpowered (It did a heck-ton of knockback), which is why I only picked Snake in free-for-alls and camped on the edge of the stage with circle-side-Bs. Only after the tranq came out did I start sticking people properly and learning Snake's actual neutral/combo game.

The tranq isn't perfect, but compared to 2.6 it did a good deal for balance.

 

[LupinX]

So only snake's f-smash is the only problem with him? i find his other moves no need for nerf/buff

 

[BND]

I really think Snake needs a rework of sorts, TBH. This isn't even about the "gimmick" bit anymore. Was playing in Loser's finals today against a Sonic, and for half a minute the gameplay literally devolved into me hiding behind 2 mines while lobbing grenades before a sense of shame kicked in, after which I approached, and subsequently lost. PM has many goals, and encouraging camping should not be one of them.

At this point Snake loses too hard in the neutral against faster characters (like Sheik or Sonic or probably even Falcon), but can literally force a 50-50 matchup or better against them, aside from Marth I think (will not detail how at this point, because I do not want the newcomers to play like this--for example, the flowchart against Sheik is easy enough that I'm pretty sure any Day 1 Snake with a basic sense of sticking can do this. The flowchart's also obvious and I'm half-surprised that nobody plays like this yet) by abusing his defensive options and picking certain stages. Unfortunately, his projectiles aren't good enough to force the opponent to approach, which results in a really boring stalemate between both sides.

If you need an example, I played against my roommate's counterpicked Sheik a few days ago. After getting easily 2-stocked (would've gotten 4-stocked if he didn't sandbag near the end), there was some trashtalk about how I don't know how to play the game, after which I got irritated and showed him how the matchup was supposed to be played.
It was not pretty (though my other friend was laughing at the salt in the match). We went to Smashville, which is one of Snake's worst stages IMO and is not one of the aforementioned advantageous stages, and played a round. We probably would have timed the game out (The first stock alone took up at least 3 minutes) were it not for the fact that I got impatient and threw out a few unsafe moves. In the end, despite the fact that he knows the anti-BND-Snake meta much, much better than anyone else does, and even with my unsafe moves, he was left with only one stock because I missed one stick.

We both switched characters after that.

In any case, at this point I'm either an advocate of removing Snake's camping defensive options entirely, or doing that and giving him a better neutral game in exchange. For example, while his invincible Cypher that I don't even know how to OoS properly could potentially be considered overpowered, I'd rather take that than have Snake where he is right now. Heck, I'd even approve of giving Snake his Nikita back, or a switch between Nikita and tranq or whatever was suggested earlier. Anything but this.

tl;dr if it weren't for the fact that people aren't familiar with the anti-Snake meta in this region yet, I'd probably quit the character. At this point the plan is to literally play one Snake vs. Sheik match (one of Falcon's primary bad matchups) on stream to show how stupid the matchup is, and use that as a bargaining chip for a gentleman's agreement to ban both characters in the event that the Sheik has a secondary.

 

[cisyphus]

BND's on this disgusting downward spiral and I don't like it.

 

[BND]

Me neither
(Will hopefully find some other alternative for gameplay but currently it's becoming really degenerative despite placing much better in tourney, which bothers me a lot. Probably going to take a small break from button mashing since my general salt levels have slowly been rising, though I'll probably still be on the forums.)

 

[cisyphus]

You need to find the balance between being safe and styling. It's called playing smart and it takes time to develop. Rolex and Prof have started to reach that point (Prof moreso). If your punishes on Sheik are on point, you should convert a grab into a stock every time. It's the nature of defensive characters. Play the neutral correctly and punish as strongly as possible when you catch your opponent's mistakes.

 

[LupinX]

Just because camping doesn't work for you, it doesn't mean it's a bad strategy. You are GOING to need to camp in order to win. For example, against DK, Snake should never approach him or else he will be turned into combo food... you would want DK to approach. How do you do that? By using mines and grenades and mortars to rack up % to the point where he will NEED to approach, and thats how you get him.

Snake is a set-up heavy character. He needs to earn his kills and benefits off those. Without those set-ups, he is a sitting duck. Also snake is a very adaptive character (kinda like in the games) where you NEED to know your opponent from head to foot in such a short time (in a tourney match) or else you will lose. you need to plant those mines, throw those grenades/mortars according to how your opponent plays, not according how you want to play, for example, if he/she likes to use platforms, why not mine a platform or jump sticky him? or if he/she is very grab-happy, why not IGT (except holding it). What I have learned throughout this is to play 60:40. 60= player and 40= character they play. Play against the player moreso the character. Like what cisyphus said, we gotta play smart and to convert what we do into a KO.

 

[cisyphus]

You don't need to camp to force an approach, lol. Camping works fine for me, but it's incredibly boring. The prof-esque dashdancing playstyle is far more applicable imo, because if you make a single mistake while camping you're going to be the one that has to approach and you'll have less opportunities to gain the lead if you're playing someone smart. It's all about baiting. The rest of what you said is very good though. Any campy samus knows that they only have one platform to use. Figure out which side of the stage they tend to prefer as well (because you tend to practice your tech going one direction—see Mango's moonwalks for example) and then limit that option with a mine. This is the stage control I keep telling people about. The other thing is paying attention to when your basic setups and traps stop working and changing up how you use them. I'm really guilty of this with shield grenades on platforms.

 

[BND]

The problem that I was referring to is that both characters (Sheik and Snake) benefit from being on the defensive, where a whole lot of nothing happens. I'm fairly sure that both characters have a good chance (above 50%, at least) of converting each other's approaches into a grab: whether or not Snake wants to kill the Sheik is up to how grimy the Snake player wants to play, though as far as I've seen most Sheiks just chaingrab/techchase until his balls fall off. It follows that the optimal solution for both characters is to camp, except neither gets anything from camping aside from running out the timer, but then we might as well be playing Brawl/SSB4. Even Brawl Snake's probably more interactive than this, which is what bothers me (since someone willing to camp hard enough has an abnormally high chance of doing well with limited skill, while those running around and playing suboptimally might lose a stock for their troubles)

In any case, I'm just somewhat worried that someone might be abusing Snake's defensive but not interactive properties (Grenades do jack while camping on large enough stages, as do tranqs) to the point where detractors of PM use Snake as an example of why the game could be bad--I'm starting to fall victim to this, which is why I'm considering taking a small break from Snake soon until I can redefine my playstyle. The fact that Snake can do this is the problem: whether or not Snakes do it isn't. I don't like Prof's playstyle much (since he doesn't optimize the smaller bits of his gameplay and can do so much more with his tech skill), though I respect the fact that he goes for obviously suboptimal things sometimes.

On a side note, I don't practice my tech in anything but debug mode to verify that it works (everything else comes from experience in matches), so I find the one-direction approach to be somewhat specific depending on player.

 

[LupinX]

@ cisyphus I play the prof-esque wavedancing with using more of my projectiles (stage control) than he does. I tend to approach less than usual to the fact that i get combo'd to death enough times (which makes me salty). So forcing an approaching is kinda my basic option

@ BND Take some time off to figure this out... don't give up :D
And of curiousity, can you emphasize why you dislike prof's playstyle? you're the first one to say that you don't like his
playstyle and i want to know for interest's sake

 

[cisyphus]

The thing is that Sheik has to work harder to convert her grabs into kills (techchase = more chance for mixups = more chance to escape whereas Snake gets guaranteed chain grabs into guaranteed air juggles OR platform techchases which are more airtight than conventional techchases), and the edgeguards are also harder on Snake than on Sheik overall due to Snake's longer and less punishable recovery. The benefit in the matchup comes with Sheik having better approach tools than Snake via needles and fast aerials and tilts. That gives Sheik the better neutral, which is why she wins the matchup. Playing defensive means you have to play on reaction (making reads).

The Sheik matchup becomes easier with experience, and is definitely player dependent as well due to her throw mixups. Learn the situations where a Sheik will try to throw you off and be ready to read that. Learn as well what her followups are and how to DI them properly to avoid massive damage or a loss of stage control.

Being a Melee Sheik main helps me a lot here, lol.