Sol's Competitive Mac Fixes List

[Solreth]

Ive decided to discuss more in-depth the adjustments that would best suit the character to competitive setting without sacrificing his core concept and design (Which is crucial).

1) Replace Deadzones on tilts and smashes with Sourspots

-Little mac is the penultimate close range fighter. His moveset is designed around his desire to get in, yet resulting tilts and smashes can literally miss the opponent directly in front of you. In fact, they do so quite often. Of particular note, d-angle fsmashcan literally deadzone on characters as large as Ganondorf. This is a great oversight in my opinion. Essentially punishing him at what should arguably be his most effective range.

2) Grab-game, Throw combos

Again contrary to the nature of his design, the character has ultimately been pinned as intended for a god-like ground neutral in exchange for his lack of aerials and recovery. This is contrasted by his near complete inability to operate against shields. Of all of his tilts, jabs, and smashes and aerials, only d-angle f-smash is safe on shield- even then only at proper spacing. As far as grabs go mac carries one of the literal worst grab ranges in the game, among the highest ending lag on miss, with 0 followups vs a competent opponent that simply Di's away. Now to be clear I am not advocating providing mac with a hoo-hah. I loathe the centralized nature of such options and the way they diminish a characters kit into binary kill options. A 50/50 mix up, or low-mid percent f-throw combo into side-B would create incentive to apply the grab, and likewise an improvement on its range and speed would make it more viable to attempt inside of the neutral setting. This would be one of the most crucial and desired buffs to the character, that would also conceptually fit his design both as a boxer (Boxers Clinch), and as a ground game god.

3) Ledge-snap on up-B

Likely to be the most contested of my proposed changes- Lack of ledge snap is one of macs larger problems on recovery. Providing no option for true recovery against a half-aware opponent with a decently sized hitbox to throw. Whereas macs recovery distance should truly be terrible, as it is (I don't even propose undoing the 10% nerf of apocalypse patch 1.0.4) the lack of ability to snap - specifically to up-B provides very little player interaction and mechanically leaves the character feeling cheated time and time again. Arguably some may factor it into his poor recovery, I see it as poor design. A reasonable snap would still leave him hands down with the worst recovery in the roster and rightfully so. As a side-note an oddity is that up-B can snap, but only on startup frames which is inversely logical to its actual use and competitively useless. Swap that around so the snap frames are at the end and you're golden.

4) Rapid-Jab and F-tilt

Rapid jab is intensely trigger sensitive, committing off the jab 1-2 at the slightest hair trigger/slow release. This diminishes the ability to cancel and create unique mixups, but more pointedly locks you into an animation that at low percents can be DI'd downward into shield before it can be released, resulting in taking more damage than dealt as "reward" for landing your move. In addition it has 3 open frames between each active hitbox, leaving mac incredibly vulnerable to counter attack for being caught inside of his own animation. This move would better mimic the rapids of those such as corrin, bayo, robin, and greninja, in which the character is not punished for successfully landing his attack alone (I call this Jigglypuff Syndrome).

F-tilt is another cornerstone issue of mac, the intended first hit often sabotages the second leaving mac in notable lag and popping his opponent out of combo only to net a free punish while taking a total of 3%. Ultimately its a great shame because the move is inherently great, but fair in its downsides. IT has lots of endlag but has up-front frame data to support that, while having amazing kill potential yet its inconsistency makes it nearly unusable, ala Links original up-smash or sheiks current f-smash. A move that misses when it hits, is a move poorly designed. I would certainly adjust this accordingly.

5) Micro increase to (1st) jump height:

This is largely to allow mac to use a singular jump to get to the lowest available platforms of smashville and dreamland. The key is to make it so minor that it rarely if at all factors into recovery, perhaps even reducing the second jump by an equivalent amount as to balance out the overall distance or height. Macs biggest issue can be camp, by and far, and with the current array of tournament stages he is always doomed to at least smashville or duckhunt regardless of bans or strikes. This equates to a free camp out on any percent lead (he can not reach smashville platform with one jump alone, and he can not shield pressure a moving platform that rests off stage) at least once per set. Dreamland can be likewise abused to reasonable extent, though is notably less of an issue and does provide certain benefits to the character. As it stands though mac will never be solo viable as long as 1 ban, duck hunt, and smashville exist inside the same ruleset. This would alleviate the smashville issue, mac would still be super susceptible to camp, would gain no further recovery distance, but would now be able to compete reasonably on what is widely considered a "Neutral" stage. Overall I think it would be a very wise adjustment that would be subtle, yet make a world of difference for the character.

The above 5 changes I consider mandatory to making mac a semi-solo viable character, the rest is icing and optional but worth looking into or provided as alternatives to some of the above.

• Reduced end lag on up-B and side-B
  
  
• Slightly earlier kill percents from dash attack (125ish)
  
  
• Adjusted hitbox (ala Corrin) + knockback scaling (Marth Strength) to Macs Parry
  
  
• Reduced startup on Straight Lunge (Neutral B), acting as a semi tilt counter.
  
  
• Remove the windbox on Ko Punch, it only sabotages him to comical effect.
  
  
• Increase the speed/distance of his tech roll (its bottom 3 in the game right now)
  
  
• Adjust second hitbox of Up-B earlier to prevent deadzoning.
  

Smashboards places mac at 43rd on the tier list, I place him at 30th, these changes would put him at 15-20th in my opinion. TO be 100% clear, I love this character. If he never receives a change again, hell if he receives a nerf, I will still always be forever a Mac Main. Take it for what you will and at worst, use these weaknesses against mac players in the future! That'll teach em!

P.S. Hajime No Ippo Skin to replace Wireframe. **** it.

 

[tomvanharmelen]

Whenever I see posts about 'changing mac', my initial thought is "These posts are completely irrelevant."

Little Mac players posting what they want to change isn't going to actually change anything.
Instead, I think it's more important to learn how to play with the cards we're dealt.

I feel it's a waste of time and energy to think about how to change Little Mac, this time would be much better spent learning how to use his full moveset.
I see too many people still disregarding moves just because they're unsafe or too slow for their liking.
Either learn to set them up, or learn how to condition opponents to a point where you can actually safely use them.

Regarding dead zones on moves, they're unfortunate, but I am genuinely surprised anyone who plays Mac as much as you do still experiences them at this point.
You'd think that after a long time of playing Little Mac, spacing moves would be second nature by now.


TL;DR: Work with the moveset you have, it's the only one you have and will have in the future.

 

[anas abou]

Whenever I see posts about 'changing mac', my initial thought is "These posts are completely irrelevant."

I would usualy agree with you there but this is sol

 

[tomvanharmelen]

I don't care who writes the posts, whether it's a person who just started playing little mac today, or if it's sol, or hell, Obama himself.
It doesn't contribute to the advancing Little Mac as a character, which should be the goal, right?

Just because a certain person writes something, doesn't magically make it right.
It's not wrong to appreciate players and value their contributions, but please, think critically about everything you experience.

 

[Zoramine Fae]

I don't care who writes the posts, whether it's a person who just started playing little mac today, or if it's sol, or hell, Obama himself.
It doesn't contribute to the advancing Little Mac as a character, which should be the goal, right?

Just because a certain person writes something, doesn't magically make it right.
It's not wrong to appreciate players and value their contributions, but please, think critically about everything you experience.

Just a little harsh there.

Sol is pretty damn high up there, being the pioneer of a bunch of stuff that we do, and while even someone like him saying something doesn't change the fact it won't happen nor will it help us currently he shared his ideas. And I like all of 'em. Not that it changes the fact it's irrelevant to Mac currently, but let people say what they want to say instead of crapping on them a bit. Maybe one day Sakurai will look at Smashboards and see threads like this, made from good and sometimes bad players and decide to buff players like that. How do we know.

 

[anas abou]

I don't care who writes the posts, whether it's a person who just started playing little mac today, or if it's sol, or hell, Obama himself

if obama made a smashboards account and wrote what he thinks is optimal lil mac changes, then sakurai has no choice, he has to do it, it's ****ing obama for **** sake lol

 

[tomvanharmelen]

Zoramine,

I just feel that discussing preferred changes for any characters is useful.
It adds to the idea that a character is by nature flawed and doomed to a certain range in the tier list.
Considering how early we're in Smash 4's lifespan, it's simply nonsensical to talk about changes for a character while the metagame is not even close to 'the best there can be'.
Instead, use the time spent discussing changes for a character on how to improve the character with the current design and moveset.

In my opinion, talking about Mac changes on the mac boards is equally useful as talking about how broken Bayonetta is on the bayonetta boards.
It's not gonna change the fact that things are the way they are and the time spent talking about broken bayo is better spent learning how to deal with bayo.


Also, Just want to point out that if it was anybody who wasnt as well known as Sol that wrote the exact same thing as he has here, that person would've gotten ignored.
That's why I feel people should seriously stop valueing the opinion of one person over the other.

Also, Sol name-dropping himself in the thread title to gather more views to his opinion means he thinks this is important stuff to discuss.
I am surprised by that.
Sol, can you elaborate why you think this topic is worthy of discussion when it doesn't really add anything to the development of Little Mac?

I am interested in the thought process behind creating this topic, because right now it feels to me as equally important as saying ' I like trains' in the Mac boards..
It's like:

" Ok, thank you for sharing your thoughts, it's not really useful, but thanks anyway"

P.S.

Just to clarify, I'm not angry or whatever, I am just curious and think a healthy discussion on this is interesting and important.

 

[NarayanK]

-snip-

Ironically enough, talking about their weaknesses increases our awareness on Little Mac's problems, thus making us try even harder to deal with them just in case the patches end. The same went for Ike, Robin, and Charizard, all of them being buffed significantly when people discussed about their problems while indirectly showing the difficulty to find a way to adapt to it a lot.

Just talking about changes like these makes us think outside of the box. It's not just "OHHHHHHGHEWHRGU BUFF HIM INTO A NEW TIER," it highlights what players in general focus on overcoming and wish to have an easier time dealing with it. In no way do these threads bring no value into a character's competitive nature. Many people don't know Little Mac's actual weaknesses as listed by Sol in this particular thread, which makes it a pretty enlightening thing for some players who view Mac as just "unviable because gimpz."

This thread isn't just geared for Macs, it's also geared to other people who play different characters that want to know how he works in general. I think the things Sol pointed out clarifies that stuff a bit.

 

[tomvanharmelen]

Talking about weakness does not equal talking about desired buffs.
You can talk about weaknesses without talking about how you want to improve them.
Sol specifically stated how he wanted to change mac, not how he thinks we can work around/ work with the weaknesses that Mac has.

The title is literally stating ' competitive mac fixes list'

It doesn't state anything on ' how I, Sol, work around the weaknesses I state in this list'
Therefore, yes, it is in fact a list on ' this is what is needed to buff mac into a new tier'.

I think the reason we haven't found a way to adapt to Mac's moveset is because a lot of moves are simply disregarded because of them being ' bad' . ( Looking at you, aerial moves! )

Now, aerial gimps have become a staple of my slowly evolving Little Mac and opponents have stopped thinking there's no aerial threat coming from me.
Because when they do, they go splat.
Even Nair has become a solid move in my arsenal lately, as it sets up a jab, upB and KO on unsuspecting opponents.
Just because moves are unsafe, doesnt make them bad.
It just means you have to learn how to use them, in which situations they're impossible and when they're risky but the reward is great enough to do it.

That, exactly, is what I think should be discussed in a topic like this.
Not how to change the moves themselves, but how to change the playstyle of Little Mac players in order to incorporate the supposedly bad moves into a more complete Little Mac player.

 

[NarayanK]

Talking about weakness does not equal talking about desired buffs.
You can talk about weaknesses without talking about how you want to improve them.
Sol specifically stated how he wanted to change mac, not how he thinks we can work around/ work with the weaknesses that Mac has.

The title is literally stating ' competitive mac fixes list'

It doesn't state anything on ' how I, Sol, work around the weaknesses I state in this list'
Therefore, yes, it is in fact a list on ' this is what is needed to buff mac into a new tier'.

I think the reason we haven't found a way to adapt to Mac's moveset is because a lot of moves are simply disregarded because of them being ' bad' . ( Looking at you, aerial moves! )

Now, aerial gimps have become a staple of my slowly evolving Little Mac and opponents have stopped thinking there's no aerial threat coming from me.
Because when they do, they go splat.
Even Nair has become a solid move in my arsenal lately, as it sets up a jab, upB and KO on unsuspecting opponents.
Just because moves are unsafe, doesnt make them bad.
It just means you have to learn how to use them, in which situations they're impossible and when they're risky but the reward is great enough to do it.

That, exactly, is what I think should be discussed in a topic like this.
Not how to change the moves themselves, but how to change the playstyle of Little Mac players in order to incorporate the supposedly bad moves into a more complete Little Mac player.

The problem with your statement is that Sol HAS made a thread like what you said once. And it was on Reddit where it received a good amount of attention, and people have discussed about advancing Mac's meta starting from his unorthodox moves; it's just that there's more people loitering around the Reddit more than Smashboards. In fact, this thread is also from his original post on Reddit, where people pay most attention to well-known players. You're not the only one who thought of Aerial followups; it has been discussed in the past as well, and still is in various places like Sol's Discord group (we recently found a way to use ROB's gyro for KO Punch setups!) This thread is more like an optional followup to his original meta advancement thread.

You should ask Sol (or someone who knows him) for a link to his Discord group. There's quite a lot of Little Macs there that enjoy talking about people's thoughts on him. Smashboards is one of the least Mac populated areas, though, so it's inevitable that this thread would appear to be out-of-the-blue. This thread will make more sense once you look into Solreth's research streams/activities for Mac.

 

[tomvanharmelen]

I know sol made a thread about advancing the mac meta, but the existence of another thread doesnt mean this thread suddenly has more reason to exist as this thread itself, on its own, still doesnt magically somehow get more value.
It's like having a discussion on flying cars while we don't have them and the cars we have are still relatively bad.
Instead, more discussion on evolving cars as they currently are, with the technology we have now, would be far more beneficial.

The mac meta advancement thread was a good thread, but with all threads on smashboards ( well, all boards online, pretty much) threads disappear from the eye relatively soon ( too soon ) which means more threads about that subject are desired.

I know about the Sol discord, I am a member there, just don't visit regularly as I prefer the Little Mac skype group more ( naturally more of a person for smaller groups of people )
Smashboards serves as a follow up to the discussions going on in those other places, which for me is a great way to keep the discussion going and spread it out to more people.

People may naturally be more drawn to the opinion of well known players, but that doesn't mean that everything a well known player says is useful.
The more people learn to play organically, by which I mean following their instinct and simply trying stuff to see whether it works in the heat of battle, the better because it will create a more diverse Little Mac playerbase, which right now is surprisingly narrow.

I personally think people currently follow too much into the footsteps of more known players, there's a lot of Little Mac players that emulate and imitate, but instead more people should innovate.
Innovation, deviating from what is known, is what causes most growth.
Therefore, critical thinking and creativity in playing, instead of following the well known players is what's most important.
This includes playing goofy mac, air mac and for glory mac in order to see what happens and what you can get away with.

Lastly. this thread doesnt appear out-of-the-blue, it just appears irrelevant.
no amount of research warrants spending time discussing something that adds no value to positive change in the mac meta.

TL;DR: " I wish mac had X" -> Mac doesn't, deal with it, get creative with what you DO have and grow as a player :-D

 

[NarayanK]

-snip-

While I'm certain that what I say won't change your thoughts on these kinds of threads, I will wish you luck on innovating Mac! Sol himself did say that we should be creative too, so even the well-known players are aware that they shouldn't be followed upon like a flowchart. xD

 

[tomvanharmelen]

Great minds think alike, haha!
If you want to see my current Little Mac in action, check out my youtube channel ( same username as here )
There's a little mac montage there.
I'm definitely the most 19XX mac around, but I think I do play differently compared to lots of others, maybe my mac play can add to yours

 

[Solreth]

Heres where I disagree-

"I wish mac has X" doesnt mean you cant simultaneously get good with what you have, but it does bring a public awareness to elements of design failing in his kit either for future iterations of the game, or future games in the genre. Who knows who will see it. You may not prefer the small talk that comes along with hypotheticals, and thats perfectly fine. Regardless, there is value to it.

 

[King Deskmond]

Little Mac Is the worst player in the game IMO.
You can lose to anyone no matter how much time you put in, this is because of his ass recovery combined with the fact that he is easy to gimp, No you cant stay in the middle of the stage the whole game...
All they need to do is increase the range of up and side B they don't even have to increase the damage but at the same time no need to decrease it either.
Also increasing his ledge snap ability on up B and even side B makes a lot of sense.
Thats all IMO that does not make Mac OP in any way.
Mac has a pretty reliable grab follow up and at around 85-105% it kills depending on the character: Down throw to up B at the ledge.
Mac mains please test this out and learn in training!
Its great for reading neutral ledge get ups especially if they get up and shield: Dash toward the ledge as opponent gets up, grab, dthrow and up B (done correctly opponent should be right above you making it in most cases hard to miss the up B).
Even If the opponent Di's out you can sometimes reach them with an angled up B.
Majority of the time opponents dont Di out though from experience, Im not sure if its difficult to or if they can not at some points.
This is worth learning for all Macs.
Sometimes you can up B from dthrow at lower% elsewhere on the stage but less reliable.

 

[Solreth]

mac is a character not a player, he is very far from the worst. Increasing the range of up-B and side-B doesnt actually resolve his real issues of effective neutral vs shields and punishable on hit moves with glaring deadzones. Additionally in an actual competitive environment, yes your opponents will DI out almost every time. Follow-ups that require "Fanboy-DI" dont actually help in the context of competition. But yeah, always keep an eye out anyhow. Sometimes opponents panic.

 

[Bleezyy]

Is solreth mvg Sol?

 

[Solreth]

Formerly of MVG, now of Noble eSports, but aye. Thats me.

 

[Bleezyy]

Nice to meet you bro. Are you going to apex this year?

 

[jet56]

with patch 1.1.6 coming out, this is a topic worth discussing again. i am curious what other mac's opinions are on this topic, and am excited to see if they change mac, if at all.

 

[Solreth]

with patch 1.1.6 coming out, this is a topic worth discussing again. i am curious what other mac's opinions are on this topic, and am excited to see if they change mac, if at all.

Sure, discussing it wont change anything in notes or patch, but add "Landing" to the list of his problems. Though that may be argued as "air" issues and thusly justifiable to stay.

Bleezy I should be attending Apex, Aye.

 

[Ffamran]

I would like to mention how Little Mac's jab doesn't follow normal inputs. For all characters, except Little Mac, who have a 3-hit jab combo and a rapid jab, holding down attack is an alternative to tapping out jab for a 3-hit jab combo; mashing or quickly tapping attack leads to a rapid jab. Little Mac's is the opposite where holding down attack leads to rapid jab. So, unlike other characters, Little Mac is forced to tap out his 3-hit jab combo and as Solreth mentioned, Little Mac's rapid jab is really sensitive where if you tap too fast, it'll think you're mashing and lead to a rapid jab instead of a 3-hit jab. Little Mac's rapid jab is good, but at the same time, players shouldn't feel like an option if forced upon them. Also, as Little Mac's jab subverts regular inputs, it can be troublesome for some players coming from say, Captain Falcon, Greninja, or Pit thinking holding down would lead to a 3-hit jab combo. Some players already tap out 3-hit jab combo, but as Little Mac's is more sensitive, they might end up with rapid jab instead.

This is one change I would like to happen for Little Mac. It would bring his inputs more in line with other characters and help out Little Mac players to be able to use his 3-hit jab more easily.

 

[Solreth]

I feel like his gentleman is REALLY good, and its just tough to use effectively without dropping valuable frames and risking punishment due to its overly sensitive design

 

[Ffamran]

I feel like his gentleman is REALLY good, and its just tough to use effectively without dropping valuable frames and risking punishment due to its overly sensitive design

It is good; most if not all 3-hit jab combos are more reliable than rapid jabs. Little Mac's just happens to a different input style that no other character has. It's just a weird design quirk that I don't understand why it's there. Little Mac with a regular jab input would make his 3-hit jab combo easier to use while his rapid jab would pretty much stay the same.

 

[jet56]

I would like this very much. Actually, another problem with mac's jab is the fact that gentleman doesn't true combo until 22% (according to training mode). this means that after jab 1-2, you could get punished with a quick aerial before you are able to perform another action. So, you would end up having to do the rapid jab under 22% to make sure they can't hit you when you get a hit confirm with jab. However, the multijab can be SDI'ed down and shielded at low percents, which also leads into a punish for your opponent. So, in either case, it is possible you will be punished for getting the hit confirm of jab at low percents. If they were to fix the jab in the aspect of either:
1. the multihit jab could not be DI'ed out and punished at low percents
2. the gentleman confirmed more reliably at low percents.

Another small pet peeve of mine is the fact that if you miss time the gentleman, you end up not getting the combo, and sometimes the 3rd hit of gentleman will miss the opponent completely. Little mac still has one of the best jab's in the game, but for being a boxer, it's pretty dumb that he has to deal with these kinds of issues, and that multijabs like foxes and corrins are much better, while gentlemans like Falcons are much more reliable and easier to use.

If they fixed this and tweaked his grab (tbh the range isn't what bothers me, its the fact that it does not net him anything at all other than percent.) in some way, he would be a much better character. His pummel is really the only good thing about him. While this is my opinion, why not make his pummel better, like one of the best in the game? He is a boxer, and boxer's clinch is a real thing, so letting him have a faster pummel with perhaps a .5% more damage would go a long way (being able to slap on 5-6 pummel's at 100% before they can mash out would go a long way, as that would be a solid 11-14%, and that's not adding on a throw.) I think it would be alright if i grab someone at the edge of the stage at 130%, pummel them 7-8 times before they can mash out, then Bthrow them for the kill.

But that's just me.

 

[TheBeggingBard ~~JoMo~~]

In my honest opinion as a Mac 'N' Cheese pocket (thanks to you Solreth ) most of Sol's points were pretty good except for one thing: grabs. Mac's grab suites his play-style as I see it. Or at least I play him as a defensive-agro Mac you really don't need grabs. Focus on his various punches, then get them at kill percentage then either FTilt or Forward Smash for the kill. Also wouldn't be hard to grab something with a pair of padded gloves? ;P

 

[Solreth]

In my honest opinion as a Mac 'N' Cheese pocket (thanks to you Solreth ) most of Sol's points were pretty good except for one thing: grabs. Mac's grab suites his play-style as I see it. Or at least I play him as a defensive-agro Mac you really don't need grabs. Focus on his various punches, then get them at kill percentage then either FTilt or Forward Smash for the kill. Also wouldn't be hard to grab something with a pair of padded gloves? ;P

Its called clinching, and its literally the centerpiece of this generations #1 Boxer. So.... Id disagree, but obviously to each their own.

 

[tomvanharmelen]

Clinching isn't really grabbing though. it's more like hugging than actual grabbing, and wouldn't allow the clinched person getting thrown, lol.
If they stayed true to the clinch mechanic of actual boxing, all his throws would become mac basically shoving the opponent a few feet away after a clinch.