Solreth
Smash Apprentice
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2014
- Messages
- 99
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.
P.S. Hajime No Ippo Skin to replace Wireframe. **** it.
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.
P.S. Hajime No Ippo Skin to replace Wireframe. **** it.