Sonic+ ~UPDATED OP 11/15/09~

[Isatis]

Plenty of people can wall Sonic. The invincibility is hardly practical but it helps, and combo breakers really shouldn't be worthy of concern. If the opponent gets punished for being overaggressive thats their own fault, its easy to outspace nair.

The new nair wouldn't change too many matchups but it would make some easier to deal with for sure. It could help him approach, while the side-B fix I made would let him get through projectile walls (Though most likely having to do some work to actually punish them.)

I don't see what the big deal is with invincibility on Sonic. In fact I wouldn't even warrant him good with the rejected changes. Terrible waste of a potential character. The new Bair speed-up is hardly helpful and neutral-B was left useless.

The idea with Sonic is that while he lacks the range and superior punch(lol) Falcon might have as a similar character, he can take advantage of more openings and feel safer doing it. However, as it stands now hes fairly trite. Many moves fulfill the same purpose, contradict each other, or are simply filler. The character makes no sense and definitely isn't an appealing choice for complacent contender in the slightest. Anyone who has a clue with the matchup will shrug him off, and anyone who doesn't wants to leave him an unorganized gimmick.

This.

Triangle.

 

[cobaltblue]

If your opponent is getting rocked by the improved nair, I'd hate to see them go up against D3 and his new trip smash.

 

[GHNeko]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqfbO2FczYo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFeSd5idVLE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9k98N2kDlA

Espy's Sonic in B+ is hilarious but soo good in doubles.

 

[cobaltblue]

Watching those vids make realize the irony that the fastest ground char in this game is all about launching the opponent into the air and dominating with aerial moves.

Still, amazing edge guarding, he practicably had sonic flying in that last link.

 

[Sh4dey]

I played Sonic in B+ for about 2 weeks, keeping up with updates...but too lazy to keep up with these B+ boards so forgive me if I go over something that has already been pointed out..and I can go on and on about Sonic but I plan to keep my visit here short so I'm only hitting on keypoints in Sonic gameplay.
I'm no known pro (yet) but I'am a tourney viable Sonic (now lol) in vBrawl, it just feels that you made two times faster but made him two times harder to play as and two times easier to kill.
He has the speed feel that I at least wished for in vBrawl which is a good thing, but You took too much away from Sonic.
For example, now projectile based Chars (Samus, Wolf, Falco, etc) now **** harder like never before when against me.
Spinshot is near useless now since he falls so fast, it used to be a great option for closing the gap when used right. but all I can do now is run&shield, which can get exploited easily by mindgaming a projectile into a grab, but If the Sonic knows this is coming he has to still keep distance and hope the opponent misjudges range and whiffs a throw (unlikely in high level play) while still (barely) dodging lazers...which keeps you still at bay and defeats the purpose of all the shielding running in the first place....I know you have to work for your kills in vBrawl but doing all that in B+ is ridiculous.

Nearly all his mindgame potential with hiz spinz flew out the window in B+, You might as well tear out your B button when using Sonic now. It's near useless to try and mindgame the spinz at high level. All that knock back and hitstun with spindash has now is near useless if you cant really get it to combo properly. Spindash to F-air in vbrawl was more consistent and easy to perform than it is now. It feels like I'm charging a oneshot cannon or a jigglypuff spin, like a onehit wonder move now that doesn't K.O.. Spinz was never that good of a approach but now it's even worse. Anyone with good DI sense or good sense in general could avoid almost any followup from it except just maybe U-air...which to me U-air is too good, the disjointed brokeness is funny in B+.

The momentum is something to be laughed a little because if Sonic's true speed was unleased when he jumped from running he would fly off the stage into the blastzone very quickly lol. But anyway That momentum is something that's wierd, it's probably something I have to get used to but It's harder to get into a gimping position offstage, I have to jump like three times early and let momentum carry me in order to not jump clear off the map and missing my chance of offstage/gimp play/chance.

It feels like you guys took away Sonic's "I hit you and Now catch me if you can" style play from him, and making him into a repititive agressive low priority Fox/CF mix minus the intense kill moves type character . Espy's gameplay videos in B+ proves my point in the agressiveness/repetitive area...It's like a "WTF is Sonic now" when watching him. Just dash dance to grab constantly to Nair and you win ...No matter how pretty the new dashdance looks...it's still wrong...

You should take a look at balancedBrawl's Sonic and mesh together. They didn't mess up the flow of Sonic but they did make him crappy as a character by under-powering him. I think the best thing they added to Sonic was making his spring sem-spike people.

TL;DR
As a strong Sonic Main I feel that:
Sonic just fails in Balanced Brawl, Sonic is a robot in B+, Sonic Sucks in vBrawl.

but to make Sonic better in B+:
Try to balance the ying and yang's of Sonic. Sonic is two playstyles in one. He is Spinbased and Run-based.
Power is not better in Sonic terms, Get rid of the spindash knockback, make his spindash usuable/combo-able again.
Make him a gimping god not a techchasing wonder.
Make the spring a spike lol.
edit: Oh and a Insta-Shield wouldn't hurt. lol
That's all I was able to find in the 2 weeks I've been playing.

 

[Isatis]

Off-topic but, how many Sonic (or Sonic+) users live in MD?

But Sh4dey you do have very good points.

 

[Ryose]

Off-topic but, how many Sonic (or Sonic+) users live in MD?

But Sh4dey you do have very good points.

Sonic users in MD....me

 

[cobaltblue]

They did attempt the spike spring Sh4dey but they got rid of it due to the fact it was far too overpowered. You're right though, no one really knows how to treat the character in B+ and have just been satisfied with his low level match showings due to how pretty they look. However like you've stated all the dancing around fails when you hit high level play and get shut down by anyone with a projectile, high priority, or disjointed hit boxes.

O and add insta shield to that list of improvements

 

[GHNeko]

Blame the Sonic+ mains and their non-stop *****ing with each other for several pages around the beginning of the thread. e__e

A hit and run playstyle in B+ is not a very good one though becase of wasted potential in a game about combos. I can tell you that though.

And btw, Espy doesnt play B+ normally so he was still experimenting with Sonic. That nair abuse came after I told him Nair was buffed. lol.

 

[cobaltblue]

Blame the Sonic+ mains and their non-stop *****ing with each other for several pages around the beginning of the thread. e__e

A hit and run playstyle in B+ is not a very good one though becase of wasted potential in a game about combos. I can tell you that though.

And btw, Espy doesnt play B+ normally so he was still experimenting with Sonic. That nair abuse came after I told him Nair was buffed. lol.

But Up-Smash is serz business!

Anyways, has anyone taken a look of the budding tier list so far in the workshop forum? It seems like it is mirroring the VB one only with the marth match not being so one sided and him having an advantage on fox. I know it isn't the holy truth yet but interesting none the less.

 

[Adobo916]

I too have played Sonic in Balanced Brawl. And yeah that spring as awesome as it is, It makes Sonic really really powerful. However playing B+ Sonic is incredibly fun, I've been bothered by 2 very small things. 1 being my main issue since vBrawl in general is the homing attack. It waaay to laggy when hitting anything and you can easily get punished just by a simple shield and smash. Now Im not saying make it godly fast but if I remember correctly in Sonic Adventure that thing was spamable, I dont wanna see that but a slight less lag on the landing frames would be perfect, at least to follow up with Nair, Fair, etc. I see the same lag on the Bair too but its not as bad. OR if it where at all possible have the homing attack hit in a quick succession like 2-3 times or so with little to no knockback and lock the B moves until you land, kinda like Up-B. Dunno I just thought about it since it bugged me from the start, Im pretty happy with the way he is now but Im sure suggestions wouldn't hurt. Also the spiking spring would be nice if it wasn't as powerful. /mild rant

~Adobo

 

[Kei_Takaro]

Some wierd thing when swtiching to Sonic+ is that I use spins more often, and I barely use it before.
One thing that I almost never have used in plus were Dsmash and Usmash for some wierd reason.

 

[Dark Sonic]

Some wierd thing when swtiching to Sonic+ is that I use spins more often, and I barely use it before.
One thing that I almost never have used in plus were Dsmash and Usmash for some wierd reason.

I can understand d-smash (somewhat?), but not using upsmash? It's his best anti air move, with it's high priority, long duration, and combo ability afterwards.

 

[Blank Mauser]

Someone should inform Shanus of our discontent.

I'm not going to do it, that dude scares me.

 

[cobaltblue]

I believe this is the thread to inform him. Or at least anyone that matters as I think Dark Sonic is part of the backroom.

 

[shanus]

Someone should inform Shanus of our discontent.

I'm not going to do it, that dude scares me.

boo

and you know when you made all those changes, everyone in the BR didn't like them, not just me

 

[Blank Mauser]

Dark Sonic and GHNeko liked some of them, and with me and BionicSonic that pretty much makes the few people in the BR who care about this character.

Some of them could've used some fine-tuning, and its probably my fault for not getting them in sooner before the deadline, but at least acknowledge this is still far from the ideal solution.

Just sayin, next set Sonic needs some new shoes and rings. If I don't get to bling him out I just hope someone can get behind it.

 

[cobaltblue]

I at appriceate the words blank.

Well since we still have a few more months before the next build, how is sonic currently doing is far as tournaments and such? Has sonic graduated yet from being the Dan of smash?

 

[GHNeko]

No one is playing him. At all.

 

[Isatis]

No one is playing him. At all.

Nobody is playing him because he isn't worth playing

 

[GHNeko]

Which is a odd considering he's one of the more popular characters in Brawl despite his low/mid tier status.

You'd think people would stay faithful. I know I would if I played him.

 

[cobaltblue]

Which is a odd considering he's one of the more popular characters in Brawl despite his low/mid tier status.

You'd think people would stay faithful. I know I would if I played him.

People are probably just frustrated at this point because he is (ironically) left behind again. He really is at this point the equivalent of street fighter Dan in terms of high lvl play. It also does not help that the only thing sonic really offers is fast running speed which is now gone as captain falcon does almost the same thing and everything else better.

Putting aside(trying) rabid fanboism, I really think the insta flash move would help with this if only to give him something to approach with and negate the fact all of his moves can be canceled out by 90% of the casts' jab.

But enough of my *****ing, anyone else have anything to report/add in terms of sonic's current match ups?

 

[Isatis]

Which is a odd considering he's one of the more popular characters in Brawl despite his low/mid tier status.

You'd think people would stay faithful. I know I would if I played him.

I'm still a big fanboy of Sonic so it's hard for me to drop him...however, if you talk to the vBrawl Sonic's, they don't like the changes he has. I even invited the best Sonic in MD over to my house and he doesn't like it compared to an older set he had.

 

[GHNeko]

Maybe, we just need to start over straight from scratch.

 

[Blank Mauser]

Check out the Sonic pac I posted in the BR. He was pretty much fine, even the HA canceling couldn't have gotten too far out of hand. It was simply a radical addition with Sonic being able to land instantly, but the options he had out of it were still limited to a few telegraphed moves.

Honestly a bit more tweaking to balance reward for his kill moves so they can each serve their own purposes and then I would've called him at least mid-tier but not high-tier in the least. People are just scared a bit of invincibility and priority is going to be too good at "breaking combos," which is really just punishing overaggressive opponents.

Polish the grabs a bit more and he'd be good to go for solid testing and play, and the silly stuff of the previous sets with the overly fast smashes and mediocre conflicting changes will be forgotten.

 

[yami_sora]

You really think Sonic is going to be the lowest ranked character in Brawl+? I don't understand why, does he just not have the tools to be a good character or is there some sort of bias in the BR where most of them just hate the character Sonic out of principle and want him to suck?

 

[GHNeko]

I dont think he's the lowest ranking characters. hell. I dont think anyone can pin point his placement really.

It's just the the development of Sonic started with scratchy codes and a multitude of people that didn't know what the **** they wanted to do with Sonic.

And we built off that.

He has plenty of tools that can make him good. The only real issues with him is that a multitude of his metagame was trashed because his character specific ATs became a roster-wide mechanic for the whole roster to use, taking away from how you play Sonic. His special skills became useless.

The guy needs to be resetted. Get a blank pac, and work from scratch.

Turn this guy into a serious ****ing project.

 

[Xzax Kasrani]

Sonic sucks. I read Yes! and outplayed him and still got 2 stocked. What a bad character lol

 

[GHNeko]

>_>

Where are you coming from.

 

[cobaltblue]

You really think Sonic is going to be the lowest ranked character in Brawl+? I don't understand why, does he just not have the tools to be a good character or is there some sort of bias in the BR where most of them just hate the character Sonic out of principle and want him to suck?

Honestly I think he will be the lowest in his current form. That doesn't necessary mean he will be "lol fail" but rather that he'll probably be a character you simply pass over for anything beyond friendlies or showing off. All you really have to ask yourself is "what does sonic offer that character X doesn't do better and with half the effort?"

V also hit it on the nail about his ATs being destroyed by the physics themselves.

 

[GHNeko]

My issue is that I don't want to retool Sonic around the basis of his original metagame, which is bait and punish, because not only are the tools he have no longer exclusive to him and everyone can use half of his AT game, but it's simply a playstyle that got hurt severely in Brawl+, so crafting Sonic around that, I imagine, would hurt him a lot.

We need to take a canonical approach to this really. Pick a direction and stick to it. :V

 

[yami_sora]

Well it's good to know that you guys feel so strongly about this whole thing. I know I don't have much of a voice here but do you really think the BR would be okay with start Sonic over from scratch? Based on what I've read a lot of people just don't want to bother working with him at all and are content at keeping him crappy. I know I'd love to see Sonic become a competitive character. I'm not saying that he has to be top tier, but at least the top of mid tier isn't too much to ask right? That said, I was really interested in what you meant when you said you wanted to pick a direction and stick to it. What ideas do you have in mind?

Since the fact that he's so fast doesn't really hold any water in B+ what could you do with Sonic given the tools he has. Even with a blank .pac, which I support by the way, what kinds of things would you like to see Sonic doing? Better comboability, better gimps, better ground kill potential? He seems like he could do any of those things if you really wanted him to. I know a lot of people have huge issues with trying to relearn a character, that's why there are a lot of people that are hesitant to switch to Brawl+ in the first place. But I think that if you truly made Sonic out to be someone worth playing, that learning curve would be worth it.

Maybe a good place to start would be to decide that right now in Brawl+ what are Sonic's best and worst features. You can approach using his current .pac or what he would be like what a blank one and build from there. I think that if there were a few dedicated people who worked on Sonic and cared about the character and knew what they were doing with him it would be better than a bunch of people supplying code left and right. Maybe considering how he played isn't something you want to think about now, because as you said, the way he played now, the things that made him stand out, apply almost globally to Brawl+.

Sorry for the wall of text, I was just putting out my two cents. I hope that you guys do keep working on the character though and I appreciate the time that you put into him.

 

[Kitamerby]

Near-instant HA needs to be reconsidered.

Only bad people who don't know the move would call the idea broken, lol.

 

[GHNeko]

If it was up to me, I'd make Sonic as Old Skool Canon as possible, because I'm just a Sega/Sonic Fanboy like that. :V

By picking a direction and sticking with it. I'm talking about, we figured out what we want to do with Sonic and simply go from there.

Just as you mentioned, I was thinking of listing out EVERYTHING about this character. The good. The bad. The meh. His strengths. His Weakness. Everything.

Figure out what possible styles would work for him. Figure out which of these would naturally mess with his strengths. Taylor him into a legit character.

There are plenty of ways to go about this. We just need to, you know, not suck. :V

 

[yami_sora]

I agree with you completely about making him old school and share your sentiments exactly. That said though, wouldn't that require pretty heavy use of PSA, which Brawl+ is trying to avoid? I don't know how much help I would be but I wouldn't mind helping you come up with a list of things that he's good at and that he's bad at.

To me, Sonic's strengths are his obvious speed and that he can be fairly difficult to gimp with his recovery. On the bad side obviously he still doesn't have much kill potential and that really hurts him. You can only do so many up throws into up airs before your opponent catches on. What if you made Sonic's up throw more difficult to DI, or sent it at a different angle so you could mix up with the forward throw as well.

Could you elaborate a bit on some of your ideas to give him some 16-bit roots?

 

[GHNeko]

Brawl+ already uses PSA. A huge portion of character changes have been ported to PSA already.

 

[yami_sora]

Yeah I guess that's true. I meant more like changing what a move does entirely, like Phoenix Mario or something. Of course I don't mean making him broken or anything, just like what moves would you alter, if any? Could you do something like giving his down tilt a static knockback and letting into combo into an up tilt, and then boost the up tilt to be a reasonable kill move? I wouldn't say that's unfair as long as it wasn't killing at like 90% or something really low.

 

[GHNeko]

First off, before even thinking about random moves that he has. Can you list what Sonic is and isnt?

I don't play Sonic in Smash, and I'm only good with Sonic in Sonic 2 and Sonic 3&K. :V

 

[yami_sora]

Sonic is:
-very fast (derp)
-good at getting out of tough situations
-difficult to gimp (good recovery options)
-able to deal out a fair amount of damage
-useful in the air

Sonic isn't:
-good at killing
-able to approach anyone to save his life
-good at fighting on the ground or without platforms
-varied at all in his attacks which can lead to being predictable

Please help contribute and edit my list as you see fit. Even if you think mine is completely wrong that's fine. I think Sonic's 2 biggest strengths are his speed and his recovery. His two biggest weaknesses are ability to kill and ability to approach. Of course, those two weaknesses are brutal.

To improve his game he should have a few reliable methods of approach so that it doesn't become predictable. I agree with your idea of making the nair a good candidate for this right away. I'm not sure what else we could do though. As far as killing goes, I don't think he's ever going to get a good ground game, as much as I wouldn't be opposed to buffing the strength of his fsmash or dsmash. So we'd have to rely on his air moves instead.

Anyone else have any input?

 

[GHNeko]

Canonical approach to Nair, SideB/DownB, and HA.

Sonic's attacks are extremely slow in proportion to his ground speed.

and for such a high ground speed, he's consistantly in the air as well.

His aerial momentum is huge though which is good for aerial chasing, but it iffs his linking abilities up.

He has some tech chasing options, its just that the options arent that good.