Squirtle Squad (General Disc.)

[Aenglaan]

Question: Could you always angle Waterfall left and right? I never played Squirtle much in 2.5, and I know that move was changed, but I don't remember being able to to it straight up.

I believe that you're right, to some extent at least. I think you could somewhat angle Waterfall, but not to the extent in 2.6. I've also noticed that there's a few frames after activating the attack that you can switch the direction you use Waterfall. Unsure if this helps or hurts Squirtle, though.

 

[DMG]

Squirtle is veryyyy playable in 2.6 and minor changes have allowed him to vertically juggle much better (Uthrow less endlag seems like, Utilt slightly better, Uair trajectory or something? can't put my finger on it, waiting for patch notes)

He is pretty worthy of playing right now and it's happy to see.

 

[Planet Piss]

Non-Squirtle player here.

Can someone enlighten me as to why it was necessary to add guard frames to Squirtle's shell? In 2.5 I thought he was a bit of a pathetic character, but now I don't understand how to space against him. I kept getting hit through my nairs and bairs (DK); Squirt just seemed to ignore the fact that I was trying to zone him out and proceeded to fly through my moves on several occasions in a rather Sonicy fashion. I can understand guard frames on Boozer, who can't really defend himself to begin with, but Squirtle was already very mobile and small, making him difficult to hit. I understand how trash he was in 2.5, but this seems ridiculous.

TL;DR: Why does Squirtle keep blasting through my moves?

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Non-Squirtle player here.

Can someone enlighten me as to why it was necessary to add guard frames to Squirtle's shell? In 2.5 I thought he was a bit of a pathetic character, but now I don't understand how to space against him. I kept getting hit through my nairs and bairs (DK); Squirt just seemed to ignore the fact that I was trying to zone him out and proceeded to fly through my moves on several occasions in a rather Sonicy fashion. I can understand guard frames on Boozer, who can't really defend himself to begin with, but Squirtle was already very mobile and small, making him difficult to hit. I understand how trash he was in 2.5, but this seems ridiculous.

TL;DR: Why does Squirtle keep blasting through my moves?

Only his Smash attacks and the beginning of N-Air have medium armor; everything else is light armor. N-Air and B-Air should beat them after he takes the slighest bit of damage.

Just space him out better. His awful range makes going for grabs usually end up low-risk-high-reward for his opponents.

 

[Planet Piss]

Only his Smash attacks and the beginning of N-Air have medium armor; everything else is light armor. N-Air and B-Air should beat them after he takes the slighest bit of damage.

Just space him out better. His awful range makes going for grabs usually end up low-risk-high-reward for his opponents.

So if I treat the MU the same as I did in 2.5 with special attention to those moves, then I shouldn't have a problem with the armor?

Also I disagree a lot with trying to grab Squirtle to initiate combos. He's so mobile and small it's easy to whiff a grab, and said whiffs mean a good >50% (especially with the new update). I like to get dtilts and force a follow-up roll or stationary attack before I commit to a grab. Thanks though.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

So if I treat the MU the same as I did in 2.5 with special attention to those moves, then I shouldn't have a problem with the armor?

Also I disagree a lot with trying to grab Squirtle to initiate combos. He's so mobile and small it's easy to whiff a grab, and said whiffs mean a good >50% (especially with the new update). I like to get dtilts and force a follow-up roll or stationary attack before I commit to a grab. Thanks though.

Assuming you didn't use weak moves like Jab and sourspot B-Air to deal with spacing in 2.5, yeah.


Eh...He's still very susceptible to crouch canceling, and SDI'ing his combos up mitigates some of the damage. Just use your defensive options smartly and it shouldn't seem so bad. It's easy for Squirtle to run into moves because his general range is pretty lacking.

 

[DoH]

He's like Puff + Sonic if he were raised by Sheik. Too good, so much fun to play.

I'll probably be at Xanadu tomorrow and get to play with JCaesar and co.

 

[cmart]

Haha I'll try to be at Xanadu tomorrow just for that.

 

[SpiderMad]

Haha I'll try to be at Xanadu tomorrow just for that.

Why/What/Where/When/How Brawl Dair and not the 2.5 Dair? I mean I liked 2.5 Dair and Brawl Dair is okay but I'm just wondering why, is it better or worse and for what?

Also why didn't anyone mention slingshot to b-reverse water gun yet

 

[Burnsy]

shellshift/rar to anything is just so sexy now with that captain falcon air speed.

 

[cmart]

2.5 Dair wasn't reliably performing a role that wasn't covered better elsewhere (bubble) so it was natural to go back and revisit it. While the animation change may be subjective, the new tail intangibility, better linking, and significantly reduced cooldown make the move objectively better in more situations.

 

[RKM]

What is everyone's opinion of squirtle's new crawl tilt?
I think it's pretty sweet.

 

[SpiderMad]

2.5 Dair wasn't reliably performing a role that wasn't covered better elsewhere (bubble) so it was natural to go back and revisit it. While the animation change may be subjective, the new tail intangibility, better linking, and significantly reduced cooldown make the move objectively better in more situations.

I also remember you saying something about side-b is different so that it can off and on the edge of the stage without SD'ing or something. Can't find the post but I didn't understand, I'm not finding any grace to get back on once you go off or anything.

You don't press up-b for that anymore, you press A.
.

People are saying "Up-b out of quickdraw", but pressing A does that damaging splash thing: Do you have to cancel the withdraw with B and then Up-b or am I missing something?

 

[cmart]

Side B's aerial physics were tweaked so that it doesn't plummet as fast, although I doubt it's that noticeable tbh.

 

[Kally Wally]

I noticed it straight away, and I barely even play Squirtle.

 

[210stuna]

Still waiting for that official changelist.

Other than that, I played 2.6 Squirtle for awhile, and he seems heavier?
I'm glad they nerfed his up smash. I'll need to play with her more to understand what they changed from 2.5.

 

[QraQ]

I feel like squirtle flows a lot better now. And his crouch walk attack is soooo good.

 

[Bones0]

Unless I'm mistaken, they nerfed quite a lot of stuff... Usmash and up-B both seem to have much smaller hitboxes (maybe it's just the graphics, but it doesn't seem like it). Up-B was one of my main KO moves and now it frequently knocks opponents away during the rising part making it much less likely to finish with the sweetspot before they escape. This could also possibly be CPUs DIing out of it better than humans? Not sure. Usmash is still good, so that doesn't bother me too much. Water gun is still annoying because of how it just makes the opponent slide unless you're right next to them, in which case what use is a projectile?

I'd suggest changing it into a sort of short, cone-shaped, shotgun-style water blast (like this Fludd attack in Super Mario Sunshine). Give it decent KB on a small sweetspot next to Squirtle's head, an outer later of reduced KB, and then outside of that a slight pushback with no % (I'd prefer not having that part at all, but everyone seems insistent on having moves that push people around for some reason). Squirtle's KO ability is still his main problem, and nerfing up-B and usmash only made the problem worse. At least now he could have a horizontal KO move (fsmash is so slow it hardly counts) to catch people's juggle DI. If they DI away expecting a uair, you can Water Gun them in the face and send them flying. If they DI up to survive the WG, you can continue your juggle or up-B to KO. A simple and elegant mixup. It'd also give Squirtle a quick ground move with decent KB which he currently lacks. Ftilt is the best move for that kind of scenario atm, but no one's really afraid of missing DI on Squirtle's ftilt.

Dsmash seems to have reduced cooldown, so I'm happy about that. I think it's weaker, but I'll take actually being able to combo out of it any day. Dair is probably my favorite change. Idk if the team actually read my post suggesting a Fox-like drill, but that's basically what we got. The last hitbox popping them up was even better than what I had in mind as it lets you control whether you keep the opponent grounded or not. Not too familiar with how well it combos into utilt or other ground moves if you keep them grounded, but it's at least possible even if only at high percents, and you can always grab after to beat buffered shielding anyway (or pop them up so you don't have to worry about it in the first place).

I LOVE the new crawl attack, but I wish it would just be swapped with ftilt. I guess you'd lose angled ftilts, but the crawl attack is so much more useful that I'd probably use it in most of the scenarios I previously used ftilt in (and plenty in which ftilt would have been useless). I guess I'm really just saying to get rid of ftilt and replace it with the crawl attack (and just have no crawl attack). I hate waiting for Squirtle to go into the crouch before I can do the attack, and if I do it a bit early I ftilt. I guess I should just get better at executing it, but it just feels unintuitive to be doing the same exact input and receiving different attacks based on whether my WD lag or w/e is over long enough before the actual attack. Either way, whoever designed that attack should pat themselves on their back. I think redesigning all of the movement attacks of other characters in a similar way would do some good for P:M (Ike's, Sonic's, and Wario's side-B). A short, quick boost with a definitive ending point is much less flexible which actually encourages better spacing and situational awareness of when those moves will hit or not as opposed to using the move and adjusting your timing to suit almost any situation.

One specific thing I miss is being able to jump while turning around during withdraw. Not sure why that was removed, honestly... Uthrow and DA seem to have less cooldown, but I might just be imagining that. DA also seems stronger, but I never used that attack so I have no idea. lol Overall, pretty happy with the changes. I think turning water gun into a move with some decent KB will round out Squirtle well enough that he will feel well balanced.

 

[cmart]

Upsmash hitboxes are the same size, the top of the pillars do have less kb though. All in all I'd say it's a minor nerf to it's utility, especially in light of the fact that reverse hydroplaning was restored. Also you can still jump during withdraw turn iirc - at least I don't recall anyone removing that. Waterfall was made to require more thought and positioning to land the ending hit though. You'll have better luck connecting the middle to the end of the stream rather than trying to connect the whole thing. I'll admit it's probably much less useful as KO move, but it was never super useful since proper DI made it unreliable unless you were right at a low ceiling.

As far as Watergun concerns, I find if you do hit the damaging portions of an uncharged watergun it can lead to all sorts of minor set ups, like watergun -> ftilt or watergun -> jab. Keep in mind Squirtle's jab is frame 2 so you can fit it into a lot of places you might not think a followup is possible. Finally, Watergun now has three levels of charge, and the middle and full charge have been tweaked to link more water streams. While it's admittedly not the best thing ever, you can tack on 8->14 dmg from it fairly safely, which is totally a thing.

As for everything else, keep posting in depth feedback like this and we'll keep reading. I really appreciate it when anyone takes the time to communicate like that, positively or negatively. I know things can be difficult without a proper changelist, and I do apologize we've taken so long to get one out. If anyone has any questions on changes at this point, just ask away and I'll answer what I can.

 

[Rat]

I think i'm gonna try to stick with squirtle for awhile. I don't think he's a good character and he's got a ton of flaws. It'll be fun to figure out how to work around his limitations. Also he's a tiny turtle.


Some notes from smashfest/tournament thing yesterday:
Squirtle can Platform tech chase like a fiend - Dsmash covers every option.
Tech in place and Side Techs get hit.
Get-up attack loses because of dsmash's armor.

This can lead into an aerial combo or grab. From the grab you can uthrow them onto the top platform and then Dsmash again >:D

*New Idea, against faster falling characters I bet you could just let them land/tech on the same platform. Then just do another Dsmash. >>:D

 

[SpiderMad]

I think i'm gonna try to stick with squirtle for awhile.

I knew u'd do this, if I face you in tournament I get the option of facing your Wolf on my request

 

[IhaveSonar]

I mained Squirtle for a while in 2.5 but left him after I realized how bad his vertical comboing was.

I just tested him out extensively in 2.6, and he's everything I wished 2.5 had and more.

Great work, PMBR. Squirtle is much, much better now, and I intend to keep playing him.

That being said, y u kill waterfall >.>

 

[QraQ]

My 2.6 Squirt. Mind the pause.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpfjLKeAYJI&feature=youtu.be
Critiques?

 

[vidjogamer]

Yeah, I think the waterfall should have the same kind of hitbox as it did in 2.5

 

[Squartle]

My 2.6 Squirt. Mind the pause.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpfjLKeAYJI&feature=youtu.be
Critiques?

I've never seen shellshift shenanigans like that. I had trouble following the inputs you were using.

 

[Bones0]

I've never seen shellshift shenanigans like that. I had trouble following the inputs you were using.

That's because those weren't shell shifts, they were crouch attacks. lol

 

[QraQ]

That's because those weren't shell shifts, they were crouch attacks. lol

The ShellShift gimp at the start was legit shifting. But most others were crouch walk attacks. Such a good move placed on such a horrible button input lol.

 

[Nausicaa]

Not nearly enough mention of F-Tilt changes in here given how many people are talking about differences between 2.5 and 2.6.
WD > F-Tilt alone was the reason Squirtle was good in 2.5, and not just ok. Take that away and he wouldn't have been able to keep up with the developing meta-game at all. Now he has a lot of dynamics to him at the cost of losing the silly-single-dimensionalness of what that gave him.

He was touched like Sonic by the PMBR, and that touching made him feel like Sheik.

Squirtle is Sheik in Turtle form... Sheik must be master Splinter.

 

[GunBlaze]

Squirtle is Sheik in Turtle form... Sheik must be master Splinter.

Signatured

 

[Player -0]

What would Squirtle's tilted Down tilt be used for and does it have armor frames?

 

[Bones0]

WD ftilt was overrated

 

[Nausicaa]

I'm more overrated.
WD F-Tilt was too good to get attention. That's all.

 

[Ayo]

One specific thing I miss is being able to jump while turning around during withdraw. Not sure why that was removed, honestly...

This is seriously the biggest nerf to squirtle. I don't care how many little buffs he got, without this back im not playing him. I mained exclusively squirtle during 2.5, and the amount of versatility that gave your shellshift was unbelievable. Shellshift combos below 30% were a given and attacking with it was low risk because you could reverse jump out of it near the edges and on platforms. Now when you reach the edge of the stage with shellshift you have to get out of it waaay more slowly. Before you could also reverse jump on top of them if they dodged the attack, and even if they were shielding you could bounce off their shield to reduce your lag. There are just so many fewer options now with shellshift than 2.5, it really sucks.

Removing not-overpowered good options for a character as bad as squirtle is a bad way to balance the game.

 

[cmart]

Glad I can finally repost this from the changelist. While I sympathize with those who feel Squirtle lost something with the removal of jump from withdraw turn, not every change is a balance decision. Sometimes things have to go away because they're simply not presentable enough to meet our standards. Knowing that you guys relied on it that much, finding a way to bring it back properly will be explored. Till then, enjoy this "modest" collection of bufftweaks.

[collapse=Squirtle]
-Ground to Air physics and aerial friction adjusted so that Squirtle retains more momentum into the air
-Squirtle's hidden "Shades" no longer break unless Squirtle is sent into tumble from knockback
-Squirtle's Armor system was streamlined to match the new Project M standard of Light, Medium and Heavy Armor (note that Squirtle has no Heavy Armor).
-Squirtle flashes blue when he has Medium Armor, Side B duration and Watergun charge flashes changed to yellow to prevent confusion
-Aqua Jet has Medium Armor while Squirtle is in his shell
-Forward Smash, Down smash, and Neutral Aerial now have Medium Armor during the initial attack, and Light Armor during the remainder of the time Squirtle is in his shell
-Turnrun, Crawl Attack, and Withdraw now have Light Armor while Squirtle is in his shell
-Fixed > 100% ledge attack timer on hitboxes. Now actually hits properly
-Squirtle now has a crawl attack. He quickly spins forward in shell, popping an opponent up above him as he passes through
-Jab 1, 2 and 3 movement reduced and knockback tweaked to aid in linking all three hits
-Dash Attack covers more space during the initial lunge. Hits earlier and harder. Hit angles lowered to send foes further in front of Squirtle
-Forward Tilt start up and cooldown notably reduced.
-Forward Tilt's knockback power tweaked so that it has less punch at low percents, but is still comparable at high percent
-Forward Tilt and Down Tilt tail intangibility redone to ensure that all tail hurtboxes are unhittable while Squirtle is attacking
-Down Tilt animation sped up so that Squirtle attacks faster and with less time inbetween tail swipes. Second hit angle raised slightly
-Up Tilt reverted to a brawl-like animation
-Up Tilt base knockback reduced
-Forward Smash now retains previous momentum
-Up Smash now retains more reverse momentum, restoring the ability to perform Reverse Hydroplane Up smashes
-Up Smash's hitboxes at the top of the water pillars have slightly reduced knockback
-Down Smash start up increased, but cooldown was significantly reduced
-Down Smash's hitbox sizes were decreased and lowered to reduce vertical disjoint above Squirtle
-All of Down Smash's repeating hitboxes were homogenized to draw in, while the final hit is now a moderate strength pop-up above and behind Squirtle
-Neutral Aerial's lingering hit angle raised
-Neutral Aerial's landing lag now generates a splash instead of a dust cloud
-Forward Aerial's knockback was slightly increased
-Back Aerial and Up Aerial mismatched on-hit sound effects fixed
-Added a missing body hitbox during Up Aerial's initial hit, and pushed the outer hitbox out slightly
-Up Aerial's cooldown reduced
-Up Aerial and Down Aerial tail intangibility added while Squirtle is attacking
-Down Aerial reverted to a brawl-like animation
-Down Aerial hits more frequently and faster. Tweaked the linking hit's knockback to ease the difficulty in landing all the hits
-Down Aerial's final hit sends forward and base knockback increased
-Down Aerial's cooldown significantly reduced
-Turn Grab range increased
-Forward Throw and Up Throw cooldown reduced
-Neutral B stream hitboxes do reduced damage and knockback at a lower hit angle to aid in landing consecutive streams. Slightly increased the amount of the stream that only pushes with no knockback or damage
-Neutral B has a new mid-level charge that shoots eight streams with reduced duration and cooldown
-Neutral B full charge now shoots fourteen streams with reduced duration and cooldown
-Fixed a bug with Neutral B charge that could prevent his shield from being damaged
-Side B's Withdraw aerial physics and vertical momentum tweaked on startup to be more consistent
-Side B's Withdraw knockback growth decreased
-Side B's Withdraw can now fall off of edges while turning around
-Side B's Aqua Jet input changed from "Up B" to "A"
-Side B's Aqua Jet now has two frames of start-up
-Revamped positioning, sizing, and timing of initial hitboxes so that the sweespot comes out first and has greater priority among the other hitboxes
-Water burst hitboxes now only hit to the side of Squirtle, with decreased damage, hit angle, and knockback
-Lingering hitbox has a higher angle and increased base knockback
-Aerial control during Side B's Aqua Jet was removed entirely. You can still reverse it however
-Side B's Aqua Jet bug where it would would not rise when used out of hitstun fixed
-Side B's Aqua Jet landing lag slightly reduced
-Up B start up increased and movement speed increased. Animation edited to reflect changes and transition into special fall better
-Up B hitboxes decreased in size and rearranged to better cover Squirtle while reducing forward disjoint
-Up B linking hits reduced to two, knockback and SDI modifiers tweaked to make linking into the final hit more percent, DI, and weight/fall speed dependent[/collapse]

 

[Bones0]

What is the difference between hydroplaning and reverse hydroplaning?
What is turn grab range?

Really glad to see dsmash can indeed be used to combo. I didn't mess around with it too much so I was kinda worried it was a fluke from the CPU's DI. Definitely gonna try to work that into my game.

 

[Kyu Puff]

When you guys say he can't jump out of his withdraw turn, do you mean his turnaround animation or side-b? Don't have access to the game right now, but I'd be interested to know...

 

[Burnsy]

They mean his side-b, that move is called withdraw and his turnaround isn't. Also, its not that you can't jump out of it now, its that you can't withdraw jump in the opposite direction that you are going to quickly change directions.

You can still jump out of his turnaround animation, just like with all characters. Squirtle is the only one that gets a significant boost from doing so, however.

 

[cmart]

What is the difference between hydroplaning and reverse hydroplaning?
What is turn grab range?

Reverse hydroplaning is where you perform the inputs immediately - resulting in a backwards slide.
Turn Grabs are performed by holding back and grab during a run. They're a brawl thing that we've kept.

 

[Kyu Puff]

They mean his side-b, that move is called withdraw and his turnaround isn't. Also, its not that you can't jump out of it now, its that you can't withdraw jump in the opposite direction that you are going to quickly change directions.

Alright, I was just confused because I don't consider that as being central to his game, and people were talking like it was some huge nerf. As long as he can jump out of his turnaround animation it's all good.

 

[Bones0]

Reverse hydroplaning is where you perform the inputs immediately - resulting in a backwards slide.
Turn Grabs are performed by holding back and grab during a run. They're a brawl thing that we've kept.

So you can run right, turnaround very briefly, then usmash and continue going right? That sounds neat if that's the case.
Turn grabs also sound cool. I saw a video where I swore the player just crossed them up with a grab out of a run. I was so confused so that explains it. lol

Alright, I was just confused because I don't consider that as being central to his game, and people were talking like it was some huge nerf. As long as he can jump out of his turnaround animation it's all good.

Disabling withdraw turnaround jumps is a pretty big deal. It was the only thing preventing people from simply rolling through you when you withdraw at them. It only really affects situations where you withdraw towards someone in neutral, and withdrawing in neutral is overrated because people don't know specific ways to deal with it yet, so nerfing it even more doesn't seem to really raise the skill gap in withdraw usage. It just makes it ridiculously easy for opponents to dodge instead of actually having to deal with the move. It's comparable to a slo-mo Raptor Boost.