This is how I would change Hero

[xzx]

Hello everyone. Hero has been out for about a month now, and since then I've put many hours into the character. I feel like I have a good understanding of how this character works and what needs to be changed about him, both positively and negatively.

First off, this is NOT a "should Hero be banned or not"-thread. There has been several threads created for this discussion already, so please visit those threads if you want to discuss that matter. (But if you're for some reason curious to know my standpoint on that subject, then I can say that I am not in favour of a Hero ban simply because I believe stuff should only be banned if they're over-centralizing or broken.)

My viewpoint on Hero is that he is not a viable character, even with his RNG. He is very unsafe on shield, and many of his attacks have high startup lag and endlag. He loses hard to rushdown characters and is easily exploited offstage. On the other hand, his critical hits are ridiculous and some of his spells, such as Whack/Thwack and Magic Burst, needs to be toned down, since they are a bit too strong. In my opinion, his best tools are Zap and its variants + Frizz and its variants, and they are kept in check by costing MP. Overall, with all things considered, I simply don't believe Hero is a consistent character enough to be considered viable in the current metagame, but this could change in the future of course.

Now, for the changes I would make to Hero. My aim is to make him safer (read: SAFER, not SAFE) while weakening his "extremefactors" (such as the crits + T(Whack)). I won't go into any superdetails (well sometimes I do), but my aim is to give you a general idea of what needs to be buffed/toned down, etc. Overall I feel like Hero should be the "slow but powerful"-archetype with zoning capabilities. Okay, here we go:

General:

* Slightly higher fastfall speed and gravity
+ Higher aerial acceleration

Tilts:

+ F-tilt 2: less endlag
+ U-tilt: slightly less endlag, hitbox on the ground behind him so that it doesn't whiff
+ D-tilt: less endlag, angle from 77 > 90, damage from 7% > 7.5%

Smash attacks:
I wouldn't cry if the critical hits just disappeared, but since they imititate crits from the DQ games, they can stay.

- Make so that knockback values are compensated to the point that crits are as strong as the regular smash attacks. The only perks they now have is dealing extra damage, which is absolutely not a bad thing all things considered.

Grabs:

+ Slightly longer grabbox
+ Dash grab: startup from frame 9 > 8

Throws:

+ F-throw damage from 7% > 8%

Aerials:

+ F-air damage from 10%/12%/12% > 11%/13%/13% with compensated knockback
+ B-air startup from frame 18 > 17, damage from 12%/14%/14% > 14%/16%/16% with compensated knockback
+ U-air slightly bigger hitbox, damage from 7% > 7.5%, angle from 73 > 90

Specials:

+ Neutral-B charges in a similar way to other chargable projectiles. (It currently can only be charged to Frizzle, but wanting it to charge to Kafrizzle (from Frizzle) you must charge it all the way from the very beginning)
- Kafrizz: initial hit damage from 19% > 16% (total damage from 31% > 28%), last hit knockback slightly toned down

+ All variants of Side-B have added shield damage (from 0 > 2)
+ Kazap hit 1 (the thunderbolt) now sends opponents downwards into the rest of the hits. (Will function similarly to Pikachu's and Pichu's down-Bs)
- Kazap final hit damage from 16% > 13% (total damage from 38% > 35%)

+ Down-B now have symbols next to them that resemble the actual spell (to prevent language issues)
* Sizz and Sizzle probability swap. (Currently Sizzle has a higher chance of appearing than Sizz, despite it being the better variant of the two. Miss from Sakurai?)
* Bang and Kaboom probability swap. (Same reason as above)
* Whack and Thwack probability swap

- Oomph damage multiplier from x1.6 > x1.5
+ Acceleratle now affects all forms of mobilities (such as the aerial acceleration) and falling values, knockback received from x1.1 > x1.05
+ Heal heals more damage (from 11% > 13%), can't appear when at full health
+ Zoom MP cost from 8 > 3
+ Metal Slash less endlag, can now break King K. Rool's belly armor in one hit
+ Kaclang less endlag after the metal wears off (from -? frames > 0 frames), damage from 15% > 22% with compensated knockback, should flash white faster and faster when the metal is about to wear off
- Kaboom damage from 28% > 26% without knockback compensation
+ Hatchet Man now has superarmor
- Hatchet Man MP cost from 15 > 20
- Magic Burst slightly lower probability to appear, final hit deals much less knockback when MP is high/full, the attack itself is sped up
- Whack lower appearance rate, lower success rates, MP cost from 10 > 15
- Thwack lower appearance rate, lower success rates, slightly smaller hitbox
+ Hocus Pocus negative effect ratios lowered, positive effect ratios increased, poison spell self-inclicting damage from 27.5% > 15%

With all these changes he will become a true hero and go from zero to Hero and finally become viable, with his ridiculous stuff now being gone. What would you change about Hero? Thanks for reading!

 

[Jade_Rock]

Alright I like this. Better overall with tilts and air speed, but toned down specials.

Couple things, I don't think Kaclang should have 0 endlag, Kirby's stone does and he can be grabbed unlike hero.
Lower kazap knockback and Kabooms.

 

[Ryu Myuutsu]

I agree with adding symbols to his Down B so that players don't have an issue with the language barrier.

I would actually leave his specials untouched as they are already balanced out by different factors. Hero's Kafrizzle and Kazapple(?) consume a lot of MP which prevents them from being abusable; his Whack/Thawck and Magic Burst are strong because they come out randomly in his selection menu, the former can net a OHKO but its probability dependent and the latter is purposely overpowered because its power and range depends on MP amount, which gets drained entirely upon use. The Hero player has no control over which commands they get so weakening his strongest tools, decreasing their appearance rate or increasing the MP consumption without providing anything in return to his Down B does no favors to him.

 

[Ninjaed]

There are only 2 changes to make so far before we can properly judge anything:
- less MP gain when hitting shields and counters (yes, you still gain MP when countered)
- symbols/icons next to spells (to bypass the language barrier)

Many characters have access to strong, sometimes busted moves. But there's always a drawback. You have chargeable moves, Luigi's up B requiring you to hug the guy, same with Jiggly's rest, there's also Zelda's neutral B, PK Fire, etc etc... All those have counterplay. Hero has moves that are slightly stronger because of the MP mechanic. The one issue is that you can almost spend without counting. Make it harder to regain MP, Hero will have to think twice before casting stuff and be at a bigger disadvantage when low on MP.

 

[Flowen231]

I disagree with the direction of your change list tbh. I wouldn't mind a change to Hero up a bit, but heres what gets me:

I like hero the way he is now. He is very clearly below average when it comes to his normals and traits, but he makes up for it by having great specials and command options. In practice this doesn't usually work very well because it leaves hero very weak to being in disadvantage, and his neutral is pretty bad if you're low on mp or trying to conserve in general. But that isn't necessarily an issue because good mp management can mitigate the neutral issue, thus terning him into a character with a good neutral and a bad disadvantage.

And again I don't mind the direction you're going for, but your list seems more like an overall buff with very few and mostly insignificant drawbacks. Hence your hero would essentially keep his advantages but remove everything that counterbalances those advantages.


Changes that I'd make on your list: (no change = i like it)

Remove changes to f tilt, remove lag reduction for up tilt, remove changes for d tilt.

Give u smash some sort of grounded hitbox to catch people landing right on your shield.

Increase damage and knockback on fthrow (damage to 10)

Remove changes to Fair, Bair startup speed changed from 17 to 14 remove damage changes to bair.

As for the other end of the spectrum. Specials would need a big big nerf to compensate for the better neutral and disadvantage.

Kafrizz and Frizzle stay the same damage wise but cost more mp.

Change zap from 9-13 frames to 12-16. increase mp cost for zapple, reduce knockback growth on kazap's front hitbox by 60% (rear hitbox stays the same) lightning bolt does not drag down.

Keep probability swaps for down b.

remove changes to wack and thwack (these can be kinda lame but tbh getting one of these to actually work outside of regular kill percent is pretty rare.)

remove all positive changes on down b selection, instead heavily nerf all of hero's other down b tools. This is more case by case of course because theres tons of moves, but generally everything that you get out of down b has one or two exaggerated features. Flame slash having hella range, or kaboom sucking you in and dealing tons of damage and knockback, magic burst being so huge ect. All heavily exaggerated features should be heavily nerfed to normalize all of down b.


Again, no hate for hero, I love the way he is now since I enjoy extreme opposites, but if you did want to make him more balanced/standardized, these changes would more or less make him a typical swordy, although not as good in neutrals but having some ok long range tools to make up for that little gap.

 

[xzx]

Alright I like this. Better overall with tilts and air speed, but toned down specials.

Couple things, I don't think Kaclang should have 0 endlag, Kirby's stone does and he can be grabbed unlike hero.
Lower kazap knockback and Kabooms.

The problem is that, in theory, every character can get a free fully-charged smash attack after Kaclang wears off if they know exactly when to release it. Like someone said, it's basically a glorified shieldbreak for the opponent. Making it 0 frames of (dis)advantage essentially means that Hero can pull up his shield to block an incoming attack, which can still shieldbreak. (Shield comes out on frame 1.) Or the opponent can grab him after it wears off, prediciting the shield. Kaclang's function is to avoid damage after all, so it doesn't make any sense to me that he will most likely get a fatal blow anyway after Kaclang wears off. As for Kazap and Kaboom, yeah, my changes to them will lower their knockback. (Lower damage also means lower knockback.)

I agree with adding symbols to his Down B so that players don't have an issue with the language barrier.

I would actually leave his specials untouched as they are already balanced out by different factors. Hero's Kafrizzle and Kazapple(?) consume a lot of MP which prevents them from being abusable; his Whack/Thawck and Magic Burst are strong because they come out randomly in his selection menu, the former can net a OHKO but its probability dependent and the latter is purposely overpowered because its power and range depends on MP amount, which gets drained entirely upon use. The Hero player has no control over which commands they get so weakening his strongest tools, decreasing their appearance rate or increasing the MP consumption without providing anything in return to his Down B does no favors to him.

I understand where you're coming from, but as of right know I think his Whack + Thwack and Magic Burst are a little too rewarding for the relatively low commitment they have. Sure, you need to be lucky to get/trigger them, but I think it is a little bit unfair that at around 80% or so Whack/Thwack are more likely to KO the opponent than not. And Magic Burst is a bit too rewarding with not that much commitment to boot. Of course, I don't want to slaughter these moves, I just want them to be toned down a bit. As for his side-Bs and neutral-Bs, I also think they are mostly fine, but their fully-charged variants are bit too strong so tuning them down a little seems just fair in my eyes, especially with the other suggested buffs I "gave" them.

There are only 2 changes to make so far before we can properly judge anything:
- less MP gain when hitting shields and counters (yes, you still gain MP when countered)
- symbols/icons next to spells (to bypass the language barrier)

Many characters have access to strong, sometimes busted moves. But there's always a drawback. You have chargeable moves, Luigi's up B requiring you to hug the guy, same with Jiggly's rest, there's also Zelda's neutral B, PK Fire, etc etc... All those have counterplay. Hero has moves that are slightly stronger because of the MP mechanic. The one issue is that you can almost spend without counting. Make it harder to regain MP, Hero will have to think twice before casting stuff and be at a bigger disadvantage when low on MP.

That's another approach Hero could take, but I don't think those changes will necessarily tune down his best RNG tools. Again, I don't want to nerf Hero (my list is actually more buffs and fixes), I just want his strongest/"busted" moves to get toned down. IMO even after the nerfs I gave them they would still be good moves.

I disagree with the direction of your change list tbh. I wouldn't mind a change to Hero up a bit, but heres what gets me:

I like hero the way he is now. He is very clearly below average when it comes to his normals and traits, but he makes up for it by having great specials and command options. In practice this doesn't usually work very well because it leaves hero very weak to being in disadvantage, and his neutral is pretty bad if you're low on mp or trying to conserve in general. But that isn't necessarily an issue because good mp management can mitigate the neutral issue, thus terning him into a character with a good neutral and a bad disadvantage.

And again I don't mind the direction you're going for, but your list seems more like an overall buff with very few and mostly insignificant drawbacks. Hence your hero would essentially keep his advantages but remove everything that counterbalances those advantages.


Changes that I'd make on your list: (no change = i like it)

Remove changes to f tilt, remove lag reduction for up tilt, remove changes for d tilt.

Give u smash some sort of grounded hitbox to catch people landing right on your shield.

Increase damage and knockback on fthrow (damage to 10)

Remove changes to Fair, Bair startup speed changed from 17 to 14 remove damage changes to bair.

As for the other end of the spectrum. Specials would need a big big nerf to compensate for the better neutral and disadvantage.

Kafrizz and Frizzle stay the same damage wise but cost more mp.

Change zap from 9-13 frames to 12-16. increase mp cost for zapple, reduce knockback growth on kazap's front hitbox by 60% (rear hitbox stays the same) lightning bolt does not drag down.

Keep probability swaps for down b.

remove changes to wack and thwack (these can be kinda lame but tbh getting one of these to actually work outside of regular kill percent is pretty rare.)

remove all positive changes on down b selection, instead heavily nerf all of hero's other down b tools. This is more case by case of course because theres tons of moves, but generally everything that you get out of down b has one or two exaggerated features. Flame slash having hella range, or kaboom sucking you in and dealing tons of damage and knockback, magic burst being so huge ect. All heavily exaggerated features should be heavily nerfed to normalize all of down b.


Again, no hate for hero, I love the way he is now since I enjoy extreme opposites, but if you did want to make him more balanced/standardized, these changes would more or less make him a typical swordy, although not as good in neutrals but having some ok long range tools to make up for that little gap.

Well, not necessarily. After my changes, he would still be easily exploited offstage and still be an unsafe character. He would still lose to rushdown characters etc. I want him to be safer on shield on some of his moves, since they're simply too laggy. Many characters can get a free smash attack on him after blocking some (if not most) of his attacks. Thanks for your inputs though, they are appreciated nonetheless!

 

[1FC0]

What I like about Hocus Pocus being mostly negative is that such spells punish Hero for randomly using spells. Though I think that spells like Magic Burst and Kamikaze do that in a better way. They give huge punishment to random spell usage yet at the same time are useful and do not waste a spell slot.

 

[shinhed-echi]

OLd topic bump.

Now that I’ve played Hero non-stop since release, here are the vague changes I would make. (Not going to go into numbers).

Wack/Kathwack:
I don’t feel ok using these moves.
I would replace at least one of them with Buff/Kabuff (increase weight and reduce damage taken)

Metal Slash:
It's a terrible move. I'd replace it with Miracle Slash (basically, a sword attack that when connecting, casts Heal on you).


As for the icons, I think it's a great idea. I would include them too.
But the more I think about it, I think having a specific image show exactly what spell it is, isn't the way to go. It's still going to be confusing until your brain can process the information in a few blinks of an eye.

So my idea is that there are only 5 symbols. Which are the same ones from Dragon Quest XI.
These symbols, if I recall correctly, are:

-RED Crescent Moon - Offense spells (Sizz, Sizzle, Bang, Kaboom)
-BLUE Arrow UP - Buff spells (Acceleratle, Psyche Up, Oomph)
-GREEN Drop of some sort - Healing spells. (Heal, Zoom(in context of Smash))
-PURPLE Arrow DOWN - Debuff spells (Snooze)
-GRAY Sword symbol? - Weapon abilities (Flame Slash, Kackrackle Slash, Kamikazee)

So the idea is that if you see a RED symbol, you should definitely bring your shield up, cause you know there's a projectile coming your way.
If you see BLUE or GREEN better go try to stop him from buffing/healing.
If you see GRAY, try to keep your distance, as these are powerful short range attacks.

Or maybe put Kamikazee, Magic Burst, Kacklang, and Hocus Pocus all under a different color.

But that's my train of thought for changes on Hero's spells.


As for other moveset changes..
Ftilt coming out faster would be really appreciated.

 

[Ninjaed]

I wholly agree with the colour scheme you're suggesting, it'd help the flow of the game greatly. For instance, you're offstage so you're looking for zoom... well, just try to find green. If there's no green, don't think, just reroll. Much faster than spending time reading or trying to recognise the shape of the word. More accurate too. I just wouldn't put Kamikazee as a weapon ability (you forgot Metal Slash btw) but in another colour like you later said.

F-tilt coming out faster could be nice, but what I'd love would be more hitstun on D-tilt so it can actually start combos! It can 2-frame and sends opponents at a great angle for a F-air, but they'll always double jump or airdodge out, sometimes even punish you... D-tilt would be an amazing move if not for that.

 

[TriforceBun]

Mechanically, I like the idea of having symbols, but...I really think Hero would be too powerful at that point. Giving that extra bit of clarity would make Down-B an even stronger "move," so I think they'd have to nerf most of the Command Selection spells to balance it out.

 

[Flowen231]

Mechanically, I like the idea of having symbols, but...I really think Hero would be too powerful at that point. Giving that extra bit of clarity would make Down-B an even stronger "move," so I think they'd have to nerf most of the Command Selection spells to balance it out.

Agreed ;p. But in the context of this thread OP is making the point that hero in general doesn't do very well in competitive play and he wants a straight up hero buff. Symbols wouldn't make down be better strictly speaking though, in a lot of ways it would make down B weaker since counterplay to that is reading as fast/faster than the hero player.