WoT.
@bubbaking whats different about nair? it seems the same to me
also rob is terrible now like wtf
If you're referring to my statement about Zard's nair, it's hitbox has a lot less coverage now. It doesn't start behind him anymore; it starts behind
and above him. It may look the same to non-Zard mains, but for us Zards, that initial behind hitbox was absolutely crucial in retaliating OoS when the opponent was behind us. Now it doesn't hit that area until the tail comes back around, which is way too long. Tbh, I wouldn't even have minded much if the PMBR just toned down its range a little (I agree that the distance it scoops under plats is a bit ridiculous), but the hitbox placement was VITAL because Zard already has a tough time getting out of shield pressure reliably. Via RAR nair, it was also a good approach option, another area which, frankly, Zard isn't the best at or even awesome at.
IMO, his nair change was his second most important change after the recovery. Together, these things just make Zard a worse character, which is confusing to me since I wasn't aware that Zard was such a great character who broke all the rules of Smash, especially when every character introduced seems to break some big rule.
You and I are gonna have to agree to disagree about ROB, but all the ROBs up here in MD/VA aka ROB-land (myself, JC, Bstuk, etc.) seem to think that ROB got mostly buffs. SideB reflects a LOT earlier, which makes it a really good approach option now against projectile spammers. During our first 2.6 tourney over here, I got to face one of our top Wolf players, and I can definitely attest to the fact that his sideB actually has great use now. Definitely should make fighting Wolf and Falco a lot easier. It
seems like ROB also runs faster, and people were telling me that his DD is better, so I'm going to assume that's in, too. Boost regain mechanics are less janky; he gets them back when caught on a TC. Last but not least, from what I could personally observe, his uair is a lot better for comboing now because it carries the opponent to the last hit with its multi-hits, which gives ROB more frame advantage for comboing. That and it also applies pressure more effectively against opponents shielding on plats above ROB.
Oh, also, it looks like dair keeps more of ROB's horizontal momentum, so now he can do something I'm going to coin 'dair-gliding'. It's really useful offstage for recovery, like after a boost, and it's also nice onstage. It can be used to kinda 'glide' between platforms while covering the space below him with a hitbox. ROB is def better, imo.
Nerfs that would make someone think ROB might be "terrible" now? Well, his uair seems somewhat weaker, in exchange for being multi-hit, and his dthrow has noticeably more KBG, so dthrow > nair doesn't quite work at kill %'s on most chars anymore. Nair kinda feels like it's also a little weaker, so I'm suspecting that ROB got the 2.1 Lucario treatment here (nerf his combo throw AND his kill move out of said combo throw), but that's fine to me. Just dthrow > (boost) uair instead and then proceed to gimp/KO with fairs, more uairs, and lasers.
Charizard's Nair, aka the most obnoxious aerial not on a spacie, doesn't hit exactly where it used to anymore. Yup, they made an attack less insane and someone complained. Not a pattern at all.
For the most part, the direction of 2.6 seems to be "make characters normalized, see what the overall design does, and /then/ we will tweak the cast to compensate" rather than the tried and untrue alternative "from scratch, let's try to make everyone not named DDD godlike and water down from there".
Lolz, the most obnoxious everything not on a spacee in 2.5b was on Sheik or Sonic. I'm not going to say that the move wasn't obnoxious, but I'm saying the
wrong thing about it was nerfed. Yeah, let's get rid of Zard's OoS options, but let's keep spacees, Sheik, Peach, Mario bros, etc. the same with their excellent nairs AND bairs for getting out of pressure
along with good OoS specials. Yep, seems perfectly fair.
I don't know what "normalization" you are seeing here in Zard (ftr, I do agree that 2.6 seems more 'normalized' overall), but I'm just seeing the removal of tools that let him compete in the first place. But hey, if this kind of change is what you're fine with, then you should have no problem whatsoever with the new Sonic.
Also, the concept of "normalization" in a Smash game is kinda funny when you consider that every Smash game has centered around featuring characters who break some sort of commonly accepted 'rule' in one way or another. Project M is no different.