T
tasteless gentleman
Regarding how ledges affect the 'value' of infinites, infinites always become more viable or less viable depending on how difficult they are to set up. The b-throw infinite for Icies not only needs to be near a ledge, it needs to be facing in a specific direction and is incredibly difficult to execute properly. Outside of that setup, they have no proper infinites. F-throw/d-throw handoffs near the ledge are not technically an infinite though they can still be brutal and can usually take a stock. They're a part of the Icies' punish game, and arguably the strongest part considering good DI done properly can gut all their chaingrabs. An infinite that requires some significant degree of setup (by 'setup' I mean a process more complicated than 'grab opponent', which can be pretty damn difficult as Melee and Brawl have demonstrated but is still kind of silly), as opposed to a 'touch of death' infinite like Wobbling where all you need to do is connect one attack and then don't screw up the rhythm from there, becomes more of a specific tool than a dominating, all-encompassing tool
kit. That's what ledge handoffs are: a tool to use when you've pushed your opponent to the ledge. Without them, I would argue Icies would be much worse than they are, and have a much harder time killing at the very least. They've become an integral part of their punish game without becoming the only thing in their kit worth using.
In this case, the B-throw infinite doesn't dominate their toolkit because it's so specific that to date nobody has ever seen seen an Icies player pull it off in tournament (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). The Icies were considered so stupid in Brawl because their chaingrabs were the only aspect of their kit worth pursuing, were responsible for a very high amount of their results, and essentially dominated the meta in a very harsh way. Ledge handoffs have never reached that level of dominance due to their level of difficulty and specificity. There are other examples of this. Fox technically has some infinites in Melee with waveshine/perfect pivot shine, but it's so stupidly difficult and specific that even though it's the best option when you can pull it off technically, it's not the best option practically. Peach has a couple footstool/turnip infinites and 0-deaths in Smash 4 (and so does Lucas on certain stages), but none of these characters achieve such a level of dominance in the meta of their respective games (at least not for those reasons where Fox is concerned) because there are better practical options to pursue and the infinites are so specific they rarely see use.
tl;dr Infinites aren't toxic to design because there's no counterplay or you can't escape once you're in it, infinites are toxic to design if they homogenize a character's kit to focus on one specific option because there's nothing else worth doing. They discourage creative thinking and obliterate flexible play/counter-play in a matchup. The B-throw infinite in PM does none of those things (you could hypothetically argue it even
encourages creative play in order to set it up in the first place but I have neither the knowledge nor the inclination to debate that point to death). The way it works in PM, it's become one incredibly powerful specific kill setup rather than 'i hit you -> you're dead'. Saying 'all infinites are bad as a rule' is dangerous because if there's one thing Smash taught us, it's that things are always way, way more complicated than they seem on the surface.
That said, if any of these infinites do see enough consistent use to become a problem in that way, they should absolutely be balanced. But the guiding philosophy here is "if it ain't broke (yet), don't fix it (yet)", especially when 'fixing' it could hold such drastic consequences for the Climbers as an already precarious (subtle cliff pun, haha) character.
(Also I have never heard of handoffs on big characters at center stage and would absolutely love for Fumbles to elaborate, but I had no idea he even had a Smashboards account and he's notoriously difficult to find good footage of, which is a shame considering his Icies play is so impressive. I'd love to find out more though! ^_^)
Also, only in this thread could people spend three pages discussing all the different reasons why Icies are bad and then propose to neuter one of the most critical parts of their punish game.
