Update Get: Mega Man Patch 1.11 Changes

[Sorichuudo]

About the USmash nerf... are people really complaining? I mean it's rather pointless considering that a USmash on shield sucks no matter what, you shouldn't really be using it as an option unless you want the kill

And well, after playing around with the Bomber agaisn't some other players (Mostly a Rosa main)... I barely feel the changes in our overall moveset. I don't think that there is a necessity to enter in panic mode and call this an overall nerf to Mega, it could easily be just a mix of both good and bad stuff, with the final result being MAYBE an overall buff/nerf.

And btw, I really want customs back, those Ice Slasher+Hyper Bomb buffs were pretty on point.

If it were actually a nerf, yes, we would be absolutely pissed off. Sure is not how we are suppose to use the move, but if Yoshi got increased shieldstun in his dair while we got the opposite for our usmash, that's kinda BS if you ask me, you know, indirectly buff the high tier and nerf the middle/low tier. It wasn't really nerfed tho, seems like it was always like this.
But i'm not gonna lie, with all this talk about increased shieldstun, i was really enjoying the possibility of being able to do some fancy stuff with CB, MB, usmash, bair etc.

I agree that is too early to panic tho.

 

[Erimir]

I wouldn't panic much. After a major global change like this, it's even possible they will patch the game again in a couple weeks if the results are much more drastic than they expected.

But either way, they will do more balancing when they release more DLC and they will balance with these new changes in mind. It's not set in stone, even if it does disadvantage us in the near term.

I still have hope they'll give Mega Man a little extra oomph and, you know, nerf Sheik.

Also I agree with bringing back customs being particularly good for Mega... We're one of the characters with the most variety in our customs. (I also admit that my other main benefits even more from customs because Jumbo Hoops is very strong and the Header variants are all useful...).

Still has some logistical issues I suppose, but at some point "it's too hard to unlock them all!" stops mattering much after the game has been out so long. Then it just becomes an issue of what sets to allow (standard set of X load outs or any load out you want?).

Of course, Sakurai should really just patch the game to make them easier to unlock, because requiring hours and hours of tedium is simply bad design that should make him feel bad. Also they ought to patch the game to create a fast method for selecting customs from the CSS... and create an extra category that removes the ability to use equipment but still allows custom moves.

...Yeah, they're never gonna do that. *grumble*

ETA: OTOH, I heard they've added some options to Tourney mode that are in the right direction... you can allow customs but disallow equipment in tourney mode, and also something called "platforms only" which I'm not sure what it is, but sounds like some kind Battlefield FG variant? Hopefully they come to their senses and realize these are good ideas for OTHER MODES TOO.

 

[Drarky]

Now this is interesting.
Testing out Ice Slasher with its new buffs makes me feel like the move is actually quite useful now, but it still is rather difficult to justify switching out Danger Wrap and its amazing kill potential.

I'll keep toying around some more with the move, but for now it looks like SideB customs are:

Crash Bomb: Shield Pressure
Ice Slasher: Follow Ups
Danger Wrap: Kill Potential

At this point I believe that we don't have a single bad custom move, thanks to this patch. Hurray!

 

[Hyruleslink]

At this point I believe that we don't have a single bad custom move, thanks to this patch. Hurray!

Shadow Blade would like a word with you.

 

[smasher1001]

Yeah man, customs hype!

I already said this on my Hyper Bomb thread, but I'm pretty sure HB's speed in the air is faster because I can no longer catch it by throwing it diagonally up from the ground and dash attacking into its flight path. It now moves too fast to pull this off anymore. I used to catch it this way allllll the time pre-patch, so I'm pretty sure this isn't placebo.

Also, I'm psyched about HB's version of Z1gma Upper! I only labbed it up for a bit today, but I plan on doing some more soon! I'd love some help!

HBs version of zigma upper? more info please.

 

[ScAtt77]

What follow-ups can we get reliably off of Ice Slasher? I'm genuinely curious.

Also, not sure if anyone else noticed, but Hyper Bomb falls significantly faster now; in 1.1.0, if you throw it straight up over the ledge on FD, the bomb explodes slightly under the ledge. In 1.1.1, it doesn't explode until it reaches the bottom blast zone.

Woops. Use this post as confirmation for ENKER's claims

 

[Erimir]

As stronger confirmation, I was messing around with HB and IS on Wii U and 3DS, hitting special simultaneously, and HB does move significantly faster. The updated version finishes exploding before the old version hits the ground, so it's very noticeable when you do them simultaneously. The ability to shield is slightly earlier after throwing an HB as well, as would be expected by the data dump.

It was much harder to notice the change to IS, but I suppose it must be there.

 

[Diamond Octobot]

The Ice Slasher buff is definitely here. Some might argue that it was against a CPU, but I managed to get a Ice Slasher -> Hyper Bomb against a lvl 9 Bowser. Yes, it doesn't mean much, but being able to move out of it sooner means that you can more easily pressure your opponent after poping him in the air.

 

[xIvan321]

I feel like Mega Man can only just poke easier with the change. Sure the random switcheroos are odd and my opinions from today feel a little different what I'm reading here, but I'm finding opponents may have a tougher time shielding every hit. I'm still trying to understand what the heck actually changed.

(Credit for @Taokaka for helping me upload this match.)

So lets take this match I had played on For Glory earlier for an example. Before this patch DITCIT to U-Smash is completely unsafe on shield and that is what I can tell you for a fact, but now I'm wondering if its actually poking the shields. Through my experience I think it might be poking. I played vs a few decent players just a bit earlier and I don't think their shields are dropping per chance. I keep experiencing this consistently thus far.

Note: The shield in the video is INDEED full.

 

[ENKER]

I am so glad my fellow Mega Mains agree with the HB speed buff I found yesterday! I updated both my copies simultaneously so I did not have a scientific method when I noticed the change, I was all "Huh, I can't do that tech any more...OH, IT'S FASTER?!"

The HB version of the Z1GMA Upper pretty much works the same as the original: Full hop > HB thrown down forward > land next to opponent as HB hits > Utilt. There are some other variations of this tech, as there are with MB, which makes it flexible! I am not sure how useful this is as the HB and the Utilt seem to be hitting simultaneously, so I am not sure if you can hit confirm the HB before committing to the Utilt, but it audibly sounds cool as hell and feels even better. I urge other Mega Mains to play around with it and share your findings! I'll gladly put the info on my HB thread and credit y'all. :3

Pre-patch I remember being tasked with studying IS and how it works with HB. Even then I remember pulling off IS > HB, but now it must be easier to do so due to the buffs! This is sweet! This is definitely another thing we should continue testing.

 

[Nu~]

To be completely honest...I would pick this character up again if customs came back. Hyper bomb and danger wrap were already fun to make creative setups with, but now...

Let's just say that if customs come back, you all will see me a lot more often :D

 

[Lufos]

I just read something in the patch 1.1.1 thread... Appearently "Minimum shielding time now overlaps with shield stun", and for reference:

"Shields in Smash 4:

• 1-3: Power shield
• 4-11: locked into shield [11 frames minimum]
• 12-18: shield drop lag (7 frames)"

Wouldnt this be a pretty big nerf for us? My guess is that pretty much all of our attacks, except maybe utilt and dsmash, and possibly high charge fsmash, is affected? I doubt lemons do more than 11 frames of shield stun, so even if they only did 1 frame before and do exactly 11 now its a nerf(not the real numbers for our lemons ofc, lol)?

 

[Mega-Spider]

I need to get back to using customs with Rock. I barely used them, yet I have all of them. As much as I love the Shadow Blade, it's the only custom I would say isn't that good. If I were to buff it, I'd make it incredibly fast and do slightly more damage (maybe 4 or 5%). I'm reading some positive aspects about the Hyper Bomb being faster and the Ice Slasher allowing for followups, so that helps out a bit. I need to test out the different custom sets with Rock to see what I can do.

 

[Red Shirt KRT]

I think the shield nerf actually hurts us much more than rush down characters. We have a much harder time shield grabbing people. It overall seems to reward aggressive play more and that generally isn't good for mega man.

 

[SanAntonioSmasher]

I like shields being worse. With my play style, I rarely shielded. I'm constantly throwing around an item MB coupled with aerial recatches, landing pellets to pick up, etc. I try to keep up pressure and hold spacing with fairs, bairs, u-airs, and even dairs on stage when I can get away with them.

I would get punished hard by people excessively shielding.

I know this probably isn't optimal MM strategy, but its what's fun for me.

Is there any official knowledge of how new shield mechanics work with all of MMs projectiles?

 

[Lufos]

I think the shields are better now vs weaker hits, thats how I understand this whole change... And that would nerf pretty much any play style of mega man :/

 

[smasher1001]

my understanding is that before, shields could have 1 frame of shieldstun, and now the minumum is three isn't it? So shouldn't that be a buff to all of our small low damage hits? I mean, I've heard people say this makes shiek way safer on attacking shield, and all of her attacks are weak as well.

 

[Lufos]

According to someone in the patch thread (can't remember the name, but it seems like he had done some serious testing), the shield stun now overlaps with the minimum shield time.

• 1-3: Power shield
• 4-11: locked into shield [11 frames minimum]
• 12-18: shield drop lag (7 frames)"

So if, for example, our lemon does 3 frames stun now and did 1 frame before it would look like:

Before: 1 frame stun + 11 frames locked into shield = 12 frames
Now: 3 frames stun overlaping with the 3 first frames of the 11 locked into shield + the 8 remaining = 11 frames

Thats my understanding of this whole change... Also when playing it feels as if my shield pressure is a lot worse. Some real testing would be needed and I'm not entirely sure how one would do that.

Edit:
If I'm correct, this would be a nerf to sheik as well I guess and mostly a buff to the heavy weights.

 

[Fenrir VII]

I'm waiting for people to confirm exactly what is happening...

What we do know:
-Shield stun INCREASED across the board.
-Power-shield now decreases shield stun.
-Hitlag modifiers have changed... meaning electric attacks, etc don't stun the attacker as much
-Not sure what effect the shield stun overlapping min shield does
-Not sure how projectiles are being accounted for now

So what this means to Megaman... Our shield game was super strong pre-patch. Our shield grab was good, OoS utilt was godly, etc. Now all of these have become less reliable... plus shield breaker strings are actually more common now.

Megaman was (in general) weak against rushdown characters pre-patch. Rushdown characters are (again in general) now VERY much safer. The patch seems to have had large positives on Sheik, Pika, ZSS, etc.

Take-aways:
-All of our out of shield options are worse now.
-Most of our bad and some of our even matchups should now be worse.

I hate to be pessimistic, but this seems significant to me. There is a possibility that some of our shield stun options have increased... landing uair shield stun increase would be great, for example. Landing Fair, Nair, Bair are now all slightly safer.
As of right now, I don't think we have too many shield breaker/poking options. This may change.

This feels like a change that benefits other chars to a large degree while slightly nerfing us, which could be a sizable impact.

 

[Diamond Octobot]

I was wondering...
How much Shield Stun does blank-point Nair now ?
If we go with the current model, it should make 5 Frames of stun, but I wonder if it is enough to jump again...

 

[Red Shirt KRT]

Yea I think it is looking pretty bleak for mega after this patch.

The shield stun isn't enough to make our aerials safe on shield but it allows quicker characters to be even safer than before.

I think our projectiles won't help us out enough to compensate for this.

So sheik will most likely become my main and mega my secondary now, I still think mega will be very good against most of the mid/low tiers still

 

[smasher1001]

According to someone in the patch thread (can't remember the name, but it seems like he had done some serious testing), the shield stun now overlaps with the minimum shield time.

• 1-3: Power shield
• 4-11: locked into shield [11 frames minimum]
• 12-18: shield drop lag (7 frames)"

So if, for example, our lemon does 3 frames stun now and did 1 frame before it would look like:

Before: 1 frame stun + 11 frames locked into shield = 12 frames
Now: 3 frames stun overlaping with the 3 first frames of the 11 locked into shield + the 8 remaining = 11 frames

Thats my understanding of this whole change... Also when playing it feels as if my shield pressure is a lot worse. Some real testing would be needed and I'm not entirely sure how one would do that.

Edit:
If I'm correct, this would be a nerf to sheik as well I guess and mostly a buff to the heavy weights.

Wouldn't this mean that almost ALL attacks wouldn't have the neccessary total of over 11 frames of shield stun to bypass the minumum locked into shield frames? And aren't most characters actually seeing an increase in shieldstun they deliver? I feel like We've gotta be missing something here, otherwise most characters should be able to drop shields faster against every attack except for exceptionally strong ones.

EDIT:

So, styles came up with a shield break this is now possible. I'm still thinking we may benefit offensively from these changes. https://gfycat.com/ThunderousDefensiveHarpseal

 

[Fenrir VII]

According to someone in the patch thread (can't remember the name, but it seems like he had done some serious testing), the shield stun now overlaps with the minimum shield time.

• 1-3: Power shield
• 4-11: locked into shield [11 frames minimum]
• 12-18: shield drop lag (7 frames)"

So if, for example, our lemon does 3 frames stun now and did 1 frame before it would look like:

Before: 1 frame stun + 11 frames locked into shield = 12 frames
Now: 3 frames stun overlaping with the 3 first frames of the 11 locked into shield + the 8 remaining = 11 frames

Thats my understanding of this whole change... Also when playing it feels as if my shield pressure is a lot worse. Some real testing would be needed and I'm not entirely sure how one would do that.

Edit:
If I'm correct, this would be a nerf to sheik as well I guess and mostly a buff to the heavy weights.

This seems to be only affecting very specific scenarios of somebody shielding around power-shield timing but slightly after, and would have no effect to somebody holding shield.

Now honestly, this makes "powershielding" pellets more feasible as you get the benefit of just missing the timing, but there's not much other use.

So, styles came up with a shield break this is now possible. I'm still thinking we may benefit offensively from these changes. https://gfycat.com/ThunderousDefensiveHarpseal

Unless I'm mistaken, you can escape this by rolling after the Metal blade before the dsmash, or not holding shield for crash bomb, or rolling as Mega approaches (as people tend to do)...
I'm glad to see this kind of thing exists, but it's a bit disheartening that it requires so much to actually pull it off.

 

[p1ay6ack]

to actually pull it off.

it is escapable, but its a lose-lose situation for your opponent. either they get shield broken, or take signifcant damage, and lets us set up for combos.

Since crashbomber has gotten a buff in shield poking, what about using double megaman in teams? double crash bomb? double opportnties to shield break?

 

[Fenrir VII]

it is escapable, but its a lose-lose situation for your opponent. either they get shield broken, or take signifcant damage, and lets us set up for combos.

Well, yes and no...
Look, I've argued a lot for Crash Bomb as a utility, but the fact is most people don't (and shouldn't) just stand there holding shield.
There are like 4 or 5 better options for the Ryu there that wouldn't even allow the MB drop. Then AFTER the MB drop, they have to keep R'ing to actually get dsmashed, whereas if they rolled or jumped, they MIGHT take the crash bomb hit of 8% max. Now that said, I wonder how turnaround utilt would work instead of dsmash...

As it stands, Mega really doesn't have a shield breaker string that isn't incredibly situational. Compare that to Yoshi or Lucario who can "lol 1 attack" break it and it's one-sided.

 

[Mega-Spider]

So, reading all of these posts on the whole shielding thing, I came to three conclusions:
1. Our shielding options are worse, and we need to adapt to that.
2. Some of our match ups are worsened because of this change.
3. Sakurai and the balance team need to tell us what changed in the patch notes.
I'm not feeling good about this. The staff must hate Megs.

 

[p1ay6ack]

you sure? Im using crash bomber alot more, and im conditioning my opponent to shield alot more and I'm getting them to an M&M size of a shield, either they drop shield to avoid shield break or get hefty damage in my combos. I just RIP a lil mac player on FG, he can't superarmor through my crashbomb explosion >: D

 

[ScAtt77]

Hate to nit-pick on the shield break gif posted, but that RYU could have just shoryu'd MM in the face for free instead of blocking :l

Also, if anyone gets the chance to test, I'm curious about MM's aerials in terms of their safety in neutral, particularly d-air and short hop f-air given the extra frames of shield stun. If anyone can verify it being safer to throw out, that'd be great! Going to test myself asap.

 

[Greward]

this might be placebo but I feel it's safer to use landing fair against shield and landing up air too.
if landing up air on shield is not punishable it's pretty nice.

 

[Fenrir VII]

this might be placebo but I feel it's safer to use landing fair against shield and landing up air too.
if landing up air on shield is not punishable it's pretty nice.

absolutely safer to use Fair and Bair at least because of the additional shield stun.. I suspect it's also true for uair, but I'm still not sure how projectiles are affected.

 

[Nu~]

https://trinket.io/python/35c2ec074b?toggleCode=true

According to this, Fair is -13 on shield. It may be pretty safe if spaced right

 

[SanAntonioSmasher]

One thing to consider is how shields becoming worse will affect players playstyle overall. People will be conditioned to block less and be more aggressive, which I think would help mega man a bunch. Unless a player has regular practice with a good megaman, they might not realize shielding is actually now better to do (assuming that's the case).

 

[Nu~]

One thing to consider is how shields becoming worse will affect players playstyle overall. People will be conditioned to block less and be more aggressive, which I think would help mega man a bunch. Unless a player has regular practice with a good megaman, they might not realize shielding is actually now better to do (assuming that's the case).

But wouldn't that make mega man worse in the long run?

People don't stay ignorant for long

 

[smasher1001]

people blocking less is really good for spamming projectiles, in our aggression assuming we gain longer shield hits on them its a win for us in that. but our own options when forced to shield are comparatively that much worse as well.

What I REALLY want to know, is do our projectiles also cause additional hitstun now? It will be harder to land grabs due to opponents shielding less as well.

 

[Red Shirt KRT]

Our projectiles (at least lemons for sure) do not do more.

I saw in another thread basically anything below 1.0 shield stun was unaffected. Anything above adds more shield stun so likely most of our projectiles do the same shield stun.

 

[p1ay6ack]

this just means we're going to have to work on our spacing a lot more. If an agressive playstyle is going to be meta, the megaman meta should advance in the direction of projectile tricksies, spaciing well and hopefully conditioning them to shield and break it.

 

[Nu~]

Is there a thread for shield stun on every character?

 

[CopShowGuy]

IStill has some logistical issues I suppose, but at some point "it's too hard to unlock them all!" stops mattering much after the game has been out so long. Then it just becomes an issue of what sets to allow (standard set of X load outs or any load out you want?).

I still don't have all of Mega Man's customs unlocked on the Wii U...

 

[Sorichuudo]

I still don't have all of Mega Man's customs unlocked on the Wii U...

I unlocked all his customs, but only his XD. We don't have custom tournaments here in Brazil yet(there will be one eventually) so i am not worrying about unlocking other customs anytime soon. Too much of a chore, to be honest.

So, for the shield changes, from what i read/heard it really seems like we are pretty much boned. Cause from the theorycrafting i read so far, other characters, especially the ones that already gave us trouble, now are even worse to fight cause they get a lot of safe stuff on shield, while our projectiles remain the same. From theory, it seems like Sheik, Pikachu, C.Falcon, Fox, Yoshi and Mario will be worse than ever because of that. Again, too early to panic, is just what i am getting from what i read so far, and from what i heard about other characters(mainstream Pikachu example https://twitter.com/K_Prime04/status/649351429405081601).

Only time will tell i guess. We have sort of a major here in Brazil in november, i will be practicing smash a lot on the free time i can get, so i think that before the event we will probably have an idea of how bad/good the situation is.

 

[Sneak Sneaks]

Anyone else considering dropping Megaman if he was actually nerfed and maining again next patch if he gets buffed? Kirby is awesome Ive noticed lately