lukifer
Smash Apprentice
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2013
- Messages
- 75
Hey all. I'm curious to hear what other Ganon mains think about Warlock Punch. Are you happy with the way it is now or would you like to see it improved in some way?
In 2.6 we got an awesome change in the form of a new u-tilt. The old u-tilt was, in my opinion, the most useless move in both Melee and Project M. Why was it so useless? Well, because it was basically an inferior version of Warlock Punch, a move which is already highly situational. Compared to Warlock Punch, it had very similar frame data, dealt less damage, and also had weaker knockback. (I believe that u-tilt had higher base knockback than Warlock Punch whereas the punch had better knockback scaling, but please correct if I'm wrong.) Warlock Punch also has the advantage that it can be activated in the air and can be reversed multiple times in Brawl/PM.
So, we have this fancy new u-tilt now and that's great and all, but there's still an elephant in the room, and that's Warlock Punch. As far as I know, the main use for this move is as a punish against Jigglypuff's Rest. There simply aren't any other situations where Ganon can reliably land it. I suppose it can also be a situational edge-guarding tool, by reversing the move multiple times to try and force your opponent to recover in a certain way or as a simple mind game. But any of his aerials or a tilt from the edge of the stage is almost always a better option.
I have a few suggestions for ways that Warlock Punch could be made into a more useful move. I apologize in advance if any of these have been suggested in the past and I'm just reiterating what other people have said already.
1. Allow the charge-up phase of the move to be cancelled by tapping the shield button, similar to how Sheik can cancel her needle charge. I suppose that the main use for this would be to play mind games with your opponent. Depending on how your opponent reacts you may be able to get some sort punish off, or at the very least force them to alter their spacing. It's not a great improvement though because it doesn't really allow Ganon to actually land the move any more often, unless you're really good at conditioning your opponent. It also has the problem that Ganon can still be interrupted while charging the move, which brings me to point number 2...
2. Add super armor to the move. I think that it would be fine to add armor throughout the duration of the move, or at least until the hitboxes dissipate. I'm kind of surprised that this hasn't been done already, considering that several other of the heavy characters in the game have armor on one move or another. Ike has armor on Eruption when it's released, DDD has it on his up and down-B's, and Bowser has it on several attacks. With this change Ganon would still be punishable during the ending lag of the move, but it would at least force the opponent to alter their spacing to avoid the move. It could also make Warlock Punch into a decent edge-guarding tool since it will punish most recovery moves if the opponent fails to sweetspot the edge. No longer would he get interrupted by the weak hitboxes on moves like Mario's and Marth's up-B's.
3. Add some sort of charge-up system whereby Ganondorf is given an "instant" Warlock Punch after certain conditions are met. By "instant" I mean that the start-up time before the hitboxes come out would be greatly reduced, say from the current 70ish frames to somewhere in the range of 10-20. If this sounds overpowered then the damage and knockback on the move could be reduced, although obviously some playtesting would need to be carried out to determine if this is needed. The move could still be reversed, but probably only once through a normal B-reversal. There would also need to be some sort of graphical effect to indicate to the player that the charge is complete, like a purple spell effect around his hands.
There are three existing characters with similar systems that this could be modeled off of: Wario, Lucario, and Ivysaur. An entirely new system could be invented as well, of course.
3. a) The fully charged Wario Waft becomes active after 2 mins have passed in the match. I think that this system is fine for Wario, and it makes sense in the context of the move, but it's not something that I'd like to see for Ganondorf. It doesn't make much sense that he'd be suddenly be able to punch faster after X number of seconds have passed. I'd also prefer a system that's more player-driven.
3. b) A charge-up system modeled after Lucario's aura system would have Ganon achieving the charge after dealing a certain amount of damage with any of his moves, or perhaps a subset thereof. The subset could be any of his moves that have a spell effect applied to them, for example, which still comprises the majority of his moveset. Obviously 50% to achieve the charge like Lucario has for his aura charges is too low, so perhaps 100% would be better? Or maybe even 150%... Obviously this would need to experimented with to achieve a proper balance.
3. c) For a system modeled off of Ivysaur, a select number of Ganondorf's moves would charge up Warlock Punch until it could be performed instantly, similar to the way that Ivysaur charges up Solar Beam with certain moves. The moves that I had in mind were Flame Choke and Dark Dive, but I'm open to suggestions here. The main reason I chose these two is that you could explain it "lore-wise" (if we care about that in Smash Bros.) as Ganon draining energy from his opponent, or something like that. On the plus side, this would give people a reason to use up-special for more than just recovery. The amount of damage required to build up the charge would be analogous to Ivysaur's system. I'm unsure if Warlock Punch should have a different function when the charge isn't active, similar to the way that Ivysaur's neutral B has a different function when Solar Beam isn't active. I'd be fine with leaving it as the regular laggy Warlock Punch when uncharged.
I realize that Ganondorf is already a very powerful character, and from that perspective he doesn't really need a change like this. He's easily in the top 3 of all characters in terms of punish ability. The main point of this change is to turn Warlock Punch into something that doesn't get used once in a blue moon.
However, I think the most interesting part of this change is the way that it would change the pace of a match. This is something that can already been seen in any Wario matchup. As soon as the waft is activated the other player will either start playing more carefully to avoid getting instagibbed, or perhaps play more aggressively to prevent his opponent from landing the waft. Whereas the Wario player will almost certainly start looking for the setup that will secure an easy kill. This is something that I would love to see ushered into the Ganondorf metagame. Granted, his sheer power means that in most matchups the other player is already forced to play it safe to a certain extent, but the threat of an almost instantaneous Warlock Punch would change the dynamics of a match dramatically.
That's all for now. Sorry for the wall of text. Free cookie to anyone who reads it all the way through. ^_<
In 2.6 we got an awesome change in the form of a new u-tilt. The old u-tilt was, in my opinion, the most useless move in both Melee and Project M. Why was it so useless? Well, because it was basically an inferior version of Warlock Punch, a move which is already highly situational. Compared to Warlock Punch, it had very similar frame data, dealt less damage, and also had weaker knockback. (I believe that u-tilt had higher base knockback than Warlock Punch whereas the punch had better knockback scaling, but please correct if I'm wrong.) Warlock Punch also has the advantage that it can be activated in the air and can be reversed multiple times in Brawl/PM.
So, we have this fancy new u-tilt now and that's great and all, but there's still an elephant in the room, and that's Warlock Punch. As far as I know, the main use for this move is as a punish against Jigglypuff's Rest. There simply aren't any other situations where Ganon can reliably land it. I suppose it can also be a situational edge-guarding tool, by reversing the move multiple times to try and force your opponent to recover in a certain way or as a simple mind game. But any of his aerials or a tilt from the edge of the stage is almost always a better option.
I have a few suggestions for ways that Warlock Punch could be made into a more useful move. I apologize in advance if any of these have been suggested in the past and I'm just reiterating what other people have said already.
1. Allow the charge-up phase of the move to be cancelled by tapping the shield button, similar to how Sheik can cancel her needle charge. I suppose that the main use for this would be to play mind games with your opponent. Depending on how your opponent reacts you may be able to get some sort punish off, or at the very least force them to alter their spacing. It's not a great improvement though because it doesn't really allow Ganon to actually land the move any more often, unless you're really good at conditioning your opponent. It also has the problem that Ganon can still be interrupted while charging the move, which brings me to point number 2...
2. Add super armor to the move. I think that it would be fine to add armor throughout the duration of the move, or at least until the hitboxes dissipate. I'm kind of surprised that this hasn't been done already, considering that several other of the heavy characters in the game have armor on one move or another. Ike has armor on Eruption when it's released, DDD has it on his up and down-B's, and Bowser has it on several attacks. With this change Ganon would still be punishable during the ending lag of the move, but it would at least force the opponent to alter their spacing to avoid the move. It could also make Warlock Punch into a decent edge-guarding tool since it will punish most recovery moves if the opponent fails to sweetspot the edge. No longer would he get interrupted by the weak hitboxes on moves like Mario's and Marth's up-B's.
3. Add some sort of charge-up system whereby Ganondorf is given an "instant" Warlock Punch after certain conditions are met. By "instant" I mean that the start-up time before the hitboxes come out would be greatly reduced, say from the current 70ish frames to somewhere in the range of 10-20. If this sounds overpowered then the damage and knockback on the move could be reduced, although obviously some playtesting would need to be carried out to determine if this is needed. The move could still be reversed, but probably only once through a normal B-reversal. There would also need to be some sort of graphical effect to indicate to the player that the charge is complete, like a purple spell effect around his hands.
There are three existing characters with similar systems that this could be modeled off of: Wario, Lucario, and Ivysaur. An entirely new system could be invented as well, of course.
3. a) The fully charged Wario Waft becomes active after 2 mins have passed in the match. I think that this system is fine for Wario, and it makes sense in the context of the move, but it's not something that I'd like to see for Ganondorf. It doesn't make much sense that he'd be suddenly be able to punch faster after X number of seconds have passed. I'd also prefer a system that's more player-driven.
3. b) A charge-up system modeled after Lucario's aura system would have Ganon achieving the charge after dealing a certain amount of damage with any of his moves, or perhaps a subset thereof. The subset could be any of his moves that have a spell effect applied to them, for example, which still comprises the majority of his moveset. Obviously 50% to achieve the charge like Lucario has for his aura charges is too low, so perhaps 100% would be better? Or maybe even 150%... Obviously this would need to experimented with to achieve a proper balance.
3. c) For a system modeled off of Ivysaur, a select number of Ganondorf's moves would charge up Warlock Punch until it could be performed instantly, similar to the way that Ivysaur charges up Solar Beam with certain moves. The moves that I had in mind were Flame Choke and Dark Dive, but I'm open to suggestions here. The main reason I chose these two is that you could explain it "lore-wise" (if we care about that in Smash Bros.) as Ganon draining energy from his opponent, or something like that. On the plus side, this would give people a reason to use up-special for more than just recovery. The amount of damage required to build up the charge would be analogous to Ivysaur's system. I'm unsure if Warlock Punch should have a different function when the charge isn't active, similar to the way that Ivysaur's neutral B has a different function when Solar Beam isn't active. I'd be fine with leaving it as the regular laggy Warlock Punch when uncharged.
I realize that Ganondorf is already a very powerful character, and from that perspective he doesn't really need a change like this. He's easily in the top 3 of all characters in terms of punish ability. The main point of this change is to turn Warlock Punch into something that doesn't get used once in a blue moon.
However, I think the most interesting part of this change is the way that it would change the pace of a match. This is something that can already been seen in any Wario matchup. As soon as the waft is activated the other player will either start playing more carefully to avoid getting instagibbed, or perhaps play more aggressively to prevent his opponent from landing the waft. Whereas the Wario player will almost certainly start looking for the setup that will secure an easy kill. This is something that I would love to see ushered into the Ganondorf metagame. Granted, his sheer power means that in most matchups the other player is already forced to play it safe to a certain extent, but the threat of an almost instantaneous Warlock Punch would change the dynamics of a match dramatically.
That's all for now. Sorry for the wall of text. Free cookie to anyone who reads it all the way through. ^_<
