What buffs does Kirby need?

[Dee-SmashinBoss]

Um

Kirby needs a "get off of me" option. So many good characters have super quick aerials and Kirby just doesn't have any. It would be pretty ridiculous to give Kirby a Frame 3 Nair, but if other characters can have it, I think Kirby should too. I hate to bring it up, but P:M did that and it's one of Kirby's funnest tools.

I've seen people say a range increase for Back Air and a knockback increase for Up Throw, and I highly agree with both. I think at least one of his aerials should auto-cancel, too, and while I would personally pick Forward Air, although any of them are solid options on their own. And yes, Final Cutter should REALLY autosnap!

Down Throw is fine as is, dealing almost 11% is absurd for a throw on a character like Kirby. Forward Throw needs to be better, though, because as of right now it's his most useless throw by far.

2 of his Ariel's autocancel though. And his landings with his Ariel's are technically the best out of all characters

But yea mainly Uthrow increase knockback and Fthrow having slightly more uses...or at least a use at all.
I do want an improved Air speed at least make it 10th slowest or something.

 

[SRUFUS3D]

Yeah... Nair should be faster!

 

[Dessa]

Kirby should get a gun. He needs a gun. One that shoots bullets.

 

[SRUFUS3D]

Kirby should get a gun. He needs a gun. One that shoots bullets.

Why? Reference to quick draw?

 

[Dessa]

Because guns are cool, and Kirby could do 360 noscopes.

 

[Dessa]

I would be happy with an improved inhale ...

A throw combo would be nice too. IDC which throw.

Ver 1.10: Kirby's fthrow now combos. Inhale is faster.

He didn't get a pistol (yet), but theres still some testing yet to come.

 

[FreeGamer]

Air speed

10char

 

[MrMFC]

So now after the update I really think the Fhrow buff was good but not what we needed, we still need better KO options and a better stone, final cutter and hammer. If Kirby gets these buffs he'll probably be high tier, which is more than enough.

 

[Aunt Jemima]

Overall, I'd say these are needed:

- Make Kirby's F-Air autocancel out of a short hop. Kirby's B-Air has incredibly fast active hitboxes so he's stuck in endlag for a while before he touches the ground. Kirby's F-Air has much better active hitboxes, so it'd give Kirby an actual aerial to use in neutral. Along with that, an autocancelling F-Air would help a lot with combos.

- Make Dash Attack do 14%, similar to Brawl. Right now, it's slow, has barely any burst range, does incredibly low damage, and is multi-hit, so many characters fall out. At least it wouldn't be terrible that way. While this isn't actually NEEDED, it's more of a QoL buff.

- Kirby's U-Throw needs to kill earlier. While I'm not sure what exactly should be done to it, it currently kills most characters at 180% with Rage. Even then, it's barely affected by Rage and doesn't kill much earlier with it. I don't really understand why Meta Knight and Kirby's U-Throw don't kill, but more emphasis on Kirby considering it literally has an explosion. Kirby really needs a kill throw as his current kill moves are high-commitment in customs off.

- Kirby's D-Air needs to true combo into D-Smash at higher percents. Whether this be decreasing the landing lag, increasing the KBG on the landing hit, or adding frame modifiers to it, it needs to set up for kills with D-Smash. Kirby's D-Air has incredibly high start-up and landing lag, so why not give it a bit more reward at higher percents?

- Kirby's F-Throw needs to have 2-3 frames cut off it's FAF so it has more combos at higher percents. Right now, we're literally pixels away from having combos past 30%, but we don't because it takes too long to act. Also, this would make his low percent combos more potent, which is useful against characters that don't get ultra-combo'd.

Now, this is a bit much, but this is what it takes so Kirby no longer needs buffs. Right now, give us the U-Throw and F-Air buffs pls.

 

[kirbyfan66]

- Kirby's F-Throw needs to have 2-3 frames cut off it's FAF so it has more combos at higher percents. Right now, we're literally pixels away from having combos past 30%, but we don't because it takes too long to act. Also, this would make his low percent combos more potent, which is useful against characters that don't get ultra-combo'd.

Definitely never thought of this, although I fully agree with it.

Having the Forward Air autocancel would be nice, but I'd still rather have more range on the Back Air instead. Maybe I just want the Brawl Back Air back (it was effectively Smash 64 Back Air in terms of range, just less disjointed [which is saying a good amount]), but the range on that move doesn't cut it, at least comparatively to previous games. Even Melee Kirby could wall people better with that move. And maybe Back Throw -> Back Air would work on more characters (given Back Throw -> Up Air isn't a better option)?

Just me though.

 

[Aunt Jemima]

B-Air gaining more range isn't a plausible buff as it'd require an actual animation change, or they'd be making the move disjointed. The buffs I listed are simply number changes.

 

[kirbyfan66]

I suppose, we've seen animation/range changes before, but it'd be more reasonable to expect Forward Air buff. Oh well.

What about Customs, should they start being modified down the line? Do we think any of those need buffing?

 

[Aunt Jemima]

Give Ice Breath the same frame data as buffed Inhale, keep Jumping Inhale the same though.

 

[Dee-SmashinBoss]

I suppose, we've seen animation/range changes before, but it'd be more reasonable to expect Forward Air buff. Oh well.

What about Customs, should they start being modified down the line? Do we think any of those need buffing?

I think they should, but they would have to be VERY careful considering how unbalanced they are.

Someone like Zelda or Peach or Jiggs need better customs.

 

[Dessa]

I suspect they do their waves of buffs and nerfs in batches. Like, they probably know that some characters need buffs, but they didn't get them last patch because it's easier to parse the results of a patch when fewer changes are made. I suspect some of the characters skipped over this update will get big adjustments, and some adjusted this update will just get minor tweaks to fix issues the last patch created.

 

[Mega-Spider]

Kirby should get a gun. He needs a gun. One that shoots bullets.

I'm thinking of that scene from Kirby Right Back Ya when he was in the police station and he went crazy with one of the guns. I believe that scene wasn't in the 4Kids dub and was only in the Japanese version.

Here are some of the changes I want to see given to Kirby:
Have U-Air kill much sooner (130% is reasonable).
Make Dash Attack faster and stronger.
Give U-Special more range and let the wind it gives off go farther.
N-Air needs to come out faster.
F-Throw needs to be able to combo outside of 0 to 30%.

 

[DanGR]

A few things that stand out to me as disruptive/unintuitive:

F-air's hitbox needs to match its animation. Right now the move doesn't extend as far as is shown. Either buff its hitbox or match the current hitbox with shorter animation.

It'd be nice if some frames were shaved off upair's endlag. Right now you can get punished at lowish percents for landing a rising upair. At least let us airdodge afterwards in time to avoid getting hit. This would extend combos in a neat way, adding some skillful juggle trap opportunities.

His specials could use some quality of life buffs. The startup/endlag buff to inhale was awesome start.

 

[Altair357]

I'm thinking of that scene from Kirby Right Back Ya when he was in the police station and he went crazy with one of the guns. I believe that scene wasn't in the 4Kids dub and was only in the Japanese version.

Here are some of the changes I want to see given to Kirby:
Have U-Air kill much sooner (130% is reasonable).
Make Dash Attack faster and stronger.
Give U-Special more range and let the wind it gives off go farther.
N-Air needs to come out faster.
F-Throw needs to be able to combo outside of 0 to 30%.

You know, up air is my favorite move on Kirby in Melee and PM because of the incredible knockback, and especially that semi spike in PM. I'd be cool with making it a kill move as long as that didn't mess with the comboability on fastfallers.

Funny how we all loved the fthrow buff when it first happened, but now we're asking for an improvement on it. Do you guys think the throw is legitimately underpowered, or do you just want the buff as something extra?

 

[Dessa]

If upair lost some endlag, I almost wonder if it'd be OP. 5 rising upairs in a row would be nasty with a low ceiling

 

[kirbyfan66]

Kirby's Up Air is good for low % combos, if anything I think it should have some end lag taken off of it, as someone else said. That would be really cool to see, but probably a bit overpowered. Besides, the powerful Up Air never actually managed to K.O. in Melee, anyway. D_D (Although the semi-spike in P:M was cool, to be fair.)

 

[Asdioh]

Alright thread, you've been going on long enough that I'll now join in and rant about nerfs/buffs even though I didn't want to >=(

If upair lost some endlag, I almost wonder if it'd be OP. 5 rising upairs in a row would be nasty with a low ceiling

You wonder that, but then you remember how amazing ZSS/Falcon/Mario/Luigi/Diddy/Ness/etcetcetc Upairs are in comparison, and you realize Kirby's Upair is just "ok." A lot of his aerials are punishable on hit if you don't sweetspot them, or if your opponent is at low percents. Sourspot Bair at low % is the most obvious example, but Upair has problems sometimes too.

As for buffs, I could think of so many minor changes to Kirby (and the entire cast) to make the game more balanced, but I'm not sure if there's a point, besides wishful thinking

The buffs they've given Kirby so far have been on-point, as far as minor changes go. The buffs he got last patch are exactly the 3 things I most wanted: Inhale buffed in usability, Jab fixed so you no longer get punished for landing it, and Fthrow is now a combo throw. It already got 3 frames removed from its endlag last patch, so I think it's mostly fine.

What Kirby mostly needs are things like:
-more airspeed, which is probably not going to happen, because they haven't changed weights/movement speed/other character specs in patches thus far. If he did get it though, he would have an easier time getting followups for combos, or even KOs.
-KO confirms. All the top tiers have either guaranteed KO confirms, or 100% safe KO attempts. Sheik missing Dthrow->Upair, for example, will almost always go unpunished, but if she does get it, the opponent dies. Kirby has to put himself in danger to get anything like this. I think his only safe KO confirm is uptilt->upper cutter at certain percents, which requires customs!
-Very, very slightly better frame data. Just making Bair and Nair start 1 frame earlier, giving Dair 2 less frames of landing lag, and giving Upair 2 less frames of endlag in the air, would make an amazing improvement for Kirby. Currently, he has top tier frame data on his ground moves, but his aerials are all horribly lacking, and aerials are where he has to get most of his combo followups. Giving Fair an autocancel window would be nice as well.

He could also use stuff like disjoints, but I don't see that happening at this point. It's just too bad his Bair and Upair hitboxes are so pitiful compared to Brawl.


tl;dr: Make Upthrow kill ~20% earlier, make Bair and Nair come out 1 frame faster, remove 2 frames of landing lag from Dair to help with its safety on shield (nobody should be shielding against it anyway, its startup is slow enough that they can just roll away) and help it confirm into Dsmash KOs, and remove 2 frames of aerial endlag for Upair, so it is a little safer on hit. I think those minor changes will basically put Kirby in a perfect spot. He won't be absolutely top tier with this, but if the best characters also get minor nerfs, then I think he'll be completely viable. I think characters like Mario/Falcon/Marth/Pit/Wario/Luigi are examples of perfect, or almost perfect, character balance. They all have strengths and weaknesses, with nothing being too overwhelming or underwhelming. Kirby would be right up there with them with these buffs.

 

[MrMFC]

Alright thread, you've been going on long enough that I'll now join in and rant about nerfs/buffs even though I didn't want to >=(
You wonder that, but then you remember how amazing ZSS/Falcon/Mario/Luigi/Diddy/Ness/etcetcetc Upairs are in comparison, and you realize Kirby's Upair is just "ok." A lot of his aerials are punishable on hit if you don't sweetspot them, or if your opponent is at low percents. Sourspot Bair at low % is the most obvious example, but Upair has problems sometimes too.

As for buffs, I could think of so many minor changes to Kirby (and the entire cast) to make the game more balanced, but I'm not sure if there's a point, besides wishful thinking

The buffs they've given Kirby so far have been on-point, as far as minor changes go. The buffs he got last patch are exactly the 3 things I most wanted: Inhale buffed in usability, Jab fixed so you no longer get punished for landing it, and Fthrow is now a combo throw. It already got 3 frames removed from its endlag last patch, so I think it's mostly fine.

What Kirby mostly needs are things like:
-more airspeed, which is probably not going to happen, because they haven't changed weights/movement speed/other character specs in patches thus far. If he did get it though, he would have an easier time getting followups for combos, or even KOs.
-KO confirms. All the top tiers have either guaranteed KO confirms, or 100% safe KO attempts. Sheik missing Dthrow->Upair, for example, will almost always go unpunished, but if she does get it, the opponent dies. Kirby has to put himself in danger to get anything like this. I think his only safe KO confirm is uptilt->upper cutter at certain percents, which requires customs!
-Very, very slightly better frame data. Just making Bair and Nair start 1 frame earlier, giving Dair 2 less frames of landing lag, and giving Upair 2 less frames of endlag in the air, would make an amazing improvement for Kirby. Currently, he has top tier frame data on his ground moves, but his aerials are all horribly lacking, and aerials are where he has to get most of his combo followups. Giving Fair an autocancel window would be nice as well.

He could also use stuff like disjoints, but I don't see that happening at this point. It's just too bad his Bair and Upair hitboxes are so pitiful compared to Brawl.


tl;dr: Make Upthrow kill ~20% earlier, make Bair and Nair come out 1 frame faster, remove 2 frames of landing lag from Dair to help with its safety on shield (nobody should be shielding against it anyway, its startup is slow enough that they can just roll away) and help it confirm into Dsmash KOs, and remove 2 frames of aerial endlag for Upair, so it is a little safer on hit. I think those minor changes will basically put Kirby in a perfect spot. He won't be absolutely top tier with this, but if the best characters also get minor nerfs, then I think he'll be completely viable. I think characters like Mario/Falcon/Marth/Pit/Wario/Luigi are examples of perfect, or almost perfect, character balance. They all have strengths and weaknesses, with nothing being too overwhelming or underwhelming. Kirby would be right up there with them with these buffs.

I've just waited for you and Reserved to say what you think Kirby needs . Now waiting for MikeKirby lolz
Also I feel like the balancing team really watches these threads, since 3 of our wanted buffs instantly happened after this thread lol so I think it'd be nice for every character forum to have its own balancing thread. Let's just hope they really look on smashboards to balance lol

 

[Dessa]

I wonder if they have any english-speakers on the balancing team. It would make sense, given the popularity of the game here.

 

[Asdioh]

If I had total freedom, I would change his Dash Attack and SideB into different moves entirely. Maybe even his UpB and Fair could be other moves from the Kirby games. But of course, those kinds of things won't change from balance patches
Seriously though, the Ninja dash attack would be an immediate fix for Kirby's lack of burst range. The one where he dashes with a sword slash, then sheathes the sword at the end. It would be fast to come out, but laggy to end, so if it gets shielded, it's punishable, but otherwise it gives him a quick gap closer/combo finisher! And SideB... could be practically anything tbh. He doesn't need a charging Hammer move, it was notoriously Dedede's worst move in Brawl, I don't know why they thought it would be good on a lightweight that already has mobility issues.

Anyway, if the balance team is listening, please give Sheik ~2 more frames of landing lag on her Fair, as well as remove some of the disjoint on it, that move is insane. Also, increase Grounded Needle startup. Bouncing Fish also might be a little too disjointed/too big of a hitbox. For compensation, you can buff her Fsmash so it kills about 10-15% earlier
For ZSS, just remove the invincibility on Flip Kick, why is that even there? It also might have a bit too much knockback, but hey whatever.
Lower the final hit knockback on Luigi's Cyclone, so I don't die to it every single time at low percents. For compensation, make it easier for him to do rising "jumpless" Cyclone, so he can recover a little easier!
Delete Sonic
Delete Rosalina
Buff/bugfix some of the weaker characters

Bam, balanced game!

 

[Dessa]

My wish for side-b (at 2:18):

Dunno if it would be balanced, but it would be fun!

 

[Purin a.k.a. José]

His Up-Throw downright deserves a buff; I've did this attack to a Villager on freaking 180% today and it didn't kill. Either that's godlike DI, either the attack has a really hyperbolic animation

 

[Asdioh]

It's really easy to DI Kirby's Upthrow, just hold away+down. The animation is so long that you should get correct DI every time. Same with Charizard's, except that move is dramatically stronger

Wheel Kirby would probably be as bad as Jigglypuff's Rollout, knowing how this game works lol. Unless they made it like Sonic's Spindash, but why would they give Kirby a good special?

I practice wavebouncing a little today, and with ZSS, she gets a huge bounce, whereas Kirby with her ability gets a tiny, unnoticeable one. It's all because of his poor aerial mobility

 

[Dessa]

I'd want it like Bowser Jr's Clown Car!

 

[Aunt Jemima]

Should be noted U-Air seems to autocancel much earlier than the FAF. Like, twelve+ frames.

why

FIX THAT PLS

 

[breadstick24]

So basically the overall consensus is
The things we want to make him stronger that should already be there.

• More knockback on U-Throw
• More speed in air (30% increase seems like the average)
• Final cutter snapping to the edge
• Faster, less punishable, inhale
• Better dash attack
• Less startup on D-Air and N-Air
• Stone and hammer becoming viable options

And then the things that we won't add because it'll make him OP and not, Kirby. As good as they may make him.

• Crawling (not mentioned but seriously, imagine how broken he would become)
• More combo-ing and damage off of forward throw and back throw
• Improved ground speed
• Auto-cancel aerials
• Range increase (particularly B-Air)

Did I miss anything significant?

 

[Purin a.k.a. José]

I remembered another thing, I don't know if you guys will agree... Final Cutter also deserves a Aerial buff. It can still be laggy on the ground, but I don't like how unviable is his Up-B when someone is about to edge-guard me. It's kind of ironic how a character with 6 jumps can be killed so easily by resorting to his Up-B. Also, make the Meteor Hitbox bigger and make it a Suicide KO on their last stock, killing both players rather than only Kirby. If Kirby won if he did the "Cuttercide" (lol) it would be nice too.

 

[Doomsday]

Not to hate or anything but you guys should learn to accept Kirby how he is. IMO I don't want kirbs to be buffed more. The better he gets the more people will use him. As of right now I feel happy being one of a couple hundred Kirby mains as apposed to the thousand plus sheik mains.

 

[Poupoko]

Lol, I feel like Kirby with an air speed buff would be OP. Imagine Jigglypuff with our generally better aerials, along with our great grab game and decent smashes. Bit of an exaggeration, but not too far from it.

Kirby is more or less fine as he is now. Definitely not the best, but most MUs are pretty okay outside of a certain few (which have more to do with character designs rather than moves not working well, i.e. how I think the game was intended to be.) But I wouldn't be opposed to having a 15% taken off of U-throw, since his KO moves are unreliable to land and you'll have to land another 100% just to KO with U-throw.

The only thing I really actually want to Kirby get buffed by wouldn't even be a buff to Kirby. I just want Mario, Yoshi, Villager and all those other F3/F4 nairs to be like F5 or something. There's literally no reason for those moves to be that fast.

 

[breadstick24]

Not to hate or anything but you guys should learn to accept Kirby how he is. IMO I don't want kirbs to be buffed more. The better he gets the more people will use him. As of right now I feel happy being one of a couple hundred Kirby mains as apposed to the thousand plus sheik mains.

Would agree except that defeats the whole purpose of this thread. I love having a main that's unique amongst the sheiks and ZSS' but there are some buffs that kirby should have. If just inhale came out faster I'd be happy. cutter snapping to ledge would be my next request. Other than those, all these buffs would be nice, but let's face it, we don't need em.

 

[Altair357]

Would agree except that defeats the whole purpose of this thread. I love having a main that's unique amongst the sheiks and ZSS' but there are some buffs that kirby should have. If just inhale came out faster I'd be happy. cutter snapping to ledge would be my next request. Other than those, all these buffs would be nice, but let's face it, we don't need em.

Well, they did make Inhale come out 4 frames faster in the tournament patch.

Also, I don't really see much benefit to making Final Cutter snap to the ledge. It's still insanely telegraphed, so the only difference is that your opponent would have to dip slightly below the stage in order to spike you. Am I missing something here? Upper Cutter is a great recovery move because it's fast, long-distance, and ledge snaps. Final Cutter would be one of those three, and even then it's not like it'd be hard to spike anyway.

 

[Aunt Jemima]

Final Cutter wouldn't even make sense if it snapped to the ledge. You can get the same "snap" by spacing the move anyways. Make Final Cutter's start-up and endlag faster.

Also, why do people want air speed? I'd rather have grounded speed as we're much better on the ground than in the air.

 

[Asdioh]

Aerials safer on shield because you can weave in and out better, and more true combos and frame traps because currently you often miss a followup because Kirby can't get over to the opponent fast enough, even though there's a good amount of hitstun. With a decent airspeed buff, Fthrow would true combo for even longer.

More run/walk speed might end up being better, since we can cover landings more easily. Of course, why not both?

But since neither will happen, just buff everything else. Forever.

 

[Aunt Jemima]

But Kirby has always been slow in the air, even in his own games, Jigglypuff exists and Kirby is the "grounded variant". Along with that, grounded speed would overall help Kirby more as usually characters use grounded speed to catch up to the opponent, then initial aerial burst speed to hit them. We'd get more out of grounded speed than aerial speed, the only thing that would change is our mediocre aerials becoming slightly safer.

 

[Asdioh]

And Ganondorf could teleport and use swords in his games, but instead he gets a Captain Falcon clone moveset \(o_o)/

If you wanna stick to the games, keep his movespeed the same (maybe a little more runspeed) and do that thing I talked about, where he could inhale projectiles like in the game, and spit them out as stars, or swallow them to get copy abilities if it was a neutral B :D

 

[MrMFC]

And Ganondorf could teleport and use swords in his games, but instead he gets a Captain Falcon clone moveset \(o_o)/

If you wanna stick to the games, keep his movespeed the same (maybe a little more runspeed) and do that thing I talked about, where he could inhale projectiles like in the game, and spit them out as stars, or swallow them to get copy abilities if it was a neutral B :D

Actually that sounds really cool with the Inhale lol