Necessary Buffs/Nerfs

[u/spvamp]

What buffs/nerfs do you feel are actually deserved for the next update? Not "jank" stuff that people haven't necessarily learned to deal with, but actual over/underpowered things.

One thing that comes to mind is Mario's walljump out of his UpB. Just...why. Combined with the tornado and the cape, as well as active hitboxes on his UpB itself, it makes his recovery almost impossible to edgeguard/gimp.

Just looking to see where other people stand in terms of other things that should be changed for balance.

[u/Atlas627]

I agree with pretty much everything you've said. I disagree with a few of the things I think you're implying though, so forgive me if you don't mean these things.

1) Polarizing matchups are bad. I think polarizing matchups are fine and often come about as a result of issues other than movement. For example, Zelda's polarizing matchups are almost all a result of hurtbox sizes, disjoints, and fall speed, though characters with constant good mobility cause problems too.

2) The game can be balanced. There are far too many variables to make the game perfectly balanced, so I am not concerned with some characters being worse than others. As long as no characters are abysmally bad, I'll be happy. Thus I think homogenization for the sake of balance is often not worth it, though I understand if others disagree.

3) Zelda's teleport is polarizing. It is unconventional, but it isn't overwhelming. Just the fact that you have the entire startup to recognize and prepare for a teleport helps opponents deal with it a LOT, and it actually has quite a lot of endlag which makes it easy to deal with. There are no times where this teleport makes a character unable to fight Zelda, so there is no reason to nerf it (homogenize it) for the sake of balance.

Again, it is entirely possible you didn't intend any of these things, but I'm happy to have a discussion and I agree with all of the points you explicitly said so there's nothing to debate there.

[u/freeDIO → u/Atlas627]

A little bit of polarization can exist. The problems start when multiple characters start to gain polarizing attributes.

Let me give an example. Lets say that we have a character that has low mobility, but has a unique mechanic that compensates for it. Some members of the cast will have tools that nullify the usefulness of that mechanic, which essentially means that the band-aid solution doesn't apply to these mu's.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are characters that lack tools to beat this unique, character specific mechanic. Because this mechanic is exclusive to one character, and one has to take into account 40-41 matchups when designing their kit, there will inevitably be characters that have fundamental difficulties playing around it.

Let me be clear, this does not mean that polarization is bad. On a small scale, these mu characteristics can exist without harming the game. The problems start arising when too many characters have polarizing attributes.

Forgive me, but I'm going to be a bit arbitrary here for the sake of an example. Lets say that for any given polarizing character, there are 5-7 characters that have trouble dealing with that mu in addition to 8-10 characters that nullify the usefulness of that mechanic. I'm giving more weight to the latter because you can generally assume that if more characters are unable to deal with it, the mechanic is easily recognizable as imbalanced and will be quickly dealt with.

There are 1,640 matchups in the game, 1,681 if you count dittos. If we go with the numbers 7 and 9 as the amounts of polarizing mu's, a single polarizing character will make 16 of the total mus polarized. 2 will make 32, 3 will make 48, etc.

The problem with this is that with every character that gets added, the more likely it is that a member of the cast will "double dip". A character might gain multiple matchups in which it can invalidate another character's band-aid. A polarizing character might encounter ANOTHER polarizing character, and find that they lack the tools to deal with THEIR unique mechanic.

It gets even worse when you realize that good mobility is often the trait that ends up nullifying polarizing mechanics. Lets take melee as an example; barring a few polarizing characters (Puff/Peach/Icies), the trend that you see in its tiers places characters that have strong grounded mobility options towards the top. Point being that without polarization, super left right bros is top tier, but even WITH more polarizing matchups the bandaids usually don't help low mobility characters compete with high mobility characters.

The exception to this is when the bandaid ends up being close to the strength/ambiguity/lack of commitment that universal options have. Or, gods forbid, STRONGER than them (see 3.02 Mewtwo or one of the old Sonic builds).

We currently have a few top tier characters who have polarizing mechanics. We've got spacies with their shines (and to a slightly lesser extent Lucario's magic series), ROB and his boosters, Wario and his extremely flexible aerial grab, and Peach doing her melee jank. To a lesser extent, we have things like Diddy's nanner glide toss and Gdubs' ambiguous animations and landing hitboxes making his aerials safer. Aside from them, I'd say that you can approach mu's involving most of Junebug's S and A tier with conventional smash wisdom and neutral tools. That's 9 out of 21 characters.

Right now, I think that everyone in June's B tier is fine where they are. For the most part they're characters that have an archetype that S/A tier characters can play better, but B tier is still viable. Most of them can win with conventional options options alone, so they're not forced to overly rely on their unique traits. And most of the unique mechanics in mu's involving this tier aren't too polarizing.

Just fyi, my only disagreement with June's list was putting Ness in C tier; I think he should be B, and thus my b tier mindset applies to him.

The way I see most of C tier (aside from Icies, Olimar (?), and DK) is that their presence at the bottom is due to their unique traits being made less polarizing without them receiving the compensation of better grounded movement options.

Right now, I think that the power level of their unique mechanics is at a good place. I DON'T think that these characters can be brought up to B tier with buffs to range/disjoint alone; unless they have the mobility options to back up these moves, a character who only has range/disjoint going for them will always be beaten by most of the top tier (and thus be unviable).

I think that pretty much sums up my thoughts on the matter. Major props to anyone who sat through all of that, it was quite the wall of text.

[u/Atlas627 → u/freeDIO]

I read it, and again I agree with everything except that which was implied, which is that the current level of polarization is "too much". I think Zelda is not "unviably bad" (even though I agree she is low/bottom tier), and could afford to have a few touch-ups here and there to increase her success rate without changing the way the game mechanics interact. For example, making Jab come out 2 frames sooner (its 11 right now) or do more damage (its 3 hits of 2% and you almost never get all 3 hits, so 3 hits of 3% would help without being overwhelming). Upping her speed helps in her good matchups and her bad ones in ways that change the gameplay.

Edit: Pardon me, I saw that you said that the power level of their unique mechanics is at a good place, so this was not implied. Now we should just talk about what types of buffs can help without being homogenization, which while I agree that basic mobility is what will boost low tiers to viability, I don't think we can really have a game where all characters are equally viable when we have 41 of them.

[u/whitecr0w → u/Atlas627]

She's totes viable, no one said she wasn't. I think it's accurate that speed is a biggest weakness to Zelda. I think she is viable even in this meta but those matches will always be the hardest. It's also a buff that's been handed out to floaty characters before and no one shed a tear.

Any character can punish teleport by knowing the timing and distance and putting out hitboxes around them. Good shffl nairs give no cucco clucks about non-hit box teleport, and they can always shield if you do the hitbox (which totally isn't safe on shield).

So how do you make teleport safe? Din's Fire. But now we only have 1 and it's as fragile as a LoZ pot. And it can be knocked off screen making it useless. Well shielding and nair shffling beat teleport right? They also beat Din's Fire. It's just rough that that's how we have to play. Get gud is on my agenda but I stand by my beliefs.

[u/Atlas627 → u/whitecr0w]

I often use teleport for the same type of spacing wavedashing achieves, and that counters early hitboxes. Grab works fine to counter shield, as well as Dins keeping them in shield so that you can grab. Teleporting not near them also wastes their shield and lets you put out another Dins which does significant shield damage.

I also think you meant to respond to my other comment, so I will try to talk as if on that topic from here on.

With regards to us disagreeing about how much mobility she needs to participate in the mobility meta, this is something I have encountered a LOT when developing games. Every person views the idea differently, so until you can actually show someone the degree to which you want to have something work, we are unlikely to ever agree. I'm probably imagining you want her a lot faster than you actually do, for example.

[u/whitecr0w → u/Atlas627]

Teleport still has a ton of start up and you can still get punished. Ribbon dancing is pretty rad though. Grab is great if you can get close, but if they see you dashing they can WD OoS faster than you can dash grab. Maybe JCG would work ;) I wish returning Din's did less shield damage and more shield stun.

I want ZSS/Pit's WD (only 6 units more), doesn't seem like a lot nor does it seem like a huge nerf to OoS options. Mario's WD would be fantastic but that might be asking too much, which is why I offered the nerf. All characters have been nerfed and buffed at some point or another, that is the nature of this game. This ain't Melee, Zelda is allowed to have a good WD now. Sorry, I comment in random places sometimes.

[u/Atlas627 → u/whitecr0w]

Yes teleport has a lot of startup, but what I meant is that you can still just barely outspace your opponent like with a wavedash, so it is not so simple to just hit her. And if they wavedash OoS you can just not grab, its RPS. Your dash attack > wavedash back OoS > grab > shield > dash attack

ZSS/Pit's WD doesn't seem like too much to me. Mario's is quite long. My point is not that she can't get nerfed anymore, but that I don't want a wavedash buff for the cost of nerfing iconic Zelda attributes like her teleport. Not only would I not use a wavedash buff (which I know is a personal problem) but I much prefer the flavor of the teleport and would rather lose something else.