Experiment: Is Sonic's D-Air Spike Overpowered? (YES)

[Darxmarx]

Can we.. uh.. Get back to talking about Sonic? ;~;

Spoiler: idk

 

[NEWB]

This discussion is virtually dead anyway. Both sides are thick headed and are being children practically at this point. That's why all the mature people left.

 

[Thor]

You're missing competitive experience. If you really knew what a terror MK was you'd realize how foolish comparing anyone in minus to him.

LOL I've played FOW and I've played MKs at locals and stuff, MK is not that terrifying. Yeah he's pressure-heavy and can be kind of scary, but he actually has to come at me or I can try to approach while being nickeled and dimed with tilts [that's how it goes with Pikachu-MK]. I don't have to worry about having stuff flying my way and MK coming in at high speeds in a more or less unpunishable manner unless I read it and started a projectile punish beforehand.

Honestly, pressure-heavy MKs remind of Gold_TSG's DK in a bit of lag, and ROB's pressure game is definitely better than DK's. If there was a ROB as good as a top vBrawl pro, you'd realize how badly your attempt to say "vBrawl MK is scarier than Minus ROB" is.

Plus at the heart of things, if we pitted them against each other, Minus ROB would DEFINITELY be better than vBrawl MK in that MU.

Though I admit ROB has no sword.

Sonic dair is broken. Nerf to be an actual meteor please.

This discussion is virtually dead anyway. Both sides are thick headed and are being children practically at this point. That's why all the mature people left.

How am I immature? I'm offering rationally reasoned arguments at pretty much every turn, instead of insisting a low-lag zero-death is not broken in a bad way, DESPITE the fact that a high-lag zero-death WAS considered broken and got nerfed.

 

[AeroIncarnated]

I play sonic as a secondary main and I find him really fun to play as just to be annoying and fast but the main problem I have with him is that he desyncs online matches often and It just gets boring to play as him after a while. I myself don't do the dair off the stage often mainly because of being used to Toon Link's dair I feel doing so screws me over. I still don't get why people don't play sanic though. He's pretty good when you're not too slow. (also I didn't realize you guys already replied to this thread like 8 times before I posted this)

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Fox is badly designed then, because he can wavedash just as homage to Melee.

Sonic shouldn't have a spike because Brawl- isn't supposed to have spikes - it's inconsistent with the design philosophy.

I wouldn't mind if in general stall-then-falls spiked [so TL dair, Sheik dair (though that can stay), Sonic dair, ICs dair (that can stay too), Warlock Kick and Falcon Kick could be lumped in, and Sonic dair]. But they don't, it's just Sonic's, which is bizarre and runs counter to Minus having good recoveries when someone can negate that entirely because of a single move that breaks the rules.

"the basic concept of Brawl- is 'if it ain't broken, break it until it gets better. If it is broken, act like it isn't broken and break it until it gets better.'" the design philosphy is right there. it also said to expect some pretty crazy stuff too. A spike is really small compared to the stuff it promised. also,

Nerf to be an actual meteor please.

that isn't needed. Just make the startup slower and its all good.

Now, ima just say some stuff i hope the devs do.
1. really add some crazy stuff to all the chars like side b cancel hits, assist specials, meter ( where we can do supers, ultras, guard cancels, etc..), and more crazy stuff because right now, minus seems really lacking in options for chars. I suggest the devs to look at games like Guilty Gear, Blazblue, Marvel 2, Snk vs Capcom chaos, and Hokuto No Ken. You guys could pick up somethings from there .

 

[Kien]

Or it could be really hard to pull off, and huh guess that would make Sonic not a problem.

This is normally how really easy KOs are balanced out. Or really good characters. Some characters like Lucario were born in combo city, but at low percents he's so weak that his 10 hit combos deal about as much as someone else's 5 hits. Easy to pull off but not too rewarding. You have other characters who can combo all day and they dish out 60+%, like ROB, Peach, or a really precise TL.

Sonic's dair offstage isn't as 100% you will die as Bent claimed though. I tested it against Mario and Mario can certainly up B and hit sonic before his dair gets going. I have no issue saying this moving is imbalanced, but I can't say it's the big problem, because there is still no reason to be offstage at such a low percent. Sonic is my 5th best which is outside of my top 4 and therefore doesn't get regular usage. I know some of what he's capable of, but I also know that his combos aren't guaranteed unless they're the good old well placed HA chains into aerials. If I were a patient player, I'm sure I could convince everyone that Sonic i near the top. The amount of issues he suffers from are great though. He has among the worst priority in the game which was intentional after giving him boost. All of his hitboxes allow him to be hurt and his low power means he never wins attack trades. All of his KO moves have high ending lag outside of dair and if you want to count throws go right ahead.

For the first time in awhile, I'm agreeing with some of Glyph's points.

 

[RoboTek]

I feel it is important to remember something.

This isn't brawl.
This is Brawl Minus.

Powerful and traditionally overpowered techniques are the norm. The goal is to cultivate those into a balanced and engaging experience.

I definitely support nerfing Sonic's down air if it is a problem. Is it really though? It is difficult to execute safely, especially with the already high-performance character of sonic. Many people even classify sonic as a weak character.

This feels entirely unnecessary and against the spirit of the mod.

 

[Glyph]

Wish more people thought like you do man

 

[NEWB]

It's important to have all kinds of people here.

This is not brawl but we aren't in the position to say what minus is, though we certainly can have our own opinions.

 

[Bent 00]

Sonic's dair offstage isn't as 100% you will die as Bent claimed though.

On FD, if you get hit by Sonic's D-Air offstage at ledge-height, you WILL die, even at 0% damage. No matter who you are.

IIRC, no other in the game spikes like that (except maybe Luigi's taunt, haven't checked that one).

Why should Sonic's D-Air have so much more hitstun than all the other characters' meteor smashes?

 

[Thor]

I feel it is important to remember something.

This isn't brawl.
This is Brawl Minus.

Powerful and traditionally overpowered techniques are the norm. The goal is to cultivate those into a balanced and engaging experience.

I definitely support nerfing Sonic's down air if it is a problem. Is it really though? It is difficult to execute safely, especially with the already high-performance character of sonic. Many people even classify sonic as a weak character.

This feels entirely unnecessary and against the spirit of the mod.

Fox is high performance. Can people exploit his shine offstage and waveshine infinites?

And Glyph I like safe zero-deaths. With high startup lag, not low start up lag.

Give the Warlock Punch the cancel back already - everyone's reason for taking it away is functionally "I'm bad at punishing bad moves so I need it to be easier." Lrn 2 not suk.

Meanwhile, some characters have zero chance of avoiding Sonic dair, which is NEVER the case with Warlock Punch [if he breaks your shield you deserve it, 'Dorf doesn't have the moveset to break a shield] and people are like "But Warlock Punch is TOO HARD to beat!" Yet Sonic dair has low lag AND low endlag and people are like "Offstage? Psh it's fine."

And yet at the same time, aerial [offtage] Warlock Punch gets no easy cancel that makes it safe to use even on whiff, unlike Sonic dair. Downright bizarre...

I'll stop pusing for nerfs to Sonic dair, but for any of you who thought Bent was bad about the Warlock Punch buff requests... well, you'll WISH it was Bent and not me pushing this stuff, because y'all have zero good defenses of why the Warlock Punch shouldn't be 100% safe on whiff that I have read, and I've layed out a plethora of reasons that it's fine, PLUS we have a safe, more reliable, less situational zero-death everyone is defending that is a present, which is a precedent.

WarlockPunchCancelMustReturn

 

[Gold_TSG]

The cancel is not returning.

 

[Glyph]

Bent stopped when he actually engaged in a conversation about it and reached a compromise, don't be that guy just to be that guy.

 

[Bent 00]

Bent stopped when he actually engaged in a conversation about it and reached a compromise.

Speaking of that conversation, there are several things you said in it that can also be applied here. The points you made, which convinced me that OHKOs should not be Cancellable, should stand against Sonic's D-Air as well, because:

- it is a OHKO at ledge-level or below, yet it can be Cancelled into Spring
- its hitbox stays out much longer than either of the other two OHKO moves
- it comes out much faster than a OHKO has any right to
- it leads into a Spring Spike or a Footstool - either of which are also very likely to KO
- it does not place Sonic in a vulnerable position like a risky OHKO should

Here are the things you said which also apply to this topic:

The cancel in its own self is bad game design. Smash abides by certain rules to make the game something people can understand. Weak moves come out fast but don't hit hard and vice versa. Of course there's exceptions, and some moves hit harder than others, but that statement as a general rule is pretty universal. Removing 100% of Ganon's endlag (which he deserves to have after using a move as powerful as Warlock Punch, even if its scaled back to the power levels you've given him) breaks the ground rules of Smash. Giving him a cancel there is like removing the endlag from Ike's Fsmash. Ike would be better, but not the best character, so why not do it? Because its dumb, if you get to use a move with such ridiculous KO potential then you need to have a cost.

The only time having the cancel there would end up rewarding Ganon is when the opponent literally didn't know he had a cancel at all. Any other time people would learn 'oh wait, this is that one move in the game where it doesn't follow the same logic as the rest of the game so I need to be careful'. Which is not what we want to do.

All it does is reward Ganon for absolutely no reason beyond 'yeah Ganon gets to do that'. [...] Any opponent with even a basic level of skill will know to just stay out of the way during the startup, and they certainly deserve a chance to punish if they can get to you afterwards.

It's not a complicated problem, guys. Sonic's D-Air just needs to have its hitstun reduced to a degree comparable to that of the other characters' meteor smashes. When hit by it at ledge-height, most characters should be able to survive up to medium-high percents.

No downward-launching move should have this much hitstun.

 

[Thor]

Bent stopped when he actually engaged in a conversation about it and reached a compromise, don't be that guy just to be that guy.

No one's engaged anything I say. If Bent was really convince by you, PM me [or link me to] whatever you told him that convinced him to reach a compromise.

I see no need as of now to settle for less when Sonic has the best. Or is this bias because 'Dorf 'Dorf 'Dorf is 'Dorf is 'Dorf is too 'Dorf is too 'Dorf is too slow?

EDIT: Just saw Bent's post and skimmed quotes, will read and discuss the quotes of you in there later.

 

[Bent 00]

No one's engaged anything I say. If Bent was really convince by you, PM me [or link me to] whatever you told him that convinced him to reach a compromise.

Here's the full conversation that finally convinced me that the Warlock Puncel Cancel doesn't need to come back:

Please do tell me the full argument against the Cancel returning.

Short summary of why I think my v1.0 Custom changes are fine:
- 'Dorf is Buffed, but still not the best character
- His Signature move is usable offstage without suiciding now, like everyone else's
- Grounded Warlock Punch is still plenty punishable during startup
- Grounded W.P. power reduced to compensate for Cancel, but still deadly
- 'Dorf regains his mixup game and ability to fake out opponents
- Offstage Gandouken easy to avoid

I'm curious which members of the team are so against making Warlock Punch more useful, and why.

Did anyone on the dev team try my v1.0 changes, besides Doqtor Kirby?

Ok, let me go down the list with each of your points.

1. This point boils down to 'it would be better if he had the cancel'. And you're 100% correct. But the cancel in its own self is bad game design. Smash abides by certain rules to make the game something people can understand. Weak moves come out fast but don't hit hard and vice versa. Of course there's exceptions, and some moves hit harder than others, but that statement as a general rule is pretty universal. Removing 100% of Ganon's endlag (which he deserves to have after using a move as powerful as Warlock Punch, even if its scaled back to the power levels you've given him) breaks the ground rules of Smash. Giving him a cancel there is like removing the endlag from Ike's Fsmash. Ike would be better, but not the best character, so why not do it? Because its dumb, if you get to use a move with such ridiculous KO potential then you need to have a cost.

2. This is not a real argument. No character in smash has signature moves. They might have a move you PERSONALLY feel best represents them, but that doesn't entitle said move to being any better. As for the offstage portion of this argument, there's a LOT of moves that are bad ideas to use offstage. If you use Link's Dair offstage, you're probably going to die. You don't look at that move and say 'but Mario's Dair is safe offstage, Link's needs buffed', you just don't use that move offstage. Because its a really bad idea. And will cost you stocks.

This counterpoint boils down to a big argument I've had in the BRoom where just because Character 1 has X move, that doesn't mean Character 2 is entitled to changes. Characters should be balanced first in their own right and then against the rest of the ENTIRE cast, not specific comparisons.

3. It is! But that doesn't excuse the complete removal of endlag. The only time having the cancel there would end up rewarding Ganon is when the opponent literally didn't know he had a cancel at all. Any other time people would learn 'oh wait, this is that one move in the game where it doesn't follow the same logic as the rest of the game so I need to be careful'. Which is not what we want to do.

4. Reducing the power goes against the whole idea of Minus Ganon in the first place. This is not a tech based character. This is not a combo based character. Ganon is all about nothing BUT power. Even if you reduced the power, you would have to reduce it to well below the knockback you see on Falcon Punch to justify having a cancel on the end. Which is not Ganon at all.

5. Its not a mix-up if it only works if your opponent doesn't know it exists. Then its just your opponent not knowing how the move works, which is really understandable when its the only move like it.

6. The fact that you're saying 'offstage Gandouken' at all should be setting off alarm bells. Even if it is easily dodged (and I believe you when you say it is), its still a MASSIVE buff to Ganon's edge game. Even if you miss, you force them to recover around the projectile. A Ganon who can see what way you're recovering from is a Ganon who's about to pick up a lot of free kills.

So let me touch on a few other things. No one in the BRoom is doing this out of spite against Ganon. Yes, it would be better, but better in a really bad way. All it does is reward Ganon for absolutely no reason beyond 'yeah Ganon gets to do that'. Were it a huge problem that he couldn't Punch more often, then we would certainly have taken more stock into the complaint. But its not. Ganon is MASSIVELY viable just off his sheer strength. Not only that, but you have to made a bad decision to even try and land Punch normally. And thats ok! No one will ever force you to press that B button, you as a player have to make that decision. 99% of the time, you're going to regret doing it, not because the move is bad but rather because you can make so much better use of that time by getting in there and just fighting normally. Any opponent with even a basic level of skill will know to just stay out of the way during the startup, and they certainly deserve a chance to punish if they can get to you afterwards.

Hope this cleared up things a bit more for you, none of this is because we hate Ganon, its because the cancel was a toxic mechanic that was used as a crutch to make a very powerful move much less risky. The power was always intentional, the safety not so, the safely was booted and the power remained.

I don't agree with everything Glyph said there, but he made it clear to me that the majority of Minus players here would never welcome the Warlock Punch Cancel back...

So I gave up the Warlock Punch Cancel then went on to make the Safe Flying Warlock Punch tweak, which makes W.P. into a good offstage move without adding any Cancels.

 

[Bent 00]

Played Minus with 4 friends 6+ hours yesterday. We tried playing as Sonic 1-2 of those hours. We did well as him, considering our lack of experience with the character. Everyone agreed that Sonic's D-Air is too easy to OHKO with. We were able to land the move 40-60% of the time, often KOing opponents between 30-60%. It's easy enough to get most characters offstage -- just chain F-Air or use Sonic's throws.

It's enough that Sonic's D-Air leads into Spring Spikes and Footstools; Sonic shouldn't be able to gimp KO foes so easily with just D-Air alone.

Learned a couple things:
- Snake's Cypher and Yoshi's Flutter Jump power through Sonic's D-Air (didn't check at high damage)
- Sonic can control his horizontal position as he descends with D-Air. Maybe Link and 'Dorf should be able to walk around as they prepare Mortal Draw and Warlock Punch?

If anyone thinks Zelda is too hard to beat, try using Sonic against her. He speeds past her defenses easily since it's hard for Zelda to catch him with her precise ranged hitboxes; Sonic's too fast for her to keep up, and Zelda is ill-prepared to deal with someone who can stay right of top of her like that. I think Sonic may be a Hard Counter to Zelda.

On the other hand, Toon Link's Trap Arrows -- and Snake's traps, to a much lesser extent -- really mess Sonic up.

 

[Gold_TSG]

You can stop now bent. We found out that Sonic's dair is actually a "true spike", in that you cannot meteor cancel it in any way, or even DI when hit. It will be fixed. No idea who coded it that way, but other than Lucario's old extremespeed, no one else has one.

 

[NEWB]

Did true spikes exist in brawl?

Where did true spikes come from?

 

[Gold_TSG]

I honestly don't know, but it's a special code, and Lucario's was removed long ago. I don't know how it ended up on Sonic, but I wanna say they don't exist in vbrawl for the very reason this topic exists.

 

[NEWB]

Cool. There shouldn't be any problems with the move now, in theory. If they can DI or meteor cancel this move sooner than sonic finishes the move, he will just get punished or killed instead. That's pretty stupid.

 

[Gold_TSG]

It will need testing once it becomes a normal spike again, since DI was previously impossible. We don't want it to still guarantee kills with footstools/springs without much effort.

 

[NEWB]

Well yeah, but you don't want them breaking out of the move before sonic can finish it either.

It almost makes more sense to turn it into a suicide KO.

 

[RoboTek]

Well, you can't get much worse than a true spike. He wasn't brokenly overpowered with it, and he won't be with whatever sort of normal spike ends up here.

The move should probably be as powerful as visually seems to be, and that is probably 'powerful enough that they dont recover mid-move'.

 

[Bent 00]

Just saw Bent's post and skimmed quotes, will read and discuss the quotes of you in there later.

I know it's basically "Mission Accomplished" now in this topic, but I was curious what you would say, Thor.

You and a couple of my local friends are the only vocal advocates of Cancellable Warlock Punch I know of.

I really liked it the way I had it in my CWP tweak, but I moved over to the SFWP tweak once it became obvious that the majority of Minus players would not even give it a chance.