Broken Characters (People who have too much good stuff everywhere. Some of it needs toning down.)
ROB- undeniably still the best in Minus. ROB has the most mobility outside of Sonic, the best approach, the best recovery, among the best airgame, best projectile game, best combo game, the safest meteor, fast and effective close quarters, is a mid heavy weight with a near instant meteor cancel window, and some of the most damaging attacks outside of power characters. His attacks all have great range, safety, and versatility.
There are a few ways to tone him down without destroying his character:
A- reducing his damage output. The problem with combo characters is they're supposed to be weak. ROB happens to combo better than characters like Luigi or Sonic while dishing out disproportionate damage more in line with Marth or Mario. Lowering his damage would allow him to keep all of his crazy tools and actually allow him to do them more often without KOing so easily. Generally ROB's combos are typically 0 to death which no one should be capable of doing just because they have 2 instant use projectiles ready.
B- cut side B's mobility. ROBs side B eats through attacks due to a bone collision combined with unclangable priority. It spans entire stages in less than a second and cancels into all aerials, including one with 0 landing lag giving him the option to cancel into an instant guard if he feels his opponent can punish. Having his projectile game where it is he has no need for an approach which is fair to say that there's a reason zoning characters don't normally have dashing safe approaches.
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Dedede- Dedede isn't a very big offender in being broken. However, he does have incredibly powerful attacks for someone with so much control. His waddles can lead into his extraordinarily low KO percent kill moves, serve as combo starters, combo extenders, and safety walls to prevent projectile characters from ever touching him. He has the close range power to dominate anyone who survives long enough to get close to him, and because all of his attacks have great range and knockback all it takes is a small amount of prediction to score KOs or push his opponent right back into a field of waddles.
He doesn't need much in the way of toning down, though there are multiple ways to tack his issues.
A- reduce the amount of waddles he can have available. 2 or 3 waddles are fine, especially with the chance of him throwing out gordos for early KOs. It would also make him less impossible to fight on small stages.
B- take his KO power down a bit. Considering D3 has the best KO power in Minus along with quake attacks, heavy weight, and an armored recovery move, it isn't a bad move to make him actually have to work for his kills. The fact that he can throw 3 waddles at you and side smash for a KO around 30% mid stage isn't fun for anyone.
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Charizard- Charizard is OP in a few ways. Since getting blast burn he was never toned down appropriately to accomodate for such a powerful projectile which aided his stealth rock to give him a painfully good camping game. Also take into account he has an armored smash, amazing grab game, highly damaging attacks, good recovery, high survivability, and sweetspot KOs for every direction in the air. His moves KO too early which is his main problem. Most characters who can KO as early as Zard don't also have attacks that deal as much damage so safely, even on shield.
Solution- reduce damage output on abusable attacks so that he doesn't lose his ability to KO, but has to work harder to score those KOs. Fair, stealth rock, and dthrow being main offenders.
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Kirby- Kirby is a "secret" top tier. He suffers from having too high damage output and too much safety in his attacks. All of Kirby's attacks have close to no ending lag and combo into themselves or other moves which also combo into other moves and eventually into finishers. The ones that have ending lag have bone collisions, body sized disjoint, and very high damage so that they beat out other attacks hands down. Kirby has some of the most highly damaging combos combined with very early killing smashes, good recovery, and options for nearly any situation. Throw these on top of a few situational 0 death options like burning or final cutter on the edge, natural evasion of projectiles, wall of pain, some of the best gimping in the game and cancels into combos on recovery moves after 5 jumps, and you've got a character with something for every situation. If combos are Kirby's thing then Wall of pains shouldn't be. If wall of pain is Kirby's thing, then gimping shouldn't be. Etc.
Solution- Reduce damage output on combo linking moves. Dair and fair's first two hits, nair's initial hit. Stop bair from comboing into itself to death. This would reduce his gimping power and keep his combos just as lengthy but no longer overwhelming. Remove exit hitbox on down B, remove air dodge on down B as the move should be punishable. Add endlag to much of his moveset. Dtilt, both dash attacks, remove trip on side tilt.
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Ness- Ness suffers from being extremely easy to use and abuse. All of his KO moves are easy to land and hard to punish outside of Fsmash, and they can all be true combo'd into out of PK fire which can only be punished if perfect guarded within Melee range. His magnet has a windbox over a third of FD on expulsion that can screw with approaches and other attacks while absorbing energy. It also works as a shine which takes away from what even made Fox or wolf unique. PK Flash is far too mobile and KOs in two hits while having a jump cancel removing any of the danger normally associated with a ridiclous KO move. His recovery isn't perfect, but it's far from one of his issues. Ness's only real downside is that he has a fairly predictable approach.
Solution- restore the hitlag to allow fair to connect reliably, add endlag to PK Fire grounded, reduce damage on down throw, reduce magnet windbox size, reduce PK Flash mobility, make sweetspot on bair on his legs, not his body. Ness has no problem landing multiple sweetspot bairs with ease.
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Bowser- Bowser isn't 100% broken but his problems are obvious. He has armor all over his moveset which makes the only way of fighting him abusing grabs or projectiles until you can get him into a juggle. He also has an extremely high damage output with early KOs and a few attacks that can't be punished because of his armor or invulnerability. For him to serve as a bait and wait type of character is one thing, but it isn't baiting and waiting when all you need to do to win is mash the Cstick after someone else goes for a heavy hit. Then there's Royal Rampage which outclasses his normal throws. Though he has 10 throws he never needs to use 4 of them.
Solution- if he loses his super armor he wouldn't be able to win matches by allowing others to attack him and then always timing through their laggy attacks while they're trapped in hitstun from hitting him. He should use defensive collisions instead. These would stop attacks that hit his hitboxes from stopping him, but anywhere else and he'd take the full effect of being launched. Bowser's bait and wait doesn't technically work because he doesnt have to rely on it. He can attack first or last and always come out on top so long as he has armor. As a bait and wait grappler Bowser should rely on his grabs more. Baiting someone into a Royal rampage should be a bigger payoff than baiting someone into a smash attack. His RR grabs should all be highly damaging grabs with high enough KB to not follow but low enough growth to not KO. His normal throws would then be used for KOing since they're much harder to land, easier to punish, and require actual reads to perform instead of just armoring through and catching a landing opponent or whatever situation.
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Donkey Kong- DK has some of the strongest attacks in Minus, but what makes him such a huge threat is that he also has some of the farthest reach, and he is also very fast which gives him a ridiculous combo game when compared to other heavy hitters. His ability to rack up damage so quickly and KO in the same combo is something that most characters lack.
Solution- Him dealing high damage is only a problem because he KOs so early. However, making him weaker would make no sense. What he needs is a lack of speed. Many of his attacks have so little endlag that you can't do anything to punish him outside of shield grabbing.
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Lucario- Lucario unlike many other characters has seen toning down in many of the proper places to more or less even him out. His only real offenders are Double Team Jump cancel, easy vertical chains, and great disjoint on hard to punish attacks. His dash attack has so little endlag to the point where he can do it and unless perfect shielded AND grabbed, he won't be punished. It chains into his up tilt which then chains into either itself or uair. Which then chains into itself or all other aerials, and eventually into Extremespeed which can lead into either a finisher, or another combo depending on Lucario's desire.
Solution- Changing Lucario's DTJC into a Grab cancel instead. This would be safer on shield, allow for more creative combos out of the successful grab, and it can actually be counterplayed by jumping or dodging. It also can't be spammed or abused. The disjoint is simply a thing due to his aura and doesn't need to be addressed. However, a small amount of endlag on some of Lucario's least punishable moves could go a long way in making him perfectly rounded out. His vertical attacks aren't a huge problem due to the low damage output that he has until decently high percents. Though they are annoying and hard to escape they do end.
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Minusy Characters (People who are in need of a few tweaks but nothing major in terms of slight buffing or nerfing)
Link- Link has a few plain as day flaws. He's easy to juggle, has overall the slowest melee attacks in the game, loses to reflector characters hands down, suffers from having only 1 major out of shield option, and he is easy to meteor and gimp. These flaws are offset by strengths by excelling in many other areas. He has among the top 5 zoning games being beaten only by ROB and Samus, decent range on his melee attacks, and fairly high damage output though he lacks many combos. His KO moves come out quickly and he has useful throws though punishable on miss. Overall, Link is extremely easy to pick up and use spam to win, and his most prominent damage building smash which is great for building damage aren't as punishable as they should be. Taking DACUS into account as well, with the low punishablity of his upsmash there is very little risk to using it as a whatever kind of move.
Solution- Link doesn't risk much when fighting, and his reward isn't bad either. He has decent damage output but in order to actually win he has to apply constant pressure and it doesn't take as much thought as it should to do so wisely. Adding endlag to some of Link's less punishable options on the ground would even him out a bit more and make him require a bit more thought instead of just throwing moves out because they always work.
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Sheik- Sheik is in a good spot. She's fast, great at combos and has a clear weakness in her recovery. She doesn't need much toning down if any. At most Vanish could be weakened or slowed down.
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Olimar- Olimar's only real issue is being too strong. Stacking pikmin allows him to rack up damage and KO without much effort. He attacks very safely but all of his problems could be fixed easily.
Captain Falcon- Falcon has no real issues outside of being able to chain his knee of justice into itself at low percents. The amount of KO power on raptor boost is a little too high considering that it grants him projectile immunity.
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Toon Link- TL is in a good spot. At the very most, he could use some endlag on his smashes and a timer on his arrows.
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Pit- Pit has a great amount of options and is good in pretty much all matchups. Angel ring is his only issue from what I can see. He can use it to apply pressure and even chaingrab at low percents.
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Zelda- Zelda is great at range as intended, she is also good in close quarters which was not intended. Slowing down her fastest KO move being dsmash, and her fastest teleport move being jab should put her in a good spot.
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Ganondorf- Ganondorf may have been in his prime in 3.5, as 3.Q was an experiment with some points good and bad. A few tweaks to 3.5 would make him the perfect Ganondorf.
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Snake- Snake has extreme pressure and control with a bit too much power in his attacks. Though he does lack a large amount of combos, he more than makes up for it with his ability to basically place KOs all around the map and even aim them with his Nikita. His aerials dealing nearly 30 damage with nair and dair while being safe enough on shield if timed properly make him extremely hard to fight. Damage output output is really Snake's only issue, because he KO's early and has no trouble building his opponent up to that percent.
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Luigi- Luigi is in pretty perfect spot outside of his cyclone's ability to chain into smash attacks or item throws which gives him no reason to ever do the finishing hit. As the combo monster that he already is, it just feels like excess power for him to combo safely into smash attacks if he isn't shield grabbed.
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Mario- Mario is pretty well rounded but his best KO move seems a bit too laggy, as does the startup of his grounded firebrand.
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Zero Suit Samus- Zamus seems to be in a very good spot now, though her recovery sometimes messes up. She has a few issues with juggling uairs for days but no problems that ruin the experience of fighting against her from my knowledge.
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Wolf- Don't know much about wolf other than that I hear his new lasers aren't as good as his old ones, and that his up B is stupid.
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Fox- Fox is in a pretty good area. His dash attack chaining into itself across the stage isn't a good thing though. Instead of a full interrupt it would be best to make his dash attack on hit cancelable into attacks and specials.
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Falco- Falco feels sluggish but outside of that it is very clear how he is supposed to win his battles. He has pretty good camping game and can build percents from a distance before closing in for the KO. These KOs aren't that easy to land however, giving opponents who get in ways to deal with him head on.
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Diddy Kong- Diddy has a lot of good options everywhere, combos, finishers, good ground and air game, etc. He isn't particularly hard to beat either which means that while he is a great character, he also has enough apparent weaknesses to warrant little to no changes.
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Marth- Marth has plenty of options in the air but his KO moves are fairly limited. His solid ground game is offset by the high amount of endlag that he has so he requires good reads to play well. He does have more than enough KO power with his tipping capabilities though and he has one of the easier meteors to line up and land while staying relatively out of harm's way. He doesn't need any direct changes as far as I can tell.
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Squirtle- Squirtle is fast, hard to combo, and great at comboing his foes. He has a fair amount of armored attacks and a few others that are nearly completely safe on whiff. The ability to chain his dash attack into any of his smashes helps tremendously in allowing him to land otherwise difficult to hit KO moves, and his meteor has some of the best range in the game. That all said, he is relatively light and has a bad recovery, making him easy to KO. Nothing really needs changing with him.
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Roy- Roy has a few really good options but suffers from some laggy attacks and hard to land finishers. He has the potential to chase nearly as good as Marth and can finish opponents off more easily. He also builds damage fairly quickly and has a very strong defensive option with his counter being the strongest in the game. If anything, his nair could be weakened just a bit as it kills earlier than intended.
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Metaknight- MK is powerful in the right hands and can be annoying to fight. His speed and priority over all other attacks makes some trades unbeatable for people who have to be extremely close to hit. The fact that he can turn a fight into a victory simply by being one stock ahead and grabbing when his life is in danger is somewhat of a flawed design which shouldn't be as easy to implement. He could use the Lucario treatment where he can only use it below a certain percent, or even once per stock to balance him out. Even though his best KO moves are slow and predictable, he doesn't struggle to win games if he chips away long enough.
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Ivysaur- Ivysaur has a good spacing game with mid ranged melee attacks and a powerful projectile in razor leaf that practically eats shields. Large hitboxes make Ivy a serious threat in the right hands as you never have to be within attack range to hit and can with proper spacing, juggle and stack damage with before going for one of many good KO moves. The changes up this point have served to better define Ivy's weakness in having strong attacks with good range, but high endlag for punishability.
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Lucas- Lucas is great at comboing and KOing. His recovery could be better but he isn't particularly lacking anywhere. He can approach or retreat with PK fire and his only real flaw is that he has to be fairly close to deal any good damage, putting himself at risk in all of his combos.
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Yoshi- Yoshi has destructive combos on the ground and powerful air to ground chains that can dominate anyone who doesn't DI perfectly. His throws either KO or setup for smashes or other followups, and he has a strong projectile that can be used to either clank out other projectiles or force approaches. He has a decent approach of his own with cancels and some of the better KO options on the roster.
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Pikachu- Not much I can say about Pikachu. His hitboxes are large and he has low endlag on the ones that arent. However, he isn't particularly hard to beat because he's so straightforward. He can force approaches with neutral B and safely meteor with thunder, but it doesn't serve him as well as KOing off the top with it. His power is fine but he seems surprisingly average for a minus character. His combos aren't crazy, his power isn't insane, there's nothing that really stands out on him. I would prefer if Thunder sent people up and the cloud spiked them instead of it doing the opposite.
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Ice Climbers- Ice Climbers aren't the best and they aren't the worst. They have a high damage output and can be confusing to fight at first. They have a distinct weakness with slow KO attacks however which offsets the rest of their moveset. They can approach with either down or side B and force opponents to them with neutral, but the approaches are linear and for the most part easy to avoid or counter. In the right hands they're deadly, but they don't seem to have many reliable options to KO.
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Samus- Samus has a lot of options and a lot of power. Her jabs are powerful and great for pushing her enemy back to projectile range, and her pressure is off the charts with missiles and the occasional charge beam. Samus lacks interruptable attacks for the most part, so her missing an attack is a big deal. In Minus' current setting, her close quarters is limited but useful as she has good moves for spacing and KOing, but not for ideal for setting up combos.
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Game & Watch- GnW from what I've seen has some fairly decent combos, strong power, and amazing disjoint on many of his moves. Outside of that though, he doesn't seem to be too hard to deal with for any particular characters. He has some spammy attacks but they can be avoided and will usually just cause a clank. His bucket is the only real offender if anything needed to be toned down.
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Arguably underpowered characters
Peach- Peach isn't exactly underpowered. Unlike the majority of Minus, she has to work hard for her KOs as she KOs about 20% later than the medium hitters. Simply giving her KO power would ruin her design as a whole and make her pressure game offer too much reward for too little risk. Instead, giving her a bit more safety could allow for her to live long enough to actually rack up the damage she needs.
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Characters in need of a potential rework
Jigglypuff- Jigglypuff has very few good options and many moves that never see usage because of how outclassed they are. Her smashes are strong, her aerials can chain, and her specials work wonders. However, certain moves like dair, uair, and tilts outside of down tilt don't seem to have a distinct purpose and that makes them lacking. Her saving grace may be comboing into rest, but that feels cheap and should never be guaranteed outside or sing which could implement an on hit cancel to ensure the followup. If it did become on hit cancelable however, the range would need to be reduced at least slightly so that it isn't abused. Making all of her moves serve a purpose in either setups, damaging, poking, or KOing would make her much more viable against everyone.
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Sonic- Sonic knows that everyone else is too slow. If he chooses to go fast and combo you then you get combod. If he utilizes HA and bounce to extend combos and air time then you can be effectively juggled from 0 to death regardless of who you are. Nair chains into itself due to having low KB and Sonic having high speed. Sonic is the only character who can apply pressure better than ROB and chase harder than Lucario. The only thing keeping him from S tier is that his KO moves aren't safe, and he has to get opponents near 120 (or 80-90 at the top) to score KOs. However, this isn't an issue when he can fair chain you off the stage and dair spring double meteor you to guarantee no return. All of his specials when used offstage aid in his recovery which basically means Sonic will never die unless sent directly into a blast line. Some characters have no problem sending Sonic to his grave thanks to his low weight, but anyone slower than him with no armor is in for trouble unless they have body spanning safe attacks that they can throw out in a moment's notice.
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Wario- Not sure about Wario. I've seen that he can fart to extend his moves or something and that he can combo for days with low kb attacks that deal decent damage. I still need more experience against him since I don't play him. I don't know of anyone who would be upset at him getting rebuilt though.
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Ike- Ike outside of NSM is a decent character, but he can easily be overpowered by the cast due to his slow speed and straightforward attacks. When he activates NSM he becomes better at what he does and gains a few less punishable finisher options which range from stagewide sweeps to out of combo options. Throwing higher damage to shields on top and it forces people to be aggressive against him partially ridding him of his weakness to defensive players who rely on punishes to beat him. If Ike were to be redesigned it wouldn't be a change to his base, but rather a change to NSM's added effects.
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Pichu- Pichu needs help. We all know that, but we don't all know how he needs help. His problem is that he's stuck between a Pikachu clone and his own character. Intended to be a combo heavy character who hurts himself not nearly as much as his opponents is a good idea to start with. Turning him into a true glass cannon. However, due to a plague of issues on how he should play there have been many solutions, none of which were implemented. Giving him a mechanic to only hurt himself at the cost of dealing more to his opponent seems like the best choice on paper, as it is logical, and wouldn't change the feel of his character. However, there are other alternatives such as removing self damage altogether except on KO moves which wouldn't feel like Pichu. As a glass cannon, Pichu should have very exploitable weaknesses that any character can take advantage of, but also have extremely effective strengths that work against the majority of if not all of the cast.
ROB- undeniably still the best in Minus. ROB has the most mobility outside of Sonic, the best approach, the best recovery, among the best airgame, best projectile game, best combo game, the safest meteor, fast and effective close quarters, is a mid heavy weight with a near instant meteor cancel window, and some of the most damaging attacks outside of power characters. His attacks all have great range, safety, and versatility.
There are a few ways to tone him down without destroying his character:
A- reducing his damage output. The problem with combo characters is they're supposed to be weak. ROB happens to combo better than characters like Luigi or Sonic while dishing out disproportionate damage more in line with Marth or Mario. Lowering his damage would allow him to keep all of his crazy tools and actually allow him to do them more often without KOing so easily. Generally ROB's combos are typically 0 to death which no one should be capable of doing just because they have 2 instant use projectiles ready.
B- cut side B's mobility. ROBs side B eats through attacks due to a bone collision combined with unclangable priority. It spans entire stages in less than a second and cancels into all aerials, including one with 0 landing lag giving him the option to cancel into an instant guard if he feels his opponent can punish. Having his projectile game where it is he has no need for an approach which is fair to say that there's a reason zoning characters don't normally have dashing safe approaches.
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Dedede- Dedede isn't a very big offender in being broken. However, he does have incredibly powerful attacks for someone with so much control. His waddles can lead into his extraordinarily low KO percent kill moves, serve as combo starters, combo extenders, and safety walls to prevent projectile characters from ever touching him. He has the close range power to dominate anyone who survives long enough to get close to him, and because all of his attacks have great range and knockback all it takes is a small amount of prediction to score KOs or push his opponent right back into a field of waddles.
He doesn't need much in the way of toning down, though there are multiple ways to tack his issues.
A- reduce the amount of waddles he can have available. 2 or 3 waddles are fine, especially with the chance of him throwing out gordos for early KOs. It would also make him less impossible to fight on small stages.
B- take his KO power down a bit. Considering D3 has the best KO power in Minus along with quake attacks, heavy weight, and an armored recovery move, it isn't a bad move to make him actually have to work for his kills. The fact that he can throw 3 waddles at you and side smash for a KO around 30% mid stage isn't fun for anyone.
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Charizard- Charizard is OP in a few ways. Since getting blast burn he was never toned down appropriately to accomodate for such a powerful projectile which aided his stealth rock to give him a painfully good camping game. Also take into account he has an armored smash, amazing grab game, highly damaging attacks, good recovery, high survivability, and sweetspot KOs for every direction in the air. His moves KO too early which is his main problem. Most characters who can KO as early as Zard don't also have attacks that deal as much damage so safely, even on shield.
Solution- reduce damage output on abusable attacks so that he doesn't lose his ability to KO, but has to work harder to score those KOs. Fair, stealth rock, and dthrow being main offenders.
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Kirby- Kirby is a "secret" top tier. He suffers from having too high damage output and too much safety in his attacks. All of Kirby's attacks have close to no ending lag and combo into themselves or other moves which also combo into other moves and eventually into finishers. The ones that have ending lag have bone collisions, body sized disjoint, and very high damage so that they beat out other attacks hands down. Kirby has some of the most highly damaging combos combined with very early killing smashes, good recovery, and options for nearly any situation. Throw these on top of a few situational 0 death options like burning or final cutter on the edge, natural evasion of projectiles, wall of pain, some of the best gimping in the game and cancels into combos on recovery moves after 5 jumps, and you've got a character with something for every situation. If combos are Kirby's thing then Wall of pains shouldn't be. If wall of pain is Kirby's thing, then gimping shouldn't be. Etc.
Solution- Reduce damage output on combo linking moves. Dair and fair's first two hits, nair's initial hit. Stop bair from comboing into itself to death. This would reduce his gimping power and keep his combos just as lengthy but no longer overwhelming. Remove exit hitbox on down B, remove air dodge on down B as the move should be punishable. Add endlag to much of his moveset. Dtilt, both dash attacks, remove trip on side tilt.
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Ness- Ness suffers from being extremely easy to use and abuse. All of his KO moves are easy to land and hard to punish outside of Fsmash, and they can all be true combo'd into out of PK fire which can only be punished if perfect guarded within Melee range. His magnet has a windbox over a third of FD on expulsion that can screw with approaches and other attacks while absorbing energy. It also works as a shine which takes away from what even made Fox or wolf unique. PK Flash is far too mobile and KOs in two hits while having a jump cancel removing any of the danger normally associated with a ridiclous KO move. His recovery isn't perfect, but it's far from one of his issues. Ness's only real downside is that he has a fairly predictable approach.
Solution- restore the hitlag to allow fair to connect reliably, add endlag to PK Fire grounded, reduce damage on down throw, reduce magnet windbox size, reduce PK Flash mobility, make sweetspot on bair on his legs, not his body. Ness has no problem landing multiple sweetspot bairs with ease.
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Bowser- Bowser isn't 100% broken but his problems are obvious. He has armor all over his moveset which makes the only way of fighting him abusing grabs or projectiles until you can get him into a juggle. He also has an extremely high damage output with early KOs and a few attacks that can't be punished because of his armor or invulnerability. For him to serve as a bait and wait type of character is one thing, but it isn't baiting and waiting when all you need to do to win is mash the Cstick after someone else goes for a heavy hit. Then there's Royal Rampage which outclasses his normal throws. Though he has 10 throws he never needs to use 4 of them.
Solution- if he loses his super armor he wouldn't be able to win matches by allowing others to attack him and then always timing through their laggy attacks while they're trapped in hitstun from hitting him. He should use defensive collisions instead. These would stop attacks that hit his hitboxes from stopping him, but anywhere else and he'd take the full effect of being launched. Bowser's bait and wait doesn't technically work because he doesnt have to rely on it. He can attack first or last and always come out on top so long as he has armor. As a bait and wait grappler Bowser should rely on his grabs more. Baiting someone into a Royal rampage should be a bigger payoff than baiting someone into a smash attack. His RR grabs should all be highly damaging grabs with high enough KB to not follow but low enough growth to not KO. His normal throws would then be used for KOing since they're much harder to land, easier to punish, and require actual reads to perform instead of just armoring through and catching a landing opponent or whatever situation.
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Donkey Kong- DK has some of the strongest attacks in Minus, but what makes him such a huge threat is that he also has some of the farthest reach, and he is also very fast which gives him a ridiculous combo game when compared to other heavy hitters. His ability to rack up damage so quickly and KO in the same combo is something that most characters lack.
Solution- Him dealing high damage is only a problem because he KOs so early. However, making him weaker would make no sense. What he needs is a lack of speed. Many of his attacks have so little endlag that you can't do anything to punish him outside of shield grabbing.
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Lucario- Lucario unlike many other characters has seen toning down in many of the proper places to more or less even him out. His only real offenders are Double Team Jump cancel, easy vertical chains, and great disjoint on hard to punish attacks. His dash attack has so little endlag to the point where he can do it and unless perfect shielded AND grabbed, he won't be punished. It chains into his up tilt which then chains into either itself or uair. Which then chains into itself or all other aerials, and eventually into Extremespeed which can lead into either a finisher, or another combo depending on Lucario's desire.
Solution- Changing Lucario's DTJC into a Grab cancel instead. This would be safer on shield, allow for more creative combos out of the successful grab, and it can actually be counterplayed by jumping or dodging. It also can't be spammed or abused. The disjoint is simply a thing due to his aura and doesn't need to be addressed. However, a small amount of endlag on some of Lucario's least punishable moves could go a long way in making him perfectly rounded out. His vertical attacks aren't a huge problem due to the low damage output that he has until decently high percents. Though they are annoying and hard to escape they do end.
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Minusy Characters (People who are in need of a few tweaks but nothing major in terms of slight buffing or nerfing)
Link- Link has a few plain as day flaws. He's easy to juggle, has overall the slowest melee attacks in the game, loses to reflector characters hands down, suffers from having only 1 major out of shield option, and he is easy to meteor and gimp. These flaws are offset by strengths by excelling in many other areas. He has among the top 5 zoning games being beaten only by ROB and Samus, decent range on his melee attacks, and fairly high damage output though he lacks many combos. His KO moves come out quickly and he has useful throws though punishable on miss. Overall, Link is extremely easy to pick up and use spam to win, and his most prominent damage building smash which is great for building damage aren't as punishable as they should be. Taking DACUS into account as well, with the low punishablity of his upsmash there is very little risk to using it as a whatever kind of move.
Solution- Link doesn't risk much when fighting, and his reward isn't bad either. He has decent damage output but in order to actually win he has to apply constant pressure and it doesn't take as much thought as it should to do so wisely. Adding endlag to some of Link's less punishable options on the ground would even him out a bit more and make him require a bit more thought instead of just throwing moves out because they always work.
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Sheik- Sheik is in a good spot. She's fast, great at combos and has a clear weakness in her recovery. She doesn't need much toning down if any. At most Vanish could be weakened or slowed down.
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Olimar- Olimar's only real issue is being too strong. Stacking pikmin allows him to rack up damage and KO without much effort. He attacks very safely but all of his problems could be fixed easily.
Captain Falcon- Falcon has no real issues outside of being able to chain his knee of justice into itself at low percents. The amount of KO power on raptor boost is a little too high considering that it grants him projectile immunity.
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Toon Link- TL is in a good spot. At the very most, he could use some endlag on his smashes and a timer on his arrows.
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Pit- Pit has a great amount of options and is good in pretty much all matchups. Angel ring is his only issue from what I can see. He can use it to apply pressure and even chaingrab at low percents.
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Zelda- Zelda is great at range as intended, she is also good in close quarters which was not intended. Slowing down her fastest KO move being dsmash, and her fastest teleport move being jab should put her in a good spot.
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Ganondorf- Ganondorf may have been in his prime in 3.5, as 3.Q was an experiment with some points good and bad. A few tweaks to 3.5 would make him the perfect Ganondorf.
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Snake- Snake has extreme pressure and control with a bit too much power in his attacks. Though he does lack a large amount of combos, he more than makes up for it with his ability to basically place KOs all around the map and even aim them with his Nikita. His aerials dealing nearly 30 damage with nair and dair while being safe enough on shield if timed properly make him extremely hard to fight. Damage output output is really Snake's only issue, because he KO's early and has no trouble building his opponent up to that percent.
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Luigi- Luigi is in pretty perfect spot outside of his cyclone's ability to chain into smash attacks or item throws which gives him no reason to ever do the finishing hit. As the combo monster that he already is, it just feels like excess power for him to combo safely into smash attacks if he isn't shield grabbed.
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Mario- Mario is pretty well rounded but his best KO move seems a bit too laggy, as does the startup of his grounded firebrand.
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Zero Suit Samus- Zamus seems to be in a very good spot now, though her recovery sometimes messes up. She has a few issues with juggling uairs for days but no problems that ruin the experience of fighting against her from my knowledge.
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Wolf- Don't know much about wolf other than that I hear his new lasers aren't as good as his old ones, and that his up B is stupid.
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Fox- Fox is in a pretty good area. His dash attack chaining into itself across the stage isn't a good thing though. Instead of a full interrupt it would be best to make his dash attack on hit cancelable into attacks and specials.
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Falco- Falco feels sluggish but outside of that it is very clear how he is supposed to win his battles. He has pretty good camping game and can build percents from a distance before closing in for the KO. These KOs aren't that easy to land however, giving opponents who get in ways to deal with him head on.
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Diddy Kong- Diddy has a lot of good options everywhere, combos, finishers, good ground and air game, etc. He isn't particularly hard to beat either which means that while he is a great character, he also has enough apparent weaknesses to warrant little to no changes.
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Marth- Marth has plenty of options in the air but his KO moves are fairly limited. His solid ground game is offset by the high amount of endlag that he has so he requires good reads to play well. He does have more than enough KO power with his tipping capabilities though and he has one of the easier meteors to line up and land while staying relatively out of harm's way. He doesn't need any direct changes as far as I can tell.
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Squirtle- Squirtle is fast, hard to combo, and great at comboing his foes. He has a fair amount of armored attacks and a few others that are nearly completely safe on whiff. The ability to chain his dash attack into any of his smashes helps tremendously in allowing him to land otherwise difficult to hit KO moves, and his meteor has some of the best range in the game. That all said, he is relatively light and has a bad recovery, making him easy to KO. Nothing really needs changing with him.
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Roy- Roy has a few really good options but suffers from some laggy attacks and hard to land finishers. He has the potential to chase nearly as good as Marth and can finish opponents off more easily. He also builds damage fairly quickly and has a very strong defensive option with his counter being the strongest in the game. If anything, his nair could be weakened just a bit as it kills earlier than intended.
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Metaknight- MK is powerful in the right hands and can be annoying to fight. His speed and priority over all other attacks makes some trades unbeatable for people who have to be extremely close to hit. The fact that he can turn a fight into a victory simply by being one stock ahead and grabbing when his life is in danger is somewhat of a flawed design which shouldn't be as easy to implement. He could use the Lucario treatment where he can only use it below a certain percent, or even once per stock to balance him out. Even though his best KO moves are slow and predictable, he doesn't struggle to win games if he chips away long enough.
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Ivysaur- Ivysaur has a good spacing game with mid ranged melee attacks and a powerful projectile in razor leaf that practically eats shields. Large hitboxes make Ivy a serious threat in the right hands as you never have to be within attack range to hit and can with proper spacing, juggle and stack damage with before going for one of many good KO moves. The changes up this point have served to better define Ivy's weakness in having strong attacks with good range, but high endlag for punishability.
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Lucas- Lucas is great at comboing and KOing. His recovery could be better but he isn't particularly lacking anywhere. He can approach or retreat with PK fire and his only real flaw is that he has to be fairly close to deal any good damage, putting himself at risk in all of his combos.
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Yoshi- Yoshi has destructive combos on the ground and powerful air to ground chains that can dominate anyone who doesn't DI perfectly. His throws either KO or setup for smashes or other followups, and he has a strong projectile that can be used to either clank out other projectiles or force approaches. He has a decent approach of his own with cancels and some of the better KO options on the roster.
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Pikachu- Not much I can say about Pikachu. His hitboxes are large and he has low endlag on the ones that arent. However, he isn't particularly hard to beat because he's so straightforward. He can force approaches with neutral B and safely meteor with thunder, but it doesn't serve him as well as KOing off the top with it. His power is fine but he seems surprisingly average for a minus character. His combos aren't crazy, his power isn't insane, there's nothing that really stands out on him. I would prefer if Thunder sent people up and the cloud spiked them instead of it doing the opposite.
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Ice Climbers- Ice Climbers aren't the best and they aren't the worst. They have a high damage output and can be confusing to fight at first. They have a distinct weakness with slow KO attacks however which offsets the rest of their moveset. They can approach with either down or side B and force opponents to them with neutral, but the approaches are linear and for the most part easy to avoid or counter. In the right hands they're deadly, but they don't seem to have many reliable options to KO.
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Samus- Samus has a lot of options and a lot of power. Her jabs are powerful and great for pushing her enemy back to projectile range, and her pressure is off the charts with missiles and the occasional charge beam. Samus lacks interruptable attacks for the most part, so her missing an attack is a big deal. In Minus' current setting, her close quarters is limited but useful as she has good moves for spacing and KOing, but not for ideal for setting up combos.
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Game & Watch- GnW from what I've seen has some fairly decent combos, strong power, and amazing disjoint on many of his moves. Outside of that though, he doesn't seem to be too hard to deal with for any particular characters. He has some spammy attacks but they can be avoided and will usually just cause a clank. His bucket is the only real offender if anything needed to be toned down.
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Arguably underpowered characters
Peach- Peach isn't exactly underpowered. Unlike the majority of Minus, she has to work hard for her KOs as she KOs about 20% later than the medium hitters. Simply giving her KO power would ruin her design as a whole and make her pressure game offer too much reward for too little risk. Instead, giving her a bit more safety could allow for her to live long enough to actually rack up the damage she needs.
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Characters in need of a potential rework
Jigglypuff- Jigglypuff has very few good options and many moves that never see usage because of how outclassed they are. Her smashes are strong, her aerials can chain, and her specials work wonders. However, certain moves like dair, uair, and tilts outside of down tilt don't seem to have a distinct purpose and that makes them lacking. Her saving grace may be comboing into rest, but that feels cheap and should never be guaranteed outside or sing which could implement an on hit cancel to ensure the followup. If it did become on hit cancelable however, the range would need to be reduced at least slightly so that it isn't abused. Making all of her moves serve a purpose in either setups, damaging, poking, or KOing would make her much more viable against everyone.
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Sonic- Sonic knows that everyone else is too slow. If he chooses to go fast and combo you then you get combod. If he utilizes HA and bounce to extend combos and air time then you can be effectively juggled from 0 to death regardless of who you are. Nair chains into itself due to having low KB and Sonic having high speed. Sonic is the only character who can apply pressure better than ROB and chase harder than Lucario. The only thing keeping him from S tier is that his KO moves aren't safe, and he has to get opponents near 120 (or 80-90 at the top) to score KOs. However, this isn't an issue when he can fair chain you off the stage and dair spring double meteor you to guarantee no return. All of his specials when used offstage aid in his recovery which basically means Sonic will never die unless sent directly into a blast line. Some characters have no problem sending Sonic to his grave thanks to his low weight, but anyone slower than him with no armor is in for trouble unless they have body spanning safe attacks that they can throw out in a moment's notice.
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Wario- Not sure about Wario. I've seen that he can fart to extend his moves or something and that he can combo for days with low kb attacks that deal decent damage. I still need more experience against him since I don't play him. I don't know of anyone who would be upset at him getting rebuilt though.
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Ike- Ike outside of NSM is a decent character, but he can easily be overpowered by the cast due to his slow speed and straightforward attacks. When he activates NSM he becomes better at what he does and gains a few less punishable finisher options which range from stagewide sweeps to out of combo options. Throwing higher damage to shields on top and it forces people to be aggressive against him partially ridding him of his weakness to defensive players who rely on punishes to beat him. If Ike were to be redesigned it wouldn't be a change to his base, but rather a change to NSM's added effects.
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Pichu- Pichu needs help. We all know that, but we don't all know how he needs help. His problem is that he's stuck between a Pikachu clone and his own character. Intended to be a combo heavy character who hurts himself not nearly as much as his opponents is a good idea to start with. Turning him into a true glass cannon. However, due to a plague of issues on how he should play there have been many solutions, none of which were implemented. Giving him a mechanic to only hurt himself at the cost of dealing more to his opponent seems like the best choice on paper, as it is logical, and wouldn't change the feel of his character. However, there are other alternatives such as removing self damage altogether except on KO moves which wouldn't feel like Pichu. As a glass cannon, Pichu should have very exploitable weaknesses that any character can take advantage of, but also have extremely effective strengths that work against the majority of if not all of the cast.
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