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For real, my biggest gripe with Ganon's Down-B is the fact almost any projectile just straight up stops him mid way. It has 0 priority or any armor, but truthfully, Ganon's biggest down fall was the fact he was a "clone" character in Melee and never got a proper development.
Have you ever seen the hitbox on his down B? its utterly tiny. Thats why it loses to basically everything. Ive even been grabbed out of down B by normal grabs, not even tethers. The move is just straight up bad lol. If the hitbox actually covered the size of the animation, itd probably be pretty decent, but since it loses to so much stuff, it ultimately ends up being extremely risky for mediocre reward.
@@eragon78 I say they should make it able to absorb one hit (Like Ryu and Ken down B) and make the hitbox a little bigger. It probably won't happen, but it would be nice
Yeah, I know it's been said, but the fzero character, black falcon I think, is PERFECT for Ganons moveset, and then please nintendo needs to Fix Ganon :((
@@Cinndragon i do but shoto is not a playstyle its just the name of the karate they pratice. Only ryu, ken and akuma are shoto cause they pratice that martial arts its not playstyle. I dont want people to be misled
@@rufusframpton He can be punished so easily. Once he chooses either up- or side-b he hard commits and any stray hit will kill him. Allowing him to have more recovery mix ups is a good balance idea in my opinion.
For the Ganon float ability I saw a mod where it basically just gave him peaches float ability with some dark magic effects and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I don’t get why he hasn’t already gotten it. Having a float would probably also allow sweats to come up with some goofy ledge guarding combos
This is from Project M, and yeah, the float is fantastic. Favorite thing is to jump towards opponent threateningly, float just before reaching them and watch them throw up a defensive option, then finishing coming down a moment later. It's great, and really adds a different flavor to the character.
Not sure how I feel about Ganon with float mechanics. On the one hang, yeah it would absolutely help with recovering and stuff, but Ganon with float cancels sounds ridiculous when his aerials are already really good. Maybe it would still be balanced because his aerials aren't that fast and obviously he's still in disadvantage if he gets hit, but I don't know.
@@KrazyKyle-ij9vb In PM, it's not a Peach Float, as you can't do any cancels with it. That's because it's actually his neutral B. Think of it like more like a stance change button, that stalls him in the air and ONLY let's him hover (he starts descending after 1 second) left/right or double jump from
I do kind of wish Ganondorf was just more like the warlock/sorcerer he actually is canon wise, rather than being the weird Falcon/Ike mashup he currently plays as.
What hurts is that they had a REALLY good custom move for Ganondorf in smash 4, where his down B was given a sloped trajectory on the ground and did a slight jump, and more crucially, let him still move mostly-horizantally midair. It let him bypass low to the ground moves, it gave him shockingly good recovery, AND it was much faster than the default Wizard's Foot, at the cost of some power. Why they never implemented that into Smash Ultimate, I have no idea. Maybe part of it was the blowback on some custom moves, but judging by Nintendo's balance decisions, they probably just wanted to fuck over heavyweights some more :/
Thing is, they did actually incorporate some ideas of Smash 4 Custom moves into the base ultimate moves. For example, they gave DK the Super armor on his side B which previously had been a custom. I can't fathom why they wouldn't give some form of recovery utility to Wizards Foot.
One of the failings of Smash Ultimate, I feel, is having a mechanic they dropped from the last game (Custom specials) and a perfect, relatively low effort way to socket those in (Echoes) and not doing it. I get that custom specials are awkward for competitive, and hard to balance... but that's what echoes could have been for. Picking up some of the more interesting custom specials and loading them onto echoes of existing characters and do a few extra small tweaks to balance/blend into those specials better. Especially given the existence of echoes like Dark Samus and Daisy, which have literally no practical difference.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 its still baffling how Peach and Daisy used to have different properties to their Turnips, but they patched it up so Daisy became just a glorified Peach skin
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 I am of the opinion that Dark Samus as an echo is one of the laziest decisions they made with Ultimate. There are already 2 moves that already exist in the game that can just be slapped on to Dark Samus Chrom up-B style, and you better represent Dark Samus and make her unique. Incineroar up-B represents her dive-bomb from MP2, and Sonic down-B represents her boost ball from MP2. Zero effort, world of difference. Dark Samus has enough potential for an almost entirely different moveset imo, but if there's going to be no effort Dark Samus can at least have the no effort solution.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 Netherrealm Studios has been doing special move customization in Mortal Kombat for some years now and it works just fine. Nintendo just doesn't like having any overt complexity. Because "wehhh its too much for teh kidz"
For the Ganon float, I think it would be cool if you could do his spinning float taunt in the air! It actually does already take him off the floor (you can spam it on the floor of mute city for example) so it would be cool to make that taunt actually useful and give him a mix-up
Ganon has a float in project M. Good mixup tool, recovery stall/mixup and tech chase extender. He’d also lose altitude the longer you held float You could down B from a top corner, jump ,float, down B, jump, up B in some scenarios at project M retained Ganon’s recovered jump feature. It’s also an approach tool as you could B reverse It at the ledge and do a call out or do neutral air 1, L cancel, grab/jab and go from there. Granted PM is wayyyyy more technically creative and honestly the best competitive form of smash in my eyes. People would still find a way to incorporate It.
Donkey Kong is in a great spot in my opinion, fun to use, isnt carried by a single move like ding dong in smash 4, and is actually competitively viable as shown by players like chunkykong and hikaru.
Ehhh, he's still kinda carried by grab. He still has ding dong, and its still one of his absolute most important tool. If you actually watch top DKs, probably like 60-70% of their kills come from Ding Dong still. Its not quite as broken as it was in Smash 4, but its still there. Plus, he's also less viable than he was in smash 4. In smash 4 he was an uppper-mid, boarderline high tier. In this game he's like, solid mid tier.
Absolutely love this format of video! I know it probably isn’t the best growth and algorithm wise but I really do like it when you post these more historical/analytical videos, I hope this one does well so we see more in the future!!
Honestly, for Ganon and Charizard specifically among heavies, we could take a page out of the book of other fighting games, and make the move that rockets forward _projectile invincible,_ making it so they completely ignore most zoning tools while traveling (that aren't explosions like Snake's C4 going off, or just really long normals like Sephiroth's sword). That way, the heavy doesn't get any particular benefit (or, in doubles, detriment) for smacking the projectile, besides just not getting hurt by it.
Great video. By the way Min Min having a reflector is actually a reference to her special ability in Arms. If she dodges backwards on the ground or any direction in the air she knocks away the opponents Arms. Nobody really plays Arms, so it makes sense why nobody seems to know this. Yes I'm one of the nobodies who enjoys playing Min Min. So sue me.
Everyone forgets about Charizard. Another thing I noticed is that heavies with their big hurt boxes and slow attacks is that they can be interipted by the smallest quick hits like Pikachu's jab for example. Giving no chance to actually do anything. Bowser has his tough guy mechanic which helps. Which I think more heavies need to an extent.
I already said it in another video and will say it again. Problem is Sakurai likes to arbitrarily give them weaknesses, as well as adding character and whatnot that really renders the heavy’s weight useless, like Kazuya’s whole TOD being way easier on Heavies and making their one big strength not as useful while also making their weaknesses bigger.
As long as heavyweights are big and slow (combo food), their weight advantage ultimately doesn't matter, and their ACTUAL endurance in a match would be worse than lightweights. In fact, weight is arguably one of the least important traits in the game, if Kazuya weighed as much as Mewtwo he'd still be top tier. Being able to recover from disadvantage states, and have safe ways to get back on stage ultimately do WAY more for your ability to stay alive than how much knockback you get. Sure, you might die at a lower percent, but I'm willing to bet if you looked at the actual TIME spent alive per match, heavyweights would be the worst by a wide margin.
@@Lardo137 Well, weight does matter in some cases. For example, Snake being heavy is a VERY big deal for him. This is because Snake often goes for trade situations. Him generally being much heavier than anyone he is fighting means that trading is generally in his favor, especially combined with his pretty solid kill power. He can easily rack up damage on you without worrying too much about taking damage from trades, and he will usually kill first. If snake was a midweight, he'd be significantly worse. Ridley is another character where weight matters, but for him its actually the opposite problem. Ridley is way too light for his size. This means that a lot of combos work rediculously long on him due to his massive size, but he doesnt have the weight to really survive them. So he ends up dying super early to a lot of true combos that usually dont work on other characters. This is bad for ridley cuz aside from being combo food, his disadvantage actually isnt all that bad. He has a pretty solid recovery, 3 jumps, good moves to swat you away, and his nair sweeps from under him helping him land. So he actually can get back to neutral reasonably well, but his size making him combo food and means that he often dies way too early since he doesnt have the weight to survive deadly combos. Weight matters more when you actually have a decent disadvantage. A character like pikachu being bowser weight would be utterly broken since its so hard to get percent on him, and you're not really going to gimp him. However, double ganondorf's weight and virtually nothing changes because 90% of his deaths are him getting gimped or blendered in a combo anyways.
@@eragon78 Another spot where weight matters, is recovery. Heavy characters have a much smaller window to return to the stage if bumped off, and the majority of them have laughable recoveries compared to any other class. Contributing to them getting killed off long before any other character despite supposedly having higher endurance. But I also concur with Spiny Bro that they're often given extra weaknesses or countering characters, ever since melee I'd say.
I like how Hopcat has traversed the decline in Smash popularity by finding this niche theme of Smash philosophy, looking into deep topics and forging a dissertation on them
It's crazy that Ganondorf's been stuck with a Shoehorned toolset that he's had for over Twenty Years, and it wasn't until 2018 that Ganondorf finally gets to have a sword. But he still can't float, and still doesn't have a projectile. He needs a complete redesign, and a justifiable one with Breath Of The Wild counterpart to give him fresh air without making him a fundies character.
God a TOTK version of Ganondorf would be fucking sick. He could be similar to Link with his bow and sword, but his club and spear gives him unique moves of his own. He'd still be slow of course, but just having projectiles, sword range, and Gloom as a potential DoT would help soooo much. There's a lot of "dead" moves in Ganon's current moveset that can easily be replaced, too. (Replace his smash attacks with that big Oni club and you could probably make all the old animations fit, as well.) More importantly, something like a Flurry Rush (I'm guessing in a practical sense, it'd function like Witch Time) would be real interesting on a heavyweight (in contrast to Bayo being a combo character). It'd be an indirect counter to projectiles; instead of being a straight reflector, it helps him gap close, and at higher percents would help land his more impractical attacks.
Im a k rool main When we talk about reworks, i'll always 100% say give k rool the abilty to hold his own krown like an item. This would single handedly make k rool a much more viable character, plus I think a heavy with item play would be awesome af
@@Wario_B eh, I played k rool for a while His recovery is fair tbh And besides if you wanna cancel up b you can do some ledge shenanigans and combo it into up air
@@Zx30 the krown pick up lag is genuinely not that bad, you can even do some cool tech with it such as krown sliding. Besides, if you know what you’re doing, you can just cancel the endlag anyways with a move such as nair I agree with the up b change tho, making it like duck hunts or Olimar would be WILD
Here's my personal hot take - If you buff a character, and they are still not better than the best character (Steve/Kazuya) then it's fair game - Kazuya is stronger, better, faster, and has better close range in just about every way than Gannon, there is absolutely NO reason why Gannon also has "worse" recovery as well: - Kazuya can jump out of Side B & Up B > Give that to Gannon. - Kazuya has invincibility on half his moves > Give that to Gannon - Kazuya has the best reflector in the game > I love your reflector Down B idea > - Kazuya has one of the best projectiles in the game > Give Gannon's Jab like a Zelda OOT thunderbolt that's as weak as Falco's laser or something - Kazuya Up-B is a kill move on all sides > Gannon's Up-B grab box should be the same size or at least kill twice as early - Kazuya has a bull**** comeback mechanic > Let's give Gannon something like that too (Like after 100% his grab range doubles or something IDK) - Kazuya has kill throws that send at negative 20 degree angles > Give Gannon at least 1 kill throw When you think about all the buffs you would need to give Gannon just to be "somewhat" as good as Kazuya is now (Who is Tourney Legal) it's baffeling how anyone wins with Gannon at all the way he is -
His laser is not one of the best projectiles in the game at all. And his reflector might be very powerful, but it's too impractical to use in an actual match in most situations.
In Hyrule Warriors, Ganondorf can throw his spear as a projectile and THEN teleport to that spear. I think that giving him a projectile that allowed him to do that in the game would go a long way to making him more viable.
It is not even an HW thing, is a mive he had aa far back as the very first Ganon boss fight, when he used a trident instead of a sword(wich make me slightly salty that Chadnondorf has a polearm but is not a trident). Hyrule Warrior in general really got Ganondorf right with both movesets. It is a living trstament to how many missed oppurtinities there are with Smash ganondorf.
What I would like for Ganon would be for him to have the Warlock Dropkick (one of the custom special moves in Smash 4, the one that goes sideways instead of down) as his default. It was such a great option not only for recovery and mix ups but also for approaching.
I feel like what most heavies need is: A: Better get-off-me/OOS options. (Donkey Kong and Ganondorf especially) B: Better recoveries, since the whole point of heavies is that they live for a very long time and are hard to kill. (Again, Donkey and Ganondorf especially.) C: Better grab/kill throws, since heavies are meant to be Grapplers at heart. (Ganondorf and Ridley) D: Have some forms of intangiblity or damage-based armor on a few of their attacks. Not to an extreme like Kazuya, but something more like Bowser on his tilts and Smash Attacks.
I think good recoveries is the biggest one overall. Heavies can live with some of the other downsides, the main problem they experience is that their main on-paper advantage, their durability, is usually invalidated because of how vulnerable most are offstage. The fact that living to 150% isn't unreasonable barely matters when you die at 60% to an edgeguard anyways. You know there's a problem when lightweights like pikachu can consistently live longer than heavies, just because you actually have to kill them, instead of just killing them off a throw at ledge at arbitrary %
@@GrayRenzo No, I don’t want them to be broken. I just want them to have options that are useful for them in combat and have a fighting chance against other fighters, and not just get smothered, camped out, and one-tapped off-stage whole game. I mean, look at Incineroar. He’s got everything a Heavy needs, and he’s really well-designed. Good out-of-shield options/get-off-me tools (Nair, Up B and Neutral B) Recovery Mix-Ups (Side and Up B) Ways to counter projectiles that forces opponents to approach (Revenge) Amazing grab game (and a strong, versatile command grab.) Amazing and powerful normals that all serve their purpose. And yet he’s still balanced out by the fact that he has poor mobility, lack of disjoints and a weak neutral game. He’s literally THE perfect heavy.
i think giving them super armour against weak projectile spam to allow for an uninterrupted approach at the cost of still taking the damage as they come at you would make them better in competitive and more fun in casual, as nobody likes projectile spam in casual anyway and the mental image of bowser just walking through a fire flower to deck you in the face also sounds kinda cool. maybe also giving them general super armour during certain ground attacks could also work, especially when combined with a decent GTFO option, where you can likewise trade taking damage for utility.
Another idea for buffing Ganondorf would be allowing Wizard's Foot to be angled so you can get all the custom move variants from Sm4sh and make it harder to see which angle he's coming in.
I like the heavies in Rivals of Aether where they give the heavies special broken mechanics like Etalus's Ice physics and ability to get armor or Hodan's water boosting moves when he holds down or his up smash that spikes at any percent and whose hitbox is the size of the moon. Nothing Kazuya level, but these characters have enough threats to put people in a position where they can't just mash and get away with it.
What can we learn from Incineroar and Bowser, the best TRUE heavyweights? (Kazuya is a class traitor, clearly.) 1) Heavyweights need more damage. This may sound unintuitive, but characters like Ganondorf, despite "hitting hard," don't actually do that much damage due to their lack of reliable combos, and their true "big hits" being too slow and unreliable for practical use. Incineroar does massive damage with revenge and has actual reliable combos and command grabs, while Bowser's fire breath genuinely does crazy damage and his faster moves (like up-b or fair) are no slouches either. 2) Heavyweights need better and more flexible recovery. Just having better recovery means they can actually TAKE ADVANTAGE of their weight instead of being gimped to death match after match. Kragg from RoA is a good example of a character with a unique recovery move that gives him a lot of options offstage. 3) Heavyweights need to be straight up faster. They don't have to be as fast as Fox or Sheik, obviously, but they can have a move or two (or more) that serves as a defensive option, combo starter, and so on and so forth. Like Bowser's fast command grab, or up-b. 4) Please for the love of god stop giving heavyweights a bunch of useless gimmick moves THAT AREN'T EVEN GOOD. Shit like Min Min or Kazuya get some insanely powerful "gimmick" mechanics which are also obscenely powerful, while Ridley gets a joke of a down-b and Ganondorf gets his kneecaps broken. Who the fuck cares if Ike can oneshot anyone if he stands still for 5 seconds, when that never happens even in a casual game?? Heavyweights are already punished enough, they don't need basically-empty move slots on top of it. Ridley has damage and speed, but is gimped by bad recovery and disadvantage state. Ike has good damage, but they actually nerfed his effective damage by weakening his combo starter nair. And Ganondorf sucks at literally everything.
Honestly bowser right now is probably the most balanced heavy; he pretty much doesn’t have any gimmicks, his recovery is pretty good, and he actually has some armor. As a bowser main, though, I’d replace his fire breath for something else actually useful (and maybe his side b too, it’s not super useful most of the time)
@@Iden_in_the_Rainfire breath is a great attack; roughly 40 damage for free and keeps the opponent at a safe distance while stunlocking them? Yes please.
I’d like to point out: Rivals of Aether does heavies REALLY WELL. The devs understand their weaknesses, and have built the heavies to be fun from your first time with them all the way into competitive.
@@andrewle4989 Hard to say exactly, but probably around an 8? I would want to see her grabs/throws first, if she has any good out-of-shield options, etc. But hopefully she’s in Rivals 2 and we see some of that!
long time competitor here. I enjoyed this--good job with your idea. Thematically this game is sumo wrestling. It just doesn't make sense when the heavies get KO'd early. Heavies should have the best recoveries that are the hardest to challenge to assist and make iconic their weight class. Heavies should possess an attack that has TKO power at early %. and at this point its experimental. The two above points are baseline. Something I think that is missing is a way to respond to shield pressure with either a counter or something to do out of shield. Ganondorf Neutral A-Thunder Punch, having a reflect element to it would solve a lot of problems. Also a Hold B ability for Warlock Punch to send out a homing reflectable projectile would be helpful
I main a lot of heavies and the way you described what it’s like to main them is spot-on! Sakurai was too busy making Pyra/Mythra’s boobs jiggle to give some of the heavy fighters a buff!
What you need to do now is get someone to mod the heaviest with your proposed changes to see what would actually work. I'd love to see you and Poppt or Zach play with mods
I personally think stuff like cloud limit and hero's various buffs are a better solution than an anti projectile move. The kind of thing that makes campers not want to leave you alone or else you'll get a power up and be more annoying. That's how revenge functions for the most part as well. Also you sorta bring up something in the beginning that I feel is true in general and not just for heavies in smash and thats that a lot of games are a lot more fun when you and your opponents aren't very good. I'm a sweat in pretty much every game I play. I love the process of delving deep into a game and trying to get good. The process of improvement feels amazing but often times the reward of "being good" is more of a punishment and the game just isn't that enjoyable anymore.
I feel that with chess. I never studied openings at all and just play for fun, but having gotten to 1400 rapid now half my opponents play super boring or just liquidate me with a 15 move rehearsed sequence and it isn't very fun
Agree. The main thing I've gotten out of being kinda okay in Smash is the reward of being miserable online and nobody wanting to play with me casually, and Smash Ultimate is an utter failure in terms of "other" stuff to do, I've actually been playing 3DS Smash 4 more recently, entirely because I have a friend that likes Smash Run.
I don’t understand why you don’t view Kazuya as a heavy; he just seems good. The problem with smash is broken Hurt boxes. If you have a larger character model you have a higher risk of getting hit by sloppy hurtboxes that don’t appear to actually hit anything
Hell kaz is easy to combo and hits like a heavy, tho his ToD stuff is wack Tho to be fair, cuzof 1v1 dmg bonus in ult, many chars hit like heavies now...
@@HELLRAISER02 Kazuya is what happens when you actually take the heavy archetype and make them a top tier. heavies should never be top tiers in a game like smash, because then theyer utter cancer to fight. The only way to let them be good while also having a terrible disadvantage is to super heavily overtune their advantage state and/or kill power. Aka, kazuya. Kazuya's disadvantage is still trash, while his neutral is very meh. But because he kills you in legit 1-2 neutral wins, it barely matters. He's literally the heavy archetype taken to its extreme. Heavies are the most interesting and fun imo when theyre just good enough to be viable, but not particularly amazing either. Low-high tier at like, absolute best. Anything better and the character just becomes extremely annoying to fight against. A character like bowser does basically the same stuff as Kazuya, he just requires much better reads and neutral play to actually get it done because he's a much worse character. But thats also what makes it so exciting to watch a bowser player. You know that when someone who is playing bowser is destroying top level players, its because they're outplaying the hell out of them. Thats what MAKES them fun and interesting. That excitement goes away when you make them a top tier where they have insanely broken options to win which heavily compensates for their extreme flaws. So yea, Heavies SHOULD be viable, but they should never be GOOD. Good heavies are a nightmare to fight. Any better and they lose their charm that so many people enjoy about them.
@@eragon78 saying an entire archetype cant be top tier just because you think thatd make em less exciting is a worthless sentiment, get outta here with that I dont even like Kazs ToDs but archetypes should be allowed to flourish
@@HELLRAISER02 The point is that heavies lose their charm once they're ACTUALLY good because it becomes unfun to fight against. Instead of a match where you have to outplay your opponent to get the few reads you need to really destroy them, instead it becomes a match of waiting for your opponent to make a single mistake and completely destroy them. Im not saying it CANT exist, im saying that its extremely unfun when it DOES happen. A character like kazuya exemplifies that. He isnt fun to fight because he just kills you every time you make a small mistake. Worse heavies ARE fun to fight because you dont instantly die off a single mistake, and its a lot harder for them to actually get the hard reads needed to kill. For a heavy to win, they have to outplay better characters. Thats what makes them interesting. If theyre top tiers, then they dont really have to outplay you as much as just wait for you to mess up and win, or for you to never mess up and then you win. Again, its the same idea as what Ding dong and Koop-Ha did in smash 4. They were extremely unfun to fight against. Very few people actually enjoy that stuff. The archetype is at its best when its viable but not top tier. When its actually good, it loses all its charm. Thats my point. Heaviest being the underdogs are WHY theyre so enjoyable and fun. Make them actually top tier, and all that charm goes away and theyre just annoying.
@@eragon78 Youre trying to use YOUR own ideas of what fun is to justify why heavies shouldnt be top tier, now that might be your opinion But if you REALLY wanna sell an argument on why they shouldnt be top tier then you should think of something more objective than a 'fun to fight' argument as you used, because if we used it, then every top tier is fun and not fun to fight
as someone who has never played smash bros here is my solution to the problem: make a fridge a usable item. the characters take a fridge and throw it to their opponents. that should fix just about everything. make sure it is a fridge not an oven, ovens will ruin everything.
Yeah that's not quite true anyways, there have been some Bowsers in Top 8's at Majors, KirbyKid's K Rool did it once, Skyjays Incin also did it multiple times, Hikaru's DK got 3rd in a major, ... That was just an exaggerated saying by Hop
Potential Hot take + lukewarm take: I think _all heavies should have a decent combo game_ and at least one strong defensive option (Revenge, a reflector, a really good projectile). This allows them to remain combo food and fun to fight against, but also able to fight back and legitimately demand your respect.
@@AubergineMans because these mf character have some much kill power giving them combo game would be deadly look at kazuya bro you don't want that kind of thing with different character
I really relate to what you said about Incineroar. I’ve *really* started playing Smash Bros a lot with Ultimate and Incineroar was my first main and imo, he is one of the best choices as a first main. In the beginning, because he was a heavy and with his down b e.g. it was super fun and easy to get great damage as Incineroar and kill early. After a year or so, I started to face better opponents, where I first encountered all the weaknesses of heavies with the bad recovery, slow movement speed and just being bullied, but I still felt like I could have a chance against better opponents as I started to learn more about Incineroar, because of certain counters to the typical strategies against Incineroar (like the ones you mentioned in your video) and therefore he isn’t a great character in particular, but imo an amazing first character with great usage in your early competitive stages.
you reached a ceiling before reaching the characters peak and place the wrong blame. look at skyjay, u think hes in his early stages?? your genuinely probably coping because in early competitive heavies stomp scrubs. the moment u had to earn ur wins you blame the character
Just look at Bowser's toolkit. One of the fastest ground speeds and fast air speed. Armor on basically every single move he could ask for, with various moves just not hitstunning him at all. Good reach. TWO incredible frame 6 reactions, one that scoops, provides mobility, and can shield poke itself, one that starts killing around 100. Weight and fall speed make him REGULARLY live to 160+ if his recovery isn't stopped. Everything kills. Everything. Tilts, smashes, random aerials. Can put 50-60% on an opponent from a single scuffed neutral interaction. Has a shield cracker, a few ways to vary landings, aerial command grab. Recovery is actually *just* maneuverable and varied enough to not be spike food. All of this. Upper mid tier, because heavy.
I think giving Ganon a grounded projectile could be an interesting idea. Maybe his side special is replaced with a wave of magic instead of another command grab. This would force your opponent into the air, give Ganon more stage control and stop him from being projectile spammed, meaning you'd have to approach him instead. In the air his side special could be the same command grab as is, a move that brings your opponent back down to where Ganon's strongest, though it's a high commitment move. Also just make his side special not put him in special fall. Recovery problem fixed there.
imo a couple more moves with high range would benefit them a lot without making them insane, like lucina's up and back air on ganon would be dope but definetly not broken
For Ganon, Forward Smash should be a reflector. This would be a reference to the games of ping pong in a lot of his and Phantom Ganon boss fights. Getting rid of free fall on side-b and up-b would be very nice too.
I always liked the idea that the heavier you get the more your range should be increased or your movement options should be more creative. I like sylvanos from rival of aether because his range makes up for his weaknesses and can allow him to duke it out with the faster characters. or the idea of a float buffing gannon's recovery and attack options would make him WAY cooler and stronger. Ideas like that can push heavies forward. I think ultimate bowser is kind of like the ideal, although cheesy he certainly is viable and a good character. admittedly it is a VERY fine line, and it isn't easy, but I think it is a step in the right direction. If i'm honest though, Ganon needs to be reworked from the ground up, him being a Cpt F clone is disgraceful, I say take from his hyrule warriors version.
I think people are sleeping on him. He's definitely in top 35. (Tho I'd personally put Bowser in top 30 cuz he's so good) If only he was smaller, he'd obviously be in top 15.
I think the big issue is that the philosophy behind heavies in Smash is always going to make them worse in competitive. The idea behind heavies is that they can take more hits, which means they don’t get launched as far. In exchange, they have bad recoveries. But in competitive environments that strength of not being launched far can become a great weakness, because if you are not being launched far then that means your opponent can follow up one attack with another. This means that heavies, who don’t fly far when hit and have large hit boxes, end up as combo food. I think the best way to deal with this is to give heavies better defensive options. You mentioned Incineroar’s revenge, which does this well, and my favorite heavy, King K. Rool, also has a solid counter/reflect option.
the reasons I like ROB and Ridley fall into a lot of those categories yoiu mentioned for Incineroar (especially recovery), but neither have all of the things mentioned (like counter to combo characters)
You had me at the tf2 heavy. Smash plus tf2 is an underrated combo. Also I used to actually pretend that the up throw up buff didn’t exist and just play bowser without it. Just to make it more interesting. Kind of like how I won’t use roy in ultimate and instead use chrom, or how I won’t use jarate, scorch shot, (meh okay I’ll use it more than likely over the jarate) the wrangler plus rescue ranger all the time, or the vax. Because these things get boring to use with how effective they are. ALSO I HAVE NEVER USED THE DIAMOND BACK AND PROBABLY NEVER WILL This video was very well done, and smash plus tf2… you’ve earned my sub
great video. interesting that the current UltRank tier list has Bowser at 50/82 and Incineroar at 64/82. I definitely see Incineroar moving up in future.
I feel like the best way to make some characters like Kirby played more is to make them more hype, then people would play them even if they are bad because they want that juicy combo in to spike or hammer or something.
I think heavies like captain falcon and yoshi were most balanced in melee because of defensive techs like amsah techs, crouch cancels, and wavedashing as a movement option
Falcon and Yoshi dont really fit into that heavy archetype even though their actual weight stat is pretty high. Theyre more rushdown brawlers than they are heavies.
@@eragon78 As a Yoshi main, there's no way he's a rush down brawler. He's not fast enough to catch any of the top tiers. At a high level he plays more like a tank, hence aMSa timing out Hbox repeatedly. Yoshi is all about taking a hit and counter-hitting, more like K. Rool in Ultimate. And it's fair to say Falcon is most often played as a rush-down brawler. But Wizzrobe plays differently, and he's probably the best falcon player who's ever lived. He makes you realize the character can actually play defensive and heavy.
Honestly wizard foot getting armor would honestly probably be better than a re/deflector. It would help with minor projectiles and also save him from losing trades with Bayonetta heel slide. Also up b is not Gannon's fastest OoS it's nair, then up air. Gannon side B not having special fall would probably be pretty good though honestly or making a quarter circle input for his down B to work like bayo ABK to help recover
Also there's some heavies that are just not enjoyable when overtuned. Case and point: KAZUYA. He's a heavyweight in terms of properties but is so one-sided some people want him gone from smash. And yes, he's fundamentally a heavyweight in terms of neutral gameplay. Btw, the best heavyweight is not Incineroar, it's Bowser because he's fast and has good defensive tools.
The Heavys heaving bad recoveries is kind of counter productive to their design. They are trading their ability to interact for power and vitality but since they rack up damage fast and are gimped early they just end up being meat sponges that occasionally hit you for 20% before dying.
I main King Dedede and he works fine for me on Online. My rank is 12 Million and I am in elite smash. The problem I have with lighter weight characters is that It takes to long to KO. Plus the lag interrupts combo. With Dedede I just need 4 well placed hits and you already at 100.
Smash doesn't have a problem, competitive e-sport style gameplay has a problem. I mean let's face it, by removing items & terrain completly you're ignoring like half of the game. Of course ignoring half the mechanics in a game is going to result in weird balance issues for certain characters.... And that's ignoring the fact that ensuring every option is "viable" for players who are min-maxing to the point of basicly breaking a game is essentially impossible... Someone is inevitably going to be the worst character and fixing that class of characters is just going to put someone else at the bottom...
I felt like king k rool could’ve had more representation in this video. Another heavy with the attempt to be balanced. Good recovery, good counter/reflect, super armor belly, and projectiles. Definitely my favorite heavy.
In addition to being able to mix up his recovery by taking out the fall mechanic from his Side-B, I feel like Ganondorf needs super-armor when using both the Side- and Up-B in the air just so he doesnt get knocked back while trying to pull them off. Maybe limit the super-armor for the Up-B to until he reaches the peak of his ascent (mainly so he can still get spiked or air-countered so his recovery isn't utterly busted).
If you want to see how a Ganondorf float could be balanced, check out Project +/ M's Ganon. His warlock punch is replaced with a reflect, and if do this midair Ganondorf can float horizontally! It's an amazing mixup tool on stage and it significantly helps him recover
Okay, so I had fun reimaginating a new moveset for Ganondorf : here we go. Jab can stay the same. F-tilt makes him throw his trident like Ganon does in a Link to the Past : It's a slow projectile with about the same range and armor as K.Rool 's crown, but it drags the ennemy towards you, so it's an anti-zoning tool. Hitstun grows with damage, so it's a combo starter into grab, jab, n-air or d-tilt at low percent, and then a kill confirm with other moves at high percent. Up-tilt make him slam his trident into the ground, pining other players like Corrin's side-b, and then throw a bolt of lightning on it, like with Hyrule Warriors. Kinda slow, very strong (send at a semi-spike angle, kills at about 85% with the second hit), great hitbox so works as an anti-air. Bolt of lightning is safe on shield but slamming the trident is not, so you can interrupt it. Down-tilt he does like SSBC (Smash Bros Crusade.) Can somewhat combo and kill at about 130%. Smash attacks are fine. Dash attack is fine mechanically, but I'd like a visual where a shadow of Ganon's body appear around his. Grab is now his old side-B, except he isn't the one who does it : it's Phantom Ganon. If Phantom Ganon grabs someone, they are teleported into Ganondorf's loving arms. Up-throw looks the same, but it can kill now (around 140%). D-throw is the same as before. F-throw is the second part of his old side-B, still techable and all. If not teched, comboes into up-tilt. B-throw is a bit special : it reuses the animation of his old F-throw, except that a dark portal (like the one he comes out of in his entrance) opens in front of him and another in his back. The hit sends the ennemy into the portal in front of him. It also has around K.Rool's back throw level of kill power. Can also be used as a z-air, works like the normal aerial version of the old side-b. This time it's Ganondorf who teleports on the target, not the opposite. Can also grab ledge and Ganoncide. Phantom Ganon isn't disjointed : you can hit him, and the damage and knockback will be reflected to Ganondorf. However, it isn't instantaneous, only when the hitstun is over, so Ganondorf has the time to shield, but he'll probably still be punished since he'll still suffer the shieldstun while the opponent can move freely. D-air is fine. F-air and B-air are about the same, except that a shadow of Ganon's arm appear around his own (like with Hyrule Warrior), giving him around as much range as Incineroar's f-air, but like Phantom Ganon, it isn't disjointed. N-air is fine, but it's Phantom Ganon who does it, while Ganondorf does a little burst of energy who sends you into the second hit of Phantom Ganon's n-air. This way it actually works as an out-of-shield. Up-air has him manifest Ganon's horn and head around his, as he does an headbutt upwards. Same kill power and range as the old up-air but without a sourspot. It still sends horizontally instead of vertically, and is actually disjointed at the horns. Neutral-b is a big ball of chargeable energy, but it's like with Sephiroth where you can't hold the charge. Side-b is his old down-B, but it's Phantom Ganon who does it, acting as a projectile. Down-b is a float, lasting for around 5s, during which you can attack and move slowly. Pressing Down-B again makes him do his slamming attack from OOT. It's mechanically identical to Bowser's down-B. For up-b, I felt like doing something more fun and interesting than just a teleport. So it's the same as now, except that holding B while doing it makes Ganondorf teleport a Bokoblin on which he latches , giving him more horizontal distance and allowing him to act again like he would with hitting another player. He can only summon a Bokoblin once per going offstage (getting hit doesn't refresh it), but he has armor while discharging electricity. Also, having someone else hit you or the Bokoblin doesn't get either out of the move.
Ganon’s nair is actually his fastest out of shield option at frame 10, which is not fantastic but much faster than dark dive, which is not active until frame 14. Great video and agree with most of the points you make.
I don't think Heavies are at a disadvantage with items. They break smash balls pretty easily and can get the biggest punishment of anything that locks you in place, like a pitfall.
This. Heavies tend to get more advantage off of the benefits most items provide, and are usually more threatening to ignore to get items. Obviously there are exceptions to this, in characters that really specialize in playing the item game for one reason or another, but usually, in my experience, most heavies do better with items on relative to the average character. Bowser, specifically, is a MONSTER with items on for a variety of reasons.
What's weird is that heavies in smash fan games are actually really good sometimes, like how DK was top tier in super smash flash 2 and project M (he's not top tier in those anymore but He's still high tier on project+). There's also other fighting games where there's at least one top tier heavy.
I think if we do get another game, Ganondorf should be redesigned entirely around Tears of the Kingdom. His down B can switch between a sword, a spear, and a club so he doesn't function too much like Byleth, changing all of his normals, tilts, smash attacks, and throws. His neutral B should be the Demon King's bow, with the gloom projectile functioning like Joker's Eiha. His up B could remain mostly the same, but with improved vertical height and with a weapon hitbox like the swordies and the Belmonts have. His side B could be different on the ground and in the air. In the air, it could be a lunge attack like Chrom's with no trigger recover penalty for an inherently better recovery. He DESERVES a redesign of such a magnitude.
In melee, Ganon and Falcon's side-b could actually "side-step" projectiles at certain frames because of the 3D aspect of the game. I wish that happened in this game more, it would help his approaches towards projectile characters. I’d also like to say Rivals of Aether seemed to solve the heavy problem. Characters like Kragg and Sylvanos can move well and combo thanks to the hitfall mechanic. Smash needs a mechanical technique that gives heavies a way to escape combos and stay on top of opponents while providing counterplay.
I think heavies are bad in 1v1 but if you did 2v2 or 3v3 suddenly they become interesting in competitive, like, they can tank projectiles and whatever for the team to allow for setups or force a dodge that would be super punitive if not made to enable a fast light character to start a combo
my first response back when I didn't know anything about smash would not have been "ganondorf is strong right?" it'd be "pikachu and ganondorf? what do those two have in common? what would make someone interested in both of those and none of the other characters??" because in every game i onetrick/small pool and forget that it's not the norm 😭
Balancing for two completely different, unrelated metagames seems so exhausting and impossible. I think another important factor is simply the fact that over time heavies/grapplers etc. have sort of been doomed to be not good by virtue of the characteristics of their archetype. A character designed around having to make more reads with less robust, reliable tools in order to get comparable reward to the best characters in a cast will always be less consistent. Some of these characters are (likely) also kept the same or similar for legacy familiarity which is very difficult to overcome IMO. Some neat ideas though. I think the point about mixups is huge, and while the bad recoveries make sense as a balancing mechanic of "oh they're heavy so they're harder to yeet off the stage" kinda falls apart when you just get juggled across it instead lol.
Most smash players are too sweaty and it's kinda annoying to see them playing a 1v1. Smash is just a really good and fun casual multiplayer game but for competitive it's the total opposite.
My awful wishlist for changes to Ganon since I'm 110% biased. He's my favorite char to play vs friends in couch matches where I'm not trying to be sweaty. -Less endlag on up B - down B has high priority -F Tilt is a reflector -Up tilt is faster but weaker but slightly bigger hitbox -back air has more range -up air has more active ending frames >forward air has more range but less knock back power -side b goes further and doesn't put you in free fall but after the initial animation it's no longer a grab to make it not an annoying command grab - make ganon's initial dash faster but keep run speed low, this lets him stay weighty but feel more responsive Ganon has some way of responding to projectiles, bit better recovery but still struggles hard with dealing with pressure or keeping it up
I think the best way to balance a heavy is to give them either bad mobility or frame data but not both. Heavies also don’t need to have huge frames it’s weird that smash bros has those three attributes tied together. Likewise heavies don’t necessarily need huge damage and kill power they could just have one of the two strengths
Funny thing is- heavy characters are only considered 'bad' in top level play. Elite smash is filled with Bowsers, Robs, Ganons, DKs, Kazuya, etc. it's because top level players are so much better at pushing advantage state and heavy characters biggest weakness in general is being in disadvantage.
a reflector definitely makes sense for ganondorf, especially with THIS ganondorf and really with him the biggest issue is that he's been a clone of captain falcon for 4 games straight with only this recent one actually changing things up for the better. the moves i think need to be changed would absolutely be warlock punch and his up special. for neutral special because those moves are not only much more fitting for falcon but there's also better options for attacks. with the float we already have a pretty good idea of what that can look like with black adam in multiversus so that could be a good baseline to work with and for neutral special i think having some sort of slow moving projectile could work really well especially if he has a reflector
Honestly Make Most Heavies Like Bowser,Minus The Speed, Since Speed Wise Heavies arent Supposed to be the fastest. But what I mean Is Give them alot More Viable options,Like How Bowser can Up-B Out of Shield Almost Instantly and Keep a Ranged Damage with His Fire. I dont mean give all Heavies a Projectile,But At the Very Least give them Better ways to Recovery from Edge Guards and Off Stage throws
Looking at Project M, they balanced heavies by giving them 1 pretty unique movement form that game them some burst potential, like Ike’s side B which was jump cancellable and Gabon’s float. I feel like giving heavies a movement ability like this makes them infinitely better and it showed because Ike was pretty strong in pM if I remember right
Realistically it’s great recovery and super armor that makes a heavy good. If only there was a toggle switch to play competitively: Bowser - giga bowser after 100% DK - super armor with charged B Ddd - fast Nair, aim reflected suck Ganon- side/Up B to not free fall Incineroar- rage increases speed Plant- can double input specials Dr mario- side B air stall like mario Krool- cracked belly 2x rage Yoshi- make heavier, side B armor Ridley- 4th jump, super armor dair
Thumbnail: "Heavies are always bad" Also Thumbnail: **Shows one of the most infamously broken-on-launch characters in the franchise** Can't have it both ways, darling.
I play smash very casually and sometimes I play with my family who are much worse than me, they banned me from playing little mac because I picked him thinking "this characters bad so I will level the playing field" but I just pinned across the battlefield with big punches repeatedly and still won most of the time. Now im relegated to clicking the random button.
One thing I had thought of to simultaneously improve the recovery, approach(I don't know how good it is now, balance as necessary) and canonical faithfulness if Ganondorf would be replacing his neutral special with Dead Man's Volley. It would be a short ranged projectile and not too strong at first, but attacks could reflect it to increase its power. You could only have one out at once, and using it while out would make Ganon attempt to reflect it (this would not reflect any other projectile but his and other Ganondorfs' Volleys). The move would also make Ganon Float in midair slightly while using it, allowing for some mixups when recovering. The projectile would deal very little shield damage, but would keep you trapped inside your shield for a short time by constantly hitting you, the trade-off for this being that a parry reflects the projectile with great power. It would be an energy based projectile, meaning characters like Game&Watch and Ness could chose between reflecting and absorbing it.
