Rivals of Aether

Rivals of Aether

Cloud
Nuetral B Balance
NOTE
When I wrote this the glitch I talked about had not been patched yet. It has been now and it makes a lot of things better. That being said, a lot of the other stuff I said still applies.

Love the character! I would like to talk about neutral b, and I have a lot to say about it. You may or may not fix them and my ideas are not absolute. I just thought I would tell you what I think so if you're interested in balance, maybe take some of my critique into consideration. Overall the character is solid and I'm only going to talk a lot about what I think needs changes, and some of my overall ideas at the end.
(P.S. I know this is long, but stick with it! I want my ideas to be heard for a character I really adore)

So, neutral b. I will talk about each individual spell and their flaws and then talk about changes as a whole at the end.

Balanced Spells, Curaga and Thundaga:

- The more balanced spells are curaga and thundaga. I will note that these are still really good.

Balance Issues and An Unfortunate Bug:
- Next I will address what I am assuming is an oversight, being that with aeroga, firaga, and blizzaga you can just hold down nuetral b and it will continuously cast the spells with no cooldown until you let go, and then regular cooldown. This will come into play later.

Unbalanced Spells, Firaga, Blizzaga, Aeroga and Bio:
- I will now talk about Firaga, which is easier to explain. Fireaga is too spammable. It can also be somewhat oppressive with the no cooldown bug on grounded opponents and carry them off stage for an edgeguard (which cloud is good at). However, Firaga's downfall is being just outclassed completely by Aeroga and sometimes Bilzzaga.

- Blizzaga. Blizzaga is very polarizing. Blizzaga shares the problem of not being unique in a bunch of situations and therefore outclassed by the basic projectile that moves forward with low cooldown. Even Blizzaga's stun mechanic may not be worth using when you can just use Aeroga (I will get there after). HOWEVER, on the ground, combined with the no cooldown bug from earlier, you can make it irritating to approach (not able to test with a friend, but I'm pretty sure it's a guaranteed infinite with no sdi). Sure, they can just jump over, but Blizzaga's range is pretty solid and parry/sdi out is only a temporary fix. Overall, it's just too oppressive in neutral(b)

- Speaking of oppressive, Aeroga. This is the main reason I wanted to write this. This thing is extreeeemely good at everything. Combo starter, combo finisher, combo extender, crazy hitbox both vertically and pretty decent horizontally. Some stages you can cover the entire stage except for directly above cloud with a constant barrage of this spell with the no cooldown quirk. It's extremely abusable in neutral because they have to hard commit to an option to escape it getting hit, which you can punish. It can be parried, but the reward is so great that its worth it to just mixup when you use it in neutral. This thing has incredible knockback and hitstun. So great that in the air you might as well use Aeroga to stun enemies then Blizzaga because you also knock them away. Combined with its crazy combo potential, this thing can be used anywhere, anytime. Sometimes I find that I only ever use down b once, which is to switch to Aeroga for the whole game. It also infinites at highmid-> infinity percent because the hitstop doesn't end before the next one hits if you're holding down the button. This thing also has crazy fast cooldown. It's easily spammable. It's fun to use, but also feels too broken at times.

- Honorable mention to Bio, which I don't even think deserves one. Basically, its pretty worthless I find. No reason to use it when you have crazy options like aeroga.

OVERALL FIXES:
- Fix the quirk where you can have no cooldown on Blizzaga, Aeroga, and Firaga by holding down the button. It causes infinites, easy spamming, and oppressive neutral states (the fire wind, and ice pain trains). It completely bypasses the point of the cooldown for brokenness.
- Raise the cooldown on the spells. Even the ones I said were balanced are borderline on being really good. It's dangerous to put healing on a character (especially who's fast and can run around) Other ones like Aeroga are so good in every situation and should not be able to be spammed with a quick cooldown.
- Create startup and more lag on the spells. It's fine to have a combo spell like Aeroga, but not every spell should be able to do that. Currently, every spell (barring curaga) can basically do that (although just use Aeroga) and there is not much variability. Similarly, people shouldn't be able to whiff a really powerful spell point blank and not be punished for it.
- Make each spell unique! This one is most important. While the spells are differently statwise, and use different "elements", I find that they are too similar, which is why there's no reason not to use the broken spell (*cough cough* you know who) who does the same thing but better. The only offensive spell that doesn't travel horizontally is Thundaga. Thundaga is well designed. You could have one spell that can focus on stage control and not move (you could think like Ranno bubble or Sylvanos plants) but doesn't win neutral and cover all of your mistakes. You could also look for their canon animations and make something out of that. Just remember that you still have the rest of your moveset, and you don't want a situation where each spell is a different moveset for you. They should be unique enough to be used, but not too overpowered that you have a spell that wins neutral, one that allows you to combo somebody to death too easily, one that eliminates your disadvantage, etc.

Closing Statement:
If you read this, thanks for sticking through with this very long post. I really like this character, and I do not care if you think I spend to much time analyzing the competitiveness of workshop characters (lol). If this was helpful to the developer or interesting to a reader, then I accomplished my goal. I enjoy playing balanced workshop characters with my friends, and I hope that this one will continue to be one that's really fun.
Last edited by ManGoneHollow; 23 Apr, 2020 @ 4:15pm
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Showing 1-1 of 1 comments
Salamender 28 Aug, 2020 @ 6:25pm 
Hey so I fell that Fire is kinda busted because of two problems, one he starts with a full bar and two it has almost no coo down. If you opponent starts in front of you (Which usually happens) as long as you time your fireballs they lose a stock instantly. I have not dabbled with the other spells but even if I did I fell this is the one that would stick out regardless

Edit: Okay so now I have looked at the other spells but like I said none of them stand out except for tornado because it lasts forever and has crazy KB plus it is also spammable
Last edited by Salamender; 28 Aug, 2020 @ 6:30pm
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