Rivals of Aether

Rivals of Aether

Kid Goku
Mixmaw 8 Oct, 2019 @ 1:07pm
Kid Goku at Heat Wave 3! Now balance this character!
I am making this thread separate from the balance thread because there is a LOT to talk about, and it's better as a master post here. Also, I get to state that he's at Heat Wave 3 and have it not be a non sequitur.

Kid Goku has been confirmed as an allowed character in Heat Wave 3's workshop tourney.
Right now, this a really bad thing.

Now, no disrespect to the creator. KG is a really fun and unique character with a unique moveset and a cool playstyle.
But their balance is ATROCIOUS. We're dealing with a Brawl Metaknight level character here. And if he stays this good, Heat Wave 3's finals will most likely be filled with only Kid Goku players, and the first important workshop tourney will become a joke, and permanently tarnish the reputation of the RoA workshop.
So let's talk about why Kid Goku is busted.

Lets start with the biggest glaring issue. Kid Goku's fair.
I'm not going to include images in this post, but go download kid goku, turn hitboxes on, and check the framedata and hitbox size of fair.
This move is frame 7, deals 7%, combos into itself, and kills offstage. This is without mentioning the fact that it is larger than Clairen's fair in every dimension, alongside being the same speed, having a longer active hitbox, AND Kid Goku's insane air accel (more on that later). Optimal Kid Goku gameplay will revolve around spamming this move, making it impossible for the opponent to approach and punishing them with high damage combos if they fail to evade it. The move's endlag is not long enough to justify its speed. My recommendation is to massively increase the startup (7 to 10+), and increase the landing lag (14 to 16-18 for landing).

Onto Kid Goku's combo tools; his Jab, Utilt, and Uair.
Kid Goku's utilt combos into jab. With the right timing, and at a percentage below 70, Jab is true into Utilt which is true into jab. This is largely because of jab's hitbox height, catching people's legs as they exit utilt's hitstun. My suggestion is to turn jab's hitbox into a rectangle, and move it downwards.
Of course, this is ignoring that Utilt is overall a busted move. With a hitbox larger than Kid Goku's entire body and that can't be properly seen by the visual alone, this move has 4 frames of startup, 18 active frames, and 8 frames of endlag (on whiff). Ridiculously safe and unbelievably spammable, it's a good option to use while the opponent is on the ground. It covers tech options too, and landing it allows combos into fair, dair and sideb which are true at certain percents. My suggestion is to increase the endlag window of this move (from 8 frames to 12 frames), and reduce its horizontal size greatly. it'll still be a good option to combo out of jab or cover ledge, but won't be the end-all option for any time you can't use fair.
Finally, uair. Kid Goku's uair is once again 4 frames of startup, 4 active frames, and 16 endlag frames (on whiff). It only deals 2%, though. Sounds balanced right? Here's the problem. Aside from comboing into itself or literally any other aerial, Kid Goku's uair has no hitpause. Literally no frames of hitpause. There's no moves in rivals that don't have hitpause, so i can't tell you how this relates to DI other than it's either hard or literally impossible. This makes it insane as a combo tool, as it is guaranteed to follow into fair, or you can use bair if you get the right angle on it. My suggestion is to GIVE THE MOVE SOME HITPAUSE! Seriously! Even one frame! Just not none! Maybe increase the damage by 1% so it's still usable after a nerf like this. (Also the hitbox is once again enormous but i'll let it slide this time.

Finally, Kid Goku's bair.
This move is disgusting, like all of kid goku's other aerials.
It comes out frame 16, with a 4 frame disjointed sweetspot and another 6 frames of sourspot that covers KG's entire body. This move is largely comparable to jigglypuff's, but if it had the movement boost of ROB's, killed earlier, and was larger both vertically and horizontally, with no foot hurtbox of any kind. That description alone should make you afraid. It purples (is guaranteed to kill at) 140 from center stage, 90 at ledge, and immensely earlier offstage. On top of all of this, the forward boost makes it ridiculously hard to punish assuming you were ever close enough to do so in the first place. Bair is a viable approach option when facing the opponent due to its movement and damage. I can't tell you specifically how to nerf this move without making it a completely different move or making it useless. Just nerf its framedata, knockback, and boost a little bit, or something.

Nair has another slight problem with having way too large of a hitbox. Make it smaller, especially vertically. Of course, in its current state there's no reason to use nair over fair, so.

Dair is disgusting too! With 9 frames of startup, 6 active frames, and 15 frames of endlag, this move is the perfect combo ender for any offstage play. Having a hitbox WAY too large for its visual and dealing 12%, it's basically a free edgeguard. My suggestion: way smaller hitbox, lower damage. making it a fast spike is fine but it's absurd in every aspect right now.

FStrong is another one of kid goku's insane options. With 9 frames of startup, 3 active frames, and 34 frames of endlag, it should in theory basically just be clairen fsmash (which of course makes it good.) However, of course, the hitbox is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ HUGE. It combos out of basically any aerial, and covers ledge unfairly well. Increase startup, reduce hitbox size, etc, you get the point by now. Luckily, this move doesn't kill until late percents.
UStrong is also a problem. With similar framedata as fstrong, this move is much smaller, but kills way, way earlier.
Despite both of these strongs, dstrong is mostly fine. Maybe nerf that angle a bit, but it's probably okay as it is.

Side B is one more busted move. Of course, it's a recovery move, but unlike most recovery moves it doesn't put you into special fall. It also has LITERALLY no endlag, meaning it's actionable as soon as the move ends, on top of being active on frame 7 for a hitbox that lasts 24 frames and has an early sweetspot that KILLS. WHY. And not even at late percents! It's basically as strong as Bair, but it's TWICE AS FAST! AND IT'S LITERALLY UNPUNISHABLE!!! My suggestion: Add endlag. Should be in the 18 frame range to be even remotely balanced.

KG's hitbox is also a little jank since the offset isn't properly set. This isn't a major issue but it's worth mentioning.

To end this with a whimper, let's talk about Kid Goku's air movement.
Why does this man have 0.6 air acceleration?
What the ♥♥♥♥? I'm pretty sure that's more than slipstream wrastor.
All of his aerials are safe. You can't hit him. He can bait the ♥♥♥♥ out of you with anything, especially given all of his insane aerials. He's jigglypuff 2.0. Lower this value. It's unacceptable.

Now with such an unbelievably nerfed kid goku, you might think he wouldn't be good anymore?
And yeah, you'd kinda be right. As a result, I'd recommend buffing some of his worse tools.

Jab1+2 hitpause reduction.
better knockback angle/less endlag/more damage on dtilt.
ftilt having any amount of base knockback at all.
Better fullhop/double jump height, just a bit.
slightly faster rise on up B. It's okay if his vertical recovery is lacking but this is ridiculous.
Aforementioned damage buff to uair.
Dspecial and Nspecial being much, much faster on both, so that they're actually usable as moves. pretty much any character could either run up and punish neutral B from cross stage or parry it just by learning the timing, which is not hard considering you can time it based on the flashes. Same goes for Dspecial; why would I use it over fstrong or fair?

If you think i'm wrong, or don't and agree with me, please state so. The organizer of the event has already stated that he's not going back on his approval of Kid Goku, so this is purely up to the creator to, in my opinion, save the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ tournament. Thank you for reading!

tl;dr Kid Goku is busted overpowered and will ruin Heat Wave 3's workshop tourney unless we do something.
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Showing 1-5 of 5 comments
Nah he good rn
He may have some very strong tools but like he is as light as elli snek idk if they changed that recently but everything will kill him at 20
Besides that he is nuts only back air tho imo everything else is pretty balanced. I think nerf bair and his recovery is nuts but fine. Buff his weight tho to just be like a light character maybe absa?
Beedrill  [developer] 11 Oct, 2019 @ 4:28pm 
I literally had no idea people would use this guy in an actual tournament, I'm looking at tweaking some of these issues as I say this.

I wish I had seen this sooner.
Beedrill  [developer] 11 Oct, 2019 @ 6:04pm 
Alright, I had a look and just rolled out a patch that should have fixed a majority of the issues.

I'll try to post something in the change notes thread for what should be different.
63 12 Oct, 2019 @ 2:48am 
Nah, I'd only nerf bair's body hitbox so it only appears when you have forward momentum, like orcanes fair; and uair, that its a crazy at combos.
I think his strong attacks should do more knockback, double the kameamehas dmg and make him faster. Otherwise he is really balanced
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