Hello, I am a person with suggestions for this character you have created. I would like to start by saying that this is a really cool concept and has a lot of potential. However, there are some things that need to be addressed to make this character more viable and have overall better design.

1. Neutral special needs buffs. Should take less time to load and should do more damage and knockback. I'd say 15% would be a good amount of damage and it should have a relatively high knockback value; almost as powerful as a strong attack. Also, you should be able to angle it diagonally upwards and downwards to get even more epic offstage snipes. Also, having the bullet be a rectangle does not look good at all. Make it look like an actual bullet please, and maybe add some motion blur to it.

2. Side special makes no sense whatsoever (No offense). How can you still be holding the rifle that you threw at the enemy? Also, I found this bug where you can throw it around after you've already thrown it. Not sure if this is intentional or not. In fact, side special is so weird/underpowered that it should probably get a full rework. Which brings me to my next point...

3. Side special rework. Sort of like Duck Hunt's Side special from Smash Ultimate. He throws out a disk, and if you do side special again, he shoots it and destroys it. Good for combos, and yes, sick trick shots. But what about Up special? Doesn't it revolve around side special? Don't worry, I have a solution for that too.

4. Up Special rework. I find the current up special to be gimmicky, not to mention that the animation makes no sense. His new up special would be a grappling hook that if close enough to the ledge, instantly snaps to it. Nothing more to say here.

5. Down special buffs. I have whiffed the counter attack way too many times and it's really annoying. Give it a bigger hitbox and have it do slightly more damage and knockback.

6. Buffed jab 3. At mid/high percents, third hit of jab just stops connecting because of the low hitbox. Either make the hitbox bigger or give him a new third hit of jab.

Those are all my suggestions. Please take these into account, as they will do a lot for the character's overall viability and aesthetic. Thank you for your time.

-replying/commenting on another pc gamer's suggestions
dont make nspecial do 15 thats way too much lol, do like 8-10 and please make it do more knockback. the charge speed rn is p good you could make it faster bust i feel like that doesnt do anything. a lot of the damage values are p good besides nspecial and i think jab combo do 1 more as a lot of characters deal 14 and gustav does 13. a resprite on the bullet would look nice as its just a single coloured line. side special and up special dont need a rework. unless you want to make it more different to guadua's as theyre quite similar. this is a very neesh thing and its mostly cause im annoying but change dspecial, personally i dont like counter, i find them boring but why would you bother with a counter when the parry exists. tho its your character so you can make the changes you want. you dont have to take any of these suggestions in to account. they might help viability idk about aesthetic. thanks for making this character, theyre really ♥♥♥♥♥♥ cool. :)

p.s if some one complains about something being "gimmicky" just ignore them as that is the worst criticism of all time for workshop characters

I think that if the bullet is loaded, you should be able to extend attacks by pressing c example: uptilt, she sends the AI/player upwards and puts the gun on the ground, if you then press c you could launch off the ground and have another fast kick to send them higher, or in backair she could be sent backwards (for mobility options) and hit the AI/player with the butt of the gun

Originally posted by shawn28341:

I think that if the bullet is loaded, you should be able to extend attacks by pressing c example: uptilt, she sends the AI/player upwards and puts the gun on the ground, if you then press c you could launch off the ground and have another fast kick to send them higher, or in backair she could be sent backwards (for mobility options) and hit the AI/player with the butt of the gun

I love this idea! Just to be clear, though -- I think you should press neutral special to extend the attacks.

What's up special supposed to be?

Down special needs tweaking. Like PC gamer says the counterhit whiffs very frequently. Another problem with it is it has very little recovery after your intangibility is over so if you spam it you're only vulnerable for like one or two frames in between counters. It's not punishable because of this and can encourage turtling.

I'm back from Heatwave! Thank you everyone for the suggestions, I'll test them out and will be pushing a patch in a couple of days with changes and bugfixes.

Okay so I've been playing Gustav a bit against friends and love his kit, but there are a few things that I find a little weird.

Most importantly, Gustav's nair looks like it's a dair. Whenever I want to use it, I have to approach them as though I would like to dair. There are some times when it can be used as an extra hit in some combos like jab sh nair fair, but as a whole I find it very unintuitive to use.

Continuing on the aerial theme, uair feels a little weak. It has a big hitbox and can juggle, but I found it hard to convert off of it or do anything other than combo into more uairs. Additionally, it looks very similar to fair.

To comment on the other aerials, I love fair and bair. His bair kick is adorable and powerful (almost too powerful? Feels like it sends almost straight out) and his fair feels like a powerful keepaway tool. I noticed these aerials are extremely spammable, but I'm not sure exactly how to evaluate this.

Dsmash feels basically unusable :( huge startup, tiny hitbox, and Gustav turns around as a result of using it so it's hard to capitalize off its freeze. I have successfully landed the move only a handful of times, and have never managed to convert off it. Usually what would happen is I hit, Gustav is facing the wrong direction, and then my opponent either hits me or resets neutral.
---I think a neat take on this, since Gustav is a "musketeer," is he could throw gunpowder down for a slightly larger explosion hitbox. Idk if this is good or necessary, but I was surprised to see that he had no gunpowder-themed moves.

On a similar vein, usmash is really tiny. I think I've been able to kill someone once with it. Most of my kills come from throwing my musket at my opponent or bair.

More on the tiny hitboxes, I find it unclear how long ftilt is active for. Sometimes I whiff ftilt when I think it looks like I should have hit it. I'd love to see a more pronounced animation, or an altered hitbox for the move to clear up this confusion. If I may make a suggestion, instead of pulling it directly back I'd love to see Gustav drop his point a little when the hitbox is no longer active before pulling it back.

My last actual move suggestion is something that someone else already mentioned... his counter is kinda hard to use, and when I did land it nothing happened. I'm not sure why he has a counter like this when our only hard defense option is already a parry. He feels more like a zoner, and I've found myself always jumping and moving around in ways that have never played well with the fact that he has a counter.

Finally, a QOL change that I would love to see is a better indication of whether Gustav has a bullet loaded. The current musket icon in the bottom is nice, but it's sometimes hard to tell if my reload was interrupted or not. I'd love to see some kind of particle or other effect on Gustav's model to make it more obvious. If that's too difficult (producing a lot of art and all) then I'd love to have a little "ding" or other obvious sound when he successfully reloads. Currently there is only the sound of him putting the bullet in the chamber.

All that said, I love Gustav and look forward to seeing what becomes of him in the future :o

I love how unconventional his moves are. Sure he doesn't have the best normals, but that's what forces you to work with your musket instead of charging at the opponent head-on. Just wanted to mention that because a lot of ppl seem to dislike this about him, but I think giving him better normals would take away his zoner-identity.

Only thing I'd change is his counter. The hitbox is increadibly small, even for a regular attack, but especially counters should have a hitbox big enough that basically every successful counter results in a counterhit.

Another thing that doesn't rly have to do with balance but is more of a QOL-change: I think a lot of ppl are confused by neuralB not being able to charge your musket if you are detached from it, and I think the reason for this is that his animation looks like he is charging it and it also makes a similar sound, making ppl think they got interrupted or something. I think if he would just do nothing or shake his head, that would be a lot clearer.

I love the idea behind his kit, but some things make him sort of sluggish to play with, resulting in a sort of not satisfying gameplay experience.

1. His resource:
   Playing around your resource is fine as it is. If you have it up. Currently it is really sluggish to reload, which is crucial for your recovery. Although I love being able to recover everything due to being able to shoot your musket around half the screen mid air, it is easy to punish the reload. Since you are basically forced to have your reload up to recover i feel like he is really prone to being comboed and edge guarded a lot.
   As others said, not being able to reload when your gun is out makes it really hard to do anything once you used your side special, which makes me thing twice before even considering my side special. The best way to regain it right now, when the enemy has stage priority would be up-special which is really easy to punish.
   I'm fine with being able to remote control your gun multiple times, which others though was out of place. It's an unconventional yet fun spacing/combo tool.
   On a side note. I love the way the resource is tracked, which makes it really easy to follow it mid game.
   
2. His smashs:
   In my opinion his up-smash is fine as it is.
   I don't like his f-smash, since it too closely resembles fair and feels a bit out of place in my opinion. Maybe a "better version" of ftilt would be great here.
   Down-smash could also use a rework in my opinion. It looks really underwhelming and has no real use in his kit altogether. Unfortunately I can't think of something here.
   
3. His counter:
   I don't feel like the counter really serves a purpose in his kit. I'd rather have another use for his resource or air and combo game than a counter, since his kit does not need a counter in the first place. Another way to manipulate your resource here could be great. Or maybe you could "recall" your gun with down special,hitting every enemy on its way back, making a great spacing tool and fixing the problem of reobtaining your gun in order to be able to reload.

whyd you take away active hitbox on side special repositioning, that was like the coolest thing