Rivals of Aether

Rivals of Aether

Smash Mario
Balance Changes
This Mario is great! Though he could definitely use some balance changes..

For starters Mario's Aerial Side-Special, and Up-Special have far too much priority and will beat almost anything they clash with (Mostly tested with Bar-Kun's Sonic the Hedgehog), even if its a spike.

The next thing I'd like to talk about is Mario's Side-Special specifically.
Using the Aerial Side-Special gives you an extra jump, but when given everything else in his kit, this is over-powered. This almost makes him unable to die from falling off stage as he can recover from anywhere.
The best course of action would be to remove this extra jump you gain from Aerial Side-Special.

After this, I think about his Neutral-Special.
Mario's POW Block is easily his worst option for his Neutral-Special, the pow block gives the same amount of end-lag as fireball, allowing your opponents to use before you're ever able to act.
This could be fixed by making it have an active hitbox as it falls to at least ensure they aren't able to use it as you throw it out.
The next Neutral-Special option I'd like to talk about is his Feather (His Cape)
This may seem underwhelming at first glance, but the truth is that this is far too good.
The Cape instantly switches your opponents direction with little to no sound, adding a very short stun effect to allow them to prepare themselves for the incoming direction change could definitely help balance this character out.

The last special I would like to talk about is Down-Special
This move is great, though a tad too slow, giving this move slightly less start-up frames could make it an even better combo ending move, though ultimately it definitely does not need a change and is balanced as is.

The most important thing I would like to talk about is Mario's Coin Collector and Star mechanic
Mario's coin gain is too slow and when landing combos you will get barely any coins in return even if you do multiple, it ends up making the Star an impossibility in most matches.
Fixing this is fairly simple, rewarding players for hitting longer combos by giving out more coins could be a game changer for him, allowing you to be able to claim the Star easier than before, given a little skill.

Now onto Mario's Star Mechanic. The combo attack you gain when using Neutral-Special with a star is definitely powerful and has great potential to eliminate your opponent, but after gaining 100 coins and missing this attack is.. definitely a heartbreaking move considering you only have one chance to land it.
I suggest giving Mario a different option to use this star for, an Install! Giving him the option to push Neutral-Special and the Parry button to consume the star, giving him a mini turbo mode and taking no damage for the short duration that the star power lasts. (No more than 10 seconds most likely.)

This comes from a place of love as this Mario is my favorite character on the workshop, so I hope some of this advice is considered.