Hi folks! We've been due for a balance patch for a while. Highlights include reworked Folding Blade attacks, buffs to various Secondaries, buffs to Shine Bracer, and nerfs to UFO.
General
- Increased shield damage universally by ~10%
- Slightly altered velocity curve of downward-sending attacks (spikes) against high-damage opponents. Spikes should feel more impactful, knocking opponents back faster initially. However total distance knocked back should be similar.
Crossbow:
- Now automatically reloads when user is KOd
- Can now be reloaded while in the air
Buckler:
- Increased damage to 8-12 depending on charge (up from 4-8)
- Slightly increased daze hitstun multiplier when bashing a shielding opponent
- Reduced start lag by 1 frame
Players reported Buckler's payoff not feeling high enough to compete with grab-based secondaries.
Harpoon
- Up throw angle now launches inward rather than outward, increasing combo potential
At higher levels of play Harpoon was seen as underwhelming. Increasing the reward should help close the gap with other secondaries without overly impacting levels of play where harpoon is already powerful.
Gauntlet:
- Reduced start lag by 1 frame
Oleg
- Rage now activates at 75 damage (up from 70)
- Slightly reduced knockback resistance
Warp mine
- When using the up special recover macro to self detonate a mine, the mine will no longer stick to opponents. (There was some strategy around this, but it often occurs accidentally on both players' parts and is especially confusing for newer players).
Folding blade
- Reworked forward strong. It now stabs forward, covering less area than it did previously in exchange for slightly faster frame data.
- Reworked forward tilt. It now slashes forward, faster but with much less range than the previous forward tilt.
- Dash attack: Reduced end lag by 1 frame.
- Down air: Added a weaker hilt hitbox.
- Up air: Added a weaker hilt hitbox. Increased damage (+1) and knockback of strong hitbox.
- Forward air, up air: Added a weaker hilt hitbox. Increased knockback of strong hitbox.
These changes are meant to address a few issues: many newer players found Folding Blade's forward strong to be overpowered and over-centralizing due to its strength and coverage. At the more experienced levels of play, some players found folding blade to be one-dimensional in its combo game. Across all levels, Folding Blade's kill potential felt limited if one failed to land a tipper forward strong.
With these changes, forward strong should no longer be so oppressive at lower levels of play, and the new weak/strong hitboxes should open up additional combo routes, including into kill moves. The stronger aerial hitboxes should allow for more outright kills when juggling and edgeguarding opponents.
Chakram
- Forward tilt: Increased start lag by 1 frame and end lag by 2 frames.
Magnosphere
- Forward tilt: Increased size of strong hitbox relative to weak hitbox
- Down tilt: Reduced end lag by 1 frame
- Down air: Reduced end lag by 4 frames, slightly increased base knockback
- Back air: Increased size of strong hitbox relative to weak hitbox
- Up strong: Slightly increased knockback scaling
- Up air: Slightly increased base knockback and (for weaker hitboxes) knockback scaling
Pincers
- Up strong: Slightly increased knockback scaling
UFO
- Side special: Slightly increased size of hurtbox
- Neutral special: UFO is now destroyable during the channeled traveling phase of the attack
- Up special: UFO is now destroyable (both the UFO that carries the player upward and the UFO once released)
- Down special: Increased end lag by 2 frames
Some of UFO's abilities felt too low risk given their high reward, making them spammable and difficult to contest at certain levels of play. These changes aim to make UFO abilities more contestable without reducing their reward.
Shine bracer
- Up special: Usage now refreshes after getting hit.
- Side special: Slightly reduced horizontal velocity. Slightly decreased size of hitbox.
- Neutral special: Reduced start lag by 3 frames and end lag by 2 frames. Now charges twice as fast and deals 6-12 dmg (previously dealt 5-15).
Bugs
- Fixed bug where attempting to load a control profile in local multiplayer could freeze the player's menu.
- Fixed bug where the max lives/points in a replay could be incorrect.
- Fixed bug where the "round won" Arena overlay could appear at the start of replays.
- Fixed bug where loadouts could still be altered after confirming your loadout in the quickplay rematch screen.
- Fixed bug where player names could be swapped in the post-match screen in quickplay.