(07/27/2010 05:54 PM)filbert Wrote:  I didn't forget. I was okay with it.

With this past page of forum, squirtle was never mentioned. DMB said that Charizard was staying pretty much the same and Ivysaur was getting redone, but what about squirtle? He's staying pretty much the same, right?

• It would be a small-but-fantastic thing if someone could fix vanilla Brawl's bug of carrying over input buffer while KO'd to the next stock (no idea how feasible this is).
• As you'll see below, I'm suggesting two new trapboxes, one for each of Squirtle (Bubble or Whirlpool) and Ivysaur (Seed Bomb). My reasoning: a trapbox to provide a further unifying theme with Charizard's new Stealth Rock. The Stealth Rock addition to Rock Smash is excellent, providing some interesting new gameplay space that goes beyond anything vBrawl dared do -- Bumpers float but they're rare items and are single-use, prox mines are confined to the ground, and nothing else really comes close. So making Pokémon Trainer be the character-select-screen choice for aerial trapboxes, as Snake is for explosions and Pikachu is for electricity everywhere, seems a fun thing to do that is pretty true to the Pokémon games themselves.
      I am placing Ivysaur's Seed Bomb at the top of her neutral-B when she finishes using it, and Squirtle's trapbox upon finishing his up-B. This would limit their trapbox placement to at least a few Stage Builder blocks above the ground, preventing the trapboxes from being placed in arbitrary locations. It's an intentional drawback that I intend to contrast with Charizard's unconstrained (if more random) placement of Stealth Rock.

• n-air and d-smash: it feels like the distant sourspots on these moves are actually less safe than whiffing the move would have been sometimes -- when you successfully zone/bait your opponent and attempt to punish with the d-smash, hitting with the sourspot means you deal almost no knockback/hitstun/damage but you still interrupt them from the move you baited. So rather than recover from their move on their own, you place them at neutral and ready to punish your punishment attempt.
      Suggestion: increase the hitstun/knockback of these sourspots enough that they're safe on hit. Or add some Water Gun projectiles to these moves, so they take some knockback (even if no hitstun) for attempting to punish your sourspot hit.
• Squirtle's trapbox, Bubble (or Whirlpool): if you complete Squirtle's entire up-B without being interrupted by an attack or by grabbing a ledge, create a trapbox at the apex of the Waterfall where it bursts. If possible, use a version of Squirtle's icy breath from his no-charge neutral-B that will remain (like Charizard's Stealth Rocks) until it damages someone or it gets canceled by a hitbox.
      But if the icy breath isn't a projectile/article, next best is probably the projectile I KNOW Squirtle has, namely the Water Gun projectiles: if they can be made stationary and given a significant lifespan (or nigh-infinite, or even just like a minute) when hanging in the air, that might be a good choice. Maybe even a better choice than the icy breath: Squirtle's projectile game already consists of nothing but low-damage zero-hitstun projectiles, and having his trap-box have zero hitstun as well might work out pretty decently for him.
      Very occasionally in vBrawl, you would see Link get a true combo where a returning wind-hitbox-only Gale Boomerang happened to be in exactly the right spot to catch the opponent while they're in hitstun but not interrupt the hitstun, setting up the finisher hit. It was rare because it was a true combo in vBrawl (lolwut) and because timing the combo with the returning Gale Boomerang was almost prohibitively difficult or just straight luck-based. A stationary windbox trapbox could serve the same function while being way less fiddly -- that is to say, it would probably look (and be) awesome.
  

• AA jabs: I think I saw someone else suggest making the vine slaps get tipper hitboxes, which sounds pretty cool to me. I'd also like if the repeated jabs ended quicker.
• d-tilt: Do the two hitboxes auto-link correctly now?
• f-tilt: Increase size of hitboxes so they extend behind her bulb as well? The entirety of the helicoptering leaves should be dangerous (as they are with the minus-ized Bullet Seed). Possibly some kind of momentum shifts with upwards f-tilt or downwards f-tilt, like how Marth's f-smash works?
• d-air: A sourspot d-air feels unsafe on hit, like with Squirtle's large d-smash/n-air sourspots. For Ivysaur's d-air powder burst, perhaps make the sourspot deal no hitstun? Then a sourspot hit would be guaranteed to be no more unsafe than a whiff.
• neutral-B: If you slide off a ledge while using Bullet Seed, you begin descending rather than floating. Can that be fixed so you slowly rise while hovering, like a fully aerial Bullet Seed?
  
  (Incidentally, I agree with Kink-Link5's post on some of these same moves.)
• Ivysaur's trapbox, Seed Bomb: turn each Bullet Seed projectile into a potential trapbox (Seed Bomb). At the end of each Bullet Seed's normal (short) lifespan, the Seed becomes stationary and loses its hitbox; 30 frames or so later, the Seed gains a new trap hitbox and remains stationary and with a long lifespan, like 30 seconds or a minute or something, and is now a Seed Bomb. Any Bullet Seed/Seed Bomb that has reached the stationary stage of its lifespan will immediately disappear whenever Ivysaur creates a new Bullet Seed projectile.
      If I've worked this through correctly, then you can only create the trapbox Seed Bomb by manually ending the Bullet Seed usage after the Bullet Seeds have failed to hit anything for a short while.
      Some alternative homes for Seed Bomb, if Bullet Seed is too good:
  • up-B: create the Seed Bomb at the sweetspot of Vine Whip. This would preserve the "can't be created at ground level" drawback that I have in mind, but would make it even more limited in possible locations than Squirtle's new Bubble/Whirlpool trapbox. And perhaps a tethering Vine Whip would create a Seed Bomb on top of the ledge? This tethered Seed Bomb would be placed just far enough away from the ledge itself so it couldn't hurt opponents who are only hanging from the ledge, but could and would hurt them if they try to do a get-up attack and maybe even a non-rolling get-up.
  • d-smash: possibly place the Seed Bomb in front of Ivysaur (or create two and place them in front and behind her), though this makes Seed Bombs into little more than a duplicate prox mine. Or place it at the tip of Ivy's bulb. Or place it a little distance above Ivy's bulb. Not really sure, though adding a Seed Bomb to d-smash would certainly make it more useable.

(11/05/2010 04:25 AM)theEffinBear Wrote:  

• Squirtle's trapbox, Bubble (or Whirlpool): if you complete Squirtle's entire up-B without being interrupted by an attack or by grabbing a ledge, create a trapbox at the apex of the Waterfall where it bursts. If possible, use a version of Squirtle's icy breath from his no-charge neutral-B that will remain (like Charizard's Stealth Rocks) until it damages someone or it gets canceled by a hitbox.
      But if the icy breath isn't a projectile/article, next best is probably the projectile I KNOW Squirtle has, namely the Water Gun projectiles: if they can be made stationary and given a significant lifespan (or nigh-infinite, or even just like a minute) when hanging in the air, that might be a good choice. Maybe even a better choice than the icy breath: Squirtle's projectile game already consists of nothing but low-damage zero-hitstun projectiles, and having his trap-box have zero hitstun as well might work out pretty decently for him.
      Very occasionally in vBrawl, you would see Link get a true combo where a returning wind-hitbox-only Gale Boomerang happened to be in exactly the right spot to catch the opponent while they're in hitstun but not interrupt the hitstun, setting up the finisher hit. It was rare because it was a true combo in vBrawl (lolwut) and because timing the combo with the returning Gale Boomerang was almost prohibitively difficult or just straight luck-based. A stationary windbox trapbox could serve the same function while being way less fiddly -- that is to say, it would probably look (and be) awesome.