From what I tried, they need so many abilities to work and they STILL suck. They are simply underpowered. Nobody is going to care about splash damage that does basically nothing, there are better options for providing knockback, the Mercy Invincibility is actually obnoxious to cannons, and for God's sake, claws just laugh at their melee and staves mock them by 1HKing them when they can't even long range very well. Their usability needs to be fixed.

Here's what I would do:

*Nerf attack stars, from +~x/7 per half-star to +x/8. 6 Star weapons would have a multiplier of only 250% instead of ~270%. This is to nerf other weapons.

*Increase max health ratings. This would further tone down 1HKs, which other weapons tend to abuse especially when they have stars.

*Give cannons some freaking attack power. What they have right now is downright garbage. I should not need so many abilities just to have terrible DPS anyway.

*Increase weapon weight influence on knockback, preferably making the attacked person's weapon weight reduce knockback and possibly preventing ANY knockback (extreme case without abilities, granted). Not only would the cannons' high weight actually be useful for melee, but the Magnus Club would actually suffer as a side benefit from this.

*Double check the distance weapons that can still KO fast without ridiculous effort. Clubs are fine in general, since they already have to close the distance, but the distance weapons are not. They are EVEN WORSE for cannons than claws are--yes, that's saying something. And it's all because every time they fire the cannon user takes too much damage, and the distance weapon user can fire again and again, and retreat if the cannon user EVER survives the whole trip of coming close. Yes, yes, Reflect Barrier to reflect it, but does that ever work? That's the only thing a staff user ever has to plan against, and it's a stationary defense too. Compare to everything cannon users have to deal with.

*Nerf Petrify and maybe Freeze. Petrify's defense boost is so useful for the victim that it fails to keep low offense power weapons from utterly destroying him. Oh wait. That's not useful. That's a failed attempt at balance. The problem with these two is that they keep the victim from moving and make them a completely open target, not just stop their attacks altogether. These statuses need to be hit with the nerfbat. Otherwise, people will NEVER have enough incentive to use Super Armor over Aries Armor, since without Aries Armor, anything that is easy to hit will be susceptible to abusable status shenanigans, which as a club main annoys the bajeezus out of me.

*Nerf the invincibility skills, generally giving them big attack percentage penalties. They generally should be usable only for escaping, not for turning claws into blatant anti-clubs. Trade-Off should have reduced invincibility so that the user can actually be freaking killed. (Yes, Trade-Off provides invincibility, which IMO is stupid.)

*Slip Shot and Invisible Shot should have attack percentage penalties too. Slip Shot especially just for ignoring terrain, which shouldn't be treated like a joke. Invisible Shot deserves mention for being abusable with clubs.

*Lightweight should reduce weight by a considerable percentage. This would affect clubs and cannons the most because they'd actually be able to move around well and not suffer kiting. Anything that isn't light, meanwhile, would only end up suffering a defense penalty for a minor speed buff in a fast paced game.

*Energy Charge, in contrast, should provide less of an offense boost and maybe decrease speed for good measure (to prevent cheap escapes).

*Don't know what should be done with Libra Sponge or Bumblebee.

And for the record, I do not main any cannons, though the Ball Cannon may be a secondary. Rather, I main the Skyscraper Club, and wrote the Club Combat Guide in concern that clubs may be OP. Turns out I didn't have to worry about them being OP, because there are other things that are even worse.

I love that there is someone out there who put this much thought into this game's multiplayer, and I don't mean that sarcastically or anything either, it's cool.

I have to wonder though, does 3DS games even support patching so could any of these suggested changes actually be made?

@RockmanBionics said:

I love that there is someone out there who put this much thought into this game's multiplayer, and I don't mean that sarcastically or anything either, it's cool.

I have to wonder though, does 3DS games even support patching so could any of these suggested changes actually be made?

Well, hey, I do dabble in game balance. But it irks me when Kid Icarus Uprising is a step in the right direction compared to SSB, and then still screws up blatantly enough to make 1/9 of the available choices bad and another 1/9 of them stupid good.

I don't know if patching can be done. I can only hope so. Cannons should be able to function in getting within the bad range of a given weapon and actually provide their hefty punishment. They don't have to be Godly in the former, they just have to be able to shake off claws AND powerful long range weapons to some halfway reasonable extent.

Or, you know, just don't use cannons in multiplayer. :P

I've been mostly rocking orbitars and have had fairly decent success with them after practice. But the key to any proper loadout is in both the weapon selection and the powers you have equipped. Most of the matches I've been in had their winners determined less by the chosen weapon type and more by what powers people were using and how effective they were used.

As for patching, in theory, 3DS games can be patched if balance patches were to be designed to be accepted through SpotPass, but I don't see that happening for this game.

@Hailinel said:

Or, you know, just don't use cannons in multiplayer. :P

Unless they have good homing, but I've seen no cannon that does. Sakurai even recommends using things with a little more homing on them for multiplayer.

I do not like being told to not use a weapon type I could possibly like for trying to provide a better sense of strategy. If I have to do that because the weapon type is genuinely underpowered, then the game is not balanced.

Oh, and by the way, have fun with 1HK staff users who use Playing Dead.

I do not like being told to not use a weapon type I could possibly like for trying to provide a better sense of strategy. If I have to do that because the weapon type is genuinely underpowered, then the game is not balanced.

Oh, and by the way, have fun with 1HK staff users who use Playing Dead.

It is supposed to be enough of a fun challenge to figure out more strategic characters or weapons. What makes them need to be underpowered? Or for stupid easy range 1HK to exist?

It is supposed to be enough of a fun challenge to figure out more strategic characters or weapons. What makes them need to be underpowered? Or for stupid easy range 1HK to exist?

Yes, 3DS games can be patched. A recent firmware update enabled DLC (or the next one will?) and all the eShop games can be updated (many of them already were, actually)

So it's possible ...

Trust me, you WILL get range-1HKed sooner or later. I had a match where MY ENTIRE TEAM got massacred within the first few seconds. It's God damned ridiculous how this could slip past the game designers.

Throw the game out of the window and hope a passing dog takes a dump on it. It can only improve it.

@MKnightDH said:

Trust me, you WILL get range-1HKed sooner or later. I had a match where MY ENTIRE TEAM got massacred within the first few seconds. It's God damned ridiculous how this could slip past the game designers.

Well, I haven't yet. It's easy to get a powerful weapon, but I have yet to see a true one-hit kill. And even if it is the case as you say, I can assure you that the designers were more than likely aware of it. Nothing prevents you from getting a one-hit kill weapon of your own, after all.

@James_Giant_Peach said:

Throw the game out of the window and hope a passing dog takes a dump on it. It can only improve it.

Yes, very clever. If you don't like the game, that's fine, but don't troll.

Nothing prevents people from using Isabella in Days of Ruin.

The only time I'd rather be able to non-situational 1HK is with a freaking melee weapon that blatantly has high power and thus is balanced to cover against abuse of that. At least then I'm rewarded for overcoming its weaknesses. Range 1HK is stupidly high reward for NO risk. At best, it's basically just "have speed or you automatically suck." Not welcome.

@James_Giant_Peach said:

Throw the game out of the window and hope a passing dog takes a dump on it. It can only improve it.

Go back to Generic Shooter 3, kiddie-pants.

At E3 last year, one of the devs told me that Cannons were one of the most powerful weapons during playtesting. I can see why, they're great in a team setting. I feel that Cannons have a lot of untapped potential in team games that are unfortunately hard to tap into in pubs because people rarely work together. In private matches however, that limitation is lifted and I feel it's only a matter of time before some clan shows everyone how you're supposed to use Cannons as a tool for the team - not for the individual.

I've been getting Cannons to work well with Jump Glide to fire splash damage down at people. They have great synergy same way that flight + splash damage tend to in any shooter. Cannons can also control space more than other weapons, especially the ones that detonate on the environment the same as they do enemies. It's so easy to blast a Melee user off of a friend or block hallways and corridors with Quick Charge shots or something. I have a +Speed Cannon that works well, but I feel that a +Running Speed mod is what Cannons really need. Not that hard to fuse if you just duplicate stuff via Street Pass.

Of course, in the wide open maps it's really hard to make Cannons work, and unfortunately I don't think there's much you can do to compensate if you're looking for easy mode. It looks like Cannons will be a map-specific choice for anyone that can't play the low tier matchup on the anti-Cannon maps.

@Hitzel: clumping is already punished by clubs, and inherently clear-cut suboptimal play at best without very good reason anyway. Splash damage would be helpful if the cannons could actually do this thing called damaging opponents. (And for the record, trust me: Battalion Wars punishes clumping even worse, Kuju Entertainment saw fit to make artillery not heavily nerfed, and they turn out to be right when it's still feasible to combat them well.)

I made a nice little graph to show how easily range attacks punish low speed.

That is actually assuming the range-attacker is IMMOBILE (no retreat fire or kiting), AND the guy who wants to get close doesn't have their approach disrupted. Either one of those only serves to widen the gap.

Cannons effectively have only 2 ranges: mid-range and melee. So against distance specialists, they're forced to approach. Their higher weight slowing down their users means that they're taking more attacks along their path. Now you can say to use powers for dealing with them, but the sheer abundance of claw users are also a problem. At least club users have attack power to back up ability usage. Cannon users don't even get such a luxury.

The problem with Clubs is that they take forever to charge and have no other projectiles besides the charge. Cannons can constantly control space by constantly setting off explosions. It sets up easy combos for your teammates too. I don't think enough people use them like that.

@Hitzel:

Still not going to kill a defense club setup effortlessly. Or can you really think it's lopsided against a high attack power weapon with a setup that is capable of surviving DAYBREAK.

And I don't see cannons frequently anyway. If I did, it would be because they wouldn't be getting ran over by all the other stuff that mocks them.

However, I have something in mind: what if cannons can get some good traits on them with minimal regard for Value? Maybe they can actually benefit highly from good weapon traits, but right now, they're so gimped that they're effectively walking targets.

The thing about Cannons is that they're more of a what can 'we' do more than a what can 'I' do kind of weapon. When everyone is running around doing their own thing, they're gimped because people leave them by themselves, but when people are working together they're strong because they defend the team. Yeah it doesn't happen often, but on the off-chance you see three people sticking together Cannons are dangerous.

I personally think clubs are near weak against anyone who knows what they're doing. You can just avoid them and they can't touch you. It's similar to grapplers in fighting games; Every time a new Street Fighter game comes out, Zangief always seems like he's going to be overpowered because of how much health he has and damage he does, but by the time the game matures he's one of the weaker characters because it's too easy to play a run away game against him. Clubs have the benefit of having teammates distract while they fire invisible shots, but outside of that one gimmick it's the same story - just avoid them and they're gimped.

@Hitzel:

I shouldn't need to do something that would be so passive that I myself wouldn't do it if this were Advance Wars. Especially when the opponents would just be passive-aggressive.

Of course, as it turns out, a high defense modifier is VERY useful for cannons, as their main problem is the range 1HK shenanigans. Shut that out and the power set can be arranged around generally combating faster weapons.

As for clubs themselves, you say they need invisible shots? Then why can I win reliably enough when I don't have them in my setup? Certainly has nothing to do with Lightweight, Super Armor, or Counter allowing for easy approaching. And I can play the run away game too, even without any of those. Those wide trucks won't let you get close easily without a messed up approach, and if you think you won't have to approach, then quit assuming every match will be on Rail Temple or Small Arena.

@MKnightDH: What does Advance Wars have to do with Uprising multiplayer strategy?

AW is a game that overencourages passive behavior, the details of how I won't bore you with. I'm making a point that I would not pull that sort of stuff in that game, and I certainly wouldn't in KIU on account of being bad play.

@MKnightDH said:

Then why can I win reliably enough when I don't have them in my setup?

Because you're pub stomping noobs lol. I don't feel that Clubs would be able to be consistently competitive against good players without Invisible Shots.

@MKnightDH said:

I shouldn't need to do something that would be so passive that I myself wouldn't do it if this were Advance Wars. Especially when the opponents would just be passive-aggressive.

If you're not gonna play to win, it's kinda pointless to care about game balance, don't you think? Use what you enjoy and not what you think is best if you have 'honor rules' that you choose to play by. Cannons benefit from defensive play and zoning tactics, and if you don't like to play like that doesn't it make sense that you don't like using Cannons? If the weapon doesn't fit your playstyle, don't you think it's unfair to label it underpowered if you're only judging it by your 'honor rules' and not what the weapon is actually capable of?

@MKnightDH said:

Of course, as it turns out, a high defense modifier is VERY useful for cannons, as their main problem is the range 1HK shenanigans. Shut that out and the power set can be arranged around generally combating faster weapons.

This I want to try. My gut says it would make the Cannon more of a brick wall so that makes sense.

If you think I'm just "pub stomping n00bs" as you put it, here's my FC: 5026-4532-8476. 2500 Team Life Gauge, Small/Large Arena banned and Rail Temple frowned upon as well.

And if you think I'm talking "honor rules" about not wanting to do camping with cannons, I'm making a point that what you're suggesting wouldn't work in Advance Wars, where you can expect issues like this:

http://i.imgur.com/j3b3A.jpg

That is in fact considered high level play in Days of Ruin. It's way worse in the older AWs because you have infantry being the walls too easily. Kid Icarus Uprising, on the other hand, is not only fast-paced but makes it actually useful to have high defensive power, so being so passive HERE is a HORRIBLE mistake.

And seriously, group play? That's not going to help if you end up being nothing more than a walking target, simply because any determined player will manage to slip by and pound you into paste. In fact, I have lost matches because my teammates got themselves killed by being dead weight, typically by idiotic mistakes like taking on stationary defenses that a healthy club user would retreat from. It's simply important cannons can defend themselves in case they get targeted or have to frontline.

Really, "honor rules" by what you'd expect would BAN the 1HK weapons in the first place, simply for making it pointless to want to plan around something where you're expected to get hit. Not to mention cannons suffer because they can't do enough to avoid getting hit by the 1HKs. Considering they have problems doing damage that makes up for their faulty accuracy, that's a problem.

At least defense boosts end range 1HKing shenanigans, so Lightweight is much easier to use to scout the opposing team's formation and determine what to do in response.