MKnightDH

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?

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.

@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.

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.

@ImmortalSaiyan:

It hasn't even been half an hour so why should I expect somebody to have read the whole thing yet? Of course, acting like you have is totally not being a ****.

As to why Meta Knight is considered OP, I believe most of the reasons I see are just misplay punishment. It's similar to Link getting called bad due to misplay like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPK0gw2WidQ

I thought I'd X-post something from my Blogger, though with updated information. And it's about everybody's favorite controversial Kirby-bat. Because, yes, even though his moves are actually imbalanced with each other, I feel that he's actually balanced in a VERY likeable way.

Before I talk about Meta Knight as a fighter in Brawl, I have to talk about Meta Knight as a general character in his own games, because while Brawl canon isn't anything to stand by as far as the fighters' respective games go, that doesn't mean an understanding of the characters and their games can't help. Yes, Meta Knight as a general character will prove important to the points I am going to make.

Now who is Meta Knight? That's the question that tends to bite everybody's lips, but let's start with what we do know. First and most importantly, in Kirby's Adventure, Meta Knight has seemingly inconsistent behavior, throwing invincibility candy at Kirby to allow him to charge through enemies, but then he throws his mooks at Kirby apparently to have them kick his butt. After the last time he does the latter, he challenges Kirby to a sword duel. Notice how you're supposed to grab the sword? He left it there intentionally, and won't attack until you grab it. This makes it clear that he is an honorable fighter, who when defeated turns out to look like Kirby when his mask breaks apart. But what is his purpose? Not to stop Kirby, or else he wouldn't be giving Kirby invincibility candy. Not to give Kirby an easy time, or he wouldn't have Kirby fight him OR his mooks.

As it turns out, Kirby, turning out to be guilty of a Nice Job Breaking It Hero job--the first of many he manages to do throughout the series--ends up fighting an Eldritch Abomination called Nightmare, whom King Dedede had sealed with the only way to break him free via several MacGuffins that were naturally spread out, even if the method of sealing was ultimately inconvenient, which is why Kirby was trying to undo it in the first place, not realizing what had really happened. As it turns out, Kirby uses the Star Rod like a sword, albeit one that can fire projectiles, to beat Nightmare.

It is VERY easy to guess, if not outright clear, from this that Meta Knight was being a Stealth Mentor. And not only that, there's the likelihood that he KNEW Kirby would inadvertently free Nightmare. By making himself a guard for one of the MacGuffins, Kirby either couldn't do so, or he would first have proven himself competent enough to hope to take on the monster. In one move, Meta Knight makes IMMENSE progress in a Xanatos Gambit designed to dismantle the real bad guy, and one even designed with hopes of a best case scenario. Further moves, either by keeping Kirby alive or testing him, only serve to bolster it. There are people who like Meta Knight in general, but Kirby's Adventure is his Crowning Moment of Awesome, an impressive feat for an NES game AND the first game where he appears in.

But what about other games? Well, whether he is hero or villain depends on the game, but his location on the morality scale is always in the same area. The only game where he's an outright bad guy is Revenge of Meta Knight in Kirby Super Star, where he definitely wants Kirby dead once things get really out of hand as well as wanting to take over Dream Land, but even then, he turns out to be the same Worthy Opponent that you see in KA, as well as a Father to His Men. And his motive for the Dream Land takeover is because he finds the denizen overly lazy. Killing Kirby? Actually, I don't think he wanted to at first, just when Kirby doomed the Halberd. Whatever, it's not like RoMK is necessarily canon anyway.

As for the anime, I haven't paid much attention to it, but from what I have heard, Meta Knight is a more blatant Stealth Mentor to Kirby there. And the bad guy is Nightmare from KA. So there are parallels to KA, but none of the MacGuffin business, so Meta Knight doesn't get to send Nightmare's threat value to bearable levels in a single move. Of course, I believe that's fine by the Dream Land paragon, who still has loyal followers, high skill, ability to strategize, and Stealth Mentor faith in Kirby to work with.

But if he is such a paragon, why doesn't he just curbstomp the bad guys himself rather than just train up Kirby? (Meta Knightmare Ultra aside, that's even less canon than RoMK.) It's not like Meta Knight needs to care about any "chosen one" business without good reason. Well, somebody like Meta Knight would likely understand one thing clearly: Power at a Price. Meta Knight, from what I'm guessing, realizes that he's a Fragile Speedster and figures that the bad guys will abuse hyper accuracy on him to prove themselves outside his weight class, so he would need to train up Kirby to be able to combat them. Proof that he's a Fragile Speedster? Kirby can outlast him in RoMK, and doing so in KA, albeit by being smart, is the main key to defeating him there too. And please note what I just said there, because that's actually important. Kirby's Epic Yarn? I haven't played that, but from what little I saw, apparently Meta Knight was controlled, so the bad guys ultimately prove powerful if that is anything to go by. And let me talk about something: I played Kirby Wii at Comic-Con. Some kid came on and chose Meta Knight, and proceeded to corner camp Whispy Woods using a completely safe location to keep attacking. Now this might be an oversight on the programmers' part, but we're talking about Whispy Woods. I would not be surprised if later bosses turn out to have good enough AA attacks to force the Meta Knight player to be diligent, considering they were good enough to punish me in KDL2 when I was a flying-crazy kid who had seen that Kirby was able to fly. Meanwhile, the Meta Knight kid's DPS was proving to be not so impressive. Bear in mind that IIRC I was playing as Kirby himself, probably trying one of my solo runs, not King Dedede, who I generally kept picking when other players were on the system.

Kirby's Epic Return to Dream Land, by the way, has been out for a few months as of the update, so I can confirm that while Shuttle Loop and Spin Attack have excessive attack power, Meta Knight in general doesn't, and bosses have things like background attacks to survive more easily, making power more important and speed not as useful.

Well, I think that's enough talk about Meta Knight's character. To sum it up, he's the Dream Land paragon, a Worthy Opponent, and occasionally a Stealth Mentor. How does this fit into how he fights in Brawl?

Well, as we know, Meta Knight is a combination of Fragile Speedster and Melee Tornado. We can compare him to Marth and Sonic. Marth has range, and makes such nasty use of it that the mere existence of Counter makes him powerful against anybody who can't grab well enough. Sonic has immense movement speed, though his good KB moves are ironically slow. Meta Knight? Well, he gets high priority to break through most attacks, as well as all of his B moves providing high approach potential to compliment his Melee Tornado status. And he's somewhat of a Glass Cannon in that he has a very strong recovery that allows him to try to kill opponents early but he's light enough that he can be killed outright. This makes him seem broken, but is he really broken?

Well, his moves are actually imbalanced with each other (excessively slow Down B VS somewhat fast Neutral B (AND YES I SAID FAST), painfully slow Forward Smash VS annoyingly fast Down Smash), but aside from that bit of Fake Balance, perhaps even with that, Meta Knight ultimately has no outstanding strengths against tanking players at the end of the day. The only thing the high priority does is make sure you can't mindlessly clash him, which makes such perfect sense against somebody like Meta Knight. Really, he doesn't have enough range or general power to make anybody generally helpless. So why is he considered broken?

Well, take a good, close look at what is not only allowed but encouraged in tournaments. Chain-grabs, infinites as a whole (must stop at 300%, like that makes a big difference), Falco's laser lock, edgehogging, planking and scrooging, C-sticking, you get the idea. Notice something? All of these make the first strike and/or speed overly important. Chain-grabs and infinites render the whole idea of the percentage moot. So does Falco's laser lock. Edgehogging makes sure that you can't recover. Planking and scrooging can be done to time out a match with a ridiculously safe tactic which by the way you're expected to do in order to handle Cruel Brawl. And C-sticking is done to make sure you get the first hit. Both players do it and the Difficult but Awesome moves suddenly become an effortless joke to do, for the fact that they're supposed to be not so easy to prevent evasion wars.

Naturally, Meta Knight's small size and maneuverability means that the first 3 don't do much to him simply because hitting him first isn't plausible. Edgehogging is also moot because of his recovery. Planking and scrooging are things he himself can do to higher efficiency. And C-Sticking means he can do stupid stuff like effortless forward airs more easily while throwing off the opponent's, spiking the value of his priority.

Clearly, Meta Knight laughs at the cheap stuff. Seems broken, right? Well, guess what? Tournament players are ultimately not creative enough, making them a clear-cut antithesis to SSB in general. Don't believe me? I have heard from a reliable source that Ice Climbers rely PURELY ON THE DEATHGRAB. Yes, that's right, they try to force a freaking grab. They rely so much on a stupid gimmick that they even ignore any possibilities that could come up from the fact that Icies is a 2-in-1 character capable of doing things like shutting down grab attempts on them, and when they can't work with the gimmick, they are defenseless like any old Unskilled but Strong person when their strengths can't be abused.

Yes, the tournament players do not care about trying out creative ideas and instead jump to trying to do one thing and one thing alone. Infinites are cringeworthy because they tend to start with ONE move connecting, when other moves can instead be used to make said move impossible to predict. Yet people try to use them as if the other moves don't exist. Never mind that Icies are supposed to work with versatility to begin with. Seriously, there's two of them, make use of the mere fact that there is, not try to grab the opponent.

Which brings me to how you're supposed to deal with Meta Knight: PLAY TO YOUR CHARACTER'S STRENGTHS. At the end of the day, TANKING SMART is a critical skill to dealing with Meta Knight because of his high ability to hit you, and thus you would want to be able to counterattack. An ability which I did not know was advanced....wait, what? But the key to making Meta Knight bow before you would be to push on critical advantages and keep Meta Knight from doing the same to you. And if he has to fight somebody who can manage good endurance combined with a blood price on every inch any opponent manages, he will have problems. Need some examples?

Well, Icies can just use their numbers advantage to keep Meta Knight from doing any effective grabs, and they can outrange him with the Down B as well as punish the Tornado with the down-air. Pikachu (and Sonic by extension) just plain outspeeds Meta Knight while making use of their net attack advantage. (Sonic doesn't have a considerable net attack advantage in the matchup, but it's still there and it's bolstered better by speed advantage.) Link not only has his projectiles but several ways to knock Meta Knight away and even counterattack, ESPECIALLY if Meta Knight even THINKS of using the tornado. (Bombs, Neutral Air, coordinated Forward Smash, well-placed Down Air, and there's probably still more.) If Meta Knight wants to use the Jab to keep Link from using his grounded Up B, Link will just Hookshot and laugh. And Kirby....good heavens Kirby. He can use Meta Knight's own tactics against him. Oh the irony. Down tilt gets past the jab, Stone is an option that easly protects him from juggling with the added bonus that Meta Knight trying to juggle Kirby could just as easily suffer an early Star KO, and Kirby can easily hit-and-run Meta Knight. So what if Meta Knight is faster, the whole thing is a maneuver war and Kirby has a net attack advantage. That itself is mitigated, but so is Meta Knight's speed edge.

All in all, Meta Knight may very well be intended to be a failsafe to make sure players have a proper understanding of their characters. None of this infinites garbage, but actually knowing how to play the characters themselves and showing some actual effort. Just like in Kirby's Adventure, this screams CMOA on his part in the manner that if you beat him soundly enough, you prove yourself worthy.

(A shame that's debatable at best with characters like Wario, Falco, and Marth, who manage to be at least overpowered all the same.)

As we know, Battalion Wars 2 is an RTS with elements of a Third Person Shooter. I not only find it underrated (although not without flaws), I like the idea of being in control of one unit directly while leading a force to combat the enemy. And I will outline a few tactics that can be really useful. They are the Stack Spread, the Leading Lone Wolf, the Covering Mobility, and the Anti-AI Attacks.

Stack Spread

What is this: sending out units against different targets to have them spread out

Reasons for this: the battlefield can become one crowded place very quickly. This tends to make units vulnerable to the wrath of Artillery and the "Smite" button it says it borrowed from God. To keep your force from being wrecked as easily in an approach against a force with good anti-crowd attacks, it's best to send the units against individual targets, using the expanded stack to send individual members of a unit type against their valid targets within different parts of the enemy force's line. Not only does it become easier to come out on top of a conflict, but survivors are bound to require fewer healing items as well.

Flame Vets make spectacular use of this because they are small targets who have high attack power against their valid targets, but would prefer not to clump due to low defense while having minimal attack range. Tanks can also spread out so that they don't get in the way of each other, although this is begging the question whether you have multiple AI tanks available to begin with. Fighters can be sicked on different air units and not inadvertently crash as easily or become worthless extra targets. And Bombers can avoid getting in each others way as easily.

Also note that you may want to try expand stacking with Mortar Vets against infantry, AA Vehicles, Artillery against most ground units, Gunships against most ground units, and sea units against respective valid targets. However, this is because the matchups involve high impunity with good attack power.

Keep in mind that it's usually preferable to just mass attack in matchups where your own units a suitable net attack advantage for being safe. Bazooka and AA Missile Vets particularly suffer because of this.

Leading Lone Wolf

What is this: using the manual unit by its lonesome

Reasons for this: unlike in Advance Wars, units in Battalion Wars typically have a way of hitting multiple units at once, if not outright decimate an entire unit type due to high attack power against it. By having the manual unit handle all the frontlining, the AI units will be safer because they'll be away from the action until they're called in to pick up the pieces. Be aware: if anything hard counters your unit with hyper accuracy, you are probably asking for just losing the unit.

As a result, it's best to find if a unit is hard countered by anything that can easily nix it. Manual infantry are usually safe because they can use evasion and terrain cover (see below) to avoid being taken out. This makes the Bazooka Vet a very good candidate because its more valid targets have evasion problems and are usually high priority targets, but the AA Missile Vet can be used if any air units are a definite cause for concern, so as to prevent an air raid or a smart opponent from destroying all of your AA units easily.

Fighters and Frigates are also evasive little things. Fighters are the only air units that can throw off AA missile lock without resorting to terrain cover, which isn't entirely foolproof for that, even with the Gunship, which suffers as the manual unit because of that. Frigates are simply fast enough to dodge Battleship fire while commanding its already defensively strong support to attack their valid targets. Don't ask me why Kuju thinks that it's less useful as a manual unit than a Recon, which is stuck with guys who should be watched like a hawk and can't even touch vehicles.

But luckily, the tanks are still good manual units. They can live through punishment and evade a bit of it. It's better than the manual Gunship that can't even do anything worthwhile to the manual Bazooka. Of course, the AI Gunship hard counters the manual Light Tank, but not as harshly as the AI AA Vehicle hard counters the manual Gunship. The idea is, of course, the next best thing: a skeleton defense against hard counters. Keep the safety units near in a safe location, give an attack order at the mere sight of the threat, and then put the safety units away as best you can to prevent their destruction.

Needless to say, use this tactic wisely and boldly to potshot against defenses. You can ruin an entire enemy defensive position this way if you play your cards right.

Covered Mobility

What is this: moving units through thick terrain

Reasons for this: long range attacks are the bane of the typical combatant's existence. While the combatant has to slog through a hot zone, the foe sits comfortably where their units cannot be touched. Of course, where the foe does well in long range, they typically lack the ability to deal with close range combat decently. The obvious solution would be to close the distance without taking too much damage. You can try to get through quickly, but any competent long range foe will be prepared for this possibility and have working close range ability ready to freeze their advance. So you'll be having to throw off the damage naturally.

This is where terrain comes in handy. Unlike in Advance Wars, terrain here is actually useful against range fire. Why? Because here, it simply gets in the way of the attacks, rather than simply cut damage by a percentage when Artillery can already live for extended periods around chokepoints. You know how useful it is here when it will allow you to afford to have an Anti-Air Vehicle right within the attack radius of even the dreaded Battlestation without nearly as much fear that it will be damaged, let alone suffer the 1HK-2HK it does if hit. The fact that your units will not get hit by Artillery shots when covered by the terrain allows for punishing Artillery that goes anywhere near terrain that isn't controlled. So now Artillery advancing is sluggish at best because it becomes a horrible manual unit against human players thanks to this (by the way, it self-counters strongly if you're wondering, big surprise), so the close range force has to root out anything that could be using the terrain, except the Artillery's opponent is probably already thinking to do this with their entire battalion, when closer range combat doesn't suffer nearly as much from thick terrain.

Artillery is still useful, but cannot expose itself carelessly now or it WILL get turned to scrap and there will be NOTHING it can do about it. Even a Light Tank will win a battle of attrition against an Artillery piece. Don't believe me? Just see for yourself in Destroy All Tundrans, where by the way this tactic REALLY shines for the Tundrans.

Artillery, Battlestations, and Battleships aren't the only units that you can use terrain cover against. They're simply the most blatant. Of course, only Flame Vets and their minimal range won't have any issues with terrain aside from maybe mobility problems. But needless to say, this is a good way to protect your troops, and all too welcome at that.

Anti-AI Attacks

What is this: targeting AI units intentionally

Reasons for this: usually, people will find the manual unit downright obnoxious to kill. If not because of the ridiculous defense boost, it would be because the manual unit actually bothers to grab healing items in mid-combat, pull evasive maneuvers, and manage various attack maneuvers the AI units can only dream of doing. However, the manual unit is still only one unit, without a considerable offense boost.

Want to know what would be less annoying to obliterate? Simple: the opponent's AI units.

Remember how I mention what the manual unit can do? The AI units don't do that in general. Easily the smartest thing they do in regard to dodging is the infantry avoiding Bazooka shells, and even that's not at a reliable rate. If you don't get the picture, they're practically walking targets unless well commanded. And guess what? By destroying your units, the opponent erases a sizable chunk of your offense. Not only that, but you can easily end up in an undesirable isolation scenario. You must guard against it so that the opponent doesn't leave you as a hapless target.

This is actually a punishment tactic, since higher level play can fend this off. But it's a good punishment tactic that can still be used against an on-balance opponent, and there are plenty of ways to guard against it, as I indicate. So it's rather welcome.

In closing

There are good tactics in the game from what you can see. (If only the multiplayer maps were better. Or better yet, there was a stage builder.) If you have any of your own, you can always leave a response. Just be aware that I probably won't agree with everything. But you might be sitting on something creative, so it may be worth a shot.

Oh hey, the TC URLed my older videos.

@Sarumarine said:

I like they way they handled Fog of War and how they solved the Aircraft Carrier relationship in the grand scheme of things.

I do wish Fog of War didn't have properties hide stuff. And the Aircraft Carrier has the problem that the Submarine deals 110% base to it, while simultaneously having HORRIBLE AA (when the unit by itself is expensive to begin with) and no way to move and build on the same turn. I do like the other ideas for both, sort of.

@ryanwho:

Battalion Wars is actually good. If you're convinced otherwise, maybe you should show me how you play, with a capture card such as the Pinnacle Dazzle and a program like Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder. I'd like to know why you must be hating it. I wouldn't be surprised if it's because of a Wake Up Call Level or whatever.