Balancing Brawl

What's the LEAST that could be done to make a brawl character/s more "fair"?

Don't go making crazy judgements on any character though, such as "Captain Falcon needs to be 10x faster and needs 3x as much knockback as he has now". Remember, it's the LEAST that could be done that would give the character some semblance to "balance"

What is "unfair" is up to you.

My examples:
Metaknight: Take away one of his jumps, give the nado some cooldown lag, give some of his moves less damage.
Ganondorf: Give more of his attacks "elemental effects", give his Warlock Punch and up-tilt slightly more range, re-name the wizard's foot to the Gerudo Dragon (it sounds cooler) without changing the actual move.

How would changing the name of a move make Ganondorf more balanced? O_o

Anyway, as far as balancing Brawl goes, you have to analyze a character's tactics and options and limit them or extend their options.

Meta Knight
Why is he unbalanced?
-Meta Knight has immense gimping skills. This is due to him being able to hit you multiple times when you're off the ledge and take away your second jump and hinder your third jump, and then make it back to the ledge very easily thanks to his amazing recovery.
-Meta also attacks much faster than any other character, and can outcamp an enemy very easily.
How to balance
-A good way to balance Meta Knight would be to first limit his gimping ability, and make him take risks to kill his enemy. Another way would be to defeat his camping ability.
-Nerf: Less knockback on his down smash, make it kill at 140% or so
-Nerf: Make him the lightest character in the game
-Nerf: Make his forward aerial slower, but make it a kill move. Since it's slow, this limits his approaching options, and makes it impossible for him to camp on the edge.
-Nerf: Make his gliding move a kill move, but make it MUCH slower. This way, Meta won't be completely safe while gliding. He'll have to take a risk to use it, or end his glide much earlier and get to the ground quickly.
-Nerf: Make his down aerial slower, so he can't gimp that way.
-Nerf: Make his down tilt move him away from his enemy, instead of toward his enemy. This way, it can't encroach on enemies and do bad stuff to them on the ledge, and it gives Meta a nice spacing option.
-Nerf: Decrease his reach a bit, probably by making it so that he doesn't go on his tippy toes for attacks, and make his sword slightly smaller.

Captain Falcon
Why does Captain Falcon suck?
-No priority. If he had some priority, then he'd be a better character automatically, and maybe top of low. Otherwise, all he needs is a few ways to make up for his craptastic lag vs. power thing.
How to balance
-Buff: Give him priority.
-Buff: Make his Falcon Punch out prioritize everything like it used to.
-Buff: Make his Raptor Boost combo into Falcon Dive at low percentages
-Buff: Give his Knee of Justice the same hitbox as in Melee, and kill better than Ness or Zelda's lightning kicks.
-Buff: Give him a way to "cancel" his Raptor Boost into another attack on the ground, maybe like an elbow drop (and call it the Fan's Elbow). The should leave Falcon less vulnerable, but not combo into Falcon Dive.
-Buff: If Falcon connects with the Raptor Boost, he should get his second jump back, instead of that pathetic little hop.
-Buff: Make his Falcon Kick give him his second jump back.
-Buff: Give him a bit more power overall. It doesn't make sense for him to have just about as much lag as Ganondorf on most of his moves, but be so much weaker.

inb4 brawl+

A balanced fighting game will probably never happen, for people like variety, and variety makes characters better than others.

In order to at least move people up, we need to have more combos. If each character had a limited amount of combos that could generally surpass another players combos, then that would make the game more fair, but it would also get rid of a lot of the mind game factor included in Brawl.

brawl is not melee and therefore does not need to have any combos
in after brawl+

Originally Posted by Toon Flink

A balanced fighting game will probably never happen, for people like variety, and variety makes characters better than others.

Since a balanced fighting game with a variety of characters is impossible, game designers are supposed to do their best and balance the characters as best they can. That's the point.

In order to at least move people up, we need to have more combos. If each character had a limited amount of combos that could generally surpass another players combos, then that would make the game more fair, but it would also get rid of a lot of the mind game factor included in Brawl.

You don't need to include combos to make a game fair. A fighting game can exist without combo, although combos make the game more fun.

Combos would be a good way to make Brawl more fun, though.

Combos would be a good way to make Brawl more fun, though.

in your opinion

i think brawl is easily far more fun to 3 stocks no items fox only final destination than in melee

Originally Posted by nod flenders

in your opinion

i think brawl is easily far more fun to 3 stocks no items fox only final destination than in melee

wat

No really, what did you just say?

Jigglypuff: Add 0.2 seconds more hitstun on almost all her attacks

Originally Posted by TheBattler

wat

No really, what did you just say?

i'm saying i think brawl would be better without combos

I love Brawl+ too.

Originally Posted by nod flenders

i'm saying i think brawl would be better without combos

So, you want Smash Bros to be a shieldgrab campfest? Whatever floats your boat, man.

Originally Posted by TheBattler

So, you want Smash Bros to be a shieldgrab campfest? Whatever floats your boat, man.

now you're blatantly trying to annoy me while at the same time allowing it to look like what you believe is a fact

lol, internet

Originally Posted by nod flenders

now you're blatantly trying to annoy me while at the same time allowing it to look like what you believe is a fact

lol, internet

What's fact? That Brawl is a campfest?

Don't get offended bro, but do I really have to specify when something is my opinion, especially when I use words like "fun"?

Originally Posted by TheBattler

What's fact? That Brawl is a campfest?

Don't get offended bro, but do I really have to specify when something is my opinion, especially when I use words like "fun"?

kind of, yeah

I don't really feel there needs to be a lot of balance. One of the fun parts of SSB in general is to get skilled enough as to where you can defeat even the "best" or top tier in the game with your own best character. Basically "break" the tier through practice.

Obviously, I will start with the characters I play most, Ike and Luigi.

Why is Ike low-mid tier? For starters, he has moves that don't make sense with him while other moves he could do in FE where left out. Where the heck did Eruption come from? Where are the shockwaves that Ike's sword could emit from a distance? Eruption is awesome, I'll admit, but Ragnell's shockwaves could have been just as awesome AND they could have made Ike the first FE character to have a projectile. A projectile is exactly what Ike needs too. If he had one, he can better deal with faster characters who are projectile-less, such as Marth and Meta Knight, plus the shockwaves are quite fast anyway. Of course, since they're so fast in FE you can even see them, their speed would have to be nerfed some. So replace Eruption with the shockwaves. It can simply be called Shockwave.

Why is Luigi mid tier? Probably his bad traction and horrible anti-camping skills. The guy has wicked aerials, recovery, and B moves, it's those flaws that make him just miss being high tier. Not to mention he's also a great edge-guarder with those aerials of his.

I also play Marth and TL, but Marth is fine the way he is. TL, though, could use heavy editing. First off, cut it out with the Link cloning. Seriously. It's boring. Instead, give TL the Four Sword and some TMC skills or something like that. It's fine to keep the bow and spin attack since they're classic, but the other moves need to be TMC or FSA esque to make a non-Link clone of TL.

That is all I have to add. :3

yeah but see brawl = / = fire emblem, and tl is nothing like link at all

I didn't say the games were equal. And TL is a Link clone.

he has moves that don't make sense with him while other moves he could do in FE where left out. Where the heck did Eruption come from? Where are the shockwaves that Ike's sword could emit from a distance?

you compared fe ike to brawl ike. if you havent noticed then theyre not the same and it doesn't matter what he has for abilities and moves in fe

the only things link and tl have in similar are their uairs and zairs, otherwise everything has completely different mechanics