Fox 3.6 Change Discussion

[Manaconda]

So let me get this straight. you guys first nerf the up-smash, now you messin with the shine. c'mon now really? Werent most of the match-ups a pain enough as it was?

And what about the trigger-happy pigeon? How come he still the same?

The great majority of Fox's MUs in PM were in his favour. And Falco isn't the same. In addition to a few other nerfs, his dair is now a toothpick.

Edit: spelling

 

[Celestis]

From all the things I have seen, Fox was not anything to worry about. He was not the best, yet still gets these nerfs. It was the up smash everyone complained about the most, and so they nerfed it Why the Shine, why the jab? Why the ending lag? I just don't understand. The jab at high percent not only messes with his game, it just looks wrong. His jab has always been that way in all the smash games. It feels wrong in more ways then just a nerf. Same with the shine.

 

[Manaconda]

From all the things I have seen, Fox was not anything to worry about. He was not the best, yet still gets these nerfs. It was the up smash everyone complained about the most, and so they nerfed it Why the Shine, why the jab? Why the ending lag? I just don't understand. The jab at high percent not only messes with his game, it just looks wrong. His jab has always been that way in all the smash games. It feels wrong in more ways then just a nerf. Same with the shine.

Who in your opinion was the best? Did they get nerfed in this update? Was their MU spread much better than Fox's? In any case, Fox was perceived to have had much, much more positive MUs than the average PM character, and it's safe to assume the PMDT is done experimenting by trying to push everyone to his level in their quest to balance the game, with 3.02 to show for it.

The shine change prevents gimps at 0 percent and makes gimps easier at higher percents. Because it only affects aerial shine and not ground shine, things like waveshining still work on the same cast members it worked on before. The jab change prevents a guaranteed jab --> UpSmash combo, one of the lowest commitment attacks linking into one of the most powerful kill moves. Even Mango and Lucky thought that was stupid. And I don't think 'looks wrong' because it's been in other games is one of the PMDT's main concerns. Note that jab --> UpSmash still works with no DI and DI in, just not with DI out, so with how fast jab comes out, avoiding this potent little combo requires somewhat of a read.

The 20-something frames of endlag on his recovery when you reach the ground in the up-B special animation takes effect if you land too close to the ground or if you slam into the ground, which is a pretty big inconvenience. The 3 frames to 7 frames on his recovery from special fall is barely noticeable. In terms of landing lag, Fox's is still on the lower end of the PM cast.

This is just me trying to explain the nerfs. At the end of the day idgaf about the Fox nerfs, I would have beaten most of my local Foxes had he changed or not. But PM is a changing game, that's just its nature, and (nearly) every character goes through them.

EDIT: Added details.

 

[Yallo42]

Who in your opinion was the best?

Ike and Sheik were the best imo.

 

[jtm94]

Can confirm I got jab > Upsmash against Mario at 150. Not sure if it works at lower percents, you just dash forward a tad.

 

[EmptySky00]

I think people don't know how to discern the difference between "Fox wasn't even good" and "I am not good enough to win with/exploit a Godlike character therefore the character is bad."

Just because you can do Fox tech doesn't mean you're a good Fox player or that your experiences with him are indicative of his actual standing in the cast. Fox was not changed in any meaningful way. He plays the exact same but can't shine spike at 0 and he has landing lag in some situations on his up B. You know, like most other characters in the cast.

I find it ludicrous how people think shine is bad now because it lost a frame of invincibility. Wow, welcome to the world of mere mortals where our frame 1 JC autocombo moves can trade. Oh wait, hardly anyone else even has that anyway. You people feel like you're deserving of a stupid character because it was like that in Melee, but you're actually not. If there's a balance discrepancy then it should be addressed. Fox shouldn't have nerf armor because Melee players will cry if he gets touched. That's absolutely ridiculous and you people are acting way too entitled.


And saying something shouldn't be nerfed because it's "iconic?" Hilarious.

 

[Vegerot]

20 ****ing frames of landing lag and nerfed the shine like really?
This is so stupid

That's only when you hit the stage with it (aka when you're above the stage and angle the FireFox low so that it hits the stage)

Does anyone else think it's weird that the other spacies didn't get recovery nerfs?

I think Falco's recovery is okay. Maybe nerf the Side-B a little.

Changing the shine in anyway is pretty ridiculous. I feel like they are getting carried away with PM "balancing" All you have to do is make all viable melee characters the same, all non viable melee characters buffed, and Brawl/Misc characters get buffed so they can compete with the other melee veterans. It's extremely controversial to even touch something as iconic as Fox/Falco shine, Marth ken combo, Falco Pillars, etc. The fixed knockback, frame 1 and jump cancelling are the shines biggest features. PMBR is taking too many liberties. I hardly liked their recent update (everyone lives past 150% and games take 6 mins on average), but this is just bad now. Sucks cause i really liked PM and i always was that person that made others try it. Did my best to make "melee only" players give it a chance, but if radical decisions are being made like this, I can no longer defend PM. Good luck in the future cause it's not looking good now.

They did do this (buffing all the characters). It's called 3.02, where all the characters were broken.

 

[EmptySky00]

Ya, turns out balancing the cast around God With Lasers leads to everything being volatile and stupid as ****.
You can argue that if everyone is stupid no one is, and I guess you're right, but if you really want something like that you should go play Brawl-. It just leads to exploitable gameplay and lopsided matchups that no one wants to deal with.

 

[interpunct]

I don't agree with most of these nerfs personally. Fox needed to be toned down. I do agree with that. However the thing is that with all of these nerfs lately I think they've gone a bit overboard. These nerfs should be done little by little not effectively remove tools outright for him.

At my scene one of the top 10 PM, Melee and Sm4sh players in the region was a Fox and DK main if I'm not mistaken, in PM. It was perfect however because he wasn't automatically winning all the time because "lol I'm Fox". He actually got busted up hard sometimes and he's been playing Melee for years so it's not like he isn't inexperienced. He had to sometimes do a character switch up and go and try new things on the go. That's the beauty of PM.

The thing is that with 3.6 a lot of the MU's that were just bad for fox turned way way worse. It got to a point where he just rather play Falco or some other fast fallers and he is doing much better even though he is the top player in Melee with Fox. He just said there's no point in playing fox because what's the point if there are characters with much better tools? When you have a character like Roy that with one down tilt he can just 0 to death you with minimal effort since his up air is just godly plus his grab game is stupid good.

He can't laser camp anymore because his damage is bad. Up-smash already had a big nerf and the Sakurai combo is just extremely rare to be able to do now. Aerial shine on stage is practically a death-wish since it can be CC'ed and punished before fox even gets out of it and his jab up smash can be easily read and DI'ed away.

Sure. The dude still beasts with fox but now he rather use Roy, Sonic or Mewtwo, etc. because for whatever reason it's ok to have other stupidly powerful characters, but not Fox.

I really don't like that mentality that for each nerf they just go al out and nerf multiple things and it's not like they just do small nerfs in damage or knockback. No they just make some things useless. The jab up smash thing was good although in my eyes a bit questionable because the up smash already had a nerf, and anyways landing that jab up smash isn't exactly as brain dead as people make it out to be sometimes when you're playing against a good player. But the Fire Fox nerf was definitely too far I think because maybe doubling the landing lag would've been good but going for over 3 times slower than usual was overkill. Maybe even 14 frames of end lag but why so much with 20?

The Sakurai combo now is like the lasers fox had nerfed. They are there but why would you ever consider using it now? They are unreliable and there is no incentive in risking your stock for a tactic like that. Plus the spacies recovery wasn't good anyways because of how predictable they are.

Again, I'm not against change towards fox. I love the fact that we have such a diverse cast and I love that we have such a great balance. But between this and the Falco D-Air nerf (which was unnecessary imo) between other things like the stupid hard nerf they gave in pit in 3.5 I just think they've been trying to trim down the fat a little too much.

 

[AceGamer]

Sure. The dude still beasts with fox but now he rather use Roy, Sonic or Mewtwo, etc. because for whatever reason it's ok to have other stupidly powerful characters, but not Fox.

Lol none of those 3 are stupidly strong and Fox has no confirmed losing match ups, he either goes even with or beats your character.

 

[interpunct]

Lol none of those 3 are stupidly strong and Fox has no confirmed losing match ups, he either goes even with or beats your character.

Fox was horrible against those characters. Sure they might not be stupidly strong, I exaggerated on that bit. I meant to say stupidly strong tools. But they are very clearly better than fox in a lot of aspects. Specially now more than ever. However since you are very confident that he has no confirmed losing matchups I would like to know why.

Also when was the last time a fox won a big PM tournament? KTAR 8? Where a Falco was pulled out anyways and a Mario too? And almost won Apex 2014 way back in 3.02 where M2K got beat by Armada's pit anyways? I really don't see a reason for nerfs when not even in 3.02 was he as dominant as people claim for him to be. I don't even play him in PM and I think it's overkill to go to these lengths to nerf a character that isn't even as dominant as a lot of people claim for him to be in the meta and hasn't been for a long time now. He's

It just feels like they are nerfing fox for being fox. Because people overrate too much his abilities.

He has a lot of abilities because he was deeply studied for over a decade. If you give that type of study to the rest of the cast I would bet a million dollars that fox would get destroyed. And he is getting destroyed already anyways. You have to let the meta evolve and adjust. You can't just keep nerfing or buffing without letting the rest of the cast adapt first to the buffs and nerfs.

Although 3.6 brought many good things they have to tone down on the nerfs across the board. Still to this day I don't understand why they changed falcos down air from 9 frames to 4. Was it really a issue? Why don't you just let people play around it. What about link? Massive nerfs across the board as well. Same goes to the rest of the cast.

 

[FlashingFire]

These nerfs should be done little by little not effectively remove tools outright for him.

Fox has been changed little by little since... 3.0 I think? Back when Shine first had its intangibility removed. The PMDT started small. They waited a long time to implement changes to Fox. Also, what tools have been outright removed? Can he no longer follow up after Shine? No longer kill with Usmash? No longer mix up his recovery with Up-B and Side-B?

The thing is that with 3.6 a lot of the MU's that were just bad for fox turned way way worse.

I would like to know which MUs you think were bad for Fox in 3.5 and why.

He can't laser camp anymore because his damage is bad. Up-smash already had a big nerf and the Sakurai combo is just extremely rare to be able to do now. Aerial shine on stage is practically a death-wish since it can be CC'ed and punished before fox even gets out of it and his jab up smash can be easily read and DI'ed away.

Laser camping is rarely done with the aim of racking up significant damage. It is primarily done with the aim of making the opponent approach on your terms, and lasers can still accomplish that. Up Smash is still a 7-frame startup vertical KO option that can be done out of a run and out of shield, and KOs most characters between 80% and 110%. Sakurai combos are really bad design to begin with, their removal is fine. I'm not sure how exactly you punish aerial Shine on hit, but then you could always just do a grounded Shine instead. Jab > Up Smash is also a rather poorly designed, low-commitment kill combo - making it escapable with good DI (keeping in mind that jab takes 2 frames to come out) is fine.

I really don't like that mentality that for each nerf they just go al out and nerf multiple things and it's not like they just do small nerfs in damage or knockback. No they just make some things useless. The jab up smash thing was good although in my eyes a bit questionable because the up smash already had a nerf, and anyways landing that jab up smash isn't exactly as brain dead as people make it out to be sometimes when you're playing against a good player. But the Fire Fox nerf was definitely too far I think because maybe doubling the landing lag would've been good but going for over 3 times slower than usual was overkill. Maybe even 14 frames of end lag but why so much with 20?

Usmash already had its knockback reduced to PAL levels. Laser damage over distance was nerfed. Fox has no useless moves. And Firefox only has 20 frames of landing lag if you hit the stage with it - if you complete the move and land, you only have 7 frames of lag. That's a really small number compared to characters like Diddy, Wolf, Sheik, Falcon, Roy, etc., all great characters who must deal with that recovery weakness.

This is PM - Fox doesn't get "nerf armor" just because a subset of the playerbase has been putting up with his insane toolkit for 15 years.

 

[Yallo42]

what tools have been outright removed?

I would like to know which MUs you think were bad for Fox in 3.5 and why.

Fox has no useless moves. And Firefox only has 20 frames of landing lag if you hit the stage with it - if you complete the move and land, you only have 7 frames of lag.

Removed tools- Jab Up Smash and shine spike.
Bad MUs- DDD because fox has to be perfect just for it to be even. If fox makes a single mistake, then he loses a stock.
Useless moves- why don't I see fox players using fair, ftilt, or dsmash?
Firefox lag only if hitting stage- You have to fall for more than 20 frames after the hitbox ends to get the 7 frame land lag, which is farther than Fox's full jump without fast falling.

 

[AceGamer]

Removed tools- Jab Up Smash and shine spike.
Bad MUs- DDD because fox has to be perfect just for it to be even. If fox makes a single mistake, then he loses a stock.
Useless moves- why don't I see fox players using fair, ftilt, or dsmash?
Firefox lag only if hitting stage- You have to fall for more than 20 frames after the hitbox ends to get the 7 frame land lag, which is farther than Fox's full jump without fast falling.

D3 v Fox is barely even, D3s saving grace is his off stage game. Fox body's him in neutral and 1 mistake only means a stock if you're near the edge which you shouldn't be as Fox anyway and I see Foxes uses d smash at the ledge. Jab up smash still works if they DI in and possibly no DI iirc. Shine spiking isn't even that integral to Fox and functions the same at lower percents.

Oh and in response to interpunct, Fox beats Mewtwo, Roy and Sonic lol. They all lose neutral and are combo food, Roy can zero to death Fox but Fox can do the same to Roy and out speeds him. Mewtwo gets outsped and dies easily off the top and Sonic has awful range, low kill power and all his moves suck (in comparison to other members of the cast). Sonics moves are painfully easy to beat out, his speed allows him to bait and punish well yes but Fox isn't that slow that he can't keep up with Sonic. Sonic has the advantage off stage but a lot of characters have that against Fox and you have to win neutral against Fox to get him off stage in the 1st place which won't be easy at all against a proper Fox player

 

[The Baron]

Removed tools- Jab Up Smash and shine spike.
Bad MUs- DDD because fox has to be perfect just for it to be even. If fox makes a single mistake, then he loses a stock.
Useless moves- why don't I see fox players using fair, ftilt, or dsmash?
Firefox lag only if hitting stage- You have to fall for more than 20 frames after the hitbox ends to get the 7 frame land lag, which is farther than Fox's full jump without fast falling.

D-smash is a great edge guarding tool. You miss sweetspot and you get THE SPLITS!

 

[EmptySky00]

Removed tools- Jab Up Smash and shine spike.
Bad MUs- DDD because fox has to be perfect just for it to be even. If fox makes a single mistake, then he loses a stock.
Useless moves- why don't I see fox players using fair, ftilt, or dsmash?
Firefox lag only if hitting stage- You have to fall for more than 20 frames after the hitbox ends to get the 7 frame land lag, which is farther than Fox's full jump without fast falling.

God are you ****ing serious? Are we playing the same game? You're complaining about 4 "useless" moves that have ALWAYS been the same that he DOESN'T need. You say shine spike was removed. You also claim Fox has a ton of bad MUs and all you can cite is ****ing DEDEDE? I'm sick of this BS.

 

[Yallo42]

God are you ****ing serious? Are we playing the same game? You're complaining about 4 "useless" moves that have ALWAYS been the same that he DOESN'T need. You say shine spike was removed. Jesus Christ go slam your head into a brick wall until you have some goddamn sense. You also claim Fox has a ton of bad MUs and all you can cite is ****ing DEDEDE? I'm sick of this BS.

hmm... it almost like you're purposely trying to make people angry on the internet about a game. I clearly said 3 moves, shine spike actually was removed because it is no longer a spike, and I didn't say fox had a ton of bad MUs, I said DDD was a bad MU. I hope gives you your fix.

 

[FlashingFire]

Removed tools- Jab Up Smash and shine spike.
Bad MUs- DDD because fox has to be perfect just for it to be even. If fox makes a single mistake, then he loses a stock.
Useless moves- why don't I see fox players using fair, ftilt, or dsmash?
Firefox lag only if hitting stage- You have to fall for more than 20 frames after the hitbox ends to get the 7 frame land lag, which is farther than Fox's full jump without fast falling.

Thanks for being civil.

Jab > Up Smash hasn't been outright removed, it's just harder and DI is a more effective measure against it. Grounded Shine is still a spike, and aerial Shine is a semi-spike that gains effectiveness as the opponent's percent increases. Keep in mind that while the initial launch angle is 20 degrees, gravity takes effect immediately and causes characters to fall below that angle.

I disagree with DDD being a disadvantageous MU for Fox. Sure, at low levels it's easy to fish for shieldgrabs and set up gimps, but proficient Foxes are not so easily grabbed. Fox has the tools to beat all of DDD's mediocre OoS options and get a nice combo out of it. That said, DDD's punish game is no joke. I could see the MU being even if only because Fox has to work really hard to KO the penguin, but I definitely think that's as bad as it could be for Fox.

Just because they're uncommon doesn't make Fair, Ftilt or Dsmash useless. Fair is a useful combo extender when Nair would send opponents too far. Ftilt is a highly underrated move - a good spacing tool that just happens to be outclassed in most situations by Fox's incredible mobility. Dsmash covers some sweetspot attempts and can be used as a Waveshine follow-up on characters that are expecting a Usmash, taking advantage of the down/away DI.

The Firefox thing I didn't know. That said, 20 frames of landing lag is not nearly as bad as some people make it out to be. Iirc Wolf's Up-B has at least that much recovery time, and I don't hear anyone complaining about that.

 

[interpunct]

Fox has been changed little by little since... 3.0 I think? Back when Shine first had its intangibility removed. The PMDT started small. They waited a long time to implement changes to Fox. Also, what tools have been outright removed? Can he no longer follow up after Shine? No longer kill with Usmash? No longer mix up his recovery with Up-B and Side-B?

You see, just because he can still do those things, it doesn't mean it was justified. Fox is a extremely technical character. And pretty much still the hardest character to learn to this day.

Not only that, you have to be good with him too. If you aren't on point you will get punished hard and will lose constantly with him. You're talking as if Fox was what MK was in brawl.

The reason why he has such a great tool set is because of the years and years of study he has behind him. I would understand these changes if Fox was still a prevalent character winning major after major having a clear advantage over the rest of the cast. But unlike Melee this isn't the case anymore and hasn't been since at the very least 3.02. And even in 3.02 I can only think of one notable major where M2K which is one of the best foxes in the world won KTAR 8 with him. The reality of the situation is that a good chunk of the cast of PM can give you Melee Fox levels of results for half the effort. Plus Fox has not been a character used widely in the meta for a long while now. Again, since 3.02 at the very least.

I would like to know which MUs you think were bad for Fox in 3.5 and why.

Sonic is one of the worst for him. Sonic can chaingrab him and start a pretty bad 0 to death combo from a chaingrab. Sonic runs at double the speed so no matter how good the fox is more often than not he will get punished and if the Sonic is good enough, it will make good use of his fastfall weight and carry him offstage and get a easy fair gimp on the Fox or drop a spring on the Fox offstage. Sonic is all around a deathwish for fox. Usually you have to play Sonic's game when fighting him and Fox has a hard time controlling the stage because of that. Not to mention Sonic's down-b which is great for getting in quick for minimal risk.

Mewtwo is another bad match-up for Fox. He can just down tilt Fox from a safe distance and start a combo that can lead to up tilts which are ridiculously easy to follow thanks to his weight. Not to mention that if the Mewtwo decides to shake things up he can just up smash to back air or something crazy. Again he has a easy 0 to kill set ups while having a clear range advantage.

Laser camping is rarely done with the aim of racking up significant damage. It is primarily done with the aim of making the opponent approach on your terms, and lasers can still accomplish that. Up Smash is still a 7-frame startup vertical KO option that can be done out of a run and out of shield, and KOs most characters between 80% and 110%. Sakurai combos are really bad design to begin with, their removal is fine. I'm not sure how exactly you punish aerial Shine on hit, but then you could always just do a grounded Shine instead. Jab > Up Smash is also a rather poorly designed, low-commitment kill combo - making it escapable with good DI (keeping in mind that jab takes 2 frames to come out) is fine.

I know why people use laser camping mostly for. However the thing about that was that laser camping is something you have to commit to. So what's the point of committing to it if you can just play it safe and run away? Dash dancing and baiting your opponent from a safe range is just better to force your opponent to mess up than to make em act faster than a laser that barely does 1% hit them.

Plus the consequences were worse if you decided not to act on the Fox camping. Now it doesn't really matter much since at best the fox will land 4 1% hits before he can't shoot from a safe range anymore.

Up-smash was an ok nerf. I never disagreed with it. It works after all. But the jab up-smash was a bit unnecessary I still think. Sure the DI away option is there. But how many times haven't we seen peach and a bunch of other floaties get out of it scotch free in Melee? They just wiggles out of it like nobodies business.

Jab Up-smash is just like chaingrabs. It's an option available at certain percentages that works on certain characters.

Aerial shine punish on hit is just a CC away. No seriously. A friend of mine loved to do aerial shines on us on 3.5 to mix up and throw us off using that as mind games. It worked pretty well because most of the time we were expecting drill to shine and not just shine. However since 3.6 we can literally just CC the shine and in my since I use Link a lot grab him with a tether and go to town with him for a relatively easy combo that might lead to a lost stock. I don't know if it worked on 3.5 but I tried it a lot and it didn't but now in 3.6 it does.

Usmash already had its knockback reduced to PAL levels. Laser damage over distance was nerfed. Fox has no useless moves. And Firefox only has 20 frames of landing lag if you hit the stage with it - if you complete the move and land, you only have 7 frames of lag. That's a really small number compared to characters like Diddy, Wolf, Sheik, Falcon, Roy, etc., all great characters who must deal with that recovery weakness.

Fair is a useless move. And in PM most characters that had useless moves in Melee don't anymore or aren't as bad. And just because other characters have some recovery weakness it doesn't mean fox should suffer too. A characters buffs and nerfs should be by a case by case basis.

This is PM - Fox doesn't get "nerf armor" just because a subset of the playerbase has been putting up with his insane toolkit for 15 years.

Who here was talking about nerf armour or about not nerfing Fox? Also I don't know why people use the "nerf armour" argument whenever someone argues against not nerfing Fox or Falco.

The reality of the spacies in PM is that they aren't what they used to be in Melee and they haven't been relevant for a long time now. Hell back in 2.6 they still weren't as relevant. I just don't see why more nerfs are needed when it's been proven that they aren't a threat anymore and aren't relevant to this meta since before some of these nerfs even happened. It really feels like they are nerfing Fox because of the fact that he's Fox and he's vastly overrated. Not because he actually needs it.

If we was in any way, shape or form prevalent in the meta I would understand but he isn't. Most of the PM cast can get better results than Fox can for half the effort and their options aren't as unsafe as and unforgiving as Fox's.

 

[Funky_K]

Fix shine please. More like melee!!

 

[Denjinpachi]

Ill leave my two cent's even if it might be a little late:

I play a large amount of characters of the top 8 of melee's top tiers, so im relatively familiar with how basic match ups can go for fox. He wins them all, or goes barely even with only a few. Moving over to PM its more of a spread of "even" than winning for a bigger part of the cast. Now, people who struggle against understanding the neutral against fox, and cant reliably deal with his pressure often want him to be nerfed. Understandable, the melee edition fox definitely needed adjustments. He hit a little too hard, and had too many guaranteed setups. I think after removal of invulnerability from shine, and some percent reductions on kill moves, he was where he needed to be. To be real, a majority of the cast has some way or form to gimp, combo, chain-grab, etc. a spacie to near death on a majority of stages. If all you do is nerf a character that was pretty much what the bar was set for other characters to be buffed to anyway, eventually another character will become the "Fox" of PM. But remember, it took a long time for people to flesh out Fox to be the beast he is on multiple games. Luckily, with the last edition of PM being 3.6 (officially) the meta will develop, and people won't be able to hide behind the argument of Fox being "broken" or whatever they feel the need to call him. Honestly, it takes a relatively large combination of tech skill, and mind gaming in order to be victorious with fox. He is very give and take. If fox misses his approach, double lasers for too long, hits too high on shield, whiffs a grab, or almost any form of mistake, he can pay for it just as easily as any other character. So, I think that adding another 14 frames on the up-b was a little harsh. he definitely needed to be touched, but putting him in a situation where he basically is using an flashy side-b that leaves him with only the choice to pick where he'll take the risk is kind of overboard. I can't complain about the up-smash nerf, nor the jab nerf. Fox does have Up-throw up air for free on almost everyone at mid to mid-high percent. back air is still a good poke, and walling move, and the gun still exists, even if it takes more hits to add up for the effect it had in melee. 3.6 fox is like a modified PAL fox in my opinion, only the distance still keeps him slightly over that version. (Exempting the newly added landing lag.) No player is happy about their characters getting nerfed, but I think that maybe adding something that can at least attest to skill on the Up-B landing would've been better. maybe add IASA frames so you can at least move out of the animation, or attempt a block. I'd recommend shine, but its not invulnerable so the best situation is a trade. That's all speculation, and wishful thinking though. I think fox will still be top 2-3, but if this game stays as 3.6 with no surprises in the future, within a year a character will either be seen as better, or as good at the spacies. I believe that firmly. Also, to make a remark on how other characters can stand to fox now, if you go on Youtube and watch Lucky vs. Sethlon at the BOSS 2 tournament, it can show how sticking to a character, and learning to play against a player with your own knowledge of fundamentals, and even match up experience, you can overcome, or come close to beating fox. I was fortunate enough to commentate on that set, and it shows that if you stick it out even an amazingly strong fox like lucky can be challenged. I'll also add, that was one of the few larger scale tourneys in which a Fox has won PM next to when TSM|Zer0 won Norcal Regionals 2015 for PM. I talked on that set as well. =P So fox isn't dead, but the adjustments from the version he was may have been a little harder on him than I think was necessary. Also the reason I recommended those sets was for the version comparison, Zero was playing 3.5 fox, and lucky was playing 3.6 vs. Sethlon I believe. It's possible. Hard for everyone.

 

[Landitty]

interpunct I agree that many prevalant PM characters such as Pit, Snake, Rob, Mewtwo, etc...can get Melee Fox level results with half the effort. Thank you for wording it that way. Just performing basic short hop shffls, fast shield pressure and perfect waveshines takes a TON of practice and gets your hands pretty sore. The reality is most people simply can't do it very well! Which is why Fox players who DO put in the insane amount of practice time should be rewarded with having access to those powerful tools once playing at that high of a level. Shine spiking consistently is NOT easy. Wave shining combos are NOT easy. Getting jab upsmash all the time is NOT easy. This stuff takes practice, and skill to do well. If it was easy, you would see everybody just playing fox and doing this stuff casually like it was nothing, like spamming Marth's foreward smash on new players. Yes, It okay to lower the potency of up smash a little and other tiny balancing nerfs. But In Melee, the threat of being shine spiked near the ledge forced people to be more careful at the ledge! In fact, with how easy it is to make mistakes under tournament pressure like accidentally doing side-b instead of shine, accidental full hops, etc...that combined with how hard Fox is to play well to begin with and how hard he gets comboed...it's not fair to call Fox overpowered, by any means. I don't think that it's totally fair how Fox & Falco have to try even harder to get the results they did in Melee, yet other PM characters seem to get the same results with half the effort. But I guess we're stuck with 3.6? So we'll see where things go I guess.

 

[Denjinpachi]

You see, just because he can still do those things, it doesn't mean it was justified. Fox is a extremely technical character. And pretty much still the hardest character to learn to this day.

Not only that, you have to be good with him too. If you aren't on point you will get punished hard and will lose constantly with him. You're talking as if Fox was what MK was in brawl.

The reason why he has such a great tool set is because of the years and years of study he has behind him. I would understand these changes if Fox was still a prevalent character winning major after major having a clear advantage over the rest of the cast. But unlike Melee this isn't the case anymore and hasn't been since at the very least 3.02. And even in 3.02 I can only think of one notable major where M2K which is one of the best foxes in the world won KTAR 8 with him. The reality of the situation is that a good chunk of the cast of PM can give you Melee Fox levels of results for half the effort. Plus Fox has not been a character used widely in the meta for a long while now. Again, since 3.02 at the very least.




Sonic is one of the worst for him. Sonic can chaingrab him and start a pretty bad 0 to death combo from a chaingrab. Sonic runs at double the speed so no matter how good the fox is more often than not he will get punished and if the Sonic is good enough, it will make good use of his fastfall weight and carry him offstage and get a easy fair gimp on the Fox or drop a spring on the Fox offstage. Sonic is all around a deathwish for fox. Usually you have to play Sonic's game when fighting him and Fox has a hard time controlling the stage because of that. Not to mention Sonic's down-b which is great for getting in quick for minimal risk.

Mewtwo is another bad match-up for Fox. He can just down tilt Fox from a safe distance and start a combo that can lead to up tilts which are ridiculously easy to follow thanks to his weight. Not to mention that if the Mewtwo decides to shake things up he can just up smash to back air or something crazy. Again he has a easy 0 to kill set ups while having a clear range advantage.



I know why people use laser camping mostly for. However the thing about that was that laser camping is something you have to commit to. So what's the point of committing to it if you can just play it safe and run away? Dash dancing and baiting your opponent from a safe range is just better to force your opponent to mess up than to make em act faster than a laser that barely does 1% hit them.

Plus the consequences were worse if you decided not to act on the Fox camping. Now it doesn't really matter much since at best the fox will land 4 1% hits before he can't shoot from a safe range anymore.

Up-smash was an ok nerf. I never disagreed with it. It works after all. But the jab up-smash was a bit unnecessary I still think. Sure the DI away option is there. But how many times haven't we seen peach and a bunch of other floaties get out of it scotch free in Melee? They just wiggles out of it like nobodies business.

Jab Up-smash is just like chaingrabs. It's an option available at certain percentages that works on certain characters.

Aerial shine punish on hit is just a CC away. No seriously. A friend of mine loved to do aerial shines on us on 3.5 to mix up and throw us off using that as mind games. It worked pretty well because most of the time we were expecting drill to shine and not just shine. However since 3.6 we can literally just CC the shine and in my since I use Link a lot grab him with a tether and go to town with him for a relatively easy combo that might lead to a lost stock. I don't know if it worked on 3.5 but I tried it a lot and it didn't but now in 3.6 it does.


Fair is a useless move. And in PM most characters that had useless moves in Melee don't anymore or aren't as bad. And just because other characters have some recovery weakness it doesn't mean fox should suffer too. A characters buffs and nerfs should be by a case by case basis.




Who here was talking about nerf armour or about not nerfing Fox? Also I don't know why people use the "nerf armour" argument whenever someone argues against not nerfing Fox or Falco.

The reality of the spacies in PM is that they aren't what they used to be in Melee and they haven't been relevant for a long time now. Hell back in 2.6 they still weren't as relevant. I just don't see why more nerfs are needed when it's been proven that they aren't a threat anymore and aren't relevant to this meta since before some of these nerfs even happened. It really feels like they are nerfing Fox because of the fact that he's Fox and he's vastly overrated. Not because he actually needs it.

If we was in any way, shape or form prevalent in the meta I would understand but he isn't. Most of the PM cast can get better results than Fox can for half the effort and their options aren't as unsafe as and unforgiving as Fox's.

I agree with this so much, my heart could explode. Currently the only Fox players that actually produce results at the national level are Lucky, and M2K. Maybe ZeRo if he feels like touching the game. These nerfs to shine, and jab were pretty unnecessary. Like, period. I can agree with taking intangibility, I can even agree with reducing the kill potential on smash attacks. However, its a bit overboard when you take away the natural knock back capabilities of a move that's supposed to be capable of setting up known combo, or edge guarding situations. Jab is barely useful now, except for its run-stop use as a poke in the neutral. Now everyone just DI's out of it. It's dumb. I can usually come to agree, or respect a perspective on a change for the good of a game, even at the expense of my own character roster, but they literally did nothing but take away from the spacies. Save for Wolf, of course. I would be happy if they had literally just taken straight ports of Fox and Falco from Melee, and left them alone. Nothing more, nothing less. But what they are now, I can without a doubt say are 2/3 of what they were from the overpowered force from the previous title. And that's a huge reduction in a character by any means.

There is no "general" way to play fox now. It feels like every area took a ridiculous hit. His defensive play style with lasers nets very little damage, his agro requires 100 percent accuracy or he gets grabbed out of a shine by all of the cast with grab armor available, he can barely get a gimp without risking his own stocks, and even his hit and run game is a little lacking when you get characters to high percents. I'd even say that it feels like marth when he his trying to kill at high percent, but he doesn't have a sword. He has to commit to every option.