The Ridiculous Sword Down Light

[Magma]

I think there is definitely something wrong with this attack, and it needs some sort of a nerf. Take a look at MT9 that happened two days ago, specifically the match between Exo and Tybo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pFYt5DXY5s (game starts at 4:10). These two players are almost unarguably some of the best players in the game, and definitely the two best sword players in the game. But then you see how they use the sword. Both of them fish for down lights the entire match, then just follow it up with an air light of some sort.

This is considered the most optimal way to play sword, but it ends up making gameplay uninteresting, repetitive, and one dimensional. I forget who said "If someone in the top tier is spamming a move, there is something wrong with that move," but this is a perfect place to use it. Something has to be done about this move, because it appears to vastly outclass the rest of the sword's grounded moveset judging by how top sword players use it along with having good priority, spammability (this is a word now), and combo potential.

[ArcaniteJedi]

I can't really say i agree they were spamming the move. Like you said, that is the best way to start the attack with the sword because it opens up to a whole set of follow ups with the tilt , neutral(and sometimes down) air. Yes it is very unpleasant to watch but that is just how it is. Its the same situation with the hammer where the stomp is basically your opener on the ground to a follow up in the air.

Both of those players were probably just messing around and they could have done that move far less if they were playing more carefully in my opinion.

Now having said that, your absolutely right about it outclassing the other two ground sword moves. Unlike the hammer -which all of its three moves have specific purposes- the sword down light pretty much covers all your ground options be it defensive or aggressive.

Of course these are all just from my point of view and I could be completely wrong.

[Magma]

Originally posted by Jö ArcaniteJedi:

I can't really say i agree they were spamming the move. Like you said, that is the best way to start the attack with the sword because it opens up to a whole set of follow ups with the tilt , neutral(and sometimes down) air. Yes it is very unpleasant to watch but that is just how it is. Its the same situation with the hammer where the stomp is basically your opener on the ground to a follow up in the air.

Both of those players were probably just messing around and they could have done that move far less if they were playing more carefully in my opinion.

Now having said that, your absolutely right about it outclassing the other two ground sword moves. Unlike the hammer -which all of its three moves have specific purposes- the sword down light pretty much covers all your ground options be it defensive or aggressive.

Of course these are all just from my point of view and I could be completely wrong.

They certainly aren't messing around, because if you watch them play it is almost exactly like this, usually with less signatures and more DLights. And the comparison to the hammer doesn't work out too well because people actually use the other ground lights. They do not use the SLight or NLight at all because the DLight is so powerful.

[Nysos]

I don't think they were messing around. That is how the sword is played, because for the most part it is safe to throw the sword down light out, and one of the biggest reasons for that is that after the move it puts you in the air, unlike the hammer move.

For the most part I agree with Magma (as I should, since I'm the one that said the quote he mentioned in his post lol). I tend to play swords as well, and even I end up doing the same thing, just fishing for a downlight most of the time.

[ComptonEMT TTV]

Even when the downlight "sucked" it was still better than pretty much every setup move in the game. back in pre 1.4 it was worse than it is now though. It was a guaranteed combo. This was partially due to the hitboxes and partially due to the stun of the move then.

A lot of people have asked for more combo style moves like this. With the games style it is going to be pretty hard to do. Either you're going to get one more (like the setups on DQuick) or you're going to give combo potential to a lot of moves that makes your opponent feel helpless.

Solution?

Because of this I personally think that no move should be a guaranteed combo move due to the style of the game. The DQuick of the sword needs to have less to it like it did before when it was hugely nerfed and people said it sucked. This needs to be true for the majority of "setup moves" in the game. Most are like that but the sword and hammer are a bit easier to do with the sword being the easiest.

However, to help the ability to actually combo something I think the dodge cooldown on the ground needs to be increased. The majority of combos happen in the air. Why is this? because the air dodge cooldown is essentially 3 seconds. Players get essentially 1 chance to escape the combo. If they don't then you get your combo of moves. Increasing ground cooldown would have a similar effect on this as well. The main problem with this is certain signatures that essentially can ignore dodges due to their length.

[Nysos]

I think setup moves are fine, in fact without true combos the game would feel pretty bland really. there should be atleast some risk to using it. Also most of the game happens in the air after initial hits (not to mention that most moves on the ground hit people too far away to follow up with more ground moves) which is why combos happen in the air, not really the dodge timers.

[Convicted Melon]

If anything, the game needs MORE true combos. If there were no combos at all Brawlhalla would have an incredibly annoyingly huge neutral game that would feel clunky, boring and unfun. There are reasons why Smash Bros. Brawl wasn't taken seriously on a competitive level and a lack of true combos was one of them. Now I'm not implying there should be ridiculous 7-10 hit combos in Brawlhalla, but moves that clearly act as setups that combo into other moves for short bursts of damage are always welcome in my book.

[Magma]

I am not talking about the move being able to combo into other things. That part I am fine with. The part I am not OK with is that top tier sword play consists of spamming this move until it hits, then doing a combo over and over. This move is too strong and the other ground lights are too weak, and it makes sword less fun to play with and against.

[Blind Archer]

Could the devs maybe hotfix this, the game is getting unplayable with people learning to get the maxium out of this move while doing almost nothing else.

[OnTilt ☦]

True combo's don't fit well in this game because unless they make DI very
powerful, combos are just too good to not go for every time. Why should half the weapons in the game get 40+ dmg hit confirms? Not to mention that most combos start off of DLights which are arguably the among the safest moves in the game.

Originally posted by HSAComptonEMT:

Players get essentially 1 chance to escape the combo. If they don't then you get your combo of moves.

This is essentially how katars functioned before this patch and I think it was a good model for how combos should work in this game. Katars have no true combos, yet you could still chain multiple attacks together if you play well or your opponent makes a mistake.

Katar NLight>(wait for dodge)>Nlight/Dlight/Nair/Recovery was a great setup for pseudo combos. If you predicted the dodge correctly you got 2-3 more attacks. If they didn't dodge you missed your chance and perhaps even got punished for standing there waiting for the dodge to happen. This type of play is much more engaging and rewarding than spamming Dlight hoping to start a combo all match.

Guns are another example of a weapon that has no true combos, but has good attack chains and setups if played correctly. Dair>Nlight>Sair is a good example.

I would like to see more of these combos that are a reward for outplaying / out thinking your opponent rather than being rewarded for landing a specific move.

The only problem is that the new dodge mechanic takes people too far away too fast, even if you predict the direction of the dodge chances are you can't get there in time. Even if you do get there, the nonexistent recovery frames on dodges mean you will probably only get there in time to be punished for trying to punish. Essentially, while the new dodge has made it much easier to approach, its also made the game a "true combo or bust" meta.

[ComptonEMT TTV]

What On tilt said is a lot of how i feel about the combos in the game. It is true to that if there is one move that is essentially an almost guaranteed combo that it will be spammed. This is why you see people spamming sword DQuick. No other move on sword has anywhere near the same combo potential that DQ has. This is also why sword is a pretty solid weapon to use.

Dodging also effects this passively to a great degree as explained in my previous post. One of the big things in the meta has been ground tapping. As soon as you have tapped the ground your air cooldown is sent down to your ground cooldown. If you never leave the ground you have that approximate 1 second CD as well. This makes it harder to combo moves together as dodges are continually spammed into your combo opportunities.

not every weapon has a combo move. Only a few really do. This is something that was discussed by the community in depth back when the Sword DQ got it's initial nerf to keep it from connecting 95% of the time. Hammer and sword are two of the best weapons for this with sword still being supperior on percent of moves you can connect. One thing I noticed last night is that the katar actually now has 2 moves that can be "easily" combo'd out of. With the addition of the third hit to what is now the NQuick it stuns and pushes the opponent up. I had a player hitting me with this into the A+B recovery (something else added recently). you can actually land it fairly easily. This means that the Katar now has 2 "setup moves" whilst some ot her weapons have no moves or 1 move that is hard to connect with on the second hit.

For me I'm not asking that every weapon has a setup or 2. Some weapons should be meant to be a hard hitting 1 attack style weapon. The guns were this for a while but people asked for it to be nerfed into the ground. The DQ on the guns is a great example. It isn't easily combo heavy, The hits are its own combo, it did a lot of damage, never really landed every hit, and was punishable with how long it took. People asked repeatedly for it to lose it's damage. Now it does pretty basic damage when you land all 3 hits and doesn't really combo into anything. It's good at keeping people away but when compared to the multi-hit damage that the sword DQ into other moves can do it's lacking.

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TLDR?
Ground dodge cooldown extension promotes other moves and weapons to combo much easier. You get your chance to dodge and if you fail you get combo'd. This is how Air dodging works. Why not make ground dodging similar.

more weapons need more guaranteed combos. These weapons should be more combo centered and do less damage per move

Some weapons don't need guaranteed combos and should be more 1 shot or combo on one tap (how guns used to be). These weapons should be more 1 tap centered and do more damage per move.

[Le Bobbelineux Goblineux]

I don't have any solutions to this combo or big explanations on what's too strong with that move/combo, but I can easily tell that it is way too strong in my opinion. Not necessarily in the damage done in my opinion, but in the combo that follows up and that is really safe to use.

Maybe it is just me, but when I fought someone who was only doing this attack to start the same combo, I did not know what to do. I was trying different things and before losing the match, without thinking about it, I was also using the Down Light attack with the sword.

That fight showed me that I don't really know in detail what element makes the combo strong, but this entire combo/move is in my opinion too powerful and should be on the list of the things to think about.