Rivals of Aether Balance Patch 2.1.5.0

Following of one of our biggest balance patches ever, we are back with some small adjustments and light changes to close out 2022. We’ve been hard at work putting together a small but meaningful patch with balance changes and/or bug fixes for most of the cast. Without further adieu, it is time to hop in:

• Bug Fix: Fixed a ranked bug that would cap players scores at 2147.
• Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that turned characters invisible if killed while armored crystallization is active on them.

Forsburn is still in an overall great place in our meta, with just a few adjustments coming his way. This patch is aimed at adding a little more risk to cape and at adding some reward to opponents that successfully parry clone up special.

• Forward Strong: Endlag for the cape swipe increased, 14 > 16 (cancel window unchanged)
• Up Strong: Endlag for the cape swipe increased, 14 > 16 (cancel window unchanged)
  • Adding endlag to both cape swipes while leaving the cancel window unchanged will make the moves slightly more committal in neutral without affecting his punish game too much.
• Clone Up Special: Parrying a clone’s Up Special now causes him to disappear without leaving a smoke cloud, instead of putting the clone into parry stun.
  • Opponents parrying clone will still need to successfully follow up on the real Forsburn, but being able to parry his clone will yield a greater reward. Situations where a lingering hitbox breaking a parried clone will no longer leave behind a safe smoke cloud for the real Forsburn to take advantage of.

Clairen got some really cool changes to down special in our last balance patch, practically reworking how the move functions in every match-up. This patch includes a small change that should make stun times feel more natural at all percents.

• Down Special: The last field hitbox plasma stun hitpause reduced, 10 + 0.7 > 8 + 0.5
• Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where Elliana’s steam wouldn’t fully disappear from Clairen’s field, allowing Clairen to re-activate the field at the spot the steam was created.

He’s just a funny little guy trying to make his way in the world.

• Down Strong: Hitbox heights increased by 1 pixel, which allows for break cancels when standing on rocks.
  • BREAK CANCELS! YES!

Etalus is getting some nice quality of life changes to a few of his multi-hits this patch, adding some consistency and removing some vulnerability respectively.

• Forward Tilt 1: Hitbox moved forwards by 4 pixels.
• Forward Tilt 1: Added a sweetspot hitbox to its center that has a higher base knockback than its counterpart (4 vs. 3)
  • These changes should allow Etalus to connect hit 1 into the rest of forward tilt more reliably.
    
• Down Air 1 & 2: Hitbox active frames increased to better match animation, 2 > 3

• Forward Strong: Trimmed the hurtbox on his arm when it’s extended before active frames of the attack.
  • This creates less vulnerability as Ranno unleashes his attack.

Kragg is getting some cool new options with rock and back air that should give him more interactions when standing on rock and elevate creativity in his combo game.

• Down Tilt: Changed the hitbox shape to match Kragg’s arm better while also allowing the move to break cancel when standing on top of rock.
  • The new hitbox is slightly larger in all aspects.
• Back Air: Hitbox width increased, 62 > 72
• Back Air: Hitbox moved inwards by 4 pixels.
  • These changes should allow Kragg to use the reverse hitbox more often, opening the door to tricky DI mixups in more situations.
• Down Strong: Performing the move on top of rock now break cancels at the beginning of the move instead of the end.
• Down Strong: Performing the move on top of rock now send rock shards straight up
  • The new angle should give Kragg more options to use rock shards in offensive and recovery situations.
    
• Bug Fix: Fixed a rare bug where moves that throw Kragg’s rock wouldn’t work.

Maypul got off scot-free last patch, but unfortunately Lily doesn’t have legs so she couldn’t run out of the way. This patch aims to build off the changes Lily got in 2.1.4.0 by punishing marked players for getting bit.

• Lily: Landing a bite no longer removes their mark. Missing a bite or wrap will still remove it.
  • This should make our last patch’s change to mark a little more forgiving to Maypul when an opponent is hit, while keeping new counterplay aspects such as air dodging or rolling through Lily.

Ori is getting a few bug fixes this patch, one for a bug introduced recently, and another that has been a visual conundrum for a long time.

• Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where parried Sein charge would reflect into Ori instead of inducing parry stun.
• Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where landing during bash launch would put Ori into prat lag instead of landing lag (this change is visual as the total frames of lag have not changed).

Shovel Knight loves to collect treasure, so it was especially disturbing when a sound effect bug made the experience less fun. We’ve fixed that! For Shovelry!

• Bug Fix: Gem collection sound effects have been fixed when in online rollback matches.

Mollo got a pretty hefty list of changes on the last go, so this time we’re keeping things simple and tuning up his jab while making bonk hitboxes a little more straightforward.

• Jab 1: Base knockback increased, 3 > 4
• Jab 1: Increased tilt cancel window, frame 7 > 6
  • These changes will allow Mollo to cancel into his tilts more consistently out of jab.
• Bombs: Bonk hitboxes are now marked as Transcendent, meaning hitboxes can’t destroy them without hitting the bomb too.
  • This should make bonk hitboxes more predictable for players expecting to get hit or parry them when hitboxes from attacks like slipstream intersect bombs.

Hodan’s specials are under the microscope in this patch as we aim to fix a strange bug and knock his stalling capabilities down a peg.

• Up Special: Grabbing a sweatwhirl will only keep Hodan from entering pratfall once per airtime.
  • Fixing the various exploits that have allowed Hodan to stall with up special has been a constant game of cat and mouse. This change should put to bed the cheesy strategies that practically gave him more air time than the air characters.
• Bug Fix: Fixed an issue where inputting side special during the move’s cooldown would delete an active sweat whirl touching Hodan.

Olympia got a pretty cool and initially unintentional buff last patch that we decided to keep after reviewing community feedback, discussing with our beta team, and conducting an internal review. This patch aims to reign in the buff but keep the spirit of it by bringing down special cancel’s distance right between where it originally was, and where it landed in 2.1.4.0. We also noticed down tilt was active for 6 frames, so we did something about that too.

• Down Tilt: Reduced active frames, 6 > 3
• Down Special: Dashcancel speed adjusted to 14.
  • This adjustment to an initially unintentional change has reached a happy medium to her old dash cancel distance and the distance gained from patch 2.1.4.0.