Today is a monumental day for Rivals of Aether players everywhere. One of the most prevalent questions of our times (“When’s Ori?”) can finally be answered. That’s right, Ori is now.
Tonight we’re releasing major patches on two systems at once. PC players will get access to the Ori and Sein DLC along with some balance changes, while Xbox One players will move from Game Preview to Full Release. Read on for patch 1.1.2 notes or head here for what to expect on Xbox One.
New Content – Ori and Sein + The Spirit Tree
Ori and Sein along with The Spirit Tree stage are now available! These are our first guest characters, visiting Aether from the world of Ori and the Blind Forest. They are purchasable for $4.99 as DLC on Steam or the Microsoft Store .
Ori and Sein bring their abilities learned throughout Ori and the Blind Forest and put them to the test in Rivals of Aether. While Ori works to Bash, Stomp and Glide their way to victory, Sein can use the Spirit Flame or the Charged Flame to put enemies between a rock and a hard place.
- SPIRIT FLAME – Sein follows Ori around the battlefield. Ori can tap Neutral Special to have Sein quickly fire a Spirit Flame from wherever Sein is. Ori can hold Neutral Special to have Sein use the Charged Flame.
- BASH – Ori can use Down Special to Bash nearly anything in Rivals of Aether – from characters to projectiles to rocks and plants. Ori can also move around the stage by bashing the Light Grenade that is thrown by using Forward Special.
- TAG TEAM – When Ori and Sein are close enough, Ori can use Strong Attacks to initiate tag team combos. These Strong Attacks have more powerful properties as Sein assists Ori for a more devastating blow.
The new Spirit Tree stage comes with both a casual Aether version and competitive Basic version. On the Aether version, players will have to look out for Kuro as she dives toward the screen, striking those who have not taken cover under the platforms. Gumo, a fan favorite from Ori and the Blind Forest, also makes an appearance on the Aether version of the stage as he moves a platform around. Competitive players can play on the Basic version for a fair fight while enjoying some great music inspired by Ori and the Blind Forest.
We’ve made lots of changes since our last major patch, so a few screens you’re familiar with might look a bit different. We’ve also updated dev mode to fix some of the moves that were outdated along with some other quality of life changes.
- Community News – The main menu now shows news and other things of interest to the community. Use your mouse to view sections you’d like to read more about. If the web pages don’t open for you, follow this quick guide.
- Profile Icons – Profile icons now save from session to session so you don’t have to select one every time. Ori and Burrito Kragg icons have been added and can be unlocked with their respective DLC.
- Respawn Invincibility Time – Invincibility time on respawn has been reduced from 120 frames to 90. Two seconds of invincibility was proving a bit long (especially on the smaller stages) which is why we’re reducing it to 1.5.
- Hurtbox Updates – Many animations that use the default hurtbox rectangle (jump, double jump, airdodge, walljump, hurt sprites) have been re-positioned to match the hurtboxes better. There are no framedata or other gameplay changes around this, the intent is only to give more visual clarity.
- Reverse Hits – Many kill moves that could reverse (sending a character the opposite way that the attack faced) have been changed to disallow this. You’ll see it mentioned on multiple Rivals below but this is a change across the board and not targeting any specific character.
- Character Select Screen – We’ve got an extra character to fit in! Ori and Sein have been added to the roster. Selecting Ori will allow you to purchase them right from the Steam overlay.
- Stage Select – The stage select layout has been changed with The Spirit Tree and future stages in mind. If you own The CEO Ring you can also now select this stage directly by toggling using the icon over The Rock Wall.
- Dev Mode – Updated the properties and data for some character’s moves to bring them up to date with current gameplay.
Zetterburn has been seeing a lot of play lately at the highest level. While his strong offense on stage is something we intended, we think his recovery options off stage are a little too good right now, especially when that was supposed to balance out his strengths.
- Dspecial no longer gives back your double jump immediately. Instead, it gives you your double jump 20 frames after the dive starts (noted by a white flash on Zetterburn)
- After 30 frames of Dspecial’s dive, you can cancel it with a double jump, an air dodge, or Uspecial (you can still walljump out as usual).
- Dspecial no longer spawns a fire puddle when parried
- Dspecial hit 1 no longer stuns grounded opponents for unecessary lengths of time when trading
- Fair sweetspot can no longer reverse
Orcane was perfect last patch and has been perfect for a long time. However, he is now EVEN MORE perfect after we decided to add 1 more damage to his Dair hits.
- All hits of Dair now do 1 more damage
- Dstrong angle flippers changed to avoid strange reverse hits
- Fair can no longer reverse
We’ve given Wrastor a little more kill power on his Fstrong’s sourspot. He also got a visual upgrade on his Ftilt to give him the style he deserves.
- Ftilt has a new, smoother animation (less reach, same frame data, same knockback)
- Fstrong sourspot scaling increased from 1.0 > 1.1
- Utilt can no longer reverse
Kragg is a simple Rival who doesn’t need much. With the addition of his Burrito skin and this rock throw change below, he’s one happy bug.
- Neutral rock throw can now be reversed
- Fair can no longer reverse
Forsburn’s specials are really cool right now and hitting all of our marks for a deception based character. Some of his other moves however were a little lackluster, so we’ve decided to make a few changes that give him more options.
- UpStrong hit 1 (cape) replaced with a shorter, wider cape swing
- Bair sweetspot active frames increased from 2 > 3
- Bair sourspot active frames increased from 6 > 13
- Both Bair hitboxes made bigger and moved to match animation better
- Bair whifflag decreased from 7 > 3
- Nair1 front hitbox active frames increased from 1 > 3
- Up Strong Startup has been increased from 12 to 14 frames.
- Uspecial hitstun modifier increased from .85 > 1.0
- Uspecial base knockback increased from 6 > 8
- Fspecial is now hidden/silent when used behind smoke (so sneaky)
Even with the addition of Ori, Maypul is still the fastest Rival around. We’ve cleaned up a few of her hitboxes this patch to make certain moves match their animations better.
- Fstrong hitbox made slightly bigger
- Added 2 hitboxes to Dstrong in order to match the animation better
- Strong attack wrap time scaling increased from .1 > .13
- Fair can no longer reverse
Absa has started to show up consistently in tournaments which is nice to see. We’ve made a few QoL changes to her in addition to making Ftilt1 slightly harder to abuse, since the move shouldn’t be so good that it’s all she wants to do.
- Ftilt 1 startup increased from 4 > 7, hitbox moved VERY slightly forward and narrowed (removed about 4px of backward range)
- Ustrong hitboxes made taller to reach crouching Orcane
- Bair sweetspot can no longer reverse
- Fstrong can no longer reverse
- Interrupting Absa while she’s charging her cloud pop will now cancel the cloud pop instead of having the cloud auto-charge into the strong hitbox
Etalus’s presence on stage is big and that’s just how we like him. We’ve made a small change to ice armor this patch to keep him from getting overwhelming.
- Ice armor is now eaiser to break, damage needed decreased from 50% > 40%
- Fstrong (both with ice armor and without) can no longer reverse
- Uair now functions correctly when hitting multiple enemies
Thanks for playing, and we hope everyone enjoys Ori and patch 1.1.2. If you’re looking for some more Rivals action this weekend make sure you tune into Shine to watch the top 8 on twitch.tv/BigBlueGG at 9EDT / 8 CDT/ 6 PDT.
Golden Elite has some fantastic guides and just recently put out a new one focusing on helpful stuff for newer players. This guide compiles all kinds of things from common Rivals terminology, character specific techs, and even links to other guides and community hangouts. 
