News

Rivals of Aether Balance Patch 2.1.4.0

By SBS — October 11, 2022

Hold onto your elements, we’re coming to you with our biggest patch of the year! This patch has been ambitious from the get-go and features changes for ALL 18 characters. We gathered ideas from our community at large, beta team, and balance suggestions attained over the course of the last two RCS seasons. In this patch, some characters have only a handful of tune-ups while other characters are receiving larger adjustments or attack reworks based on the game’s current meta. There will likely be a handful of smaller patches after this one, especially to adjust the four newcomers. But there are no more patches planned at this magnitude for Rivals of Aether. There’s a lot to digest so let’s jump in now!

  • Walltechs are now always considered to be in the air, even if you’re touching the ground.
    • This means grounded characters hit next to a wall can do a jump out of tech without going through jumpsquat frames.
  • Parrying an aerial move now adds their whiffed landing lag to the stun time.
    • This will make it so aerials that are parried as the player lands go through a more natural amount of parry stun, instead of counting 40 frames from the moment they land.)
  • Getting parried during wallcling now ends the wallcling and removes your walljump.
    • This will make Ori’s that have Sein parried during wallcling drop into pratfall as intended.
  • Bug Fix: Hurtboxes no longer display any time the player is invincible, even during attacks.
  • Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where hitpause on trades would differ depending on port priority.
  • Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where characters would get stuck on a ledge when being sent upwards.

Zetterburn has been a gem in competitive play, making several appearances at our biggest and most competitive stages and showing that even the best players in the world should fear The Fire’s Roar. We feel that Zetterburn is in a pretty nice spot overall and we’ve decided to fixate on some of the more niche situations that just required a small tune-up.

  • Forward Tilt 1: Hitpause scaling reduced, 10 + 1.0 > 10 + 0.5
  • Forward Tilt 2: Hitpause scaling increased, 6 + 0.5 > 6 + 1.0
    • The increased hitpause should allow players to react better when only struck by hit two.
  • Down Strong: Hit 2 angle changed, 361 > 40
    • Removing the 361 angle means the non-fire attack will consistently send at 40 degrees, instead of occasionally at 45 degrees without fire when an opponent is in the air.
  • Up Special: Added a hitbox on his environmental collision box that only hits projectiles.
    • This stops rare situations where Zetterburn gets stuck without breaking rock at very specific angles and collisions.
  • Bug Fix: Fixed an issue where parrying Zetterburn’s Down Special on specific frames would still spawn the fire puddle.

 

Forsburn is quite the deception character, with a lot of players being deceived to believe that he’s bad! It goes without saying but we’ve watched in awe as CakeAssault has absolutely DOMINATED the Rivals world as solo Forsburn, proving himself to be the undisputed best player in the world. Despite CakeAssault’s success, we really do not believe the character is stronger than the rest of the cast – Cake is just that much better than all of you. We’ve decided to mostly leave Mr. Deception untouched, with some love given to clone behavior in doubles and a very small buff to Super Clone – maybe we’ll see it on the big stage one day next to Cake!

  • Forward Special: Super Clone can now survive projectiles that deal less than 8%.
  • Clone AI now targets the original Forsburn that created it if there is no living opponent to target.
  • Bug Fix: Clone AI now ignores dead and respawning players when finding targets.

Clairen has been in and out of the spotlight throughout the years, with several Clairen mains from AZ, FL, and EU making big waves on numerous occasions. Clairen is in a solid spot in the meta, having clear weaknesses to whiff-punishing and ledge traps, while boasting clear strengths in her punishes and edgeguards. We’ve had quite a bit of hands on experience, feedback, and live streams to help us understand what makes her tick. While most of Clairen’s overall kit is being left alone, her neutral air is getting a nice QoL buff to better break projectiles, and her down special is getting a big rework to make it a more useful tool in all match-ups. Finally, her jab is getting the ability to cancel into tilts, a change that all three single-hit jab characters have received this patch.

  • Jab: Can now be cancelled into tilts starting on frame 11.
    • Previously, Clairen could would be actionable on frame 12 when hitting opponents, so this is more of a buff on whiff while normalizing her jab with the rest of the cast regarding the ability to cancel lag into tilts.
  • Neutral Air: All hitboxes can now break projectiles.
    • Previously, Clairen neutral air would only break projectiles on tipper, meaning any overlap with the sour hitboxes would cause Clairen to get hit. This change allows for Clairen to break projectiles in a way that makes visual sense, while still having off frames that leave her partially vulnerable.
  • Down Special: Parrying the field hitboxes no longer places Clairen into parry stun.
    • While this had interesting counterplay, we don’t want Clairen getting punished for landing a successful high-commitment counter.
  • Down Special: The last field hitbox upon a successful counter now causes plasma stun.
    • The values match Clairen forward tilt tipper stun – 10 + 0.7
  • Down Special: Counter field now reflects projectiles. It still destroys projectiles if they start inside the bubble or have been reflected twice.
    • Opponents who parry a reflected projectile do not gain invulnerability.

Orcane has been a funny little guy since the game’s inception, being called “perfect” at one point, and can we blame Dan? Yes. Yes we can. Over time we’ve seen players such as DolphinBrick and now Xaro pilot the character to consistently new heights, making a home in the Top 5 of our annual RCS rankings, even peaking at number 1 in our 2020 season. We’ve taken a microscope to Orcane this patch and have identified a few imperfections to polish, while also tackling some of the more eyebrow raising situations like bubble edgeguards and his down strong recovery time.

  • Forward Tilt: KB scaling increased, 7 + 0.6 > 7 + 0.7
  • Forward Tilt: Damage increased, 9 > 10
  • Forward Air: Bubblebutt hit-lockout increased, 3 > 8
    • This should help avoid accidental bubble saves on higher damaged opponents while traveling at rapid velocities.
  • Down Strong: Recovery increased, 21 > 23 (32 -> 35 with whifflag)
    • This makes down strong on and off puddle identical in their recovery values.
  • Down Special: Activating the puddle puts neutral special on cooldown for 30 frames.
    • This should make looping edgeguards with bubbles on ledge more difficult and should encourage more expressive ledge trapping scenarios for Orcane.

Etalus is another character with inconsistent tournament representation. We’ve seen him push the best players in the world to the brink, seeming unstoppable with proper momentum. We’ve taken notice of his offstage struggles and have given him a potentially nasty tool for recovery and combo extensions that we will be keeping a close eye on as the meta develops.

  • Up Special: Minimum actionable speed decreased, -8 > -11.5
    • This allows Etalus to act sooner out of up special, giving him more protection when recovering and more possibilities when comboing or edgeguarding.
  • Bug Fix: Etalus can now hitfall aerials during up special rising momentum.
  • Bug Fix: Up Special’s hurtbox is now properly aligned.
  • Bug Fix: Aerial neutral Special’s hurtbox is now properly aligned.

Ranno has been a frequent hopper in our top player collection, having as many as 10 different competitors using him in Season 4. We’ve noticed a particularly chilling meta developing as of late, where multiple bubble uses offstage can help Ranno save himself more often than we would like. We’ve decided to add more counterplay to placed bubbles and take a shot at forward air’s frame data in order to make the move slightly more committal offstage.

  • Fair: Startup increased, 6 > 7
  • Down Air: Hits 2 and 3 now have a max falling speed of 2.
    • If Ranno lands hit 1 of down air and whiffs the rest, he won’t fall as far, causing less self destructs as a result.
  • Neutral Special: Added a visual effect to losing darts from parries.
  • Down Special: Opponents hitting the bubble will now send it 1.5x as far, and lock it out from being controlled by down special for 60 frames.
    • This should give Ranno’s offstage recovery more counterplay, while allowing the same control over his bubble when left alone by the opponent.
  • Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that removed landing lag if only hits one or two of down air were connected.

Wrastor is just so cool that we wanted to polish up some of his less appealing quirks so we could bring him closer to Orcane levels of perfection. Most changes here stem from odd situations or wishlist QoL changes from the community.

  • Forward Tilt: Jumpcancelling now only requires landing the last hit on a player; hitting articles (such as rock or flower) with any hit of forward tilt, will allow Wrastor to use the same jump cancel window.
    • This should normalize Wrastor’s tilt behavior since he can already jump cancel off articles using up and down tilt.
  • Up Tilt: Cut off the top of the leg hurtbox during startup.
    • This should remove weird cases where his hurtbox would leave him vulnerable above platforms for a few frames before his attack comes out.
  • Up Tilt: Spike hitbox width and height increased, 8 x 8 > 10 x 10
  • Up Tilt: Spike hitbox lowered by 1 pixel.
    • Both changes to the spike hitbox should let him break cancel when standing on top of rock.
  • Up Air: Hitbox 2 now comes out at the same frame as hitbox 1.
    • This will allow his hurtbox and hitboxes to overlap, causing trades in niche but surprising situations that he would previously lose. Hit two comes out one frame sooner and has lower priority than hit one.
  • Forward Strong: Moved sweetspot forward by two pixels: 85 > 87
    • This means the sourspot no longer sticks out slightly further than the sweetspot.
  • Down Strong: Can now be cancelled into up special during the existing jumpcancel window.
    • This change mimics a recent quality of life improvement that Ori’s down air received in a previous patch.
  • Neutral Special: Normalized hitstun multiplier of all hitboxes, 0.65/1.0 > 1.0/1.0
  • Down Special: Aerial endlag can now be walljump cancelled.
    • This brings the move in line with other specials in the game and should prevent accidental self destructs, while still keeping Wrastor in a committed state for the entire active frames of the move.
  • Down Special: Hitting articles now has 5 frames of hitpause.
    • This fixes situations where Wrastor could break Kragg’s pillar, then accidentally walljump during its destruction.

Much like Forsburn, Absa has been a staple in our Grand Finals at Majors for several years thanks to another top player, Penguin. We’ve taken aim at a few of her larger hitboxes, and have added an emphasis on spacing (no more back-tilts!) and timing. Overall, Absa should not feel too much pain at higher levels, while some of the easier or accidental hits will be more difficult to land without the precision Absa should have.

  • Forward Tilt: Reduced hitbox width by 12 pixels and moved it forward by 6 pixels.
    • The new hitbox should reach a similar distance in front of Absa, while removing the portion that hits inside and often catches opponents positioned behind her.
  • Dash Attack: Hit 2 damage reduced, 8 > 6 (Total damage 11 > 9)
  • Up Air: Reduced size of the sweetspot, 80 x 80 > 64 x 64
  • Up Air: Added 4 sourspots to the tips of the lightning bolt effect. The new hitboxes are lower priority than the sweetspot but have identical stats except for the following: KB: 7 + 1.2 > 6 + 1.0, Hitstun scaling: 1.0 > 0.9
    • Overall, up air is slightly larger, but the sweetspot has been shrunk and it will be difficult to drift into the powerful hitbox after the first frame, making timing even more important.
  • Cloud: Cloud pop hitbox size reduced and positioning adjusted, 95 x 94 > 87 x 87
  • Cloud: Cloud now despawns when Absa loses a stock.

Elliana easily fits the description of “glass cannon,” with her rough disadvantage state and seemingly touch-of-death punish game. In this patch, we decided to target some of her more reliable bread and butter setups like up tilt, forward air, and confirms into up strong. We’d like some of these setups to be a little tighter on spacing, timing, and DI follow-ups. On the other hand, while we were under the hood, we decided to let you kick around the mine like a hacky sack, so be sure to make some cool clips while you’re taking the new ride for a spin!

  • Jab: Endlag can now be cancelled into tilts starting on frame 8.
    • This normalizes her jab with the rest of the cast regarding the ability to cancel lag into tilts.
  • Up Tilt: Increased endlag scaling with heat used, 9-18 > 9-24
    • This should emphasize the use of high heat up tilt as an outright kill move, while keeping lower heat usage as a combo tool.
  • Down Tilt: Hitting a grounded mine with the first kick of down tilt now pops it straight up into the air.
    • This allows for more mine setups and air juggles.
  • Down Tilt: Hit one extra hitpause removed, 6 > 0
    • The extra hitpause was to help it connect better with hit two, but with the following patch notes, it is no longer needed.
  • Down Tilt: Hit 2 width increased, 44 > 64. The hitbox has also been moved inward, 48 > 45
  • Down Tilt: Hit 2 now has an additional square hitbox covering most of her center. This hitbox has the same stats as the existing Hit 2.
  • Forward Air: Final hit KB scaling increased, 6 + 0.4 > 6 + 0.55
    • This should make DI out at higher percents much more effective at avoiding an overheat follow-up.
  • Up Air: Reduced hitstun scaling, 1.0 > 0.9
    • This should make chaining several up airs into each other slightly more difficult for the Elliana.
  • Up Strong: Sourspot KB decreased, 7 + 1.0 > 6 + 0.9
    • This should make stocks taken off the top require better spacing, with an emphasis on the main explosion hitbox.
  • Down Special: Sticking a mine on a parried opponent no longer auto-arms it.
    • This forces Elliana to get more creative with parry punishes, which are already one of the best ways to set up a long string or kill confirm.
  • Down Special: Hitting a destructible article (like Sylvanos’ flowers or Olympia’s gem) now instantly detonates it.
  • Down Special: Adjusted angles that mine can be hit by Elliana to allow for more control during juggles.
    • With the addition of Elliana’s new down tilt mechanic, we thought it would be fun if she had more control over where the mine gets sent. Previously the range of angles were preset based on the strength of the hitbox.

Kragg has been the rock of the Rivals Esports scene. Always there, always ready. As of late, we’ve noticed a dramatic shift in his gameplan at all levels that focuses a large portion of his combo game into the use of neutral air. Neutral air allows for unreactable DI mix-ups that confirm into pretty early kills. In this patch, we decided to take aim at the over-centralization of neutral air, and take another crack at hurting Kragg’s offstage stalling capabilities with pillar.

  • Up Tilt: Removed part of the hurtbox on his arm during active frames.
    • The new hurtbox will no longer poke above standard height platforms, decreasing trades when sharking opponents from the stage.
  • Neutral Air: Damage changed on each hit: 6, 6, 6, 6 > 4, 4, 4, 8
    • This gives more power to the later hit while making quick hitfalls on the first few hits less powerful.
  • Neutral Air 1: Moved hitbox closer to Kragg’s center
  • Neutral Air 2: Moved hitbox closer to Kragg’s center and reduced size: 70 x 70 > 60 x 60
    • These hitbox adjustments should give Kragg a similar reward for landing early neutral air hits, while making them a little closer to his body and more difficult to land.
  • Pillar: Re-landing on an unoccupied pillar now increases the time it falls by 5 frames in a linear fashion (First it falls for 20 frames, then 25, then 30, and so on).
    • This should make extended stalling offstage a less potent tool for Kragg.
  • Pillar: Projectiles hitting the top of pillar will no longer break it when near the bottom blastzone.
    • Some extra pillar protection should offset some of the pain received in the stalling nerf.
  • Bug Fix: Projectiles parried by Kragg will not break his own pillar.
  • Bug Fix: Cancelling rock pull on the final frame can no longer buffer a parry.
  • Bug Fix: Down special spikes now stop spawning if Kragg is in pratfall.
    • This scenario usually occurs when pillar is destroyed beneath him during the move.

Maypul has been a character in the limelight lately due to superstar, Soulrifle211, bursting onto the scene with his electric gameplay and furious punish game. While Maypul’s normal attacks are in a good place, we recognize that Lily does a bit too much, being able to both protect Maypul and set up for strong kill confirms. We’ve reduced the speed of placing Lily and the duration of wraps done by Lily while also making the watcher’s mark easier to remove to help make wraps and tether situations require a bit more planning from the Maypul.

  • Lily: Plant startup increased, 20 > 28
  • Lily: Despawn time reduced, 10 > 8 seconds
  • Lily: Mark is now removed on whoever triggers her attack, even if it does not wrap or get parried.
    • This should make the counterplay to becoming marked more interesting. Maypul must now consider the opponent’s status when planting Lily since opponents can now remove mark in more ways than landing a committal parry.
  • Lily: Wrap time now scales with distance from Maypul. (At 0 pixels it’s * 0.75, then goes up to 1.0 at half a screen.)
    • This reduces the reward on point blank Lily wraps which previously had noticeably better followups than Maypul’s more committal Strong Attacks.
  • Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where planting Lily would not trigger Ranno poison damage.

Sylvanos is widely known for his ability to tech chase and rack up damage in an instant, while also making up for any trouble killing with methodical stage control and juggles against opponents in perpetual disadvantage. The goal of this patch is to chip away at some of his damage output and tech chasing ability, while giving his kill moves a bit of love.

  • Up Tilt: Damage decreased, 2/3/5 > 2/2/4
  • Up Tilt: Endlag increased, 12 > 13 (18 > 20 with whifflag)
    • Up tilt “blenders” should require a bit tighter timing now, while also outputting a bit less damage during the loops.
  • Forward Tilt: Projectile initial damage decreased, 6 > 4 (Total damage for all hits 10 > 8)
  • Forward Strong: Increased hitstun multiplier on hits 1 and 2: 1.2 > 1.5
    • This should make it less likely for opponents to fall out of the move.
  • Down Strong: KB scaling increased, 7 + 1.0 > 7 + 1.05
  • Neutral Special: Projectile initial damage decreased, 6 > 4 (Total damage for all hits 10 > 8)
  • Forward Special: Airborne seed projectiles can now be destroyed to cancel off of them.
    • This should be a fun buff that could open up some more unique combo routes and finishers.
  • Up Special: Burrow KB adjusted, 7 + 0.2 > 8 + 0.15
    • As one of Sylvanos’ most potent kill options, we wanted to give it a bit more love against the entire cast, since the previous version was noticeably less scary against heavy characters.
  • Down Special: Damage increased, 2 > 4
  • Down Special: Adjusted grass so it can no longer disappear while waiting for down special’s howl to reach it.
  • Bug Fix: Sylvanos now immediately regains his airdodge and doublejump when appearing on stage after a burrow.
    • The situations affected by this bug fix came up most often when Orcane bubbles would hit him as he emerged from burrow.

Ori has been making a consistent appearance in Top 8s for years now, using speed and Sein to outmaneuver opponents. Most of our changes are aimed at reducing scenarios where there is little counterplay, while also reducing some of the more silly things Ori can surprise people with – now you will take 33% less damage when failing to DI out of parasol taps!

  • Jab 1: Jab 1 is now techable for airborne opponents, and forces flinch on grounded opponents.
    • This normalizes jab one behavior with the rest of the cast.
  • Up Tilt: Endlag increased, 10 > 11 (15 > 17 with whifflag)
  • Down Tilt: Endlag reduced, 16 > 14 (24 > 21 with whifflag)
    • We decided to redistribute power among tilts, which should make Ori players less reliant on up tilt, while making down tilt see more usage.
  • Up Strong (Tag team): KB reduced, 9 + 1.05 > 7 + 1.1
    • Tag team up strong has become Ori’s main parry punish, doing a bit too much heavy lifting as the opponents get pulled to the final hitbox before a strong finisher can net stocks at low percents.
  • Neutral Special: Edited the windup of Sein’s spirit flame to be more visible against bright backgrounds.
  • Neutral Special: Sein cancels charging and goes into cooldown if Ori parries.
    • This removes situations where ori could have an active hitbox while also parrying for extra safety.
  • Up Special: Reopen damage decreased, 3 > 2
  • Bug Fix: Fixed a bug with buffered hitfall during up special causing the floating window to descend rapidly.
  • Bug Fix: Fixed an up special momentum bug where pressing down while in hitpause to cancel the feather wouldn’t limit vertical speed.
  • Bug Fix: Fixed opponents getting ledge cancels while being carried by tag team forward strong.
    • This is tied to the above ledgesnapping fix in the General section.

Shovel Knight is one of the more puzzling characters in the community, not seeing a lot of high level use, but being extremely effective when he does. Players like Soulrifle211, Seggo, and Mentos have piloted Shovel Knight with great success over the last few years, showing off a lot of his more dangerous capabilities. We believe that while Shovel Knight is in a pretty good spot in life with a new game and everything, we believe he is also in a good spot in Rivals and is only seeing minor adjustments.

  • Jab: Endlag can now be cancelled into tilts starting on frame 8.
    • This normalizes his jab with the rest of the cast regarding the ability to cancel lag into tilts.
  • Down Air: Can now bounce off of Lily (making her bite) and Absa’s cloud (pushing it down slightly).
  • Ghost Gloves: Reflected gloves turn transcendent, causing them to break new gloves and hit Shovel Knight.
    • This change will make a parry on ghost gloves more effective, since he could previously just block the reflected projectile and run away by throwing another out.
  • Down Special: Anchor’s hitbox is now visible in training mode.
  • Shop: Now displays an item’s price as 0 if it has already been bought.
    • If multiple Shovel Knights are in the shop, items will only display as 0 if each player puchased them.

While we have previously set our sights on toning down some of Mollo’s tools, this patch is aimed at normalizing some hitbox sizes and stats. Most of our changes to Mollo have consistency and gamefeel for players and opponents in mind, with a few power balances here and there.

  • Techroll: speed reduced, 11 > 9
    • This will bring Mollo’s distance traveled during a techroll from the longest in the cast to the same distance as Shovel Knight and Forsburn.
  • Bombs: Firecracker hitboxes are now transcendent like the rest of his bombs.
  • Bombs: Increased the minimum speed bonk hitboxes will ignore players at, 6 > 8
    • This should reduce scenarios where Mollo wants to hit with a bomb during a combo, but it passes through. Now they have to be moving a bit faster before they ignore the bonk.
  • Bombs: Parrying your own bomb no longer grants invulnerability (it will protect from the rest of the firecracker’s hitboxes though).
  • Bombs: Parrying your own bomb no longer removes status effects like leaf marks or poison.
    • The parry mechanics kept Mollo safe in higher risk situations, allowing for a get out of jail free card anytime he held onto a bomb for too long. Removing these options will still allow Mollo to drop his own bombs, just with less of a reward for doing so.
  • Bombs: Finisher damage reduced, 22 > 20
  • Bombs: Hitting bombs no longer counts as a whiffed move. (For workshop folk, it sets has_hit to true.)
    • Since players are encouraged to strike his bombs, it did not feel right to count those moves as whiffs. Now Mollo and his opponents will be rewarded with their strikes by having the same endlag they would have when hitting an opponent.
  • Bombs: Hitting an article (like Sylvanos flowers or Olympia gem) now makes the bomb bounce as if it hit a player.
  • Bombs: All bombs now work in an allied Clairen’s plasma field.
    • This makes bombs function like other projectiles in doubles when a Clairen is on screen.
  • Forward Tilt: KB scaling increased, 10 + 0.3 > 10 + 0.45
  • Dash Attack 1: Removed the reversed KB decay.
  • Dash Attack 1: Increased KB scaling, 8 + 0 > 8 + 0.4
    • The changes to dash attack should make higher percents more difficult for Mollo to get a simple tech chase on.
  • Neutral Air 1: Hitbox sizes reduced, 80 x 54 > 70 x 50
  • Neutral Air 2: Hitbox sizes reduced, 100 x 70 > 90 x 50
  • Up Strong: Pre-charge startup increased, 8 > 10 (Release lag is still 3)
  • Up Strong: Now has lower-priority hitboxes on his chest that copy the explosion hitboxes, but aims towards where the final explosion is to help the move connect better against grounded opponents.
    • In this patch we wanted to give Mollo a more reliable set of strong attacks, but recognized the startup on up strong was a tad low for how large and rewarding the up strong hitboxes can be.
  • Down Strong: Pre-charge startup increased, 6 > 8 (Release lag is still 4)
  • Down Strong: Getting parried now disables sliding out of it.
  • Down Strong: Added whifflag to the standing hitbox.
    • Whifflag is not applied to the slide out window, to prevent him from moving further out since distance is tied to the total frames of the move.
  • Forward Special: Getting hit before the explosion comes out now cancels the explosion.
    • This makes the move consistent with moves like Etalus icicles and Absa forward special placement.
  • Forward Special: The muzzle flash hitbox now only hits projectiles, not players.
    • This should allow opponents to call out the move from the front of Mollo in more scenarios, instead of successfully avoiding the explosion and getting caught by the muzzle. A frequent scenario that occurred was a player dashing in as Mollo started side special, dodging the large explosion only to be knocked back by the muzzle hitbox. This hitbox could also be used to stall and kill opponents at low percents in the side blastzones.
  • Forward Special: Reduced horizontal tilt influence on the reticle, 4 > 1
    • This makes the reticle travel at a much more consistent speed, making counterplay such as parries more consistent.
  • Forward Special: The reticle now takes longer to start moving forwards, 15 > 20 frames (same as the startup)
    • This allows the reticle to spawn closer to Mollo, removing a gap where the explosion would not reach in front of Mollo, but the old muzzle hitbox would generally cover.
  • Forward Special: Hitting a bomb with the explosion no longer gives the bomb a bonk hitbox
    • This fixes an issue where players would parry the forward special but instead land a parry on a new bonk hitbox, allowing Mollo to avoid parry stun.
  • Bug Fix: Fixed enemies getting stuck via ledge-snapping when getting hit by forward strong.
    • This is tied to the above ledge-snapping fix in the General section.
  • Bug Fix: Fixed a late button press causing Jab 3 to start even when the button was only pressed twice.
  • Bug Fix: Fixed bombs not auto-aiming and changing ownership on parrying the bonk hitbox.
  • Bug Fix: Fixed bombs clipping off the side of stage corners.
  • Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where Mollo could get bonked by his own bomb on the first frame he pulls it out (Frame six of neutral special).
  • Bug Fix: Forward Special’s hurtbox in the bomb-toss variant is now properly aligned.

Much like our approach to Mollo, our balance pass on Hodan this time around had a heavy focus on tweaking some things that could leave players wondering how an interaction happened, whether that be hitbox size, lack of knockback decay, or even launch angles. We’ve also seen some advances to Hodan’s meta that have really begun to optimize his recovery, so we’ve worked to distribute that wealth by giving side special some love and removing some of the safety Hodan gets from aerial neutral special.

  • Spirits: You can now pick up any other Hodan’s spirits.
    • Have fun in the ditto!
  • Sweatwhirls: Parried whirls can no longer be grabbed.
  • Sweatwhirls: Grabbed whirls will dissipate if you stop attacking before throwing it (ex: walljump).
  • Jab: First hitbox active frames reduced, 6 > 4
  • Jab: Multi-hit hitbox active times reduced, 8 > 4 (Multihits one and two now start on frames 13 and 21)
    • The changes to jab should give the opponent openings to contest the move without trading. He was previously difficult to contest safely from anywhere other than below him.
  • Up Tilt (Charged): Sweatboxes now have angle flipper 6.
    • This will cause opponents behind Hodan to be sent backwards instead of in front of him, making follow-ups on poorly spaced up tilts more difficult.
  • Dash Attack: Early hit base hitpause increased, 7 > 8
  • Forward Strong 1: Hitpause Scaling increased, 0.5 > 0.75
  • Forward Strong 1: Knockback and scaling increased, 7.5 + 1.0 > 8.0 + 1.05
  • Forward Strong 1: Width reduced from the hitbox’s back side, 96 > 72.
  • Forward Strong 2: Hitpause Scaling reduced, 0.75 > 0.5
    • These changes should make forward strong feel more natural when hit, while giving some love to the kill power and removing situations where players get caught from behind Hodan.
  • Up Strong: Cut off the top of the hurtbox so it doesn’t extend above platforms.
  • Down Strong (Parried): Inner hitbox KB Scaling increased to match the non-parried version, 8.5 + 1.05 > 8.5 + 1.15
  • Down Strong (Charged): Parry window reduced by 1 frame.
  • Neutral Special: Non-empowered hitboxes now lose to all projectiles.
    • This move has crept up in the meta and has proven to be a pretty safe recovery option due to the hitbox size. This change will give opponents some more counterplay to a recovering Hodan.
  • Forward Special (Uncharged): Endlag reduced, 28 > 23
  • Forward Special (Uncharged): Added a 10 frame cooldown.
    • These changes should make recovering with forward special into up special feel a little better, while keeping projectile spam in line.
  • Up Special (Uncharged): Late hit now has KB decay, 7 – 5
  • Up Special (Charged): Late hit now has KB decay, 8 – 6
    • Decaying knockback should make getting hit by the end of the move feel more natural given its speed.
  • Up Special (Charged): Increased hitpause scaling of the sweetspot to match uncharged version, 0.45 > 0.75
  • Bug Fix: Fixed the early hit of charged up special not having hit lockout as previous patch notes stated.
  • Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where hitfall was disabled until landing if down special was cancelled.
  • Bug Fix: Fixed the splash hitbox of neutral air not coming out if the physical hitbox hits late enough.
  • Bug Fix: Landing during neutral air now destroys the aerial hitboxes.

We’re pretty happy with Pomme’s normal attacks, but we feel they get overshadowed by her notes and her infamous bodyguard, Vince. In this patch we’ve attempted to slightly rework how specials can be used by making notes more focused on mid combo usage and by giving Vince the ability to be destroyed like a good bodyguard.

  • Float: Getting parried now instantly ends your float.
  • Dash Attack 1: Larger hitbox moved up by 5 pixels.
    • This matches the animation better and will scoop player below the stage less often.
  • Up Strong: Damages reduced. Sweetspot: 16 > 14, Sourspot: 12 > 10
  • Down Strong: Spike hitbox now has lower priority than the strong hitbox.
    • This hitbox was mostly meant for offstage opponents and break cancels on rock. The swap in priority makes it so players partially through platforms still get launched by the strong hitbox.
  • Down Strong: Cleaned up the endlag animation.
  • Neutral Special: Reflected notes are now transcendent and break new notes thrown by Pomme.
    • Previously this was only true for notes thrown in her song field.
  • Neutral Special: Increased note summon time, 12 > 15 (the time it takes for the final note to spawn is 41 > 50)
  • Neutral Special: You can no longer manually throw notes while they’re being auto-fired.
    • This should drastically affect projectile spam during recoveries while steering players toward the intended use of notes as combo resets.
  • Forward Special: Vince can now be knocked away if struck by projectiles or melee hitboxes unless he is fully charged. Fully charging makes him inVINCEible.
  • Forward Special: Vince now only destroys non-transcendent projectiles.
  • Forward Special: Vince blocking a projectile counts as it hitting something.
    • This will activate things like Sylvanos flower projectiles.
  • Forward Special: Vince now moves up when hitting ledges, up to 16 pixels.
  • Up Special: Multi-hit hitboxes are now flipper 2. (Sends towards Pomme’s center.)
  • Down Special: Now has an off-screen HUD indicator.
  • Bug Fix: Pomme will now lose her notes when crouch canceling attacks, and when being hit by Orcane’s bubbles.
  • Bug Fix: Pomme is now considered to be in the air when doing a grounded float.
    • This fixes issues like being frozen by Etalus ice while floating.

Olympia, much like Pomme, is in a pretty good spot and is receiving a bit of fine-tuning on her specials, with focus on her gem and crystallization interactions.

  • Crystalize: Super armoring through a Crystalizing attack will “store” it on you, immediately shattering when your attack ends. If you’re hit after super armor ends then it triggers the full crystallization.
  • Crystalize: Getting hit by a Mollo flashbang while crystalized now acts as if you were super armored (30 frames of hitpause that transitions into full crystalization when it ends).
  • Jab 1: Reduced active frames, 5 > 3
    • We also adjusted window timings to match the animation.
  • Back Air: KB decay reduced, 6 – 4 > 6 – 5
    • This should make the decay more predictable on a move with few active frames.
  • Forward Strong: Late hit damage reduced, 17 > 14
  • Gem: Gem no longer has an invincibility period when forming.
  • Gem: SK can now bounce off of gem with down air.
  • Gem: Sylvanos can now cancel off of gem with forward special.
  • Gem: Kragg’s Rock now bounces off of gem.
    • These changes should bring Olympia’s gem more in line with other articles in the game regarding interactions with specific special situations in game.
  • Neutral Special: Hitting non-player articles (such as Sylvanos flower) now creates a gem.
  • Forward Special: Damage now scales with charge, 10 > 6 – 16
  • Bug Fix: Down Special aerial dashcancel now refreshes on death.
    • Now you can dash right off the respawn platform!
  • Bug Fix: Fixed the doublejump cancel on forward special sometimes losing height if you’re up against a wall.
  • Bug Fix: Crystalize breaking will no longer create a hitbox if it was broken by being hit by another attack.
    • This change prevents people from getting saved from death by crystalize
  • Bug Fix: Pressing special to create a gem now only works if you’re still using neutral special.
    • Creating a gem after the attack is no longer needed since the projectile creates one on-hit now.

Categories: News, Patch notes | Comments: 19

Patch 2.1.3.2 – Workshop Dev Features, Bugfixes, and Rollback Improvements

By George — June 27, 2022

We’ve got a decent sized patch today that’s mostly under the hood upgrades and features for our workshop creators to make even more awesome characters, stages, and buddies. There’s also a few updates that everyone can enjoy, mainly the live release of an improvement to rollback performance and stability that’s been in the works for a few months. This should be noticeable for players with poor connections or those who experienced rollback specific crashes. Abyss mode fans will also be pleased with the four newcomers getting a host of fixes to get their runes in better working order.

We also wanted to take this opportunity to shout out the new community Workshop Manual wiki project at: https://rivalswsmanual.miraheze.org/

Some of the most knowledgeable creators in the workshop community are behind the project, and are looking for more contributors to help this community resource grow. Their goal is to include additional resources and examples that go beyond the tables and charts that our technical manual provides:

This wiki-manual aims to be a community-updated hopefully-up-to-date version of the official one present in the Rivals of Aether website. In here, we have (or we will have) compiled up resources you may need in your journey to creating your own custom Workshop content, such as characters, stages, and buddies. The sky’s the limit!

This manual is currently work-in-progress, but anyone can contribute! If you’d like to help out, check out the Wiki Rules! If you have any questions, feel free to ask with the “Discussion” feature of the wiki!

Patch 2.1.3.2 Hotfixes

A small collection of hotfixes (and a new feature) that were released for patch 2.1.3.2 on 7/7/22.

  • Workshop items can now have ssl=”1″ in their config.ini to set it as an SSL item.
  • Fixed results_pre_draw.gml crashing if you use sprite_get on the first frame.
  • Fixed css_draw_portrait.gml not setting portrait_x/y on the winner.
  • css_update.gml no longer runs if any submenus are open (i.e. not displaying the actual charselect portrait).
  • Fixed Zetterburn’s Steampunk taunt not working.
  • Added the fonts folder to the whitelist when uploading a workshop item.
  • Fixed attack_end not affecting custom articles.
  • Fixed dev mode making characters tiny and inverted.
  • Fixed dev mode not creating files for the newcomers.
  • Fixed dev mode not giving hitboxes to newcomers.
  • Mollo’s O rune now resets on death. (Mostly to stop it beeping if you die during co-op abyss.).

  • Improved rollback performance and stability!
  • Buddies now run the scripts init.gml and draw_hud.gml. They will draw hud over their characters.
  • Added the hitbox property HG_VISUAL_EFFECT_DISTANCE which lets you adjust how far away from the player hit FX spawn.
  • Added the following scripts to characters: css_init.gml, css_update.gml, results_pre_draw.gml, results_post_draw.gml, results_portrait_draw.gml.
  • Also noteworthy is that the css scripts now have the variable cursor_id, referring to the cursor that player is controlling.
  • Custom articles now have the variable is_hittable, which lets them run article#_hit.gml when a hitbox touches it. (This includes the players’ own hitboxes!)
  • Custom articles also have the variables hittable_hitpause_mult, enemy_hitboxID, hit_player_obj, hit_dir, hit_player, and the arrays can_be_hit and attack_can_hit to support being hittable.
  • Added the variable small_djump to characters. Setting this to true uses the smaller double jump VFX Wrastor uses.
  • Added custom wait animation support, using the variables wait_time, wait_length and wait_sprite.
  • The random generator now uses a different seed per match.
  • Fixed a memory leak with storing custom hit FX.
  • Fixed camera_obj’s coordinates not updating.
  • The Stage Editor now has a “Take Full Screenshot” option. With this you’ll be able to save a screenshot of the entire stage’s layout to “full_layout.png” in the stage’s folder.
  • The screen in Neo Julesvale now grabs colors from a reference sprite. (Technical change, but it means texture mods can change the screen colors).
  • css_update.gml now has the variable suppress_cursor, which disables most CSS functionality every frame it’s set to `true`, which lets workshop characters have custom menu options without the color change or playtest functions getting in the way.
  • Custom (monospace) fonts are now supported. You can now add a fonts folder to your character with a .ini file of the font properties, and it will use a specified sprite from the sprites folder.
  • Added support for a select sound. Adding charselect.ogg to your character’s main folder will play it on load.
  • You can now press Backspace on keyboard or Back/Select on controllers while selecting a workshop character in the CSS to search for characters with specific names.
  • New functions: get_synced_var() and set_synced_var(). This will set a global variable each player has that persists between menus and matches, as well as being saved in replays.
  • New function: article_destroy(). This lets you destroy any base cast article using its ID, and sets destroyed in custom articles to true.
  • New function: set_ui_element(). This wraps up all existing sprite/sound functions into one (such as set_victory_bg). This function can now also set hud.png, hud_hurt.png and offscreen.png.
  • New functions: get_hitstun_formula(), get_hitpause_formula() and get_kb_formula(). These functions use the same formulas used in hitbox collision, letting you simulate those parts of a hit.
  • New function: get_player_name(). Returns the player’s current nametag, or a simple “P1”, “P2”, etc. if not.

📕 The new functions can be viewed here in the Workshop Technical Manual:

  • Rune B: Reworked to be less niche, even though the original roman cancel mechanic made a great pun for Mollo. It now turns him into a meteor when dodging with a bomb.
  • Rune D: Now works on Up and Down throws.
  • Rune G: Fixed a crash caused by being hit by its second hitbox.
  • Rune J: Fixed the missiles not moving.
  • Rune N: Fixed being able to buffer a regular strong when you should be throwing your next queued bomb.

  • Rune A: Fixed the visual effect not appearing when charged by a spirit.
  • Rune N: Changed description to be clearer.
  • Rune O: Nair’s splash hitbox now sets fire.

  • Rune D: Fixed collision and alignment issues with the alternate songfield.
  • Rune E: Pomme herself no longer falls slowly in the songfield.
  • Rune I: It now buffs attack types on hit instead of on perform. Also added a visual effect to see which attack type is buffed.

  • Rune L: Landmine crystals no longer trigger when Olympia herself gets close to them, meaning crystals spawned via other methods will stay dormant.

Categories: News, Patch notes | Comments: 2

European Rivals Championship Series – S7

By SBS — June 20, 2022

RCS Season 7 Comes to Europe

Following our recent announcement of the RCS Powered by start.gg, it is time to bring back Official Rivals Championship Series events to Europe!

Time to hit the jackpot!

Format and Schedule

After two seasons of online only events due to the pandemic, it is finally time to bring back RCS LAN events to the EU! We have worked directly with community leaders from the region to tailor a season balancing several different countries for LAN events and maintaining four separate online events between July 10th and January. We hope the spread of in-person majors and the accessibility of online events can work in harmony to provide the best RCS season yet for the European Region.

Here is our official schedule:

 

Event Date Region
EU RCS Online – July July 10th Online (EU)
Regen 2022 July 23rd Birmingham, England
Bifrost 4 August 5th Stockholm, Sweden
TITANS September 3rd – 4th Milan, Italy
EU RCS Online – August August 21st Online (EU)
EU RCS Online – October October 16th Online (EU)
Tech Republic VI November 19th Barcelona
Rivals Odyssey Ghent Winter 2022 December 3rd Belgium
EU RCS Finals – January January – 14th – 15th Online (EU)

European Season 7 Reward Structure

As seen above, the official lineup of events for the EU RCS is varied and exciting to say the least. Each LAN event will receive $400 as a default pot bonus directly from the Rivals team, while every single event will also be eligible for funding through the start.gg RCS Tier System. This means that LAN events can receive a total of $900 each, and Online events can receive up to $500 each.

Finally, this season we are happy to re-introduce Champion Skins to the RCS. Our four newcomers have yet to receive any DLC skins, and there is no better time than the present to announce that Champion Olympia and Champion Mollo will be available as free prizes to all participants of specific Online events. Players who enter either the RCS July or RCS August Online events will receive Champion Olympia. More information on Champion Mollo will be revealed as Season 7 progresses!

EU Season 7 Finals

The EU specific RCS Finals in Seasons 5 and 6 were initially created to work around an uncertain world with a raging pandemic. What came to pass grew into a celebration of the EU scene that had not been seen before. Instead of sending out a single champion to the United States the EU scene saw its best players square off one final time in each season for the highest stakes of each respective year. The EU Finals has become a staple for the EU scene, with it being the main place for exciting side events such as Doubles and Crew Battles to send off the year in style.

Travel restrictions have loosened up, but the unforeseen delay of Genesis 8 still proves that even the best laid plans are capable of being uprooted. We are happy to announce that following a discussion with the EU T.O.s, the EU Online Finals will in fact be making a return. This event will have an open compendium goal, the same as North America, with all proceeds feeding directly into the community.

Players may earn points through our official lineup of events, or through EU community events that qualify as RCS Bronze-Gold. The final event to count towards the regular season tally will be the final official tournament in December (Dates are TBA).

Ranking Guidelines

The European panel has put together guidelines for the Season 7 EU Power Rankings. Players and Tournament Organizers can expect events that follow that fall under the following scope to count towards the end of season rankings.

  • All events announced as official events in the EU RCS Season 7.
  • Offline events that achieve Bronze or greater status as RCS opt-ins.
  • Online Majors ran by the EU scene during months without an official online bracket.
  • Events accepted by the EU PR council. Tournament organizers can apply for their brackets to count here.

Links!

We are aware that this post has a lot of information to digest, so please refer to all relevant links in this one convenient spot!

Registration is now OPEN for all of the above events!

Categories: Announcement, Community, Esports, News | Comments: 0

Season 7 Power Ranking Guidelines

By George — June 17, 2022

Recently, we announced an exciting partnership with start.gg that has already packed the RCS with community events receiving prize money and league points. We recognize that this influx of events could leave people with questions related to how the annual Power Rankings will be determined. That’s why we’ve been working on a comprehensive system to ensure community events get their proper representation, while also keeping an eye on frequency and strength of tournaments popping up in the RCS.

It is important to note that while all events that qualify for a RCS tier will receive points and prize money, there are additional requirements to be considered for Top 50 Rankings at the conclusion of Season 7. Qualifications for Top 50 Rankings are detailed below:

Player Requirements:

For players looking to qualify for Power Rankings in Season 7, we have some simple requirements. Players must enter a minimum of four (4) PR eligible events with at least two (2) of them being within the RCS Premier tier. This season, Top 50 PR will be decided based on data from every eligible tournament.

Event Requirements:

Events must meet one of the following tier qualifications:

  • RCS Premier events.
  • Online RCS Gold level events.
  • Local RCS Bronze or greater level event with at least 32 attendees, including at least 5 current or previous Top 50 competitors. Events such as these should have a significant presence of players from other regions.

In addition, to be PR eligible all events that meet the above criteria must also follow specific guidelines to ensure players are judged fairly on their performances:

  • Events shall apply and appear on the RCS Season 7 Schedule.
  • Events shall follow the standard RCS Ruleset for Rivals of Aether Singles.
  • Events shall not have a barrier of entry based on perceived level of skill.
  • Events shall follow the official RCS banlist. If players are banned on a local or private level separate from the official list, their involvement is up to the Tournament Organizer’s discretion.
  • Tournament Organizers must provide and execute a safe and fair environment for players, whether that be related to local venue conditions, online lag checks, or otherwise.

A reminder of the tiers in RCS Season 7.

Event Weighting

When putting together the rankings, events that qualify for Top 50 Power Rankings must be weighted properly to consider a player’s overall accomplishments for the year. Events are typically weighted by the power rankings panel based on various points. This year we will state ahead of time which events are weighted highest based on our own grading system. This system is as follows:

  • Highest Weight:
    • All RCS Premier events.
    • Online Gold events that reach 300+ attendees.
    • Local RCS Silver or Gold events with 20 or more current and former Top 50 players.
  • Average Weight:
    • Online Gold events with 200-299 attendees.
    • Local RCS Silver or Gold events with 10-19 current and former Top 50 players.
  • Lowest Weight:
    • Online Gold events with 100-199 attendees.
    • Local RCS Bronze, Silver, or Gold events with 5-9 current and former Top 50 players. Minimum attendance of 32 players.

Behind the Requirements

When deciding which events could and could not qualify for Power Rankings, we considered things such as region sizes, concentrations of top players, accessibility to events, and much more. For local events specifically, our guidelines are slightly more strict than achieving bronze status to help ensure that stacked regions won’t see inflated results. Whereas for online events, requirements are higher to account for quality and frequency.

Regarding rules, we feel that a standardized rule-set among a wide range of Tournament Organizers and regions can clearly define what is expected of players when competing, allowing for a fair playing field when an event has ascended to the level of Power Ranking contention.

Regarding a unified ban-list on eligible events, it is our number one priority to do everything in our power to ensure attendees are safe and see fair tournament play when encouraged to attend tournaments. A unified ban list ensures that individuals that have incurred serious infractions will remain out of public spaces that should be lifted up and celebrated by our community at large.

We encourage every T.O. to strive for the absolute best when running events, and we cannot wait to see what the community has in store for us in Season 7. Good luck everyone, and happy hunting for those wins!

Categories: Esports, News | Comments: 0

Europe RCS Season 6 – Top 15 Power Rankings

By EU S6 PR Team — June 1, 2022

Panelists: Fireicey, Boss Hog, Lucy, Fat, Plutonio, MidoMidori

Hello and welcome to the sixth installment of the EU RCS Power Ranking. This season the majority of our competition has been located online due to the pandemic, giving this year a completely different feel from what Europe is used to. Although locals were on the comeback during the season, we decided to only count the five EU RCS online majors to even the playing field for those who weren’t able to travel or didn’t have a local event near them. Since we also didn’t have any other online events considered important enough to count for the ranking, we decided that players only needed to enter a minimum of 2 events to be eligible for the PR. The panelists mainly used head-to-head records from the five RCS events to determine the players’ placements, while slightly favouring players who entered more tournaments and performed consistently.

Despite the season being online-only, our tournaments have still showcased the best of what Europe currently has to offer, both from our returning players and from newcomers to the ranking, with a few of our players being able to achieve the high rank they were striving for. With offline events on the rise, some of Europe’s veterans are returning to the scene after their hiatus during the online era, so we’ll have to wait and see how our new talent from this year fare against many of our toughest warriors next season.

Before we get into the rankings, we’d like to thank our online TO’s, production team and commentators for running this season’s events and keeping our season going throughout this online-era.

Honourable Mentions

This year there were several players with outstanding performances, in events outside of those eligible, who either barely missed out on the ranking or didn’t enter enough eligible tournaments. If the performances at these events were to be considered, they would have likely made it onto the power ranking.

Honourable Mentions:
OliveOily, LZGpom, Maya, Plutonio, Fat, Slimepuffen

Video Editor: Chengi

Writing team:

Fat
Jack Fox
Boss Hog
PikayMaster
Plutonio
Tandoori
Swordsplay
Midmol
Sharpinfinity

Editor-in-Chief:
Fireicey

 

“Always cookin'”

15. Bowman

Rounding out the PR this year is Bowman. With a solid performance throughout the season, he acts as gatekeeper to high-level competition. While he might not have the best win record against the others in the top 15, he excels against anyone around and below his skill level. This consistency pushes him above the rest of the people considered for the PR, netting him 15th place.

Bowman is most well known for his fundamentally sound Sylvanos gameplay. He uses most of Sylv’s kit with great proficiency and has a well-balanced playstyle. His calm nature and good mental game allow him to consistently play well throughout tough sets. With just enough Sylvanos weirdness to throw off the opposition, he makes for a formidable opponent.

We hope that with more experience and refinement in his gameplay he’ll push through and rise further in the rankings.

 

 

“I am untethered and my rage knows no bounds.”

14. Defileus

Everybody’s favourite charging needles in neutral specialist returns for a second PR in a row, jumping up six spots from last year’s 20th. Def’s placements this season have been the hallmark of consistency, after having entered all five online majors he only suffered a single upset to Java, who he still has a favourable record on.

Outside of tournaments, Defileus hosts the UK’s online weekly and is well known for his stream commentary with his partner in crime Jack Fox. The two managed to make the big leagues and commentate the top 8 of one of this season’s online majors together. They are now looking to start their podcast: “Definitely Jacked” featuring Defileus and Jack Fox.

This Scottish warrior has proven this year and the last to be one of Europe’s strongest players, and he is undoubtedly one of the most valuable personalities in our community. We can’t be sure if Def will make it back on the PR for the third year in a row, but one thing we can rely on is that even if a meteor is on a collision course with Scotland, he will still be charging needles underneath one of the side platforms of Tower of Heaven.

 

 

“SK Heaven is reached, it is time to move on. And thank you Sveni and Retro it’s been a blast!”

13. Veapron

Veapron makes his way onto our power ranking at 13th place as one of the first Shovel Knight mains to reach the European PR. He made a name for himself this season with a breakout 7th place finish at RCS Melody, where he knocked out Kerus and Downiel. He followed this performance up with 5th place at RCS Fireworks, beating Defileus before repeating his victory over Kerus.

In addition to entering tournaments, Veapron has kept busy by putting his time into the community, becoming an admin for the Rivals of Aether EU discord, and helping out by TOing for some of the region’s weekly tournaments.

Veapron’s style of play leans towards effectively using Shovel Knight’s base kit. You’re not too likely to see him go for a fish, as he prefers to pressure his opponents with the tools he has available from the start of each game. When he finally buys his relics it’s often all he needs to turn around a bad situation or to blow away the last stock.

Looking towards the next season, Veapron has been working on his Olympia secondary wanting to bring it out in future brackets. With the return of locals going into season 7, we hope to see him perform well offline and punch his way into a higher placement on next year’s PR.

 

“Thank you Daglas for showing me the possibilities, Sveni for the grind, and Robert for being my mental foundation.”

12. Retro

Retro is a newcomer to the European PR, reaching ranked status after competing in just two RCS seasons. His season started relatively poorly with two 25th places, but he gained momentum swiftly. And at the next two tournaments, RCS Firework and RCS Crystal, he earned himself a 9th and a 7th place respectively. While propellering through these tournaments he obtained a huge upset on Shayd as well as important wins on Downiel and Kerus. He’s even shown potential for more upsets, managing to take both Kalamahri and Bleb to game 5s.

Being offstage against Shovel Knight is especially scary when playing against Retro, as he has the deadliest edgeguarding amongst SK mains in Europe. He specialises in forcing you offstage quickly and carrying you into the blastzone, or baiting you to chase after his offstage fishing before lethally dropping his shovel on your head. With gemstones in hand, he makes expert use of Shovel Knight’s relics, and with enough gold he’ll wisely switch between them depending on the gamestate.

Some bad losses and inconsistency hold him back from being higher on the season 6 PR. However, Retro’s the type of player who loves to know everything about his character and improve at every aspect of his play, so with some small adjustments and more consistency we’re sure he’ll gear up for a better showing next season.

 

 

“¡VAMOS!”

11. Kerus

Kerus makes his return to the European rankings after a two-season absence. Despite this period of inactivity, he has stayed at the top of his game, finishing top 16 or better in each of our ranked events. Showcasing his reliability, almost all of his losses were to ranked players and HMs, while managing to take home wins against Boss Hog, Retro and several of the players who barely didn’t make it to the PR.

Kerus has a fast-paced and risky playstyle. His daringness can be a bit of a double-edged sword and his matches often finish quickly, win or lose. He excels at edgeguarding, ending many of them lethally with a swift kick. Furthermore, he is an expert at using tongue offensively whether it be for movement, to net a kill or to rack up damage.

Kerus is perhaps the longest-standing premier Ranno in Europe, but after the dev team released the workshop characters he’s been feeling that his creative juices flow better when playing Mollo, so he decided to make the switch. We look forward to seeing if he can continue his competitive success and if his fireworks are as deadly as his poisonous fist.

 

“Shoutouts to Dima.”

10. Bleblemlic

Bleb makes his first PR appearance ever this season with a very solid performance throughout the year. He peaked with a 4th place finish at RCS Crystal, while having a strong 2-0 record on Downiel and other good wins such as Retro, Defileus and HM Slimepuffen under his belt.

Bleb’s Etalus proved to be a nigh unstoppable force in RCS this year, keeping to the simple yet effective neutral of dash attack wavedash back timing mixups. When Bleb found his opening he hit harder than almost anyone in EU, taking his opponent offstage with sleek nair and bair strings, and finishing them off with brutal icicle edgeguards or cheeky up special spikes.

Since the release of the workshop quartet, Bleb has decided to pick up Hodan, already proving to be one of the character’s strongest players. It’ll be exciting to see how far the Romanian great ape can swing in the next season, you might be looking at the next king of the jungle.

 

 

“And if you gaze long enough into an endless abyss, the endless abyss will gaze back into you.”

9. Downiel

Making his first appearance on the PR, Downiel turned up the heat and rapidly climbed his way through the ranks this year. He played fiercely throughout the season and managed to pick up impressive wins over other top-ranked players such as Zonyx, Hukon, and Kerus. In the end, he netted himself numerous top 8 placings and peaked with a respectable 5th place finish at RCS crystal.

Near the end of last season, the avid Forsburn nair1 enthusiast ended up swapping over to Zetterburn. He has come a long way with the character since, and with high-level experience on two characters under his belt, he has become more well-rounded than before. His play is mainly characterised by his ferocious combo game, where he often forgoes early combo enders for unorthodox but lengthy punishes.
Always very curious about how he can change up his advantage, he’s not afraid to go for follow-ups others would consider unusual, and by using his technical movement and a good eye for openings he usually finds a way to make them work.

Despite switching characters, Downiel still managed to have an outstandingly strong performance. We’re excited to see if he can keep refining his play and continue making big upsets until his big wins are upsets no longer.

 

 

“Making the mother of all power rankings here, Jack Fox. Can’t fret over every placement.”

8. Boss Hog

One of last season’s honourable mentions, and the best Slap City player in Europe, Boss Hog has waveflexed his way into the top 10 of this season’s PR. Sporting a huge upset in the form of a win over Kalamahri, while only being upset once himself, Boss Hog has shown himself to not only be consistent but to have the ability to punch above his weight class.

Boss Hog plays Kragg with a focus on conditioning his opponents into predictable options and punishing them brutally, which makes him very difficult to combat unless you have a game plan as well-rounded as his. Boss Hog makes incredible use of all the tools available to him, from Kragg’s normals to his mixups on recovery. He explores every option he can, with a special emphasis on his use of Kragg’s rock shards, which may have been influenced by his time spent calculating dumbbell angles as a certain muscular Fishman.

We’re all looking forward to seeing just how high Boss Hog can climb in two platform fighters at the same time. Maybe we’ll see him become a double champ, as the number one in both EU Rivals and Slap City, then the Boss of the Really Banana Circle will become the boss of us all. mangoBB

 

 

“Squid games.”

7. Shayd

Shayd makes a return for the EU season 6 power ranking, once again solidifying himself as a top-tier threat in European competition. He eliminated both Boss Hog and his long-time training partner Zonyx at RCS Melody, as well as Bleb and Kalamahri at RCS Fireworks to earn his two best placements at 3rd and 4th respectively.

Shayd has reached a first-class level of consistency with Elliana, likely due to his proficiency on both offence and defence. Once he’s left clouds of steam all over the stage he becomes incredibly difficult to catch, and his insane accuracy with what feels like heat-seeking missiles can make any situation feel treacherous. Even when you’re comboing Shayd, he can return a missile from off-screen to open you up and immediately take your stock thanks to his mastery of Elliana’s punish game. Shayd’s effective gameplan, alongside him being the only ranked Elliana in Europe makes him one of the scariest menaces to face in our brackets.

Shayd proved once more that he’s one of Europe’s finest players this season, and he no longer has to represent France alone on the PR, being joined by his good friend Zonyx. We hope that Shayd continues carrying the torch for his country as one of France’s best players.

 

“Every RCS should only be held on black history month IMO.”

6. Zonyx

Zonyx showed up out of nowhere with a 2nd place at last year’s RCS Finals, but didn’t quite meet the requirements for the PR. This season he secured his spot as one of EU’s best players by placing well at every ranked tournament including two 2nd place finishes. While tearing up the brackets he grabbed strong wins against established competitors such as Hukon and his familiar rival Shayd.

Though he’s replacing Japal as the sole Clairen main on the power ranking, do not mistake them, for they have entirely different styles. Zonyx is famous for his creative and lethal punish game, and when he finds an opening, you can expect to find yourself in his next combo video. He pushes the limits of what Clairen can do and inspires aspiring Clairens, especially in France, to imitate him.

What most people might not know is how much hard work and dedication Zonyx has put in to get here, since he only seriously started entering events in the past year. He’s been grinding almost non-stop since 2017 and it’s that polish that has made him shine with such a brilliant lustre. Zonyx shows no signs of slowing down and we expect to see him rush past the competition and blaze his name into the rankings for as long as they exist.

 

 

“You already got outplayed on the character select screen.”

5. alkihamzie

Alkihamzie burns a path through the competition securing himself another top five spot on the PR. With his only majors being RCS Fireworks and the RCS Finals, Alki has still undoubtedly demonstrated his skill by placing 3rd twice, taking down other prominent players on his way there such as Boss Hog, Kalamahri, and Shayd.

Alki is known for his over-the-top swagger and unshakable confidence, which he backs up with overwhelming aggression, deadly reversals, and an iconically flashy Zetterburn. In addition to his Zetter, Alki also sports several vicious secondaries, most notably his Kragg and his Clairen, which demonstrates his versatility and his extensive understanding of the game.

Keep your eyes on Alki if you’re looking for someone tearing through the competition in full Zetter drip, and know that when he loses it’s never his fault.

 

 

“I’m like the Mang0 of EU Rivals and everyone agrees.”

4. Hukon

Hukon makes his grand return into the top 5 this year with impressive performances all around. While bouncing between characters last season due to the RCS themes he settles back into playing Orcane and demonstrates his expertise with the character. He came out guns blazing in the Hot Springs tournament, defeating Zonyx, Shayd, and Kalamahri on his path to an impressive 3rd place.

Dropping his many personas allowed him to focus solely on Orcane, and he made the character shine with a strong understanding of neutral and defence. His punish game isn’t the flashiest, but with solid combos and a strong sense of when to go for opportunistic kills, he makes his opponents feel unsafe. This, coupled with Orcane’s natural ability to tech-chase, enables Hukon to take out some of Europe’s best.

Viral Twitter personality Hukon has appeared on every PR thus far and we believe he will continue to do so. He might not be the most active player around, but with this season he proves how important long-term experience is for competitive success.

 

 

“Cherish the journey. Thanks for the support.”

3. Kalamahri

Kala made a huge leap this season, shooting from last year’s 8th place all the way up to 3rd, taking the position previously held by his fellow Austrian Japal. Kala has proven to be an absolute force in every bracket he enters, from his huge 4-0 record on Z0nyx and strong record against other ranked players, to being one of only two people to win an EU RCS this season, Kala has clearly cemented himself as one of the best players in all of Europe.

Kala’s mastery of Ori is undeniable. His advantage is clean yet deadly, his recovery slippery and unpredictable, while his signature usage of flame-reversing will catch you off-guard and leave you wondering if he started his jump facing the other way. Alongside Ori, Kala has also shown off his prowess on Clairen this year, using it as a counterpick in a couple of this season’s major tournaments.

The future for Kala looks uncertain, as with the season’s conclusion he decided to take a step back from competing in Rivals. But something we can count on is Kala remaining one of Europe’s strongest players, if he decides to make his return.

 

 

“New PoE season kinda hot.”

2. Transco

The God King of Europe returns for yet another PR, once again at second place. Transco boasts a positive record on almost all of this season’s strongest players, never dropping a set to anyone with the sole exception of Fireicey, who he was still able to keep up and have close sets with.

Transco brought his trademark read-heavy playstyle back this RCS season. Where other players would take a guaranteed conversion or safe neutral opener, Transco strives for a much more brutal read on your defensive habits and movement, leading into the explosive combo game he is famous for. Anyone unlucky enough to get their habits picked up on by Transco will find themselves in the blast zone before they even realise what hit them.

As long as he doesn’t sleep in too late or get sucked into a new Path of Exile league, it’s near-certain that Transco will return to the top of the ranking next season, and when he’s back be sure to stay on the lookout for “Transco combo video #3”, you just might be in it.

 

 

“…”

1. Fireicey

Fireicey makes his return as the reigning champion of the EU Rivals scene with an even better showing than last year. He placed first in everything he entered, including weeklies, and didn’t lose a single set along the way. While he did miss check-ins for one of the online brackets, making him enter only 4 out of the 5 RCS tournaments, it is still the most dominant performance European Rivals has on record. The highlight of his season was undoubtedly during the European Finals where he managed to take out Bleblemlic and Kalamahri on the way to an intense winners finals game 5 against Transco, before closing out the tournament in classic Fireicey fashion with a 3-0.

What is remarkable about Fireicey is his desire to improve despite being firmly at the top for a couple of years now. He once again shows off his excellent punish game and aggression while incorporating more defensive techniques to confidently deal with any situation thrown his way.

Fireicey is an avid grinder and someone who continually seeks out improvement. Unless the world goes up in flames we don’t see the Zetter enthusiast losing his spot at the top anytime soon.

 

 

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