Rivals of Aether Balance Patch 2.1.3.0

We’ve been tackling balance for our newcomers over the last few months, and have recently seen Mollo break into the Top 8 of Low Tide City – the first Major to fully legalize our new friends. Now, with the first event of RCS Season 7 on the horizon, we are back with one final tune-up before GoTE 4TheKids 7!

Last patch aimed to really dig deep and focus on fine-tuning our new friends. This time, we handpicked a few changes for each of our four newest characters that would have the biggest impact possible for what could be considered a mini-patch. As stated before, we still plan to have a full roster patch containing changes for our earlier 14 characters later this year, so consider this a pit stop on the way to our next big checkpoint.

As we head into the summer, we plan on focusing more on Abyss mode, replays, and Workshop quality of life as our balance patches become a bit more surgical and critical bugs become less frequent. So stay tuned for more as the year progresses.

Alright, let’s check it out!

Mollo has really begun to settle into his role of an all-around threat.  Our goal for this patch is to fix some critical counterplay related to his bombs, while also reducing some of the power in his stronger normals. This patch should bring a balance to the risk/reward associated with Mollo’s bombs.

• GENERAL BOMBS
  • When parried, all bomb explosions now put Mollo in parry stun.
    • Initially, we were worried that parrying bomb explosions would be a bit too easy. We’ve found that Mollos tend to mix things up pretty well, with the majority of bomb explosion parries coming on easier to time moves like Down Special and Forward Special. This change adds some extra risk to these high reward options, and even adds counterplay to Mollo parrying his own bomb, since an opponent reading this option will put him in parry stun rather than allowing him to get I-frames.
  • Parrying firecracker’s explosion no longer sends the bomb itself back to Mollo.
    • The change to parry stun would cause the firecracker to hit Mollo out of his stun, making the explosion parry less rewarding for opponents.
  • Bug Fix: Getting hit while charging a throw will no longer drop the bomb.
    • A Mollo starting a bomb throw should still be holding onto it, making the act of charging a throw a little more risky. Now, Mollo won’t drop his bomb when an opponent sneaks in there just in time.
      
  • Bug Fix: If a held bomb primes while in hitstun, it will now explode at the end of hitstun.
    • Previously, bombs would only explode in Mollo’s hand if he was struck with a cooked bomb in hand. This lead to a lot of situations where the bomb would flash right after a hit, and neither player would be sure if the explosion would trigger. This change also adds intended risks for a Mollo holding onto bombs a little too long. Getting caught in a combo with one in hand should be even more dangerous now.
      
  • Bug Fix: Bombs can now be hit multiple times per airtime.
    • Players should now be able to use multi-hits on bombs and juggle them to their hearts content.
      
  • Bug Fix: Fixed parried bomb trajectories so they should now more accurately launch toward the Mollo that threw them.
• FIRECRACKER
  • Early damage decreased, 2 > 1
  • Final damage decreased, 4 > 3
    • Firecracker already does a good job holding opponents in place and controlling space. We wanted to tone down the overall damage that Mollo secured from it, which coincidentally helps him take less damage while using Firecracker as a recovery tool.
      
• JAB
  • Jab 1 startup increased, 3 > 5
  • Jab 1 cancel frame increased, 3 > 7
  • Jab 1 active frames decreased, 3 > 2
  • Jab 2 cancel frame increased, 6 > 8
  • Jab 3 endlag increased, 4 > 7
    • Last patch removed whifflag from the early hits of jab. This change meant the endlag of jab on hit and whiff were now a bit lower than they should be. The new endlag values, and updated startup values should make Mollo’s jabs fit in a bit better with where we want him to be.
• UP AIR
  • Up Air 1 startup increased, 5 > 8
  • Up Air 1 hitstun multiplier decreased, 1 > 0.8
  • Up Air 1 KB scaling removed, 0.1 > 0
  • Up Air 2 KB scaling decreased, 0.9 > 0.7
    • Up air had some pretty powerful kill potential when combined with Mollo’s extra jump and low startup. This change should make chaining super low percent kills more difficult, while adding more counterplay to Up Air 1 juggles and allowing the move to connect to the second hit better at higher percents.
• DOWN AIR
  • Startup increased, 8 > 10
  • Grounded sweetspot angle changed, 280 > 270
  • Aerial sweetspot angle changed, 290 > 270
    • • Mollo down air was a bit less of a risk than we wanted for a move with lingering active frames. The extra startup should make Mollo players commit more to the option, while the new spike angle will help with counter-play at the ledge, allowing opponents more opportunities to wall-tech.

We have a few in-depth bugs that we are working on fixing behind the scenes, but for now we’ve adjusted a few of Hodan’s aerials and tackled one of the most frustrating bugs for Hodan mains at the moment.

• NEUTRAL AIR
  •  All hitboxes now have flipper 6 (horizontal knockback sends away from player).
    • This change should allow some more interesting counterplay to Hodan’s main and splash hitboxes of the move. Now, opponents behind Hodan will be launched away from him in the opposite direction than if they were in front of him. Having the ability to DI another direction should add depth to both counter-play and to Hodan’s combo tree.
      
• BACK AIR
  • Back Air 1 hitstun multiplier reduced, 1 > 0.6
    • Hodan’s Back Air 1 had a similar issue as Olympia and Mollo Neutral Airs in previous patches. The hitstun multiplier reduction should make looping the first hit into itself less rewarding at middle percents on most characters, while still having a reliable link into hit 2 should he not hitfall.
      
• DOWN SPECIAL
  • Bug Fix: Fixed an issue where cancelling Dspecial and hitting someone on the same frame still puts you into pratfall.

Pomme’s meta is starting to take form pretty quickly now. Her frame data across the board is pretty strong, and her specials still have some ironing out to do. We like her aerial game as it is, but recognize her grounded normals can be a little silly. In this patch we’ve taken a swing at her frame data for jab and every tilt, with slight hitbox adjustments on jabs 1 and 2. Another huge focus for Pomme this patch is her camping ability with notes. Reduced hitstun and higher commitment should help level the playing field for now.

• JAB
  • Jab 1 startup increased, 2 > 4
  • Jab 1 width decreased, 75 > 50
  • Jab 1 X increased, 25 > 38
  • Jab 2 width decreased, 83 > 57
  • Jab 2 X increased, 25 > 38
    • Pomme’s jab was tied for fastest in the game, with a hitbox that snatched up players standing behind her a bit too often for our liking. Her new frame data is toned down a bit, with hitboxes that do a better job at focusing on players directly in front of her.
• UP TILT
  • Startup increased, 4 > 6
• DOWN TILT
  • Startup increased, 3 > 4
  • Endlag increased, 9 > 11
• FORWARD TILT
  
  • Startup increased, 6 > 7
    • We hit Pomme’s tilts across the board to level out some of her weaknesses. Her access to float and fast aerials seemed a bit too strong when combined with some of the best grounded options in the game.
• NEUTRAL SPECIAL
  • Note hitstun multiplier decreased, 1.2 > 0.8
  • Summoning notes now cancels float. Notes may still be thrown while floating.
  • Parrying Pomme now destroys notes around her.
• GENERAL
  • Reduced double jump protection when floating, 8 > 3

Olympia is still fighting the good fight, so we decided to fix up a weird interaction and also add a few nice QoL changes to her neutral special.

• UP TILT
  • Up Tilt’s stomp hitboxes have been simplified: The smaller one (with 1.1 kb scaling) has been removed, and the larger one (with 0.7 scaling) can now hit aerial players.
    • Some strange interactions resulting from grounded spikes could occasionally cause deaths across the map. While it was a little funny, this change should balance that out without changing too much of the move’s functionality.
      
• NEUTRAL SPECIAL
  • Neutral special projectile Y lowered, -50 > -40
    • Olympia’s gem throw looked a bit off visually while also allowing some bigger characters to duck right underneath it. The new height should normalize it with other projectiles in the game with the added bonus of allowing more grounded hitboxes to hit a gem spawned from a default height.
      
  • Added an off-screen indicator for gem field.
    • This QoL change should help Olympia mains keep track of gems in the fringe cases where they may have spawned in the blastzone.
      

• Olympia’s J rune now also extends crystalized time by 1.5x.
• Olympia’s O rune reworked: it now teleports to the gem when breaking it by holding Special.
• Olympia’s L rune reworked: Crystal spikes are now landmines that last a couple seconds and trigger when an opponent steps on it.
• Fixed Ori’s O rune having a large sprite.
• Fixed Hodan’s A rune hurting Hodan like it would with opponents.
• Fixed Hodan’s B rune not spawning anything.
• Fixed Hodan’s L rune only working when facing right.
• Adjusted Hodan’s M rune to only activate sweatspirits that are idle, and fixed a lingering hitbox on them.
• Changed Hodan’s O rune to act more consistently to Zetter’s fire-consuming attacks.
• Mollo’s thunder bomb (via the I rune) is reworked to actually do something unique instead of just having a weird flipper. (it summons lightning!)
• Nerfed Mollo’s salvo bomb (via rune J) so it’s not as unfun to play against.
• Fixed Mollo’s G rune not applying the changed bomb type to his first equipped bomb.
• Fixed Mollo’s D rune not doing anything.