Rivals of Aether Balance Patch 2.1.4.0

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.