Thursday, April 14, 2016

Is Footstooling overpowered?

One thing that has generally been considered disrespectful, or in lots of cases just accidental, in Smash 4 has been footstooling. Footstools are where you jump on your opponents head, and it gives you another jump almost in the air, while your opponent experiences some stun from the animation. If you footstool your opponent when you're both in the air, your opponent will be pushed down, and this is a great way that you can make people unable to recover off the stage. However, if you footstool someone above the stage and they fall into the stage, they will go into a state where they are unable to tech against the ground when they hit the stage. This is what is most overpowered about footstools, as they are generally safe to perform, and can lead into some of the most powerful combos in the game. When you make your opponent hit the ground in an "untechable" state, they are very vulnerable. You can create a situation often known as a Jab lock or Jab reset. Both of these refer to the same thing, were your opponent hit the ground, did not perform a tech, and was hit by a move that would not send them moving. These moves include jabs, forward tilts, some special moves, but vary from character to character. Once you perform a Jab reset, the opponent's character will perform a slow, neutral get up, where they just stand up slowly and are very vulnerable to attacks. At high percents you could begin to charge a smash attack and wait for them to stand up into it, or you could prepare for a another combo. This is obviously very powerful when performed correctly and the worst thing is you can't do anything about it once you get footstooled. If you are footstooled you are completely helpless to your opponent, the only tool you can use is trying to directional influence far enough away from your opponent as you free fall to the ground. This limits player interaction which is the main thing that Smash is all about. Limited player interaction leads stupid combos, that are able to kill someone from zero. However, this isn't the only thing that is stupid about footstooling. Some characters, such as Mewtwo and Peach, have infinite combos off of landing a footstool on someone who is standing on the stage. If someone is standing on the stage while footstooled, their character takes some stun from the animation, but usually not enough to do anything since the character who jumped on them is launched high above them. However these two characters- and I'm sure more that I don't know of- are able to perform something known as jump canceling, where they can stop their upward momentum by performing certain actions. These lead to insanely autopilot combos. These combos are coimpletely inescapable. Not even DI will help you survive these, and your only hope for survival is your opponent messing up their infinite combo. These are very bad for the game as as time progresses they are only going to get more and more deadly, and easier for people to perform. Eventually the meta will be all about landing some combo that can lead into a footstool. I think that this could be circumnavigated by removing some or most of the hit stun that comes from being footstooled. This wouldn't make them any less powerful off the stage where they are a viable option, but would get rid of over powered combos that these footstools can lead into. Maybe footstooling could use a nerf before the final version of the game is decided on.

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