My Skullgirls Balance Suggestions from June 2020

I was digging through my old notes recently and I stumbled upon a big list of Skullgirls balance suggestions I made to the designers back in June 2020. Most of these changes were related to Peacock, one of the main characters I played at the time.

I stopped playing the game shortly after winning Evo 2021 so I have no idea whether or not any of these suggestions were implemented, and I assume none of them are relevant to the current state of the game anyway. There's also a good chance that these changes could have had problems in practice; they're not a suggestion of an exact balance patch that should be put out, just a list of things that I hoped the designers at the time would consider. Besides, these suggestions were all coming from someone who was actively competing in tournaments at the time, instead of someone who had a better holistic view of the entire game as a whole.

But it was interesting to read back on my notes anyway, just as a way of seeing the sorts of things you have to think about when balancing a competitive game. I hope you find it interesting too!

Without further ado, here are seven thousand words of my outdated fighting game balance thoughts:

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Suggested System Changes

My issue: consistent button dashes and assist calls (without accidental normals) are way harder to execute than anything else in the game

My suggestion: give button dashes an extra frame of leniency, without accidentally enabling MvC3-style plink dashes. I know that's a lot of scripting work, sorry. As for assists, I don't know if it's easy to fix that issue without enabling a bunch of weird cancels. That's less of a big deal anyway, because assist macros are so commonly used.

My issue: Infinite burst-safe loops are still pretty strong if the defender doesn't have a way to alpha counter after a burst (e.g. if they're a solo). Their burst is safe after 90f so it's not an infinite, but they are still forced to eventually burst so their undizzy returns to zero and the attacker gets to stay in their face. It's the one remaining situation where the attacker can do a full combo without having to pay the price of the opponent having a full undizzy bar when the combo ends.

My suggestion: After 90+ frames after being put into a burstable state, if the opponent does a guaranteed safe burst, their undizzy keeps its current value and doesn't start to drain until after the burst animation ends. Also, it would be nice if the undizzy sparks could change color after 90 frames so it's easier for the defender to see when their burst is safe. Alternatively, the defender could regain their air options and gain invincibility for 30-60 frames after doing the guaranteed burst that comes after 90+ frames of being in burstable hitstun. This burst could even automatically happen after 90f instead of requiring a manual burst input.

My issue: Zoning characters can just end their combo in any non-burst-safe loop that they feel like, if the defender doesn't have a way to alpha counter after a burst. They don't care if the opponent's burst touches them, because it lets them reset to fullscreen for free and resume zoning.

My suggestion: Add an alternative burst input that puts a zoner somewhere that they don't want to be. My first thought is that holding up while bursting could send the attacker directly upwards to the top of the screen with no horizontal movement, like how the defender spins directly upwards out of a combo in MvC2 when they reach the undizzy limit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDsGqWIJZPE&t=49s

My issue: Compared to MvC2, Skullgirls has a lot of big invincible supers on tournament viable characters (SSJ, arm, car, dynamo etc), along with a lot of safe DHCs that lead to pressure on block and combos on hit (catheads, hatred install, Lenny, SBO). Yet it has fewer common safe DHCs that reset the game to neutral (like Storm's hailstorm, Magneto's magnetic shockwave, Sentinel's hyper sentinel force in MvC2). This means that in most tournament MvC2 matches, safe DHCs are something you can do in neutral to safely switch out a character for 2 bars and return to neutral, both on hit and on block. Whereas in top tier Skullgirls matches, safe DHCs are something you can do while being pressured, to safely switch out a character for 2 bars and get a combo on hit and free pressure on block. It's a frustrating mechanic that doesn't have a ton of counterplay, and results in teams with safe DHCs generally being far stronger than teams that don't have them. The only thing in MvC2 that feels this way (outside of low tier characters) is Cable's Air Hyper Viper Beam super, which a) isn't a reversal, b) can't be DHCd into, and c) is still very frustrating to deal with because it changes the game from "let's play some MvC2 neutral" to "let's try to bait this safe super until they run out of meter".

My suggestion: Make it so for the next 10-20f after you DHC, your opponent's pushblocks will always affect your point character. For example: you do SSJ into Painwheel install, your opponent blocks the SSJ, and immediately after the DHC they pushblock and your Painwheel gets pushed away. Additionally, make 2 bar supers still cost 2 bars when DHCd into, and look at other ways to punish specific safe DHCs if necessary.

Another weird idea that might be worth saving for a sequel because it's risky and changes things too much: Add a universal safe "Super Tag" for 2 bars that resets the game to neutral, to give everyone an MvC2-style safe DHC. Give it 20-30 frames of vulnerable startup (so you can't do it while being pressured), then a super flash, and during the super freeze your character tags out to the next character in the team (swapping characters in the same order as a regular DHC), then the game resumes. If you're right in your opponent's face when you do it, your incoming character will come in a couple of character widths away from the opponent. You'd have to come up with a way to stop people from using this to fish for free punishes during the super freeze, like a UNI chain shift. Maybe the incoming character does some kind of unavoidable burst that pushes the opponent back and resets the game to neutral.

My issue: Skullgirls lets you gain meter by whiffing normals if you have under 1 bar of super. The reason this mechanic was originally included in the game was so players who don't quite have enough meter for a super could whiff a couple of normals to finish building their first bar. But in practice, it results in a bunch of degenerate situations where characters can build their first bar of meter ridiculously fast in neutral (Peacock zoning), or during downtime (Squigly whiffing stance-cancelled heavy normals) or in combos (everyone). This makes it especially hard to balance characters who have 1 bar supers that can help in neutral such as Lenny and SBO, because even if they waste all of their meter on supers they can build enough bar to do another one a few seconds later.

My suggestion: Halve the amount of bonus meter you get from whiffing moves with under 1 bar, or remove the mechanic entirely.

My issue: It can be hard to safely punish your opponent's assist as a point character, and they don't get locked out for long if you manage to do it. The risk/reward doesn't feel great for the point character who dares to jab or launch an assist in neutral.

My suggestion: Make assists get locked out for a bit longer when they get hit by a non-projectile attack from a point character. This might not be a necessary change.

My Peacock Balance Hot Takes

• Peacock has several viable playstyles: trying to zone people to death from fullscreen, trying to do just enough zoning to force the opponent to approach you so you can defend yourself at mid range with air normals and anti airs, rushing people down with M item mixups, and overwhelming people with teleport mixups. Some of these playstyles are slightly stronger than others in some matchups, but overall you are mostly free to specialize in whichever playstyle suits you as a player. Should we try to keep all of these playstyles viable, or can Peacock do too many things here?
  • I like all of these playstyles and I like how Peacock can be unpredictable by mixing up which one she's going to use, so I'd like to keep them all viable. If this doesn't end up being possible, I think her most important playstyles to keep are her full screen zoning and her mid range defensive air normal and M item usage. I hope she can keep her M item rushdown too, albeit with less damage. Teleport mixups are also important to keep, but teleports also give Peacock a strong defensive option and a way to escape the corner. So teleport mixups might have to get nerfed as a side effect of nerfing her defensive options. But maybe not!
• One of the main differences between Peacock's good and bad matchups is that most characters have a very hard time getting in on her zoning, but some other characters have very strong fullscreen tools that are hard to play around and let them "skip neutral". Robo and Fukua's zoning games don't get affected by these tools as much, because they have the option to start their zoning from the air if necessary. In Robo's case, she also has the threat of unreactable beams to deal with these tools. I personally think Peacock's current limitations make her interesting and fun to play, and I don't think they should change. Because of this, I think it would be very hard to make both the "skip neutral" matchups and the "brutal zoning neutral" matchups fair without also changing other characters' tools, unless we balance Peacock around not doing much zoning. So I think we should nerf Peacock in a way that makes her current easy matchups more fair for her opponents, and then we can see if there's a way to tweak some of the game's most extreme anti-zoning tools (e.g. Valentine bypass, Cerebella deflector) to make sure she still has a fighting chance against the entire cast.
• Peacock is a strong point character with some strong assists and DHCs, and extremely high meter gain and strong ways to use meter. For assists, L George is by far one of the best assists in the entire game, whereas several of her other assists are in the "very usable but not quite top tier" category. I think her extreme utility as a point character means that she would be fine without L George being a top tier assist, especially if we're looking to reduce the frustration of playing against her. That said, there's nothing else in the game that provides a similar utility to L George assist except for Robo's landmine assist, so it would be nice if L George remained usable and interesting. As for DHCs, Lenny has fast pre-flash startup that lets her safely DHC out of small gaps in pressure (often into ridiculous damage on hit), and it has fast recovery so it can also be used to safely DHC Peacock in. These are options we should look at nerfing, so we can keep Peacock's strong zoning and M item rushdown without making her an overpowered character overall.

Okay, so I mostly want to keep Peacock's zoning game and M item mixup game in tact, but I want her to have a harder time against characters who have to work hard to get close to her. So what other options do we have for nerfing Peacock?

• Meter gain
• Defensive options
• Close-range pressure
• Combo damage
• Resets
• Supers and DHCs (Lenny)
• Movement
• Pokes
• Other mixups (i.e. not M item)
• etc

But we don't want to just nerf everything on that list without thinking about what type character we want Peacock to be. So how do I want her to play? To sum it up, I would try to keep her long-range and mid-range strength for the most part, although I would slightly reduce Lenny's utility and heavily reduce how often she gets to use Lenny. Up close, I would want to make her defensive options easier to punish and I would lower the reward she gets for landing a hit. The purpose of this is to give her more of a defined weakness: she's strong at long range and can even be strong up close if she manages to hold an M item and put bombs on the screen, but she's weak up close if you can get in her face before she summons any projectiles. It's a similar dynamic to Dizzy from Guilty Gear, except Peacock has enough chip damage on her zoning tools to make pure keepaway a viable strategy, but to make up for it she has less ability to instantly dash forward or to hold people in place for repeated point-blank mixups/setplay. When nerfing Peacock's defensive options, I especially don't want her to get huge reward from scramble situations; one of the main frustrating parts of playing against Peacock is if you accidentally leave a small gap in your pressure or miss a punish and eat a giant amount of damage as a result, so it would be nice to reduce that frustration.

Anyway, that's what all of these balance changes are trying to do:

Suggested Peacock Nerfs

My issue: throwing out Lenny in scramble or pressure situations can give a huge reward with lots of DHCs, and is often fairly safe on whiff. e.g. do a random Lenny while in a scramble or being pressured, DHC into SSJ, OTG H step>explosion, full midscreen combo.

My other issue: fullscreen H teleport>Lenny>DHC (e.g. Bella level 3 or 360) is extremely hard to predict or punish in the Peacock mirror, because Lenny starts up so fast. It also deals horrendously large amounts of damage but I'll get to that later.

My other issue: M bang>Lenny is annoyingly hard to punish, and Peacock doesn't need this safe defensive option..

My suggestion: Increase Lenny's pre-flash startup (e.g. from 4f to 15f). Peacock would still easily be able to safely put out Lenny after forcing the opponent to block a projectile. It would be nice to keep the ability to combo M Bang>lenny into OTG argus if possible, so maybe we would have to find a way around this like increasing Lenny's hitstop when the opponent is in hitstun, or not making Lenny's startup quite as slow as we want it to be. It would be sad if she lost her ground throw>lenny>argus combo starter so we should try to find a way to keep it, but nerfing close-range defensive Lenny is more important than keeping any of these combos.

My issue: Lenny can be used as a very safe way to DHC Peacock in, instantly putting her at an advantage on block for the cost of a regular 2 bar DHC. My other issue: Peacock's meter gain lets her throw out a LOT of Lennies, and she can easily build around half a bar while Lenny is out. It can feel like Lenny is out most of the time when you're playing against Peacock.

My suggestions: Lower the Peacock player's meter gain while Lenny is out, e.g. by giving her 20% meter gain (or none at all) until it goes away. Also lower her zoning meter gain in general, to bring it a bit closer to the rest of the cast. To make it less of a safe DHC option, I would consider giving Lenny more recovery, or giving it less hitstop on DHC. I like Peacock being able to spend 2 bars to get Lenny+Argus zoning conversions, and I also like Peacock being able to use Lenny to get a happy birthday combo from a cMK or cHP starter (although it leads into some really overpowered resets with the current amount of damage that Lenny deals). So I would ideally like the super to stay at a 1 bar cost, but the current incarnation of Lenny completely takes over the fullscreen zoning neutral while it's out, in a similar way to the game's 2 bar neutral-boosting supers like catheads or hatred install. So I would propose one of two changes:

Make it cost 2 bars. I keep going back and forth on whether or not this is a good idea, as it causes Peacock to lose out on lots of important zoning conversions and happy birthday confirms, but it also forces her to actually play neutral instead of summoning another Lenny every 10 seconds. Either way, it's a good backup plan if we can't make it feel fair for 1 bar.

OR

Instead of letting all of the Peacock player's hits and projectiles pass through it, only let her Argus Agony beam and projectiles pass through it. This is how it worked in the Beowulf patch, before it was buffed into its current version in the 2E+ patch. Note that it's important to make sure that the Argus beam doesn't get eaten by Lenny, not just the small projectiles from the second part of Argus. Otherwise it makes Lenny>Argus>Lenny>Argus juggles inconsistent, because it's much harder to catch a falling opponent with the first active frame of an Argus beam hit. I know the looped Lenny>Argus stuff is strong but I'm about to recommend significantly lowering Lenny's damage in the next section.

My issue: Peacock deals very high combo damage.

My suggestion: Lower her damage. Her main sources of combo damage are j.HK and level 2-3 items, so those would be the main moves to tweak, but all of her moves could do with being lowered a bit. She can get a huge amount of frontloaded damage for zero undizzy with a c.HP into s.HK chain, so we could reduce those moves' damage or even remove Peacock's ability to chain c.HP into s.HK/c.HK if we wanted to make her pressure worse too. Just lowering the damage is probably enough. The idea would be to lower her damage to somewhere close to Parasoul's level or less, i.e. lower than most of the cast, but not quite as low as Robo. Lenny's damage should also be reduced greatly (e.g. from 3800 to 950), because it currently gives Peacock giant amounts of damage from resets and DHCs and assist resets (e.g. happy birthday, launch both characters, uncombo the assist into an unscaled Lenny explosion). Lenny already gives Peacock full-screen conversions from almost any random zoning hit (by confirming into argus then letting Lenny explode), and it often lets Peacock start her zoning for free by blocking enemy projectiles and "rush punch" moves like brass and Beowulf arm. So even without Lenny dealing a lot of damage, it would still be a useful super and Peacock would still be able to zone people from fullscreen.

Summary of Lenny changes: I recommend these nerfs:

• Either make it block the Peacock player's projectiles and hits (except for Argus), or make it cost 2 bars
• Peacock's team can't build meter while Lenny is out (or maybe her meter gain is 20% of the usual amount). Also lower Peacock's meter gain in general.
• Slower startup (e.g. 4f->15f or even more) so you can't just randomly do it in neutral or while being pressured. We basically want to give it the longest startup possible without removing its ability to convert from moves like fullscreen H bang.
• Make it less safe when DHCd into, either with more recovery or with reduced hitstop on DHC.
• MUCH lower damage (e.g. lower it from 3800 to 950). If this ends up making Lenny feel like it has no impact, we could increase the damage a bit. But the current 3800 damage feels way too high, even if it was 2 bars. It's already a great tool for defense and conversions and neutral, so she doesn't need damage from it too.

My issue: M Item Drop resets are very strong and safe.

My suggestion: I personally don't mind Peacock having a bit of Dizzy-style setplay, but the fact that it leads to so much damage can be frustrating. So I would lower M Item drop damage (or all item drop damage) and add even more combo scaling to it (currently 70%). It would be possible to add a heavy-handed fix like making it so if Peacock summons an item during a combo, it instantly falls down and can't be charged, removing charged item resets entirely (unless Peacock charges an item then immediately gets a hit, so she could go into a fast reset with the same item). I personally think that is overkill and would add too much risk to Peacock resets, assuming that we nerf her defensive options to the point that she REALLY doesn't want to be stuck next to her opponent if they block her item drop mixup. But it's an option we have in our back pocket if it ends up being necessary!

My issue: M Bang can be hard to punish, even at point blank range. It's currently -9 on block and pushes people back a decent distance on block.

My suggestion: Give M bang less pushback, so blocking it up close lets you punish it with fast short-range moves. Give it less blockstun, so it's easier to punish on block. I wouldn't mind if a perfectly spaced max-range M bang was unpunishable on block by some characters, but the highest priority is making it so everyone can get a easy punish when blocking it reasonably close to Peacock.

My issue: Fake teleport is plus on block if you can make the opponent block the mini bomb that comes out of the teleport hole. Teleport startup (4 vulnernable frames) is pretty fast, and most common assists can make it hard for several characters to punish Peacock just throwing this out randomly whenever the opponent gets close. I don't think she needs this defensive option at all. On the other hand, The fact teleport bomb is an interesting situational fullscreen harassment tool that doubles as one of the very few ways that Peacock can escape from another Peacock's fullscreen projectile lockdown in the mirror match.

My suggestion: Make it so the fake teleport only spawns a bomb if the opponent is far away from Peacock (e.g. more than half a screen away).

My issue: defensive regular teleports can be hard to stuff on startup in scramble situations, which can be powerful now that Peacock's L teleport moves her away from her opponent. It can also be hard for some characters to punish M or H teleport with light attacks. I think teleports already work well when you've put bombs on the screen beforehand, or for mixups, or as a tool to use when you predict that your opponent is about to heavily commit to jumping or dashing at you (i.e. so you teleport behind them right as they move forward, causing them to accidentally dash or jump away from your new position). I think it would be fine if they were weaker when your opponent is already in your face, and I especially think if would be fine if ending blockstrings with L teleport was weaker.

My suggestions: There are several things we could do here: increase the amount of vulnerable startup frames on teleport, leave Peacock slightly closer to her opponent after a teleport, revert L teleport back to the old behavior where she teleports on the spot, or increase teleports' recovery. I like Peacock's ability to link s.LP after throwing a fullscreen projectile and immediately teleporting, so unfortunately I don't think increasing the overall duration of a teleport is a good option. Because of this, I would personally choose to make a few more frames of Peacock's teleport startup vulnerable (e.g. increasing the vulnerable duration from 4f to 7f), and I would leave Peacock closer to her opponent after M/H teleport, and I would revert her L teleport to the older version that teleported you on the spot and couldn't be chained into from bombs. Note that the old L teleport remembered your position when the move starts and teleported you back to that position, so even if we revert to that older version of teleport, Peacock will still be able to do her uncrossup L teleport resets: launch -> whiff c.HK -> L teleport right as c.HK starts moving forwards -> Peacock slides under her opponent with c.HK and teleports back to the side she started on.

My issue: I'm glad Peacock can no longer use DP assist + H teleport to get a free crossup mixup into full combo while simultaneously escaping the corner, but she still gets to do it with slower assists like H Lock n Load. It's a super strong defensive option that she doesn't need.

My suggestion: Lock out H teleport until the assist starts leaving the screen. If that's too long, put it on a timer (e.g. no H teleport until 30 frames after the assist finishes its incoming animation). Peacock would still be able to protect her teleports using her own projectiles, but that requires a bit more setup.

My issue: c.LK can be thrown out in neutral or as an anti air without much thought. It's 7f startup, 25f on whiff, and also reaches low enough and far enough forward that against some characters. Peacock can throw it out regardless of whether she thinks they'll jump at her or dash on the ground. If she throws it out against a jumping opponent and it whiffs because they delayed their fall, she often has enough time to recover and throw it out again to anti-air their delayed fall.

My suggestion: Increase cLK startup from 7f to 9f, so it's slightly harder to AA people on reaction but it doesn't make any of her combos too hard. Also increase its recovery. to make it less safe on whiff and to reward opponents who bait Peacock into throwing it out too early. Raise the bottom of the hitbox so it still hits standing opponents and works as an anti air, but people can more easily low profile it by poking Peacock with a low move, even from point blank range. It should continue to work as an anti-air and a way to hit standing opponents, but not as a catch-all poke that hits crouching opponents.

My issue: H George is very strong at covering the space directly above and in front of you when your opponent is close to you. And you can end a blockstring with it to be plus (e.g. normals into point blank H>L George), and it even works as a combo breaker if they hit you. It feels like Peacock's zoning can get unbearably strong at close range against some characters, all thanks to H George's tracking. Peacock would still be playable at that range without H George; she can already cover the space directly in front of her with her ground and air normals and M item drops, and she already has M George for a combo breaker projectile if she needs it (but opponents can counter it with IADs etc).

My suggestion: Increase the minimum distance that H George will track, so close-up opponents can make it whiff by hitting Peacock with crouching attacks. We could make it so H George disappears when Peacock gets hit, but I prefer the other idea, especially in a game where people regularly get clipped by full screen pokes and assists and other moves.

My issue: Peacock gets rewarded with a full unscaled combo if her opponent gets clipped by a projectile while hitting her, or when she does a safe left/right bomb mixup while blocking, or when she lands a teleport mixup.

My suggestion: Scale combos down to ~70-50% if they start with L/M/H George. A lot of Peacock-dislikers suggest that her bombs should disappear when she gets hit, but I think that would make her struggle too much in neutral against any characters with projectiles or beams or long range assists. By still giving her a hit but scaling the damage down, she still gets to zone and still gets rewarded for being able to confirm from bomb hits, but if she wants big damage she has to reset and give her opponent a chance to escape. This wouldn't affect the damage of any of Peacock's regular combo starters from pokes or anti-airs or high/low mixups, and it wouldn't make a big difference to her zoning damage either. This same scaling could also be applied to combos that start with jHK's Avery projectile for the same reason.

My issue: L George can be thrown out during zoning as a catch-all "please hit anyone who is jumping over my ground bombs and below my air bombs" hitbox, without having to think about it. This is especially true when you chain into L George from H George; you can throw out H>L George in neutral and basically be unhittable by characters without invincible/armored/disjointed attacks.

My suggestion: Either make L George worse on block, or make it easier for people to dodge it if they know it's coming in neutral. For the former, just give it some extra recovery or reduce its blockstun. For the latter, adjust its initial trajectory so it's always at ground height instead of being tossed through the air and landing on the ground half a second later. I think I would prefer the latter solution in an ideal world, but I'm worried it might break people's combos. If we can't adjust L George's trajectory and it's still obnoxious at close-mid range, we could remove the H>L and M>L George chains entirely. It would still be possible to chain M and H George into each other, and it would be possible to put L George on the screen and follow it up by immediately throwing out an M or H George if we're confident that the opponent will try to approach on the ground or in the air, but it wouldn't be possible to throw out M or H George and immediately chain it into the "please make me safe if the opponent approaches me in any way, or put a slow-moving bomb on the screen if they don't" button. Peacock would still be able to cover the space directly in front of her after throwing out a single M or H George by going back to neutral and throwing out c.LK or M bang. This would need a lot of testing, to make sure it doesn't make Peacock's zoning too easy to beat on reaction.

My issue: L George assist is one of the strongest assists in the game. It's an interesting assist and there's nothing else like it, but it's incredibly obnoxious to deal with. It's a trap that won't go away if the opponent doesn't have one of a few very specific low projectile clearing moves, and it doubles as a pseudo-DP assist that comes in behind your point character and avoids your opponents attacks because it's standing too far back to get hit.

My suggestion: Make Peacock land in front of the point character when she comes in as an L George assist, so hitting the opponent's point character during L George startup is more likely to result in a happy birthday and less likely to result in the Peacock dodging the hit, breaking the combo with George, and letting the opponent start a combo of their own. Remove the ability to call any other assists while L George is on the field. Even after these two nerfs, L George would be one of the strongest assists in the game, so we could give it another nerf to counteract one of its strengths: either make it "deactivate" its hitbox after it walks a certain distance so you can't use it to walk people all the way into the corner, or deactivate it after the point character gets hit so it can't break combos, or make Peacock stay on screen and dance while George is on the field like charged item assist, or add some more assist cooldown time after L George explodes before you're allowed to call it again. I would personally make it deactivate after the point character gets hit; this still lets players use it to walk the opponent all the way into the corner, and it lets them walk slightly behind L George to force their opponent to dash up and block it themselves or sacrifice an assist to get a hit, and it lets them walk slightly in front of L George to make it so any blocked pressure will be punished by George, but it doesn't give them periods where they are essentially fully invincible.

My issue: Random roadroller can often feels unfair, e.g. if Peacock's opponent tries to deflect or armor through her item and she get an unreactable 5% lucky dice roll into a full combo. This isn't as important as any of the other issues I've mentioned and some people like the randomness, but the unreactable nature of it is frustrating.

My suggestion: Some people like the randomness so I don't want to remove it completely. Instead, we can give both players just enough of a heads up that an item will become a roadroller that they can react and improvise around it. e.g. 40-50 frames before a charged item reaches level 3, the shadow could flash and change and a sound could play. This shouldn't happen until shortly before an item reaches level 3 so Peacock can't repeatedly pull level 1 items to "farm" a roadroller, and so there's an exciting moment where you hear the sound and both players have to scramble and improvise a plan around the upcoming roadroller.

...so those are the nerfs. Any buffs?

My issue: M bang can already easily be thrown on startup or jumped over and punished, and I want to make it it easily punishable on block too. Some characters can currently low profile M bang, meaning they have the ability to get in Peacock's face and go for low/throw mixups (and sometimes also IAD overheads) that all beat M bang for free. I would like M bang to be usable in all matchups, if Peacock knows that the opponent is not going to beat it with a block or jump or throw or meaty or safejump.

My suggestion: extend M Bang's hitbox down to the ground.

My issue: Releasing Peacock's item drop button during blockstun adds a huge delay before the item starts falling, but there is no buffer period on this. This makes reversal item drop one of the few moves in the game, along with armored normals such as Robo's s.HP, that has no buffer whatsoever when used as a reversal. Some characters can be surprisingly effective at pressuring Peacock simply by frame trapping her and assuming that she'll mess up her reversal item input.

My suggestion: Give Peacock's item releases the same reversal window as any other reversal special, so releasing the button 2-3 frames before exiting blockstun will act the same as releasing it on the frame that you exit blockstun.

My issue: Peacock's airthrow leaves the opponent at a distance where combos are possible but inconsistent, by SG standards. It threw them fullscreen in vanilla, then was changed to leave them close enough to easily combo, and then was intentionally changed to be at a distance where her combos are awkward and inconsistent and character-specific. Think falling j.LK (which hits 1-3 times depending on the exact height and the opponent's OTG hurtbox), into a microdash jab link etc, unless you want your throw combos to drop on Squigly and Valentine. I still don't understand why it works this way.

My suggestion: Make her airthrow leave the opponent slightly closer. This could result in buffing her too much or giving her new stronger airthrow combos, so I understand if you don't want to do this.

And that's it. I think it's hard to make Peacock's hardest matchups (e.g. Valentine) easier by buffing Peacock, without accidentally making Peacock overpowered against everyone else in return. I think those matchups would be better dealt with by nerfing the appropriate Valentine tools, such as fixing the bug that makes her j.MP eat pushblock inputs (because you get hit by another hit of j.MP while you're still in blockstop from the previous hit), or doing something to make the 1f gap in her s.LK> s.HP+assist frame traps easier to reversal out of, or raising j.HK's hitbox (or minimum delay after a jump) so she can't hit standing Peacock with upforward instant j.HK, or even nerfing bypass (by making it act like a blocked bypass if you only hit an assist, or even by making air scalpels airthrow punishable on groundblock), and so on. Obviously you would have to look at how those changes affect Valentine as a whole, instead of just blindly making those changes to make the Peacock matchup more fair, but I don't know a lot about Valentine

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Suggested Robo-Fortune Nerfs

My issue: s.HP+assist is armored and plus on block and leads to a combo on hit and costs no resources (aside from the assist call). You can just throw it out without thinking and hope it works. I don't think Robo needs this kind of armored option up close.

My suggestion: Somehow remove it. I like the ability to cancel s.HP into a special on hit to get a combo, but I don't like how you can keep it plus on block using assists. Maybe you could completely remove the ability to call assists during s.HP, or only let her call assists on hit. She would still have the ability to cancel s.HP into mines on block to make it pseudo-safe, or into M danger to catch opponents who go for a throw.

My issue: H beam assist is very strong and can be hard to stuff on startup, especially against wide characters or anyone who calls it and immediately dashes forwards.

My suggestion: Make H beam assist enter the screen further forwards, instead of coming in behind the point character

Suggested Robo-Fortune Buffs

My issue: Robo's instant overhead input has much harder execution than every other similarly-useful option in the entire game.

My suggestion: Either remove Robo's instant double jump overheads (by making rising Robo j.LP and j.MK both mids or adding a lockout on how fast people can double jump after a regular jump) or make it easier (by adding a shortcut for instant double jump, such as jumping then immediately holding down).

My issue: Robo's mines don't feel very scary to me. They're easy to clear out with lots of character-specific moves (H Giant Step, Bella deflector/sweep etc), their hitbox is so short that moves like Gregor Samson go over the top of them, they have such low blockstun that I mistakenly thought my opponents were always chicken blocking them (they have ~5f less blockstun than L George etc), and on hit it can be hard to follow up with a magnet or beam on reaction before they hit the ground.

My suggestion: Give mines extra blockstun and/or hitstun if you get touched by them after they've been planted (i.e. not if Robo does s.HP>mine in your face). I'm not sure what to do about all the character-specific ways to deal with mines, if anything.

My issue: Robo doesn't get to do a happy birthday cannon super after happy birthday M danger.

My suggestion: Give M danger slightly more hitstop on assists on hit, or make it stagger on counterhit, or anything that means you can land a happy birthday M danger and get any follow up damage on both characters. Whatever happens, I really don't think Robo needs a way to get a full meterless combo from a s.HP starter, which is why I suggest making it counterhit-only or just something that lets you go into cannon.

My issue: Zoner mirrors involving Robo-Fortune end up being heavily based on whoever has a life lead, unless Robo has an assist that lets her convert from beams. This is because of a combination of two things: she takes 100% damage from armoring a projectile with s.HP, and her beams don't deal any extra damage on counterhit. So if Robo A shoots a ground beam and Robo B predicts this, armors through the beam, and counterhits Robo A with a beam of her own, they both take the exact same amount of damage.

My suggestion: Give Robo beams counterhit damage like every other move in the game. If you don't want to do this, you could buff the fullscreen s.HP>beam tactic by making Robo only take 50% damage while armoring projectiles with s.HP.

My issue: Robo's install feels underwhelming, especially compared to Robo-Ky det mode. The explosion is nice and the beam knockdown is a bonus, but it's nowhere near as cool as Robo-Ky.

My suggestion: give det mode something cool. Maybe she automatically generates a head every second or two, or gains the ability to summon ram/mines/missiles in mid air, or something else. Both of those probably need new animations. It's hard to come up with stuff.

Suggested Painwheel/Beowulf/Robo Buffs

My issue: Waking up with an armored normal, unlike an armored/invincible special, requires frame-perfect timing.

My suggestion: Give wakeup armored normals the same reversal timing as other special moves. This doesn't have to apply to things like wakeup jab, but it would be nice for Painwheel and Robo and Beowulf's armored normals.

Suggested Fukua Buffs

My issue: I think Fukua's fireballs going on cooldown until the wisp returns was a great nerf to her easy mode repeated fireball zoning, and Fukua's shadows being hittable are a great nerf to held shadow setplay, but I think Fukua's zoning could get away with being slightly stronger.

My suggestion: Make it so people can't hit Fukua's non-held shadows. They would still go away if Fukua gets hit, but they would act like regular projectiles if you just throw one out while zoning. Maybe it could only apply to certain shadows (e.g. if you don't want her poking people with incontestable L shadow or throwing out M shadow whenever there might be armor), or it could only apply if you don't chain into them from a normal so she can't use it for pressure? NOTE: Fukuas mixups and setplay are currently ridiculous, so I would only do this if you want Zoner Fukua to be a bit more of a viable option. Don't do this if you want to keep Fukua as a terrifying rushdown setplay machine. Her current incarnation doesn't need buffs.

Suggested Eliza Buffs

My issue: Eliza's tall crouching hurtbox means she can't duck under Robo's H beam and can be hit with a lot of rising instant overheads.

My suggestion: Make Eliza's crouching hurtbox a tiny bit shorter

Suggested Beowulf Nerfs

My issue: H chair toss is very hard to punish, and plus on block.

My suggestions: Keep Beowulf's throwable box in the same place during H chair startup instead of pulling it back, so he can be thrown out of its startup at the same range that throws normally work on him. It currently gets pulled back pretty far, so you have to be much closer than normal to throw him, which makes it harder to dash up and throw a Beowulf who does a predictable H chair when you approach him. Increasing H chair startup could make this even easier, but maybe fixing the throwable box will be enough. Make it slightly (or very?) negative on block. Somehow stop H chair from transforming into a projectile until it's already in the air, so it doesn't delete all enemy projectiles that are in front of Beowulf on whiff.

Suggested Cerebella Nerfs

My issue: Bella enables a ton of ToD combos by DHCing into dynamo at 235 undizzy then doing a ground chain into Battle Butt

My suggestion: Make the 1000 Points version of Battle Butt deal the same damage as regular Battle Butt. It's a damage buff that only kicks in when they're almost dead, so it's basically only used for ToDs, Maybe reduce battle butt damage in general but I don't know enough about bella to know if that makes sense.

My issue: diamond deflector completely takes over the Cerebella vs Peacock matchup if the Peacock player doesn't have a physical assist like brass or lock n load. Bella can deflect any Peacock projectile on reaction (except for item drop releases) and can convert into a full combo from any hit, forcing Peacock to approach. If Peacock approaches on the ground she has to block any deflected projectile, and if she approaches in the air, battle butt's armor beats Peacock jLK + M item release and it is even safe on block if Peacock blocks it in the air.

My other issue: Battle Butt + Assist call (e.g. brass assist) comes out quickly and is super obnoxious and hard to punish

Yet other issue: Bella has like 100 different special moves. Does she really need this many different strong reversals?

My suggestion: Make battle butt much less safe on block, either by increasing its recovery or by decreasing its blockstun and making it pull people down towards the ground on block. People use battle butt in combos, so ideally we would be able to make it easier to punish without increasing its recovery so much that Bella loses out on battle butt combos. But she has a billion different combos so maybe that's fine. Giving it slower startup would be nice too. A more extreme fix would be to remove the ability to do instant battle butt from neutral, by requiring Bella to do tumbling run for a minimum amount of time (15-25f?) before she's allowed to cancel it into battle butt. You could remove this restriction if Bella cancels a normal into tumbling run on hit or block, if you wanted to make sure her battle butt combos were unaffected. But instant battle butt (usually with an assist backing it up) is so powerful that a bunch of Cerebella players' playstyles revolve around throwing out battle butt + assist whenever their opponent might press something, so maybe that's how Cerebella should be played now and it should just be made less safe on block instead.