A thing that really bothers me that Kirby's throws aren't all bad for giving him follow-ups.

The problem is all of his throw animations being these slowest in the game, you're opponent can all ways do the most optimal DI to escape (Down-Away for all of them), even if they are slow to react it. There's no possible way cross-up an opponents into a grab for a DI mix-up off a throw so they possibly DI-In like you can do for some other characters.

But I would still be soft with the buffs. Just like 1.0.2. Sonic, he feels like he has good tools to be viable, just has some mediocre abilities preventing him for shining brighter and he just feels designed to be crippled, lacking expressiveness in his playstyle. Polish for now and see where the meta takes him:

- Speed-up all throws animations by at least 2x, would makeDown-throw be the same as MK's Down-throw
- Fair's totally lasting frame-data mirrors Bair (Why does MK, Jiggz, Tails, BDee, get fast ending Fair because Kirby gets left-behind? Seriously, this move's total-frames is longer than air-Hammer.)
- 1-frame less landing-lag on Fair.
- Increase Kirby's getup/tech-roll by about 2.5X its length. He still suffer from tech-chase traps, because his -tech-roll is so short and slow, you can consistently react to it.
- Make BreakSpin (Dash-Attack) cover it's travel-distance faster. There's a bit of an abrupt halt from Dash before the Dash-Attack itself starts moving. Making it go fast allows him to move in faster to punish whiff moves at mid-range than a Short-Hop Fair could do, while making it last of a silly frame-trap in tight situations.

Although I disagree with you on fair, I think it should be changed in that it should have 2-3 more active hitbox frames in the middle of it. I agree with you on everything else though.

Here are some things I think Kirby needs in order to be viable:
-Increase Air Speed: Kirby's best moves are in the air but his poor air speed doesn't really help him make use of them. Increasing his air speed would make it easier for Kirby to approach with Bair and land hits with other important moves like Fair and Aerial Hammer

-Increase Up tilt hitstun: The problem with up tilt is that it doesn't combo into aerials reliable due to the lack of hitstun. I mean it can combo into itself at low percents but other than that it's not amazing for comboing.

-Bring back 1.0.2 down throw: I know I whine about down throw being nerfed all the time but it really was Kirby's best combo starters in 1.0.2. Plus, with the grab range buff he got in 1.0.3 it wouldve helped him even more. He'd also have a better down throw to hammer confirm since aerial hammer has better kill power and range now.

-Increase inhale range and decrease it's end lag: For some reason the hitbox doesnt cover the entire animation. That needs to be fixed so Kirby can approach with inhale better. Also this move in it's curremt state is extrememly punishable due to its ridiculously high end lag. It should have much less end lag so it's safer to use.

Make Up Throw kill at earlier-than-180%

Oh god this s*** again


Kirby's best and only viable way to approach with bair will continue to be if you do it out of a backwards shorthop, so you completely miss the point of why a higher air speed would buff Kirby. A higher air speed/aerial acceleration would buff Kirby in that he'd have more mobility and more options at any given moment. He'd be able to approach more reliably in general and it would buff his recovery. He'd also be able to follow up with more combos, although if you were to buff his air speed too much, it could lead to his fair becoming a reliable Fence of Pain.


Alright, just labbed it. You can get four hits off of utilt reliably at low percents, and it combos into nair and bair at these percents. Around 40-50%, however, is when it begins to shine. Utilt begins to launch your opponents around 40-50%, but it just makes the screen shake and puts them in their launch animation. It doesn't actually send them very far, but because it "launches" the opponent, the opponent is unable to perform an action for longer than usual. In fact, anywhere from 50%-100% on just about any character, you can actually combo into any of his aerials and hammer from his utilt. I know how much you love your hammer setups, so here you go. This move reliably sets up into hammer at percents in which hammer begins to kill.
I think giving it more hitstun is actually the wrong way to go about buffing utilt. Don't get me wrong, hitstun is great, but it's not necessary here. What would be better is lowering knockback scaling, which means making it so that it still knocks the opponent back a nice amount but it knocks the opponent back a more consistent length. In fact, that brings me to a minor request for something I legitimately want to see Kirby have in a future update.

Kirby's usmash was nerfed coming into Beta in that the weak hit had high knockback scaling and it could no longer combo into bair. Usmash was a pretty good option in 9b in that the strong hit killed and the weak hit comboed into bair, which either killed or set up an edgeguard. It was a nice tool to have, and I'm legitimately dissapointed that it's not in Beta, and that instead we have a very small hitbox that punishes you if you whiff the usmash in that it knocks the opponent up, but nowhere near far enough to kill, and it's not as big as it was in 9b, so even if I do go for the weak hitbox on instinct, I often end up whiffing the usmash entirely.
Still, onto more Sm4sh Kirby requests


Alright alright alright I'm gonna just stop you right there.
STOP SAYING BRING BACK 1.0.2
Seriously, the devs might actually do it, and if they do, they might bring back all of the terrible things about Kirby that came with 1.0.2, such as .2 fair, .2 bair, Kirby's range on all of his moves, and everything else.
Let me reword this for you. From now on, I'd appreciate it if you were to use wording along these lines instead:

I hate grabs in general. I think they're cheap and are a pacebreaker in any Smash game, but some people like them. I can respect that, even if I f*** hate it, and Kirby would technically be more viable and a better character overall if he had a better grab game, so by all means, petition the devs to bring back Kirby's grab game from .2. Just please, for the love of whatever imaginary divine being you believe in, word your s*** better.

Thank you.


Dude.
Have you played 9b?
Inhale was f*** dumb as s*** in 9b. It had way too much range, and because spit>bair was a thing, it had to be nerfed. Now Spit>bair and spit>fair are both things that exist, and you're sitting over here asking for a range and endlag buff. Please, just stop. That'd be broken as s***. An endlag buff is somewhat reasonable, but please, don't bother asking for a range buff.

I apologize for saying "bring back 1.0.2". I didnt mean bring back 1.0.2 in general I meant bring back 1.0.2 down throw only. I didnt notice i even wrote it that way lol. I edited my previous post to prevent anymore confusion.

I'll admit I havent played 9b a lot, but even if inhale was dumb in 9b he was never outside of bottom tier on any official tier list even with a dumb inhale.

Alright, cool, now we understand eachother lol
He was outside of bottom tier on the last 9b tier list, as everyone recognized that, although he had worse tools than most of the cast, he was still viable as there wasn't that big a gap between the top tiers and the low tiers. With skilled play, Kirby still placed and good Kirbies could still contend with other players.
I played 9b a ton, and I still occasionally play it despite online being disabled for 9b, and I can safely say that nobody liked 9b Kirby inhale except for maybe Tlord. It's just annoying to go against. Just trust me on this. I want Kirby to be buffed as much as you do, but I want him balanced and as fun to play against and fun to play as as possible.

You can't bring back v0.9b/1.0.2 Down-Throw. It guaranteed follow-ups, but more importantly, you could chain-grab Fox, Falco, Falcon, Bowser up to like 50%+ into UpSmash; regardless of their DI. If you didn't want to fight those characters in tournament, you literally could just pick Kirby and give a difficult hell of a time to dedicate-mains of those other characters. The skill-gap would narrow to the point of relevanace in some MUs. I'm quite sure this is why it was change, judging from how drastic the change ended up being; it polarized his playstyle and punish-game. The issue is that where that broken issue was fixed, weaker options of his went made better, and that in my opinion is awful balancing. You have to give and take fairly, especially when making changes to low-tiers. This doesn't always happen, but it feels like this has been going on for Kirby for a long time.

What Kirby needs is more reliable offensive options outside of that to better hold together his moveset.

Thank you for at least acknowledging that dthrow was a little crazy and understanding where that change came from, but please let's not discard the laundry list of buffs that Kirby got too. It's okay to say they aren't enough to compensate for the loss of dthrow but I think it's pushing a false narrative to say his weaker options weren't made better.

It's pretty overwhelming this time with the return of the whole "devs have no idea what's going on" agenda that's being collectively pushed, you could just say he needs more buffs to make up for it. It's not the last patch forever. Actually, there's one coming in a day or two.

Thank you for the laundry list, Sakruai develpers of McLeodGaming.

PATCH HYPE LET'S GO

The chaingrab is escapable via mixup DI and of they don't read your DI, unless maybe you're Bowser. Also there is no reason pick Kirby against Fox, Falco, or Bowser unless your best character is Kirby, as he gets destroyed by these MUs, even with the down throw. I don't think down throw alone ruined his playstyle, I think his overall bad moveset in 1.0.2 and his down throw did his only truly useful tool was down throw and at the time his other tools weren't very useful except for specific situations. Down throw has not an issue not was is broken. If the devs really wanted to nerf a broken move Kirby had it shouldve been the MK copy ability.

^ to the thing about Kirby losing those m/us hard. Bowser outranged Kirby and Fox and Falco just rape him in general.

This is false. As TSON has acknowledged: no matter how your opponent DI (whether Away, Up-Away, Down-Away, or Hard-Inward) getting the follow-up grab on the formally stated characters was reactable with very lenient timing. This is why his confirms into grab (Dair, Fair, Bair, etc.) were also nerfed. It was very highly-polarizing as playstyle. Kirby has trouble approaching, but even if he lost neutral 10 times in-a-row, one solid confirm into grab still meant Kirby could 0-to-Death a Fox. Waiting for those moments weren't difficult.

Ok I'm just gonna debunk the rumor that I mistakenly started and that I'm sorry for starting:
KIRBY DOES NOT HAVE A TRUE 0-DEATH ON SPACIES
The chaingrab is DI-dependant. You still have to read the opponent's DI and react accordingly. It's like chaingrabbing Fox in Melee with Marth but harder.
As for his confirms into grab, Bair should never confirm into grab, and neither should fair. Dair got buffed and now actually does confirm into grab, unlike what it didn't do in .2

The timing was SO easy that you could literally look for how your opponent DI'd and react on the spot to continue your CG. That's OP