I didn't want to have to do this, but I guess I will.
The Adam changes don't change any of Adam's strengths. Meaning it's just another nonsense nerf and he'll still destroy all the same characters he destroys. If Adam is getting a nerf, it needs to either be to his backdash, OR adding more negative frames onto wake up cage. The Superman changes, while really good for Grundy and Doomsday, are extremely mediocre. Meaning he'll still be untouchable by 90% of the cast. If Superman gets any nerf at all it should be to his laser recovery. Which would make his insane corner damage go away, and would also make his zoning a lot more bearable. I'm going to ask that anyone trying to reply to this not downplay Superman's zoning, because I really don't want to get into that argument, it'll just make me salty. The Aquaman changes are completely biased, he doesn't need a trait change, it just needs a little bit longer of a cooldown, if anything at all. The Hawk girl buff would make her absolutely insane. The Deathstroke buff is biased and unneeded, that character is fine as he is and people need to stop downplaying him. And the Batman nerf doesn't change him at all, he'll still be ridiculous. The only thing it does is reduce the amount of chip damage he can cause while zoning, other than that his zoning is still nuts. If anything is nerfed on Batman it should be the bat cooldown time, OR making his projectile 1 hit along with reducing the hitbox a tiny bit on b23's explosion so it's easier to jump out of. And MOST of the changes I suggested aside from superman are completely dependent on not buffing the low tier. If the low tier is buffed these nerfs also change quite a bit. The suggested nerfs are just my opinions, you could go a million ways about balancing these characters, but I'd like to think what I suggested helps out the biggest amount of low tier characters.
Okay, here's the rationale: I don't want to change Adam's primary strength. The mobility is what makes him. Dismantle his best tools (movement/whiff punishing) and you're going to wind up with a bland character who has no exceptional - if any - strengths. It's a bit short-sighted to say that my suggestions change nothing, because the tweaks to his trait would certainly be a meaningful nerf in every match given its massive power as a tool to finish a game. How many times have you seen Adam pop trait and win by doing nothing other than letting someone run into it? It's silly. If there's some other way in which you see Adam needing to be changed to specifically make other characters more competitive, that's fine, but you're going to need to actually construct an argument based on the specific characters who have trouble with him, what tools he has that shut them out, and how that can be fixed without smashing everything else to tiny bits.
The Superman changes, as far as I'm concerned, help in exactly the way I intended based on what you're saying. I already said myself that getting into the mess of trying to adjust the dials on his other moves is not something I want to go into too much, and I'm not going to argue the validity of those points either. As I already stated, a tweak of a few frames on his lasers or a damage nerf is unlikely to have a drastic effect on really good matches. You might well be right that it's a good idea, but not really what I'm targeting.
I already justified the Aquaman alteration. He shuts out some characters for free via robbing them of fairly earned damage and thereby has a 7-3 or better, or his trait is mostly useless in a match and it's a 5-5. This change is critical for a handful of characters to even have a hope of competing against him. I prefer the idea of altering the trait, but if not, he should get it once a round at most. He'd still be a top ten character - he has all the tools he needs to succeed in any match.
Deathstroke was also already explained. As I said, you could leave out everything else, but the frames are extremely important. A large portion of the cast gets punishes across a huge part of the screen for using guns at all - even quick fire can be very effectively whiff punished by a handful of characters, despite its quick recovery - and makes guns an extremely risky endeavor outside anywhere but nearly full screen. The same tactics work on DS that always did - block, dash, repeat - the frame changes just gave people more wiggle room in how tightly they have to execute their dashes. Meanwhile, he got smacked with a punish that goes as high as a full combo into a setup in a number of matches. Reverting his frames would change the matches he's currently even or advantage in very little, but it would help him out a ton in the ones he loses. It was an extremely bad change to begin with, because we can say now with full confidence that it did very little to help people who lost to him, while creating a lot of problems for him. The only rationale behind the change was centered on online play, anyways - nerfing a character due to imperfect netcode.
Well, at least someone knows Batman zoning is actually that good. I can't say I agree or disagree with any of your suggestions here, because I'm not going to claim I have any real grounds to do it on. If you want to go further into detail about who needs that help and why, I'm all ears. You said you don't like arguing and I don't blame you, but posts like that are only helpful to this discussion and not harmful. I'm absolutely open to suggestion and discussion, but it needs to be underpinned by actual examples to be meaningful. Batman is not a character I was able to have discussions about to the length and depth I wanted, anyways.
How many characters bop his zoning? Can you give me a list of every character that Superman really just can't zone(not characters that compete with or slightly beat him and make him want to come in during zoning wars, characters that 'bop' him). Then let's make a list of all the characters that really struggle with his lasers or lose the match up based mostly on his zoning. I suspect those two lists will paint a pretty different story than what you're saying.
Per the first point: I'd say that's essentially winning the zoning war anyways. What's picking over degrees going to help? Per the second: The characters who have a hard time with Superman zoning have a hard time with any zoning. He's a symptom, not a cause. If you want to help them, you're probably going to have to change them rather than changing Superman. Again, I don't actually really go one way or the other on changing his lasers - people might be right that it needs altered, but I think there are more pressing problems that are going to have a larger effect than just fine-tuning his zoning.
I like the list of changes though and the thought you put into it. I really appreciate that you just left out a lot of characters instead of making up dumb shit like 'remove the gap in Ares d1~d4 on block' when you didn't know enough about the character to make an intelligent suggestion.
Positive feedback! I feel a little better about myself. I actually had extended conversations about Ares and Lex, but I never was able to hammer any changes out of those conversations that seemed good enough to keep. Any way that's come up to alter them in their bad matches also would have led to unintended consequences against other characters.
Considering I main HG, I'm going to comment on that buff you requested. Granting her the ability to air-block or have armour while flying is a step to making her broken. Yes she has match-ups that grounds her very horrid ways (mianly Sinestro). This is going back to what I've said and many others had said as well, YOU CANNOT RELY SOLELY ON HER TRAIT TO WIN A MATCH, you have to understand her ground game much more. The BG match-up, which I her a lot about is very winnable with HG as long as you utilize her ground game and not spend all day in the air. Yeah there are some match-ups where her game can dominate the match, but then allowing her to block or have armour, just makes those match-ups unwinnable by a large amount. Take Flash for example, he has attacks that can reach high enough to smack HG out of the air, if she can air block, then how in the hell is Flash going to ground her to work his rush game, which is integral to success in using the character. If DS' guns can be air-blocked, then there completely goes his best tool in his play-style, DS needs his guns to play keep away with HG, otherwise she would be able to walk all over him, hell most players already expect his sword flip and his wake-up options, which are highly punishable when blocked.
-EDIT- There is two significant fixes I see with HG and that is to make her dive kick a HKD and to fix the B2 issues by making it a true mid, so that is doesn't wiff due to a characters breathing patterns.
If I had said "give Hawkgirl air-blocking," this post would be right. But since I said, "give her the ability to air block PROJECTILES," as in, only projectiles, and not block strings involving projectiles, or moves involving characters throwing their own body at you...
The list of characters that would change things for at all are Sinestro, Deathstroke, Lex, MMH, Zod, Batman and Green Arrow, all of who would still basically do fine. Everyone else's projectiles miss her in the air as it is, unless she happens to be flying exceptionally low or close (which she never is, anyways).
Time to head in to work. Will respond to more posts when I get home.
