An Honest look at Swamp Thing's possible buffs

[ChoseDeath]

Since you guys did all the heavy lifting on the serious buffs, and it was a wonderful job, here's my half ass contribution.

MAKE THIS NOT HAPPEN

And I went in and tested cancelling into Bayou Bash off every string, and guess what? You get interrupted on everything EXCEPT B2 3, B2 3 2, and F2 3.

Seriously though, y'all did a great job and I hope they implement some of those suggestions.

 

[foxof42]

All this and Captain Cold stuff is going to have me at the edge of my seat come patch day. I'm so scared of being let down, but there's this glimmer of hope I have that really tickles my pickle. I remember reistalling MKX and starting without a patch and good lord, Lasher Takeda wasn't even a real character, practically variationless. I hope we can all look back on prepatch Swamp Thing breathe a sigh of relief.

Here's hoping.

 

[PetulantWaste]

Increase the gravity on jump. His current jump is too floaty.

Allow Swamp Thing to mb vine grab on activation for armor/projectile immunity

Increase the range on his mb roll

Decrease the frames on his b3 f3. It doesn't have to be as fast as the others but maybe shave off 5 or 6 frames.

That should be enough. I can think of other things that would catapult him to the top but I believe this could work

 

[RNLDRGN]

Increase the gravity on jump. His current jump is too floaty.

Allow Swamp Thing to mb vine grab on activation for armor/projectile immunity

Increase the range on his mb roll

Decrease the frames on his b3 f3. It doesn't have to be as fast as the others but maybe shave off 5 or 6 frames.

That should be enough. I can think of other things that would catapult him to the top but I believe this could work

I don't think they'll touch his jump or walkspeed. HOWEVER, I think MB vines for armor would be ridiculous. He would be one of the best anti-zoners in the game and every trade would be hella in his favor. I don't see it happening, but I would love it lol. Much more likely is armor on MB clone. Right now the move is 100% useless.

More range / less startup on MB roll seems like a no-brainer necessity.

Faster F3/B3 is a must. Right now he is the only character who cannot F3, F3 or F3, B3.

He still needs trait tweaking and less frame recovery on footsies + most of the above to be viable, though.

 

[D. R.]

His log kick needs to be SAFE on block at the least. Idk why more people are not pressing for this. He can not move while the log is on the screen, period. It is trash on block, whiff and HIT because of this. Something seriously needs to be done with this move.

 

[zerosebaz]

From what I read I really like the idea of making his trait either slowly move forward by itself, or heal him while he stands on it. I also agree with F/B3 needing a few frames removed.

Now, I want to ask what do you think about my idea for vine grab:

Right now it does around 200 damage, about 20 with the first hit and 180 with the second one. Would making his first hit do 50/60 damage (while reducing the second hit to 140/150 so that the total damage is the same) help? He would still lose most trades, but not so badly. What do you think?

 

[Kotal_Wannabe]

I don't think they'll touch his jump or walkspeed. HOWEVER, I think MB vines for armor would be ridiculous. He would be one of the best anti-zoners in the game and every trade would be hella in his favor. I don't see it happening, but I would love it lol. Much more likely is armor on MB clone. Right now the move is 100% useless.

Yeh, that would make him the best anti zoner in the game considering the damage vines can do. I think it could do with some buff though, for example when it connects possibly projectiles shouldn't be able to break him out of it?

More range / less startup on MB roll seems like a no-brainer necessity.

I feel this should be a universal buff rather than a swampthing exclusive.

Faster F3/B3 is a must. Right now he is the only character who cannot F3, F3 or F3, B3.

I thought this too, but given the range of his f3/b3 it maybe too strong if it got a startup frame increase. Tbf, all f3s are reactable regardless so maybe.

He still needs trait tweaking and less frame recovery on footsies + most of the above to be viable, though.

Possibly make his trait extend slightly infront of him? I feel his back dash does need to cover abit more range.

 

[Kotal_Wannabe]

His log kick needs to be SAFE on block at the least. Idk why more people are not pressing for this. He can not move while the log is on the screen, period. It is trash on block, whiff and HIT because of this. Something seriously needs to be done with this move.

Tbh, I think safe on block would be overkill, he could do with a few less recovery frames though so he can take better advantage on knockdown so he can close the distance. I feel it should go full screen though, anyone opposed to that idea?

 

[RNLDRGN]

From what I read I really like the idea of making his trait either slowly move forward by itself, or heal him while he stands on it. I also agree with F/B3 needing a few frames removed.

Now, I want to ask what do you think about my idea for vine grab:

Right now it does around 200 damage, about 20 with the first hit and 180 with the second one. Would making his first hit do 50/60 damage (while reducing the second hit to 140/150 so that the total damage is the same) help? He would still lose most trades, but not so badly. What do you think?

I don't know about trait. Staying out on hit would be a big bonus IMO (it still has a timer). I also think healing him while he's in it (like Firestorm) would be great. Maybe make the cooldown longer to account for that?

For vine grab this is absolutely the best suggestion I've seen. Capcom did something similar with Alex in SFV for his air knee smash--the second hit used to do 90% of the damage and they made it closer to 60-40. It makes trading much more advantageous without giving him an overall damage buff. I'd like to see 50% damage on initial hit, 50% on slam.

His log kick needs to be SAFE on block at the least. Idk why more people are not pressing for this. He can not move while the log is on the screen, period. It is trash on block, whiff and HIT because of this. Something seriously needs to be done with this move.

You're right. It's not a good projectile and making it negative, but safe would be huge. Hell, I'd even take making it -7 so it can only be punished with D1 or similarly weak combos. Right now it's such a gamble for such little damage. Or make it really advantageous on hit. Something. Swamp just doesn't really get much mileage off of his footsie mixup right now--you can land F2xLog, F23xLog, F233 all in a row and it still does less damage than one single punish from a blocked log by your opponent.

 

[PetulantWaste]

I don't think they'll touch his jump or walkspeed. HOWEVER, I think MB vines for armor would be ridiculous. He would be one of the best anti-zoners in the game and every trade would be hella in his favor. I don't see it happening, but I would love it lol. Much more likely is armor on MB clone. Right now the move is 100% useless.

More range / less startup on MB roll seems like a no-brainer necessity.

Faster F3/B3 is a must. Right now he is the only character who cannot F3, F3 or F3, B3.

He still needs trait tweaking and less frame recovery on footsies + most of the above to be viable, though.

That'd be fine too. MB Clone would put him at an acceptable range, maybe up the damage a bit.

Maybe they won't touch his jump or walk speed but they definitely should. I would even take just the jump speed buff and deal with his lumbering walk.

 

[PetulantWaste]

I feel this should be a universal buff rather than a swampthing exclusive.

Certain characters already have really great mb rolls. Flash for example. It took me a while to realize that not all mb rolls were made the same.

 

[D. R.]

Tbh, I think safe on block would be overkill, he could do with a few less recovery frames though so he can take better advantage on knockdown so he can close the distance. I feel it should go full screen though, anyone opposed to that idea?

That would be far from overkill. Lol Only bad players would bitch about such a change. It's easily fuzzy-able currently. Making it -6 would have him give up his turn. His fastest tool is 7 frames. Also with the log I wouldn't want it to go fullscreen. If they made his clone mid while having it still come out on trade like it should, that'd alleviate that headache.

 

[RNLDRGN]

That would be far from overkill. Lol Only bad players would bitch about such a change. It's easily fuzzy-able currently. Making it -6 would have him give up his turn. His fastest tool is 7 frames. Also with the log I wouldn't want it to go fullscreen. If they made his clone mid while having it still come out on trade like it should, that'd alleviate that headache.

This would fix his problem with zoners, but Catwoman, Cheetah, Superman, and so many other characters wouldn't even have their MU affected.

He still needs more reliable midscreen meterless damage. There is absolutely no reason why the slowest character in the game should do significantly less meterless damage than Batman, Harley, Superman, Black Adam, Catwoman, all of which who are MUCH faster.

Hell, Swamp Thing's 2 bar max damage combo (B22xBounce Cancel B3, J3, F23xClone, 11xVines) only works on half the cast and still does less than a whiff punish or air-to-air 1 bar confirm from Black Adam.

That's borderline moronic.

 

[D. R.]

This would fix his problem with zoners, but Catwoman, Cheetah, Superman, and so many other characters wouldn't even have their MU affected.

He still needs more reliable midscreen meterless damage. There is absolutely no reason why the slowest character in the game should do significantly less meterless damage Batman, Harley, Superman, Black Adam, Catwoman, Atrocitus, etc.

Hell, Swamp Thing's 2 bar max damage combo (B22xBounce Cancel B3, J3, F23xClone, 11xVines) only works on half the cast and still does less than a whiff punish or air-to-air 1 bar confirm from Black Adam.

That's borderline moronic.

He's trash. I have a laundry list of things he needs addressed.

 

[DeftMonk]

these are great. Right now he feels like a grappler that is just way too easy to zone / run away from.

I also think I came up with a reasonable suggestion for his trait.

- When activate trait normally, it extends as you walk forward. Pressing trait again stops this process. What if pressing trait a 3rd time made the moss swap sides and go in front of you, or something? With grapplers it's all about inching forwards, so if you found the time to activate trait and walk them down without getting hit, the moss should be quite long. Switching it in front of you would be cool i think

this is a really cool idea I hope they consider. Since it goes away on hit it might even be better to just make it so for every footstep forward as the distance grows behind him it grows in front at the same speed. People then would feel compelled to stop you much more than they do atm I feel.

 

[Percimon]

I'm surprised that nobody didn't mention 213 string buffs. It's the most useless string for now, tbh, just look at s2 start up - fookin' 30 frames with very short range. Srsly, does anyone use this string? Why the hell does it have so awful framedata?

 

[RNLDRGN]

I'm surprised that nobody didn't mention 213 string buffs. It's the most useless string for now, tbh, just look at s2 start up - fookin' 30 frames with very short range. Srsly, does anyone use this string? Why the hell does it have so awful framedata?

It's hard to say. Swamp has a lot of problems, but a lack of a close range overhead doesnt seem like a glaring one IMO. He would be better with 8-10 frames shaved off of st2, but honestly I'd say that's because he wouldn't be so punishable every time you get an input error lol.

His other issues (lack of meterless damage, slow F3/B3, clone not counterzoning, situational trait, string gaps) are much more glaring IMO. But hell I would def take a faster st2.

 

[PetulantWaste]

I'm surprised that nobody didn't mention 213 string buffs. It's the most useless string for now, tbh, just look at s2 start up - fookin' 30 frames with very short range. Srsly, does anyone use this string? Why the hell does it have so awful framedata?

My only reasoning for s2 being 30 frames is that there was some miscommunication between the QA department and the coders.

QA (shouting from the room over): Hey I think Swamp Thing needs an overhead. Maybe we could make S2 an overheard but keep it at 13 frames!

Coders: What's that?! You want s2 to be thirty frames?

QA: THIRTEEN, THIRTEEN, for Stand 2 ONE THREE

Coders: Ok! Thirty frames for 213

 

[RNLDRGN]

My only reasoning for s2 being 30 frames is that there was some miscommunication between the QA department and the coders.

QA (shouting from the room over): Hey I think Swamp Thing needs an overhead. Maybe we could make S2 an overheard but keep it at 13 frames!

Coders: What's that?! You want s2 to be thirty frames?

QA: THIRTEEN, THIRTEEN, for Stand 2 ONE THREE

Coders: Ok! Thirty frames followed by one three.

This is honestly how I see half the cast being balanced.

Or, just assigning frame data and damage values from a hat.

 

[ChoseDeath]

My only reasoning for s2 being 30 frames is that there was some miscommunication between the QA department and the coders.

QA (shouting from the room over): Hey I think Swamp Thing needs an overhead. Maybe we could make S2 an overheard but keep it at 13 frames!

Coders: What's that?! You want s2 to be thirty frames?

QA: THIRTEEN, THIRTEEN, for Stand 2 ONE THREE

Coders: Ok! Thirty frames for 213

Holy shit, that's brilliant! Well done sir, well done. I'm tipping my hat to you as you read this.

 

[Kotal_Wannabe]

Hey thanks for all your suggestions, I've updated the buff list to incorporate some of the best ideas. As for safe log, I just assumed they made it unsafe as fuck for a reason, but thinking about it, I can't think of any reason why, so I've added that suggestion to buff list too.

Cheers

 

[D. R.]

This would make him viable imo...

Character:
- Make his jump less floaty
- Increase his initial walk forward speed and distance traveled
- Change his MB roll recovery

Basic Attacks:
D1 - 6 frames, down from 7; hit advantage +10, down from +15
S2 - 20 frames, down from 30
F3 - 32 frames, down from 35; +5 on block, up from 0. Change the hitbox so that the move (an overhead) can not be low profiled.
B3 - 30 frames, down from 35

Combo Attacks:
113 - on block, -6, up from -11; Gap removed
B12 - Gap decreased
B223 - Gap decreased, recovers faster on hit allowing easier follow ups
F233 - Recovers faster on hit allowing easier follow ups

Special Moves:
Up Vine Grab - Change notation to db1 to make it easier to use as an anti air
Vine Grab - All variants of Vine Grab can now be meter burned to gain one hit of armor. Vine Grab can then be MB again to do the additional damage
Log Kick - Change notation to bf1 to accommodate Up Vine Grab notation change; now -6 on block, up from -14.
Bio-Fission - Change to mid, comes out during trades; MB now teleports Swamp Thing in front of the opponent without the knockdown, leaving Swamp Thing +15 (the opponent can block).
Green Kingdom (Super) - 12 frame start up, down from 25; -12 on block, up from -22

Character Power:
Abigail's Garden - While standing in trait, Swamp Thing now gains one tick of meter similarly to how the opponent takes DoT. When using Control Abigail's Garden on the first active frame, this would result in roughly a bar and a half of meter gained. Trait still retains same properties it currently has as well (DoT, no dashing or jumping, goes away on hit and push block)

Do this NRS.

IT'S TIME TO SAVE THE GREEN!!!!!

 

[RNLDRGN]

I really like a lot of this, but it seems like overkill on the redesign. I made some notes:

This would make him viable imo...

Character:
- Make his jump less floaty--probably won't happen, but would be nice
- Increase his initial walk forward speed and distance traveled
- Change his MB roll distance

Basic Attacks:
D1 - 6 frames, down from 7; hit advantage +10, down from +15. Not gonna happen. 7 frame D1 is fine if his Green Thumb comes out faster and the tick throw is better.
S2 - 20 frames, down from 30 Yep
F3 - 32 frames, down from 35; +5 on block, up from 0. Change the hitbox so that the move (an overhead) can not be low profiled. Oh yeah
B3 - 30 frames, down from 35 100%

Combo Attacks:
113 - on block, -6, up from -11; Gap removed Keep the gap, make it smaller, and have the 3 special cancelable.
B12 - Gap decreased Yep
B223 - Gap decreased, recovers faster on hit allowing easier follow ups A must.
F233 - Recovers faster on hit allowing easier follow ups Also a must.

Special Moves:
Up Vine Grab - Change notation to db1 to make it easier to use as an anti air.
Vine Grab - All variants of Vine Grab can now be meter burned to gain one hit of armor. Vine Grab can then be MB again to do the additional damage. So you have to burn 2 meters for the big damage? I dunno how I feel about that. Either way, if his vines traded favorably he could be one of the best anti-zoners in the game.
Log Kick - Change notation to bf1 to accommodate Up Vine Grab notation change; now -6 on block, up from -14. Preference, but I can dig it.
Bio-Fission - Change to mid, comes out during trades; MB now teleports Swamp Thing in front of the opponent without the knockdown, leaving Swamp Thing +15 (the opponent can block). How about the regular is a high, but the MB is a faster mid that does the teleport slam on trade (armored)?
Green Kingdom (Super) - 12 frame start up, down from 25; -12 on block, up from -22 THIS. The number of times I use super to punish a projectile on startup and the opponent still blocks...

Character Power:
Abigail's Garden - While standing in trait, Swamp Thing now gains one tick of meter similarly to how the opponent takes DoT. When using Control Abigail's Garden on the first active frame, this would result in roughly a bar and a half of meter gained. Trait still retains same properties it currently has as well (DoT, no dashing or jumping, goes away on hit and push block) This or healing would be huge. Or staying out on hit and just rely on the timer for expiring.

Do this NRS

I don't want to ask for too many buffs bc I think he would be top 5 if he got all of these buffs, but the betterment of his footsies, trait, and removal of gaps and silly slow normals 100% has to happen or he's dead.

 

[Altsa]

I feel like they are going to give him mostly "simple" buffs, such as faster s2,b3,f3 and reduced recovery on trait activation. I also think they are going to rework MB db3 somehow.

I would be highly surprised if they buffed his mobility or altered special move inputs. Also many possible alterations for his trait are already gear moves and I don't think they are going to give him any of those.

 

[D. R.]

I really like a lot of this, but it seems like overkill on the redesign. I made some notes:

I don't want to ask for too many buffs bc I think he would be top 5 if he got all of these buffs, but the betterment of his footsies, trait, and removal of gaps and silly slow normals 100% has to happen or he's dead.

I'll elaborate:

- His jump is pure shit and needs to be addressed.
- A 6 frame d1 would help him in pressure situations. His mobility is trash. He needs something to help him from being smothered. The d1xxGT tick window can be altered as well so that it's not interruptible.
- Green Thumb is fine as is. The versatility of that throw warrants it being slower. You want a faster grab, just do a normal throw.
- 113 being special cancelable seems overkill. I'm just thinking about his corner with that string...
- Vine Grab. The Vine Grab would function as normal only now the moment you pop the move you can MB immediately and gain armor. It does the same damage as the regular one. If you want the additional damage, you MB on hit, regardless if you meterburned it before for armor or not. So:

Vine Grab (no armor, normal damage)
MB Vine Grab (one hit of armor, normal damage)
Vine Grab, MB (no armor, extra damage)
MB Vine Grab, MB (one hit of armor, extra damage)
Seems balanced to me.

- Changing Up Vine Grab notation would make it easier to use in neutral situations on reaction as an AA. Why it is how it is now is beyond illogical.
Changing the notation effects Log Kick, which isn't that big a deal.
- Log kick should be safe on block. It's punishable hard on whiff and block and trash on hit since he can't move til the log leaves the stage. It serves no function in this state. Making it safe on block gives it a purpose at least within his 50/50 pressure strings.
- His clone does shit damage. He's not going to outzone a zoner with it being mid. The MB getting him in free would still be a gamble because on trade I'd have it do what it does now. It being armored would be overkill, even if it stayed how it is now. He'd get in for free pretty easily.
- Healing on trait would be a waste since he can already heal off GT. I can already imagine the healing ability in the corner with the two combined. Doesn't seem like a great payoff. The trait giving him meter however would help him TREMENDOUSLY against zoners as he'll have an answer if he gets a bar as I proposed. This would cause the zoner to have to think about their approach a bit more instead of spamming out ST.


In the end, it's up to Paulo and co. My buffs I feel facilitate one another and the character archetype as a whole. Everything would have a purpose. We'll see what happens though.

#savethegreen