archetypes are an endlessly interesting
topic of discussion and one that people
seem to latch on to in particular is the
destructive wrecking ball like force of
a good heavyweight I should know
considering my original video on them is
still one of the most viewed videos on
the channel I've been meaning for a
while now to dive into an archetype
series and while there are still many
aspects of that original video that I do
like its style and content are a bit
dated at this point to stand alongside
future plans so seems appropriate to
revisit the topic to kick things off
aiming for something that you can enjoy
regardless of whether or not you've seen
the original so without further ado
let's talk about heavyweights
[Music]
what does the idea of an archetype
accomplish as players we love to talk
about sword fighter this or glass cannon
that in fact as humans in general we
love neat categories for most things but
this kind of categorization isn't simply
for the sake of it rather is to aid in
discussion discovery or both your friend
might direct you towards a certain store
because your fashion tastes have started
to lean more bohemian yeah man I love
cage the elephant if they're kind of
modern rock indie rock a bit grunge a
bit Punk I think you'd be into them I
likes tall teams let's check out some
modern builds that are doing well while
categorizations can often be messy heavy
weights and smash are particularly so as
the term can refer to multiple ideas the
first of these is an encompassing
description of a specific type of
character a large hulking presence who
specializes in raw power
the second however is a simple trait
description literally a character with a
heavy weight weight is a variable used
to express the notion of survivability
in a platformer fighter as opposed to
for example the varying health bars seen
in some traditional fighting games and
affects how far each character will be
launched when hit by an attack looking
at these guys you'd expect them to have
a high weight and you'd be correct these
are indeed some of the heaviest
characters in the game now looking at
Sonic a character known for his extreme
speed you'd expect him to weigh less
than them and again you would be correct
now what if through altering a single
line of code we made sonic just as heavy
would he now be a heavyweight by the
broadest definition yes but when people
refer to the heavyweight archetype this
will generally not be the image that
comes to mind the main purpose of an
archetype genre fashion style or any
other type of categorization is to evoke
a specific concept as clearly as
possible and if the category becomes
stretched too thin a new one is
typically created which is how
electronic music
can become techno can become splitter
corner anything can be a valid design
concept with the right balancing if you
took every person on earth and said to
make me a character as fast as sonic and
as heavy as Bowser it seems unlikely
that nobody could pull that off while
making it fair but it wouldn't have oak
the same idea that the word heavyweight
is usually intended to in fact it would
be so far removed from anything we've
seen so far in the series that it would
likely require a new archetype to
describe it so for the sake of this
video we're going to be focusing on the
more traditional bruiser style of
character which you might have heard
referred to as super heavyweights in the
current smash entry these are roughly
grouped both into a weight range and
other broadly shared characteristics
summing up heavyweights as simply as
possible
their concept leans on the fundamental
trade-off of agility in exchange for
power a trade-off which permeates
throughout their design you know they
tend to do a lot of damage with each
attack which means they require fewer
hits than usual in order to get their
opponents to kill a percentage this is
further augmented by the many extremely
high knock back attacks in their
movesets meaning that this kill
percentage is also generally lower than
normal
however while this kind of power is
thrilling and what gives heavies that
destructive feel it doesn't come without
a price to begin with Super Smash
Brothers uses a moves damage as part of
the calculation for how far to launch an
opponent this is obviously fantastic
when trying to end a stock or set up an
offstage situation when you want to
knock your opponent as far away as you
can
but for combo scenarios you want the
opposite for your opponent to remain as
close to you as possible
this means that heavyweights don't
usually have the ability to perform
large combos and while they still do
plenty of damage they don't allow you to
drag your opponent across or above the
stage in the same manner that more
nimble characters are capable of them
making them worse from a positional
perspective in scenarios where they're
not killing this short combo issue is
exacerbated further by another element
of the agility for power design
philosophy or frame data attacks are
typically slow to start up meaning
quicker characters can frequently bully
them if they're with an attack range of
course because heavyweights are larger
than average they'll usually have good
range for a hand-to-hand fighter but in
practice keeping your opponent at a
distance at all times is easier said
than done
this means that heavyweights often end
up susceptible to pressure and unless
you're one of the lucky few to have been
gifted with a good way to mitigate it
just against speed based characters can
feel like you're constantly being run
over
high-end lag or the time between the end
of an attacks dangerous period and the
time you can act again only makes this
worse as the dart in and out of your
effective range which is easy to do
because of another aspect of this
agility for power trade-off limited
mobility you may initially expect this
to refer to running speeds and while
there is certainly a trend towards the
Super Smash Brothers has always
prioritized matching the feel of a
character to how they feel in their home
series donkey kong for example has
consistently been a pretty quick runner
which matches the way he's portrayed in
Donkey Kong Country and Charizard and
the modernized Bowser like White's can
keep up on the ground fairly well
however there's always some aspect of
their mobility which is impaired
if not run speed then jump squat frames
before ultimate standardized them air
speed air acceleration rolling or
overwhelmingly recoveries heavyweights
essentially all have recovery special
moves which are either short ranged
extremely linear or both which moves us
towards the next aspect of this
discussion at its core belonging to any
archetype involves making a deal with a
developer of course you can have this
power what are you willing to sacrifice
for it while a description of the
sacrifices heavyweights make sounds
sensible on paper its practical
execution throughout the Smash series
from a competitive standpoint has had
its fair share of problems
let's take survivability weight reduces
the distance you're launched as we
discussed which means that the archetype
should survive until higher percents
than its competitors this is balanced
out though by the fact that you're also
a larger target who's more susceptible
to combos due to that reduced launch
distance while your kill percentage is
higher than average you'll also reach it
faster okay those are reasonable terms
but there's more to it than that in
competitive smash there are broadly
speaking three main phases neutral
advantage and disadvantage neutral is
when each character is on even footing
and trying to land a hit you often hear
references to how strong an attack is in
the neutral how good a character's
neutral game is overall and this is the
concept that's being referred to what's
that it connects the character who
landed at transitions into advantage
state while the character who got hit
transitions into disadvantage state if
you're an advantage state your goal is
to keep it that way if you're in
disadvantage state your goal is to
return to neutral
quickly as possible and heavyweights
don't tend to be very good at this in a
vertical launch or juggling scenario the
fact that they're large targets have
poor mobility and poor frame data makes
it easy to keep them up there which is
the natural consequence of the
archetypes design philosophy there's
also the inverse scenario if the
heavyweight has their opponent in the
air escape is often relatively
straightforward because of these same
restrictions to agility this is
certainly a concern and we will come
back to it but again it is a natural
consequence for this type of character
off stage play however is a different
scenario entirely as said heavyweights
typically have slow linear easy to
intercept recovery options which makes
edgeguarding them extremely easy this
functionally means that while yes a
forward smash is less likely to actually
send you into the blast zone than for
other archetypes your effective point of
no return is often shorter than this in
the most egregious cases far shorter
this design philosophy undercuts the
archetypes vitality at rate which could
reasonably be expected to be one of
their major strengths and I personally
consider it to be a shortcoming of
heavyweight design throughout the smash
series there are after all plenty of
other areas that can be used to express
the fundamental trade-off without
detracting from survivability
heavyweight damage and kill power is
also undermined by they're generally
subpar neutral games part of this is a
natural consequence of the restricted
mobility these characters suffer which
will inherently be a major hindrance in
a game genre so heavily centered around
movement but they're also rarely given
adequate tools to compensate projectiles
and other space controlling attacks are
few and far between and of those that do
exist are generally much more
specialized than their competitors this
often forces heavies to play the
rushdown game while being poorly
equipped to do so and we're starting to
see this fundamental trade-off begin to
ward on paper being heavy makes you take
more damage but survive longer this is
the natural result of smashes gameplay
mechanics in practice the archetype is
often more frail than you might expect
on paper heavy weights have high damage
output in practice the additional
difficulty with landing a hit and
avoiding hits themselves means that
while they may have impressive bursts
their overall damage per second is
frequently quite tame a peer exchange of
agility for power is not an even trade
in the platform fighter genre a
character who gives up power in exchange
for the ability to safely enter
the opponent will be a character who
rewards good play whereas a character
who gives up the ability to interact in
exchange for power will place the onus
on the opponent to play incorrectly in
the competitive singles world this
happens but is unreliable but less so
with players who are inclined to make
mistakes or have outside assistance
meaning that heavy weights may be
fundamentally more suited for and
balanced around a casual environment
this is a common argument I've heard and
well I do agree with it to an extent
it's worth noting that limited
recoveries and other aspects of impaired
mobility are a huge hindrance when you
play the item game this is of course
speaking from a more default perspective
of what would happen if you took the
fundamental agility for power trade-off
at face value and left it alone which
for the first few smash titles
unfortunately does tend to be the case
that's not to say though the character
design hasn't evolved to compensate over
the years as developers began to take
smash balanced more seriously throughout
the first two smash games heavyweights
largely fall into this exchange without
much consideration beyond that with high
damage output and kill power being one
of their few high points with little
thought towards compensating for
weaknesses it shouldn't be surprising
that none of these characters were
considered competitively powerful with
melee Bowser in particular being a
candidate for the worst smash character
of all time another candidate for the
title came along in brawl with
ganondorf's Twilight Princess redesign
and in this game the trend was largely
the same although there were a few
interesting roster additions with snake
and King DVD DDD was considered to be a
high tier or upper mid tier throughout
most of the games life although this was
largely due to the existence of a
powerful chain grab which was likely not
an intentional design decision snake in
the meantime was a top tier but in
addition to being in a very ambiguous
archetype snake's design overall is
quite strange there's a rumor that snake
was originally intended to be a larger
character but was scaled down at the
last minute indicated not only by his
outrageously high weight more than that
of King Dedede but also by the
infamously large disjointed hitboxes on
many of his attacks that barely seemed
to match the character model I've looked
far and wide for information either
confirming or debunking this and haven't
been able to find any I issued a
correction about it in my previous
heavyweights video but even if it's
false next design is definitely an
anomaly in the Smash series something
weird is going on here moving into Smash
4 we see the first major up
trend and attentiveness towards the
competitive scene which brought
heavyweight design along for the ride
this is most starkly illustrated with
Bowser who received a massive overhaul
to his moveset attributes and appearance
becoming a considerably less lumbering
character than had been seen in the past
in the early days of the game he was
considered to be extremely powerful
although as knowledge of the game
increased and the wii u's tighter
controls supplanted those of the 3ds his
reputation did begin to fall off this
remains true up until the introduction
of his notorious up thro rework in a
patch reducing its knock-back
considerably and allowing combos all the
way from zero to kill percents a similar
fate was shared by Donkey Kong's cargo
up throw and for the first time
traditional heavy weights were seeing
success in a platformer fighter they
were still far from top tears were
generally reserved for counter picks a
top level and heavyweights without this
kind of extreme grappling capability
were still anomalies in the competitive
scene but it was certainly a notable
step-up in performance even if reliant
on fairly OneNote design moving into the
current smash title a major focus of
ultimate has been to diversify character
move sets while bringing them further
into balance with each other
this meant that Bowser and II case
throws which almost entirely defined to
the characters in smash 4 were reworked
again with thousands kill confirms
removed entirely and decays limited
although his overall grab game remains
excellent and still firmly categorizes
him as a grappler and the same could be
said for Bowser's multiple lethal throws
and powerful command grab ultimate also
pays considerably more attention to
traditional weaknesses of the archetype
and two pulls from a variety of
mechanics in an attempt to mitigate them
in terms of Universal mechanics they
benefit the most of anyone from the
three frame standardized jump squat as
in previous entries this was a major
factor used to hinder their mobility and
also functionally added extra startup to
their already unresponsive rising
aerials neutral is further improved with
a higher concentration of anti
projectile tools compared to previous
entries including King Dee Dee Dee's
improved inhale Bowser's improved fire
breath but I think most notably
demonstrated by Ultimates newcomer super
heavyweights both having a counter which
is effective against projectiles
additionally this indicates an increased
amount of attention paid to heavyweights
poor disadvantaged states which is also
seen through the increased role of armor
this time around armor is a tool
frequently given to heavyweight
characters and fighting games in order
to overcome their sluggishness and while
it's had a presence
previous smash games there's far more of
it on display an ultimate Donkey Kong
gained an armored headbutt King Dedede a
hammer Bowser had his tough-guy mechanic
from Smash for improved considerably and
gained some degree of armour and/or
invincibility on all his tilts and smash
attacks and in sinner are and king K
rule each come stocked with multiple
invincible or armored attacks with King
K rool in particular heavily utilizing a
unique belly armor mechanic both
newcomers also have access to
above-average recoveries for their
archetype but to clarify these are still
highly exploitable in fact a lot of the
considerations discussed haven't
necessarily panned out in practice
nearly as well as the developer is
likely intended that said comparing in
sinner R to Ganondorf who share a large
amounts of design space the difference
in approach between the newcomer and
veteran is on clear display Ganondorf
has arguably clung hardest to the peer
agility for power models seen most
prominently in earlier smash games and
while he does feel extremely destructive
as a result his reputation has
unfortunately fallen quite a bit despite
initially positive reception it's
difficult to say how good heavyweights
and ultimate are overall because even
after a year into the game's life
peerless still regularly shift but it
seems reasonable to say that they're
good enough the front runner is
generally agreed to be Bowser who
maintains all the strengths of the
archetype less of its typical frame data
and mobility weaknesses than usual while
receiving the full gamut of compensating
factors and a bit of extra spice thrown
in just because I consider other
highlights to be Donkey Kong's
consistently great grab game as well as
a surprisingly fluid aerial presence and
to the role that Charizard plays in
Pokemon trainers kicked now some of
Ultimates heavyweights in particular
still certainly do struggle and plenty
of matchups but are generally at least
reasonable to keep around as a pocket
character if you're comfortable with
them with a few borderline solo viable
fighters to be fair this applies to most
play styles in this game's roster but
maybe what the developers intended as a
sweet spot for this archetype in
particular they're very difficult to
balance and a true top tier heavy would
likely either need to be so absurdly
lethal that it would be very frustrating
to fight even at top level to say
nothing on how your little brother would
feel or have so many of its traditional
weaknesses mitigated that it would
significantly break the mold for this
type of character this was the approach
taken by rivals of ether an independent
platformer fighter while there are 4
characters in the game's roster that
could reasonably be called head
weights the only one who plays
particularly traditionally is Craig and
even then he taps into plenty of unique
design space Edda less becomes one of
the most rushed down heavy rivals thanks
to his unique ice mechanic and Silvano's
and Eleana
are clear hybrids with the zoner
archetype I think the most important
points to note though that these
characters are creative fun and balanced
and while the developers stepped away
from some of the archetypes conventions
to accomplish this it's a successful
approach and I'd love to see some of
these concepts further explored maybe
even in Smash heavies definitely had it
rough in the early days of smash
although as the series progressed and
new platform fighters came along we've
begun to see the concept better utilized
which as a fan of the archetype both as
a player and spectator I'm greatly
appreciative of these characters
inherently have debilitating flaws built
into their designs arguably more so than
any other type of fighter and while
overcoming these flaws can certainly be
a challenge whether we're talking about
as a player or a developer the
satisfaction from doing so as far as I'm
concerned is virtually unmatched in this
genre thanks for watching everyone and
hey if you liked it why not leave a like
let me know your thoughts on heavy ways
and if there's another architect you'd
strongly like to see tackled like this
feel free to drop it in the comments but
before that be sure to subscribe and hit
that notification bell follow me on
twitter at mr. mach rock to see what I'm
up to and check me out on patreon for
exclusive content early video access
discord discussions and other cool
rewards later people
I'm going to limit the content of this
video to memes which are relevant to
ultimate because as absolutely fantastic
is and we've just taken a look at the
best of every smash ultimate move and as
difficult as that list was to make oh my
god this was so much worse nothing like
trying to analyze a big ol pile of
obscure moves nobody uses or talks about