Slade Experiment Idea?#211

I’ve been seeing a greater sentiment grow with the community, the Slade is annoying to fight, and that his player base finds him underpowered and not as fun as he could be.
Personally I think Slade is an okay character, and that eventually the community will grow to accept his gameplay, whether it’s small tweaks or time itself showing his potential.

Although watching the many Orcane changes that have happened the past few months, seeing how there’s been changes to try and please players who found the character to be really annoying, but also found all changes to his original side special made the move uninteresting, it’s made me wonder how other characters could have a big shake up for the betterment of the players maining a character, and the players fighting against the characters. And I think Slade’s currently an example of a character where both lovers and haters of the character are feeling frustrated.

Granted I must preface that lovers and haters of the Orcane changes have remained divisive even now. Orcane’s new side special was met with both praise and critcism, praise that despite other changes like a weight nerf and move nerfs, the new side special was welcomed by many for adding more depth to the character. While others took it as an example of a player base complaining so loudly that they actually got their character heavily changed. And we’re going through this again with puddle timer discussions.

However the difference between the two is that Orcane’s has had a lot more time to develop, Slade hasn’t, and even Slade doesn’t have any moves that were quite as “boring” as Orcane’s original side special. I don’t think feel Slade needs anything signifcant like new moves to be more fun, more interactive, and less frustrating, but I am very curious what significant stat changes and a change to neutral special could do for the character.

They’re not the most original suggestions, it’s really just a weight decrease, movement speed increase, he can’t access his neutral special if he lacks the currency neccessary, and adjusting the currency rate for his items. However in compensation, Slade can have one free shuriken per stock.

The main reason I’d like a weight decrease and speed increase is that besides being more authentic to the character’s appearance in Dungeons of Aether, is that Slade lives pretty long for a character who doesn’t wants to play keep away. He’s not the heaviest character in the game, slightly heavier than Zetterburn, but he still lives pretty long, and I think most players would prefer a more Young Link rather than Link stat spread where he has better movement speed, but coming across the cost of his weight.

But just because you nerf Slade’s weight and make him faster, doesn’t mean he’ll start being more interactive, if anything you might make the problem worse. You could remmedy this by removing his ability to always pull free shurikens when at 0 currency, and also make his items slightly more expensive. But I do think it would feel bad to start the round without a neutral special, so I do think Slade should be allowed to pull at least one free shuriken per stock.

Not really sure if it’s the best idea, I feel like Slade’s already a pretty complicated character and this would raise his complexity even more. And I still think the way he currently is, works just fine. But I do think the idea of a faster Slade who loses stocks earlier, but his to be even more mindful of which items he could pull, instead of always having access to easy zoning, would be more engaging for everyone. Maybe? You tell me! It’d be fun to see what other people think of Slade at the moment and what changes he could use, if he needs any.

Honestly, I’d like to see Slade considered for one of the early Remix Rivals. A faster, lighter, weaker version of this moveset (maybe without the money mechanic and with a simpler down and neutral special) would be perfect to give us the Toon/Young Link that this game is missing

I really like that this game has a proper Link analogue for smash players to make the jump with, but having played Dungeons of Aether, I definitely wish he felt faster and slipperier (and it’s pretty obvious other people seem to feel the same way). So a clone could give us the best of both worlds IMO

Slade seems to be a solo act, but maybe once upon a time he was part of a proper pirate crew, and “Toon Slade” can be a former part of that. He could be Slade’s old captain or first mate or boyfriend or something, depending on where the writers wanna go with it. I’m picturing a short lil Piranha guy with a handaxe for some visual variety. Or maybe one of those gross little fish kids Orcane helps out in his story mode in RoA1

That would fall under the same camp where people want a Falco/Roy analogue for Zetterburn/Clairen yeah? Although in the case of Slade, I can’t say I’m too interested in two of them. Unlike Zetterburn and Clairen, he’s not exactly the most popular moveset on the roster, he’s not straightforward to play either, he’s pretty complicated.

Even if Remix Rivals can change up the gameplay style significantly while reusing most assets, not every character needs a direct analogue IMO, for a while I’ve been thinking that Clairen and Zetterburn perfectly serve the roles they need to, without needing to commit to making another counterpart like a Roy or Falco. Chances are if you like one, you will like the other. But now that we have Remix Rivals, I believe it’s worth looking at popular clones/semi clones desired to have direct representation, and personally Young Link and Toon Link don’t strike me as unique variants that are worth creating a Remix Rival for.

They don’t quite have the unique stats and unique gimmicks that other clones do. It really was just “here’s Link, don’t like how slow and heavy he is? Here’s another one.” It doesn’t seem like most players are satisfied with Slade’s current gameplay, so I do think they can just adjust weight and speed on him directly.

I don’t think Slade NEEDS a clone by any means but I also think there are a number of good reasons the devs didn’t make him faster than he is. Obviously people still want a faster slade, though, so I think a remix would be a good solution to preserve current Slade while also giving people a faster option. Link’s a pretty popular character from a casual perspective, and having someone who plays similarly but doesn’t have the intimidating treasure/shop mechanics would add more value to the game’s cast than a Clairen But Roy would IMO. And ideally, they’d be decloned a bit more than young/toon link are from main Link, maybe with a bit more melee focus so it doesn’t end up a keepaway hit and run zoning monster