Mecha Absa Mid-Month Skin

Absa is powered up and ready to roll in our latest bundle that includes the Mecha Absa skin, emote, icon, and a brand new cosmetic category - CRITICAL HIT! The bundle also includes 25,000 coins and 250 Aether bucks.

The Critical Hit effect is the first of its kind and can be set to replace the standard purple kill screen.

NA R2CS Event Bundle: Riptide

Fans of Rivals of Aether may recognize this palette with his flowery pants and killer tan. We’re excited to share the Riptide Pool Party Ranno palette! This is the first esport palette to break the mold of the R2CS Season 1 sports theme - even athletes need a vacation, right? Pick up the new palette and rep Riptide to show your support. If you buy the bundle but already own the base skin, you’ll receive an Aether Bucks refund to make it even, just like with our other bundles. Keep an eye out for more circuit palettes in the future as we prepare to announce the second half of the R2CS! This palette is FREE for all players attending Riptide. 

You can check out upcoming & past events and the region leaderboards on our official league page.

New Shop Items

• Purple Mecha Kragg Palette

• Black Mecha Etalus Palette

• Yellow Mecha Clairen Palette

• Midnight Mecha Wrastor Palette

• Earlybird Wrastor Icon

• Driftmunk Facepalm Emote

• Avatar Fleet Icon

• Avatar Lennington Icon

• Push Pin Absa Icon

Balance

Important note for Collision 2025 attendees: Collision will be run on the previous patch, meaning these balance changes will NOT be active at the event. Players wishing to practice on the previous patch may do so by right clicking the game in Steam > properties > Betas > Click the dropdown > previous_version.

• Overhead HUD will now be centered on the character's origin instead of following their model.

  • This allows you to more easily tell when an attack will reverse hit, since you can just look at the difference between your opponent's overhead HUD location and your own.

• Jump speed horizontal max joystick influence multiplier: x0.5 > x0.25

  • This reduces the amount of speed you can lose by holding backward during a dash jump, making it harder to do retreating aerials after running toward the opponent. It also slightly decreases the maximum horizontal speed you can get when doing a stationary jump, like jumping out of shield. It does not affect the momentum of a forward jump while dashing/running.

• Pivoting during dash will now retain 20% of your momentum

• Dashing will no longer clear your horizontal speed before applying your dash speed

  • This makes dash speed retain some of your previous momentum. Combined with the pivot momentum change, this makes dash dancing take a bit longer to accelerate in the other direction. Your dash cannot be slowed down by more than 50%, regardless of your previous momentum. This also means your dash can no longer slow you down, which could happen previously if you were moving faster than your dash speed before dashing (e.g. Etalus wavedashing before dashing on ice)

• Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where inputting an invalid attack would prevent certain other attacks

  • For example, if you pressed Strong + Grab while releasing your shield, the grab would be locked out as long as the Strong input was still in the buffer, even though you can normally grab during that state.

• Grounded spikes (like aerial spikes) will now also receive a tumble threshold adjustment with a minimum multiplier of x0.875.

  • This means that grounded spikes will start sending into tumble a bit earlier, meaning spikes won't flinch opponents for as long. The reason the minimum grounded spike tumble threshold multiplier is higher than the aerial spike version (x0.75) is because grounded spikes directly change the knockback scaling of a move, not the final knockback velocity, so using the same multiplier would make grounded spikes send into tumble much earlier than aerial spikes.

• Ledge canceling an attack will now always cancel parry stun, regardless of whether they entered parry stun yet or not

  • Previously, they would get stunned as soon as they ledge canceled the parried attack. This is how it worked in Rivals 1 and makes situations like this feel more consistent overall.

• A 10 frame ledge grab lockout timer is now applied when non-tumble hitstun states end.

  • This helps prevent the ledge from getting stolen when hitting the opponent with a weak recovery move, like Wrastor or Absa's Up Special.

• Floorhugging now requires your left joystick's Y value to be below horizontal.

  • This makes floorhugging more committal, since you can't just hold the right stick downward while still being able to get good DI anymore, which was a problem with specific control schemes that were able to hold the right stick down while doing other actions too easily.

• Bug fix: Air friction will no longer be applied when air dodging

  • This caused air dodges to gain less horizontal distance than intended.

• Characters that get their shield broken will now be fully inactionable until they hit the ground.

  • This increases the reward for successfully breaking a shield. If there is no ground below them, they will plummet all the way to the blastzone.

• Bug fix: Jump inputs will now be cleared when fullhopping/shorthopping

  • This fixes a bug that allowed players to buffer a frame-perfect double jump when pressing three different jump buttons during jump squat.

• Articles that spawn in the ground will now prioritize escaping the ground backward instead of upward if they have horizontal velocity.

  • This prevents certain projectiles from teleporting upward when spawned below the ledge.

• The side blastzones will now expand by 1m for characters who are not in hitstun, just like the bottom blastzone.

  • This makes moves that carry the opponent into the blastzone consistently KO the opponent before the attacker. It also has the side effect of preventing situations where you buffer a special move out of hitstun and the residual horizontal knockback velocity carries you into the blastzone when a double jump toward stage would've saved you by counteracting the knockback velocity.

• Taunts can now be canceled into the Teeter state.

• Forward Special air friction: 0.36 > 0.15

  • This lets Wrastor use this move in the air without losing quite as much speed.

• Ledge Attack will now lose its intangibility after the first active window instead of the second active window.

  • This better offsets the strengths of this ledge attack and makes it consistent with other 2-hit ledge attacks, like Orcane's.

• Pillar's rising hitboxes lowered 30cm

  • This makes it a little less risky for opponents to punish pillar from above, as it would frequently clip their feet from far below.

• Bug fix: Hitting pillar with an article that is attached to a player (i.e. Clairen Neutral Special) will now restore their walljump the same way that hitting it with a physical hit does.

As the fastest character in the game, Maypul excels at both offense and defense. This patch aims to tone down some of her outstanding strengths, such as her ability to wall out with Forward Tilt, her ease of keeping opponents marked, and her uncharacteristically strong recovery. Even after these changes, we expect she will still sit high up on tier lists, as the versatility of her core design makes her power level quite resilient. We're also giving Terry a few changes to make him a bit more useful in her kit.

• Forearms hurtboxes expanded slightly to cover her hands more.

  • This makes some of her leaf blade attacks a little bit less disjointed.

• Air acceleration: 0.8 > 0.7

  • This adds more commitment to her incredibly fast approaches, since she has the highest airspeed in the game.

• Grabbing Maypul will now remove her mark from you.

  • This only applies if the mark came from the Maypul you grab. This gives players a more consistent way to remove mark, since it is so easy to apply with Neutral Special.

• Neutral Special's seed can no longer break projectiles.

  • This creates more counterplay to Maypul tossing seeds often in neutral.

• Forward Special hitboxes shrunk and moved backward.

  • This reduces the disjoint of this move, allowing it to be intercepted easier.

• Aerial Down Special knockback: 8 + 0.3 @ 90 > 8 + 0.5 @ 80

  • The increased knockback scaling helps to prevent looping this move repeatedly on fastfallers, while the lower angle allows DI away to be more effective while also giving Maypul the opportunity to cross-up for DI mixups.

• Terry damage: 3% > 5%

• Terry knockback: 7 + 0.3 @ 60 > 7 + 0.4 @ 50

  • This increases the utility of Terry's attack, both when spawned and when swatting a seed away.

• Terry seed detection radius: 40 > 65

  • This makes it more lenient to activate Terry's attack, especially when an opponent is nearby.

• All Forward Tilt hitboxes radius: 50 > 40

  • This reduces the range and disjoint of this move slightly in all directions.

• Downward-angled Forward Tilt animation changed slightly so it doesn't hit as low.

  • Along with the hitbox shrinking, this reduces its potency at ledge.

• Forward Tilt recovery: 17 > 19

  • We want to make this move slightly riskier to throw out in neutral.

• Neutral Air early hit knockback: 7 + 0.5 @ 45 > 6 + 0.58 @ 50

  • This makes it slightly worse when used after tether to KO off the side. This also makes the mixup of Neutral/Up Air after tethering to an opponent more viable, since inward DI will send more upward, allowing it to KO off the top better when the opponent guesses wrong.

• Neutral Air late hit knockback: 5 + 0.3 @ 45 > 4.25 + 0.48 @ 50

  • The angle is being adjusted to match the early hit and we're adjusting the knockback to make the late hit have more varied applications at low vs high percents.

• Neutral Air recovery: 12 > 15

  • Small increase to the commitment when using Neutral Air offstage, both as an edgeguard and a combo finisher. Combined with the knockback angle changes, this will often put opponents higher above Maypul after they get hit by an offstage Neutral Air.

• Forward Air knockback angle: 320 > 325

  • The intent is to make DI out more effective at avoiding followups, such as another Forward Air.

• Forward Air innermost hitbox radius: 50cm > 35cm

  • This reduces the backward range of the move.

• Up Air body hitbox radius: 80 > 60

  • This decreases the effectiveness of this move when an opponent is below Maypul while not really changing anything if they're not.

• Ledge Attack will now lose its intangibility after the first active window instead of the second active window.

  • This better offsets the strengths of this ledge attack and makes it consistent with other 2-hit ledge attacks, like Orcane's.

We're cleaning up a few of her tippers that can be frustrating for her opponents, such as Forward Tilt, Up Tilt, and Forward Air, as well as some that can be frustrating for Clairen herself, like Forward Strong. We're also changing the functionality of the early hits of Down Air so that she has to space the move more precisely in order to spike the opponent. This patch also addresses her Forward Special being a bit too hard to intercept while also being difficult to punish on whiff.

• Sending a crouching opponent into flinch with a tipper will no longer apply tipper stun

  • This interaction made Clairen a bit too good against crouch canceling. With this change, she will still be in advantage, but will have less time for a followup.

• Forward Special intangibility starts on frame: 10 > 16

  • This makes the window for punishing her startup larger. Now the intangibility starts as soon as she starts moving.

• Forward Special grounded recovery on whiff: 25 > 30

• Forward Special special land on whiff duration: 15 > 24

  • This move was a bit too difficult to whiff punish, so we're adding some recovery to make the risk better match the reward.

• Up Special will no longer cut Clairen's horizontal velocity in half when she lands

  • This makes it a bit easier to ledge cancel her Up Special.

• Down Special's plasma field will now be destroyed when Clairen is KOd.

• Ledge Special hit 1 hitpause multiplier against grounded opponents: x1.2 > x1.4

  • This makes hit 2 less likely to whiff against super-floaty characters, like Absa.

• Forward Tilt tipper removed on the first active frame.

  • This tipper was positioned in a way that was only really useful for hitting opponents below/behind Clairen, which led to some awkward tipper hits.

• Up Tilt tipper hitbox radius: 50 > 35, hitbox moved 15cm outward to preserve its range.

  • This reduces the downward range on the first and last active frames.

• Up Tilt animation changed so that the first and last active frames don't hit as low.

• Up Tilt innermost sourspot radius: 50 > 40, hitbox moved 30cm down her arm.

  • This makes the hitbox move with her arm instead of staying stationary on her shoulder, decreasing the inward range of the move, especially during the first and last few active frames.

• Up Tilt's first 3 frames now send at 72 degrees, while the last 4 frames send at 77. Previously, it was 75 degrees for the move's entire duration.

  • Because the early hit is much easier to land than the late hit, we want the reward to shift to reflect that.

• Forward Strong's sourspot hitbox moved slightly backward on the 2nd active and after.

• Forward Strong's 2nd active frame's tipper now reaches slightly farther forward.

  • The previous positioning of this hitbox made landing the tipper extremely inconsistent, since the width of the tipper area varied greatly throughout the swing. This change aims to smooth out the tipper area, making it a more consistent width throughout the whole swing.

• Forward Strong's tipper and outer sourspot moved inward by 10cm at the bottom of the swing.

  • This makes these hitboxes move almost straight downward from the previous active frame, reducing some situations where the move would sourspot in situations where it felt like it should tipper. This also reduces the tipper range slightly at the bottom of the swing.

• Forward Strong sourspot knockback: 7 + 0.75 > 6.5 + 0.825

• Down Strong sourspot knockback: 7 + 0.85 > 7 + 0.925

  • These sourspots often felt overly weak even at extremely high percents, so we're increasing the scaling a bit, with a slight decrease to Forward Strong's base knockback to make sure it's not overly rewarding too early.

• Neutral Air recovery: 15 > 17

  • Slight increase in endlag to make comboing afterward a bit tighter.

• Forward Air innermost hitbox radius: 50 > 35

  • This applies to both hits, reducing the backward range slightly.

• Forward Air hit 1 sourspot knockback angle: 82 > 72

  • This makes it less likely for DI in to result in hit 2 reversing.

• Forward Air hit 2 sourspot knockback: 6 + 0.35 > 6 + 0.55

  • Slight increase to the scaling so it doesn't combo for free at extremely high percents.

• Forward Air's reverse tippers are now just regular sourspots, not tippers.

  • This makes landing the reverse hit less rewarding, since it won't stun the opponent any more.

• Forward Air hit 2's innermost sourspot now has the same knockback as the other sourspots.

  • Previously, the innermost sourspot sent at a higher angle than the other sourspots, making it better at comboing.

• Up Air sourspot knockback: 7 + 0.45 @ 80 > 5.6 + 0.7 @ 75

• Up Air sourspot hitstun multiplier: x0.9 > x1.0

  • This increases the knockback at higher percents, while also increasing the effectiveness of DI away. The lower knockback angle also lets us remove the hitstun multiplier on the move, since it won't be as good at comboing into itself.

• Removed the first active frame of Down Air, increasing the startup from 15 to 16.

• The new first active frame has a sourspot that stretches upward to the same range as the previous first active frame.

  • With this change, she will be mostly unable to spike an opponent above her and will instead get a sourspot hit.

• Down Air early body sourspot moved more behind Clairen, and radius: 50 > 55

• Added a new sourspot to the base of her sword on the 2nd active frame of Down Air that has priority over the tippers.

  • This makes Down Air function like a normal tipper move instead of giving the tippers higher priority, making her have to space more horizontally to get the early tipper.

While Orcane's unorthodox kit can make him difficult to pilot, his fast movement, quick normals, strong zoning tools, and top tier recovery make him a clear contender for the strongest Rival. With all these strengths, he starts to lose his identity and falls back to basic fundamentals instead, which isn't what we envisioned for our slippery whale dog. To remedy this, we're toning down his burst movement speed and recovery, while also removing some of the mechanics that make using his zoning tools a bit too risky.

• Dash speed: 19.8 > 16

• Max horizontal jump speed: 19.8 > 16

  • Orcane's horizontal burst movement potential was a bit high, considering how slippery he is and how generally fast his attacks are. We're toning down both his initial dash speed and horizontal jump speed so that he's not such a speed demon. Note that this does not affect his hydroplane speed, since his run speed was unchanged.

• Short hop speed: 17 > 18.4

  • This increases the height of his shorthop by around 18cm and increases the time spent airborne by 2 frames when not fastfalling.

• Bubble spawn locations are no longer random and instead spawn using preset patterns.

  • This applies to Forward Air, Down Special, and Up Throw. This reduces the randomness of the bubbles slightly, although they still have randomized movement after spawning.

• Frames between bubble hits: 10 > 7

  • This makes more bubbles hit the opponent on average, increasing the reward for trapping an opponent in bubbles, especially if they get caught in the center of the cluster of bubbles. Getting hit by more bubbles also gives opponents more chances to ASDI out, which should help larger characters escape a bit easier. This also prevents opponents from floorhugging or crouch canceling a bubble and then parrying the next one.

• Bubble hitpause: 4 > 3

  • This makes sure opponents aren't trapped for too long with the shorter time between bubbles.

• Getting hit by a bubble will now put parry on a 10 frame cooldown.

  • This prevents floorhug parrying bubbles even if subsequent bubbles whiff for a few frames after the initial hit.

• Bubbles will now be destroyed when Orcane is hit.

  • This rewards opponents for breaking through Orcane's zoning tools.

• Puddle will now turn into a falling droplet when the ground beneath it disappears, reforming into a puddle upon landing.

  • This only affects a few niche scenarios, but makes it so the puddle doesn't get completely deleted without any input from Orcane.

• Forward Special can no longer fastfall until it enters the Special Fall window.

  • This brings it in line with other similar moves, making it more committal before being able to drop quickly.

• Forward Special is no longer intangible during the travel frames.

  • Previously, this move allowed Orcane to reach the wall with no chance of being intercepted, allowing him to easily wall tech any attempt to hit him during the move's vulnerable window. This problem was compounded by the distance that Orcane covers with the teleport. This change allows opponents to intercept Orcane before he reaches the wall, adding some counterplay to this extremely strong recovery tool. This does not apply to his Empowered Forward Special.

• Forward Special initial startup window length: 10 > 15

• Forward Special travel frames: 10 > 5

• Forward Special travel speed doubled so that the distance is unchanged

  • This keeps the timing of the attack the same, but minimizes the time that Orcane spends traveling, making intercepting it a bit more difficult.

• Up Special cancel can no longer fastfall until it enters the Special Fall window

  • This prevents Orcane from quickly falling to grab ledge, making his intangible ledge stall much less lenient and reducing his mixups when recovering high.

• Up Special cancel landing lag: 22 > 30

  • More opportunity for punishing Orcane after forcing him to recover on stage.

• Orcahop max vertical speed will now decrease by 3 cm/frame with each use until Orcane touches the ground or grabs the ledge, with a minimum of 20 cm/frame (the maximum is 35 cm/frame).

  • This rewards players for intercepting Orcane's recovery, since it will lose height each time he uses it.

• Forward Tilt's head hurtbox is now intangible starting on frame 5 until the first recovery frames

  • This makes the startup harder to interrupt from a long range.

• Up Tilt center hitbox radius: 60 > 50

• Up Tilt side hitbox radii: 60 > 40

  • This makes the move a bit thinner so that it's harder to chain together multiple times.

• Down Tilt sweetspot knockback: 7.5 + 0.4 @ 75 > 6.5 + 0.5 @ 72

  • This makes it weaker at low percents and then stronger around 84%, making it more dynamic at different percents. The angle change is very slight, but makes it so opponents will go straight up when they DI in and go a little bit farther forward on DI out.

• Forward Strong recovery: 26 > 30

• Empowered Forward Strong recovery: 32 > 34

  • This move was too difficult to punish in many situations.

• Neutral Air cooldown on bounce: 2 > 3

  • At some point, it became possible to chain Neutral Air bounces together. This is not intended, so we're extending the cooldown by 1 frame to prevent it.

• Forward Air's horizontal speed will be clamped to Orcane's max horizontal air speed when it hits a shield.

  • This increases the reward for shielding this move.

• Up Air sourspot knockback angle: 70 > 75

  • This makes it less likely for it to KO off the side at high percents, while making sure that DI out still helps escape Up Air loops.

• Up Air spike hitbox now has an early hit with knockback: 5 + 0.4 > 6 + 0.5 during the first 2 frames.

• Up Air spike hitbox late hit knockback: 5 + 0.4 > 4.5 + 0.4

  • This gives Orcane more reward for landing the early spike hit, while keeping the late hitbox fairly similar to before, due to its decaying base knockback.

• Forward Throw knockback: 9 + 0.55 > 9 + 0.6

• Empowered Forward Throw knockback: 10 + 0.7 > 10 + 0.75

  • Slight increase in knockback scaling for both versions of Forward Throw, so that Orcane can KO opponents with them a bit earlier.

• Getup Special's furthest tail hitbox will now come out 2 frames later.

  • This prevents the move from hitting below the platform under Orcane.

Etalus has received a plethora of buffs and quality-of-life changes since his initial release, putting him in a very solid spot amongst the cast. We've got a few more of those to go around, but we also want to address some of the more overcentralizing moves, such as Down Air and Down Tilt, as well as lowering his air acceleration, as it allowed him to play a little too safe with his offense. Like a lot of the other recently changed characters, his recovery is also getting a form of diminishing returns so that opponents are rewarded more for intercepting him.

• Knockback velocity will now decay at the normal rate when on ice.

  • Previously, he would maintain too much horizontal momentum after teching, which could lead to him slipping off a ledge in unexpected cases.

• Air acceleration: 0.85 > 0.75

  • This reduces the effectiveness of approaching with an aerial and then retreating to make it safe. His air acceleration is still 0.85 during Up Special's launch window.

• Weight with Ice Armor: 150 > 180

  • This significantly increases his survivability with Ice Armor.

• Forward Special cooldown: 75 > 100

  • This decreases the effectiveness of repeated Forward Specials when edgeguarding opponents.

• Up Special's maximum charge time will now decrease by 5 frames for each use until Etalus touches the ground.

  • This rewards opponents for intercepting his recovery. The usage count will only go up when he actually launches himself upward, so he will not be penalized for getting hit during the startup or canceling the startup with an airdodge.

• Bug fix: Losing Ice Armor during Up Special will now also remove his super armor

• Special Pummel knockback against aerial opponents: 1 + 0.0 > 4 + 0.3

  • This makes it more rewarding for Etalus when the opponent happens to slide offstage after activating his Special Pummel.

• Jab 2's speed boost now happens 1 frame earlier.

  • This makes tilt boosting consistently give the speed boost instead of going nowhere when performed as early as possibly.

• Jab 3 sourspot knockback: 5 + 0.25 @ 65 > 5 + 0.45 @ 55

  • This sourspot was extremely bad on hit, so we're making it a little better so Etalus isn't punished as hard for landing it.

• His head and chest hurtboxes are now projectile-intangible during Dash Attack's active frames.

  • This change prevents some specific situations where projectiles could go over his projectile killer hitbox and hit his back.

• Forward Tilt 1's back hitbox knockback: 4 + 0 > 6 + 0

  • This should make it more consistently link into hit 2 when hitting an opponent with the innermost part of Forward Tilt 1.

• Down Tilt part 2 recovery: 16 > 20

  • This makes choosing to do the 2nd hit a bit higher of a commitment, since previously it had the exact same recovery as Down Tilt part 1. This also reduces his followups afterward a bit, since they were a little too lenient for our liking.

• Up Strong now has a small hitbox in the center of his body on the first active frame

  • This helps prevent it from whiffing against small characters at point-blank range.

• Back Air active frames: 3 > 4

  • This makes it match the visual better, while also giving him a bit more coverage behind him in the air. The recovery frames were adjusted to keep the same IASA frame as before.

• Down Air recovery frames: 21 > 24

  • This adds a little bit of commitment when using this move offstage.

• Down Air landing lag: 12 > 14

  • This move was pretty safe to throw out, with its large hitboxes, long active frames, unique momentum stall, and incredible reward on hit, so we're adding a bit of landing lag to tone it down.

Olympia's combo game is extremely strong, especially with the consistency of her Up Special as a finisher. While that is a core part of her design, we want to make sure her combos don't become stale, so we're making a few changes that give opponents more agency when launched by some of her more potent combo moves, such as Down Tilt, Up Air, and Up Throw. We've also noticed that the strength of her gem toss as a neutral tool disincentivizes her from having her gem field deployed, so we're toning it down to balance out its utility a bit more.

• Gem Toss startup: 8 > 11

  • This makes it slightly more reactable in neutral at medium to long ranges.

• Gem Toss damage: 5% > 4%

• Gem Toss knockback: 4 + 0.1 > 3.5 + 0.1

• Gem Toss base knockback will now decay from 3.5 to 2 throughout its active window.

  • This makes having her gem field deployed less of a detriment to her general gameplan, since the projectile is less rewarding on hit.

• Gem Dash traveling hitbox moved backward.

  • This reduces the disjoint of this move, allowing it to be intercepted easier.

• Forward Special front hitbox removed.

  • This reduces the disjoint of this move, allowing it to be intercepted easier.

• Forward Special goes on cooldown for 50 frames on startup.

  • This prevents ledge refreshes with repeated Forward Specials without affecting other general use cases.

• Up Special multihit hitboxes no longer interpolate.

  • This makes them less disjointed from below.

• Up Special final hit back hitbox removed.

  • This hitbox was unnecessary for linking well and usually just ended up causing unexpected hits against opponents trying to punish it instead.

• Up Special startup: 7 > 10

  • We want to make this move very slightly harder to combo into, since it is such a consistent finisher.

• Up Special final hit knockback: 7 + 0.85 > 7 + 0.82

  • We're lowering the knockback scaling so that it kills slightly later.

• Down Special's Armored window will now fall faster with each use, reaching normal max fall speed on the 3rd use.

  • This does not affect the use of this move if it is canceled immediately, but reduces the positional mixup potential of holding the charge and canceling late.

• Dash Attack recovery: 21 > 25

  • This move was slightly too hard to punish for its speed.

• Forward Tilt now has a late hit for the last 3 active frames with knockback: 5.5 + 0.85 @ 40 > 3.5 + 0.85 @ 45

  • This move has a fairly long active window, but was the same strength for the entire time, making it feel weird when it would hit with the later frames and still be just as strong.

• Forward Tilt hitpause multiplier: x1.0 > x1.2

  • This gives opponents a little more time to react to the move, making it less effective as a surprise DI mixup.

• Down Tilt knockback angle: 80 > 75

  • Still extremely good, but good DI will be more effective against it.

• Neutral Air hit 2 knockback: 7 + 0.6 > 5.5 + 0.7

  • This move was sending into tumble a bit too early, so we're reducing the base knockback and increasing the knockback scaling.

• Up Air early and mid hits knockback angle: 70 > 65

  • This makes outward DI more effective for escaping repeated Up Air combos.

• Up Throw recovery: 30 > 32

  • Slight decrease to the followups after this extremely versatile throw.

• Up Special can no longer fastfall until it reaches the Special Fall window.

  • Absa has very low lag if she lands before entering Special Fall. Without fastfalling, this means she has to end the Up Special movement fairly close to the ground in order to avoid the long landing lag.

• Forward Tilt part 2 is now a real projectile instead of just being a large physical hitbox

  • This fixes a few interactions, like it being able to break Kragg's pillar while it was projectile-immune or it not reflecting to hit Absa when parried.

• Bug fix: Down Throw now ignores weight like all other throws.

• Bug fix: Pummeling an opponent will no longer detach cloud after Absa sticks it to herself.

As always, thank you for sticking with us through the end of this massive patch notes read. Our New Nolt Board is now active and ready for your feedback!