Three Loxodont Changes#772

Loxodont is pretty good right now, and one of the easiest characters in the game on top of that. I’d like to suggest a few changes to make him less oppressive in certain situations and more interesting in others.

1.) Small magma rework

Loxodont isn’t really rewarded for magma in a fun and interactive way. Eruption is neat, but all magma-powered strong attacks give him is the chance to throw out kill moves in neutral, or create an unavoidable checkmate situation.

Personally, I think it would be better overall for Lox players to have an empowered version of meatball (a version which would not also produce magma). It could bounce a few times like a Gordo, launch two meatballs at once or in quick succession, launch a stronger meatball, or anything. Just a way to make it more fun to use magma charges. If necessary, to balance this, the extra active magma frames from charging his strongs could be reduced or removed entirely.

2.) Recovery staling

Loxodont has a fairly interceptible recovery, but truly finishing him off from an edge guard is time-consuming. His combination of heavy weight, low gravity, and an infinite fall stall let him not only survive very long, but comfortably drift back from the blast zone to reach the wall with decent mixup potential. Rinse & repeat edge guards against him are difficult to pull off and not very rewarding. I think his unempowered down special should have a per-airtime limit, a cooldown, or some per-airtime staling on the air stall. This would make successfully edge guarding him more rewarding.

3.) More precision

A lot of Loxodont’s power at lower levels of play comes from how reliable his moves are. For the most part he does not need to be careful with what hitbox he lands in neutral, and there are a couple situations that aren’t as worrisome for him as they probably should be.

Firstly, jab 1 should have a barely shieldgrabbable and/or floorhug-grabbable sourspot. These are traits that apply to Clairen’s jab sourspot, and I very much think they should apply to Loxodont’s. As it stands, his jab is very hard to get in on, with mixups that cover every possible attempt to find a punish. The sourspot on the handle should really distinguish itself more from the tipper sweetspot.

Secondly, Lox’s magma hitboxes are still a bit generous. There are stray parts of the hitboxes – mainly the oblong connective hitbox running below the main ones on up strong – that will catch opponents who aren’t really even touching the lava, which is quite frustrating since the move already has such a huge presence and high reward. This move is worth a bit of hitbox cleanup.

How do I downvote/dislike a post

@Grabby Bug Write a Nolt post asking for a button lol

Empowered meatball sounds so dope

Empowered meatball that bounces would be cool. I also like the idea of an empowered side special with super armor.

Then nerf UStrong. It shouldn’t be as good as it is to spam that move.

I think the empowered meatball idea is pretty cool, even if i believe that meatball is already quite strong.

His empty down b already stales with each use per-airtime. I could see it staling more, but his recovery is fairly normal for this game already.

His jab 1 and jab 2 are both very unsafe on shield and quite shield grab-able.

@AnimatedJournalist874 I did not know that his down special already stales, because the optimal strategy for Loxodont is still to spam the move while falling as long as he’s not threatened. I do think it should stale more or have a per-airtime limit like Orcane down special got, not because it’s too strong, but because it makes it take too long to kill him with the types of checkmate rinse-and-repeat edge guards that characters already have against him. It draws out the inevitable and it’s not fun to do or watch.

His jab 1 is not shieldgrabbable or floorhug grabbable, as jab 2 comes out before the earliest possible grab out of shield or floorhug. There are jab 1s in the game that face a true shieldgrab or floorhug grab if buffered correctly – Olympia’s, which is fast, is one (shield only); and Clairen’s sourspot, which is big and very rewarding, is another.

Looking at the sweetspot and sourspot data for Lox jab 1 you can see that the different spots are essentially identically safe, which makes little sense for how big the move is and how much flexibility Loxodont has in cancelling it into other moves. Again, compare to Clairen’s jab, which has its own high reward sweetspot and bad sourspot. Lox’s jab 1 sweetspot may benefit from spacing, but it’s hardly a difference when perfectly timed counterattacks from shield and floorhug mostly don’t even get you a punish at point-blank range.

Jab 2 also very unsafe on fh and shield, so you can always floorhug shield if you think they are going to jab 2. You can also spotdodge to avoid any potential grabs, but of course that gets beaten out by other options. Jab is a great mixup tool but it does have consistent counterplay as long as you are willing to play the mixup. Every character in the game has mixups off of their jab, so I don’t understand why Loxodont can’t have them either.

@AnimatedJournalist874 I’m not saying Lox can’t have jab mixups – not sure where that idea came from. Clairen has mixups from her jab even though hers is technically shieldgrabbable. Lox’s jab 1 should be similar. The jab game should be Lox’s reward for spacing jab 1 well or for catching his opponent unprepared to shieldgrab or floorhug grab it; after all, jab 1 is big and the mixup goes strongly in his favor. The optimal strategy for Lox is to sit and jab 1 over and over, ideally under a platform, because he cannot truly be punished for doing that. It would be nice if a well-timed dash into sourspot range followed by a buffered shieldgrab or floorhug grab in a tight window could punish that sort of play. It would force Lox to worry a bit about the spacing of his jab, and even then he wouldn’t be met with consistent punishes due to how tight the window would be before jab 2 can come out.