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Balance La Reina's uair by having folding table put her into pratfall#833

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In La Reina’s RoA1 Workshop version, two successive uairs or uspecials will put her into pratfall, rendering her unable to perform any actions except wall jump; in contrast, her RoA2 version is able to jump off of both the initial ring and the folding table while remaining actionable. This has very evidently resulted in a degenerate strategy wherein La Reina kidnaps her opponent with uair and forces them into a DI trap that’s deadly at extremely early %s (sorry, Corncycle):


Even if her opponent does not outright die from uair into uair or uair into fair, they’re put in an extremely disadvantageous position while La Reina is able to jump off of the folding table and easily return to the ledge to continue to edgeguard. Additionally, La Reina’s recovery itself is dynamic and difficult to contest, often resulting in reversals off of up special and side special even when La Reina whiffs the initial uair and her opponent is in a position to edgeguard.

The risk:reward ratio of this option is excessively skewed. I think there are two ways to address this issue:

1.) Simply put La Reina into pratfall after her second uair or up special, like RoA1. This would allow La Reina players to do 2 uairs or up specials if they’re close to the wall or if they’re willing to trade a stock for a suicide kill, similar to how Olympia can suicide kill with up special.

2.) Reduce La Reina’s aerial drift during uair and / or allow opponents to influence the direction of her aerial drift, similar to how Bowser’s side special functions in Smash 4 / Ultimate. Part of the problem with the uair DI trap is how easy it is to put your opponent in a position where their only option is to die, or DI in… and die. Combo’ing into a single uair off the outer platforms on Godai Delta, Hodojo, or Julesvale, for example, is enough to get your opponent 70-80% of the way to the blast zone.

For the record, I have 95 levels in La Reina and I love this character, but this is by all accounts a degenerate strategy that needs to be addressed. It isn’t just a problem when you’re playing against La Reina, but when you’re playing as her as well. It’s easy, it’s boring, it’s frustrating, and it reduces an otherwise extremely fun character to a simple, easy-to-execute win condition that plays out in a predictable way.

19 hours ago
L

Maybe they could make it so that you’re resources aren’t restored when you land on the folding table? i.e. if you already spent your midair jump and/or air dodge it won’t get restored. I do feel like completely neutering the option isn’t really the ideal approach as it is a fundamental part of La Reina’s identity at this point.

14 hours ago