Zetter's dair needs to be looked at#845

While I don’t think Zetter is overall overtuned right now (although he is probably on the stronger end of the cast), his dair is a frustrating tool that has very low risk, takes very little thought or skill to use, and leads to insane amounts of reward. The combination of the insane width of the move and Zetter’s incredible air speed and acceleration means that a shorthop dair can cover an egregious amount of space, and it is safe on shield. In fact, because of shine, him hitting dair on your shield means that YOU are now in a mixup where you can either parry his shine, which loses to him grabbing or dashing back, or try and shieldgrab him, which gets you blown up if he shines since you can no longer floorhug the shine and ALSO can lose to him dashing back. On hit, the move is obviously very rewarding, which I don’t think needs to be changed that much; it deals maybe a little too much damage, but it being a spike means it should be rewarding on hit.

Again, I don’t think Zetter is overtuned right now, but I do think dair in particular is. Zetter’s grab game at low % is already just fine, and he has other tools to beat floorhug at 0 too (DA gatling will beat any FH reversals, he can space his fair to be safe against floorhug, etc), so nerfing dair will not leave him in a terrible spot overall, while still making him much less frustrating to play against.

I’m not sure exactly what the nerf could be. I think the ones I’m most fond of include reducing the width of the hitbox, reducing the damage dealt, slightly increasing landing lag, or increasing startup. Any of these individually would already make the move easier to deal with, and a combination of 2 of these would be greatly appreciated - but I don’t know, and a different change entirely might be better.

My goal with this post is not to complain about Zetter, but to reduce the amount of mindlessness of the character. Right now, there are Zetters who get to diamond or higher by only knowing how to dair, and that’s all they need. I think there are quite a few moves like that in the game, but Zetter dair is by far the most egregious. I don’t think it needs huge changes, but a few targeted nerfs would encourage using his other tools, which are also very strong.

Because of his attributes it’s one of those moves that’s never not good

“it’s one of those moves that’s never not good”
that is one of the main issues i have with char design. so many chars have so many “do it all moves”.

His other tools to beat FH are extremely inconsistent so I’m not sure if changing his dair wouldn’t actually just break the character.

Grabs at 0 either lead to uthrow ustrong or to litteraly nothing, this gets better with a tad more % but hitting those actually is risky if not done with dair BECAUSE of FH

Gatling doesn’t beat CC reliably anymore, the option disconnects a lot even against etalus’ big body and can even be amsah teched so it also loses reliability at higher % ranges. Though I’d the current state of gatling is relatively fine because being able to hit a strong too easily would be a bad idea (I see you loxodont).

Even when spaced at max range, his range is shield grabbable by a lot of characters out of FH, and it’s a situation that happens a lot

Mindless zetterburn players are actually pretty punishable if you don’t panick against their mash, at higher level of play it does get overwhelming though, but that’s precisely the point of a rushdown character. Considering he’s the last one in the game after oly’s nerfs, and that he actually runs slower than needed to be perfectly safe, I feel like nerfing dair would be the last nail in the coffin for the rushdown archetype

@StupendousAmenity625
the move could still work fine against FH even if nerfed. The main issue i have with zetter is that while oly was nerfed hard, he does all that oly did back then just better. his recovery is better, is shield pressure is better, his hitboxes are bigger etc etc etc
dair has no reason to have such a huge hitbox that even goes above him. Oly at least needed some precision, zetter does not. Zetter also does way to much damage with fire ticks still. you get so much free, virtually unavoidable damage with down B fire alone, its not fitting for such a char.

It’s a little frustrating how the logic with floorhug seems to have become circular. It’s necessary to have in its present form because if it wasn’t there, then characters’ movesets would be too good. But its presence means that characters are required to have moves that are even more broken in order to counter it.

I’d also just like to tack on that Zetter doesn’t need a move that’s this good at beating defense. He already has the tools to do it, and the tools to zone, and the tools to live way longer than he has any right to.

As someone who appreciates fh as a mechanic this is an example of how I think there’s too many moves that beat both it and shield. In theory that means it only beats half of the opponents defensive options in neutral (the other two being undershooting a hitbox to wall him out or just dashing back), but in practice since those are the ones that are actual tangible mechanics they’re far more common and so far more rewarding to be able to beat, and so I think beating those specifically I think should lead to less reward than something that beats the other two instead like clairen or maypul dash attack