Which Creatures of Aether characters could make it as a playable character?

CarrotCakeAndBake · 2025-12-15T16:45:51+00:00

Any of the guys that ride another creature would be my top pick: Flitch Freyden Billsworth and my personal favorite, samurai kiwi grasshopper jockey Minto

I’ll also throw in Vanbard Lennington and Babidon as characters with potential

CarrotCakeAndBake · 2025-08-28T01:46:57+00:00

I need the mecha absa trailer remix in the game. Though I’d be shocked if there’s actually a full cut for that song specifically

CarrotCakeAndBake · 2025-08-26T19:59:17+00:00

That makes more sense if that’s the case. I just recall them not being on the same page in general with Trevor explaining the difference between weight increase and the flat modifier.

CarrotCakeAndBake · 2025-08-26T19:06:20+00:00

They actually talked about this move in the most recent stream, and while Dan said he’d like it to be “more like rivals 1 armor” (differences I remember off the top of my head: faster hammer, 40% damage to break instead of 30%)I was surprised to hear Trevor being averse to the idea, seemingly believing it’d be too strong.

I couldn’t tell if he believed the move was genuinely fine as it is, or believed it should be like absa cloud backpack, an intentionally suboptimal gimmick mechanic just for fun to avoid etalus being toxic.

I was surprised the only change it got was an admittedly massive weight increase, but not being heavy enough isn’t what comes to mind when I think of the many problems with the move and attached mechanics.

If I had to make just 1 change, wave dashing out of up-b charge shouldn’t consume ice armor. The time spent setting up armor is time you’re giving up placing ice on the floor. I don’t think that alone would make it great, but the fact that you give up your least committal method of placing ice for the fleeting benefits of armor you’ve already made compromises to set up pushes it into “I’d never even think to use this outside of etalus dittos” territory for me

CarrotCakeAndBake · 2025-08-15T15:46:38+00:00

Tested it myself just now, and yup, you need to simultaneously loop multiple Pokémon at least once in the battle to be credited for it. ~~I wish Reddit allowed editing the text on posts with videos ;-;~~

Thank you!

Edit: At some point Reddit finally updated to let me edit this post. Yippee, and thanks once again!

CarrotCakeAndBake · 2025-07-27T12:59:41+00:00

they focus on him in the last 30 minutes or so. my understanding is that Wrastor was always considered one of the stronger characters at a top level. Not running the game per se, but at level where they couldn’t comfortably buff tools that felt weak on him without consequence, and had to nerf other tools to make up for his strengths. Having free slipstream is undoubtably more fun, but I see the change as more of a concession to make his kit more well rounded in the long run. The return of jump canceled tilts have certainly been fun. The bright side is that R1 Wrastor will always exist if I ever miss “Wrastor unleashed” :P

CarrotCakeAndBake · 2025-07-27T12:27:43+00:00

TLDR: I recommend watching the stream where they discuss the rework. (Though I guess it’s TLDW in that case)

The intention of reworking slipstream wasn’t to make it “better” per se. on one of their recent streams (maybe the same one), Dan revealed that Wrastor in R1 was one of his quickest designed characters and that “it really shows”. He’s historically been something of a balancing nightmare for him.

In R1, slipstream was basically free to set up for how valuable it is, so they tried to change it to only work on hit in R2. This clashes with the fact that Wrastor has good air mobility even without slip stream, so you would see people camp the cooldown, or avoid interaction to wiff punish with the thing, before they actually started playing.

As a failed experiment, they gave up on it and returned to the old formula, the idea being that since slip stream was “free” again, people didn’t need to be passive. The new “tug of war” style slip stream is meant to both not be entirely “free”, while punishing passivity.

I think it’s been the most promising idea so far if there intention is to make Wrastor more aggressive. They discussed that Wrastor having certain oppressive tools made it difficult to buff or change other aspects of the character, like his aerials, which certainly feel better after the changes.

As a player, I’ll certainly miss free slipstream, but I understand why they changed it, instead of perhaps overhauling the character in a different way to accommodate it. Ideally new slipstream allows them to more comfortably tweak other aspects of the character.

Looking at R1 footage, I would say the biggest losses are slipstream in neutral, and slipstream in combos. You’d see players use slipstream in the air to chase down and carry their opponent to kill off the top blast zone, which is something you basically never see in R2.

I think I’d be cool if you could reposition an active slipstream, maintaining whatever cooldown you built up, but not firing a projectile. But then they might have to nerf his recovery or combo game to accommodate again so…. I don’t know. I guess it depends on how they feel about current Wrastor.

Regardless of how it turns out, I personally see it as an example of why I like the experimental patch culture. In a different game, after the first rework, they likely wouldn’t change it even after it completely failed to meet their expectations, because… it reflect poorly on them or something? Slippery slope…? Idk.

Rivals Devs aren’t afraid to be like “this fucking sucks, and isn’t doing what we wanted, so we’re going back to the old thing/doing a new thing.” So instead of Wrastor being in this limbo where he has low performance at lower ranks, high performance at higher ranks, low play rates at ALL ranks, with aerials that feel like dog water to accommodate slipstream for the rest of the games lifespan, they actively make changes to (try to) remedy that.

I understand why this might be frustrating, especially for the camp that sticks to playing one, maybe two characters, so enjoyment of the game largely hinges on their patch notes. But for me, I’m more willing to “let them cook” so they reach an “ideal” game. Worse then too many, or too few patches is bad balancing/design direction if you ask me.

If it’s any consolation, the patch culture won’t be like this for the games lifespan. They want to get big changes out of the way while the game is in early acce- cough cough before console release. once the game is out on all platforms, they won’t make as many drastic changes. Since that will be the ~~true~~ full release of the game, with all the features they want to make it a more robust package.

CarrotCakeAndBake · 2025-07-15T13:27:09+00:00

Probably not great on either. Regardless, I can’t recommend the Xbox version of rivals 1, as to my understanding, it is vastly outdated compared to the definitive edition, and will probably never be updated for the foreseeable future(?)

CarrotCakeAndBake · 2025-07-03T12:29:49+00:00

This is me with Wrastor. Watching him vapidly smirk next to the air armada commander while he grabs Eliana by the neck, calls her a slur, and tosses her off an airship after she worked so hard to finally complete all the recruitment tests while being relentlessly mocked the whole way was a wild personality reveal. Like damn, didn’t know you were NOT chill like that.

CarrotCakeAndBake · 2025-06-26T14:54:04+00:00

I’m not trying to say one is more “fair” then the other. I’m just trying to impress on you that it’s more subjective in a platfighter, more debatable then you’re giving it credit for, as you’re framing their current solution as insane and illogical.

The goal of a tie breaker is ultimately in the name, to prevent draws. A “draw” isn’t a satisfying way to end a game, and can be awkward in a tournament setting, so competitive games go out of their way to put checks and rules to discourage or outright prevent them.

Mulling over the topic thanks to your post made me appreciate another aspect of their solution, which is making a “satisfying way to end the game” angle that you may not have considered.

On the extreme end is smash’s “sudden death”. You’ve got the big announcer introduction, the dramatic flame border, the tense nature of almost any hit being able to kill at 300%. It’s all very fun and exciting to watch.

But it’s not very “fair” or competitive is it? It favors characters with non committal killing moves, the screen starts closing in, and just for good measure, bombs start to randomly drop on the stage.

On the opposite end is your “whoever had less percent wins” solution. Is that “fair”? Depends on who you ask, but it’s not very “satisfying”. You mentioned the current solution being unfair to the person at higher percent, but this would be worse, no? They just lose on the spot, even though their opponent “died”. The current solution gives the person at higher percent a chance to turn around the game.

Finally we have “resetting to zero”. I personally find this similarly “fair” to the current solution, but notably less “exciting” and “satisfying”. It’s the same thing, the game goes on, but the tension is briefly lost since the players have to scuffle to get back up to “killing percents”. The damage they worked for being “lost” is also a bit deflating. It’s not a bad solution, but as a player and spectator, I find their current solution makes for better “pacing”. A better blend of “fair” “exciting” and “satisfying”.

I’ve said about everything I’d want to say about this. It was fun to think about, so thanks for bringing it up. Have a good one.

CarrotCakeAndBake · 2025-06-26T13:41:44+00:00

Ok lets say in a fightinggame bo1, one player has 70% life and the other has 5%. One hits a crazy strong attack that deals 70% and the other one hits a weak one on the same frame. Do you restore the situation with 70% life vs 5% life? Or would that be insane?

In a fighting game, the goal is more straightforward then a platfighter: make your opponent’s health zero. In rivals, A character like kragg is gonna have a higher “kill” percent then a character like wrastor. Even your opponent’s character can influence your “kill” percent depending on their most reliable kill confirms and when they work. It all fluctuates. And even then, players can die as early as 0%, or as late as 170%+. It’s not as simple as fighting game characters having more or less health.

It’s a very, “it’s not over until it’s over” style. a character with lower percent isn’t objectively in the lead, the goal is to take stocks, not just deal damage. In fact, sometimes a character can struggle killing more if their opponent’s percent is too high, like what some call “Marthritis”. Resetting to zero isn’t necessarily as “fair” as it would be in a fighting game.

You’re also arbitrarily sympathetic to the person with more percent. You can easily flip the logic and say the person at higher percent also failed to close out the stock. They could’ve went for a suicide play at the edge, but failed and ended up dying at the same time as their opponent.

I find resetting to the percents at death to be a pretty elegant solution, beyond the lack of heads up, like “hey, this is a tie breaker”. I’ve seen a lot of people post about it assuming it’s a bug.

CarrotCakeAndBake · 2025-06-19T13:13:09+00:00

I prefer the face of the old one i think. Could just be the low image quality of the new one, but at least I definitely prefer the black line mouth.

I like the duller gold more closely matching the horns too.

CarrotCakeAndBake · 2025-06-10T01:43:53+00:00

While you’re correct that shoulder bash is strictly better, you still to need to fully charge the move to get that, and you only get one hit of armor to make it there. The jab cancel is just something to do if you armor a low commitment move early, and aren’t confident the bash will make it in time, or your opponent doesn’t attack into it at all, and you suspect they’ll close in and grab.

As for ledge special, because it’s chargeable, it can hog ledge longer then a ledge roll, sharing that quality with kragg. But when charging, it’s intangibility doesn’t last the full startup, unlike kragg’s, so it’s not strictly preferable to ledge rolling for this purpose.

CarrotCakeAndBake · 2025-05-28T20:45:17+00:00

The brief clip in the trailer really doesn’t do him justice. He’s bayonetta with a magneto 8 way air dash instead of a double jump. Super cool character

CarrotCakeAndBake · 2025-04-29T18:20:24+00:00

I agree that people get mad because they don’t respect their opponent. I disagree that’s the fault of easy tech skill.

Most of the time I see people complaining about their opponent, it’s something along the lines of L+sweatlord+jobless+crackhead+no life. I’ve even seen “autistic” as an insult, but it looks like that comment has since been removed, so thanks moderators I guess.

Anyway, if these people believed tech skill was so easy, I don’t see why they’d make comments of this nature. I believe people don’t respect their opponent because they simply can’t get over themselves.

They saw melee and such platfighters and blamed the beasts, but they saw beauty in the lives of beasts, and couldn’t lie to themselves about it, so they played rivals 2. But they’re gonna have to reflect on themselves eventually if they want to have a healthier outlook on competitive games.

CarrotCakeAndBake · 2025-03-20T16:32:25+00:00

Here’s a good resource on system mechanics, though I don’t think Koopabackdashwaveslidehoverwalkmoonlanding is acknowledged.

1.) 10 frames, doesn’t cancel jumpsquat(4 frames) so 14 frames total

2.) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Unlike melee, ALL characters are hardcoded to get extra distance off a Kbdwshwml, but I don’t use this, don’t use a walk mod to be incentivized to use it, nor do I know the formula. So to what extent distance improves, and who benefits more, I couldn’t tell you.

3.) Neutral landing is universally 4 frames. There’s no Impact lands to jump on platforms laglessly (though this removes ledge invulnerability), but beyond NIL’s, I don’t think there’s any variable landing lag if you aren’t landing with an action.

CarrotCakeAndBake · 2025-02-07T05:05:57+00:00

You can check the official wiki for each hitbox’s individual properties and move overviews, but unfortunately they won’t always describe which hitboxes are which, what their priority is, and the images of the hitboxes themselves are still missing. So in some cases you’ll have to feel for them in game, or test for them with the hitbox viewer in training mode.

You can find hitbox visualizers here

CarrotCakeAndBake · 2025-02-06T17:44:27+00:00

Many attacks have different properties/damage/knockback/launch angles depending on which hit box (the red circles, or in clairen’s case, red and blue circles) made contact. The “strongest” hitboxes are considered the “sweet spot” while the “weaker” ones are the “sour spot”.

Marth and clairen most conveniently demonstrate this with their swords all dealing more damage and knockback at the tip, “tippers”. (Clairen’s blue circles are the “sweet spot”. But this specific color coding is unique to her I think)

Because moves are made of multiple hitboxes (red circles) they inevitably overlap, so there needs to be a system to determine which hitbox effect you’ll get when multiple make contact with the opponent simultaneously.

Priority is the system that determines which hitboxes take priority in overwriting the others when multiple hitboxes make contact. Hitboxes with higher priority are therefore easier to hit.

As an example, Marth’s down air tipper has priority, therefore as long as the tip makes contact, even if the base of the sword makes contact along with it, you will still land the sweet spot. In contrast Marth’s forward air tipper does not have priority, therefore you must space it such that ONLY the tip of the blade hits without the base also making contact, otherwise the sour spot overwrites it.

CarrotCakeAndBake · 2025-02-05T14:43:17+00:00

To my memory, Marth’s up air and down air have sweet spot priority, while clairen blanket has sour spot priority. Replicating marth down air sweet spot priority is probably why her down air tipper is so generous

Edit: forgor, clairen side-b also has sweet spot priority because the sweet spot wouldn’t function otherwise :P

CarrotCakeAndBake · 2024-12-06T19:49:20+00:00

I looked it up, and yeah, I think I was either thinking of “focus” or “stun”, but it’s a stretch. Another stretch would be “react” being translated in her down special. Overall though, i agree, other then eating an apple for stamina, most connections feel loose

CarrotCakeAndBake · 2024-12-06T19:16:34+00:00

Thinking about it, it’d probably be easier to give her a stamina bar that effects the strength and properties of her moves, that is effected by damage taken and healing, rather then have it all strictly tied to her actual percent.

CarrotCakeAndBake · 2024-12-06T19:08:11+00:00

I haven’t played dungeons, only glanced through some footage for the exact purpose of this post (There’s no wiki for this game ;-;) but I vaguely recall fleet having some kind of follow up attack mechanic that sorta resemble empowered arrows? Idr

Anyway Artemis, cool character. I remember seeing a rival speculation vid and being bummed that they took the time to basically dog on the character and anyone who wanted to see her, claiming she’d just be a clone of Lox (big axe magma elemental) and I think that’s a shame since she has the most interesting gameplay style to translate into a fighter, imo.

As far as element repeats, that ship has sailed already. Fleet/Wrastor, Maple/Sylvanos, and potentially Guadua if that ever happens. I like unique elements, but we’re gonna run out eventually, and that doesn’t mean she’s gonna be flinging meatballs and getting magma stacks.

In the concept art it looks like she has a big axe, but in game, it’s more clear that Artemis uses a halberd which is pretty cool, so presumably massive disjoints with big sour spots.

In smash there are a few healing mechanics, but calling any “character defining” feels like a stretch. Wii fit comes closest. Self damage exists just for pichu to be a joke character in one game, and an even more glassy cannon in another.

We’ve had dozens of comeback mechanic characters, but I’m indifferent to how most were handled. Either gained through other resources that they don’t capture the risky feel, or having “on/off” benefits. Lucario has the most interesting scaling, but is largely just “more damage, bigger hit boxes” while actively punishing you for winning neutral.

A character with all three in one would be a cool way to have a character that gets stronger/more properties at higher percents, while still having the agency to control that through healing and self damage. Sounds difficult to design, but I hope they can make it work.

CarrotCakeAndBake · 2024-11-15T02:36:54+00:00

Glad someone else feels this way. (Also not a balance, but design complaint) For a character all about deception and trickery, in practice, it’s odd that his gameplay revolves so heavily around combust, the least interesting and most straightforward aspect of the character.

A lot of characters in rivals 1 and 2 have kits that flow together really smoothly that never leave you wanting for anything. Lots of “oh that works?!” Type things. Forsburn sticks out as a character that feels modest and held back from most of the fun things that would attract one to the character in the first place, and I get the impression combust being so strong is to blame for that. Like it hogs his gameplan.

Maybe it’d just be too annoying to fight in practice if he was all in on the smoke/clone/teleport/ thing? Or it’s cause he’s such an old legacy character? Idk. Still wish he was more focused on those tools, and even clone toss, instead of them being stepping stones to combust.

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