ASDI down / crouch canceling feels too strong#501

Crounch canceling seems great as a concept, but the current version feels too centralizing, especially for some characters, and feels like it removes too many potentially fun options. It may be balanced, but it doesn’t feel fun right now.

For a specific example of taking away too many options, Ranno’s down tilt is a really fun move and combo starter, especially as a tool to punish a whiffed move from the opponent. However, landing a tipper down tilt doesn’t begin to pop up Zetterburn until about 132%, making it practically unusable if the opponent knows to hold down. This is far from the only move with this issue.

It’s not fun to have so many moves removed as options for such a large majority of the game, and to mostly have to just grab as a punish instead much of the time. When you remove options such that there is usually only one right answer, a lot of fun of the flexibility of options is lost.

So my suggestion: it would feel a lot better and more interesting/fun if ASDI down / CC was toned down to be relevent at a smaller range of percents, affected fewer moves, and was less punishing for a few characters who particularly struggle with having more options removed due to generally having overall weaker moves.

IMO the issue is more the strength of ASDI down than anything to do with crouch canceling.

Actual crouch canceling is pretty rare since it requires you to not be in any move startup, endlag, or dashing - mainly used for hard bait/punish situations and tech chases vs getup attacks. ASDI can be done absolutely any time you get hit, and the strength of it is why your opponent can whiff fstrong at 40 and reversal you when you try to punish them with wavedash-in dstrong.

In melee if Marth whiffs an fsmash at 0, and Fox punishes with upsmash, that upsmash will send Marth into tumble without CC - it’s a successful and rewarding whiff punish for Fox. If Marth were to instead be crouching, expecting an upsmash in neutral, the CC will reduce knockback enough to allow a floorhug grab. That’s a rewarding bait and punish for Marth, earned by not pressing a button.

In RoA 2 whether the opponent is crouching or not is irrelevant - that ustrong can be floorhugged, because ASDI is extremely strong.