If I were to tackle changing Ganon in this game, I'd have the following goals in mind.
- Patch up some of the holes in his design
- Raise consistency in his gameplay
- Flesh out and balance his customs so that they are all actually useful for their intended niche
Keeping the above points in mind I'll talk about what I feel should change. I try to be reasonable and objective about this, but I'm only human.
His jab sucks. It is the only jab in the game that completely fails to counter spot dodges. In fact, spot dodges counter his jab instead. It could be argued that he has the tools to beat spot dodging and that his jab behaving this way adds some flavor to the character. However, given the fact that Ganon's OoS game is poor and that his jab didn't always suck, (his Melee jab was incredible) I'd say that having a functional jab is the way to go. His Melee jab also added more flavor to him than Brawl's jab ever did imo. I've mentioned his Melee jab twice already and would love for it to return, but it doesn't need to be THAT good. If his jab were a little faster, lasted a little longer and had less cooldown, I'd be happy. This also lets it differentiate itself more from Dtilt/Ftilt which are better and more focused moves (Dtilt as poke Ftilt as anti-air).
- Frame data like 6-11/25 (attacking frames/total frames) instead of 8-9/34 would make his jab actually do what it's supposed to do, while still keeping the essence of his Brawl jab intact. He already leaves his arm sticking out for a while, so having the hitbox last longer wouldn't seem out of place considering how the move already looks.
His grab is just too bad. As long is his T-Rex grab whiffs against short characters and low to the ground landing animations, his shield is free against characters like Sheik. At the very least, that aspect of his grab should be fixed. Ideally I would also buff his grab range to the point where you actually have to space aerials to respect his grab.
-A decent grab would fix his biggest defensive issues.
Dsmash doesn't link properly sometimes. Should be fixed to link consistently.
Fair ends a lot earlier than it can AC. This is a weird oversight and making it AC at least as soon as it ends should be a good QoL fix.
Flame Chain sometimes misses the last hit. It's rare, but this shouldn't happen.
Flame Choke followups are unnecessarily inconsistent across the cast. In Brawl, the only character that he wouldn't have a followup on is himself if he were given 1 frame earlier IASA. In this game, since he is still the tallest character and the frame advantage is based on height I suspect this is still the case. If they don't tech the Flame Choke, there should be some sort of guaranteed followup. Some characters being immune to followups by virtue of being tall is both arbitrary and silly. The characters immune to his followups also tended to be some of his worst MU's too.
- Making him have IASA 1 frame earlier makes his BnB followups from a Flame Choke consistent across the cast (except vs himself which is cool).
Flame Wave is decent in FFA/teams, but is not that much better on grab than Flame Choke. The reward for landing this move is pretty good, but the setup potential and quicker/safer/longer grab of Flame Choke is the smarter choice.
- I would add Heavy Armor to the move to make it better suited for it's niche and give it some usability over Flame Choke.
Dark Dive needs better reward on grab. As a recovery it isn't better than Dark Fists and is worse than Dark Vault. As an offensive move it is better than Dark Vault, but worse than Dark Fists and overall very lackluster. As a defensive OoS move it has potential, but the lag after the grab, the low knockback, and the RCO lag you receive makes it a bad move. Currently, Dark Dive is a poor middle-ground option with mediocre recovery and poor reward on grab.
- At the very least, the RCO lag on grab (same for Dark Vault) should be fixed and the knockback increased to make it more of a reset to neutral instead of putting yourself in an awkward position. Earlier IASA frames post grab would be nice, especially in teams. It would be interesting if it were sped up a bit, making it slightly better OoS and at recovering, but that may be too much.
Wizard's Foot clanks with very weak projectiles. When even Mega Man pellets stop you in your tracks, this approaching tool leaves much to be desired. Unless you hit with the inner portion of the move, it does 10 damage and is one of his weakest moves knockback wise. Since it takes 9+ damage to outprioritize a move and projectiles will only come into contact with the outermost hitbox, the move only goes through projectiles that do 1% damage.
- If the damage of the move was buffed to do 12% damage on all hitboxes (+0/+0/+2), it would be able to beat some of the weaker projectiles and multi-hit moves.
Wizard's Dropkick with lower (or no) hitlag to spend less time clanking with projectiles would be great for making it excel at what it does and make it safer to use.
Wizard's Assault is basically like the FFA/teams variant of Wizard's Foot, but the speed/power is too low for what it is. I'd maybe add some weak Heavy Armor to it to make it a little more usable. Maybe a little more damage/kb too.
Having no Super Armor when in the air or B-Reversed for Warlock Punch and Warlock Blade is silly. They should both get reduced Super Armor frames or Heavy Armor in the air/B-Reversed instead of having nothing.
Warlock Thrust has too much cooldown for how weak it is. If blocked or whiffed it is a free anything for punishment. On hit it does 9 damage and resets to neutral, making the risk/reward extremely poor. If the risk were toned down, it would be a useful disjointed poke.
- It currently has 65 frames of cooldown. I'd cut it down to like 40.