Smoke and Shadow

Hey folks,

Welcome to the Final Patch Before Beta v2.22 Final Mix. We’ve been hard at work making content for our long-time fans, as well as streamlining and improving the new player experience. This patch features a new character, a Free-For-All queue, and a whole lot of polish. And this one is definitely the last one before Beta, for sure … probably … maybe. (It isn’t).

We also have couple other pretty big new features (no spoilers) in the works that couldn’t quite make it in time for this patch. That means you can expect a bigger-than-usual follow-up patch some time in the upcoming weeks.

Note: Due to some shuffling of data on the backend, existing players may have to re-play the 3 required bot games before accessing matchmaking.

New Character: Reina, Maiden of Chains

  • Born in secret, lives in secret, but will not die in secret. Reina is a brutal tormentress working for The Styx, a clandestine assassin organization. A versatile character, Reina can swap between wielding her long range chain and her quick, close-up blade.

  • Signature mechanic: Stance Swap

    • Reina is able to swap between her chain and blade stance to alter her moveset. Chain stance gives her extreme range at the cost of speed, while Blade stance is extremely fast, but only effective at close range.

    • When Reina’s Malice gauge is full, she can instantly swap stances for creative combos. Swapping regularly will grant Reina increased damage, so learn to master your malice for maximum benefit!

  • Down Special: Shade Shift

    • Stance Swap: Reina swaps between stances.

    • Malice: This move is extremely slow unless Reina’s malice meter is full.

    • Damage Buff: After switching stances, Reina gains bonus damage for 10s.

  • Up Special: Up in Smoke

    • Nothing Personal: Reina quickly teleports in any direction.

    • Smoke and Mirrors: This move has no hitbox, but if an opponent is near Reina when she teleports, she’ll grab them and carry them with her before throwing them.

  • Side Special: Fatal Attraction

    • Mandatory Grappling Hook: Reina throws out a chain at a slight angle, grappling to any terrain it collides with and pulls her towards it.

    • Sweetspot: The chain has no hitbox while traveling, but has a powerful hit at the tip when fully extended.

    • Jump Cancel: Reina can cancel out of the pull by double jumping.

  • Neutral Special: Cloak and Dagger

    • Knife Throw: Reina throws her Kunai forward. The throw can be angled upwards or downwards.

    • Solo Mission: After throwing the knife, Reina must pick it up before using it again. If the knife touches the ground, it sticks, and must be dislodged with an attack before it can be picked up.

    • Stabber? I Hardly Know Her: After hitting an opponent, the knife will bounce upwards into the air. While airborne, reactivating neutral special will cause Reina to teleport to the knife and pick it up.

New Features

  • Remember Me

    • A new option on the Login screen allows automatic log-in after the first time. You no longer have to type your password every time you want to play.

  • New UI

    • Brand new UI for the Main Menu, Character Select screen, and more!

    • UW and Steam Deck aspect ratios are now supported.

    • Known Issues: Customize screen characters will be rotated and scaled in weird ways. This will be remedied in a future patch which will include new Customize screen UI.

    • More improvements to come.

  • New store webpage!

  • Improved netcode

    • Some netcode improvements may allow for more stable online gameplay across the board — especially on slower connections.

  • Streamlined Settings

    • Several toggles and options have been removed or consolidated to reduce clutter and clean up poorly-maintained features. More improvements will come in the future.

      • The Solo Tag Assist input binding has been removed

      • Easy Recovery, Easy Aim, Homing Rush, and Ashani Plink Toggle have been removed

      • Graphic settings have been consolidated from 6 to 5 options

      • Crunchy Spark SFX toggle has been removed

      • Footsies, Roster Battle, and Volleyball (which wasn't even implemented anyway) game modes have been removed

New Game Mode: Free-For-All

  • A casual mode for four players with its own matchmaking queue

  • Ruleset:

    • Five minute score match

    • Electric fences enabled

    • Longer respawn times

    • Casual stages only

    • Touch the electric fence twice to perform a powerful recovery attack!

Gameplay Changes:

General:

  • Experimental respawn changes

    • This is a new type of respawn we’re testing out in 1v1 and FFA Queues

    • Players will enter the game with a powerful slam move when respawning

    • This is a very experimental change — it was designed for FFA games, but was kinda fun, so we’ve decided to test it out in 1v1 Queue as well

    • We will be watching this topic closely so please post detailed feedback about it in our discord server!

  • Wall Jump Improvements:

    • Tuning: Wall-jump forces have been adjusted slightly across the cast for more consistent results.

    • Drift Increase: Inwards drift during wall jumps is now much more powerful.

    • Bugfix: Wall Jumps can now be performed out of Tumble.

  • Ledge Attacks & Get-up Attacks

    • Ledge and get-up attacks once again give spark on hit (not on shield). They still cannot be spark cancelled.

    • Ledge and get-up attacks no longer have invulnerable frames after the hitboxes end.

    • All ledge attacks are -20 on shield, and getup attacks are -10 on shield.

    • Ledge and get-up attacks no longer give crit state when punished.

  • Critical State:

    • Oof My Bones: now increases damage taken by 45% / 30% / 15% based on the remaining hits of Critical (The bonus damage does not affect knockback).

  • In Character Select, there is now a visible toggle you can use to switch your starting totem (Afi & Galu) or stance (Reina).

Air Tech:

  • Successfully dodging through an attack with air tech changes its properties.

    • These changes make successful air-techs more rewarding, while also allowing for baited air-techs to be punished more heavily. This should allow air-tech to feel less like a correct or incorrect choice, and more like an option with its own layers of counter-play.

  • Failed Air-Tech:

    • Recovery: 45f → 53f

    • No longer auto cancels on landing.

    • Reduced air drift.

  • Successful Air-Tech

    • Recovery: 45f → 40f

    • Landing Lag: 17f → 7f

    • Increased air drift.

    • Increased distance traveled.

    • Does not cause critical state when hit.

  • Air-teching now turns you to face the point you dodged away from.

Training Mode:

  • Frame Data display will no longer clear a recorded segment while a player is in the middle of landing lag or a rush.

  • Rush cancels will show you the frame advantage based on when the rush becomes actionable, instead of when the rush was started.

Stages:

  • Ocean Temple:

    • New stage! Wide, with regularly-shifting platforms.

  • Random:

    • It is now impossible for Random Stage to select any of the last 3 stages that have been played on.

    • Pyrostation is no longer excluded from the Random Stage list.

  • Forbidden Shrine:

    • Brand new look!

  • Shadowbriar:

    • Moving platforms now stay in place for a bit after each new arrangement.

    • Adjusted visibility.

  • Cyber Skyline:

    • Adjusted visibility.

  • Pyrostation

    • Adjusted visibility.

  • The following stages have been removed (for now), as they no longer meet our quality standards:

    • Trio Station, CTF, Forbidden Abyss, MaluMaluMaluMaluMaluMalu

Characters:

  • Ashani

    • Side Special Reworked (Again)

      • It wouldn’t be a RushRev patch without a new Ashani Side special!

        • We felt the old side special overlapped too much with her grounded normals in terms of speed and hitbox placement, and lead to situations where repeated side-specials were optimal.

        • This new version has a bit more utility as a movement tool using Ashani’s cancel system, and doubles as a powerful but risky call-out move.

      • Boomie Zoomie: Lunges forward with a precision punch that staggers opponents, giving ample time for a follow up. Can cancel into other specials (including itself) during the lunge.

      • Oh yeah, it’s Combo Time: If either Ashani or her opponent is in the air, the attack causes a corkscrew state with high hit stun instead.

    • Neutral Air Mini-rework (Also again)

      • Losing old SSP1 means Ashani no longer has access to a very low-knockback combo extender midair. Since NAir is a relatively unused move, we’re reworking it to fill the gap.

      • No Infinites: Removed auto-linking properties

      • No Bounce: Landing the first hit no longer pops Ashani into the air

      • Combo Extender: Knockback has been reworked.

    • Forward Air

      • Ashani has a bunch of attacks with very similar frame data and power, so we’ve shifted Forward Air a bit towards “Slow but powerful”.

      • Startup: f7 -> f12.

      • Damage: 13 -> 14

      • Knockback Scaling: 75 -> 70

        • Note: Overall the knockback is slightly higher due to the increased base damage.

  • Zhurong

    • Side Special (Red version)

      • Hitbox duration: 3f → 2f

    • Neutral Special (Red version)

      • Should be easier to b-reverse

    • Up Strike

      • No longer sends backwards during the first part of the attack

  • Kidd

    • Despite some complaints, we feel Kidd is in a relatively healthy spot overall. Outside of his kill power with Back Air and his recovery, most of Kidd’s strong options require a good amount of work and some reads to fully capitalize on, so we’re keeping the nerfs very targeted for now.

    • Back Air

      • Knockback Growth: 70 → 60

    • Side Special

      • Recovern’t: Getting hit no longer refreshes side special uses

    • Down Special

      • Why do they call it Rawin?: No changes

  • Ezzie

    • Neutral Special

      • Mine projectile no longer crosses up shields.

    • No further changes in this patch, but we’re aware that Ezzie needs some work and we’ve got some stuff in the pipes.

  • Seth

    • Side Special 1

      • Can now be used multiple times in the air without exhausting side special uses.

      • Performing Side Special 2 will still exhaust Seth’s ability to use SSP1.

    • Side Special 2 EX

      • Now has a cross-up offset of -1

      • Shield stun: 15f → 8f

    • Down Special

      • EX input behavior has been cleaned up.

      • Can now land on the ground during endlag after an upwards dSp, instead of floating above it.

    • Up Special EX

      • EX input behavior has been cleaned up.

      • Seth can now b-reverse grounded EX uSp.

  • Urdah

    • Up Special

      • Grab follow-up can now also be performed by pressing the grab button.

    • Side Special

      • Feint can now be used multiple times in the air without exhausting side special uses.

  • Weishan

    • Neutral Special

      • Foot hitboxes have been completely removed on all grounded versions.

      • Projectile spawns closer to Weishan.

      • Projectile can now can cross up shield.

      • Aerial hitbox: shield stun 10f → 5f, shield push modifier 1 → 2

  • Velora

    • Side Special

      • Fixed a bug where the powder keg did not KO on last hit.

Bug Fixes:

  • Potentially fixed an issue where blocking attacks while on a moving platform would cause a shield pop

  • Fixed several other cases where shield pop would happen when it shouldn’t.

  • Shield pop is now more consistent on moves with low shield stun but high push-back.

  • Fixed a bug where grabbing a player during their parry sometimes wouldn’t apply Critical.

  • Fixed a bug where, during account creation, entering your birth date incorrectly would not display an error.

  • Fixed a bug where players wouldn’t explode when hitting a wall during zoom