Kid Icarus Uprising Game Breaker pages

For those here for any reason other than why I'm actually posting this, vanilla TV Tropes' page on Kid Icarus Uprising's Game Breakers is horribly outdated. Some of the entries are even non-examples or rely too much on external factors that are their own problem to manage their shenanigans. Cleaning up that page would unfortunately not be efficient, and therefore I had opted to handle this:
https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Kid_Icarus:_Uprising/Game_Breaker
This page is cleaner, calls out significant underlying imbalances that have help led to poor development of the metagame because they had not been acknowledged well enough, and explains in detail why the listed entries still deserve to be deemed Game Breakers. More entries may be added in the future, but I'm obviously going for having more objective entries on the page right now, although Gemini Orbitars is pushing it the more I think about Homing Boost. Unfortunately, vanilla TV Tropes is STILL more popular and well-known, so my handling means nothing if it doesn't get across. So here I am, doing this.

I'll go over each entry on the vanilla TV Tropes version.

-Mixing Energy Charge and Playing Dead - would need cleanup, especially when it mentions multiplayer, because considering that, already, we have an entry where Grid Reading comes into play. Playing Dead loses its duration by the player moving, so right there, the opponent can retreat into cover. If the user has Slip Shot with this combination, Playing Dead's Level 2 shape will not fit, making Level 3 so much easier to decipher, and more importantly, Energy Charge is restricted to Level 1, so take one hit and that's the end of the attack boost. Your other methods of protecting against tag powers are also going to suck; you'll be limited to maybe Jump Glide or Interference, because you certainly can't even fit in Warp even with minimal Levels for all 4 of the Powers. Thus, in multiplayer, this might be able to stall a little, but any player aware of these details isn't going to get brought low against the combination.

Verdict: CUT FOR MULTIPLAYER

-Clubs in FFAs - FFAs are clustered messes anyway. The math would inevitably deem Clubs innately good for that, so this would have to be evaluated.

Verdict: REVIEW

-Freezing - as far as weapon modifiers go, Freezing+ is absolutely tempting for free immobilization statusing with no drawbacks, especially when Freeze Attack itself eats through a significant amount of the Power Grid. In fact, Freeze Attack itself would have to be reviewed for competent competitive play guidelines simply because NOTHING about the Freeze status is interactive in a welcome way. Apparently, the way to break the Freeze status naturally is by stick-mashing similar to with the Bury status in Smash Bros., so that invites control breaking for its own sake. The only other method to hope to get out of Freeze status fast enough would be to use Effect Recovery immediately, which just forces people to carry it around--while Effect Recovery is only 3 spaces, once again, the only thing needed for Effect Recovery is to have it highlighted and then immediately use it in direct response to the status being issued, nothing interactive about this and it forces any setup that would want to actively work with statusing to stack statusing ability to run through the Effect Recovery charges, when status stacking without weapon modifiers requires eating through Power Grid space. When even Effect Recovery is significant in its space usage ruining safeguarding against matchup bias, that's a good sign that Freeze status isn't healthy for the metagame and would be worth a look. Petrify status is worth a similar glance for being basically the same status, though to a lesser extent as it actually cuts damage to the victim in half for the status's duration.

Verdict: REVIEW

-Trade-Off - while I am for reviewing this, I can at least point out that Trade-Off has 3 weaknesses. The first is HP being reduced to 1; while Trade-Off itself does provide invincibility for the duration, the HP minimization puts pressure on the user to keep the opponent from surviving the duration and knocking off that 1 HP. The second is that Trade-Off requires a full row and column on the Power Grid, which prevents Powers with a full line requirement such as Power Thief or Bumblebee from simultaneously fitting at all, and therefore makes it harder for Trade-Off to work with supporting Powers. And the third is that Trade-Off has only one charge, so once it's used up, the user is left with a 5x5 grid space for anything else available. Where my concern still lies is the speed boost and duration for Level 4: the mobility boost is 50%, and the duration is 21 seconds with max health. In tandem with the doubled damage, this could conceivably pull intolerable levels of offense from non-broken weapon types. I'm still for the benefit of the doubt, but I'd rather be cautious about this nuisance of a Power.

Verdict: REVIEW

-Magnus Club - being locked to close range for dealing ANY damage without Powers is already a big weakness. Counter even sucks on Magnus Club because the shots expire way too fast to let them work as defilade even if the shots didn't already charge up so fast that parry dodges even have their cooldown bleed into when the chargeup would already happen without the bonus chargeup. Sure Magnus Club is the most mobile Club, but there are other weapon types that are faster and thus can keep their distance, and plenty of those that can't can just hold their ground and play to their strengths, as Skyscraper Club for example can attest to. Magnus Club consequently doesn't break anything and is simply a unique style in the game.

Verdict: CUT

-Taurus Arm - another weapon type to review. The melee attack power and mobility mix is definitely insane, though the range attacks' damage output is rather questionable to say the least. Even within V100 gameplay, the melee ability doesn't show signs of being ridiculous without some broken Power like Lightweight. It's a guarantee that either Taurus Arm or Trade-Off, maybe both, would be put on the chopping block for competetent competitive play to prevent abuse of that combination, but I'd rather see how much blame Taurus Arm deserves.

Verdict: REVIEW

-Beam Claws - no. Just no. The DPS is the definition of mediocrity. The only thing Beam Claws does to stand out in return is its meme infamy, which has NO bearing on its usability.

Verdict: CUT

-Laser Staff - the DPS is just God awful, subpar. So what if it can pull harassment when the Neutral Rapid is guaranteed to get walled and the Forward Rapid has the issue of running afoul of the stamina mechanic.

Verdict: CUT

-Slip Shot - ho boy, the big one. Now I will say that shots ignoring terrain cover is a very influential ability. There is, however, one big weakness to Slip Shot: requiring a full row and column when it's leveled. On a melee setup that can pull persistent pressure, this has already been significant with Power Thief for example as a signal to let loose with anything that risks getting answered by Aries Armor or Trade-Off (notably Counter with a weapon like Skyscraper Club), even if it's still intel and therefore not a full counterbalance to those 2 Powers. With range setups, every little drawback that feeds somebody wanting to get closer adds up, and Slip Shot even bordering on needing a full row and column at Level 1 is nothing to scoff at. For starters, Slip Shot has its charge count directly equivalent to its Level, so either Slip Shot gets gimped, or Bumblebee can't fit, and even when taking the first one, it's stuck with any supporting Powers basically being forced into a 5x5 area on the Power Grid. This gets worse for Slip Shot, because even at max level, Slip Shot's spaces per charge value is 4, equivalent to what Super Armor has at Level 2, so Super Armor is guaranteed to trade against a singular Slip Shot charge--keep in mind that Super Armor has trouble trading a singular buff charge in general, by the way. This is what comes to mind using something like Skyscraper Club against range setups as well. Bottom line: Slip Shot itself isn't the problem. Weapon modifiers are.

Verdict: CUT

-Homing Boost - I could see this get restricted in a more unique yet standard manner, namely Gemini Orbitars + Homing Boost disallowed due to Gemini Orbitars having literally undodgeable shots at 50m for the involved DPS. However, by all indications, Homing Boost might barely pull a frame trap or two, but added homing certainly too rarely gets out of hand without weapon modifiers. It should also be noted that Homing Boost needs significant space on the Power Grid at ANY Level, so that weakens any supporting tag protection.

Verdict: REVIEW

-Aries Armor - the less extreme version of Trade-Off in what it does. It doesn't knock the user's HP to 1, but all it does is provide a megaton defense boost, effectively invincibility or not. Oh, and the description claims that there's status resistance. I had run Aries Armor in the past and I can tell you that its failure to provide that to a good enough degree is why I dropped it in favor of more stretched out defense in addition to being able to fit Effect Recovery. That's the summary of what keeps Aries Armor under control: full row and column requirement, AND only 1 charge altogether. I can point out that Aries Armor, and Trade-Off as well, has the second highest priority in shown buffs, the first highest being Energy Charge which isn't syngergetic with Aries Armor at all for obvious reasons, so it can hide supporting buffs from a player who doesn't keep their eyes glazed on the bottom screen for any used Powers.

Verdict: CUT

-Libra Sponge (mixed with Aries Armor) - simple. BOTH of these Powers have only 1 charge apiece and the user would just be left with maybe 13 spaces worth of space for anything else.

Verdict: CUT

-Pisces Heal + Libra Sponge + Aries Armor - .....oh my God, the ignorance. *YOU CAN'T FIT PISCES HEAL AND LIBRA SPONGE INTO A 5X5 SPACE! IT'S LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE DUE TO ALL INVOLVED COMBINATION OF SHAPES! EVEN IF YOU COULD, ALL 3 POWERS WOULD JUST HAVE ONE CHARGE APIECE AND YOU'D HAVE NO ROOM FOR ANYTHING ELSE!*

Verdict: *CUT, CUT, CUT!!!!*

-Flintlock Staff - if you need weapon modifiers to break things, that says more about weapon modifiers in general than about Flintlock Staff. Meanwhile, without that, Flintlock Staff needs to be at 60m or further to even 2HKO with the Forward Shot without an attack boost Power, and most players aren't going to allow that much open distance from a slow-moving range attacker.

Verdict: CUT

-Twinbellows Cannon in singleplayer - eh, singleplayer is too much of a mess for me to determine what really stands out and what doesn't due to the excessive demand of weapon modifier abuse.

Verdict: REVIEW

-Brawler Claws - okay, now this, along with Raptor Claws, is once again worth review, though mostly for being the Fragile Speedster version of the Taurus Arm. Raptor Claws, without even the highest mobility in the game, a halfway decent chargeup time for shots, and arbitrarily high Shot Cancel on given attacks including the Neutral Rapid, already is capable of wondering what the stamina system is.

Verdict: REVIEW

-Lightweight + Transparency + good melee - Lightweight is broken until itself. Even then, this STILL says more about weapon modifers than about the combination. Otherwise, this exists:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOjjuxmbU_Q

Verdict: KEEP LIGHTWEIGHT, CUT TRANSPARENCY

-Eyetrack Orbitars - the shots are too slow to really cause pressure without the looping, and without Shot Range+, Eyetrack Orbitars lose a LOT of mid-range looping capability and damage output. Eyetrack Orbitars also has questionable chargeup, so it ends up relying on Quick Charge to not get overwhelmed by most Dash Shots at least breaking even with the Forward Shot. The only thing that allows it to have any brokenness is weapon modifiers, which again speak for themselves.

Verdict: CUT

-Power Attack+ - I will say that Power Attack+ is tempting to list, because it allows for Mega Laser to kill through Health+6 with disgusting ease and there's no way to blunt it because defense modifiers certainly get ignored by attack Powers. However, it is STILL outpaced by the Speed+ mods, Shot Range+, and ESPECIALLY Evasion+ by a wide margin, though this testifies that weapon modifiers in general are a broken mess.

Verdict: REVIEW (FWIW)

And just for more shooting at the credibility of the vanilla TV Tropes version, let's talk about Evasion+, which I seem to recall had been taken off from it in the past. See, what I didn't go over with Evasion+ on either the All The Tropes version or the blog post, is that Evasion+ and ANY possible answers to it just lead to dragged out matches. This particularly hurts Powers because their usage ends up stretched thin, and when that happens, you end up with a game that not only loses depth, but meets with the same nasty biases that that depth had been addressing in the first place. Also of note, Evasion+ makes Bumblebee so much stronger, which chains into Energy Charge also being much more of a persisting threat. I have thwarted Bumblebee setups before because of Bumblebee's full line requirement and forced clockwise movement around the auto-dodge's initiator, so I know the problem can't be Bumblebee, especially when you'd expect that Skyscraper Club would hate dealing with Bumblebee more than Evasion+. It's bogus that Evasion+ would be removed from the vanilla TV Tropes version when it's the clear culprit to some of the worst imbalances in the game.

Short of it is, vanilla TV Tropes' community doesn't care about communication. If they did, a page like Kid Icarus Uprising's Game Breaker page would be LONG cleaned up.