So it’s been about 3-4 months since we’ve seen the release of Alex, and I’m sure a lot of people myself and other frequenters of the Alex sub-forum have ideas and suggestions in regards to the balancing of the character. This thread is going to become an unofficial list of changes that different people want, jot them down and if Capcom ever announces a balance patch I can round up all of the sensible suggestions and send them to Peter or whoever handles the community feedback.
General rules to abide by, to not look like a dummy -
Keep the balance changes “sensible” meaning that the character is still fair and doesn’t become overpowered through your changes.
Write a short sentence or two about why you think the change you suggest should happen.
Try to build upon each other’s suggestions, if you feel something needs to be built upon.
My proposed changes
Lower the overall frame-count of Alex’s forward dash by 2f to make it 17f from 19f.
This change would drastically improve Alex’s pressure and oki, giving him more chances to close the gap and pressure on wake-up or make dash-in from mid-range in neutral a bigger threat.
Increase st.lk’s hitstun and lower it’s start-up to 4f.
Alex has some issues when punishing certain -4 moves, because his only 4f tools available are cr.lp/st.lp with their piss poor range. This can cause issues for Alex’s punishment game and let certain characters disrespect him, making st.lk 4f and allowing it’s hitstun to link into l.chop gives Alex a solid 4f option with range to punish with.
Make st.lp +3 on block.
A way to fix the issue Alex has with 3f normal mashing is by making his st.lp +3 on block, making st.lp > st.mp a 3f gap to beat them. People propose that having a +3 on block normal may be too strong for a character with a 6f command grab, but because the change would be applied to st.lp it heavily reduces the range and opportunities we would actually have to mix the opponent up. Laura, Mika, Birdie and Gief ALL have light moves that give them a 3f gap into command grab. Alex is the only grappler that does not have this luxury and it isn’t fair on him. I think this change needs to happen quite desperately to bring him in line with every other grappler in the game.
Make st.hk -3 on block.
St.hk is one of Alex’s most rewarding yet risky buttons, and I’m a little sad with how it’s currently -4 on block. If the normal itself was -3 we make it 0 on block at best through making it hit meaty. This at least lets Alex pressure with a meaty st.hk and at least have a fighting chance to not lose his turn. Making this change also avoids punishment from 4f attacks on regular hit, which is why I think this button isn’t worth using at the moment.
Slightly increase Powerbomb’s range.
An issue with Alex’s staple “m.chop/f.hp into st.mp/powerbomb” set-ups is that characters with fast walkspeeds can sometimes just walk out of your mix-up. The Powerbomb range is one of the shortest in the game and I think it needs to be slightly adjusted to connect more consistently after non point-blank m.chops.
Remove st.mk’s lower hurtbox and allow it to stuff low attacks.
This change is fairly straight forward. Alex has a cr.mp to poke at long distances with, he also has a st.mk that looks as if it stuffs buttons that would stuff his cr.mp, except it doesn’t and st.mk is pretty useless right now. Pull back the lower hurtbox and let it stuff low attacks, considering our slow walkspeed and reliance on cr.mp at mid-range I think it shows how weak the rest of his normals can really be when poking.
Make EX Headbutt and EX Stomp track automatically and remove their manual aiming.
Some people like that you can manually aim the stomp and headbutt, but personally I would prefer to hold a charge whilst I’m in the Stomp animation so I’m ready to confirm into elbow if the stomp is blocked and I go into st.mp. This is a small quality of life change, but it allows Alex to hold charge whilst pressuring from the air which can be a strong damage conversion/corner carry change.
Extend f.hp’s lower hitbox so it connects on it’s earlier frames at longer distances.
I doubt this one needs explaining, I’m only looking for 1half/or fourth-ish of a training square more in terms of range but it would allow Alex to get consistent set-ups like his v-reversal > dash > f.hp without it whiffing because of the distancing from his opponent.
Extend the Knee hitbox horizontally, lower the hurtbox.
This special serves little to no purposes outside of being a combo ender. I’m not happy with that, I feel it should anti-air just a little better than it currently does. Lowering the hurtbox and extending it’s horizontal hitbox improves on that.
EX Knee to be given earlier upper body invincibilty.
Again this is in regards to his Knee Smash just not doing what it’s supposed to be doing, it should be a strong anti-air option yet it isn’t. There isn’t any need to expend bar for EX Knee because you can just st.lp into a mix-up more consistently and safely. The Knee needs to be fine tuned to do what it’s made to do - anti-air.
Minimal forward walkspeed changes
I feel like Alex’s forward walkspeed is slower than it needs to be. I think ever so slightly increasing it would let him walk in and out of ranges and improve his overall poking ability. When I say minimal I mean minimal, he SHOULD be a slow character, I want the smallest change possible, like 0.05 of an increase.
Adjust his V-Skill to give normals better advantages on block as well as hit.Probably too crazy
A lot of the changes above would make doing this pretty crazy, but I feel as though we have possibly the worst v-skill in the game right now. If Alex’s v-skill added 1/3 frames of stun to his normals on block as well as hit? It wouldn’t actually be so bad and make our pressure game quite interesting to top it off, but I do feel doing this makes Alex’s pressure straight up godlike but it doesn’t come without it’s weaknesses. Obviously if you get hit, it’s gone, you have to stand around and perform the v-skill to prepare it, and even then you might have to poke them and lose your hard hit when you finally manage to get close and want to use it.
That’s all I have in my head at the moment. If anybody has anything else to add drop it below. I’ll compile all of the suggestions if Capcom ever want community feedback.
Seriously though, I don’t feel his dash is too slow and he’s always got the Elbow to get across the screen quickly. I’m almost certain I’m in the minority here (Minority of One most likely).