Double Trouble follow up vids (1/2)

[Yaggleberry Finn]

Since these are nearly ten minutes long each, I am going to divide them up into separate posts. I only have about seven minutes until I have another meeting so I can't go through and make comments on anything specific right now. Hopefully I can come back and add that in later.

For now I'll just say that this and the other (2/2) video were intended to be rematches of Double Trouble vs others on Mushroom Grove where I am playing everyone else and my friend (remember the three-year-old?) is playing Double Trouble. This is primarily to illustrate that someone who has very little experience playing as DT still has a good chance to dominate:

[starz499]

Im suddenly tempted to buy Double trouble haha nice vid!

[graz73]

I'm amazed at the amount of time you guys have put into testing and discussing double trouble. In my own less rigorous testing, my 8 yr old daughter was able to beat me every time playing as DT when I played as anyone else. And I was not trying to go easy on her either.

[Yaggleberry Finn]

Ha! I think there are a handful of reasons that this has gone on for so long. First of all, Tyris seemed pretty unconvinced that DT was so overpowered on the Wii. Therefore it required video evidence and the consequent discussions, which still haven't completely won him over

Second, any time you are trying to establish one Skylander as the best overall, it probably requires more discussion than others. Due to the version differences, only video clips can adequately show just how good any character is, whether it's Double Trouble or someone else.

Finally, we seem to be two strongly opinionated people who don't want to budge ;D

I agree with your simple analysis - when an 8 year old whips you with DT, you know he's extremely good.

However, all of this discussion and video has given me an urge to do this with a lot more characters. And if I can know that the PS3 and XBox 360 versions play the same, I can use my newly acquired 360 game to highlight the main differences between the Wii and these other two. In short, I am inspired to make a lot more videos! They're much easier to do than the blog posts I had going in the past.

[tyris01]

First of all, Tyris seemed pretty unconvinced that DT was so overpowered on the Wii. Therefore it required video evidence and the consequent discussions, which still haven't completely won him over

Yeah, totally, I mean, it's not like I said anything like THIS in the previous thread:

As in, not the very best one. I'd place him in your game's version of the PS3's unholy trinity

Oh, wait, that was me. You can at least accuse me of something true.

Anyway, the point isn't that he's super broken, merely that certain things can, in fact, beat him... despite not being themselves broken. You're saying he's broken then do stuff like play your best while using on a map that favors him with all his heroics done... against foes who don't know how to play their character, on a map that doesn't favor them, with none or very few of their Heroics done, then, somehow, conclude that he's amazingly overpowered. Yeah....



Anyway...

Battle 1 Rollout Bash VS D.T.
Neither the roll nor the Tail Swipe interrupt D.T. In addition, your D.T.'s Magic Bomb has ZERO knockback.
As I concluded in the prior thread, the first two were major differences. Watching your video, it's plain the third one is ANOTHER major factor.
There's no way Bash can win this on yours version. On the PS3 it's pretty much the exact opposite... D.T. can't cast a darn thing as he keeps getting interrupted, and when he doesn't the Magic Bomb it will 'push' Bash outside the range of successive blasts (unless he's in Rollout mode, in which case he's immune to the KB and will likely get hit repeatedly, but since he gets in Tail Slap interrupt range, it doesn't matter taking that 195, that's just the toll).

Battle 2 Tail Bash VS Double Trouble
Seems the Bash player learned to play halfway through the fight. I love the parts where he rolled up to D.T. and just sat there waiting to get hit by Magic Bombs. Is there a reason for this?
He still won, but it should have been much closer. It's apparent on your system that Tail Bash is preferable to Rollout Bash on this fight. On the PS3, Bash will never get close enough without the Knockback immunity afforded by the Rollout. On your system, he's pretty much immune anyway.

Battle 3 Tail Bash VS Double Trouble
...gwah?? Is Bash even TRYING to Roll when getting hit with the beam? I'm assuming it's interrupting it, can you confirm this?
Also, for some odd reason, your Magic Bombs stay in the place when they are cast when D.T. is pushed away from the casting point. That's just.... weird.

Battle 4 Lightning Rod(?!?) VS Double Trouble
...you have Lightning Rod?!!?!
I don't know what his moves are, but if he's going to cast that Guided Lightning, he should be doing it from the higher ground, farther away from D.T., so he can guide it in without being attacked.
I'm going to assume competence on the L.R. player's part and guess that there's some sort of short range limit on the lightning. Can you confirm or deny this?
His Call Lightning attack SEEMS to either outdamage or interrupt the Beam, or maybe D.T. just got unlucky. His player seems to want to sit there and let himself get chain Magic Bomb'ed, though. Or sometimes even charge in (pardon the pun) to get creamed when he could sit on a ledge instead.

Battle 5 Lightning Rod VS Double Trouble
Aside from the Lightning Rod player seeming determined to charge in and put his face in bomb range or, alternatively, sit there and take the Bombs, he somehow manages to win. Good job, I guess? I can't really judge this as I have no freakin clue what Lightning Rod can do.

Battle 6 Lightning Rod VS Double Trouble
Hey! He learned to run from Magic Bombs! YAY! GJ. Still came out close, though. Still can't say much, I've only seen that one purple lightning move. I'm assuming he's specced to max out that attack as much as possible. Still like to see what his other attacks even are.

Battle 7 Caster Hex VS Double Trouble
LOL. This is usually a horrible slaughter on my system, Hex tends to go within seconds. Something about how the beam just retargets and obliterates the bone wall like a speedbump then his damage buff cuts in and... yeah.
Hex did admirably well in the first half of the fight, putting up the wall, dropping Skull Rains, etc. And then in the last half her player just freaked out, threw up walls, and dried to Orb D.T. to death. I don't know how to say this since she seems a bit more survivable here, but I think she honestly had a chance to lose with only a sliver of his health remaining, or perhaps eke out a chance for a win if she had remembered the skulls later in the fight and walked away from a couple of bombs.
Nice fight.

Battle 8 Pook Blade Stelf VS Double Trouble
Errr... wow? Does that Stealth Elf even have Regeneration? Or is it just crazily slow? She should have moved away a bit to regen some health a few times there, especially since it looks like items are off.
In addition... her flip is terrible on your system. It's barely faster than just walking since the animation has such a short range. I have to record a PS3 fight with her for you so you can understand.
Still, he replaces her in your game, so it's good to see a decent fight. That was fairly close, I think if she didn't keep running off the ledge she might have stood a chance, but she might have been doing that to avoid Magic Bomb pwnage, so it's a toss up.
You know how you think D.T. is the be-all and end-all on your system, or close to it? Yeah, that's her on mine.

Battle 9 Pook Blade Stelf VS Double Trouble
See fight 8. Better playing on D.T.'s part this game, though. Was it the same person as fight 8?
Also... has the Stelf player tried using her Camouflage ability? I wonder how and if it works on your system.

Battle 10 Boomerage Dino-Rang VS Double Trouble
No surprise here. This is one-sided on my system too. His shield does good damage, but he has to get into Bomb Range. He can launch a single rang and guide it, but D.T. will tick 3-4 times before getting hit, a good DPS race for D.T. When Rang's shield is up, he can't toss rangs, so basically D.T. just has to trick him into doing it then walk away beaming.
Really easy for a decent D.T. player to obliterate even a highly skilled Rang player here... this is one of those Rock VS Scissors fights.

Battle 11 Boomerang Dino-Rang VS Double Trouble
See Battle 10. Hard counter.


Bash, Hex, and Dino-Rang get hard countered here. Gratz on the Hex player's early skill, but most of this just die for different reasons. Stelf did better than before, considering she's nerfed into the ground, but usually she loses. Unless her Camouflage mode can save her, I don't see her standing much of a chance.
Lightning Rod is very interesting. I don't know all his abilities, but he looks quite powerful. Have you tested him alot too?

---

Good video quality, I like whatever setup you use! These looked much better, did you do the Heroics for them too? It seems as if whomever you're playing against in these examples is better than the previous crop. Either it's the same person who's got a bit more practice in, or a different person who's better.

I have to get me a Lightning Rod! Do you have Zook too?

[Yaggleberry Finn]

Oh, wait, that was me. You can at least accuse me of something true.

[leecorso]Not so fast, my friend![/leecorso]

Let's have a quick review for the kids:

Yags: "I stand by my statement that he's head and shoulders above all other Skylanders on the Wii."

Tyris: "I'm going to say that still doesn't put him 'head and shoulders' above all other Skylanders. As in, not the very best one."

In other words, I say he's clearly top dog. You are not convinced. My "accusation" still stands.

Battle 2 Tail Bash VS Double Trouble
Seems the Bash player learned to play halfway through the fight. I love the parts where he rolled up to D.T. and just sat there waiting to get hit by Magic Bombs. Is there a reason for this?

Yep, there's a very simple reason: he is charging up his 240 damage tail attack. Landing that attack twice is why he won. You can't move while you're charging it up, and you can't charge and then release at your leisure. Once you start charging, there is a specific wait time and then the big tail swipe releases. Is that different on PS3?

Battle 3 Tail Bash VS Double Trouble
...gwah?? Is Bash even TRYING to Roll when getting hit with the beam? I'm assuming it's interrupting it, can you confirm this?

Can't confirm at the moment. We'll check in on that one.

Battle 4 Lightning Rod(?!?) VS Double Trouble
...you have Lightning Rod?!!?!
I don't know what his moves are, but if he's going to cast that Guided Lightning, he should be doing it from the higher ground, farther away from D.T., so he can guide it in without being attacked.

Yes, Lightning Rod is a beast. This particular path upgrades nothing but the big lightning attack, and it is by far his strongest attack on the path. Throwing bolts is okay at range, but you can see that they really don't go any farther than the range of the big boom attack. He also has a little "zapper" field which is what his other path upgrades. We haven't tried that one yet... but over at DS I've heard people say it's his preferred path. If that's the case then he has two amazing paths!

His Call Lightning attack SEEMS to either outdamage or interrupt the Beam, or maybe D.T. just got unlucky.

That was my first PVP experience with Rod, and I was playing as him so I can only briefly comment here. My friend said he felt like DT was temporarily stunned by the lightning attack. I was busy trying to control it - it doesn't lock on like the eldritch beam - so I didn't notice anything like that happening to him. Sounds like the only way to really experience it is to be on the receiving end of Rod's attack. I'll try that next time we have a chance to play.

Battle 7 Caster Hex VS Double Trouble
Hex did admirably well in the first half of the fight, putting up the wall, dropping Skull Rains, etc. And then in the last half her player just freaked out, threw up walls, and dried to Orb D.T. to death. I don't know how to say this since she seems a bit more survivable here, but I think she honestly had a chance to lose with only a sliver of his health remaining, or perhaps eke out a chance for a win if she had remembered the skulls later in the fight and walked away from a couple of bombs.
Nice fight.

Hex is arguably my favorite character, even though she isn't the best one overall. I wouldn't say I was freaking out on the orbs, just hoping that they could shoot down the gap. Once someone gets close to Hex, she can be in big trouble. I like to spam the bone wall for damage, but him being down on the lower level kept that from happening. Given the type disadvantage, Hex really doesn't have much of a chance here either way.

Battle 8 Pook Blade Stelf VS Double Trouble
Errr... wow? Does that Stealth Elf even have Regeneration? Or is it just crazily slow? She should have moved away a bit to regen some health a few times there, especially since it looks like items are off.
In addition... her flip is terrible on your system. It's barely faster than just walking since the animation has such a short range. I have to record a PS3 fight with her for you so you can understand.

She does have regeneration, it gives her +5 health every five seconds. So even running away doesn't really help that much. And now you've seen her flip on the Wii!

Battle 9 Pook Blade Stelf VS Double Trouble
See fight 8. Better playing on D.T.'s part this game, though. Was it the same person as fight 8?
Also... has the Stelf player tried using her Camouflage ability? I wonder how and if it works on your system.

Same two people playing all the matches. The camouflage ability functions, but it's really not great on the Wii. She is completely invisible (otherwise your opponent would just see where you were going) which makes it tough to control. Furthermore, the double that appears just walks in a straight line, which makes it look fairly obviously that you're invisible.

The bigger challenge here is that Stealth Elf has to be in melee range to attack at all. And then Double Trouble crushes her.

Lightning Rod is very interesting. I don't know all his abilities, but he looks quite powerful. Have you tested him alot too?

We will test him more, but I'm already very surprised at how strong he is. So far there is nothing that interrupts his big lightning attack, and apparently it has some stun ability to go with it. We will give the other path a go soon as well and will snag video of it.

Good video quality, I like whatever setup you use! These looked much better, did you do the Heroics for them too? It seems as if whomever you're playing against in these examples is better than the previous crop. Either it's the same person who's got a bit more practice in, or a different person who's better.

No new heroics have been done yet. My friend has all the figs and they're pretty much all HC-free. We will start testing with those so the playing field is level.

Do you have Zook too?

I guess you haven't watched the other two videos that I posted yet?

[tyris01]

More re-caps for the kiddies...

Yaggy:"First of all, Tyris seemed pretty unconvinced that DT was so overpowered on the Wii."
(Hint: This is the accusation...)

Tyrry:"As in, not the very best one. I'd place him in your game's version of the PS3's unholy trinity"
(Hint: This is my rebuttal to you claiming I think he's not overpowered.)

You're focused on the 'head and shoulders above all the others', which was not what I was saying was false. Me recognizing he's in the Broken Tier on the Wii? Absolutely, my view changed when I saw all the horse**** ways that system doesn't sanely restrict his power, mostly do to game mechanics like "All moves are uninterruptible" and "Pushback doesn't work 90% of the time".

I still don't believe he's the absolute best though. If you want to focus on that, more power to ya.

Yep, there's a very simple reason: he is charging up his 240 damage tail attack. Landing that attack twice is why he won. You can't move while you're charging it up, and you can't charge and then release at your leisure. Once you start charging, there is a specific wait time and then the big tail swipe releases. Is that different on PS3?

Yes. D.T.'s player letting him land the attack is why he won. But the D.T. can cancel out of his 3-round-burst Bomb, at least on my system, so he can fire up the first two then walk away with a lockon beam. And just Knockback that poor bash away over and over.
I'm not quite sure how that move really works on my system, as I don't use it at all. After observing it's effects, I simply slapped it down as 'anti-melee melee' trickiness. Furthermore, since many attacks cause Knockback on my version, and Tail Swipe Bash's Roll is easily interrupted by them (you get knocked back and knocked out of the Roll), it makes him really hard to be worthwhile against anything with a ranged attack. The 240 charge up is neat, but you're not going to get it off against anything with any sort of ranged attack or charge move.

This particular path upgrades nothing but the big lightning attack, and it is by far his strongest attack on the path. Throwing bolts is okay at range, but you can see that they really don't go any farther than the range of the big boom attack. He also has a little "zapper" field which is what his other path upgrades. We haven't tried that one yet... but over at DS I've heard people say it's his preferred path. If that's the case then he has two amazing paths!

My GF got me one last night.
I went down the Zapper path just to see what it's like, since I've seen your version and figured it was the big lightning path since my basic L.R. didn't turn purple and shoot evil death lightning from the heavens.
So far, it's pretty neat. I don't have the Soul Gem ability yet (1200 more gold go to), but I've done all his heroics and he's a bit of a monster. The Zappers do about 8 damage each every half second, and half the time one will be chewing on a guy if he's in melee, the other half o the time two. His Zap field does 10 damage every half second (the same rate), so he's dishing out about 44 damage per second when he's up close. Not quite as good as a dedicated melee (since they deal about that much with each basic attack), but not bad either. I'm hoping the Soul Gem at least doubles the field or zap sats damage, or at least adds +50% to each, in which case he can slightly out-race melee guys if you don't count their Finishers.
He works similar to the Phasing path of Ghost Roaster in that there's no reason to 'hold' the Zapper Field. You can just tap it at intervals, the damage is instantaneous, and the recovery time is only marginally longer than the tick time on the attack itself.

It'll probably be my preferred path for him, honestly. The limit on the Call Lightning really sucks, but going down that path seems to be a one-trick-pony sort of deal. I'm going to also assume you still get interrupted with it as easily, at least on my system. On your vids he seems to keep doing it while getting hit, on mine, it's so easy to interrupt him while casting it that it's useless up close. I don't see that path helping things. If he could ignore it like Ignitor, then I'd love him.

I was busy trying to control it - it doesn't lock on like the eldritch beam - so I didn't notice anything like that happening to him. Sounds like the only way to really experience it is to be on the receiving end of Rod's attack. I'll try that next time we have a chance to play.

Sounds good. Yeah, it keeps going in the direction you push, even if you stop pushing, at least on the PS3. So you have to 'wiggle' it back and forth across an enemy, and a fast moving foe can 'jink' to dodge the worst of it.

Hex is arguably my favorite character, even though she isn't the best one overall. I wouldn't say I was freaking out on the orbs, just hoping that they could shoot down the gap. Once someone gets close to Hex, she can be in big trouble. I like to spam the bone wall for damage, but him being down on the lower level kept that from happening. Given the type disadvantage, Hex really doesn't have much of a chance here either way.

Exactly right.
However, Hex, like Ignitor, is defined by her unusal extra abilities, and learning how and when to properly use each. I'm not saying she can win every time, but there were points in there where you could have easily inflicted more damage. Against an equally skilled D.T. player you're still toast, but you can beat a slightly less skilled one if you're used to sorting your attacks. And such skills come in highly useful versus other toons.

My favorite is also an Undead type... Cynder. Unfortunately, she's rather broken on my system, so I don't get much chance to use her despite her being my favorite.

She does have regeneration, it gives her +5 health every five seconds. So even running away doesn't really help that much. And now you've seen her flip on the Wii!

It's so terrible, it hardly even counts. It saddens me to know that Giants will be programmed to function like the current Wii version, but for all platforms. Her flip is literally useless on your system. I need to get a video of it on mine. The distance it covers is crazy, especially how fast you can spam it. There's literally no way to get away from her on any map.

The camouflage ability functions, but it's really not great on the Wii. She is completely invisible (otherwise your opponent would just see where you were going) which makes it tough to control. Furthermore, the double that appears just walks in a straight line, which makes it look fairly obviously that you're invisible.

Yeah, but the opponent doesn't know where she is, though he can hazard a guess. The important bit that I meant there was, what happens with his beam? Does it lock onto the double and dispel it? Do no damage but stay locked? What?

We will test him more, but I'm already very surprised at how strong he is. So far there is nothing that interrupts his big lightning attack, and apparently it has some stun ability to go with it. We will give the other path a go soon as well and will snag video of it.

Yeah, big version difference here. I'm going to assume it's a Wii/PS3 thing, and not just a 'he gets interruption immunity from the spec' thing. Do you have a blank one you can test that out on?

I guess you haven't watched the other two videos that I posted yet?

No, generally I respond to one post at a time, if they need it, then move to the next one. I've yet to multitask to the point where I watch them and write a response to another post.