MultiVersus, WB Games’ answer to Super Smash Bros., entered open beta earlier today with a new playable character in real-life basketball player LeBron James and a host of balance changes.
While the MultiVersus update focuses on several characters, the most significant adjustments were saved for Looney Tunes rep The Tasmanian Devil (or Taz for short). Taz was a force to be reckoned with during the closed beta, with some comparing the utility of his Tornado special to similar tools that made Kirby villain Meta Knight so dominant in the days of Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
“Our plan is to transition the Tornado to a cooldown move in an upcoming patch,” the patch notes read. “The tornado is Taz’s signature move, so we want to keep it as one of his most powerful attacks, with the cooldown forcing more intentional use of it. These nerfs will reduce Taz’s strength, especially at higher levels of play, so expect some buffs to the other moves in his kit in the near future.”
In the meantime, Taz’s Tornado received a slight damage reduction as well as a decrease in duration and hits.
Other changes in today’s update include increased cooldown on Batman’s Batarang special, numerous bug fixes for the Iron Giant (please just take him out entirely), and a weight reduction for Scooby Doo investigator Velma Dinkley. Velma is another character considered to be among the best in MultiVersus, so it’s possible she’ll see more substantial changes in the future.
Here’s a full breakdown of the MultiVersus patch:
Batman
- Air/Ground Neutral Attack: Cooldown on Batarang increased from 13s to 14s. Pick up of Batarang returns 11.55 second up from 11.05. This means that the minimum time between Batarang throws is 2.45s up from 1.95s.
- Batman’s Batarang pick-up cooldown created very small windows where the Batarang wasn’t in play. This change should make it so opponents of Batman have a larger window between Batarang attacks to gain advantage.
- Bug Fix: Air/Ground Side Special: Fixed a bug where Grapple would sometimes shoot you off the map.
Bugs Bunny
- Air Up Attack: Startup window increased by 2 frames, active window decreased by 2 frames
- The hitbox made it so that Bugs Bunny hit nearly all around himself. This should make the up air a bit more reasonable to deal with.
Iron Giant
- Bug Fix: Air Down Attack: can no longer combo into itself
- Bug Fix: Air/Ground Down Special: can no longer repeatedly hit and lock opponents in place forever
- Bug Fix: Air Up Attack: Can no longer repeatedly hit opponents
Steven Universe
- Air Neutral Attack: Knocks opponents up and away to prevent an infinite attack caused by alternating Air Down Attack and Air Neutral Attack.
Taz
- Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that was preventing Taz from doing any aerial attacks once he reached his air special limit.
- Air/Ground Side Special: If you have been following early access, Taz’s Tornado has been dominating his character kit and presenting a non-obvious knowledge check for newer players. By reducing its effectiveness we hope to improve his gameplay health and loop and bring the game to a healthier state for newer players.
- A decrease to the tornado’s duration and the additional duration gained by passing an ally.
- Removing one of the multi-hits of the tornado.
- Decreasing the hit pause of all the hits in the tornado.
- Reduced knockback from the final hit in the tornado from 1375 to 1275.
- Right now, our plan is to transition the Tornado to a cooldown move in an upcoming patch. The tornado is Taz’s signature move so we want to keep it as one of his most powerful attacks, with the cooldown forcing more intentional use of it. These nerfs will reduce Taz’s strength, especially at higher levels of play, so expect some buffs to the other moves in his kit in the near future. Thank you for your patience and we will continue to evaluate Taz’s gameplay health.
Velma
- Weight: reduced from 70 to 63
- It was an oversight on our part that Velma is one of the heaviest characters in the game. This change should bring her more in-line with where we originally envisioned her.
MultiVersus is currently in open beta on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and the Epic Games Store.