Clover

Clover is a playable character in Madwatch 2. She was the 4th character to be completed in development, proceeded by Mercury and succeeded by Elsa.

NOTE: This article is out of date.

Clover is currently placed at 10th of the 11 character on the present tier list, placing her at the bottom of C tier and the lowest ranking initial character and second lowest returning veteran from the original Madwatch. Clover's strengths include her very solid defensive game, cementing her as the game's first and emblematic zoner, similar to her previous role in the original Madwatch. She excels at zone control in a wide area, which can often be hard to challenge due her sheer range. Her main tool is her Steel Ball Run, a projectile that sets up for a plethora of follow ups due to the high base hitlag as well as its long duration. It can manipulated with Clover's other attacks, extending the duration of both attacks during the hitlag giving Clover an added layer of safety that must be respected as after a brief pause, the Steel Ball will be launched in the direction it was hit toward. This alone allows Clover to control the stage so long as the Steel Ball as is on stage, as failing to respect the projectile can easily result in Clover killing the opponent outright with her exceptionally powerful Smash attacks courtesy of her shotgun. Said Smash attacks also have the unique property of destroying enemy projectiles they encounter, making her not only a potent zoner but also exceptional at preventing herself from likewise being camped by projectiles. While she is a heavyweight character and decidedly floaty due to her average gravity but low falling speed, Clover's defensive same as surprisingly solid. On the ground, her Up Special, Full Circle, is a fantastic out of shield option due to its incredible speed, large hitbox, and invulnerability on startup, making it a prime tool for punishing enemies who recklessly attack Clover's shield and is even able to catch some crossup attempts. It is also a fantastic recovery due to the momentum retained even after the hitbox is over, allow Clover to recovery both far and low away from the stage rather consistently, which gives her impressive durability combined with her high weight. Her Neutral Aerial comes out very quickly, making it another great option out of shield as well as being able to break out of some untrue combos while airborne. Likewise, despite her floaty nature, Clover suffers far less than other's with the trait due to her unique Down Air quickly descending her with almost no startup, endlag, nor landing lag, effectively replacing her fast fall. Her Forward and Backward Aerials, while slow to startup, are easily the most consistently powerful aerials of their type in the game, covering a large area on release and are notoriously hard to punish due to pushing Clover away once fired, giving them amazing reward with little risk. Her edgeguarding game is exceptional due to the aforementioned Steel Ball Run as well as her Down Smash striking well below the edge, meaning she can defend the stage while hardly posing any risk to herself. In regards to her Smash attacks as a whole, they have extreme range while having 2 unique properties in being able to be cancelled into a shield or roll, unusual for a Smash attack, as well as gaining no additional damage from being charged, instead being always being at half charge to begin with. Her Jab is very unique in that if there is no opponent in range, she will fire bullets to pelt the opponent with, keeping them away from her, whereas up close she will quickly kick them rapidly to rack up damage and launching them away, giving her a great tool for either spacing or getting close opponents away. All these traits have Clover a fairly potent neutral game and advantage state.

However, Clover also has some very notably flaws. The most glaring is her terrible mobility, easily having near bottom if not THE worst speed stats in the game in every category. This makes Clover wholly reliant on her projectiles to press any sort of advantage, as actually following an opponent is unrealistic. While she has strong tools, she also have a number of tools that are 'gimmicky' or don't see much use. Her Up Tilt is powerful on startup, but has a small hitbox and leaves Clover incredibly open for punishment, her Up Aerial has terrible range with minimal reward, and Super Strength takes a very long time to startup and is incredibly predictable despite its high power. Her grab game is also lacking, for interesting reasons. Her grab itself is poor, but her throws are actually solid, almost all of them allowing for combos due to their low endlag or low knockback scaling with favorable launch angles: If they were on anyone other than Clover, who lacks the speed or frame data to actually capitalize on these trait and would much rather prefer to have throws that killed instead. This calls attention to Clover's largest flaw overall: While she can win the neutral due to her emphasis on stage control, she has almost no combo game to speak of and a very brief advantage state in general. This is made even worst if the opponent has any manner of reflector or projectile invulnerability, which can shut down her one main draw as she is wholly reliant on her projectiles to have any sort of gameplan. Even without reflectors, the vast majority of Clover's kill options can be safely reacted to and shielded due to their on average very high startup. This makes actually scoring a kill on Clover against opponents who are aware of her gimmicks much more difficult than her high overall damage on hit would imply. While her disadvantage is rather solid for a zoning oriented character, it is far from flawless. She is very tall and a heavyweight character, making her easy to combo and attempting to escape with Down Air is predictable and can still be punished, due to the very small hitbox at her feet and when landing. Her range is proportional to the startup time it takes to use her attack in almost instances, so she especially struggles at medium range where she can neither safe prepare a slow projectile nor react any of her faster normals.

As a result of her glaring flaws, Clover is typically seen as a low-tier character with a slew of losing matchups. However, she still has potent strengths that can be capitalized upon has one the best neutral states in the game.

Attributes
[Character Overview]

WIP

Moveset
Notes: Clover's Smash attacks have unique properties:


 * The charging frames can be charge cancelled like other chargable moves into shield, roll, or spotdodge.
 * Damage is not increased based on charge time.
 * Destroys projectiles when fired.
 * Summon her gun from the sky, which destroys weak(<10%) projectiles.

Trivia

 * Clover is one of the initial 4 characters of MadWatch 2. She shares this distinction with CLEAR, Aaroy, and Mercury.