Official Character Competitive Impressions - Tourneys, Tiers, Theories, Tactics

[Rizen]

Custom Palutena isn't even that dumb with customs anyways.

If they get stomped by a good Palutena with customs, they should learn the MU and not *****.


git gud etc

This is a two way street. One could say to non-custom Palutenas "git gud".

Customs aren't for this thread. My feelings about Palutena are "somebody has to be low tier". SSB4 is a very well balanced game and even Palutena has things going for her. People need to stop complaining and trying to change the rules. Just accept that not all characters are created equal but the game has good balance regardless.
I mean I've played a consistently mediocre at best character in every smash game- Link. One thing you learn when maining a low tier is that you'll be at a disadvantage. Link veterans know that but play him because we like his style so well and "he's freaking Link". He does get his butt handed to him by Sheik, Fox, ZSS and some other characters but that's the price I pay for, well, not maining Sheik, lol.

 

[Antonykun]

ROB's reflector is the worst in the game tho. Really slow and half the time it doesn't reflect things anyway.

By comparison Fox's reflector is probably one of the better ones tbh.

And Pits' reflectors have other utility other than actually reflecting things.

I think if I was to rank them it would probably be more like:

Good:
Villager (Not really a reflector but w/e)
Falco
Marios'
Mewtwo
Zelda

Average:
Pits'
Gunner
Fox
Palutena (100% uptime is this things saving grace)
Lucas (Faster than Ness's)
Ness (Stronger than Lucas's)

Unsuable:
Swordspider
ROB

For Swordfailure, do you mean unusable because of TO's ruling?

 

[bc1910]

I don't think D3 can eat transcendent projectiles, but he can eat any others, whether they can be absorbed or not. For example he can eat Greninja's uncharged shurikens but he can't eat the fully charged transcendent one.

 

[Kirby Dragons]

Absorption only works on energy projectiles. The only moves that actually absorb are PSI Magnet, Oil Panic, and Absorbing Vortex.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

For Swordfailure, do you mean unusable because of TO's ruling?

no i mean it's garbage

 

[Antonykun]

no i mean it's garbage

huh?
*goes on the Kurogane Hammer web site to compare Reversal Slash and Cape *
*Sees that they are pretty similar aside from RS having 2 more frames of endlag*
does it have to do with the hitbox size then?

 

[Yikarur]

Swordfighter Reflector is pretty good. It has very low ending lag and thus it's not really a commitment to miss the reflection.

 

[KeithTheGeek]

There's not that many. Lucas' heals obscene amounts and is silly in dubz. G&W basically says unless you want to lose the match, don't use your energy projectiles. Villager's invalidates Bowser Jr, ROB, etc, as well as making life hell for Wario, WFT, Samus, DDD, etc.

It kinda depends with Dedede honestly. Don't get me wrong, you absolutely do NOT want to get hit by a pocketed Gordo, but at the same time the most notable property of Gordo is that it can be reflected. On more than one occasion I've taken advantage of this in the Villager MU by getting cheesy OHKOs by reflecting a pockted Gordo.

I imagine that if Dedede for whatever reason tries to land on Villager with side b and he pockets it, Villager can probably throw it back out before Dedede has recovered from the move so...yeah. But Villager can abuse Dedede in many other ways in that match-up anyways, since he has no real answer to zoning and Villager's Fair/Bair are amazing at controlling the air space Dedede wants to be in.

On the talk regarding Dedede's inhale as a projectile absorber, well... http://gfycat.com/PiercingAmazingChimneyswift

There's no way you can avoid this, and most characters are reasonably fast enough to catch Dedede in his swallow endlag. For that reason alone it's the worst absorbing move. Not to mention that it has noticeably more start-up and (I think, need to double check) cooldown than Kirby's inhale.

 

[Antonykun]

Swordfighter Reflector is pretty good. It has very low ending lag and thus it's not really a commitment to miss the reflection.

considering the move has only 38 frames of endlag (as opposed to Luigi's fire balls at 44) I can call that low endlag for reflecting far away. up close you might get punished for it tho

 

[Man Li Gi]

This is a two way street. One could say to non-custom Palutenas "git gud".

Customs aren't for this thread. My feelings about Palutena are "somebody has to be low tier". SSB4 is a very well balanced game and even Palutena has things going for her. People need to stop complaining and trying to change the rules. Just accept that not all characters are created equal but the game has good balance regardless.
I mean I've played a consistently mediocre at best character in every smash game- Link. One thing you learn when maining a low tier is that you'll be at a disadvantage. Link veterans know that but play him because we like his style so well and "he's freaking Link". He does get his butt handed to him by Sheik, Fox, ZSS and some other characters but that's the price I pay for, well, not maining Sheik, lol.

Customs in regards of talking about purely ruleset manner (what I did before), isn't for this thread, but talking about how customs completey change a character's tier placement, the theories, and tactics are perfectly for this thread. Yeah it's true, someone does have to be low tier, but being low tier simply because people don't want them to be at their full potential is puzzling. It's like telling an athlete you have to run at half speed while everybody else runs at full speed.

So yes talking about customs without regards to characters is not for the thread, but for actual characters, then yes it is.

Also, yes this may be the best balanced Smash game, but it aint too hard or too much of an accomplishment with both 64 and Brawl being what they were and where Melee had a character that could near infinite and be considered 8th place. So I guess Smash 4 has that going for it, playing in a customless meta for many characters is the equivalent of being tied down by weights.

 

[Mo433]

Yo. MikeKirby recently got 5th at KTAR XIV using Kirby alone. He took Nairo to game 3, and at other tournies has beaten top players like Vinnie and Larry Lur using only Kirby. He's also placed pretty well across the board with Kirby in his region. And on stream, Mr.R stated that he believes Kirby is high tier.

Thoughts on this?

 

[warionumbah2]

has beaten top players like Vinnie

Wasn't that back when customs were available?

 

[Y2Kay]

Wasn't that back when customs were enabled?

does kirby has some awesome custom I don't know about?

 

[adom4]

does kirby has some awesome custom I don't know about?

Upper cutter is mad good, jumping inhale is pretty good too.

 

[|RK|]

does kirby has some awesome custom I don't know about?

Upper Cutter alone solves so many of Kirby's issues. It's a relatively quick kill move, far better recovery than Final Cutter, great edgeguarding tool, etc.

 

[Asdioh]

And on stream, Mr.R stated that he believes Kirby is high tier.

Thoughts on this?

Kirby's pretty good if your opponent approaches you recklessly, and pretty garbage bottom tier if they camp your brains out. Unless customs are on, then he's still pretty good.

I asked Mike the other day about his record with Vinnie, and he actually had been keeping track! He said he was 3-2 against him customs on, and 0-3 customs off. He also says he hasn't played against him in a very long time.

 

[B-Black]

As I saw Yikarur 's post about Miis in tournaments a month ago, there's still hope.
Let me explain quickly about them:
Miis aren't allowed in tournaments because:

-Too complicated to learn EVERY combinaisons with every height/weight and MU.
Miis' moves are essentially based of another characters:
-Brawler: Mario, LM, Cap.Falcon
-Gunner: Samus, Fox, Ness
-Swordfighter: Marth, Link
Plus, every mii players , if they know how to use them, choose the best set (obviously):
-Brawler: 2122
-Gunner: 3312
-Swordfighter: 3331?
Some of tourneys let you choose your Mii, ONLY if your Mii has an average weight/height, which IMO hinders miis' potential.

-Too long to create them.
That's not a problem, unless they want to create them IN THE MIDDLE OF a tourney, which is quite annoying. If they want to put their mii, bring your 3DS or create them in a WiiU as soon as possible.

-They have customs, so BAN THEM!
This is where this topic is getting interesting. When the custom mode is off, when you select "Mii", it asks you if you want to create one or choose a mii you've already created. When you choose "Create", it lets you choose all your Miis in the "Creator Mii" or choose a "Guest". When chosen, it proposes a set that you can modify; unlike the others characters, because when you choose any character /bar mii, you can't modify their specials. Some tournaments allowed them BUT with a 1111 set, as it nerfed Miis' versatility and hinders their gameplay overall.

I still think the community has a sense of understanding and can actually have a proper argument, rather than "2 complicated, OP as ****, etc.".

 

[GeneralLedge]

We should ban Miis because I don't want to learn three new characters.



Hey guys did you hear the rumor that on Thursday they might be revealing three new DLC characters?

 

[Antonykun]

guys can we stop talking about the Mii's getting banned/"effectively banned"?
This really isn't the place for it

 

[meleebrawler]

We should ban Miis because I don't want to learn three new characters.



Hey guys did you hear the rumor that on Thursday they might be revealing three new DLC characters?

Wasn't there a tournament that banned Lucas and co. due to how recently he came out or something like that?

 

[Kaladin]

Wasn't there a tournament that banned Lucas and co. due to how recently he came out or something like that?

...Yeah, it was a kind of important tournament, too You're thinking of EVO.

 

[Antonykun]

Wasn't there a tournament that banned Lucas and co. due to how recently he came out or something like that?

that was EVO and it was more them Banning the Lucas patch rather than Lucas himself because he (and thus a potentially game warping patch) was still in development (Along with Ryu and Roy but we didn't know that the the time) while EVO was being prepared.

 

[GeneralLedge]

If it were Lucas himself, I'd be mixed about that. True, nobody would have experience using the character pre-EVO due to the tight schedule from the patch, but anyone using Lucas for the first time would hardly have any more an advantage than the people fighting against a Lucas for the first time.

Odds are it was to avoid other balance patches across the board having a significant effect on the tournament outcome.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Projectile camping doesn't really pose much of a problem to Fox [except Sheik's needles] so you'll basically never see a good Fox use reflector unless they spot an opportunity to reflect something like Shadow Ball or Charge Beam.

The move's main purpose is to stall and it's pretty good at that. It's a bad reflector but not a bad move.

 

[wpwood]

This is a two way street. One could say to non-custom Palutenas "git gud".

Customs aren't for this thread. My feelings about Palutena are "somebody has to be low tier". SSB4 is a very well balanced game and even Palutena has things going for her. People need to stop complaining and trying to change the rules. Just accept that not all characters are created equal but the game has good balance regardless.
I mean I've played a consistently mediocre at best character in every smash game- Link. One thing you learn when maining a low tier is that you'll be at a disadvantage. Link veterans know that but play him because we like his style so well and "he's freaking Link". He does get his butt handed to him by Sheik, Fox, ZSS and some other characters but that's the price I pay for, well, not maining Sheik, lol.

Man Li Gi said it before me. We are talking about how customs can make Palutena better and it's kinda inevitable that we digress to talking about allowing her to use customs or just talking about customs in general. I am at least for allowing a set custom set, and I think the most VIABLE set would be lightweight, jump glide, explosive flame, and super speed.

that's the price I pay for, well, not maining Sheik, lol.

I'll assume you said this jokingly and didn't actually mean this. However if you did mean it I have a problem with that, but I'll keep as you were joking and won't go into it.

 

[LancerStaff]

Playing in a customless meta for many characters is the equivalent of being tied down by weights.

Same can be said for a customs meta. The "characters are held back" argument doesn't work.

 

[Jams.]

ROB's reflector is the worst in the game tho. Really slow and half the time it doesn't reflect things anyway.

By comparison Fox's reflector is probably one of the better ones tbh.

And Pits' reflectors have other utility other than actually reflecting things.

I think if I was to rank them it would probably be more like:

Good:
Villager (Not really a reflector but w/e)
Falco
Marios'
Mewtwo
Zelda

Average:
Pits'
Gunner
Fox
Palutena (100% uptime is this things saving grace)
Lucas (Faster than Ness's)
Ness (Stronger than Lucas's)

Unsuable:
Swordspider
ROB

Is the finicky reflecting the reason ROB's sideb doesn't have reflecting frames listed on your website, or is it due to something with the code?

 

[Radical Larry]

KuroganeHammer
Okay, Ness and Lucas's attacks aren't reflectors, they are absorption attacks. They can get hit by physical projectiles and don't even reflect other projectiles like Bombs or PK Flash.

Projectile camping doesn't really pose much of a problem to Fox [except Sheik's needles] so you'll basically never see a good Fox use reflector unless they spot an opportunity to reflect something like Shadow Ball or Charge Beam.

The move's main purpose is to stall and it's pretty good at that. It's a bad reflector but not a bad move.

Okay, if it's not a bad move, how come it deals the abysmal damage and knockback and is intrinsically useless for close combat. The move is bad; it has half a second of ending lag, doesn't even protect Fox from physical attacks and is negligible against opponents who don't even have projectiles. If you even use it around Captain Falcon, you're going to lose a stock, for example. Captain Falcon has absolutely no projectile moves and has incredibly fast speed and great power, making Fox's Reflector unusable against Falcon.

And you say the move's purpose is to stall. Maybe it could be used for that, but it'd be very boring to see Fox and Link hold their attacks forever if they went against each other if you think about it. The attack's only good for reflecting projectiles and that's really it.

Is the finicky reflecting the reason ROB's sideb doesn't have reflecting frames listed on your website, or is it due to something with the code?

Actually, it has to do with the angle that ROB's arms are at. If ROB's arms are at a straight or slightly up and down, it's usable as a reflector. If at highest or lowest, the attack won't reflect well at all and ROB will likely get hit.

 

[FullMoon]

Same can be said for a customs meta. The "characters are held back" argument doesn't work.

... Not really? Being tied down by weights would mean not being able to make use of their full potential. In a customs meta nobody is tied down because everyone gets access to all their options, so they're all on even ground.

KuroganeHammer
Okay, Ness and Lucas's attacks aren't reflectors, they are absorption attacks. They can get hit by physical projectiles and don't even reflect other projectiles like Bombs or PK Flash.

Their F-Smashes reflect stuff. Ness's has done so since 64 dude.

 

[Radical Larry]

FullMoon I forgot about their F-Smashes, sorry.

 

[LancerStaff]

... Not really? Being tied down by weights would mean not being able to make use of their full potential. In a customs meta nobody is tied down because everyone gets access to all their options, so they're all on even ground.

Nope. Turning customs on or off is an entirely arbitrary option that helps some characters and hurts others. So long as some characters go down the characters argument will not ever work.

 

[FullMoon]

What good character gets worse in a customs meta? If they're good in default they should be good in customs too, it's not like DK is going to be invalidating any good characters just because he has Wind Cyclone.

I'm honestly asking because I don't see any of the top tiers suddenly dropping a tier just because customs are on. Even Ryu who doesn't even have customs still will have his really powerful tools that will allow him to compete just fine.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Is the finicky reflecting the reason ROB's sideb doesn't have reflecting frames listed on your website, or is it due to something with the code?

For some reason I'm under the impression ROB's side special only reflects as long as you mash the button to keep it going. I may be wrong though.

Same can be said for a customs meta. The "characters are held back" argument doesn't work.

Customs on or customs off, there will be winners and there will be losers in the game of tiers. Any sorted list will have a first and last place, that's just a fact. So unless enabling customs turns the game into a horrifically imbalanced lolfest, I think the additional options they give (most) characters is worth it.

To drive the weight analogy into the ground, I would say that in a customs off meta, all characters start with some amount of weight attached to them, correlated to their overall strength relative to the rest of the cast. Turning customs on removes some of that weight from each character, but the amount removed depends on how much the customs benefit them. But no character loses options with customs on -- in the worst case, their old options are still the best options because they don't get anything meaningful (Jigglypuff) or don't have any new options at all (DLC), so they move down in relative but not absolute terms. Again, you have winners and losers, but you'd have winners and losers anyway if you didn't bother with customs at all.

 

[LancerStaff]

What good character gets worse in a customs meta? If they're good in default they should be good in customs too, it's not like DK is going to be invalidating any good characters just because he has Wind Cyclone.

I'm honestly asking because I don't see any of the top tiers suddenly dropping a tier just because customs are on. Even Ryu who doesn't even have customs still will have his really powerful tools that will allow him to compete just fine.

It's simple logic. If a bunch of characters get shiny new moves to use and other get none, those that get none fall in comparison. Especially since plenty of top tiers get great customs... Yeah. And customs adds a bunch of windbox moves, and I'd imagine you know how effective windboxes are against Ryu. What if there was a toggle that gave everybody stronger DI besides Mario? Or if the toggle gave everybody increased damage output besides Marth? Most everybody would be stronger in a sense, but then another suffers just because they don't get anything. These arbitrary toggles, do they make the game better just because most characters are inherently better?

Customs on or customs off, there will be winners and there will be losers in the game of tiers. Any sorted list will have a first and last place, that's just a fact. So unless enabling customs turns the game into a horrifically imbalanced lolfest, I think the additional options they give (most) characters is worth it.

To drive the weight analogy into the ground, I would say that in a customs off meta, all characters start with some amount of weight attached to them, correlated to their overall strength relative to the rest of the cast. Turning customs on removes some of that weight from each character, but the amount removed depends on how much the customs benefit them. But no character loses options with customs on -- in the worst case, their old options are still the best options because they don't get anything meaningful (Jigglypuff) or don't have any new options at all (DLC), so they move down in relative but not absolute terms. Again, you have winners and losers, but you'd have winners and losers anyway if you didn't bother with customs at all.

The problem with customs is that some of the characters that benefit the most are top tier already, while many of those that don't were already terrible. The result is that many characters fall in comparison.

 

[Man Li Gi]

Same can be said for a customs meta. The "characters are held back" argument doesn't work.

Please tell me characters who suddenly become WORSE than they are without customs. No, I'm not saying that they are bad and stay bad with customs, but explicitly want see characters who go from like A tier to C or D tier. I haven't seen anything like that happen. I see the opposite happen more often than that. And how doesn't "held back" argument? Having a relatively shallow reasoning doesn't help anyone, which is why I go out of my way and have pretty broad (character wise) ways to describe the meta. Ive seen some of your posts on the other thread where you aren't looking at the big picture.

 

[Zelder]

- this argument can only be settled on the killing fields of other threads -

 

[ParanoidDrone]

The problem with customs is that some of the characters that benefit the most are top tier already, while many of those that don't were already terrible. The result is that many characters fall in comparison.

Honestly, I'm mostly okay with good characters getting better. It's annoying, I'll grant, that Rosalina (already a not-terribly-liked character by most people that don't use her) gets a projectile on top of everything else, for example, but I think looking at how characters stack up with access to all of their special move options is more representative than how they stack up with only 1 of them. (To stave off accusations of main bias, I also use Peach, Robin, and Shulk.)

For bad characters getting worse, I don't think anyone falls down a tier in customs unless you just add an extra tier to stuff someone like Zelda into.

EDIT: Yeah, this is veering into dangerous territory. Note to self: shut up.

 

[Vipermoon]

There are too many Yellow and Red topics in here! And this has been going on for days. But it's especially bad now. I can't believe I'm seeing this thread's most active members replying over and over and over to these stupid posts about customs.

EDIT: Want to know about how to stop the customs topics? Don't reply to posts about them.

Fix this Thinkaman please.

 

[Rizen]

I'll assume you said this jokingly and didn't actually mean this. However if you did mean it I have a problem with that, but I'll keep as you were joking and won't go into it.

All I meant was unless you play the best character, you're going to have to deal with bad MUs (or have a secondary).

 

[bc1910]

Kirby having no answer to back roll is a major issue for him, Upper Cutter or no. Essentially as you said, camping makes him cry.