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

[Skeeter Mania]

aMSa
Some

Techei.

 

[Amadeus9]

Anyone who thinks greninja is worse than top 20 is just unaware.

 

[momochuu]

amsa hasn't been a relevant greninja player in months

if you want to watch actual good greninja play, watch some or istudying.

 

[EpicLuigiFan]

Okay what are we talking about

 

[Man Li Gi]

Quite frankly, would it be so bad for dedede to have a frame 3 nair? Frame 7 seems like a really long time for something as simple as sticking his arms and legs out. I mean, look at pac-man's frame 3 nair where he turns into classic pac and somehow gets a fast vertical spin going. Is frame 7 really necessary?

I pray for a faster DK Nair (frame 10 with pitiful sized hitboxes). Also, a usable fair. I Have a sneaking feeling though, Sakurai uses the infamous "head balance" for the giants.

 

[Mario766]

Frame 3 N-Air on DDD would give it a frame 36 FAF and a frame 31 AC if things got changed the same.

Most sex kicks that start frame 3 last longer in the air and auto cancel later than that, though with the increased landing lag it'd make it less usable the more you go down onto the ground.

Still sounds like a meh option as DDD is still horrendously slow in the air.

 

[Blobface]

Random thought on Heavyweights: Since a surprising amount of their issues come from hurtbox size alone, what if they had heavy armor on their outer hurtbox? Like, if a hit isn't close enough to the center of their hurtbox, they only take partial damage and armor through it?

 

[Mario766]

Can I just give you a No and we drop the issue?

There's so much wrong with that idea in a balancing standpoint that I can't even start to explain it.

 

[Radical Larry]

To everyone who isn't looking at Frame Data now, in terms of the top 10 heaviest characters, Dedede is tied with Ganondorf and Bowser Jr. for the fastest start-up on N-Air for his class, only bested by Wario.

If you really want an N-Air to complain about, look at R.O.B.'s N-Air. It has the most abysmal startup lag and its damage just makes it even more abysmal than it would seem. An attack that starts on frame 18 is terrible when it deals 8% damage. Then look at Dedede's, which is over twice as fast and deals 12% damage.

In terms of the speed...
Wario, Ganondorf/Dedede/Bowser Jr., Bowser/Samus, Charizard, DK, Ike and ROB are the order of speed for their N-Airs. Yes, Ike's the second worst speed for Super Heavyweight N-Airs and Ganondorf is among the second fastest for his class. Surprising is it not?

Again, ROB's N-Air is very abysmal in terms of logical qualities.
So let's stop bickering about Dedede having a bad aerial when ROB has a slow one with bad damage.

 

[Nu~]

Random thought on Heavyweights: Since a surprising amount of their issues come from hurtbox size alone, what if they had heavy armor on their outer hurtbox? Like, if a hit isn't close enough to the center of their hurtbox, they only take partial damage and armor through it?

But...how would sword characters ever win spacing wars with them?

As a matter of fact...how would ANY character win footsies with them unless they have speed like sonic's?

 

[Doctor_Link]

I'm talking purely by virtue of animation in comparison to other moves of the type. also, R.O.B.'s nair is a godly landing option and can kill, plus that hitbox is huge. you can't compare the two.

 

[Blobface]

Yeah, personally I don't actually support that idea at all, but it really does make me wonder just how much of the problems heavyweights tend to suffer are purely a matter of hurtbox size alone.

Also ROB's N-air is one of his best moves what.

 

[williamsga555]

Dedede's nair isn't outright bad, it's just not quite fast enough to break most juggles. In all other respects it's one of his best overall moves.

 

[Mario766]

There's a lot more to the problem than hitbox size

Most heavies have a lot of core problems that lead to little success in Smash

- Slow frame data
- Little to no combo breakers
- Slow mobility
- Limited combo ability
- Lacking to abusable recoveries
- Limited landing options

 

[Peppermint1201]

To everyone who isn't looking at Frame Data now, in terms of the top 10 heaviest characters, Dedede is tied with Ganondorf and Bowser Jr. for the fastest start-up on N-Air for his class, only bested by Wario.

If you really want an N-Air to complain about, look at R.O.B.'s N-Air. It has the most abysmal startup lag and its damage just makes it even more abysmal than it would seem. An attack that starts on frame 18 is terrible when it deals 8% damage. Then look at Dedede's, which is over twice as fast and deals 12% damage.

In terms of the speed...
Wario, Ganondorf/Dedede/Bowser Jr., Bowser/Samus, Charizard, DK, Ike and ROB are the order of speed for their N-Airs. Yes, Ike's the second worst speed for Super Heavyweight N-Airs and Ganondorf is among the second fastest for his class. Surprising is it not?

Again, ROB's N-Air is very abysmal in terms of logical qualities.
So let's stop bickering about Dedede having a bad aerial when ROB has a slow one with bad damage.

LOL


If you think ROB's nair is bad you really have no idea how it or the character works. The startup is bad, sure, but it does NOT need buffing, and this is coming from someone who mains him. It may not be good as a combo breaker but it's still ****ing amazing in so many other aspects. Its knockback is surprisingly decent; if ROB is having trouble hitting someone with a kill move, it'll start killing around 180. It is massively disjointed, and, since it is a "spinning" nair it covers the area all around ROB. FF nair is the saving grace to ROB's ability to land when being juggled, and it freaking autocancels. Its safeness, coupled with ROB's also safe dtilt, fair, laser, and gyro contribute to ROB's exceptional ability to space out and poke his opponent. That's not even mentioning the fact that at low percents its knockback sets up into small two or three piece combos with fair, grab, and dtilt. It even covers airdodges which are frequent when someone is trying to avoid the hoo-hah. Watch a good ROB and you'll see how frequently it is thrown out. All in all, don't judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree and don't look at moves in a vacuum. From my experience his nair is actually something people dislike about ROB because it's so quote-unquote cheap.

by the way, what do you mean by "logical qualities"

 

[wedl!!]

If you look at ROB's nair as a separate move from the character it seems pretty meh. When you fit it within the context of ROB's kit it's far better for him (combos, gives him a good landing option that kills, etc). The principle works differently for Dedede; it sounds like a fine move on paper (mostly on a bigbody), but in practice its strength (dedede's huge body has a full hitbox? Awesome) is impeded by several things; his weight which makes him prone to juggles that he can't break very well with a f7 move, and his abysmal airspeed makes it less exploitable in neutral.

Also: within the context of their kits, ROB's and Dedede's nairs are very different moves. There's not a very good comparison to be had about their actual utility.

 

[Pazx]

LOL


If you think ROB's nair is bad you really have no idea how it or the character works. The startup is bad, sure, but it does NOT need buffing, and this is coming from someone who mains him. It may not be good as a combo breaker but it's still ****ing amazing in so many other aspects. Its knockback is surprisingly decent; if ROB is having trouble hitting someone with a kill move, it'll start killing around 180. It is massively disjointed, and, since it is a "spinning" nair it covers the area all around ROB. FF nair is the saving grace to ROB's ability to land when being juggled, and it freaking autocancels. Its safeness, coupled with ROB's also safe dtilt, fair, laser, and gyro contribute to ROB's exceptional ability to space out and poke his opponent. That's not even mentioning the fact that at low percents its knockback sets up into small two or three piece combos with fair, grab, and dtilt. It even covers airdodges which are frequent when someone is trying to avoid the hoo-hah. Watch a good ROB and you'll see how frequently it is thrown out. All in all, don't judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree and don't look at moves in a vacuum. From my experience his nair is actually something people dislike about ROB because it's so quote-unquote cheap.

by the way, what do you mean by "logical qualities"

In case you haven't noticed, Radical Larry is a either a troll or an exemplary demonstration of Hanlon's Razor (or Poe's Law?) and you just took the bait. Responding is bad, asking questions is worse. Everybody knows ROB's nair is good, there aren't very many moves with gigantic hitboxes that are positive on shield.

 

[wedl!!]

I just reply to Larry's ****posts because I like to attain trivial internet credibility by taking like 5 minutes to write a post.

Unrelated: your new sig is godly.

 

[Peppermint1201]

In case you haven't noticed, Radical Larry is a either a troll or an exemplary demonstration of Hanlon's Razor (or Poe's Law?) and you just took the bait. Responding is bad, asking questions is worse. Everybody knows ROB's nair is good, there aren't very many moves with gigantic hitboxes that are positive on shield.

I have seen a lot of people in here criticize him; I was under the impression that this was just someone who sincerely had no idea how smash works, and I still am not sure if they really are serious or not. If they aren't, then this is an extremely elaborate and well-made troll. Regardless though, you're right about ROB's nair and its safeness on shield is by far its biggest advantageous quality that I avoided. I still liked writing that post though -- it feels good writing something that is agreed on as correct.

EDIT: After seeing his status about the honor in using low-tiers I think the chances that Radical Larry is elaborate bait have risen.

 

[Dagon97]

I have seen a lot of people in here criticize him; I was under the impression that this was just someone who sincerely had no idea how smash works, and I still am not sure if they really are serious or not. If they aren't, then this is an extremely elaborate and well-made troll. Regardless though, you're right about ROB's nair and its safeness on shield is by far its biggest advantageous quality that I avoided. I still liked writing that post though -- it feels good writing something that is agreed on as correct.

EDIT: After seeing his status about the honor in using low-tiers I think the chances that Radical Larry is elaborate bait have risen.

I agree that is better than people think but he is not THAT great.
Sure his nair is safe on shield and it is huge but can the opponent not react with a roll out of shield to 18 frames of start up lag? cannot approach top tiers such as . If the opponent can perfect shield then R.O.B. can just not jump and camp. could be a good MU for so I will give you s that but I may just be ignorant about that MU. I guess R.O.B could approach with JC Gyro but it could be read easily as is lacking other solid approach options.

 

[Ffamran]

Random thought on Heavyweights: Since a surprising amount of their issues come from hurtbox size alone, what if they had heavy armor on their outer hurtbox? Like, if a hit isn't close enough to the center of their hurtbox, they only take partial damage and armor through it?

I thought of a dumb as hell idea that Bowser should be able to shrug off 2% or even 3% moves, so a stronger Tough Guy, while the others, Charizard, DK, Ganondorf, and Triple D could shrug off 1% hits - basically, they'd get Tough Guy 1.0. Of course, some of them would need some re-tuning like DK would probably have to have a slower Spinning Kong if he's able to shrug off 1% moves along with the removable of his partial intangibility on almost everything, but in return, better hitbox placement and Tough Guy would be his "compensation". That being said, it might be a bit crazy for all of them to have Tough Guy, but still, they're the juggernauts and for people familiar with Marvel's Juggernaut, you'd know he doesn't take **** from measly scratches. Also, armor on at least Ganondorf's grounded Dark Dive would be nice. Still pretty not useful, but hey, at least he's got some protection. I just realized that he's the only juggernaut to not have armor or invincibility on his Up Special.

Spoiler: Observations of Moves

With the recent patches to multi-hit aerials that didn't connect or maybe weren't supposed to connect such as Falco's Nair, Ganondorf's Nair, Yoshi's Bair, and more, as far as I'm aware, nobody, but Samus has a multi-hit aerial that does not connect fully or more consistently. I think Lucas's Dair might count, but I can't tell if people are actually falling out or it's because the Lucas player is attempting to cause soft spikes with Dair to do footstool setups or whatever. If Lucas doesn't count, then that's kind of concerning on why Samus's Uair isn't connecting or supposed to connect properly. Even if that was intended to make it contrast from Sheik's Uair, with patch 1.1.0, they threw that out for Ganondorf whose Nair "wasn't" supposed to connect, but now it does just like Captain Falcon. Functionally, they're still different moves despite connecting like Captain Falcon's Nair and Samus's Uair are more for comboing and setups while 1.1.0 Ganondorf's Nair and Sheik's Uair are more like finisher moves. Remember, this is only for multi-hit aerials. Multi-hit normals, Specials, or in general, that's a different story... and yes, it also involves why Samus's Up Smash for whatever inexplicable reason does not have auto-link angles on loop hit 2, but has them on loop hits 1 and 3 and 4. Why is there a gap there? Seriously, why? Granted, the 160 angle hitbox makes sense for "bringing them back" to link into the other hits, but I think auto-link angles can do the same... Or there might just be stupid hitbox issues since people can fall out for whatever reason unless you land on top of Samus which okay, it works as an anti-air, but mostly vertically and even through setups, can fail because it just won't connect despite it being positioned well.

The other observation: there aren't a lot of moves that move characters outside of Specials. Yes, yes, we shouldn't homogenize everyone and no, I'm not talking about the baby steps characters like Fox does for jab or Ftilt, Falco moving slightly forward with Side Smash, Marth does for Utilt, or the momentum of most dash attacks. I'm talking about stuff like Wolf's Side Smash, Fox's Side Smash, or better yet, ROB's Bair. ROB is the only character that stands out in my head as having an aerial that moves them horizontally. Vertically, we do have the stall and fall aerials like ZSS's Dair, but nobody has one that just nudges them up... until Cloud came along. Not confirmed entirely, but it appears that Cloud's Uair moves him up slightly. With how aerials work since you're actually in the air and constantly moving, I can understand why moves don't or shouldn't have movement unless it's logical like ROB's activating his rockets, so he should move in that direction, but if Roy inexplicably flew up with Nair, it would be weird. This is also unrelated to momentum changers like Fox's Fair or ROB's Dair. Why this observation? There is one direction moves haven't gone: backwards. Even with ROB's Bair, ROB's still going "forward" where his head's is, but there aren't any moves I can think of where a character steps back and hits like Nero's Shuffle. We do, however, have step back, "shrink hurtbox", before attacking moves like Mario and Captain Falcon's Side Smash. Curious since it would be cool to see if a character would ever have this in Smash and what move it would be assigned to. Side Smash is likely, but weird since people might think Side as a "move forward to attack" input and Down Smash works since all Down Smashes are cover and/or utility moves like how Little Mac's Down Smash is coverage and utility while ZSS's is more of utility.

Now, something maybe more interesting: Kirby's Uair. Let's go over its frame data, startup of frame 10, hits on frame 10-15, so 6 active frames, 23 recovery frames, 39 total frames, has 12 landing frames, auto-cancels before frame 10 and after frame 22, launches at 70 degrees... pretty okay so far... does 9%, 20 base, and 100 growth... Notice anything? For comparison, Mario's Uair is frame 4-8, 5 active frames, 23 recovery, 31 total, 12 landing, auto-cancels after 18, launches at 75, and does 7%, 10 base, and 135 growth. That's twice as fast while doing only about a third less damage. On second thought, Mario's air speed is much faster, so let's find someone else with slower air speed... Luigi and Falco. Luigi's is frames 5-7 clean and 8-11 late, so 7 total active, 28 recovery, 12 landing, auto-cancels after 19, launches at 55, and does 11% clean, 7% late, 0 base, and 100 growth. Launch Falco's Uair was frame 10-14, 5 active frames, 21 recovery, 15 landing, auto-canceled before 8 and after 26, launched at 68 or 80? (body), and did 11%, 27 or 30 (body) base, and 100 or 20 (growth) while post-1.0.8 Falco's Uair is the same except it's frame 7-11, auto-cancels before 4 and after 23, launches at 65, 75, or 85, and does 10%, 35 base, and 90 growth.

Is Kirby's Uair good? Probably, but it's kind of strange how even before 1.0.8 changing Falco's Uair, it's slow in comparison to other flip kick Uairs while doing okay damage. Sure, it recovers like other flip kick Uairs meaning Kirby probably can juggle with it, but currently, it has the highest startup out of the other flip kick Uairs while having damage per hit equal to or lower than faster Uairs like Captain Falcon, Falco, and ZSS - hers is frame 6 and does 8%, but we know that doesn't matter when she can chain them faster than you can say pickles. With even faster Uairs like Diddy - not a flip kick, but whatever -, Mario, Luigi, and Pikachu - tail flip, but whatever, Kirby's probably getting outpaced. For pure damage and knockback, Ganondorf's is 4 frames faster, lingers 4 frames longer, and does more damage during its same active frames as Kirby, from 13% to 10% to Kirby's only 9%, all at the cost of 8 more landing frames and a worse auto-canceling window of after 25. I don't know enough about Dr. Mario, but even if he can't chain Uairs like Mario, his Uair is still over twice as fast while lasting 9 frames and only doing 1.16% less. The only "reason" I can think of to justify Kirby's slower Uair is his multi-jumps, but then you're reminded of Meta Knight who takes that to a whole new level because of much lower knockback, lower recovery, and having a finisher by default via Shuttle Loop and reminded that Captain Falcon, Mario, and ZSS don't care that they only have 1 midair jump.

Maybe it's a minor problem, but Kirby with say, a frame 6-11 Uair wouldn't be abusive to the rest of the cast. It won't make him suddenly high-tier and it won't solve all of his problems. It would just be a quality of life thing for Kirby. Same thing would involve his Nair and hell, even Diddy's Nair being really slow for no real reason when you have dumb frame 3 Nairs like Luigi and Yoshi's that kill or a frame 6 Meta Knight Nair that kills while being fairly fast, but not too fast.

 

[Dre89]

It's because not many know much about Mii Fighters, period.

There are very few characters that CAN'T go offstage to edgeguard (hey Little Mac), or at least have limited options for low recoveries (say, Mario and Fox).

Top/High tiers with the best edgeguarding probably go to Pikachu and Villager.

Lower tiers with notable edgeguarding include Zelda, Dedede, Dr. Mario, Jigglypuff (her only saving grace in some matchups), Ganondorf (if only for the sheer power) and Mewtwo. In fact I've got a fairly detailed writeup about his...



To add to this, bair is a really good stage spiking move, so good in fact that he can often do it when HE's the one recovering.

DK is definitely one of the best edge-guarders in the game.

His bair has massive range, beats basically everything, kills, and frame traps a lot of options. You can frame trap into another bair or other options like upb or uair.

The other really good thing about bair is that you can do it out of a ledge-drop or a trump. DK can actually force trump bairs if he catches people in his upb and they're closer to the ledge than he is. Against vertical recoverers I've frame-trapped their airdodges into what I call 'wedge' upbs into trump-bair kills. The multi hit nature of upb makes it hard to buffer get up options at the ledge.

You can also go super far off stage thanks to how good his horizontal recovery is. Upb is just super good offstage both offensively and defensively. It's frame 4, has massive range for an air-move, frame traps out of bair for either high damage, forced trumping or even killing at high percents. The fact that it lingers also gives you leeway for catching recoveries.

I need to lab his off-stage more, there's probably a lot of set-ups that aren't being utilised yet.

 

[Krysco]

Ffamran in regards to moves that hit forward and move back, the closest I can think of is Mii Gunner's fair.

 

[Ffamran]

Ffamran in regards to moves that hit forward and move back, the closest I can think of is Mii Gunner's fair.

Mii Gunner gets propelled back kind of like how ROB gets propelled forward. I'm looking for a move that involves moving back then hitting.

 

[Blobface]

I'm guessing that with pivoting being possible there's not really much reason from a gameplay standpoint to build in backwards movement into a move when you can just do it manually.

 

[Mario766]

The one issue I can see with moves that act like that would be frame data.

It'd take time for the move to do the move animation -> Attack to come out and still be able to hit in front of their previous position.

That's probably one reason why the moves aren't used in Smash, ROB's still hits behind him but sends him propelling forward using momentum, kinda like how his Down Air pushes him up.

 

[Ffamran]

I'm guessing that with pivoting being possible there's not really much reason from a gameplay standpoint to build in backwards movement into a move when you can just do it manually.

Except pivoting involves moving forward in the direction your character is facing and some characters are capable of hitting with the back part of some of their pivot moves. Pivoting is turning not retreating which yes, moving can be the retreating part, but could you imagine the insanity of a move pivoted like that? Oh, he's moving away to do a pivot Ftilt and then suddenly because of how the move works, he's now behind you. That and the mixup of running in, stopping, and using the move, so you back off, they whiff, and suddenly they get hit.

The one issue I can see with moves that act like that would be frame data.

It'd take time for the move to do the move animation -> Attack to come out and still be able to hit in front of their previous position.

That's probably one reason why the moves aren't used in Smash, ROB's still hits behind him but sends him propelling forward using momentum, kinda like how his Down Air pushes him up.

Well, it could work like how Ike and Samus's dash attacks involve an animation where they step forward before attack or how Ganondorf's Wizard's Foot involves him setting up and none of those moves exceed 16 frames of startup and Samus's is frame 10. They still look slow because they are telegraphed as there are slow moves that seem fast because they lack noticeable movement like compare Captain Falcon's Dair to Falco's and Falco's will look slower because he winds up while the Capt. just lifts his legs up to stomp, but they're both frame 16.

 

[RonNewcomb]

But...how would sword characters ever win spacing wars with them?

As a matter of fact...how would ANY character win footsies with them unless they have speed like sonic's?

1. Mobility difference.
2. They wouldn't. That's kinda the point.

(Hate phone typing)

 

[Antonykun]

But...how would sword characters ever win spacing wars with them?

As a matter of fact...how would ANY character win footsies with them unless they have speed like sonic's?

as long as the heavy is only touching the sword and not the fighter then the Swordsdude should win the trade if I'm correct

 

[C0rvus]

Mii Gunner gets propelled back kind of like how ROB gets propelled forward. I'm looking for a move that involves moving back then hitting.

Cloud's forward smash animation starts with him pulling back slightly. I think Wolf's did as well. Oh, and Ivysaur's. And Squirtle's if memory serves. Charizard's especially. I miss Pokemon Trainer.

Edit: Kind of similar, but Sheik's up smash has really apparent hurtbox reduction after the hit, when she ducks really low. Might be others like that.

 

[Ffamran]

Cloud's forward smash animation starts with him pulling back slightly. I think Wolf's did as well. Oh, and Ivysaur's. And Squirtle's if memory serves. Charizard's especially. I miss Pokemon Trainer.

Edit: Kind of similar, but Sheik's up smash has really apparent hurtbox reduction after the hit, when she ducks really low. Might be others like that.

Last post since it's pretty much off-topic: I meant moving/stepping back and not pulling back like Mario, Captain Falcon, or Wolf during their Side Smashes...

 

[Radical Larry]

LOL


If you think ROB's nair is bad you really have no idea how it or the character works. The startup is bad, sure, but it does NOT need buffing, and this is coming from someone who mains him. It may not be good as a combo breaker but it's still ****ing amazing in so many other aspects. Its knockback is surprisingly decent; if ROB is having trouble hitting someone with a kill move, it'll start killing around 180. It is massively disjointed, and, since it is a "spinning" nair it covers the area all around ROB. FF nair is the saving grace to ROB's ability to land when being juggled, and it freaking autocancels. Its safeness, coupled with ROB's also safe dtilt, fair, laser, and gyro contribute to ROB's exceptional ability to space out and poke his opponent. That's not even mentioning the fact that at low percents its knockback sets up into small two or three piece combos with fair, grab, and dtilt. It even covers airdodges which are frequent when someone is trying to avoid the hoo-hah. Watch a good ROB and you'll see how frequently it is thrown out. All in all, don't judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree and don't look at moves in a vacuum. From my experience his nair is actually something people dislike about ROB because it's so quote-unquote cheap.

by the way, what do you mean by "logical qualities"

I'd first like to say that for those who call me a troll, I would want to go against you, a challenge if you may. If you choose not to believe me in what I say, I can easily show you a bad time against me. If I win and prove that I was right, it makes you all look like fools and vice versa.

Anyways, let's break it down. That attack does need a buff, in damage. If characters with faster-framed N-Airs deal more damage than ROB's, then ROB's damage scaling is fairly pitiful. And killing around 180% damage? That's an extremely late kill move considering many other aerials can kill earlier than 100%. If an aerial kills at 180%, that's fundamentally pitiful for ROB.

It's disjointed yes, but it isn't all that hard to block. In fact, someone can just block the attack once it starts or as soon as it comes back around. Thanks to how hitboxes work, the attack's hitboxes would deactivate as soon as the opponent just blocks, so ROBs have to be careful around opponents who shield.

And being a saving grace when ROB's being juggled? Uh, if ROB tries activating it, one of a few things will happen:
Opponent will block and punish.
Opponent that has a disjointed attack will still attack.
If you're Link, U-Air will get ROB.

Anyways, but that's not an issue ROBs cannot fix. But what is an issue is the ignorance of your little fact about its autocancel. Yes it autocancels, but literally after the attack is over; otherwise, there's 12 frames of landing lag. To think that it just magically cancels at any frame like Fox's B-Air is horrendously inaccurate; I mean, you need to look up the Smash Frame Data on Kuroganehammer to get the good info. So FF N-Air isn't all it's hyped up to be.

You got the D-Tilt, F-Air, Laser and Gyro safeness right; they're annoying but safe.

But the attack cannot setup to D-Tilt in any situation; in any situation that N-Air lands an attack on an opponent, D-Tilt is completely out of the question because there's 12 frames of landing lag and the opponent would just be out of range. Other things like F-Air and Grab may work, but F-Air would only get one good hit in before the opponent's just out of range.

Air dodges can be quite deceiving, though. A person could perfectly air dodge and make ROB's N-Air miss. If you have a character like Link or Pac-Man, they will probably win the mix-up anyways since their attacks come out faster and they can benefit. So the fact that this attack can be really good against a good player is hilarious at that.

ROB's N-Air has never been something I had to worry about when playing my characters. The worst I go against any ROB is Gyro and Laser, as well as D-Throw > U-Air and B-Air edge-guarding/killing. N-Air is the attack that I don't worry about because I never see ROB's pull it out in my matches against them. I don't see the hype in the attack.

 

[bc1910]

...and why is that? It seems like the matchup would be in Dedede's favor in some capacity, due to his zoning capabilites. Kirby can rack up a lot of damage against him but he's not going to really kill him (outside of edgeguards) so Dedede racks up rage really fast. Kirby also isn't really fast enough or ranged enough to pressure Dedede often.

I don't know either of these characters very well so if someone could clue me in in-depth that would be great.

If we're still talking Twitter tier lists, Dabuz's is excellent IMO. Other than some weird things, like Mario in top 5 (seriously??), Ike top 15, and Greninja being that low (switch him with WFT) it's pretty accurate. Move MM and Reflet too and you're good to go.

Greninja would still be an entire tier (and about 8-10 spots) too low on Dabuz' if he switched with WFT. It's not like that's a baseless claim either. We have one of the best players in the Netherlands using him, who just got 2nd at a 100+ man National losing only to Mr R and I think 5th at a 200+ UK international (which again Mr R won, showing the high caliber of players showing up to European Sm4sh events). He has fine results in Japan as well.

He ends up low on the US top player tier lists because despite his strong results elsewhere he still has no presence in the US. It speaks volumes that Dabuz and ESAM are happy to rank him around 30-35th when Abadango just ranked him 21st (link http://abadango.com/ssb4-tier-list-ver-1-12/).

Peppermint1201 I suggest you ignore the reference to "logical qualities" since Larry loves to make up meaningless terms. Be glad you weren't around when he tried to argue Link's frame data is good because his "perceptive frame data" is good.

 

[Dee-SmashinBoss]

I thought of a dumb as hell idea that Bowser should be able to shrug off 2% or even 3% moves, so a stronger Tough Guy, while the others, Charizard, DK, Ganondorf, and Triple D could shrug off 1% hits - basically, they'd get Tough Guy 1.0. Of course, some of them would need some re-tuning like DK would probably have to have a slower Spinning Kong if he's able to shrug off 1% moves along with the removable of his partial intangibility on almost everything, but in return, better hitbox placement and Tough Guy would be his "compensation". That being said, it might be a bit crazy for all of them to have Tough Guy, but still, they're the juggernauts and for people familiar with Marvel's Juggernaut, you'd know he doesn't take **** from measly scratches. Also, armor on at least Ganondorf's grounded Dark Dive would be nice. Still pretty not useful, but hey, at least he's got some protection. I just realized that he's the only juggernaut to not have armor or invincibility on his Up Special.

Spoiler: Observations of Moves

With the recent patches to multi-hit aerials that didn't connect or maybe weren't supposed to connect such as Falco's Nair, Ganondorf's Nair, Yoshi's Bair, and more, as far as I'm aware, nobody, but Samus has a multi-hit aerial that does not connect fully or more consistently. I think Lucas's Dair might count, but I can't tell if people are actually falling out or it's because the Lucas player is attempting to cause soft spikes with Dair to do footstool setups or whatever. If Lucas doesn't count, then that's kind of concerning on why Samus's Uair isn't connecting or supposed to connect properly. Even if that was intended to make it contrast from Sheik's Uair, with patch 1.1.0, they threw that out for Ganondorf whose Nair "wasn't" supposed to connect, but now it does just like Captain Falcon. Functionally, they're still different moves despite connecting like Captain Falcon's Nair and Samus's Uair are more for comboing and setups while 1.1.0 Ganondorf's Nair and Sheik's Uair are more like finisher moves. Remember, this is only for multi-hit aerials. Multi-hit normals, Specials, or in general, that's a different story... and yes, it also involves why Samus's Up Smash for whatever inexplicable reason does not have auto-link angles on loop hit 2, but has them on loop hits 1 and 3 and 4. Why is there a gap there? Seriously, why? Granted, the 160 angle hitbox makes sense for "bringing them back" to link into the other hits, but I think auto-link angles can do the same... Or there might just be stupid hitbox issues since people can fall out for whatever reason unless you land on top of Samus which okay, it works as an anti-air, but mostly vertically and even through setups, can fail because it just won't connect despite it being positioned well.

The other observation: there aren't a lot of moves that move characters outside of Specials. Yes, yes, we shouldn't homogenize everyone and no, I'm not talking about the baby steps characters like Fox does for jab or Ftilt, Falco moving slightly forward with Side Smash, Marth does for Utilt, or the momentum of most dash attacks. I'm talking about stuff like Wolf's Side Smash, Fox's Side Smash, or better yet, ROB's Bair. ROB is the only character that stands out in my head as having an aerial that moves them horizontally. Vertically, we do have the stall and fall aerials like ZSS's Dair, but nobody has one that just nudges them up... until Cloud came along. Not confirmed entirely, but it appears that Cloud's Uair moves him up slightly. With how aerials work since you're actually in the air and constantly moving, I can understand why moves don't or shouldn't have movement unless it's logical like ROB's activating his rockets, so he should move in that direction, but if Roy inexplicably flew up with Nair, it would be weird. This is also unrelated to momentum changers like Fox's Fair or ROB's Dair. Why this observation? There is one direction moves haven't gone: backwards. Even with ROB's Bair, ROB's still going "forward" where his head's is, but there aren't any moves I can think of where a character steps back and hits like Nero's Shuffle. We do, however, have step back, "shrink hurtbox", before attacking moves like Mario and Captain Falcon's Side Smash. Curious since it would be cool to see if a character would ever have this in Smash and what move it would be assigned to. Side Smash is likely, but weird since people might think Side as a "move forward to attack" input and Down Smash works since all Down Smashes are cover and/or utility moves like how Little Mac's Down Smash is coverage and utility while ZSS's is more of utility.

Now, something maybe more interesting: Kirby's Uair. Let's go over its frame data, startup of frame 10, hits on frame 10-15, so 6 active frames, 23 recovery frames, 39 total frames, has 12 landing frames, auto-cancels before frame 10 and after frame 22, launches at 70 degrees... pretty okay so far... does 9%, 20 base, and 100 growth... Notice anything? For comparison, Mario's Uair is frame 4-8, 5 active frames, 23 recovery, 31 total, 12 landing, auto-cancels after 18, launches at 75, and does 7%, 10 base, and 135 growth. That's twice as fast while doing only about a third less damage. On second thought, Mario's air speed is much faster, so let's find someone else with slower air speed... Luigi and Falco. Luigi's is frames 5-7 clean and 8-11 late, so 7 total active, 28 recovery, 12 landing, auto-cancels after 19, launches at 55, and does 11% clean, 7% late, 0 base, and 100 growth. Launch Falco's Uair was frame 10-14, 5 active frames, 21 recovery, 15 landing, auto-canceled before 8 and after 26, launched at 68 or 80? (body), and did 11%, 27 or 30 (body) base, and 100 or 20 (growth) while post-1.0.8 Falco's Uair is the same except it's frame 7-11, auto-cancels before 4 and after 23, launches at 65, 75, or 85, and does 10%, 35 base, and 90 growth.

Is Kirby's Uair good? Probably, but it's kind of strange how even before 1.0.8 changing Falco's Uair, it's slow in comparison to other flip kick Uairs while doing okay damage. Sure, it recovers like other flip kick Uairs meaning Kirby probably can juggle with it, but currently, it has the highest startup out of the other flip kick Uairs while having damage per hit equal to or lower than faster Uairs like Captain Falcon, Falco, and ZSS - hers is frame 6 and does 8%, but we know that doesn't matter when she can chain them faster than you can say pickles. With even faster Uairs like Diddy - not a flip kick, but whatever -, Mario, Luigi, and Pikachu - tail flip, but whatever, Kirby's probably getting outpaced. For pure damage and knockback, Ganondorf's is 4 frames faster, lingers 4 frames longer, and does more damage during its same active frames as Kirby, from 13% to 10% to Kirby's only 9%, all at the cost of 8 more landing frames and a worse auto-canceling window of after 25. I don't know enough about Dr. Mario, but even if he can't chain Uairs like Mario, his Uair is still over twice as fast while lasting 9 frames and only doing 1.16% less. The only "reason" I can think of to justify Kirby's slower Uair is his multi-jumps, but then you're reminded of Meta Knight who takes that to a whole new level because of much lower knockback, lower recovery, and having a finisher by default via Shuttle Loop and reminded that Captain Falcon, Mario, and ZSS don't care that they only have 1 midair jump.

Maybe it's a minor problem, but Kirby with say, a frame 6-11 Uair wouldn't be abusive to the rest of the cast. It won't make him suddenly high-tier and it won't solve all of his problems. It would just be a quality of life thing for Kirby. Same thing would involve his Nair and hell, even Diddy's Nair being really slow for no real reason when you have dumb frame 3 Nairs like Luigi and Yoshi's that kill or a frame 6 Meta Knight Nair that kills while being fairly fast, but not too fast.

That was interesting to read dude, awesome job.
Um....can you do the same for his Usmash compared to other flip kicks(orsimilar ones) like Fox or Pika or...whoever else that ISNT Mario?
I wanna see how you think his flipkick is compared to the others.

 

[Routa]

Person X: "Mario isn't top 5 material!"

Me: "Why so?"

Person X: "He has hard time killing."

Me: "As far as I know all his smashes come quickly, have little to no cd and kill at ok % and if I remember correctly he can follow up his Dair with Up-B that kill at ok %."

Person X: "Well he sucks against top tiers."

Me: "As far as I know no MU for him is really bad. Yeah he has hard time against some top tiers, but at least they aren't unbeatable. Just a small uphill battle."

Person X: "Well he has bad results"

Me: "...Really?"

I can see why people think Mario is in top 5 atm. He has so much going for himself atm. It just seems like people don't want to place Mario so high due to how easy he is to pick up. But I'm just a random person from nowhere so why should my input matter?

 

[Smog Frog]

is good but others are better

eg: (also please dont take the order seriously)

 

[Nu~]

1. Mobility difference.
2. They wouldn't. That's kinda the point.

(Hate phone typing)

I mean, he never said that its purpose was to make them footsie gods. It was to eliminate their hurtbox handicap

 

[wedl!!]

I only said "switch him with Wii Fit" because it's the highest realistic place a North American would put him. Frog is like #20 imo.

N-Air is the attack that I don't worry about because I never see ROB's pull it out in my matches against them.

You've been playing too much For Glory. ROB's Nair is a disjointed move that also combos from his most important neutral tool, gives him a landing, gives him an important neutral tool due to being safe on shield and disjointed, etc.

 

[Jamurai]

I think Mario is between sixth and ninth best in the game. The only ones I could see being overall better characters than him are



and I'm really not sure about Fox, Diddy or MK. Mario has results on his side and a good matchup spread, and his weaknesses aren't exactly crippling. He's a great character all round but he lacks an overtuned property, which all the above characters have:

- One of the best in every attribute (except for like... aerial trading)
- Best advantage state in the game
- Extremely fast, and frustratingly effective in a hit & run strategy
- Luma
- Incredible advantage state, Focus, Utilt, TSRK aka best kill move in the game
- Best rushdown/pressure game, Uair
- Banana, awesome neutral and kill setups
- Uair combos

You could argue that Mario's CQC and frame data are amazing but so are Sheik's, ZSS's, Ryu's and Fox's at least. It's arguably not that special for a top tier.

 

[Mario766]

It's a combo tool and it has a really nice feature to it

It auto cancels the frame after the hitbox ends. The only way you get the 12 frame landing lag *Which is low anyways* is to hit the ground during the animation. This is why EVERY ROB retreats a landing N-Air, because it

1) Auto Cancels
2) Safe on shield
3) Leads into other fast options like frame 3 D-Tilt or frame 3 Jab for safety
4) Combos

Larry, you should stick to talking about characters you actually play, at least you somewhat can talk about them correctly.