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

[Mr. Johan]

Someone kindly explain to me what Wario's weakness is, because between a Frame 4 dash attack that teleports him to punish any landing, a manually-controlled command grab that beats all projectiles, a projectile-beating Bike to get him out of situations and recover that respawns before the pieces of the previous bike even disappear off the screen, a very potent fall -> fast fall speed shift to make Dair and Nair super good, an "I win" condition if you so much as dare to space him out over time, and a Dair to beat out ledge invulnerability, I don't see how this clown isn't Top 3 yet.

 

[meleebrawler]

Someone kindly explain to me what Wario's weakness is, because between a Frame 4 dash attack that teleports him to punish any landing, a manually-controlled command grab that beats all projectiles, a projectile-beating Bike to get him out of situations and recover that respawns before the pieces of the previous bike even disappear off the screen, a very potent fall -> fast fall speed shift to make Dair and Nair super good, an "I win" condition if you so much as dare to space him out over time, and a Dair to beat out ledge invulnerability, I don't see how this obscene clown is Top 3 yet.

He has poor range and without the waft has no reliable way to seal stocks, especially since his smashes are really unsafe for the most part. His combo game isn't very impressive either so his damage racking leaves something to be desired. He has to bait a lot to get his hits in.

 

[Antonykun]

He has poor range and without the waft has no reliable way to seal stocks, especially since his smashes are really unsafe for the most part. His combo game isn't very impressive either so his damage racking leaves something to be desired. He has to bait a lot to get his hits in.

Don't forget having a primarily air based moveset meaining he has weaknesses against really good anti airs or air to airs like Mario up smash and Sheik F-air respectively.

 

[Ffamran]

Someone kindly explain to me what Wario's weakness is, because between a Frame 4 dash attack that teleports him to punish any landing, a manually-controlled command grab that beats all projectiles, a projectile-beating Bike to get him out of situations and recover that respawns before the pieces of the previous bike even disappear off the screen, a very potent fall -> fast fall speed shift to make Dair and Nair super good, an "I win" condition if you so much as dare to space him out over time, and a Dair to beat out ledge invulnerability, I don't see how this obscene clown is Top 3 yet.

Er... Short-range? He is a stout, stubby man after all. Also, a really slow jab for absolutely no reason other than dumb game design and a Side Smash that is basically a stronger Ftilt because Wario Land's tackle is apparently sacrilege. RIP super armor and being frame 9 instead of 18. Wow, it was really fast and had super armor? Why not make it slower, keep the same animation, and its super armor instead of straight-up tweaking his Ftilt's animation? If it would have still been really strong despite being twice as slow, then hell, make it weaker! Don't screw up animation and what is a unique Side Smash for pretty much no freaking reason. Swapping Ftilt and Side Smash's startup might have been a better idea than removing a canonical move Wario used in Wario Land. It'd be like if Ryu didn't have access to his Hadouken in Street Fighter V. People would murder Capcom if that happened. Speaking of which, still don't see the point of Sonic's Down Smash being the splits instead of his spin back and forth.

 

[Mr. Johan]

An Ftilt that kills at 120, Dair to gimp people and stage spike and kill outright off ledgeguards if they read a Bair instead, Fthrow kills at 140, the quickest Dash Attack in the game to force option selects that can lead to grabs worth 12%, a "can't seal stocks" kit does not make.

I don't care if his combo game isn't the greatest, if he's got the kit to wreck you in shield or in landing and keep you constantly searching for a safe spot, he's gonna get that damage up.

 

[Strong-Arm]

So whats everyones thoughts on Mewtwo?

 

[Megamang]

An Ftilt that kills at 120, Dair to gimp people and stage spike and kill outright off ledgeguards if they read a Bair instead, Fthrow kills at 140, the quickest Dash Attack in the game to force option selects that can lead to grabs worth 12%, a "can't seal stocks" kit does not make.

I don't care if his combo game isn't the greatest, if he's got the kit to wreck you in shield or in landing and keep you constantly searching for a safe spot, he's gonna get that damage up.

And dont forget a forward facing kill throw, very rare and useful tool.

But, his actually aerials arent as good as they could be, though his mobility makes them work. If you focus and react well you can force wario to trade, and kill even easier than him. If youre top tier you have these options that wario lacks. Otherwise he is a solid high tier. No one disputes that.

 

[Blobface]

I don't know how common it actually is but I still see static reaction times referenced wayyyyy too much. Considering the sheer amount of variables and information you need to keep track of in a match, I don't think there's realistically any threshold where something becomes truly, consistently reactable, only an unreactable threshold where our neural system is simply physically incapable of firing fast enough.

That's not to say I can jump around throwing Falcon Punches all day and expect to actually hit one, but constantly assuming there's some arbitrary cutoff where moves become completely useless in neutral (or any other situation for that matter) due to being "reactable" is silly.

 

[Ffamran]

Working on/compiling everyone's throw data from sixriver and apparently Mario and Luigi's throw "hit" and total frames are almost identical. B-throw's the only one that's different where Luigi's takes 7 frames longer - blame slippery shoes. So, factoring launch angles, knockback, and damage... You can see why Luigi's D-throw is better. Falco's throws have lower total frames than Fox's except for F-throw where they share the same "hit" and total frames of "hit" on 10 and 12 and 33 total frames. What's notable? U-throw where Falco's has 38 total frames to Fox's 49. Yeah, be glad that's how it works or else you'd be dealing with Fox's 16% total Uair confirmed off of a U-throw. Dealing with Falco's 10% Uair or 11% Nair is probably a better deal. Oh, but Falco can chain them together. Yeah, and so can Fox with his Uair. Also, Mr. Game & Watch is the only character so far to have the same "hit" and total frames for all of his throws at 26 "hit" and 40 total.

 

[Terotrous]

I've been away for a long time, but I'm wondering if opinion on Swordfighter has changed any since the early days. Playing him again, I legitimately have no idea how we thought this guy was bottom 5. He has a solid projectile in Shuriken, pretty nice recovery options, your choice of Counter / Cape / Falcon Kick (all great options for different matchups), and super scary OOS punishes. I think his down throw is legitimately one of the very best throws in the game, and Hero's Spin OOS starts killing at the exact percents where down throw up air stops working.

Were we just all using Gust Slash when the game came out or something?

 

[bc1910]

Not everyone needs a kill throw. Especially a killing upthrow, as these don't require good positioning like killing fthrow/bthrows.

Greninja has one of the best killing upthrows, but its attached to an unreliable grab game. Nothing on the level of Duck Hunt setting up traps that pretty much force you to shield and get grabbed, or get hit and get grabbed. Considering the projectile setups from throws already being there (throwing them into the can for KOs), I'd be reluctant to just throw in a kill throw in basically the most godlike category for kill throws (up).

Whilst not everyone needs a kill throw, characters who struggle to kill as much as Duck Hunt should have a kill throw. I'm not alone in thinking that an Uthrow that kills at reasonable percents would be good for Duck Hunt, I've heard DunnoBro mention the same thing and I'm inclined to trust his judgement.

Greninja does not have an unreliable grab game. He is one of the easiest characters to get grabs with and I am 100% sure that's why his THROW game is only average. Fast running speed, maybe the 2nd best dashgrab after Falcon (seriously, use it from a standing position) and shurikens to encourage shielding. I don't know if his grab game is better than Duck Hunt's but it's very good.

As an aside, in the last two weeks people have claimed Greninja has a low damage output and unreliable grab game when he has neither and is... arguably top tier at both. Are these widespread misconceptions the reason why he's so underrated in the US? Does it really just come down to people barely using him there and not showcasing this stuff?

 

[Ffamran]

Almost everything is done except for pummels which assuming the (+X) is the recovery period, then I could easily get the total frames by adding it to the startup and subtracting 1. Notes: the "( )" on say, Falco, Fox, Mewtwo, Mii Gunner, and maybe someone else are there since those are projectiles that happen after the throw - it's possible for the projectile to miss. Ryu's U-throw is a special case since apparently there's a "heel drop" that probably only works when there's +3 players. Otherwise, if you see a bunch of numbers, you're mostly going to be concerned about the last hit frame. Also, DK has his own page since like Ryu for the recovery spreadsheet, he has more options. Oh, and "TBU" next to Cloud's name means "to be updated" since he's not in the game.

Some of the interesting things is that there are a lot of throws with similar hit and sometimes total frames. For one, you can probably see where Mii Gunner's U- and B-throw are based on and not just how you see it in-game, but down to the coding of the game.

Edit: The Mii Fighters don't have any total frames or (+X)/recovery frames listed on sixriver. Guess people really don't care for them. Shame.

 

[MysteriousSilver]

The dumb thing is that Ftilt and Dtilt have the same hit frames, but Dtilt has lower recovery which doesn't make sense since it's a crouching low kick that Ganondorf has to brace himself to lean back to kick while Ftilt is just a simple front kick. Dtilt is basically a low-angled Ftilt with a disjoint and 4 more recovery - Dtilt takes 23 frames to Ftilt's 27. Ftilt should at least be 1 frame faster since it's kind of dumb how both moves are the same speed, but Ftilt is slightly riskier. If it was frame 9-11, then sure, why not?

The big difference, I think, is the angle it sends people at. Dtilt works as a poke and for higher-percent kills, but Ftilt sends them almost straight out at a perfect angle for some offstage murderizin'.

 

[FullMoon]

As an aside, in the last two weeks people have claimed Greninja has a low damage output and unreliable grab game when he has neither and is... arguably top tier at both. Are these widespread misconceptions the reason why he's so underrated in the US? Does it really just come down to people barely using him there and not showcasing this stuff?

I've seen some misconception regarding his recovery as well. People seem to find Greninja's recovery to be easy to edgeguard probably because they deal with predictable Greninja players that don't mix up Hydro Pump angles or just always do the same thing plus the fact that Hydro Pump doesn't have a hitbox in front of him.

Honestly I think the only characters that can be problematic when Greninja is offstage are and. Though to be fair we can also mess with them offstage pretty well ourselves if we can get a Hydro Pump hit, some are harder than others though, I think I only ever gimped a good MK once.

Though some characters can mess with us when we're holding onto the ledge like Lucario.

Otherwise for the most part Greninja's recovery I find just too versatile to be edgeguarded consistently.

 

[Mario766]

I find Greninja hard to edgeguard as Ike, though I believe you're pretty much hard reading what they do with Eruption.

It kills exceptionally early if you win the roulette though.

 

[bc1910]

Yeah the amount of people who call Greninja easy to edgeguard is getting a bit silly. Sure, he doesn't have a hitbox in front of him on HP, but that's pretty much the only weakness. It's fast moving, versatile, screws up people behind him and is long distance. Greninja also has Shadow Sneak, Substitute and a double jump that is nearly as high as the "special" double jumps like Ness'. His fast Uair covers people looking for spikes. His recovery is very good. I think Villager is the best at edgeguarding him, and I honestly don't find anyone else that hard to recover against.

Lucario messes with everyone on the ledge. If anything we're one of the best at escaping his ledge trap because we can jump offstage, HP away (pushing him toward the centre of the stage), then HP back and regrab the ledge.

 

[momochuu]

As an aside, in the last two weeks people have claimed Greninja has a low damage output and unreliable grab game when he has neither and is... arguably top tier at both. Are these widespread misconceptions the reason why he's so underrated in the US? Does it really just come down to people barely using him there and not showcasing this stuff?

Nobody knows anything, and then someone that doesn't know anything says something random about a character, and others believe it. It's how you have people in this thread legitimately thinking Ike is top 15, and thinking Greninja does low damage and has no kill setups, or Ryu being hard to play etc.

 

[meleebrawler]

So whats everyones thoughts on Mewtwo?

Well, you got your answer; while almost everybody on this side of the coast regularly puts Mewtwo at or near bottom on their tier lists or liberally list him as disadvantaged against their main, they can't actually come up with strong arguments against his case besides his weight and size because they either know next to nothing about what he can do or foolishly believe that his strengths are inconsequential.

Like momochuu said, at this point it seems people only put Mewtwo so low out of habit, vox populi etc. In reality he's a character with many strong tools that is mainly held back because he's too unforgiving vs. most of the top tiers.

 

[epicnights]

So this was on /r/smashbros, and I haven't seen any mention of this before, so I figured I'd post this.

Any thoughts? Looks like it could really make perfect pivots more consistently viable.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Wario neither struggles to get KOs nor are big ranges a particular problem to him. His ground game is also just fine, there's no real reason to assume that he's largely an aerial based character.

The characters that Wario most notably loses to are Sheik, Diddy, Yoshi, Mario and Fox. It's the combination of frame data and mobility of these characters that Wario lacks answers against. Range based characters like Ganondorf, Shulk and Ike are generally even with Wario or close it. He wins matchups against characters that are neither more mobile than him, nor have the proper frame data - this includes Rosalina and a lot of the annoying projectile campers [minus the Links].

Maybe a bit simplified but based on my experience it's a lot more accurate than other claims about Wario.

 

[the king of murder]

I bet Wario mains cringe whenever someone says "our character beats Wario because lol range". Just like saying "shielding" completly counters character X because he can't do anything lol. I find it ludicrous that one single trait/option completly shuts down a character here in smash 4 where I feel that every character, yes even Zelda, has tools deal with difficult situations. Some are more difficult, some are less rewarding but the thing is they have them which is why I find it hard to believe that there are many if at all 80:20 MUs

That is not to say that it wasn't like that in past games like say Brawl where one single throw could invalidate like a big majority of the cast( like Grab Climbers the character) but I don't think S4 has that kind of stuff.

 

[DunnoBro]

Whilst not everyone needs a kill throw, characters who struggle to kill as much as Duck Hunt should have a kill throw. I'm not alone in thinking that an Uthrow that kills at reasonable percents would be good for Duck Hunt, I've heard DunnoBro mention the same thing and I'm inclined to trust his judgement.

MVD's the one who thinks a kill throw is what DHD needs.

I think it'd help but unless it's broken strong a killing uthrow wouldn't really help all that much. A killing fthrow would be better since he's a ledge play character who I feel gets a lot of grabs right at the ledge. Just diddy/pit strength would be fine. Diddy definitely gets hella grabs and is fine. But fthrow is currently his combo throw so that'd hurt too.

He needs an overall power/consistency buff in general. Despite their demand for precision and inconsistency his moves are actually below average in strength/potency still.

IMO

So this was on /r/smashbros, and I haven't seen any mention of this before, so I figured I'd post this.

Any thoughts? Looks like it could really make perfect pivots more consistently viable.

Hmm, I always felt it was way easier to PP Downsmashes/Dtilts but I didn't use smash stick at the time and pp dtilts didn't seem to have much utility.

 

[Zannabluke]

Wario neither struggles to get KOs nor are big ranges a particular problem to him. His ground game is also just fine, there's no real reason to assume that he's largely an aerial based character.

The characters that Wario most notably loses to are Sheik, Diddy, Yoshi, Mario and Fox. It's the combination of frame data and mobility of these characters that Wario lacks answers against. Range based characters like Ganondorf, Shulk and Ike are generally even with Wario or close it. He wins matchups against characters that are neither more mobile than him, nor have the proper frame data - this includes Rosalina and a lot of the annoying projectile campers [minus the Links].

Maybe a bit simplified but based on my experience it's a lot more accurate than other claims about Wario.

i'd say from personal experience that falcon also beats wario
tho i haven't played the mu for quite some time now

 

[Firefoxx]

i'd say from personal experience that falcon also beats wario
tho i haven't played the mu for quite some time now

Luckly Georgia happens to be the home of both the best Wario main and the best Falcon main in the country. Given that Reflex has maintained his #1 spot on the PR, I think its likely this matchup is closer to even than you think, or just straight up in Wario's favor

 

[Vipermoon]

Almost everything is done except for pummels which assuming the (+X) is the recovery period, then I could easily get the total frames by adding it to the startup and subtracting 1. Notes: the "( )" on say, Falco, Fox, Mewtwo, Mii Gunner, and maybe someone else are there since those are projectiles that happen after the throw - it's possible for the projectile to miss. Ryu's U-throw is a special case since apparently there's a "heel drop" that probably only works when there's +3 players. Otherwise, if you see a bunch of numbers, you're mostly going to be concerned about the last hit frame. Also, DK has his own page since like Ryu for the recovery spreadsheet, he has more options. Oh, and "TBU" next to Cloud's name means "to be updated" since he's not in the game.

Some of the interesting things is that there are a lot of throws with similar hit and sometimes total frames. For one, you can probably see where Mii Gunner's U- and B-throw are based on and not just how you see it in-game, but down to the coding of the game.

Edit: The Mii Fighters don't have any total frames or (+X)/recovery frames listed on sixriver. Guess people really don't care for them. Shame.

Thanks for making this. Is there a thread for it in the academy?

 

[Spinosaurus]

Someone kindly explain to me what Wario's weakness is, because between a Frame 4 dash attack that teleports him to punish any landing, a manually-controlled command grab that beats all projectiles, a projectile-beating Bike to get him out of situations and recover that respawns before the pieces of the previous bike even disappear off the screen, a very potent fall -> fast fall speed shift to make Dair and Nair super good, an "I win" condition if you so much as dare to space him out over time, and a Dair to beat out ledge invulnerability, I don't see how this clown isn't Top 3 yet.

His reward.

Wario essentially has to work more than any other character. His damage output is very on the low end, and he has to commit to deal any significant damage. What hinders him further is that he has no reliable ways to kill the significant characters who can punish his go-to kill moves. His neutral is just too simple and he's forced to be unpredictable with his movement to get anything going, and has to bait mistakes.

There's little margin for error with this character, and he has to constantly outplay his opponent. He's pretty inconsistent and demanding to play, and loses to characters that are safer than him, can punish him, outdamage him, and kill better than he does. So, most of the top characters. Waft helps a lot of course, and is primarily why he's as good as he is since it negates a lot of his weaknesses, but it's a gamble in a lot of situations.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Super Dedede Jump will probably never stop being vulnerable. After all, it's the attack in the Kirby games that you're supposed to punish the most.

Another thought I had re: neutral and footsies is that, in other fighting games, the two terms are virtually synonymous. If they're more separate ideas in Smash or the latter a subset of the former, then it is more possible to have a character with a bad or mediocre neutral but good or even excellent footsies. This might explain why certain characters are viewed negatively.

neutral game is a specific situation in a game where neither character has the advantage. Footsies is the metagame of the neutral.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

neutral game is a specific situation in a game where neither character has the advantage. Footsies is the metagame of the neutral.

Not to go off on a tangent or anything, but is footsies a fancy way of describing ground-based combat?

 

[Spinosaurus]

Not to go off on a tangent or anything, but is footsies a fancy way of describing ground-based combat?

Sorta but that doesn't tell the whole story. Footsies at its most basic form is about being outside of your opponent's range, while they're in yours. But it's way more complex than that. There's a whole, really good article about it that goes really in depth on everything that makes footsies what it is. (Mostly Street Fighter used here)
http://sonichurricane.com/?page_id=1702

Thing about Smash footsies is that you have so much movement options compared to other tradition fighters that footsies aren't as prevalent or complicated compared to like, Street Fighter.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

It's because it's a bad idea.

You're still in a horrible position. If you try to camp the platform Mario is in a super good position to just chip away at you and your shield with up airs and back airs.

As @A2ZOMG said earlier, you won't be able to kill until really high percentages. Save the platform camping until said percentages.

 

[DunnoBro]

Not to go off on a tangent or anything, but is footsies a fancy way of describing ground-based combat?

It's a fancy way of describing "I'm not touching you~ I'm not touching you~"

 

[ParanoidDrone]

It's a fancy way of describing "I'm not touching you~ I'm not touching you~"

Alternatively, "I'm not letting you touch me~"

 

[Pazzo.]

Which characters in this current meta benefit the most from underestimation?

Ganondorf comes to mind.

 

[DunnoBro]

Probably DK

"Oh let me just approach and- wow his grab range is ridiculou- im dead"

 

[Y2Kay]

Little Mac definitely.

"Oh, it's little Mac. All I have to do is back throw and-"

Gets punched in the face

 

[FullMoon]

Vouching for Little Mac as well because I've done it myself with predictable results.

 

[bc1910]

DK if you don't play a campy character.

Possibly Mewtwo if you do. Confusion reflects everything, Shadow Ball eats you alive and you might struggle to compete up close.

 

[DunnoBro]

I'd say little mac if he wasn't such a popular character to begin with so it's hard to be taken completely off-guard

First time I played DKWill just post-patch in a MM and I was dying at 50-70% off grab and didn't know it was legit I stood up and called him the god damned devil.

 

[Y2Kay]

Characters that have over exaggerated weaknesses tend to do this very well. For example....

's bad recovery
's sucky missiles
's wacky frame data
's light weight and large frame

The blatant ignorance for these match ups are just sad. If you're a Mewtwo main, you know how people just assume their character beats him just because he dies earlier than most of the cast. None of his strengths are well known at all though. Like how meleebrawler said, it seems now people think he's bad out of habit, not necessarily because of their knowledge of the game.

If I go on too long, I'm gonna rant tho, so I'll stop now

 

[Pazzo.]

The people I know tended to stigmatize and anyone who played him...

Until Nairo happened.

So really, for most 'OK' characters it's only a matter of time before players respect them. And subsequently exploit their weaknesses more effectively.