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

[Thinkaman]

This is the most strictly moderated thread on Smashboards. Read the rules!

Welcome to the Character Competitive Impressions thread. This is the master discussion covering comparisons of characters in Smash 4.

This includes comparisons to specific other characters, or the roster in general.

This can be in theory, results, or personal experience.

And yes, this includes tier lists. But let's lay down some ground rules.

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THE RULES

First, obey the Smashboards Global Rules. This subforum is intended to be the best discussion area Smashboards has to offer. Infractions for Spam, Flaming, Trolling, and Harassment are given out with less leniency here than anywhere else, and punishments tend to be roughly double.


Posts in this thread must also adhere to special Topic and Substance Rules. We allow such a broad spread of interwoven topics here, that we actually require more rules to prevent things from spiraling off-topic. (Defending a bigger territory requires bigger walls.)

There's really only one rule: Posts have to be on-topic and have substance. But that's ambiguous, and so as a guideline topics allowed for discussion in this thread are divided into "Green Topics" and "Yellow Topics".

Green Topics are central topics that are explicitly okay to discuss as much as you want:

• Hard Data on Character Usage or Wins
  • Online or Off
• Character Matchup Explorations
  • Options, Interactions, Mindset
  • Non-obvious Character/Move Advantages/Disadvantages
  • Data, Theorycraft, and Expert Opinions
  • What skill tests does the matchup focus on, for each side?
  • Stage Preferences
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• Metagame
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• Comparisons of Gameplay in Different Environments
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  • 1v1 vs 2v2 vs 3v3 vs 4v4 vs FFA
• Initial Posting of Smash News

Yellow Topics include things that, without context, risk diverting the topic away from characters or boil down to opinion. You may talk about Yellow Topics, but if and only if you can tie each one back to a Green Topic in the same post. (If you are doing it right, this should be entirely organic and you shouldn't have to worry about it.)

• Tier Lists
  • Includes any form of partial tier list
  • "Top 15", bottom 10", "who is the worst character", "viable threats", ect.
• Character Matchup Lists/Summaries
  • Includes any form of matchup ratios
• Obvious Character/Move Advantages/Disadvantages
  • "Mac loses the matchup. He has an amazing ground game, but his recovery is awful."
  • "Mac wins the matchup. His recovery is awful, but he has an amazing ground game."
  • If the reasons you give for something are already known to all, you haven't done anything to make it more than a statement of opinion.
• "Vacuum" Comparisons
  • Direct comparison of individual moves or properties in isolation
  • "Which is better, Mario bair or Luigi bair?"
• Hypothetical Changes
  • Includes patch wishes
• Patch Notes
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  • "Wow, Reggie beats Bill 3-1."
  • "That dair spike! If she had just buffered that ledge option..."
  • "I can't believe he is sticking with Rosalina after that match."
• Rulesets
• Custom Moveset Choices
  
• Other Smash/Fighting Games
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• General Gameplay Advice or Guides
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• Discussion of Smash News

Red Topics are explicitly banned. Any post that focuses on them is grounds for a spam infraction.

• Tier List Meta Discussion
  • "Do tiers exist?"
  • "How important are tiers compared to player skill?"
  • "How should tier lists be constructed and expressed?"
  • "What do tier labels really mean?"
  • "What is the point of tier lists?"
• Matchup Ratio Meta Discussion
  • "What do/should matchup ratios mean, exactly?"
  • "What is the best way to express matchup ratios?"
  • "How precise can we really claim matchup ratios are?"
  • "What constitutes a 'counter'?"
• Game Preference Discussion
  • Includes how much you don't respect/like FFAs or online play.
• Ruleset Preference Discussion
• Non-Constructive Criticism (on any topic)
• Meta Discussion on Smashboards Rules
• Naming Moves or Combos

Finally, there are also special Tier List Posting Rules. Tier lists are a helpful way to quickly summarize and compare opinions+experience across the community, as well as provide historical snapshots of the metagame. However, the posting of tier lists often spreads like a virus and leads to a race-to-the-bottom in which discussion focuses more and more on stating opinions without substance. As such:

• If there is already a tier list post on the current 50-post page, no one else may post one.
  • No exceptions.
• They may only be posted by regular members of the discussion, or extremely well-respected players.
  • If you have to ask, the answer is no.
• We don't care about your opinions. We care about your observations, reflections, and conclusions. Never, ever post just a list.
  • Why did you need to post this list? What is different? What does it mean?
• Similarly, replies to a personal tier list are held to the same standard.
  • In particular, non-constructive criticism will be moderated harshly.
  • The correct response to a poor tier list, like most bad content, is to not respond.
• The creator of a list may answer single replies asking for clarifications, but further discussion of the list itself ends there.
  • If a personal tier list and any clarifications lead to discussion of Green Topics, great! But discussion will never be allowed to continue on a list itself, for its own sake.

Breaking these thread-specific rules is likely to result not only in (strict) standard moderation penalties, but is also likely to earn a temporary ban from this individual thread.

If you have any questions about these posting guidelines, please PM me! ( Thinkaman )

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Previous Threads:
http://smashboards.com/threads/viability-ratings-v2-competitive-impressions.410551/
http://smashboards.com/threads/competitive-impressions-mlg-finals.420852/
http://smashboards.com/threads/competitive-impressions-tbh5.419494/
http://smashboards.com/threads/evo-2kxv-competitive-impressions.410539/
http://smashboards.com/threads/character-competitive-impressions.367669/

 

[Thinkaman]

Reserved for FAQ

 

[Thinkaman]

Welcome to the new CCI thread! Hopefully the more explicit posting guidelines make for an enjoyable discussion.

In the last 5 weeks, we've had a lot of interesting Smash 4 activity at the national level, including THB5 and MLG New Orleans. We saw Nairo finally overcome Zero, and saw the following characters used across the combined top 16 players from both events:
x8
x3
x3
x3
x3
x2
x2
x2










(and technically )

That gives us 18 characters. Several questions are obvious, and have already seen quite a bit of discussion:

• Yeah, Sheik and ZSS are good, but why aren't we seeing more ZSS?
• Ryu clearly has staying power, but what is his matchup spread starting to look like, now that both sides are starting to understand the character?
• Do Mega Man, Ike, Pac-Man, and Doc have legitimate odds of remaining a fixture of high level competitive play?
• Where are , , and ? Common opinion would declare them better than some of the characters we see here, but yet we don't see them. More broadly, we see surprisingly few mains of these characters competing.
• What about , , , and ? They have been intermittent threats on regional stages, but have struggled to break to higher ground.

Smash 4 is still in an exciting exploratory period, and the likelihood of additional characters and patches will only extend that. This weekend we have Tipped Off 11 and KTAR XIV, and Europe has Dreamhack coming up.

Now is an ideal transitional time to pose the questions you are most interested in. What are you currently most curious about, when it comes to the future of Smash 4?

 

[LancerStaff]

I can post, right? As I was saying, Thinkaman ...

Eh. It's just that it feels more like you're fighting moves and gimmicks rather then characters most of the time... You're not fighting DK, you're fighting the ding-dong. You're not fighting Lucario, you're fighting aura. Okay, some cases it makes sense, like Pac or Olimar, but then you look at characters like Zelda or Puff and they can end stocks almost by just throwing out certain moves and calling it a read. As a result many matchups for both sides don't really feel satisfying to win.

Of course that's why the Bo3 format exists, but instead it makes the game focus on safe cheese rather then your favorite.

 

[Mario766]

That's Smash in general.

You're not playing against Brawl MK. You're fighting Sakurai's decision to not make the game competitive and leaving MK to be the downfall of the game.

You're not fighting against Melee Fox, you're fighting one of the most well-tuned kits in Smash, who also can play run and gun with one of the best projectiles in the game.

Oh wait, that's Melee Falco too, just instead of well-tuned, put in one of the best aerial moves in the game with down air and give him amazing space control with laser.

Smash is a lot of characters with really stupid design thrown in a blender and people try to salvage the game to make it competitive. It's worked for now at least.

 

[Spinosaurus]

The only characters that have any sort of reliable gimmicks in this game are Lucario and Wario with Aura and Waft, and even then they have issues with being consistent at their game. I wouldn't call ding dong a gimmick.

But I feel like that's the problem with a lot of the lesser characters in this game. They're gimmicky.

 

[Thinkaman]

I would put Waft in the same category as Boost Kick; but a little "worse" in that it can encourage stalling/runaway.

I wouldn't mind a haircut to either move.

But real talk: Rage just shouldn't affect base knockback.

 

[ATH_]

Sakurai isn't the only one in charge of designing all characters and balancing everyone. They came out during development to speak that they now have multiples of people working on that.
Hence, why we get "balance patches" to further keep the standards they are invested in.

The issue is: whether or not we agree with the changes, they are there, and we must adapt to them, with whatever character we choose to do so with. I believe that JTails and Zero have set very good examples of this, post-diddy-king nerf. This also is shown in Melee with aMSa defeating M2K with a character nobody thought could even come close, especially against someone like M2K.

In short, it's a theme that in Smash, we are to adapt to whatever the developers would like, and right now more than ever, we are lucky to have it be more than one person.

( Side note: We ought to work together rather than work against one another here to make any sort of consistent progress (something I've said a lot), so I highly appreciate Thinkaman 's well-made ruleset. ^^)

 

[DungeonMaster]

In the last 5 weeks, we've had a lot of interesting Smash 4 activity at the national level, including THB5 and MLG New Orleans. We saw Nairo finally overcome Zero, and saw the following characters used across the combined top 16 players from both events:

Why is powersuit Samus not included in that list? She was used.

 

[Man Li Gi]

Hey Wintropy I know what happened to the link.,....anyway, this one should work. Again its the pit v dk MU where the Pit played great game 1 and then...,..
https://youtu.be/QfEQNqJwqY8

 

[DblCrest]

I had no idea that was a thing. Is the timing hard to do?

DK's cargo throw is pretty darn scary.

 

[Vipermoon]

I would put Waft in the same category as Boost Kick; but a little "worse" in that it can encourage stalling/runaway.

I wouldn't mind a haircut to either move.

But real talk: Rage just shouldn't affect base knockback.

Hmm, rage. Okay so for anyone that doesn't know rage is the final modifier in the knockback formula. It affects final/true KB. The problem is "undeserved" early kills. Rage with ideal stage positioning makes it so enough KB is dealt for nearby blastzones using base KB at low percents. Hence base KB is king. I don't know if rage affecting only KB growth would be healthy for the game but it would be healthier.

New thread: well written ruleset Thinkaman, but do "tiers" really need to be in the title of the thread?

 

[Wintropy]

I had no idea that was a thing. Is the timing hard to do?

DK's carry and throw is pretty darn scary.

It's a thing I've seen DK do before quite a few times. I don't know exactly how it works (it's a wall spike, of course, but I don't know the specific timing required to connect it), but it is dependent on damage and character. It's the same as any other spike: if the opponent doesn't have high enough damage, they can still recover from it, even if they don't get the tech.

Pit could have made it back from that no problem, I'm gonna say it was an input error by the player. Even without the tech, he had his extra jumps and up-b to get him back.

Either way, yeah, DK's cargo hold opens up very scary options in the hands of a good player. His advantage is incredible if he gets the grab, he just needs one or two good grabs to shift the dynamic of the match. He isn't that difficult to keep out if you stay on top of him, but his pseudo-disjointed hitboxes can make that difficult. Neutral is very important in this matchup, since you're going to be on one end or the other of the spectrum depending on whether DK gets you or you get him first.

 

[Kaladin]

Do Mega Man, Ike, Pac-Man, and Doc have legitimate odds of remaining a fixture of high level competitive play?

This is something I've been interested in for a while, particularly Mega Man and Pac-Man. I would argue that the answer is yes, with a few disclaimers. Mega and Pac will always be regional threats. They're decent characters at least, and that's how it works. With that out of the way, lets talk about a national level. I would contend that Mega/Pac will be a national threat, until people learn the matchup faster/more than their meta develops. These two characters are rather under explored and have awesome potential, but as of right now, they're winning on player skill and matchup inexperience. When ScAtt (am I capitalizing that right?) beat someone, he outplayed them. He didn't fart on them, Aura them, or ding dong them at 50%. As of right now, Pac/Mega are very honest characters. Because of that, if their meta stops developing, they'll likely be just under pit in terms of solo viability.

I do, however, believe that even if everyone learned the matchup/their meta stopped developing right now, they would remain forever valuable pocket/counterpick characters. Pac-Man has the best anti-approach kit in the game, allowing him to rotflstomp characters with bad mobility and no way of dealing with his projectiles. See: Luigi. When life gives you lemons, you better pray you aren't playing a character with no way of dealing with them, etc.

tl;dr: Mega/Pac will be nationally viable until their meta stops and people learn the matchup. After that point they'll be a bit worse than pit in terms of solo viability, and remain forever valuable counter picks.

 

[KenMeister]

Why is powersuit Samus not included in that list? She was used.

I think he's moreso referring to characters who were in Top 16 at the last 5 weeks' worth of majors that actually won a game. Sure, ESAM pulled out his Samus for one game, but he didn't win any with her. Meanwhile, Nairo was able to take a whole set's worth of games off of ESAM with Doc, hence why he's listed there and not Samus.

 

[Kaladin]

I think he's moreso referring to characters who were in Top 16 at the last 5 weeks' worth of majors that actually won a game. Sure, ESAM pulled out his Samus for one game, but he didn't win any with her. Meanwhile, Nairo was able to take a whole set's worth of games off of ESAM with Doc, hence why he's listed there and not Samus.

Depth was top 16, wasn't he?

 

[Ffamran]

Thinkaman! Why?! I had stuff I wanted to comment on from the previous thread, but I was busy! ;_;

you aren't really supposed to be blocking as greninja anyway. you out move them and don't put yourself into a position to block in the first place, then you punish them for attempting to make you shield.

if you have to shield you probably messed up movement somewhere or you had no choice. from there you reset the situation back to neutral and keep doing what you were doing in the first place, which was probably throwing 200000 shurikens and spacing with fair.

This screams "hit and run" and guerilla to me and it makes total sense. For those who don't really know about guerilla warfare and hit and run tactics, it's evasive, quick offense with ambushes, so in terms of fighting games, a smart engage-disengage mentality and focus on safe/or planned approaches. This would be the opposite of something like blitzkrieg which would be what Captain Falcon would do: high speed, aggressive offense that comes with a surprising factor because of how sudden and overwhelming it can be.

This is random but I'm lookin at DK's frame data and...

why the **** does this character have intangibility on D-tilt from frame 1? Super safe, fast poke that can lead to death confirms from grab.

Actually all of DK's tilts are intangible, as are his smashes and Uair. I just went from respecting DK's char design to feeling DK is hella fraudulent.

The **** was Sakurai thinking.

And Ganondorf over here with not one intangible poke.

Character balance...HOW DO YOU HAS IT?!?!?!

Bowser has intangibility on his normals and Uair too... Unified character design that is detrimental and outright silly? Remember that compared to DK, Bowser's like Little Mac speed where he can run fast, but his air speed isn't good while DK is like ZSS or Sheik, mobile everywhere.

Also, Ryu has intangibility on his foot for his light Ftilt too. I, as a Falco player, would love it if my armored feet/prosthetic legs had intangibility on my foot to when I use Ftilt and I bet Captain Falcon, Fox, Samus, ZSS, and plenty more would love it, especially if they're wearing greaves, shin pads, are armored, or have fashionable and functional jet heels. Hell, Ike would love having his foot be intangible during jab 2. And as a member of the Star Fox crew and Nintendo character, I'd like intangibility there too for Up Smash like my fellow Fox and Yoshi players.

Also, that reminds me, ZSS's Utilt is transcendent? and can't recoil like Little Mac's if it was also transcendent. It's also frame 3 and lowers her hurtbox. Why?

Ah yes, the DK salt or rather confusion. Don't let it fool you though. DK has easily the worst ledge get up options with a low and slow ledge jump, hurtbox exposed throughout the ledge animation, a bad ledge attack, and bad ledge roll and bad ledge neutral get up.

Let's not forget how there are still gaps in hitboxes like his utilt, dtilt, ftilt, jab, fsmash (while they it is way better, it still misses), usmash still struggles to exist, and then dsmash losing it's utility as an anti air due to removing the frame where it hits above him. Seriously, be glad that dsmash lost its hitbox above him as it stands, the move covers ledge options pretty well except jump approaches as it goes below the stage with his fists.

He overall has lost power from brawl and survivability, but gained a kill confirm and a better footsie game.

Also, Wintropy, Pit really can cover all DK's options if played right. DK can't cover landings and is just bad at approaching. Baits and overall just waiting works wonders. DK losing to characters with better footsies or mobility overall (hence why he loses to Fox so hard cuz he better mobility and Footsy).

Don't get it twisted, I know DK is good, but he has such flaws and a rather simple design, but where he strives is the fact that there are layers and mindgames that can change the tide of the match.

https://youtu.be/QfE
Here I am playing the MU.

Game 1 the Pit played it right, but notice game 2 and game three and see what he did wrong.

This is the point where instead of patching - not patching, as in literal patches, but something like patching torn clothing - up moves by putting random disjoints, partial invincibility, and the like, moves should be changed to function better without being silly. So, the hitbox issue for Ftilt should be given the "Ike treatment" where the entire hitbox is replaced by a 0 ID hitbox. It's essentially a hitbox not even "on" DK, but a hitbox that works as if it were his arm swatting you away. In Ike's case, Ike lost a strong hitbox (and a weak hitbox), for a consistent and faster one. DK's not a turtle dragon like Bowser, he's not "armored" like Bowser, so he really shouldn't have intangibility like that, especially since Bowser's intangibility covers at most some frames before and after total frames while DK's covers frame 1 to the last active frame or even after it. For example, DK's Ftilt is frames 9-11, 3 active frames, has partial intangibility from frames 1-25, 25 I-frames, for regular and angled down Ftilt while angled up, it's 7-11, 5-frames. Contrast this to Bowser's which is frame 10-14, 5 active frames, and only partially intangible for frames 10-14.

Would you prefer good hitboxes on DK or I-frames on most of his moves that when people figure out, they might get really angry? Same question for other characters who might have "patches" on otherwise should be good moves like Captain Falcon's Up Smash. Would you, Captain Falcon players, prefer a faster, frame 16 Up Smash and perhaps partial intangibility on his feet to his shins without a horizontal disjoint or would you rather stick with your frame 22 Up Smash with a horizontal disjoint that has already riled up players? It boils down would you rather have better functioning moves instead of attributes, patches, covering up decent to bad moves? Also, this is not to say that I-frames are bad or disjoints are bad, but that some of them seems like the developers didn't know how to fix it, so they slapped something on to make it work, but in the "wrong" or "bad" way.

 

[TheJolteon]

I was on the ladder earlier today and i decided to use Marth against a Meta Knight. I decided to use shield breaker and charged it halfway and it didn't break the shield!!!!!!! I have a feeling that will lower Marth even more if he has to charge a shield breaker more than halfway in order to break a shield. I mean the move is called shield breaker so why not nerf its ability to break a shield am I right?

 

[ATH_]

I was on the ladder earlier today and i decided to use Marth against a Meta Knight. I decided to use shield breaker and charged it halfway and it didn't break the shield!!!!!!! I have a feeling that will lower Marth even more if he has to charge a shield breaker more than halfway in order to break a shield. I mean the move is called shield breaker so why not nerf its ability to break a shield am I right?

This has been mentioned quite a lot in the Marth threads. Actually, I haven't looked into whether or not it also affects Lucina, but I assume it does (correct me if I'm wrong).

It definitely does feel unnecessarily unfair. A move like that is very powerful on paper, but in use it proves to be limited by its range. Sadly, they did reduce its capability of breaking shields a noticeable amount, and we do have to deal with it.

Personal thought: I do wish in any future patches released that they bring new improvements to the lesser-used characters such as Marth and Lucina. They deserve better.

 

[IsmaR]

Why is powersuit Samus not included in that list? She was used.

I think he's moreso referring to characters who were in Top 16 at the last 5 weeks' worth of majors that actually won a game. Sure, ESAM pulled out his Samus for one game, but he didn't win any with her. Meanwhile, Nairo was able to take a whole set's worth of games off of ESAM with Doc, hence why he's listed there and not Samus.

Not to mention, Nairo himself pulled out Robin and Meta Knight for a single match each against ZeRo, to no success.

Not to discredit their proficiency with said characters, but they went went their mains 99% of the time in bracket, and didn't actually win any sets (let alone matches) save for Nairo's Doc of course. Would love to see ESAM bust out Samus more often.

On the note of Marcina's Shield Breaker, MR E just narrowly missed breaking a shield on stream @ Tipped Off 11.

Even the commentators cringed.

 

[Mario766]

Ryu's Collarbone Breaker is frame 13, does 37 percent shield damage and is now a block string.

Uncharged Shield Breaker for Marth is either 33-34 percent shield damage and is frame 19.

Nerf Shield Breaker Kappa

 

[bc1910]

Marcina have had a slew of buffs since the game came out. I don't know how many more the devs will be willing to give.

If the last patch is anything to go by, they're almost done with this game's balance adjustments. Only Luigi got major changes.

However since the last patch brought more shieldstun, easily the biggest change since the removal of vertical vectoring, it could be that the devs didn't want to extensively buff/nerf characters to the level they have done before because they weren't sure how the shield nerf would affect the cast. Better to wait and observe the new balance issues that arise or the old ones that persist.

That said, there were major balance changes to more than one character in the patch that removed vertical vectoring. I don't want to get my hopes up for big balance adjustments in the future.

 

[TriTails]

Hmm, rage. Okay so for anyone that doesn't know rage is the final modifier in the knockback formula. It affects final/true KB. The problem is "undeserved" early kills. Rage with ideal stage positioning makes it so enough KB is dealt for nearby blastzones using base KB at low percents. Hence base KB is king. I don't know if rage affecting only KB growth would be healthy for the game but it would be healthier.

New thread: well written ruleset Thinkaman, but do "tiers" really need to be in the title of the thread?

I don't really know. I know my character doesn't benefit too much from rage aside from HooHahNado because he is growth-based character.

Rage affecting growth would make F-smash and U-smash, to name some, stronger, which is scary considering on how safe and fast they are. However, his D-throw kill setups probably would be REALLY dead. I mean, HooHahNado still works on certain percents and rage (And kills).

So Luigi can be a strongflip powerhouse with a 'still-absurd' combo ability with crazy power? I mean, the character's combos is fairly unaffected because they are in low percents spectrum, but making his smash attacks stronger when they are already one of the safest in the game?

I would like it, but I can imagine people having similiar salt with pre-patch Luigi. Not only for smash attacks, his aerials are also growth-based. This change would benefit Luigi but I fear it may benefit him TOO much (I would like killing people at 80% tho ).

And for those wondering, yes, at certain percents and rage HooHahNado still works, connects, and kills. Although, I've only tested this with bots (No. Not in training mode. In actual Smash) because I moved house and have yet to set up a Wi-Fi. Since I'm using the 3DS version I imagine Luigi would have an easier time killing in Wii U.

For those who asks, with slight rage I can KO people at around 110% (Probably because D-throw sends them really high up this time around). However, this is largely character and rage dependent, and the fact the hitlag modifier was increased means it's more easily DI'd and for people who DI correctly you might as well B-throw them or something.

 

[momochuu]

This screams "hit and run" and guerilla to me and it makes total sense. For those who don't really know about guerilla warfare and hit and run tactics, it's evasive, quick offense with ambushes, so in terms of fighting games, a smart engage-disengage mentality and focus on safe/or planned approaches. This would be the opposite of something like blitzkrieg which would be what Captain Falcon would do: high speed, aggressive offense that comes with a surprising factor because of how sudden and overwhelming it can be.

you basically described greninja. run away, throw shurikens, get a punish, do (too much) damage, run away again.

 

[meleebrawler]

I can post, right? As I was saying, Thinkaman ...

Eh. It's just that it feels more like you're fighting moves and gimmicks rather then characters most of the time... You're not fighting DK, you're fighting the ding-dong. You're not fighting Lucario, you're fighting aura. Okay, some cases it makes sense, like Pac or Olimar, but then you look at characters like Zelda or Puff and they can end stocks almost by just throwing out certain moves and calling it a read. As a result many matchups for both sides don't really feel satisfying to win.

Of course that's why the Bo3 format exists, but instead it makes the game focus on safe cheese rather then your favorite.

You're not fighting Zangief, you're fighting his Spinning Piledriver. You're not fighting Sagat, you're fighting Tiger Shot.
You're not fighting El Fuerte, you're fighting Habanero Dash. You're not fighting Blanca, you're fighting his cannonballs.

Characters that are centralized on a single or small selection of moves aren't unique to Smash, but for a lot of characters you can see that the developers tried to make their tools as well-rounded in usage as possible. Characters like G&W or Lucas had their more extreme aspects turned down in exchange for many of their formerly useless moves becoming relatively important.

It's just that competitive players will ALWAYS be trying to find what the best tools are, and use them repeatedly if that's what it takes for them to win.

 

[LancerStaff]

You're not fighting Zangief, you're fighting his Spinning Piledriver. You're not fighting Sagat, you're fighting Tiger Shot.
You're not fighting El Fuerte, you're fighting Habanero Dash. You're not fighting Blanca, you're fighting his cannonballs.

Characters that are centralized on a single or small selection of moves aren't unique to Smash, but for a lot of characters you can see that the developers tried to make their tools as well-rounded in usage as possible. Characters like G&W or Lucas had their more extreme aspects turned down in exchange for many of their formerly useless moves becoming relatively important.

It's just that competitive players will ALWAYS be trying to find what the best tools are, and use them repeatedly if that's what it takes for them to win.

My problem isn't that people use these tools... It's that they exist. I'd prefer it if they smoothed out everything a bit more instead of having so many characters completely rely on gimmicks and shoddy overspecialization.

Of course, they've been doing a good job of fixing that on more then a few characters through patches, so that helps.

 

[Big O]

@Emblem Lord While it may seem pretty dumb that DK has a safe + intangible poke that also sets up some pretty nasty things, you have to realize two things. First, the setup potential of the move is tied to a 40% random chance to trip. This means most of the time it doesn't actually lead into anything. Secondly, the mechanics of the game stop Dtilt from tripping at the %'s followups would actually start KO'ing. This means he doesn't actually have KO confirms off of it (unless you trip them at the very edge and Punch, but even then you'd have to hit Dtilt point blank or they slide too far away). The only practical KO confirms off of Dtilt are on jank stages like Halberd (trip to Cargo Utoss Uair) or near walkoffs.

Also his arm being intangible frame one doesn't mean anything because he doesn't actually extend his arm forward until frame 7 anyway (it starts with his arm extended behind him).

So basically, DK's Dtilt being an invincible safe on block poke and reliable KO confirm is untrue. It is a really good move, but not the overpowered touch of death you make it out to be.

 

[hypersonicJD]

This is looking really nice. We finally got a merge of our competitive discussion and even rulings. Looking nice.

Sonic is still looking really strong even when 6WX got destroyed by Rago (don't really remember that Ike's name. Sorry. Don't murder me D: )

And I do think Ike vs Sonic is still even.

Diddy vs Yoshi is still really bad for Yoshi.

I honestly haven't been watching Tipper 11 too much.

Quite honestly I don't really know what to discuss right now. But I felt like I need to post something on this new thread. As I said. Don't kill me X_X

 

[Gunla]

Good thread, good stuff.

you basically described greninja. run away, throw shurikens, get a punish, do (too much) damage, run away again.

Chiming in as well but this is literally it, Ffamran . He has a real hit and run playstyle, keeping people away with Shurikens and punishing hard. There's no real better way to describe it.

Greninja's shield is his biggest weakness due to poor/limited OOS options and I find myself not using it as much; you are honestly better off just physically avoiding the attack when possible. It's why he suffers/has a harder time against characters like Sheik, Fox or Ness; they get in his face and he has little breathing room with options that Greninja has trouble answering with. When I run into one of those, I go straight into the Mii Brawler or ROB bunker.

 

[Rashyboy05]

I was on the ladder earlier today and i decided to use Marth against a Meta Knight. I decided to use shield breaker and charged it halfway and it didn't break the shield!!!!!!! I have a feeling that will lower Marth even more if he has to charge a shield breaker more than halfway in order to break a shield. I mean the move is called shield breaker so why not nerf its ability to break a shield am I right?

This was a change in the most recent patch. DK's Side-B and get up attacks' shield damage were also affected by this.

Anyway, Shield Breaker. The thing pre-patch has always caused 30 shield damage uncharged and it was now nerfed to 25 shield damage uncharged and 50 Shield Damage fuly charged (idk if tippers gives more shield damage). I'm not sure whether this is confirmed or not but Shield Breaker's shield damage does not gradually go up when charging it, so charging it halfway through its full power is pointless since it'll still do 25 shield damage anyway. And besides, what does the Shield Breaker change have anything to do with Marcina's viability to make it something worth noting about?

 

[ATH_]

Diddy vs Yoshi is still really bad for Yoshi.
I honestly haven't been watching Tipper 11 too much.

To further expand on this, the main issue I find against Diddy if I'm practicing my Yoshi is that Diddy's aerials tend to beat out Yoshi's NAirby range and FAir by frames.
Eggs are still good, as usual, but Diddy is just at the perfect balance agaisnt Yoshi of speed, power, and range. I am not entirely sure how many of Diddy's moves can break eggs, but it sure feels like a lot.
The only thing I've been able to really pull off is to use eggs, they use some option to avoid or break them, and then while they're in lag I try to get a NSpecial or NAir, but it's not guaranteed.

Also I haven't been watching it very much either, working on other stuff.

 

[bc1910]

Judging by previous patches, they aim to reduce the potency of overly simplistic playstyles and tools.

Grennja was massively polarised toward spamming shurikens, Up Smash, and Hydro Pump offstage, so all three took a hit. Diddy was literally Hoo Hah - The Character, and his grab combos are now significantly weaker. Luigi's massive reliance on an overpowered down throw has been addressed. Even more minor stuff like Falcon's ability to spam SHFF Bair any time he wants a kill has been addressed.

Rosalina, Sheik and Sonic have all been nerfed (multiple times) but are still the best characters in the game. One reason why is that they are not polarised toward one specific strategy that can be toned down. All three have a wide variety of strengths that keep them at the top. This could be the reason why these characters, particularly Sheik, haven't been nerfed as hard as some would like. Nerfing them harder might step out of the realm of reducing their simplicity and into the realm of changing their intended combat personas, something which the dev team of any fighter is usually reluctant to do.

 

[Vipermoon]

This was a change in the most recent patch. DK's Side-B and get up attacks' shield damage were also affected by this.

Anyway, Shield Breaker. The thing pre-patch has always caused 30 shield damage uncharged and it was now nerfed to 25 shield damage uncharged and 50 Shield Damage fuly charged (idk if tippers gives more shield damage). I'm not sure whether this is confirmed or not but Shield Breaker's shield damage does not gradually go up when charging it, so charging it halfway through its full power is pointless since it'll still do 25 shield damage anyway. And besides, what does the Shield Breaker change have anything to do with Marcina's viability to make it something worth noting about?

You are correct about how it changed and correct about the added shield damage not increasing with charge. And the tipper does not increase this modifier. So if you do the math, you now need nearly a full charge to break a healthy shield.

Shield Breaker was viable. At any level of play. Grab release to Jab/SB mix up. Dancing Blade cancelled to SB. Ledge release double jump SB. SB on a ledge get-up shield read. Full hop SB on Smashville platform. Short hop SB on lower Battlefield platform. These and some others are no longer possible.

Now your only hope of breaking a shield is to damage a shield with an attack (without getting punished), then for a small window of time, randomly throw it out uncharged. Or just use it as a kill move because it's now more useful for that...

What I'm trying to say is that this loss did slightly hamper Marth's viability. It was underused pre-patch (or only used in dumb ways).

 

[SherrdreamZ]

This was a change in the most recent patch. DK's Side-B and get up attacks' shield damage were also affected by this.

Anyway, Shield Breaker. The thing pre-patch has always caused 30 shield damage uncharged and it was now nerfed to 25 shield damage uncharged and 50 Shield Damage fully charged (idk if tippers gives more shield damage). I'm not sure whether this is confirmed or not but Shield Breaker's shield damage does not gradually go up when charging it, so charging it halfway through its full power is pointless since it'll still do 25 shield damage anyway. And besides, what does the Shield Breaker change have anything to do with Marcina's viability to make it something worth noting about?

Im fairly certain that is not entirely true, it does appear to be a gradual increase the longer it is charged. It takes about 2/3rds of the Shield at 50% Charge. No charge is aproximately 1/3rd it seems. Before the 1.1.1 patch Marcina's Shield breaker could break a shield being held down for 2 seconds. now you need nearly full charge which makes it rather underwhelming as a tool when you would rather hope they don't shield it because it's not going to break shields anyway. It's no longer a viable option to try to get a Shield Break read if you have to hold it down for 3 seconds. At this point it needs tweaks or it will remain underwhelming from 1.1.1 on.

 

[Amadeus9]

I'm expecting Metaknight nerfs soon, it stinks but as time goes forward I can understand it more and more. Did you know Metaknight has a true zero to death on sheik, zss, and fox? Now you know. Misdi a bthrow at 0 percent, and you're a goner. Over extend a little bit while you're at 20-40 percent? My low commitment dash attack will result in your death, when any other fighter would have gotten a few percent at most. Hang out on a platform too long? Utilt is gonna kill you. I love this fighter to death but... if he gets nerfed I won't even really feel bad.

This fighter does not belong in this game. His mechanics are so counter to smash 4's general design philosophy, he almost breaks the game on his own. I can say the same - on a lesser extent - about zss and ryu. But those fighters are functional even without their absurdities. I was so opposed to this view point... but it's looking very, very easy to side with...

 

[momochuu]

I hope they never nerf him because he's really fun when everything goes right. granted, I main a character that almost hard counters him so I don't know how it is from another perspective. I don't even know how they could change him without ruining him anyway. Seems more like a case of a character becoming what he is because of the work of the people that play the character instead of him just being designed to be stupid from the get-go (sheik, ryu, mario, etc), so it wouldn't be fair to nerf him..

 

[Jehtt]

I hope they never nerf him because he's really fun when everything goes right. granted, I main a character that almost hard counters him so I don't know how it is from another perspective. I don't even know how they could change him without ruining him anyway. Seems more like a case of a character becoming what he is because of the work of the people that play the character instead of him just being designed to be stupid from the get-go (sheik, ryu, mario, etc), so it wouldn't be fair to nerf him..

Who do you main that "almost hard counters" Meta Knight?

 

[Deathcarter]

Smash 4 is still in an exciting exploratory period, and the likelihood of additional characters and patches will only extend that. This weekend we have Tipped Off 11 and KTAR XIV, and Europe has Dreamhack coming up.

Now is an ideal transitional time to pose the questions you are most interested in. What are you currently most curious about, when it comes to the future of Smash 4?

Rosalina's future as a fixture in tournament play. Will she always be a prominent fixture in high level play or do people predict she will fall off in due time like Ness did before her? Dabuz's comments on her in the past (I don't know if they changed) on how people simply haven't figured her out yet and that she will be exposed over time combined with the increased tournament presence of Meta Knight and ZSS getting better with the latest patch make me pessimistic about her perceived status as a "Top 5" character.

 

[Kaladin]

Misdi a bthrow at 0 percent, and you're a goner.

...Pls explain. Video or explanation? If this is true (along with the other stuff you said, which I'm already aware of) MK may have the best advantage state in the game over ZSS.

 

[warionumbah2]

MK can't kill you with Utilt if your on a platform.