Character Competitive Impressions

[KenMeister]

The way things are looking for Link, he's B tier material. The MUs that have given him trouble in the past feel easier to deal with such as Ness, Jigglypuff, and Toon Link. With a couple new ATs and returning Brawl ATs, Link feels pretty solid this time around. It sounds pretty bold saying that he's better than roughly half the roster, but I firmly believe that he is.

He seems like a potent counterpick character more than anything. He certainly struggles (ZSS and Sonic look pretty bad lol), but I feel he can do well against some of the higher tiered characters too, such as the ones you mentioned. Also, is it me, or does Link actually fare pretty decently against Greninja? Like 50/50 maybe?

 

[Ryu_Ken]

He seems like a potent counterpick character more than anything. He certainly struggles (ZSS and Sonic look pretty bad lol), but I feel he can do well against some of the higher tiered characters too, such as the ones you mentioned. Also, is it me, or does Link actually fare pretty decently against Greninja? Like 50/50 maybe?

I think it's too soon to say. I haven't faced any good Greninja mains as of this patch, but I presume that Greninja does slightly worse in this MU. That's not saying Link is better than him, though.

 

[popsofctown]

Everyone keeps posting tier lists with an arbitrary number of characters on each tier that is similar to the number of fingers on my left hand.

I really don't think this game has that many tiers in it though. In fact I'm not sure it has more than 3 tiers. "Something went wrong here..", Doc, maybe Olimar but I'm hopeful about him, probably Mii swordsman, maybe D3. "Pretty totally adequate but pretty clearly a cut or two below Diddy and stuff", which has Mario and Lucina and stuff, and then the top tier.

Can you really name 4 characters who have enough differences in qualities that there is a gap between each two of them?

To me it seems like "Great, ok, or defective" and that's about all there is.

 

[Terotrous]

I really don't think this game has that many tiers in it though. In fact I'm not sure it has more than 3 tiers. "Something went wrong here..", Doc, maybe Olimar but I'm hopeful about him, probably Mii swordsman, maybe D3. "Pretty totally adequate but pretty clearly a cut or two below Diddy and stuff", which has Mario and Lucina and stuff, and then the top tier.

As of 1.0.3, I think you can get at least 5. Rosalina, Yoshi, Marth, Kirby, Olimar. These tiers are, from top to bottom, "broken", "great", "fine", "lackluster", and "garbage".

As of 1.0.4, there's probably at most 4 because I don't think anyone is in the "broken" tier anymore (both Sheik and Rosalina were pretty heavily nerfed). It's possible that the "lackluster" tier that included Kirby and other such characters might be gone, too.

 

[popsofctown]

4's not so different from 3.

 

[Terotrous]

4's not so different from 3.

It's really not. You basically just take the middle tier and break it into two, "upper mid" and "lower mid".

My gut reaction says that there's probably 4 distinct tiers. Getting a game with 51 characters into 3 tiers is absurdly tough.

 

[popsofctown]

It's really not. You basically just take the middle tier and break it into two, "upper mid" and "lower mid".

My gut reaction says that there's probably 4 distinct tiers. Getting a game with 51 characters into 3 tiers is absurdly tough.

I think you have a misconception. With minimal work and effort put into a game, perhaps having 51 characters in 3 tiers is tough, but due to the amount of variety, decentralization, and rps matchups in a larger cast, I think the tier list can actually be increasingly condensed.
Magic the gathering formats with a larger number of available cards tend to have more metagame diversity in tournaments, as a rule.

The bigger your cast, the broader your top tier, the broader your top tier, the more aspects of it that some trashy characters can take advantage of to gain a redeeming quality in that way. Like, you know, maybe blue onlimar can wreck Greninja and he won't even be in garbage tier.

 

[Deathcarter]

I think the massive buffs for Ike and Shulk were very premature. Neither character was bad enough to really need it it in the previous version of smash. Why did they of all characters get such a massive buff? Characters that are clearly weaker than them - the Mario brothers come to mind - have not been buffed anywhere near as much.

Also, people underrate Wario so very much ... probably because they never played a good one.

I have to disagree with you here. For Shulk, Speed and Buster finally feel just as rewarding as Jump and Smash. Beforehand, Speed gave you way too little reward in terms of damage despite its obvious movement/positional benefits and Buster didn't feel like it had the right balance of risk/reward considering the sluggishness of his moveset and how many characters already outperform him in both neutral and close quarters. For Ike, the faster tilts, autocancel fair, and a stronger bair give him better tools that he really needs to improve his spacing game in neutral plus it was really dumb that his fair was significantly slower than both Shulk's and Dedede's fairs considering his had less range. I don't even need to explain why it was stupid that certain characters could powershield his jab combo when Ike was at low percents beforehand.

 

[Terotrous]

I think you have a misconception. With minimal work and effort put into a game, perhaps having 51 characters in 3 tiers is tough, but due to the amount of variety, decentralization, and rps matchups in a larger cast, I think the tier list can actually be increasingly condensed.
Magic the gathering formats with a larger number of available cards tend to have more metagame diversity in tournaments, as a rule.

The bigger your cast, the broader your top tier, the broader your top tier, the more aspects of it that some trashy characters can take advantage of to gain a redeeming quality in that way. Like, you know, maybe blue onlimar can wreck Greninja and he won't even be in garbage tier.

Nah, it tends not to work that way. There are two main challenges involved in balancing a game, both of which get worse the larger the cast gets:

- Each character should be distinct from all other characters
- No character should be completely helpless against any other character

If the first point is not met, you end up with either a homogeneous cast or some characters who are basically the same but with one of them being purely better. However, satisfying point 1 is not that hard on its own. The problem is that satisfying both points simultaneously is a nightmare. If every character needs to have an answer to every other character, that means they have to be pretty well-rounded, but if everyone is well-rounded then everyone is the same. This tends to result in the necessity of certain characters having pronounced weaknesses, but finding ways to compensate for their weaknesses that don't cause problems for other characters is very tough.

So far, no one has ever gotten this totally right, even for a fairly small roster. There's always at least a few characters who are just better equipped than the rest, and the more characters you add, the harder it gets to keep them distinct without having any duds or gamebreakers.


Note that TCGs and games like Pokemon also have this problem. Look at how many tiers Pokemon has, and they need a super complex banlist to even get to that level of balance. These games also tend to violate the "one deck theme shouldn't be totally helpless against another deck theme" clause, leading to a lot of luck of the draw in terms of who you get paired up against.

 

[popsofctown]

Nah, it tends not to work that way. There are two main challenges involved in balancing a game, both of which get worse the larger the cast gets:

- Each character should be distinct from all other characters
- No character should be completely helpless against any other character

If the first point is not met, you end up with either a homogeneous cast or some characters who are basically the same but with one of them being purely better. However, satisfying point 1 is not that hard on its own. The problem is that satisfying both points simultaneously is a nightmare. If every character needs to have an answer to every other character, that means they have to be pretty well-rounded, but if everyone is well-rounded then everyone is the same. This tends to result in the necessity of certain characters having pronounced weaknesses, but finding ways to compensate for their weaknesses that don't cause problems for other characters is very tough.

So far, no one has ever gotten this totally right, even for a fairly small roster. There's always at least a few characters who are just better equipped than the rest, and the more characters you add, the harder it gets to keep them distinct without having any duds or gamebreakers.

You're making my point for me. The inability to give keep unique characters from being "helpless" or weak against some other character is what makes a larger cast more balanced. If a character has no bad matchups, that character is the best in the game and everyone else is stratified rather clearly based almost entirely on the intensity of their fail against that character. If a character only has one bad matchup, the metric for evaluating how strong a character is becomes a bit more complex and depends on how they do against 1 bad matchup char and 1 bad matchup-counter char, and a otherwise garbage character has twice as many opportunities to have a redeeming quality, since in a shifting meta either metric could change value to be more or less important.

If you have several top tiers each with several bad matchups, then evaluating a character's strength becomes so complex and multivariate that they become increasingly indistinguishable as a result.

A balanced state of a small cast with 50/50 matchups everywhere is literally impossible, and using that paradigm for balance is hopeless for N>3 (starcraft). The alternative balanced state of 60/40s and 70/30s handed out and spread evenly in a way that no one reigns king over everyone else is slightly less satisfying to engage in but way more likely to reach a stable state with widespread viability.

 

[Terotrous]

If you have several top tiers each with several bad matchups, then evaluating a character's strength becomes so complex and multivariate that they become increasingly indistinguishable as a result.

Sure, if you have loads of characters where each has significant counters you can achieve a certain type of balance. Consider Rock, Paper, Scissors. This game is perfectly balanced, each option wins one and loses one. You can extend this by having each option beat many and lose many.

However, in practice this tends not to be very interesting, as the match is decided more by luck of the draw than anything else. This is why point 2 is desirable. We want it to feel like player skill is still the main determining factor in who wins and loses, while the matchup only plays a small or moderate role. This requires the capabilities of the characters to be broad enough that they can respond to a wide range of scenarios, and this does tend to lead to some characters who can literally handle anything you throw at them.

 

[popsofctown]

Indeed, I conceded that that form of balance is less satisfying. But on the other hand it is far more realizable.

 

[NairWizard]

- Each character should be distinct from all other characters

This is troublesome. It requires a competitor to know up to 50 different matchups (and the ditto). Since it's so hard to know that many, you'll probably have quite a few upsets and inconsistent tournament results. I would never balance a fighting game trying to make 51 different characters unique and equally playable, but of course that's desirable for many people. I think 8 or so competitively viable fighters make for an interesting, healthy metagame, and up to 15 is alright. More than that is a bit clunky I think.

Has nothing to do with what you guys are saying, just wanted to note this.

 

[Terotrous]

Indeed, I conceded that that form of balance is less satisfying. But on the other hand it is far more realizable.

True, but I think that suggests that the highest possible degree of balance may not be ideal. It's quite possible that the type of gameplay that people enjoy fundamentally creates certain imbalances.

Consider also "Marvel Balance". Here, the idea is to balance the game by making everyone amazing. In Marvel 3, regardless of who you use, you can kill anyone with one touch, every character has ridiculous mixups, and every character's assists can extend combos and create pressure. As such, you can use almost anyone in a team. Yay! However, many teams play very similarly to one-another and there aren't a lot of matchup dynamics, you tend to play your team the same way regardless of who you're fighting against.

Compare SF4, which is not nearly as balanced as Marvel 3, and yet, people seem to find it a lot more interesting as a game because the characters are so much more diverse.

This is troublesome. It requires a competitor to know up to 50 different matchups (and the ditto). Since it's so hard to know that many, you'll probably have quite a few upsets and inconsistent tournament results.

True, but top players can do it. Look at King of Fighters and SF4. The pros do legitimately know every matchup. Don't expect to random out a top player with your Juri or something, they've fought enough of them to know what she's generally capable of. Granted, Infiltration does have a history of randoming people out with Hakan, but Hakan doesn't count.


Also, note that "distinct" does not mean "totally different". It's acceptable to have 2 characters who differ through a "pros and cons" kind of analysis. For example, Dr Mario is like Mario, but stronger and slower. That is still distinct because it changes the way he interacts with the other characters.

(It's arguable that Pit and Dark Pit are not properly distinct, but that's a different can of worms)

 

[popsofctown]

True, but I think that suggests that the highest possible degree of balance may not be ideal. It's quite possible that the type of gameplay that people enjoy fundamentally creates certain imbalances.

Consider also "Marvel Balance". Here, the idea is to balance the game by making everyone amazing. In Marvel 3, regardless of who you use, you can kill anyone with one touch, every character has ridiculous mixups, and every character's assists can extend combos and create pressure. As such, you can use almost anyone in a team. Yay! However, many teams play very similarly to one-another and there aren't a lot of matchup dynamics, you tend to play your team the same way regardless of who you're fighting against.

Compare SF4, which is not nearly as balanced as Marvel 3, and yet, people seem to find it a lot more interesting as a game because the characters are so much more diverse.



True, but top players can do it. Look at King of Fighters and SF4. The pros do legitimately know every matchup. Don't expect to random out a top player with your Juri or something, they've fought enough of them to know what she's generally capable of.


Also, note that "distinct" does not mean "totally different". It's acceptable to have 2 characters who differ through a "pros and cons" kind of analysis. For example, Dr Mario is like Mario, but stronger and slower. That is still distinct because it changes the way he interacts with the other characters.

(It's arguable that Pit and Dark Pit are not properly distinct, but that's a different can of worms)

Well, I'm not really arguing it's what the designer should be going for. I'm just pointing out that there are 51 characters in the game. Once you get past like 8 you automatically fail Starcraft Balance, but then as you go deeper into the 40s and 50s it gets harder to fail 1 slot pokemon balance so it will make tier stratification reduced, like it or not.

 

[Minordeth]

To back up a little, I still don't think Ganon has a MU worse than 6:4. In other words, I haven't felt that a specific MU has been far beyond my ability to overcome with one or two good reads. Ganon's ability to even the playing field even after losing a stock is unmatched. He still has to work in most MUs, but it's not overwhelming.

Then again, the spread of MUs in this game is pretty narrow, so maybe it's just the game, in general.

fwiw, there will always be imbalance in any competitive game. It's unavoidable. This is why every competitive game has tiers. Most devs recognize this and try to narrow the possible unknowable imabalances as much as possible. This is really obvious in something like Guilty Gear, where every character has an overwhelming amount of potent defensive options and cancels (the same options, actually).

The best a dev can hope for, as the meta develops, is a narrow spread of competition, where less viable characters are not so disadvantaged that they can't win a given MU. Given that we aren't playing Doom on 28k modems, and patches are a real thing, it's easy to even the playing fields as the meta becomes solidified a la Riot.

 

[Mr. Johan]

I know Robin doesn't beat Ganon anything more than 6:4 that's for certain.

Hell, I can't think of a single matchup Robin wins more than 6:4 except for Olimar, and that's with 3DS Pikmin AI. By the same token though, he doesn't lose any harder than 6:4 either.

Is it possible for someone to be considered great yet still have evenish matchups across the board? Because that's the impression I get with him. Hence my impression of him being the Brawl Game and Watch in this game.

 

[Minordeth]

I know Robin doesn't beat Ganon anything more than 6:4 that's for certain.

Hell, I can't think of a single matchup Robin doesn't win more than 6:4 except for Olimar, and that's with 3DS Pikmin AI. By the same token though, he doesn't lose any harder than 6:4 either.

Is it possible for someone to be considered great yet still have evenish matchups across the board? Because that's the impression I get with him. Hence my impression of him being the Brawl Game and Watch in this game.

A character being "great" becomes a far more relative term as MUs regress towards to the mean. As that happens, smaller strengths of a given character become far more defining. It's weird, but the people scoffing at Zelda's 1% buff may be surprised by that same buff as the meta develops.

 

[NairWizard]

Robin was probably hit hardest of any character except for Greninja and Ganondorf with the removal of DACUS. Even though her DACUS wasn't the best, it was the 3rd biggest mobility increase because Robin on the ground is so slow (Greninja is fast but his DACUS is massive, and Ganon is as slow as Robin but has a better DACUS).

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Everyone keeps posting tier lists with an arbitrary number of characters on each tier that is similar to the number of fingers on my left hand.

I really don't think this game has that many tiers in it though. In fact I'm not sure it has more than 3 tiers. "Something went wrong here..", Doc, maybe Olimar but I'm hopeful about him, probably Mii swordsman, maybe D3. "Pretty totally adequate but pretty clearly a cut or two below Diddy and stuff", which has Mario and Lucina and stuff, and then the top tier.

Can you really name 4 characters who have enough differences in qualities that there is a gap between each two of them?

To me it seems like "Great, ok, or defective" and that's about all there is.

I'm so on the fence with mii swordsman right now.
Unlike Doc and Olimar he didn't have an existing fan base to start his meta. Unlike Shulk he isn't from a well respected IP.
So who looks into him? Miis in general get less favor but then the internal tiering of mii fighters then adjusts their popularity further.
Who is using mii swordman?
I want to say he's bad but at the same time I think that's premature.

All his aerials are disjointed, decent range Back,forward and up aerials kill. Nair has strong spacing like a faster (in air) Ike/shulk Nair at the cost of their behemoth range.

Unlike Shulk/Ike he has a projectile game. Which makes him feel closer to the Links. Given only Link, Toon Link and Pit are similar in that regard.
Unlike the links he has a reflector, basically Marios cape which is good historically.

He is kind of like... Take(toon) Links tilts, weaken his projectile game, give him a reflector/counter instead of bombs.
Is that a relevant character still?
When I think about it, it should be yes.
Check his dthrow. There may not actually be an unviable swordsman. If he is it's probably for the same reason Lucina will drop out. There is a near identical but better version.
The fact he has that reflector/cape though could give him match up advantages that Link does not have.

I'll conclude on this. People wrote off miis at the Start. Brawler has now cemented his value, gunners strengths are starting to be noticed. Swordsman may not be getting his fair trial.

 

[popsofctown]

There comes a critical point where the quality of projectile is so low it doesn't count as a point in your favor. My initial impression with Mii Swordsman is that all his projectiles are past that point.

 

[Moonlighter]

I feel as if Robin isn't as good as people make them out to be. Their attacks are easy to punish, most of their attacks can be reflected/shielded, and their attacks can't KO under 150%, not even their Smash Attacks or Thoron will KO the opponent at that damage (trust me, I've tried numerous times already).

This is objectively false. Levin back-air is incredibly powerful. Levin up-air is godlike and will kill even with perfect vectoring reasonably early. Levin Fair can kill around 120-30% closer to the edges. Thoron will kill around 130%, and can kill ludicrously quickly if you're smart on off-stage snipes. Arcthunder can kill below 150%, as well. And all of their Smash attacks will kill inside the 100-150% range (and occasionally even earlier, in my experience), so honestly I'm not even sure what or how you tested this to lead you to that conclusion. Robin has two meteor smashes, one of which is incredibly safe (that is, it's his/her recovery) and an incredibly powerful edgeguarding game between the utility, speed, and trajectory (almost completely horizontal) of neutral air, fast and strong aerials (with high priority and good disjoint), and obviously a huge variety of powerful projectiles. Robin has more killing tools than a few other lesser characters combined.

And I don't get what's 'easy to punish' The smash attacks? Obviously. What aren't? Forward tilt is a fast and effective spacing tool, down tilt is an incredibly fast poke, and the start-up of jab is fast, as well. Arcfire and Thunder tomes have start-up, but if you're just throwing them out while your opponent is close enough and has the means to punish it, you're being an idiot. The endlag on Arcfire only punishes bad spacing, and even missing it creates a wall that your opponent can either roll through, jump over, or wait out, and all of those are situations that Robin can prepare for and deal with. Maybe they're easy to punish if they insist on going hard on an approach, but Robin was never built for that kind of strategy. You're not punishing Robin so much as poorly optimized play.

Yes, a lot of their specials can be reflected. That's not as huge a deal as you make it. It makes match-ups like Palutena much harder, but Robin still has tools to deal with it, and a reflector-happy opponent is a situation you can easily take advantage of regardless. And the fact that so many of Robin's projectiles force your opponent to shield (that is, Arcfire, Arcthunder, and Thoron) is absolutely a good thing. A shielded opponent is open to a grab, and while Robin's throws (and grab) are far from great, they're still useful for setting up position, racking up damage, or going for follow-ups depending on percentages. They still force your opponent into a situation that Robin can control.

This is ignoring Nosferatu, which while definitely situational, only adds to Robin's fairly robust mix-up game, and has the distinction of being a command grab, therefore able to be utilized in the air.

Plus, it goes without saying that the speed, distance, and power of Thoron makes it arguably the best charged projectile in the game. Even the threat of simply having it loaded can provoke your opponent into making mistakes. There's barely any character (if any) that has the means to totally disrespect it.

More recently, the removal of vertical vectoring/reintroducing of DI also vastly improves the vertical kill power of Robin, making Levin up-air even stronger.

They're not perfect; definitely not top five in my experience. But Robin's versatility and potency cannot be underestimated at all. They have the means to create opportunities, force opponents into making mistakes, and capitalize on them with vicious efficiency.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Robin was probably hit hardest of any character except for Greninja and Ganondorf with the removal of DACUS. Even though her DACUS wasn't the best, it was the 3rd biggest mobility increase because Robin on the ground is so slow (Greninja is fast but his DACUS is massive, and Ganon is as slow as Robin but has a better DACUS).

In exchange, Ganondorf got a legitimate SHN-air approach, in fact all his aerials are generally slightly safer.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

There comes a critical point where the quality of projectile is so low it doesn't count as a point in your favor. My initial impression with Mii Swordsman is that all his projectiles are past that point.

However did Mario survive till now with his red blob?
Shruiken of light and Mario's blob may as well be a variation of each other.
In fact you can shoot under a fireball hit.

Granted I wouldn't count his projectile game as worth a damn against Shulks speed, and I am led to believe (but have not confirmed) that close combat gets through projectiles. I'm being general

 

[Minordeth]

In exchange, Ganondorf got a legitimate SHN-air approach, in fact all his aerials are generally slightly safer.

Yup. While I miss the possibility of absurd DACUS action, the relative ease of performing a SH nair comparatively means Ganon can develop a larger (and healthier) base. I'm all for it.

 

[NairWizard]

Levin up-air is godlike and will kill even with perfect vectoring reasonably early.

vectoring is gone

 

[Conda]

There comes a critical point where the quality of projectile is so low it doesn't count as a point in your favor. My initial impression with Mii Swordsman is that all his projectiles are past that point.

Is his projectile game that bad though? Chakram is weird with the 'in place' variant when tilting the side b instead of smashing (smashing gives you the mible version irrc). The tornado attack is great, I had fun with it in testing but haven't used swordsman since. But I don't see anything painfully bad about the tornado either.

He has the mobility of Tlink with a normal grab and pretty identical attack range when short&skinny. He's fast and has better mobility otherwise iirc. He's not clone-ish at all imo, but a unique fighter. He has less clone-y attacks than gunner or brawler I feel - he's more of his own character.


Also, can I mention something GREAT that this patch brought? We're actually talking about some of the characters we've been slightly ignoring compared to the 'top ten', like Ike, Dr Mario, Shulk, Ganondorf, and even Luigi. A nice little side effect of balance patches.

 

[popsofctown]

However did Mario survive till now with his red blob?
Shruiken of light and Mario's blob may as well be a variation of each other.

When I play Mario I primarily use fireball in the air and fall with it so i can follow up on the reaction. I don't think Shuriken of light has that functionality. Does it?

I might just be a bad Mario but I don't think standing fireball is good.

 

[popsofctown]

Gale seems the most promising maybe i should test that more

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I can already tell that Sheik has gotten MASSIVELY overnerfed with the new patch. She was already distinctively not OP in the older version of the game. Now she even lost her capability to kill opponents before 200%.

 

[Moonlighter]

vectoring is gone

I know that. I mentioned that like, right in that post. I was making a point to illustrate that even with a mechanic that damaged the kill potential of vertical KO moves, up-air was still very good. And now without vectoring, it's even better. Either way, it kills much earlier than the 150% threshold.

 

[Thinkaman]

I think the removal of vectoring helps Mario/Doc more than anyone. That's my final thought before going to nap-time.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Also, can I mention something GREAT that this patch brought? We're actually talking about some of the characters we've been slightly ignoring compared to the 'top ten', like Ike, Dr Mario, Shulk, Ganondorf, and even Luigi. A nice little side effect of balance patches.

I can already tell that Sheik has gotten MASSIVELY overnerfed with the new patch. She was already distinctively not OP in the older version of the game. Now she even lost her capability to kill opponents before 200%.

Dammit Conda, you jinxed it.

 

[Conda]

Gale seems the most promising maybe i should test that more

I didn't see anything bad about it. It travels far, travels horizontally off-stage, has a windbow and a hit box, follows platforms so there's some potential for trickery (ie drop off platform + gale = gale sticks to traveling on the platform).

Dammit Conda, you jinxed it.

Wish I could change my forum name to Cobbs. That's what I go by, feels weird seeing people call me Conda haha.

 

[popsofctown]

I can already tell that Sheik has gotten MASSIVELY overnerfed with the new patch. She was already distinctively not OP in the older version of the game. Now she even lost her capability to kill opponents before 200%.

She was definitely amongst the best, and post nerf she's certainly not worse than Doc or anything, so it's probably a step in the right direction.
Did anyone actually test how much custom Bouncing Fishes changed? They aren't super different and might reclaim lots of territory y'know.

 

[Thinkaman]

She was definitely amongst the best, and post nerf she's certainly not worse than Doc or anything, so it's probably a step in the right direction.
Did anyone actually test how much custom Bouncing Fishes changed? They aren't super different and might reclaim lots of territory y'know.

Pretty sure they didn't change.

 

[popsofctown]

Pretty sure they didn't change.

Hey, you:

 

[Mr. Johan]

Pisces and her other custom Down B didn't even lose out on KO power iirc.

Hell, Pisces is probably even better than Bouncing Fish in every way except for offstage KOs.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I forgot about her custom side B options. Touché.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Is his projectile game that bad though? Chakram is weird with the 'in place' variant when tilting the side b instead of smashing (smashing gives you the mible version irrc). The tornado attack is great, I had fun with it in testing but haven't used swordsman since. But I don't see anything painfully bad about the tornado either.

He has the mobility of Tlink with a normal grab and pretty identical attack range when short&skinny. He's fast and has better mobility otherwise iirc. He's not clone-ish at all imo, but a unique fighter. He has less clone-y attacks than gunner or brawler I feel - he's more of his own character.


Also, can I mention something GREAT that this patch brought? We're actually talking about some of the characters we've been slightly ignoring compared to the 'top ten', like Ike, Dr Mario, Shulk, Ganondorf, and even Luigi. A nice little side effect of balance patches.

For 100th time today.
Speed Monado alone. Tbh I don't care much for Buster. Seriously just considering rolling Decisive Monado Arts for Speed.

When I play Mario I primarily use fireball in the air and fall with it so i can follow up on the reaction. I don't think Shuriken of light has that functionality. Does it?

I might just be a bad Mario but I don't think standing fireball is good.

SoL has greater % reward at long/mid range and travels faster. Its better for damage wracking and as such ends up more as a follow up then a start up.

Its only 1 of 3 options mind you. Gale has more dominant KB and a windbox but the startup and recovery are longer.

I hope he is better than perceived so my Dunban can wreck.