Character Competitive Impressions

[Ffamran]

I should be asleep, but I'll mention this: Falco's Reflector shuts down Sonic's Spin Charge, Spin Dash, and Dash Attack. It's predictable after awhile, but it limits Sonic's approaches a bit. At that point, Sonic will need to play mind games and avoid Falco's Reflector. Why not Blaster or some other projectile? Falco's Reflector has range for a short-range move and it comes out fairly fast. This means Falco can throw it out close enough without having to rune up and catch Sonic. The chance to trip is an added bonus.

Sonic, however, racks up damage fast, is the most mobile character, and his moves comes out fast. Falco is one of the more sluggish characters and is a lightweight. He's a glass cannon in a sense of having burst damage while Fox is a glass cannon who deals rapid damage.

Between them, it's a game of who plays better. Sonic needs to damage Falco a lot and avoid his hits while Falco needs to make each hit count and avoid letting Sonic run circles around him. With Fox, he needs to out damage Sonic and land those kill moves. It's all about outplaying the other.

 

[Luco]

I was just messing around with Dorf only to discover that at the right distance his Wizard's Foot sails right over Ness's PK Fire and hits him before he can even finish. Just being able to neutralize that move's zoning potential feels huge.

Yeah I really feel sad when I think about Dorf's kick, and to a lesser extent Falcon's. It makes PK Fire less useful, but on the other hand we have plenty of MUs where PK Fire isn't particularly useful and we still excel. Dthrow combos, Fair, Nair and Bthrow are that good.

But ganny's ability to flow and string together mpoves in a way he couldn't in Brawl is a big deal. I play against a fantastic Ganny main quite often and if you think he's the worst or near the worst, then enjoy your salt when Dthrow strings together with Nairs and Fairs and flame choke traps get you killed at 60% whether you teched or not. People can win against him heavily as an MU but if he gets in the reads... well, he gets in the reads. It's like Little Mac. He might be low tier but if he happens to hit you a bunch of times based off good reads then you'll find yourself down game 1 in a given set.

In regards to the whole teams thing, Charizard I highly doubt is the worst character in dubs. In certain teams he'll dominate because of being able to fill up bucket or being able to heal Ness/Gunner quickly and efficiently, etc (shoutouts to @SolidSense here for the idea). In others, he'll perform the role of any stock-tank while his partner can play monster-in-the-closet status. This kind of team synergy is a very viable tactic, so I highly doubt Charizard will be the worst teams character straight up. I have no idea who I would consider to be the worst team partner, but I wouldn't really be bummed if Charizard was my team-mate.

And as for mobility... I have to slightly disagree with you here @Z'zgashi, I don't think a game that offers more mobility options will necessarily mean characters that have that mobility will always succeed. It certainly helps - but ideally, character archetypes should be balanced and varied no matter what game style you have. Smash may offer mobility, but you'll find characters like Brawl Snake and DK (I was going to say DDD, but then remembered the main reason he was good was because of CGs, so then I thought about DK and remembered he would have been amazing had he not suffered himself from CGs) who with correct defensive and offensive options can deal with not running around the battlefield all the time. Characters that were excessively campy often don't require much mobility either, for instance Olimar in Brawl and now Villager. The idea that Robin was based around (though personally I still think Robin fits it enough to be reasonably viable) would have worked if he was tweaked just a little more.

And on the other hand, some characters that have had incredible mobility have suffered by having awful hitboxes or being way too light. Brawl Falcon was certainly fast; but obviously terribad. Fox was merely average in that game. Sonic back then was very 'meh' because his damage output just wasn't up to par. Now we have G&W who's aerial mobility is fine but his hitbox placements and light weight make him suffer. We have Mac who can get around but obvious flaws are obvious and we have Wario who is debatable, kinda good but quite niche. Marth's lack of good frame data damages what would otherwise be quite a mobile character. I'm not sure the blanket statement of mobility = generally better is quite so accurate here.

With that said, I will agree that traditionally characters at the top have tended to be quite mobile, but I feel this is from an imbalance in their designs rather than the whole thing of 'they SHOULD be good because they fit this game's design'. Meta Knight had great mobility but it was his frame data that broke the game. Diddy's Dthrow Uair shenanigoats call the shots over the fact that he's quite fast. Pikachu took advantage of the fact that air-dodges were nothing in 64 and did a lot... actually I won't pretend to know a lot about competitive 64 so I could be wrong on this one. Ness' risk v reward in this game is so skewed that it doesn't matter that his (ground, at least) mobility is rather average, he just has other amazing qualities that make up the defecit and then some.

If Ganon had an absurd amount of reward per hit in Brawl, he would have been a lot better, I think. It's just a lot easier to "know" when a heavy character is getting absurd as opposed to a lighter, more mobile character and I think its because of this reason that our more mobile characters have traditionally done better, because the effort needed to balance them is not so immediately as obvious as heavies - not just because the game's mechanics naturally favour them.

 

[Tristan_win]

Sonic - despite lack of representation - still kind of 'breaks' the mechanics of Smash in a way. His ceiling may be much higher than any other character and wall out characters and players who aren't fast enough, physically, to react. He creates a sort of 'requirement' for what characters can actually feasibly go up against him. Many players may also find it difficult to react against him in a very real way. He's not only too fast, but is too good at getting rewards from any hit when approaching. "Cancer" is a word used to describe him, and I understand why.

Beating Sonic at high levels is about training your physical reaction time. What he can do is simple - overcoming tough Sonic players isn't like overcoming players of other characters, not by a long shot. When you face a good Sonic player, you have to hope your reaction time is fast enough. If not, you could play as smart and safe as you want - it won't be enough. You won't be able to defeat high-level Sonics based on 'intelligent'/'safe' play only.

You'll have to find a way to react to him, and how he can be played proactively and reactively at the same time. If you can't, then you're at a heavy disadvantage that has only one way of being overcome. I believe he's the only character in the game like this, which I see as a big deal - he deserves to be more popular than he is, as I think he has the highest chance of rising to the top 3 and being able to deal with any matchup, by pure virtue of overwhelming his opponents.

Arguably. I'm worried about him, but hey I'm a worrisome guy.

Just out of curiosity what do you consider to be sonic approaches?

Since Brawl I've always thought Sonic was garbage due to him hoping you wouldn't just hit him whenever he approached. That feeling has somewhat returning in Smash4 since Sheik can just jab1/2 his side B which cling it and complete halts sonic right in front of you. Against his dash attack you can simple shield then Sheik can shield drop and punish with a fsmash behind her, his bair does have a lot of range but so do a lot of other characters. His fair also has a decent amount of lag and isn't that safe.

Sonic is far from being a bad character due to all his increased kill power and overall speed but I don't respect his approaches.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Sonic doesn't really approach. He just forces you to shield a lot and slows the game to a crawl if he's actually trying to win, and his risk/reward makes him good.

 

[Signia]

He has the 2nd longest PP tied with Little Mac, losing only to Falcon.

Yeah, that's what I said. The real issue is that Luigi doesn't really have any great attacks to slide into. Though it could still help him control positioning, space, weave, helping him to run his aerial mixups and get grabs.

Its a perfect excuse. Game is all about mobility, having good mobility = generally good in the game.

@ Luco

Mobility is so important I don't even know where to start. It's basically gives you a deep well of options. Delaying timings, exposing openings, repositioning, and many many other fundamental strategies expand as a function of mobility.

Developers never correctly estimate the strength of fast characters. If they did, slow characters would seem horrendously OP when the game is new. That never happened (except maybe for Bowser?), so guess what: the fast characters that seem balanced against slow, heavy hitters are just going to get stronger, while slow characters will still have the same old stuff. When people get comfortable with speed, and push the limits of it, slow characters benefit less and fall behind.

All the potential from increased mastery of the game is in character control, and mobile characters can do it the best. We all should know that positioning determines who is at advantage, and who is good at changing position? It doesn't take calculus to figure out that it's the characters with the velocity. Just changing positions introduces whole new situations to consider, and its this control that ends up controlling the flow of matches.

High speed means one may force more situations that can't be reacted to, which provides a wider threat range. True "range" isn't the distance from starting hurtbox position to ending hitbox position, it's the distance from where the opponent must commit or be hit, or when you can attempt a hit without committing. That's why Falcon has more range than Ike, a way.

Changing situations and forcing reactions gives one a massive psychological advantage. When you change positions, you change the situation, and you're aware of what's going to change before the opponent. This means it's on the opponent to react and adapt to something that you're already ready and aware of. That's the advantage of advancing your own strategy, or "taking the initiative." The faster character can almost always take the initiative more easily, advance their strategy, change the situation, because they can get the positions they want sooner than a slow character.

Speed suffocates thought. The faster you force your opponent to react, the less time they have to think and make correct decisions. No, thought and analysis doesn't occur at light speed. Brains are physical objects are limited by physical laws. When we don't have time to think, our subconscious minds take over, whose responses are a result of training, conditioning, not your overly long posts on Smashboards. We may be able to train to focus on the best things possible in order to improve and adapt reactions, but focus, too, is limited (multi-tasking is a myth). Who messes with that the most? The characters with the options, and the mobile characters.

Another side effect of good mobility is the ability to choose your battles. Risk/reward not looking good? Just run away until it's better. And those psychological factors I just mentioned? ****s all over contrived models of risk/reward that don't take them into account, and speed/control makes them more abusable. If someone's knee-jerk reaction is to shield, a grab at a certain timing when you've forced their knee to jerk will hit them 100% of the time, no risk. Good luck adapting something that you do without thinking. "Is he gonna do what I think he's gonna do or does he know that's what I'm thinking and he's gonna do something else, OR does he know that I'm anticipating him knowing that I'm predicting what he will do ... " -> this line of thought isn't happening in the space of a half second.

Mobility-- and control of that mobility -- is king, and only gross differences in apparent risk/reward can make up for it. Heavy characters have to seem oppressively strong, or they must have some alternate kind of mobility or ability to take the initiative, to be threats. Or, general mobility in the game has to suck (i.e. overly committal). Or, the game has to thoroughly weaken the advantage of having the initiative (i.e. if the game rewards the defender/reacter too much, or that the slow character has good defense).

Most of this applies to all real-time games.

 

[TriTails]

You're just reiterating my point. Both Ness and Rosalina have their share of unique moves and mechanics that allows them to compete in the higher echelons despite not having the mobility factor other top characters posses: Luma, Ness double jump, excellent hitboxes, juggling potential, dominant aerials, good grab game and reliable kill power are among the reasons that allows these characters to stay relevant without having the frame data of Mario, the overall mobility of ZSS or a safe displacement special move like Spin Dash.

I wasn't comparing them to Luigi but, to be fair, Luigi's combos, kill setups, fireball game, frame data and cyclone are all great traits to the point where he has become relevant at high level play (that may change of course, but that can be said for a lot of characters, and no i'm not claiming Luigi is on the same level as Rosa/Ness). So to repeat my original post: mobility seems to be a common attribute in the popular competitive picks, but there are other attributes and/or mechanics that can also carry a character far, although admittedly these are rare cases at the current stage of the game.

I get your point.

Though, I'm still jealous of mobile characters, especially when I tried Greninja earlier, to see if his F-smash really whiffs at point blank range (And it did). Man, dat air speed and dashing speed......... But I guess, I'll just work it out with Weegee.

For Sonic talk, I honestly never had a problem with him, unless the opposition is at completely different skill levels from me. Luigi's Fireballs has low lag, and it floats, and the most important thing, it stops Spin Dashes/Charges. Yeah, he Spin Dashes/Charges, Luigi Fireballs, Spin Dash/Charge gets cancelled by Fireball, punish. Luigi's Fireballs also floats, which can also block aerial approaches.

Sonic is also TOO SLOW for Luigi. No, not dashing speed or air speed lol, I meant ATTACK SPEED. Looking back at their frame data, Sonic outspeeds Luigi only in F-air. Nope, everything else, Luigi does faster. And he has quite a lot of double digits numbers, his normals had 7 moves that is double digits, while Luigi only has two..... Yes, in Smash, Sonic is TOO SLOW!

Okay, that is on Luigi. About Sonic, his absurd dashing and quite fast air speed allows him to punish just about everything. Thing is, unless he is really fast about it, it's hard for him to get around Fireballs. Luigi can also challenge his ground speed and Spin Dash/Charge with Nado, and his movement controls are pretty horrible considering on how fast he moves. A good punish can mean a stock for him.

Sonic racks up damage well, I give him that. Luigi must focus on stopping every Spin Dash/Charges as possible as getting caught can mean a combo. Both sides must also focus on not getting grabbed, and grab the oppositions if possible. Luigi must watch himself to not getting outspeeded, while Sonic must watch to not getting any of his options punished. This MU is in Luigi's favor IMO, due to how easy Fireballs stops those Side/Down-b, and Luigi's attacks are faster than him, and I'm pretty sure F-air chaingrab also works. Luigi racks up damage faster than Sonic, even without throws (That sourspot FF N-air is basically his second D-throw, believe it or not). Sonic can't really gimp him with spring either, unless he is dropping it right above Luigi's head, Nado out-prioritizes it.

So.... how do y'all close a huge post? I honestly dunno.

 

[Terios the Hedgehog]

Luigi beats Sonic. Luigi, Rosalina and Sheik give him some problems. If you play someone else I can see why he'd be a pain in the ass.

 

[KlefkiHolder]

Sonic makes me happy JC Grabs aren't a thing like in Melee and PM, especially the latter because sonic sorta can there last I checked.

Just imagine.... Spin Dash into a grab in Smash 4.

 

[TriTails]

Luigi beats Sonic. Luigi, Rosalina and Sheik give him some problems. If you play someone else I can see why he'd be a pain in the ***.

Can understand Luigi and Sheik, but cannot compute on Rosalina. Can anyone explain?

I used to use Rosalina, but never get gud with her. Decided that controlling 2 characters at once is going to be too hard and long process for me, and sticked with Luigi.

 

[Makorel]

@ Signia I would agree that mobility control is king, but there are more kinds of mobility control than simply being able to move fast. as @ TriTails pointed out Luigi's attack speed is faster than Sonic's even if he's not able to get around as easy. You can also be very fast but have a hard time compensating for your momentum, and I believe an example of that is Greninja who suffers from more endlag than Sheik which is why one is considered better than the other. I think Sonic also has a fair amount of endlag but half the time he lands far enough away for that not to matter. There's also halting or impeding your opponent's mobility. There are several examples of this, with Diddy's banana being the most prominent one.

Then there's my favorite form of mobility control: being unstoppable. It wouldn't matter how much a speedy character could weave in and out if their hits couldn't move you from where you stand or keep you from flinching. For the brief moment super armor is active a character becomes an unstoppable force and an immovable object all rolled into one. It's likely that in this game the characters that need super armor don't have enough super armor or the right kind of super armored moves to challenge the higher tiers on even footing, but I think the logic is sound: If the only time you're open is when you're attacking, then all I have to do is not flinch.

 

[Ray_Kalm]

Falcon's dthrow is an amazingly good move.

And I thought Ganon's dthrow had something going for it.

 

[TriTails]

Falcon's dthrow is an amazingly good move.

And I thought Ganon's dthrow had something going for it.

Is it that throw where he slams his opponent to the ground like a boss?

Can that combo to the Knee of Justice?

Though, I still think Luigi's D-throw is da best!

 

[Terios the Hedgehog]

Can understand Luigi and Sheik, but cannot compute on Rosalina. Can anyone explain?

I used to use Rosalina, but never get gud with her. Decided that controlling 2 characters at once is going to be too hard and long process for me, and sticked with Luigi.

Luma is a pain. Sonic needs to play a game where he can punish. Luma does a few things here. She interrupts a lot of what you want to do, even slowing you down when you're spinning and opening you for a punish. Down B takes a few revs to get to a point where it's actually fast(even though I personally only really use it to deal with multiple tech chase options) and side b slides to a stop after making contact with someone meaning you get smashed or jump and get punished easily as you didn't do any sort of stun. Sonic has some trouble dealing with good range and Luma gives Rosa tons of it. Great for stopping Sonic if he tries to play footsies. Past all of that grabbing would circumvent it a bit but Luma can interrupt THAT too. I just made it sound really bad but it's only a little in Rosa's favor imo. I haven't played enough to get a super good assessment but all those things certainly don't make it easy for him.

 

[Smog Frog]

i honestly wouldnt be surprised if most of vs ended in time outs because both characters make the game slow as ****

 

[Luco]

Yeah, that's what I said. The real issue is that Luigi doesn't really have any great attacks to slide into. Though it could still help him control positioning, space, weave, helping him to run his aerial mixups and get grabs.



@ Luco

Mobility is so important I don't even know where to start. It's basically gives you a deep well of options. Delaying timings, exposing openings, repositioning, and many many other fundamental strategies expand as a function of mobility.

Developers never correctly estimate the strength of fast characters. If they did, slow characters would seem horrendously OP when the game is new. That never happened (except maybe for Bowser?), so guess what: the fast characters that seem balanced against slow, heavy hitters are just going to get stronger, while slow characters will still have the same old stuff. When people get comfortable with speed, and push the limits of it, slow characters benefit less and fall behind.

All the potential from increased mastery of the game is in character control, and mobile characters can do it the best. We all should know that positioning determines who is at advantage, and who is good at changing position? It doesn't take calculus to figure out that it's the characters with the velocity. Just changing positions introduces whole new situations to consider, and its this control that ends up controlling the flow of matches.

High speed means one may force more situations that can't be reacted to, which provides a wider threat range. True "range" isn't the distance from starting hurtbox position to ending hitbox position, it's the distance from where the opponent must commit or be hit, or when you can attempt a hit without committing. That's why Falcon has more range than Ike, a way.

Changing situations and forcing reactions gives one a massive psychological advantage. When you change positions, you change the situation, and you're aware of what's going to change before the opponent. This means it's on the opponent to react and adapt to something that you're already ready and aware of. That's the advantage of advancing your own strategy, or "taking the initiative." The faster character can almost always take the initiative more easily, advance their strategy, change the situation, because they can get the positions they want sooner than a slow character.

Speed suffocates thought. The faster you force your opponent to react, the less time they have to think and make correct decisions. No, thought and analysis doesn't occur at light speed. Brains are physical objects are limited by physical laws. When we don't have time to think, our subconscious minds take over, whose responses are a result of training, conditioning, not your overly long posts on Smashboards. We may be able to train to focus on the best things possible in order to improve and adapt reactions, but focus, too, is limited (multi-tasking is a myth). Who messes with that the most? The characters with the options, and the mobile characters.

Another side effect of good mobility is the ability to choose your battles. Risk/reward not looking good? Just run away until it's better. And those psychological factors I just mentioned? ****s all over contrived models of risk/reward that don't take them into account, and speed/control makes them more abusable. If someone's knee-jerk reaction is to shield, a grab at a certain timing when you've forced their knee to jerk will hit them 100% of the time, no risk. Good luck adapting something that you do without thinking. "Is he gonna do what I think he's gonna do or does he know that's what I'm thinking and he's gonna do something else, OR does he know that I'm anticipating him knowing that I'm predicting what he will do ... " -> this line of thought isn't happening in the space of a half second.

Mobility-- and control of that mobility -- is king, and only gross differences in apparent risk/reward can make up for it. Heavy characters have to seem oppressively strong, or they must have some alternate kind of mobility or ability to take the initiative, to be threats. Or, general mobility in the game has to suck (i.e. overly committal). Or, the game has to thoroughly weaken the advantage of having the initiative (i.e. if the game rewards the defender/reacter too much, or that the slow character has good defense).

Most of this applies to all real-time games.

Well err, that's great and all.... except you haven't really disagreed with me to any major extent. You've stressed the importance of mobility moreso (I merely believe it's a factor in addition to all the other archetypes/traits you can have, or if you fit them all under the roof of 'mobility' then just a single type) than I, but for the most part we agreed that fast characters are almost never balanced correctly because it's hard to estimate where they will go and all that's really happened here is we've looked at the same evidence and arrived at slightly different conclusions (maybe? I'm not sure).

But if I'm wrong and what you're saying is that mobility in the sense I meant it literally trumps everything else in its importance, then I certainly admit that it's important but ask you to tell me why, if that's the case, characters like Brawl Sonic/Falcon and now G&W/Marth aren't doing that well in the current meta. I believe the ability to get around and position yourself is incredibly important, but I also believe that to the extent that's necessary to function off it, most characters have enough mobility to do so... even Robin (for instance, if Robin throws you offstage, he'll get to the ledge before you get to it most likely unless you're at like 10%). Having more mobility allows you to manouvre yourself into these positions easier but I stand by my statement that if Robin had a little more range/less lag on crucial moves that made his dead-zone a non-issue, he would be a shining star in this meta, most likely top 10.

I'm not exactly sure where, if so, we're disagreeing though tbh.

 

[Asdioh]

Sonic - despite lack of representation - still kind of 'breaks' the mechanics of Smash in a way. His ceiling may be much higher than any other character and wall out characters and players who aren't fast enough, physically, to react. He creates a sort of 'requirement' for what characters can actually feasibly go up against him. Many players may also find it difficult to react against him in a very real way. He's not only too fast, but is too good at getting rewards from any hit when approaching. "Cancer" is a word used to describe him, and I understand why.

Beating Sonic at high levels is about training your physical reaction time. What he can do is simple - overcoming tough Sonic players isn't like overcoming players of other characters, not by a long shot. When you face a good Sonic player, you have to hope your reaction time is fast enough. If not, you could play as smart and safe as you want - it won't be enough. You won't be able to defeat high-level Sonics based on 'intelligent'/'safe' play only.

You'll have to find a way to react to him, and how he can be played proactively and reactively at the same time. If you can't, then you're at a heavy disadvantage that has only one way of being overcome. I believe he's the only character in the game like this, which I see as a big deal - he deserves to be more popular than he is, as I think he has the highest chance of rising to the top 3 and being able to deal with any matchup, by pure virtue of overwhelming his opponents.

Arguably. I'm worried about him, but hey I'm a worrisome guy.

Agreed, Sonic's design is cancer, and has been since Brawl. I'm going to another tournament today, and once again the top player (or one of them) going is a Sonic main since Brawl, and I get to lose to him in finals again because my reaction time is just pretty average. (jk I'm gonna win this time)

In early Brawl I used to think "Sonic is only a pain on wifi because you literally cannot react to him in time" but that was only partially true. The upside was that Sonic was very mediocre in that game. Now, however, he's been buffed, to the point where he has 4 useful throws out of the fastest run->grab in the game, easy 30% damage off a hitconfirm out of the extremely low risk high reward spindash, and overall stronger kill moves. His poor design is in the limelight.

-In neutral, he's oppressive because he has the threat of unreactionable (barring amazing reaction time) approaches, and the ability to punish even the smallest of endlag from a very far distance.

-In advantage, he's pretty good. Mostly spindash combos which usually end with him returning to neutral, where he dominates, or upthrow->aerial threat shenanigans.

-Disadvantage is where he should falter, but again randomly bad design comes to play. You get him offstage and you should be able to edgeguard him, but it's quite difficult because of the distance, speed, and invincibility on his Spring. You get him above you for a juggle, where he should be very weak, since he has no good options with dealing with threats from below. But no, as soon as his hitstun wears off he is able to InvinciSpring away, while of course sending the Spring's hitbox down at you for good measure.
Another interesting option I only learned about at my last tournament is Homing Attack. As long as he hasn't used Spring already, he can use Homing mixups to help him land. If his double jump is gone and he's falling to the ground, the obvious punish should be to shield any potential landing aerial, and grab him the instant he touches the ground, before he can roll away. However, Homing Attack causes Sonic to rise in the air a bit, meaning if you're trying to time your grab perfectly, you will whiff and get punished by the attack. It reminds me a bit of the Dair->Shadow Sneak thing Greninja had going on before it was removed. If he did Dair, you punished by grabbing. If he did Dair->Shadow Sneak, you punished by shielding the Sneak and then punishing with whatever. If you guessed wrong by shielding and waiting after Dair, he could roll away. If you guessed wrong by trying to grab after Dair, Shadow Sneak would hit you. Obviously this example is simplified, and these mixups are beatable, but the option is still there, and require good reaction time, or else you'll miss what would have been an ideal punish opportunity.

But yeah, Sonic's incredibly boring to fight, yet stressful at the same time. Not fun.

 

[Terios the Hedgehog]

To be fair you play Kirby. That's not a fun matchup for either side. At least it wasn't in Brawl.

 

[TriTails]

Spin Dash is actually awkward to use. One second it can slash through everything, the next second you're suiciding with it. If you drive off-stage at earlier duration of Spin Dash, you'll fall and cannot cancel out your Spin Dash. So you're stuck inside the Spin Dash, and by the time you're out, it'll be really hard if not impossible to get back, even with the spring.

From experience. Trust me, never trust Spin Dash going off-stage.

 

[Asdioh]

I played Fox against Sonic in Brawl but in this game with no SHTLs it's a lot harder to camp Sonic and force things, so I'll just stick with Kirby. Problem is Kirby and Sonic both have frame 3 jabs, so even if Kirby manages to stop spindash or general approaches by holding out jab, it's hard for him to take advantage of it.

And hey, Kirby at least has clear weaknesses, whether he's in neutral, advantage, or disadvantage. I just pointed out what I think about those states where Sonic is concerned, let me know if I got anything wrong. Especially since I want to win today!

Spin Dash is actually awkward to use. One second it can slash through everything, the next second you're suiciding with it. If you drive off-stage at earlier duration of Spin Dash, you'll fall and cannot cancel out your Spin Dash. So you're stuck inside the Spin Dash, and by the time you're out, it'll be really hard if not impossible to get back, even with the spring.

From experience. Trust me, never trust Spin Dash going off-stage.

Yeah I know. It seems like Sonic mains have an obligation to SD with it occasionally, no matter how good they are.

 

[Luggy]

Oh, we're talking about the blu chuckling hedgehog named here ?

I'll say, Sonic is pretty annoying to face when I play slow characters like . That's why I started maining in the first place : to actually have something near his speed to counter him. It sorta works.
The problem with Sonic is how he can pressure shields and get away pretty easily without getting punished for it. It's annoying, but when you got a character like Falcon that can punish easily thanks to his speed, Sonic is less threatening.
But for slow characters, it's either a basket case or a fifty-fifty. That's only my opinion, it could be wrong of course.

Anyway, I have some problems while facing good players. I don't know how to beat him properly with either or . Does anyone have some tips for defeating this space animal in general ?

 

[Firefoxx]

Is it that throw where he slams his opponent to the ground like a boss?

Can that combo to the Knee of Justice?

Though, I still think Luigi's D-throw is da best!

Technically it can true combo into knee, but its basically frame perfect on everyone that isn't Marth/Lucina, and only works at very specific percents. Falling u-air to knee and d-throw to weak u-air to knee are both more reliable setups. But, even if it doesn't give guarantied knee setups, its still an incredible tool that can set up so much for Falcon.

 

[Terios the Hedgehog]

I'm just saying it's Sonic's job to punish things and Kirby has multiple jumps and a great bair so he can wall Sonic out, mix up the amount of jumps in his walls to make it hard to know when to punish and that's a lot of what the match boils down to in my experience. I don't think Kirby wins. Just that the way it pretty has to be played means a long drawn out match for both. Kirby can't afford to let the lead slip. If he homing attacks to mix up his landing you can spot dodge and he'll have a bigger recovery. It should be easy enough to react to if you're ready for it and make the right choice. You usually have to bait the spring and punish him afterwards. He's pretty helpless. He's actually more vulnerable from the sides in my opinion. Bair is slow to come out and Fair doesn't hit super far in front of him. Invincibility is only on the beginning of springs unless they changed it so you normally edgeguard by floating above him where you're going to hit as he becomes vulnerable. It's a bad idea to go deep against him. Let him fall into a worse position. Another thing is to look for his kill options. Fsmash got it's endlag increased so you can punish it better and bair is way slower to come out now than in Brawl with more landing lag. It can be hard but a lot of times the mindset of Don't Die is going to take you farther than Hit and kill him. The damage will come if he's alive.

It's not necessarily about reacting. Sometimes you just have to check his actions before he can do them. I think people will learn the fight as time goes on. It wasn't nearly as necessary in Brawl.

 

[Thinkaman]

Well I mean, the Smash series as a whole is all about freedom in your movement options as opposed to other fighting games, so its no surprise that in a game almost solely focused around mobility and being able to move fluidly that the faster characters are generally better.

Well, this is half the story. You have your finger on the heart of it.

It would be trivial to nerf all the fast characters into the ground, for example. They don't fundamentally have to be the best.

But they are skewed to be better at 1v1, just as high-damage heavy characters are skewed to be better at FFAs.

Furthermore, because of the nature of the game as you pointed out, there is a mobility-based skill-skew; increasing player mastery of the game fundamentally benefits performance with mobile characters more than slow characters.

tl;dr - Because of the nature of the game, fast characters will always experience an advantage in top-level 1v1 relative to other environments.

 

[HeroMystic]

I also believe this is the reason why Rage was implemented into the game since heavies/slower characters could KO the fast ones more easily, but it wasn't enough.

Slow characters generally need something more to compensate for their lack of mobility, like frame-1 invincibility and super armor. That said, the slow characters have been at the best they ever have been generally speaking in the series.

 

[Luggy]

I also believe this is the reason why Rage was implemented into the game since heavies/slower characters could KO the fast ones more easily, but it wasn't enough.

Slow characters generally need something more to compensate for their lack of mobility, like frame-1 invincibility and super armor. That said, the slow characters have been at the best they ever have been generally speaking in the series.

Yeah, before, some characters were really too slow () and couldn't do a thing. Now, the matchups between slow and fast characters is not that hard. Even though some still suffers a lot with slow characters, especially mains. At least, it's more balanced.

 

[san.]

Vectoring from 1.0.3 also helped heavies survive much better, while powerful attacks weren't affected by it as much. With it removed/altered, heavies now die not much later than other characters.

 

[adamlon1]

He isn't bad, he is a SOLID MID TIER, at the very worst, he is an average character, but he still has the tools to make him an above average character. It's like a lot of people here think that because Marth isn't top tier for once he is instantly bad. Like a lot of characters, he is a solid, well-rounded character that can work well in a lot of match-ups if you are skilled. Yes, they didn't really need to nerf his movement speed and the lag on his aerial moves, but they didn't nerf them SO BAD that he can't kill really early and can't space properly, which, as long as he can do that consistently when someone is skilled with him, he will never be bad. Again, at the very worst, he is an average character.

Completely and utterly agree, Too many people sleep on marth but he still has plenty of tools at his disposal like a good edgeguarding game and a solid neutral game just because Marth may not be as good as his Brawl and Melee counterparts he is still more than Viable as well as capable of Destroying Diddys evidenced further by Mr.E

 

[Terios the Hedgehog]

I know it sounds weird because counters are historically bad but I think it's actually a pretty decent tool in this one. I have gotten some WEIRD kills with Lucina. Countering 13 percent fairs when they were at 60 and getting the kill. Not positive but the risk reward to it may actually be a plus now. Is that correct? Does rage help it?

 

[Road Death Wheel]

Its a perfect excuse. Game is all about mobility, having good mobility = generally good in the game.

and i personally think thats the mistake on the devs end. its not a good excuse. should worked harder for those with less mobility to compensate. not that they actually did not do a gud job this time around since heavys actually seem viable this time. But it still kinda sucks.

its really just a bit of salt from me. But from a developer stand point i can understand how easy it is to be able to break these type of characters.

 

[Antonykun]

Bowser/DDD/Ganon/DK/Bowser have always been classified as "fatties" due to their bigger hurtboxes compared to the rest of the cast which make them easier to hit and the being heavy. I don't understand why all of a sudden that term isn't being used for them and why people keep using the more vague and general term "heavies". And no, Wario does not fit the category for "fatty" in this criteria, he's too short.

This has been bugging me recently actually and I remembered reading a post that brought it up and wanted to clarify it.

But with this. What is it about Charizard that make people put him as one of the worse fatties, and one of the worse characters to boot? I just don't get it. Personally I think he's probably the best of the fatties and might just be a high tier character, for similar reasons @Amazing Ampharos gave a good few pages back.

Wait what do you mean Wario isn't fatty look at him he's the fattest of the entire roster.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Wait what do you mean Wario isn't fatty look at him he's the fattest of the entire roster.

Homie

tho'. He has rolls on rolls.

Smooth Criminal

 

[mimgrim]

I also believe this is the reason why Rage was implemented into the game since heavies/slower characters could KO the fast ones more easily, but it wasn't enough.

Slow characters generally need something more to compensate for their lack of mobility, like frame-1 invincibility and super armor. That said, the slow characters have been at the best they ever have been generally speaking in the series.

Charizard gains access frame 1 Super Armor with customs enabled.

Honestly. I think it is the lack of customs that makes me go play random currently as the characters I enjoy the most each have something about them I dislike that their customs fix.Maybe I should just say the hell with it and just play Sheik/Diddy until customs get turned on.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Homie

tho'. He has rolls on rolls.

Smooth Criminal

Even his dtilt has rolls.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

can i also talk about this who reaction time bs people are talking about?
just reamember that if a top level player could not react to it on a fly its was most likly another player autopilot since they most likly but no thought into there appoach.
and reading auto pilot is what top players do all the time. it can only get u so far.

witch is why 6wx is an amazing sonic cuz he really never auto pilots.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Just out of curiosity what do you consider to be sonic approaches?

Since Brawl I've always thought Sonic was garbage due to him hoping you wouldn't just hit him whenever he approached. That feeling has somewhat returning in Smash4 since Sheik can just jab1/2 his side B which cling it and complete halts sonic right in front of you. Against his dash attack you can simple shield then Sheik can shield drop and punish with a fsmash behind her, his bair does have a lot of range but so do a lot of other characters. His fair also has a decent amount of lag and isn't that safe.

Sonic is far from being a bad character due to all his increased kill power and overall speed but I don't respect his approaches.

No disrespect to you, but you play Sheik.

You don't need to respect alot of chars options.

Please keep this in mind.

 

[Tristan_win]

No disrespect to you, but you play Sheik.

You don't need to respect alot of chars options.

Please keep this in mind.

I do everyday =D

 

[Road Death Wheel]

No disrespect to you, but you play Sheik.

You don't need to respect alot of chars options.

Please keep this in mind.

shiek only has to respect other in rage. get the first stock off of shiek? well ur gunnahave a bad time.

 

[Thinkaman]

As an aside, from a design standpoint I think super armor is one of the best tools for mitigating skill skew differentials on heavy characters. Experienced players are able to exploit armor disproportionately more (than weaker players), providing a similar relationship to experience as mobility.

Edit: This normally isn't the place for this, but since you guys are my favorite, you get an exclusive opportunity! I never play online, but for some stupid reason agreed to A2Z's online Ganon tourney--so I need to learn the horrors of lag. If anyone wants to play me via the intertubes, this is your one chance! </self-importance>

 

[Chuva]

Ganon tourney?

 

[Road Death Wheel]

As an aside, from a design standpoint I think super armor is one of the best tools for mitigating skill skew differentials on heavy characters. Experienced players are able to exploit armor disproportionately more (than weaker players), providing a similar relationship to experience as mobility.

Edit: This normally isn't the place for this, but since you guys are my favorite, you get an exclusive opportunity! I never play online, but for some stupid reason agreed to A2Z's online Ganon tourney--so I need to learn the horrors of lag. If anyone wants to play me via the intertubes, this is your one chance! </self-importance>

if you have good internet speed it overall should not be a terrible experience but lag spikes can strike fear into your play.