Character Competitive Impressions

[Smooth Criminal]

I think you're putting way too much weight in netplay, Larry. Too many inconsistencies on that platform to really surmise diddily **** outta anything.

Smooth Criminal

 

[YeahVeryeah]

I think you're putting way too much weight in netplay, Larry. Too many inconsistencies on that platform to really surmise diddily **** outta anything.

Smooth Criminal

don't mediate dude let em smash

EDIT: While we're at it I want in on this here's my FC.

4184 - 3623 -5583c TRG, Larry, I'll take you on.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

I ain't mediating. I just don't think it'll prove much of anything.

Smooth Criminal

 

[deepseadiva]

By the way, my view COMPLETELY changed of Villagers when I saw Zee playing him in the tournament
http://www.twitch.tv/clashtournaments/b/581731305
Look at this at 7:03:00. It was incredible, I couldnt believe the string Zee was pulling against Vinnie
I couldnt believe a Villager could be this aggresive

omg

The conclusion is that Villager's aerials are all amazing.

 

[YeahVeryeah]

I ain't mediating. I just don't think it'll prove much of anything.

Smooth Criminal

Well the difference between you and me my man is you want reason, I want blood.

Speaking of, I challenge you too.

 

[The Real Gamer]

Want me to prove you wrong on that in a simple match?
Quite literally, all that you said can be done in a simple Online Match.

How exactly is one matchup going to determine how Zard stacks up against the rest of the cast? I've already played plenty of good Links so unless if you're the second coming of Azen I have a hard time believing you're going to change my opinion that Link is anywhere near as threatening to Zard as Greninja, Sheik, Yoshi, Diddy, and quite a few others are. Hell I'd argue even Toon Link poses more of a threat in this MU.

Regardless to imply that Link "intense counters" Zard and the rest of the heavyweights as if those MUs are unwinnable is just silly.

 

[deepseadiva]

How exactly is one matchup going to determine how Zard stacks up against the rest of the cast? I've already played plenty of good Links so unless if you're the second coming of Azen I have a hard time believing you're going to change my opinion that Link is anywhere near as threatening to Zard as Greninja, Sheik, Yoshi, Diddy, and quite a few others are. Hell I'd argue even Toon Link poses more of a threat in this MU.

Regardless to imply that Link "intense counters" Zard and the rest of the heavyweights as if those MUs are unwinnable is just silly.

Just play him god I know you have a wifi connection why are you writing a paragraph instead of playing

 

[YeahVeryeah]

why are you writing a paragraph instead of playing

wisdom

 

[The Real Gamer]

Yall must be mad bored. lol

So if I beat all of you in online 1v1s that means Zard is top tier now am I rite?

 

[deepseadiva]

Of course one match doesn't prove anything but supposedly you're a "real gamer" and the way gamers communicate is through... gameplay... so just go at it and share your insights.

Either don't reply to challenges or you know... play the actual game.

 

[The Real Gamer]

You're right I should totally just drop what I'm doing to accept meaningless challenges from peeps at 2 in the morning. -.-

We can play but we'll have to play tomorrow cause I'm beat.

Speaking of doing stuff I just uploaded a new vid... Solid proof Zard is undoubtedly top tier... Top 5 at the least:

 

[deepseadiva]

I mean you're both obviously up............... but okkkkkk keep writing... excu-things.........

Honestly so much "theory" gets thrown around this thread. It's refreshing to hear someone actually encourage real gaming to happen. Not that 1v1 versus randoms matters at all, but its enriching in a way posting on an online forum doesn't. Peeps need to play more than they talk. We can all agree on that, right?

Charizard vs Link grand finals would be cool to see.

 

[The Real Gamer]

Not that 1v1 versus randoms matters at all

So then why are you flexing like it actually does? Cause like I said yall are just mad bored lol.

I already said I'd play him tomorrow so just chillax and find something else to do with your time.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Doesn't Nakat or a Top player just played a round with Mario in Finals or semis of a big tournament ?
The one Clash tournament had today. We can guess the top players are at least playing decent character as counter picks ? We can see a good part of the potential of the character probably in that game.
Mario has good combos as seen in the tournament. He's clearly not high tier, not even mid, but bottom ?? Really ?

Same point can be made for Zelda, isn't Dabuz or someone around as good playing Zelda and winning a bunch ? This tier list is almost perfect but I think we need the results of Shockwave, Tourney locator and Clash tournaments to perfect it. I think they are the bigger tournaments going on theses days.

I also think Rob should be higher since he got Chibo and a couple others playing him and he wins a lot against sheik and other high tier characters.

http://www.twitch.tv/clashtournaments/b/581731305 : You can see at 8:30:00 the Mario game im talking about

Mario has a winnable matchup against Rosalina. I won't deny this because Mario actually does have decent tools for getting around Luma. But Dabuz also clearly was inexperienced at the matchup and spaced relatively poorly. And he still won for that matter.

Zelda is easily a much better character than Mario, being represented by Nairo. Zelda unlike Mario actually has good moves in neutral, and she has one of the most solid recoveries in the game, one that enables her to escape from almost all manner of traps when used correctly. Having a teleport like Zelda's means you basically can't be juggled or edge trapped if you play really well.

Keeping in mind that Zelda is actually difficult to trap and thus kill, she survives long, and she hits hard. Zelda realistically is probably mid tier, not higher just because she's countered by high mobility characters like Little Mac and Sonic.

Mario...doesn't even hit hard, and he just dies to juggles and edgeguards while not really being able to outperform most characters in neutral. And he struggles have a single clearly favorable matchup. Considering how little Mario has going for him compared to other characters, he realistically is bottom tier. And same goes for Luigi and Doc who also are terrible in both neutral and negative state and don't have really easy ways to kill early.

 

[deepseadiva]

@Yokoblue 's video, as well as it does of highlighting Mario, IMO highlights Rosalina's flaws just as well.

She's open when she's focusing on Luma. I don't know if that's a playstyle error or a character flaw, but that's how she's getting hit.

 

[A2ZOMG]

@Yokoblue 's video, as well as it does of highlighting Mario, IMO highlights Rosalina's flaws just as well.

She's open when she's focusing on Luma. I don't know if that's a playstyle error or a character flaw, but that's how she's getting hit.

Playstyle error. Luma should be considered an option, as opposed to the focus of Rosalina's playstyle. He has the potential to offer unfair stage control, but is not core to reaching victory as Rosalina as opposed to fundamentally conservative spacing. When Dabuz actually just focused on traditional spacing, getting grabs, and doing general traps on Mario's poor options for getting back to neutral, he was doing better.

I also wanted to highlight just how terrible and unreliable Mario's reward is. Around 8:33:38, Mario lands D-air -> B-air -> B-air for a grand total of...23 damage. And the best part? This was escapable. In Brawl, that would have done about 30 damage in contrast.

Like...anyone who claims Mario's combo game is good on anyone except Ganondorf and Ike doesn't seem to be willing to admit that you literally have to hard read most characters 3 times in succession to barely reach 50%. It's not the same as in Brawl where Mario needed fewer reads to do more damage, AND also had Jab KO confirms on most of the cast. AND he also had Cape stalling to actually legitimately avoid traps.

So yeah, they removed Jab canceling from Mario, Cape stalling, crapped on his damage output, he still can't kill with aerials easily, he's still easily gimped, and still bad at winning neutral and unable to win games by trading 1 for 1. And people want to say he's magically a solid character.

 

[deepseadiva]

A large part of these discussions, especially especially in these early early stage is stigma. Mario is the middle character and Ganondorf is bad. The bare essence of these character might be translated from Brawl, Melee, and 64, and so certain aspects of these characters will always be there to judge (Ganondorf is slow), but impressions are gonna carry us through our first few months with this game. Mario... imo, may have lost a lot of his "tricks" but fundamentally he keeps a lot of tools. A projectile... mobility... potential for aerial chains...

He might not be the best (as he was intrinsically made to be), but again in this iteration he has solid tools. Again we see if "solid" is enough to keep up. It certainly wasn't in Brawl when "solid" tools meant "awful", but this game honestly looks more promising.

 

[A2ZOMG]

A large part of these discussions, especially especially in these early early stage is stigma. Mario is the middle character and Ganondorf is bad. The bare essence of these character might be translated from Brawl, Melee, and 64, and so certain aspects of these characters will always be there to judge (Ganondorf is slow), but impressions are gonna carry us through our first few months with this game. Mario... imo, may have lost a lot of his "tricks" but fundamentally he keeps a lot of tools. A projectile... mobility... potential for aerial chains...

He might not be the best (as he was intrinsically made to be), but again in this iteration he has solid tools. Again we see if "solid" is enough to keep up. It certainly wasn't in Brawl when "solid" tools meant "awful", but this game honestly looks more promising.

Mario's tools in Brawl were somewhat solid and moderately rewarding. In theory, Mario needed to get you around 80-90%, sneak in Up-angled F-smash, and you'd be dead. And half the reason this could be considered "okay" is because Mario actually did good damage.

And in Brawl, his combo game potentially took you 75% of the way there. D-throw -> U-airx2 -> D-throw -> turnaround U-air -> B-air -> D-smash or something like that did around 69 damage or so, assuming two necessary reads occurred. Even if you were unable to land F-smash at the critical KO percent, getting potentially 60+ damage from juggles that couldn't be avoided on two good reads basically put you halfway along the way to killing your opponents with U-smash at 120. Not by far the best deal, but reasonable to negotiate.

And even though Mario was still vulnerable to traps and edgeguards, he had a legitimate shot at outplaying people who tried to capitalize on him with Cape stalling, rather than being guaranteed food for traps. Mario in Smash 4 just...dies to juggles and edgeguards in this game against any character that has half decent tools for edgeguarding. It really wasn't the case in Brawl where a WELL PLAYED Mario actually could survive quite a long time with very careful DI.

Mario's tools in Smash 4...just have really awful reward in comparison. With two reads, you're probably doing more like 32% optimistically. That's only like 25% of the way to killing someone with U-smash at 120, and only like 33% of the way to killing people with F-smash. And even though Mario's spacing and pressure isn't much different, the risk/reward just even more significantly less favors him trading hits, keeping in mind Mario really cannot afford to be put in the negative state in this game.

Ganondorf on default settings seriously has potentially better prospects than Mario, especially factoring the ability to DACUS with one of the strongest U-smashes in the game that ALSO happens to be safe on block. In addition to the fact Ganondorf actually has to be respected more than Mario in juggle situations when aerial Wizkick kills people at like 90% vertically, the fact Ganondorf is heavier than Mario and thus benefits from rage more, and just the fact Ganondorf does like 2-3 Mario hits worth of damage when he actually gets a hit. Ganondorf still is the type of character who literally can try to end you in two reads. Mario can't do that. The fact I have to compare Mario's advantages to Ganondorf should be telling you just how awful the situation is for Mario.

 

[deepseadiva]

The fact I have to compare Mario's advantages to Ganondorf should be telling you just how awful the situation is for Mario.

This is racist.

 

[Signia]

@ A2ZOMG Do you ever get sick of repeating yourself? I'm reading the same **** from you every other day.

Mario has a winnable matchup against Rosalina. I won't deny this because Mario actually does have decent tools for getting around Luma. But Dabuz also clearly was inexperienced at the matchup and spaced relatively poorly. And he still won for that matter.

Zelda is easily a much better character than Mario, being represented by Nairo. Zelda unlike Mario actually has good moves in neutral, and she has one of the most solid recoveries in the game, one that enables her to escape from almost all manner of traps when used correctly. Having a teleport like Zelda's means you basically can't be juggled or edge trapped if you play really well.

Keeping in mind that Zelda is actually difficult to trap and thus kill, she survives long, and she hits hard. Zelda realistically is probably mid tier, not higher just because she's countered by high mobility characters like Little Mac and Sonic.

Mario...doesn't even hit hard, and he just dies to juggles and edgeguards while not really being able to outperform most characters in neutral. And he struggles have a single clearly favorable matchup. Considering how little Mario has going for him compared to other characters, he realistically is bottom tier. And same goes for Luigi and Doc who also are terrible in both neutral and negative state and don't have really easy ways to kill early.

Nobody even asked about Zelda and you're rehashing that bit about her ability to escape from the air for the third time? Give it a rest!

 

[A2ZOMG]

@ A2ZOMG Do you ever get sick of repeating yourself? I'm reading the same **** from you every other day.


Nobody even asked about Zelda and you're rehashing that bit about her ability to escape from the air for the third time? Give it a rest!

It was mentioned by the previous poster, and I clarified who was representing Zelda in the United States.

You think I'm repeating myself? Funny, here I am wondering who are all the people that spread the same misinformation. People claim Zelda is bottom tier and Mario is solid when ignoring that this game is Super Footsies and Trap Bros for the 3DS and Wii-U. Yeah man, I dunno.

I think I'm going to blame ZeRo for claiming Mario was buffed, because clearly he didn't know what he's talking about and didn't actually know anything about Mario when he picked up this game.

 

[Shaya]

I mean you're both obviously up............... but okkkkkk keep writing... excu-things.........

Honestly so much "theory" gets thrown around this thread. It's refreshing to hear someone actually encourage real gaming to happen. Not that 1v1 versus randoms matters at all, but its enriching in a way posting on an online forum doesn't. Peeps need to play more than they talk. We can all agree on that, right?

Charizard vs Link grand finals would be cool to see.

At the very least they need to do base things off of more than just themselves playing
Please guys, this isn't a social. Calling out someone to challenge them to wifi in here is... kinda silly.

How about taking that socialness to somewhere private (hey, want to play wifi, Link vs Zard, I think I'd show you how hard the match up can be real quick!) and then voila, actually have something to POTENTIALLY talk about afterwards~_~

 

[RascalTheCharizard]

I dont think Lucina should be lower than Marth tbh. Yes she has no tipper but she also has no sourspot, meaning you dont have to space with her to always land that tipper. Her entire sword is pretty strong. With Marth the opponent can weaken him by playing their own spacing game and trying to prevent him from landing with his tipper; you cant do that vs Lucina. Aside from that, she has all of Marth's other strengths/weaknesses. The best place for her would probably be either in the same spot as Marth or either immediately above or below him.

I still feel like my opinions are invalid because of my skill level (also I think it's pretty clear that people think basing your impressions on For Glory's meta makes your argument invalid), but here's how I see it:

Lucina is not better. She is worse. How much worse I cannot say, but I personally think it is impossible for her to be placed above Marth. Her benefits are gimmicky at best and negligible at worst.

So first I want to start by looking at a common argument I see; "Lucina has the potential to be more aggressive than Marth, because she doesn't have to hit with her tip".
The problems with this is that every character in Smash Bros should be trying to maximise their spacing unless they have a reason to want to hit closer to their own body. For example, if the outer hitboxes put your opponent too far away to combo into a move when you indeed, want to combo. Naturally this means that good Marth players don't let you outside their tipper range unless they want you to be. In an idealistic match of perfect play (which as of my understanding, is what tier lists are based on. You can't just say "oh well if that players messes up they lose so therefore X character is bad lolol"), Marth can be just as aggressive. Lucina should still be trying to hit with her tip.

However, this leads me to what one of her possible benefits is. I'm sure there's a counter-argument to this, but anyway, her shielddrop game can be interesting. Realistically, not every attack from every character, even when spaced perfectly, will match the spacing of Marth's tipper. Sometimes shielddropping and using a punish move like Fsmash can net KOs in situations where it wouldn't have for Marth.

(The Sheik is performing a down smash, just in case the quality makes it hard to see.)

The reason being that shielding in this manner is a reactive action. When you attack your opponent, it is up to you to do so optimally. Here, what you can do in this situation is based on what your opponent is doing and their positioning. The Sheik player was simply too close to me to hit with a tipper-Fsmash, but Lucina's attacks pack more punch than Marth's sourspots so I ultimately got the KO. This sort of thing may actually make Lucina a more defensive character than Marth, as her bait-and-punish could function differently (then you factor in what @ Shaya said about how Lucina's attacks are likely less safe on shield and yeah...) The fact that her damage output and KO power are lower than Marth's sweetspots also supports my theory of her not only NOT being a more aggressive character, but actually being a more defensive character in practice; it takes her longer to rack up damage and secure KOs. As such, Lucina requires a bit more endurance from the player.

So now that I've got the bulk of my argument out of the way, what other things might she have in her favour?

• Up smash has more utility against grounded opponents (maybe landing ones, also?).
• According to what I read on the Lucina boards, which seems to hold true from my lab testing, Lucina's down smash sends foes noticeably more vertically than Marth's. This might be useful in matchups with characters who are quite susceptible to ceiling KOs like Kirby and Jigglypuff. Additionally, down smash has a lot more horizontal range than up smash, so it's more useful for trying to nab ceiling KOs on grounded opponents. If this trajectory difference is true, then Marth will have to stick with up smash whilst Lucina gets a second option.
• Nair and Dancing Blade's hits seem to link together better.
• Her hurtboxes are smaller... (though this is also a downside, as it artificially gives her less range because her limbs are shorter, like Roy in Melee/PM.)

Sorry for this mess of text, I've had some thoughts about this sort of stuff for a while and wanted to get it off my chest. I was considering ranting about Lucina's perceived playstyle of "go in swinging and not care about spacing" on the Lucina boards, but I thought I'd try to make a more objective post here instead.

TL;DR - Marth Clone Main Inferiority Complex is in effect again. I cri evry tim.

 

[Berserker.]

Hey. I second main Lucina over Marth because I don't like Marth at all. Ever since his debut in Fire Emblem. Hell, that's the reason why I only got into Fire Emblem when Radiant Dawn happened.

I think Lucina is fine. She's slightly worse than Marth but that doesn't equate to her being ****. I still use Marth strats in SSB4 with Lucina. Well, most of the strategies. I'm not sure if Lucina's FH F-air has an advantage of shield. I don't think so but whatever. Lucina's fine :| but I completely admit that Marth is a better Lucina--- I mean, Lucina is a worse Marth--- Wait no yeah--- Marth is a better Lucina

 

[Luco]

As Rascal touched on, and Shaya confirmed, with an inability to be safe on shield like Marth, a massive part of Lucina's game is invalidated. If she can be punished moreso than Marth and her risk vs reward isn't as good, suddenly it's fair to call that she's noticeably enough of a worse character to be down by a few spots, which is really unfortunate because then the only reason to play her over marth is if you actually enjoy the character more.

Don't get me wrong berserker, i'm not saying she's bad at all, just noticeably less good than marth, enough to be a few spots away potentially.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

By the way, my view COMPLETELY changed of Villagers when I saw Zee playing him in the tournament
http://www.twitch.tv/clashtournaments/b/581731305
Look at this at 7:03:00. It was incredible, I couldnt believe the string Zee was pulling against Vinnie
I couldnt believe a Villager could be this aggresive

Wait until you see Ganbaranai's Villager then.

 

[Berserker.]

Don't get me wrong berserker, i'm not saying she's bad at all, just noticeably less good than marth, enough to be a few spots away potentially.

I just said Marth was a better Lucina :U

 

[StarshipGroove]

Reminder that A2ZOMG:
has speculated and theorycrafted and been consistently wrong for the entirety of Brawl's lifespan;
did not attend tournaments in any capacity;
started discussing SSB4's balance and characters without having the game:
thinks Brawl Mario is a secret high tier;
don't try to argue with him, it's pointless.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Yowch.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Berserker.]

Guys, let's not digress from the purpose of the thread

Last thing we want is a flame war

 

[Luco]

I just said Marth was a better Lucina :U

Haha soz, I was worried you'd think I was saying Lucina was overly bad or something when I didn't mean it. XD

But yep, I don't think they'd be too far apart, unless Lucina really didn't have any other game she could use that was safe for her. :o

 

[~ Gheb ~]

But yep, I don't think they'd be too far apart, unless Lucina really didn't have any other game she could use that was safe for her. :o

Depending on how much harder the sweetspot on Marth's tipper hits they might be further apart than you think.

 

[ThatLunaticFeline]

You're right I should totally just drop what I'm doing to accept meaningless challenges from peeps at 2 in the morning. -.-

We can play but we'll have to play tomorrow cause I'm beat.

Speaking of doing stuff I just uploaded a new vid... Solid proof Zard is undoubtedly top tier... Top 5 at the least:

Top 5 cause he KOd a Falcon at 160%? Not likely. Charizard's problems lie in his range and recovery abilities - those jumps are feeble and Flare Blitz is a million miles from safe on block or offstage against any character with a decent dair or f-smash, which makes up a lot of the cast. If Flare Blitz didn't deal damage to Zard he'd have a much higher position I think, but the removal of gliding, his extra weight and weaker fair would still be damning him from even the upper mid tiers.

 

[otter]

I agree people should play more to settle personal beef, but don't think it has much bearing on the overall meta.

 

[Meru.]

It was mentioned by the previous poster, and I clarified who was representing Zelda in the United States.

You think I'm repeating myself? Funny, here I am wondering who are all the people that spread the same misinformation. People claim Zelda is bottom tier (...)

Frankly I am more inclined to believe she's bottom tier than mid tier. In reality don't think she's either, I think she'll end somewhere in low, but if I had to choose between mid or bottom I would say bottom. Sure, she's got some improvements from Brawl and this is probably her best version so far, but she still suffers from a lot of fundamental flaws. Her approaching game is one of the worst. At the same time she also does not have any tools that force people to approach her, which means she will have to commit to approaching at a certain time. She has to rely a lot on her defensive game a lot and she has to make her opponents approach her. However, if they refuse to approach her... oh boy, suddenly a lot of the stuff she does becomes punishable.

She has still no aerial game since her Fair and Bair are unreliable and have a million year of ending lag and it doesn't autocancel until the very end of the animation, meaning you will still suffer from lag even if you shorthop her aerials. She needs a hard read or a very good punishing opportunity in order to use these moves and even then you still need some luck the sweetspot will hit. Uair is slow as **** and Dair has limited application vs grounded opponents because of its very small horizontal hitbox. Her Nair is pretty ok though since it's somewhat fast and the range is decent for a Nair but the reward isn't that great. Because of her non-existent aerial game, she has weak aerial defense is weak in the air, especially combined with the fact that she's floaty so she has to rely on either simply jumps or airdodges, laggy moves like UpB or her underwhelming aerials. This is one of the reasons fast or pressure-happy characters run her over. You really don't want to get a hit as Zelda which kind of sucks when you consider her unsafe approaches. (How somebody can say she has long survivability with a trait like this is beyond me.)

Some extreme flaws like her recovery and grab have been fixed but flaws like these have stayed and they hold her back compared to the other characters. She is not TOTALLY hopeless though. She's good IF she can somehow make her opponent approach her, she has pretty decent Dtilt set-ups (although I'm pretty sure they're not guaranteed), a scary UpB (which will probably get worse over time because of its million frames of ending lag) and some of her moves can kill early (if you succeed in landing them. It would also help if people wouldn't randomly fall out of her smashes :l). Oh and her grab range is awesome especially with that new roll pivot cancel thingie.

 

[The Real Gamer]

Villager is a hidden boss in this game. Once people are able to space their slingshots properly with a C-stick... Look out. I actually got quite a few matches in against Player 1's Villager who's one of the top Brawl players in my state. I only uploaded vids that I won but it's easy to see how difficult it is to approach this character when they're spacing properly. Gonna end up being one of Zard's more difficult matchups IMO:

Top 5 cause he KOd a Falcon at 160%? Not likely. Charizard's problems lie in his range and recovery abilities - those jumps are feeble and Flare Blitz is a million miles from safe on block or offstage against any character with a decent dair or f-smash, which makes up a lot of the cast. If Flare Blitz didn't deal damage to Zard he'd have a much higher position I think, but the removal of gliding, his extra weight and weaker fair would still be damning him from even the upper mid tiers.

 

[ThatLunaticFeline]

...shet

 

[ConeZ]

I just wanted to say about Mario's fireball, most characters can jab his fireball to stop them.... so in other words, his fireballs are pretty horrible if you didn't already know they were horrible from their trajectory.

 

[MisterVisceral]

By the way, my view COMPLETELY changed of Villagers when I saw Zee playing him in the tournament
http://www.twitch.tv/clashtournaments/b/581731305
Look at this at 7:03:00. It was incredible, I couldnt believe the string Zee was pulling against Vinnie
I couldnt believe a Villager could be this aggresive

That tree is so hype. I love it.

 

[Jahordon]

Given how Diddy performed in the recent tournaments, I think people should start considering him to be a serious threat.

It looks like he has a tough time against Rosalina, but who doesn't? Speaking of Rosalina, does anybody actually have a favorable matchup against her?