Character Competitive Impressions

[webbedspace]

Just wanna put it out there to all this "extremely overpowered" talk that Winner's Finals involved ZSS getting five sub-80% up-B KOs in a row against R.O.B.

 

[MezzoMe]

The best angle is usually diagonally,

This is the problem with customs, giving some characters extremely overpowered individual moves that admittedly weren't designed with balance in mind, and thus increasing the balance gap between the worst and the best characters in the game while people argue that customs improve it.

HSB is essentially an aerial smash attack that is difficult to punish if used right, has low startup, a lot of range even for the strongest hit and high power with practically no drawbacks for a character who was designed to have trouble killing to make up for his strengths. I have a feeling that people support customs just because it makes their character stronger. As much as I love custom Ganondorf and Falcon being able to go under BF with improved recovery, I'd never claim customs are good for the metagame.

I don't know of Pikachu that much but I'm pretty sure that he hasn't trouble killing at all.

 

[Trifroze]

The best angle is usually diagonally,

I don't know of Pikachu that much but I'm pretty sure that he hasn't trouble killing at all.

If Pikachu doesn't have trouble killing, who does?

 

[thehard]

When I see "customs aren't good for the metagame", I read it as "moves aren't good for the metagame". You can't make such broad statements. So HSB is unhealthy, and what else? Wasn't this asked a little while back and no one gave an answer? I legitimately want people to write out lists of customs they have issues with (I imagine the lists would all look similar). It just doesn't make sense to me otherwise, because "customs" are as much Jumping Inhale and Wizard's Dropkick as they are Heavy Skull Bash and Kong Cyclone. Pls specify

Who admitted that customs weren't designed with balance in mind anyway?

The only problem with HSB is that you can smash charge it, which seems more like an oversight to me.

 

[webbedspace]

So HSB is unhealthy, and what else? Wasn't this asked a little while back and no one gave an answer? I legitimately want people to write out lists of customs they have issues with (I imagine the lists would all look similar).

Based on past arguments, I imagine the list would consist of:

Kong Cyclone
Timber Counter
Exploding Balloon Trip
Hammer Spin Dash
Heavy Skull Bash
Helicopter Kick
Luma Warp
Literally every move that gives a character a new kill confirm, regardless of actual power or risk
Lightweight (for some reason)

Those seem to be the only ones that are commonly held in contention.

 

[RedBeefBaron]

If Pikachu doesn't have trouble killing, who does?

I'd say Pikachu has noticeably better killing ability than Diddy and Shiek at this point.

 

[Trifroze]

When I see "customs aren't good for the metagame", I read it as "moves aren't good for the metagame". You can't make such broad statements. So HSB is unhealthy, and what else? Wasn't this asked a little while back and no one gave an answer? I legitimately want people to write out lists of customs they have issues with (I imagine the lists would all look similar). It just doesn't make sense to me otherwise, because "customs" are as much Jumping Inhale and Wizard's Dropkick as they are Heavy Skull Bash and Kong Cyclone. Pls specify

It is much better to forget about customs as a whole than it is to start forbidding the use of certain moves, especially when customs are fundamentally imbalanced and unfair. DLC characters won't get any from the looks of it, and some characters get ridiculous moves that resemble the likes of ZSS' default up b which is a ridiculously good move and was also mentioned earlier. We do not need more of those. Some of the polarizing customs that I have experience / am aware of include:

Kong Cyclone: Resembles MK's tornado from Brawl except it kills faster and isn't quite as reliable.
Timber Counter & Exploding Balloon Trip: Two extremely good moves that create stalling strats again comparable to Brawl MK.
Heavy Skull Bash: Explained this earlier, an exceptionally fast and powerful kill move with no practical drawbacks, using it with smash input pretty much doubles its power for some reason.
Lightweight: Can be activated on a platform at all times even though it should be limited normally, in addition Diddy's dthrow to uair KOing at 120% was a big deal before 1.0.6 but for some reason Palutena doing the same at 70-80% isn't.
Helicopter Kick: Probably the best single KO move in the game, almost unpunishable, fast, can't be SDI'd out of and can kill at around 50-60%.
Luma Warp, Dark Fists or any custom that's an obvious upgrade with very little or no drawbacks: Self-explanatory, creates obvious balance bias towards characters who have these.
Gust Cape, Tempest, Jumbo Hoop or any custom that serves as a foolproof gimp on most characters when used right: No character should have such free tools to get stocks off if we want a metagame where characters don't have completely polarized MUs.
Hammer Spindash, Gravity Grenade, (Heavy Skull Bash, Luma Warp) or any custom that makes an already good character better: Probably the largest category, this is bad because it doesn't make the game any more balanced but instead creates even more gap. Even if some low tiers benefit from good customs as well, it only applies to a few. What this results in is that some good characters become even better and some bad characters become even worse in relation to the rest of the cast.

Some of these moves are ridiculously good if we compare them to all the moves in the game. ZSS' up b used to get so much attention before but many of these customs are much worse, and some people voluntarily want them included in the metagame. What's the main reasoning for pro-customs? I think it's reasonable to argue they don't make the metagame more interesting or give it any more depth, but instead about 80% of customs are absolutely useless, 5% are fine and add depth, and the rest are imbalanced or buggy/overlooked moves that break the balance of the game, create polarized matchups and ultimately simplify certain characters by handing all of them a single overpowered tool that they will revolve around of.

Who admitted that customs weren't designed with balance in mind anyway?

Sakurai said he doesn't have a problem with custom moves being "ways to cheat your friends". We already have customs that get their utility massively increased by glitches or obvious oversights, such as HSB being used with smash input which you mentioned, effectively doubling its KO power. Another example is Palutena's lightweight which can be activated whenever you're on a platform, or Lucario's snaring aura sphere KOing at 0% out of Villager's pocket (broken strat in doubles) if it hits the opponent on frame 1. Then there are a bunch of customs (easily most of them) that are clearly the result of time shortage in the development of the game. This mostly resulted in useless moves but also in critical oversights with some outright broken ones, and I truly hope the community gets over the excitement eventually and thinks about this rationally.

I'd say Pikachu has noticeably better killing ability than Diddy and Shiek at this point.

That still leaves Pikachu losing to 49 characters though. When claiming someone isn't bad at something in this game, you're claiming they are better at it than a good portion of the cast. People just often forget that latter part, which is particularly apparent in many "this character is at least mid tier" comments.

 

[Bjurrse]

I think that the future of customs lie in the arms of nintendo. If all new characters are missing customs, and future balance changes don't balance them, then we MIGHT have to consider the default meta.

Personally I'd rather wait and see!

 

[Cassio]

I think people overrate Heavy Skull Bash. If it was given to most other characters I doubt people would care. Upair to HSB looked really good though, lol.

Heres the lowdown on pikachu killing without customs. Most of these percents were tested on Diddy:
Dtilt > Usmash ~(80%-120%), even if they tech the knockdown pikachu can tech chase all options on reaction.
Utilt > Thunder ~(120%-150%)
Utilt > QA (unsure, ~130)
Fair > Dash Attack (150%+ from center of FD)
Fair > Usmash; very situatonal (no spike hit, and not enough time to jump away or do anything else)

Uthrow: Kills between 150-190 rage dependent
Uthrow > Thunder: Pika has enough time to chase their DI and the opponent has enough time to airdodge. Have to guess on the airdodge

Dair, Bair, Nair, and Dair all become kill moves at relevant percents and depending on stage position
Dash Attack and Upsmash are raw kill moves, but pretty good as far as raw kill moves go hitting landings, rolls, etc.
Fsmash can be ok sometimes too.

Thats as far as I know. Nothing outstanding, but I wouldnt call him particularly weak at killing either.

Edit: Heres the video of utilt > Quick Attack

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Lots of controversy about Aero beating Larry today. Supposedly, Larry breezed through the tournament, then lost 2-3 and 3-1 to customs Palutena. I dont really know much about it myself, but the typical back and forth about how this shows customs shouldnt be legal vs people who dont want customs legal are scrubs etc.

 

[webbedspace]

Let me just jump onto a few of these:

Lightweight: Can be activated on a platform at all times even though it should be limited normally, in addition Diddy's dthrow to uair KOing at 120% was a big deal before 1.0.6 but for some reason Palutena doing the same at 70-80% isn't.

Well, one of these moves has a pea-sized hitbox and requires Lightweight to be a guaranteed confirm, and the other one surrounds a third of the character's body and is useful anywhere, anytime, even from short-hop.

Helicopter Kick: Probably the best single KO move in the game, almost unpunishable, fast, can't be SDI'd out of and can kill at around 50-60%.

I find it hard to believe that an Up-B, a move that puts you in helpless fall, can ever be called "almost unpunishable". Moreover, most of these 50% kills can be attributed people not yet realising the "neutral" Smashville and T&C overwhelmingly favour Brawler (and Sheik, but that's another story).

Luma Warp, Dark Fists or any custom that's an obvious upgrade with very little or no drawbacks: Self-explanatory, creates obvious balance bias towards characters who have these.

You heard it here first: we can't use customs unless they're worse than defaults. (Honestly, this is nearsighted. A character whose customs are direct upgrades is less versatile than a character with sidegrades. Mario can tailor several of his moves to maximise his matchup spread, but WFT is basically stuck with Jumbo Hoop and Weighted Header, and is thus much more predictable.)

Gust Cape, Tempest, Jumbo Hoop or any custom that serves as a foolproof gimp on most characters when used right: No character should have such free tools to get stocks off if we want a metagame where characters don't have completely polarized MUs.

I have heard no one describing these things as foolproof. If anything, they're just as "foolproof" as default FLUDD and default Cape.

Hammer Spindash, Gravity Grenade, (Heavy Skull Bash, Luma Warp) or any custom that makes an already good character better: Probably the largest category, this is bad because it doesn't make the game any more balanced but instead creates even more gap. Even if some low tiers benefit from good customs as well, it only applies to a few. What this results in is that some good characters become even better and some bad characters become even worse in relation to the rest of the cast.

I can name eight low-tiers that get dramatically better with customs: all 3 Miis, Palutena, Wii Fit Trainer, Kirby, Marth, Dr. Mario. The top-tiers get barely anything compared to the transformative boons these peeps obtain. Giving Pikachu one more kill-confirm does not change Pikachu as much as giving Brawler an actually usable horizontal recovery.

Sakurai said he doesn't have a problem with custom moves being "ways to cheat your friends".

Source, please - the odd wording implies to me that this is being taken out of context (as is par for anything the man has ever said).

 

[Antonykun]

so the horizontal boost kick is making people go "Ban Customs" but not the Vertical Boost Kick? Intresting...

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Let me just jump onto a few of these:
Well, one of these moves has a pea-sized hitbox and requires Lightweight to be a guaranteed confirm, and the other one surrounds a third of the character's body and is useful anywhere, anytime, even from short-hop.

I can name eight low-tiers that get dramatically better with customs: all 3 Miis, Palutena, Wii Fit Trainer, Kirby, Marth, Dr. Mario. The top-tiers get barely anything compared to the transformative boons these peeps obtain. Giving Pikachu one more kill-confirm does not change Pikachu as much as giving Brawler an actually usable horizontal recovery.

1) Palutena uair has a massive hitbox

2) Rosalina gets Luma Warp, a Brawl Falco Laser and a faster recovery. Sheik gets Penetrating Needles (like, one shots shields) and Gravity Grenade. I'm sure other top tiers get other things that widen the gap between top and bottom tier. Poor Zelda gets literally nothing with customs and probably lands in a tier herself. =P

@ Cassio I thought of you when I was looking at Lucina's fsmash the other day. It has comparable knockback to Zelda's reappear hit of Up B from 50% and starts outscaling it at 95% vs heavy/midweights.

Cool frame 10 move that requires a lot of skill and precision to land.

Oh wait...

 

[Illuminose]

1) Palutena uair has a massive hitbox

2) Rosalina gets Luma Warp, a Brawl Falco Laser and a faster recovery. Sheik gets Penetrating Needles (like, one shots shields) and Gravity Grenade. I'm sure other top tiers get other things that widen the gap between top and bottom tier. Poor Zelda gets literally nothing with customs and probably lands in a tier herself. =P

@ Cassio I thought of you when I was looking at Lucina's fsmash the other day. It has comparable knockback to Zelda's reappear hit of Up B from 50% and starts outscaling it at 95% vs heavy/midweights.

Cool frame 10 move that requires a lot of skill and precision to land.

Oh wait...

uh I just want to say...Sheik's Penetrating Needles aren't that good, and the majority of Sheik mains stick to default needles in most matchups. They don't 'one shot' shields; they do create serious shield pressure, but that's it. The issue is the lack of range in comparison to normal needles and lower amount of needles (which can be good and bad). They're also much harder to pull off needles -> bouncing fish with. Gravity Grenade is actually good, but it doesn't really do loads for Sheik. It creates another kill setup, but it's generally difficult to land and doesn't affect games too much. The one thing it can do is punish people who don't react to it by the side of the stag with a stage spike, but this is situational, and Sheik is usually better off going for her normal edgeguarding anyways as it is more consistently effective.

 

[NickRiddle]

so the horizontal boost kick is making people go "Ban Customs" but not the Vertical Boost Kick? Intresting...

ZSS's Boost Kick put ZSS in a 50/50 where the opponent holds left or right and ZSS usually has to follow the DI or the opponent will pop out of the move.
This is heavily mitigated on big characters because they have more distance to travel before escaping the kick, hence why I beat 8BitMan so solidly.

 

[kackamee]

I think calling custom star shot synonymous to Falco Brawl laser is also unfair. A big part of the reason Falco lasers were so good is that you could remain mobile with them and use them to set up grabs and traps.
Rosa is still pretty immobile, and custom star shot is only really used for extra damage, forcing approaches, and the very occasional gimp. Not nearly on the same level imo.

 

[Blobface]

Sakurai said he doesn't have a problem with custom moves being "ways to cheat your friends".

"I think it's probably more interesting that you can almost cheat a little through customizing your character."
From here. These quotes have drastically different meanings.

 

[Nu~]

If customs weren't made to be balanced, then how come every custom comes with a built in disadvantage(s) in correspondence with its advantage(s)?

How come they weakened the power of dragon rush? If they weren't worried about balance in the slightest, then why bother adding drawbacks at all...

 

[Smog Frog]

"I think it's probably more interesting that you can almost cheat a little through customizing your character."
From here. These quotes have drastically different meanings.

he's probably referring to equipment

 

[TheReflexWonder]

If customs weren't made to be balanced, then how come every custom comes with a built in disadvantage(s) in correspondence with its advantage(s)?

How come they weakened the power of dragon rush? If they weren't worried about balance in the slightest, then why bother adding drawbacks at all...

Balance on a competitive level and balance on a general level are very different things. They didn't want any direct upgrades to previous moves because it would completely and utterly invalidate the previous move's existence even in casual play/free-for-all/whatever.

 

[mimgrim]

Lightweight: Can be activated on a platform at all times even though it should be limited normally

I apologize from the deepness of my heart.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Why would they nerf Dragon Rush and not give Charizard buffs instead?

 

[Cassio]

@ Cassio I thought of you when I was looking at Lucina's fsmash the other day. It has comparable knockback to Zelda's reappear hit of Up B from 50% and starts outscaling it at 95% vs heavy/midweights.

Cool frame 10 move that requires a lot of skill and precision to land.

Oh wait...

Yeah she's definitely on my BS list, lost my first tournament set to this nonsense. But knowing that Lucina has a long range disjointed similar version of this only makes me hate the move more. At least it doesnt drag you into the air first.

 

[Diddy Kong]

What are the opinions about Mewtwo now? Still considered 'mid tier'? How many matchups does he win and lose as of now? I still think he's about as bad as in Melee, maybe just slightly better.

 

[Hippieslayer]

What are the opinions about Mewtwo now? Still considered 'mid tier'? How many matchups does he win and lose as of now? I still think he's about as bad as in Melee, maybe just slightly better.

He's trash basically. Dies to Warios regular bike at reasonable percents, love fighting him.

Custom Palutena on the other hand...

 

[TTTTTsd]

I wouldn't call him trash. Just exceptionally average (in summary). Nothing explicitly awful as a whole but nothing....well, exceptional either. His advantages are strong but so are his numerous disadvantages. That's just me as far as Mewtwo goes, most people think the same way from experimentation with him.

Course that could've changed by now but I have no idea.

 

[meleebrawler]

I wouldn't call him trash. Just exceptionally average (in summary). Nothing explicitly awful as a whole but nothing....well, exceptional either. His advantages are strong but so are his numerous disadvantages. That's just me as far as Mewtwo goes, most people think the same way from experimentation with him.

Course that could've changed by now but I have no idea.

In terms of viability, what hurts Mewtwo more than anything is that he has hard matchups against fast-moving
characters, which just so happens to be what the top-tiers are comprised of. This plus his low margin for error discourages
a lot of players.

For what it's worth Mew2King changed his mind about Sm4sh Mewtwo and thinks he can be great.

Mewtwo winning tourneys by himself is probably unlikely, but not impossible. When things go well
for Mewtwo, they go REALLY well.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

I don't know why I didn't make this connection before, but you can roll cancel grab during your initial dash. I always thought of it a something you generally had to do from a standing or walking state. (I knew you could technically do it out of a run, but that's prohibitively difficult.)

I feel dumb. That makes the mid-range against Mac scarier than I thought, since that gives it better-than-passable synergy with Dash Attack (active frames 7-9) and Forward-B (invincible frames 1-4, active as early as Frame 9, iirc), since you can do these moves out of an initial dash, too. Hardly foolproof, but those are good moves and good numbers.

 

[Firefoxx]

ESAM's going to EVO ‏@CT_ESAM 36s37 seconds ago
"'Im not gonna remake twitter'
'Im not gonna lose a SFL local this whole summer'
'Im not going to EVO'
Im apparently a compulsive liar~"

ESAM back for real

 

[Antonykun]

ESAM's going to EVO ‏@CT_ESAM 36s37 seconds ago
"'Im not gonna remake twitter'
'Im not gonna lose a SFL local this whole summer'
'Im not going to EVO'
Im apparently a compulsive liar~"

ESAM back for real

Ban Heavy Skull Bash
Seriously though, we are getting some seriously awesome players for evo gah now i can't wait

 

[NachoOfCheese]

What are the opinions about Mewtwo now? Still considered 'mid tier'? How many matchups does he win and lose as of now? I still think he's about as bad as in Melee, maybe just slightly better.

His up air makes me sad in this game.
I think he's still decent. He's got a lot of good things going for him. Range, usable speed, and excellent edgeguarding and Mindgames. He reminds me of Ganondorf except with shadow ball and floatiness. I'd imagine they'd be in the same tier tbh.

 

[Diddy Kong]

ESAM's going to EVO ‏@CT_ESAM 36s37 seconds ago
"'Im not gonna remake twitter'
'Im not gonna lose a SFL local this whole summer'
'Im not going to EVO'
Im apparently a compulsive liar~"

ESAM back for real

So HSB is gonna win EVO?

 

[TheReflexWonder]

I haven't seen a lot of high-level Ness play, but I hear people toss around the idea that PKT1 is free damage offstage. It doesn't have a significant disjoint outside of the tail, and you can clank it out with aerials before it hits you. Is the free range of movement too unpredictable to reliably do that?

 

[bc1910]

Mewtwo would be good if he was heavier. It really is as simple as that IMO. As it is he has no survivability which is becoming increasingly important in this game. Simply being heavy doesn't necessarily give you good survivability (customless Ganon) but when combined with a recovery as excellent as Mewtwo's it definitely makes a difference.

He'd still lose to rushdown/top tiers but bleh, so do almost everyone. And he'd actually be able to threaten them up close with shieldgrab rage Uthrow. Right now he dies too early for it to ever matter. Uthrow is a good kill move, exceptional with rage, but he never gets to use it on people cause he's dead at like 100.

What else does Mewtwo need? Things that would help any character, really. Better mobility, faster moves, a combo throw. His weight is the main thing for me. I think to make him viable with his current size/weight would require generous buffs from all 3 categories I just mentioned.

I think Ness PKT1 is a liability when used against characters with good high recoveries (read: burst mobility) because they can just sidestep the ledge and reach Ness quick enough to smack him for using PKT1. Not as much of a liability as it was in previous games because at least PKT1 moves fast now but it's still not something I'd throw out against a recovering Sheik, Pikachu or ZSS. PKT1 is a great option vs heavies and characters with bad mobility during recovery, though. It's best vs characters who fall into this category and don't have a fast aerial to clank with it. So I think it being "free damage" is MU dependent really, but I wouldn't rule that description out vs like Bowser.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

I think Ness PKT1 is a liability when used against characters with good high recoveries (read: burst mobility) because they can just sidestep the ledge and reach Ness quick enough to smack him for using PKT1. Not as much of a liability as it was in previous games because at least PKT1 moves fast now but it's still not something I'd throw out against a recovering Sheik, Pikachu or ZSS. PKT1 is a great option vs heavies and characters with bad mobility while they recover, though. It's best vs characters who fall into this category and don't have a fast aerial to clank with it. So I think it being "free damage" is MU dependent really, but I wouldn't rule that description out vs like Bowser.

Most of those characters have a means of getting around it, though. Dedede N-Air beats it all around. Bowser's N-Air clanks it out fine, and neither of those have significant endlag. DK can fastfall -> Up-B and clank it out with that. I just feel like people have more clean, safe options than they're giving themselves credit against it.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Mewtwo would be good if he was heavier. It really is as simple as that IMO. .

I read this, and hit the Like buttom immediately. I swear the biggest troll move Sakurai made in this game was regarding Mewtwo's weight nerf. Give me another Smash Tour before this please...

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

I haven't seen a lot of high-level Ness play, but I hear people toss around the idea that PKT1 is free damage offstage. It doesn't have a significant disjoint outside of the tail, and you can clank it out with aerials before it hits you. Is the free range of movement too unpredictable to reliably do that?

It depends on the character and their options to cancel but I believe that he can change direction so you only get the tail.

 

[bc1910]

@ TheReflexWonder Yeah, almost every character can do something about it. I think Bowser can clank it out with Up B actually. I wouldn't Nair with Bowser though, I think Nair probably lasts too long and might give Ness time to run over and edgeguard or (more realistically) shoot out another PKT1 and make it hard for Bowser to get back the vertical distance he lost. Same for D3's Nair, although not as bad because his Up B is insane and has armour the whole way through (I think? He may not have armour on the way up, I'm not sure about this).

Still, I don't think anyone is optionless, some have significantly worse options but meh... maybe free damage is never an appropriate description. It's definitely free pressure vs some characters at least, though.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Bowser N-Air doesn't last very long, actually, and the hitbox is active for a long time. It's the kind of move that feels like it should take ages, but it's not Ike or Greninja N-Air levels of animation length. He also has the ability to increase vertical distance on his Up-B by tapping B, which helps even more.

 

[bc1910]

Mm, it doesn't autocancel in a short hop, the animation must be around 40 frames or longer which to me is too long for Nair to be safe in the situation you're describing. Certainly long enough to give Ness time to go offstage for an edgeguard but it depends on tons of things like Ness' positioning and when exactly the PKT1 gets clanked.

I thought increasing the height of his Up B by tapping went without saying but just to clarify, that's probably the only way Bowser could even dream of making it back after Nair-ing offstage if his double jump is gone.

We should also probably consider that if a character has their jump available, double jump airdodging through PKT1 is an option no matter who you're using, but Ness may be able to turn PKT around (the turning circle is very tight now) and frame trap the end of your airdodge. Or you could simply get hit if the trail of lightning goes through you. It being tricky to airdodge through PKT sometimes could be why people started calling it free damage offstage.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

The hitbox of Bowser N-Air lasts until Frame 27, iirc. You can use the move well in advance and not worry about loads of endlag afterward.