I have an erie feeling that Villager will be nerfed badly

[AnchorTea]

More and more players are claiming that Villager is OP.

I started to think about that, and they may be right. Villager can DESTROY all characters except the fast and spacy characters, and Villager's air game is quite the force to be dealt with.

The only thing I can see being nerfed with no doubt is the pocketed mecha koopa strategy. But Villager may be nerfed very badly due to how much potential he carries. He might be nerfed just like Shulk, but just opposite. Decreasing damage of a little bit of everything. Which is bad for Villager.

Discuss/Debate/Or just yell at me

 

[Antonykun]

Bruh I don't need more stuff to have nightmares about. I swear if villager gets nerfed but not Diddy Sheik Pikachu, I will cry tires.

 

[ScrubCakes]

I don't think Villager will be nerfed. Think of how many characters are considered better than he is right now, Villager is not their priority.

 

[AnchorTea]

I don't think Villager will be nerfed. Think of how many characters are considered better than he is right now, Villager is not their priority.

Sheik
Sonic
Yoshi
Villager
Mega Man

That's five out of the 51 characters in this game.

 

[AnchorTea]

Bruh I don't need more stuff to have nightmares about. I swear if villager gets nerfed but not Diddy Sheik Pikachu, I will cry tires.

Wait! Pikachu is now considered one of "them"?!

 

[ScrubCakes]

Sheik
Sonic
Yoshi
Villager
Mega Man

That's five out of the 51 characters in this game.

Just curious, where are you getting this list from? What about ZSS, Ness, Fox, Pikachu, Lucario, Rosalina? (and you left out Diddy but I assume that was intentional because he's a given) Those guys are usually ranked better than Villager, or at least, there's no consensus anywhere that Villager is a better character than those I've listed. From what I've seen Villager is usually in people's top 10 or top 15, but not top 5. I feel like being outside of top 5 is relatively safe in terms of not getting nerfed excluding exploits/glitches.

 

[AnchorTea]

Just curious, where are you getting this list from? What about ZSS, Ness, Fox, Pikachu, Lucario, Rosalina? (and you left out Diddy but I assume that was intentional because he's a given) Those guys are usually ranked better than Villager, or at least, there's no consensus anywhere that Villager is a better character than those I've listed. From what I've seen Villager is usually in people's top 10 or top 15, but not top 5. I feel like being outside of top 5 is relatively safe in terms of not getting nerfed excluding exploits/glitches.

I'm not trying to prove that he will be nerfed, I was just saying that he might be nerfed.

 

[ScrubCakes]

I just think it's highly unlikely that's all, especially with Nintendo's laid back patching policy. I'm actually crossing my fingers for a Villager buff (faster grab speed) but I know it's a pipe dream.

 

[zeezee]

Villager is really nowhere near broken imo
There are wayyy too many things stopping him from being as good as he can really be.

Imo most of the people who complain about villager usually just don't know anything about the match-up because not many people use him in high level play. Hes the type of character that destroys you if you don't know the match-up because of how he was created forcing players to go through a rough trial and error process to learn how to play against him. The balloons blocking edgeguard attempts, the bowling balls and their fast recovery, pocket taking your items forever sometimes, the ridiculously long recovery, gimmicky tree shenanigans, etc. There's a lot of stuff that's unique to him compared to other characters that's hard to get used to and that's why people probably find him to be initially broken.

But so long as there are characters with counters/reflectors, so long as a couple of stages that are common in tournaments stay legal, and so long as that grab stays awful, this character will never be broken unless they buff him too much.

I usually ask the best of the best current players their opinions or try to figure out what the they think of Villager and its always the same response. They just always say hes a good character, but none of them ever seem to place him top 10 from what I can remember.

Counter leaf changes everything though, it needs to go lmao.

 

[Antonykun]

Wait! Pikachu is now considered one of "them"?!

Quick Attack is a move more broken and janky than all of Villagers moveset maybe not including Counter Timber

Villager is really nowhere near broken imo
There are wayyy too many things stopping him from being as good as he can really be.

Imo most of the people who complain about villager usually just don't know anything about the match-up because not many people use him in high level play. Hes the type of character that destroys you if you don't know the match-up because of how he was created forcing players to go through a rough trial and error process to learn how to play against him. The balloons blocking edgeguard attempts, the bowling balls and their fast recovery, pocket taking your items forever sometimes, the ridiculously long recovery, gimmicky tree shenanigans, etc. There's a lot of stuff that's unique to him compared to other characters that's hard to get used to and that's why people probably find him to be initially broken.

But so long as there are characters with counters/reflectors, so long as a couple of stages that are common in tournaments stay legal, and so long as that grab stays awful, this character will never be broken unless they buff him too much.

I usually ask the best of the best current players their opinions or try to figure out what the they think of Villager and its always the same response. They just always say hes a good character, but none of them ever seem to place him top 10 from what I can remember.

Counter leaf changes everything though, it needs to go lmao.

NOOOOOOOOO!!! NOT THE COUNTER TIMBER T.T

 

[cwjakesteel]

Tbh, I always thought that Villager was the cream of the crop, the tippity top of the tier list, and people just didn't think so and put him on the official tier lists as such because he wasn't "mainstream" like diddy or shrek. The tier makers just don't realize his potential as the tippity best top, imo, and that's where he belongs.

However, I doubt Villager will be nerfed simply because Sakurai said that he doesn't want to make any more changes like this. Besides, as long as the complaining for diddy is louder and already came before the Villager Whiners, then we're safe, as I'm sure since currently diddy is the star of attention for complaints, if any changes will happen, it will happen to diddy first, even if Villager is more broken than him (and he's not).

 

[AnchorTea]

Villager is really nowhere near broken imo
There are wayyy too many things stopping him from being as good as he can really be.

Imo most of the people who complain about villager usually just don't know anything about the match-up because not many people use him in high level play. Hes the type of character that destroys you if you don't know the match-up because of how he was created forcing players to go through a rough trial and error process to learn how to play against him. The balloons blocking edgeguard attempts, the bowling balls and their fast recovery, pocket taking your items forever sometimes, the ridiculously long recovery, gimmicky tree shenanigans, etc. There's a lot of stuff that's unique to him compared to other characters that's hard to get used to and that's why people probably find him to be initially broken.

But so long as there are characters with counters/reflectors, so long as a couple of stages that are common in tournaments stay legal, and so long as that grab stays awful, this character will never be broken unless they buff him too much.

I usually ask the best of the best current players their opinions or try to figure out what the they think of Villager and its always the same response. They just always say hes a good character, but none of them ever seem to place him top 10 from what I can remember.

Counter leaf changes everything though, it needs to go lmao.

I was going to mention how a lot people don't know jack about the Villager MU, but I was too lazy.


Whoops.

 

[Yong Dekonk]

We have no reason to believe ANY characters will receive further alterations based on what Sakurai has said following the last patch. Most likely there will be no further nerfing or buffing.

 

[Player-1]

unless you're talking about customs on I've never heard anyone say villager is OP, I think villager is bad relative to most of the cast.

 

[zeezee]

unless you're talking about customs on I've never heard anyone say villager is OP, I think villager is bad relative to most of the cast.

This pretty much, way too many problems that most of the cast just usually doesn't even have to think about. Shields, fast characters, short characters, the tournament viable stage-lists usually being to villagers disadvantage, bad punish options out of shield making it hard to punish some stuff everyone else usually can, reflectors/absorbs/counters nullifying his best moves, etc.

 

[Kofu]

This pretty much, way too many problems that most of the cast just usually doesn't even have to think about. Shields, fast characters, short characters, the tournament viable stage-lists usually being to villagers disadvantage, bad punish options out of shield making it hard to punish some stuff everyone else usually can, reflectors/absorbs/counters nullifying his best moves, etc.

Can you elaborate how the common tournament-legal stages are to Villager's disadvantage? I'm not well-versed in one stage being better for characters than others, barring a distaste for Final Destination against fast characters.

 

[MadCanard]

Why would Villager be nerved. Have you ever seen a Villager player win a major tournament? There's a guy in Japan who is really good, but other than that Villager is not creating enough of a stir to warrant a nerf.

I've been going to tournaments lately with Zero, M2K, Larry Lurr, K9, Tearbear, Sonicmega and the like and I can assure you that Villager is not on their OP radar.

 

[Jigglystep]

shh.. keep it down, otherwise they might find out about our secret overpowered character..

Seriously though, the only thing I feel that truly warrants a nerf is Villager's recovery.. maybe. I honestly think the complaints are spawned because of the fact that the metagame is so young and nobody knows the matchup. Villy seems underestimated in general due to the lack of players that showcase his potential, then people get unsuspectingly thrown into the ring against all of our unique shenanigans.. and bop.

Hm, food for thought.. if rising shorthop forward air hit lower, lloids had an intimidate hitbox, turnips always had the property of three, and he had a normal grab (for better punish options), then we might have an actual OP character on our hands. that sounds amazing holy heck

 

[Player-1]

Villager's recovery isn't that good, slow and easy to get hit out of. As a Diddy main with Villager secondary I'd MUCH rather have diddy's recovery for recovery purposes (not overall though since villager wouldn't be able to go in deep for edgeguards).

 

[Antonykun]

Villager's recovery isn't that good, slow and easy to get hit out of. As a Diddy main with Villager secondary I'd MUCH rather have diddy's recovery for recovery purposes (not overall though since villager wouldn't be able to go in deep for edgeguards).

Yeah, Balloon Trip is strong , but predictable, and being forced to recover really low is practically being forced to get smacked.

 

[AnchorTea]

Well great. I don't even know how my main is, just shows how much of a scrub I can be.

 

[zeezee]

Can you elaborate how the common tournament-legal stages are to Villager's disadvantage? I'm not well-versed in one stage being better for characters than others, barring a distaste for Final Destination against fast characters.

Typically half of the tourney viable stages usually present in tournaments suck for villager imo and if you think FD sucks, FD is the most doable of the worst stages for villager lmao. Three of those stages in particular are REALLY bad for him (Halberd, Castle Siege, Kongo Jungle) and since you usually only get two bans, if all those three of the really bad ones are ever present at the same time in a ruleset, your opponent will always be able to choose one of the terrible ones and give you one hell of a hard time.

I did some long writeups about what I think of each of villagers stage choices here -
http://smashboards.com/threads/villager-stage-discussion-thread.385387/

I recommend reading up DJT Hilt's opinion too as hes smarter than me about this stuff.
Again its a lot of words lol, but there you go.

Villager's recovery isn't that good, slow and easy to get hit out of. As a Diddy main with Villager secondary I'd MUCH rather have diddy's recovery for recovery purposes (not overall though since villager wouldn't be able to go in deep for edgeguards).

I try to tell this to a lot of people but they shrug it off, if your opponent is good at edgeguarding, they can really abuse the crap out of it because of how ridiculously slow it is, how the ballons make some hitboxes last longer, and how it lacks a hitbox. Oh my god has anyone played a solid game and watch before? Trying to come back from one holding the ledge and dropping to back air you when you get close then using Up B to get back is hellish.

 

[Kofu]

Typically half of the tourney viable stages usually present in tournaments suck for villager imo and if you think FD sucks, FD is the most doable of the worst stages for villager lmao. Three of those stages in particular are REALLY bad for him (Halberd, Castle Siege, Kongo Jungle) and since you usually only get two bans, if all those three of the really bad ones are ever present at the same time in a ruleset, your opponent will always be able to choose one of the terrible ones and give you one hell of a hard time.

I did some long writeups about what I think of each of villagers stage choices here -
http://smashboards.com/threads/villager-stage-discussion-thread.385387/

I recommend reading up DJT Hilt's opinion too as hes smarter than me about this stuff.
Again its a lot of words lol, but there you go.

I honestly hadn't thought about a lot of that but it's good to be aware of some of the limitations of stages (my comment about FD was general, not just for Villager). Then again, I just got the Wii U version recently and haven't had much of a chance to try out the stages.

has anyone played a solid game and watch before? Trying to come back from one holding the ledge and dropping to back air you when you get close then using Up B to get back is hellish.

you rang?

 

[Player-1]

I try to tell this to a lot of people but they shrug it off, if your opponent is good at edgeguarding, they can really abuse the crap out of it because of how ridiculously slow it is, how the ballons make some hitboxes last longer, and how it lacks a hitbox. Oh my god has anyone played a solid game and watch before? Trying to come back from one holding the ledge and dropping to back air you when you get close then using Up B to get back is hellish.

ya everyone I tell shrugs it off too and just keeps going on about how ungimpable villager is (which ya he's pretty ungimpable, he's just going to take a lot of damage not getting gimped). I haven't played a good GaW yet, but I have played vs warios where waft extends on balloons. MK and Jiggz are pretty rough too sometimes. As a villager player, your techs definitely have to be on point

 

[captain clutch]

A lot of players I have faced locally are convinced that Villager is "OP." Though I, like most players, think he's in the 10-15 range. His recovery is really good, but not nerf-worthy. If you suspect someone will try and gimp you, it's easy to fly under the stage to the other side (if the stage permits of course). But Villager and Rosalina are the only two characters who recoveries neither attack nor can lead to an attack.

I would say, though, custom Villager has top 5 potential. And he's one of the best doubles characters.

Also, I don't think the legal stage lost is that much anti-Villager. Yeah Castle Siege and Halberd are bad (the two I ban 90% of the time), and FD isn't favorable, but I really like playing on Kongo Jungle 64. Bowling ball central!

 

[zeezee]

ya everyone I tell shrugs it off too and just keeps going on about how ungimpable villager is (which ya he's pretty ungimpable, he's just going to take a lot of damage not getting gimped). I haven't played a good GaW yet, but I have played vs warios where waft extends on balloons. MK and Jiggz are pretty rough too sometimes. As a villager player, your techs definitely have to be on point

This so much they would just take you up to like 80% if they just keep you off the ledge successfully, I don't understand why people focus on gimping villager when just keeping him away is relatively easy enough given how slow his recovery is. Its not like you have to rack up a crap ton of damage too, in a game where there exists no vertical DI and villager is one of the floatiest characters in the game hes gonna be dying off the top pretty quickly. Honestly Villager was better before the patch because vertical DI existed back then and it made a huge difference. If you can't wall tech as villager you will definitely not survive, I was always particularly good at wall teching in general, but my wall teching became loads better simply because I main villager so I had to learn it the hard way lmao.

 

[AnchorTea]

This so much they would just take you up to like 80% if they just keep you off the ledge successfully, I don't understand why people focus on gimping villager when just keeping him away is relatively easy enough given how slow his recovery is. Its not like you have to rack up a crap ton of damage too, in a game where there exists no vertical DI and villager is one of the floatiest characters in the game hes gonna be dying off the top pretty quickly. Honestly Villager was better before the patch because vertical DI existed back then and it made a huge difference. If you can't wall tech as villager you will definitely not survive, I was always particularly good at wall teching in general, but my wall teching became loads better simply because I main villager so I had to learn it the hard way lmao.

Since everyone is talking about gimping Villager.

Has anyone seen anybody try to gimp Villager just by destroying his balloons and succeded?

 

[MadCanard]

Since everyone is talking about gimping Villager.

Has anyone seen anybody try to gimp Villager just by destroying his balloons and succeded?

Last night it happened to me for the first time. Just playing with a friend. He was Fox and I was Villager. I was coming up below the lip of omega battlefield and he down smashed. Popped both my balloons but didn't hit me. There's no more helpless a feeling then seeing that Villager free fall face while he's flapping his arms.

 

[AnchorTea]

Last night it happened to me for the first time. Just playing with a friend. He was Fox and I was Villager. I was coming up below the lip of omega battlefield and he down smashed. Popped both my balloons but didn't hit me. There's no more helpless a feeling then seeing that Villager free fall face while he's flapping his arms.

I'm talking about purposely. Your friend must've did it by accident.

 

[Antonykun]

I'm talking about purposely. Your friend must've did it by accident.

I don't think anyone has done it intentionally

 

[Darklink401]

Villager is top 15 material, most definitely. Top 10? Perhaps, though he has some tough competition. Top 5? Nah.

I've played against a game and watch player, and its SO frustrating trying to get back, unless I just say screw it and recover way high. Villager's recovery is amazing, in distance and mixups, but lacks any REAL safety. You can always just recover to the other side, but that wont always save you. If you could up B out of lloid, itd be a lot better.

Villager has incredibles moves overall, save his grab, but I find it interesting that the stuff people thought was OP in Villager is slowly becoming less OP, and the stuff that seemed meh is now seeming OP (aka, slingshot)


What really screws over Villager, is that faster characters can just rush him, and he is forced to take a much more defensive approach, but characters like Sheik and Captain Falcon can easily overwhelm him. With characters like Captain Falcon, its awalsy possible to early-kill him with fairs and stuff, so it is very volatile for both parties, but characters like Sheik and ZSS, have insane, safe recoveries.

However, Villager can destroy slow and/or tall characters, such as Ganon, Dedede, Ike, etc, or characters like Marth and lucina, that act with no projectiles.

His FF fair can hit any character, except for pink crouching puffballs, but overall its more useful on taller characters.


Reflectors shut down 80% of Villager's viable movepool, not even being able to fsmash safely.


Villager IS OP, yes. He can destroy a big part of the cast, yes. But his downfall, albeit padded by the existence of his amazing nair, comes with the inability to really deal with rushdowns.

He requires no nerf, IMO.

 

[Player-1]

villager definitely isn't top 15, I think he's probably like top 30 in the current metagame and will only go down

 

[Antonykun]

will only go down

This might be where we disagree...
I hardly doubt a character as unexplored as Villager will go down any time soon. If anything Villager is probably going to go up in viability once we get better in our traps and more people use them and expand their meta.

Villager is top 15 material, most definitely. Top 10? Perhaps, though he has some tough competition. Top 5? Nah.

I've played against a game and watch player, and its SO frustrating trying to get back, unless I just say screw it and recover way high. Villager's recovery is amazing, in distance and mixups, but lacks any REAL safety. You can always just recover to the other side, but that wont always save you. If you could up B out of lloid, itd be a lot better.

Villager has incredibles moves overall, save his grab, but I find it interesting that the stuff people thought was OP in Villager is slowly becoming less OP, and the stuff that seemed meh is now seeming OP (aka, slingshot)


What really screws over Villager, is that faster characters can just rush him, and he is forced to take a much more defensive approach, but characters like Sheik and Captain Falcon can easily overwhelm him. With characters like Captain Falcon, its awalsy possible to early-kill him with fairs and stuff, so it is very volatile for both parties, but characters like Sheik and ZSS, have insane, safe recoveries.

However, Villager can destroy slow and/or tall characters, such as Ganon, Dedede, Ike, etc, or characters like Marth and lucina, that act with no projectiles.

His FF fair can hit any character, except for pink crouching puffballs, but overall its more useful on taller characters.


Reflectors shut down 80% of Villager's viable movepool, not even being able to fsmash safely.


Villager IS OP, yes. He can destroy a big part of the cast, yes. But his downfall, albeit padded by the existence of his amazing nair, comes with the inability to really deal with rushdowns.

He requires no nerf, IMO.

A character that can't deal with rushdown isn't OP

 

[Darklink401]

This might be where we disagree...
I hardly doubt a character as unexplored as Villager will go down any time soon. If anything Villager is probably going to go up in viability once we get better in our traps and more people use them and expand their meta.


A character that can't deal with rushdown isn't OP

I believe Villager CAN deal with rushdown, actually.

It's just our weakest area.

I call Villager OP because even his only 'bad' move, his grab, is still a long-range grab (kinda)

But it's not OP in general...it's uh...hard to explain

He, like Megaman and Shulk, have incredible unexplored potential.

 

[Antonykun]

I believe Villager CAN deal with rushdown, actually.

It's just our weakest area.

I call Villager OP because even his only 'bad' move, his grab, is still a long-range grab (kinda)

But it's not OP in general...it's uh...hard to explain

He, like Megaman and Shulk, have incredible unexplored potential.

Then she's good...just unexplored and definitely not OP.

 

[Darklink401]

Then she's good...just unexplored and definitely not OP.

My definition of OP is weird o3o

Villager is damn good at what he does tho.

 

[captain clutch]

villager definitely isn't top 15, I think he's probably like top 30 in the current metagame and will only go down

Out of curiosity, could you name 20-25 characters you think are better than Villager?

 

[Darklink401]

With Villager's complexity and wide array of options, even if he was only top 30, I DOUBT he'd go down. His trend would most DEFINITELY be up.

 

[Player-1]

Out of curiosity, could you name 20-25 characters you think are better than Villager?

diddy, rosalina, sonic, pikachu, zss, sheik, lucario, ness, fox, yoshi, mario, megaman, greninja, mii brawler, falcon, peach, bowser, olimar, rob, wario, pacman, duck hunt, little mac, robin imo are all better.



Villager doesn't have a wide array of options that's why I'd think he'd go down. The more people learn to abuse his terrible mobility and grab the more he'd go down. He doesn't have good options to deal with people who mixup their defensive options well (shields, rolls, spotdodges). Sub-par invincible dodge options compared to the rest of the cast, poor frame data outside nair and jab. He tends to struggle vs rush down chars which make up most of the higher end of characters and even a lot of the slower chars have answers to him (rosalina and palutena with GP and reflector, Megaman's projectiles beating out ours, Lucario takes huge advantage of villager's struggle to kill and his double team amazing counter vs lloid, etc.). I think right now a lot of people don't know a lot about villager, but the more people learn about his gimmicks the less effective they'll be (Ex: dropping bowling balls of ledges, but a lot of the cast can just hit it with their recovery and it deactives the hitbox, same with the tree and slingshot pellets).

I think if he had just a little bit more he could be pretty good like any one of having a little bit more ground speed or air speed, slightly better grab, if 1 turnip didn't exist, etc. But like I said, his bad mobility and grab I think are his killers, these 2 qualities are super important in smash and by not having them I think that opens a lot of windows for people to fight AGAINST villager which outweigh the potential he has for him to fight against other characters.

 

[Darklink401]

diddy, rosalina, sonic, pikachu, zss, sheik, lucario, ness, fox, yoshi, mario, megaman, greninja, mii brawler, falcon, peach, bowser, olimar, rob, wario, pacman, duck hunt, little mac, robin imo are all better.



Villager doesn't have a wide array of options that's why I'd think he'd go down. The more people learn to abuse his terrible mobility and grab the more he'd go down. He doesn't have good options to deal with people who mixup their defensive options well (shields, rolls, spotdodges). Sub-par invincible dodge options compared to the rest of the cast, poor frame data outside nair and jab. He tends to struggle vs rush down chars which make up most of the higher end of characters and even a lot of the slower chars have answers to him (rosalina and palutena with GP and reflector, Megaman's projectiles beating out ours, Lucario takes huge advantage of villager's struggle to kill and his double team amazing counter vs lloid, etc.). I think right now a lot of people don't know a lot about villager, but the more people learn about his gimmicks the less effective they'll be (Ex: dropping bowling balls of ledges, but a lot of the cast can just hit it with their recovery and it deactives the hitbox, same with the tree and slingshot pellets).

I think if he had just a little bit more he could be pretty good like any one of having a little bit more ground speed or air speed, slightly better grab, if 1 turnip didn't exist, etc. But like I said, his bad mobility and grab I think are his killers, these 2 qualities are super important in smash and by not having them I think that opens a lot of windows for people to fight AGAINST villager which outweigh the potential he has for him to fight against other characters.

People still have trouble killing with Villager?