Kirby's Good Now.... Lolwut?

[Burning Boom]

This might be a bit pre-mature, but this is the Project M section of Smashboards, a place of baseless predictions, incomplete testing, and half-baked opinion, so I'm just going to say that Kirby is AWESOME in 3.0. I think that he's mid-high tier, and I love how they the team didn't make any fundamental changes, but just altered little details, so he's still the same puffball we know and love.

Anyway, on to the topic of this thread. Ever since Melee released (I believe) Kirby has been a crap character for competitive Smash, and we who dared used him had to use what minor tricks we had, and try to get by with whatever we could pull out of our a**. Kirby is now a good character, so I want us in the community to share what were the things about Kirby that just left you in shock and awe when you found out how useful they were.

I'll start by saying that his n-air made me pause the game and re-evaluate my life for a moment. All of my life, it had been imprinted onto my brain that n-air was unusable, and the only reason it should ever be seen is due to a whiffed input. And then I threw out there to see, and WOW. It's now a good approaching tool, great for defensive play, and can just generally be thrown out there for a hitbox.

 

[Jacob29]

Really love the nair.

Getting combod? Nair.
Going for an edgeguard? Nair.
Want to start a combo? Nair.

And the little guy is doing a happy spin! What's not to love.

 

[Jethroo]

Ya, the n-air is freaking amazing. I'm also loving the forward up-b to and how you can use another attack right out of it or just escape. The dash is nice, but have to be careful not to get smashed in the face.

 

[Lostimos]

Oh, Kirby. They made him a complete monster in P:M, i especially enjoy the up B to the side allowing for better aerial combos. Since i've played against enough Kirby's in the past few days i also can say he is annoying to play against as well. The combos he can pull off are insane sometimes.

 

[HighTen]

I haven't investigated too much on my own yet, but what have people found to be good combos out of a grab?

 

[hotdogturtle]

I am potentially switching mains from Wario to Kirby, and I've noticed that their nairs are kind of similar. They come out really fast and have a strong-ish hit on the startup and a lingering hitbox afterward. After getting it into my head to "use nair every time I wanted to use uair" (I never used Kirby in Melee but for some reason I kept trying to uair a lot on the first day of 3.0), I feel like I can use Kirby's nair in most of the same situations that I would have used Wario's.

 

[Jacob29]

I haven't investigated too much on my own yet, but what have people found to be good combos out of a grab?

I think D-Throw is the only combo-able grab.. but im not too certain on that.

You can do D-throw, Up-Tilt or D-Throw tech chase if you can get a read, managed to do that 3/4 times to someone.

Might be able to do D-Throw, Up-Tilt, Up-Smash as a finisher but I have a feeling the tilt will send them too far.

 

[Stalin]

I think D-Throw is the only combo-able grab.. but im not too certain on that.

You can do D-throw, Up-Tilt or D-Throw tech chase if you can get a read, managed to do that 3/4 times to someone.

Might be able to do D-Throw, Up-Tilt, Up-Smash as a finisher but I have a feeling the tilt will send them too far.

I think that SH final cutter is good when just out of reach but i prefer uthrow dair to nair. Side b when spacedproperly after the throw can kill.

 

[skellitorman]

Although this is by far the best Kirby since 64 days, there are only a few things that I don't like and that I feel should be reevaluated.

1. Inhale + copy: This is by far the most important thing that I feel should be reevaluated. Although the percent done is not important, the fact that the opponent STILL recovers before you is really bad. When copying the ability of Fox (I imagine other fast fallers as well), he recovers before Kirby and he appears literally directly over Kirby in attack range. Kirby should not be at a disadvantage for successfully copying the opponent.

Even against non fast fallers, there are many characters who I'd rather not have recover first and above me since Kirby's options that hit upwards have little range, and will get outprioritized by many characters' downward attack options.

2. Inhale + starshot: Although inhale now functions as it should I still feel that the opponent should not be able to cancel starshot. Shortening the range if necessary should be fine, but again I feel that Kirby should be rewarded for using this move. This change should also apply to Dedede.

3. Unnecessary sweetspots: Although I don't like the aerial hammer's sweetspot I can completely understand why its there. The sweetspots that I don't think should be there is for the downsmash, but particularily for the upsmash.

Upsmash: There's either two main KO hitboxes, or the power changes significantly after the first active frame. The powerful part kills bowser at about 115% (with normal DI) in the middle of FD. The other kills at about 140% (with normal DI). Just for a comparison, Pikachu's Upsmash kills bowser at 90% (with normal DI) in the middle of FD (and he can kill at much earlier percents with his thunder combo. Pikachu kills Kirby at around 40-60 percent with this move). I think it would be fair for Kirby to have the power of the first part throughout the second part.

Downsmash: I know that in previous builds his strongest hitbox has been nearest to him, but I think it would be fair to have his sweetspot damage throughout the extended hitbox, considering the ending lag it has.

4. Up air: Functionally the move is great. But aesthetically I feel that it looks so flimsy as a KO move.

 

[B.W.]

People use Up-air as a KO move? I use that **** to combo heavies all day.

In Melee it was a pretty good (for Kirby) horizontal KO move. I wish it was still like that, but as it is right now, it's way better for combos.

Kirby's ability to get star-KOs isn't fantastic. It's as good as it needs to be though imo. He's very good at racking up damage and getting horizontal kills and he's incredible when it comes to gimping.

 

[XStarWarriorX]

Horizontal cutter man.... like woah.

And dat nair, finally it isn't so useless anymore.

And dat burning, love that dash attack.

He just plays so well, I effortlessly can get people into combos now, melee kirby had to work so hard for a kill now with PM kirby I can finally let things flow....

I love this kirby so so much.

 

[skellitorman]

People use Up-air as a KO move? I use that **** to combo heavies all day.

In Melee it was a pretty good (for Kirby) horizontal KO move. I wish it was still like that, but as it is right now, it's way better for combos.

Kirby's ability to get star-KOs isn't fantastic. It's as good as it needs to be though imo. He's very good at racking up damage and getting horizontal kills and he's incredible when it comes to gimping.

It definitely can work in combos, but at later percents it can KO at percents that you could kill with smash attacks.

Although Star KOs would be cool, it's not that important. However, the person being shot as a star from Kirby's mouth can currently cancel the star animation. I don't think the opponent should be able to do that, since it makes the move very unrewarding for its risk.

 

[Frost | Odds]

It definitely can work in combos, but at later percents it can KO at percents that you could kill with smash attacks.

Although Star KOs would be cool, it's not that important. However, the person being shot as a star from Kirby's mouth can currently cancel the star animation. I don't think the opponent should be able to do that, since it makes the move very unrewarding for its risk.

It's not unusually risky if you just use it as an aerial command grab.

 

[skellitorman]

It's not unusually risky if you just use it as an aerial command grab.

I don't mean that it is unusually risky (although it can be against certain characters). I mean that the risk it does have is not worth the reward if using star shot since the opponent can cancel the star animation, thus losing a major part of the reward (the positioning obtained from the star shot).

 

[Frost | Odds]

It's cancelled strictly with the double jump, right? If yes, that's a decent positional advantage that you get. Just hang out below them and shieldgrab or nair?

I don't think anyone wants to be in the air against Kirbs.

 

[Ginge]

Is it safe to say Kirby's Wall/Fence of Pain is insanely viable now? Cause damn... Not to mention his spike game with d-air.

My only complaint has to be losing all my puffs if I'm hit out of Up-B. I mean, if I'm recovering to the stage with one jump and an Up-B, but get smashed, I only have Up-B to recover? The alternative is just using extra puffs to recover if you don't get gimped in the process, but I don't see the need to instantly lose them all when using Up-B.

 

[Phan7om]

I haven't investigated too much on my own yet, but what have people found to be good combos out of a grab?

Out of D-Throw on floaties around the 90% mark you can Up-Smash or F-smash them. You can also get like 3-4 dthrow cgs on floaties around 15% (for maximum throws) if you follow DI.

 

[Kankato]

Out of D-Throw on floaties around the 90% mark you can Up-Smash or F-smash them. You can also get like 3-4 dthrow cgs on floaties around 15% (for maximum throws) if you follow DI.

Thanks for the advice :3
I'm having trouble getting anything out of Utilt at lower percentages.
Do you use Utilt to setup things, pressure shields, what?

 

[Frost | Odds]

Setup more utilts and aerials, or turn around and grab them out of the air. Once they start flying too high to utilt, you can juggle some characters with uair. Sometimes safer to just nair or bair them, or use neut B to get easy 8% or copy.

 

[Kankato]

Setup more utilts and aerials, or turn around and grab them out of the air. Once they start flying too high to utilt, you can juggle some characters with uair. Sometimes safer to just nair or bair them, or use neut B to get easy 8% or copy.

I run into the problem of my opponent losing hitstun before converting anything, which is why I asked about setups. For juggling at high %, it can be very fun on YS and what not.

 

[Frost | Odds]

Ah, alright. Your quickest/safest options, then, will be either nair or suck.

 

[Kyu Puff]

Honestly, my first impression of Kirby was that he's still pretty bad.

 

[Frost | Odds]

I'm actually scared to post about kirby's matchups or how I think he should be played, because i think he's really REALLY strong; but playstyle isn't obvious and he's really bad if played wrong.

Got a big regional tournament coming up and I don't want to reveal secrets just yet, but also want to help

Might write up a guide, and then just post it after tourney

Not to presume that I'm a better player than anyone else here or anything; but I've been testing a LOT. And could also be wrong.

 

[SSS]

I'm actually scared to post about kirby's matchups or how I think he should be played, because i think he's really REALLY strong; but playstyle isn't obvious and he's really bad if played wrong.

Got a big regional tournament coming up and I don't want to reveal secrets just yet, but also want to help

Might write up a guide, and then just post it after tourney

Not to presume that I'm a better player than anyone else here or anything; but I've been testing a LOT. And could also be wrong.

Then we should do a guide with various people giving their opinions, yeah?

 

[combatcoldcuts]

I'm actually scared to post about kirby's matchups or how I think he should be played, because i think he's really REALLY strong; but playstyle isn't obvious and he's really bad if played wrong.

I completely agree. He has some problems against characters with normals/tilts with good range (Roy in particular comes to mind), but I've been doing very well against everyone else.

 

[skellitorman]

It's cancelled strictly with the double jump, right? If yes, that's a decent positional advantage that you get. Just hang out below them and shieldgrab or nair?

I don't think anyone wants to be in the air against Kirbs.

Many characters beat Kirby in the air because their aerial attacks have superior range and significantly disjointed hitboxes. Kirby doesn't have much range with his aerial attacks going upwards nor does he have significantly disjointed hitboxes like characters with weapons. So having certain characters above Kirby in the air is generally not a good position for Kirby. Kirby's aerial control although better than before still isn't that fast, to where he can dodge an opponent's aerial attacks easily. It's not like Wario or Jigglypuff.

 

[Daftatt]

are there any good combos into hammer?

 

[9bit]

Alright I gotta know some of those characters from your sig.

So far I got Luigi, Mario, DK(?), Link, Samus, Ness(?), Captain Falcon, Yoshi, Kirby, no clue, Pikachu(?), Jigglypuff(?)

 

[Soft Serve]

i think the "no Clue" is fox

 

[Ginge]

The Smash 64 roster.

 

[Daftatt]

Alright I gotta know some of those characters from your sig.

So far I got Luigi, Mario, DK(?), Link, Samus, Ness(?), Captain Falcon, Yoshi, Kirby, no clue, Pikachu(?), Jigglypuff(?)

luigi, mario, DK, link, samus, capt. falcon, ness, yoshi, kirby, fox, pikachu, jiggs

does anyone know any combos into hammer? I was thinking maybe D-throw at some percentages.

 

[BlueYoshi129]

Kirby was good in brawl too.