Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Ghostbone]

Also MK mains better hope Abadango doesn't start making waves in Japan with his MK since MK is one of those characters that abuses an overpowered minority of his kit (dash attack and uairs > up-b), while ignoring the rest of it.

 

[Amadeus9]

Also MK mains better hope Abadango doesn't start making waves in Japan with his MK since MK is one of those characters that abuses an overpowered minority of his kit (dash attack and uairs > up-b), while ignoring the rest of it.

Completely, and wholly untrue. Name one move MK has that isn't good besides f-air.

 

[momochuu]

I was being sarcastic.

Also, Icies were way less common until late into Brawl's life, meanwhile Sheik is the most common character and you're bound to come across one at least once in bracket. IMO the idea that Greninja/Sheik is nearly unwinnable is an exaggeration because MU's aren't ridiculously one-sided in this game like they were before. Not to say it isn't still awful.

you'd have to play it to believe it. greninja can barely do anything without getting slammed for it against sheik.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Completely, and wholly untrue. Name one move MK has that isn't good besides f-air.

I think the point is not that Meta Knight's other moves are bad, but that those three are so good he can mostly get by with nothing else. (This is simply interpreting the argument, I have insufficient Meta Knight experience to say anything myself.) Compare pre-nerf Diddy and Luigi, I guess?

 

[Ghostbone]

Completely, and wholly untrue. Name one move MK has that isn't good besides f-air.

We can debate what it means for a move to be good, but that's pointless.
MK's neutral game is very shallow, made up mostly of rolls, dash-grabs and his overpowered dash attack.

 

[outfoxd]

This times a million. I tried giving luigi another go and most of my matches took forever and my opponents were in the 150 range and above. My opponents usually stood in the middle of the stage so they'll survive luigi's back throw and luigi's too slow to spam up smashes and succeed

There's always a silver lining.

You could be trying to kill with Duck Hunt.

Welcome to a little part of my world. At least if your smashes touch an opponent you can be sure they connect.

 

[Amadeus9]

I think the point is not that Meta Knight's other moves are bad, but that those three are so good he can mostly get by with nothing else. (This is simply interpreting the argument, I have insufficient Meta Knight experience to say anything myself.) Compare pre-nerf Diddy and Luigi, I guess?

It's a completely unjustified opinion. Dash attack will only result in a kill in very specific percent ranges that are also specific to the matchup. MK isn't "lol throw lots of dash attacks", he has one of the hardest to work around neutrals in the game on the part of the MK player... Lots of microspacing and precise work has to be done between dair, dtilt, ftilt... Yes Dash Attack is a little better this patch but you can still just shield it. Comparing MK's Dash attack to pre-nerf Diddy or Luigi is pretty off point. Abadango was doing a ton of really complex stuff, like setting up missed techs into dtilt locks, and made us realize the potential utilt has as a combo starter. If MK was really so broken that he could mindlessly Dash Attack and that equaled a win, why is MK only getting success now in major tournaments? We've known the death combo has existed since November.

 

[Shaya]

I could say neutral air getting damage nerfs on ZSS in the future would be very justified.
I personally don't like the fact it now shares the same literal safety on shield as bair and up air do. The difference before made a clear line about which move was a punishing tool more so than a neutral one (I've been harping on ZSS mains for at least a month or two now that nair in neutral is BAD) due to how unsafe it was on shield. I hope people realise that ZeRo shielding nairo's nairs and then shield drop dash shielding right on top of him every time is something anyone could be doing against ZSS and was the best/smartest thing to do, while being an inherent issue that ZSS would have to play around. I mean... I guess it was more of an issue for ZSS against Sheik because of her crazy dash to shield time, but there is no longer two simple answers to that move (can only be used after rise of jump + not safe on shield).

Personally I'm a little confused playing ZSS as of late. I know nair is safer and it makes me want to use it more than I should still (I think). BLEEAHGHH.

Re: MK
Dash attack being as good as it is is fine, it's really just the base knock back / the potency of shuttle loop as a KO move IF ANYTHING.
Shuttle Loop is practically MK's only special move used.

 

[Blobface]

So while everyone's been hyping up Ryu and his new blockstring collarbone breaker, Ganon's just sort of been quietly sitting with his blockstring Aerial Wizkick. It's a legit shieldbreak threat against almost anyone Captain Falcon's height or lower (read: basically everyone). It's not thoroughly tested, but seeing as shield coverage is generally inversely proportional to height and being shorter moves your shield center closer to the ground, it should be a consistent rule.

Aerial Wizkick --> Side Taunt --> Reverse Warlock Punch --> Up Taunt is a true zero death combo

For reference:

Rank Position Character Average Height
1 Stand Ganondorf 5.625
2 Stand Bowser 5.55
3 Stand Rosalina and Luma 5.15
4 Stand Captain Falcon 5
5 Stand Samus 4.925
6 Stand Donkey Kong 4.925
7 Stand King Dedede 4.85
8 Stand Wii Fit 4.8
9 Stand Zelda 4.75
10 Stand Shulk 4.7
11 Stand Marth 4.7
12 Stand Zero Suit Samus 4.675
13 Stand Palutena 4.65
14 Stand Lucina 4.6
15 Stand Link 4.575
16 Stand Robin 4.51
17 Stand ROB 4.5
18 Stand Ike 4.475
19 Stand Mewtwo 4.45
20 Stand Sheik 4.425
21 Stand Peach 4.4
22 Stand Pit 4.4
23 Stand Dark Pit 4.4
24 Stand Yoshi 4.4
25 Stand Falco 4.375
26 Crouch ARM King Dedede 4.3
27 Stand Bowser Jr 4.2
28 Stand Luigi 4.2
29 Crouch Ganondorf 4.05
30 Stand Sonic 3.95
31 Stand Fox 3.9
32 Crouch Bowser 3.9
33 Stand Little Mac 3.875
34 Stand Mario 3.85
35 Stand Pac Man 3.775
36 Stand Mega Man 3.75
37 Stand Lucario 3.7
38 Crouch Samus 3.65
39 Stand Dr. Mario 3.6
40 Stand Charizard 3.575
41 Stand Villager 3.525
42 Stand Wario 3.525
43 Stand Ness 3.45
44 Stand Toon Link 3.45
45 Stand Diddy Kong 3.25
46 Crouch Donkey Kong 3.22
47 Crouch HAND Shulk 3.21
48 Crouch HEAD King Dedede 3.2
49 Crouch Mewtwo 3.2
50 Crouch Rosalina and Luma 3.175
51 Crouch Palutena 3.11
52 Stand Duck Hunt 3.1
53 Stand Mr. Game and Watch 3.075
54 Crouch ROB 3.01
55 Crouch ARM Charizard 3
56 Crouch Falco 2.91
57 Crouch Zelda 2.9
58 Stand Olimar 2.9
59 Stand Jigglypuff 2.875
60 Crouch Link 2.855
61 Crouch Pac Man 2.85
62 Crouch ARM Captain Falcon 2.85
63 Crouch Wario 2.76
64 Crouch Bowser Jr 2.75
65 Crouch HEAD Shulk 2.71
66 Crouch Fox 2.7
67 Crouch HEAD Captain Falcon 2.675
68 Crouch Toon Link 2.65
69 Stand Kirby 2.65
70 Crouch Pit 2.575
71 Crouch Dark Pit 2.575
72 Stand Pikachu 2.555
73 Crouch Robin 2.55
74 Stand Meta Knight 2.5
75 Stand Greninja 2.475
76 Crouch Zero Suit Samus 2.45
77 Crouch Peach 2.35
78 Crouch Diddy Kong 2.325
79 Crouch Luigi 2.31
80 Crouch Yoshi 2.3
81 Crouch Marth 2.3
82 Crouch Ike 2.3
83 Crouch HAND Mega Man 2.21
84 Crouch Duck Hunt 2.2
85 Crouch Lucina 2.2
86 Crouch Villager 2.175
87 Crouch Little Mac 2.11
88 Crouch Olimar 2.1
89 Crouch Dr. Mario 2.1
90 Crouch Meta Knight 2.075
91 Crouch Mario 2
92 Crouch (guess) Sonic 1.91
93 Crouch Lucario 1.9
94 Crouch HEAD Mega Man 1.8
95 Crouch HEAD Charizard 1.75
96 Crouch Ness 1.65
97 Crouch ARM Sheik 1.61
98 Crouch Greninja 1.6
99 Crouch Pikachu 1.575
100 Crouch Jigglypuff 1.3
101 Crouch Mr. Game and Watch 1.175
102 Crouch HEAD Sheik 1.15
103 Crouch Kirby 1.15
104 Crouch BUTT Wii Fit 1.075
105 Crouch HEAD Wii Fit 0.975

Waow Ganon is tall.

 

[Amadeus9]

Can't you guys just go back to thinking MK is bad? Because that's just as ignorant as thinking he's OP.

 

[Sir Tundra]

You know the more I think about it. The more I realize that sm4sh and third strike being similar might not sound so farfetch'd as one would think. In fact there even more comparable if you were to go back to pre patch since shields before 1.11 were basically the equivalent of parry's due to the lack of shield stun. While Third strike is known to be fast paced and rewards aggressive play. Both smash 4 and third strike require a character too have kill confirms and those who don't have a kill confirm of some sort will most likly not be able to compete with the competition(with a few exceptions of course) much like what @Emblem Lord mentioned a few pages back.

There's also certain character's from third strike that can be comparable to character's in smash 4.

The one I'm going to use for this example are Third strike Yang and .


Now I know this might confuse some people but let me explain.

• Both yang and fox are very fast and really aggressive .

• Both yang and fox have a terrible poking game and require to get up close and personal of course for fox this isn't much of a problem since his neutral game more then makes up for that.

• Both have very low health or in fox's case really light.

• Both have exploitable weakness's yang's being as mentioned before his lack of a poke game being easy to space out/zone out and fox being his predictable recovery.

• Mantis slash in a sense kind of reminds me of fox's jab specifically the one before 1.10. Both can chain into eachother when cancelled. However mantis slash chain only works at corners and doesn't drag on for long compared to fox's jab before 1.10.

• and Both Yang and Fox are considered to be very high up with the cast with yang being high tier or low top tier while fox is considered to be potential top 5.

The difference with these character's are fox has a way better matchup spread, fox isn't that hard to learn compared to yang, fox has a better neutral,and yang can easily stun his opponents but that's due to the fact that both the stun mechanics work very differently in both smash and street fighter so it's probably not worth mentioning.


A another character comparison I'd do(although this doesn't involve smash 4 characters) are third strike yun and

Both character's are Highly technical and hard to master although with enough practice they can basically beat any character at top level and place very high in tournaments even going as far as winning tournaments.

There also miles apart compared to there brother(yang)/predecessor() who play very similar to them.

I'm probably guessing that not every person in this thread know's what I'm talking about since some people here probably don't know much about third strike.

But for those who do would you consider accurate or nah?


Also

Luigi..

I think we can all agree that this patch has really hit luigi like a death beam to the heart his down throw to tornado.

Like what many people have said he came from getting a grab at %110 and being all like "NOW YOU DIE" to getting his opponent to %150 saying to his opponent and struggling to even get a kill

He's basically a lesser mario now as what most people said.

To be fair Luigi's down throw to cyclone was unavoidable.

It doesn't matter if you di you'll still die from it. Not even 1.04's diddy's HO HA was that obnoxious. At least you could escape the HOO HA if you DI'ed. against down throw to cyclone there was nothing you could do about it. Once you caught all you could do is sit there and watch as your opponents riding the weege train all the way to saltville. Combined with his ridiculous damage racking game(which he still has) and combo breaking game this really made luigi a huge threat in anything besides nationals. However with luigi's poor movement speed and that terrible traction, seriously luigi what kind of shoes you be wearing. I mean WHAT R THOOOOOOOOOOOOSE!!(I'm so sorry)

People really didn't see it as a big deal. At least until diddy got nerfed

After the diddy nerf people basically saw luigi as top 5 due to his easy death combo's and his gameplan

However this would only really be relevant in anything but nationals.

Still this got people begging for him to get nerfs. Which didn't happen till 4 patches later.

Fast forward a few months and.....

luigi mains are now crying in the luigi boards, fox and pikachu mains are now celebrating with joy, and now ryu has became a shield breaker monster.

So that begs the question.

Was luigi's nerfs really justifiable?

It depends on the prespective.

If your a luigi who's been maining him since 64 and finally whe luigi becomes a really good character only to get a harsh nerf hurting his viabilty. Then no. Y'all better off maining mario now or better yet just main sheik

But for those who were sick of luigi's **** ever since diddy got nerfed and were complaining about it for months *cough* Shaya *cough* . Then this is the best thing that ever happened since smash existence.

 

[Ghostbone]

Can't you guys just go back to thinking MK is bad? Because that's just as ignorant as thinking he's OP.

Nobody is saying he's OP, just that part of his kit is overpowered and the trend the balance team has followed is to nerf characters with kits that focus on a few abusive moves.

 

[Mettie7]

It's a completely unjustified opinion. Dash attack will only result in a kill in very specific percent ranges that are also specific to the matchup. MK isn't "lol throw lots of dash attacks", he has one of the hardest to work around neutrals in the game on the part of the MK player... Lots of microspacing and precise work has to be done between dair, dtilt, ftilt... Yes Dash Attack is a little better this patch but you can still just shield it. Comparing MK's Dash attack to pre-nerf Diddy or Luigi is pretty off point. Abadango was doing a ton of really complex stuff, like setting up missed techs into dtilt locks, and made us realize the potential utilt has as a combo starter. If MK was really so broken that he could mindlessly Dash Attack and that equaled a win, why is MK only getting success now in major tournaments? We've known the death combo has existed since November.

This, all this basically. The percents for the death combo are very strict, some within a range of percents, some even as strict as a single specific percent with a specific hitbox, not to mention the timing. On paper this combo may look easy and OP, when in reality there are a lot of factors that go into this to make it work optimally. Aba makes it look easy because he's been practicing MK 24/7.

 

[Blobface]

Why is the first thing people associate with pre-patch diddy the Hoo Hah? I thought it was commonly agreed that the thing that made Diddy unforgivably broken was U-throw --> U-air.

 

[David Viran]

Why is the first thing people associate with pre-patch diddy the Hoo Hah? I thought it was commonly agreed that the thing that made Diddy unforgivably broken was U-throw --> U-air.

Uthrow -> uair didn't get abused for as long because it just came way later.

 

[Sir Tundra]

Why is the first thing people associate with pre-patch diddy the Hoo Hah? I thought it was commonly agreed that the thing that made Diddy unforgivably broken was U-throw --> U-air.

That's because the HOO Hah was more infamous/known/used in the community compared to U-throw -> U-air.

 

[Firefoxx]

The fact that up throw - up air was crazy broken didn't matter because down throw - up air was good enough to win against 95% of players

 

[Ghostbone]

U-throw > uair was only barely being developed before Diddy got patched.
And 1.0.6 u-throw combo'd a lot better than 1.0.4 u-throw afaik, so I'm not too sure how broken it was with the old uair, would have only worked in very specific % ranges.

 

[Antonykun]

for the love of,
G Green L

you keep talking about Luigi's Weaknesses in a vacuum. As in "hey look Luigi has goddawful mobility" while ignoring how Luigi doesn't lose against most characters for being camped simply because of fire ball "Fireball into grab isn't a thing ever" Fireball is still good projectile that allows Luigi to have a presence way farther that someone with mobility that terrible is expected to

I can seriously relate to you on the subject of saying "get good/exploit weaknesses" as a solution against certain less-than-savory character strategies (I was like this for customs villager, still think she's amazing when not played like some ledge campy wimp, but that ledge campy playstyle is still there and is a total unhealthy strain on the opponent and the audience) but to simply ignore that pre 1.1.1 Luigi can put on alot of damage and kill you (from a guaranteed follow up, in a game where such a thing is uncommon, might I add) simply by throwing out fireballs/dash grabs and hoping you messed up (and you will mess up as you are human) is simply gross.

Everyone here agrees, Luigi isn't that good. He's no Brawl MK, Melee Fox, 1.0.4 Diddy, heck he's not even pre 1.1.1 Sheik but that doesn't mean that his play style isn't unpleasantly lopsided with how easy it is relative to cast.

 

[LancerStaff]

One last "Luigi-related fix" would be not making rapid jabs be interrupted when you try to use them. Is this a Falco and previously a Fox only problem? Has any Kirby, Pit, Captain Falcon, Sheik, Robin, Rosalina, Greninja, Duck Hunt, Diddy, Bowser Jr., Triple D, Mewtwo, Palutena, Little Mac, and Mr. Game & Watch had the displeasure of using a jab only to get frame 5 and below punished? I say Luigi since he's popular and his clean Nair is really strong like Yoshi's. It's kind of a not okay when a Mario or Fox do it, but when a Luigi or Yoshi do it, it can be a stock and a, "What the hell? Why!?" It's just ridiculous you can punish a basic, simple action like that.

We don't rapid jab much... Even after the buffs it's still notable as the only mediocre normal in Pit's arsenal. Does like 2% more then the normal jab with one loop and you'll never get two if you hit with jab 2. Not to say it's useless, but it's the only move of his besides Dspecial that you could really call situational. Besides those two I use each and every one of Pit's moves in every match, so it's hard to complain.

 

[Green L]

Fireball is still good projectile that allows Luigi to have a presence way farther that someone with mobility that terrible is expected to

Fireballs aren't as good as people portray them to be. Just powershield or jab them and the fireballs disappear.
The luigi mains' skill pre patch was completely ignored. No one mentioned that maybe Mr concon or Boss are just good players. You would still lose big time if you play a mediocre pre patch luigi. All you had to was to spotdodge luigi's grabs. It's a simple solution. Just spotdodge, then luigi wouldn't be able to KO you.

 

[ARGHETH]

Fireballs aren't as good as people portray them to be. Just powershield or jab them and the fireballs disappear.
The luigi mains' skill pre patch was completely ignored. No one mention that maybe Mr concon or Boss are just good players. You would still lose big time if you play a mediocre pre patch luigi. All you had to was to spotdodge luigi's grabs. It's a simple solution. Just spotdodge, then luigi wouldn't be able to KO you.

You'd lose big time if you played against a high level player at a mediocre level, yes.
And saying "just spotdodge" is literally the least helpful thing you could have said. Spotdodge at the wrong time, and you get KOd anyways. It's like saying "Just powershield Shield Breaker!"

 

[Pyr]

You'd lose big time if you played against a high level player at a mediocre level, yes.
And saying "just spotdodge" is literally the least helpful thing you could have said. Spotdodge at the wrong time, and you get KOd anyways. It's like saying "Just powershield Shield Breaker!"

No. No. Follow this advice. Spot dodge the grab. I'd love to kill people under 65% with Up-B for free.

 

[Mr. Johan]

Not to mention Luigi's grab is so quick he can Frame 2 Jab you out of any option you may try to use to punish him after spotdodging.

 

[Vipermoon]

You'd lose big time if you played against a high level player at a mediocre level, yes.
And saying "just spotdodge" is literally the least helpful thing you could have said. Spotdodge at the wrong time, and you get KOd anyways. It's like saying "Just powershield Shield Breaker!"

Or now you can just shield Shield Breaker.

Joking (partially joking) aside, to summarize what we have said in this thread, without kill confirms a character hits a glass ceiling. As character development gets more optimal (there is a long way to go but we already see fantastic optimization attempts) this becomes even more true.

With that said... Marth:

Not having reliable kill comfirms and not much to make up for it (and a huge lack of results), in my opinion, makes Marth way worse than some of us thought. I'm beginning to think at least in this current patch that lower mid-tier is Marth's glass ceiling.

 

[Shaya]

Well at least the match up with ZSS wouldn't be as bad, her stuff was safe on her shield already, now our stuff isn't a guaranteed grab oos =)

His life kinda revolves around up air. Landing up air tipper will combo into uair at kill percent, sour up airs lead into anything at nearly any percent, etc.

I do think this patch hurt Roy more than Marth did, but asides from a few select match ups (any match up about zoning people out/slowing down the game pace) Roy did better before and probably still does.
Shieldbreaker nerf kinda hurt but I suppose the fact that it was actually usable made it too good >_> it's still pretty good though and benefits by being safer on shield this patch.

 

[|RK|]

Can we talk about Sheik's kill power? Yes, she has 50/50s, Bouncing Fish works well, etc. But I'm starting to see Sheiks struggle to kill a lot more as time goes on. It's getting painfully obvious that her kill power, while not enough to remove her from the top, is more of a weakness than previously believed.

Am I crazy, or does anyone else see it?

 

[Vipermoon]

At Big House I definitely noticed one extremely obvious problem:

Even though Sheik usually wins neutral, when her opponents do, they do a lot more damage and end up keeping up with her damage-wise. We knew this, but I paid extra attention to it last weekend.

 

[Quickhero]

With that said... Marth:

Not having reliable kill comfirms and not much to make up for it (and a huge lack of results), in my opinion, makes Marth way worse than some of us thought. I'm beginning to think at least in this current patch that lower mid-tier is Marth's glass ceiling.

Sir, Marth has the kill-confirm, jab to f-smash is very much a real thing. I wish we have actually seen Marth's in tournaments though..

 

[Vipermoon]

Sir, Marth has the kill-confirm, jab to f-smash is very much a real thing. I wish we have actually seen Marth's in tournaments though..

I did one of those on stream at TBH (plus a couple of shield breaks from a move I'll miss dearly; the crowd was hype) I'm planning on posting the footage to the Marth boards when Tourney Locator uploads it to Youtube.

But anyway, I said reliable kill confirms. That, unfortunately, nullifies your argument especially at higher levels of play.

 

[MachoCheeze]

So while everyone's been hyping up Ryu and his new blockstring collarbone breaker, Ganon's just sort of been quietly sitting with his blockstring Aerial Wizkick. It's a legit shieldbreak threat against almost anyone Captain Falcon's height or lower (read: basically everyone). It's not thoroughly tested, but seeing as shield coverage is generally inversely proportional to height and being shorter moves your shield center closer to the ground, it should be a consistent rule.

Aerial Wizkick --> Side Taunt --> Reverse Warlock Punch --> Up Taunt is a true zero death combo

I pulled this off tonight (sans taunts lol) and it felt SO GOOD.

 

[TurboLink]

Sir, Marth has the kill-confirm, jab to f-smash is very much a real thing. I wish we have actually seen Marth's in tournaments though..

It never works for me. Players jump out of it every single time.

 

[Mario766]

Ike doesn't have reliable kill confirms outside of very specific circumstances or off an air dodge read.

3 Ikes in top 32 at Big House.

Don't really need Kill Confirms until you play against characters WITH them then you start to feel really ****ty.

 

[Teshie U]

Can we talk about Sheik's kill power? Yes, she has 50/50s, Bouncing Fish works well, etc. But I'm starting to see Sheiks struggle to kill a lot more as time goes on. It's getting painfully obvious that her kill power, while not enough to remove her from the top, is more of a weakness than previously believed.

Am I crazy, or does anyone else see it?

She realistically has to deal with max range in most relevant matchups consistently, but she is definitely safe enough to handle it.

I wish she was more geared towards early kills from her precision instead of soooo much safety. The fact that she isn't rewarded for opponents making a huge error on stage just encourages her to be played pretty boring.

They just keep removing damage and knockback from her, and it just makes her more and more annoying while STILL being the best. It would be nice to see them do something cool with dsmash or give bouncing fish some power back (in exchange for all the stupid invincibility and hitbox size)

 

[Ghostbone]

She realistically has to deal with max range in most relevant matchups consistently, but she is definitely safe enough to handle it.

I wish she was more geared towards early kills from her precision instead of soooo much safety. The fact that she isn't rewarded for opponents making a huge error on stage just encourages her to be played pretty boring.

They just keep removing damage and knockback from her, and it just makes her more and more annoying while STILL being the best. It would be nice to see them do something cool with dsmash or give bouncing fish some power back (in exchange for all the stupid invincibility and hitbox size)

Realistically she can definitely catch air-dodges with up-smash for relatively early KOs, it happens quite a lot at top level.

It would be nice if they reverted the bair nerf and made f-smash actually link.
I don't know what nerfs would compensate for that though, suddenly you've taken away Sheik's weaknesses, and she's already the best character. I'd rather she keep her current strengths and weaknesses rather than homogenizing her by nerfing her strengths and buffing her weaknesses.

 

[Thinkaman]

It would be nice to see them do something cool with dsmash or give bouncing fish some power back (in exchange for all the stupid invincibility and hitbox size)

If you put a gun to my head and demanded to nerf Bouncing Fish, I'd increase endlag modestly.

 

[Teshie U]

Reverting Bair would be...a bit much imo. It is tied for fastest Bair in the game and it was kind of powerful for a character could go so deep off stage to hit you with it. It would need to punishable enough that you dont throw it out like fair.

I'd be down with more lag on fish, its dumb in so many ways after all. Shoots through the air quickly, with invincibility, crazy hitbox, no helpless, reactionary mixups after you commit to it.

 

[bc1910]

Did the patch help Greninja at all? His out of shield game has always been a weak point, and that likely got even worse. Did any of his important moves get safer on shield? What about Shuriken? He's always been on the fringe of high tier, but Sheik being so common in tournament hurts his presence quite a bit.

His OoS game was always crap, the fact it's even worse now really doesn't hurt him. He's gone from not being able to punish anything on block to... not being able to punish anything on block. He benefits way more from everyone else's shield being worse than he loses from his own being worse. He also benefits from any change that makes mobility more important, for obvious reasons.

He's gained safety on shield for Fair and Ftilt, giving him the safe pokes he desperately needed. Nair and Dtilt are also safe but harder to pull off (Nair needs a frame perfect landing to not get grabbed and Dtilt needs perfect spacing). Shurikens cause more blockstun making his zoning better and the fully charged one's last hit has a hitlag multiplier which traps the opponent in block and guarantees a dashgrab at certain ranges.

He's easily high tier and it's a very good point that one really bad MU is not enough to push a character out of viability. Falco and Jigglypuff both have some horrendous MUs in Melee and everyone lost to MK in Brawl, but MK still wasn't the only character winning. Greninja should fare pretty well this patch. All IMO of course.

Ignoring the Sheik issue, the main thing keeping him out of top 10 now is his lack of practical kill confirms. This could be worked around with improvement of Dthrow Fair setups, and rage Uthrow is looking dumber by the day as well.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Luigi had multiple weaknesses, as in plural. It's the player's fault for not exploiting them

Let me be put this in perspective: Melee Fox has weaknesses too. So did Brawl Dedede. It doesn't make them balanced.

 

[Steelballray]

I will never for the life understand how you guys find it in you to say that Luigi deserved any kind of nerf when Ness can KO as early as Luigi does with his backthrow. Or how ZSS gets her insane combos out of down throw to kill you at like 60%. Rosalina killing you with an uair at 50% and having a lagless autocancel-able dair that is as strong as Falcon's Knee.
Both of these characters invalidates the middle and lower part of the cast WAY harder than Luigi ever did.
Luigi had actual exploitable issues and even ways to DI his D-throw to minimise the damage output of them greatly and delay the chances of dying to no less than 130% even if done correctly. Stop ignoring these fact.

If you considered pre patch Luigi's D-throw more of an issue than all of these things mentioned above you need to rethink that logic of yours.

Re: MK's dashattack

Ghostbone it is not at all overpowered and it does not require any kind of fixing or nerfs whatsoever. Please stop spreading misinformations that could lead people to thinking so. A character with **** for approaches is very justifiable to have a good dash attack at the very least. Nothing is overpowered about it. Refer to the upper half of my post for actual bull**** moves that need to be nerfed.