Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[NachoOfCheese]

I think this matchup is 60/40 in CF favor, or even.

Dude.
These are two radically different claims.

 

[Kaladin]

Dude.
These are two radically different claims.

Not really. At least, I'd hypothesise he's the kind of person that considers 60:40 to be 45:55.

 

[Rand0]

Dude.
These are two radically different claims.

Yeah I really just used that to mean like very slightly in cf favor, like 54:46, or somethin

 

[ILOVESMASH]

IMO the only character with worse recovery than mac is ganondorf just because his recovery is not only slow and linear, but has no protection whatsoever. Little mac's recovery at least has protection with its super armor unlike ganon's and the fact that its significantly faster helps little mac avoid gimps near the ledge, unlike ganon. I don't think robin's recovery is worse given the fact that it travels more distance, but I do agree w/ a2zomg that its easier to edge guard given the fact that it travels so slowly+ robin not having hitboxes on his body

 

[LancerStaff]

Don't have a very high opinion of Robin... His recovery is very bad on paper and I seem to remember Dabuz making a complete laughing stock out of Nairo abusing said recovery.

Myself, I'm going to say I'm biased because Pit pretty much destroys Robin's recovery. Even if Levin Uair is somehow too godly to challenge, I can just plink away with arrows with a firing rate basically equal to Luigi's fireballs and burn uses. With my frame 10 spike being a thing and how I seem to catch Robins offstage without Levin anyway, my matches against Robins almost always end in gimps.

Oh yeah, Guardian Orbitars does hilarious stuff too since I think it'll spike Robin down if I reflect it the right way.

 

[Blobface]

Ganon's recovery is bad, no doubt, but it's not worse than Mac's. Not to say Mac's aerials are useless, but they won't do him much good in an edgeguard situation, unlike Ganon.

 

[Trifroze]

A recovery comes down to how easy it is to hit the character out of / after their mid-air jump just as much as it comes down to how reliable their up b is. Ganondorf has a bad mid-air jump but his aerials offer him great protection and he can stall a little bit because his up b's distance is actually good, further increasing the difficulty of hitting him out of his jump.

Someone like Ness is actually tough to hit out of his second jump because of how far it takes him and due to his aerial mobility, airdodge and fair, but when you do hit him there's not much he can do with his up b.

Then there's Little Mac, who is by far the easiest to hit after his mid-air jump because his aerials offer him no protection and the jump height is really bad. His side b and up b also don't take him far in the air so he's forced to be very linear. I think people are only now realizing that gimping Mac isn't actually 100% free and taking this idea so far that they conclude he somehow doesn't have the worst recovery in the game.

 

[Djent]

Dude.
These are two radically different claims.

Depending on the degree of precision to which one is comfortable assigning MU ratios, it may or may not be.

EDIT 10/28: People should definitely read Ghostbone 's response (it's two below mine). He says what I was getting at and more.

 

[A2ZOMG]

As long as Robin has her double jump, you literally cannot auto-pilot punish.

Which she will.

Further to the point, if you're arguing about theoryland where all punishes are perfect, then everything you are saying is meaningless anyway, as it has no actual application to the reality the rest of us are living in.

Robin can still be zoned out offstage by projectiles or empty movements, meaning the best chance Robin has for a close to 50/50 mixup to prevent autopilots is forcing something like an airdodge read after double jump. If a player does not get baited by that, Elwind is still almost guaranteed to be a free reaction punish due to its horrible animation and Robin lacking virtually any other resource to mix up momentum.

I will agree double jump mixups are universally good for avoiding edgeguards as a Ganon main, but that was definitely did not explain Zero missing completely free damage in the video you linked me. Most players across the world, even high level players, have rather underdeveloped edgeguards for this game, and at least in some matchups, I do think recoveries like those of Robin, Ganon, Falcon, Roy, and a few others can be legitimately autopilot punished. It's only a question of people understanding how to maneuver around the ledge better to cover options and force bad counter-responses.

 

[Ghostbone]

Dude.
These are two radically different claims.

6:4 is the closest a matchup can be without being even.
55:45 is some bs smashboards thing because people think they can analyse matchups that precisely (or even more precisely in the case of the Brawl Pikachu boards using DECIMALS). This is the reason the Brawl matchup chart used +/- 1-4 rather than traditional matchup ratios, because the traditional matchup ratios have lost all meaning here and different people see the severity of a 6:4 matchup very differently.

The guy's point was that Falcon has a slight advantage over Mario, or that the matchup was even, those two things aren't radically different and it's often hard to tell the difference between a +1 and 0. (especially only a year into a game's life, which is constantly patched)

 

[Yikarur]

Almost every recovery in this game is fine as long as you know how to use and spare your double jump, which is the most important resource for recovering for most characters..

 

[Nobie]

Dorf side b is still a thing. If he's up a stock or it's a last stock situation, it can be scary to challenge him head on, and not every character has the luxury of a nice ranged edgeguard.

 

[LancerStaff]

Dorf side b is still a thing. If he's up a stock or it's a last stock situation, it can be scary to challenge him head on, and not every character has the luxury of a nice ranged edgeguard.

But then if he's down a stock then you can block him by just standing in front of him.

 

[Kaladin]

Pink Fresh just absolutely bodied snow, and is currently in losers' semis. Lucas is good.

 

[Mario766]

Dorf side b is still a thing. If he's up a stock or it's a last stock situation, it can be scary to challenge him head on, and not every character has the luxury of a nice ranged edgeguard.

They can just go over, or cover his get-up options.

or just not let him grab you because his commmand grab is rather...terrible.

 

[Mazdamaxsti]

Am I hearing people say Doc has a not bad recovery? Please. Any character that can go deep can kill him. Tornado stall is easily punished, his up-b has no range, Doc's mobility isn't that great, and other things. It is definitely one of the worst recoveries.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Am I hearing people say Doc has a not bad recovery? Please. Any character that can go deep can kill him. Tornado stall is easily punished, his up-b has no range, Doc's mobility isn't that great, and other things. It is definitely one of the worst recoveries.

Good players DI well and if Doc has the option to recover high, you are NOT trivially punishing a Tornado stall.

Doc has a fairly easy time transitioning from high to low recovery assuming LIKE A GOOD PLAYER you DI properly. Reactively stall out edgeguard attempts above their edgeguard range, and then conserve double jump and airdodge as necessary. Not that difficult.

Most characters don't have nearly as robust of an aerial mixup and stalling option available. And to be serious, if you're going to argue Doc sucks against semispikes, MOST characters get bodied by them.

Doc's biggest weakness is landing options. Recovery doesn't matter at a high level assuming you DI properly given Doc actually has real momentum mixup options to juke away from edgeguard attempts without wasting his jump.

 

[Mazdamaxsti]

Good players DI well and if Doc has the option to recover high, you are NOT trivially punishing a Tornado stall.

Doc has a fairly easy time transitioning from high to low recovery assuming LIKE A GOOD PLAYER you DI properly. Reactively stall out edgeguard attempts above their edgeguard range, and then conserve double jump and airdodge as necessary. Not that difficult.

Most characters don't have nearly as robust of an aerial mixup and stalling option available. And to be serious, if you're going to argue Doc sucks against semispikes, MOST characters get bodied by them.

Doc's biggest weakness is landing options. Recovery doesn't matter at a high level assuming you DI properly given Doc actually has real momentum mixup options to juke away from edgeguard attempts without wasting his jump.

Your entire argument is "a GOOD player will do this" and "He can stall out attempts" yet the fact of the matter is that this doesn't matter. A good player can recover, but against a good player who can edge-guard just as effectively it doesn't matter. Doc has a bad recovery.

Being able to stall your recovery doesn't mean anything. So many characters can do this, but they have better up-bs and other options. Baiting also isn't a guarantee, if they read you trying to bait and hit you in tornado's end lag, to put it simply, Doc is ****ed. Unlike other characters, being hit once can kill Doc.

 

[Antonykun]

Good players DI well and if Doc has the option to recover high, you are NOT trivially punishing a Tornado stall.

Doc has a fairly easy time transitioning from high to low recovery assuming LIKE A GOOD PLAYER you DI properly. Reactively stall out edgeguard attempts above their edgeguard range, and then conserve double jump and airdodge as necessary. Not that difficult.

Most characters don't have nearly as robust of an aerial mixup and stalling option available. And to be serious, if you're going to argue Doc sucks against semispikes, MOST characters get bodied by them.

Doc's biggest weakness is landing options. Recovery doesn't matter at a high level assuming you DI properly given Doc actually has real momentum mixup options to juke away from edgeguard attempts without wasting his jump.

dude Doc can stall all he wants but with that endlag on tornado, I rather have balloon trip as my recovery (you guys should know how i feel about balloon trip as an actual recovery as opposed to the game saying "its cool bruh, go as deep as you want") than Doc tornado + SJP. at least I'm not screaming to the world "HEY GUYS COME SPIKE ME NOW" in body language while I'm being a blatant hurtbox.

and thats not even covering the distance issue

 

[Blobface]

Ganoncide is almost never a good tactic vs edgeguarding. It loses to everything and starts on Frame 19. You really can only use it vs edgeguarding if you know exactly what move your opponent is going to do and where their hurtboxes and hitboxes are going to go. It's not impossible, but it's difficult and you're likely to die if you mess it up; very high risk, very high reward.

Speaking of aerial Flame Choke, there's something I don't really get about Aerudo, as we call it. It starts up 3 frames slower than grounded Flame Choke, but has only 1 more active frame. As far as I can tell the animation is actually totally identical to grounded Flame Choke sans Ganon's feet being on the ground, which means there's this weird blind spot at the beginning of the attack where his hand is glowing purple but he's not actually grabbing anything. It's been like this since Brawl too, so this wasn't something put in to balance Ganoncide either.

It's not a big deal, but I can't see any reason for it to be like this and it's silly to see Ganondorf just slip right through people. Aerudo is still a good move though so eh.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Your entire argument is "a GOOD player will do this" and "He can stall out attempts" yet the fact of the matter is that this doesn't matter. A good player can recover, but against a good player who can edge-guard just as effectively it doesn't matter. Doc has a bad recovery.

Being able to stall your recovery doesn't mean anything. So many characters can do this, but they have better up-bs and other options. Baiting also isn't a guarantee, if they read you trying to bait and hit you in tornado's end lag, to put it simply, Doc is ****ed. Unlike other characters, being hit once can kill Doc.

Name which characters can stall their recovery and GAIN HEIGHT without double jump. I'll wait. I guarantee you it's a fairly short list.

The thing you fail to understand is good players have to HARD READ the Tornado stall to punish it with the assumption he does it to stall above your edgeguard range.

Also Doc Up-B is not a bad recovery move. It moves quickly which makes it easy to transition from high to low recovery after generic airdodge mixups. Doc also can shark the stage to a minor extent making him fairly safe against ledge trump pressure, which is also very important at a high level. There's some characters that can easily lingering hitbox edgeguard it, but those characters also tend to be dominant at edgeguarding most characters just generally speaking.

And it matters to say "good players DI". It drastically changes what options are available you have to edgeguard at a high level. I live in SoCal, one of the most competitively stacked regions in the USA, and TOP PLAYERS IN MY REGION don't gimp my Doc. It just doesn't work that way, and the reason for this is because as long as I DI correctly and use Tornado intelligently to react to edgeguard attempts, I have no more trouble making it back to the stage as any other character.

If Doc had a bad recovery, I would be getting gimped by good players in my region consistently. Try as hard as I might to save options carefully, sonicmega's Mega Man can gimp my Ganon about 30% of the time conservatively. I would argue generously I am killed about 5% of the time offstage at most as Doc by him and other players, and this is almost always the result of something like a generic airdodge hard read into kill move that would have killed ANY OTHER CHARACTER.

People who say Doc's recovery is bad need to:
1. learn to DI
2. Realize how to use mixups

Doc's recovery is safely average and works as long as you have basic option conservation skills. There are other recoveries which are not fine even if you know how to do the above.

 

[Ffamran]

Late replies ahoy!

Bear with me here, this isn't going to be as insulting as it sounds initially, but you're the person that talks the most about Falco in this thread and you make very detailed points to that end; people probably skim through your comments on Falco (which is fair, I mean, they're friggin' huge. I personally love them, but you'd have to forgive people for not having the time to read everything in fine detail. But I digress), see the negative points ("Falco's hitbox on side-b is bigger than Fox's", "Falco doesn't have armour on his u-smash unlike Fox") and get the impression that Falco is just an inferior Fox. People might just, with the best of intentions, pick up on the most distinct bits of your pheasant treatises and think, "Oh, the clever Falco main said Falco's a bad character, Falco must have these other bad characters' traits." Which is silly, because you can't divorce content from context and expect to get a good idea of what the person's saying, but people will be people.

I'd excuse people for not being able to read everything you post and just picking out the important bits. What I won't excuse is people totally missing the point of what you have to say, because if they examined the context of your statements instead of just the points made, detached from said context, they'd get that that's not the point of what you're trying to say. I read most of your stuff, it's incredibly well-informed and educational; and yeah, there's quite a bit of discussion to the tune of Falco's weaknesses in this game, which can, to the uninformed eye, come off as disseminating how bad Falco is. Even so, I get that you're trying to demonstrate how Falco isn't the same as Fox, or even the same as the Falco from Melee and Brawl, so we don't get the misconception into our heads that he's the same character and can be played the same way. That's naturally going to be a daft thing to do for a character that's changed so much between games (mostly, it has to be said, for the negative), which is why I think it's important and helpful that you take the time to examine in the finest of detail how Falco's changed and how we can make the best of his new and unimproved moves. I just think people misinterpret what you have to say, since there's a lot being said and this thread moves very quickly - it often moves without sufficient time to discuss things, which creates misinformation and non-truths that quickly become canonised without people to say that that isn't how it goes.

That or I'm totally misinterpreting the point myself, but I don't think it can be ignored that, if you're referring to general opinion in this thread, most of what we hear about Falco comes directly from your descriptions and it's very easy to get the wrong idea if you're stupid and don't read things properly. There's a difference between detailing a character's weaknesses when you consider how it equates to other characters in the roster, and just stating without evidence or reason how ostensibly bad a character is. You do the former. But we get quite a bit of the latter in this thread too, and I hope people don't mistake what you have to say for it.

So I guess, PSA for everybody that bothered to read this: read what Ffamran has to say and read it well, he's got good stuff to say and we can educate ourselves if we take the time to get through it. There's the possibility that I'm weird and get my kicks by reading this kind of in-depth treatise, but hey, I'm happy if I get the benefit from it~

Yeah, I type a lot...

Spoiler: Rant against misinformation

Except some of the "Falco's really bad" or "Falco's an inferior Fox" came before my time as a mod or Falco player - wanted to play Little Mac or Ganondorf back then. At the same time, that was also the "era" of people saying Fox was dead because he couldn't auto-cancel his Blaster or how Bowser was a top tier for whatever asinine reason - I'd assume basic fundamentals can transfer from between games and still make Bowser at the most, a mid-high tier, despite knowing little about the game instead of straight-up high tier. First impressions somehow became end all and be all for some characters. Roy's hype and Roy being a superior Marth has never died, Link, Zelda, and even Ganondorf's reputation - funny since Ganondorf was only bad in one game - never died, the idea that Villager's camp personified has never died, and the belief that Marth is so bad of a character that he's borderline bottom when he's at worse, mid-tier. Some characters like Meta Knight, Ike and... Ike managed to break through from this, but it's just freaking annoying.

It's not limited to just Smash (4), but all games. A while back, I mentioned Leona Heidern from KoF XIII and how she, because of early impressions from credible top players, ended up not being considered a bad or underwhelming character, but the worst character in the game. That stuck with her and it sucks because Leona's moveset looks so damn cool and her merit as a high-damaging character that out-rivals Shen Woo, the character people play for his damage, is ignored.

It's the spouting and "immortalizing" of first impressions, one-liners, misconceptions, misinformation, ignorance, and mass mentality that gets to me. People don't give chances to characters or if they do, they keep raising the stakes. We get it, Falco, Lucas, Dr. Mario, Bowser, or Mega Man might only make it to top 32, but so what? They're not invalidated, they're not "free", and they're not so bad they can't even make it out of the character selection screen. Some characters outright get abandoned for few things like Fox not being able to auto-cancel Blaster - exaggeration, probably, but I don't remember or know the full story. What was the point of that really? Fox's Blaster is a very annoying projectile, but it's not a massive game-changer when his other moves - yes, Fox has other moves -, exist and they're freaking fantastic moves. Luckily, people figured out Fox has moves.

It's also irritating that people believe in "magical windboxes" or just say "jank" to refer to anything they don't freaking understand nor put effort into Googling, Asking, Binging, or whatever search engine-ing. For one, pet peeve: I hate it when people say Falco's Nair has windboxes. Nothing against Ian Chalz who made a fantastic day one video of 1.0.8 Falco's Nair and who spotted a curious interaction with rising Nairs, but it's really stupid how people suddenly see that and parrot it. A simple search on Smashboards will just confirm that it has auto-link angles which pull people in. No windboxes. I mean, if a Zelda managed to D-throw to Bair or Fair, I wouldn't be surprised if people called it jank. Gee, I wonder why it works? Oh, right... You didn't DI it correctly and you even managed to DI into her. What in the world were you thinking? Or hell, a simple search would lead to finding out Zelda can and will setup Uairs out of D-throw which kills and with the common knowledge - I hope it's common knowledge at this point - and obsession with (D-)throw combos, it wouldn't be surprising that Zelda has a D-throw combo or setup like Ike, Diddy, Fox, Robin, Link, Ganondorf, Little Mac, Palutena, Lucas, the Pits, Mario, Luigi, Sheik, and the list goes on.

Spoiler: The curiosity of Falco Phantasm and Fox Illusion aka more Falco nonsense

As for the Falco Phantasm hurtbox issue. It's stylistic to have Falco with his wings spread out like he's flying, but the tilt is what's making me curious. Unlike in Brawl, Fox and Falco are not intangible during Fox Illusion or Falco Phantasm, so Falco can't get away with the fact Falco Phantasm has a higher hurtbox and half of Fox Illusion's hitbox. Then I look back... Falco Phantasm was always faster and stronger than Fox Illusion. In Melee and Brawl, Falco moved on frame 17 and hit on frame 18 with 59 total frames to Fox's 21, hit on 22, and 63 total frames. In Smash 4, Falco Phantasm hits on frame 18 and had 60 total frames to Fox's 21 and 69 total frames. Damage-wise, at least it did the same in Melee of 7%, except Phantasm spiked... In Brawl? Falco Phantasm kept its damage, but does 6% on aerial opponents while Fox Illusion did 4%. And then in Smash 4, same damage for Phantasm while Illusion does 3%. What's the point of Illusion now? Nothing. It's just a glorified "aerial dash attack" and Phantasm was unbalanced from the beginning where it better than Illusion in Melee, broken in Brawl, and really bad in Smash 4.

There's a reason why I suggested way back that Falco Phantasm (should have been) replaced by R.E.D. Kick or some other move. They know that a (soft) spike with that much horizontal coverage is too good, but they also know they kind of screwed up by giving him this move in the first place and screwed up even more by making it (and Blaster) even better in Brawl by reducing the startup, total frames in the air, and making it intangible for a portion of the move. A R.E.D. Kick could simply be a reference to both SNK's Kyo Kusanagi and Melee Falco being a clone and having the same Side Smash as Fox, but in Falco's case, he figured out how to use it as an "aerial" or they could give Falco Flying Swallow from Ninja Gaiden where you have to press a button to attack sort of like Air Slash or PM Quick Draw. Basically, a Quick Draw that only does damage and no "real" knockback and can pass through people. Oh look, now Falco won't have a stupid(ly useless, but still crazy soft) spike that has a ton of (linear and telegraphed) horizontal coverage. Also, make Fox Illusion do at least 5% for Pete's sake. I'd even give it the ability to soft spike for the first half of the move in the air or send people straight up on the ground (for the first half) which it sort of does, but at a 70 degree angle instead of 85 or 90.

Edit: Y'know, Falco with a teleport for a Side Special like Nash's V Trigger, Sonic Move, in Street Fighter V might not be a bad idea. Hey, it has no hitbox and it could be limited to say, a third of Final Destination - button held and tapped is about his initial dash's length - and while it could be altered - regular command makes Falco teleport forward, holding down makes Falco travel straight down or teleport back half the distance on the ground, and holding up makes him move up 45 degrees -, it wouldn't be spammable, but Falco can use normals or aerials out of it much quicker. It'd basically be an angle-able Falco Phase.

Me being the main "source" for Falco information isn't exactly a great thing. Shaya mentions things once in a while. Thing is that I'm not Shaya, I'm not Keitaro, I'm not Larry Lurr, I'm not Cyro, I'm not any of the actually competing Falco players who have real world experience. Currently, I'm just stuck with theory and using frame data with whatever limited experience I get from playing online. This can go for all players; it'd would be nice if Emblem Lord and Trela and 6wX said something about Ryu (here or wherever else appropriate) and not just Emblem Lord. More viewpoints, conflicting or not, is much better than just one. The other "bad" thing is that Falco players are unfortunate. Why? Because I will dig up everything and that's mostly going to be the negative things. You're lucky, *insert character name here* players. If I mained or decided to invest much more into your characters, you'd be getting stuff from me that would make people think they're horrible as well. Oh, the fun we'll have when I point out how Ike's Quick Draw is kind of like Luigi's Missile where you can take the hit in the air and have Ike fall to his doom. Just make sure to do it knowing you won't die.

(Continued with Plain_Yogurt's response)

I'm not really sure how listing a bunch of weaknesses = major design flaws. I know that reddit post is mostly a vent post but there's just so much about it that doesn't really make sense to me that I feel the need to address it.

Bringing up moves or anything to question game design is how we can attempt to understand what the developers were thinking. We question whether they were, in black and white, good or bad ideas, if something else could be done differently, or if something just fits with the game. Asking is one of the greatest things you can do in life since it means you put thought, you engage, and you open yourself to other ideas through acceptance, thinking up of other ideas, or even denial. This is why I hate when something is automatically deemed "jank" or broken. Ask why and how it works and then conclude whether or not it's broken. Bringing up, questioning, is our impressions of the game and in this context, our impressions of the game from a competitive standpoint. My questions on Captain Falcon's Up Smash (and Sonic's Utilt) is one out of awe for the animation and disappointment that because of how it was designed, it won't really be used much. The disjoint is just an ugly patch on a move that sped up or giving incentive, safety, could find it being used much more and more daringly. It would also solve the issue where people are in disbelief that an Up Smash like that hit them at the ledge because of an invisible hitbox.

This goes for so many moves from moves like Sheik's Down Smash to ledge getup and getup attacks. Try using Fox and Falco's getup attack and one of them is a "grounded" Tatsumaki or as Tekken's version is called, a Spinning Demon, and the other other is a punch and kick from the ground. Do you know how cool it would be for someone to have that as a regular attack and not a contextual one? Or Ganondorf and Captain Falcon's flipping axe kick from a getup. Unfortunately, nobody except for PM Sonic has a move like that. It's more disappointing knowing there are moves from past games that aren't reused at all - Diddy has 64 Fox's Side Smash and Fair for his Fair - like Captain Falcon's Up Smash or Side Smash which he could have kept and Ganondorf could have made use of the elbow Side Smash as his own. Falco taking 64 Fox's B-throw would have made much more sense than a stun gun laser launching you like that and unfortunately, only Ryu has a B-throw like that.

Lucas is too "balanced" a character to really be that bad. He's an anti-zoner who's good at grounded footsies with a strong but unreliable punish game.

His only really big flaws are meh recovery (he still has a tether though), low mobility and bad shorthop normals.

I mean, he has combos. Mostly off of his frame 16(?) grab with his slow running speed. He ain't no Sammy.

Before anyone says that "Falco is a balanced character but he's still bad": keep in mind that Falco has way more dumb/wonky things than Lucas. Bad lazers, slow grab, terrible neutral, the list goes on. He's forced to play close range footsies with poor mobility which is just nonsensical. At least Lucas has a decently functioning gameplan.

The fact Lucas can recover from the blast zone with his PKT2 is ridiculous. It's mitigated by its slower travel speed and less powerful hit compared to Ness's, but it's still stupid. Lucas already has a good (air) jump and a tether recovery, but nope, we gotta give him a last chance to recover from the freaking blast zone.

Lucas's standing and pivot grabs are frame 12 and his dash grab is frame 14. Pretty sure this is the same as Link and Toon Link's. The only frame 16 grabbers in this game are ZSS and Samus both of whom get good rewards off of grabs in terms of setups, but ZSS's reward is much, much better than Samus's. Now, if Samus had a kill throw despite how stupid it would look with say, U-throw or B-throw, she'd at least have something other than, D-throw's good for comboing. Hey, why not make it so she can true combo B-throw to Bair, U-throw to Uair or Screw Attack, and F-throw to Nair and Fair? It would give her options and DI mixups and at least it would make sense with her wacky, shocky, zappy thingie throws.

Falco's been on both sides of bad for dumb stuff. While forced to play close-range, Falco loves fighting close up since that's where all of his power comes from, but what's power if you can't control it? We've seen what Falco's capable of in Melee and Brawl. Now, imagine if he could "control" power and compare it to the fact without hit stun canceling and with increased knockback on certain moves such as Bair and even Fair, the Brawl Falco issue of can't kill would make him very scary when he can kill with whatever he pleases. Falco with the ability to control the pace of the game would be, in my opinion, much stronger than Brawl Falco and a slightly weaker Melee Falco, but the least broken version of Falco.

IMO the only character with worse recovery than mac is ganondorf just because his recovery is not only slow and linear, but has no protection whatsoever. Little mac's recovery at least has protection with its super armor unlike ganon's and the fact that its significantly faster helps little mac avoid gimps near the ledge, unlike ganon. I don't think robin's recovery is worse given the fact that it travels more distance, but I do agree w/ a2zomg that its easier to edge guard given the fact that it travels so slowly+ robin not having hitboxes on his body

Little Mac only has invincibility frames for the startup? of Rising Uppercut and partial intangibility for parts of Jolt Haymaker. Ignoring his Smashes and Slip Counter having intangibility frames like other counters, the fact Little Mac's air acceleration and deceleration, air control, is the worst in the game and Rising Uppercut and Jolt Haymaker sort of lock him to a slower air speed along with their short distance in the air means Little Mac's recovery isn't good in terms of what moves are used to recover. Contrast this with Ganondorf whose Flame Choke has more horizontal travel and can instantly close out a stock if he manages to grab you, Dark Dive's much higher vertical travel and ability to move diagonally unlike Rising Uppercut's purely vertical travel and the disjoint on the uppercut, and that if Ganondorf wants unlike most characters including Captain Falcon, can use Wizard's Foot to "safely" fall faster than his opponent who for whatever reason thinks Ganondorf is recovering high (onto a platform) or wants to catch Ganondorf high up and still recover low. That being said, Ganondorf's recovery isn't good and Little Mac's isn't that atrocious where if he slips off the ledge, a magical hand drags him down in a split second and takes not 1 stock, but 2.

 

[Mazdamaxsti]

Name which characters can stall their recovery and GAIN HEIGHT without double jump. I'll wait. I guarantee you it's a fairly short list.

The thing you fail to understand is good players have to HARD READ the Tornado stall to punish it with the assumption he does it to stall above your edgeguard range.

Also Doc Up-B is not a bad recovery move. It moves quickly which makes it easy to transition from high to low recovery after generic airdodge mixups. Doc also can shark the stage to a minor extent making him fairly safe against ledge trump pressure, which is also very important at a high level. There's some characters that can easily lingering hitbox edgeguard it, but those characters also tend to be dominant at edgeguarding most characters just generally speaking.

And it matters to say "good players DI". It drastically changes what options are available you have to edgeguard at a high level. I live in SoCal, one of the most competitively stacked regions in the USA, and TOP PLAYERS IN MY REGION don't gimp my Doc. It just doesn't work that way, and the reason for this is because as long as I DI correctly and use Tornado intelligently to react to edgeguard attempts, I have no more trouble making it back to the stage as any other character.

If Doc had a bad recovery, I would be getting gimped by good players in my region consistently. Try as hard as I might to save options carefully, sonicmega's Mega Man can gimp my Ganon about 30% of the time conservatively. I would argue generously I am killed about 5% of the time offstage at most as Doc by him and other players, and this is almost always the result of something like a generic airdodge hard read into kill move that would have killed ANY OTHER CHARACTER.

People who say Doc's recovery is bad need to:
1. learn to DI
2. Realize how to use mixups

Doc's recovery is safely average and works as long as you have basic option conservation skills. There are other recoveries which are not fine even if you know how to do the above.

So if I know how to DI and mixup my recovery I will never die offstage? YO LITTLE MAC DO I GOT SOME NEWS FOR YOU MAN

 

[A2ZOMG]

So if I know how to DI and mixup my recovery I will never die offstage? YO LITTLE MAC DO I GOT SOME NEWS FOR YOU MAN

Read the part where I said SOME RECOVERIES are not fine even if you do the above.

Robin, Roy, Ganon, and Falcon also have...very obvious problems with recovery due to bad physics, Up-Bs, or both.

 

[Rizen]

Speaking of recoveries, I generally agree with this thread:
http://smashboards.com/threads/recovery-rankings.381244/
IMO Dr.M should have gotten a weight boost as some compensation for losing all that mobility.

 

[KirbySquad101]

Speaking of recoveries, I generally agree with this thread:
http://smashboards.com/threads/recovery-rankings.381244/
IMO Dr.M should have gotten a weight boost as some compensation for losing all that mobility.

Looks good to me; I actually can't think of anything I disagree with there.

 

[Vipermoon]

Speaking of recoveries, I generally agree with this thread:
http://smashboards.com/threads/recovery-rankings.381244/
IMO Dr.M should have gotten a weight boost as some compensation for losing all that mobility.

The Mario brothers are already too heavy for their size (compared to other mid-weights). They are the heaviest mid-weights.

Dr. Mario simply shouldn't have received a mobility multiplier this large. It's overkill.

 

[Trifroze]

Those rankings are pretty good, but ZSS should be up there with Pikachu, Sheik and MK. There's no reason for her to ever get edgeguarded unless she recklessly autopilots back to the stage (which tends to happen sometimes) since she has three options for it out of which 2 are cancellable into more options, including the best tether in the game and the most versatile mobility move in the game (QA is better in some different situations). Her up b is average but hard to challenge and it's usually her last resort. One of the highest mid-air jumps and fastest air speeds as well, and she's not a super fastfaller. Because of her tether she can choose to never get punished by the ledge vulnerability which might become bigger and bigger in future meta. The fact that ZSS is next to Lucario whose up b can be challenged effortlessly and is as easy to 2-frame abuse as Falcon's up b is pretty cringy to me, and as such Lucario should be lower at the same time. Villager is weird, but if he's in the wrong place then it's not by too much. Sonic and Mario are both way too low as well, they have some of the most reliable recoveries and best air speeds in the game. Why mention this here though? I guess we're talking about recoveries now.

 

[A2ZOMG]

The Mario brothers are already too heavy for their size (compared to other mid-weights). They are the heaviest mid-weights.

Dr. Mario simply shouldn't have received a mobility multiplier this large. It's overkill.

Doc U-air however is way better than Mario U-air in a vacuum, and with even slightly more air mobility, you would have a very ridiculous character when you consider the sheer stage carry potential of that move, on top of the fact Doc unlike Mario has legitimate air KO moves and ways to actually edgeguard low recoveries.

Mario would benefit so much more from Doc U-air than he does from his current U-air in terms of extended combo potential, though unlike Doc he misses out on ways to really seal the stock in the air or offstage.

Going to also point out, @BoTastic! uses Dr. Mario as a counterpick to Mario in tournament. I wouldn't call the mobility decrease overkill when frankly, he has slight advantage in this matchup and has other matchups he does noticeably better in. Falcon I firmly believe beats Mario slightly, but Doc either goes even or beats Falcon slightly simply because Mario loses a KO move fishing war against Falcon, while Doc has no trouble killing Falcon out of grab or offstage.

Also Mario would be the best character in the game if he had Dr. Tornado instead of FLUDD.

 

[Vermanubis]

Why are you talking about my region like you know what's going on?

Verm is in Eastern Oregon and doesn't attend EWA tourneys very often. Kimidori is mad inconsistent and is described as someone who "loses to nobodies as often as he takes top 3." He's a really campy Sheik, but that's not how you beat ganon. You have to camp him, suffocate him with frame data, and then gimp him. Why do you think Kimidori knows how exactly to fight Ganon optimally? Have you talked to him? According to Verm's post about his EWA tourneys, this was the first time he had beaten Kimidori (since he lists him as notable and does not list him under notable wins).

Shiny's a good player, but it's not like he's winning everything consistently or beating up on everyone in the region or in Seattle when he comes.

If Verm comes to Seattle and beats/goes even with Cacogen, then I think you'll have something to write home about in terms of Ganon vs Sheik.


Pellets come out on f7, 19, and 31 in a pellet string. They are f2 moves in the sense that if you start a pellet string and then press A on f18, you'll get the 2nd pellet on f19, but if you press A on f19, nothing will come out.

Just to clarify, it was the first time I've beaten him, but also the first time I've played him in bracket. Secondly, not to inflate my achievements, since I've admittedly yet to do anything truly remarkable due to limited competitive options, but Kimidori, as far as I know, is a consistent top 3 placer. Thirdly, though he could've played better, Kimidori's approach to the MU is one that is intensely stressful and difficult to overcome. Sheik can succeed with aggression against Ganon, but I'd rather fight an aggressive Sheik who's trying to suffocate me than one who never commits and rarely ever falls for tricks. Kimidori's play wasn't optimal, but his approach to the MU, in many ways, was. He never let me keep pressure on him, never took needless risks and forced a lot of reactions out of me. I'll take an aggressive Sheik over a campy, uncompromisingly patient and safe one any day. I think the important thing to consider in evaluating wins and losses isn't the prestige of the player, but how they played the MU. I play two Falcons regularly: one who's far more decorated than the other, and one who's obscure, but much more willing to respect Ganon. The latter though a better player overall, is far less trouble for me because of his unwillingness to be patient.

Point being in all of this, I think Ganon vs. Sheik is winnable. Marginally so, but such that I don't think counterpicking as 100% necessary.

As for Cacogen, I'd like to play him. It's just too bad my finances never seem to allow me to travel, much less any farther than Spokane.

Appreciate the mention, by the way, Blobface

 

[Rizen]

Vermanubis What do you think of Ganon's tier placement and MUs?

 

[Trifroze]

How does Doc kill out of throws? I've seen the topic with the dthrow to fair guaranteed %s for every character, but when I've tried them they're all airdodgeable and from some you can even jump out of.

 

[Sir Tundra]

oMan you guys gotten pretty crazy with those matchups thread I'll tell you wut.

Looks like fox isn't very popular in the phillipines

that reminds me if zss was or still is an underused character in phillipine then how different/developed is the phillipine meta conpared ours?

On the topic of recoveries, I don't understand how Ness's recovery doesn't hurt him that much when people discuss viability. I know that as a Samus main I can cover his DJ recovery with a bomb and then hit him out of his up b with nair and kill him. IMO almost every character has a pretty easy time edge guarding Ness. I could definitely be wrong/missing something, I'm not hugely knowledgable about Ness, but his recovery seems like it's bad enough that it would hold him back from being consistently threatening in tournaments. I'm not primarily talking about Rosalina's down b either, just most of the roster in general.

I sometimes ask this question myself. I think probably most people don't really mention ness's recovery weakness because of the fact that one screw up can potentially mean death. Of course the risk could be less possible with characters with disjointed hitboxes. But for characters who don't then this may be seen as a problem especially in todays Stage control>Edgeguarding/Play it safe meta. I feel once people start to edgeguard more often in the meta then maybe this could be a hit to ness's viability.

edit: of course I almost forgot about projectiles and how there the safiest ways to edgeguard ness outside of rosalinas down b/villagers pocket. Maybe we should discuss more about ness's recovery problems.

 

[A2ZOMG]

How does Doc kill out of throws? I've seen the topic with the dthrow to fair guaranteed %s for every character, but when I've tried them they're all airdodgeable and from some you can even jump out of.

D-throw F-air true combos Falcon somewhere around like 100%-130% no rage factored. Even though Rage makes it harder to KO confirm with D-throw F-air, it still can KO Falcon at a pretty generous range.

I've landed this in real games, and it cannot be airdodged if Doc does it at the right percents (it's very character specific though).

D-throw F-air and superior Cape and Tornado edgeguards, plus Tornado being one of few attacks that Falcon cannot autopilot wall in neutral gives him a very good matchup against Falcon.

 

[Vermanubis]

Vermanubis What do you think of Ganon's tier placement and MUs?

My stance on Ganon is that he's difficult to codify because he's, by his nature, an inconsistent character. I see a lot of parallels between him and Seth in Street Fighter, in that which, though Seth has much stronger overall tools than Ganon, he still ultimately suffers a similar fate: his success is predicated on guessing. It's hard to ignore his ability to completely reverse a game, but his high reward is imbalanced by his low success rate. That's why I find myself violently oscillating between "yeah, Ganon's way viable" to "who the **** designed this character?" A lot of his success depends on how well he can manipulate people, and unlike, say, Sheik, whose tools permit success regardless of manipulation, Ganon's tools have variable efficacy depending on the playstyle of the person you're fighting. I think you'll see no other character (if not none, then few) whose performance is so dramatically affected by different playstyles than Ganon.

If I had to place him in terms of viability, it'd be low C. I think that even in worst-case scenarios, he's capable of winning, in that no character -- not even Sheik, though barely so -- invalidates him (and I say this with great elation given that I <was> a lifelong Brawl Ganon main), but some very choice variables must line up.

 

[Jehtt]

plus Tornado being one of few attacks that Falcon cannot autopilot wall in neutral gives him a very good matchup against Falcon.

plus Tornado being one of few attacks that Falcon cannot autopilot wall in neutral

Tornado

neutral

Who the hell is letting you get away with using Tornado in neutral?! That move ends on frame 33 and has a FAF of 75. That's 42 frames of cooldown. There is no way you should get away with that against anyone half-competent.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Who the hell is letting you get away with using Tornado in neutral?! That move ends on frame 33 and has a FAF of 75. That's 42 frames of cooldown. There is no way you should get away with that against anyone half-competent.

You don't understand how neutral works then.

Tornado is multihit, disjointed, and fast. The way you defend against that is literally SITTING STILL AND SHIELDING.

For someone like Falcon, that's often the very last thing he wants to do in neutral. Tornado also is a good anti-air, covers roll/dodges, and it can be spaced dynamically to make harder to punish significantly.

It's a very strong move in neutral because you HAVE TO RESPECT IT. If your opponent is expecting you to Tornado, it's easy to get in with other moves generally speaking.

I mean if you want to talk about unsafe on block, Fox DA is wildly unsafe on block. Doesn't mean it isn't a ridiculously good move.

 

[Routa]

Name which characters can stall their recovery and GAIN HEIGHT without double jump. I'll wait. I guarantee you it's a fairly short list.

Wa?

 

[A2ZOMG]

Wa?

The fact of the matter is Doc has a legitimately good momentum mixup that actually a lot of characters would kill for in their offstage options. Tornado is a good stalling tool you can use to move forwards, backwards, AND gain height. Anyone who denies this is an amazing momentum mixup especially for recovery situations is a fool.

Meaning, as I've been constantly stating, at a high level where good players rarely mess up DI and leave options open to recover high, Doc's recovery is generally speaking not even a relevant weakness for him. Tornado by itself is such a robust momentum mixup, and that matters by far MUCH more than what more than overkill distance Doc supposedly is missing on his recovery.

If we're going to talk Doc weaknesses, the big one is landing. Doc's two landing options are basically D-air and B reverse. Do something that beats both these simultaneously and you just beat Doc's landing options.

This is also a big problem for Mario in matchups like Fox and Falcon who can chase Mario's airspeed with trivial effort, and I believe Mario loses these matchups as a result when he cannot drift away from their juggles like he can in other matchups. Certainly Doc has trouble landing in these matchups too, but at least versus Falcon he can instakill Falcon offstage with very little effort, while the same can't be said for Mario.

 

[Routa]

The fact of the matter is Doc has a legitimately good momentum mixup that actually a lot of characters would kill for in their offstage options. Tornado is a good stalling tool you can use to move forwards, backwards, AND gain height. Anyone who denies this is an amazing momentum mixup especially for recovery situations is a fool.

Meaning, as I've been constantly stating, at a high level where good players rarely mess up DI and leave options open to recover high, Doc's recovery is generally speaking not even a relevant weakness for him. Tornado by itself is such a robust momentum mixup, and that matters by far MUCH more than what more than overkill distance Doc supposedly is missing on his recovery.

Wa usually means Wario.

Anyways Doc might have OK recovery, but you have to compare it to others. His recovery is pretty bad when you compare him to pretty much anyone in mid or higher tier. Just like others said Doc can get back on stage if he is played by a a better player than his foe... But on the same skill lvl he might can be edgeguarded rather easily.

About Wario... He is really hard to edgeguard if he has the bike available, but without the Bike his recovery turns from "Brah don't even bother" to "WHERE THE **** IS MY BIKE?!?". Only couple of characters can edgeguard Wario well (mainly Shulk and Ike). This is why Wario should never ever leave his Bike on stage.