1.1.1 Better or Worse for Olimar?

[Cacts]

I've been noticing that my results in tournaments and even in friendlies have been much poorer with Olimar since the new patch, I think the nerfs to shields really hurt his play style as he can't go as aggressive as most of the cast. What are your guys thoughts?

(also anyone else notice that Olimar cant shield grab people who are super close to him?)

 

[Freezie KO]

Olimar's grab always whiffed at point-blank range. It makes no sense and should've been patched day one.

I find I'm doing worse since the patch as well. It could be that I sit in shield too much. On the other hand, I wonder if it could just be that more people are learning the match up. Olimar has a lot of drawbacks like his pikmin/item properties, his accidental desyncs leaving him with no available moves, his mobility, and his weight. Once people stop freaking out that there's a pikmin stuck to them that does 1% every couple seconds, he has a lot of things to exploit.

 

[koken]

I'm feeling the same too, like I'm making worst results after the patch.

It may be like F Freezie KO said about more people learning the match up, because some people who easily rekt them before now I find struggling to take their stocks.

I also feel like everything is hitting me more than before, like in somehow his hurtbox increase, but like the data show up that's false. It's like I'm making more mistakes on calculating distance to avoid being hit.

What a pain in the %$&%$" is to get desync.

What I truly notice is that doesn't worth anymore to latch another pikmin besides a white, people just don't get care now when they have a blue, yellow or red latched on. It's even worse I believe, because they use the increased hitboxes a Pikmin latched gave them, to use it to their favor now. I'm usually being hit almost constantly because of that when I calculate a move will not hit me.
But I think that's something I do wrong instead of something they do better than me.

 

[Blue Banana]

Is it bad/wrong for people to learn the Olimar match-up? Sometimes, I feel like I'm getting away with things I shouldn't have when I'm playing with opponents who really don't have much Olimar experience. This is what I felt a little during some matches I had in a local last Saturday. I want to face challenging opponents with some experience in the Olimar match-up as the performance in my sets will make me see how much I'm developing myself as a player. Also, it's going to be inevitable that players will eventually learn the Olimar MU as well as other obscure MUs, as otherwise there won't be any advancements in the metagame in terms of match-ups. I'm fine with people learning the match-up.

Maybe some of the stuff I said is inaccurate because I don't have a large tournament history and therefore, I don't share the same feelings on tournament performance, but I do want some form of challenge, whether it be fighting harder match-ups, fighting tough opponents, or dealing with changes in use of defensive maneuvers. Match-ups are match-ups; I'll eventually get used to them. I want to fight tough opponents because it's not exciting when I know that I can easily win the fight. Staying in shield a lot sounds boring, and Olimar has other defensive tools (pivot grabs, purple side B) he can use other than shield.

 

[koken]

I think it's a good thing our enemies learn the MU, because will force us to get better, creative and innovate in order to succeed.

At some point I feel that Olimar passed from being a camper and mega defensive character (just my opinion), to an extremely reactive and adaptive character in order to pull something.
This little issue only changes A LITTLE when you get a Purple and start walling your opponent, but now alot of players focus on damaging the purple asap to kill him.
Also I feel (again, just my opinion) the pressure other players and characters now do because of the slightly change to the shield, give us lesser time to do our tons of calculation (pikmin order, next in line, space, grab time and distance, etc).

Don't judge me wrong, I'm not saying Olimar now is a bad character or something, but I feel like I have no time or chance to do wrong.
It's like I have no time to think, so I have to throw the first option I see, instead of the best/optimal decision.

Something I heard once was like: "Do a lot of work for a tiny reward". That's something kind of represent me :/.

Maybe I'm only just passing by a bad time in smash ._.

 

[Blue Banana]

I don't think the amount of work an Olimar player does results in a small reward, at least in terms of damage output. Olimar can still deliver a solid amount of damage given the right circumstances; the main problems that he has is securing the KO (a thing that I personally have trouble with) and getting to the circumstances in the first place.

I do agree that the Olimar player needs to do a lot of work and has very few opportunities to afford a mistake. I think it's because many of the characters that Olimar has a hard time against are also common tournament threats, and the metagame has shaped itself into a more fast-paced environment because of these characters, with a few exceptions. Even before the changes in shield mechanics, I think it's very rough already on an Olimar player to go through a decently-sized tournament and come out in top 8.

 

[Cacts]

I've been practicing Olimar a lot more as of late since I believe his play style kinda has to be changed in order to do well with the Shield patch.
One thing I found myself doing in matches now are trying to farm my ass of for purple pikmin, I figured since I can't really let people hit my shield anymore, might as well keep them off of me to begin with. Purples work really well with this! But I agree he definately is more reactionary than defensive now.
I also had ran into a problem against characters that are really good at keeping me up in the air, and Started using his Up-B to land and out space after I'm able to jump out of a combo, anyone else do that?

 

[Blue Banana]

Purples and Fsmash are going to be your primary tools to keep your opponent off your back. Save those purples as long as possible.

Olimar has trouble with juggling, so it's not too surprising that he can have trouble with characters that excel in doing that. You have UpB -> Nair and DownB as alternate defensive options to air dodge and Nair to help you get back down on the ground. Olimar's other aerials have the problem of being clashed out by other aerials.

 

[koken]

The main problem with DownB is the timing, it's really strict. Air dodge seems to be the most effective one but also try to include a B-reversal option.
It may sound very useless but the momentum shift is surprisingly good, even though I find it more harder to calculate than DownB and it gives you a lot of lag because of the empty pluck. Don't even think of doing it near the floor.
Just to compare, a counter have more frames of action than our DownB.

For us, our mainly only option to recover from being juggled in the air, is to chase that ledge as soon as possible.
Then, going back to the stage is another difficult situation.