Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[ZSaberLink]

Out of curiosity, how does Bayonetta do against characters that can just run away and spam? Let's say Toon Link throwing bombs?

 

[verbatim]

I would like some insight on Pacmans Placement becuase all the other Pacmans I've talked to thinks this match-up is terrible for Pacman.

Bayonetta's a heavily punish-based character, which means she can't really get her combo's going if you camp her out. People just say their character loses to good DLC characters because they're new and good and that means a lot if you don't know the matchup, regardless of who you're playing.

food for thought: DC (Bayonetta) vs Dandy Penguin (Duck Hunt Dog).

 

[Nobie]

I actually have been wondering about the Jigglypuff vs. Bayonetta matchup because of the difficult-to-counter strengths that people bring up when discussing Bayo.

Two points that make me believe that there might be something to Jigglypuff not so much as a Bayonetta COUNTER as someone who can go toe to toe with Bayo are 1) The threat of Rest and 2) Jigglypuff's top-tier aerial mobility.

On the first point, while Jigglypuff can use Rest on anyone and everyone, I think the threat of a frame-1 invincible kill move paired with Bayonetta's long recovery on things like Smashes, Witch Time, jab combo, dair, etc. AND Bayonetta's height makes it a real threat.

On the second, a lot of the comments have been about Bayo's burst mobility, particularly when it comes to being able to safely escape threats after use of Witch Twist, Witch Time, or Afterburner Kick. Jigglypuff's whole reason for being is a supreme aptitude for weaving back and forth combined with lingering hitboxes, and I have to wonder if Jigglypuff might have the sheer mobility to keep up with Bayo's attempts to get away, and to bait out the attempts to "cheat" Neutral.

The downside is that Jigglypuff is, of course, super light, and so while she might be able to avoid juggles more handily she will just die to things earlier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Izj-FRErs8

Here's a match I found from some tournament. While it ends in a way that has nothing to do with actual matchups (Bayo gets Pineappled), I do think that it shows just how much Jigglypuff can follow Bayonetta along her escape routes.

 

[C0rvus]

Not to detract from your post, but in that set you posted, the Bayonetta did lose to his opponent's Ganondorf. That matchup is regularly thought to be among the most one-sided in the game. However, we can still make some observations about the matches in question, regardless of the divide in player skill.

In the matches you linked, I saw a lot of over committing or missed spacing on the Bayo's end, which is where Puff got a lot of her damage. She also used grounded Bullets in neutral, which is kind of a no-no. I can understand the attempt, as they can cut off some aerial approaches, but the Puff player stuck low or on the ground until they got their first hit in.

I can understand your line of thinking here, Puff's strengths, however meager, are applicable to this matchup, I think. Her weaving ability and air speed will discourage loosely throwing out moves like Heel Slide and ABK. She can Rest out of shield against Heel Slide lol. Bayo's RCO lag from using aerial specials can likely be rested, but if she drops a combo, she's still going to land before you most of the time. I cannot say how good Puff is at getting out of Bayo's bread and butter combos, but then again, she can also just play lame against Puff if she needs to.

Puff also has to fear Witch Time, and she cannot rely solely on whiff punishing at any level of play. Her throws are not good, and neither is her grab, so she needs a hit to seal stocks.

Puff can apply her tools to some effect against Bayonetta, but at the end of the day, a Bayo with MU knowledge seems to me to have a sizable advantage.

 

[Game7a1]

I actually have been wondering about the Jigglypuff vs. Bayonetta matchup because of the difficult-to-counter strengths that people bring up when discussing Bayo.

Two points that make me believe that there might be something to Jigglypuff not so much as a Bayonetta COUNTER as someone who can go toe to toe with Bayo are 1) The threat of Rest and 2) Jigglypuff's top-tier aerial mobility.

On the first point, while Jigglypuff can use Rest on anyone and everyone, I think the threat of a frame-1 invincible kill move paired with Bayonetta's long recovery on things like Smashes, Witch Time, jab combo, dair, etc. AND Bayonetta's height makes it a real threat.

On the second, a lot of the comments have been about Bayo's burst mobility, particularly when it comes to being able to safely escape threats after use of Witch Twist, Witch Time, or Afterburner Kick. Jigglypuff's whole reason for being is a supreme aptitude for weaving back and forth combined with lingering hitboxes, and I have to wonder if Jigglypuff might have the sheer mobility to keep up with Bayo's attempts to get away, and to bait out the attempts to "cheat" Neutral.

The downside is that Jigglypuff is, of course, super light, and so while she might be able to avoid juggles more handily she will just die to things earlier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Izj-FRErs8

Here's a match I found from some tournament. While it ends in a way that has nothing to do with actual matchups (Bayo gets Pineappled), I do think that it shows just how much Jigglypuff can follow Bayonetta along her escape routes.

I think this is a better Puff vs. Bayonetta video to watch.
https://youtu.be/6VgMVJAXxrM?t=11m
I would offer my comments, but even I'm still thinking about the matchup as a whole. Sorry.

 

[S_B]

I think this is a better Puff vs. Bayonetta video to watch.
https://youtu.be/6VgMVJAXxrM?t=11m
I would offer my comments, but even I'm still thinking about the matchup as a whole. Sorry.

It's often tough to gauge how well a lesser-played character performs against heavily-played characters due to matchup inexperience possibly making it harder for the person playing the common character.

That said, Saj may have a decent amount of matchup experience against Cuban, though he usually plays Toon Link and pulls out Jiggs for doubles, I think...

 

[Vyrnx]

I see a lot of people totally revamping top 3. I really don't see how Zero Suit is dropping out of the top 3 now. Nothing that made Zero Suit great got nerfed significantly--she retains her ridiculous disadvantage, her ridiculous advantage, the only real nerf was to her nair and it wasn't even a huge nerf. It's safe, combos, etc.

She still has great kill options, a strong neutral, combos, speed and mobility, a great recovery, and everything else she is known for. I guess she doesn't have her dthrow to uair combo up until 200% anymore, but I don't think that's significant enough to drop her from top 3. I just can't see any of her MUs changing except her Sheik MU since I think Sheik's nerfs were significant.

I especially can't see Cloud replacing her in top 3.

 

[S_B]

I see a lot of people totally revamping top 3. I really don't see how Zero Suit is dropping out of the top 3 now.

Agreed. She still has her ladder combo and it works just fine.

Though, I wouldn't be surprised if she was toned down a bit further in future patches.

 

[Djent]

I mentioned Depuzo > Atelier in my Hirosuma 3 post, but now that the set is on YouTube I wanted to go into a little bit more depth on the matchup.

Spoiler: Video Embed

D3 handles this MU so much better than the more popular heavies do. Onstage his best asset is probably bair. In addition to having good range, it takes 1/3 of Luma's health and sends her flying, often killing her outright. 21 frames of landing lag kind of sucks, but if Luma eats the hit then Rosa often won't manage a heavy punish anyway. Gordos also saw a fair bit of use in the above set. They're by no means a great projectile, but the slow travel time is actually helpful in dealing with Gravitational Pull.

Another thing D3 has going for him is serviceable answers to Rosa's normally-oppressive advantaged state. He can actually harass her from the ledge as opposed to just getting trapped there. Uair is huge and disjointed; Atelier made the mistake of not respecting it and lost both Luma and his own stock at separate points in the set. Fair even works from right below the edge because the hammer swing starts above his head. This forces Rosa to rely more on uair strings for kills, which are still very threatening, but at least D3 has 4 midair jumps to mitigate his issues of huge frame and poor airspeed. Meanwhile, he can kill her with bair at respectable %s even if the move is stale (see: end of game 2). That's not to mention the other gimmicks at his disposal (Depuzo lands a DA kill at 55%, which would have at least ended Luma for little cost if nothing else).

None of this puts the match in D3's advantage or anything; Rosa is still a great character and doesn't need all of her tools to work in order to function well. She just doesn't massacre him like she does DK/Bowser/maybe Ganon. With other heavies receiving lots of buffs, it's easy to forget about the fat old emperor penguin, but not getting invalidated by one common top-tier threat is at least one thing he still has in his favor. The only other large-frame heavyweight I can see doing OK vs. Rosa is Charizard, but I've yet to see that in action and so can't speculate in much detail on that MU.

EDIT: I just checked in on S@X to find Jdawg up 1-0 on ViceRoy (though he lost the two games that I saw). My timing is rarely this good, lol.

 

[williamsga555]

Good analysis, and pretty much spot-on for it. D3 swats Luma and handles typical ledgetrap scenarios well. Still loses the matchup, but not by much.

I found his use of gordos interesting for this matchup. The last time I played our resident Rosa (offstream, unfortunately) I didn't use them much because of how non-committal GP usually is against someone as slow as D3, but just having it control space for a few moments to eek out a bit of stage control is lovely. Will need to incorporate that more.

But yeah, bair for life. If that move came out like 2 or 3 frames sooner I'd claim it to be a top 5 bair. As it stands it's great-not-amazing. Mmm.

 

[DblCrest]

tbf even Smash 4 Kirby players are very optimistic for their matchups.

You'd be surprised at how negative the Kirby boards can be haha.

 

[bc1910]

Meta Knight is not that good any more. Smart DI will get you out of any death combo. I can only assume that people still, after nearly a year of MK dominance, don't understand how to DI his combos.

Please stop clinging to the past with this hilarious character. He is an exception to good balancing. A Melee-esque mess of advantage in a game with far more reasonable game states. MKs are gonna have to put in a hella lot of work for their character not to crash and burn.

 

[sedrf]

I think the circumstances of meta knight is less severe than you think

 

[Amadeus9]

Meta Knight is not that good any more. Smart DI will get you out of any death combo. I can only assume that people still, after nearly a year of MK dominance, don't understand how to DI his combos.

Please stop clinging to the past with this hilarious character. He is an exception to good balancing. A Melee-esque mess of advantage in a game with far more reasonable game states. MKs are gonna have to put in a hella lot of work for their character not to crash and burn.

What?

 

[Otterz]

Meta Knight is not that good any more. Smart DI will get you out of any death combo. I can only assume that people still, after nearly a year of MK dominance, don't understand how to DI his combos.

Please stop clinging to the past with this hilarious character. He is an exception to good balancing. A Melee-esque mess of advantage in a game with far more reasonable game states. MKs are gonna have to put in a hella lot of work for their character not to crash and burn.

Tyrant recently beat VoiD in the new patch. Although Sheik was nerfed as well, I'm pretty sure VoiD knows enough about the game to DI. MK will still be a threat, especially with his good Top Tier MU spread.

 

[S_B]

Meta Knight is not that good any more. Smart DI will get you out of any death combo. I can only assume that people still, after nearly a year of MK dominance, don't understand how to DI his combos.

Please stop clinging to the past with this hilarious character. He is an exception to good balancing. A Melee-esque mess of advantage in a game with far more reasonable game states. MKs are gonna have to put in a hella lot of work for their character not to crash and burn.

MK was designed as an edgeguarding character, yet the ease of the ladder confirm ensured that almost no one actually used him in such a manner.

Edgeguarding in SSB4 is underdeveloped across the board, and it's pretty clear that MK was designed to prevent people from making it back to the stage: 5 jumps, extremely fast disjointed aerials, an Up+B that's hard to punish and can easily stage spike... In fact, all of his B moves can be used for recovery, depending upon the circumstances.

His neutral is only so-so (though better than most would credit it for), but once he has someone off the stage, it should be a nightmare to make it past him and to the ledge.

Sheik also just started needing to really step up the offstage gimping game, and VoID actually did a pretty good job of this in many of his matches in that tournament where he lost to Tyrant.

The SSB4 meta has been extremely, EXTREMELY over-centralized on kill confirms. Now that the devs are slowly taking those away, it's forcing us to pursue other options to get the KO.

 

[bc1910]

Challenge extended, MK mains. Go prove me wrong (or right, actually, since I never said MK isn't top tier, I'm just sick of this theorycraft rollercoaster).

Bear in mind that Tyrant beating VoiD should scream positivity towards MK's future. Now is the time for work.

Anyway, MK baiting aside, let's talk business. The new no.1.

Having extensively labbed ZSS combos, her kill options from grab are severely limited until ~130% even on battlefield. Thanks to the Boost Kick and Uair nerf, we are seeing a significant difference in how the character operates. That said, top 5 advantage and well above average neutral, with maybe the best disadvantage, is not to be ignored.

I would really like to hear some further thoughts from Shaya on the current state of ZSS.

 

[Trifroze]

I see a lot of people totally revamping top 3. I really don't see how Zero Suit is dropping out of the top 3 now. Nothing that made Zero Suit great got nerfed significantly--she retains her ridiculous disadvantage, her ridiculous advantage, the only real nerf was to her nair and it wasn't even a huge nerf. It's safe, combos, etc.

She still has great kill options, a strong neutral, combos, speed and mobility, a great recovery, and everything else she is known for. I guess she doesn't have her dthrow to uair combo up until 200% anymore, but I don't think that's significant enough to drop her from top 3. I just can't see any of her MUs changing except her Sheik MU since I think Sheik's nerfs were significant.

I especially can't see Cloud replacing her in top 3.

Damage reductions, especially 2%/1.5%/2% on 3 very important moves is considerable though. Let's presume 30% of all moves ZSS ever uses consist of nair/uair/dthrow (which is not a stretch at all), and on average their damage got reduced by around 20%, so in practice ZSS now does roughly 0.94x the damage she used to. Could easily be less, even 0.90x. This is literally comparable to Sheik's weight nerf or worse, just the other side of the same coin.

ZSS' nair nerf is comparable to Sheik's fair nerf outside of the reduced damage, since they both lost roughly equal amount of range. Sheik's needles getting bopped is a bigger deal than ZSS' grab losing 4 frames of hitbox from the end of it, and ZSS' dthrow nerf on the other hand was nowhere near as decisive as Sheik's throw nerfs, which are the reason Sheik got hit so much harder.

It's unfair to compare ZSS' nerfs to Sheik's and conclude that because they weren't as bad, they're effectively irrelevant. ZSS still works the same way but lost a guaranteed kill off of dthrow (which didn't kill before 130% to begin with), has to work harder for damage, and her combos work at later percents. It's the biggest overall nerf after 1.0.4 Rosalina, 1.0.6 Diddy, 1.1.5 Sheik and Sonic's consistent early nerfs stacked together, possibly Lucario as well due to him being hit hard by the change in DI mechanics. Oh and Greninja.

Given the fact that Sheik got nerfed harder, the overall outcome of the patch is pretty good for ZSS though, but most definitely negative. I strongly doubt she's out of top 5 though, but top 3 is arguable before we see more.

 

[Vyrnx]

It's unfair to compare ZSS' nerfs to Sheik's and conclude that because they weren't as bad, they're effectively irrelevant.

I wasn't/didn't imply that. I mentioned Sheik's nerfs to point out that that is the only MU I am convinced will be that different after the patch, because all of Sheik's MUs will play differently now. Damage reduction is one thing, but all of Zero Suit's other strengths that were not nerfed will keep her in a dominant position easily and I can't see her dropping hardly at all. But arguing over top 3 vs top 5 is kind of silly, so I agree that we have to see more nationals and such before anyone knows for sure.

 

[NairWizard]

The quality of posts in this thread skyrocketed. For anyone wondering how to make a post that is actually useful to the thread, just read some of the examples on this page:

Damage reductions, especially 2%/1.5%/2% on 3 very important moves is considerable though. Let's presume 30% of all moves ZSS ever uses consist of nair/uair/dthrow (which is not a stretch at all), and on average their damage got reduced by around 20%, so in practice ZSS now does roughly 0.94x the damage she used to. Could easily be less, even 0.90x. This is literally comparable to Sheik's weight nerf or worse, just the other side of the same coin.

ZSS' nair nerf is comparable to Sheik's fair nerf outside of the reduced damage, since they both lost roughly equal amount of range. Sheik's needles getting bopped is a bigger deal than ZSS' grab losing 4 frames of hitbox from the end of it, and ZSS' dthrow nerf on the other hand was nowhere near as decisive as Sheik's throw nerfs, which are the reason Sheik got hit so much harder.

It's unfair to compare ZSS' nerfs to Sheik's and conclude that because they weren't as bad, they're effectively irrelevant. ZSS still works the same way but lost a guaranteed kill off of dthrow (which didn't kill before 130% to begin with), has to work harder for damage, and her combos work at later percents. It's the biggest overall nerf after 1.0.4 Rosalina, 1.0.6 Diddy, 1.1.5 Sheik and Sonic's consistent early nerfs stacked together, possibly Lucario as well due to him being hit hard by the change in DI mechanics. Oh and Greninja.

Given the fact that Sheik got nerfed harder, the overall outcome of the patch is pretty good for ZSS though, but most definitely negative. I strongly doubt she's out of top 5 though, but top 3 is arguable before we see more.

I actually have been wondering about the Jigglypuff vs. Bayonetta matchup because of the difficult-to-counter strengths that people bring up when discussing Bayo.

Two points that make me believe that there might be something to Jigglypuff not so much as a Bayonetta COUNTER as someone who can go toe to toe with Bayo are 1) The threat of Rest and 2) Jigglypuff's top-tier aerial mobility.

On the first point, while Jigglypuff can use Rest on anyone and everyone, I think the threat of a frame-1 invincible kill move paired with Bayonetta's long recovery on things like Smashes, Witch Time, jab combo, dair, etc. AND Bayonetta's height makes it a real threat.

On the second, a lot of the comments have been about Bayo's burst mobility, particularly when it comes to being able to safely escape threats after use of Witch Twist, Witch Time, or Afterburner Kick. Jigglypuff's whole reason for being is a supreme aptitude for weaving back and forth combined with lingering hitboxes, and I have to wonder if Jigglypuff might have the sheer mobility to keep up with Bayo's attempts to get away, and to bait out the attempts to "cheat" Neutral.

The downside is that Jigglypuff is, of course, super light, and so while she might be able to avoid juggles more handily she will just die to things earlier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Izj-FRErs8

Here's a match I found from some tournament. While it ends in a way that has nothing to do with actual matchups (Bayo gets Pineappled), I do think that it shows just how much Jigglypuff can follow Bayonetta along her escape routes.

Not to detract from your post, but in that set you posted, the Bayonetta did lose to his opponent's Ganondorf. That matchup is regularly thought to be among the most one-sided in the game. However, we can still make some observations about the matches in question, regardless of the divide in player skill.

In the matches you linked, I saw a lot of over committing or missed spacing on the Bayo's end, which is where Puff got a lot of her damage. She also used grounded Bullets in neutral, which is kind of a no-no. I can understand the attempt, as they can cut off some aerial approaches, but the Puff player stuck low or on the ground until they got their first hit in.

I can understand your line of thinking here, Puff's strengths, however meager, are applicable to this matchup, I think. Her weaving ability and air speed will discourage loosely throwing out moves like Heel Slide and ABK. She can Rest out of shield against Heel Slide lol. Bayo's RCO lag from using aerial specials can likely be rested, but if she drops a combo, she's still going to land before you most of the time. I cannot say how good Puff is at getting out of Bayo's bread and butter combos, but then again, she can also just play lame against Puff if she needs to.

Puff also has to fear Witch Time, and she cannot rely solely on whiff punishing at any level of play. Her throws are not good, and neither is her grab, so she needs a hit to seal stocks.

Puff can apply her tools to some effect against Bayonetta, but at the end of the day, a Bayo with MU knowledge seems to e to have a sizable advantage.

I think this is a better Puff vs. Bayonetta video to watch.
https://youtu.be/6VgMVJAXxrM?t=11m
I would offer my comments, but even I'm still thinking about the matchup as a whole. Sorry.

I mentioned Depuzo > Atelier in my Hirosuma 3 post, but now that the set is on YouTube I wanted to go into a little bit more depth on the matchup.

Spoiler: Video Embed

D3 handles this MU so much better than the more popular heavies do. Onstage his best asset is probably bair. In addition to having good range, it takes 1/3 of Luma's health and sends her flying, often killing her outright. 21 frames of landing lag kind of sucks, but if Luma eats the hit then Rosa often won't manage a heavy punish anyway. Gordos also saw a fair bit of use in the above set. They're by no means a great projectile, but the slow travel time is actually helpful in dealing with Gravitational Pull.

Another thing D3 has going for him is serviceable answers to Rosa's normally-oppressive advantaged state. He can actually harass her from the ledge as opposed to just getting trapped there. Uair is huge and disjointed; Atelier made the mistake of not respecting it and lost both Luma and his own stock at separate points in the set. Fair even works from right below the edge because the hammer swing starts above his head. This forces Rosa to rely more on uair strings for kills, which are still very threatening, but at least D3 has 4 midair jumps to mitigate his issues of huge frame and poor airspeed. Meanwhile, he can kill her with bair at respectable %s even if the move is stale (see: end of game 2). That's not to mention the other gimmicks at his disposal (Depuzo lands a DA kill at 55%, which would have at least ended Luma for little cost if nothing else).

None of this puts the match in D3's advantage or anything; Rosa is still a great character and doesn't need all of her tools to work in order to function well. She just doesn't massacre him like she does DK/Bowser/maybe Ganon. With other heavies receiving lots of buffs, it's easy to forget about the fat old emperor penguin, but not getting invalidated by one common top-tier threat is at least one thing he still has in his favor. The only other large-frame heavyweight I can see doing OK vs. Rosa is Charizard, but I've yet to see that in action and so can't speculate in much detail on that MU.

Evidence, unique perspectives, analysis, and constructive criticism/feedback loops. I love it.

 

[bc1910]

Damage reductions, especially 2%/1.5%/2% on 3 very important moves is considerable though. Let's presume 30% of all moves ZSS ever uses consist of nair/uair/dthrow (which is not a stretch at all), and on average their damage got reduced by around 20%, so in practice ZSS now does roughly 0.94x the damage she used to. Could easily be less, even 0.90x. This is literally comparable to Sheik's weight nerf or worse, just the other side of the same coin.

ZSS' nair nerf is comparable to Sheik's fair nerf outside of the reduced damage, since they both lost roughly equal amount of range. Sheik's needles getting bopped is a bigger deal than ZSS' grab losing 4 frames of hitbox from the end of it, and ZSS' dthrow nerf on the other hand was nowhere near as decisive as Sheik's throw nerfs, which are the reason Sheik got hit so much harder.

It's unfair to compare ZSS' nerfs to Sheik's and conclude that because they weren't as bad, they're effectively irrelevant. ZSS still works the same way but lost a guaranteed kill off of dthrow (which didn't kill before 130% to begin with), has to work harder for damage, and her combos work at later percents. It's the biggest overall nerf after 1.0.4 Rosalina, 1.0.6 Diddy, 1.1.5 Sheik and Sonic's consistent early nerfs stacked together, possibly Lucario as well due to him being hit hard by the change in DI mechanics. Oh and Greninja.

Given the fact that Sheik got nerfed harder, the overall outcome of the patch is pretty good for ZSS though, but most definitely negative. I strongly doubt she's out of top 5 though, but top 3 is arguable before we see more.

Good analysis here. The ZSS Nair and Sheik Fair nerfs serve a shared purpose that some seem to be not appreciating.

From my testing, ZSS can still guarantee a kill off Dthrow by using Uair at specific percents, around 125% on Sheik. DI doesn't affect the follow-ups here.

Once the percents get too high though, she's not guaranteeing anything. This is a major blow to her late percent kill potential.

 

[Shaya]

"why do you main Sheik?"
"because it's a better Pikachu!"

said no one ever

The irony here is that I know a Pikachu main who posts in this thread who has essentially stated this before.
Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Whoops.
Maybe you should ask "former" Pikachu players about these things
But this was pre-patch and they may actually have faith in Pikachu's merits again; Sheik isn't strictly better in 95% of game play anymore (and Meta Knight moving down a peg doesn't overtly ensure he's vastly better in nearly every threatening ability while sharing similarities).

Having extensively labbed ZSS combos, her kill options from grab are severely limited until ~130% even on battlefield. Thanks to the Boost Kick and Uair nerf, we are seeing a significant difference in how the character operates. That said, top 5 advantage and well above average neutral, with maybe the best disadvantage, is not to be ignored.

I would really like to hear some further thoughts from Shaya on the current state of ZSS.

To keep it short.
Down Throw is very different.
Very very different.
The Zero Suit Nerds are contemplating the zen of the universe in relation to this. The general theory of awesometivity is that newly optimized down throw will be netting us different things in different ways. This may blow up in our face at which point conversations will generally be "I'm hating this" "that sucks!" "THIS SUCKSS!!!!!" but this hasn't happened yet

I think we still have near-guaranteed KOs from throws now, and they're actually happening earlier than the previous patch. The difference is that it isn't near-permanent, we can't be willynilly hitting nairs (that don't lead into anything) as safe pressure until a grab comes along for an up air.

The neutral air nerf is noticeable in using it as a spacing tool.
And in situations we're very used to, we seem to have a bit of a blind spot (I mean, if 25 frame 'start ups' weren't allowing a big enough blind spot as it is).
This untop of the down throw shake up means (to me) we're forced to play more passive than before... which seems to be going well for me personally. I now want things at certain percent (I know tons of people live and breathe by this type of mindset, but I've always been more organic/reactive to what I do), which perhaps is now actually more defined than we had in the previous patch, leading to more set play.

This is an incoherent ramble, but I'm sure I'll be able to word it better in the future.

 

[Shady Shaymin]

Honestly, as someone who plays a decent amount of pika and sheik (moreso the former), I can confirm that a lot of pika's strengths were really outclassed by pre patch sheik. his niche was his shortness and superior burst mobility in qa.

In 1.1.5 i think pikachu now outclasses sheik. sheik has superior frame data on her aerials, but now she's only 2 points heavier than pikachu, who actually has a kill confirm that's guaranteed unlike sheik.

 

[Chalice]

MK was designed as an edgeguarding character, yet the ease of the ladder confirm ensured that almost no one actually used him in such a manner.

Edgeguarding in SSB4 is underdeveloped across the board, and it's pretty clear that MK was designed to prevent people from making it back to the stage: 5 jumps, extremely fast disjointed aerials, an Up+B that's hard to punish and can easily stage spike... In fact, all of his B moves can be used for recovery, depending upon the circumstances.

His neutral is only so-so (though better than most would credit it for), but once he has someone off the stage, it should be a nightmare to make it past him and to the ledge.

Sheik also just started needing to really step up the offstage gimping game, and VoID actually did a pretty good job of this in many of his matches in that tournament where he lost to Tyrant.

The SSB4 meta has been extremely, EXTREMELY over-centralized on kill confirms. Now that the devs are slowly taking those away, it's forcing us to pursue other options to get the KO.

I'd also like to say how important it is to edgeguard Bayonetta in particular because offstage is pretty much the only time you can go ham on her without fearing Witch Time

And honestly it makes the game much more exciting and balanced because now, like how Tyrant is showcasing post-patch Meta Knight, players must....

Play neutral :O

I feel like this will also flesh out the people who don't want to learn how to read people and play the game on a mental level like Melee. Now instead of relying on win conditions, we are getting our victories in our actual skills

Except Bayonetta. **** that ****

 

[Shaya]

Oh and if you're wondering why we're unable to instantly understand the karmic balance of the multiverse instantly besides us having all the data.

Messing with damages which messes with bases, while tinkering around with growths
means

RAGE ****S WITH EVERYTHING. IT'S ALL COMPLETELY NEW TO US.
And obviously all the optimal follow ups change as well...

Like
Down Throw
we're 100%
you're 110%
You DI up, you get up aired and die, this wouldn't happen until like 30% later the previous patch.
Maybe you DI away at a slightly lower percent - back air and fair will now be relevant follow ups and you'll die to them near the ledge.

Furthermore we now generally actually have real down throw procedures at low percent.
Up Smash will get us aerials.
Other DI will get us fairs which can be fast fallen and auto cancel, or even be properly combo'd into up airs (hint: not even remotely close to real previous patch but can be sporadically done now).
At mid percent having down throw lead into fairs and bairs gives us MORE FAIRS AND BAIRS. BECAUSE THEY COMBO INTO EACH OTHER AND ALWAYS HAVE.
Just our set ups into them were a lot less relevant before!

Optimizing these new shindigs will take time.
I'm personally banking on NickRiddle doing all the nerdwork sometime within the next day or two actually

BASED NICKRIDDLE>

"Are we actually worse as a character in any real way other than Sakurai forcing us to refocus how we play her?"
if it wasn't for that nair range nerf #_#

 

[Mario766]

That's twice in a few pages that someone has said that Pikachu has a kill confirm.

Please don't tell me that's up throw Thunder

Because that is NOT a guaranteed kill confirm. It's a DI read.


Speaking of kill confirms.


78 percent is now Sheik death percent against Ike with no rage.

I'm liking this patch more and more with every lab session.

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

The thing about calculating frame data and hitbox angles is that sadly it might get washed away with patches.
Guess we will have to deal with it

 

[A10theHero]

...Doesn't Pika just lose hard to swords?

I don't understand why people say this.
Like, I've asked Pikachu mains in the Discord chat who they felt were Pikachu's bad matchups. None of them were swordfighters. We actually had a discussion on this a few days ago, and nobody felt that range was a significant barrier.

In theory, range should be the most significant problem in air-air interactions where their aerials should always beat out Pikachu's aerials. But who in their right mind would do that? Like not just with Pikachu, why would any character who doesn't have a very disjointed aerial try to challenge that? It would make sense to restrict usage of aerials for guaranteed combos only. I could see Pikachu mains who rely heavily on SH Fair to approach having problems with this, but Pikachu has other approach options. Down Tilt, Thunder Jolt, RAR SH Uair, and (sometimes) SHAC Dair can all be safe on shield and Thunder Jolt definitely can outrange any swordfighter's sword. And since, realistically, both players aren't going to input aerials at the same time, it also depends on the speed of the swordfighter relative to Pikachu. Outside of a good read, could the swordfighter in question respond to the visual cue of a spinning Pikachu hurtling towards him/her fast enough? Not all swordfighters can, so even this might not be that problematic.

When on the ground, everyone has access to shield, which won't get beaten out. Swordfighters tend to have noticeable endlag on their attacks, which can be exploited relatively easily. If the move is safe on shield, just keep playing neutral. For the ones that aren't safe on shield, Pikachu can easily punish with QA or shield grabs (depending on the spacing), which can lead to followups and combos in response. You know, normal neutral stuff.

Everything I've mentioned so far is actually pretty obvious stuff when playing. Not all approach options work against every single character of the game, and you have to be mindful of safety on shield and such. If you're careful and mindful when playing, what's the problem?

Maybe people think that swordfighters can box Pikachu in? Quick Attack and Skull Bash help Pikachu escape disadvantaged situations and reset neutral (or occasionally in Quick Attack's case, switch from disadvantaged to advantaged). Boxing Pikachu out? Shield the attacks. When playing defensively, punish the unsafe moves (this is usually easier than against other archetypes because of the endlag). When playing offensively, use safe poking tools, force reactions, and go from there.

And this all is ignoring edgeguarding.

In short, having more range isn't inherently an issue since there are exploitable drawbacks to it. The con of high recovery frames is especially something that works in Pikachu's favor since he can quickly punish these moves.

Oh and if you're curious:

Spoiler: Their opinions on Pikachu's disadvantaged matchups

These were the opinions of around 10 Pikachu mains, including players who actively participate in tournaments and those who do not.

Almost unanimous


About half agree, half disagree
, , ,

Less than half

That's twice in a few pages that someone has said that Pikachu has a kill confirm.

Please don't tell me that's up throw Thunder

Because that is NOT a guaranteed kill confirm. It's a DI read.

Bro, please read this:

Up throw to Thunder is hard. There's no doubt about it. Not only do you have to practice the inputs, but you have to practice reacting to the DI as well. The former can be mastered through hours of repetition in Training Mode. But the latter needs hours of practice in a real-time setting. As with many aspects of competitive Smash, the way you get better is by playing under the pressure of a real-life tournament. Because of that, it will be a while before anyone will really master it.

Keep in mind that if you can accurately predict where your opponent is going, then you will have no trouble connecting the Thunder. In the first instance you linked, it seemed that ESAM was trying to read rather than react to Vinnie's DI. Going for the read is a trade-off: Not reacting fast enough is removed out of the equation but it comes at the risk of completely missing the Thunder by a long shot. Consequentially, Up Throw to Thunder can either be guaranteed by reaction or a 33-33-33* by reading.

Spoiler: *

As ESAM mentioned in his video, it can sometimes be a 50-50 if you cover more than one option. It can even be guaranteed if you grab and Up Throw quickly, not giving your opponent a chance to react and DI.

--
Interested in reaction times and this kill confirm, I did some research and here's what I found:
Note that the average reaction time of a human is between .15 - .30 seconds or 9 - 18 frames in Smash. For young people, it's obviously gonna be closer to .15 than .30.
Anyways, now watch this Up Throw to Thunder from a more recent set at 60 fps. On YouTube, you can use the ">" and "<" keys to advance and move back one frame at a time.
I started counting from the moment Meta Knight's percent changed from the Up Throw. This is what I found:
There were 50 frames until Meta Knight's air dodge came out (Meta Knight has a frame 2 air dodge, so it was input at 48 frames).
There were about 26 frames after the red streak showing the opponent's DI from the Up Throw became visible. If we assume that one cannot react to the opponent's DI before the red streak, then this is the number of frames that ESAM had to perform the RAR Thunder.
Based on these findings, if ESAM needed 18 frames to react to the red flash, he would still have 8 frames to perform the rest of the combo.
So to perform this kill confirm, you do not have to be completely frame perfect, but the closer, the better. (Remember though that this is under the assumption that it is impossible to react to DI before the red lighting cue. There are a few frames before the spark that also reveal the opponent's choice of DI.)
--
As I said before, this kill confirm is difficult to perform, and if these results mean anything, then that is definitely true. But it is still very much possible. And remember, as time goes on, we will get faster at inputting and better at reacting with more practice in real matches. ESAM could not read Meta Knight's DI fast enough, so he was just a few frames too slow. But he will get better. He just has to keep trying. And that goes for all of us as well. Over time, this kill confirm will only become easier to do.

Unless I did something wrong, it seems that Up Throw to RAR Thunder doesn't have to be a DI read.

 

[Mario766]

...You're just proving my point.

You don't have to read the DI IF THERE IS NO DI.


I mean, if Pikachu has this really reliable guaranteed kill confirm you think we would have more Pikachus doing something in tournament and not having an issue taking stocks

or maybe ESAM is just playing a hacked character 24/7 and his up throw Thunders are just more guaranteed than others.


Oh wait, he isn't.

 

[Trifroze]

What I've tested from ZSS' new down throw (DI, mashing jumps and airdodges, not-training-mode):

- Dthrow to bair is guaranteed between around 60-110% depending on the character. Becomes 50:50 with rage pretty fast (and with higher percents without rage).

- Dthrow to uair is never guaranteed at kill percents. It's a non weight dependent throw and Falcon can airdodge in time, therefore literally every other character can also airdodge in time. It's a 50:50 until around the same percents where it previously stopped being guaranteed, and rage makes it work earlier but with decreased windows. Even managed to get this to work on Rosalina with max rage, but she had to be at around 90% and she barely died, and with like 5% more damage she was able to jump out.

- Dthrow to uair to uair to up b window takes place around 5% later, roughly the same amount that is lost with the damage reduction of 2% on dthrow and 1.5%x2 on the uairs, so the opponent will have the same amount of damage at the end of the combo and not be any more likely to die to up b than before. Raw up airs into up b might be a different matter though.

Of course on top of everything you still have to read/react to the opponent's DI. Still questioning how possible reacting is since I keep flubbing it and top players seem to make the wrong call at times as well. Reacting after you jump is easy (i.e. run forward and jump for a fair, realize the opponent DI'd towards you, throw out bair instead) but reacting as soon as you're able to act is challenging to say the least.

 

[HeavyLobster]

None of this puts the match in D3's advantage or anything; Rosa is still a great character and doesn't need all of her tools to work in order to function well. She just doesn't massacre him like she does DK/Bowser/maybe Ganon. With other heavies receiving lots of buffs, it's easy to forget about the fat old emperor penguin, but not getting invalidated by one common top-tier threat is at least one thing he still has in his favor. The only other large-frame heavyweight I can see doing OK vs. Rosa is Charizard, but I've yet to see that in action and so can't speculate in much detail on that MU.

Don't have much Rosa experience, but it is generally bad for Ganon, and is probably only a little less bad after the patch, probably either 35-65 or 40-60 against him. While his main advantages are some good anti-Luma tools and the ability to edgeguard Rosa well enough, her Uair and edgeguards are very bad for him, and he generally has to work twice as hard to do anything and can get janked out very easily. Not his worst by any means, but still hard. As far as Charizard goes, I don't have much experience either, but it does feel a bit easier than Ganon if still uphill. Bair upgrade and the airspeed buff could change this MU and make it more favorable for Zard, as Bair can kill Luma semi-safely from a distance or just kill Rosa stupidly early.

 

[Browny]

Why am I witnessing high level players DI'ing MK's uair chain back into him.

Do they feel bad for MK mains and want to give them the combo that they lost?

omg its annoying to watch

 

[A10theHero]

...You're just proving my point.

You don't have to read the DI IF THERE IS NO DI.

According to my post, you can react to the DI. You don't have to make any predictions (those come with their own separate costs and benefits). An average human should be able to follow the path and perform the combo. In short, you don't have to read at all.

I mean, if Pikachu has this really reliable guaranteed kill confirm you think we would have more Pikachus doing something in tournament and not having an issue taking stocks

or maybe ESAM is just playing a hacked character 24/7 and his up throw Thunders are just more guaranteed than others.


Oh wait, he isn't.

Well this combo isn't easy to do. Not only do you have to practice the inputs to the point that you could comfortably perform them in any direction without looking at Pikachu, but also, you have to practice following your opponent's DI. The latter definitely isn't as easy to practice on your own as mastering the inputs. Thus, this requires a lot of labbing and real-time practice. Up Throw to RAR Thunder is easy to mess up, so I doubt we'd be seeing its widespread use for a while, compounded by the fact that few people play Pikachu to begin with.
ESAM hasn't mastered it yet. I don't know why you think that, considering the fact that he often misses it and the majority of my quoted post was talking about an Up Throw to Thunder that he missed. On the bright side, he told me he's been practicing it more. Though he doesn't lab much in the first place, and Pokken is taking a significant portion of his time now, so I can't say if you're going to see it consistently from him any time soon either.
I only know one person who has told me that he has successfully implemented RAR Thunder into his play. I haven't seen his tournament videos, so I can't confirm.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Plus witch time has a FAF of 45 (stops countering at frame 21) according to kuroganehammer (not sure if updated) so that is longer than the longest ending lag possible with bayo wich is abk x 2 and wt x 2 = 43. Badically if bayonetta doesnt eat a hard punish after a failed combo regardless of witch time, the opponent doesnt know the matchup.

not updated, it's longer now (late response, probably already pointed out but whatevs)

 

[Shady Shaymin]

Anyone who thinks uthrow to thunder isn't true just because you have to react to DI is just uneducated.

That's like saying pre patch Sheik doesn't have a kill confirm because you have to get an airdodge read.

Or like saying pre patch ZSS's ladder isn't true because...DI.

People in this game like constructing their little narratives. I guess the community has cemented pika having no kill confirms as a part of their narrative. Oh well. Some people just don't concede when presented with factual information, what can you do?

 

[Amadeus9]

Anyone who thinks uthrow to thunder isn't true just because you have to react to DI is just uneducated.

That's like saying pre patch Sheik doesn't have a kill confirm because you have to get an airdodge read.

Or like saying pre patch ZSS's ladder isn't true because...DI.

People in this game like constructing their little narratives. I guess the community has cemented pika having no kill confirms as a part of their narrative. Oh well. Some people just don't concede when presented with factual information, what can you do?

I see top level Pikachu mains miss that "confirm" more often than not.

 

[Shady Shaymin]

I see top level Pikachu mains miss that "confirm" more often than not.

Just because it's hard tech doesn't mean it's not true.

If your opponent has mastered the tech, and grabs you at like 110, there is no action you can possibly do to avoid getting hit assuming they don't **** it up. That is the definition of a true combo. idk what else you guys want to hear.

 

[Amadeus9]

Just because it's hard tech doesn't mean it's not true.

If your opponent has mastered the tech, and grabs you at like 110, there is no action you can possibly do to avoid getting hit assuming they don't **** it up. That is the definition of a true combo. idk what else you guys want to hear.

"Its a really good tech that fixes everything about pika guys idk why top players arent doing it and winning"

Spare me

 

[Peppermint1201]

Riddle me this: how early does RAR thunder kill?

 

[TDK]

who is better? Pikachu, Mewtwo, or Greninja?