Beats Cloud:
Goes even with him:
Potentially goes even:
all have tools to deal with him, whether it be exploiting his recovery, bopping him in disadvantage, or having a kill confirm on him that works for a wide range since Cloud has a good weight, fall speed, and height for combos. They might not beat him, but none of these MUs are total blowouts. Over half the cast can realistically hope to beat Cloud.
Cloud is a dumb character, and can be super frustrating to fight, but he is not the gatekeeper of this game. That title pretty much belongs to
(Can your character deal with Luma? No? GG EZ$).
still have the best results of the cast, and it might sound harsh, but I really could not care less about mid levels of play. Balance patches should NOT be targeted towards those players.
"But entry barriers and fun and blah blah blah". No. That's a terrible argument. This isn't supposed to be easy. People want Cloud nerfed because they can't figure out how to deal with him. There is counterplay to him. Despite his "braindead" autocancel aerials, Cloud lacks a quick horizontal poke (nair is in front of him around frame 9, essentially f13 with his f4 jump squat). All of his grounded moves are a commitment due to the rather high FAF on most of his moves. Limit can only be used once and he is vulnerable to far more combos when he has limit. He can also be forced to use Limit by pressuring him offstage when he has it. Nair is great, but doesn't have as much range as it looks (less range than Sheik's fair). Bair cannot auto cancel from a short hop when he has limit. Fair is f18, you can definitely react to that. Just move out of the way (DON'T shield it), and punish the landing lag. Up air is a great juggling tool, but it lacks horizontal range and he can't drift much once he starts the move. Dair is great for escaping pressure, but he needs to auto cancel it for it to be safe. Just monitor the height where he's using the move and you can punish him if he uses it at an unsafe distance. If he's high enough to dair, then you can go to his side and Bair/Fair him. The move can be challenged.
His grab is pretty bad, so shielding when he has limit is a good tool. The only time he gets legit scary is when he's edge guarding you because you cannot shield. Limit Blade Beam and Cross Slash are potent edge guarding tools, but they cana be shielded and avoided on stage (he can't really combo into them). Limit Climhazard is a potent OoS tool, but it doesn't kill until around 120%-ish on most characters. Finishing Touch is a hard read only option, so you just can't complain about that one. His smash attacks carry a fair bit of commitment to them, while f smash is the only one that kills decently early. His tilts are good for what they do (f tilt is a strong poke, d tilt is good for combos and beating falling aerials, up tilt is an extremely good anti air), but they don't kill you at early %s.
Mid level play should not dictate who should be nerfed and buffed. If it did, then
need serious nerfs, and
could use a bit of a buff. This thread could use a healthy shot of "git gud" because there have been way too many scrub level complaints recently. Even I was complaining about how dumb Ryu is. I still think he's frustrating to fight, but instead of whining and thinking of how much he needs to be nerfed, I studied and kept practicing the MU until I learned what to do (pro tip, focus more on movement rather than shielding). This is what's expected of us. I know absolutely none of us have perfected the MU against any character, let alone perfect our own gameplay. Once you have exhausted all of your options and there is nothing else you can do against a character, even then you shouldn't complain, because there is nothing stopping you from play a better character or playing the character you are struggling to beat. Or you could just play a different game if you're not having fun.
