Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[meticulousboy]

Does his grab at least give a positional advantage?

The end lag on his grab is enough to punish an opponent who rolls away. His dash grab may be punishable, but at least it stays out for a while to cover a roll.

 

[Luco]

I think we have a lot of different people with a lot of different ideas as to where the general power curve of this game should lie, so it's going to feel like everyone wants the next best top tier nerfed. In reality it's probably an argument that doesn't need to happen because sadly it's always going to be around and it's always going to feel sucky for everyone involved.

Remember what I said about spikes and occurences such as this? They're indicative of something but we really don't know what, and like I've also said what I would call player variance plays a big part in how results look as though they do.

We take these occurrences and we wait to see if a pattern emerges and in the meantime we think (maybe not so strongly) about why these occurrences happen, preferably without jumping to conclusions that the meta-game is dying.

Lucas and Ness probably aren't 'mid v high tier' even just comparing them from a franchise, they're probably similar in terms of overall power and we're still just waiting on Lucas to catch up (which he totally is even if he's taking his darn time) results-wise (and Ness would have top 8 results if FOW/Shaky/S1 travelled, he still makes top 16 pretty regularly most places with his high level players like Xanos, Ribs, Awestin, Mik! etc.) They have different MU niches and are one of the more common duos you see co-mained for a whole host of fun reasons.

Ehhh I guess I would expect to see Lucas still sitting in mid tier with Robin and friends at this point results-wise but I do think as time moves on he'll continue to climb like he has been. Could be wrong though.

 

[Jamurai]

Does his grab at least give a positional advantage?

His throws are fine. It's the grab that's bad. Like Villager or Pac.
Then again, it's not that huge an issue, because his command grab is eggcellent.

 

[Nabbitnator]

Hmm. I guess he doesn't have enough representation then.

 

[aεrgiα]

about the ness lucas thing, could someone please explain how ness invalidates lucas as a character? in what ever sense of the word you mean it. i mean im not the most optimistic lucas main, heck im probably the most pessimistic when it comes to the potential of the character but i dont see how, in any way, shape or form, ness invalidates lucas,(lucas doesnt invalidate ness either, nor are his moves "simply better versions of ness' ") the two characters have a completely different gameplan :/ if any character ever invalidated lucas as a character, it was, IMO, prepatch zss, it may sound weird, but just because zss mains never played a defensive spacing game with nair, bair, zair, neutral b and (lul) side b, catching landings or rush ins with grab doesnt mean she couldnt

edit: also a quick note about 3 stocks, you always hear arguments that 3 stocks makes rage(and waft) much less of an issue, i disagree, while it is true that 3 stocks does reduce the impact of a single "jank" rage or waft kill, it also makes those kills more consistent, because now the player has 3 stocks to; live to "im gonna kill sheik at 20%" percents, land that one waft kill at 30% to basically make the match 3 stocks vs 2 stocks etc. basically what im trying to say is, does reducing the impact of stupid kills at the cost of increasing the likelyhood of them happening really make them less of an issue?

 

[PK Gaming]

It's true that in a sense, top level is always the future and something you can aim for, so a competitive person would rather have a matchup be good at the top level and bad at lower levels than vice versa (this is actually why I said "what happens at the top level is practically irrelevant to us").

The reality though is that the vast majority of players never reach that level, and sometimes the factors that turn a matchup from bad to good require you to consistently utilize some pretty difficult concepts or mechanics. Yes, we may all think those concepts and mechanics are simple and easy or slightly challenging at worst, but that's a failure of empathy. Sometimes good players forget how much work it takes to learn certain things and to turn them intuitive.

This is such a horrible mindset to have. Even if the vast majority of players never reach that level, it shouldn't preclude them from learning/emulating high level play. It's not a valid excuse to say "well Cloud is manageable at high level play, but lower level players will never be good enough to beat him ." Are you serious? Not only do I flat out disagree, this is Smash Bros, not quantum level physics. These aren't concepts that are difficult to learn at all. Failure of empathy my ass, that's just a conceit on your part. You will never get good as a player if you seriously subscribe to that a notion. Every player has the potential to improve and adapt, not just top level players.

Fighting games involve a lot of mental struggle to a player trying to get good, and while you might say that people struggling with Cloud just need to get better because ultimately he's very beatable at higher levels, the vast majority of players are constantly in the middle of that journey being frustrated about him. Things like that are what turn people off and make them give up and switch away before they reach that high or top level, and that has a direct negative effect on the whole community. If people give up for arbitrary reasons then fine, but Cloud's effect on the meta especially at lower levels isn't exactly arbitrary at the moment.

Bull****. You talk about how Cloud is difficult for lower level players, when it should literally be the complete opposite. I'm not even a particularly good player, but I've never felt like the Cloud matchup was particularly hopeless at my local. Because you can tell. You can tell when someone secondaries Cloud in the hopes of a cheap win. You can tell because there's an over reliance on Dair that causes them to eat more damage. You can tell because they pop limit Side B instead of holding it. And you can tell when they suck at recovering. Cloud is and will always be a character that is easier to beat at lower levels of play, because Cloud has a high ceiling by design. Cloud being easy to use is incidental in this argument because he isn't a substitute for skill. Nor will he ever be one.

Now to the underlying issue I have with your post:

There's this startling propensity towards heaping the blame on Cloud instead of considering the alternatives. The doomsay scenario you're alluding to is objectively untrue, so it really just comes down to this: Players who beat you are more skilled at the game. If you lost because they picked Cloud instead of their main they typically use, that's still on you. Get better. Play Smarter. Learn the matchup and beat them. Or don't. The world still turns.

 

[Trifroze]

People who don't have the drive to improve will complain about literally everything. You nerf cloud and they'll move onto the next character (as they have with literally every other character that's been nerfed).

Nerfing Cloud wouldn't fix anything. People will probably just start complaining about how easy Mario is next lmao. It's the mentality that has to change. If someone's going to quit the game because of Cloud, then cloud being nerfed won't keep them around because they'll just quit because of the next character they label as unfair.

This argument assumes there's nothing inherently wrong with Cloud. Player mentality is a problem like I already said:

If people give up for arbitrary reasons then fine, but Cloud's effect on the meta especially at lower levels isn't exactly arbitrary at the moment.

However, you're claiming player mentality is the only problem and making the black and white "complain or adapt" split that I laid out earlier:

Critique also shouldn't have the sort of stigma some people are trying to apply to it, i.e. you either complain like a loser or you adapt, absolutely can't do both at the same time and absolutely can't criticize something without being a complaining loser.

Anyway:

There are still many problems with this game's balance and design, and many little details that could be improved upon. The game will do great even if nothing is ever patched again, but it would do better if that wasn't the case.

You're proposing a chaos theory where the game should be left like it is now because apparently the game is in such a good state that patches could only be done without any other reason than the community crying about something they can't adapt to, and that this would simply ruin the game. Yet there's nothing to suggest that this would be the direction as patches have made the game better every time so far.

Characters that are both very easy and very effective are in the realm of bad design because they remove incentive to use other characters and thus create imbalance in character usage, massively so if it's extreme. Luigi will always serves as an example of this.

Games are ultimately made for enjoyment more than anything else, so any balance changes that increase the net enjoyability of the game are good balance changes, whatever that might entail. And it doesn't entail making characters braindead or broken because while it might be fun to a few of the character's mains, it's terrible for literally everyone else. It all works out fairly logically once you stop worshiping the top level and only the top level so hard.

There's a bigger picture to competitive Smash than that, one where better experience at lower levels enables higher levels to flourish more, and where there's more to good game design than making as many characters as possible equally able to win EVO through whatever means necessary.

EDIT: PK Gaming that's some interesting aggression right there but this post should work for you too (actually it probably doesn't after re-reading your post because my goodness man)

 

[Blobface]

Brief side note: Ganon is absolutely nothing like Captain Falcon and is definitely not invalidated by him. This kind of silly thinking is why Ganon has a crappy linking Nair now. Well, probably not, but still, if we had Old Nair Ganon would probably be upper-mid tier.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Characters that are both very easy and very effective are in the realm of bad design because they remove incentive to use other characters and thus create imbalance in character usage, massively so if it's extreme.

I just want to point out that while this isn't entirely invalid, there is an opposite side to this that's worth considering, especially if we're talking playerbase.

Cloud is a very good entry level competitive character, no doubt in my mind, much akin to Mario, most likely stronger, but similar in that he's fundamentally good at what this game demands at a basic level. But what happens when characters like this are "good but not good enough to win tournaments" or "good but the effort it takes at top level (the goal everyone should strive for or aim for, IMO, if they're playing to win big) isn't worth"? It's hard to word this properly, but Cloud I think is going to introduce more people to this game and bring more people in than he will drive away, and we haven't exactly seen negative growth or largely negative reception at large to this phenomenon or this character. Ryu is like this in Street Fighter 5, he is incredibly simple, he's Ryu after all, but he is SUPER SUPER good and is certainly more than reasonable to play at a top level and yes, I'd say it's extreme (his damage <3). In fact I think a problem a lot of fighting games have is that their entry level characters either top out at mediocre or just suck (usually the former but the latter's happened before) and I don't think that really helps anyone either.

I think the idea that a simple gameplan should not be rewarding is fundamentally flawed in some aspects because simple gameplans are how you introduce new people and new people are what spread this game around to people who would not even consider the thought beforehand. Also it's Cloud, a character that the word "iconic" can't even begin to describe. It adds to the reason that he's so good at bringing in new people on paper and I haven't seen it backfire here yet, not that it can't or anything, but this goes outside the realm of actual character design so I'll leave it at that.

It also doesn't help that the format of this game (2 stock, which I agree with btw I'm just saying) and the mechanics (rage, etc.) promote safe, simple options, so characters who have this are naturally going to thrive more than those that take risks, but this of course changes at the higher levels where people utilize everything and apply stronger mental pressure and the pacing is entirely different.

I'm also partially upset that you called the character extremely braindead (unless that was just an example, I'm sorry if it was) because that doesn't exactly make me feel good about my (former) primary character choice or the effort I put in to learn the character and figure him out when everyone was telling me he was a glorified mid tier who would die all the time off-stage. Just throwin it out there.

Brief side note: Ganon is absolutely nothing like Captain Falcon and is definitely not invalidated by him. This kind of silly thinking is why Ganon has a crappy linking Nair now. Well, probably not, but still, if we had Old Nair Ganon would probably be upper-mid tier.

Had to edit my post to add RIP Ganon's good ass Nair, I miss that move too man you have no idea. Combined with his new jab it would be super beastly

 

[Yikarur]

Characters that can make it under Battlefield:
( / ) (0/1/2 Pikmin)

This is open for contention.

Yoshi

I can understand why they're doing the former, Cloud *is* the best secondary character after all, but all these complaints about him being 'too good' are honestly becoming more and more pathetic as top level play keeps debunking them.

no one complaining complains about top level play. Cloud is a massive problem in lower levels of play and this is the problem.

They could learn to play Sheik and enjoy the free win for one.

That's an exaggeration. But it's also a valid point.

Sheik is very hard to play and not even comparable.

How does Yoshi do against most of the cast? I don't quite understand his character but he seems to have a lot of great attributes. What is hurting his meta?

Yoshi loses solidly against Cloud and Diddy. I think the Cloud MU is semi-ok if you are really good at the MU. The Diddy MU is more of a problem. Everything else is winnable for Yoshi. I think Yoshis best Top Tier MUs are Ryu and Mario.

This is such a horrible mindset to have. Even if the vast majority of players never reach that level, it shouldn't preclude them from learning/emulating high level play. It's not a valid excuse to say "well Cloud is manageable at high level play, but lower level players will never be good enough to beat him ." Are you serious? Not only do I flat out disagree, this is Smash Bros, not quantum level physics. These aren't concepts that are difficult to learn at all. Failure of empathy my ***, that's just a conceit on your part. You will never get good as a player if you seriously subscribe to that a notion. Every player has the potential to improve and adapt, not just top level players.

it's not about being good enough. It's just that Cloud is very overwhelming at lower levels of play and data proves that. It's only Top Level that tells us that Cloud is not a problem.

Cloud is and will always be a character that is easier to beat at lower levels of play, because Cloud has a high ceiling by design. Cloud being easy to use is incidental in this argument because he isn't a substitute for skill. Nor will he ever be one.

This is a ridiculously bad joke.

 

[PK Gaming]

it's not about being good enough. It's just that Cloud is very overwhelming at lower levels of play and data proves that. It's only Top Level that tells us that Cloud is not a problem.

Except the data does nothing of the sort. All it shows is that Cloud is common and has a good win record. "Very overwhelming" is a massive stretch.

This is a ridiculously bad joke.

The only joke here is that you thought could get away with saying this instead of presenting an actual argument.

 

[Y2Kay]

How does data not support the fact that Cloud dominates lower level play? He had the highest win rate among smash characters, and it wasn't from dominating nationals. Cloud just gives local level play an absolute headache. Whether this is just cuz people are bad or whatever is besides the point.

 

[PK Gaming]

How does data not support the fact that Cloud dominates lower level play? He had the highest win rate among smash characters, and it wasn't from dominating nationals. Cloud just gives local level play an absolute headache. Whether this is just cuz people are bad or whatever is besides the point.

I'm not discounting the fact that he wins a ton at low level play. I just don't think that outright proves that he's overwhelming as a character. We know that Cloud dominates because he's very good & incredibly easy to use, but I also believe that his results largely due to the fact that low level players simply aren't good at fighting Cloud.

 

[jespoke]

I'm not discounting the fact that he wins a ton at low level play. I just don't think that outright proves that he's overwhelming as a character. We know that Cloud dominates because he's very good & incredibly easy to use, but I also believe that his results largely due to the fact that low level players simply aren't good at fighting Cloud.

I thought Cloud being overwhelming was the one thing everyone could agree on D: I mean, mobility, frame data, damage, power, range and stuff are all good. A character that is good enough at everything that you have to look to alternative avenues to defeat him is definitely "overwhelming" in my book

 

[Nobie]

No one would be up in arms about Cloud if he didn't have decent results at the highest levels.

It's not like there are long treatises these days about the menace of Little Mac.

It's interesting to compare these complaints to those surrounding Bayonets because Bayonets had this aura of "kills interaction"(even though she didn't), whereas Cloud's is "unfair interactions." Or maybe I have it backwards.

 

[NewZen]

There are a few factors that attribute to Cloud dominating lower levels of play, that still doesn't excuse the fact that it's primarily up to the players at those levels to learn how to deal with him instead of asking for Patches that may make him overall worse by design:

-Ease of access is the most prominent one, as nobody can deny that Cloud is arguably one of the easiest characters in the game (Along with Mario, etc.) to pick up and play, and he does have a significant amount of tools that make him a force to be reckoned with. Thing is, ease of access means that not only will you generally see the character often, but because you see said character often, there should be no reason for you to not learn the ins and outs of how the character works, even if people's play-styles are radically different-a character will still need to be played the way that character's design was intended. Again, while the focus is on Low-Level tournament play, the fact that more advanced players tend to have less trouble with him still is a factor, right (Everyone starts off at the lower end, you're gonna have to pick yourself up if you truly want to improve, and whining does nothing to fix this)?

-Refusal to learn the MU and instead complain for nerfs is another thing most players at lower levels tend to do. News flash, just because a character is good doesn't mean that they should become absolute dog crap because you can't deal with them unless they have something that is literally unbeatable (Those things have been patched out), and most people at lower levels who play characters who are generally considered either average to garbage need to also accept that if they play said characters, they're going to have to put in effort with that character. That's been a thing in Fighters since they became competitive, and expecting the game to hold your hand and kiss your *** because, "This character is cheap!!" isn't a good enough excuse, anymore, because it's more on the fact that you simply refuse to learn how to deal with a character and rely on what me and friend of mine call the "Patch Mentality" to "fix" all of your problems for you (Truth be told, these patches have been both a positive and negative in regards to Smash 4's overall standing due to how the community is so shattered, it seems).

I'm probably going to get slammed for this, but then again, that's generally what I've noticed with this community since the inception of patches for this game-complaints out of the whazoo for things that really didn't need to change.

 

[Jams.]

This is such a horrible mindset to have. Even if the vast majority of players never reach that level, it shouldn't preclude them from learning/emulating high level play. It's not a valid excuse to say "well Cloud is manageable at high level play, but lower level players will never be good enough to beat him ." Are you serious? Not only do I flat out disagree, this is Smash Bros, not quantum level physics. These aren't concepts that are difficult to learn at all. Failure of empathy my ***, that's just a conceit on your part. You will never get good as a player if you seriously subscribe to that a notion. Every player has the potential to improve and adapt, not just top level players.

Bull****. You talk about how Cloud is difficult for lower level players, when it should literally be the complete opposite. I'm not even a particularly good player, but I've never felt like the Cloud matchup was particularly hopeless at my local. Because you can tell. You can tell when someone secondaries Cloud in the hopes of a cheap win. You can tell because there's an over reliance on Dair that causes them to eat more damage. You can tell because they pop limit Side B instead of holding it. And you can tell when they suck at recovering. Cloud is and will always be a character that is easier to beat at lower levels of play, because Cloud has a high ceiling by design. Cloud being easy to use is incidental in this argument because he isn't a substitute for skill. Nor will he ever be one.

Now to the underlying issue I have with your post:

There's this startling propensity towards heaping the blame on Cloud instead of considering the alternatives. The doomsay scenario you're alluding to is objectively untrue, so it really just comes down to this: Players who beat you are more skilled at the game. If you lost because they picked Cloud instead of their main they typically use, that's still on you. Get better. Play Smarter. Learn the matchup and beat them. Or don't. The world still turns.

I'm going to have to bring up the skill card here because it's relevant and my god this post was needlessly aggressive. You don't even know if Trifroze is playing Devil's advocate (which he often does in this thread to promote discussion), please keep it civil. Anyway, you, a player who went 1-2 at his first local 2 weeks ago, are lecturing Trifroze, someone who is PRed in his country, about what goes and what doesn't in mid/high level play. I'd imagine Trifroze would be much more accustomed as to the reality of the situation. I don't think asking for a little empathy with regards to the Cloud issue is asking for too much.

Also, Cloud has a low skill floor by design (quite literally, since Sakurai has stated he purposefully made Cloud easier to play for new players). At lower levels of gameplay, skill floor matters much more than skill ceiling, which is arguably not relevant for low/mid level play at all. Cloud's low skill floor means he's harder to beat at low levels of play, because it's easier to execute his game plan; he also doesn't plateau early, your Cloud naturally improves as your fundamentals improve (as opposed to gimmick 'local maxima' strats like wobbling or Falco chaingrabs).

I don't understand why there's this dichotomy going on where you're either playing to win EVO or you're a scrub. What if you want to be in best player in your local, or simply beat the guy ranked two spots above you that you're 0-3 against at the past few events? Do these people not matter? I can say with a good amount of certainty that competitive Smash players playing with the main goal of "be the best in the world" comprise only a minority of the entire competitive community; do these people not matter?

 

[Shady Shaymin]

Who said anything about low level? We know he's strong in low level but that's not even the point. People who participate in their locals and weeklies, who play on Anthers regularly, maybe occasionally go to a decently sized regional and place well, or anyone who falls under the "mid level" umbrella know all too well that Cloud is a centralizing and arguably overpowering force.

Certain things that are less difficult to punish at the toppest of top level, like punishing even the best spacing with perfect shielding, are simply not a reliable option for the "mid level". Even at top level, technical flubbery and missed perfect shield timings are common, but you're going to tell mid level players that just perfect shielding all of his stupid hitboxes is a reliable, consistent strategy? You're going to tell them that taking their stubby character, giving up stage control entirely, challenging a highly disjointed recovery move all while risking a dair spike, is a reliable, consistent counter strategy even when it only works when the ******'s not glowing blue? Or my favorite, "Cloud loses to shields". Just like Fox, who also apparently "loses to shields" but places well at top level consistently? You're going to just sit in shield against perhaps the most patient and campy character in the game who almost never has to approach and forces you to play by his rules?

What about players who don't even main characters that have the tools to properly deal with Cloud, i.e. 70 percent of the mid tier cast? Pick up Sheik as a secondary? Lmfao. Switch to Diddy or Fox or whatever top tier goes sort of even with him? Wow, talk about a balanced meta.

So not only is this character really good and most likely top 3, incredibly easy to pick up, extremely prevalent in all levels of play, but he can't even be counterpicked. We factor all this in, and all some of you can say is that this community is a bunch of whiny babies and dismiss the complaints about the character?

That, to me, sounds like a massive, collective john coming from every last pocket Cloud in CCI.

 

[PK Gaming]

I'm going to have to bring up the skill card here because it's relevant and my god this post was needlessly aggressive. You don't even know if Trifroze is playing Devil's advocate (which he often does in this thread to promote discussion), please keep it civil. Anyway, you, a player who went 1-2 at his first local 2 weeks ago, are lecturing Trifroze, someone who is PRed in his country, about what goes and what doesn't in mid/high level play. I'd imagine Trifroze would be much more accustomed as to the reality of the situation. I don't think asking for a little empathy with regards to the Cloud issue is asking for too much.

What does him playing Devil's advocate have to do with anything? I fundamentally disagree with his argument; there is no aggression on my part.

And come on. I could have gone 0-2 and I still would have stood by my argument. Being good at the game doesn't mean your opinion on character balance is sacrosanct & vice versa.

Also, Cloud has a low skill floor by design (quite literally, since Sakurai has stated he purposefully made Cloud easier to play for new players). At lower levels of gameplay, skill floor matters much more than skill ceiling, which is arguably not relevant for low/mid level play at all. Cloud's low skill floor means he's harder to beat at low levels of play, because it's easier to execute he game plan; he also doesn't plateau early, your Cloud naturally improves as your fundamentals improve (as opposed to gimmick 'local maxima' strats like wobbling or Falco chaingrabs).

I never said he didn't have a low skill floor. I said Cloud has a high ceiling, which means the gap between amateur level Cloud and top level Cloud is wide. And if top level Cloud isn't dominating high level play then the character isn't as overpowered as people perceive him to be. I'll concede that his ease of use makes it easier for people to win at lower levels of play, but I don't see see it as an argument for the character being overwhelming. This is a thing in literally every other fighting game. I genuinely think people need to get better at fighting Cloud.

I don't understand why there's this dichotomy going on where you're either playing to win EVO or you're a scrub. What if you want to be in best player in your local, or simply beat the guy ranked two spots above you that you're 0-3 against at the past few events? Do these people not matter? I can say with a good amount of certainty that competitive Smash players playing with the main goal of "be the best in the world" comprise only a minority of the entire competitive community; do these people not matter?

Of course they matter. They matter more than ever, especially seeing as how big Smash 4 has gotten. I just cannot in good faith agree with the assertion that low level play is ****ed because of Cloud. If you want to be the best even at your local, then you need to work hard. The strats that high level players use to beat Cloud isn't exclusive to them. Anyone can do it with hard work and dedication.

I hate to agree with eSAM, but patches have really made players become complacent.

 

[stickmansam]

Ok so there is a lot of Cloud talk but I gotta ask what are "bad" MUs for Cloud and why cause all I think Clouds problems may be his bad MUs are uncommon at low/mid level play I dont see good Shieks often at locals

 

[Scrubtorights]

If there is one thing similar between lower levels of play and higher levels is that complaining might not change anything. Whether a top player complains about Cloud or a lower level player complains about Cloud isn't going to change the fact that it won't change anything. No matter what I or anyone else says our skill as a player will stay the same. What if every time someone heat up tea or whatever they complain how hot it is. It won't change anything but they just sit there and keep complaining. Personally I was very annoyed at pre Bayo but that does not mean I went to taunt Bayo mains when she got nerfed like a lonely anime fan on prom night for daring to have a different opinion than me.(just a joke) We should sit back and discus what Cloud could do to the meta further down the line just as we should have done with Bayo if we had no choice. If you want to complain fine, Heck if you want want complain about the complaining do that to if you want, but if you want progress we should make less of the same mistakes that were made with pre Bayo with Cloud imo.

 

[Yikarur]

it's just logical that people are complacent when the developers fixed every problem and Cloud is the only problem remaining that needs to be fixed or the game dies at some point. A lot of people that lost to worse Cloud players have already made the switch or added him as a secondary. It's super unhealthy.

I consider myself a high level player and I'm very feasible in gimping Clouds and I'm pretty good at the match-up overall, and still pocket Clouds are a hell to fight. Every time I dominate game 1 my opponent switches to Cloud. It has happend like 15 times already. I won almost every set anyway but they came increadible close to beating me (I lost twice to pocket cloud so far) even though they didn't stand a chance with their main.
When I'm switching to Cloud myself as a counter to Cloud because I don't want close games I suddenly 2 or 3 stock most Clouds.
It feels incredibly stupid. I'm grinding Cloud atm to compete in the mirror, because people are pulling the pocket Cloud so often that I just don't want to play non-Cloud against them.
Cloud itself is variance in his purest form as well. In one match you body him because you get some edge guards in another set you get 3 stocked because he hit you with cross slash or finishing touch early.

Cloud is a serious problem. I will probably stick to Cloud for the mirror until the patch is coming and I know a lot of people are doing the same thing.

 

[Zelder]

Reading the internet tough guy "STOP COMPLAINING AND START ADAPTING" posts are so very, very cringey to read. I mean, I basically agree with the underlying argument, but man, wrapping it up in strongman rhetoric over a video game is so deeply embarrassing. I've always hated the need for macho posturing in most fighting game communities, and somehow it comes across as way more humiliating in regards to Smash Brothers.

 

[TTTTTsd]

That, to me, sounds like a massive, collective john coming from every last pocket Cloud in CCI.

This **** pisses me off more than you'd even imagine, I am beyond words. Is disagreeing about Cloud's effects on the metagame and the design philosophy of the character a JOHN now?

What actually bothers me is I've probably put more time and thought into the character than most. Back when everyone was calling him a ****ty ass mediocre mid tier character (back when he had his legitimately broken Uair to boot) I was there labbing and saying "I think he's actually good." I've never been more disappointed in my own discoveries than now, and that's the worst kind of feeling to implant into anyone who's playing your game. I'll give it credit, it took longer for Cloud than it did for Bayonetta at least.

I always kinda sympathized with the Bayonetta players pre-patch, not because the patch drastically nerfed their character but because they couldn't say **** without being labelled as an "apologist" or something stupid like that. Pretty ****ed up, isn't it?

Maybe I'll just play Doc and Mario, the former is definitely less top tier and the latter is too but at least I don't have to read **** like this because I'll be playing a character that people are complacent toward, at least until they patch Cloud out of the game. At least then I won't be marginalized into a whining Cloud player.

 

[Patriarachnid]

Balance aside, Cloud's Limit Cross Slash seems odd to me even from just a design perspective. Specifically, how its ridiculous kill power completely invalidates Finishing Touch.

Were LCS to have its kill power nerfed (to, say, below Limit Sword Beam levels), then Cloud's Limit specials would be a good projectile, a good early-%-damage-racking move, a good recovery, and a great killmove that requires a read. Overall, very well-rounded and diverse. But as it is, there's no reason to use Finishing Touch at all, since LCS is strictly better than it in literally every category, except that it kills maybe 10% later.

 

[verbatim]

Ok so there is a lot of Cloud talk but I gotta ask what are "bad" MUs for Cloud and why cause all I think Clouds problems may be his bad MUs are uncommon at low/mid level play I dont see good Shieks often at locals

Sheik, and maybe pikachu, wins. Fox/Diddy/Mario do okay of the top tiers, sonic and Rosa lose, idk about ness/zss, and everyone has a different opinion about how well M2 does.

Mid tiers DK and megaman have "okay" matchups.

This post is pretty indicative of my personal experiences watching the char regionally and nationally.

More than anything else, Cloud is a really good char, don't immediately assume that your character auto-loses to him. Take the time to watch and talk to top players of your char and just in general try to learn. Whatever you think of the character you're going to have to play against them, so you might as well be prepared

 

[Nabbitnator]

I won't be surprised by the time we finally have more counter play towards cloud another patch is going to come.

 

[LancerStaff]

I won't be surprised by the time we finally have more counter play towards cloud another patch is going to come.

You mean exactly what happened to Bayonetta?

I really wouldn't mind though. At least it'd put a stop to people thinking the "every swordsman is invalidated by Cloud" BS is true.

 

[Shady Shaymin]

This **** pisses me off more than you'd even imagine, I am beyond words. Is disagreeing about Cloud's effects on the metagame and the design philosophy of the character a JOHN now?

No! Absolutely not! You can disagree about Cloud all you want, of course that's not a ****ing john. My point was that undermining peoples' VERY reasonable and VERY fair concerns about Cloud's design, and lumping them all together to paint a picture of the community as a bunch of ****ty players who can only whine and never adapt, THAT is a john.

Your post was extremely emotionally charged and I'm sorry that you feel betrayed that people who didn't always think your character was good are now criticizing him for being overpowered. I'm sorry you feel that all your long, arduous hours of labbing the character would become obsolete if Sakurai, God forbid, brought the ****** down a notch.

I'm sorry that the knowledge of a potential nerf to your hard earned breadwinner main has given some Cloud mains a persecution complex where ANYONE who even DARES to find the character toxic is a whiny scrublord who is personally out to get you.

 

[#HBC | Gorf]

Shogun, an experienced tournament player from Japan got double eliminated by a relatively new Rosalina player named Atelier a few weeks ago [match-count was 4-1].
Nietono, when he 'mained' Fox would lose to Yuzu a Rosalina player who had [and still has] generally pretty unremarkable results.
You're, what? 3-0 against Larry? That's pretty amazing for somebody who's supposedly 'bad' vs Fox. Especially when you compare it to people like ESAM or Mr r who have a pretty great deal of Fox exp and are still 0-2 against him.

The matchup is not even. It's not even the recovery that's a problem as much as jab shenanigans and the mere existence of Luma that makes it so hard for Fox to navigate in this matchup. It's not one-sided by any means but it's definitely not even.



He placed top 12 in all of the super-nationals he attended, two of them top 8. At CEO he got doubled eliminated by a certain tristate Rosalina player [match-count: 5-0]. The only non-top 8 placing he had was at Evo where he also got eliminated by a certain tristate Rosalina player.

So Larry generally does place in top 8 of nationals ... exept when he has to play against ... you.

i like this case

vote @Dabuz

 

[blackghost]

VoiD is smart enough to understand getting Luma offstage is worth a hit from Rosa, because Sheik can follow up on her for days in the interim. Suuuper impressed with how he cranked up the heat games 3-5. His spacing game got 10x as good.

I confess I was watching Apex over LTC for Grands, so I'll have to see what went wrong for Nairo later. Maybe he needs to bring back Pit for Diddy or something. Or if ZeRo really has a Mario problem, start honing that Doc again.

zero does have a mario problem becaus his gameplan with diddy is formulaic and basic at times. he always goes for the safest option at any given point not the best option. he's also very grab heavy. zero plays diddy at extrmes. extremely close in about grab range or extremely zoning with the banana. mairo can deal with either.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

This is getting ridiculous real quick


Shaya

 

[TTTTTsd]

No! Absolutely not! You can disagree about Cloud all you want, of course that's not a ****ing john. My point was that undermining peoples' VERY reasonable and VERY fair concerns about Cloud's design, and lumping them all together to paint a picture of the community as a bunch of ****ty players who can only whine and never adapt, THAT is a john.

Your post was extremely emotionally charged and I'm sorry that you feel betrayed that people who didn't always think your character was good are now criticizing him for being overpowered. I'm sorry that all your long, arduous hours of labbing the character would become obsolete if Sakurai, God forbid, brought the ****** down a notch.

I'm sorry that the knowledge of a potential nerf to your hard earned breadwinner main has given some Cloud mains a persecution complex where ANYONE who even DARES to find the character toxic is a whiny scrublord who is personally out to get you.

I'm sorry were you talking to a Cloud player in this thread? I am almost 100% positive I don't play the character. But I guess I'll answer as if I did, I'll do my best Cloud player impersonation.

(You're talking to the guy who literally suggested nerfs like 20 pages ago ROFL. What persecution complex? Did you READ this thread? The post where it said, and I ****ing **** you not, that playing Mario as a pocket vs. Cloud took "good fundamentals?" I don't know if the full intention of that statement was the way I read it but like, really? And yea I do feel a little persecuted when I'm marginalized into a complainer when I think the community could stand to approach things with a different mindset and I state my mind politely and then get told I'm....johning? Like bruh, I get that some people are pretty aggressively defending this character but if you're gonna talk about them, QUOTE EM. Context, my man!

Also I never undermined anything or said it was wrong, I literally stated "Here's the other side of it tho cause I think it's valid." Also the idea of not persecuting someone but then telling them their character is toxic is kind of an oxymoron. That won't encourage them to switch off!)

There, I think that's a good enough representation of what a fairly reasonable Cloud main would say. With that tho I think I should go. I need to practice some Doc footstool stuff. Ciao!

 

[Jams.]

I'm personally dubious about the claim that Sheik beats Cloud at mid level (it's obviously true at top level, not disputing that). You're comparing the top tier with the lowest skill floor to the top tier with the arguably highest skill floor.

She has an amazing neutral, but playing the neutral is difficult because it requires strong fundamentals, and is much harder to execute than a strong punish game. Her punish game is also unforgiving. Mr. R was dropping Sheik strings against Leo's Marth for crying out loud; her low percent combos are incredibly frame tight and at the end of the day you still need to abuse your ledge trap/edgeguard situation to make the most of her combos. The Sheik/Cloud MU just seems really volatile at mid level, where Sheik can struggle to kill and die really early to rage Cloud. Honestly, mid level Sheik seems kind of dead to me; if you haven't already invested time into this character before her nerfs, I find it hard to rationalize picking Sheik over someone easier like Diddy or Cloud unless you just really enjoy her style or character design. Her reward is hidden behind this gigantic skill barrier, and before her players see success they have to deal with the immensely frustrating and stressful scenario of dealing with rage almost every stock and having difficulty coming back if you die early.

---

What does him playing Devil's advocate have to do with anything? I fundamentally disagree with his argument; there is no aggression on my part.

And come on. I could have gone 0-2 and I still would have stood by my argument. Being good at the game doesn't mean your opinion on character balance is sacrosanct & vice versa.

Playing Devil's advocate means he may not personally agree with the viewpoints he's presenting, so there's no need to call him conceited or strongly imply he needs to 'get good' and ditch his scrub mentality (not that there's a need to say these things anyway). If the 'you' in your post referred to the reader in a more general sense instead of Trifroze, I apologize for the misunderstanding.

In your post, you kind of ask us to take your stance on mid level Cloud as gospel, when Trifroze's experiences would probably be more representative of how mid level Cloud actually is. You claim that learning fundamentals in Smash is easy when Trifroze probably has a better handle on these concepts and is more qualified to speak about their difficulty, and that secondary/pocket Clouds are easy to deal with when many more experienced players are saying the opposite.

 

[Kung Fu Treachery]

Brief side note: Ganon is absolutely nothing like Captain Falcon and is definitely not invalidated by him. This kind of silly thinking is why Ganon has a crappy linking Nair now. Well, probably not, but still, if we had Old Nair Ganon would probably be upper-mid tier.

Yo, can you lay this knowledge on me? I have not played Ganon in ages, and I'm interested to hear why old N-air was better.

Nothing much to say about Cloud at the moment, but I'm hoping that patches continue, for the sake of currently bad characters.

Also, I still hold the foolish hope that patches will make Falcon actually fun to play. I know when I hear "hype character," my mind immediately jumps to: "Wall them with B-airs and kill with FThrow in the mid-100s. Hope and pray that you can land your super situational true combo into your bad F-air. Don't use your B moves, they're all mediocre at best." Holy moly, this character is miserable. More than slightly exaggerated, but still. When I play Falcon, I feel like a kid in a candy store. Not a metaphorical kid, but an actual kid. I have no money of my own, so I see a bunch of awesome things, but I have no access to them. Doesn't that Falcon Punch look tasty? Too bad, child, you'll never have it. Eat your veggies.

 

[Shady Shaymin]

I'm sorry were you talking to a Cloud player in this thread? I am almost 100% positive I don't play the character. But I guess I'll answer as if I did, I'll do my best Cloud player impersonation.

(You're talking to the guy who literally suggested nerfs like 20 pages ago ROFL. What persecution complex? Did you READ this thread? The post where it said, and I ****ing **** you not, that playing Mario as a pocket vs. Cloud took "good fundamentals?" I don't know if the full intention of that statement was the way I read it but like, really? And yea I do feel a little persecuted when I'm marginalized into a complainer when I think the community could stand to approach things with a different mindset and I state my mind politely and then get told I'm....johning? Like bruh, I get that some people are pretty aggressively defending this character but if you're gonna talk about them, QUOTE EM. Context, my man!

Also I never undermined anything or said it was wrong, I literally stated "Here's the other side of it tho cause I think it's valid." Also the idea of not persecuting someone but then telling them their character is toxic is kind of an oxymoron. That won't encourage them to switch off!)

There, I think that's a good enough representation of what a fairly reasonable Cloud main would say. With that tho I think I should go. I need to practice some Doc footstool stuff. Ciao!

My original post wasn't even directed at you, it was a collective response to some of the flawed logic I've seen from people whose arguments are so underdeveloped that I can only assume they were clouded by character bias, hence why I refer to it as a john.

You quoted that post and made it about yourself, throwing in personal anecdotes that really came off as self pitying to be honest. I didn't take issue with anything you've said in this thread prior to that. I took issue with, as Zelder put it, the macho mantra I keep seeing in this thread.

 

[BSP]

verbatim did you ever make your post on why Pac's drop off isn't as bad as people think? I'm interested in what you think and the potential discussion that may result.

@Emblem Lord do you mind explaining to me why you think Ryu loses to Pac-Man? I think I've seen you say this in the past, and I would like a bit more detail than "Pac-Man" runs.

 

[verbatim]

I did but I didn't cover everything I wanted to touch on (specifically anti-cloud tech development + doubles). Will do so after work.

Ryu is easily the top tier I have the least experience with, but from my limited experience he can't really rush pacman down as well as the characters that consistently beat him can.

 

[PK Gaming]

Playing Devil's advocate means he may not personally agree with the viewpoints he's presenting, so there's no need to call him conceited or strongly imply he needs to 'get good' and ditch his scrub mentality (not that there's a need to say these things anyway). If the 'you' in your post referred to the reader in a more general sense instead of Trifroze, I apologize for the misunderstanding.

In your post, you kind of ask us to take your stance on mid level Cloud as gospel, when Trifroze's experiences would probably be more representative of how mid level Cloud actually is. You claim that learning fundamentals in Smash is easy when Trifroze probably has a better handle on these concepts and is more qualified to speak about their difficulty, and that secondary/pocket Clouds are easy to deal with when many more experienced players are saying the opposite.

Right. I wasn't specifically referring to Trifroze in that instance, though I can see how you'd read it that way since my post was unclear.

In any case, I'm man enough to know when i'm beaten. My own experiences only go so far, and it's hard to refute any of the things you're saying. FWIW, I'm not actually opposed to Cloud nerfs. I just didn't feel like he was a problem at lower levels of play. My own experiences + watching high level play reinforced that mindset, but I guess it also made me blind to the experiences of other low/mid level players (and even high level players), which completely colored my perception towards Cloud. Sorry, and no hard feelings. You too Trifroze

I shouldn't have been so condescending.

 

[Luco]

And come on. I could have gone 0-2 and I still would have stood by my argument. Being good at the game doesn't mean your opinion on character balance is sacrosanct & vice versa.

I think part of the point that's being made here too is that Trifroze has put in a *lot* of work to get where he is now already. I don't know much about Quantum Physics, but getting onto a PR is hard and takes so much commitment, dedication and effort. When you say "It's not brain surgery" / "get good" to someone in that position, it marginalises the accomplishment that is being good at something by saying 'cmon, it's easy, just be better at the game'.

And remember that adaption is a 2-way street. The higher in play you go, the more you realise that the opponent is giving you less and less opportunities to adapt and they themselves are catching onto your habits. It becomes a lot harder when you realise winning a game of smash against a high level player along with their good character isn't just a single adaptation, it's re-adaptation after re-adaptation.

Having just seen your latest post, I want to re-assure you this isn't a rebuke, just more something to consider. Seeing your self-awareness is actually astounding, I'm highly impressed friend.