Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Cutie Gwen]

Smart money is on "both characters would be better." Fun thought experiment.



Unfortunately, "don't talk about the thing we have the newest and most exciting data on" is not a reasonable request, no matter how prone people may be to overreacting.

I specifically meant 'X is OP', it wouldn't be a bad idea to have 'X won, X's strengths seem to be Y, Z, etc.' or 'X can overcome this weakness somewhat with Y'. Specifically whining 'OP' is just childish

 

[verbatim]

You know it should'nt be that hard to actually do that. Mod pack incoming.

 

[JustSomeScrub]

I don't think anyone is disputing whether Mario U-Smash is one of the best moves in the game--it's an incredible tool with almost no faults. But the idea that it's not punishable--not difficult to punish, but actually not punishable--just doesn't hold water in either theory or experience.

My argument is MOST characters cannot punish it well enough to the point where it would deter Marios from throwing it out until it lands. Not that it's impossible to punish. And that it's an oppressive option that forces you to play super lame to beat it. You can't jump, you can't dash, you can't roll or spot dodge, you can't throw out most moves, you can barely space etc.

Also I haven't talked about the shield push back the move does (especially with charge). The low recovery time is bad enough, but then add that and even drop shield, dash grabs/attacks are hard enough to get let alone anything bigger (which is often impossible).

And again, give this move to a mid tier or lower character with a bad disadvantageous state and there's no complaints. But Mario has enough going for him as it is both on offence and defence.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

My argument is MOST characters cannot punish it well enough to the point where it would deter Marios from throwing it out until it lands. Not that it's impossible to punish. And that it's an oppressive option that forces you to play super lame to beat it. You can't jump, you can't dash, you can't roll or spot dodge, you can't throw out most moves, you can barely space etc.

Also I haven't talked about the shield push back the move does (especially with charge). The low recovery time is bad enough, but then add that and even drop shield, dash grabs/attacks are hard enough to get let alone anything bigger (which is often impossible).

Allow me to King Crimson this specific part

My argument is MOST characters cannot punish it well enough

Results! Results are the only thing this world remembers! AKA, PROVE most characters can't punish it. And don't link a video of someone choking against a top level player, PROVE most characters can outright NOT punish it

 

[adom4]

Smart money is on "both characters would be better." Fun thought experiment.



Unfortunately, "don't talk about the thing we have the newest and most exciting data on" is not a reasonable request, no matter how prone people may be to overreacting.

The last thing Ganon needs is Sheik's garbage smash attacks lol (save U-smash but Ganon's U-smash is better anyway).

 

[Shady Shaymin]

Mario doesn't need to be nerfed. If Mario didn't have good smash attacks, he'd be another "struggles at killing" character stuck around high mid tier or something and have his john-ass mains constantly begging for like, down tilt to upb 50/50 kills or something.

I want some buffs to mid and low tiers. I feel absolutely spoiled by the blessings that were given to Mewtwo and I want that for other characters. Some day, fellas

 

[Ffamran]

I honestly can't tell if you're agreeing with what I said or not but I didn't actually know the last hit of B-Air lasted for four frames while the others only lasted for one, huh, I dunno how I thought it was like but it wasn't like that.

Just using Greninja's frog legs to try and ask about if the Smash community uses the term "meaty". Yeah... That didn't happen. Remember, I hate the terms IASA and FAF when they're, well, FAF since IASA does get misused at times, is just total frames + 1 and FAF is kind of stupid to talk about when you can talk about recovery. Ganondorf's Up Smash has such a low FAF at 42 frames. Not the whole story for me. You'd need to add in startup which is sometimes left out. If those 2 are there, then why not just say it has 19 recovery frames? Nah, let's talk about its 42 FAF. Also, I hate how dash and run are considered the same when they're not. Outside of some characters, most characters have different dash and run speeds. And there's a bunch of others stuff like calling spacing and zoning as playing lame and camping or this kind of weird obsession I think players have of always going for jump-ins and in Smash 4 where shield pressure is pretty much nonexistent and aerials generally have much higher landing lag.

As for Ganon...the justification is very simple. It's Ganon. A mediocre character having a few polarising moves isn't too bad. Plus again, it doesn't have startup invincibility.

The **** is this? Low and mid-tier character privilege? Hey, guess that means Falco's Bair should have higher knockback like 50 base and 150 growth now because he's absolutely **** in this game and that's good enough of a reason for him to have a broken ass move.

The justification isn't that; it's because of its high startup. If it had high startup and high recovery, the move would be terrible. If it had high startup and average recovery, that would be okay, but the startup's already freaking high, so why not just have low recovery? It's called balance and game design. You don't slap **** down just because. If they did that, it would be really, really stupid.

Mario's Up Smash despite it's head invincibility that existed in at least since Melee making it safe and somewhat strong knockback -- Mario tends to use his charged unlike other characters who just outright KO without charging --, is not the end all, be all, nerf this piece of bull**** to the ground. For one, it does not have the vertical range of some Up Smashes like Ganondorf, Link, Palutena, or Yoshi's. It does not have low recovery like, outside of Ganondorf's, ROB, Toon Link, or Yoshi's. It doesn't have the raw power of Fox, Kirby, or Mewtwo's. It doesn't have the active frames of Falco -- friendly reminder that Falco's Up Smash has 14 total active frames with the second, strong hit being active for 8 freaking frames --, Ness, or Palutena's. Also, Dr. Mario's Up Smash is actually better since it has 1 more active frame, 1 more active I-frames, and is stronger in damage and overall knockback. Luigi's too, but Luigi's has a sour-spot. Mario's is good, but I would not doubt he wouldn't kill to have Doc's or even his brother's Up Smash with some slight tweaks.

Is it stupid, though? Yeah, but so are many other moves in Smash and any other game. Compared to other moves, it's not as stupid like Limit Break Cross Slash or pre-patch Fox jab.

The low recovery time is bad enough, but then add that and even drop shield, dash grabs/attacks are hard enough to get let alone anything bigger (which is often impossible).

For the record, 27 recovery frames isn't low. Excluding some types of moves like jabs, grabs, dodges, etc., anything between 25 to 35 frames is pretty average. Low is below 20 and high is going to be above 40. If you want low recovery on a Smash, please look at Ness's 13 frames of recovery and return back to me. Yeah, that move yo-yo that goes under the ledge?

 

[Man Li Gi]

Dk's grab game is not better than Mario's for racking up damage. Plus Mario has an easier time getting the grabs. If you want to argue DK's individual hits and things like up B do great damage sure but consider how much more risky it is for DK to throw out any of that stuff. Mario lands one hit, strings it into 3 more and overall ends up doing much more to the opponent.

Also DK's kill confirm only works within a specific range of percents (once you exceed it, it stops working), won't work if he has too much rage AND doesn't work on everyone .

Lastly, I don't think his fireballs are bad at all. They can help him approach or stuff certain options. Not the best projectile by any means but far from the worst.

DK's grab game is better than Mario at racking percent by a wide margin. He can do no less than 23% and no more than 61%. That range and access to high damage puts him leagues above Mario for racking percent. That being said, Mario has far easier time landing the grabs.

The Ding-Dong and Grounded Dong works on EVERY CHARACTER. The Ding-Dong is narrow for the likes of TL, Luigi, and Jiggs, but is wider than the Pacific Ocean for the tourney relevant characters (TL isn't cuz you know why by now and Luigi is kinda dicey). So FOH when talking about DK.

But, I do appreciate your posts in the sense that posters like these make you have to dig deep and present things a logical way. Your posts forces everyone to reaffrirm their logic and beliefs man.

 

[JustSomeScrub]

Allow me to King Crimson this specific part

Results! Results are the only thing this world remembers! AKA, PROVE most characters can't punish it. And don't link a video of someone choking against a top level player, PROVE most characters can outright NOT punish it

Fine explain to me how Sheik, ZSS, Sonic or Mario himself for instance is supposed to punish the move well. Note I'm listing relevant top tier threats. And I mean actual punishes, not a hard read with a pre-emptive charged down smash, early aerial or something.

For an example from results go watch Nairo vs Ally at Momocon. Nairo only managed to punish it with a few tilts. Which suggests even dash up, up B OOS would be too slow. In fact Nairo won but started playing pretty campy towards the end (which he normally never does) which probably had a lot to do with it.

Similarly if you watch high level Sheik vs Mario, Sheik only really seems to get dash attack or grab in those situations and it's not like she's going to kill Mario off those until ridiculous percents.

Once again, can just about every character punish the move? Sure. Can they directly kill Mario for doing it which is ultimately what the game is about? Probably not.

Is this true of most other Smash attacks? Definitely not. If you block or avoid an up Smash at kill percents from most other characters, they are probably done. And when this isn't the case, the character usually sucks anyway and isn't relevant.

DK's grab game is better than Mario at racking percent by a wide margin. He can do no less than 23% and no more than 61%. That range and access to high damage puts him leagues above Mario for racking percent. That being said, Mario has far easier time landing the grabs.

The Ding-Dong and Grounded Dong works on EVERY CHARACTER. The Ding-Dong is narrow for the likes of TL, Luigi, and Jiggs, but is wider than the Pacific Ocean for the tourney relevant characters (TL isn't cuz you know why by now and Luigi is kinda dicey). So FOH when talking about DK.

But, I do appreciate your posts in the sense that posters like these make you have to dig deep and present things a logical way. Your posts forces everyone to reaffrirm their logic and beliefs man.

I see, didn't know it worked on those, the range must be slim. As for the others, are you saying even with 100+ rage it will still work on most tournament relevant characters?

However I'm going to contest his grab game leading to more damage if you say it's 23 percent on the low end at 63 percent at the high end assuming these involve resets/50/50s which Mario can also get.

At typical mid percents depending on rage and character weight Mario can certainly get 25+ percent per grab. I've seen as high as 60+ involving a reset or two. But admittedly I've seen low as 15 percent also (though I'd argue that's still more than most characters).

Even if you are correct, as you said we can't ignore much easier it is for Mario to get a grab. Heck even a soft nair from Mario leads into a grab.

 

[Deleted member 269706]

I'm really starting to believe Mario needs significant nerfs.

His recovery is too free (pretty much every other top tier except for Sheik/ZSS gets gimped a lot more than he does). Which is funny considering how his recovery has been considered so bad in previous games but with the removal of ledge hogging, its main weakness is gone. It comes out too fast to react to and with disjointed range, it's the ideal Smash 4 recovery. And let's not forget Mario's great drifting ability in the air means he can often come back without having to use his up B anyway with good DI.

People talk about him not having kill confirms and thus struggling at killing safely. But why do you need kill confirms when your Smash attacks come out insanely fast, with invincibility (on up smash), have huge hitboxes and have very little cooldown? I've seen Mario win top level matches by standing in the middle of the stage and hitting the C-stick until it worked. The very fact that this is a viable strategy at the highest levels of play shows how broken his Smash attacks really are. And then if for some reason you haven't killed your opponent by 150 by spamming Smash attacks, just take the free back throw.

Mario also likely has the highest (reliable) damage output in this game at this point. It's not uncommon to see him rack up 40+ percent thanks to landing one down throw. Which after all the nerfs is extremely rare for any other character. He's basically a way better ZSS with a way less punishable grab.

Lastly this point is never talked about but Mario's floaty nature makes him escape stuff for free that characters like Sheik, Cloud or Diddy (despite being so good) would be subject too. While other characters are getting true comboed for days, Mario either pops out or nairs/up Bs out. Except unlike other floaty characters he doesn't lack mobility.

Matchup wise I'd argue he really has no bad matchups at all. He might have some slight disadvantageous ones but none which are not doable.

He has way too many things going for him.

So now we're complaining about Mario....

Look he's a good character- no, a great character, but so often people don't see the problems embedded within him. Honestly, I don't think his neutral is THAT great. Don't get the wrong idea, it's far from bad, but in my eyes, most of the high/top tiers have a much better neutral than Mario. Fox, Sonic, and Shiek are all much faster. They can all threaten with their speeds, and evade when it's time to reset the neutral. Not to mention laser and needles are suberb tools to force approaches. Compare Mario to Diddy, and we realize that not only Diddy faster faster, but has his banana which is such a threatening tool seeing as it can stuff approaches, affect stage positioning/control, and lead into all kinds of punishes. And then there's Cloud who can basically win the neutral on accident with a sword of that size. Rosalina has a meat shield. Should I go on?

Look at the facts, Mario lacks speed, he lacks range, and his projectile is more or less something to laugh at. Should he hit a bair or nair, he's guaranteed nothing off of it and those are his only other real tools to throw out in the neutral. So much of Mario's capitalization in the neutral come from the opponent messing up and Mario having the tools to punish. If he didn't have such a punish game, would he be remotely good?

Now let's talk about how Mario gets kills. His primary means of killing involve smash attacks. And yeah, they can seem pretty dumb. Until you realize they're punishable (and shield saves lives)- Usmash has 27 frames of endlag, dsmash has 29, fsmash has 30. I know it doesn't seem that way, but if you catch a Mario charging a smash attack, do you know what you should do? Walk up until you're just out of his range, wait for the release, go in and punish with a grab, or dash attack, or running JCUsmash, or pretty much anything else. That's a half second of endlag he goes through. If you shield a smash attack, DO NOT RUSH IN FOR A PUNISH - I REPEAT, DO NOT RUN IN FOR A PUNISH. It's what he wants.

AND PLEASE LINK ME, I'M DYING TO SEE THIS TOP LEVEL MATCH YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. I genuinely don't believe that strategy mentioned would be remotely functional at, as you called it, a "top level match".

Then you brought up his floaty status which I really can't fathom why you're upset about it. Yes, while it makes it much more difficult to be comboed, the floaty attribute makes landing a hell of a lot more difficult for him. If he can't come down very fast, you can be sure that I'm gonna go up and catch him on the way down. He has nothing that can stuff approaches from below other than airdodge.

But please don't complain about the nair. If he can break out of a combo using a nair, here's what to do: don't go for that combo. When that player throws out a nair, you can punish him for that. Nair isn't safe. At low percents shield and follow up with a grab/jab/tilt/etc. or if it's a higher percent, bait the nair (with a short hop or something), then punish him while he's in the active frames. It's called adaptation. Sooner or later you'll find that Mario players who nair to get out of pressure make it sooo much easier on you to rack up damage on them.

Yes, Mario has a lot going for him. He's a great character, but he's not broken, he's not over the top, and he's not overtuned. Figure out the character's gameplan, and learn how to work around it. In other words...don't get grabbed.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

Not actually explaining

YOU'RE the one claiming MAYREEO USMASH OP, YOU prove and explain it to me.

 

[dakotaisgreat]

I mean, I don't necessarily agree with what the guy is saying but everyone doesn't have to vilify him for complaining about the best move a character that's already better than 90% of the cast has. I know everyone loves to attack anyone on the internet who dares to complain about something, but Mario is a fantastic character, deal with it. Even pretty conservative people would put him at top 10 at the absolute lowest. That's okay though, ideally every character would have some tool that special and useful. I don't think Mario should be nerfed, I like our top tiers the way they are right now. If there was another patch, I'd like it to just be low tier buffs and nothing else. Crazy new opinion that I doubt any of you have ever heard before, I know.

Limit Cross Slash, Mario Up Smash, Rosa Up Air, Diddy Down Tilt, Mewtwo's Fair, DK's Ding Dong etc wouldn't be so bad if there were not ****ty ass characters like King Dedede who don't have a single move in their entire arsenal anywhere near that good. Depending on who you play as, I can see why those moves would seem like complete bull****. When faster, lighter, "weaker", characters with a better recovery have an easier time killing than you, the Ganondorf main, who traded basically everything your character can do away in exchange to be able to hit people really hard, I can see how it would very easily seem like frustrating nonsense even at the level of unobservant casual players.

ONE MORE PATCH!

Also, everyone now rushing to the other side of the Mario hype train who are so eager to point out why Mario "isn't a big deal" and "isn't threatening at all to a smart player" you guys look just as silly as the whiners you are responding to. Can we find some middle ground?

 

[verbatim]

I see, didn't know it worked on those, the range must be slim. As for the others, are you saying even with 100+ rage it will still work on most tournament relevant characters?

However I'm going to contest his grab game leading to more damage if you say it's 23 percent on the low end at 63 percent at the high end assuming these involve resets/50/50s which Mario can also get.

Those are true, as is his best in the game cast wide kill confirm that Mario flat out doesn't have.

DK does more damage and kills earlier off of throws that Mario.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

I mean, I don't necessarily agree with what the guy is saying but everyone doesn't have to vilify him for complaining about the best move a character that's already better than 90% of the cast has. I know everyone loves to attack anyone on the internet who dares to complain about something, but Mario is a fantastic character, deal with it. Even pretty conservative people would put him at top 10 at the absolute lowest. That's okay though, ideally every character would have some tool that special and useful. I don't think Mario should be nerfed, I like our top tiers the way they are right now. If there was another patch, I'd like it to just be low tier buffs and nothing else. Crazy new opinion that I doubt any of you have ever heard before, I know.

Limit Cross Slash, Mario Up Smash, Rosa Up Air, Diddy Down Tilt, Mewtwo's Fair, DK's Ding Dong etc wouldn't be so bad if there were not ****ty *** characters like King Dedede who don't have a single move in their entire arsenal anywhere near that good. Depending on who you play as, I can see why those moves would seem like complete bull****. When faster, lighter, "weaker", characters with a better recovery have an easier time killing than you, the Ganondorf main, who traded basically everything your character can do away in exchange to be able to hit people really hard, I can see how it would very easily seem like frustrating nonsense even at the level of unobservant casual players.

ONE MORE PATCH!

The problem isn't someone saying a move is good, nobody's denying Usmash is a good move. It's 'USMASH OP!' that's getting on people's nerves. Especially because when saying 'op', it's a lot more childish than saying 'It's very good', especially with nonsense claims such as 'almost nobody can punish the OP Usmash!'

 

[JustSomeScrub]

So now we're complaining about Mario....

Look he's a good character- no, a great character, but so often people don't see the problems embedded within him. Honestly, I don't think his neutral is THAT great. Don't get the wrong idea, it's far from bad, but in my eyes, most of the high/top tiers have a much better neutral than Mario. Fox, Sonic, and Shiek are all much faster. They can all threaten with their speeds, and evade when it's time to reset the neutral. Not to mention laser and needles are suberb tools to force approaches. Compare Mario to Diddy, and we realize that not only Diddy faster faster, but has his banana which is such a threatening tool seeing as it can stuff approaches, affect stage positioning/control, and lead into all kinds of punishes. And then there's Cloud who can basically win the neutral on accident with a sword of that size. Rosalina has a meat shield. Should I go on?

Look at the facts, Mario lacks speed, he lacks range, and his projectile is more or less something to laugh at. Should he hit a bair or nair, he's guaranteed nothing off of it and those are his only other real tools to throw out in the neutral. So much of Mario's capitalization in the neutral come from the opponent messing up and Mario having the tools to punish. If he didn't have such a punish game, would he be remotely good?

Now let's talk about how Mario gets kills. His primary means of killing involve smash attacks. And yeah, they can seem pretty dumb. Until you realize they're punishable (and shield saves lives)- Usmash has 27 frames of endlag, dsmash has 29, fsmash has 30. I know it doesn't seem that way, but if you catch a Mario charging a smash attack, do you know what you should do? Walk up until you're just out of his range, wait for the release, go in and punish with a grab, or dash attack, or running JCUsmash, or pretty much anything else. That's a half second of endlag he goes through. If you shield a smash attack, DO NOT RUSH IN FOR A PUNISH - I REPEAT, DO NOT RUN IN FOR A PUNISH. It's what he wants.

AND PLEASE LINK ME, I'M DYING TO SEE THIS TOP LEVEL MATCH YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. I genuinely don't believe that strategy mentioned would be remotely functional at, as you called it, a "top level match".

Then you brought up his floaty status which I really can't fathom why you're upset about it. Yes, while it makes it much more difficult to be comboed, the floaty attribute makes landing a hell of a lot more difficult for him. If he can't come down very fast, you can be sure that I'm gonna go up and catch him on the way down. He has nothing that can stuff approaches from below other than airdodge.

But please don't complain about the nair. If he can break out of a combo using a nair, here's what to do: don't go for that combo. When that player throws out a nair, you can punish him for that. Nair isn't safe. At low percents shield and follow up with a grab/jab/tilt/etc. or if it's a higher percent, bait the nair (with a short hop or something), then punish him while he's in the active frames. It's called adaptation. Sooner or later you'll find that Mario players who nair to get out of pressure make it sooo much easier on you to rack up damage on them.

Yes, Mario has a lot going for him. He's a great character, but he's not broken, he's not over the top, and he's not overtuned. Figure out the character's gameplan, and learn how to work around it. In other words...don't get grabbed.

Ally throws out Smashes in neutral ALL the time. It's a running joke at this point. I shouldn't have to post anymore examples (I already posted one earlier where he did 2 Smash whiffs into a 3rd that hit and this was during top 8).

And if the best Mario in the world thinks it's a good idea and he wins majors, we really have no basis to argue it's a bad option. Unless you want to argue the top players it's working against suck.

27 frames of cooldown is very low for a move with that much power, that fast of a startup and invincibility. His Fmash is really good also. Easily one of the best in the game (almost none can match it in terms of speed, power and cooldown).

Mario doesn't have to throw out nair to break out of combos that work on most others, he has a great air dodge or can jump/up B to safety (espeically if there's a ledge/platform near by). He has several options and you can try to guess correctly but the odds are not in your favour. The main point here is something that would be guaranteed on other top tiers, on Mario it would be merely a 50/50 or worse.

Edit:

I never suggested it's impossible to punish up Smash with anything. Just that it can't be punished too well most of the time by most characters.

Let's say Fox/Falco who are known for having great up smashes get their up Smash blocked. They are right next to you and you have ages to punish however you wish. You don't have that luxury with Mario.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

And if the best Mario in the world thinks it's a good idea and he wins majors, we really have no basis to argue it's a bad option.

God forbid ESAM wins a major then

 

[JustSomeScrub]

God forbid ESAM wins a major then

I don't mean his opinions become fact, in fact Ally has argued before that up Smash is fine which I definitely don't agree with.

But I'm speaking in terms of gameplay and results. We can all see Ally throws out Smash attacks quite a bit (including in neutral when the opponent has every opportunity to punish). And yet he's very successful. Which suggest that's a viable tactic at high level play with Mario even though it wouldn't be with most other characters.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

-sigh-

Character's that can challenge Mario's Usmash via disjoint (hit the body past the invincible head):
(limbs are intangible on tilts)(maybe)(zair)(zair)(zair)

Characters that can challenge Mario's Usmash via simply not being there (enough speed that Mario cannot easily trap them in Usmash range, or can stall a significant amount in the air to throw off the timing and then punish):


Characters that can deal with Mario's Usmash with unique properties: (good super armour, shield property, counter)
(Luma disrupting everything and not letting him in easily in general)

There are various degrees within those categories yes, and obviously not all of these characters win the MU but they are all characters with options to deal with Mario's Usmash. Do that with pre-patched Sheik's needles and you'll have a much smaller list. I didn't even list having fast enough jabs to just beat him out, or ducking under it (jab list would probably get messy, ducking under I'm not 100% sure of).

Word of advice for dealing with Mario's Usmash: if you don't have a large disjointed arial or a way to stall in the air, don't jump at him at Usmash kill %s. A very good portion of the cast have options for dealing with it, they just don't use them correctly or get predictable.

There's also the basic note that... not every character has to have an option to deal with every good tool. Part of character weaknesses.

 

[Peppermint1201]

Ally throws out Smashes in neutral ALL the time. It's a running joke at this point. I shouldn't have to post anymore examples

yes you should. you only posted 1 and he didn't even use upsmash to land the kill. SGK took the upsmash bait and got fsmashed. truly a low-lag move acting as a bait is a quality 100% exclusive to mario, am i right guys?

 

[Deleted member 269706]

Ally throws out Smashes in neutral ALL the time. It's a running joke at this point. I shouldn't have to post anymore examples (I already posted one earlier where he did 2 Smash whiffs into a 3rd that hit and this was during top 8).

And if the best Mario in the world thinks it's a good idea and he wins majors, we really have no basis to argue it's a bad option. Unless you want to argue the top players it's working against suck.

27 frames of cooldown is very low for a move with that much power, that fast of a startup and invincibility. His Fmash is really good also. Easily one of the best in the game (almost none can match it in terms of speed, power and cooldown).

Mario doesn't have to throw out nair to break out of combos that work on most others, he has a great air dodge or can jump/up B to safety (espeically if there's a ledge/platform near by). He has several options and you can try to guess correctly but the odds are not in your favour. The main point here is something that would be guaranteed on other top tiers, on Mario it would be merely a 50/50 or worse.

Edit:

I never suggested it's impossible to punish up Smash with anything. Just that it can't be punished too well most of the time by most characters.

Let's say Fox/Falco who are known for having great up smashes get their up Smash blocked. They are right next to you and you have ages to punish however you wish. You don't have that luxury with Mario.

Okay, there's a huge difference between "standing in the middle of the stage and hitting the C-stick until it worked" (actual quote from your post) and using smash attacks in the neutral. If you think it's that easy, please, pick up Mario and prove me wrong.

Don't forget, those strategies won't work forever. People will learn to abuse it in time, and we'll see it before you know it.

27 Frames of cooldown is a lot more than you think. Ganondorf's dair has 26 frames of landing lag. If you told me that wasn't a lot, I'd call you crazy. Now yes, it's a different move and there are different conditions, but if you space, remain patient, and punish accordingly, you have more than enough time to punish both moves. In principle, it's the same thing.

As I keep reading your post I just don't even get what you're trying to argue. His airdodge is alright, but everyone has that option. Several characters including Marth, Rosalina, Wario, ROB, Pac-Man, and Roy (among a few others) have the exact same airdodge as Mario does. And I've never once thought to myself, "damn, ROB's airdodge is just too good!"

I think you are missing the point of Mario here. Unlike so much of the cast, Mario's weaknesses are much harder to exploit. Look at any low-tier, what makes them bad 95% of the time? Bad frame data. You can seriously just wait for an aerial and then rush in and punish them during their landing lag over and over, and it will work. If someone throws out a dumb smash attack, they're going to get hit hard. Mario isn't like this. To beat Mario, you have to strictly outplay him where it counts: in the neutral. And as I made clear in my previous post, his neutral isn't the best. Playing against Mario teaches players how to beat someone who is seemingly unpunishable.

If you're mad that Mario is hard to punish, you'll probably hate higher levels of play because so much of the higher levels of play are utilizing tools that can't be explicitly punished. It's no longer about punishing them for throwing out a dumb option, it's finding an option that will beat theirs and getting as much off of it as you can.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I don't know about you guys but I for one do think that Mario's usmash is pretty busted. Both challenging and punishing it is pretty situational and somewhat unreliable. It's not on the same level as Diddy dtilt or Mewtwo fair and I actually think it's the 'worst' of the Mario Bro's usmashes but it's still a pretty silly move.

 

[JustSomeScrub]

-sigh-

Character's that can challenge Mario's Usmash via disjoint (hit the body past the invincible head):
(limbs are intangible on tilts)(maybe)(zair)(zair)(zair)

Characters that can challenge Mario's Usmash via simply not being there (enough speed that Mario cannot easily trap them in Usmash range, or can stall a significant amount in the air to throw off the timing and then punish):


Characters that can deal with Mario's Usmash with unique properties: (good super armour, shield property, counter)
(Luma disrupting everything and not letting him in easily in general)

There are various degrees within those categories yes, and obviously not all of these characters win the MU but they are all characters with options to deal with Mario's Usmash. Do that with pre-patched Sheik's needles and you'll have a much smaller list. I didn't even list having fast enough jabs to just beat him out, or ducking under it (jab list would probably get messy, ducking under I'm not 100% sure of).

Word of advice for dealing with Mario's Usmash: if you don't have a large disjointed arial or a way to stall in the air, don't jump at him at Usmash kill %s. A very good portion of the cast have options for dealing with it, they just don't use them correctly or get predictable.

There's also the basic note that... not every character has to have an option to deal with every good tool. Part of character weaknesses.

Interesting post.

Disjoints are great for dealing with stationary smash attack spam. But Mario has the option to run in and do a very fast reverse up smash. That can get under your short hop spacing. Not on reaction mind, but if they read that you are trying to space out with aerials. So it's not an ultimate counter.

For your second list, yeah I guess those characters can lame Mario out. But that is a testament to how good he is when the best option is simply not to engage him. And let's not forget that only works if you have the lead, otherwise you'll have to approach or at least be more aggressive eventually.

Finally as for unique options like counter that can only be done pre-emptively and are you REALLY going to risk that versus Mario? When if you guess wrong he can do a charged Fsmash on reaction and kill you at 80? Similarly throwing out unsafe moves super armour would be a hard read and risky if wrong, not really a true punish.

I personally think the best punishes versus the move are LCS and any grab that leads into a kill. These can be used in the most amount of situations versus it (as they'll work on whiff or block).

 

[Illuminose]

There's a few things to say about Mario's success.

The main thing is that the top players pioneering Mario (Ally and ANTi) are two of the most fundamentally strong players in Smash, period. Mario is a fundamentals-driven character who success is driven by good decision making and the user's general game sense. There isn't really some big trick or mystery to Mario other than that. This applies to other characters and top tiers in some senses, yes, but Mario is a bit different. Look at the character on all levels. Mario's frame data and combos are great, yes, but he has no consistent option to approach/get in on his opponents. Mario has lacking range and a laggy projectile, limiting his options to threaten you before he gets into the CQC range. Due to this, Mario players must consistently make good reads/employ mixups to succeed in neutral play and get their reward. Now the reason that this works is that Mario has options to do this. Let's just take an example. Even though Mario can perform two aerials in a short hop, you will often see ANTi (just for instance) throw out one short hop back air and then do nothing else. He'll see how his opponent reacts, and as these situations occur ANTi will start to successfully read his opponent's defensive options (because he's probably the best player in the world at that) and you'll see him start building crazy momentum, suffocating his opponent, etc. That's really the name of Ally's game too, except he's a bit...sillier in that regard. Ally will sometimes throw out something like a random fsmash in neutral, maybe 2 or 3. He sees how you deal with his 'stupid' options and uses that to design his play/condition you. Then when it comes time to kill you, they'll have an understanding of your jumping and rolling patterns, w/e and connect an up smash. Up smash isn't really that threatening if your options aren't getting read. If you play safe and effectively mix up your defensive options, and don't land on Mario, you won't get up smashed. But up smash is often pretty safe, maybe you get hit by like a dash attack punish oos or on whiff but that's about it, so it's scary and can be used to condition into defensive options that, again, can be read.

My point is that the reason Ally and ANTi are so successful with Mario is not because Mario is broken or top 3 or whatever (top 5 is debatable imo, although I still think Mario is worse than Sheik/Diddy/Cloud/Rosa/Sonic/Fox), but because they are extremely smart WITH Mario. There are many other Mario mains, some successful on a local level and Zenyou occasionally pulling a great performance, but none of them see anything close to the success of a player like Ally or ANTi. This is because being technical and developing your Mario 'tech' (lol) is good, but your success with Mario is ultimately capped by, essentially, how good you are at the game. That's also why one day ANTi can win CEO and another get 33rd at EVO, and Ally one day win EVO and another get 49th at CEO. You could argue that other characters function this way, but it's not entirely the truth. Sheik has an overwhelming neutral with consistent, incredible options for both staying on the defensive and applying pressure. Cloud has ridiculous range and Limit across Slash Diddy has the banana, the consistent kill confirms, the safe neutral, and the ridiculous ledge traps. Sonic has Spin Dash, which in itself gives him the ability to play the best hot/cold game of any character. Rosa has Luma and a rock solid defensive fortress in general with that, as well as the juggle game. Fox has the vortex and ledge traps. Mario has...40-50% damage racking combos and his up smash I guess? When the biggest thing you could call a 'broken' strength of the character is damage racking combos that don't even lead to death, I don't really see what there is to complain about when you see Mario. Mario's just..a good character and that seems to make people mad for some reason idk?

I'm not too interested in the matchup side of things for the point of this discussion. But it should definitely be noted that Mario's matchup spread is pretty much the definition of 'can win or lose to anyone'. Virtually all of Mario's matchups are around even, some more in the slight advantage territory and others in slight disadvantage. Because of this, there are really no matchups he can't win (except Sonic when he camps lol that matchup is pure ass), but he can also lose to most of the cast. Mario doesn't really win matchups against fellow top tiers, pretty much all being even or a slight disadvantage. If anyone ever says Mario is honest, this is why. Not because his actual character design is super 'honest', but because he never really gets a free pass in a matchup, not even in most obscure low tier matchups.

I can't speak for Ally/ANTi, but I get the idea that these are some of the reasons why people placing Mario top 3 or top 5 or whatever because they do good with the character is frustrating. I think it's also a part of why ANTi likes to use counterpick characters. Mario is the anchor, but sometimes you just aren't playing on point or you don't really know a matchup well enough and you need those other characters. If you want to use Ally as a counterpoint, it's worth noting that there are many occasions where having other good characters could or would have prevented losses that can only be described as strange. This is a point on 'lol EVO lol counterpick meta' too. Players not practicing their counterpick characters enough to be confident or win with them, even in favorable matchups, is a defining factor of numerous sets at EVO. The benefits of having multiple characters are still profound and game-changing in Smash 4, but you have to be good with/practice the characters for them to work -- this should have been an obvious qualifier, but clearly not.

 

[Betatech]

I'm really starting to believe Mario needs significant nerfs.

His recovery is too free (pretty much every other top tier except for Sheik/ZSS gets gimped a lot more than he does). Which is funny considering how his recovery has been considered so bad in previous games but with the removal of ledge hogging, its main weakness is gone. It comes out too fast to react to and with disjointed range, it's the ideal Smash 4 recovery. And let's not forget Mario's great drifting ability in the air means he can often come back without having to use his up B anyway with good DI.

People talk about him not having kill confirms and thus struggling at killing safely. But why do you need kill confirms when your Smash attacks come out insanely fast, with invincibility (on up smash), have huge hitboxes and have very little cooldown? I've seen Mario win top level matches by standing in the middle of the stage and hitting the C-stick until it worked. The very fact that this is a viable strategy at the highest levels of play shows how broken his Smash attacks really are. And then if for some reason you haven't killed your opponent by 150 by spamming Smash attacks, just take the free back throw.

Mario also likely has the highest (reliable) damage output in this game at this point. It's not uncommon to see him rack up 40+ percent thanks to landing one down throw. Which after all the nerfs is extremely rare for any other character. He's basically a way better ZSS with a way less punishable grab.

Lastly this point is never talked about but Mario's floaty nature makes him escape stuff for free that characters like Sheik, Cloud or Diddy (despite being so good) would be subject too. While other characters are getting true comboed for days, Mario either pops out or nairs/up Bs out. Except unlike other floaty characters he doesn't lack mobility.

Matchup wise I'd argue he really has no bad matchups at all. He might have some slight disadvantageous ones but none which are not doable.

He has way too many things going for him.

To be fair marios weakness is simply being worse than other characters which makes me hate his design more than any other character in this game. It does seem like mario is one of the characters who will get weaker as the game progresses and get all their movement techniques and reaction times down in order to punish things like up smash as well as marios no true overwhelming strenghts becoming more apparent as the metagame progresses.

 

[Ffamran]

Fine explain to me how Sheik, ZSS, Sonic or Mario himself for instance is supposed to punish the move well. Note I'm listing relevant top tier threats. And I mean actual punishes, not a hard read with a pre-emptive charged down smash, early aerial or something.

Without directly challenging or risking hitting Mario's invincible head, Dtilt which for many, is the universal sweep option? In Sonic's case, he can probably Ftilt as well. Mario's hitboxes haven't been posted, but assuming it doesn't start on the ground, then regardless if it's his front or back hit, his legs are definitely going to be vulnerable. Body is too, but it would be safer to go for the legs since it probably starts at least waist high. So, assuming it's kind of like Brawl's Up Smash: http://smashboards.com/threads/the-hidden-block-marios-hitbox-repository.288507/. If Mario's Side Smash is that disjointed, he could sweet-spot a Side Smash against another Mario. Probably would have to angle it down. There's also the disjointed and invincible Super Jump Punch.

For Sheik, Needle Storm's probably the only other option. Speaking of which, assuming Mario's charging it a lot and leaving him stationary, Mario, Sheik, and ZSS can all use their projectiles to punish. Probably will need to run a way which won't be a problem for the 2 queens. Mario won't be getting much outside of damage, but it's his damage he's inflicting even if it's little. The other Mario would have to release if he wants to avoid damage by clanking with the projectile. With FLUDD, he just gets pushed back, so stage control. For ZSS, if it connects, that's a free stun that she can capitalize on, especially if the other Mario decided to be stupid and duel with ZSS. Lose that, don't hit the projectile, and there you go, full stun. Back to Sheik, aerial Needles can probably clip his legs which could lead to a Bouncing Fish. I say could because charging Smashes leads to more knockback. Landing Dair, if disjointed enough, could work too.

For Sonic, Ftilt and Dtilt were covered. Like Mario, he could Side Smash, but since it's probably not disjointed, would be riskier than Mario's. Spin Dash could work since it's invincible.

For ZSS, Paralyzer was covered, both her grab, Zair, and Plasma Whip can work. Nair could work too, but it would be risky and difficult to make sure you hit Mario's body and legs. Utilt could work too since it has horizontal range, has leg invincibility, and is recoilless like Ike's dash attack and Little Mac's Utilt so she could "eat" Mario's Up Smash with the first hit and hit with her second hit. Also, Down Smash and like Sheik, landing Dair if disjointed enough. I have no idea if a "short" Flip Jump could work to bait Mario to release Up Smash while she's invincible and then she hits him with the kick.

Outside of that, pretty much anything if you decide to challenge head which for some characters is really terrible while for others, doesn't matter like Marth challenging Mario's Up Smash head on with Side Smash won't be risking much since it's a natural disjoint, but Mewtwo deciding to run up and Fair is likely going to risk his Pokéskin.

27 frames of cooldown is very low for a move with that much power, that fast of a startup and invincibility. His Fmash is really good also. Easily one of the best in the game (almost none can match it in terms of speed, power and cooldown).

Edit: Read 47 as 37 for some reason.
Yoshi's Up Smash has 31 recovery frames. It's only 2 frames slower, has 1 less active frame for its clean hit and invincibility to Mario's entire Up Smash, and slightly shallower angle at 75 degrees to Mario's more vertical 83. Otherwise, it has similar knockback and same damage with its clean hit, but packs a 12% late hit for the other half. Over Mario, it has much higher vertical reach and covers horizontally just as well -- Yoshi's Up Smash covers maybe the entire lower platform of Battlefield --, and he can setup not confirm it, from jab and by falling down with Bair in a way like Fox can with Fair. There's more -- you just need to take time to look at frame data -- and like I said, Dr. Mario and Luigi's Up Smashes could be argued as better than Mario's.

For Mario's Side Smash, it does have a weaknesses in that it doesn't have the range or coverage of other Smashes. For example, it doesn't have Diddy's horizontal range and it doesn't have Marth's arcing hit. It also doesn't really have reliable setups. He can set it up with frame traps?, locks, and reading poor decisions like choosing to air dodge down from Mario hitting you with Dtilt, but he can't outright confirm it like Diddy, Marth, and Toon Link? can.

Also, it's not really that fast. As a Side Smash, it's kind of average at frame 15. As a move, it would be on the below-average side. From a glance, Diddy, Fox, Greninja, Kirby, Little Mac, Lucina, Luigi, Marth, Olimar, the Pits, Roy -- barely --, Samus, and ZSS all have faster Side Smashes. Regarding its recovery, it's also average at 31 frames. All of that, its average startup and recovery, short range, and linear hitbox get made up by its sweet-spot being strong. Also, technically Dr. Mario's Side Smash is a bit better, even when sour-spotted.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Where in the world are you guys getting these insane frame data numbers?

Yoshi cooldown on u-smash is 31 frames no? Last active frame is 16 and FAF is 47.

 

[Nobie]

Remember when people complained that all Mario had for killing was up smash, and that having to get a hard read with it limited Mario's effectiveness?

 

[Man Li Gi]

Fine explain to me how Sheik, ZSS, Sonic or Mario himself for instance is supposed to punish the move well. Note I'm listing relevant top tier threats. And I mean actual punishes, not a hard read with a pre-emptive charged down smash, early aerial or something.

For an example from results go watch Nairo vs Ally at Momocon. Nairo only managed to punish it with a few tilts. Which suggests even dash up, up B OOS would be too slow. In fact Nairo won but started playing pretty campy towards the end (which he normally never does) which probably had a lot to do with it.

Similarly if you watch high level Sheik vs Mario, Sheik only really seems to get dash attack or grab in those situations and it's not like she's going to kill Mario off those until ridiculous percents.

Once again, can just about every character punish the move? Sure. Can they directly kill Mario for doing it which is ultimately what the game is about? Probably not.

Is this true of most other Smash attacks? Definitely not. If you block or avoid an up Smash at kill percents from most other characters, they are probably done. And when this isn't the case, the character usually sucks anyway and isn't relevant.



I see, didn't know it worked on those, the range must be slim. As for the others, are you saying even with 100+ rage it will still work on most tournament relevant characters?

However I'm going to contest his grab game leading to more damage if you say it's 23 percent on the low end at 63 percent at the high end assuming these involve resets/50/50s which Mario can also get.

At typical mid percents depending on rage and character weight Mario can certainly get 25+ percent per grab. I've seen as high as 60+ involving a reset or two. But admittedly I've seen low as 15 percent also (though I'd argue that's still more than most characters).

Even if you are correct, as you said we can't ignore much easier it is for Mario to get a grab. Heck even a soft nair from Mario leads into a grab.

Most tourney relevant characters are fast fallers. The ding dong works regardless of rate, but WHEN it happens is what rage affects. See, DK doesn't need to wait for mid percent to shell out 23 to 61/63. He consistently does get that damage. I also have a Mario so I do have a stake in this argument. And yes, for certain characters like TL, it's so slim, you might as well forget it.

Truth, I've had Mario forever, but the hairy ape is just sexier.

 

[Ffamran]

-sigh-

Character's that can challenge Mario's Usmash via disjoint (hit the body past the invincible head):
(limbs are intangible on tilts)(maybe)(zair)(zair)(zair)

Characters that can challenge Mario's Usmash via simply not being there (enough speed that Mario cannot easily trap them in Usmash range, or can stall a significant amount in the air to throw off the timing and then punish):


Characters that can deal with Mario's Usmash with unique properties: (good super armour, shield property, counter)
(Luma disrupting everything and not letting him in easily in general)

(I know you didn't cover everyone, but... whatever. ) Add in Falco for the first and third category. First: Dtilt's disjoint and possibly the entire move is disjointed since its his tail... I guess Fox and Mewtwo should be added too since their tails aren't really hurtboxes. Also, Triple D with his jab, Ftilt, Fair, Bair, Uair which would only work if Mario's under him in some way, Dair, and Jet Hammer. Back to Falco, there's also Fair's landing disjoint which is this big...

Spoiler: Falco's unfair landing Fair

Thanks, 1.0.4 for making it even stupider... Why does it even... Also, while stupid, he could also use Side Smash's disjointed late hit. It's on frame 20.

Spoiler: Falco Side Smash

For both the first and third category, Blaster and Reflector. Both transcendent with Blaster firing low to the ground and Reflector as a move, has high active frames at 10 from 5 to 14. He'd probably would need to hit first or hit around frame 10 to make sure his leg isn't caught by Mario's Up Smash. Side Smash is also transcendent, but as its frame 17 and using his arms, he's probably going to cause a trade that could kill him. For that category as well, what happened to Ryu? Invincibility even if they're kind of weird like Tatsumaki's apparently is only knee invincible unless it was showing it wrong and there's good ol' Focus Attack.

Also, can't technically everyone challenge Mario's Up Smash with their pivot grabs? Pivot grabs are designed to be disjointed and for most characters, they could just run, and pivot grab.

Where in the world are you guys getting these insane frame data numbers?

Yoshi cooldown on u-smash is 31 frames no? Last active frame is 16 and FAF is 47.

Dammit. I think I read it as 37...

 

[JustSomeScrub]

Without directly challenging or risking hitting Mario's invincible head, Dtilt which for many, is the universal sweep option? In Sonic's case, he can probably Ftilt as well. Mario's hitboxes haven't been posted, but assuming it doesn't start on the ground, then regardless if it's his front or back hit, his legs are definitely going to be vulnerable. Body is too, but it would be safer to go for the legs since it probably starts at least waist high. So, assuming it's kind of like Brawl's Up Smash: http://smashboards.com/threads/the-hidden-block-marios-hitbox-repository.288507/. If Mario's Side Smash is that disjointed, he could sweet-spot a Side Smash against another Mario. Probably would have to angle it down. There's also the disjointed and invincible Super Jump Punch.

For Sheik, Needle Storm's probably the only other option. Speaking of which, assuming Mario's charging it a lot and leaving him stationary, Mario, Sheik, and ZSS can all use their projectiles to punish. Probably will need to run a way which won't be a problem for the 2 queens. Mario won't be getting much outside of damage, but it's his damage he's inflicting even if it's little. The other Mario would have to release if he wants to avoid damage by clanking with the projectile. With FLUDD, he just gets pushed back, so stage control. For ZSS, if it connects, that's a free stun that she can capitalize on, especially if the other Mario decided to be stupid and duel with ZSS. Lose that, don't hit the projectile, and there you go, full stun. Back to Sheik, aerial Needles can probably clip his legs which could lead to a Bouncing Fish. I say could because charging Smashes leads to more knockback. Landing Dair, if disjointed enough, could work too.

For Sonic, Ftilt and Dtilt were covered. Like Mario, he could Side Smash, but since it's probably not disjointed, would be riskier than Mario's. Spin Dash could work since it's invincible.

For ZSS, Paralyzer was covered, both her grab, Zair, and Plasma Whip can work. Nair could work too, but it would be risky and difficult to make sure you hit Mario's body and legs. Utilt could work too since it has horizontal range, has leg invincibility, and is recoilless like Ike's dash attack and Little Mac's Utilt so she could "eat" Mario's Up Smash with the first hit and hit with her second hit. Also, Down Smash and like Sheik, landing Dair if disjointed enough. I have no idea if a "short" Flip Jump could work to bait Mario to release Up Smash while she's invincible and then she hits him with the kick.

Outside of that, pretty much anything if you decide to challenge head which for some characters is really terrible while for others, doesn't matter like Marth challenging Mario's Up Smash head on with Side Smash won't be risking much since it's a natural disjoint, but Mewtwo deciding to run up and Fair is likely going to risk his Pokéskin.


Yoshi's Up Smash has 21 recovery frames. It's only 2 frames slower, has 1 less active frame for its clean hit and invincibility to Mario's entire Up Smash, and slightly shallower angle at 75 degrees to Mario's more vertical 83. Otherwise, it has similar knockback and same damage with its clean hit, but packs a 12% late hit for the other half. Over Mario, it has much higher vertical reach and covers horizontally just as well -- Yoshi's Up Smash covers maybe the entire lower platform of Battlefield --, and he can setup not confirm it, from jab and by falling down with Bair in a way like Fox can with Fair. There's more -- you just need to take time to look at frame data -- and like I said, Dr. Mario and Luigi's Up Smashes could be argued as better than Mario's.

For Mario's Side Smash, it does have a weaknesses in that it doesn't have the range or coverage of other Smashes. For example, it doesn't have Diddy's horizontal range and it doesn't have Marth's arcing hit. It also doesn't really have reliable setups. He can set it up with frame traps?, locks, and reading poor decisions like choosing to air dodge down from Mario hitting you with Dtilt, but he can't outright confirm it like Diddy, Marth, and Toon Link? can.

Also, it's not really that fast. As a Side Smash, it's kind of average at frame 15. As a move, it would be on the below-average side. From a glance, Diddy, Fox, Greninja, Kirby, Little Mac, Lucina, Luigi, Marth, Olimar, the Pits, Roy -- barely --, Samus, and ZSS all have faster Side Smashes. Regarding its recovery, it's also average at 31 frames. All of that, its average startup and recovery, short range, and linear hitbox get made up by its sweet-spot being strong. Also, technically Dr. Mario's Side Smash is a bit better, even when sour-spotted.

Sheiks or Sonic's tilts won't lead into a kill usually. Needles would require you to be at the perfect spot just before it whiffs, if you're off or if it's shielded that likely won't work. Plus you can live fairly long against an onstage bouncing fish. I'm aware of these options, but they won't deter Mario from abusing it.

Interesting tidbit about Yoshi. You would think Yoshi's would abuse it more if it really only has 21 frames of cooldown. The reach being smaller is definitely relevant though, it means it would whiff in some situations Mario's up Smash would catch jumps.

Those other side smash examples for the most part won't kill nearly as early though. It's true he can't confirm into it, but as a raw Fsmash, it's one of the best. An ideal way to use it is to whiff punish. IE your opponent whiffed something in front of you, you instantly react with an Fsmash. I've seen Marios get plenty of very early kills this way.

 

[adom4]

-sigh-

Character's that can challenge Mario's Usmash via disjoint (hit the body past the invincible head):
(limbs are intangible on tilts)(maybe)(zair)(zair)(zair)

Characters that can challenge Mario's Usmash via simply not being there (enough speed that Mario cannot easily trap them in Usmash range, or can stall a significant amount in the air to throw off the timing and then punish):


Characters that can deal with Mario's Usmash with unique properties: (good super armour, shield property, counter)
(Luma disrupting everything and not letting him in easily in general)

There are various degrees within those categories yes, and obviously not all of these characters win the MU but they are all characters with options to deal with Mario's Usmash. Do that with pre-patched Sheik's needles and you'll have a much smaller list. I didn't even list having fast enough jabs to just beat him out, or ducking under it (jab list would probably get messy, ducking under I'm not 100% sure of).

Word of advice for dealing with Mario's Usmash: if you don't have a large disjointed arial or a way to stall in the air, don't jump at him at Usmash kill %s. A very good portion of the cast have options for dealing with it, they just don't use them correctly or get predictable.

There's also the basic note that... not every character has to have an option to deal with every good tool. Part of character weaknesses.

Ganondorf can also D-tilt him after U-smash iirc.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

Sheiks or Sonic's tilts won't lead into a kill usually. Needles would require you to be at the perfect spot just before it whiffs, if you're off or if it's shielded that likely won't work. Plus you can live fairly long against an onstage bouncing fish. I'm aware of these options, but they won't deter Mario from abusing it.

Interesting tidbit about Yoshi. You would think Yoshi's would abuse it more if it really only has 21 frames of cooldown. The reach being smaller is definitely relevant though, it means it would whiff in some situations Mario's up Smash would catch jumps.

Those other side smash examples for the most part won't kill nearly as early though. It's true he can't confirm into it, but as a raw Fsmash, it's one of the best. An ideal way to use it is to whiff punish. IE your opponent whiffed something in front of you, you instantly react with an Fsmash. I've seen Marios get plenty of very early kills this way.

So what if it doesn't kill? You do realize that there's no punish which kills Mario at 0%, right? The point of a punish is to 'punish' the opponent's mistake by comboing, dealing a powerful blow or killing. It also serves another purpose! Getting in your foe's head. They will then think 'damn, I can't spam up smash anymore, I need to try something different'

 

[JustSomeScrub]

Also, can't technically everyone challenge Mario's Up Smash with their pivot grabs? Pivot grabs are designed to be disjointed and for most characters, they could just run, and pivot grab.

Pivot grabs require plenty of stage space. If your strategy versus Mario is to constantly run away, that's going to be limited. Also pivot grabs vastly vary from character to character. Some have ridiculous ones like Bowser, for others it's hardly noticeable.

At any rate, again that's more of a pre-emptive option than a good true punish. Granted Bowser's pivot grab is so good I believe he might actually be able to pivot grab OOS to punish an up Smash on block lol.

 

[Ffamran]

Sheiks or Sonic's tilts won't lead into a kill usually. Needles would require you to be at the perfect spot just before it whiffs, if you're off or if it's shielded that likely won't work. Plus you can live fairly long against an onstage bouncing fish. I'm aware of these options, but they won't deter Mario from abusing it.

Interesting tidbit about Yoshi. You would think Yoshi's would abuse it more if it really only has 21 frames of cooldown. The reach being smaller is definitely relevant though, it means it would whiff in some situations Mario's up Smash would catch jumps.

Those other side smash examples for the most part won't kill nearly as early though. It's true he can't confirm into it, but as a raw Fsmash, it's one of the best. An ideal way to use it is to whiff punish. IE your opponent whiffed something in front of you, you instantly react with an Fsmash. I've seen Marios get plenty of very early kills this way.

Punishing doesn't always have to lead to kills. Punishing can be low or high rewards. For low reward ones, it's going to build up over time. If you constantly punish someone's options, especially if they're predictable, you can deter them because they get scared or you just outright beat the living crap out of them for being so predictable. Also, what do you mean Needle Storm requires you to be at the perfect spot? It's a fairly long-ranged projectile. It also moves fast. It's not Samus's Dense or Melee Charge Shot, Triple D's Gordos, or Zelda's Din's Fire.

For Yoshi, I read the FAF wrong. Saw 37 instead of 47 for some reason. Still, that's only plus 4 frames in an average recovery range for much more coverage.

 

[JustSomeScrub]

So what if it doesn't kill? You do realize that there's no punish which kills Mario at 0%, right? The point of a punish is to 'punish' the opponent's mistake by comboing, dealing a powerful blow or killing. It also serves another purpose! Getting in your foe's head. They will then think 'damn, I can't spam up smash anymore, I need to try something different'

Why on earth would Mario stop spamming Up Smash if he doesn't die for it at kill percents? What's stopping him? As Mario if I took 10 small punishes but didn't actually die and then finally landed one up Smash and killed you at 90 thanks to rage, that exchange was completely in my favour. You outplayed me hard but it ultimately didn't matter.

 

[Pazzo.]

Mario seems to be a jack of all trades.

Good at everything that matters (Speed, Attack, Recovery), but fails to exceed in areas that others ( :4zerosuitsamus: ) are natural fits.

I'm a bit embarrassed that I was ashamed to proclaim Mario as underrated for a long time.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

Why on earth would Mario stop spamming Up Smash if he doesn't die for it at kill percents? What's stopping him? As Mario if I took 10 small punishes but didn't actually die and then finally landed one up Smash and killed you at 90 thanks to rage, that exchange was completely in my favour. You outplayed me hard but it ultimately didn't matter.

You didn't ****ing SAY he'd be at kill percentage. You just said he can't be killed by everyone's punish. Learn to include these important details! What's stopping him? Fear. I play casually more often than not, by my friends stop using certain moves if I punish it enough times. This is true in top level play aswell. It makes you predictable, and if you have an answer to the predictable move, your opponent will realize they can't afford to use this strategy anymore. I mostly play 8 player smash with friends, but even I'm less of a scrub than you

 

[SaltyKracka]

If the complaint is that Mario U-smash is so safe that it's unpunishable, that's just not correct. The move has 27 frames of endlag, which is pretty great for a smash but nothing record-breaking.

Lots of characters have smashes that have comparable or better endlag windows. To the best of my knowledge, the best are MK F-smash and Ganon U-smash, which have two-thirds the endlag of Mario U-smash. (Mario U-smash is significantly faster on start-up, but that wasn't the issue in question. Those two moves also have superior range, damage, and knockback.)

I'm going to take a bit and disagree with you on the issue of Ganon's Upsmash range. Sure, it's got better vertical range, but Mario's just has so much more horizontal range it's kind of hilarious.

 

[JustSomeScrub]

Punishing doesn't always have to lead to kills. Punishing can be low or high rewards. For low reward ones, it's going to build up over time. If you constantly punish someone's options, especially if they're predictable, you can deter them because they get scared or you just outright beat the living crap out of them for being so predictable. Also, what do you mean Needle Storm requires you to be at the perfect spot? It's a fairly long-ranged projectile. It also moves fast. It's not Samus's Dense or Melee Charge Shot, Triple D's Gordos, or Zelda's Din's Fire.

For Yoshi, I read the FAF wrong. Saw 37 instead of 47 for some reason. Still, that's only plus 4 frames in an average recovery range for much more coverage.

4 frames can be a significant difference. If you ever tried to punish something and noticed they managed to spot dodge, chances are you were only off by a few frames. But I do agree that the main things Mario's up Smash has over Yoshis is reach and kill power.

I meant to do needles-bounching fish, you need to be in the perfect spot which is what he was referring to. Just needles themselves are a mediocre punish.

Ultimately the game is about killing your opponent. If Mario is at kill percent, is whiffing Smash attacks but not dying because they are too safe from big punishes, those minor hits are actually a bad thing (if they don't lead to stock losses) thanks to rage. Mario will take a million tilts all day as long as he doesn't die.

You didn't ****ing SAY he'd be at kill percentage. You just said he can't be killed by everyone's punish. Learn to include these important details! What's stopping him? Fear. I play casually more often than not, by my friends stop using certain moves if I punish it enough times. This is true in top level play aswell. It makes you predictable, and if you have an answer to the predictable move, your opponent will realize they can't afford to use this strategy anymore. I mostly play 8 player smash with friends, but even I'm less of a scrub than you

You can't afford to use a strategy if it leads into death which is the only thing that matters. That's why simply getting a punish is not enough if he's at kill percent.

Again, lets say you and I are playing. If you punish up Smash everytime but only with a tilt why would I stop using it? If it's blocked, I take a bit of percent, get more rage and that's about it. If it hits, I win the game. So the risk/reward is HEAVILY in my favour, almost entirely in fact.

When these top Marios throw out Smash attacks, they aren't trying to be unpredictable. The commentators, everyone watching, EVERYONE knows it's coming. There's no mixup, there's no secrecy. If an option is powerful enough it doesn't need to be unexpected to work.

Being predictable is perfectly fine if your opponent has no meaningful counter.

 

[Dark.Pch]

This upsmash thing with mario. You wanna know why people get hit? Cause people keep trying to challenge it. Or do something that puts them in a spot where Mario Can freely get an upsmash. Simply stop doing that. I feel the way people think today, its about having to do cool stuff. They have to go in or they will look boring and get the hate people like Dabuz does with Rosa. They need to stand out so they can be the next thing people talk about on twitter, youtube, reddit and tier list threads. You know by now Mario's will go hard for it. And people just go in not giving a damm. Then they get hit so many times, lose, and complain about the move.

I can't remember what tournament it was but there was a match with Mr.R and Ally. At one point Mr.r was getting hit with upsmash. Afterwards, he just chilled and waited in situations where Ally could upsmash with lil to no risk of getting hit WHILE doing it. Mr.R just waited then proceed to punish him. One point Ally failed to land an upsmash and he was just going in so hard tossing them out like crazy. And Mr.R just chilled out. he knows what to expect from mario play and after a few hits, he would not let that get to him. Think it was the tournament he got second to Dabuz.

People will complain about consistency. That is something that will never change. Shiek and Diddy were taking over, people wanted nerfs and complained. Sonic was pissing people off (still is to this day) and they asked for nerfs and complained about him. ZSS taking over, people complained. Bayo was going in, people complained. Cloud was going in for a while, People complained. And now Mario is going in, and people are asking for a nerf.

You see the trend here? No matter how many nerfs you give a character. There will still be a character taking that first place more then others and people will complain about that. Nerfs will not stop consistency. I feel people don't wanna work hard. If it's not easy, then it's a problem to them. People don't wanna be patient. It's usually typical average play from said character that you have to take your time with but wont. Thus all these easy op characters people go on about and run off to counterpick got outclassed by a Mario and Mega Man. And the excuse people are making to feel good about themselves or say should have never happen is the Mario complaints.