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Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

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FeelMeUp

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I don't want to see complaining about Mario's Usmash while the same players are doing stupid **** like short hopping into him as an approach. Walking into jabs/tilts/shield invalidate most of his good approaches AND kill options.
If you know Mario almost always wants to grab or Usmash you why do I still see people continuously sit in shield/jump into him?
 

Ffamran

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Oh, yeah, forgot about this. Well, it seems like the perfect time since it's kind of related to Mario (and his Up Smash). Thread: smashboards.com/threads/foxs-out-of-shield-punish-data.429327/.

Specifically on Mario...
Jab: jab 3 is punishable by dash usmash OOS

Ftilt: punishable by dash usmash OOS

Utilt: punishable by dash attack OOS, has low range, so jump cancel usmash should work a lot of the time as well.

Dtilt: punishable by dash usmash OOS

Dash attack: punish with anything you want, turnaround up tilt OOS reliably works.

Fsmash: sweetspot and sour spot are both punishable with dash usmash OOS

Dsmash: front hit punishable with dash usmash OOS

Usmash: back hit punishable with dash usmash OOS, front hit is punishable with dash attack OOS

Neutral B: punishable with dash usmash OOS, but you have to make sure you are in range.

Side B: punishable with dash usmash OOS

Up B: punish with anything to cover his landing

Down B: if you shield a fully charged fludd, you suffer no shieldstun, but fox still can't punish this unless he is at point blank range.

Nair: punishable by shield grab if in range. If he lands on the last possible frame with a hard nair and mashes jab, and you buffer the grab, the jab will trade with your jab.

Fair: Punishable by dash usmash OOS if you have frame perfect timing. Because the opponent will almost never land on the last possible frame, however, this is pretty reliable.

Bair: Same scenario as nair

Uair: punishable by a shieldgrab if in range, and his uair doesn't have great range.

Dair: punishable by dash attack OOS with strict timing

Key things to take into consideration with Fox: Fox has the highest dash speed in the game at 2.4. Next up is Little Mac at 2.05, a 0.35 difference, and then Falco at 1.9, a 0.5 difference. Fox's dash is incredibly good and is only 0.216 slower than his run speed of 2.184. Next up, Fox is tied with Wario for having the fastest, frame 4, dash attack in the game. There was Falco, but that died with Brawl. Drop shield to an option with Fox is pretty good compared to other characters; dropping shield takes 7 frames, so it's something like jab at 9 frames, 7+2, Utilt at 10 frames, 7+3, dash attack at 11 frames, 7+4, Down Smash at 13 frames, 7+6, and how many frames it takes for him to dash and Up Smash's 8 frame startup. Of course, there's also his OOS options... Maybe outdated OOS thread: http://smashboards.com/threads/out-of-shield-frame-data-chart.419330/?

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.
It's Yoshi's Up Smash that has vertical reach over Mario's. You kind of flipped those around, but anyway...

Yes, the game is about KO'ing you opponent by knocking them to the blast zone and you achieve that not only by the big hits, but the small ones as well. It's just in Smash 4, hitting is both a good and bad thing, but still overall more good since it will at least put your opponent in hit stun for you to try to do something. Mario's not invincible. If he was, then he'd effectively be broken and it would be stupid as hell. Why he's not banned at this point if he was completely invincible is beyond me. But he's not is he?
 
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sedrf

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There was a problem fetching the tweet


Some tweets I found interesting.
Also zinoto releases a mu chart for diddy.
What's interesting is the list of losing mus and the lack of solid losing ones.
 

Cutie Gwen

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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.
If I can counter your Usmash spamming with lots of individual hits, I can get you to kill percentage ON A DIFFERENT MOVE BECAUSE YOU WON'T BE HITTING USMASH ALL THE TIME. Imagine I'm Ganondorf and I keep being able to avoid getting hit but manage to hit you with Dtilt or Wizard's Foot. Do you know what I can do when you're at a high enough percent? I can have a mixup, something YOU can't see coming, because I'd have learned your exact habits, and respond with a killmove. You're automatically assuming the Mario's at killpercent for almost every move when spamming Usmash, which is bull****. If I get you I rage... you're not killing that much earlier because staling exists, and because you only ever use Usmash, it's going to be much weaker.

That's because Mario counterplay is still underdeveloped, and Mario's Fmash can ALSO be punished by characters. Hell, it's arguably MORE punishable, as you're not invincible
'being predictable is fine' until your opponent knows EXACTLY what you're going to do, to which they'll ALWAYS have an answer to what you're doing
At this point, you're just a terrible player for not knowing how to deal with a single move being used over and over. Go to a friend, ask them to smack your face every 5 seconds until you're able to keep their hand away from your face. Come back when you realize 'Oh ****, I know how to stop this'. You deserve to get JV99-d by nothing but Usmash if you literally can't think of a way to stop it. Goodbye. I don't want to talk to someone who literally can't think of a single counter strategy to 1 move being used over and over
 
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HoSmash4

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'Hard reads' aren't hard reads if going for that read isn't hard punishable/risky itself (Mario up smash)

Reading a roll back with fox upsmash, reading a raw jump in neutral with sheik upsmash? That's a hard read.

But it's like you shield/react to Mario upsmashing and all you get is a dash attack/grab or a tilt as a punish
 
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Dark.Pch

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The thing I am curious about his how people are going on about mario and yet people won't say much about megaman to the same degree. The character who put everyone down but Ally.
 

meleebrawler

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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?
That was when broken kill confirms were rampant and the norm at tournaments.
 

Pazzo.

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There's something to be said for the way Ally will literally stand, wait, and up smash when his opponent commits.

'Hard reads' aren't hard reads if going for that read isn't hard punishable/risky itself (Mario up smash)

Reading a roll back with fox upsmash, reading a raw jump in neutral with sheik upsmash? That's a hard read.

But it's like you shield/react to Mario upsmashing and all you get is a dash attack/grab or a tilt as a punish
You can blame general commentary phrases for that misconception.
 
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TTTTTsd

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the actual reason Mario's Usmash being safe-ish (I say this loosely, I am p. sure most chars can shield drop > Dash grab him) on shield isn't as large a problem as some think is because in most situations, the part of Mario USmash that's hitting you is the back of his head.

Ergo, his back is to you. Considering that USmash is - on block enough to be punished by a dashgrab pretty solidly I wager alone doesn't say much, Cloud Limit Side-B is like this too! But Cloud does not have his back turned.

Mario's best options with his back turned are very diverse: Bair or another USmash. To Bair, he is incurring 5f of jumpsquat and the 6f startup of Bair. Add however - USmash is on shield now and tell me what he's going to do to you after that isn't either another USmash or running away, and if he starts just doing it over and over again it becomes considerably easier to drop shield and dash grab him.

The move is good, crazy even, but let's not get too ahead of ourselves here, mmm?

The thing I am curious about his how people are going on about mario and yet people won't say much about megaman to the same degree. The character who put everyone down but Ally.
It's because Megaman didn't win the tourney. It's a disappointing reason but it's one that I can guarantee. Your post about characters winning was pretty on point. I'm sure if Megaman had won ppl would be going on about his footstool stuff but Mario won.
 
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Illuminose

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Aside from some minor gripes (I think Diddy-Sheik is dead even and Diddy-Cloud is still slightly in Cloud's favor), I think that Zinoto's matchup chart is very accurate and lists pretty much every single matchup correctly.
 

JustSomeScrub

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If I can counter your Usmash spamming with lots of individual hits, I can get you to kill percentage ON A DIFFERENT MOVE BECAUSE YOU WON'T BE HITTING USMASH ALL THE TIME. Imagine I'm Ganondorf and I keep being able to avoid getting hit but manage to hit you with Dtilt or Wizard's Foot. Do you know what I can do when you're at a high enough percent? I can have a mixup, something YOU can't see coming, because I'd have learned your exact habits, and respond with a killmove. You're automatically assuming the Mario's at killpercent for almost every move when spamming Usmash, which is bull****. If I get you I rage... you're not killing that much earlier because staling exists, and because you only ever use Usmash, it's going to be much weaker.

That's because Mario counterplay is still underdeveloped, and Mario's Fmash can ALSO be punished by characters. Hell, it's arguably MORE punishable, as you're not invincible
'being predictable is fine' until your opponent knows EXACTLY what you're going to do, to which they'll ALWAYS have an answer to what you're doing
At this point, you're just a terrible player for not knowing how to deal with a single move being used over and over. Go to a friend, ask them to smack your face every 5 seconds until you're able to keep their hand away from your face. Come back when you realize 'Oh ****, I know how to stop this'. You deserve to get JV99-d by nothing but Usmash if you literally can't think of a way to stop it. Goodbye. I don't want to talk to someone who literally can't think of a single counter strategy to 1 move being used over and over
You need to read this post very carefully to understand my point.

'Hard reads' aren't hard reads if going for that read isn't hard punishable/risky itself (Mario up smash)

Reading a roll back with fox upsmash, reading a raw jump in neutral with sheik upsmash? That's a hard read.

But it's like you shield/react to Mario upsmashing and all you get is a dash attack/grab or a tilt as a punish
This guy gets it. A Smash attack should be a hard read but because his are so safe from big punishes it's really not.

If most characters get their up Smash blocked they are eating at minimum a dash up, up Smash from the opponent or an Fsmash OOS. Which incidentally will kill with most of the cast at decent percents.

If Mario gets his Smash attack blocked, outside of a few rare character specific exceptions, he only is taking a dash attack, dash grab or tilt. And very few characters kill directly off these moves.

Which would be fine on some other characters, not every Smash needs to be equally punishable, but Mario has so much else going for him, why give him this as well?

It's because Megaman didn't win the tourney. It's a disappointing reason but it's one that I can guarantee. Your post about characters winning was pretty on point. I'm sure if Megaman had won ppl would be going on about his footstool stuff but Mario won.
I actually pointed out how good Megaman's results have been between Evo, Ceo and Japan. And how everyone that doubted Kame because his results were only in Japan now has to eat their words. I think Megaman is top 10/12ish. He does well versus most top tiers and has the results of a stellar character.

But that didn't generate as much discussion as Mario. I guess probably because there's only a handful of decent Megamans in the world whereas Mario is very common and a problem at all levels of play so people can relate to his nonsense.

And really, are you going to get mad at a Megaman that can do those footstool combos consistently, in tournament? If anything you'll probably just be impressed lol.

Seriously try those out, they are far from easy, even in training mode let alone a high pressure tourny setting.

And aside from those which are character specific Megaman has no way to force early kills, he certainly has to work way harder for his kills than Mario.
 
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Jams.

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J JustSomeScrub You keep talking about small punishes on Mario's usmash as if Mario gets a free neutral reset after every punish, but he doesn't, especially not at kill percents. These small punishes lead to positional advantages that make it easier to take Mario's stock, and put him in a position where he can't usmash again until he resets back to neutral. Of course the risk/reward is in Mario's favour because usmash is a great move, but being put at a positional disadvantage is not inconsequential to the point that non-lethal punishes can be written off.
 

TTTTTsd

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And really, are you going to get mad at a Megaman that can do those footstool combos consistently, in tournament? If anything you'll probably just be impressed lol.
Wouldn't be the strangest thing I've read in this thread. It's a genuine pattern, a character wins a major and this repeats ad infinitum.

turn-around jab?
Maybe, but it's kinda low reward and also not the fastest thing ever (particularly when you account for his USmash hitting a shield). Having to deal with turnaround frames sucks, basically.

It's up there as a decent option as an additional but I still think retreating after USmash is blocked > all else.
 
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Nobie

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That was when broken kill confirms were rampant and the norm at tournaments.
So what you're saying is that people will always complain about the most effective kill moves, even as the average efficiency has dropped?

Wait, I think that's actually what keeps happening.
 

sedrf

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It's really just one guy going crazy over it.
let's not get ahead of ourselves
 

JustSomeScrub

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J JustSomeScrub You keep talking about small punishes on Mario's usmash as if Mario gets a free neutral reset after every punish, but he doesn't, especially not at kill percents. These small punishes lead to positional advantages that make it easier to take Mario's stock, and put him in a position where he can't usmash again until he resets back to neutral. Of course the risk/reward is in Mario's favour because usmash is a great move, but being put at a positional disadvantage is not inconsequential to the point that non-lethal punishes can be written off.
Problem is it's extremely difficult to finish off Mario offstage. His recovery is pretty good with great aerial mobility combined with an unreactable up B with disjoints. Or maybe everyone just sucks at edge guarding him, whatever the reason Mario rarely gets gimped.

Yeah you still get stage control and onstage edge guarding. That certainly has a chance of leading into a kill but as you said, the risk/reward is still usually in Mario's favour.

Put it this way. If you play neutral with zero Smash attacks you still have a good chance of getting hit by those small stray hits anyway. So if by doing a Smash attack that's all you are risking, it's not too different from what probably would happen in the normal course of a match.

But the balance of Smash attacks is supposed to be high risk/high reward (outside of punish situations), not low risk/high reward.
 

Yikarur

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Mario is a perfectly designed character in my opinion.
I love his upsmash. It is busted but it should only hit if you commit to it. You can still punish it on whiff for example. Most upsmash kills are unnecessary hard-mistakes on the opponents part. (speaking about upsmashes in neutral, not as a punish)
The rest of his moveset is very well rounded.

His recovery is overrated btw. A lot of characters can trade with upB which results in his immediate death if his double jump is gone.
 
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FeelMeUp

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I want to see more characters with lingering nairs(Fox players, Sheik players, Pikachus) nair Mario's up b for the free stock. I'm watching people let him back for free, which is foolish

Another important thing I'd like to make note of:
In my opinion, Marth players have the most developed edgeguarding of any character mains.
 

ReRaze

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In my opinion, Marth players have the most developed edgeguarding of any character mains.
I'd argue that title goes to the Sheiks, especially so now that they have to get an edgeguard if they wanna kill at reasonable percents.

They are also arguably more developed and optimised than Marth is, heck they are probably the most optimised character in the game, (considering how dominant shiek was back then it's probably due to her drawing alot of attention from more competitive players which is a huge benefit when trying to advance a characters meta)

Needles, fair, bair, nair, vanish, bouncing fish, grenades, and even dair are all used in egdguarding, the sheiks have gotten really crafty.

Marth is pretty much fair, bair, Up B and the occasional Nair, Counter or Dancing Blade offstage, don't get me wrong though
Marths are definitely no slouches when it comes to edgeguarding.
 
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Ninety

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It's really just one guy going crazy over it.
let's not get ahead of ourselves
I've said that Mario's usmash is a goddamn stupid move in the past. Got about the same response Scrub is getting now, but I stand by it.
 

FeelMeUp

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It's a stupid move, of course, but Mario himself isn't anywhere near as ridiculous as the guy's making him out to be.
 

Shady Shaymin

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I think Zinoto's matchup spread is good. Idk about Sheik being a slight advantage though. We kill easier, but we get **** on offstage pretty hard. Needle storm, bouncing fish, ledge trumps, walk-off aerials etc. are so threatening for Diddy's barrels and monkey flip. Granted, if Diddy and Sheik are both at 120 and Diddy has a banana in hand...that's not a great place for her to be in. But Diddy first has to get there and break past one of the scariest neutrals in the game all while not dying to a gimp at 60 or so. It's tough for both sides.
 

FeelMeUp

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diddy vs sheik is one of the most even non ditto matchups in the game.
that's one of the only questionable things about his mu chart.
 

FamilyTeam

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Mario's Up Smash is a great move, yes, I think it might just be the best Up Smash in the game, but I think it in no way is gonna make Mario broken because of it. It could use some tweeks, yes, but if we are to complain about busted moves, frankly his is kinda lower down in the list for me.
 

Amadeus9

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Edit: Do you have moves you'd like to see nerfed, or wouldn't mind if they were? Let's play a game--write down the list of moves, but don't post it yet. Wait exactly a full year, and then don't post them either. Never post them. And I won't infract you. That's the game.
We aren't seeming to be doing very well with this rule

I think at this point we need to just pretend that patches are over and deal with the fact that we might need to work a little to counterplay properly. It'll be tough, but I think we can get through it guys. In summary, git gud

Honestly nothing in this game right now is unbalanced enough to justify this kind of complaining
 
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TheGoodGuava

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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.
Cloud is my experience destroys him, he has everything that Mario hates and more. Much better mobility, a "better" projectile, a massive disjoint, doesn't need to approach at all, godly juggle game, and is great at gimping him with a combination of nair, dair, and his reliable stalls
 

FamilyTeam

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Cloud is my experience destroys him, he has everything that Mario hates and more. Much better mobility, a "better" projectile, a massive disjoint, doesn't need to approach at all, godly juggle game, and is great at gimping him with a combination of nair, dair, and his reliable stalls
No. Cloud doesn't "destroy" him. To me, Mario vs. Cloud is 45:55 worst case scenario. Mario can still combo and juggle Cloud pretty well, and his FLUDD and Back Air can be scary to edgeguard him.
 

Ffamran

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This guy gets it. A Smash attack should be a hard read but because his are so safe from big punishes it's really not.

If most characters get their up Smash blocked they are eating at minimum a dash up, up Smash from the opponent or an Fsmash OOS. Which incidentally will kill with most of the cast at decent percents.

If Mario gets his Smash attack blocked, outside of a few rare character specific exceptions, he only is taking a dash attack, dash grab or tilt. And very few characters kill directly off these moves.

Which would be fine on some other characters, not every Smash needs to be equally punishable, but Mario has so much else going for him, why give him this as well?
Not all Smashes, or rather, not all moves are created the same and they really shouldn't. Take a look at 70% of the cast's Dair for example. Just because it's a Smash, doesn't mean it should be a hard read. Some characters have Smashes that are utility moves and most of them tend to be Down Smashes, but there are some Up and Side Smashes like ZSS's Up Smash is more of an anti-air and combo extender than a real KO move or Fox's Side Smash, and I really miss this one, Wolf's Side Smash, are more of short, burst options to cover a lot of ground while putting in a lot of damage, but not a lot of knockback to outright KO like their KO Smashes, Up for Fox and Down for Wolf. They're relatively fast and cover good ground which both get countered by being weak. A punish version could exist if tuned right... It could have existed for both Captain Falcon and Ganondorf. A bit weird how their range issue wasn't addressed by moving them forward like Laura's Bolt Charge in Street Fighter V or something else like armor on Ganondorf or a more drastic version: changing the animation of Capt.'s to his 64 Side Smash. Anyway, I digress.

The only Smash people complain about Mario's is his Up Smash when it comes to challenging it or whiff punishing it. Challenging it seems like not something to do which... would be like not trying to challenge Chun-Li's EX Spinning Bird Kick. That being said, it's not invincible, Chun-Li's amazing reversal isn't invincible, there are weaknesses like the fact because it's only head invincible, you can just attack low to clip his legs or that other characters can just bypass that with something like disjoints, transcendent priority, whatever. Of course, their rewards will vary, but it's still possible to challenge it. If Mario misses, he's still dealing with average recovery. It's not Ganondorf's Up Smash, Ness's Down Smash, or Roy's Flare Blade low recovery. You can whiff punish it if he misses. I mean, why couldn't you? Hitbox is over. Now, on-shield? That's a different story, but you probably can depending on the character like Fox being able to dash or OOS Up Smash everyone and everything.

Mario's Side Smash doesn't get many complaints which makes sense since it lacks his Up Smash's coverage and invincibility. It also lacks some of its utility since you can't really run up and Side Smash with it. Well, you can, but it's probably not as worth it or as safe as having an arcing headbutt cover you. Mario's Down Smash should be the least of anyone's worries. If we were talking about Luigi's, then hell yeah, complain about that thing having 22 recovery frames while being frame 6 and doing 14% or 15% with fairly good knockback. Mario's Down Smash has 30 recovery frames, average, and is lacking Luigi's slightly better active frames. Same with Dr. Mario, but Doc's Down Smash is stronger than Mario's. Anyway, both of theirs hits 2(7)1; Luigi's hits 2(6)2. That extra 1 frame can help, especially since Mario's back hit is only active for 1 frame.

I want to see more characters with lingering nairs(Fox players, Sheik players, Pikachus) nair Mario's up b for the free stock. I'm watching people let him back for free, which is foolish

Another important thing I'd like to make note of:
In my opinion, Marth players have the most developed edgeguarding of any character mains.
Part of me feels like running off with lingering aerials and expecting a free edgeguard is a problem. What happens when you run off of the ledge? You fall not straight down, but at an angle. What do most characters have for a recovery? A vertical one. Basically, people are slipping by because there's no threat to them for recovering. Why worry about lingering aerials when you can go right under them? Or in the case where it's just that predictable, they can just recover high while you're trying to attack low and recover low.

Falling straight down would be a way to make the "hitbox wall" sharper, but like dropping down, there's still a problem of it only covering low recoveries. A riskier option is to fall down to rise up with a hitbox. It's much riskier since you will no longer have a double jump. The Triple D was in a weird spot, but how the Falco rose up with Nair is what I'm trying to talk about: https://youtu.be/TBhxo4QqreE?t=213. Problem with this is that it's pretty character dependent. Not a lot of characters can just drop that low, rise up that quickly and that high, and catch you.

Here's another problem: which way are people trying to edgeguard or challenge those moves? Head on. Why would you do that? Why would you run into Mario's disjointed Super Jump Punch? Unless you have a disjoint, you're not likely to do much, but get hit. Attacking from their backs would be easier since they probably don't want to Up Special that way, away from the ledge. The risk, however, is stage-spiking them which could lead to them teching, but why aim that high? Aim lower. There are even characters who can simply KO from across a blast zone. Hit them under the ledge.

Also, edgeguarding itself can be character dependent. Fox for example, doesn't really have good edgeguard options off-stage. Yes, he has lingering aerials, but Nair's not really that strong, Fair and Dair pop the opponent up, and for Fair to drag the opponent off-stage, Fox needs to fast fall potentially risking a SD. Fox's on-stage options, however, are strong. Utilt alone was touted as this awesome option to cover front and back, catch ledge grabs, and ledge getup options. Add in hold down jab, Nair, Dair, and Fire Fox for ledge getups and ledge jump, Dtilt and Down Smash to catch ledge grabs, and Side Smash and Fire Fox to cover ledge rolls, and Fox has a pretty good on-stage edgeguard. In a similar case, Ike's on-stage edgeguard is fearsome.

Adding onto that, edgeguarding being character dependent means players really shouldn't be trying to do the same thing as other characters. For example, how many times have you seen people just Dtilt at the ledge? Not all moves are the same and not all moves have the same hitboxes. Diddy's Dtilt clearly goes over the ledge; Mario's doesn't look like that. That doesn't mean Mario can't use Dtilt to edgeguard. He's just going to have to aim at a different angle. Using Falco and Fox, characters people figure are very similar, I've seen Falco players Down Smash to catch people countless times and it rarely works. Why? Take a look at their hitboxes.



Fox's hits much lower while Falco's hits higher. Falco can try to Down Smash to edgeguard, but it's going to work much differently. Y'know, I still remember when some Fox players used Fire Fox at the ledge and it working and a couple matches later, Falco players were doing the same with Fire Bird, except since Fire Bird's a steaming pile of crap, it didn't work out. What was that quote again... Oh yeah, "Did I ever tell you what the definition of insanity is? Insanity is doing the exact... same ****ing thing... over and over again expecting... **** to change... That. Is. Crazy." It really is insanity. If it's not working and you've done it hundreds of times, that's past the line of maybe it's time to try something else. Like challenging Mario's Up Smash head on... Pun intended. An aside: what's weird is that some moves have never or barely changed in the series. Why are people challenging Mario's Up Smash when it had invincibility since at least Melee? Are you expecting it would be different?

Well, what's Falco supposed to do now if he can't use Down Smash like Fox to catch ledge grabs? Other than aim at different angles, his other moves? Up Smash for example hits low. Or more "complicated", reverse jump-canceled Up Smash for on-stage ledge coverage. It's not going to travel as far as Fox's, but it has a ton of active frames.
Falco's Up Smash's low hit

Falco's reverse JC'd Up Smash distance compared with JC'd Up Smash.


Everyone has options, everyone functions differently. Figure them out.
 
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TriTails

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Fun fact: Doc's U-smash is even stupider than Mario's.

To be honest, Mario MAY be able to get away with small punishes IF the opponent SHIELDS. On whiff U-smash is just about as vulnerable as many other moves. Note a lot of top tiers are fast on the ground. If you can't deal with a move head-on, then don't deal with it at all. U-smash is at its weakest on whiff, use that for whatever punish you may have in store. Even if you only get a grab you can potentially kill off it by throwing him off-stage and try to trade with SJP or cover his ledge options. It's not like he isn't at disadvantage or anything.
 

Sinister Slush

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I know the discussion has shifted a bit, but Mario Usmash breaks Yoshi DJ armor at 55% from Nido's thing about super (it's heavy) armor, not accounting rage it can be much earlier so it's kinda bad for Yoshi to be attempting to jump through his Usmash.
Which at that point when would he be jumping into that Usmash, offstage? Mario could just bair or cape/fludd instead for a guaranteed stock.
 

Thinkaman

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Well as far as best u-smash goes, technically, if we abstract away the context of a faster run to do it out of, Doc's is stronger and has a debatable better angle. (Spoilers: A debate I'm not really all that interested in having.)

Fun fact: Doc's U-smash is even stupider than Mario's.
Nooo, I've been ninja Mario-U-smashed! Curse you, 9-frame double-sided kill move!
 
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Baby_Sneak

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Mario's Usmash is stupid. Just like how all good characters in every fighting game have stupid moves that they prolly don't really need, but they still have and how it's up to the players to deal with it.

The End (can we instead talk about the crappy characters in this game instead of attacking all the good characters left in the game? @Emblem Lord said it the best when he said discussions like these only have one end goal, which is suggesting nerfs).


Side note: ZeRo has traveled over to Japan to train for EVO with 9B, komorikiri, raito, OCEAN, kirikana, HIKARU, and many many other top Japanese players, who he went ft10 with. According to the headline news, he has gone a positive record on all of them and only kirikana (the rosa player) has beaten him iirc and actually made him contemplate rosa for best character.
 

Amadeus9

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I think of docs usmash less as being stupid, and moreso as being a goddamn work of art. Beautiful
 

YerTheBestAROUND

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Can't punish Mario's usmash? Maybe you should just not bother trying to do it then, how about that? What do you really lose by leaving it alone? I can tell you what you gain. You're certainly not dying to another Usmash because you got baited.

There are a lot of moves that you cannot punish in this game. Mario having one (which is false, it CAN be punished) is not a big deal. Not getting punished is basically the definition of top tier. Mario's good. Get used to it.

I'm sorry JustSomeScrub, but you seem very contrarian to EVERYTHING. That's not always a bad thing, a different view point on a scenario is good for more in depth discussion. The problem is that we aren't really getting that depth. Please, just give it a rest.
 

Yikarur

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Zinoto MU Chart based on multiple Diddy opinion and not only his own.

"My personal deviations: - Cloud is slight disadvantage - Rosa is even. - Mario is slight disadvantage. - Sheik is possibly even (prob not).
- Rosas believe MU is even. - Both sides in Diddy-Cloud feel they lose - Mario-Diddy results are in favor of Mario, but seen as even. "

https://twitter.com/Zinoto/status/755535347266818049
 

DunnoBro

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Mario's usmash isn't much safer than other anti-landing usmashes like Rosa's, Cloud's, Tink, Yoshi, etc... It's just mario has no aerial kill move (relevant to the landing chain anyway) so he's trying to lead them to the ground for usmash more than those other characters which can kill them much more consistently in the air. Any added safeness likely stems from this.

Truly, mario would be way better over with luigi or doc's usmash.
 
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