I speak Spanish too
Smash Journeyman
- Joined
- May 25, 2015
- Messages
- 243
First and foremost, I'm tired of this stigma that pro players' opinions are any more valuable than anyone else's; which your sentence implies. As long as you can prove that you are educated about the game(which can be easily warranted in your post) your opinions should be subjugated to the discretion of everyone else at the same value. The fact that I can become a top player and have my opinions be easily more accepted and/or hated is honestly unfair to everybody else. The growth of your fan base will inevitably make your opinion more popular and among other things, but giving it a higher baseline of initial strength is wrong. Secondly, you need to know your audience. Most people here aren't professionals so the chance of one actually answering you is pretty low, and even if they were in abundance a comparison will be negligible because they would have different opinions on certain things that getting a general answer is no more different than a group of any other knowledgeable players.
Jigglypuff
On paper, Jigglypuff is a character that inherently suffers by the mechanics and state of the metagame. In a 2-stock meta, where your punish game means everything and the rage mechanic can skew the outcome of games, Jigglypuff is by far the smallest benefactor. Her extremely low weight means that she almost always can never benefit from rage-while any other character in the game that she is facing can. This concept alone is a -2(hurt by something and your opponent is helped by something). Also if her shield is broken she always takes the maximum punish- a stock which is already a -3. Just looking at nothing but the mechanics of the game.
Punish Game
Rest was designed to address the latter issues, giving her an extremely early kill tool-however, it's proven to be ineffective. She has virtually no safe or viable set-ups into it, extremely risky on whiff, and because of rage and lightweight the kill power simply doesn't make up for it. Also take into account that in a 2-stock meta, risking a rest while being a stock down is something that nobody would really do unless they can guarantee it. So the main move that was designed to balance out her design is weak due to its lack of frequency and reward not outweighing the risk. Since this move is the crux of her punish game, it's no question that outside of it it's horrible. Her grab game is very poor, she has no throw combos, and due to her floatiness something like a tomahawk will almost never work. Combine this with the fact that her damage per hit is among the worst in the game, and you leave a punish game that has much to be desired. Remember how I said that she inherently struggles from the mechanics of the game? Well it comes back again to haunt her again in her punish game. In previous iterations, Jigglypuff was seen as a feared edge-guarder-being able to effectively drag opponents off stage AND keep them there. In this game, edgeguarding is weaker due to the overall buff of recoveries and the lack of ledge hogging means her ability to actually get a stock from it is low.
Neutral Game
Puff's neutral game is centered around using her great air mobility to space around your opponents shield via the use of aerials. The idea is that the opponent would get hasty by try jumping OoS or dropping it, allowing you to carry them through the air. If they decide to stay in the shield or roll around you can punish this with something like pound or n-air. The problem here is that she doesn't really impose a threat here. Even if you she manages to get you with a pound or land 2 aerials on you the difference is very easy to make up. Also consider the fact that she is forced to approach and that being in the air is an inherent disadvantage if you are not in advantage. The range of her aerials are also pretty lackluster and her lack of fast fall speed and ground speed means that she can't really terrorize the opponent with them like Diddy or Sheik in any fashion. Her ground game is honestly not even worth talking about. All of her tilts are negative on shield and taking the time to space is pretty worthless since there aren't really any follow-ups. The best she has is jab grab which is more of mix-up and isn't a big deal since her throw doesn't impose any real threat.
Room for Optimization
There are a few things that puff can use to better her in battle. 2 notable ones are rest option selects which I will link below. One involves being in the air allowing you to use your air mobility in neutral to confirm either a rest on footstool or d-air on whiff. This isn't too bad but it's important to keep in mind that anybody knowledgeable in the MU won't fall for this and is most effective if the opponent is around FH in the air. So this can easily be countered. The second one involves a shield option select using rest which is honestly great. It gives puff a safe option to use rest and keeps her grounded all the while maintaining her position. Outside of these two option selects, there are of course a few rest setups and mix-ups such as weak hit f-air, sh d-air, crouch rest, air dodge rest, etc. Lastly, their is bidou and sadly Puff can't really take advantage for two main reasons. First of all, her gameplay is designed by being in the air and using her aerials while fading in and out- of course Biodu inherently weakens this. Secondly, her grounded mobility and boxing options are extremely weak and Bidou can't really amplify something that's nearly non-existent.
Future for Jigglypuff
As of now, Jigglypuff has very little usage and currently that will most likely never change. Her neutral game is poor, and her punish game has too many holes, and the mechanics and meta of the game only work against her. I didn't go in-depth into all of her moves and intricacies but their are a good amount of threads analyzing this already so those would be nice to look at.
Links
Rage+Lightweight https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BaTJ-8ehd0
ROSOS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B16N8NckbVA
True Combos and Air OS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YirBCewQIgw
210.5
