Official 4BR Tier List V3 - Competitive Insight & Analysis

[blackghost]

‘Zero has a bad monkey flip habit’

This narrative needs to be shutdown... but I guess it won’t if people keep only paying attention to the game defining moments.

Zero simply has two options in principle.
1. Monkey flip inwards which is the best option to escape the corner and if successful stops the opponents momentum
2. Go to the ledge, or try land with a aerial (usually FF fair), both which keep him in the corner if succesful so let’s opponent control momentum.

Zero simply chose the former option as he valued reversing the momentum over the possible consequences. Not necessarily a bad habit but a decision that can be punished harder immediately. When you play a character with diddys air speed you are forced to make these decisions, it isn’t consequently a bad habit.

this is not a narrative. this is not a meme. this is a fact backed up by occurrences that date back two years.
this latest occurence may be the worst mistake yet because he was up 100 percent with 30 seconds left. Compared to some other game communities zero gets treated with kid gloves. you can't even use the same setup on fchamp three times in mvci. Meanwhile zero makes the smae mistake in the situation for years and people let him john. im not sure if it was becuase its bayo (probably true) but people let him get away with it. he would have died to metaknight and zss and maybe others would have killed him for sure.

and for people familiar with this game it has become an obvious mistake.

 

[A Scrub]

Monkey flip habit or not, ZeRo had a massive lead over Salem going into the last 30 seconds. And instead of playing the camping game and winning on the timeout, he decided to push his advantage. Play to win, not to entertain the crowd and be a favourite. He needs to take a page out of Hbox's playbook.

 

[HoSmash4]

this is not a narrative. this is not a meme. this is a fact backed up by occurrences that date back two years.
this latest occurence may be the worst mistake yet because he was up 100 percent with 30 seconds left. Compared to some other game communities zero gets treated with kid gloves. you can't even use the same setup on fchamp three times in mvci. Meanwhile zero makes the smae mistake in the situation for years and people let him john. im not sure if it was becuase its bayo (probably true) but people let him get away with it. he would have died to metaknight and zss and maybe others would have killed him for sure.

and for people familiar with this game it has become an obvious mistake.

The same consequence happens if zero decides to go to the corner, gets knocked offstage and gets his barrels gimped in some form.

Sometimes at the highest level its pick your poison and hope for the best, especially vs the likes of Bayo..ZSS

 

[Krysco]

I watched the end of that match and there was a great deal of Zero playing defensive, focusing on shooting peanuts and throwing the banana. Was even a small moment where he just kept slowly inching away from Salem who was using the dtilt bullets. The bit at the end though, Salem dabk'd towards Zero and missed and Zero tried to punish with a dash grab and missed. Zero was already near the ledge and had a perfect opportunity to throw Bayo offstage and either run away or try to keep hitting her with projectiles off stage. He missed though, got punished with a dash attack and then was on the TnC platform and as people have already said, he either could've gone to the ledge, stayed on the platform in shield or Monkey Flipped to get to center stage. The full hop before the Monkey Flip could be argued to be unnecessary but Salem was doing a sh nair so the jump to avoid it wasn't bad.

Here's a question: does anyone know if the TnC platforms would have gone to the blastzone before the match went to time? Cuz Zero could've stayed at the edge of the platform closest to the stage and held shield. Even if Salem tomahawk grabbed, he likely wouldn't have been able to get an fthrow and I don't think her bthrow would've killed from there even with rage.

I hardly see that Monkey Flip as not being defensive though. It was either be at the ledge and hope to not get hit or go to center stage and hope to not get it and Zero simply chose wrong. Not being defensive would've been if Zero dropped through the platform and did the Monkey Flip or a fair or something.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

*With the way this thread be moving, I prolly won't be in time to discuss this thoroughly without being late but:*

‘Zero has a bad monkey flip habit’

This narrative needs to be shutdown... but I guess it won’t if people keep only paying attention to the game defining moments.

Zero simply has two options in principle.
1. Monkey flip inwards which is the best option to escape the corner and if successful stops the opponents momentum
2. Go to the ledge, or try land with a aerial (usually FF fair), both which keep him in the corner if succesful so let’s opponent control momentum.

Zero simply chose the former option as he valued reversing the momentum over the possible consequences. Not necessarily a bad habit but a decision that can be punished harder immediately. When you play a character with diddys air speed you are forced to make these decisions, it isn’t consequently a bad habit.

This is a crude breakdown on all the possible options ZeRo could've done. Let's not just think of what move to use, but when to use it, and where to, and etc...

Did we forget that every fighting game is RPS in real time? Once a option is predictable, it becomes bad (not even necessarily the move itself, but the scenario and the setting the move was used in). Brawl Mk's tornado became a bad option when 9B grabbed it out of the air with ICs. Or when it got lasered to death by falcos.

Maybe I should use 'weaker' instead of 'bad' since it isn't black and white. Wording can be a hoe smh.

Man I want to write a really compelling argument, but school projects and college work are all in my ears lol.

But really, that's like saying grabbing all the time as bowser is good even if it's predictable and punished on a consistent basis from player to player, since it's integral to his meta (as it is with ZeRo). The move has crazy reward with a small risk in comparison, but the risk has escalated greatly once the opponent can read my actions.

EDIT: All I'm saying is if you keep losing because you chose option A, at time X, at place Y, maybe it's time to switch up one of the variables and do something different.

EDIT 2: Just watched the ending three times over; here's the following options he could've done. Do realize Salem was SHing Nair at the time

• Stay in shield.
• Wait a sec, then Run off platform towards the stage
• Wait a sec then run off towards the ledge, but not on it
• Fall through fair
• Fall through Bair

Five possible options. Five.

He needs to include other options in his kit and have stronger mental fortitude.

 

[Deleted member]

Is Monkey Flip a good approach? It can get to places pretty quick and do some decent knock back. I am not sure if it is a good approach or not.

 

[theMichael]

Zero said on Twitter that the monkey flip was a missinput

 

[MercuryPenny]

it's too linear and slow to be useful in most situations. the command grab can be used to catch shielding on a platform but it's really best as a burst movement option.

 

[Rizen]

I got around to watching the set and monkey flip was a largely successful move. ZeRo won 5 of the 10 games. If you watch the BF games and ones ZeRo wins, he makes good use of flip to escape several times. In the last game ZeRo should have avoided Bayo but was in a bad position at the end no matter what he did. That's what really lost him the set.

It's easy to complain about Bayo due to upsets but Diddy's out-neutraling her 80% of the time. Look at game 5 where he kills from banana>Dtilt>Fsmash with Bayo at 92% on BF. Examples like that happen throughout the entire set. Diddy's a monster too.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

Do we really think ZeRo will take our words seriously?

Is Monkey Flip a good approach? It can get to places pretty quick and do some decent knock back. I am not sure if it is a good approach or not.

In a game like this, the term of “good approach” may as well be a hidden treasure.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Do we really think ZeRo will take our words seriously?



In a game like this, the term of “good approach” may as well be a hidden treasure.

We're not being his coach, we're being critics.

Not really a bad thing to be.

 

[Routa]

I have had long chats about MF with Lancelot (Finnish Diddy). I have to say it is far weaker option than we think. MF is a huge commitment with rather poor reward. It is too linear of a approach option which gets easily beaten by well spaced hitbox and can be ignored by rolling in on a reaction (I talking about using the MF from a distance in which Diddy mains want to be in neutral). Using it in air leaves only 3 options to do thous being jump, attack or reverse popgun to change momentum. In disadvantage after loosing double jump the MF becomes rather bad option. This has to do with lack of options once 2nd jump is gone. His hitboxes are way too small to beat or even trade with majority of the attacks and doing popgun trick leaves him open for a fast character to punish him hard.
I have heard many Diddys saying that they are left unpunished in many MF situations mainly due to people not reacting fast enough or their position is wrong (either being too far or too close from Diddy). It is a good move on paper, but in practice it is not that great (which is why one of the first guidelines for playing Diddy is to not to use MF).

 

[Skeeter Mania]

In disadvantage after loosing double jump the MF becomes rather bad option.

Assuming this is really true, how bad is Diddy in disadvantage IYO?

 

[Nathan Richardson]

TBH I'm not sure diddy's disadvantage state is all that phenomenal......his monkey flip is as was previously stated linear and in some cases very easy to punish once it gets predictable, if he gets hit too much while holding banana he drops it and has to either retrieve it or hope the opponent destroys it so he can pull out a new one, I'm not sure how floaty he is but his fastfall is great so there's that, he can also use barrels to punish opponents underneath him.

So in closing, his disadvantage state is very good but it isn't impervious, and once you become predictable you've lost.

 

[Phan7om]

Zero said on Twitter that the monkey flip was a missinput

He did say on twitter that both of them were supposed to be "b gun reversals" but when you look at the situation only the first one (before he lost his 1st stock game 5) seemed that way. The side-b that cost him the tourney didn't seem like a misinput at all.

B-reverse popgun would be an option I've never seen him go for in that situation, it would've been a bad positional commitment choice considering where Salem is and I'm sure Zero is aware, and if he did misinput it he would've monkey flipped the other direction (unless he really messed up the b-reverse input lol). And on top of that he has a monkey-flip 'habit' thats been done in that situation before.

Im skeptical, to say the least.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Diddy's disadvantage isn't terrible but it's on the lower half of disadvantages without his burst movement and momentum altering techniques it' would be really bad though which is why you'll see MF used a bit more than it should. Having no air speed means he'd get juggled really hard without MF and struggle to land despite being a rather quick faller (which leads into his own problem of getting combo'd harder) He also doesn't really have a combo breaking move so again MF saves his tail and if he has a banana in his hand while in disadvantage (which is totally plausible) his options to escape are even more limited. He's only a few units heavier than Ness so he has some durability. His recovery is quite exploitable especially with projectiles, if he's forced low and gets hit while he's charging barrels he will likely die before he can get the next charge off.

So yeah, his burst movement really saves his tail in disadvantage you can see why Diddy players will opt for it when they run out of options.

 

[ArnoldPalmer]

Honestly Clouds disadvantage overall is better than Diddys
Sure his recovery is slightly more exploitable, but maintaining an advantage against him with his ridiculous hitboxes, air stalls, and random ability to kill you at 0 with the reverse hitbox of climhazzard 2 is a lot harder to do than it is to maintain an advantage against a monkey that reverses momentum

 

[Y2Kay]

Well, I know that Salem believes Greninja is secretly top tier. I think people get caught up on some of his... less accepted opinions. But it's actually kind of interesting. I always say that it only takes one top level player sometimes - some characters considered to be only high tier are sleepers. Thing is, Greninja's best strength is his neutral game - and no one who played him (before Salem) had the neutral skill to show it. That's not saying his players had a *bad* neutral, mind - but another one of those "where would Sheik/Diddy be if no one in the top 10 played them"?

I actually don't think Salem's Greninja has the best "neutral" per se. Though he does have good understanding of Greninja's normals, and often has good judgement in the buttons he presses, I think he plays unusually patient than other Greninja. I'm not sure if he does this because of the way he plays Bayonetta, or if he's doing this because he doesn't have full confidence in his mobility to be more aggressive.

 

[Minordeth]

I actually don't think Salem's Greninja has the best "neutral" per se. Though he does have good understanding of Greninja's normals, and often has good judgement in the buttons he presses, I think he plays unusually patient than other Greninja. I'm not sure if he does this because of the way he plays Bayonetta, or if he's doing this because he doesn't have full confidence in his mobility to be more aggressive.

It's not always evident with Bayo, but man, when Salem plays Greninja, his footsies and poke game is pretty great. If you haven't watched his match with Fatality, it's a good set for demoing - among other things - how good he is at using Gren's dtilt to interrupt Falcon's burst mobility options and generally cause disruption.

 

[Luigi player]

‘Zero has a bad monkey flip habit’

This narrative needs to be shutdown... but I guess it won’t if people keep only paying attention to the game defining moments.

Zero simply has two options in principle.
1. Monkey flip inwards which is the best option to escape the corner and if successful stops the opponents momentum
2. Go to the ledge, or try land with a aerial (usually FF fair), both which keep him in the corner if succesful so let’s opponent control momentum.

Zero simply chose the former option as he valued reversing the momentum over the possible consequences. Not necessarily a bad habit but a decision that can be punished harder immediately. When you play a character with diddys air speed you are forced to make these decisions, it isn’t consequently a bad habit.

This.

Diddy is very fragile offstage, unless he's far away/high up.

If he's far away he can charge his barrels kinda freely and it's unlikely you'll guess right and get him gimped, but it's still a bit of a risk for the Diddy. If the opponent guesses the correct way Diddy tries to recover and uses a correct move/timing Diddy could get gimped/kept offstage. If Diddy is far up he could also just use his monkey flip momentum to get back far and fast.
He has to be far enough away from the opponent so he has enough time to charge his barrels safely, otherwise the opponent could attack him and force him to let go or get gimped (and if Diddy stops charging it might not reach).

If he is kinda close to the opponent and does not have a doublejump it's dangerous for Diddy, because then it doesn't really matter what you hit him with - if he is getting hit, he will very likely not make it back because of the momentum the upB gets when you try charging it right after being able to act again after hitstun.
This is an extremely scary situation for Diddy and he has to be very cautios. If he still has his 2nd jump then he can probably save himself, though. If he uses the 2nd jump and gets hit before landing/grabbing the ledge he'll be in a bad spot too, though.
And even if he makes it back to the ledge.. he'll have to get back from ledgepressure safely as well, and Smash4 players should know by now that being in such a position can be very annoying.

Getting back onto the stage (or the ledge) is much easier by just using Diddys monkey flip. If you get hit you didn't lose a jump and can use it again, and you won't get gimped from getting hit out of your barrels. It's a very attractive option, but it can be read and punished. What makes the option even better is that he's also able to use a pretty disjointed attack (the kick) during it to cover himself, which needs good spacing/timing from the opponent to hit through.

Of course Diddys will use this option. If they don't opponents will have an easier time following them offstage and trying to gimp them. It can be risky, but it's also risky to not do it (and can be very rewarding if the Diddy manages to not get hit, maybe even hit the opponent away), and if you do it sometimes you at least keep your opponent guessing because they usually need to predict it and stay in good positions for these options to be able to punish them.

So mixing up the timing of sideB and sometimes not using it at all will keep the opponent guessing and forces them in specific positions for these punishes, because if you aren't positioned perfectly and completely ready for the move it's likely you won't be able to punish it. Even if you are ready you somtimes still get hit by the kick while trying to challenge it. You see this all the time, and if you have experience in the MU you will probably know this.
Diddys other option to defend himself if you're close to him is fair. A meaty, good range, easy to hit with, long lasting hitbox, but without the autocancel from landing it will take some time to finish, so he can't just throw that out freely while being offstage. If he doesn't hit the opponent with it he'll probably have to recover from below the ledge (or get punished out of shield), which is risky.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

This.

Diddy is very fragile offstage, unless he's far away/high up.

If he's far away he can charge his barrels kinda freely and it's unlikely you'll guess right and get him gimped, but it's still a bit of a risk for the Diddy. If the opponent guesses the correct way Diddy tries to recover and uses a correct move/timing Diddy could get gimped/kept offstage. If Diddy is far up he could also just use his monkey flip momentum to get back far and fast.
He has to be far enough away from the opponent so he has enough time to charge his barrels safely, otherwise the opponent could attack him and force him to let go or get gimped (and if Diddy stops charging it might not reach).

If he is kinda close to the opponent and does not have a doublejump it's dangerous for Diddy, because then it doesn't really matter what you hit him with - if he is getting hit, he will very likely not make it back because of the momentum the upB gets when you try charging it right after being able to act again after hitstun.
This is an extremely scary situation for Diddy and he has to be very cautios. If he still has his 2nd jump then he can probably save himself, though. If he uses the 2nd jump and gets hit before landing/grabbing the ledge he'll be in a bad spot too, though.
And even if he makes it back to the ledge.. he'll have to get back from ledgepressure safely as well, and Smash4 players should know by now that being in such a position can be very annoying.

Getting back onto the stage (or the ledge) is much easier by just using Diddys monkey flip. If you get hit you didn't lose a jump and can use it again, and you won't get gimped from getting hit out of your barrels. It's a very attractive option, but it can be read and punished. What makes the option even better is that he's also able to use a pretty disjointed attack (the kick) during it to cover himself, which needs good spacing/timing from the opponent to hit through.

Of course Diddys will use this option. If they don't opponents will have an easier time following them offstage and trying to gimp them. It can be risky, but it's also risky to not do it (and can be very rewarding if the Diddy manages to not get hit, maybe even hit the opponent away), and if you do it sometimes you at least keep your opponent guessing because they usually need to predict it and stay in good positions for these options to be able to punish them.

So mixing up the timing of sideB and sometimes not using it at all will keep the opponent guessing and forces them in specific positions for these punishes, because if you aren't positioned perfectly and completely ready for the move it's likely you won't be able to punish it. Even if you are ready you somtimes still get hit by the kick while trying to challenge it. You see this all the time, and if you have experience in the MU you will probably know this.
Diddys other option to defend himself if you're close to him is fair. A meaty, good range, easy to hit with, long lasting hitbox, but without the autocancel from landing it will take some time to finish, so he can't just throw that out freely while being offstage. If he doesn't hit the opponent with it he'll probably have to recover from below the ledge (or get punished out of shield), which is risky.

Except ZeRo wasn't offstage, he was on a moving platform.

Could've stayed on it and held shield.


No is arguing diddy is a beast offstage or anything, but mixing up your recovery options is a requirement when you're punished for it at the the higher levels. We focus so much on the moves diddy can do when we should also include more nuanced variables like timing and irregular patterns (like air dodge patterns and stuff). Those few options can hold many variations that could save diddy's life instead of using the one move at the specific time everyone and their mother and uncle will know you will (exaggerated I know blah blah ZeRo has gotten far with his panick flips blah blah yeah, but he also has gotten beaten by misuse of the flip consistently as well).

EDIT: hey look, we're saying the same thing at your bottom paragraphs, didn't see that.

 

[|RK|]

I actually don't think Salem's Greninja has the best "neutral" per se. Though he does have good understanding of Greninja's normals, and often has good judgement in the buttons he presses, I think he plays unusually patient than other Greninja. I'm not sure if he does this because of the way he plays Bayonetta, or if he's doing this because he doesn't have full confidence in his mobility to be more aggressive.

I think that's actually just how he sees Greninja. He sees what other Greninja players do with his tools, sure. But Salem being who he is? It's entirely possible he thinks of Greninja's tools being amazing for the patient game.

He does the same thing with Bayo - there are times where he's actually really aggressive. Most of the time, he just doesn't see the need, I guess. We'll never know unless he comments on it himself, but I feel like his lack of aggression is a choice.

 

[SJMistery]

I took a phrase from AceStarThe3rd to heart "Greninja is a defensive character. It plays like Little Mac, in the sense that you are waiting for openings". That's one thing that many Greninja players don't do. I am by admission a noob, and one of the worst Greninja players out there, so take it as you want, but I have seen many times on tournament Greninjas, that they go in for a rushdown. And that is something Greninja just can't do.

His approach options are bad, even more than his OOS options, and not a single of his moves outside autocancelled Fair is safe on shield, or maybe a perfectly spaced dash attack depending on the opponent. That's why playing neutral defensively, camping with Shurikens, spacing with Fair, Ftilt and sometimes punishing with a dash grab if they are in range, is what Greninja should do in neutral. Greninja has an arsenal of punishing options for enemy approaches from shuriken to dash grab wich will mostly work on everybody, to Fsmash or Side-B on particularly unsafe ones, and has bad approach options, it's not rocket science folks.

Getting a footstool combo from Nair must be super hype and satisfying, but let's face it, Nair has too short range and is completely unsafe on shield if the opponent spaces their punishes correctly, and the timing of the footstools can get wonky at times, wich means you can't just go for it out and expect it to work.


Also, I believe Shadow Sneak is underrated. The interruptibility sucks indeed, but it can work for trapping landings and edgeguarding, especially when combined with a fully charged shuriken. The best part is that after jumping offstage with a full hop, you can use up to three instant Shadow Sneaks without SDing, one at the apex of the ground full jump, another right afterward, and one during the midair jump, giving you essentially up to three aerial smash attacks to finish the opponent off, something Fair can't do due to the excessive endlag.

Salem proved that it can also work as a situational retreating option. In general, grounded Side-B is awfull and should NOT be used more than 2-3 times as a pseudo-counter or to trap landings, but it has a lot of potential when used on airbone opponents.

 

[bc1910]

I'm not very active these days, but I lurk this thread from time to time and I was intrigued by the mentions of Salem picking up Greninja. Went hunting and found this:

I am so, so impressed. Salem displays the best neutral of any Greninja I have ever seen. Finally we are seeing some focus on what this character needs to succeed at top level, in lieu of flashy combos and the obsession with perfect pivots. I personally consider Cloud to be Greninja's second worst MU behind Sheik, so seeing Salem perform well against M2K of all people is promising. Hydro Pump has a lot of potential for jank; whilst it doesn't work all the time (or even much of the time) it doesn't put Greninja at any risk.

Some additional thoughts. Consistency will be Greninja's biggest issue going forward. Most of his practical combos are 50/50s and a string of bad coin flips can lead to very poor damage output, whilst a string of good ones can lead to Greninja looking like a top tier. Still, when half your pokes 50/50 into a 14 damage Fair or 19 damage Usmash that can both kill, you're not in such a bad place.

Greninja's Fsmash is awesome. No multi-hit or sweetspot BS; just a simple, ranged swipe. I don't see this move get the praise it deserves.

Greninja's ledge play is solid. Simply throwing the fully charged shuriken at an opponent on the ledge can cover every option except ledge jump, with no risk to Greninja (see a pattern here?). With correct spacing you can hit an opponent hanging on the ledge; this same spacing can lock opponents in place who shield from neutral getup, leading to a guaranteed grab. I actually do mean guaranteed btw, it became a thing after the shield hitlag changes, try it in training mode. If you can condition ledge jumps, hyphen Usmash can end their stock at 90.

Do I think Greninja is a hidden top tier? Probably not, though it might be too early to tell. He still lacks that stupid factor of certain top tiers. There are 8 characters whom I feel are definitely better than Greninja; the current tier list's top 8 with ZSS over Mario. However, he has no unwinnable MUs with these characters and I feel he is better than a lot of characters whom are usually placed above him, such as Falcon and Marcina. I don't get involved in arguing about how good he is any more, but I'm glad to see people recognising his consistently strong results in Das Koopa's rankings. His national level presence is still disappointing though, particularly in the US. Maybe Salem will change that.

I look forward to seeing all this play out.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

Are there any legitimately good approach options in this game? Just curious.

 

[SJMistery]

Are there any legitimately good approach options in this game? Just curious.

Spin Dash, perfectly spaced autocancelled aerials, projectile with hitstun into dash grab/attack, and ZSS Down B. That's pretty much it.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

Spin Dash, perfectly spaced autocancelled aerials, projectile with hitstun into dash grab/attack, and ZSS Down B. That's pretty much it.

Spin Dash isn't really that good. Most of its best usage comes from bait-and-punish. As an approach option, it's mediocre at best.

 

[soniczx123]

Spin Dash, perfectly spaced autocancelled aerials, projectile with hitstun into dash grab/attack, and ZSS Down B. That's pretty much it.

SpinDash is the opposite of a good approach option. It's more as an anti-approach

 

[FeelMeUp]

Safe aerials, most crossups, jumpins outside of anti-air range, run commitments outside of immediate burst range, spaced tilts out of walk, walk in general, certain types of spaced crossups rolls, and a couple other situational things are true good approaches.

Don't get hungup on what defines a good or bad approach, though. The worst approach tools can become the best with proper conditioning.

 

[Rizen]

Salem's been one of my favorite players since Brawl because he didn't diss low tier players or think 'lol low tiers have no good anything'. To be fair there were a lot of scrubs who hadn't played good people and said things like 'Link's mid tier, Link players just aren't using him right' . It's cool Salem won that with Greninja; I hope this shuts people up who say Bayo was carrying him.

Greninja's high tier imo. He actually seems more like a wide range but watered down Fox than Sheik imo. Gren's got a vortex thing and high jumps. I agree he has a great Fsmash too.

 

[bc1910]

Are there any legitimately good approach options in this game? Just curious.

Walking is likely the best approach. This was true in Brawl as well. Run up shield is good depending on the character.

Sheik Fair, Diddy banana throw maybe?

I don’t think ZSS Down B is a good approach, it loses to shield in most situations.

 

[Deleted member]

I am not sure if this is a good approach, but Fox's down air is a good multi - hitting move that if used correctly can be used as a combo starter or something, I am not sure.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

I am not sure i this is a good approach, but Fox's down air is a good multi - hitting move that if used correctly can be used as a combo starter or something, I am not sure.

The only times it's really safe is when it's used in a full hop (ACs), or if you were to cross up an opponent's shield (the landing hit has a lot of hitlag).

 

[outfoxd]

Duck Hunt under cover of gunman and can works relatively safely. Be better if he had scary options to go with the stage threats.

 

[Yonder]

Greninja's high tier imo. He actually seems more like a wide range but watered down Fox than Sheik imo. Gren's got a vortex thing and high jumps. I agree he has a great Fsmash too.

Basically Greninja trades faster frame data for even better mobility. I believe his overall mobility is #1 in the game. Why has no one explored this more? I believe I heard somewhere that Greninja is a character relying on footstool combos at lot. Is that true? Because Footstools are still underutilized in the current meta also (cept maybe doubles). Greninjas frame data is quite bad though, somewhere near the bottom. That's probably unappealing to people who want to throw out 1000 moves a minute like Mario and Fox, or get easy chains like Bayo.

I think the future of Greninja is going to rely on controlling the neutral, snd finding ways with his excellent mobility and crazy jump height to lock in those Footstools and set up those slower framed moves from there.

 

[bc1910]

Greninja’s aerial frame data is among the worst, although Bair being frame 5 can mitigate this in certain situations and Uair is fine at frame 7. It’s his incredibly slow Nair and Fair that really drag his average down. His grounded frame data is actually above average, contributing to his strong ground game. He has a frame 3 jab, quick tilts and the fastest dash attack in the game in terms of overall frames, 1 frame faster than MK’s.

I think the future of Greninja is going to rely on controlling the neutral, snd finding ways with his excellent mobility and crazy jump height to lock in those Footstools and set up those slower framed moves from there.

I feel this is a mistake Greninja players have been making for too long. The focus on trying to set up footstools has led to an underdeveloped neutral. Greninja’s ways to set up footstools are all impractical (Dair, point-blank fully charged shuriken) or unsafe (Nair, approaching Fair). Utilt is the only move I see having untapped potential in this area. Greninja players need to focus on controlling the neutral, I agree, but the focus needs to shift to his projectile and more practical combo starters.

 

[SJMistery]

Greninja's high tier imo. He actually seems more like a wide range but watered down Fox than Sheik imo. Gren's got a vortex thing and high jumps. I agree he has a great Fsmash too.

FSmash and DSmash are good when it comes to range and kill power. The reason that they are both considered bad is that they both have a massive blindspot in front of Greninja, in a similar fashion to Dedede's DTilt. Take a look at that video to see the problem with FSmash and DSmash, it can be seen at 0:48, 1:55 and 2:15

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWYduRqxQAQ

 

[ElectricBlade]

Approaching is something you should look at more like as a strategy rather than an option oriented situation. Monkey flip can become a good approach once you've conditioned someone to shield by approaching by using Fair or threatening a banana toss or something like that, in that specific scenario it is a good option that the opponent needs to worry about. But what if the opponent refuses to shield your Fair or banana? Then Monkey flip isn't a good approach.

At the beginning stages of smash 4 there were lots of people on reddit, gamefaqs, smashboards, etc. asking what is a good approach option for x character. Often they got responses like "Fox dash attack, MK dash attack, Sheik Fair, etc.".

You can theoretically approach with anything assuming you've conditioned them prior. Sheik dash in Fair is a damn good approach.....until the opponent is expecting it. Then it is no longer an option you should be using as liberally.

Diddy's Fair is a pretty good approach option if the opponent likes to jump to wall you out like a Cloud spacing Bair. But it isn't good once the Cloud player is doing small fox trots back, roll behinds, crouches, and shields.

You pretty much approach to..
-Engage them directly (to set up conditioning or punish a predictable response)
-To set up a counter attack (Walk forward>EDD Back>Come back in with a punish)

This was really rambly but I hope I got my point across.



Edit:
Just wanted to add that a good option for poking has to be safe and threatening enough for the opponent to give a ****. So Sheik Fair would be a good poke or "approach option" in a sense. Fox dash attack is not a poke as it is not safe against the majority of anti-approach tools so it's not a good primary approach.

 

[Coffee™]

I feel this is a mistake Greninja players have been making for too long. The focus on trying to set up footstools has led to an underdeveloped neutral. Greninja’s ways to set up footstools are all impractical (Dair, point-blank fully charged shuriken) or unsafe (Nair, approaching Fair). Utilt is the only move I see having untapped potential in this area. Greninja players need to focus on controlling the neutral, I agree, but the focus needs to shift to his projectile and more practical combo starters.

Greninja players focusing on footstools as the main course of his game is practically a meme at this point. If you actually watch most high level Greninja footage you won't really see this.

I agree his neutral as a whole is underdeveloped, but I feel that is more due to his options in neutral and in general being unintuitive and the fact that he has to play most matchups differently as none of his tools are so overwhelming that he can rely on doing the same thing every game in comparison to most characters which generally do the same thing for each matchup.

 

[Deleted member]

Greninja can be pretty dangerous if he gets a combo starting move like n-air and his down - tilt. I know this applies to many characters, but Greninja's back air and down air are pretty good combo moves, as well.

Greninja players focusing on footstools as the main course of his game is practically a meme at this point. If you actually watch most high level Greninja footage you won't really see this.

Thank you, I am glad someone said this. Greninja's foot stools can lead into combos or something like up air, down air, back air, or down tilt ( I don't know ), but Greninja has other tools that can be more usable to get some kind of combo.