A Great Evil Walks the Earth, the Ganondorf in Smash Bros. Ultimate Discussion

[King9999]

Like T-donor said.
And it is pretty much a useless buff, sadly.

And uair "ledge lockout" buff is pointless as well, since Ganon can Quick Snap ledges with Aerial Flame Choke anyway.

The important thing is that he didn't get nerfed. Ganon's in a good place right now.

Ganon had the highest usage rate in Elite Smash, with a win rate of 47.9%: https://nintendoeverything.com/saku...line-mode-victory-rates-character-usage-more/

 

[link2702]

Ganon pacman

Ganon duckhunt

Both these videos had such hilarious kills at the start that I had to show em. I’m getting rid of a massive amount of replays to preserve em, so good or bad they’re getting uploaded to YouTube...just as soon as they unban me from uploading because apparently uploading 90+ videos in one day is frowned upon by YouTube...

My ultimate Ganon still needs a lot of work, I just really miss his old uair from 4...

I’m slowly starting to adjust, getting kills with dsmash roll reads, and pivot grab reads from flame choke still works for me, and up tilt is way more useful to where I’ve gotten more shield breaks than ever before....

But man do I still miss the old uair...

 

[SaltyKracka]

Or you can also conclude that you didn’t play good, because Ive seen tons of tourney footage of him doing incredible.

Or I can remember that I've been playing Ganondorf for a ****ing decade and conclude you're an idiot.

 

[King9999]

Here's a handy edgeguarding vid by MGK:

 

[King9999]

 

[Arrei]

Is there a visualization of Dark Dive's grab box floating around anywhere? Its unreliability against short opponents coupled with the massive range at which Ganondorf practically teleports himself onto a sufficiently tall opponent's face suggests to me that the hitbox is very wide but starts a short distance off the ground, and I'd really like to see just what's the deal with this thing.

 

[King9999]

Is there a visualization of Dark Dive's grab box floating around anywhere? Its unreliability against short opponents coupled with the massive range at which Ganondorf practically teleports himself onto a sufficiently tall opponent's face suggests to me that the hitbox is very wide but starts a short distance off the ground, and I'd really like to see just what's the deal with this thing.

There's this vid, but apparently grab hitboxes aren't displayed. It's a good vid for his other moves though.

 

[Arrei]

Yeah, the fact the one move I really wanted to know about happened to be the one that couldn't be displayed was what prompted me to ask. Missing short opponents at point-blank range causes me deep sadness.

 

[Boartobewild]

Yeah, the fact the one move I really wanted to know about happened to be the one that couldn't be displayed was what prompted me to ask. Missing short opponents at point-blank range causes me deep sadness.

Small critters feel even more problematic in Ultimate. It might feel weird that I say this, but there's certainely characters, who for their size and lack of weight seem as though they should die way earlier, but don't, even against Ganon, and while Edge guarding is a much more viable solution, against characters like Pi(ka)chu and Peach the chance of pulling it off is not nearly as likely.

That reminds me, which sort of buffs and nerfs are you hoping for the upcoming patch including Joker?
In my(and many others) mind, a lot of moves from perceived Top tiers do way too much knockback, have deceptively good hitboxes and are too safe for how quick and safe they are to throw out, like Olimar's U-smash, Pichu's F-tilt, maybe some of Wolf's kit, Peach's assbomb and a lot of her airials and Turnips and some swordy moves as well, in a couple of cases.

If I say what I think I'd like to see buffed for Ganon, it would be making Jab either come out a 1-2 frames earlier or make it kill earlier.
And since I mentionned edgeguarding, I'm sure many of us would wish for Tipman to return right? Also am I the only one who can't grasp why they made Bair stronger than Fair, but made it's hitbox even harder to hit?! Also while his recovery doesn't feel as bad as I thought at first, which might be bc his higher weight does let him survive longer, I'm still sort of pissed that they nerfed Ganoncide like they did. It should either, 1) not result in Ganon's death first like Sm4sh (I don't use Flame choke as a recovery option unless I have a stock lead, bc the opponent and play buddies of mine have just jumped straight into it, like I like to do with Ness Up-b).
2)be cancel/escapable much quicker by both the opponent and Ganon like Ridley's side-b.
3) not cause helplessness and allow to use dbj and dark dive after it's use, if you don't grab someone offstage. Not only would this help recovery in terms of survivability (does flame choke cancel momentum/ knockback?), but we would finally be able to mix up how we return to the stage!
Or you could just buff his Double jumb. That would be great too.
And ofc, fix rock crocking fgs! Either let Ganon act so much sooner so that he can f.x use nair or uair first, before the opponent can throw anything out or adjust the knockback angle so it's closer to a semispike to avoid that scenario altogether^^

Though in my pessemistic mind I fear that there's a good chance there might be a few nerfs coming our way instead... Also how do you all feel that Ganon is rated as a high or even the best midtier currently? I feel Dabuz recently put it best in his own Tierlist, he's the gatekeeper between High and Midtier.

 

[King9999]

Buffs I want to see (taken from my guide):

1) Bair's hitbox size increased so that it can hit grounded characters better.
2) Dark Dive is untechable
3) F-air hitbox hits when done low to the ground.
4) D-throw has no KBG, making it a viable option for kill confirms.

 

[Tsant]

While we're on the topic of buffs, how about fixing the MASSIVE Fsmash blindspots? This is literally inexcusable:

Le epic Doriyah xd aside, this just looks unfinished.

edit: ₘₐₛₛᵢᵥₑ

 

[Idon]

While we're on the topic of buffs, how about fixing the MASSIVE Fsmash blindspots? This is literally inexcusable:

Le epic Doriyah xd aside, this just looks unfinished.

edit: ₘₐₛₛᵢᵥₑ

I seriously do not think Ganondorf's Fsmash of all things needs a hitbox size increase.

 

[Rizen]

It would be hard to give Ganon meaningful competitive buffs without making him too much of a scrub buster and wifi terror.

 

[King9999]

It would be hard to give Ganon meaningful competitive buffs without making him too much of a scrub buster and wifi terror.

My belief is that they can keep giving Ganon buffs as long as they don't touch his defining weaknesses. If they mess with those, then they have to start making nerfs, otherwise he'd be OP. At least that's how it seemed to me with Smash 4 Ganon, where he got nothing but buffs, but his move speed and recovery were untouched.

 

[Ryu Myuutsu]

Just wanted to express something positive I had in mind. After seeing how crappy Ganon was in the last two games, I'm extremely satisfied with how he plays in this game. It's simply fantastic.

 

[link2702]

patch notes are out for 3.0 IDK if ganon got seriously nerfed yet or not since i'm going through all my old replays first. The notes are not very detailed on ganondorf.

"other-changed the posture when receiving damage in he air, and made it easier to receive damage"

they nerfed the King of Evil it seems, by how much IDK... I suppose i should be thankful we didn't get what some others got, as a few got hit a bit harder...most seem to have lost some shield pressure, as tons of moves do less damage against shields, but ganondorf can still destroy em with ease thankfully.

 

[Arrei]

That should merely mean his hitstun posture was changed to make him a bigger target, making him more susceptible to combos.

 

[Boartobewild]

patch notes are out for 3.0 IDK if ganon got seriously nerfed yet or not since i'm going through all my old replays first. The notes are not very detailed on ganondorf.

"other-changed the posture when receiving damage in he air, and made it easier to receive damage"

they nerfed the King of Evil it seems, by how much IDK... I suppose i should be thankful we didn't get what some others got, as a few got hit a bit harder...most seem to have lost some shield pressure, as tons of moves do less damage against shields, but ganondorf can still destroy em with ease thankfully.

To be honest I'm glad that they didn't resort to implementing any needless nerfs bc so many people were whining and being salty about his Smash attacks and killpower in general. Ofc I still would like for them to fix his apparent, objective flaws regarding his two recovery specials, but it's honestly not surprising they didn't adress it this patch, especially considering how miniscule and few most of these character adjustments were overall (hey at least Pichu got the same nerf we did, which in our case is not exactly favourable but at least we're used to getting juggled, while Pichu's worst advantage was avoiding so many moves without doing anything, so I'll gladly take that)

On the other hand the overall point of this patch was an universal one, much like they last one, but a very important one for Heavies at that. They basically nerfed the damage of just about every projectile against shield, (does anybody know if that primarily concerns damage or also shield stun?) which is an indirect huge buff to Ganon! Ofc we'll have to play and test how this affects play, but any change that makes projectile spam less effective is a welcome one.

 

[link2702]

To be honest I'm glad that they didn't resort to implementing any needless nerfs bc so many people were whining and being salty about his Smash attacks and killpower in general. Ofc I still would like for them to fix his apparent, objective flaws regarding his two recovery specials, but it's honestly not surprising they didn't adress it this patch, especially considering how miniscule and few most of these character adjustments were overall (hey at least Pichu got the same nerf we did, which in our case is not exactly favourable but at least we're used to getting juggled, while Pichu's worst advantage was avoiding so many moves without doing anything, so I'll gladly take that)

On the other hand the overall point of this patch was an universal one, much like they last one, but a very important one for Heavies at that. They basically nerfed the damage of just about every projectile against shield, (does anybody know if that primarily concerns damage or also shield stun?) which is an indirect huge buff to Ganon! Ofc we'll have to play and test how this affects play, but any change that makes projectile spam less effective is a welcome one.

I still would have rather we got no nerfs at all. But yeah I’m glad they didn’t touch his smashes, I just feel this was still an unnecessary nerf.

 

[Erimir]

Does anyone else think they should patch out the thing where after doing a Wizard's Foot that goes barely off-stage (or I suppose it's because the momentum causes you to go off-stage after the move has "ended"), it's possible to have a second Wizard's Foot buffered that causes you to SD? I was testing it in training and if you press down-b again even when you are still clearly on-stage, this will happen and it's an automatic SD.

BUT by contrast, if you do it so that you go well off-stage, it won't allow it to be buffered this way - you have to wait until after the endlag before you can input a second one - so it seems they intended to stop this sort of thing from happening. In fact, it seems you can't buffer a second Wizard's Foot when you remain on-stage the entire time, and you can't do it when the move is active clearly off-stage. You don't seem to be able to do it with aerial WF either - you can initiate a second WF pretty quickly if you're still in the air after the first one (you need to be higher than Ganondorf can normally jump), but you can't buffer it, it has to be input after the first one completes. So the only time you can buffer a Wizard's Foot during another WF is when it will result in an SD.

But I'll admit to not being the most technical person, so maybe I'm wrong about this. But it seems pretty stupid that that's how it seems to work. There doesn't seem to be any good reason for it to work this way other than to punish you for mashing the button - but only when Wizard's Foot is spaced perfectly so that the attack ends on-stage but the momentum carries you off-stage, despite this not causing any problem any other time.

 

[Arrei]

That's an edge cancel, and some Ganon mains have used it to surprise opponents to good effect, throwing out an immediate aerial after sending them offstage from center stage. There is no conceivable reason you should have a second Wizkick buffered that it'd cause you to immediately kill yourself after an edge cancel.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

While we're on the topic of buffs, how about fixing the MASSIVE Fsmash blindspots? This is literally inexcusable:

Le epic Doriyah xd aside, this just looks unfinished.

edit: ₘₐₛₛᵢᵥₑ

Fixing up that blind spot would require more frames. But if the f-smash animation is playing at normal speed, then it's very clear that the developers didn't bother making any additional frames before that specific frame.

Anyway, the best solution to fixing that blind spot would be to add a single frame extended hitbox (if Ultimate supports extended hitboxes that is) around where the effects are located.

 

[Erimir]

That's an edge cancel, and some Ganon mains have used it to surprise opponents to good effect, throwing out an immediate aerial after sending them offstage from center stage. There is no conceivable reason you should have a second Wizkick buffered that it'd cause you to immediately kill yourself after an edge cancel.

I've done it (not too commonly) and I've seen a number of people on Quickplay do it as well.

There's generally no reason to do it intentionally, obviously. But given that you can't buffer a Wizkick during a Wizkick at any other time, it doesn't seem to me to be a problem to remove the ability to buffer a Wizkick during a Wizkick altogether. This wouldn't affect using the edge cancel for other moves.

If you're going to say "no conceivable reason" though, I would say I can conceive of a reason: to get a suicide kill against your opponent, who is recovering low and would not expect you to quickly get over to the side of the stage and aerial Wizkick them from above. And well, that's on stages where there's no second platform large enough (which is the case in tourney legal stages). On some non-tourney legal stages, you could potentially use it off of one platform and immediately Wizkick down towards a second platform without killing yourself. But obviously that doesn't matter in tournament play. The suicide kill use is extremely situational and requires a read and guarantees that you'll die regardless of whether you connect, so it's probably not an option worth preserving.

But if you just want to say "get better at not hitting B twice" just say that. Or you could just write "git gud" instead, I suppose. But I don't see any reason to keep something in that causes SDs for players in only one specific circumstance and doesn't really serve a useful purpose other than to (seemingly) randomly punish players for doing something that usually causes no issue. Even if we suppose this is only a problem for beginner players (which I'm not, although I admit I'm not winning tournaments), it seems to me that there's no downside to patching the move to eliminate this type of SD.

This also isn't really a common thing for other characters. Maybe Captain Falcon has a similar issue, but I don't have a similar issue with any other character. It used to be that Little Mac's side-b would cause a lot of SDs for beginners, this was not an issue I had, but they changed him for SSBU to make it much harder to SD that way.

 

[Arrei]

I think you've missed my point - that the Wizkick edge cancel is a tool in Ganon's kit, and there is no reason to remove a tool because you should not be killing yourself from it anyway. If what you're suggesting is to remove the ability to specifically use Wizkick out of this edge cancel, well, that simply is not the way edge cancels work. Any character that has one is able to immediately use any move, including ones that would kill them... and that's their job to stay aware and not use the ones that would do that.

 

[Erimir]

Any character that has one is able to immediately use any move, including ones that would kill them... and that's their job to stay aware and not use the ones that would do that.

So like I said, your point is "git gud" in so many words

No need to explain how this makes the game better, just say it's the fault of any player who does it.

 

[Arrei]

No, the point of that one is, it's not possible nor is there any reason to specifically exempt Wizkick from being usable out of an edge cancel. There isn't specific programming that enables the use of specific moves out of this interaction, this is simply Ganon cutting his endlag short by immediately transitioning to an airborne state, which enables the use of any aerial move, including the suicidal Wizkick. If your suggestion was to remove the edge cancel entirely, then yeah, that'd be "git gud", but upon your further clarifications, it would seem you're just asking for something that doesn't exist anywhere else in the game. There are no characters who are able to edge cancel who then have arbitrary cooldowns placed on specific moves in their arsenal solely on the basis of those moves potentially causing SDs following an edge cancel.

 

[Erimir]

it's not possible nor is there any reason to specifically exempt Wizkick from being usable out of an edge cancel.

Simply saying that "preventing unintentional SDs that happen in a fairly specific situation, have basically no intentional use, pretty much unique to this character (and maybe C Falcon) and difficult to understand why they happen for less technical players" is "not a reason" is not actually an argument for why those aren't reasons.

The game is not meant purely for competitive tournament players, and preventing this type of SD wouldn't negatively affect competitive players' experience at all, nor would it really inhibit the development of more advanced skills for beginners. Meanwhile, it would improve the game experience for other players. The downside is basically none, and you haven't actually made any argument for there being one.

There are no characters who are able to edge cancel who then have arbitrary cooldowns placed on specific moves in their arsenal solely on the basis of those moves potentially causing SDs following an edge cancel.

And your point would be? Other characters also don't have moves that can buffer and cause an SD in this manner either.

If it could be implemented easily, it being unique to Ganondorf doesn't really have any relevance to whether it would be a good idea. It seems like you have essentially an aesthetic complaint.

I'd also note that I can't recall this ever happening to me or an opponent in Smash 4.

 

[Arrei]

Palutena could accidentally Warp edge cancel off a platform only to immediately Warp again offstage and die from her own mistakes. Pikachu could (prior to Ultimate) Quick Attack edge cancel, use it again, and die. Corrin could edge cancel their pin attack's landing, accidentally input a down air, and die. With Ultimate's laggier airdodges, edge cancels could also cause an airdodge misinput when someone intended to shield or ground dodge. Again, characters are not intentionally programmed to be able or unable to use certain moves after an edge cancel, the only thing this technique does is put us in an aerial state, and using a deadly move here is no different than using it in any other aerial state.

When performing this technique does nothing but give access to our normal actions, I do not think it's the devs' responsibility to lock our inputs so that we don't kill ourselves, it's our responsibility. That's how the game is built, we're given these tools to work with, we're the ones who figure out what our characters are capable of, and we're the ones who are supposed to identify when not to do something that will get us killed.


To be blunt, the devs have better things to spend their manpower on than to program in special unique states for unique situations just because you're using the wrong moves at the wrong place at the wrong time.

And for your information, this same edge cancel was definitely present in Smash 4. I made this very mistake once before back in that game, although it ended much better for me because my opponent just so happened to be under Ganon's foot at the time...

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

Out of curiosity, how would people react if Ganondorf's Warlock Punch was improved to have the following statistics?

Warlock Punch Variant | Base Damage | KB Angle | BKB | KBG
Ground | 32% | 45 | 120 | 40
Ground + Reverse | 40% | Sakurai Angle | 30 | 100
Aerial | 41.6% | Sakurai Angle | 30 | 100
Aerial + Reverse | 44.8% | Sakurai Angle | 40 | 100

Considering the amount of start-up lag the attack has, a slightly better reward would feel warranted for landing the attack. Of course, the super armor duration would have to be increased further, and even added for the aerial variants.

 

[Boartobewild]

Out of curiosity, how would people react if Ganondorf's Warlock Punch was improved to have the following statistics?

Warlock Punch Variant | Base Damage | KB Angle | BKB | KBG
Ground | 32% | 45 | 120 | 40
Ground + Reverse | 40% | Sakurai Angle | 30 | 100
Aerial | 41.6% | Sakurai Angle | 30 | 100
Aerial + Reverse | 44.8% | Sakurai Angle | 40 | 100

Considering the amount of start-up lag the attack has, a slightly better reward would feel warranted for landing the attack. Of course, the super armor duration would have to be increased further, and even added for the aerial variants.

Ganon really never had any need for damage buffs since Brawl. Most of Ultimate's positive changes are mostly attributed to him massively benefitting from the 3 frame jump squad, along with whole lot of attacks receiving less endlag, weakening shield and defensive options overall, which allows him to be overall more aggressive and also threaten and pressure opponents better than ever and lastly tweaking and changing many moves in such a way that they finally make some goddamn sense.(Wizkick, grounded Flame choke, Grab, Jab, Smash attacks, F/Nair etc)

There are unfortunately still some notable exceptions like airial flame choke, Dark dive's pertaining and even more noticable issues, ...SIGH... Volcano kick and ofc Warlock punch.
My issue with warlock punch in particular is the following, if you're gonna give him a move with this ridiculous startup+endlag, laughable reach, inconsistent protection+ control over the attack animation, it should at the very least function like a conventional counter! That's funnily enough the only niche use this move has. You can with good luck and phenomenal reads hard punish moves with extreme comittement and endlag, like Focus-attack, Flare blitz, Aithir, Falconpunch, Eruption or any similair long charging move including some side-bs or some recoveries. However as you said the armor frames are unsatisfactory as they are now, either make the armorframes last the entire duration or even make him intangible/vincible during certain portions of the move. Or make it just a regular charge/windup special like Roy/Ike, but enhance the hitbox and reach.

Though if you ask me the most ridiculous part of the move right now is the damage values/distrubition. How does it make any sense for Warlockpunch to do more damage in the air, while Falcon who actually can more conceivably hit airial opponents and recover, does more damage on the ground?!?! Shoudn't it be the opposite? Sakurai and his team must have been drunk off their *** when they programmed that stroke of genius.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

Though if you ask me the most ridiculous part of the move right now is the damage values/distrubition. How does it make any sense for Warlockpunch to do more damage in the air, while Falcon who actually can more conceivably hit airial opponents and recover, does more damage on the ground?!?! Shoudn't it be the opposite? Sakurai and his team must have been drunk off their *** when they programmed that stroke of genius.

The bigger sense of irony is knowing that it's not possible to pull off an Aerial Warlock Punch under normal circumstances. Heck, you can't even land a hit with an Aerial Reverse Warlock Punch outside of Training. Sure, Smash Wii U does have a tip that tells you how you can execute an Aerial Warlock Punch, but let's be honest, hardly anyone would fall victim to such an attack attempt. And even if Ganondorf is equipped with the Bunny Hood, you still have to time the execution of Warlock Punch just right, or else you'll just get the ground variant's base damage values.

 

[Arrei]

I think Warlock Punch is intrinsically flawed and would rather have something else in its slot, but if I had to get a change to it, I don't think even more power is what I'd ask for. It already nearly kills opponents from zero and already becomes a fatal shield break punish after an opponent has taken any damage from Ganon. I'd like to at least break full shields with it, given Volcano Kick does it and Bowser Bomb gets to break full shields for significantly less startup. If you sit there and decide to shield while Ganon winds the thing up for 70+ frames, you should get punished for it.

I would also like it to transition to its armored state when Ganon lands during the windup so he can actually use it from the air.

 

[~The Koopa King~]

Bloodynite just couldn't overcome isabelle

 

[King9999]

I know what I would do with Warlock Punch. I would let the player be able to cancel the move during the wind up. That could create possibilities like tanking a hit, cancelling the punch, and then going into another move. This is called armor cancelling in other fighting games.

 

[Arrei]

That would indeed be amazing, but it might be too powerful a tool to give to someone as strong as Ganon. All Ganon needs to close a stock is one clean hit a lot of the time, and giving him armor would make it so just about any single-hit ground option gives him the opening he needs to plant his boot in your face or pull you off with Dsmash.

 

[~The Koopa King~]

right now warlock punch is more of a troll move than anything else it's never gonna land against good players

and it's never good to have a move you only use when the opponent is so bad that you can get away with it

 

[meleebrawler]

That would indeed be amazing, but it might be too powerful a tool to give to someone as strong as Ganon. All Ganon needs to close a stock is one clean hit a lot of the time, and giving him armor would make it so just about any single-hit ground option gives him the opening he needs to plant his boot in your face or pull you off with Dsmash.

Warlock Punch, and really Ganondorf's whole archetype has always been admitted by the devs to be more specialized for free-for alls than 1v1s. You can sneak up on unsuspecting groups with it while the armour protects you from a stray hit that may come your way in a panic.

Plus, it has consistently let him dominate Home-Run Contests. In fact I semi-jokingly think that's part of the reason it wasn't brought back for Ultimate; it just got stale watching him set the best records in every game.

 

[~The Koopa King~]

they probably didn't imagine 1v1's would be more popular

 

[Darches]

Warlock Punch, and really Ganondorf's whole archetype has always been admitted by the devs to be more specialized for free-for alls than 1v1s. You can sneak up on unsuspecting groups with it while the armour protects you from a stray hit that may come your way in a panic.

Prior to Ultimate, Ganondorf was almost as bad in free-for-alls. I always switched to Link for those.

 

[Sari]

Hey guys, The Wario subforum is currently discussing the vs matchup.

https://smashboards.com/threads/the...y-discussing-dr-mario-luigi-ganondorf.483350/

Feel free to post your thoughts on the MU in the link above.