A Theory for ROB V.S. Vililager Matches

[FalconXD]

I know the MU against Villager is terrible, but I thought up of something. It's a very situational and minimal thing, but I couldn't find anything on it and was wondering if any ROB players knew off the top of their head whether it's guaranteed or not.

If Villager pocketed ROB's gyro (and the gyro hasn't expired), cuts down a tree, and ROB reflects the tree right back at him, can he avoid the tree or is he going to get hit regardless?

I thought this through and honestly I think the reflected tree will kill him if he's at a good percent like it usually would. The best case scenario for Villager I feel would be if he shields quick enough and gets stunned from a shield-break. I might test this out more on my own time, but I just was curious if any ROB players knew off the top of their head and had any input confirming or re-evaluating the theory. Granted Side-B is a risky / laggy move, but if Villager truly can't get out of it without having to re-pocket the tree it's a helpful punish. I know rolling, spot-dodging, and jumping might sound like obvious solutions, but does the end-lag on that move expire before the tree hits him?

 

[Jerbear9]

i actually love fighting 4glory villagers as ROB because they never remember that our side b is a reflector and with the exception of u/dair, all of their most used moves are projectiles (loid, tree, fair/bair, fsmash). i'm pretty sure that cutting down the tree has too much end lag for the villager to do anything but i would have to check.

 

[1FC0]

B> is pretty useless against Villager in my experience though although it can be very funny in the rare cases where it does work since Villager does have some moves that are hilarious if they are reflected properly.

 

[FalconXD]

Tested it out a little bit and the end lag is too much for Villager to dodge the tree. The only thing Villager can do I believe is pocket the tree if he reacts fast enough and has adequate space, but if he has the gyro in his pocket he's a sitting duck.

While smart Villager players will think twice before they cut down a tree in the rare case scenario this does happen and you can reflect it correctly the reflected tree kills at about 49% on Final Destination while you have 0% damage. Other factors like rage and the stage ceiling might affect this, but that's the baseline. If they do this scenario, you're not risking a stock loss, you have good spacing, and you feel confident in your reflecting skills it's definitely worth the punish imo.

 

[Gotmilk0112]

Hah, as I open this thread, I get a Villager in FG and manage to reflect a tree onto him.

Especially fun to fight against Gyroid spammers and repeatedly reflect the Gyroids back at them.

 

[Crome]

Tested it out a little bit and the end lag is too much for Villager to dodge the tree. The only thing Villager can do I believe is pocket the tree if he reacts fast enough and has adequate space, but if he has the gyro in his pocket he's a sitting duck.

While smart Villager players will think twice before they cut down a tree in the rare case scenario this does happen and you can reflect it correctly the reflected tree kills at about 49% on Final Destination while you have 0% damage. Other factors like rage and the stage ceiling might affect this, but that's the baseline. If they do this scenario, you're not risking a stock loss, you have good spacing, and you feel confident in your reflecting skills it's definitely worth the punish imo.

Does rage affect the knockback of reflected items?

 

[FalconXD]

Does rage affect the knockback of reflected items?

Yes I believe rage does effect the strength to a certain extent since it is a multiplier and that multiplier I believe is added on top of the reflector multiplier (if i'm wrong someone please correct me). In this particular case the amount of rage ROB had slightly reduced the percentage needed for the tree to kill, so based on what me and my friend found:

Final Destination:
-When ROB has no damage a reflected tree kills at about 49%.
-When ROB has 50% damage it kills at around 30%.
-When ROB has 100% damage it kills at around 25%.
-When ROB has 150% damage (max rage) it kills at around 23%.

My friend also noted that if he had 68% damage after the tree hit him he was guaranteed to die, but I don't know if that's accurate. Also something to keep in mind is this theory is not perfected and I only tested it briefly with my friend. This is a bit tedious to measure exactly because of three things:

1. While I doubt DI can do much because of the insane knock-back I was too busy observing Villager's percents to notice if my friend DI'd (also since he's not exactly the best player he probably didn't DI). So while I doubt DI does much due to the sudden knock-back i'm not entirely sure if a Villager player could DI or tech out of it and survive longer.

2. The position of the tree can alter the percentage a little bit. If the tree is near the edge of the stage and Villager's back is towards the nearest blast line he's going to die earlier opposed to if he was in the center of the stage. For the test we kept the tree mostly towards the center, but if Villager's back is closer or farther from a blast line it can alter.

3. Like I mentioned above the blast lines on each stage varies differently. The test was run on Final Destination, but if this was a stage with a low ceiling like Halbred or not as much room from the blast lines on the side like Duck Hunt it can alter when he dies. Also if this were to happen on a platform on Smashville or Town and City where the characters are higher above the ground it might kill earlier.

The point of this theory though was proven that if Villager's tree gets reflected back at him and he can't pocket it he's going to die as long as you have done adequate damage to him. As someone who knows some Villager players and even uses him as a secondary / tertiary you won't see a good Villager use trees on characters that can reflect. Plus the tree takes a lot of setup so they aren't going to just spam it. I might explore this theory on a free day to see if I can get more percents for stages / areas, but it would take a lot of work which I don't think is worth it at the moment. We're still getting daily patches which can alter knock-back / percents and make the percents fluctuate, Villagers won't just spam trees unless they don't know what they're doing, and it's only a tiny part of the ROB and Villager MU. I think more dedication should go to other factors of the MU accidentally overlooked instead of over-analyzing knowledge we already know.

tl;dr: Yes, rage does affect percents slightly, but there are many factors that percentages aren't set in stone. Although, as long as Villager has a good chunk of damage the reflected tree can kill him.