I've spent enough time playing and pondering, and have decided to ask for some guidance. My initial thought was yea, his recovery is awful, but it's likely that i'm careless/awful too, and/or he probably doesn't have the WORST recovery by a large margin or anything. But after playing for a while, I noticed that:
a) yea, he totally does suffer from a crazy margin. Comparable characters would be Bowser or DK, who have recoveries that give both horizontal and vertical recovery, or Mario, who is floatier and has airspeed to both maneuver safely and close the horizontal gap. On the whole it typically takes great skill and creativity to fight offstage and successfully kill someone, as most characters can recover from anywhere on the map, and when they don't have far to go they have much more room to juke. This is not the case for little mac, who has one, maybe two reasonable options when off the stage at any given point - side b, or up b from under the stage. Countering is useful IF you're successful, but once your opponent realizes it they'll bait your counter, which will screw you even more. Once you're in the 50% range you're in danger of being edgeguarded successfully, and there's not much you can do about it.
b) while his ground game is really good (probably the best), he doesn't have a significant advantage over the rest of the cast in any way, as other characters can compete in their own way, be it a comparable ground game, an excellent air game, or some combination of the two.
c) in a game where true combos are present and (at least currently) relevant, he doesn't have a safe way to break combos. With good reads/reflexes you can counter to anti-air your way safely to ground, but it's risky, and it doesn't stop grabs. Compare this to Link, Mario, or anyone who has an instant strong nair, which can be used to break a combo and/or safely retreat. His options are to evade, dodge, or counter.
My big questions are these: How far off am I in what I've stated?
Is Little Mac the only character that's doomed to get gimped by anyone who can fight offstage (most of the cast really)?
Can all characters as a rule be gimped at low% and I just don't realize it?
Do terrible recoveries make a character bad or unviable to play seriously?
I'd also like to ask about thoughts of what could be changed in Little Mac to make him a more viable character, however futile such a discussion could be. Right now I'm of the mind that his recovery would be perfect if his side b did not put him into freefall. It would buff his recovery to a level on par with the rest of the cast and even give him a bit of offstage fighting ability without giving him any kind of real air game to speak of.
a) yea, he totally does suffer from a crazy margin. Comparable characters would be Bowser or DK, who have recoveries that give both horizontal and vertical recovery, or Mario, who is floatier and has airspeed to both maneuver safely and close the horizontal gap. On the whole it typically takes great skill and creativity to fight offstage and successfully kill someone, as most characters can recover from anywhere on the map, and when they don't have far to go they have much more room to juke. This is not the case for little mac, who has one, maybe two reasonable options when off the stage at any given point - side b, or up b from under the stage. Countering is useful IF you're successful, but once your opponent realizes it they'll bait your counter, which will screw you even more. Once you're in the 50% range you're in danger of being edgeguarded successfully, and there's not much you can do about it.
b) while his ground game is really good (probably the best), he doesn't have a significant advantage over the rest of the cast in any way, as other characters can compete in their own way, be it a comparable ground game, an excellent air game, or some combination of the two.
c) in a game where true combos are present and (at least currently) relevant, he doesn't have a safe way to break combos. With good reads/reflexes you can counter to anti-air your way safely to ground, but it's risky, and it doesn't stop grabs. Compare this to Link, Mario, or anyone who has an instant strong nair, which can be used to break a combo and/or safely retreat. His options are to evade, dodge, or counter.
My big questions are these: How far off am I in what I've stated?
Is Little Mac the only character that's doomed to get gimped by anyone who can fight offstage (most of the cast really)?
Can all characters as a rule be gimped at low% and I just don't realize it?
Do terrible recoveries make a character bad or unviable to play seriously?
I'd also like to ask about thoughts of what could be changed in Little Mac to make him a more viable character, however futile such a discussion could be. Right now I'm of the mind that his recovery would be perfect if his side b did not put him into freefall. It would buff his recovery to a level on par with the rest of the cast and even give him a bit of offstage fighting ability without giving him any kind of real air game to speak of.
