Anyone contemplating giving up?

[Mr Moosebones]

I disagree. The only characters I seem to have a lot of trouble facing is someone who's really good with Toon Link, Link, or Villager.I still don't see why some of you think he's a bad character. All of his special moves are useful. I see a lot of people say his side smash is bad. You just need to space it accordingly. His neutral air is amazing. I fake people out a lot with the clown kart dash and hop cancel because there are some things you can do with that. CK dash, hit, short hop and up air. CK dash off the stage, short hop and drop a mecha koopa right at the edge of the stage, then ejection seat up and catch the ledge. Sometimes I CK dash right up to them, short hop right above them because they're going to be blocking, and then fast fall down with a neutral air.I think some of you may not be using him correctly. I'm not sure but if anyone wants to challenge me, my gamer tag is Rexcalibr.

You made a lot of assumptions in this post. You're also a tad condescending (considering all your "tips and tricks" are either basic BnBs or extremely risky) by saying that we aren't using him correctly.

I don't think he's a bad character. Probably wouldn't have played bjr in 100+ tournament sets if I thought he was bad. He has some seriously awful matchups though. He has no approach game so anyone who can wall him out is an issue. He's also too big to escape certain normally non-guaranteed combos.

 

[Trieste SP]

Giving up ?

I've just started using him and I'm amazed at how good this character is. This only thing he's lacking is really approaching options.
His smashes kills early, his tilts are great, he has 2 projectiles. Need I say more ?

I'm aware in certain matchups he struggles but overall he's really good. I'd put him in the lower half of high tier on my personal tier list.

 

[Rexcalibr]

Not to speak for moosebones, but he didn't say bjr was a bad character, he said he has some barely winnable matchups. We know all the things you can do out of CK, but that doesn't change the fact that some characters won't even let you get that far. I don't play tournaments and from your answer I'm gonna assume you don't have too much tourney experience either, but even watching some videos of "pros" you can tell against some characters (when played very well) there's almost nothing you can do at times. Of course, nothing is unwinnable, but I'm definitely not confident in my Bjr skills enough to walk into a tournament with no secondary ready specifically for those few MU's

Edit: was basing my claim about you not playing tourneys from "Smash Rookie" but I just saw that you also only made this account wednesday so I will recant that unless you confirm it's true. Regardless, I don't know of any tournament player so confident in their skills. If you are talking about for glory, it isn't an accurate representation of how great players will handle their characters. If you are talking about tournament play, please post videos because I will flip on a dime and bow to you

Edit 2: Also pm me if you wanna play always up for some more experience!

Add me. My gamer tag on Wii U is Rexcalibr. I challenge anyone who doubts the Koopalings as well. Bring it!

 

[Tater]

Add me. My gamer tag on Wii U is Rexcalibr. I challenge anyone who doubts the Koopalings as well. Bring it!

I am of the firm belief that Jr gets a considerable advantage on wifi due to the fact that his entire toolkit is based around punishing mistakes, and differing latencies make it much harder for your opponent to properly react to things. The only thing you'll prove by winning matches on wifi is that you can use Jr's kit to punish mistakes. Which we all know.

This character has a ton of shortcomings and also has the potential to 0-death you if you make the wrong move. BUT, he has NO approach options, NO attacks that are safe on shield(So long as your opponent reacts in a timely fashion. I'm thinking of a quick forward tilt as the least punishable thing you could do, and even that can be punished relatively easily.)

This means that Jr relies on your opponent making mistakes. Not only that, Jr relies on your opponent making MORE mistakes than you do. If Jr makes a mistake, it can mean anything from a free grab/combo to getting gimped at 0% with no chance of recovery. If your opponent makes a mistake, you can capitalize on it. This can be anything from a free hit with one move, to a ridiculous combo that kills, to a free gimp. It's all about maximizing your ability to punish one mistake. And that's matchup dependent. Kart > dair > FF > RAR Bair doesn't work on everyone(And it doesn't work past like 10%) and if you use it on someone it doesn't work on you've just wasted a huge amount of potential momentum.

He's either way better than everyone gives him credit for, or just as good as everyone gives him credit for. I haven't made up my mind about that yet.

 

[Glicnak]

He's either way better than everyone gives him credit for, or just as good as everyone gives him credit for. I haven't made up my mind about that yet.

Haha id say hes the most weirdly evaluated character. Half of people say hes terrible and they cant use him for ****. Half of the players think hes this hidden gem when they see someone wrecking with him. Personally id say hes a low-ish character who becomes incredibly good with momentum. Either way, im scared that he could become terrible once people start wising up to match ups against him. Or he could stay the same. Who knows. He'll never be a diddy, but right now hes a wildcard and thats what i love about him.

 

[Glicnak]

Add me. My gamer tag on Wii U is Rexcalibr. I challenge anyone who doubts the Koopalings as well. Bring it!

I did, but im not challenging you. No hostilities, i want to practice with you. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt and hope youre as good as you say, cuz that means i can learn a lot from you. And if youre not, then hopefully you can learn a lot about bjr's weaknesses from me.

 

[Tater]

im scared that he could become terrible once people start wising up to match ups against him. Or he could stay the same. Who knows. He'll never be a diddy, but right now hes a wildcard and thats what i love about him.

I was worried about the same thing about a month after the game was released. Once people wised up to the mechakoopas(Which I had been abusing heavily because no one knew what to do about them) I thought it was all downhill from there. However, the more diversely I used his moves and the more I learned little bits of information about him mostly through coincidence(That I've been meaning to compile and post somewhere, because there's a LOT of silly tricks that can net you a kill) the better I did. Then I got into this bad rut and did poorly in tournaments, but now I'm picking up again.

(Possible main bias incoming)
I think Junior is underestimated by people who pick him up because he's a character that requires a lot of precision and knowledge to use effectively.
I also think Junior is underestimated by people who play against him because most Junior players aren't playing him to his full extent, or are just flat out playing him poorly.

He'll never be a diddy in that he can be picked up and played decently just by knowing a couple of easy strings, and he'll also never be a diddy where he dominates (almost) every tournament. But I do think he can be a "melee puff", in a sense. You'll know about a couple of amazing Junior players who placed in some big tournament or another, but when you play one in a local tournament chances are you're just gonna bop him.

 

[Glicnak]

I do think he can be a "melee puff", in a sense.

Couldnt agree more with that statement. I actually think sm4sh lends itself to a few melee puffs. A lot of characters have secret potential.

 

[Mr Moosebones]

I think he's going to end up in the top 25 characters in this game. His weaknesses are drastic and many, but he's also got a ton of cool stuff. Just don't ever recover low if your opponent knows the matchup.

EDIT: If anyone wants to play to learn the character better, feel free to add me. NNID is Moosebones

 

[TheRetroBitGamer]

As cliche of a defense as it sounds @Jebril @ Lord Exor , the meta is still pretty underdeveloped for the Koopalings. I wouldn't rely too much on them getting buffed or rebalanced unless Sakurai feels it's absolutely necessary with the addition of Mewtwo or possible future DLC. However, as more general AT's and character specific ones form, I could see the Koopalings being a competitively viable character.
I myself have found methods of canceling lag for his aerials leading to some pretty good follow ups. I plan on posting a guide on it at some point. Just that itself is an excellent find considering that without any lag, the Koopalings aerial game is deadly. I think someone said this in an earlier post, but I do agree that it's good to have a dual main when using Bowser Jr because he does have awful matchups specifically against Yoshi and Rosalina. Strong 2v2 potential is also there as stated in a previous post, but I don't have much to say on that since I don't fool with 2v2.

 

[DelxDoom]

i think bowser jr. is really bad. he struggles to hit people who don't want to be hit (bad grab) and his KO options are unreliable. he can rack up damage if he gets a hit though.

 

[Tater]

i think bowser jr. is really bad. he struggles to hit people who don't want to be hit (bad grab) and his KO options are unreliable. he can rack up damage if he gets a hit though.

This character has a ton of shortcomings and also has the potential to 0-death you if you make the wrong move. BUT, he has NO approach options, NO attacks that are safe on shield(So long as your opponent reacts in a timely fashion. I'm thinking of a quick forward tilt as the least punishable thing you could do, and even that can be punished relatively easily.)

This means that Jr relies on your opponent making mistakes. Not only that, Jr relies on your opponent making MORE mistakes than you do.

Thankfully, no matter how good at this game you are, humans make mistakes. Once a mistake is made, Jr steps in and does his thing. You have an abundance of options for potential hits with Jr; You can lay down a mech that leads your opponent into a rock-paper-scissors style scenario with the mech. You can do kart approach mixups, and you can autocancel fair, bair, and uair from short hop and nair from full hop, as well as dair if you use it as you full hop.

That means there's a lot of different stuff going on in the game at any given moment. Every single one of the options I listed can be dealt with and punished if handled correctly. But if your opponent lets one thing slip through the cracks, you can lock them in a nasty combo. And by nasty, I mean 0-50% if you know what you're doing.

His KO options are far and few between, but he does have his bread-and-butter side-B to up-B which is true at kill % for every character I've ever played against(Except Junior himself; I guess he's just the right mix of heavy and floaty). This combo is true at roughly 85~98%(A rough average from all the characters I've used it against). Once you pass this percent, you enter "the plateu" as I like to call it.

From that point, you have to rely purely on reads/punishes/gimps to secure a kill. That's definitely not good, I'll give you that. But you still have all those options I listed above to put even more pressure on your opponent and just wait for them to crack.

Oh, and once you get them to about ~130% if you use your side-B but drive slowly(Don't hold the control stick the direction you're heading) you can use his bread-and-butter again. Until about... 140%ish.

Past 140% if you haven't killed, back to the waiting game. B-throw starts to kill at 165%, side-B to uair starts killing around 140%.

 

[Mr Moosebones]

Ftilt kills most characters at about 140%, especially if you're near the ledge.

 

[TheRetroBitGamer]

Thankfully, no matter how good at this game you are, humans make mistakes. Once a mistake is made, Jr steps in and does his thing. You have an abundance of options for potential hits with Jr; You can lay down a mech that leads your opponent into a rock-paper-scissors style scenario with the mech. You can do kart approach mixups, and you can autocancel fair, bair, and uair from short hop and nair from full hop, as well as dair if you use it as you full hop.

That means there's a lot of different stuff going on in the game at any given moment. Every single one of the options I listed can be dealt with and punished if handled correctly. But if your opponent lets one thing slip through the cracks, you can lock them in a nasty combo. And by nasty, I mean 0-50% if you know what you're doing.

His KO options are far and few between, but he does have his bread-and-butter side-B to up-B which is true at kill % for every character I've ever played against(Except Junior himself; I guess he's just the right mix of heavy and floaty). This combo is true at roughly 85~98%(A rough average from all the characters I've used it against). Once you pass this percent, you enter "the plateu" as I like to call it.

From that point, you have to rely purely on reads/punishes/gimps to secure a kill. That's definitely not good, I'll give you that. But you still have all those options I listed above to put even more pressure on your opponent and just wait for them to crack.

Oh, and once you get them to about ~130% if you use your side-B but drive slowly(Don't hold the control stick the direction you're heading) you can use his bread-and-butter again. Until about... 140%ish.

Past 140% if you haven't killed, back to the waiting game. B-throw starts to kill at 165%, side-B to uair starts killing around 140%.

This just further proves the weakness of the Koopalings not having reliable kill moves. Off-stage aerials are really your only good chance at getting kills when playing against good players that can easily predict telegraphed finishers such as clown kart spinout and the Up-B eject explosion and/or out of car hammer aerial.
Despite their weaknesses, I <3 Koopalings

 

[Glicnak]

Edit: forget whatever was written up here, it was for another post

This just further proves the weakness of the Koopalings not having reliable kill moves. Off-stage aerials are really your only good chance at getting kills when playing against good players that can easily predict telegraphed finishers such as clown kart spinout and the Up-B eject explosion and/or out of car hammer aerial.
Despite their weaknesses, I <3 Koopalings

But it also means up smashing a ledge recovery or down/forward smashing a mistake is much more likely, since the opponent is bound to make one too..

Most if not all (except nair) of bjr's moves are telegraphed, but he has so many that unless you are clown karting from one side of the stage to the other, you should be ok. His approach is definitely a huge problem, but it's not insurmountable (cough cough unlike lil' mac's recovery cough cough)