Link's best asset in vBrawl was his ability to rack up damage if anything. He could camp and be difficult to approach, and his moves do great damage per hit, but KOing G&W at merely 110% with F-smash is pretty awful, considering that's probably his most practical KO move.
To be quite honest, 110% is not bad. (I'm assuming this statistic was taken without the involvement of DI or bucket braking.) And Link mains will all agree that Link can still KO faster than most of the cast. Anyway, off topic.
The reason I'm a fan of balanced brawl is that AA and Think attempted to create balance by buffing the strengths of certain characters to make up for their weaknesses. I agree, the KO buffs are very significant, as well as the arrow buff to his camping game. He was a bad character because of CGs and recovery issues, which while CGs have been addressed, changes in playstyle still make recovery a substantial problem. This in itself signifies a balance in Link's character as a whole, and as long as they continue to address characters individually before labeling them through match-ups and tiers, I can see success in this project. Our job as a community is to label them, let them do the job of balancing.
I'm sure theses are the reasons why Marth and G&W were not addressed. Surely, they could not predict the outcome of match-up changes, but stand alone, they are rather balanced (strong, but balanced all the same.) Marth has issues recovering and G&W, while annoying, has to address the issue of predictability. He's great overall as a character with relatively safe approaches, but without taking any risks, he's not bound for success. G&W mains have to find a way to be aggressive and give up the safe approach during the match at times, because sometimes it may not be the best option.
Im really a good player in PR and when I say G&W smashes are overpower is not cause I cant beat him. I use samus and marth. Samus cause I like how she plays although she is low tier and Marth and DK for tournaments. But it is really frustrating how I lose to scrubs who spam turtle( bair) then dodge dodge downsmash or forward smash. and u try to pressure them with proyectiles, even charged B and their bair eat the charged shot. and all of ur attacks wont even collide. And they can spam their smashes that are super strong, and are safe. He can throw 2 smashes and is completly safe.
There's a significant disparity between pro G&Ws and good ones. When I see you use the word scrub grouped with the word spam, I can't help but feel skeptical of your matches. Again, G&W is a great character with many safe options. But is he aggressive enough? The fact is that unless you're falling for their spam, G&W has to take risks to win, which makes him relatively balanced. And you shouldn't fall for their spam. Perhaps your character doesn't have quite the responses you wish for it to have against G&W. Find a way around it or pick up a secondary. However, I find Samus does have options to make the match-up a tad easier, and Marth certainly has counters to G&W's safe approaches and ways to punish his risky ones.
You say you can beat G&Ws, so what makes you think he's unbalanced? (Other than safe, spammable moves which can also cause predictability and therefore decrease their success of hitting?)
Really you can do this when hit by anything.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km8pXkCcIgY
Yeah, in the Grand Finals of our tourney.
Oh man how loud we got at that.
I find Legan's counterpick choice... interesting. Although Norfair did increase his survivabiltiy significantly, his camping game was severely hindered because the stage gave Wario even greater aerial options. And it was exemplified: Link survived long, but looking at damage percents given, Wario proved to rack up perhaps twice as much damage as Link. And the Wario didn't look to have any trouble during the match. Perhaps that is just the difference in skill level between the players (although Legan is one of the iconic Links, so I wouldn't think so.) Perhaps Legan should reconsider his counterpicks....
Great match nonetheless!
I'd like to know what is being done about Sheik and her lack of KO options~ Seeing as you did not alter the decay system, she should still have a lot of trouble killing. Peach had the same issues and was consequently buffed; why does Sheik get so much less? I haven't had the chance to toy around with her new F-smash but is that supposed to solve the problem?
Buffed Zelda. Although personally, I'm rather a fan of solo Sheik and don't have too much of a problem KOing. Jab->d-smash or jab, jab->dsmash is rather consistent and effective as long as you don't stale the d-smash. DACUS is a must-learn for Sheik mains to maximize on grab releases and opportunities to do 12%-34% (or was it 32... don't remember) in general. I don't like how they changed the growth/base of f-tilt since it was her bread and butter. In fact, solo Sheik is significantly weaker in this version. Sure, she can still combo off f-tilt, but the decay system really worked in her favor as to setting up combos and saving KO options in vBrawl. Now, it's like I'm hitting harder when I don't want to, simply because I need to keep racking up damage for my kill. Her f-smash can be used more often as a damage racker at least?
I only disagree with proponents of Sheik being high tier (although her potential is amazing) because of her weight and her recovery. Both, hand and hand, are her weaknesses and downfalls that make her balanced. Play to your strengths, hide your weaknesses through your stage selection and gameplay, and you can still win with Sheik (but it's still really hard to hide that weakness in the face of vBrawl's top tiers. Snake was never a big issue, but looking at MK/Wario and all other characters above her with even semi-decent gimping capabilities, no wonder why she's low.) However, in accordance in what I think was AA and Think's philosophy, they didn't really do much to buff her strengths. And her weaknesses still exist. That's why I feel she's fallen a bit (alone at least.)
I suppose AA and Think were emphasizing on using both... but a lot of people can agree that people tend to relax when Sheik transforms into Zelda. Their immediate reaction is (so Zelda will probably kill in me in 10 seconds.. but I bet I can rack up 50% in the meantime!)
I'll gladly argue with people as to where Sheik (solo) stands in balanced brawl. She's my secondary after all. (Although people tend to think she's my main considering how often I use her. Is it my fault MKs are so abundant?)
I hope I didn't ramble on too much. It's just so hard to keep up with the conversation when I'm away from my computer for what I deem extensive periods of time!
