alright im saying this. if all the people in the world who play this game competitively say camping is the best thing to do fine. you won. are you happy? camping is the best. But my question is can't anyone find a way around camping? I mean this game isn't THAT shallow.
Yes, it is. That's the argument the competitive community is making. Right now, there is absolutely no way into a good camper, especially characters seemingly build to camp, such as Toon Link (SH double arrows that autocancel? Come on) and Pit (High damage, light-speed guidable arrows. Interesting).
Can we find a way around camping? Perhaps. But the odds are very much against that. As many people on this forum have been playing Smash games for a very long time, you get a sense for this kind of thing.
Step back and look at Brawl for a second, maybe you'll see why. The shield is now absolutely godlike. You can drop it in 1 or 2 frames and counter with almost any move you have pretty safely. If you perfect shielded, you're free to do anything to your opponent, including
countering a jab with a smash, and perfect shielding is not that hard.
Next, factor in that grabs are nearly completely useless, in general. Grabs have next to no hitstun in Brawl, and with very few exceptions, are impossible to follow up with anything. If you try, worst case, you get punished, best case, your opponent escapes. Plus, without JC grabs, dash grabs are pretty laggy, and can be punished nicely. So why should I grab? It's a manoever that puts me at risk for the benefit of doing 2% to my opponent.
Third, realize that there's no hitstun in Brawl on attacks (not enough to follow up, anyway). Combos are next to non-existant, and those that do exist do not go beyond 2 hits. There isn't much more to say about this, this is simply stating a fact
Now, combine those three things into one game. That's Brawl. All characters have amazing shield play, but the counter to shields intended by the game (grabbing) is now completely useless. As a result, approach is like trying to walk towards a yeti through a blizzard: you're getting pummeled by projectiles as you move toward your opponent, and once you do get to him/her, they're in such an advantageous position, there's nothing you can do to them. If you do decide to grab them, they don't care, they take the 4%, escape, and try again, which will result in you moving through that hurricane of projectiles again. Even if they make a mistake in their camping and, God forbid, get hit with an attack, oh well, there's no hitstun anyway, so they escape before you can combo and try again. They will be tacking on damage much faster than you, and landing a finisher isn't hard, now that you can smash out of your godly shield.
Note, by the way, that this argument also disproves the "Brawl is more balanced" argument often used (not that you were using it, I'm just saying). Characters with good camping games are instantly superior to characters without projectiles. The very few characters with useful grab games are instantly superior to others as well (Dedede and Falco, for example. Note that Falco also has a fantastic camping game. Hmm). Characters with attacks that eat shields well (G&W) are boosted higher above others. Characters who can effectively reflect projectiles or move through them are instantly much better (Metaknight, Pit). Note that Pit falls into 3 of these 4 categories. Scary, isn't it?
EDIT: I just say Sonic Wave's post at the top of this page and realized he said everything I say here already. I'm too slow
I'm not trying to predict the future. Some technique may very well be discovered that makes approaching worth it, and maybe the game will balance out and be more competitive. There are, for example, some attacks in the game that do counter shields very well (G&W's bair, for example, as mentioned above). Along with RARing, perhaps those will become the standard anti-shield instead of grabs. Re-read what I wrote up there though. By inductive argument, I feel it's a fairly safe conclusion to draw at this point that Brawl cannot be competitive.
Ive played melee and realized that camping is impossible to do cuz you get punished badly.
Not true in the slightest. Many characters could camp effectively in many ways, Falco being the most prominent example of this. I'm not going to get it for you, but go watch Forward vs Isai in the crew battle at FC Diamond if you want an example of very effective camping in Melee (it's on youtube). Camping works very well. As you can see in the video, however, it is not impenetrable, as Isai makes his way to Forward a few times, when Forward misreads Isai. However, when Forward reads Isai correctly, his camping allows him to land hits he would otherwise have been severely punished for, and he can start combos.
Ive also learned that playing aggressively in brawl for the most part gets you punished. But ive learned how to camp and so have my friends (which definitely isn't that hard) and have seen camping get broken. Especially with the use of reflectors, and faking out.. But as far as i can see camping is good but it can be broken. I mean is the smash community that weak to just wait for a game for like 3 years then give it up in 3 weeks. What I'm gonna do is try harder to break camping. I think it can be done. If you don't think it can be done i think you gave up Brawl a little too easily.
If the camping was beaten, it's because the camper wasn't good enough. I'm serious here, right now, a good camper cannot be approached, save for a few exceptions I mentioned above.
Nobody is giving up on Brawl, by the way, we're just saying it looks like the odds are against it being competitive, or at least anywhere near Melee's level. As much as I have to say against Brawl, I do like the game, and I will keep playing it.
lol
