Official Character Competitive Impressions - Tourneys, Tiers, Theories, Tactics

[Plain Yogurt]

Missed an opportunity to call it the "Shell Shock"

As for patch things, has shulk really been changed all that much? With .5% damage increases all around and 2 frames knocked off of his overall landing lag, has he really changed in a notable way?

I feel as if he got shafted, comparatively, this patch. They focused on the right things but they didn't go far enough. Meanwhile bowser and mewtwo are having a party

We'll take what we can get. Improved safety for a laggy character like Shulk is super appreciated, no matter how small. And any safety-based improvement gets amplified in buster mode so that'll be nice too.

It's not gonna turn his world upside down (I kinda wish his FTilt had gotten less lag, personally), but something is better than nothing.

 

[kid craft 24/sonic master]

I hope the February update goes all in as far as balance adjustments go. Theres still characters that need something that haven't gotten anything meaningful such as Mega Man, Jigglypuff, Zelda, Samus, Palutena and Dedede. Then theres still bugs for specific characters that they haven't addressed yet, such as one for Sonic that remove his ability to double jump when using his spin attacks, and how certain hitboxes still don't function right like Duck Hunt's smash attacks.

Though who knows, maybe once all the DLC is done the dev team will continue to monitor the game and release one last update in April that fixes any noticeable imbalances.

 

[Mazdamaxsti]

Kirby's U-Throw buffs aren't that significant. With 100% Rage, Mario doesn't die until 130% with DI. The opponent is basically guaranteed to DI it properly every time due to it's long animation, too.

Also, I don't get the whole thing about Cloud having no kill options. He has things like U-Air/Sour D-Air > Final Touch, U-Air, F-Air and Climhazzard to cover a large amount of %'s on top of two incredible spiking moves and an amazing F-Smash, plus all the other LB moves.

One of the reasons it is now significant is because of platforms too, and stages with low blastzones. It makes stages like TandC and DL way more threatening. Also, it makes shields and killing easier for Kirby. It might not be BEST u-throw but it helped kirby a lot.

 

[Luggy]

I haven't bought Cloud yet (waiting for Christmas to give myself another surprise, y'know), but I've faced some on FG. Yeah, not a good a base, but whatever. I'll share my opinion anyway. Bad or not, here I go.

Cloud for me is in the middle. He's far from being awful, but not good enough to go in high tiers.
The bad stuff for him is pretty obvious. His moves are a little slow due to the size of the sword, thus getting combo'ed fairly easily by characters like Luigi or Sheik. His recovery is pretty easy to exploit and really predictable. Even Dr.Mario has a better time to mix-up his recovery, and he's supposed to have, like, the second worst recovery of the whole game. With a recovery like this, even when you're good, you'll suffer against characters like Sheik, who can edgeguard Cloud without any fear, other than receiving a "UpB suicide", wich is basically just baiting the opponent to go right in the second hit of Cloud's UpB. Not worth it.

With that in mind though, Cloud isn't too bad. He has great killing power, a good projectile, and good moves overall. His limit breaker saves him from being just a regular swordsman. However, I've seen people using it pretty poorly (FG, of course). I think the 2 main uses for Cloud's Limit Break should be for recovery and doing his "KO Punch (Sword?)". Using Limit Break for the neutral B isn't really worth it in my eyes, while the side B is just okay.
Limit break pretty much makes Cloud better overall.

That's all I can say. I don't think this guy's is really great, but just in the middle. Disagree with me as much as you want.

 

[Mario766]

Where does the line for fast and slow moves start. Jab is frame 4 which is average. Tiltd are under frame 9 and are all 3 super good. Smashes are decently fast with d smash being frame 8. Aerials aren't slow either.

 

[Luggy]

I guess he's slow enough for getting combo'ed easily. I still remember some who got out of a Luigi combo by probably mashing an aerial attack.

Man, I am so precise today !

 

[Y2Kay]

I kinda think cloud is high tier. He has lucario levels of come back ability. His limit gimmick is so good, and him being able to manually charge it is a god send.
I disagree w/ the notion that he's mediocre, but he's definitely not top tier. I couldd imaginie him hanging out just outside the top 20.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Do we ever learn? Y'know, Roy and Lucas were perceived as high tier when they came out and some people even throught Ryu's recovery makes him mid tier. At least give it more than 24 hours before we cry tiers

 

[Radical Larry]

SaltyKracka So? Super Armor is Super Armor. It allows Ganondorf to at least get some kills with it now that it has it. All it depends is how you read your opponent and see if they will try rolling back and back or back and forth. It's a move meant for mind games, not practicality.

@TDK Well, Doctor Mario doesn't have a good recovery at all. He's got too little aerial mobility (worse than Little Mac), so his Down B is less than viable. His Up B can either go high or it can go far, never both, so there's a bad thing right there. If you use Doc's Tornado move, you're basically asking to be hit backward if you try recovering. He arguably has the worst recovery in the game; I can go on and on about stats and how Doc can't recover and is possibly the first or second worst recovering character.

Cloud is not far behind now that Ganondorf actually has a useful recovery move (somewhat, due to its buffs). Of course, Cloud could also have an average recovery with Limit on. But if characters had Customs allowed, Cloud will drop down to 2nd place, behind Little Mac (because Doc will at least have a recovery that's better, and Ganondorf would have probably one of the top 10 recoveries with customs).

NachoOfCheese Well, it's obvious by now that some characters can change over time. Cloud might be a non-viable character for all we know, he could be a phenomenal character. He could be similar to Ike (or better) or suffer the Palutena Syndrome (very fast, but very weak overall).

 

[Nobie]

Ganondorf's "new" Warlock Punch sticks out in my mind for a simple reason. I was watching a weekly tournament match (maybe Come On and Ban or something), and saw a Ganondorf try to setup a warlock punch on an opponent (a swordsman if I recall), only he got hit out of it because he tried to reverse it. If he had the armor he does now, it would've worked.

Some attacks in this game have pretty high lag at the end. No, you're not gonna reverse Warlock Punch Sheik, but you might just reverse Warlock Punch Donkey Kong.

 

[C0rvus]

I recall Roy being received similarly to Cloud upon release. Where is Roy now? Seriously I have no idea. Cloud seems like a step up from a baseline perspective at least. His Limit mechanic can only serve to help him, unlike say, Monado Arts.

Also lol @ Warlock Punch buffs. Why. Even if you made the move good, that would honestly be a bad thing.

 

[bc1910]

F4 is slightly below average for a jab.

His tilts are all pretty fast.

Smashes have pretty bad frame data except Dsmash. At 18 and 14f startup for Fsmash and Usmash respectively, Cloud's smashes are hardly fast as a group.

Grab and dodge data is below average.

Landing lag data is good. Aerial startup data is decent.

Cloud has below average frame data overall but it's not that bad.

 

[SaltyKracka]

SaltyKracka So? Super Armor is Super Armor. It allows Ganondorf to at least get some kills with it now that it has it. All it depends is how you read your opponent and see if they will try rolling back and back or back and forth. It's a move meant for mind games, not practicality.

You can try to excuse it all you like(not supposed to be a practical move, ROFL), but we all know that regardless of Super Armor, Ganon would actually be better off if him hitting neutral B did literally nothing.

 

[Y2Kay]

Do we ever learn? Like, Roy and Lucas were percieved as high tier when they came out and some people even throught Ryu's recovery makes him mid tier. Like at least give it more than 24 hours before we cry tiers

I think people are just trying to label their first impressions with something universally recognizable: tier names. These are nothing more than impressions or opinions really. Nothing to get undies in a twist. As long as we stay up to date, it's relatvely harmless. People's views of Cloud differ and fluctuate, and that's okay even when he just came out. We're labbing him hard too. Besides, did you really expect anything else?

 

[TTTTTsd]

I recall Roy being received similarly to Cloud upon release. Where is Roy now? Seriously I have no idea. Cloud seems like a step up from a baseline perspective at least. His Limit mechanic can only serve to help him, unlike say, Monado Arts.

Also lol @ Warlock Punch buffs. Why. Even if you made the move good, that would honestly be a bad thing.

Cloud reminds me of Roy, but for his poor disadvantaged state he has a sort of gimmick to make up for it, trading recovery a little, but he does weigh more than Roy at least! It's a very familiar feeling but I think he'll remain a bit more looked into and such because of Limit Break and the potential it has. VoiD apparently already found some CRAZY stuff with Cloud so we'll have to see, but I think at a base level he's better than Roy solely for Limit Break alone.

 

[Mario766]

Cloud has way more redeeming factors than Roy. Roy's a mess of a character who is gimped by his own design.

 

[Y2Kay]

Oh yeah w/o a doubt better than roy. I think roy's better than what you give him credit for, but he'd definitely covet a lot of Cloud's tools

 

[FullMoon]

In the trailer it specifically stated Bayonetta is going to have really bad start-up on her moves.

das bad

To be fair the only instance they compared a move to was with Mario's F-Tilt, which is frame 5.

Even then, there are characters who have significant start-up on moves that manage to get by just fine because of how much they get rewarded when they hit with something, such as Greninja and Captain Falcon.

I think it's going to be a setback that will prevent her from being top tier, but by itself it's not going to be too bad for her if she has good reward.

 

[Mario766]

I don't see where he's better. I think he's mediocre at best and if he wielded a sword correctly he'd have something going for him.

 

[Amadeus9]

LB neutral b is underrated. It beats out other projectiles. shoot it right thru shadowball/lemons/aura sphere. it dont care

 

[Mario766]

It's transcendent, exactly.

 

[LancerStaff]

I recall Roy being received similarly to Cloud upon release. Where is Roy now? Seriously I have no idea. Cloud seems like a step up from a baseline perspective at least. His Limit mechanic can only serve to help him, unlike say, Monado Arts.

Also lol @ Warlock Punch buffs. Why. Even if you made the move good, that would honestly be a bad thing.

Probably below wherever Marth is IMO. People seemed to think Roy was a lot better then he is when he first came out because of a lot of misinformation. They thought his frame data was a lot better then Marth's when in reality Marth has the better relevant frame data and it's not even that different overall, that you could effectively autocancel his Fair by using another right before touching the ground but instead the game has a mechanic to keep that from happening, and namely people believed Dthrow > Blazer was a true kill combo when a crippled old man could react and DI Blazer to keep it from working at kill %s outside of a platform.

Cloud doesn't seem to have misinformation floating around, or this much anyway.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Would not be surprised if we start seeing Lucas more often now. His standing grab is almost as fast as his Brawl pivot grab. You can practically use it to bait at this point.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Would not be surprised if we start seeing Lucas more often now. His standing grab is almost as fast as his Brawl pivot grab. You can practically use it to bait at this point.

As a victim of this, I can attest. It recovers VERY fast.

 

[John12346]

This is a little late, but I DID write it up so here we go:

At the risk of incurring the ire of Sheik mains (although a lot of Sheik mains actually agree she actually does need at least one nerf) I actually am extremely worried about a future where the balance adjustments have ended and absolutely nothing has been done to tone down Sheik's abilities to a more acceptable form.

I know it's been mentioned a few times but regardless of my track record against Sheik, and keeping in mind that she'll never be as dominant as Brawl MK, I really do not want to see another Smash game turn into one where everyone flocks to the best character and that's the end of the metagame. I know she's not the easiest character in the game to pick up, but I can say with certainty that she is easy enough such that a large proportion of people who just want nothing more than to win can just pick her and start seeing results relatively quickly.

I don't 100% agree with the notion of buffing characters to Sheik level, ala PM, either. Because as you might recall, when PMDT tried to bring characters up to Fox's level, we got 3.0 Mewtwo and Lucas, and they were COMPLETELY bananas. There's a certain level of ability that characters can be pulled up to before things start getting stupid, and in Smash 4's case, that line is drawn somewhere around where ZSS is, NOT where Sheik is. If you try to cross that line with too many characters, you get results like PM 3.0, and no one wants that.

And... since I brought up the topic, I would like to point out the potential competitive merit of Smash 4 with a nerfed version of Sheik, or just with Sheik not existing at all. With ZSS as the best character in the game, a much more dynamic metagame has the potential to exist, as the "best" character in this format has design weaknesses (poor grab, lousy UpB recovery, has troubles against low crouchers and charge projectiles...), and actually loses matchups, to my understanding. Even if they're minute, the things that work against ZSS in this game would allow more and more characters to shine, as you'd start to see characters who counter ZSS become prevalent, or even characters who counter those ZSS counters! There's a lot of potential to be had in a game like this, and I do find it, actually, REALLY ANNOYING that there's a single character holding back that potential, even if it's not to that great of an extent of what MK did to Brawl.

 

[Jams.]

Well, Jigglypuff is really hard to fix (considering she's been poorly designed since 64 and all) and Palutena's considered to be decent in Japan last I checked, but Zelda I don't think has much of an excuse.



I think we'll get a patch or two after that. It'd be kinda insane to be releasing two new fighters and not further balance them when they couldn't even get Mewtwo and Lucas right the first, second, or even the third time.

I didn't realize Palutena was considered decent in Japan. I haven't seen any noticeable results for her there, whereas I feel she has more representation in NA (ie. Aerolink, Iceninja, Yoshi Kirishima, TLTC). Her dedicated mains actually get pretty solid results with her; however, I think she is still fairly flawed as a character and needs some help (won't elaborate more unless asked, lots of Palutena discussion has happened on this thread already). She is noticeably better than Zelda and Jiggs, but I don't think she's on the same level as Falco, Duck Hunt, or Samus, and other poor characters like Mewtwo, Shulk, Charizard, and arguably Bowser all got buffed this patch. Maybe King DDD and Charizard are still around her power level.

I think people are failing to see the flaws in her design. She's really tall, and has a large hurtbox. So she can be spaced out and will likely lose to smaller characters.
Her combo game seems ZSS level though, she'll definitely be really strong though.

I mean, those are weaknesses that can be compensated for. See and .

At the risk of going on a tangent that has been beaten to death in this thread, I believe from the presentation and her playstyle that is aimed toward a 1v1 environment. Sakurai said her play style revolves around long combos, and from her gameplay it seems like she needs a 1v1 environment with lots of space and no interruptions to get the most out of her combo game. With that in mind, I don't think she'll be lower than high tier. The design and balance teams have shown that they're competent and can make a character fit their intended niche.

 

[Firefoxx]

to put in my own early impressions of Cloud, i think TTTTTsd put it best. He's at his best when he's playing as lame as possible. Sheik may not let him get away with that but i think lame Cloud is going to be a bit troublesome for quite a few characters.

maintaining LB and making your opponent scared of LB are going to be key factors for how well you succeed with this guy

his throws are weird. but d-throw kills sheik at 170 at the ledge if his back is to it so at least he has that going for him.

you can use cloud's dair at the edge on stage to catch vanish ledge snap. and probably many many other recoveries.

 

[Locke 06]

At the risk of going on a tangent that has been beaten to death in this thread, I believe from the presentation and her playstyle that is aimed toward a 1v1 environment. Sakurai said her play style revolves around long combos, and from her gameplay it seems like she needs a 1v1 environment with lots of space and no interruptions to get the most out of her combo game. With that in mind, I don't think she'll be lower than high tier. The design and balance teams have shown that they're competent and can make a character fit their intended niche.

I would disagree with the 1v1 environment. I may be very wrong, having only played the demo of Bayonetta 2 (not for too much longer I hope), but Bayonetta in her games does shine going from comboing one target seamlessly into switching targets and comboing another. Likewise, her giant smash attack hitboxes are great for hitting multiple opponents, along with multi-direction bullet arts.

Her combo tree in her games leave flexibility for her to dodge/witch time/shoot. That flexibility is what I'm personally looking forwards to most. Resets galore.

February is a ways away. So I would suggest staying away from Kamui and Bayonetta for now.

 

[Y2Kay]

February is a ways away. So I would suggest staying away from Kamui and Bayonetta for now.

but people are already claiming to main her tho

 

[Ghostbone]

Cloud legitimately struggles to kill though.

F-smash is suuuper slow so it doesn't count. U-smash isn't very strong and also comes out slow. D-smash can be tech'd out of so it's mostly useless. Finishing touch obviously kills bonkers early but it's not that hard to force cloud to have to use limit up-b to recover (he has no other options to sweetspot the ledge, so you just cover his other options). Plus it's frame 16 so it's only useful as a roll read (too slow to react to rolls though) or air-dodge read/reaction.

Trying to go off-stage with cloud is more likely to get yourself killed than your opponent (though he doesn't need to go off-stage since he can just charge limit).
So that basically leaves him with limit neutral-b or limit side-b as kill options.
The problem is that unlike other characters, after Cloud uses his kill move it's gone lol. Then he's stuck fishing for uairs or getting an f-tilt at the ledge.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Cloud legitimately struggles to kill though.

F-smash is suuuper slow so it doesn't count. U-smash isn't very strong and also comes out slow. D-smash can be tech'd out of so it's mostly useless. Finishing touch obviously kills bonkers early but it's not that hard to force cloud to have to use limit up-b to recover (he has no other options to sweetspot the ledge, so you just cover his other options). Plus it's frame 16 so it's only useful as a roll read (too slow to react to rolls though) or air-dodge read/reaction.

Trying to go off-stage with cloud is more likely to get yourself killed than your opponent (though he doesn't need to go off-stage since he can just charge limit).
So that basically leaves him with limit neutral-b or limit side-b as kill options.
The problem is that unlike other characters after using his kill move it's gone lol. Then he's stuck fishing for uairs or getting an f-tilt at the ledge.

One thing I'd like to note is that USmash covers ledgejump very nicely and isn't too bad at high %s especially since you will very likely not stale the move since its uses outside of that are obviously quite nill. It's not too fast at Frame 15 but the size is fairly respectable I think. You can also use it as a solid reactive anti air and I believe the strong hit can strike through BF plats and maybe the Smashville one too. It's very disjointed and covers good space in front of him, generally better than FSmash in most anti air/punish situations if they're at high % (both to keep FSmash fresh for raw punishes and to kill off the top, which is great against floatier characters)

Killing can be hard but Rage Dash Attack is also good for it. Just stuff I've noted, he's not really amazing at it but I'd say there's quite a bit more to explore. A lot of his moves have high growth on them from what I can tell.

 

[TurboLink]

to put in my own early impressions of Cloud, i think TTTTTsd put it best. He's at his best when he's playing as lame as possible. Sheik may not let him get away with that but i think lame Cloud is going to be a bit troublesome for quite a few characters.

maintaining LB and making your opponent scared of LB are going to be key factors for how well you succeed with this guy

his throws are weird. but d-throw kills sheik at 170 at the ledge if his back is to it so at least he has that going for him.

you can use cloud's dair at the edge on stage to catch vanish ledge snap. and probably many many other recoveries.

How is that even remotely good? Why would anyone want to kill Sheik at 170%?

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Cloud legitimately struggles to kill though.

F-smash is suuuper slow so it doesn't count. U-smash isn't very strong and also comes out slow. D-smash can be tech'd out of so it's mostly useless. Finishing touch obviously kills bonkers early but it's not that hard to force cloud to have to use limit up-b to recover (he has no other options to sweetspot the ledge, so you just cover his other options). Plus it's frame 16 so it's only useful as a roll read (too slow to react to rolls though) or air-dodge read/reaction.

Trying to go off-stage with cloud is more likely to get yourself killed than your opponent (though he doesn't need to go off-stage since he can just charge limit).
So that basically leaves him with limit neutral-b or limit side-b as kill options.
The problem is that unlike other characters after using his kill move it's gone lol. Then he's stuck fishing for uairs or getting an f-tilt at the ledge.

I agree. The more I play him, the more he reminds me of Wario. Except, y'know, with a huge ass sword.
The killpower is there, but the options aren't. Akin to Wario's Waft, Finishing touch is his clutch factor as long as you don't lose limit to being chucked offstage, as you mentioned. His problem with killing without limit leads me to predict that Cloud will struggle against rushdown characters, particularly Shiek (lol just like everyone else) especially since her needles in Neutral will make it difficult to charge limit outside of advantage.

 

[TTTTTsd]

I agree. The more I play him, the more he reminds me of Wario. Except, y'know, with a huge *** sword.
The killpower is there, but the options aren't. Akin to Wario's Waft, Finishing touch is his clutch factor as long as you don't lose limit to being chucked offstage, as you mentioned. His problem with killing without limit leads me to predict that Cloud will struggle against rushdown characters, particularly Shiek (lol just like everyone else) especially since her needles in Neutral will make it difficult to charge limit outside of advantage.

There are obviously some differences but the similarity is uncanny.

Much like Wario, Cloud would also suffer in a 3 stock environment. 2 Stocks make things like Finishing Touch VERY volatile and momentum shifting.

That being said, yeah, killing can be a bit of a chore outside of commitments, but I think Cloud's USmash is the best move he has for killing that isn't a solid airdodge read UpAir at high %s or any of the aforementioned stuff. I'm going to try and implement it more, and see how it goes. Last I checked it killed around 120-130% without rage which isn't too bad.

More stuff to lab and test, hooray.

 

[Radical Larry]

How is that even remotely good? Why would anyone want to kill Sheik at 170%?

Cloud would be better off D-Throwing into a hard read F-Air or B-Air at around 70%. I agree, KO'ing an opponent like Sheik at 170% damage is abysmal.

You guys might not like what I say about Cloud, but here goes; he struggles heavily (and I mean heavily) against the likes of Link and Ike if he can't get in. If he cannot get in, but the other two can, he is dead meat. Not only that, but he has very laggy sword attacks (and you guys thought Link was sluggish?), bar his Dash, D-Tilt, U-Air and N-Air. But overall he's going to struggle, especially in footsies against Link and Ike, who can kill far earlier than Cloud can, and both of which have a better edge-guarding setup.

At this point, after having fought some decent Cloud players, Ganondorf and Bowser seem to actually succeed against Cloud. They will absolutely destroy Cloud and despite Cloud being more mobile than Ganondorf, his attacks aren't as efficient killers. Ganondorf can actually take on Cloud despite Cloud's hitboxes being disjointed for the most part, but Cloud just can't take on Ganondorf well. With Bowser, thanks to Bowser's heavy buff, it's going to be hard for him to even dare coming against Bowser. Cloud can be U-Throw > U-Tilt > U-Smashed by Bowser, and the process can be repeated again and again.

Also, Cloud's F-Smash is NOT good to go against Ganondorf's Warlock Punch. That F-Smash makes Ganondorf's attack seem practical. If you think I'm joking, go against a Ganondorf player who can use that move effectively on ground.

 

[Illuminose]

How is that even remotely good? Why would anyone want to kill Sheik at 170%?

is the 170 figure including rage? it's probably a pretty alright kill option if it's not including rage.

 

[Nobie]

I know I'm sounding kind of like a broken record at this point, but the more I think about Mewtwo's ground speed changes, the more potential just flows from it.

Mewtwo always had a good dash attack, and paired with his okay run speed he could punish landings with it or catch opponents off-guard. However, now that he's as fast as Meta Knight, suddenly that dash attack is going to be able to catch a lot more vulnerable moments. Whiff an attack against Mewtwo? You're more likely to be in dash attack range. Try to fade back to the ledge after a high recovery? Mewtwo's new speed means he's that much more likely to catch you. Think you can predict the grab attempt and go for the spot dodge? Mewtwo's now going to get to you more quickly than ever.

Or, consider the standard Mewtwo approach of Shadow Ball + dash from behind. Not only can Mewtwo follow up on it more quickly now, but Shadow Ball itself also has less recoil!

 

[TTTTTsd]

is the 170 figure including rage? it's probably a pretty alright kill option if it's not including rage.

Just tested. No rage it seems. Works in training at 170% near the edge

I tested some kill %s vs. Mario. All of these had no rage.
USmash - 120% or so (worked at 119 but let's assume DI)
Bair - 120% near the ledge, works onstage and since Bair is pretty safe on shield might be the best choice.
Dash Attack - 160% with no rage. I imagine with Rage this becomes a pretty potent scoop near the ledge but that's about it.

This is just outside of stuff like his FSmash and the like.

REALLY feel like RAR Bair timing will be valuable for Cloud players like myself to practice. I also feel like Rage will benefit these moves considerably. USmash kills lighter characters sub 110%, so hey!

Also as far as Cloud goes, you REALLY want to try and land USmash a lot. Star KOs are a very strong tactical advantage for Cloud because they give him more time to charge his limit.

 

[Amadeus9]

Cloud would be better off D-Throwing into a hard read F-Air or B-Air at around 70%. I agree, KO'ing an opponent like Sheik at 170% damage is abysmal.

You guys might not like what I say about Cloud, but here goes; he struggles heavily (and I mean heavily) against the likes of Link and Ike if he can't get in. If he cannot get in, but the other two can, he is dead meat. Not only that, but he has very laggy sword attacks (and you guys thought Link was sluggish?), bar his Dash, D-Tilt, U-Air and N-Air. But overall he's going to struggle, especially in footsies against Link and Ike, who can kill far earlier than Cloud can, and both of which have a better edge-guarding setup.

At this point, after having fought some decent Cloud players, Ganondorf and Bowser seem to actually succeed against Cloud. They will absolutely destroy Cloud and despite Cloud being more mobile than Ganondorf, his attacks aren't as efficient killers. Ganondorf can actually take on Cloud despite Cloud's hitboxes being disjointed for the most part, but Cloud just can't take on Ganondorf well. With Bowser, thanks to Bowser's heavy buff, it's going to be hard for him to even dare coming against Bowser. Cloud can be U-Throw > U-Tilt > U-Smashed by Bowser, and the process can be repeated again and again.

Also, Cloud's F-Smash is NOT good to go against Ganondorf's Warlock Punch. That F-Smash makes Ganondorf's attack seem practical. If you think I'm joking, go against a Ganondorf player who can use that move effectively on ground.

I'm going to attest to that. Bowser is a very hard matchup for Cloud, it seems like. I played with @warionumbah2 for a bit, and did decently to good against his MK and Megaman, but Bowser... Any whiff/miscalculation = pivot grab = a lot of damage. Can't pressure his shield either, because Cloud's grab reward is... nonexistent. Cross up nair is pretty safe though. Using Uair in neutral is pretty much a no go, his Utilt just like... swats you away. Meh

 

[Doctor_Link]

So what's with the hit angles on moves with a 130 degree angle changing to > 50 ?