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

[Y2Kay]

Mechanics that rewards the players for getting hit are rarely ever good. This just makes losing a stock lead all that more significant. Losing rage sucks for a lot of characters.

I like to think rage rewards players for clutch "survivability" with a chance to make a comeback. But this is more of the other side of the coin, but it's important to note that rage is nothing if you just die, you actually have to survive AND hit the opponent back without getting punished. That requires some skill.

 

[Emblem Lord]

I dunno. The 2 most disjointed moves in that MU both belong to ZSS: zair and side-B. Side-B in particular is good for pushing people to, and over, the ledge. Cloud shouldn't be able to windmill his nair in neutral for free here. And his great uair juggles get denied by Flip Kick. We won't mention how off-stage goes between them.

If ZSS flip kicks and gets baited she could die at 40.

This is one of the few matches where she needs to think twice.

Also Cloud can punish Zair on reaction.

 

[bc1910]

Lucario's aim isn't to not get hit, it's to not die.

If it was up to him he'd be at high damage all the time and just avoid everyone's kill moves whilst killing at 40% himself. He absolutely does want to get hit. You could say this is true for every character that likes rage but no-one else takes it to the extreme that Lucario does.

The amount he gets rewarded for getting hit is pretty ridiculous and unjustifiable IMO. He doesn't want to remain at low Aura, it weakens his moves significantly. All he wants to do is not die.

It's easier said than done but doesn't change the fact Lucario's character design is whack.

 

[Seagull Joe]

Also someone mentioned Mario as Cloud's worst MU, I'd have to disagree. In the given pool of Sheik, Mario, and Greninja (only going by sample size provided above) I'd say Sheik is the worst by far.

From my experience with both chars I don't believe Mario gets in as easy as Sheik does and while his combo game is potent on Cloud and the gimps are real, I don't believe his best combos have very strong horizontal carry especially not to the level of Sheik Fair strings or basically any BnB Sheik combo I've seen. He still wins ofc but I think Sheik is by far the worst.

Additionally I think Mario's mobility, while very good, is not optimal in the Cloud MU. Cloud has the mobility to very much keep up in the neutral and I think Mario's shorthop in this matchup is not incredibly helpful as it's rather high and is covered very easily by Cloud's disjoints, both of which autocancel with and without Limit, these disjoints being Nair and Uair. Normally I'd say approach vertically even with Cloud Uair but Mario doesn't have a considerable downwards disjointed move (Dair is primarily horizontal and above Mario.) Mario's air speed is his best mobility attribute and his ground speed, while very good, is still kinda average. I don't think he's to be underestimated in this MU, but I wouldn't put him over Sheik here.

That being said I think Mario still wins this matchup, of course. BUT I believe Sheik gets in for a lot less effort and most likely more reward, even if it's not in a raw damage sense it is very much more beneficial in a positioning sense.

I think Cloud realistically stands a chance in all of these though, they're just (more than likely) the worst ones he has to deal with going by what we know right now.

obliterates .

 

[NegaNixx]

On the subject of Nairo losing to Tweek's Cloud I think it's noteworthy that he lost using ZSS and not once with Dark Pit.

The Pits are agreed to be fundamental characters, wins from them are based on the Player's knowledge of the game in general.

Keeping that in mind, is it possible, if unlikely, that Nairo learns the general jist of the matchup through Dark Pit then transfers that knowledge into his ZSS play?

This would imply both MU inexperience and a ZSS having a bad Cloud match up (or at least worse than Dark Pit) simultaneously, but I'm more so interested in how it would function as a strategy for learning in this game, taking fundamentally sound characters and transferring MU knowledge into more specialized ones.

 

[Sonicninja115]

Do high level players take advantage of rage? I know Shulk gets combos and kill options from rage, but it seems that ZeRo and Nairo must know how to abuse the rage mechanic to it's fullest.

 

[C0rvus]

Nairo's switch to ZSS still confuses me. He didn't drop a game with Dark Pit, and like the commentators said, that was the first time his ZSS had come out all day.

 

[Blobface]

The big question surrounding any comeback mechanic is "does this mechanic encourage deliberate poor play?"

Back in Mario Kart Wii I would intentionally stay in last place at the beginning of a race until the first set of item boxes to cheese my way into 1st with a considerable lead.

Nobody however, intentionally gets hit just to make use of Rage. That's literally impossible since Rage (AFAIK) scales gradually and not abruptly.

 

[Mili]

Nairo's switch to ZSS still confuses me. He didn't drop a game with Dark Pit, and like the commentators said, that was the first time his ZSS had come out all day.

To me it just seems like he wanted top level experience before G3NESIS with his . I mean, at that level I'd rather be ready for a major tournament and have a better chance against other Cloud players and lose a relatively low-level tournament.

 

[David Viran]

Nairo's switch to ZSS still confuses me. He didn't drop a game with Dark Pit, and like the commentators said, that was the first time his ZSS had come out all day.

https://twitter.com/Liquid_Nairo/status/679886166275956736

I guess this.

 

[Sonicninja115]

The big question surrounding any comeback mechanic is "does this mechanic encourage deliberate poor play?"

Back in Mario Kart Wii I would intentionally stay in last place at the beginning of a race until the first set of item boxes to cheese my way into 1st with a considerable lead.

Nobody however, intentionally gets hit just to make use of Rage. That's literally impossible since Rage (AFAIK) scales gradually and not abruptly.

Rage starts at about 30% and steadily goes up until 150%ish. I don't think it is a really broken mechanic. Lucario gets a bit annoying with aura and rage, but rage really nerfs some kill combos.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

obliterates .

How so?

 

[meleebrawler]

Lucario's aim isn't to not get hit, it's to not die.

If it was up to him he'd be at high damage all the time and just avoid everyone's kill moves whilst killing at 40% himself. He absolutely does want to get hit. You could say this is true for every character that likes rage but no-one else takes it to the extreme that Lucario does.

The amount he gets rewarded for getting hit is pretty ridiculous and unjustifiable IMO. He doesn't want to remain at low Aura, it weakens his moves significantly. All he wants to do is not die.

It's easier said than done but doesn't change the fact Lucario's character design is whack.

You're kind of selling low-aura Lucario a bit short here. Yes, he's very weak, but it's not impossible to win or get stuff done with him. His goal is to raise the opponent's percentage to a point where he won't need so much aura to kill. THEN he can potentially get the high aura train rolling, with a lead to boot. Arbitrarily restricting yourself to only using high aura is putting undue stress upon yourself.

Lucario by his very nature IS very inconsistent; you trade efficiency at low percents for massive comeback potential and momentum. But just because Lucario is at his strongest when heavily damaged doesn't mean it's smart to always gun for it. The less he relies on his aura, the better the position he can get himself in.

Basically, just ask yourself this: would you rather be high aura Lucario 100% of the time and potentially die in one hit constantly, or start low and be able to work towards killing your opponent without high aura, then attaining it later anyway?

All the aura in the world doesn't matter if you can't hit your opponent before they kill you.

Edit: And I'm fairly certain Lucario mains get aneurysms when people just assume his strategy is "get hit then kill everyone with aura". Not only is it blatantly untrue and ineffective, it undermines the effort they have to put in to make his low aura work or sustain his high aura. It's not easy to use him successfully.

 

[S_B]

I come out of nowhere

But you're not even a Lucas main!

If I hear another commentator say greninja is "a poor man's sheik" I'll jump out a window

...And onto the commentator?

Mechanics that rewards the players for getting hit are rarely ever good. This just makes losing a stock lead all that more significant. Losing rage sucks for a lot of characters.

It also benefits quite a few when they lose rage because it makes all of their combos string together whereas rage might stop them from working.

Bowser is included in this list because rage breaks his Uthrow > Uair combo at high enough %.

Beyond that, rage is a "catchup mechanic" in the same way mini-turbo boosting is in Mario Kart: if you're not good at using it, it won't help you at all.

A true "catch up mechanic" is getting all blue shells, stars, and lightning bolts when you're in last place. In SSB terms, it'd be dealing more damage to an opponent who has less damage than you and them dealing less damage to you when you have more.

It's entirely better to NOT get hit than it is to try to build rage. I see rage as more of a reward for staying alive against the odds against it as well as a punishment for the opponent for not closing out the stock.

 

[HoSmash4]

obliterates .

Agreed. Clouds, ground game compared to fox is horrible (dash attack/down tilt unsafe, dash grab low rewards) fox combos cloud to death and fair spike destroys cloud. cloud can't limit camp unless he accepts 40+ free damage from foxes blaster. Plus cloud struggles to land vs foxes uair. Fox will never contest cloud in the air so clouds anti air capability is reduced, clouds uair harassment is beaten by fox side-b.

 

[Y2Kay]

How so?

Instead of explaining it, I'll just show you:

This is just sad

 

[Luigi player]

Instead of explaining it, I'll just show you:

This is just sad

Doesn't look too bad to me. The Cloud player clearly made a few mistakes which cost him stocks (2nd stock of first match he didn't even get fairs hitbox out and he even got KOd for using fair on the first stock, yet he still wanted to do it again (which probably didn't even get him KOd if he didn't mistime it); he also like twice jumped out while doing nothing and getting bair'd which got him KO'd), he also didn't really put his limit specials to good use (3 times out of 4?) and the ~40 % at the start is normal for Fox to get on most characters.
He mostly got outplayed I'd say, while some mistakes probably come from not enough training with the character (which isn't surprising since he just got released), and his few mistakes cost him big.

 

[BSP]

Rage doesn't reward anyone for getting hit.

Rage does nothing until you hit the opponent back, and it's never as good as what you would have done if you had hit them twice.

Wrong. gets better setups when he has rage, and getting hit is the only way to get them.

 

[HoSmash4]

I personally like rage because it means you can't robotically grind combos in training mode like in melee (to an extent) but get a sense of how you are going to combo at a certain percent which only rewards experience in playing a character

 

[Y2Kay]

Wrong. gets better setups when he has rage, and getting hit is the only way to get them.

But are you gonna let yourself get hit just to have them? The risk outweights the reward, amirite?

 

[irokex13]

Cloud places well in a tournament: "Let's not jump to conclusions!"

Cloud loses a match: "yeah this MU is pretty much 0-100 for Cloud"

Please, just stop.

 

[Sonicninja115]

I personally like rage because it means you can't robotically grind combos in training mode like in melee (to an extent) but get a sense of how you are going to combo at a certain percent which only rewards experience in playing a character

You can use a regular match and handicap the opponent and yourself. Plus, if you have two controllers it is rather easy to test stuff.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Cloud places well in a tournament: "Let's not jump to conclusions!"

Cloud loses a match: "yeah this MU is pretty much 0-100 for Cloud"

Please, just stop.

....................................

Marry me

sorry my bad man i just....*wipes tears from eyes*

I JUST GOT A LITTLE CARRIED AWAY IS ALL!!!

*runs out of thread

 

[HoSmash4]

You can use a regular match and handicap the opponent and yourself. Plus, if you have two controllers it is rather easy to test stuff.

Yeah you can but when you add in 55 different characters, di inwards and outwards, rage at 60% going up to 160% there are a lot more variables to test when rage is involved. The fact you have to do it using another controller to test whether it is a true combo or not just adds the effort required in the testing.

 

[BSP]

But are you gonna let yourself get hit just to have them? The risk outweights the reward, amirite?

It depends heavily on the situation, but sometimes the answer would be yes.

But only things like fireballs, hadokens, small hits. Don't tell anyone I told you to walk into Falcon punches.

 

[S_B]

Yeah you can but when you add in 55 different characters, di inwards and outwards, rage at 60% going up to 160% there are a lot more variables to test when rage is involved. The fact you have to do it using another controller to test whether it is a true combo or not just adds the effort required in the testing.

Why not learn it when fighting other players?

...People don't actually think that getting hit intentionally to gain rage is a good idea, do they?

 

[Mario766]

Wrong. gets better setups when he has rage, and getting hit is the only way to get them.

Ike's combos and setups become better with rage as well, doesn't mean that the optimal strategy is to get hit.

Even if the Sheik MU only gets better for us with damage, if we win neutral without going up to 100+ all the better.

Edit:

Fox vs Cloud MU

Juggles.

Juggles for days. Both are gonna have trouble landing with Cloud having it worse. Cloud is gonna have a much better time at killing. It's gonna be who gets the other above them more. Cloud spent most of game 1 up in the air getting up aired, that was the problem, but Fox went for a greedy rapid jab and got F-Smashed for it, big mistake.

I can see Cloud doing Mario like things to Fox, getting massive reward on up tilts and up airs, and easily getting FT kill confirms due to his fast fall speed.

Putting a number on a MU that has a character out for literally...9 days is a little carried away. Neither the opponent nore the Cloud player is gonna play the MU exceptionally well.

 

[FallofBrawl]

Because good players also lost to that Mewtwo example I mentioned?

People really don't seem to understand this: Its quicker to pick up how to play a character than how to play against a character. To play a character you just sit down, lab them a little bit, and then just... play friendlies and the like. You get experience every single match you use that character and grow with them rapidly. You get to control your growth rate.

You can't do that when trying to learn how to play against a character. CPUs are garbo for learning that sort of thing. Online is a joke. You have to go to smashfests or tournaments and ask somebody to use them against you. You're gaining experience at a lot slower rate, and it doesn't allow you to easily learn multiple playstyles of that character you're trying to fight against either. Or you could more or less learn "false" information on how to fight that character because you know the player's style too well and end up reading them instead of the character. Its a pretty darn slow process of truly figuring out how to fight against a character and you can't control the growth rate.

People will always figure out how to use a character long before anyone figures out a universal, clear cut way to fight against them. The first has to happen and be solidified before the second can even begin. Until that happens... ya its largely irrelevant. Its interesting, its part of the process, but in the grand scheme of things it holds no water as to a character's usefulness.

I'm not exclaiming this is super useful for the future, I'm saying that in this thread every impression of a character's viability should be taken into account, including first impressions. I'm not saying that first impressions will hold true for the future nor am I saying that they should be taken with great value, but it is good for discussion in an otherwise sometime off-topic thread, and for comparison to future thoughts, and see what changed in the meta for the character to rise or fall. And Mewtwo was never horrible, just unorthodox.

Ike's combos and setups become better with rage as well, doesn't mean that the optimal strategy is to get hit.

Even if the Sheik MU only gets better for us with damage, if we win neutral without going up to 100+ all the better.

Edit:

Fox vs Cloud MU

Juggles.

Juggles for days. Both are gonna have trouble landing with Cloud having it worse. Cloud is gonna have a much better time at killing. It's gonna be who gets the other above them more. Cloud spent most of game 1 up in the air getting up aired, that was the problem, but Fox went for a greedy rapid jab and got F-Smashed for it, big mistake.

I can see Cloud doing Mario like things to Fox, getting massive reward on up tilts and up airs, and easily getting FT kill confirms due to his fast fall speed.

Putting a number on a MU that has a character out for literally...9 days is a little carried away. Neither the opponent nore the Cloud player is gonna play the MU exceptionally well.

Yea they both kinda poopoo each other when edgeguardingas well, Cloud with blade beam into follow up anything (but at least Fox has invincibility) and Fox with d-tilt, uptilt, dsmash.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Cloud has very easy mode spike set ups vs fox btw. if fox is forced to side b to the ledge its over. Blade Beam will hit then firefox is easy prey to dair.

 

[MistressRemilia]

I'd like to introduce a subject that won't lead to mistakes of all kind due to our inexperience ( at least less than Cloud ) :

I'd like discussion on the competitive viability of Wii Fit Trainer. I've seen Wii Fits able to pull off amazing stuff & get decent places in majors, and i feel the character can be optimized even more, and rather easily, to give a pretty good character, but as of right now, what do you think of her?

Ever since her raise in the competitive scene made by people such as John Numbers, we've seen debates & differents thoughts of how good she truly is. Is she overrated? Does she hide some secret potential that we may ignore? Will she drop or raise in the near future?

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Wii Fit is just in a really awkward spot.

She's amazing in Australia, has 1-2 reps in NA that don't go to many majors so we can't judge them well, and as far as I know is missing in action over in EU.

On paper she has a few great tools and a few crippling flaws.

She doesn't have the results outside of Australia to be high tier (particularly since smashboard tier lists focus primarily on NA traditionally). Probably highest tier in mid tier. Basically around the same level as Robin... actually thinking about it that very basic summary I just gave of Wii Fit works pretty well for Robin: a few great tools and a few crippling flaws. I'd probably place Robin over Wii Fit though.

 

[Browny]

WFT has literally one

count it, one

Player in Australia that does really well with her.

Its not like we have some strange 'metagame' where WFT excels, its just the player who uses her is really freakin smart and one of the best players in this country to touch the game. I don't think that quite qualifies WFT as 'amazing'. Thats just like calling Palutena amazing because of aerolink, Bowser Jr amazing because of tweek etc.

 

[C0rvus]

When I look at Wii Fit, I see a character with strong keepaway, interesting hitboxes, but poor grab game and no kill setups. She's a little lacking in the "meta traits" so she's definitely not a high tier character. But she has some good players making waves with her. She's in the same boat as Bowser Jr. and Robin imo.

 

[HoSmash4]

Why not learn it when fighting other players?

...People don't actually think that getting hit intentionally to gain rage is a good idea, do they?

People just don't read previous posts sometimes.

 

[MajorMajora]

I'm so confused about this idea of getting rewarded for getting hit due to rage. It's a gradual thing.

Think of it this way: when I deal damage to an opponent, it increases how much a knock them back. When I get hit by an opponent, it increases how much I knock them back, but by a lot less.

Lets say, and I know it's not linear, but lets say rage's effect is equal to 1/10th fo the extra knockback per percent as simply dealing that much damage to an opponent. lets say to get a certain combo, setup, etc., you need to take 20% more damage of rage. Can't you just, like, deal 2% more damage to them and get the same effect? I know that's not how the math works out, but here's my point:

Any setup you can get from taking damage is less optimal than dealing damage. You can't "abuse rage" in such a way that you can purposefully take damage to get some sort of edge. Maybe if you're near death percent and you take non-lethal shots, but rage stops going into effect after a certain percent.

 

[Ffamran]

Cloud has very easy mode spike set ups vs fox btw. if fox is forced to side b to the ledge its over. Blade Beam will hit then firefox is easy prey to dair.

Hmm... There should probably be a study on what recovery moves Blade Beam can interrupt. It's the edgeguarding projectile of the game. It gimps, kills, and limits options to the point where theoretically, some characters might not even be able to recover at all against Cloud.

Also, this is the point where we mention (again) how similar physics which pretty much only Fox and Falco share compared to other characters is like two big middle fingers to both characters. You could say Captain Falcon and Ganondorf having different air speeds makes things a bit different despite both being heavy, tall, fast fallers, and having the same recovery issues, but timing something for the Capt. as he drifts back is going to be different than timing for Ganondorf who'll drift back slower, Mario being average and Luigi being on the floatier character makes things different, and Dr. Mario is more like an "EX Mario", but Fox and Falco are both have light weight, fast fall speed, and slow air speeds. 99 problems Fox has Falco probably has and sometimes it's even magnified because guess what? A clone Up Special that's just a worse version is going to get exploited, so have fun gimping him Cloud. Forced to Side Special to the ledge? Have fun, Cloud, since Falco only has a hitbox for the first half of Phantasm which means Falco might be forced to use Falco Phantasm too early and eat whatever punish you have for him. Oh, and let's not forget that Falco moves much slower than Fox outside of walking and falling and Falco falls hard. Please note that this does not mean Falco "deserves" a mobility buff.

On another Falco-related note: Falco doesn't do well against Rosalina & Luma... So, was FOW just the better player or was he playing Luma (and Rosalina) instead of just Rosalina? In my opinion, Falco does not go even against Rosalina & Luma and that Ness (and Lucas) have better MUs against them, so having Falco as a counter-pick against Rosalina pretty much defies all logic. Recent match of FOW's Falco vs. Xero's Rosalina & Luma: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAK9V--gEOQ.

Another Cloud-related note: apparently EX Mode Cloud's walk speed is godplayer... Now, his initial walk speed... I'd like to know that since it seems to start off okay or bad, but his walk speed is good while his EX Mode walk speed is just hundredths away from Falco's. If I recall, it's 1.26? to Falco's 1.28.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

WFT has literally one

count it, one

Player in Australia that does really well with her.

Its not like we have some strange 'metagame' where WFT excels, its just the player who uses her is really freakin smart and one of the best players in this country to touch the game. I don't think that quite qualifies WFT as 'amazing'. Thats just like calling Palutena amazing because of aerolink, Bowser Jr amazing because of tweek etc.

Man the way some Aussies raved about Wii Fit a while back you'd think it was more than one.

(To be fair I suspect that Wii Fit does more than Aerolink's Palutena but what do I know)

 

[S_B]

People just don't read previous posts sometimes.

Not sure what you're referring to.

You can figure out rage #s solo, sure, but it'll never be as useful as actual combat experience against a human player who knows the matchups and ideally mains the character.

And as for rage, all it does is give you slightly more knockback, and way, WAY less knockback on your opponent than your opponent gets for tacking damage onto you.

Letting yourself get hit is like spending a dollar to earn a dime...

 

[Blobface]

Instead of explaining it, I'll just show you:

This is just sad

Idunno, I really don't see anything in this video that suggests this matchup is bad, much less horrible, for Cloud. It just looks like a normal tourney set where one player plays better and wins.

He's undeniably a strong character, but I do think Cloud might hit a bit of a snag later on once people start exploiting his nearly 100% vertical recovery by going offstage instead of just hoping the Cloud goofs up and doesn't ledgesnap. It's true that Climhazzard can suicide kill, but that really loses it's weight when you realize he's got nothing if you're below him (or if your name is Lucas or Ganon and you have a spike/semi-spike that hits behind you).

Just to be clear, I don't think he's going to get absolutely ruined by his recovery. Players like Sol have done decently with Mac, and Cloud's recovery is not only better but he's likely a better character overall. But it's definitely a weakness that's going to be exploited more as time goes on.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

I think ya'll should be talking about Cloud's on-stage presence more, imo. The object of the game is to get people off of the stage first. Yes, Cloud's recovery is bad. We get it. What about everything else in his kit, though? Y'know, the stuff that offsets the stuff that gets him off of the stage and into a blastzone?

Smooth Criminal