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

[C0rvus]

The issue with mages is that even in their home genre, they tend to be either the best class or among the worst. In Smash it's usually the later.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Hey at least I'm not a shulk main.

Still better than most Wii Fit commentary where it seems like the commentator 1. acts like when the character does anything impressive it's a total fluke, 2. acts like the character is a joke character and is just meant to embarrass your opponent or 3. knows nothing about the character as if it wasn't one of the very first newcomers revealed.

 

[Vipermoon]

Zelda isn't even true to her game. Both her and Ganondorf are supposed to have swords and some really cool moves. Not as bad as Captain Gandondorf but like it has been said, she IS Sheik. ZELDA was trained by a Sheikah.

Yes she is probably the worst character in all of Smash. What baffles me is how HARD she was nerfed from Brawl. Like MAJOR nerfs across her entire moveset with buffs to Dair (strong hit on grounded opponents), Uspecial (elevator), and Dthrow (angle change). Sure every character was nerfed from Brawl in many ways but this is much worse. I don't want to go into exactly how because this isn't a Zelda thread.

But my point is... why? On lower level "casual" gameplay maybe they saw her (Brawl design) as a problem.

 

[Nobie]

When we say "Make Zelda better," are we saying make her mid tier or make her high tier? I don't think it takes too much to push her into the middle of the pack. Having her outdo Sonic or whoever is a different story.

As everyone else has mentoned, Zelda is a mage archetype, someone with powerful hitboxes who is weak when up close. For that reason, I'd probably go with some combination of the following buffs:

Bigger hitboxes on magic-based moves. These things should be difficult to avoid if caught in the wrong situation. For example, Zelda's forward tilt is actually friggin' powerful, and kills pretty damn early for a forward tilt. However, it has no range. If it could work like Ganondorf's own f-tilt, as a kill move that the opponent has to be extremely wary of at high percents, it would serve more of a purpose.

Less recovery on Smash Attacks and perhaps other moves. Basically give her some more Meta Knight F-smash type attacks. This doesn't mean that she's a speedster now, but it gives her stuff to throw out in neutral without being too scared of retaliation.

Indestructible Phantom Knight. Other people suggest being able to store it, but I like the idea of not being able to break it down more. It would emphasize the Phantom Knight as a zoning tool, eating up territory and making the opponent's movement more predictable, allowing you to, say, catch them with Din's Fire or something.

Stronger kill throw(s). If psychics can have cool kill throws, why not a magician? I do believe one of her throws (back? forward?) is decently potent, but if she had a scarier one it could work well with the fact that opponents are encouraged to shield against her due to Up B. The threat of the death throw then instead sets up for elevator kills.

 

[Dee-SmashinBoss]

K, I have no choice, so sorry to be a bother but..........well, @Zylach Do you still stand by your opinion from before(I can't remember, but I believe it was you who said after some very hard work it's possible Zelda MIGHT even be a threat at even National levels or something?) Sorry if it wasn't you, but I also don't remember the other notable Zeldas and I can't find the thread that you guys talked about which each other.

So again, do you still have your same opinion on Zelda? Has it changed at all?

 

[Wintermelon43]

so is MK Leo not going to genesis 3?

makes sense, he's only like 14 iirc

He won't go to EVO either, he'll be blocked by a wall.

 

[LightLV]

That's...not quite what he meant.

Consider a cast of 1000 characters. Assume they are all perfectly balanced.
Let the top 32 players of a national tournament each use 3 characters. Suppose there is no overlap in character usage.
32 * 3 = 96 characters used.
96 / 1000 = 9.6% roster representation.

Right, right....

Now, less than 10% of the roster being used sounds bad. But our first statement said the cast was perfectly balanced. Therefore, it's clear that looking at what percent of the roster is visible in top 32 placings (or top 64, or top 16, or whatever number floats your boat) of a given tournament cannot comprise the entirety of an argument for or against character balance by itself. Especially when the roster is large enough that it is literally impossible for top X placings to include more than a fraction of the cast.

Oh.

I mean that's cute, if your roster was 1000 characters large, but 1) that's never going to happen and 2) you aren't avoiding the bigger issue of the cast being 90% garbage characters. Of course, if you have more viable characters available than are practically possible to ever be used simultaneously, you CAN argue that's good...for the competitive community. Of course the method is going to break down if you have such an absurd amount of characters, but it doesn't change anything. You'd still have a massive character select screen where, upon picking a character you find attractive, you have a 90% chance of picking an unviable.

Likewise, using the 1-character example is an equally crappy hypothetical, such a small size in a fighting game is convenient only for the sake of character balance and no community would ever entertain it.

That ridiculous 96/1000 hypothetical is still assuming an awful lot, like that the community was able to objectively rate 1000 characters against one another enough to even make the ratio...something that is (clearly) very possible in a 40-50 character roster but has no equivalent precedent for a number as ******** as 1000 and almost certainly would either never happen or take decades, even in 2016.


TL;DR yeah no, the % viability method still works perfectly fine for real life. All the other logic holes aside, you're taking the destination and throwing out the journey, which is whole reason the viability issue is an issue to begin with.



Edit: You'll probably notice i ignored the "completely balanced 1000 characters" part again, which i actually did by mistake, but it's even not even worth addressing because again, it's just stretching an analogy way past the point of practicality. Nobody complains about character representation for strictly representation's sake, tier discussion almost always follows.

 

[LancerStaff]

Super Smash Flash 2 managed to make Zelda high tier. Pretty much a buffed Brawl Zelda. Din's Fire activates and travels more quickly and doesn't go into freefall, Lighting Kicks are pretty much like Melee, U-air is a bit quicker, D-smash is stronger and her U-throw and D-throw can combo into Kicks (as well as U-air in U-throw's case). That's mostly it. All Zelda really needs is simple adjustments to Din's Fire and Lightning Kicks to become a threat.

When we say "Make Zelda better," are we saying make her mid tier or make her high tier? I don't think it takes too much to push her into the middle of the pack. Having her outdo Sonic or whoever is a different story.

As everyone else has mentoned, Zelda is a mage archetype, someone with powerful hitboxes who is weak when up close. For that reason, I'd probably go with some combination of the following buffs:

Bigger hitboxes on magic-based moves. These things should be difficult to avoid if caught in the wrong situation. For example, Zelda's forward tilt is actually friggin' powerful, and kills pretty damn early for a forward tilt. However, it has no range. If it could work like Ganondorf's own f-tilt, as a kill move that the opponent has to be extremely wary of at high percents, it would serve more of a purpose.

Less recovery on Smash Attacks and perhaps other moves. Basically give her some more Meta Knight F-smash type attacks. This doesn't mean that she's a speedster now, but it gives her stuff to throw out in neutral without being too scared of retaliation.

Indestructible Phantom Knight. Other people suggest being able to store it, but I like the idea of not being able to break it down more. It would emphasize the Phantom Knight as a zoning tool, eating up territory and making the opponent's movement more predictable, allowing you to, say, catch them with Din's Fire or something.

Stronger kill throw(s). If psychics can have cool kill throws, why not a magician? I do believe one of her throws (back? forward?) is decently potent, but if she had a scarier one it could work well with the fact that opponents are encouraged to shield against her due to Up B. The threat of the death throw then instead sets up for elevator kills.

I mean, those would work. But I think we know why Ninty wouldn't, and hasn't, implemented these...

Right, right....

Oh.

I mean that's cute, if your roster was 1000 characters large, but 1) that's never going to happen and 2) you aren't avoiding the bigger issue of the cast being 90% garbage characters. Of course, if you have more viable characters available than are practically possible to ever be used simultaneously, you CAN argue that's good...for the competitive community. Of course the method is going to break down if you have such an absurd amount of characters, but it doesn't change anything. You'd still have a massive character select screen where, upon picking a character you find attractive, you have a 90% chance of picking an unviable.

Likewise, using the 1-character example is an equally crappy hypothetical, such a small size in a fighting game is convenient only for the sake of character balance and no community would ever entertain it.

That ridiculous 96/1000 hypothetical is still assuming an awful lot, like that the community was able to objectively rate 1000 characters against one another enough to even make the ratio...something that is (clearly) very possible in a 40-50 character roster but is pretty has no equivalent precedent for a number as ******** as 1000 and almost certainly would either never happen or take decades, even in 2016.


TL;DR yeah no, the % viability method still works perfectly fine for real life. All the other logic holes aside, you're taking the destination and throwing out the journey, which is whole reason the viability issue is an issue to begin with.

If you're going to measure viability as a percent then use the same percent in both games. You should be comparing Melee's top 8s to SSB4's top 16s, roughly.

 

[Crudele]

Zelda? Bad in all games. It's actually surprising since she's just not fun nor rewarding to play with at all; Zelda's clunky and very punishable while requiring a ton of precision for moves that in any mode, would be stressful and difficult to land. Oh, and if you flub them? You're not Marth or Roy; you're getting pitiful hits that would make a staled Sheik look like a killer. Compare this to Triple D who's humorous to play as, Kirby who's this cute puffball, or Ganondorf where hits count and they're freaking hilarious when you can boot someone from one end to the other end like you were playing tennis. I mean, why does this character even exist than to fill a slot as Princess Zelda?

Idk how much of this is serious, but the obvious answer to this is that fun is hella subjective. In defense of zelda being fun (because there's no denying that she's very bad), I think her footsies are pretty fun in most matchups. Sure, absolutely nothing is free, but that means you have to actually work for your kill. You can't really jump in with a sheik fair or MK dash attack, but instead you throw out safe pokes in grounded normals like jab and dtilt (you know, similarly to what footsies are like in most fighting games) and follow up accordingly. Her combo game isn't that terrible at early percents. Jab and dtilt often lead to grabs, with dthrow > nair > fair/bair/jump or airdodge read being a pretty reliable thing.

Edge guarding is a lot of fun with zelda. Her dair is crazy powerful, and you can go hella deep because she can come back from the depths. Pressuring with din's fire and phantom can be pretty fun too, and aren't too bad at forcing characters to recover low for the drop zone dair. If you can follow really well, soft dair can even frequently lead to a footstool for +30 style points.

Now, where playing with zelda is NOT fun for me and a secondary is absolutely necessary, is in MUs against characters who can overwhelm her with speed and half decent frame data, which is...a lot of characters in this game. Sheik, mac, greninja, falcon, zss, mario, are all pretty annoying. To the point where it requires almost hard reads just to get her zelda stuff started. I'd imagine it'd be pretty similar for ganon and DDD, though.

I really wish this character actually had tools to stay relevant in today's meta, because unfortunately, I have a lot of fun playing her. I'd prolly solo main her if she weren't so terrible.

 

[Fatmanonice]

A lot of the "defensive minded" characters have been doomed to the low tier because of the odd philosophy the developers had while making them. . All have okay defensive options but fall apart if you get close them. In a game like this, I feel like being mostly defensive is impractical. Look at how work. These characters have both good defensive and offense options and it kind of baffles me how the philosophy of these characters really didn't carry over to the five characters above. If you break the defenses of the seven characters I listed, they're not totally screwed and having to scrabble back to neutral . What do these seven mostly have that that the top five really don't?

-Reliable keep away projectiles (exception: )
- Dependable set up throws (exception: )
- Kill throws
-Ways to quickly rack up damage
- Good landing options
-Good out of shield options
-Kill moves that aren't laggy as all hell or have weird hit boxes
-Projectiles that don't hilariously backfire with ease so you're forced to approach (one of the more aggravating things about )

With the five I mentioned, being defensive with them feels more like stalling than anything else while actually being aggressive is almost like walking into a trap. I don't feel like it's a total loss cause though because they largely fixed and we all know what a hilariously awkward mess this character was when the game first came out.

 

[Das Koopa]

I made a list of Zelda buffs recently in a GameFAQs topic

Zelda:
+The ability to hold Phantom Slash
+Large damage and knockback buff for Phantom
+Significantly reduced startup and end lag on Din's Fire
+No freefall after using Din's Fire
+Reduced end lag on Naryu's Love
+Reworked throws that allow for Lightning Kick combos

I'd also add maybe reducing the end lag on her aerials and maybe rework Uair and/or Bair to be good options. I really don't like that Zelda is a floaty without reliable aerials - if you're in the air longer, your moveset should probably be made with that in mind by giving you some power. But in a "reliable" way, not "Give her Falcon's Knee on every aerial except her Nair"

 

[Y2Kay]

He won't go to EVO either, he'll be blocked by a wall.

If only @Kaladin was still here with his Trump avatar

hilarious

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I mean that's cute, if your roster was 1000 characters large, but 1) that's never going to happen and 2) you aren't avoiding the bigger issue of the cast being 90% garbage characters. Of course, if you have more viable characters available than are practically possible to ever be used simultaneously, you CAN argue that's good...for the competitive community. Of course the method is going to break down if you have such an absurd amount of characters, but it doesn't change anything. You'd still have a massive character select screen where, upon picking a character you find attractive, you have a 90% chance of picking an unviable.

Bolded colored part is what I'm having an issue with, because it indirectly implies that for any size roster N, M characters are automatically unviable for no other reason than (N - 32) = M. That is, if you only care about characters that place top 32, then it implies there can be at most 32 viable characters in a game. That does not follow.

(You can substitute 32 with 16 or 64 or whatever. It's a placeholder.)

 

[LightLV]

The issue with mages is that even in their home genre, they tend to be either the best class or among the worst. In Smash it's usually the later.

This is very true. And it's painful. It's probably because balancing characters around extremes almost always results in extreme reactions. Also straddling that line between "too defensively weak" and "too unfairly powerful" is hard to get right.

Grapplers in fighting games typically have this issue as well.

A complete goddessdamned overhaul. Other characters like... everyone else only need tweaks and they're much better or better functioning.

Actually, Zelda doesn't really need anything too massive to make her a good character. Simply giving her auto cancels on her aerials would boost her well out of the bottom tier spot alone.

Zelda's nerfs from brawl didn't help, but Zelda has consistently been a victim of being on the receiving end of the worst system mechanics in Smash. From SDI making her attacks unreliable to Smash 4 removing her offensive advantage on shield, she's just a character thats hard to respect because she has flaws from so many angles.


Case in point? Zelda was doomed to fail in Smash 4 for the simple fact that rolls and shields pretty much invalidate all offensive pressure.

Buffing rolls is a nerf to spacing (* Space control, not spacing* )
Buffing shieldstun is a nerf to approach
Nerfing shieldpush and removing ledgeslip is a nerf to stage control, powerful strikes, and an inherent buff to agile characters

Zelda is a zoner
Zelda is slow
Zelda is powerful
Zelda relies on hard hitting, laggy attacks

Thus, Zelda has a kit designed to control space and lock down opponents in a game where nobody has to respect any of her attacks because, while powerful, she's essentially harmless at the range where she's supposed to be the most effective. Removing her teleport mobility, adding massive sourspots to Dins Fire, giving her a crappy downB and removing all her autocancels are just the icing on the cake.

It's almost as if they wanted her to be trash.

 

[ARISTOS]

I mean that's cute, if your roster was 1000 characters large, but 1) that's never going to happen and 2) you aren't avoiding the bigger issue of the cast being 90% garbage characters. Of course, if you have more viable characters available than are practically possible to ever be used simultaneously, you CAN argue that's good...for the competitive community. Of course the method is going to break down if you have such an absurd amount of characters, but it doesn't change anything. You'd still have a massive character select screen where, upon picking a character you find attractive, you have a 90% chance of picking an unviable.

Likewise, using the 1-character example is an equally crappy hypothetical, such a small size in a fighting game is convenient only for the sake of character balance and no community would ever entertain it.

That ridiculous 96/1000 hypothetical is still assuming an awful lot, like that the community was able to objectively rate 1000 characters against one another enough to even make the ratio...something that is (clearly) very possible in a 40-50 character roster but has no equivalent precedent for a number as ******** as 1000 and almost certainly would either never happen or take decades, even in 2016.

Is this not the point of using analogies and making arguments? If the exercise fails under more rigorous testing, then the theory can not hold. Trying to separate it into real life vs theory is silly because % viability in regards to tournament position is simply one of different theories in trying to comprehend the balance of a game.

You don't even have to go quite as far.

Say there are two games:

Game 1 has 64 characters. Varying degrees of viability amongst the cast, but top 32 is filled with 20 unique characters, with no character appearing more than twice. Our % viability is around 30%.

Game 2 has 5 characters. One of them takes up 2/3 of top 32 and is clearly much stronger than the rest. The remaining top 32 is filled by the other four characters. In this scenario, % viability is 100%, even though one clearly dominates the rest and the game can not really be seen as balanced.

Using top 32/top 8 appearances is simply one metric we can use to rate viability and compare balance across games. It can not be the major one.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Zelda's moveset as a whole is basically impossible to balance on a hypothetical level IMO. If her aerials had anywhere near good autocancel windows, they'd be pretty crazy (outside of Dair, well no scratch that Zelda's Dair is actually stupid but it's fine cause it's Zelda).

The only solution IMO would be to redesign her moveset to be more rounded/reasonable. Ergo making her not bleed kill power and increasing the size/duration of the sweetspots so that they're easier to hit and do more for the character.....but this requires a moveset revamp and Smash movesets, ESPECIALLY when it comes to veterans, tend to not change too drastically (sometimes they do, but not to the point of where this would occur with Zelda), something something established character identity, which isn't really an invalid point perse. Zelda's just kind of doomed by this virtue alone, because making her entire moveset different or drastically changing stuff would make her....well, not Smash Zelda. Kinda like if Ryu lost his Hadouken, for a more extreme example.

Tl;dr is that she's an incredible extreme, it's just extreme in ways that are not conducive to 1v1 gameplay but rather conducive to 2v2. Welcome to Smash Brothers.

 

[Djent]

These crews just go to illustrate how lopsided the distribution of talent is between "regions" (however conceived) even now. Japan is obviously the favorite to win, followed by Tristate, then Florida and SoCal. The other teams, to put it bluntly, don't stand a chance. It's too bad, the event will still be hype and all, but not as much as it would be if the competition was more level.

 

[Sonicninja115]

These crews just go to illustrate how lopsided the distribution of talent is between "regions" (however conceived) even now. Japan is obviously the favorite to win, followed by Tristate, then Florida and SoCal. The other teams, to put it bluntly, don't stand a chance. It's too bad, the event will still be hype and all, but not as much as it would be if the competition was more level.

I laughed when I saw MD/VA... I don't think Japan is going to be a complete blowout though. All four have a solid chance of winning.

 

[Nobie]

Case in point? Zelda was doomed to fail in Smash 4 for the simple fact that rolls and shields pretty much invalidate all offensive pressure.

Are you still on this? It wasn't true in the pre-shieldstun patch days and it still isn't. As people adjusted to the way shields and rolls work in this game, they learned how to execute an effective offense.

 

[S_B]

Hey at least I'm not a shulk main.

The next time I commentate a match with Shulk in it, I'm going to tell everyone things like, "Jump mode also makes Shulk temporarily vegan, and eating any food items with meat or dairy in them will damage him instead of healing him."

 

[Das Koopa]

I'd say Tristate and Japan are at even odds.

Then it's:
Socal
Florida
Midwest

And nobody else really matters/has a chance if simply due to the fact that certain teams don't have more than a couple of amazing players.

Spoiler

Southwest gonna win it all Kappa

 

[LightLV]

Bolded colored part is what I'm having an issue with, because it indirectly implies that for any size roster N, M characters are automatically unviable for no other reason than (N - 32) = M. That is, if you only care about characters that place top 32, then it implies there can be at most 32 viable characters in a game. That does not follow.

(You can substitute 32 with 16 or 64 or whatever. It's a placeholder.)

Ohhhhhhhhh, nononono.

That's starting at the results list and working backwards. This is why i said you're starting at the destination and throwing out the journey, thus ignoring the issue people have "% roster viability" in the first place. It's also why i said that analogy requires us to assume alot of things from the jump that aren't even humanly practical...like how we would have even come to the conclusion that only x% of 1000 characters were objectively viable in the first place. That would require a MASSIVE amount of players, data compiling, weeding out bias, ect ect ect.

If you were to look at the top 32 listing in this hypothetical game, and all 1000 of them were balanced...it wouldn't matter who ended up in top 32 because we already know the rest of the roster is capable of placing with an equal chance. The only problem here would be who people played the most. We could then say that the top 32/64/whatever listing had nothing to do with the GAME and simply had everything to do with the bias of the players attending the tournaments.


However, taking Melee for example, we KNOW why we only see so many characters in tournament results. It's not because of representation, it's because in order to win the tournament, those characters hold the highest margins of success, by a longshot. You don't see Bowser being represented because playing him competitively is a waste of time. When people say "x% of this game is viable", they mean that "this is the percentage of the roster that's able to compete without having a massive disadvantage." Tournament placings can be seen as a byproduct of this value, not the other way around.

It's not about tournament results, it's not about representation. Those things all follow the ability for the community of a character to NOT hit a brick wall they have no control over when trying to win competitions with their characters.

(I edited that quoted post shortly afterwards to clarify that i replied while ignoring the "all 1000 characters are balanced" part, just in case this is still confusing.)

Is this not the point of using analogies and making arguments? If the exercise fails under more rigorous testing, then the theory can not hold. Trying to separate it into real life vs theory is silly because % viability in regards to tournament position is simply one of different theories in trying to comprehend the balance of a game.

You don't even have to go quite as far.

Say there are two games:

Game 1 has 64 characters. Varying degrees of viability amongst the cast, but top 32 is filled with 20 unique characters, with no character appearing more than twice. Our % viability is around 30%.

Game 2 has 5 characters. One of them takes up 2/3 of top 32 and is clearly much stronger than the rest. The remaining top 32 is filled by the other four characters. In this scenario, % viability is 100%, even though one clearly dominates the rest and the game can not really be seen as balanced.

Using top 32/top 8 appearances is simply one metric we can use to rate viability and compare balance across games. It can not be the major one.

Well...analogies are useful for some things, not so much for others. Hell, even the most basic and rigid concepts fail when you try to stretch them to extreme lengths.

Spoiler

At the north pole, which direction is "north"?
In space, which way is "up"?
How fast is your car moving? The earth? The sun? The milky way?
Considering electromagnetism and nuclear forces, how does anything "touch" anything else?

Leaving the scope of smash a bit, but you'll find that most things can be broken pretty badly if you try hard enough...

Are you still on this? It wasn't true in the pre-shieldstun patch days and it still isn't. As people adjusted to the way shields and rolls work in this game, they learned how to execute an effective offense.

....and this still does nothing to counteract the things certain characters lost as a result of the change. It simply shifts the meta in a different direction.

 

[Jamurai]

These crews just go to illustrate how lopsided the distribution of talent is between "regions" (however conceived) even now. Japan is obviously the favorite to win, followed by Tristate, then Florida and SoCal. The other teams, to put it bluntly, don't stand a chance. It's too bad, the event will still be hype and all, but not as much as it would be if the competition was more level.

Another reason why it's a shame Leo couldn't come; if he was there Mexico's crew would be a lot stronger. Still sad about this, I was looking forward to him proving his doubters wrong. At least he still has plenty of time to do so considering he's so young.

Japan is so stacked, if 9B and Rain are on point I don't see their team losing. Ranai, 9B, Komo and Aba are all the best players of their characters in the world, with Rain being way up there for Sheik too.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

*snip*

Then I seem to have misinterpreted your argument entirely. My apologies.

 

[Man Li Gi]

Guys, I bet you guys that Midwest will take the crown. Don't sleep on the laziest region.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

[...] Rain being way up there for Sheik too.

He also has a pretty ridiculous Cloud.

 

[Jamurai]

Komorikiri also has a mean Cloud if I recall correctly.

EDIT: I would support Midwest if Katakiri was part of the team, but he isn't so...

 

[Fatmanonice]

Who would you guys say are the three best defensive characters in the game? I'd go with:

- multiple projectiles, long range aerials, multiple shield options, several attacks that double as reliable shield options, a kill throw, a good set up throw, two close range tilts that can kill, fast jab, fast ftilt, several decent shield break options, several trumps, fantastic ledge stall options, fantastic edge guard options

- a good keep away projectile, a zair, fast tilts, fast jab, good set up throw, technically two kill throws, good ledge stalling options, a reflector, an absorb option

- good keep away projectiles, a zair, good set ups out of bomb/boomerang knock back, good set up throw, a kill throw, bombs are multifunctional, good jab, ftilt, and utilt

 

[LightLV]

Then I seem to have misinterpreted your argument entirely. My apologies.

Like i mentioned, i noticed shortly afterwards that i did miss the "all 1000 are perfectly balanced" and kept going anyway....so yeeeaahh that was probably all my fault.

Who would you guys say are the three best defensive characters in the game? I'd go with:

- multiple projectiles, long range aerials, multiple shield options, several attacks that double as reliable shield options, a kill throw, a good set up throw, two close range tilts that can kill, fast jab, fast ftilt, several decent shield break options, several trumps, fantastic ledge stall options, fantastic edge guard options

- a good keep away projectile, a zair, fast tilts, fast jab, good set up throw, technically two kill throws, good ledge stalling options, a reflector, an absorb option

- good keep away projectiles, a zair, good set ups out of bomb/boomerang knock back, good set up throw, a kill throw, bombs are multifunctional, good jab, ftilt, and utilt

I'd replace Lucas with Pacman. And pooosssibly toon link with Megaman.

 

[Vipermoon]

Zelda needs her Brawl grab desperately. It had good end lag. Her current grab is at near tether levels of lag. Rising AC Fair and Bair are too good for a "nerfed" game like Smash 4. But still better AC for those (like to full hop fast fall).

Her Uair needs to linger as much as the animation shows the fireball is active (though it should be a sourspot).

Her Uspecial needs Sheik's invincibility windows (Sheik needs Zelda's). Din's fire needs either less start-up/end lag, removal of sour spot, or bigger hitboxes. Phantom... idk what to do there. Store seems too powerful.

Her neutral B needs slighly earlier invincibility (to match the animation).

Her Nair should do the same damage front and back.

Also her Uspecial needs to fixed of that dumb glitch when recovering up a curved wall because that is unacceptable.

 

[ARISTOS]

Spoiler At the north pole, which direction is "north"?
In space, which way is "up"?
How fast is your car moving? The earth? The sun? The milky way?
Considering electromagnetism and nuclear forces, how does anything "touch" anything else?

Spoiler

(North is a cardinal direction, so heading towards the South Pole from the North Pole is still heading north, similar to how you have to go west across the Pacific to reach the East.

Speed is a measurable concept, it's not the concept that's flawed it's simply beyond our nous at the moment

Touch is a feeling-no matter how small we go, if we are to feel something when we interact with something else, it "touched" us.

Ya got me on the space one

In the natural sciences you usually have to make assumptions based on your knowledge at hand. % viability as an avenue for understanding character balance is a concept we have created ourselves, so we can afford to stretch it in order to test if it holds, similar to how social scientists will stress test their theories multiple times in order to see if those hold. (FYI not a natural scientist so pls no bully)

Who would you guys say are the three best defensive characters in the game? I'd go with:

- multiple projectiles, long range aerials, multiple shield options, several attacks that double as reliable shield options, a kill throw, a good set up throw, two close range tilts that can kill, fast jab, fast ftilt, several decent shield break options, several trumps, fantastic ledge stall options, fantastic edge guard options

- a good keep away projectile, a zair, fast tilts, fast jab, good set up throw, technically two kill throws, good ledge stalling options, a reflector, an absorb option

- good keep away projectiles, a zair, good set ups out of bomb/boomerang knock back, good set up throw, a kill throw, bombs are multifunctional, good jab, ftilt, and utilt

How could you forget our favorite space princess ?

 

[Spinosaurus]

Wario pretty much has little reason to not play a very defensive game. He doesn't have the reward to justify an aggressive approach. Can do it, but not get much out of it. By nature he pretty much does well against other defensive characters, especially when he's a strong camper.

 

[Kofu]

A lot of the "defensive minded" characters have been doomed to the low tier because of the odd philosophy the developers had while making them.

I wouldn't classify Bowser Jr. as defensive at all, lol. You aren't outzoning anyone with Clown Cannon and Mechakoopa. He has good, meaty attacks but his combo game is just too good for a defensive character.

 

[Mario766]

Guys, I bet you guys that Midwest will take the crown. Don't sleep on the laziest region.

Losing Ray is a big blow.

Guy is a literal genius who stole the win from FL by his hands alone.

I honestly think that Socal is stronger than Tristate. Tristate has Nairo and Dabuz, yes

But Socal has Zero, Larry and Void. Tristate's gonna need another Nakat destruction from EVO, which I honestly don't see happening. Vinnie/DKWill as subs does round out Tristate's line-up though.

 

[Fatmanonice]

For Bowser Jr I would argue that being too aggressive bites him in the butt and he does his best when he's baiting reactions. For example, the koopa kart isn't anywhere as reliable as Sonic's spin dash and, while it can lead to nice set ups, it can also be punished pretty hard too. I'd argue that Bowser Jr suffers from a similar core problem as Jigglypuff in that being aggressive can backfire way too easily. His approach options are pretty awful too which multiples this problem even more.

 

[deepseadiva]

Who would you guys say are the three best defensive characters in the game? I'd go with:

- multiple projectiles, long range aerials, multiple shield options, several attacks that double as reliable shield options, a kill throw, a good set up throw, two close range tilts that can kill, fast jab, fast ftilt, several decent shield break options, several trumps, fantastic ledge stall options, fantastic edge guard options

- a good keep away projectile, a zair, fast tilts, fast jab, good set up throw, technically two kill throws, good ledge stalling options, a reflector, an absorb option

- good keep away projectiles, a zair, good set ups out of bomb/boomerang knock back, good set up throw, a kill throw, bombs are multifunctional, good jab, ftilt, and utilt

Ah yes the annoying white children.

 

[Mazdamaxsti]

The main thing about buffing Zelda to be competitively viable is that it is, simply, near impossible to do without ruining her as a character.

Zelda's main design is fast and extremely powerful aerials, yet very precise and punishable. Changing her design is the only way to buff her, because unlike characters with a crazy reward like ZSS, her risk is too high, and her chances of actually getting the reward are very slim.

Changes like buffing phantom and Naryu's would be good for her kit, but it would do close to nothing in terms of her match-up spread.

Some people mentioned getting autocancels, which I honestly find absurd. Imagine a Falcon knee, but 5 frames faster and autocancels. That would be her f-air. Making her aerials safer and less punishable ruins her design (and would be really unfun to play against). Her moves have too much raw power to be buffed safety-wise.

Honestly, the only thing I find to be a fix is to heavily buff her ground game (which is semi-decent already) by maybe buffing her mobility and frame data on things like jab and f-tilt, while fixing the blind spots. This would keep her design the same while making her a bit better.

 

[Fatmanonice]

As for Pac-man and Megaman, I do agree that they have great defensive options but I'd argue that they have a steeper learning curve, especially Pac-man, and their kill options are more calculative than the three I listed.I absolutely love the stuff that both characters can do but they're definitely more work altogether, especially with the three I listed having some of the most dependable kill throws in the game. People will probably disagree with me but I could easily see Megaman becoming the next Brawl Diddy and Pac-man becoming the next Brawl Ice Climbers but I still feel this is off in the future.

Add in: I dunno. To me, I think would be helped out a lot if they had more reliable set up throws and/or throws that don't take a billion years to finally kill your opponent. For example, how do Dedede's golf swings with a GIANT HAMMER take longer to kill than a butterfly net and a judo throw from someone with Campbell soup can legs? This infuriates me to no end... For Zelda, uthrow pizza toss to fireball up the butt seems like a no-brainer kill set up the for the character but it isn't. If she had a dthrow with a trajectory similar to Mewtwo's, I don't think that would "break" the character either. Bowser Jr and Jiggs would benefit so much from a proper set up throw that it's not even funny. Given their fthrow the same properties as Sheik's and the potential follow ups would be sublime. Fthrow to fair/rar bair/uair? If you're a faithful player of either character, this should cause a tear to well up in your eye. Obviously, this doesn't fix everything but it's definitely a good start for characters with blatant weaknesses.

 

[TurboLink]

I wouldn't classify Bowser Jr. as defensive at all, lol. You aren't outzoning anyone with Clown Cannon and Mechakoopa. He has good, meaty attacks but his combo game is just too good for a defensive character.

Defensive characters aren't allowed to have combos/a good combo game?

 

[L9999]

Pacman being Brawl Ice Climbers? No one can top them on how insane they are.

Another reason why it's a shame Leo couldn't come; if he was there Mexico's crew would be a lot stronger. Still sad about this, I was looking forward to him proving his doubters wrong. At least he still has plenty of time to do so considering he's so young.

Japan is so stacked, if 9B and Rain are on point I don't see their team losing. Ranai, 9B, Komo and Aba are all the best players of their characters in the world, with Rain being way up there for Sheik too.

I'm actually looking foward to Leo-less México. And some Ness play that doesn't end with a Gravitational gimp.