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

[Emblem Lord]

I disagree with speed being the biggest problem with his Dair. I mean, it IS an issue, but it's nothing compared with the fact that he lost the full actives on the attack, but retained the tiny hitbox. Nobody else with a "charge" Dair spike has hitboxes that ridicuously tiny AND actives that pathetic. Captian Falcon doesn't really have to aim his Dair in Smash 4....he just has to be near you. It's easier for the attack to strike the hurtbox of the opponent in every way. Same for Gannon, same for Yoshi.

The closest Dair i can compare Falco's to now is honestly Mario's...but again, Mario's hitbox is larger, and he doesn't have nearly as hard a time recovering as Falco does if his edgeguard attempt goes sour. This is the same problem with Phantasm as a spike move. It leaves you too vulnerable if you miss or screw up. Falco falls way too fast and his recovery is way too poor.


As for Falco and getting overnerfed, yeah, the "slingshot nerf" is a pretty common issue with balance. they could have kept his laser autocancels and tweaked their balance in all sorts of ways. They could have lowered the hitbox size, they could have removed the hitstun with range falloff limiting his ability to zone with them, they could have given them a recharge period like with Robin's specials. Instead, they nerfed the range, they gave the attack cooldown frames so massive that you can get punished for shooting someone half a stage away...it's silly.

And about his Uair...it's not that it's a bad move, it's just that there's no reason for it to be weaker than, say Cfalcon or ZSS's. No reason at all. Not when Sheik has none of these issues, zones better, fights better, recovers better and will easily take your stock with an Uair that is chocked full of active frames.


Falco just lacks potent tools. Like every other midtier character, but his faults are way more visible because he has fallen so far since Melee/Brawl.


Marth is the same way, honestly. He has noticeably shorter range and the game is less lenient with his sweetspot. Fsmash Tipper is basically all he has going for him, but its never been harder to land and Lucina kills 20% faster than him without it.

Not to mention, on the topic of Marth, the removal of shieldpokes and ledgeslip (and yes, shieldpush) has pretty much removed all the elegance of his space control game. He lives and dies by a handful of safe attacks now, in a game where his range is now only slightly better than average and even characters like MARIO can approach better. He can take 90% of your shield with a single shield breaker now, but he gets essentially no pressure off the resulting shield damage.

Shut up.

UGH!!!

 

[C0rvus]

Don't spread Marth misinformation, or you'll be eaten alive m8.

On the topic of Shulk, I want with all my heart and soul to believe he isn't bad, but he's pretty bad. Granted, optimal Shulk has some scary setups and combos with MALLC that I certainly cannot pull off. His flexibility via Monado Arts is a double-edged sword. You can change your game plan on the fly, but you're also displaying for your opponent a big hint about your next move.

Oh he just respawned and switched to Smash, I'd better not get grabbed.

Oh snap, he's in Buster. I'd better lame him out and tack on safe damage.

I think if he didn't lose so hard to defensive play he would have a better lease on life, but it's hard to beat safer characters when your frame data says no. But hey, he's a very true to form and context sort of character. Just like in his own game, you need to all but see the future to beat others.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Shulk is pretty bad tbh. There's a reason why you don't see him despite him bekng played by players like Ally Johnnumbers Trela and 9b. His frame data is just too bad and his vanilla stats are really mediocre.

Nobody argues that he's a good character ...

 

[AnEventHorizon]

Shulk is pretty bad tbh. There's a reason why you don't see him despite him bekng played by players like Ally Johnnumbers Trela and 9b. His frame data is just too bad and his vanilla stats are really mediocre.

Every time Ally takes Shulk out it gets rekt and he focuses on Mario, JohnNumbers is Wii Fit Trainer, 9B never won anything until he threw Shulk to the garbage for Ryu, and I think he never played him since (could be wrong), and Trela no longer played him since forever, he picked up other trash tiers until Ryu was released. My point is that none of those you mentioned are dedicated Shulk players.

To add onto this, A AlMoStLeGeNdArY I was of the same opinion before about Shulk ( same argument even) but realize that was all before the shield stun patch and the lastest patch. It's really changed my mind.

Because of how low the landing lag is now on nair, you can even make nair neutral on shield drop even when he's in smash mode (dealing 50% damage). It's positive on Shield drop for vanilla and buster.

The extra damage .5% is also nothing to laugh at when it's attached to almost all of your moves. Sure, tipped fair only gained .5%. But now its doing 6.5% instead of 6%, almost a 10% increase. Plus some of Shulk's best kill moves were his up and forward tilts, both of which are now stronger. Not to mention the increased safety when your aerials are both gaining damage and losing landing lag. Just try actually punishing a tipped fair or bair now.

Ally's Shulk isn't much to write about, it doesnt look like it's learned anything from when he used to play Shulk months ago. Look at the last match where he pulled it out against Nairo - Ally still tries to brute force people by starting in Buster (it's punishable on hit at 0% and he didnt bother to turn it off while getting up air stringed by ZSS either), didn't use MALLC at ALL, and misspaced bair like 3 times in a row so that he didnt get the hitbox and only got landing lag.

You can't just not play Shulk and jump right back into him off fundamentals (like his Mario) if you werent using MALLC before and because of how awkward the timing for a low to the ground bair is.

I used to think Shulk was one of the worst characters in the game (below Ganondorf) but I don't really anymore.

 

[Yoshi Kirishima]

To add onto this, A AlMoStLeGeNdArY I was of the same opinion before about Shulk ( same argument even) but realize that was all before the shield stun patch and the lastest patch. It's really changed my mind.

Because of how low the landing lag is now on nair, you can even make nair neutral on shield drop even when he's in smash mode (dealing 50% damage). It's positive on Shield drop for vanilla and buster.

The extra damage .5% is also nothing to laugh at when it's attached to almost all of your moves. Sure, tipped fair only gained .5%. But now its doing 6.5% instead of 6%, almost a 10% increase. Plus some of Shulk's best kill moves were his up and forward tilts, both of which are now stronger. Not to mention the increased safety when your aerials are both gaining damage and losing landing lag. Just try actually punishing a tipped fair or bair now.

Ally's Shulk isn't much to write about, it doesnt look like it's learned anything from when he used to play Shulk months ago. Look at the last match where he pulled it out against Nairo - Ally still tries to brute force people by starting in Buster (it's punishable on hit at 0% and he didnt bother to turn it off while getting up air stringed by ZSS either), didn't use MALLC at ALL, and misspaced bair like 3 times in a row so that he didnt get the hitbox and only got landing lag.

You can't just not play Shulk and jump right back into him off fundamentals (like his Mario) if you werent using MALLC before and because of how awkward the timing for a low to the ground bair is.

I used to think Shulk was one of the worst characters in the game (below Ganondorf) but I don't really anymore.

Speaking of this has anyone seen Jerm vs Poke? A top Canadian player. Jerm was able to win. I think Shulk has an even or slightly advantaged MU vs Luigi but either way, the point is that a upper mid / low high player like Jerm was able to beat a solid high high player like Poke.

Shielding vs Shulk is still pretty good but less effective, and also if they try to just run up and shield Shulk has many ways of RPSing against that, like crossing up (just jumping over them with or without nair, or hitting their shield with bair and moving towards their back, etc.), empty grabs, etc., and of course MALLC (invincibility given from the pose allows you to avoid them trying to hit/grab you after landing, and you can jab/grab them back on reaction or even just fsmash them if you see them in lag from a missed grab).

Shulk's neutral for his hard MUs still probably isn't that good, but I don't think it's terrible, and as long as it's not terrible I think it's acceptable due to how crazy his reward game can be. His airslash is very very powerful even without rage, and he can convert a nair or other hit in neutral into a kill.

I feel like Shulk at high potential probably still won't be that good of a character (but who knows how scary his combo game could be at max potential?), but even though he's still hard to use for a decent amount of MUs, I think he's viable simply because his neutral is more of a thing now and neutral game is very important.

 

[RonNewcomb]

To add onto this, A AlMoStLeGeNdArY I was of the same opinion before about Shulk ( same argument even) but realize that was all before the shield stun patch and the lastest patch. It's really changed my mind.

Because of how low the landing lag is now on nair, you can even make nair neutral on shield drop even when he's in smash mode (dealing 50% damage). It's positive on Shield drop for vanilla and buster.

The extra damage .5% is also nothing to laugh at when it's attached to almost all of your moves. Sure, tipped fair only gained .5%. But now its doing 6.5% instead of 6%, almost a 10% increase. Plus some of Shulk's best kill moves were his up and forward tilts, both of which are now stronger. Not to mention the increased safety when your aerials are both gaining damage and losing landing lag. Just try actually punishing a tipped fair or bair now.

Ally's Shulk isn't much to write about, it doesnt look like it's learned anything from when he used to play Shulk months ago. Look at the last match where he pulled it out against Nairo - Ally still tries to brute force people by starting in Buster (it's punishable on hit at 0% and he didnt bother to turn it off while getting up air stringed by ZSS either), didn't use MALLC at ALL, and misspaced bair like 3 times in a row so that he didnt get the hitbox and only got landing lag.

You can't just not play Shulk and jump right back into him off fundamentals (like his Mario) if you werent using MALLC before and because of how awkward the timing for a low to the ground bair is.

I used to think Shulk was one of the worst characters in the game (below Ganondorf) but I don't really anymore.

So in other words, Shulk is the worst choice for secondary in the game? And as a main the most relevant MUs in this meta aren't in his favor either?

Who does Shulk even have a positive MU against? Kirby?

EDIT: oh, Kirby with Monado. Right.

 

[Yoshi Kirishima]

So in other words, Shulk is the worst choice for secondary in the game? And as a main the most relevant MUs in this meta aren't in his favor either?

Who does Shulk even have a positive MU against? Kirby?

Shulk can do well against characters that aren't that great at closing the space, I believe Luigi, Mario, DK, Rosa, Ryu, etc. Shulk can do fine against or even have a slight advantage.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Random thought: Does Back Slash still get the bonus damage for hitting someone from behind if the target is shielding?

Shulk can do well against characters that aren't that great at closing the space, I believe Luigi, Mario, DK, Rosa, Ryu, etc. Shulk can do fine against or even have a slight advantage.

I can buy this, but at the same time there are characters like Villager that want to keep their distance, at which point the pressure is on Shulk again to close the gap.

 

[Ffamran]

I'm going to try to keep this short...

Spoiler: Falco stuff

I disagree with speed being the biggest problem with his Dair. I mean, it IS an issue, but it's nothing compared with the fact that he lost the full actives on the attack, but retained the tiny hitbox. Nobody else with a "charge" Dair spike has hitboxes that ridicuously tiny AND actives that pathetic. Captian Falcon doesn't really have to aim his Dair in Smash 4....he just has to be near you. It's easier for the attack to strike the hurtbox of the opponent in every way. Same for Gannon, same for Yoshi.

The full actives? In Melee, if you were not playing the PAL version, Falco's Dair spiked from frames 5-24. That's 20 active spike frames. Yes, there was a late hit, but it was essentially Zelda's Dair, but ramped up... Oh, and let's not forget because of a programming error, it was not considered a spike by the game i.e. if you get Daired by Falco, you could not tech it at all. Even in the PAL version, it had 10 active frames for the clean, spike hit while the other 10 was a late hit that sent people at a 361 degree. No character in Smash 4 has a clean spike lasting that long - not counting Falco Phantasm since we don't know how long Falco Phantasm travels in frames. The closest that I can think off of the top of my head is Rosalina's which stays out for 5 frames. Zelda's late spike stays out for 10 frames, but it's a much, much weaker spike; hers does 5% or 4% and with pitiful knockback while Melee Falco's late Dair does 9% and even if it had the same knockback which it probably doesn't, it would be almost twice as strong as Zelda's.

Brawl Falco's Dair spiked on frame 5-7, 3 active frames, and had a late hit from 8-21, 14 active frames. The spike only did 10% and the late hit did 8%. When you think about it... Brawl Falco's Dair was heading in the right direction for a Dair that wasn't horribly broken like in Melee. It just screwed up in one thing: startup. If it was frame say, 11 or even 8, Falco would no doubt have that spike in Smash 4. Maybe it would be weaker like the spike only does 8% while the late hit does 6%, but guess what? A frame 11 spike like that? He could totally use that to setup vertical followups if you assume that Falco's Dair would end up not spiking grounded opponents. Why? Speed. Why do you think Cloud and Villager's Dairs are so usable compared to Falco and Link's Dairs, other high active frame spike Dairs? Why do you think Ryu can Nair to Dair so easily? Speed. If you don't have speed, then you need a good hitbox which for Falco, he does not have that since his Dair hitbox is below him rather than almost central like Cloud, Link, and Villager or how Ryu's is forward making it pretty much a 2 from Nair's 1.

Oh, and finally, his Dair in Smash 4 now has more 1 more active spike frame than in Brawl making it the middle in terms of spike frames, below Melee and above Brawl. It has lower total active frames, but it's still pretty high at 15 active frames to Melee's 20 and Brawl's 17.

Edit: Forgot about this; Diddy and Roy comes to mind as characters with a small hitbox and short active frames on their Dair. Diddy only has 1 active on a frame 17 Dair while Roy's strong hits at the base basically halves whatever range his Dair has.

The closest Dair i can compare Falco's to now is honestly Mario's...but again, Mario's hitbox is larger, and he doesn't have nearly as hard a time recovering as Falco does if his edgeguard attempt goes sour. This is the same problem with Phantasm as a spike move. It leaves you too vulnerable if you miss or screw up. Falco falls way too fast and his recovery is way too poor.

What? Mario's Dair isn't a spike? Why is that even a comparison? Closest Dair to Falco's in terms of how it works for me would be Cloud's, but in terms of hitbox, it would be Luigi's.

Smash 4 Falco Phantasm does leave you vulnerable and it is a weak spike, but think of it from a game design standpoint and you will understand why this move is inherently a bad and almost impossible move to balance. Melee's was really good when you consider its full hitbox while Brawl's had I-frames, moved faster, had less recovery, and it was frame 16 on startup instead of 18. The fact it's a spike line is insane for FFA and even 1v1 when you know where Falco is all the time. This is why I felt like, knowing Wolf isn't returning, Falco should have been given Wolf Flash. Not just because of reusing assets, but game design-wise, Wolf Flash is an easier move to balance and it spiking still keeps the idea that Falco's Side Special spikes while Fox's doesn't.

As for Falco and getting overnerfed, yeah, the "slingshot nerf" is a pretty common issue with balance. they could have kept his laser autocancels and tweaked their balance in all sorts of ways. They could have lowered the hitbox size, they could have removed the hitstun with range falloff limiting his ability to zone with them, they could have given them a recharge period like with Robin's specials. Instead, they nerfed the range, they gave the attack cooldown frames so massive that you can get punished for shooting someone half a stage away...it's silly.

Yes, they could have done something else, but you can say that for any other character. Some of the changes you suggested... lowering the hitbox wouldn't really do much when it's already a low-ish hitbox unless you mean make it fire a bolt like Wolf's... Removing the hit stun at a certain range shouldn't be on just Falco - hello there, Sheik. A recharge period was actually considered for in Brawl, but unlike an actual cooldown, they were figuring Falco, Fox, and maybe Wolf's Blaster should short-out sort of like how Diddy's Peanut Popgun would explode if held too long... Problem is that they don't fire their Blaster continuously; most people fire off 1 to 3 shots before doing something else. It would have been a pointless mechanic especially given there was no charge that did anything which for Diddy, altered the angle his peanut traveled.

Any projectile having auto-cancel windows, in my opinion, is bad for both the character and other characters. Why? Look at Falco's Blaster and tell me why. Look at all of his Blasters in each game. They never added any total frames; it was always there; Falco always had 58-ish total frames on the ground and 49-ish total frames in the air. The difference? Melee Falco's ground Blaster first shot came out double the time of Brawl and Smash 4's. It was frame 23 to Brawl's 12 and Smash 4's 11. Recovery-wise, that makes it have 35 recovery frames. It was basically a Sonic Boom or post 1.1.1 Greninja Water Shuriken; high startup and low recovery. What went wrong? Think about it before moving to the next paragraph.

Brawl increased the range to the point where from one end of Final Destination, his laser would still travel past the other end. I don't remember Melee and I don't own it anymore, but I'm pretty damn sure Falco's lasers did not travel past Final Destination from one end. That was utterly insane and damningly stupid. Brawl also decreased startup and increased the rate of fire and travel speed - note how total frames was not changed at all - allowing Falco to fire out 2 lasers from a hop and it'll reach you almost at Fox's no hit stun laser's speed. Tell me, just tell me if you think any of this was fair. It. Was. Not. Even if you had fantastic reflexes, you would have trouble trying to deal with his lasers. For a regular player who's just having fun? It would be utter hell. Brawl Falco was probably the most hated character for both sides.

So, what's this got to do with auto-canceling? Auto-canceling was an ugly, lazily put on band-aid. As I learned more and more about frame data, I realized that Melee Falco's Blaster is what Smash 4 Falco should have. Why? Let's look at the recovery frames for Brawl and Smash 4. In Brawl, Falco's Blaster took 45 frames on the ground and 32 in the air to recover from having 12 frames of startup and 56 total frames on the ground and 10 frames of startup in the air and 41 total frames in the air. Safe to say that ground recovery didn't matter most of the time. In Smash 4, it took 48 frames on the ground and 41 in the air from 11 frames of startup and 58 total frames on the ground and 9 frames of startup and 49 total frames in the air. Melee's ground was covered at 35 frames and in the air, it takes 30 frames to recover from 13 frames of startup and 42 total frames, but like Brawl, ground recovery never meant anything... Or did it? In context to Smash 4, yes, yes, it does. Now, I think Falco should be given his Melee Blaster frame data minus the auto-cancel windows of course. Melee had the most balanced Falco Blaster outside of its auto-cancel windows which were "necessary" for Falco to compete in a game with much more... "faster"? movement.

And about his Uair...it's not that it's a bad move, it's just that there's no reason for it to be weaker than, say Cfalcon or ZSS's. No reason at all. Not when Sheik has none of these issues, zones better, fights better, recovers better and will easily take your stock with an Uair that is chocked full of active frames.

Yes, there is a reason why it's weaker. Hell, there's even a reason why ZSS's Uair is weak. I'll give you a hint: jump height. Oh, but Sheik jumps just as high. Like Fox and Greninja, Sheik's Uair isn't really meant for continuous juggling like Captain Falcon, Falco, Kirby, Luigi, (Dr.) Mario, Meta Knight, or ZSS's. Theirs are more like hit and chase for a juggle or outright killing - you don't outright kill with the Capt., Falco, or ZSS's Uairs. Here's the problem, Falco lacks any finishers other than Bair, but he needs to hit with the back part of his Uair which is unique since his and Bayonetta's - looks like it from what the trailer showed - Uair hits back then front. ZSS on the other hand has access to Bair and Boost Kick with Boost Kick's insane growth letting her kill so early coupled with something else... Falco's Uair is a bit too strong while ZSS's is a bit too weak... What? Really, it's true. Falco's does 10% and low knockback. By mid percents, he won't be able to land 2 Uairs - hell, he can't land 2 Uairs even in low percents at times. ZSS? She can with her 8% and high knockback. ZSS hits weak enough, but with enough hit stun to move you up and prepare you for a kill; Falco hits hard enough where he'll send you out too far for him to follow up because of his Uair and his low air speed. The same reason goes to why Mario and Meta Knight can continually Uair people so easily while Captain Falcon, Dr. Mario, and Luigi lose that past mid percents or so.

The developers knew since Melee that Falco can easily boot you past the blast zone purely because of his fast double jump. First thing notable about him was his Uair was much weaker than Fox's. So instead, they made him kill horizontally more easily - Side Smash and Bair - than vertically like Fox - Up Smash and Uair. Granted, he had his Dair in Melee, but you do realize what would happen if Falco had a Fox, Ganondorf, or Yoshi Uair right? Say "sorry" to pre-patch Diddy, everyone, because there's an even bigger scumbag to deal with now.

Falco just lacks potent tools. Like every other midtier character, but his faults are way more visible because he has fallen so far since Melee/Brawl.

Falco doesn't lack potent tools... Mid-tiers don't lack potent tools; low-tiers do. Low-tiers are disadvantaged because they have so little to work with while mid-tiers have things to work with, but none of them are as powerful as high-tiers. Outside of his Blaster and Fire Fox, none of Falco's moves, including Dair, are below average. It's his issue with zoning and mobility (and shared physics with Fox) that bites him back.

Marth is the same way, honestly. He has noticeably shorter range and the game is less lenient with his sweetspot. Fsmash Tipper is basically all he has going for him, but its never been harder to land and Lucina kills 20% faster than him without it.

Not to mention, on the topic of Marth, the removal of shieldpokes and ledgeslip (and yes, shieldpush) has pretty much removed all the elegance of his space control game. He lives and dies by a handful of safe attacks now, in a game where his range is now only slightly better than average and even characters like MARIO can approach better. He can take 90% of your shield with a single shield breaker now, but he gets essentially no pressure off the resulting shield damage.

This part I won't comment on because I know jack about Marth, but one thing, wasn't it proven that Marth's range was not changed from Brawl to Smash 4? From Melee to Brawl? Hell yes. Why? Answer me that. Aside from "balancing" which Brawl miraculously considered, it's a very simple answer that starts with I and ends with E.

 

[Yoshi Kirishima]

Random thought: Does Back Slash still get the bonus damage for hitting someone from behind if the target is shielding?


I can buy this, but at the same time there are characters like Villager that want to keep their distance, at which point the pressure is on Shulk again to close the gap.

You're right, I shoulda been more specific. Good against characters that aren't that great at quickly closing the space in bursts, but also can't outcamp Shulk.

 

[Sonicninja115]

I think we can all agree that Shulk is one of the characters that won't be good until at least a year from now. He is too technical, not quite good enough and doesn't have a lot of high level players playing him.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Speaking of this has anyone seen Jerm vs Poke? A top Canadian player. Jerm was able to win. I think Shulk has an even or slightly advantaged MU vs Luigi [...]

That's always been the case though. Not sure if Shulk wins it, it's probably even.

Who does Shulk even have a positive MU against? Kirby?

EDIT: oh, Kirby with Monado. Right.

Shulk has a couple of advantaged matchups and a lot of even ones.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

~ Gheb ~ , or anybody for that matter:

Do you know off the top of your head who Shulk wins against?

Smooth Criminal

 

[~ Gheb ~]

It's kind of a controversial matter because virtually everybody likes to think their character beats Shulk but I think he has the advantage against Charizard, Doctor Mario, Ganondorf, Jigglypuff, DDD, [not sure about Kirby anymore ... both him and Shulk received legit buffs that help them in this matchup], Little Mac, Marcina, G&W, Roy, Samus and Zelda.

Even matchups would include Bowser [Junior], Cloud, [Dark] Pit, DK, Falco, Link, Luigi and Wario.

DH, Ike, Mario, Pac-Man, Peach, ROB, Rosalina and Ryu are matchups I'm not 100% sure about. Some of them could be even but all of them are -1 for Shulk at the absolute worst.

Sheik, Fox, ZSS and Sonic are extremely bad matchups, Shulk has virtually no chance against them. Everybody else I'm not sure about. Overall it's a pretty mediocre matchups spread but his matchups against a good 75% of the cast are viable tbh [aka no worse than -1].

 

[Baby_Sneak]

~ Gheb ~ , or anybody for that matter:

Do you know off the top of your head who Shulk wins against?

Smooth Criminal

Jiggly puff maybe

 

[Goesasu]

That's always been the case though. Not sure if Shulk wins it, it's probably even.



Shulk has a couple of advantaged matchups and a lot of even ones.

Shulk has a lot of good (advantage or slightly advantage) matchups:
1.- Vs all other swordfighters because he has mobility and range unlike his friends. This includes characters with small disjoints like mr. game and watch.
2.- Vs all brawlers who struggles to get into . like wario, peach, luigi etc.. even Ryu who is actually a really easy matchup for shulk in my experience.
3.- Vs. very light characters because of smash monado. Although they tend to hit like a truck so you better be careful.

But he has bad matchups:
1.-Vs. Very Speedsters characters. Fox, sheik and sonic. Speed monado and jump monado help a ton but is still a -1. You have to play very patient and space correctly to not get punished.
IMO cap. falcon and ZSS are not included here because they are not fast enough to overwhelm shulks personal space, these are even matchups.
2.- Vs. characters than can actually keep him outside medium range for most of the match. like R.O.B. or a very campy megaman. Speed monado and particulary jump monado can help to turn it into a even matchup if you play it right.

A good shulk can do very very well against most of the cast, fox is his worst matchup seconded by sheik and then sonic IMO. This matchups force shulk to change his gameplay way too much, needing perfect spacing and be very careful just to not be punished for playing his game.

 

[Das Koopa]

Technical characters like Shulk are really demanding, and the reason we don't see a lot of play imo is because his frame data makes him pretty unrewarding. In a truly developed meta, you should have players that know a lot of key %s for combos and how they work of different weights and the like. Shulk is probably super-demanding on this front due to the Monado Arts.

If they could just make his aerials less like this

(O = attack frames)

-----OOOO------

And more like this

--OOOOOOOO---

He'd probably be a lot better and would see some development.

 

[Zelder]

It's kind of a controversial matter because virtually everybody likes to think their character beats Shulk but I think he has the advantage against Charizard, Doctor Mario, Ganondorf, Jigglypuff, DDD, [not sure about Kirby anymore ... both him and Shulk received legit buffs that help them in this matchup], Little Mac, Marcina, G&W, Roy, Samus and Zelda.

Even matchups would include Bowser [Junior], Cloud, [Dark] Pit, DK, Falco, Link, Luigi and Wario.

DH, Ike, Mario, Pac-Man, Peach, ROB, Rosalina and Ryu are matchups I'm not 100% sure about. Some of them could be even but all of them are -1 for Shulk at the absolute worst.

Sheik, Fox, ZSS and Sonic are extremely bad matchups, Shulk has virtually no chance against them. Everybody else I'm not sure about. Overall it's a pretty mediocre matchups spread but his matchups against a good 75% of the cast are viable tbh [aka no worse than -1].

I feel like this is hard to reconcile with your previous statements that Shulk is a bad/not good character (underrated, but not good), and that you could also see a bunch of matches in Smash 4 as being 7/3. If Shulk, a mediocre character, doesn't have a bunch of 7/3 match ups, then who does?

 

[Latias]

I feel like this is hard to reconcile with your previous statements that Shulk is a bad/not good character (underrated, but not good), and that you could also see a bunch of matches in Smash 4 as being 7/3. If Shulk, a mediocre character, doesn't have a bunch of 7/3 match ups, then who does?

Mediocre=/=bad

 

[TheJolteon]

I honestly feel that Shulk needs lots of time to develop because of how technical he is. However many people aren't playing him so I feel it will take a more frame data buffs for people to notice him. I don't believe Shulk is bad but underdeveloped. But whatever you do, do not take PK's opinion to heart on Shulk.=)

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I feel like this is hard to reconcile with your previous statements that Shulk is a bad/not good character (underrated, but not good), and that you could also see a bunch of matches in Smash 4 as being 7/3. If Shulk, a mediocre character, doesn't have a bunch of 7/3 match ups, then who does?

Practically speaking, matchups like Shulk vs Fox or vs Sonic are around 75/25 in the opponent's favor and Shulk has like 4 of these matchups. I don't think he wins any matchup more than like 60/40 so the overall matchup spread is skewed against him quite noticeably.

From a competitive point of view he's clearly a bad character, he may be underrated based on how people look at him but I honestly don't really know what the consesus on him is. I think most people still have him as completely up in the air which is understandable. Note that I never actually called him underrated.

 

[AnEventHorizon]

Technical characters like Shulk are really demanding, and the reason we don't see a lot of play imo is because his frame data makes him pretty unrewarding. In a truly developed meta, you should have players that know a lot of key %s for combos and how they work of different weights and the like. Shulk is probably super-demanding on this front due to the Monado Arts.

If they could just make his aerials less like this

(O = attack frames)

-----OOOO------

And more like this

--OOOOOOOO---

He'd probably be a lot better and would see some development.

This is one of the major problems ( the combos.) They're probably the hardest to find for Shulk because they're all percentage AND art dependent. You can true combo nair into utilt, into fair into airslash ... but only in the Jump art and around 40%. You can true combo nair into dair ... but only if you MALLC the nair, and only if you MALLC the nair into the Speed or Jump Art. You can combo Dthrow into usmash - but only if you do a buffered deactivation of the Speed Art during the dthrow. U throw to airslash only in jump at certain percents. etc.

Last patch did make low percent nair combos easier though. nair into dtilt/ftilt/utilt is simple and straight forward.

On the hitbox problem, that's another one of Shulk, his 'long range' hitboxes dont last long at all. If the beam actually caused lingering damage while its out (dair/uair/bair/fsmash) they'd be a lot better. Unlike other swordsman who have more sweeping/long lasting hitboxes (Cloud/Ike/Marth/Link Uair for example)

 

[RonNewcomb]

It's kind of a controversial matter because virtually everybody likes to think their character beats Shulk but I think he has the advantage against Charizard, Doctor Mario, Ganondorf, Jigglypuff, DDD, [not sure about Kirby anymore ... both him and Shulk received legit buffs that help them in this matchup], Little Mac, Marcina, G&W, Roy, Samus and Zelda.

Even matchups would include Bowser [Junior], Cloud, [Dark] Pit, DK, Falco, Link, Luigi and Wario.

DH, Ike, Mario, Pac-Man, Peach, ROB, Rosalina and Ryu are matchups I'm not 100% sure about. Some of them could be even but all of them are -1 for Shulk at the absolute worst.

Sheik, Fox, ZSS and Sonic are extremely bad matchups, Shulk has virtually no chance against them. Everybody else I'm not sure about. Overall it's a pretty mediocre matchups spread but his matchups against a good 75% of the cast are viable tbh [aka no worse than -1].

(EDIT: thank you for the writeup.)

Shulk goes even with Cloud? I'm not really feelin' it.

What I am feeling is that Shulk is the gatekeeper to mid-tier. "Your MU spread must be better than this to pass."

This is one of the major problems ( the combos.) They're probably the hardest to find for Shulk because they're all percentage AND art dependent. You can true combo nair into utilt, into fair into airslash ... but only in the Jump art and around 40%. You can true combo nair into dair ... but only if you MALLC the nair, and only if you MALLC the nair into the Speed or Jump Art. You can combo Dthrow into usmash - but only if you do a buffered deactivation of the Speed Art during the dthrow. U throw to airslash only in jump at certain percents. etc.

Last patch did make low percent nair combos easier though. nair into dtilt/ftilt/utilt is simple and straight forward.

On the hitbox problem, that's another one of Shulk, his 'long range' hitboxes dont last long at all. If the beam actually caused lingering damage while its out (dair/uair/bair/fsmash) they'd be a lot better. Unlike other swordsman who have more sweeping/long lasting hitboxes (Cloud/Ike/Marth/Link Uair for example)

Samus mains struggling with her combo tree take note: your life could be worse.

 

[Vipermoon]

This is one of the major problems ( the combos.) They're probably the hardest to find for Shulk because they're all percentage AND art dependent. You can true combo nair into utilt, into fair into airslash ... but only in the Jump art and around 40%. You can true combo nair into dair ... but only if you MALLC the nair, and only if you MALLC the nair into the Speed or Jump Art. You can combo Dthrow into usmash - but only if you do a buffered deactivation of the Speed Art during the dthrow. U throw to airslash only in jump at certain percents. etc.

Last patch did make low percent nair combos easier though. nair into dtilt/ftilt/utilt is simple and straight forward.

On the hitbox problem, that's another one of Shulk, his 'long range' hitboxes dont last long at all. If the beam actually caused lingering damage while its out (dair/uair/bair/fsmash) they'd be a lot better. Unlike other swordsman who have more sweeping/long lasting hitboxes (Cloud/Ike/Marth/Link Uair for example)

Hahaha. Marth does not have long lasting hitboxes. Infact, this is one of the commonly nerfed things to Ike, Marth, and MK from Brawl. They don't want them to have active frames. And we saw that giving Ike more active frames on Jab 3 and especially Fair were probably his biggest buffs. Roy came out and has even less. Even Cloud has some deadzones in Utilt and Fair.

 

[Ghostbone]

Every time Ally takes Shulk out it gets rekt and he focuses on Mario, JohnNumbers is Wii Fit Trainer, 9B never won anything until he threw Shulk to the garbage for Ryu, and I think he never played him since (could be wrong), and Trela no longer played him since forever, he picked up other trash tiers until Ryu was released. My point is that none of those you mentioned are dedicated Shulk players.

Lmao
9B was a dedicated Shulk player up until Ryu was released.
He's also one of the top 5 brawl players in the world, and gets really good results with Ryu now, so there's no doubting his skill.
Yet when he mained shulk his results were extremely mediocre.

Trela did better with APEX swordfighter and charizard than Shulk lmao. Ally's tried to play shulk in tourney and failed abysmally.

The character is just awful, top players have tried to use him, and the end result is always dropping him. The fact that none of them stuck with him doesn't mean they didn't try to be dedicated shulk players, it means that shulk is too awful to put any time into.

Like people talk about the scary "optimal" shulk constantly changing arts to use MALLC all the time and get all his super specific combos, that's stuff 9B was already doing before he dropped shulk and he was still getting awful results lmao. And the buffs to shulk since then don't actually fix his problems, they just make him a little less bad.

 

[san.]

Shulk was buffed pretty significantly in landing lag recently with another small damage increase. I would hesitate to draw conclusions on him for a while, still.

Landing lag reductions can help with spacing, combos, and pressure quite well depending on how the moves are designed.

 

[Loota]

Samus mains struggling with her combo tree take note: your life could be worse.

Yeah, tell me about it.

 

[LightLV]

Shut up.

UGH!!!

You shut up.

"UGH!!!!"

I'm going to try to keep this short...

Spoiler: Falco stuff

The full actives? In Melee, if you were not playing the PAL version, Falco's Dair spiked from frames 5-24. That's 20 active spike frames. Yes, there was a late hit, but it was essentially Zelda's Dair, but ramped up... Oh, and let's not forget because of a programming error, it was not considered a spike by the game i.e. if you get Daired by Falco, you could not tech it at all. Even in the PAL version, it had 10 active frames for the clean, spike hit while the other 10 was a late hit that sent people at a 361 degree. No character in Smash 4 has a clean spike lasting that long - not counting Falco Phantasm since we don't know how long Falco Phantasm travels in frames. The closest that I can think off of the top of my head is Rosalina's which stays out for 5 frames. Zelda's late spike stays out for 10 frames, but it's a much, much weaker spike; hers does 5% or 4% and with pitiful knockback while Melee Falco's late Dair does 9% and even if it had the same knockback which it probably doesn't, it would be almost twice as strong as Zelda's.

Brawl Falco's Dair spiked on frame 5-7, 3 active frames, and had a late hit from 8-21, 14 active frames. The spike only did 10% and the late hit did 8%. When you think about it... Brawl Falco's Dair was heading in the right direction for a Dair that wasn't horribly broken like in Melee. It just screwed up in one thing: startup. If it was frame say, 11 or even 8, Falco would no doubt have that spike in Smash 4. Maybe it would be weaker like the spike only does 8% while the late hit does 6%, but guess what? A frame 11 spike like that? He could totally use that to setup vertical followups if you assume that Falco's Dair would end up not spiking grounded opponents. Why? Speed. Why do you think Cloud and Villager's Dairs are so usable compared to Falco and Link's Dairs, other high active frame spike Dairs? Why do you think Ryu can Nair to Dair so easily? Speed. If you don't have speed, then you need a good hitbox which for Falco, he does not have that since his Dair hitbox is below him rather than almost central like Cloud, Link, and Villager or how Ryu's is forward making it pretty much a 2 from Nair's 1.

Oh, and finally, his Dair in Smash 4 now has more 1 more active spike frame than in Brawl making it the middle in terms of spike frames, below Melee and above Brawl. It has lower total active frames, but it's still pretty high at 15 active frames to Melee's 20 and Brawl's 17.

Edit: Forgot about this; Diddy and Roy comes to mind as characters with a small hitbox and short active frames on their Dair. Diddy only has 1 active on a frame 17 Dair while Roy's strong hits at the base basically halves whatever range his Dair has.


What? Mario's Dair isn't a spike? Why is that even a comparison? Closest Dair to Falco's in terms of how it works for me would be Cloud's, but in terms of hitbox, it would be Luigi's.

Smash 4 Falco Phantasm does leave you vulnerable and it is a weak spike, but think of it from a game design standpoint and you will understand why this move is inherently a bad and almost impossible move to balance. Melee's was really good when you consider its full hitbox while Brawl's had I-frames, moved faster, had less recovery, and it was frame 16 on startup instead of 18. The fact it's a spike line is insane for FFA and even 1v1 when you know where Falco is all the time. This is why I felt like, knowing Wolf isn't returning, Falco should have been given Wolf Flash. Not just because of reusing assets, but game design-wise, Wolf Flash is an easier move to balance and it spiking still keeps the idea that Falco's Side Special spikes while Fox's doesn't.


Yes, they could have done something else, but you can say that for any other character. Some of the changes you suggested... lowering the hitbox wouldn't really do much when it's already a low-ish hitbox unless you mean make it fire a bolt like Wolf's... Removing the hit stun at a certain range shouldn't be on just Falco - hello there, Sheik. A recharge period was actually considered for in Brawl, but unlike an actual cooldown, they were figuring Falco, Fox, and maybe Wolf's Blaster should short-out sort of like how Diddy's Peanut Popgun would explode if held too long... Problem is that they don't fire their Blaster continuously; most people fire off 1 to 3 shots before doing something else. It would have been a pointless mechanic especially given there was no charge that did anything which for Diddy, altered the angle his peanut traveled.

Any projectile having auto-cancel windows, in my opinion, is bad for both the character and other characters. Why? Look at Falco's Blaster and tell me why. Look at all of his Blasters in each game. They never added any total frames; it was always there; Falco always had 58-ish total frames on the ground and 49-ish total frames in the air. The difference? Melee Falco's ground Blaster first shot came out double the time of Brawl and Smash 4's. It was frame 23 to Brawl's 12 and Smash 4's 11. Recovery-wise, that makes it have 35 recovery frames. It was basically a Sonic Boom or post 1.1.1 Greninja Water Shuriken; high startup and low recovery. What went wrong? Think about it before moving to the next paragraph.

Brawl increased the range to the point where from one end of Final Destination, his laser would still travel past the other end. I don't remember Melee and I don't own it anymore, but I'm pretty damn sure Falco's lasers did not travel past Final Destination from one end. That was utterly insane and damningly stupid. Brawl also decreased startup and increased the rate of fire and travel speed - note how total frames was not changed at all - allowing Falco to fire out 2 lasers from a hop and it'll reach you almost at Fox's no hit stun laser's speed. Tell me, just tell me if you think any of this was fair. It. Was. Not. Even if you had fantastic reflexes, you would have trouble trying to deal with his lasers. For a regular player who's just having fun? It would be utter hell. Brawl Falco was probably the most hated character for both sides.

So, what's this got to do with auto-canceling? Auto-canceling was an ugly, lazily put on band-aid. As I learned more and more about frame data, I realized that Melee Falco's Blaster is what Smash 4 Falco should have. Why? Let's look at the recovery frames for Brawl and Smash 4. In Brawl, Falco's Blaster took 45 frames on the ground and 32 in the air to recover from having 12 frames of startup and 56 total frames on the ground and 10 frames of startup in the air and 41 total frames in the air. Safe to say that ground recovery didn't matter most of the time. In Smash 4, it took 48 frames on the ground and 41 in the air from 11 frames of startup and 58 total frames on the ground and 9 frames of startup and 49 total frames in the air. Melee's ground was covered at 35 frames and in the air, it takes 30 frames to recover from 13 frames of startup and 42 total frames, but like Brawl, ground recovery never meant anything... Or did it? In context to Smash 4, yes, yes, it does. Now, I think Falco should be given his Melee Blaster frame data minus the auto-cancel windows of course. Melee had the most balanced Falco Blaster outside of its auto-cancel windows which were "necessary" for Falco to compete in a game with much more... "faster"? movement.


Yes, there is a reason why it's weaker. Hell, there's even a reason why ZSS's Uair is weak. I'll give you a hint: jump height. Oh, but Sheik jumps just as high. Like Fox and Greninja, Sheik's Uair isn't really meant for continuous juggling like Captain Falcon, Falco, Kirby, Luigi, (Dr.) Mario, Meta Knight, or ZSS's. Theirs are more like hit and chase for a juggle or outright killing - you don't outright kill with the Capt., Falco, or ZSS's Uairs. Here's the problem, Falco lacks any finishers other than Bair, but he needs to hit with the back part of his Uair which is unique since his and Bayonetta's - looks like it from what the trailer showed - Uair hits back then front. ZSS on the other hand has access to Bair and Boost Kick with Boost Kick's insane growth letting her kill so early coupled with something else... Falco's Uair is a bit too strong while ZSS's is a bit too weak... What? Really, it's true. Falco's does 10% and low knockback. By mid percents, he won't be able to land 2 Uairs - hell, he can't land 2 Uairs even in low percents at times. ZSS? She can with her 8% and high knockback. ZSS hits weak enough, but with enough hit stun to move you up and prepare you for a kill; Falco hits hard enough where he'll send you out too far for him to follow up because of his Uair and his low air speed. The same reason goes to why Mario and Meta Knight can continually Uair people so easily while Captain Falcon, Dr. Mario, and Luigi lose that past mid percents or so.

The developers knew since Melee that Falco can easily boot you past the blast zone purely because of his fast double jump. First thing notable about him was his Uair was much weaker than Fox's. So instead, they made him kill horizontally more easily - Side Smash and Bair - than vertically like Fox - Up Smash and Uair. Granted, he had his Dair in Melee, but you do realize what would happen if Falco had a Fox, Ganondorf, or Yoshi Uair right? Say "sorry" to pre-patch Diddy, everyone, because there's an even bigger scumbag to deal with now.


Falco doesn't lack potent tools... Mid-tiers don't lack potent tools; low-tiers do. Low-tiers are disadvantaged because they have so little to work with while mid-tiers have things to work with, but none of them are as powerful as high-tiers. Outside of his Blaster and Fire Fox, none of Falco's moves, including Dair, are below average. It's his issue with zoning and mobility (and shared physics with Fox) that bites him back.

This part I won't comment on because I know jack about Marth, but one thing, wasn't it proven that Marth's range was not changed from Brawl to Smash 4? From Melee to Brawl? Hell yes. Why? Answer me that. Aside from "balancing" which Brawl miraculously considered, it's a very simple answer that starts with I and ends with E.

I have never replied to someone who made my posts feel short in comparison before. Also, I should lead in with this -- I don't think Falco is a good character. Used to, shortly, but not anymore.


On Lasers:
- Falco's laser pressure being so good is less a result of autocancelling and more because they did a bad job keeping it from being an all-purpose tool, even with its tweaks from Brawl. Mechanic wise, they couldn't nerf its utility in the same way they nerfed Fox's (stale damage) because the move still puts the opponent in hitstun. I stand by the idea that Falco should have had a limited amount of blaster uses before his next one had a mandatory reload animation, leaving a temporary and predictable hole in his neutral. But none of this matters because falco wasn't the only character who lost the ability to autocancel projectiles....everyone did. But, again, they didn't compensate for the change in his blaster's design. So the move now is just garbage.

On Uair
- There's no real reason why it shouldn't be a kill move. What else does he even have? FYI, ZSS's Uair will do more knockback and kill faster than Falco's at every %, regardless of damage, because the KBG is so ridiculous. It combos into itself, it combos from grabs, it kills at high %s and it sets up for boost kick. It doesnt HAVE to kill to be a good move, but it still helps her game in more than one way.

On Dair (BTW i meant Mario's Fair was comparable to Falco's current Dair)
- Brawl's Dair was significantly worse than Melee's, though still great for the reasons you outlined. But even if they reduced the spike window to 1 frame, i'd take Brawl falco's Dair to the current trash he has in Smash 4 with neither speed, good hitboxes or actives.

This part I won't comment on because I know jack about Marth, but one thing, wasn't it proven that Marth's range was not changed from Brawl to Smash 4? From Melee to Brawl? Hell yes. Why? Answer me that. Aside from "balancing" which Brawl miraculously considered, it's a very simple answer that starts with I and ends with E.

Oh, you know i believe it was. Forgot about that.

Regardless, let me also lead with this -- I do not think Marth is a particularly good character in Smash 4. And unlike Falco, i honestly never did. But I think he's flawed for the same reasons Falco is. And just to enrage people like Emblem Lord who will vehemently disagree, I still think Lucina is a better overall character than Marth is. Don't really care to get into reasons why because it's apparently a ragebutton around here.

He's another character whom I attribute system mechanic changes to why he's a weaker character in this game, even with hitlag modifiers considered. He cannot control space as well as he used to, he cannot pressure as well as he used to, he's less dangerous facing the ledge, his space is easier to disrespect. His damage got chopped up and the scraps were given to Lucina instead, and even with the KB increases, I don't feel like his tipper nearly begins to make up for what he lost. He seems to be built around the idea that his Fsmash tipper has explosive power, but the little things that used to allow him to dance around landing that move have been ripped from under his feet.

There's some hope for him in his SideB + Uair combos to jab gimmicks, which is the only reason i'd ever still actually pick him.

 

[PK Gaming]

It's kind of a controversial matter because virtually everybody likes to think their character beats Shulk but I think he has the advantage against Charizard, Doctor Mario, Ganondorf, Jigglypuff, DDD, [not sure about Kirby anymore ... both him and Shulk received legit buffs that help them in this matchup], Little Mac, Marcina, G&W, Roy, Samus and Zelda.

Even matchups would include Bowser [Junior], Cloud, [Dark] Pit, DK, Falco, Link, Luigi and Wario.

DH, Ike, Mario, Pac-Man, Peach, ROB, Rosalina and Ryu are matchups I'm not 100% sure about. Some of them could be even but all of them are -1 for Shulk at the absolute worst.

Sheik, Fox, ZSS and Sonic are extremely bad matchups, Shulk has virtually no chance against them. Everybody else I'm not sure about. Overall it's a pretty mediocre matchups spread but his matchups against a good 75% of the cast are viable tbh [aka no worse than -1].

I call bull**** on these 2. And why even bother listing Jigglypuff as an advantage?

 

[Aaron1997]

About Rosa Vs Shulk. Dabuz played a Shulk named DragonBrain on anthers (If you play anter you know who Dragonbrain is lol) I know its not Offline but its better than nothing.

http://www.twitch.tv/dabuz18/v/33748678 Starts at 5:17:00

 

[AnEventHorizon]

Hahaha. Marth does not have long lasting hitboxes. Infact, this is one of the commonly nerfed things to Ike, Marth, and MK from Brawl. They don't want them to have active frames. And we saw that giving Ike more active frames on Jab 3 and especially Fair were probably his biggest buffs. Roy came out and has even less. Even Cloud has some deadzones in Utilt and Fair.

That / was meant to signify sweeping OR long lasting hitboxes. IE Marth uair is sweeping and Cloud's is long lasting while Shulks (outside of nair and fair) are often short duration and thin. Thus making it harder to catch a falling target/etc

Shulk was buffed pretty significantly in landing lag recently with another small damage increase. I would hesitate to draw conclusions on him for a while, still.

Landing lag reductions can help with spacing, combos, and pressure quite well depending on how the moves are designed.

Speaking of landing lag reduction, Robin received similar changes (though I don't know why, since all of Robin's aerials other than dair AC out of a short hop). Did Robin's last buffs change anything for him/her ? Did nair and fair actually have hitbox problems before the patch?

 

[Gamegenie222]

The recent patch actually helped robin. The hitbox buffs help cause they be times where you know you hit them but nair will whiff or ls dair will miss the spike hitbox or ls fair will miss. A good example is trying to nair wario when he had bite out even when spaced you was getting bite now we can use nair to beat it clean. Also landing lag buffs help especially on falling ls aerials especially rar ls uair soft hit or falling ls bair.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Nobody argues that he's a good character ...

It's not the matter that people think he's good just that he has some hidden untapped potential when in he truth he just sucks.

 

[C0rvus]

But he does have untapped stuff. That stuff doesn't make him good but it's there.

 

[Emblem Lord]

You shut up.

"UGH!!!!"



I have never replied to someone who made my posts feel short in comparison before. Also, I should lead in with this -- I don't think Falco is a good character. Used to, shortly, but not anymore.


On Lasers:
- Falco's laser pressure being so good is less a result of autocancelling and more because they did a bad job keeping it from being an all-purpose tool, even with its tweaks from Brawl. Mechanic wise, they couldn't nerf its utility in the same way they nerfed Fox's (stale damage) because the move still puts the opponent in hitstun. I stand by the idea that Falco should have had a limited amount of blaster uses before his next one had a mandatory reload animation, leaving a temporary and predictable hole in his neutral. But none of this matters because falco wasn't the only character who lost the ability to autocancel projectiles....everyone did. But, again, they didn't compensate for the change in his blaster's design. So the move now is just garbage.

On Uair
- There's no real reason why it shouldn't be a kill move. What else does he even have? FYI, ZSS's Uair will do more knockback and kill faster than Falco's at every %, regardless of damage, because the KBG is so ridiculous. It combos into itself, it combos from grabs, it kills at high %s and it sets up for boost kick. It doesnt HAVE to kill to be a good move, but it still helps her game in more than one way.

On Dair (BTW i meant Mario's Fair was comparable to Falco's current Dair)
- Brawl's Dair was significantly worse than Melee's, though still great for the reasons you outlined. But even if they reduced the spike window to 1 frame, i'd take Brawl falco's Dair to the current trash he has in Smash 4 with neither speed, good hitboxes or actives.




Oh, you know i believe it was. Forgot about that.

Regardless, let me also lead with this -- I do not think Marth is a particularly good character in Smash 4. And unlike Falco, i honestly never did. But I think he's flawed for the same reasons Falco is. And just to enrage people like Emblem Lord who will vehemently disagree, I still think Lucina is a better overall character than Marth is. Don't really care to get into reasons why because it's apparently a ragebutton around here.

He's another character whom I attribute system mechanic changes to why he's a weaker character in this game, even with hitlag modifiers considered. He cannot control space as well as he used to, he cannot pressure as well as he used to, he's less dangerous facing the ledge, his space is easier to disrespect. His damage got chopped up and the scraps were given to Lucina instead, and even with the KB increases, I don't feel like his tipper nearly begins to make up for what he lost. He seems to be built around the idea that his Fsmash tipper has explosive power, but the little things that used to allow him to dance around landing that move have been ripped from under his feet.

There's some hope for him in his SideB + Uair combos to jab gimmicks, which is the only reason i'd ever still actually pick him.

You do not have the power to enrage me.

What annoyed me was its been a year and you are spewing nonsense.

Why would your opinion on Lucina or Marth make me upset?

Do you not see my Cloud avatar and Ryu banner?

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Saying Lucina is better than Marth at this point, is like saying Roy is better than Marth in Melee.

 

[|RK|]

(EDIT: thank you for the writeup.)

Shulk goes even with Cloud? I'm not really feelin' it.

EL said Shulk actually wins that matchup (in theory) a few pages back.

 

[Ffamran]

You shut up.

"UGH!!!!"

First off, this is a discussion, not a freaking children's playground. You should know by now how jaded, veteran Emblem Lord is and you responding like that is only going to implicate you as well. So, word to wise, ignore comments like that. Those kinds of comments can come from anyone, respected or not.

I have never replied to someone who made my posts feel short in comparison before. Also, I should lead in with this -- I don't think Falco is a good character. Used to, shortly, but not anymore.

Neither did I; I knew that going in and maining him and moderating his boards. My stance is he's not good, but he's not trash.

On Lasers:
- Falco's laser pressure being so good is less a result of autocancelling and more because they did a bad job keeping it from being an all-purpose tool, even with its tweaks from Brawl. Mechanic wise, they couldn't nerf its utility in the same way they nerfed Fox's (stale damage) because the move still puts the opponent in hitstun. I stand by the idea that Falco should have had a limited amount of blaster uses before his next one had a mandatory reload animation, leaving a temporary and predictable hole in his neutral. But none of this matters because falco wasn't the only character who lost the ability to autocancel projectiles....everyone did. But, again, they didn't compensate for the change in his blaster's design. So the move now is just garbage.

Auto-canceling is a factor of why it was good. If Falco could not auto-cancel his Blaster in Melee or Brawl, he would not be a top tier character when using Blaster would be so much more committal and 64 Fox would not be as good as he was without being able to auto-cancel his Blaster - I was wrong all the time; 64 Fox's Blaster was stolen by Falco. Auto-cancel allowed him to approach with a moving hitbox and approach with little commitment when he suffered almost no recovery for placing a moving hitbox in front of him. Aided with the existence of a frame 1 hit confirm in Melee and the existence of his chain-grab in Brawl, Falco moving in with a hitbox in front of him and above him in Brawl was a scary thing. Falco had a ranged game that brought him closer into his strong close-range game. Range, movement speed, and power meant nothing to him when he could lock you down with a steady stream of lasers.

That idea of yours? Their failure to balance its utilty? All could be solved by only letting him shoot once per button press like pretty much all projectiles in fighting games. Hadouken, Sonic Boom, Yami Barai, Earring Bomb, Wolf Blaster, Blade Beam, and more are single-shot and single-press projectiles. It becomes really stupid when you realize this already exists with Fox's Impact Blaster. Why on Earth they didn't straightup strip Falco's ability to fire continually is beyond me. Nostalgia? Yeah, um... you all took that away from Fox when you gave his Blaster to Falco in Melee. Fox needs the ability to fire continually when his Blaster does no hit stun; Falco, like Wolf, does not. Mega Man needs to be able to do hit stun with his jab, Ftilt, and Nair when his range is much shorter, but even then, the knockback lessens the further out his pellets travel. Bayonetta needs to be able to continually fire her Bullet Climax because that's something you can do in her games, but her Bullet Climax looks like it's basically a long-ranged, linear Fire Breath or Flamethrower. At a certain point, it's not going to do hit stun anymore like Fire Breath and Flamethrower or because of staling.

You are right about Falco not being compensated for Blaster's lost of auto-canceling, but you can also say that for other characters.

On Uair
- There's no real reason why it shouldn't be a kill move. What else does he even have? FYI, ZSS's Uair will do more knockback and kill faster than Falco's at every %, regardless of damage, because the KBG is so ridiculous. It combos into itself, it combos from grabs, it kills at high %s and it sets up for boost kick. It doesnt HAVE to kill to be a good move, but it still helps her game in more than one way.

What else does he have? Really? You're asking that when I answered already. Bair, Side Smash, Dtilt, Up Smash, and Down Smash are his raw killing moves. Nair, Fair, and Uair are his blast zone kill moves. They are not meant to kill at lower percents when they're not kill moves. Ryu's Uair doesn't kill and it's weaker than Fox's despite the second 6% hit having insane 172 growth. Part of it come from Ryu's lower jump and the other part comes from that Ryu's Uair isn't Fox's Uair. Falco's Uair isn't ZSS's. Outside of clones like Dark Pit and even Lucina, no character has moves that are another character's. They have to be different in some way. Even though I would love it if they made Falco's Uair a two-hit move like his Melee Uair or because of its Brawl animation, an aerial Up Smash, but that's another story.

And like I said already, Falco jumps freaking high and with a kill Uair, he would be freaking insane. Yoshi jumps high too, but his second jump takes time to ascend and his Uair only has 2 active frames. It's fast and disjointed, but that's it. Right now, it feels like you're just complaining about his Uair just to complain.

On Dair (BTW i meant Mario's Fair was comparable to Falco's current Dair)
- Brawl's Dair was significantly worse than Melee's, though still great for the reasons you outlined. But even if they reduced the spike window to 1 frame, i'd take Brawl falco's Dair to the current trash he has in Smash 4 with neither speed, good hitboxes or actives.

Of course it's significantly worse than Melee's Dair; Melee's Dair was broken! 20 active spike frames in a game where everyone's recovery was trash. Even in the PAL version, still 10 active spike frames and 10 late hit frames that would probably gimp you unless your name was Pikachu.

Smash 4's Dair has the same hitbox as Brawl's. You don't see Falco spiking with his body; he spikes with his legs. Did you even read what I wrote? Smash 4's Dair has 1 more active spike frame and only 2 less total active frames. Smash 4's frame 16-30, 15 total active frames, spikes on frame 16-19, 4 active frames, and has a late hit from 20-30, 11 active frames to Brawl's frame 5-21, 17 total active frames, spikes on frame 5-7, 3 active frames, and has a late hit from frames 8-21, 14 active frames. Smash 4's has the same hitbox and almost the same total active frames, but 1 more active spike frame. It definitely doesn't have speed and that's what's killing it, however, it does have something Brawl Falco would have loved: the ability to not spike, but launch grounded people up. Do you know how insane it would be in Brawl? It would basically be Melee Dair, but this time, the not spiking part was intended, except only to grounded opponents.

My point was that Brawl Dair was heading in the right direction of having lower damage and lower spike active frames. What it didn't do was making the startup not broken since it was still a frame 5, 10% spike. If it was a frame 5, 6% spike? Sure, why not, but it would be incredibly weak. A frame 10, 10% spike? Hot damn, you just made a good, but not broken or bordering broken. Then there's a new question: does Falco need to spike? What if it Dair couldn't spike, but only sent people up 80 degrees? That new question could answer why Falco has a frame 16 spike in the first place. His high jump and high active Dair creates an issue if you do make it frame 10 or 11 since it would compete with Luigi's frame 10 Dair that only spikes on frame 10 and only has 5 total active frames. A single hit version of Fox's (and Jigglypuff and Kirby's) Dair that has similar active frames, Fox has 13 to Falco's 15, but it'll have a late hit and only do 10% max or say, 6% late rather than a full multi-hit that does 11.4% or a Dair that spikes and on a the highest jumping character in the game. Your call, developers.

Oh, you know i believe it was. Forgot about that.

Regardless, let me also lead with this -- I do not think Marth is a particularly good character in Smash 4. And unlike Falco, i honestly never did. But I think he's flawed for the same reasons Falco is. And just to enrage people like Emblem Lord who will vehemently disagree, I still think Lucina is a better overall character than Marth is. Don't really care to get into reasons why because it's apparently a ragebutton around here.

He's another character whom I attribute system mechanic changes to why he's a weaker character in this game, even with hitlag modifiers considered. He cannot control space as well as he used to, he cannot pressure as well as he used to, he's less dangerous facing the ledge, his space is easier to disrespect. His damage got chopped up and the scraps were given to Lucina instead, and even with the KB increases, I don't feel like his tipper nearly begins to make up for what he lost. He seems to be built around the idea that his Fsmash tipper has explosive power, but the little things that used to allow him to dance around landing that move have been ripped from under his feet.

There's some hope for him in his SideB + Uair combos to jab gimmicks, which is the only reason i'd ever still actually pick him.

Yeah, I'm not going to comment on this since once again, I don't know anything about Marth. I do end with this: I am done trying to explain to you why for whatever reasons on Falco. 4 posts; I should have stopped at 2.

 

[Das Koopa]

Saying Lucina is better than Marth at this point, is like saying Roy is better than Marth in Melee.

I dunno if there's THAT much disparity. Roy is bottom 5 material and Marth is a top 3 character. I'd list Marth and Lucina both somewhere in Low-Tier in Smash 4. Marth is clearly better by virtue of the tipper mechanic, but Lucina doesn't have the buggy sword and the comparatively bad mobility Roy had in Melee.

 

[Latias]

But he does have untapped stuff. That stuff doesn't make him good but it's there.

What is there?

First off, this is a discussion, not a freaking children's playground. You should know by now how jaded, veteran Emblem Lord is and you responding like that is only going to implicate you as well. So, word to wise, ignore comments like that. Those kinds of comments can come from anyone, respected or not.

Emblem Lord is respected? He's the most childish poster I've seen in this thread..