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

[Jamurai]

I still think Roy is really underrated and under appreciated.

I for one will only stop "underrating" Roy when he actually does anything outside of local tournaments.

 

[StarshipGroove]

dumb statement of the day
Cloud and Ryu are pay2win. Both chars are overtuned as hell and Sakurai designed them too good on purpose. And Bayonetta will be too.

 

[TurboLink]

dumb statement of the day
Cloud and Ryu are pay2win. Both chars are overtuned as hell and Sakurai designed them too good on purpose. And Bayonetta will be too.

Ryu was destined to be good though. He's from a fighting game that was actually meant to be competitive.

 

[Nobie]

Everything I hear about Brawl Lucas main woes sounds like they constructed an unintended Lucas based on various bizarre advanced techniques and then expected that Lucas to be embraced in Smash 4. Sort of like if Smash 4 Luigi had the ability to wavedash.

 

[JesterJaded]

Everything I hear about Brawl Lucas main woes sounds like they constructed an unintended Lucas based on various bizarre advanced techniques and then expected that Lucas to be embraced in Smash 4. Sort of like if Smash 4 Luigi had the ability to wavedash.

The wavedash comparison doesn't really fit here, considering that the changes done to Lucas weren't nerfing aspects that aren't existent in this game. The majority of Brawl Lucas mains seem disappointed over his aerials, which seem nerfed for arguably no good reason.

 

[StarshipGroove]

Ryu was destined to be good though. He's from a fighting game that was actually meant to be competitive.

Bullcrap, combo characters usually have low dmg output on aerials and Ryu should too but of course Ryu needs nearly heavyweight power, one of the strongest and safest ko moves, and also super low landing lag on all aerials because **** you

And Cloud? "woah this character has a big ass sword, let's give him the best autocancels in the game yuk yuk"
imagine if lightning kicks autocancelled ONE FRAME after the hitboxes ended

 

[Locke 06]

So, this might be important.

Did the wombo Wednesday tournament lasted super late? I don't actually know and am mostly asking for clarification, but Komorikiri's twitter last posted 11 hours ago and the Reddit "congrats" was posted 12 hours ago. That's ~ 4 am local time.

If the answer to the question is yes, why is anyone taking the result seriously?

 

[hypersonicJD]

So was Sheik also ment to be god like? Because it seems like it. She was way overpowered from the start. And even with the nerfs, she is still doing amazingly.

This isn't the: Deposit your salty opinion thread.

We have to discuss about the viability of the characters that we have. Many people will be raging at me. But I honestly want 1.0 Sonic back. Yeah, Lucas doesn't deserve that kind of threat. But at least thank that every single one of his moves (except nair) works perfectly fine. He isn't like Mewtwo that needed a lot of buffs and adjusments in patches to actually be playable.

 

[L9999]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKbLqoXfEns

 

[Jaguar360]

This talk on character choice got me thinking.

Kinda controversial opinion: Lower tier characters in Smash games are not particularly fun to play. The characters themselves are pretty limited of course. But most of all IMO, the system mechanics of Smash don't give the flexibility that some characters would like..

This definitely isn't an opinion I stand by. As someone who has only played Zelda games sparingly, I wouldn't be playing Zelda unless she was a fun character for me. I play Dr. Mario because he's usually more fun than Mario for me thanks to his power, Tornado and Super Jump Punch even though he's a much worse character.

This is probably just because we have fun in different ways. Some people (like you I presume) mainly have fun by winning and having a variety of options available to do so. Others often like the challenge of winning with either an underrated or more limited moveset and occasionally exceeding others expectations. Then some people (like me) having fun doing both. That's probably what sets apart top/high tier mains from low/mid-tier mains outside of character loyalty.
can be fun because they are really good, have a lot of cool tools to exploit and suit my playstyle. However, I also find fun with because I can win with them in spite of their more limited movesets using the strengths that they do have.

 

[Jehtt]

So, this might be important.

Did the wombo Wednesday tournament lasted super late? I don't actually know and am mostly asking for clarification, but Komorikiri's twitter last posted 11 hours ago and the Reddit "congrats" was posted 12 hours ago. That's ~ 4 am local time.

If the answer to the question is yes, why is anyone taking the result seriously?

Yes, it went until about 4. I think that there was a venue change before then, but that was after I left around 12:40 so I'm not sure how rough that was.

 

[UberMadman]

Bullcrap, combo characters usually have low dmg output on aerials and Ryu should too but of course Ryu needs nearly heavyweight power, one of the strongest and safest ko moves, and also super low landing lag on all aerials because **** you

Yeah but most combo heavy characters are extremely fast, whereas Ryu is quite slow in a lot of areas and posseses bad frame data on his air dodge and spot dodge, meaning he has trouble with getting outcamped by a lot of characters. Ryu is a character that you're meant to challenge from afar. It's no coincidence that his worst matchups are characters like Mega Man and Villager. Sheik, howerver, can't be outcamped and can't be approached, and unlike Cloud she has throw followups and among the best recovery in the game, so...

And Cloud? "woah this character has a big *** sword, let's give him the best autocancels in the game yuk yuk"
imagine if lightning kicks autocancelled ONE FRAME after the hitboxes ended

Yeah, only one problem here: Cloud doesn't have lighting kicks. His autocancels are amazing and his aerials are great, but he's not killing you at the ledge at 70 from a short hop or anything.
________________________________________________________________________________________

So, this might be important.

Did the wombo Wednesday tournament lasted super late? I don't actually know and am mostly asking for clarification, but Komorikiri's twitter last posted 11 hours ago and the Reddit "congrats" was posted 12 hours ago. That's ~ 4 am local time.

If the answer to the question is yes, why is anyone taking the result seriously?

It went late because they were forced to change venues and it took 45 minutes to set up again. I watched it the whole time and it went past 3 in the morning. That said, Ranai was not playing on tilt in GFs at all from what I can observe. Keep in mind that these players had just flown out here recently from Japan which is 17 hours ahead of us; in terms of their body clock, it would have been 8 at night.

 

[Locke 06]

It went late because they were forced to change venues and it took 45 minutes to set up again. I watched it the whole time and it went past 3 in the morning. That said, Ranai was not playing on tilt in GFs at all from what I can observe. Keep in mind that these players had just flown out here recently from Japan which is 17 hours ahead of us; in terms of their body clock, it would have been 8 at night.

That's funny, because I saw an average Villager outside of his up tilt the ledge and one edge guard that was good.

Example:
Why would you try and bowling ball a Cloud Dash attack on block if it could get blocked? If it does work, which I assume it does out of respect for Ranai, his reaction was off which is why it missed.

If your body clock is still on local time after a 10 hour flight, that means you are jet lagged.

 

[Nobie]

As fun as that tournament was, I hope that it doesn't mess up their internal clocks adjusting to jetlag. As someone who's had to deal with jetlag a good deal (not for tournaments, no), it can be a super pain.

 

[LancerStaff]

Everything I hear about Brawl Lucas main woes sounds like they constructed an unintended Lucas based on various bizarre advanced techniques and then expected that Lucas to be embraced in Smash 4. Sort of like if Smash 4 Luigi had the ability to wavedash.

From my understanding Lucas didn't grab much in Brawl but instead could pressure shields with his powerful aerials with great autocancels. The techs were just gravy.

PLZ take w/ a grain of salt because I'm no expert on Brawl or Lucas.

 

[UberMadman]

That's funny, because I saw an average Villager outside of his up tilt the ledge and one edge guard that was good.

Example:
Why would you try and bowling ball a Cloud Dash attack on block if it could get blocked? If it does work, which I assume it does out of respect for Ranai, his reaction was off which is why it missed.

If your body clock is still on local time after a 10 hour flight, that means you are jet lagged.

He looked fine to me. He dropped 1 game against 9B and lost both of best of two sets to Komorikiri, (taking a game off of him in both of them,) and other than that he didn't lose all tourney. I also think Cloud has an advantage in the Villager matchup, as Cloud discourages camping and zoning by charging Limit, but he also beats Villager pretty solidly in neutral if Villager chooses to approach, making it really hard for Villager to do much in general. THIS is what makes Cloud so deadly a character by the way, as the fact that he both discourages camping and has a great neutral means that he forces the opponent to play on his terms, a trait shared by Sheik.

 

[Mili]

Bullcrap, combo characters usually have low dmg output on aerials and Ryu should too but of course Ryu needs nearly heavyweight power, one of the strongest and safest ko moves, and also super low landing lag on all aerials because **** you

And Cloud? "woah this character has a big *** sword, let's give him the best autocancels in the game yuk yuk"
imagine if lightning kicks autocancelled ONE FRAME after the hitboxes ended

Please tell me you're joking or being sarcastic. Just because a character is good, or even great, doesn't automatically mean they need to be nerfed. Ryu and Cloud do not invalidate ANY characters within the cast so I really don't see any problems.


A character's "competitive impressions" would be much better if people stopped whining and asking for nerfs rather than trying to improve their favourite character as much as possible.

 

[wedl!!]

And this thread rapidly continues on its vicious cycle, from tier lists where there are glaring... inaccuracies (like Bowser and DK being two tiers apart. I don't get that. Or why DK is higher mid to begin with.) to non-constructive whining for nerfs.

 

[Mario766]

Cloud not having his strong auto cancels would ruin the character. His reward is super low without the auto cancels, he has one of the most pitiful throw rewards in the game, and he doesn't get many strings/combos out of his normals. His Down Air becomes abysmal without the auto cancel, and if you're getting hit by the tail hit of it, you ****ed up, only way to put it. That's a frame ~40 hitbox you're getting hit by.

People complain about his auto cancels and not the stupid hitbox on up-air, which at it's sour spot is bigger than a country mile. I can't think of an aerial that'll outright beat up-air if it's out already. *From above at least*

 

[S_B]

This talk on character choice got me thinking.

Kinda controversial opinion: Lower tier characters in Smash games are not particularly fun to play. The characters themselves are pretty limited of course. But most of all IMO, the system mechanics of Smash don't give the flexibility that some characters would like.

I don't even think "fun" needs to enter into it, but options? Oh yes, options are HUGELY lacking for lower tiers.

Consider some of moves the higher tiers have, and how versatile those moves wind up being. Sheik's bouncing fish is a fantastic attack, throw followup, escape tool, AND recovery option. ZSS' flipkick as well.

Diddy's monkey flip is three moves in one: it's a recovery tool, a command grab, AND an attack, and it can also spike while giving Diddy another jump, all depending on which buttons the player decides to press.

Ryu has options depending upon how long he holds buttons, and he has special inputs, etc.

What this all means in the end is that these characters just have more OPTIONS: They have more moves they can use in various situations, more moves that will wind up being answers to whatever their enemies throw at them, allowing them to win more frequently.

Why is it so hard to ledge guard Sheik and ZSS? Because they each have "supplemental" recovery abilities that allow them to comfortably return to the ledge from all but the furthest of launches (also their recoveries are dangerous to challenge).

So yeah, characters with more options are consistently going to rise to the top simply because it's basically as if they have an extra button on their controller. They effectively have more moves than other characters, and so long as those moves aren't useless, those options will benefit them.

It would be neat if, in SSB5, they took the custom moves for characters and baked them all into one move.

For example, Bowser's custom down+Bs are trip bomb and wind bomb. Instead of making them customs, you could hold down+B to have him use wind bomb, and double-tap B to use trip bomb. Bam. Options.

Otherwise, the "extra button" characters are always, ALWAYS going to rise to the top. The only exception is really Rosalina, but she has insane hitboxes and I guess you could call Luma one gigantic option in itself...

 

[Peppermint1201]

So, this might be important.

Did the wombo Wednesday tournament lasted super late? I don't actually know and am mostly asking for clarification, but Komorikiri's twitter last posted 11 hours ago and the Reddit "congrats" was posted 12 hours ago. That's ~ 4 am local time.

If the answer to the question is yes, why is anyone taking the result seriously?

Yep. When my alarm clock for school went off at 6:30 AM EST I was able to catch set 2 of Grand Finals after I woke up.

 

[MF Viewtiful]

This definitely isn't an opinion I stand by. As someone who has only played Zelda games sparingly, I wouldn't be playing Zelda unless she was a fun character for me. I play Dr. Mario because he's usually more fun than Mario for me thanks to his power, Tornado and Super Jump Punch even though he's a much worse character.

This is probably just because we have fun in different ways. Some people (like you I presume) mainly have fun by winning and having a variety of options available to do so. Others often like the challenge of winning with either an underrated or more limited moveset and occasionally exceeding others expectations. Then some people (like me) having fun doing both. That's probably what sets apart top/high tier mains from low/mid-tier mains outside of character loyalty.
can be fun because they are really good, have a lot of cool tools to exploit and suit my playstyle. However, I also find fun with because I can win with them in spite of their more limited movesets using the strengths that they do have.

I understand you loud and clear. I don't like being limited by the character. In a sense, it's the most honest way to play IMO. If you got all the options to win with your strong main, you can only blame yourself if you lose.

Coming from Arc System games and some Capcom stuff, I just personally find the lower tiers in Smash games underwhelming. A lot of this is due to how the base system limits them. Contrast this to

In Guilty Gear, the character Leo is considered on the lower end of things. But the use of universal system mechanics like the RC system and burst help to alleviate his problems and help him reinforce his strengths. I don't really see any thing like that in Smash. But to each his/her own. Just an observation from someone who has experience from outside games.

 

[Mario766]

I also love how people complain about stupid options when every top/high tier, with very little exceptions, have absolutly baffling options that make you wonder how people balance this game.

Sheik has the best combo ability in the game, is safe on a lot of options, has an almost untouchbable recovery, very little weaknesses.
ZSS has insane reward, combos that destroy opponents, can be played safe, and has a button that can get her out of disadvantage. Her main weakness is having to play unsafe to get her reward, and lack of safe combo starters.
Pikachu has an option that sends him across the entire stage almost, does damage, combo starts, with a fast animation with low lag, and can be mixed up, and platform cancelled. Very small hurtbox and an incredible gimp/combo game. Low range is Pikachu's main weakness.

I could write up on a lot of characters, but I A) Already have hand cramps from my job and B) You get the point.


Literally this game is "THIS CHARACTER MAKES NO SENSE" the game.

The honest characters lose out.

 

[C0rvus]

I understand you loud and clear. I don't like being limited by the character. In a sense, it's the most honest way to play IMO. If you got all the options to win with your strong main, you can only blame yourself if you lose.

Coming from Arc System games and some Capcom stuff, I just personally find the lower tiers in Smash games underwhelming. A lot of this is due to how the base system limits them. Contrast this to

In Guilty Gear, the character Leo is considered on the lower end of things. But the use of universal system mechanics like the RC system and burst help to alleviate his problems and help him reinforce his strengths. I don't really see any thing like that in Smash. But to each his/her own. Just an observation from someone who has experience from outside games.

I do agree that Guilty Gear having universal defensive mechanics helps the game as a whole. Defense in Xrd feels pretty weak to me, so it's not my kind of game, and as such I don't have the best grasp on it; however, I get it's system mechanics pretty well.

Smash as a game doesn't need a universal combo breaker or burst. Since it is about knocking people off of the stage and not reducing their health to zero, taking damage isn't as central as it is in traditional fighting games. Out of shield options vary between characters, some having fast aerials or up specials or long grabs. This dynamic is super important, and is a reason that interactions in Smash are so varied and interesting. With the sheer variety of possible positions you can hit another player with a move, there needs to be dynamic defense. DI is another manner in which this manifests.

One way we could achieve a sort of universal defensive mechanic might be through normalizing the frame data of rolls, air dodges, tech rolls, etc. But again, as a character-centric action game based heavily on movement, Smash might not benefit from this. In lieu of a burst, maybe characters could have an improved recovery that only works once per match. If others could come up with ideas for this, I'm all ears. A fully realized and geared to competitive play platform fighter is my dream.

 

[Mario766]

Smash will never normalize that.

Characters are meant to be unique, not standard like 2D fighters.

 

[C0rvus]

Right, and I agree fully that they shouldn't. I recall Project M doing something of the sort? I hope that isn't true.

Although I do think some characters need an adjustment. Why does Jigglypuff have such a bad air dodge?

 

[Mario766]

Characters were not normalized in PM. Characters differed in some aspects.

 

[RonNewcomb]

Yeah, only one problem here: Cloud doesn't have lighting kicks. His autocancels are amazing and his aerials are great, but he's not killing you at the ledge at 70 from a short hop or anything.

Finishing Touch.

 

[Wintermelon43]

Can somebody please link me to the genesis 3 stream so I know how to watch it?

 

[Ffamran]

People complain about his auto cancels and not the stupid hitbox on up-air, which at it's sour spot is bigger than a country mile. I can't think of an aerial that'll outright beat up-air if it's out already. *From above at least*

Shulk's Dair? Pretty sure his Monado extends further than the width of Buster Sword and past his legs. Another thing on Shulk: neither his Up Smash or Side Smash should freaking clank. It's freaking stupid when somehow, you can cause a laser beam to shrivel up into itself.

Speaking of dumb active frames. A friendly reminder that Ness's frame 5 Nair clean, 11% hit stays out for 8 frames. The 7% late stays out for 3 frames... This is the opposite of how almost all clean/late hit moves work. Shaky definitely abused that if anyone caught his matches on Wombo Wednesday or just remember any sets with him.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

In Guilty Gear, the character Leo is considered on the lower end of things. But the use of universal system mechanics like the RC system and burst help to alleviate his problems and help him reinforce his strengths. I don't really see any thing like that in Smash. But to each his/her own. Just an observation from someone who has experience from outside games.

And yet there are characters that abuse Xrd's mechanics better than he can, not to mention the rest of his comparatively underwhelming, one-dimensional kit/gameplan.

Just a matter of have/have-nots, really.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Mario766]

Monado being transcendent would help and hurt him at different times, I can see why they didn't make it transcendent.

His down air might beat it, but it's so slow compared to Cloud's Up-Air it'd be hard to beat.

 

[MF Viewtiful]

And yet there are characters that abuse Xrd's mechanics better than he can, not to mention his the rest of his comparatively underwhelming kit/gameplan.

Just a matter of have/have-nots, really.

Smooth Criminal

I never said Leo was a good character. Just that Xrd's system mechanics allow him to see more success in that game than say Zelda or Ganon in Smash 4.

 

[LancerStaff]

The honest characters lose out.

There's honest characters in this game? Really, everybody has some gimmick that'll kill before 100% or a little latter but safer. Dark Pit was the closest thing we had to an honest character before the Electroshock buff... Yep, I don't think Pit's completely honest with his arrows kinda destroying certain characters. Duck Hunt is kinda honest too but if he had a decent way to kill... Yeah.

There are no honest characters, just bad ones.

 

[Ffamran]

Monado being transcendent would help and hurt him at different times, I can see why they didn't make it transcendent.

His down air might beat it, but it's so slow compared to Cloud's Up-Air it'd be hard to beat.

I meant more making it so his Up and Side Smash were recoilless like Little Mac's Utilt. The rest of his moves? Eh. Probably shouldn't be.

His Dair wouldn't be able to challenge Cloud's Uair straight on, but if Cloud uses Uair too early, he stalls in the air, and Shulk could just Dair to punish that.

 

[Mario766]

Oh. That's different. You mean you want it to be able to interact with other hitboxes, but not stop if it did.

That would be nifty to have.

I agree with your last statement about honest characters, as well. Pit is the closest but he isn't at the same time.

 

[Plain Yogurt]

It kinda blows that the meat of Shulk's smashes that WOULD beat out a weaker attack are gated by the setup hit doing much lower damage. I'd second the Little Mac-esque change, though I don't believe we've had changes on that level before. Then again we got character attribute changes last patch we never thought we'd get so...maybe?

The worst thing though is when the floatier characters fall out of Shulk's Smashes because of the setup hit. Hell I think I saw a vid floating around where a Jiggs KO'd Shulk by resting in between his USmash hits.

 

[aεrgiα]

This is something I've been hammering home on the Bowser discord: if a character has spawnable items that they can use, you better as **** know how to use them just as well as that character does (especially where the item is unique and they can only spawn one at a time).

Everyone can "key dribble" like Pac-man, make good use of Diddy's banana, and perform the "Mr.Eric Special" if they get ahold of ROB's gyro, but most players just mindlessly hand these items back to the opponent immediately on catching them.

tfw you main a character with a tether, no key dribble for me(its so fun doing it though)

Oh, okay. I watched again.

I usually do D-Throw > Fair actually, or D-Throw > Uair if I think Fair will whiff.

It's a .5% damage difference with Fair but it's pretty sufficient. It works better on fastfallers (no surprise).

I'm also interested in how he conducted the tests because if he's doing it in slow motion via input then it's probably easier to SDI like that, when the game is running at half speed. EDIT: Eyup he is. You should try and find a local buddy and see how easy it is to SDI in real time (which is far more relevant). EDIT 2: Nevermind, rewatched. Yeah I'll keep using Fair I guess whenever I get Lucas when I pick Random *shrug*

the thing is, if you only get one nair the damage difference is negligible, but nair is his main combo tool, from dthrow, you can do nair -> nair -> uair at 0%, nair->uair(or fair if u like the move so much ) at low percents, nair-> footstool to jab lock etc... the thing is, lucas still has other moves ofc, but if your gonna completely nerf a characters neutral from brawl and instead make him a sort of aerial combo character then u cant just go and basically invalidate his best/only aerial combo move(ok theres uair, but the hitbox on that move is tiny) its these kind of things that make me so frustrated at the balancing of the game sometimes(it doesnt help that the other character i play is d3, but thats a different topic)

So was Sheik also ment to be god like? Because it seems like it. She was way overpowered from the start. And even with the nerfs, she is still doing amazingly.

This isn't the: Deposit your salty opinion thread.

We have to discuss about the viability of the characters that we have. Many people will be raging at me. But I honestly want 1.0 Sonic back. Yeah, Lucas doesn't deserve that kind of threat. But at least thank that every single one of his moves (except nair) works perfectly fine. He isn't like Mewtwo that needed a lot of buffs and adjusments in patches to actually be playable.

no, his other moves dont work, someone linked a video detailing some of his problems already, but really, his dair doesnt properly connect all hits most of the time, the uair hitbox is close to unuseable outside of combos, fairs animation doesnt match the hitbox, so the psi hexagons come out but the hitbox doesnt. theres a system tip that says lucas' usmash catches people hanging on the ledge, funny thing is that it doesnt(i believe the launcher hits them for 3% and thats it:/ ), the best part about this move is that its supposed to be the strongest vertical killing move and has correspondingly terrible frame data, yet true srk is stronger knockback wise, has much better invincibility frames, comes out faster and has less endlag, balance team pls!!! dsmash has 3 hits, if one of them gets blocked the rest just become pretty looking endlag, shulks dsmash also has 3 hits, why doesnt blocking one hit remove the hitboxes of the rest of the hitboxes, in fact why doesnt blocking (or getting hit by it) any hit of a move with multiple hitboxes remove all the following hitboxes, i just dont see the logic behind it :/ dtilt got nerfed from brawl for no reason and worst of all upb sometimes just randomly bounces off the ledge instead of snapping to it :/ no his other moves do not work perfectly fine, mewtwo was playable prepatch, the patch just made him better, theres no unplayable character in this game, theres characters with big design flaws, but theyre not "unplayable"...

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Oh. That's different. You mean you want it to be able to interact with other hitboxes, but not stop if it did.

That would be nifty to have.

I agree with your last statement about honest characters, as well. Pit is the closest but he isn't at the same time.

define "honest." I define it as when you have no nonsense gimmick to rely on to win, or a shenanigan to abuse. Nothing is abusable. In that sense, pit and Mario bros are some that I think are honest.

 

[Nobie]

If Shoryuken didn't have the frame data it does, it wouldn't be a Shoryuken.

Oh no, Lucas's Up Smash isn't as good as a Shoryuken. All it has going for it is an invincible start up, intangibility afterwards, and 25 active frames of deadly power.