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

[Eugene Wang]

I come from another perspective: namely, the spectator's. And I think Sheik needs a tweak.

Whenever I see a pro Sheik go against anyone, I do an eye-roll. Not because she's top tier, but because there are a lot of them, and each Sheik player has the same basic plan: Combo the opponent from the Underworld to Skyworld and back for damage, then fish for that fifty-fifty once the opponent is around the one hundred something range. Sheik supposedly is a good edgeguarder, and supposedly has trouble obtaining kills without a read, but I don't see that Sheik. I see a Sheik whose best option, to kill off the top, has been tuned to a T, and is snuffing out other playstyles.

My preferred nerf would be to make Sheik have a higher penalty for whiffing a grab. With that nerf, kill-off-the-top Sheik wouldn't be the dominant school of Sheik. Rather, kill-off-the-top Sheik would share her place with edgeguarding Sheik, hard-read Sheik, and attrition Sheik, and Sheik matches would be more entertaining to watch.

 

[Xeze]

I come from another perspective: namely, the spectator's. And I think Sheik needs a tweak.

Whenever I see a pro Sheik go against anyone, I do an eye-roll. Not because she's top tier, but because each Sheik player has the same basic plan: Combo the opponent from the Underworld to Skyworld and back for damage, then fish for that fifty-fifty once the opponent is around the one hundred something range. Sheik supposedly is a good edgeguarder, and supposedly has trouble obtaining kills without a read, but I don't see that Sheik. I see a Sheik whose best option, to kill off the top, has been tuned to a T, and is snuffing out other playstyles.

My preferred nerf would be to make Sheik have a higher penalty for whiffing a grab. With that nerf, kill-off-the-top Sheik wouldn't be the dominant school of Sheik. Rather, kill-off-the-top Sheik would share her place with edgeguarding Sheik, hard-read Sheik, and attrition Sheik, and Sheik matches would be more entertaining to watch.

Add the recovery part to that. Usually when a character is offstage you ask "will it make it back?". With Sheik you know she is going to make it back because it's almost impossible to edgeguard her.

 

[NogGoggler]

I come from another perspective: namely, the spectator's. And I think Sheik needs a tweak.

Whenever I see a pro Sheik go against anyone, I do an eye-roll. Not because she's top tier, but because each Sheik player has the same basic plan: Combo the opponent from the Underworld to Skyworld and back for damage, then fish for that fifty-fifty once the opponent is around the one hundred something range. Sheik supposedly is a good edgeguarder, and supposedly has trouble obtaining kills without a read, but I don't see that Sheik. I see a Sheik whose best option, to kill off the top, has been tuned to a T, and is snuffing out other playstyles.

My preferred nerf would be to make Sheik have a higher penalty for whiffing a grab. With that nerf, kill-off-the-top Sheik wouldn't be the dominant school of Sheik. Rather, kill-off-the-top Sheik would share her place with edgeguarding Sheik, hard-read Sheik, and attrition Sheik, and Sheik matches would be more entertaining to watch.

Getting rid of sheiks 50/50 kill confirm will result in sheiks wanting to play safer and safer, making them needle camp at high percents until they are sure they can get a kill with fair/BF sometime. I don't think sheiks kill power should be nerfed anymore than it is currently.

I really don't think sheik should be nerfed at all. Sheik really isn't the problem. It's ZeRo. And at G3 we saw basically every player getting really close to beating him.

 

[NogGoggler]

Add the recovery part to that. Usually when a character is offstage you ask "will it make it back?". With Sheik you know she is going to make it back because it's almost impossible to edgeguard her.

That 2 frame punish needs to be labbed more. For example pikachu can Bair the edge and snatch sheik out of it pretty damn easily.

 

[Radical Larry]

We can always just hope Sheik no longer gets kill confirms off of Bouncing Fish and has a nerfed throw game, as well as no grab confirm off of F-Tilt. Those would be reasonable nerfs, but I'm waiting for the first person to say "no, that's the worst idea ever!"

 

[David Viran]

That 2 frame punish needs to be labbed more. For example pikachu can Bair the edge and snatch sheik out of it pretty damn easily.

There are players that can get that 2 frame pretty well like nairo. Whenever zero is forced to vanish from low nairo will spike him. The problem is zero refuses to vanish from below the ledge most of the time making it impossible to 2 frame him.

 

[Radical Larry]

You know, Link's probably got one of the most efficient stage-spiking moves in the entire game that goes pretty underutilized. His D-Air, while needing to be spaced out just so the opponent can be launched toward the stage, has very amazing reward once you get it correctly, since absolutely no one can beat it if recovering from under, and Link can send them to the "No Tech Zone" by staying as close to the edge as possible. Now when I say no one can beat it, I'm not over-exaggerating since Link's range, the power of the attack and the fact that everyone can get hit by it, even Villager if Link fast-falls (though Link would kill himself in the process), makes it something good if people master it.

Take me for example, I'll take the opportunity for a possible stage spike with D-Air if I needed to, and if it's on the right stage. All I'd need to do is position so that the opponent gets sent toward the stage.

 

[epicnights]

There are players that can get that 2 frame pretty well like nairo. Whenever zero is forced to vanish from low nairo will spike him. The problem is zero refuses to vanish from below the ledge most of the time making it impossible to 2 frame him

That's one of the things about Zero's gameplay that's really impressive. He's clearly put in lots of work on drifting above the ledge with the start of Vanish then sweetspotting to negate being two framed.

 

[Strong-Arm]

Honestly I believe that a very large amount of the cast has a ton of untapped, underutilized, and underrepresented potential

 

[BSP]

A PIT took a game off ZeRo. I would think feats like this would MOTIVATE people to go further.

Yeah, can we take second and discuss how insane Earth is? Pit is probably the fairest character in this game. He's got nothing to cheese people with. Earth straight up outplays people and snipes them like a boss.

 

[Tizio Random]

Sorry to return on this topic again but I wanted to share my opinion. I think that the best possible nerfs, that are more tweeks than anything, for Sheik are two and very specific: Needles and Vanish.

• Making needles with reduced knockback and hitstun, more or less Melee level, would reduce camping without hurting Sheik so much; she would still have a good tool to stop camping and block approaches. As of now, needles are stupid. Characters that based their gameplan like Villager and Megaman are s*** on by how good they are and that's not fair considering that she's a rushdown. Oh, and she has a needles > bouncing fish confirm that is quite dumb considering how safe that move already is.
  
• Remove the invicibility frames (and maybe the windbox at the end) of vanish would make edgeguarding Sheik at least possible without hurting anything of her gameplan. Teleporting recoveries are strong in this game and if you can't catch them at the startup it's really almost an assured comeback (bar 2 frames).

Will this affect Sheik viability? I really doubt it. She has still the safest moves in the game, amazing frame data and a 50/50 setup to close stocks. But this very small changes (yes, they are small) will make the gap between her and the other characters more bearable.

I want to specify that I'm not crying for a nerf and if this doesn't happen it's fine. I just wanted to share my opinion on this topic and you can respond to this because I think Sheik is quite overtuned compared to the rest of the cast, I will be open for any criticism. Thank you

 

[Pazzo.]

I'm fine with Sheik being the best. I'd just like Ninja Mario to be, well, less that.

Keep to her strengths, and reduce her ability to outplay everyone on every situation.

 

[Ropalme1914]

Which characters can edge guard Sheik's Vanish effectively ? Maybe movements with several active frames able to do it (There is a video that explains how Ryu can do it with Tatsumaki)

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Needle and Dthrow nerf would be better.

Her main problems are that she has the best projectile in the game while being not really projectile based, and that Dthrow sets up too many kill situations and basically removes what is supposed to be a weakness in her kit: trouble securing a kill.

Lower the hitstun on needles, low enough it doesn't confirm into bouncing fish: at that point she can no longer freely stay back and just use needles but they retain usability. Can keep everything else about it. Increase the knockback on Dthrow and change its angle: enough that its no longer a good 50/50 at kill percents. She can keep her Fair string, her recovery options, her few "stronger than should be for this type of kit" KOing options, her mobility: just make what are supposed to be weaknesses in the design actual weaknesses.

ZSS would need less tweaking, though finding a way to make it so that it doesn't conflict with build design would be tricky. Shrink the hitboxes on Flip Kick and Uair maybe? idk, she's less obvious in how to approach.

After that... really all I'd want done is to take the next best 3-5 characters, make 1-2 of their killing options take 3-5% longer just to knock down the bar a hair, and I think nerf wise the game would be pretty set. Most characters aren't breaking their kit designs or overtuned badly. Cloud and MK are in theory on the watch list, that's about it and I think buffing some of the low/mid tier characters would balance things out enough where they aren't a true problem just really strong.

Ideally the game should have 5-8 top tier characters all in the same rung as each other. As it stands, its 2 at most. And while they aren't MK and IC level, just barely a year into SSB4 and the game is already showing the same early signs of "maybe I should grab one of those two. Ya know, just as a secondary for when I run into one of those two". It doesn't need to reach the same level as Brawl for it to be unhealthy.

We aren't asking for them to be stomped into the ground, or even removed from the 1st and 2nd spots in the meta. We're just asking them to not be that extra step above the rest. Instead of the Sheik and ZSS show 2-3 years down the road, we want it to be the Sheik, ZSS, Rosalina, Ryu, Sonic, MK, Fox, Diddy show. Or however the top 8 characters end up settling down as.

 

[PStoken]

Well maybe another way to go around this sort of roundtable is to put our individual main struggles with shiek the freak, that way maybe another person can give us advice to workaround and get something productive of this discussion.

My main gripe going samus vs sheik is that needles outcamp my projectile options, now, while i think this has to do a lot with the fact that samus itself doesnt have the best camping tools against many and most other characters, for me its silly to be outcamped by a character which i dont think needs this tool.
One of the other positive aspects of samus is her ability to edgeguard well, but this is also an issue going with shiek, for vanish reasons.

There was an inspiring set played recently between jwest(solo samus) and Zero(Shiek) during a 2GG tournament in which jwest took game 2 in which he took Zero to duck hunt and benefitted greatly from the stage, forcing shiek to approach, which otherwise is very difficult.
Jwest played absolutely great, he's to my opinion the sharpest samus at the moment and i believe placed 65th at G3 going samus all the way, cheers to him.

 

[Mr. Johan]

Zamus's Nair should theoretically be tackled before Uair is.

Absolutely gargantuan move that combos into Fair, Bair at KO percent, a potential stairway to hell Uair UpB, an acceptable (read: below active reaction time) 10 frames, while also having no landing lag and is now safe on block? No thank you.

 

[thehard]

@all the cloud salt in this thread

Interviewer: Did you do anything in particular to his ability or strength?

Sakurai: In terms of those parameters, I figured a large variety of people would try to use him, so I made him relatively easy to play. However, what was a struggle for us from the planning stages was how to establish Cloud’s image. He becomes a character that’s “fast, but has good reach, and is also very strong.” But such a character is, in one word, invincible, right?

Nomura: That’s very true (laughs).

Sakurai: He has a big sword, so let’s make him swing big…that’s not enough. So, using the consecutives strikes that you see in his side smash as the lynchpin to his design, we made his sword swings fast, but with enough lag so that he has periods of vulnerability, and attempted to balance him that way.

Nomura: Creating the movements are the really difficult parts of making an action game. If you just focus on “smoothness” then you end up with movements that have no spice to them, and feel kind of limp, which obviously isn’t okay. On that point, I thought that Cloud in Smash felt like he was well adjusted to the game, and he moved sharply as well, which I thought was very well done.

Sakurai: He might seem fast, but there are parts of him that actually aren’t, and he isn’t very good in the air. Adjusting things like that is how we balanced him.

I'd venture to guess that if Cloud saw future balancing it would be to his aerial lag, because it's generally agreed on that his aerials are amazing yeah? Food for thought.

 

[JesterJaded]

I apologize for my earlier post being part of the 'loop' of Sheik nerf cries. I'm no competitive player (yet) but I would enjoy it if Sheik and ZSS got minor nerfs, or at the very least just Sheik. No one mentioned any notable players getting taken out early by a Sheik so I'm guessing it didn't happen, or at least not early on. Perhaps the cries are because a Sheik won or x number of Sheiks made it to top 8/16/32/64. Or it's just a national thing or there's just the fact that it's a reoccurring topic here.

If people wish to move away from the Sheik nerf talk than how about this as a question/hypothetical scenario. When Corrin and Bayo come and we get another patch, say Sheik doesn't get nerfed. Say instead, characters get buffed again. Could there be a chance that a character gets buffed enough to at least give her 1 negative mu, even if only slightly? The most likely way this would happen would be buffing a character with an even or not terrible mu against her. Pretty sure most characters that fall under that category are top/high tier themselves like ZSS, Rosa, Sonic and MK but I do recall Lucario being considered a decent character against Sheik comparatively.

With all of the options Sheik has, does it seem possible for a character to get buffed enough to be a problem for her?

Well maybe another way to go around this sort of roundtable is to put our individual main struggles with shiek the freak, that way maybe another person can give us advice to workaround and get something productive of this discussion.

My main gripe going samus vs sheik is that needles outcamp my projectile options, now, while i think this has to do a lot with the fact that samus itself doesnt have the best camping tools against many and most other characters, for me its silly to be outcamped by a character which i dont think needs this tool.
One of the other positive aspects of samus is her ability to edgeguard well, but this is also an issue going with shiek, for vanish reasons.

There was an inspiring set played recently between jwest(solo samus) and Zero(Shiek) during a 2GG tournament in which jwest took game 2 in which he took Zero to duck hunt and benefitted greatly from the stage, forcing shiek to approach, which otherwise is very difficult.
Jwest played absolutely great, he's to my opinion the sharpest samus at the moment and i believe placed 65th at G3 going samus all the way, cheers to him.

I think the matchup against Sheik would be much more bearable for characters with zoning properties if they weren't forced to approach against a character who not only out-zones them with needles, but also has one million and two ways to approach you if she wants to. Zoners that need to play the keep-away game due to few decent approach options (Toon Link and Lucas come to mind, can't accurately vouch for others) are sort of helpless against a smart Sheik that knows the matchup and, if she really wants to win, should exploit this weakness vigorously. Theoretically, Sheik can dictate the pace of the match against these characters when their designs are meant for it to be the other way around.

But I think this thread's been through enough Sheik woes for the past... four pages? And I'd like to apologize for contributing to that as well.

Speaking of Toon Link, I've yet to have the opportunity to watch Hyuga's matches from G3, but how did he fare against rushdown characters? I'm skeptical on how much those matches depended on matchup inexperience and faulty projectile counterplay, but it would be welcome to be proven otherwise.

 

[williamsga555]

Well maybe another way to go around this sort of roundtable is to put our individual main struggles with shiek the freak, that way maybe another person can give us advice to workaround and get something productive of this discussion.

Biggest issue I have against Sheik as D3 is getting off the ledge. D3's big frame means it's hard to use roll or jump+airdodge safely against her. Getup attack is obviously a bit too slow, and her nair does an annoyingly good job at catching normal getup.

Usually I find myself having to go for up air sharking through the ledge, but if she shields through it, I eat a free punish for regrabbing. This continues until they make a mistake somewhere, most of the time.

 

[HFlash]

@all the cloud salt in this thread

Interviewer: Did you do anything in particular to his ability or strength?

Sakurai: In terms of those parameters, I figured a large variety of people would try to use him, so I made him relatively easy to play. However, what was a struggle for us from the planning stages was how to establish Cloud’s image. He becomes a character that’s “fast, but has good reach, and is also very strong.” But such a character is, in one word, invincible, right?

Nomura: That’s very true (laughs).

Sakurai: He has a big sword, so let’s make him swing big…that’s not enough. So, using the consecutives strikes that you see in his side smash as the lynchpin to his design, we made his sword swings fast, but with enough lag so that he has periods of vulnerability, and attempted to balance him that way.

Nomura: Creating the movements are the really difficult parts of making an action game. If you just focus on “smoothness” then you end up with movements that have no spice to them, and feel kind of limp, which obviously isn’t okay. On that point, I thought that Cloud in Smash felt like he was well adjusted to the game, and he moved sharply as well, which I thought was very well done.

Sakurai: He might seem fast, but there are parts of him that actually aren’t, and he isn’t very good in the air. Adjusting things like that is how we balanced him.

I'd venture to guess that if Cloud saw future balancing it would be to his aerial lag, because it's generally agreed on that his aerials are amazing yeah? Food for thought.

He has one of the most exploitable recoveries in the game and he has lack luster options to challenge an opponent shielding. He has some ridiculous strong assets, yes, but he has almost equally strong weaknesses. Leave cloud as he is please. We don't need another Greninja story.

 

[Gibbs]

Needle and Dthrow nerf would be better.

Lower the hitstun on needles, low enough it doesn't confirm into bouncing fish: at that point she can no longer freely stay back and just use needles but they retain usability. Can keep everything else about it. Increase the knockback on Dthrow and change its angle: enough that its no longer a good 50/50 at kill percents.

Wouldn't a slight nerf in uair's angle be a good way to address the 50/50? If uair sends at a more acute angle and allowed for better survival DI, then there would be a lot less incentive to air dodge. I think nerfing both the 50/50 and needles > bouncing fish is a little too much. Especially when Needles to bouncing fish isn't as much of a kill confirm so much as an OP edgegaurding tool.

 

[PStoken]

Biggest issue I have against Sheik as D3 is getting off the ledge. D3's big frame means it's hard to use roll or jump+airdodge safely against her. Getup attack is obviously a bit too slow, and her nair does an annoyingly good job at catching normal getup.

Usually I find myself having to go for up air sharking through the ledge, but if she shields through it, I eat a free punish for regrabbing. This continues until they make a mistake somewhere, most of the time.

Maybe thats not much of shiek, cuz i think other characters could put you in similar situations as the issue has to do a lot with dedede big frame.remember that Dedede can also block ledge options from other characters which i think its pretty cool, maybe the matchup would be better if you could also block sheik's ledge options, but i dont know how vanish works in this case.
Hope someone could give you dedede specific advice with this.

 

[Halifax?]

The conclusion I've come to reading and learning from this thread is Melee Fox is uber with exploitable weakness, SSB4 Sheik is great with no exploitable weakness. Fox is Swampert who has great type coverage all around except a weakness to grass, Sheik is like Spiritomb with no weaknesses, but ghost/dark isn't as useful as ground/water. Yes or no? I understand how Sheik isn't broken but I think super effective moves are fun so I'd rather fight a Swampert than a Spiritomb. Assuming Swampert didn't have a shine of course. But personally I don't know what makes for a healthier meta, best character = best at every gameplan or best character = best at their gameplan.

 

[williamsga555]

Main thing that sets Sheik apart here for D3 though is the ease with which she puts us on the ledge.

Nobody has better horizontal juggling than the fairplane.

 

[JesterJaded]

The conclusion I've come to reading and learning from this thread is Melee Fox is uber with exploitable weakness, SSB4 Sheik is great with no exploitable weakness. Fox is Swampert who has great type coverage all around except a weakness to grass, Sheik is like Spiritomb with no weaknesses, but ghost/dark isn't as useful as ground/water. Yes or no? I understand how Sheik isn't broken but I think super effective moves are fun so I'd rather fight a Swampert than a Spiritomb. Assuming Swampert didn't have a shine of course. But personally I don't know what makes for a healthier meta, best character = best at every gameplan or best character = best at their gameplan.

IMO, Sheik has similar weaknesses to Melee Fox in that she's light (only that does sort of matter in this game) and combo food (also matters). Also similar to fox, good luck trying to exploit that if you ever actually hit her.

On the subject of Cloud, he's fine where he is; his early success isn't much of a surprise when you consider his mobility, disjoints + range, frame data, kill power, and the benefit of matchup inexperience where he gets away with things he probably shouldn't (recovery taking 1st place for that one). Let his meta and counterplay develop, then we'll see where he stands.

On an unrelated note, smooth lander Cloud is absolutely terrifying.

 

[Wintropy]

Funny that Cloud should come up. I've been thinking about his meta recently, and how there's chatter about his development petering out in the immediate future. First off, I don't think that is going to happen. As has been said, the meta is still in its relative infancy, and Cloud is just over a month old. I highly doubt we've seen everything he has to offer, or that there's no further depth to be found in him. He still has plenty of room to grow.

That said, I do think his meta development may slow down a bit from here, at least for the time being. This is a character that came out of the gate running and had an absolute blinder of a first month, not least due to the way his kit is designed. He isn't the most difficult character to get used to, especially if you're familiar with swordfighters, and he has very strong options: good frame data on most of his neutral moves, great autocancels, strong disjoints, a couple of decent spikes and Limit Break to top things off. He's got a good neutral game, his playstyle discourages camping and has the potential to finish stocks very quickly with one read. He's just solid overall, and gets great reward relative to how easy he is to play. There's a reason he's called Sword Mario (for better or worse), and it isn't because he breaks bricks with his fists.

So naturally he's going be picked up by a lot of people and he's going to get good results. His meta developed very quickly because of this, to the extent that he went from "okay swordfighter with a terrible recovery" to "overwhelming swordfighter with a manageable recovery", seemingly overnight. His initial recovery woes were quickly swept aside when people realised just how effective his overall gameplan is and how this "fatal" weakness wasn't that heavy a cross to bear. He made a bigger impression upon his initial release than any other DLC character - even Ryu, whose meta took a few months to really bear fruit. He got his break early and he's made the most of it. There's no doubt he's a strong character and somebody to keep an eye out for in future.

Because of that, though, I think his meta will slow down a bit for the foreseeable future. I think the really big discoveries and advancements happened within the first month of his release, rather than gradually over time. I'd wager it will be a while before Cloud really breaks out of his shell and makes that kind of staggering impression again. Most people have a fair idea by now of how to fight him, I'd say, and I don't recall him dominating anything in immediate memory. He's made a hell of a first impression, but he's being figured out now and I think his results will even out to reflect that - especially now that we're slowly but surely getting better at edgeguarding and countering his recovery options.

On that note, I think this is the big thing that players need to work on if the greater meta is going to change. It's a very different dynamic in this game, due to new ledge mechanics, improved recoveries and greater potential to go deep for kills, and it's potentially Cloud's (and others') Achilles heel. Right now most players don't edgeguard very effectively and tend to just let him get back to the stage for free, and for a character whose recovery should be a big weakness, it's not often made out that way. Effectively guarding the edge will make things more difficult for Cloud off-stage, and in turn encourage Cloud players to develop new techniques to counter this counterplay. Necessity breeds innovation, right? It seems that that's where the next big development for Smash 4's meta will be, and it's something that can potentially make a big difference to how we approach certain matchups.

 

[TurboLink]

@all the cloud salt in this thread

Interviewer: Did you do anything in particular to his ability or strength?

Sakurai: In terms of those parameters, I figured a large variety of people would try to use him, so I made him relatively easy to play. However, what was a struggle for us from the planning stages was how to establish Cloud’s image. He becomes a character that’s “fast, but has good reach, and is also very strong.” But such a character is, in one word, invincible, right?

Nomura: That’s very true (laughs).

Sakurai: He has a big sword, so let’s make him swing big…that’s not enough. So, using the consecutives strikes that you see in his side smash as the lynchpin to his design, we made his sword swings fast, but with enough lag so that he has periods of vulnerability, and attempted to balance him that way.

Nomura: Creating the movements are the really difficult parts of making an action game. If you just focus on “smoothness” then you end up with movements that have no spice to them, and feel kind of limp, which obviously isn’t okay. On that point, I thought that Cloud in Smash felt like he was well adjusted to the game, and he moved sharply as well, which I thought was very well done.

Sakurai: He might seem fast, but there are parts of him that actually aren’t, and he isn’t very good in the air. Adjusting things like that is how we balanced him.

I'd venture to guess that if Cloud saw future balancing it would be to his aerial lag, because it's generally agreed on that his aerials are amazing yeah? Food for thought.

Who is salty about Cloud?

And LOL @ Sakurai. I had a feeling Cloud being easy to play was intentional.

 

[Radical Larry]

Which characters can edge guard Sheik's Vanish effectively ? Maybe movements with several active frames able to do it (There is a video that explains how Ryu can do it with Tatsumaki)

If Sheik goes low on the edge against Link, his D-Air can work if he hits BEFORE Sheik's invulnerability comes with her U-Spec. If Sheik goes high against Link and uses Bouncing Fish, Link better have prepared an F-Air beforehand.

 

[HeavyLobster]

I think part of the freak out is due to the fact that patches are close to ending and the game is still far from the level of balance we want it to be. It certainly isn't poorly balanced by the standards of the series, or even all that much in general. But the meta is solidifying, and a lot of people are seeing their character as being left out.(which happens in just about every fighting game to some extent) A lot of characters don't really have it that bad, since roughly half the cast has shown the ability to place respectably at majors, and there's probably going to be a couple more sleepers who will perform similarly in the future, though of course there will also be characters that decline as people figure them out/their bad MUs become more prominent. Really we probably do need 2 patches to get a game that I'd find satisfactorily balanced(mostly for me means Ganon getting buffed into midtier, though of course other characters need love too), and they'd have to be good patches that focus on key aspects of problematic(too good or too bad) characters instead of just meaningless tinkering around with minutia. Of course this just means getting the existing cast right, nevermind Corrin/Bayonetta. I don't think 2 more balance patches are necessarily out of the question, but I doubt the balance team stays together beyond mid 2016, so more than that probably is. Cloud I wouldn't feel comfortable about with just one shot to get him right, since his tier position is very volatile right now and could go in a number of directions, and of course the new DLC characters could easily pose problems too.

 

[|RK|]

I'm fine with Sheik being the best. I'd just like Ninja Mario to be, well, less that.

Keep to her strengths, and reduce her ability to outplay everyone on every situation.

"Ninja Mario"? Sheik is not that easy to play. At all.

 

[JesterJaded]

Which characters can edge guard Sheik's Vanish effectively ? Maybe movements with several active frames able to do it (There is a video that explains how Ryu can do it with Tatsumaki)

Somewhat theory crafting here, but Lucas has a good few horizontal tools to try and force Sheik into recovering low (zair, PK fire, PK freeze), a favorite being PK freeze -> Dsmash, which has very deceptive endlag.

 

[Rikkhan]

Saying that sheik was not dominant in Genesis 3 is clear BS, Genesis 3 featured a lot of upsets which hurt sheik players a LOT for example False losing to RIN, shaky amazing run beating karna, cacogen and tyrant MK/Sheik, larry beating Mr. R, Vinnie losing to Mr. ConCon wizzrobe and K9 DQ's and even with all that **** 13 players got Top 64, 6 to top 32, 2 to top 4. Sheik underperfomed in Genesis 3 but still the results are by far better than any other character. As many have said sheik is no brawl MK she is definetely beatable still she is crazy good.

Just as example on how close it was for 20XX, let's say karna beat shaky (let's asume karna replace shaky) and Mr. R beat larry:

Losers R1:
Trevonte vs Cacogen

Losers R2:
Karnavs Cacogen

Losers R3:
Karna vs Tyrant /

Loser R4:
Karna vs GSM Void

Top 8:

Losers R1:

GSM Void vs Mr. R

 

[Pazzo.]

"Ninja Mario"? Sheik is not that easy to play. At all.

"Ninja Mario" as in an all-rounder who happens to be a ninja.

If this was Street Fighter, I'd have called her "Ninja Ryu".

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Your label/pet name/analogy/whatever still makes absolutely zero sense.

 

[JesterJaded]

Your label/pet name/analogy/whatever still makes absolutely zero sense.

I prefer Ninja Fox. Or Foxy Ninja.

 

[Jams.]

Someone will take her place because her place is being the best in the game. I can't articulate this enough, she LITERALLY took Diddy's place and I am willing to bet money if the same scenario happens, it'll repeat (prepare for the influx of ZSS assuming it does.)

The slimmest margins won't change the fact that the character will be played the most, by the by. It will change matchup dynamics, not playing ratio.

I agree with this point in theory, as it makes sense to me that with a "play to win" mentality, even the slimmest of advantages can result in disproportionate representation.

However, one of the few scenes I am familiar with, Project M, runs counter to this claim. Since patch 3.5 (the one after the broken Mewtwo patch that nerfed everyone), most players have agreed that Fox is the best character in this game. However, I am not aware of any sort of mass exodus to Fox, despite being on top for quite some time and being one of the only characters guaranteed to stay near the top (back when development was still ongoing) due to his Melee veteran status. Fox also did not have disproportionate representation or results at the top level. However, I recognize that Project M is probably not the best example due to various other factors.

Do you (or anyone else) know of any examples of other fighting games that demonstrate this phenomenon? I apologize for being super late to this discussion, but I'm curious whether there's evidence that supports this theory, or if we should reconsider.

Saying that sheik was not dominant in Genesis 3 is clear BS, Genesis 3 featured a lot of upsets which hurt sheik players a LOT for example False losing to RIN, shaky amazing run beating karna, cacogen and tyrant MK/Sheik, larry beating Mr. R, Vinnie losing to Mr. ConCon wizzrobe and K9 DQ's and even with all that **** 13 players got Top 64, 6 to top 32, 2 to top 4. Sheik underperfomed in Genesis 3 but still the results are by far better than any other character. As many have said sheik is no brawl MK she is definetely beatable still she is crazy good.

Just as example on how close it was for 20XX, let's say karna beat shaky (let's asume karna replace shaky) and Mr. R beat larry:

Losers R1:
Trevonte vs Cacogen

Losers R2:
Karnavs Cacogen

Losers R3:
Karna vs Tyrant /

Loser R4:
Karna vs GSM Void

Top 8:

Losers R1:

GSM Void vs Mr. R

I don't understand this argument. "If Sheik mains won more sets at Genesis then she would've been more dominant." Well, obviously. The fact that Sheik mains lost those sets probably suggests that she isn't that overbearing though.

 

[Tizio Random]

Right now most players don't edgeguard very effectively and tend to just let him get back to the stage for free, and for a character whose recovery should be a big weakness, it's not often made out that way.

This a million time.
Off-stage game here is more important than ever here with buffed recoveries. Many characters can go really deep without risking much and great reward. In fact, I would say that G3 was a good showcase of this, some matches were literally played in air.

 

[PND]

Theorycraft balancing time! Wooo!

My biggest issue with Sheik, when playing against her, is her "get out of jail free" card. She already has the best tools for the neutral game (or at least top 3, I've heard a couple of cases for a couple other characters.) So when you actually do make a good play and get her in disadvantage, she just. . . flops out of it. Some characters can read and bait out the Bouncing fish, but mostly by the time they can attempt to catch it, she's recovered and is back to her amazing-frame-data-and mobility neutral game. It's very frustrating to actually catch a Sheik, have her flop out, and then proceed to throw needles at her until you catch her again, and she flops out and throws more needles at you.

I guess what I'm saying is: I'd add a little bit more recovery to her Bouncing Fish on whiff. On hit, or on Shield, I'd keep it the exact same. A little bit of extra lag on whiff means when she uses it to get out of disadvantage state, if you guess which way she's flopping you'll get a little bit more frame advantage to attempt to trap her and punish. She's still a ninja, and being able to escape makes sense for her general design, but this way it's more of a 50/50 to escape. Seems pretty Ninja-like to me, you can escape as long as you're a step ahead of your opponent. And even when they guess right, they're only at a slight advantage.

Zero Suit? My biggest issue with her is that her kit seems designed for her to be an agile midrange fighter with a strong punish game, and she's got a real weakness when you can bait out her grab. People are figuring out ways around her Boost Kick which is good, but what annoys me about her design is her ludicrously fast jab. It just seems counter to the design of a mid-range character. So you've navigated past her d-d-danger-zone and are now in her face. Good, that's where you want to be against a spacing character -- either safely OUT of their range, pressuring them with projectiles, or IN their faces, stuffing them with your shorter reach but quicker moves. So if you safely navigate your way past the Zairs, blasters, grabs, and nairs. . . you get stuffed by a quick jab in the face, and are now in the d-d-danger zone again.

I like the idea of an agile mid range combo machine, but that jab just invalidates a lot of the work of safely getting in against her. She's got the mobility to get out of disadvantage well, so adding a couple more frames of startup wouldn't completely invalidate the character, it just gives her an extra blind spot for players to try and exploit. Once again, it creates avenues for smart play and guessing games instead of the flowchart I see with some ZSS players "In my face? Check. Are they trying to attack or grab me? Check. Jab." Now it's more of a "Are they in my face? Check. Are they trying to attack me? Run away and pivot grab or dodge in place and punish. Are they trying to grab me? Jab. Are they trying to wait me out and see what I do? Escape! Are they in my face trying to bait me with a dodge? Wait it out, hit them with something." It just seems to me that when you safely did get in that space, Jab was just too quick and covered too many options. It was a panic button of sorts. That's really what I want to get rid of, panic button solutions to pressure.

I'm not a top level player, truth be told I'm usually too busy streaming and hosting these days to play much. . . but when I fight a ZSS or Sheik those are things that annoy me most about the characters. I think, given those two nerfs, Sheik and ZSS would still be 1 and 2 in the game, but it gives some more options for counterplay against them. A couple of windows where you can make them sweat a bit. I don't want to take away their strengths, I just want to add a slight chink to their armour that makes sense for their design and game plan. As I said before, I want to get rid of panic button solutions to pressure, and Bouncing Fish and Jab, at least to my inexperienced eyes, seem like exactly that. They cover holes that could be found in those character's kits. Those are two weaknesses that make sense to me, for what it's worth.

 

[Rikkhan]

I don't understand this argument. "If Sheik mains won more sets at Genesis then she would've been more dominant." Well, obviously. The fact that Sheik mains lost those sets probably suggests that she isn't that overbearing though.

Some posts said sheik wasn't dominant which is false, and the fact that sheik mains lost a lots of sets and still sheik dominated shows clearly that sheik is crazy good, as I said as simple as Karna beating shaky and NAKAT (which it wouldn't be rare) and Mr. R beating Larry (which this was the expected result) we would have a 20XX (I mean Dittos everywhere).

 

[Radical Larry]

I'd really like to see those two characters in particular get nerfed but...
Let's not forget Sonic, who should have his U-Spec and U-Air nerfed, as well as his Side and Down Specials.
We can only hope that since Nintendo sponsored the event, they saw how dominating the top tiers could be and will hopefully nerf them.