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

[S_B]

Diddy is honestly hard to rank. He had roughly even MUs with #s 1 and 2, but then arguably loses to several other good characters (Rosa, Fox, Sonic). The latter holds him back in some cases, but then the same is arguably true for Rosa and possibly even ZSS in other MUs. Meanwhile, a lot of mid-tier mains complain about Diddy (Peach, Yoshi, and G&W are some examples). He may not win super free against heavies or anything, but he obviously causes trouble for other good characters. So based on my criteria (which I realize are debateable), A+ and 4th place seemed like the best fit for him.

Diddy is pretty damn good against heavies, but it's hard to say if that's just because most players just don't use good banana counterplay. Most players I see, upon getting hold of the banana peel, throw it back at Diddy's shield immediately, which is just silly. The banana is the tool Diddy is going to use to open you up for a grab or smash attack. At least make him guess as to what you're going to do with it and ideally hit HIM with it and do the reverse to him.

I think a top level player has no excuse for not labbing the hell out of their own options with all of the spawnable projectiles in this game: bombs, turnips, gyros, fruit, etc. If you're going to be fighting these characters, item counterplay can and will make the difference between beating them and being beaten by them.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Diddy's disadvantage against Fox is VERY slight and I doubt his matchup against Sonic is much worse than that. Luigi is probably a more difficult matchups for Diddy than either of them.

 

[Radical Larry]

S_B If I grab Mega Man's Metal Blade or Diddy's Banana with Ganondorf, I'm going to end up resorting to using only Ganondorf's special attacks for a long time to keep the opponent from spawning them again. While this might get predictable, it can also allow me to unpredictably throw the banana, since the Diddy player may forget about it for a bit. But if Diddy's at a high enough damage, I can just Warlock Punch (and hope) or Wizard's Foot the Diddy from the air with the non-meteor hitbox.

It's just what I'd normally do. I'd take time.

 

[Djent]

I dunno, Foxes have been beating Diddies pretty soundly for some time now (Xzax and NAKAT > MVD, SH > Nietono, various mid-level Foxes > Angel Cortes) and I'm hard-pressed to think of results going consistently in the other direction.

 

[LancerStaff]

S_B If I grab Mega Man's Metal Blade or Diddy's Banana with Ganondorf, I'm going to end up resorting to using only Ganondorf's special attacks for a long time to keep the opponent from spawning them again. While this might get predictable, it can also allow me to unpredictably throw the banana, since the Diddy player may forget about it for a bit. But if Diddy's at a high enough damage, I can just Warlock Punch (and hope) or Wizard's Foot the Diddy from the air with the non-meteor hitbox.

It's just what I'd normally do. I'd take time.

Dorf has a rather unique advantage when holding an item, since his side B is a command grab. Against most characters they can just shield and react to anything that'd come at them, but not Dorf.

Isn't this part of why Diddy's so good? He can make potent items and still get past shields, although maybe weakly. Wario in Brawl, too, with tires and chomp.

 

[S_B]

S_B If I grab Mega Man's Metal Blade or Diddy's Banana with Ganondorf, I'm going to end up resorting to using only Ganondorf's special attacks for a long time to keep the opponent from spawning them again. While this might get predictable, it can also allow me to unpredictably throw the banana, since the Diddy player may forget about it for a bit. But if Diddy's at a high enough damage, I can just Warlock Punch (and hope) or Wizard's Foot the Diddy from the air with the non-meteor hitbox.

It's just what I'd normally do. I'd take time.

Yeah, basically, you don't want to hold onto it for the remainder of the match, but you DO want to at least make the opponent guess a few times as to when you're going to throw it.

You basically need to condition them the same way they're going to condition you. Also, if you hit ROB with his gyro and Peach with her turnip, you can probably catch it again if you're close enough.

Dorf has a rather unique advantage when holding an item, since his side B is a command grab. Against most characters they can just shield and react to anything that'd come at them, but not Dorf.

Isn't this part of why Diddy's so good? He can make potent items and still get past shields, although maybe weakly. Wario in Brawl, too, with tires and chomp.

Yeah, anyone with a command grab or B moves that threaten shields should be holding onto the banana for a little longer than "throwing it immediately".

At the very least, anyone can stand on the ground where the throw is the strongest and smash throw the item up so it stays out of the hands of your opponent for the longest time before falling back to the stage. This is with unique items, like banana and gyro, since Peach/Link can just spawn more and it also only works with items that are subject to gravity (ie not Pacman's key or MM's blade).

If you get Pac's key away from him, you can z-drop dribble it just like we've seen skilled Pacman players do. If ROB's gyro doesn't hit a shield, you can recover it again and again as it bounces once on the ground before vanishing.

You can significantly reduce the advantage these projectile characters have over you by knowing how to use these projectiles as well as they do.

 

[Wintropy]

To me it's less about seeing near future changes in the meta in a direction we want it to go. It's about the long lasting potential of this game, the future, the possibilities, what players years from now can do with undeveloped characters, and the game staying fresh for 20+ years bar there is a new Smash installment that is a successor and worthy replacement of Smash 4. Smash 4 is a big game but it's still a very small eSport. Also there's 58 friggin characters, so players are going to be spread very thin. Balance should balance the game without hurting the design too much. It shouldn't consider what characters have what dedicated players or how talented those players are. They give us the playdoh and we continuously shape it over and over.

Agreed, but I didn't say anything about balance in my original post. I entertained the hypothesis ("If Sheik and ZSS didn't exist, how would it affect these characters?") and suggested that it would make a difference, but I don't think it would change the meta. People would still want to play their favourite characters and / or the best characters, just that there'd be a bit more room for others to breathe.

The dev team shouldn't nerf Sheik and ZSS because ZeRo and Nairo do well with those characters, and the reason they do well with Sheik and ZSS is only partly because they're the best characters in a competitive sense. Fundamentally, they do well because they're damn good players. I'm just saying that the reason we don't see more results from the Pits or Greninja isn't necessarily because of Sheik and ZSS, it's because people don't really want to play those characters for whatever reason. And that's okay. The dev team shouldn't balance to cater for them either, they should find the problem children in the roster and tweak them as appropriate. People will play whomever they want to play. Balance has nothing to do with it.

 

[S_B]

People will play whomever they want to play. Balance has nothing to do with it.

Well, yes and no...

Some crazy fools (like me) will stick with one character to the bitter end and would prefer to quit the game than trying to learn a higher tier character that they don't like.

But there are a lot of professional players who play the characters they know give them the best chances of winning, and Zero and Nairo certainly fall into this category.

Zero mained Bowser mostly during the 3DS days, but switched to Diddy when it became clear that hoo-haa was the future. He later went on to make a video basically telling people to not play Bowser (which is largely good advice). Given these events, I find it unlikely that he has much personal attachment to any of the characters.

Beyond that, people need to give top players credit for one other thing: they're going to play the best characters in the game because those are the characters that give them the best chances of winning. Would Shiek and ZSS be where they are without Zero and Nairo? Maybe, but the reverse is also true: if Sheik and ZSS didn't yield the results they did, Zero and Nairo would be using someone else instead.

 

[Wintropy]

Well, yes and no...

Some crazy fools (like me) will stick with one character to the bitter end and would prefer to quit the game than trying to learn a higher tier character that they don't like.

But there are a lot of professional players who play the characters they know give them the best chances of winning, and Zero and Nairo certainly fall into this category.

Zero mained Bowser mostly during the 3DS days, but switched to Diddy when it became clear that hoo-haa was the future. He later went on to make a video basically telling people to not play Bowser (which is largely good advice). Given these events, I find it unlikely that he has much personal attachment to any of the characters.

Beyond that, people need to give top players credit for one other thing: they're going to play the best characters in the game because those are the characters that give them the best chances of winning. Would Shiek and ZSS be where they are without Zero and Nairo? Maybe, but the reverse is also true: if Sheik and ZSS didn't yield the results they did, Zero and Nairo would be using someone else instead.

I meant balance has nothing to do with the point I was making. Apologies, I should have formatted it better.

Out of interest, what is ZSS's worst matchup agreed to be? A friend of mine recently picked her up and I realised I don't know a whole lot about her relationship with the rest of the cast (except that she beats Pit, the superheavies and probably a good few others).

 

[Y2Kay]

I meant balance has nothing to do with the point I was making. Apologies, I should have formatted it better.

Out of interest, what is ZSS's worst matchup agreed to be? A friend of mine recently picked her up and I realised I don't know a whole lot about her relationship with the rest of the cast (except that she beats Pit, the superheavies and probably a good few others).

Greninja doesn't beat her but he gets an honorable mention do to his shadow sneak jank. Just like MK we can escape the Up B with it a good majority of the time (I have messed it up b4)

If Sheik gets nerfed, Greninja's relevance will theoretically skyrocket. MK and ZSS usage would be a lot more common. Two match ups he does really well in. Just by nerfing sheik to an even matchup would be a potential game changer for him.

Jeez, now I'm all excited, need to get back to reality!

 

[G. Stache]

I meant balance has nothing to do with the point I was making. Apologies, I should have formatted it better.

Out of interest, what is ZSS's worst matchup agreed to be? A friend of mine recently picked her up and I realised I don't know a whole lot about her relationship with the rest of the cast (except that she beats Pit, the superheavies and probably a good few others).

It's usually considered to be Pikachu, and I think Kirby is an even MU. Sheik is also said to be around evenish (probably a bit in Sheik's favor, though). For what it's worth, while it's definitely in ZSS' favor, it's not too terrible for Luigi according to quite a few Luigi mains (including my personal opinion). Just a shame that the recent Marss v ConCon set said otherwise...

 

[AvengerV]

Diddy is honestly hard to rank. He had roughly even MUs with #s 1 and 2, but then arguably loses to several other good characters (Rosa, Fox, Sonic). The latter holds him back in some cases, but then the same is arguably true for Rosa and possibly even ZSS in other MUs. Meanwhile, a lot of mid-tier mains complain about Diddy (Peach, Yoshi, and G&W are some examples). He may not win super free against heavies or anything, but he obviously causes trouble for other good characters. So based on my criteria (which I realize are debateable), A+ and 4th place seemed like the best fit for him.

Diddy Kong's MU spread is actually really good. Diddy doesn't exactly lose to Fox as some people think. ZeRo even agrees that Diddy wins the MU. ZSS vs Diddy is really doable for Diddy. I remember Esam saying that Diddy wins the MU and tbh I think its pretty even. Diddy is just so underrated because he doesn't have that great results outside of ZeRo but really if ZeRo uses Diddy Kong there has to be something special about him. Diddy's only terrible match up is Rosalina but outside of that Diddy can beat any character if you play smart because he has the neutral game to do it.

 

[David Viran]

If Sheik gets nerfed, Greninja's relevance will theoretically skyrocket. MK and ZSS usage would be a lot more common. Two match ups he does really well in. Just by nerfing sheik to an even matchup would be a potential game changer for him.

This made me realize that when we think about the meta after nerfs a lot of people seem to assume that the character that got nerfed doesn't exist anymore. Then I started thinking about how zss invalidates fatties and people talking about nerfing her so she doesn't invalidate them. But can she be feasibly nerfed to make the fatties mu with her manageable without changing her design and/or making her completely irrelevant?

 

[Mr. Johan]

Zamus's design is intended to make use of her plasma whip for paralyzing and extended grabbing while still being spry and fleet-footed.

Increasing landing lag on Nair, Making Jab Frame 3, possibly lowering the range or increasing the startup on Zair, losing the huge power and size of the Flip Jump hitbox, while decreasing the startup or lag on Paralyzer and increasing the power of Side B would keep her design in check while also giving heavyweights the opportunity to advance and play their game without being shut out everywhere.

 

[HeavyLobster]

This made me realize that when we think about the meta after nerfs a lot of people seem to assume that the character that got nerfed doesn't exist anymore. Then I started thinking about how zss invalidates fatties and people talking about nerfing her so she doesn't invalidate them. But can she be feasibly nerfed to make the fatties mu with her manageable without changing her design and/or making her completely irrelevant?

As far as Bowser, DK, D3, and Zard go, it would be hard. Heavy characters with big but not super wide hitboxes aren't really invalidated by her even if they lose. Ike and Ganon struggle for sure, but do have a fighting chance against her.(not that it helps Ganon any)

 

[Halifax?]

What if Wizard Kick was buffed to bounce off shields like Bouncing Fish, would it break Ganon? With correctly tuned shield damage.

 

[Vipermoon]

-Why the **** does Ganondorf not have either a kill throw or a throw followup? He has little tiny t-rex arms when grabbing but stretch armstrong arms when LEDGEgrabbing. Plus he's magical and magic/psychic characters historically have stronger throws.

Furthermore Captain Falcon does have a kill throw and the grab to get it.

 

[Sneak Sneaks]

What if Wizard Kick was buffed to bounce off shields like Bouncing Fish, would it break Ganon? With correctly tuned shield damage.

Thats the world I want to live in

 

[HeavyLobster]

What if Wizard Kick was buffed to bounce off shields like Bouncing Fish, would it break Ganon? With correctly tuned shield damage.

Not really. Even with such a buff, to punish current Wizkick all you have to do is let it hit you at low %s.

 

[apparently fuz]

I don't understand the whole prospect of 'let's nerf ZSS/Sheik so that they do not invalidate super heavyweights'. Ok, you nerf them. What happens? They're still going to have pretty bad MUs against some specific archetypes in the cast, such as zoners like Villager or combo based fighters like Pikachu or Ryu. Simply nerfing some of the most prevalent characters in the metagame isn't enough to boost heavies -- their inherent weaknesses still need to be addressed in order to hold more their own more effectively.

 

[Mario766]

Super Heavyweights can't be fixed by just nerfing bad MUs.

Their design doesn't allow for that.

 

[L9999]

Heavies, Zelda, and Jigglypuff are a broken mess of game design that cannot be fixed easily. Even if you nerf Killager, ZSS, Sheik and the likes heavies will still be combo food, have mediocre mobility and mediocre frame data. I mention Zelda and Jigglypuff because they have a really bad design and a misplaced buff can make them broken, no matter how trash they are now.

 

[Mario766]

Depends on how strong the Heavy is in comparison.

Case and point: Ryu

 

[HeavyLobster]

I don't understand the whole prospect of 'let's nerf ZSS/Sheik so that they do not invalidate super heavyweights'. Ok, you nerf them. What happens? They're still going to have pretty bad MUs against some specific archetypes in the cast, such as zoners like Villager or combo based fighters like Pikachu or Ryu. Simply nerfing some of the most prevalent characters in the metagame isn't enough to boost heavies -- their inherent weaknesses still need to be addressed in order to hold more their own more effectively.

The only way to make super heavies viable is to make them really strong while keeping tough archetypes for them like speedsters and zoners fairly tame. Right now the game is too power creeped for them to do too well. If the only chars with strong easy kill confirms were characters like DK and Bowser they could plausibly be good enough to win nationals. For now there's not much reason to pick them over faster and safer characters who also have reliable kill confirms. Bowser and DK right now are probably largely tapped out at mid/high mid tier, and buffs to the likes of D3, Ganondorf, and Charizard probably wouldn't be able to get them past that point without making them totally ridiculous.

 

[L9999]

Should have wrote fatty, sometimes I forget that are also heavyweights, but they can do stuff because their frame data and other attributes are not total garbage.

 

[S_B]

As far as Bowser, DK, D3, and Zard go, it would be hard. Heavy characters with big but not super wide hitboxes aren't really invalidated by her even if they lose. Ike and Ganon struggle for sure, but do have a fighting chance against her.(not that it helps Ganon any)

It's doable.

The real key is giving them some form of counterplay, and that would start by giving SOME of her moves some kind of lag on them because they currently have so little.

Same with Sheik. Needles should probably go about half the distance they do, given their speed and transcendent property. At the very least, Sheik should be the one who has to approach characters with projectile-centric games, not the other way around.

The only way to make super heavies viable is to make them really strong while keeping tough archetypes for them like speedsters and zoners fairly tame.

Heavies primarily need two things to be on even footing with the rest of the cast:

-Some ability that allows them to get in and enough reward from the act of getting in to justify their other weaknesses

-A reliable means of confirming KOs

Heavies are meant to lose the neutral more often than not, but the compensation for that is that they need relatively fewer confirms in order to do the same amount of damage and ideally get the KO.

The problem heavies in SSB4 have is that there are a few characters that can simply overwhelm them with hitboxes/grabs and give them little to no room for counterplay, the absolute worst offenders being Sheik and ZSS. Heavies also typically need to capitalize on the mistakes of their opponents, but again, Sheik and ZSS are just generally so safe as characters that they don't need to overextend in order to rack damage on heavies, and heavies being super easy to combo for them only makes this much, MUCH worse.

 

[StarshipGroove]

If super heavyweights possessed extreme dmg and power, would they fare better, or would that just polarize their matchups and render them unfun to play against?
(for example 16% for a simple jab that KOs at 100%, and that would be their weakest attack)
I've wondered this for some time.

 

[meleebrawler]

Heavies, Zelda, and Jigglypuff are a broken mess of game design that cannot be fixed easily. Even if you nerf Killager, ZSS, Sheik and the likes heavies will still be combo food, have mediocre mobility and mediocre frame data. I mention Zelda and Jigglypuff because they have a really bad design and a misplaced buff can make them broken, no matter how trash they are now.

I'll tell you what a badly designed fatty is. , and to a lesser extent . Melee (particularly NTSC) in general is this bizarro world where the speedsters like Fox and Sheik hit harder than big guys in general. Only had power to match, and that's probably just because they only had to add damage to Falcon's moves.

Say what you will about the likes of and , but at least the latter actually has some threatening burst mobility and both have combos to go with their raw power now.

Jigglypuff was kind of designed to be intentionally bad in the first game, and hasn't been changed much outside of her airspeed to make her something other than "worse Kirby". Sheer luck with game mechanics is what made her good in Melee. There's a reason it took people a while to see how well she could abuse Melee's physics, her moveset in of itself outside Rest and a longer-than-it-looks bair still wasn't very impressive.

 

[Big-Cat]

You guys always forget there's such a thing as a necessary drawback.

 

[S_B]

If super heavyweights possessed extreme dmg and power, would they fare better, or would that just polarize their matchups and render them unfun to play against?
(for example 16% for a simple jab that KOs at 100%, and that would be their weakest attack)
I've wondered this for some time.

Eh, it would just polarize them, and it would also make them a nightmare in casual play.

Their problem isn't power, they have enough of that. It's just that they lack the tools to get in on some characters, or more accurately, some characters can keep them out indefinitely and have no problem getting in on them.

They could use some buffs and tweaks here and there: maybe some faster options here and there and whatnot, but it's far less hopeless for heavies in this game than it has been in any other SSB game to date.

Also, I think the biggest buff D3 could get is making his gordo not deflect on nearly ANY damage, especially other projectiles. I mean, Sonic can spin dash through it, FFS, and Sheik's needles, Mario's fireball, and a number of other projectiles should NOT deflect the bloody thing.

Maybe it should need to take X% damage before it deflects, like how Pac-Man's hydrant works...

 

[HeavyLobster]

Heavies are meant to lose the neutral more often than not, but the compensation for that is that they need relatively fewer confirms in order to do the same amount of damage and ideally get the KO.

Except characters like Zero Suit can beat them in neutral and do more damage/get the kill confirm when they do win faster on top of that. This has been true for speedy high tiers vs. fatties in every single Smash game, the only exception being Brawl D3 with his stupid chaingrab being able to even up the score, but even here this doesn't apply to lightweights like MK.

 

[aεrgiα]

If super heavyweights possessed extreme dmg and power, would they fare better, or would that just polarize their matchups and render them unfun to play against?
(for example 16% for a simple jab that KOs at 100%, and that would be their weakest attack)
I've wondered this for some time.

well of course they would fare better, since its a direct "every move is simply better" buff, but it would basically make their mu volatile, the problem with most heavies isnt their damage and kill power, as they have plenty of that already, its usually the bad frame data and the lack of "anti-combo" options along with huge hurtboxes and good weight for comboing that holds them back

also im pretty sure sheiks needles are one of the few projectiles that dont deflect gordos (along with fox lasers) which makes the mu manageable since u can throw out a moving wall to block needles(doesnt help that she can just safely jump in with fair or nair to launch the spiky ball right back in your face, but thats another matter ;p )

 

[S_B]

Jigglypuff was kind of designed to be intentionally bad in the first game, and hasn't been changed much outside of her airspeed to make her something other than "worse Kirby". Sheer luck with game mechanics is what made her good in Melee. There's a reason it took people a while to see how well she could abuse Melee's physics, her moveset in of itself outside Rest and a longer-than-it-looks bair still wasn't very impressive.

The biggest buff to JP would be bringing back players always star/screen KOing off the top. Right now, she can "win" by hitting an opponent with rest and KOing them, and still technically lose because they can get back in time to punish her except when RNGeezus decides to have it go to a screen/star KO...

Except characters like Zero Suit can beat them in neutral and do more damage/get the kill confirm when they do win faster on top of that. This has been true for speedy high tiers vs. fatties in every single Smash game, the only exception being Brawl D3 with his stupid chaingrab being able to even up the score, but even here this doesn't apply to lightweights like MK.

Well yeah, that's why ZSS and Sheik need to be toned down a bit. Boost kick should have maybe HALF the knockback it has, especially considering how possible it is for ZSS to kick people right to the top of the screen before using it.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

It's doable.

The real key is giving them some form of counterplay, and that would start by giving SOME of her moves some kind of lag on them because they currently have so little.

Same with Sheik. Needles should probably go about half the distance they do, given their speed and transcendent property. At the very least, Sheik should be the one who has to approach characters with projectile-centric games, not the other way around.



Heavies primarily need two things to be on even footing with the rest of the cast:

-Some ability that allows them to get in and enough reward from the act of getting in to justify their other weaknesses

-A reliable means of confirming KOs

Heavies are meant to lose the neutral more often than not, but the compensation for that is that they need relatively fewer confirms in order to do the same amount of damage and ideally get the KO.

The problem heavies in SSB4 have is that there are a few characters that can simply overwhelm them with hitboxes/grabs and give them little to no room for counterplay, the absolute worst offenders being Sheik and ZSS. Heavies also typically need to capitalize on the mistakes of their opponents, but again, Sheik and ZSS are just generally so safe as characters that they don't need to overextend in order to rack damage on heavies, and heavies being super easy to combo for them only makes this much, MUCH worse.

It kills me really when characters like Zangief, T hawk, Hugo, daimon and Pokentmin (the grappler dude in guilty gear) are well made with consistent frame data across the cast and actually has threatening moves with the right range relative to their size and ours are based on crap and are forced to be at a disadvantage consistently in neutral when they could be so much more.

 

[L9999]

The biggest buff to JP would be bringing back players always star/screen KOing off the top. Right now, she can "win" by hitting an opponent with rest and KOing them, and still technically lose because they can get back in time to punish her except when RNGeezus decides to have it go to a screen/star KO...

Scrap that, Jigglypuff needs a repurpose of life. Buffs to her ground game so she can CONSIDER being in the ground, un-nerf her aerials from Brawl, un-nerf her Rollout and Pound as well, make her D-Throw or U-Throw combo into something, like aerials or Rest, and with Jigglypuff's bad grab range and terrible ground speed is not like she is gonna grab you all the time like Ness, at the very least give her throws CONSIDERATION for use. Sing is a lost cause and it will never work aside from disrespect at the edge, Rest is fine as it is.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

the only exception being Brawl D3 with his stupid chaingrab being able to even up the score

You forgot bair existed in that game. D3's bair in Brawl was beyond silly.

Smooth Criminal

 

[S_B]

It kills me really when characters like Zangief, T hawk, Hugo, daimon and Pokentmin (the grappler dude in guilty gear) are well made with consistent frame data across the cast and actually has threatening moves with the right range relative to their size and ours are based on crap and are forced to be at a disadvantage consistently in neutral when they could be so much more.

It comes with the territory of making a party game into a competitive game, sadly.

If they make DK's frame data good enough to go toe to toe with the likes of Sheik and ZSS, he'd likely be too powerful for casual play.

But the one upside is that making the frame data of ZSS and Sheik slightly worse shouldn't hurt casual play one bit (if Sakurai ever bothers to do it). No casual player is going to miss the tinder combo, for example.

 

[Nobie]

It's hard to make all matchups in a game even, especially with 56 (soon to be 58) characters. If characters can be adjusted so that matchups might not be even but would at least be manageable, I think that would be all right for balance. I think the game isn't as far from that point as people seem to believe as of late.

Part of it IS the game's fault, in that fatties do get the short end of the stick on a number of issues (hitbox, not enough armor frames, etc.), but I think another significant portion is how afraid Smash players seem to be to fight a disadvantaged matchup. Heck, I can't remember where I saw it (I think it was in this thread or maybe Reddit), but I saw someone saying their main wasn't working out for them because the character had too many EVEN matchups. Just one example, and I understand the appeal of using a character that not only has no weak matchups but has the edge in most of them, but what kind of mindset is that?

Some of the solutions suggested for Jigglypuff so far aren't THAT far off from where the character is already. Jigglypuff has arguably the best pummel in the game alongside high damage throws, and has a strong dash attack meant to make up for a lack of ground presence otherwise. Tweaks in that direction might not be so bad. I don't know how I feel about comboing into rest, at least not without a good DI read. I know that rest combos are part of why Jiggs is so good in Melee, and that Hungrybox pretty much never rests unless he thinks he can land it 100%, but Rest as high-risk, high-reward just seems better suited for it.

 

[Solfiner]

One point I really want to bring up regarding character loyalty:

Sure, everyone could just pick up one of the ten best characters to win, but some of us aren't all about that. Me and many others want to push the meta for our characters as far as possible, sometimes to prove a point, sometimes to explore if a character really is as bad as people say etc.

Because of that we have gotten things like Ranai getting third at Genesis and Hyuga 2-0ing Nairo. Sure, both of those players could probably make it easier for themselves by picking Sheik but would that really expand the over-all meta? I don't think so personally. I think character loyalists and sleeper characters add a new spice to the game. I think people also need to give "garbage" characters more of a chance, even if they may not become national threats or even close to it.

 

[S_B]

It's hard to make all matchups in a game even, especially with 56 (soon to be 58) characters. If characters can be adjusted so that matchups might not be even but would at least be manageable, I think that would be all right for balance. I think the game isn't as far from that point as people seem to believe as of late.

You're right: it's not all that far from being pretty well balanced, and thanks to balance patches, it's readily possible to do just that.

The few problem characters that could use some tweaks wouldn't take that much tweaking: just give them proper weaknesses because they hardly have any right now, especially very few that slower characters can actually exploit (and buff some of the overall weaker ones).

As I said, the weird thing is that these changes wouldn't affect casual play one bit, yet they've not happened. What's stranger is that, yes, Sakurai MUST be looking at competitive play on some level because he specifically nerfed teammate healing/absorption moves for competitive doubles, something that doesn't affect matchmaking even one bit.

Part of it IS the game's fault, in that fatties do get the short end of the stick on a number of issues (hitbox, not enough armor frames, etc.), but I think another significant portion is how afraid Smash players seem to be to fight a disadvantaged matchup. Heck, I can't remember where I saw it (I think it was in this thread or maybe Reddit), but I saw someone saying their main wasn't working out for them because the character had too many EVEN matchups. Just one example, and I understand the appeal of using a character that not only has no weak matchups but has the edge in most of them, but what kind of mindset is that?

For me it's Bowser all the way, charging headlong into the jaws of almost certain death in a number of matchups.

We have guys like Cassius who are doing the same thing with some pretty amazing results, too:

But all too often, even people who are known for maining a character just get destroyed by a bad matchup:

I'm not sure how long Bengal/Remzi had been playing ZSS, but probably not as long as DK Will had been maining DK.

This is a fixable issue, however. We just need Sakurai to actually make the changes before he stops patching the game forever...