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Sonic is an interesting point since if you excised Dabuz's record the two characters have similar records iirc
The only real way to argue that Villager is 11th/12th/etc at this point imo would be to say that 10 other characters have better records than Villager does which I don't really think is the case. Assuming Ranai doesn't crash and burn in the future he seems well into the top 10.
It really should be clear by this point that a lackluster grab game in any form (either from less-useful throws or the grabs themselves) is not a death knell for viability. Yes, it's a weakness, but as the likes of
, and have shown can be made up for if your other tools are good enough.
To clarify on this, PK Fire has this sort of auto-spacing property where Lucas looks like he gets recoil when shooting PK Fire from a wavebounce, making it that much more difficult to punish. The poke damage he receives might seem negligible compared to Ness' free grab (though Lucas has other grab confirms so this property would be rather broken on Lucas), but it still contributes to the approaching kill throw / is much safer due to firing horizontally from SH / will frustrate your opponent to hell and back.
but there isn't much top-level data to go by with these matchups (except HaKii vs Hyrule Hero; that looked like a convincing 60 / 40).
Fireballs are like 2% better due to "followups" and because they fail less vs Sonic. They're both pretty horrible projectiles outside of edgeguards (which Doc capitalizes on better under any circumstance) and annoying people in midrange.
Lucas is also stronger againstOh boy here come the Ness comparisons.
To clarify on this, PK Fire has this sort of auto-spacing property where Lucas looks like he gets recoil when shooting PK Fire from a wavebounce, making it that much more difficult to punish. The poke damage he receives might seem negligible compared to Ness' free grab (though Lucas has other grab confirms so this property would be rather broken on Lucas), but it still contributes to the approaching kill throw / is much safer due to firing horizontally from SH / will frustrate your opponent to hell and back.
Here's frame data to compare the two:
http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Ness
http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Lucas
Overall, Ness has arguably superior frame data with the crowning victory being his aerial autocancels, Fair in particular. Lucas has better tools to wall his opponents out and deal with projectile-based characters and the positioning / hitbox of Psi Magnet, Zair (snuffs projectiles), and PK Fire; I'd say that this gives him better matchups against
While Lucas' kill throws don't kill remotely as soon as Ness' Bthrow, they're all still contenders for some of the best in the game due to each and every one of them killing, and D-throw > Bair at the ledge is just... You feel bad. Like, downright ashamed of yourself.
On the subject of PKT, Ness' is better for kill confirms and as a combo tool, but Lucas' has the unique property of both invalidating airdodges with its lingering hitboxes and dragging the opponent with it; it can result in stage spikes or forcing a low recovery, which would be better if the endlag weren't god-awful, and at the very least is free safe damage against those with safe recoveries (you know who you are).
due to his walling capabilities and being tougher to gimp.
I thought I rated Villager pretty high. Anyways..I agree that Mario should be ranked above Pikachu but what is it that supposedly makes Mario better than Villager? I really don't see why that opinion is still so popular. If people are sceptical of Villager being top tier, top 5 or even top 8 and argue that he's carried too much by Ranai that's one thing.
But what has Mario done to still be considered better? Neither his results nor his matchups / theory really give much of a reason to think so.
It would be really nice if Zair trued into Grab.Oh boy here come the Ness comparisons.
To clarify on this, PK Fire has this sort of auto-spacing property where Lucas looks like he gets recoil when shooting PK Fire from a wavebounce, making it that much more difficult to punish. The poke damage he receives might seem negligible compared to Ness' free grab (though Lucas has other grab confirms so this property would be rather broken on Lucas), but it still contributes to the approaching kill throw / is much safer due to firing horizontally from SH / will frustrate your opponent to hell and back.
Here's frame data to compare the two:
http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Ness
http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Lucas
Overall, Ness has arguably superior frame data with the crowning victory being his aerial autocancels, Fair in particular. Lucas has better tools to wall his opponents out and deal with projectile-based characters with the positioning / hitbox of Psi Magnet, Zair (snuffs projectiles), and PK Fire; I'd say that this gives him better matchups against
While Lucas' kill throws don't kill remotely as soon as Ness' Bthrow, they're all still contenders for some of the best in the game due to each and every one of them killing, and D-throw > Bair at the ledge is just... You feel bad. Like, downright ashamed of yourself.
On the subject of PKT, Ness' is better for kill confirms and as a combo tool, but Lucas' has the unique property of both invalidating airdodges with its lingering hitboxes and dragging the opponent with it; it can result in stage spikes or forcing a low recovery, which would be better if the endlag weren't god-awful, and at the very least is free safe damage against those with safe recoveries (you know who you are).
Villager gets destroyed by Megaman tho, Megaman destroys his Lloyd Rockets with pellets and deals a lot of pressure with them
At the very least Zair will combo into D-tilt, which is the safer confirm. More damage, too.
Ike and Cloud's disjoints help them vs. Villager. I know that Ike can just dash attack Villager if he uses lloid rocket if he's in range on reaction, or just use an aerial if he uses it at a bad time in the air. Villager's fair and bair also get cancelled out by hitboxes, so Villager may get hit when giant swords are right in his face such as Ike's reverse nair or bair, even if the fair/bair came out. Close up, Villager hates jab and dtilt. Ike's recovery is good enough to get back vs. him, though he might take a hit if he has to mix up.
I was surprised how much Ike's disjoints helped in that MU, particularly compared to the slog you have to go through vs him as Ganondorf. Ike can certainly get gimped, but it's not totally hopeless like Ganondorf, who should die if caught at any significant distance offstage. Ike probably loses, but I don't think he loses super hard to Villager or anything.
Being able to reflect slingshots with cape is huge theorycrafting. Sure cape is faster, but you would have to read a slingshot to actually land the cape, then they can just bait and punish because of the 34 FAF (34 frames to punish freely). Very situational.
Note that Villager cannot actually rising slingshot the Mario Bros when they're on the ground, and his ground punishes are not that strong. It's not as hard as you're implying.
To add onto this:
It's a meh projectile but it forces people to not commit really hard when chasing him in midrange due to its safe retreat utility and that on hit, it gives Lucas stage control.
You could just not commit... Nothing Lucas can do if you hover just outside of PK Fire range. If he keeps retreating he'll get backed into a corner, and his approach isn't any good either. Like, can't you just roll on reaction to him screeching PK Fire and punish?
That's why it's meh outside of the fact it's safe retreating.
PK fire beats needles because it has a hurtbox
Sorry man, I didn't actually mean to accuse you of something like that. Was just messing with you and took it too far.
Unless the opponent is Link or Tink, who's Bombs just ignore the physics of projectiles one way or another and do random stuff on contact.
Ness and Lucas don't want to PK Fire your bombs. They eat those. Nom nom nom.
Without results, all we have is theorycraft, so they do matter. But I feel like there's a hierarchy for competitive analysis where match analysis > placements > theory craft. It's why Cloud's early results aren't taken as seriously as they would be if they came from a character that's been here since the game's release. There are factors in competitive play that cause placements alone to be insufficient evidence for character viability beyond reasonable doubt.At some point we need to make up are mind whether or not results matter. I'm personally frustrated with people trying to use personal skill as an excuse not to admit that they where wrong about what they thought of the character. People need to quit cherry picking which results matter or not.
Woo I get to talk about my Mario experience.RE:
This character actually has pretty good results spread across several players. Besides Ally getting top 8 or falling right outside of it, there's also Anti, who enters infrequently but has shown how terrifying this char can be.* Zenyou flopped hard at G3, but is frequently a threat to make top 8 in his own region. Then there's Ron, who's mostly WiFi** but managed to beat 9B in what is considered by many to be a rough MU.
I had him ranked 9th (IIRC), so it's not like I'm super enthusiastic about him, but he still does well enough that it's not obvious Villager & other characters frequently ranked in the low-A range should be above him based on results alone.
* I am referring to his BH performance, where he finished 4th and almost beat ZeRo in losers.
** Japanese WiFi is actually good though, and has produced numerous killers over the years. Also, KEN was ranked below him last I checked, and he has a tournament win and several top 8 finishes under his belt.
If you're Pit I'm almost certain you can relatively safely shark the stage if he's overzealous with ledgetraps. Plus if there's platforms you can just...jump to them, and don't usually risk getting killed if he tries to go out of his way to punish this directly.
Please don't say low level play when talking about a character's competitive viability. Also, can we really call Mario's fireballs good? They're slow to come out with a bad FAF, easy to powershield and punish, and overall puts Mario in a bad position onstage.
This. When I watched FOW VS Hyuga I saw a lot of bomb counterplay. He just catched the bomb, and ran away to use PSI Magnet or do flashy stuff like bomb into Uair. Many people don't do bomb counterplay.
I took things a little bit too seriously and was out of line, sorrySorry man, I didn't actually mean to accuse you of something like that. Was just messing with you and took it too far.
But yeah, I'm not sure why you're being stubborn about this. If I told you "there's a guy out there who at his last 3 tournaments placed 3rd / ~200, 4th / ~200 and 4th / ~400 [in Japan nonetheless], has such high-profile wins as Ranai and a top 4 Sheik player and has outplaced tons of international top level players ... you would eventually agree that we're talking about a top level threat here, right?
So uh, the claim that dabuz is the only one who is consistently bringing home top-notch results for Rosalina is wrong and so is the claim that she'd not be considered top 5 without him. That's all I really want to make clear.
One word: spacing. Short hop it and it pushes Lucas back some, making it harder to shield/side step/roll and punish. It a weird way, it works kind of similarly to a backwards zair if you get the timing down. It's one of his best defensive options.
I mostly agree with this. You have to be playing pretty predictably to get consistently hit by a cape slingshot. Long range, caping the slingshot is practically pointless because the distance it goes back gets cut but caping it point blank can reasonably kill but it pretty much needs a hard read if the other player isn't mindlessly spamming it.
Not the best thread for this, but I'd say space bair when they're at high percent, but not until. Bair is an amazing, threatening kill move and you don't want it stale. Nair isn't that great for spacing; it's best for low percent followups off of down-tilt or up-throw. Down-tilt is your best option for spacing btw, its hitbox is much bigger than its animation.So, opinions, for
Bowser is obviously better than before, but many of his top level mains weren't present (and it's likely people didnt pick him up when Cloud was another option to pick up). Not only does Bowser now have a good throw, he has an amazing pivot grab and jab 1 into grab to go along with it.
