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

[Wintropy]

In what universe does Lucas only have one good tool?

I think her point is that people overstate how good one tool in their kit is, without examining it in context.

She isn't saying Lucas has just one tool, just that people observe how good X option is in a vacuum and state that's why they're secretly good.

He gets ****ed vs the chars that matter.

Simple stuff really

Y'know, that's exactly what I needed to hear.

I am intrigued by your views and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

 

[L9999]

On another note aMSa is coming back to Sm4sh

https://twitter.com/amsaredyoshi/status/693431388150714369

Edit because yellow text on a white background lol

Greninja hype?

It will become less diverse in the future, it's almost inevitable. That's not necessarily bad though.

I think once the patches stop, we can finally focus on developing our characters more without having to worry about if our main is going to get nerfed the next morning. Prehaps an official Tier List and even a Matchup Table will arrive as well.

Well they tried to make a matchup chart but it's a total mess.

It would be nice if we focused on improving the lower tier characters rather then nerfing the top and some random characters. This is probably how characters like jiggl ect get over looked from time to time.

get overlooked because they are joke characters. *I would love to see a Sakurai column explaining why this 3 are so trash.

 

[JesterJaded]

I think her point is that people overstate how good one tool in their kit is, without examining it in context.

She isn't saying Lucas has just one tool, just that people observe how good X option is in a vacuum and state that's why they're secretly good.

I don't really see anyone doing that though, at least not with Lucas. His tools are good for serving their intended purpose, but no singular tool he has is a stand-alone ticket to viability, nor have I seen anyone represent them as such. Most of the tools that Lucas mains praise (Zair, Fair, PK Fire, Dtilt, Dthrow combos, kill throws, locks, recovery, edgeguarding, etc.) actually do work and have worked in tournament context, in a cohesive kit as opposed to one or two tools that make him good.

 

[Emblem Lord]

I think her point is that people overstate how good one tool in their kit is, without examining it in context.

She isn't saying Lucas has just one tool, just that people observe how good X option is in a vacuum and state that's why they're secretly good.



Y'know, that's exactly what I needed to hear.

I am intrigued by your views and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

OH HO!!!!

Spicy

But no seriously doesnt Yoshi lose to everyone thats in the running for top 5? Sheik, ZSS, Rosa, Diddy and MK? Sonic too?

Correct me if im wrong.

 

[Wintropy]

get overlooked because they are joke characters.

Puff originated as a joke character way back when, and though she's been "fixed" to some extent or tried to be fashioned into a decent character (succeeding to some degree in Melee, debatably by accident), she still retains elements of that heritage (I can't help but feel that her suicide shield, Final Smash and even side-b (in theory, if not in effect) are intended to be very silly traits).

Zelda just seems to be a character who's crippled by her design philosophy: defensive and precise magical type who's supposed to get great reward for connecting her hits, but who's so inundated with super-fickle sweetspots that she can barely get anything done when it counts. Having an air game comprised entirely of Falcon Knees sounds fun ("fun" with two very big sets of quotation marks) in theory, but it's abhorrently ineffective in practice.

Lucina is the epitome of either "good intentions, poor result" or, depending on your perspective, "we don't have time for this". In theory she's Easy Mode Marth who doesn't have to rely on tippers to get stuff done and is therefore more of an all-rounder; in practice, she's objectively inferior in every important way. They just didn't have time to make her a more interesting character, and now there's not much they can do to distinguish her beyond overhauling both characters to some fundamental degree. That she's an inferior clone of a bad character is even more depressing.

Yes, I know I'm spoiling the gag, but I think it's good to take note of where they came from with these "joke" designs.

OH HO!!!!

Spicy

But no seriously doesnt Yoshi lose to everyone thats in the running for top 5? Sheik, ZSS, Rosa, Diddy and MK? Sonic too?

Correct me if im wrong.

Not sure if we're misreading each-others' signals here, but I wasn't being ironic when I said that. It really was a good point. Unless that's what you're responding to, in which case, I am a dunce, please forgive.

On that note, to what extent does a character have to lose to the top-tiers for them to be considered irrelevant or unviable? I think Pit loses to Sheik, ZSS, Fox, Mario, Diddy, MK, Sonic and Rosa (DP goes even I think), but the only one I'd consider to be noteworthy is ZSS (-2 IMO). I think you can have disadvantageous matchups and still be a strong character, provided you're not getting eaten alive by more than a couple. Maybe not top-tier, but high-tier should be achievable. Just my two cents.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Some characters are just NOT competitive. This is reality. It will NEVER change.

Does it suck? Yup.

But no use crying over what we cannot change.

Also Lucinas was doomed from day one. It amazes me that anyone EVER thought she could amount to anything as she is.

 

[Wintropy]

I don't really see anyone doing that though, at least not with Lucas. His tools are good for serving their intended purpose, but no singular tool he has is a stand-alone ticket to viability, nor have I seen anyone represent them as such. Most of the tools that Lucas mains praise (Zair, Fair, PK Fire, Dtilt, Dthrow combos, kill throws, locks, recovery, edgeguarding, etc.) actually do work and have worked in tournament context, in a cohesive kit as opposed to one or two tools that make him good.

I'm not saying people say that either, I'm just explaining what Remilia meant when she said that.

I'm correcting the semantics of your response, not the content.

 

[S_B]

I think they know now and just don't give a damn anymore. Honestly, there isn't a fighter without some level of BS in it. So it's going to be interesting to see.

If Nintendo is going to acknowledge SSB as a competitive game by sponsoring tournaments, they should probably try to mop up most of the more prominent BS.

I'm not sure how Sakurai could've gone to that tourney, watched Nairo lay waste to players of similar skill level in ~1 minute and not said, "Hmm, maybe we should fix that..."

I guess we'll see come Wednesday...

Must...contain...desire.....to..lay...down.....the....PWNAGE!!!!!

What're you going to do? Throw words at him?

Ryu is fine. The notion that he invalidates anyone is simply not true, as far as I can tell. Who lists him as their worst matchup?

Dude's good, fills a good role, and doesn't have a mindless gameplan. What's the issue?

The only thing I'd l like changed for Ryu is his Utilt infinite on fast fallers/heavies. Everything else is fine, IMO.

 

[Radical Larry]

Wintropy Jigglypuff does have a couple shield breaking setups with Jab > Jab > F-Spec and F-Tilt > F-Spec. Pound is a very heavy shield damaging move and depletes literally half of a shield. Puff also has some pretty good combos like a repeated Dash attack combo that can go on across the stage, a Wall of Pain combo that can really affect opponents if timed correctly (but Wall of Pain only works as an F-Air combo now) and even some Pound setups.

Jigglypuff also has some very powerful attacks, and I think it was intended that her most powerful normal attacks (B-Air, F-Smash, D-Smash, U-Smash and D-Tilt) were meant to have poor frame data due to their power (but hitting with them is satisfying). She has no throw set ups, but her back throw is a good edge-guarding setup, at the least. Anyways, Jigglypuff is not a trash character in my eyes, but rather just a good low tier character at the least. She's no bottom fifteen but she's more around the bottom 20 range. She can outclass so many characters against her and has some good MUs against characters above her if you play your cards right, and an even MU against some (though Ganondorf vs Jigglypuff is highly debatable, even with Ganondorf being above her in low middle).

S_B THANK YOU FOR AGREEING THAT U-TILT NEEDS A CHANGE! Think it should have higher KB scaling?

 

[Emblem Lord]

His utilt NON-infinite you mean?

 

[Smooth Criminal]

The only thing I'd l like changed for Ryu is his Utilt infinite on fast fallers/heavies. Everything else is fine, IMO.

ffs it's not an infinite. Learn to SDI.

Smooth Criminal

 

[HeavyLobster]

Puff doesn't really work well in this engine at all. She could've in Brawl if she had adequate kill options, but rage + no ledge planking + airdodge landing lag hurt her a lot here. She needs a jank Rest confirm to work, much like Zelda probably needs a jank LK confirm to work. Don't see many other options for making their punish games strong enough to compensate for their frailty. Lucina needs some sort of clear advantage over Marth to give her a niche(think ElectroShock Arm buff).

Radical Larry Ganondorf beats Puff 60-40. When you're the only character that loses decisively to Ganondorf that is not a good sign for your viability.

 

[S_B]

His utilt NON-infinite you mean?

Last I checked, a Ryu moving forward while using C-stick to Utilt can do this to a HW from one side of the stage to the other, no matter how much SDI is used.

(I'll double check though)

@GunbladeSWR @shofu @Abadangowario GFs was me vs aba and we uair upb each other both sets lmao sakurai was watching he said he was amazed

— Nairo (@NairoMK) January 31, 2016

This has the funniest implication

I wonder if he was amazed because of how good they were or amazed because he had no idea this kind of thing was in his game...

 

[adom4]

Puff doesn't really work well in this engine at all. She could've in Brawl if she had adequate kill options, but rage + no ledge planking + airdodge landing lag hurt her a lot here. She needs a jank Rest confirm to work, much like Zelda probably needs a jank LK confirm to work. Don't see many other options for making their punish games strong enough to compensate for their frailty. Lucina needs some sort of clear advantage over Marth to give her a niche(think ElectroShock Arm buff).

Radical Larry Ganondorf beats Puff 60-40. When you're the only character that loses decisively to Ganondorf that is not a good sign for your viability.

Hell i'd argue for it to be even worse than that, she has almost no options against his range & her edgeguarding while good isn't THAT hard to get past.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Last I checked, a Ryu moving forward while using C-stick to Utilt can do this to a HW from one side of the stage to the other, no matter how much SDI is used.

(I'll double check though)



I wonder if he was amazed because of how good they were or amazed because he had no idea this kind of thing was in his game...

The only 3 chars completely screwed by this are Ganon, Bowser and Charizard.

But it only works at specific percents and Ryu needs to follow his opponents DI perfectly.

Ganon is hurt the most but lets be real. Ryu is only one top tier he loses too.

 

[jespoke]

I wonder if he was amazed because of how good they were or amazed because he had no idea this kind of thing was in his game...

My first though was that he was amazed that they could start and keep up their strings so consistently, and likely some of the cool mixups, though it could be anything

 

[S_B]

The only 3 chars completely screwed by this are Ganon, Bowser and Charizard.

And others being only partially screwed is okay?

Never mind the fact that these characters could all stand to be screwed over by fewer characters in general.

Ryu is only one top tier he loses too.

"But Sheik is worse!" is not a valid argument for keeping jank in the game.

Besides, it's not like Utilt chains are the only thing keeping Ryu viable in the meta or anything...

 

[Emblem Lord]

And others being only partially screwed is okay?

Never mind the fact that these characters could all stand to be screwed over by fewer characters in general.



"But Sheik is worse!" is not a valid argument for keeping jank in the game.

Besides, it's not like Utilt chains are the only thing keeping Ryu viable in the meta or anything...

But see...Ryu obliterates Ganon even without this.

The heavies in general are flawed by design. Taking this away wont change anything.

Now imma play devils advocate.

I actually DO want it removed in exchange for more consistent combos into Nair set ups.

I dont like ryus weaker then me getting kills from stray utilts even though their footsies do not compare to mine. **** is LAME!!!

 

[S_B]

But see...Ryu obliterates Ganon even without this.

The heavies in general are flawed by design. Taking this away wont change anything.

There's no question that 'Dorf still needs help in other areas. I'm not saying that Ryu being unable to do this to him will catapult him into viability or anything.

This would be one thing on a list of changes that would round out the game all over.

I actually DO want it removed in exchange for more consistent combos into Nair set ups.

I dont like ryus weaker then me getting kills from stray utilts even though their footsies do not compare to mine. **** is LAME!!!

I want needles to lose to all flavors of Hadouken, myself. Like, bounce off of the Hadouken and the Hadouken keeps going.

At the very least, Sheik shouldn't be able to camp Ryu out.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Nobody is arguing that Utilt chains are Ganon's biggest problem by any means. His biggest issue is that certain key tools he has are undertuned, most notably his jab, his grab/throws, and grounded Wizkick are the three big ones that leave holes in this game, and addressing them would help him in every matchup. It's true that his core design places a clear ceiling on what he can do competitively, but he was a largely functional character in Melee who just happened to be outclassed, and only really fell into low tier in Brawl/Smash 4 because a number of his tools simply didn't serve the purposes he needed them to. For some reason he was mostly unchanged from Brawl to Smash 4, and has had to be buffed incrementally in balance patches, with most of his improvements coming from engine changes and landing lag reduction in the patches. Right now most of his moves excepting the ones I mentioned(as well as NAir in situations where you can only land the first hit) work more or less as needed, and with a fully functional kit he's much more threatening.

 

[jespoke]

I want needles to lose to all flavors of Hadouken, myself. Like, bounce off of the Hadouken and the Hadouken keeps going.

At the very least, Sheik shouldn't be able to camp Ryu out.

I hope 1.1.4 has no major nerfs, but addresses a lot of little things about top-tiers that is not central to their success but definitely helps them along, like the disruption of Sheik needles, and some overly rewarding u-tilt strings

 

[S_B]

his grab/throws

Speaking of which...

Do we want to start a betting pool on whether or not Ganon gets a kill-confirm throw followup on Wednesday?

I would lean toward "yes" at this point: his grab range is abysmal, he has no throws that kill at reasonable %, and unlike D3, he has no projectile to create openings for him.

I'm surprised he hasn't received one yet, in fact, and whether people like 'em or not, it's clear Sakurai likes balancing with them.

I hope 1.1.4 has no major nerfs, but addresses a lot of little things about top-tiers that is not central to their success but definitely helps them along, like the disruption of Sheik needles, and some overly rewarding u-tilt strings

The most "major" nerf I would like to see would be toning down Sheik's needles, making them travel maybe half as far and being non-transcendent so they can clash with things and people can attack them to cancel them.

Other than that, just tweaks here and there would be nice, and tweaks are really all they need .

 

[Mr. Johan]

Ganon with a KO confirm off a throw with an aerial would be weird to work out. He's got a 7 frame jumpsquat with a Frame 14 Fair, so Throw->Fair would be really frame tight, and if Uair got a massive power buff to accommodate a throw confirm, holy ****, use that thing in neutral and make everyone scared to come at Ganon from the air instead.

Maybe reduce the KBG on Dthrow, change the angle to 20 degrees, and increase the power/horizontal knockback of Dash Attack to make a Dthrow->Dash Attack confirm?

 

[S_B]

Ganon with a KO confirm off a throw with an aerial would be weird to work out. He's got a 7 frame jumpsquat with a Frame 14 Fair, so Throw->Fair would be really frame tight, and if Uair got a massive power buff to accommodate a throw confirm, holy ****, use that thing in neutral and make everyone scared to come at Ganon from the air instead.

Maybe reduce the KBG on Dthrow and increase the power/horizontal knockback of Dash Attack to make a Dthrow->Dash Attack confirm?

They've done it in the past by just tweaking the values of KBG on throws and it tends to work.

But the other option is to just make his Uthrow KO Mario at ~100% (or maybe less).

He's a magic user so a powerful throw makes sense, he has NO tools to open his opponent to a grab (like a fireball, banana, paralyzer, etc.), his grab range is a joke (even pivot grabs).

Seriously, if you actually manage to let Ganon grab you, I think you deserve to lose a stock at that %, and I suggest Uthrow because I don't think it should be positional.

He has one of the hardest grabs to land and yet gets so little for reward off of it...

 

[Big-Cat]

But see...Ryu obliterates Ganon even without this.

The heavies in general are flawed by design. Taking this away wont change anything.

Now imma play devils advocate.

I actually DO want it removed in exchange for more consistent combos into Nair set ups.

I dont like ryus weaker then me getting kills from stray utilts even though their footsies do not compare to mine. **** is LAME!!!

So is every character in every game ever.

 

[C0rvus]

Ganon needs quality of life changes, not a throw kill confirm. He can kill fine, it's literally everything else that he has a problem with. I'm confident Sakurai knows this. If another heavy gets a throw confirm, it's going to be Dedede. He kinda needs it, though I would prefer some frame reductions on his forward tilt; that move should be safer than it is. Maybe make jab actually combo or act like a jab.

Also if Bowser gets buffed any more, I might be upset. They saved the character from the pits, and people still wanna complain? No thanks.

 

[S_B]

Ganon needs quality of life changes, not a throw kill confirm. He can kill fine, it's literally everything else that he has a problem with. I'm confident Sakurai knows this. If another heavy gets a throw confirm, it's going to be Dedede. He kinda needs it, though I would prefer some frame reductions on his forward tilt; that move should be safer than it is. Maybe make jab actually combo or act like a jab.

1. After that tweet from earlier, I'm not really sure what Sakurai does and doesn't know at all (which worries me, but we'll see).

2. I think you mean D3 will get his kill confirm BACK, as he had one at first and they nerfed it.

3. I think Ganon is ultimately going to suffer terribly without a reliable kill confirm of some kind, whether it comes from a throw or some other type of setup, he just needs SOMETHING to actually land the KO reliably.

Also if Bowser gets buffed any more, I might be upset. They saved the character from the pits, and people still wanna complain? No thanks.

I main Bowser and I have NO complaints about him at this point. I wouldn't change another thing on him and I'm fairly certain most Bowser mains agree with this sentiment.

The only minor tweak that would be nice would be a reduction in endlag on fire breath, as the risk vs. reward ratio on the move is completely out of whack. If you land it, the best you'll do is ~15% damage, the same amount of damage you'd get off of nearly ANYTHING else you could try to hit with. But if you miss in neutral, any quick character can jump over you and Fsmash you in the back.

It's only good for harassing people trying to recover low and maybe a quick burst of it as you return to the ledge to keep people from attacking you head on (they can still try to spike you after you drop and try to recover low, however).

But really, I wouldn't change anything else on Bowser for fear of making him any more of a slayer of lower tiers. At this point, it's the upper tiers that need to come down to be closer to him and the rest of the cast. Trying to buff Bowser to Sheik/ZSS levels would be a disaster...

 

[Zannabluke]

i want my 3ds dedede back: remember when the penguin had confirms off a grab after 30%? such sweet memories

 

[Kofu]

So is every character in every game ever.

Not really in Mario Kart

 

[apparently fuz]

Probably the main thing that bugs me with Ganon is his f-air. Why does it autocancel after frame 55, long after the animation has finished? The fact that I can't use it in a full hop without suffering landing lag really irritates me.

 

[williamsga555]

Of all things, I still don't understand the reasoning behind the fair nerf D3 got in the 3DS days. It wasn't all that great of a move to begin with.

Gordo reflect threshold and dthrow confirms getting nerfed I can kinda see, much as I disagree with them, but why fair?

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Why are we ever so suddenly crying and sniffling over Ryu now? Is the sheik/ZSS-whine trend over now?

On other news, have you guys ever felt a feeling of limitation and restriction over a couple of days with the smash 4 cast? Idk, I haven't had one character yet where it's like," the sky's the limit, as long as I can perform it" or something similar. Maybe it's because I've been watching UMvC3 and GGxrd and been thirsty for options, but idk.

 

[DungeonMaster]

but Sakurai said he was "sick" after GF's.

This is great. If we yet again, see no nerfs to the obviously broken characters in this game, then we know he/balance-team really are happy with the status quo.
At least there is an objective standpoint now to judge future patches.
I, and many, many other players will be extremely pleased to see many of the high tiers get their frame data pared down, their easy-bake combos with like 20+ frames windows reduced to much more narrow, technical combo windows.
I want to see shiek get some goddamn lag and punish windows on her goddamn moves, I want to see ZSS kill like the lightweight she is rather than the heavyweight she isn't. Minimum.
If it wasn't completely obvious to him BEFORE - it is completely obvious NOW and if there's no goddamn change then we know it's completely intentional.

 

[TurboLink]

You're all gonna start looking ridiculous when these nerfs don't end up happening at all.

Sakurai: "That was an amazing match. Let me give these two characters some more buffs."

 

[FimPhym]

Ganon needs quality of life changes, not a throw kill confirm. He can kill fine, it's literally everything else that he has a problem with. I'm confident Sakurai knows this. If another heavy gets a throw confirm, it's going to be Dedede. He kinda needs it, though I would prefer some frame reductions on his forward tilt; that move should be safer than it is. Maybe make jab actually combo or act like a jab.

Also if Bowser gets buffed any more, I might be upset. They saved the character from the pits, and people still wanna complain? No thanks.

The f tilt safety would be nice, that move is so much worse than it looks. Less safe, less disjointed, rarely does its full damage. It somehow stills ends up being a pretty important move.

Dedede's jab is amazing though, maybe one of his best moves. It's sad that at low percents it sometimes doesn't combo right but it's massive and outranges sword character smash attacks. So safe and good. If they want to give him a faster button it'd probably be down tilt which is currently his fastest grounded move at f6.

Slow start up is okay for Dedede though, he can be buffed elsewhere for sure. A lot of room to work buffs in safely. I certainly wouldn't want to see the mobility buffs proposed a few pages back, how boring and anti-flavour can you get.

 

[Sinister Slush]

OH HO!!!!

Spicy

But no seriously doesnt Yoshi lose to everyone thats in the running for top 5? Sheik, ZSS, Rosa, Diddy and MK? Sonic too?

Correct me if im wrong.

Pretty much everyone there except Sonic is maybe debatable, only because all we have in terms of Sonic vs Yoshi is Raptor beating Seagull once and I think 6wx once out of who knows how many times those three played.

Honestly, when it comes down to it even in the brawl days I always compared Yoshi/Pikachu over Yoshi/Lucas.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Dedede's biggest problems are his lack of close combat options and his terrible landing options. I too feel like his fthrow or bthrow should kill earlier (not this 200% nonsense it is now) but these two things are what really hold him back. I feel about the same way with Bowser Jr too because they have really similar problems.

 

[williamsga555]

Dedede's jab is amazing though, maybe one of his best moves. It's sad that at low percents it sometimes doesn't combo right but it's massive and outranges sword character smash attacks. So safe and good.

Going to disagree pretty strongly here, personally. I think jab is hot garbage against a vast majority of the cast.

Jab 2 is an incredible move. Absolutely dumb disjoint and leads into followups (unless you're like, Jiggly-level floaty). But unfortunately that doesn't mean much since it's tethered to Jab 1, which is a terrible move by almost all accounts. Slow, somewhat lacking disjoint with a large blindspot up close and a lot of endlag attached.

And that's not even going into rapid jab, which is slow enough that fast fallers can shield after getting hit by Jab 2, and almost every character can avoid the finishing hit.

So what we end up with is a move that's two-parts miserable and one-part amazing, but the amazing part is sandwiched between garbage. It's really unwieldy and I find it's generally not worth even throwing out on a majority of the cast without a read.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Probably the main thing that bugs me with Ganon is his f-air. Why does it autocancel after frame 55, long after the animation has finished? The fact that I can't use it in a full hop without suffering landing lag really irritates me.

The move is bugged, just like in Brawl. You can actually buffer a special while landing out of a full hop. It's nowhere near his biggest problem, but it is annoying and ought to be fixed, especially after they fixed Dsmash pulling shielding foes towards you.

 

[C0rvus]

Why are we ever so suddenly crying and sniffling over Ryu now? Is the sheik/ZSS-whine trend over now?

On other news, have you guys ever felt a feeling of limitation and restriction over a couple of days with the smash 4 cast? Idk, I haven't had one character yet where it's like," the sky's the limit, as long as I can perform it" or something similar. Maybe it's because I've been watching UMvC3 and GGxrd and been thirsty for options, but idk.

I too get a similar feeling, it can really get me down about this game. I'm like, "Is this my only option?" or "Can I really do nothing about that?" Maybe I'm spoiled because I've been playing PM Lucario recently.