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

[Djent]

Based on consistency issues, I don't think ESAM or ANTi are contenders for top 5 in the world, regardless of what anyone else might say. Some of this is character-based, but it also has to do with the kind of choking we saw from both today.

 

[S_B]

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

...And nerf .

 

[HeavyLobster]

I'd love to see Flame Choke buffs.


Because Ike would still annihilate Ganon regardless.

Annihilate seems a bit strong. Ike wins for sure, but that's not a MU where Ganon is helpless. It would be pretty evenish were Dorf buffed anywhere near as much as Ike was.

 

[meleebrawler]

...And nerf .

Spoiler

And fire Bill

A thought occurred to me though in that we've already seen 1.1.4 was made before Sakurai saw that tournament, maybe we shouldn't be expecting immediate changes?

 

[Das Koopa]

Looking like Vinnie (Probably), VoiD, ZeRo, and FoW are the top 4

not enthused by 3 Sheiks in top 4 and I don't think that's a good sign for the game but in fairness a lot of big contenders didn't come to PAX. Last time we had a drought like this (Paragon LA?) Sheiks were dominant in Top 8 too

 

[Mario766]

Annihilate seems a bit strong. Ike wins for sure, but that's not a MU where Ganon is helpless. It would be pretty evenish were Dorf buffed anywhere near as much as Ike was.

Last time I heard it was rather terrible.

Flame Choke gives zero benefits, so he can't pressure Ike's shield, Ike combos/kill set-ups for the entire stock.

Ganon might have 'swords', but they aren't intangible, Ike has a real disjoint, so he just spaces out Ganon and stays safe with shield. Ganon won't get anything started, and we get more reward on any hits. Ike also heavily abuses Dark Dive for recovery, up to and including Eruption being basically guaranteed because Ganon can't stall or mix-up because of how bad Ganon's aerial movement in this game is.

Ike wins neutral, has better advantage, and has better disadvantage. That's a bad MU.

 

[S_B]

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

Hey don't look at me. Uptilt jank is literally the only issue I have with Ryu, and that's not removing the primary thing keeping him meta-viable or anything of the sort.

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 wish more characters had "additional buttons" baked into their movesets (and I've touched on this before).

As an example, Monkey Flip is three moves in one: it's a recovery move, it's an attack, AND it's a command grab, all depending upon what buttons you press (and after grabbing, it has even more options from there).

I wish they had taken the customs of some characters and just baked them into movesets instead. For example, D3's custom gordo that bounces back and forth could've been in his normal moveset: just press toward+B, then immediately push BACK on the control stick and he would put backspin in the gordo, thus giving him an additional option.

And really, there's SOOOO much potential for them to do things like this...

-Gdorf's flame choke could've behaved differently depending upon whether you tap or hold B.
-Bowser's dash slash could've happened when you held side+B while normal klaw would've been just tapping B.
-Ike's different eruptions could've been accessed by holding a different direction on the control stick before releasing B after the charge
etc.

If every character had a bit of the "Ryu treatment" (not in circling the control stick but in tapping vs. holding buttons), the game would be VASTLY deeper while still retaining the control scheme simplicity that made it great.

 

[Djent]

Though I'm a little bummed about the high concentration, I'm very happy for Vinnie. He's had an excellent showing in what will likely be his last tournament for a long time. I am also super impressed with JBand, who along with Abadango, Leo, & Co. is showing that MK doesn't need to go even with Sheik in order to be top 5.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Last time I heard it was rather terrible.

Flame Choke gives zero benefits, so he can't pressure Ike's shield, Ike combos/kill set-ups for the entire stock.

Ganon might have 'swords', but they aren't intangible, Ike has a real disjoint, so he just spaces out Ganon and stays safe with shield. Ganon won't get anything started, and we get more reward on any hits. Ike also heavily abuses Dark Dive for recovery, up to and including Eruption being basically guaranteed because Ganon can't stall or mix-up because of how bad Ganon's aerial movement in this game is.

Ike wins neutral, has better advantage, and has better disadvantage. That's a bad MU.

When did I say it wasn't. I said Ike didn't annihilate Dorf. The uppercut's saved me a couple times when it comes to Eruption, since it's more disjointed than you think, though I'm not going to pretend it's reliable. I agree that Ike's better in most every area, but not to such an extent that it's unwinnable. It's around 6-4 Ike. I'd prefer that mains of characters that aren't avoid using the term 'annihilate' when discussing their Dorf MU when it generally isn't true. At least it's not Peach or Yoshi mains saying they 7-3 us.

 

[SuperSmashFlash2ProjHMod]

https://youtu.be/BrbhoDZAOSY

 

[Peppermint1201]

I'm not bothered by 3 sheiks in top 4 at all because almost every good non-Sheik player didn't attend. No Nairo, no Dabuz, no Tyrant, no Abadango, no Ranai, no Larry Lurr, no Marss, I could go on. meanwhile, ESAM, NAKAT, and FOW (the three players with capitalized tags, hah) all made top 8, with the latter making top 4 as well. (not to mention that ZeRo 3-0ed VoiD w/ diddy)

 

[Emblem Lord]

Ryu annihilates Ganon. He is not allow to make a mistake. EVER!!!!

And Ryu can deal just as much damage per hit, is safer, faster in terms of buttons AND mobility and can outzone him. And he has reliable kill confirms.

How is it not annihilation?

 

[Charoite]

Hey don't look at me. Uptilt jank is literally the only issue I have with Ryu, and that's not removing the primary thing keeping him meta-viable or anything of the sort.



I wish more characters had "additional buttons" baked into their movesets (and I've touched on this before).

As an example, Monkey Flip is three moves in one: it's a recovery move, it's an attack, AND it's a command grab, all depending upon what buttons you press (and after grabbing, it has even more options from there).

I wish they had taken the customs of some characters and just baked them into movesets instead. For example, D3's custom gordo that bounces back and forth could've been in his normal moveset: just press toward+B, then immediately push BACK on the control stick and he would put backspin in the gordo, thus giving him an additional option.

And really, there's SOOOO much potential for them to do things like this...

-Gdorf's flame choke could've behaved differently depending upon whether you tap or hold B.
-Bowser's dash slash could've happened when you held side+B while normal klaw would've been just tapping B.
-Ike's different eruptions could've been accessed by holding a different direction on the control stick before releasing B after the charge
etc.

If every character had a bit of the "Ryu treatment" (not in circling the control stick but in tapping vs. holding buttons), the game would be VASTLY deeper while still retaining the control scheme simplicity that made it great.

NOW That would be a nightmare to balance in a 50+ character roster, you would finish with a UMvC3 or PM 3.02 type of game or even worse

 

[Fatmanonice]

https://youtu.be/BrbhoDZAOSY

I know you're new but don't do posts like this. If you post a video, you should explain what it is and why you posted it.

 

[Wintropy]

When did I say it wasn't. I said Ike didn't annihilate Dorf. The uppercut's saved me a couple times when it comes to Eruption, since it's more disjointed than you think, though I'm not going to pretend it's reliable. I agree that Ike's better in most every area, but not to such an extent that it's unwinnable. It's around 6-4 Ike. I'd prefer that mains of characters that aren't avoid using the term 'annihilate' when discussing their Dorf MU when it generally isn't true. At least it's not Peach or Yoshi mains saying they 7-3 us.

On that note, and if you don't mind me picking your brain for a bit, how do you think the 'Dorf / Pit matchup is? I remember discussing it with @adom4 before and we both agreed it's in Pit's favour, but not by an overwhelming amount (+1 or something).

I'm wondering because Pit has a few noteworthy matchups in the realms of the mid and low-tiers, he's a high-tier character that has very few truly dominant matchups. And I stand by my belief that Dedede goes even with Pit.

 

[S_B]

If it wasn't intentional, I think it would have been changed by now.

We really can't use this as a basis for logic, especially not after Sakurai was "amazed" by Aba and Nairo's MK and ZSS Uair > UpB shenanigans at the tournament.

A thought occurred to me though in that we've already seen 1.1.4 was made before Sakurai saw that tournament, maybe we shouldn't be expecting immediate changes?

Yes, patch 1.1.4 is already said and done at this point.

It's patch 1.1.5 (which will hopefully exist) that would be likely to rectify these things, unless they were rectified already and we're misunderstanding what Sakurai is "amazed" about.

We'll see come Wed...

NOW That would be a nightmare to balance in a 50+ character roster, you would finish with a UMvC3 or PM 3.02 type of game or even worse

It would make balancing more difficult, true, but we already have some characters with moves that function as a number of different things already and these tend to be the characters that rise to the top of the tier lists.

And for the record, I don't mean a character like Shulk who can cycle through different stances or Robin who can charge a projectile to different levels. I mean cases like Diddy where he has three moves in one and he can decide at a moment's notice how to use the move or like how Ryu can choose different options by tapping or holding.

In these cases, the character basically has additional "buttons" they get to press that other characters don't have access to. Those additional options make the character more versatile, meaning they have an answer for more situations their opponent(s) throws at them. Hence, they do better in competitive settings.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Okay, I get that the Rosa vs Ness is pretty bad but Rosa isn't exactly a character you can just pick up and play. What's up with all these people with pocket Rosas? "Let me just go against some of the best Ness players in the world with this character I'm partially familiar with." Oi...

 

[Peppermint1201]

FOW's falco is coming out on stream rn vs. Vinnie's Rosalina. let's see what happens

twitch.tv/paxarena

edit: nvm he got 2 stocked and went back to ness

 

[Djent]

"Ness vs. Rosa actually isn't that bad, guys!"

Nah, it's brutal. Falco probably doesn't do much better, either (though I'd love more data on that).

 

[Flux0r]

Well, that was a let down.

I think it's better for Falco's sake to not even get acknowledged in this.

 

[L9999]

FOW's falco is coming out on stream rn vs. Vinnie's Rosalina. let's see what happens

twitch.tv/paxarena

Vinnie, Rosa, since when??

 

[Charoite]

We really can't use this as a basis for logic, especially not after Sakurai was "amazed" by Aba and Nairo's MK and ZSS Uair > UpB shenanigans at the tournament.



Yes, patch 1.1.4 is already said and done at this point.

It's patch 1.1.5 (which will hopefully exist) that would be likely to rectify these things, unless they were rectified already and we're misunderstanding what Sakurai is "amazed" about.

We'll see come Wed...



It would make balancing more difficult, true, but we already have some characters with moves that function as a number of different things already and these tend to be the characters that rise to the top of the tier lists.

And for the record, I don't mean a character like Shulk who can cycle through different stances or Robin who can charge a projectile to different levels. I mean cases like Diddy where he has three moves in one and he can decide at a moment's notice how to use the move or like how Ryu can choose different options by tapping or holding.

In these cases, the character basically has additional "buttons" they get to press that other characters don't have access to.

Yes but you basically adding 8 new moves to balance, multiplique that for the number of characters now you have 450 others moves to balance, that adds more dev time and cost money, and seeing how smash is difficult to develop i doubt that something like that would happen unless you cut the roster to 15 or 20 characters.

 

[David Viran]

Vinnie has been practicing rosa for a little while now. At least he he kept saying so on his twitter.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Three Sheiks and it's the end of the world?

Cue eyeroll.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Peppermint1201]

Vinnie, Rosa, since when??

For a while now, I know he's been using it to success against Raptor's Yoshi

 

[Blobface]

Ryu annihilates Ganon. He is not allow to make a mistake. EVER!!!!

And Ryu can deal just as much damage per hit, is safer, faster in terms of buttons AND mobility and can outzone him. And he has reliable kill confirms.

How is it not annihilation?

Ganon's range is enough to salvage this matchup from "absolutely terrible" to "terrible". Ganon has to have the patience of a rock but it's definitely doable.

Also, sometimes I can't help but wonder if Sheik's disproportionate representation in top 8s/4s/whatevers is just a result of her being viewed as the best character, just a result of top players wanting to pick the top character. Cause honestly, is there really that much of a gap between the top 5 characters (whoever those are) and Sheik? At a high level, how often does Sheik's strength really trump player skill? I'm not denying she's the strongest character, but her abilities really don't lend themselves to the amount of top 8 representation she gets compared to other top tiers IMO.

 

[Charoite]

Why are people worried that 3 extremely good sheiks are in the top 8?? i would be worried if there was bad sheiks in top 8 but i dont see that.

 

[Djent]

Spoiler: PAX Arena Top 8

1) ZeRo
2) VoiD
3) Vinnie
4) FOW
5) Jbandrew
5) ANTi
7) NAKAT
7) ESAM

NOTE: I only listed the characters the players used today, as I missed yesterday's stream. All in all, it was not as big a victory for Sheik as many of us thought it would be going in.

 

[DE235]

Zero wins again

Void played well but in the end could not even reset the set.

 

[Das Koopa]

ZeRo just used Diddy in Top 4 against the Sheiks and pretty handily won, so there's that

 

[LancerStaff]

Giving everybody light tilts (or more likely heavy tilts knowing Sakurai) wouldn't help very much since most bad characters rely on specific moves rather then their whole kit.

Even then, so long as Nintendo's obsessed with simplicity it's never going to happen.

 

[HeavyLobster]

On that note, and if you don't mind me picking your brain for a bit, how do you think the 'Dorf / Pit matchup is? I remember discussing it with @adom4 before and we both agreed it's in Pit's favour, but not by an overwhelming amount (+1 or something).

I'm wondering because Pit has a few noteworthy matchups in the realms of the mid and low-tiers, he's a high-tier character that has very few truly dominant matchups. And I stand by my belief that Dedede goes even with Pit.

I've played against the Pits about as much as any other character, and I feel vs Pit is fairly even. Dark Pit might win +1 since Electroshock Arm can catch landings and kill more easily as well as set up for edgeguards. Pit can rack damage pretty well but takes a while to kill. Pit wins on BF but on flatter stages it's even.

 

[DE235]

What do other diddy players think of the sheik matchup at this point.

 

[S_B]

Yes but you basically adding 8 new moves to balance, multiplique that for the number of characters now you have 450 others moves to balance, that adds more dev time and cost money, and seeing how smash is difficult to develop i doubt that something like that would happen unless you cut the roster to 15 or 20 characters.

Oh, I didn't mean EVERY B move should have a press vs. hold component, but in a few cases, some characters would really benefit from a few additional options, especially characters that have terrible movement options and could use a side+B that covers distance (or more distance).

 

[Halifax?]

I love the ZeRo option select when it comes to Sheik.

You're not supposed to be able to beat the best player, he just happens to use Sheik!

Look, ZeRo can beat Sheiks with Diddy, not because he's the best player or anything!

Wow this was one of the worst top 8s since Apex.

 

[Dagon97]

I feel like an under explored MU is vs .
Anybody know anything about it?

Can Ryu Shoryuken out of staircase combo?

 

[Wintropy]

I've played against the Pits about as much as any other character, and I feel vs Pit is fairly even. Dark Pit might win +1 since Electroshock Arm can catch landings and kill more easily as well as set up for edgeguards. Pit can rack damage pretty well but takes a while to kill. Pit wins on BF but on flatter stages it's even.

Out of interest, how does 'Dorf land in this matchup? Pit's very good at catching landings with u-smash, it's one of his best options in advantage - on a flat stage, what options does 'Dorf have to safely touch down?

Personally I've never had an issue with this matchup, but I don't think I've played enough especially good Ganondorfs to make an educated judgement beyond "space the ****** and don't get hit". I think Pit has an easy enough time in neutral, he's faster than 'Dorf with better startup data, disjoints and a solid grab game that eats up super-heavies, and 'Dorf's not that difficult to juggle when you get him in the air.

The only thing I'd really be wary of as Pit is trying to press the advantage, since 'Dorf is decent at turning the tables with a good read. You have to be patient and bait the openings. I think Pit's got a firm advantage in neutral and potentially off-stage (though the same can be said for 'Dorf to some extent, he's a fine edgeguarder), and he has no problem putting 'Dorf in a compromising position and capitalising on it for good damage, but converting that to a kill is the real kicker.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

I love the ZeRo option select when it comes to Sheik.

You're not supposed to be able to beat the best player, he just happens to use Sheik!

Look, ZeRo can beat Sheiks with Diddy, not because he's the best player or anything!

Wow this was one of the worst top 8s since Apex.

The top 8 isn't bad by any stretch of the imagination. 3 sheiks in top 8 and the rest are a bunch of top, high, and mid tiers. That's pretty good
EDIT: question. Outside of sheik, what top tier can actually turtle and force opponents to come to them?

 

[Fatmanonice]

Three Sheiks and it's the end of the world?

Cue eyeroll.

Smooth Criminal

Not to mention this is a convention tournament and a good number of the top players didn't bother going because of this. If this was something like Genesis, Apex, CEO, or even EVO, I could understand people being upset but this is basically a pit stop before the bigger tournaments.

 

[Peppermint1201]

I love the ZeRo option select when it comes to Sheik.

You're not supposed to be able to beat the best player, he just happens to use Sheik!

Look, ZeRo can beat Sheiks with Diddy, not because he's the best player or anything!

Wow this was one of the worst top 8s since Apex.

It's your own fault if you can't appreciate watching a high-level Sheik ditto / Sheik vs Diddy matchup, especially with a Sheik like Void's.