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

[adom4]

There's a chart on what Ganondorf can do with Flame Choke on missed techs and such: http://smashboards.com/threads/the-wise-ganon-ats-competitive-discussion-guides-data.368849/, if anyone wants to reference.

It lacks the DLC characters follow ups though:

Ryu & Roy: No follow ups
Mewtwo: Jab, D-tilt on tech away
Lucas: D-tilt & F-tilt

 

[predator_21476]

Ike doesn't destroy Ganon, that matchup is more like 55/45 Ike's favor. Especially if the Ganon knows the spacing to edgeguard Ike out of his Up-B, it's really not a lopsided matchup for Ganon at all. Ganon can get in Ike's zone if he makes a mistake and juggle him pretty efficiently, and his range is about equal to Ike's on average on important moves.

Note that Eruption is not free on Ganon's recovery, like it is on Falcon's. Ganon fist hitbox on Up-B requires fairly strict timing to beat, and also the move travels fast enough to be hard to punish on reaction.

From my personal experience this matchup is more lopsided. Ganon can't do much if the Ike doesn't let him get in. Also eruption is incredibly easy to hit ganon with. It's easy to react to the up b even online.

 

[adom4]

From my personal experience this matchup is more lopsided. Ganon can't do much if the Ike doesn't let him get in. Also eruption is incredibly easy to hit ganon with. It's easy to react to the up b even online.

The thing about eruption is that the uppercut from Dark dive can usually hit Ike before eruption hits Ganon, it's possible to hit it on Ganon but it's not as free as it looks.

 

[predator_21476]

The thing about eruption is that the uppercut from Dark dive can usually hit Ike before eruption hits Ganon, it's possible to hit it on Ganon but it's not as free as it looks.

Because eruption has such a massive hitbox the uppercut rarely get the chance to hit. If it does normally it is a trade. It is possible to be hit out of it though. Just from my experience its not hard to time.

 

[adom4]

Because eruption has such a massive hitbox the uppercut rarely get the chance to hit. If it does normally it is a trade. It is possible to be hit out of it though. Just from my experience its not hard to time.

The uppercut hitbox is ridiculously disjointed, from my experience most of the time i got the uppercut before eruption.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Three spots is the difference between the 3rd best and the 6th best character - the difference between being able to take on everybody successfully [including the best two characters] and being better off using a secondary in specific matchup.

I'm cherry picking hard here, but this sentence stood out to me because it implies there's a line somewhere between 3rd and 6th place on the tier list where characters magically go from solo-viable to not-solo-viable.

I imagine what you're actually trying to say is that there happen to be 3-5 characters that are solo viable, so going from 3rd to 6th puts you over that line by coincidence, but that's not inherently tied to the rankings.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

The uppercut hitbox is ridiculously disjointed, from my experience most of the time i got the uppercut before eruption.

It pretty much depends on how much of a charge Ike got to get on his Eruption.

Is he far enough along that he's going to get super armour upon release? If so, the uppercut is going to smash into that, and then Ganondorf's face into a fireball.

If not, Ike is most likely getting hit out of it but not guaranteed. Depends on the exact timing/positioning

 

[NewZen]

Wait, so Flame Choke and W. Dropkick make the Villager/Ganon MU more tolerable for Ganon?

I have a friend who mains Villager and swears that people who generally conclude that Ganon loses to Villager are off in their data.

 

[adom4]

Wait, so Flame Choke and W. Dropkick make the Villager/Ganon MU more tolerable for Ganon?

I have a friend who mains Villager and swears that people who generally conclude that Ganon loses to Villager are off in their data.

The villager MU is fine until Ganon gets knocked off stage.
I'm not gonna even bother explaining what happens offstage.

 

[the king of murder]

In my opinion Ganon really only gets "destroyed" by Shiek, Villager, Rosa and mayyybe ZSS.(I.e 30:70 MU) because those 3 or 4 have the tools to abuse Ganons faults to an extreme degree to the point where Ganon has to guess more than he would like in neutral. He also probably loses against every high and top tiers except Ness but not any harder than 40:60. His reward is absurd, neutral while not good, is not garbage(he has range, safe, fast and very strong pokes and burst movement) plus he can condition his opponents given his power and range.

Everyone else is probably like even from ranging from 55:45 to 45:55 becasue everyone below high tier doesn't really have the pressuring tools to abuse Ganon into playing unsafe all the time nor can they keep playing safe keepaway because of either limited mobility or just not having the tools to control the stage like say Villager or Luma have or to a lesser degree Ike with his massive disjoint or Pit. Of course because of Ganon's design of being unsafe by nature and having limited mobility himself, he will never win a MU harder than 60:40 and that's being generous.

From my personal experience this matchup is more lopsided. Ganon can't do much if the Ike doesn't let him get in. Also eruption is incredibly easy to hit ganon with. It's easy to react to the up b even online.

Just saying but Eruption is actually easier to time in online play, as it isn't as fast paced as offline play.

Ike vs Ganon is in Ike's favor but only like 60:40. Both get massive reward on each other, but Ike has actual close range game with Jab and his Fair, Ftilt and Bair to keep him out safely, he has a lot of fast moves plus Eruption guard but Ganon can abuse Ike's blindspots since his disjoint don't cover all of his direction(thats why Ganon should ban FD because he can't abuse that as much with those autocancels) and as difficult as it seems, Ganon has ways to edgeguard Ike. Not easy and risky but it's possible(ledgedrop Uair is an example). Also generally Ganon kills earlier than Ike but Ike has better ways to get his kills.

I could go into more detail but I want to spare you the wall of text

 

[NewZen]

The villager MU is fine until Ganon gets knocked off stage.
I'm not gonna even bother explaining what happens offstage.

Oh, believe me-I know all too well...XD

 

[predator_21476]

In my opinion Ganon really only gets "destroyed" by Shiek, Villager, Rosa and mayyybe ZSS.(I.e 30:70 MU) because those 3 or 4 have the tools to abuse Ganons faults to an extreme degree to the point where Ganon has to guess more than he would like in neutral. He also probably loses against every high and top tiers except Ness but not any harder than 40:60. His reward is absurd, neutral while not good, is not garbage(he has range, safe, fast and very strong pokes and burst movement) plus he can condition his opponents given his power and range.

Everyone else is probably like even from ranging from 55:45 to 45:55 becasue everyone below high tier doesn't really have the pressuring tools to abuse Ganon into playing unsafe all the time nor can they keep playing safe keepaway because of either limited mobility or just not having the tools to control the stage like say Villager or Luma has or to a lesser degree Ike with his massive disjoint. Of course because of Ganon's design of being unsafe by nature and having limited mobility himself, he will never win a MU harder than 60:40 and that's being generous.



Just saying but Eruption is actually easier to time in online play, as it isn't as fast paced as offline play.

Ike vs Ganon is in Ike's favor but only like 60:40. Both get massive reward on each other, but Ike has actual close range game with Jab and his Fair, Ftilt and Bair to keep him out safely, he has a lot of fast moves plus Eruption guard but Ganon can abuse Ike's blindspots since his disjoint don't cover all of his direction(thats why Ganon should ban FD because he can't abuse that as much with those autocancels) and as difficult as it seems, Ganon has ways to edgeguard Ike. Not easy and risky but it's possible(ledgedrop Uair is an example).

I could go into more detail but I want to spare you the wall of text

That sounds about right for most matchups in this game because there is very few that are really hard to do well in. But most characters can Gimp Ike. I've been spiked out of aether by a ganon. They can edge guard each other fairly well. Though he has to read where a side b is going to beat that.

 

[Ffamran]

The uppercut hitbox is ridiculously disjointed, from my experience most of the time i got the uppercut before eruption.

Yep... It looks like an angled Ganondorf-sized disjoint. I still don't know why and it's on both Dark Dive and Dark Fists. Gif by Lavani.

 

[A2ZOMG]

From my personal experience this matchup is more lopsided. Ganon can't do much if the Ike doesn't let him get in. Also eruption is incredibly easy to hit ganon with. It's easy to react to the up b even online.

Ganon can grab the ledge as early as frame 18 on the activation of his Up-B, and from a distance that is decently outside of Eruption's range.

Given Eruption release is frame 11, it's very realistic for Ganon to juke Eruption edgeguard and grab the ledge safely.

I'm almost certain that in order for someone like Falcon to grab the ledge ASAP with his Up-B, he more or less has to actually be virtually inside Eruption's range, and any further away, it's reaction punishable. Doesn't help him that his first available ledge grab frame is 1 frame later as well as the fact he falls faster.

 

[Ffamran]

Speaking of dives, as command grabs, are Dark and Falcon Dive "passable"? Considering Falcon Dive's wacky grabbox that can teleport Captain Falcon through the ledge or have him latch onto you despite facing the wrong way...

 

[adom4]

Speaking of dives, as command grabs, are Dark and Falcon Dive "passable"? Considering Falcon Dive's wacky grabbox that can teleport Captain Falcon through the ledge or have him latch onto you despite facing the wrong way...

Dark dive is probably the worst command grab in the game, at least Falcon dive kills.

 

[Ffamran]

Dark dive is probably the worst command grab in the game, at least Falcon dive kills.

Can't remember, but Dark Dive can't home into people like Falcon Dive, right? Wished we had a hitbox viewer to see the insanity of Falcon Dive's hitbox.

 

[DunnoBro]

The villager MU is fine until Ganon gets knocked off stage.
I'm not gonna even bother explaining what happens offstage.

There's a bible chapter depicting what happens in pretty deep detail.

 

[TTTTTsd]

There's a bible chapter depicting what happens in pretty deep detail.

I like to equate it as Lazarus seeing death for one stock, coming back, and nobody believing how bad it is cause they'll never see it since nobody's gonna wanna play this matchup.

 

[Trifroze]

Falcon Dive's grab hitbox is bigger near the startup, Dark Dive's hitbox is bigger towards the end of it. The disjoints are considerable enough that they beat all of Pikachu's aerials for example, but not stuff like Sheik's or Luigi's fair. I think at least Falcon dive is a decent command grab, just it's not used the same way as most other command grabs. It does 17% and works mostly for platform pressure to catch opponents shielding, and as an extension for your edgeguarding in cases where you know your opponent has no other option but to drift towards you, and even if you fail you can fade back to the ledge.

 

[LancerStaff]

It's like saying that Mario does horrible on platform stages given that his opponent can just camp on platforms and not die until extreme percentages. It seems to work in theory, but I've seen almost nobody do it.

It's one of those things where people just don't want to do it because of scrub rules... Like how nobody wants to be "that guy" and say no to Smashville, or how everybody wanted to beat pre-patch Luigi with rushdown. Most people would rather lose "honorably" then win by any means necessary, even with money on the line.

 

[DunnoBro]

You can't platform camp mario lol

I mean you can but it's not worth it. His aerial mobility and pokes along with the fact he can kill you reliably if he grabs you on a platform just make the risk/reward not worth it, that's why no one does it

A lot of "theory" doesn't pan out become it assumes people will keep making the right decision in situations the wrong one costs way more.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

So I just saw this...

https://youtu.be/bEVDvfzcvXU

 

[Nu~]

So I just saw this...

https://youtu.be/bEVDvfzcvXU

This is well know by the pac community (or at least to me)
Yet still, we have pacmains that complain about our sheild pressure.

"You have to do so much set up!!!"

Catching a key is trivial when you get the timing down. Once pacman has a fruit in the hand, his offensive game is dumb.

 

[predator_21476]

So I just saw this...

https://youtu.be/bEVDvfzcvXU

That looks incredibly situational but is still ridiculous.

 

[BSP]

This is well know by the pac community (or at least to me)
Yet still, we have pacmains that complain about our sheild pressure.

"You have to do so much set up!!!"

Catching a key is trivial when you get the timing down. Once pacman has a fruit in the hand, his offensive game is dumb.

I half agree. Getting the Key in hand safely is not trivial though. That's at least 2 seconds of Bonus Fruit charging and not using any of them while you get to Key, then willingly exposing yourself to a ledge situation in order to get the thing in your hand. During all of this, the opponent should be on your tail pressuring you. When you do get it in your hand, you still need your opponent to sit under you in shield so that you can attempt it.

If it stops people from shielding vs Pac-Man so much, great. He needs that badly. However, I see this much like Diddy's infinites in brawl. We all knew he could infinite everyone relevant except ICs with a single banana, yet he didn't take over the game or anything. It's good to know, but I don't expect it to rocket him up in people's eyes.

 

[LancerStaff]

You can't platform camp mario lol

I mean you can but it's not worth it. His aerial mobility and pokes along with the fact he can kill you reliably if he grabs you on a platform just make the risk/reward not worth it, that's why no one does it

A lot of "theory" doesn't pan out become it assumes people will keep making the right decision in situations the wrong one costs way more.

Probably just my character again...

Still, we have a lot of things people should be doing but won't for silly reasons.

 

[Nu~]

I half agree. Getting the Key in hand safely is not trivial though. That's at least 2 seconds of Bonus Fruit charging and not using any of them while you get to Key, then willingly exposing yourself to a ledge situation in order to get the thing in your hand. During all of this, the opponent should be on your tail pressuring you. When you do get it in your hand, you still need your opponent to sit under you in shield so that you can attempt it.

If it stops people from shielding vs Pac-Man so much, great. He needs that badly. However, I see this much like Diddy's infinites in brawl. We all knew he could infinite everyone relevant except ICs with a single banana, yet he didn't take over the game or anything. It's good to know, but I don't expect it to rocket him up in people's eyes.

I agree that charging to a key is not free, but it's still an option that the opponent has to be well aware of. Rushing down pacman isn't exactly easy unless you can run through the hydrant, and if so, we still have trampoline to help delay their approach.

In fact, we can start the match off with a trampoline to take the ledge game out of the equation for opponents, drop off of the ledge and charge offstage, cancel the charge when the opponent comes for us, then extend our second jump with bonus fruit charging to recover back. Depending on how fast the opponent is, this is a good way to get a head start on your key charging.

And your opponent doesn't exactly have to be directly below you while holding shield. All we have to do is short hop + key drop next to them and can confirm a hydrant drop from there. Even then, the goal is to make the opponent fear their own sheild button. The infinite is icing.

I see Pac-Man's gameplay in sm4sh as the way he played in his arcade game. Run until you get a power up (fruit in hand) then go ham.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

You can't platform camp mario lol

I mean you can but it's not worth it. His aerial mobility and pokes along with the fact he can kill you reliably if he grabs you on a platform just make the risk/reward not worth it, that's why no one does it

A lot of "theory" doesn't pan out become it assumes people will keep making the right decision in situations the wrong one costs way more.

So A2ZOMG is wrong about that?

 

[DunnoBro]

So A2ZOMG is wrong about that?

He's wrong about a lot of things.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

He's wrong about a lot of things.

Anything in particular?

 

[DunnoBro]

Anything in particular?

If I recall correctly he tried to tell me DHD had an easier time killing than Mario.

All that said he still says some very valuable info from time to time so I just try to bear with it.

He was the first person I saw suggest fthrow > bair on gimpable floaties at <10% with mario and it's very rewarding.

 

[BSP]

I agree that charging to a key is not free, but it's still an option that the opponent has to be well aware of. Rushing down pacman isn't exactly easy unless you can run through the hydrant, and if so, we still have trampoline to help delay their approach.

In fact, we can start the match off with a trampoline to take the ledge game out of the equation for opponents, drop off of the ledge and charge offstage, cancel the charge when the opponent comes for us, then extend our second jump with bonus fruit charging to recover back. Depending on how fast the opponent is, this is a good way to get a head start on your key charging.

And your opponent doesn't exactly have to be directly below you while holding shield. All we have to do is short hop + key drop next to them and can confirm a hydrant drop from there. Even then, the goal is to make the opponent fear their own sheild button. The infinite is icing.

I see Pac-Man's gameplay in sm4sh as the way he played in his arcade game. Run until you get a power up (fruit in hand) then go ham.

Like we said a while back, maybe this is what his meta needs to become. I can't say "no" to everything you're saying, but if Pac-Man does nothing but go for this...eh, we'll see.

 

[Pazzo.]

This is well know by the pac community (or at least to me)
Yet still, we have pacmains that complain about our sheild pressure.

"You have to do so much set up!!!"

Catching a key is trivial when you get the timing down. Once pacman has a fruit in the hand, his offensive game is dumb.

The ability to summon an item at anytime ( :4 (sort of)) is a huge asset IMO.

I would immediatly discount any PAC-player who complains about shield pressure for that reason alone.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Super late reply, but I had mad homework from and and i read this over to make sure I didn't misunderstood anything. Plus, it's a topic I find great interest in

Just saying, people can do well at Smash without being good at footsies because footsies play a far, far smaller part in Smash than they do in Street Fighter. In Smash you can run, roll, jump at different heights, control your falling speed, mid-air jump into any direction sometimes several times, move more or less freely while in the air, airdodge and generally dance around the opponent any way you want whether you do it aerially or on the ground. There's always a ton of options the players have simply because of movement, whereas in Street Fighter there's few enough that you can actually completely focus on something like footsies and reaction to a select few approaches or buttons. Mobility is the central factor in Smash, not footsies, and it makes precise spacing much harder and more impractical than SF's back and forth walking does. In Smash, you should first consider movement and mix ups, then work on precise spacing much later along the line.

It's very largely the same with Smash 4 Ryu except you can remove the "move more or less freely while in the air" part, yet only that one. He has more attacks than other characters, but ZSS also generally utilizes more attacks than Falcon and still no one keeps emphasizing the difference in their difficulty levels, or between Sheik and Mario, or Pikachu and Luigi. What comes to his inputs, they do leave more room for error than other inputs in Smash, but they're still very simple.

I also disagree with any notions that Smash 4 is an easy fighting game. In addition to its fast pace (despite a few matchups out of 3000+ being sluggish) and the options you have to mix up between and consider from the opponent at all times, you also need to have some pretty immense knowledge with certain characters about when their setups and combos work on different characters, now factoring in rage as well. What's really nice is that when you get a rough idea of all the variables like fall speed, weight, size and rage, you sort of create a formula in your head instead of having to individually test your stuff on every character to know roughly when it works. Then there's also DI mixups and sometimes the requirement to react to it, spacing between sweetspots and sourspots to get exactly what you want and so on. A professional SF4 player would take a considerable amount of time to get actually good at Smash 4, or possibly not get there at all because it's a vastly different kind of game. Same vice-versa of course.

I would agree with your topic sentence stating that people can still do well in smash 4 with without a solid footsie game, but only because their opponent didn't know it, or it's like, a super early metagame phase the game is going threw. Mobility is just another factor in footsies that you implement into your game in order to win neutral games easier (I'm very sure you already know this, since you main falcon). Sure, mobility is very very important in smash, but that only makes the footsies style in this game very mobile-heavy.
And addressing your point on precision spacing being close to impractical in smash due to the several movement options present in the game, I argue precise spacing isn't demolished at all in smash, but rather translated different than street fighter. In street fighter, attacks > mobility by majority if not all, so you see a lot of attacks being thrown out in order to control space, gain territory, read, and all that super layered stuff. In smash, attacks << mobility generally, with zoners like villager being the exception. Precise spacing is now about the position of your character relative to the stage and your opponent, which adds more depth to stage control than street fighter because of the vertical spacing and stuff.

And your last two paragraphs, I have nothing to argue or disagree about. Have a good day sir =)

EDIT: I just realized I addressed one paragraph. Lol

 

[Wintropy]

The ability to summon an item at anytime ( :4 (sort of)) is a huge asset IMO.

I would immediatly discount any PAC-player who complains about shield pressure for that reason alone.

don't forget

the fact that he can summon a throwable, reusable roadblock at will is significant. its use as a stage control tool cannot be underestimated.

don't know if it has any use for shield pressure. how does r.o.b. fare against a shielding opponent, for that matter? what options does he have? i reckon f-air and d-tilt might be pretty safe pressure options, but i don't know r.o.b. that well in this game.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

don't forget

the fact that he can summon a throwable, reusable roadblock at will is significant. its use as a stage control tool cannot be underestimated.

don't know if it has any use for shield pressure. how does r.o.b. fare against a shielding opponent, for that matter? what options does he have? i reckon f-air and d-tilt might be pretty safe pressure options, but i don't know r.o.b. that well in this game.

I play rob. I like To shield poke with nair, bair, and Fair a lot. I also use gyro to mix it up heavy. I'm not a super methodical, calculating monster, but I'm good at reading minds with rob and feelings. I just wait it out as their shield shrinks automatically, throw the gyro down, or just do weird stuff basically. Rob's dash speed and dash grab aren't exactly stellar, but his reward for getting grabs is good though. So, in summary, we're alright I think, but I'm not so analytical With my play. @Mister Eric help

 

[Pazzo.]

don't forget

the fact that he can summon a throwable, reusable roadblock at will is significant. its use as a stage control tool cannot be underestimated.

don't know if it has any use for shield pressure. how does r.o.b. fare against a shielding opponent, for that matter? what options does he have? i reckon f-air and d-tilt might be pretty safe pressure options, but i don't know r.o.b. that well in this game.

How could I forget the Ancient Robot himself!?

I'm no R.O.B expert, but from what I've seen, grab is still a very real threat in CQC, and N-Air along with F-Air are real threats, especially with our new shield stun.

 

[Wintropy]

How could I forget the Ancient Robot himself!?

I'm no R.O.B expert, but from what I've seen, grab is still a very real threat in CQC, and N-Air along with F-Air are real threats, especially with our new shield stun.

grab is pretty tasty yeah. beep-boop is great fun and n-air is good for for catching spotdodges, that much i know, but that's about the extent of my r.o.b. knowledge.

oh yeah, one more thing while i'm picking the r.o.b. squad's brain: hat practical use does arm rotor have? i know it's a (pretty dodgy) reflector, but is it a serviceable cqc option or is it too slow and di-able to be good?

 

[Baby_Sneak]

grab is pretty tasty yeah. beep-boop is great fun and n-air is good for for catching spotdodges, that much i know, but that's about the extent of my r.o.b. knowledge.

oh yeah, one more thing while i'm picking the r.o.b. squad's brain: hat practical use does arm rotor have? i know it's a (pretty dodgy) reflector, but is it a serviceable cqc option or is it too slow and di-able to be good?

It's slower than rocks and is as laggy as brawl lag. Basically a death wish UNLESS you can somehow get right in the middle of someone's shield and confuse them on where you're going to end up, or actually hit them, which isn't even good reward.