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

[rrrRandy]

Can we get some discussion on in this thread? I think he is one of the most underrated bottom 10 characters in the game, if that makes any sense, and I never see any discussion on him. He has some really awesome and overlooked tools, such as:

• second best killthrow in the game off of a giant grab range
• frame 5 super armor move that can do up to 30% at low percents or kill at high percents
• frame 4 jab that can do 12%
• gigantic disjointed neutral b that can be used to edgeguard onstage
• autocancel frame 9 nair and frame 8 fair
• 8th fastest dash in the game that he can do both of these aerials out of
• frame 9 intangible uptilt that can combo into itself
• frame 7 intangible Up Smash, (frame 6 on aerial opponents,) and
• a frame 4 superarmor oos option in up-b that hits on frame 9 and can KILL

yet people often say he is the worst character in the game. What am I missing that makes him worse than Jigglypuff or Zelda or Palutena?

I play a pretty decent amount of Charizard, so here's some reasons why he's actually really bad (not worst character bad, but far from good; oh, and while I'm on this point, Palutena isn't nearly as bad as Jigglypuff or Zelda):

• The most general way I can put this is the following: nearly every aspect of the character that you didn't list as a positive is really bad. For example, he has poor jump height, low fall speed, low air speed, no aerial option that comes out before frame 8, an idle hurtbox that extends well in front of the character in his head/neck which reduces the effective disjointedness of his moves, a dashing hurtbox that also extends very far forward, the ledge-grab hurtbox that extends the furthest above the ledge out of any character, a massive hitstun hurtbox, second lowest ground traction in the game, an airdodge that doesn't autocancel out of a shorthop without inputting another aerial afterward to autocancel that instead, an awkward combination of weight, fall speed and hurtbox size that makes the character easy to combo but not too hard to kill, one of the laggiest dash grabs, the second highest total landing lag on aerials and a high total of (like top 8, don't remember right now) ending lag on smash attacks... I think you get the idea.
• His up-throw really isn't that powerful after taking into account DI, due to the knockback angle being rather shallow for a vertical kill option. You usually have to wait until about 140% before you can really be certain to kill most characters, and rage (and by extension, a raised platform) doesn't make it kill much earlier due to most of its kill power coming from 220 KBG. Grab range is nice, but it's only standing/shield grab range; Charizard's dash and pivot grabs are actually absolutely pitiful (for reasons not entirely to do with range, but yeah).
• Frame 5 super armour isn't that great when it's still a frame 24 hitbox; unless you get a read on their attack, most people will simply grab you out of startup, and even if you do armour through an attack you're taking the full damage of the attack for what will usually average 18% in most situations. Rock Smash is also not a particularly consistent kill option since the rock shards can interrupt the knockback from the initial hit. (As a bit of an aside: One thing that somewhat hampers Rock Smash's utility as a landing option is how B-reversing the move will cause the rock shards to fly out in the unreversed direction, making them cover the space inside you instead of in front of you, which is generally far less useful.)
• Jab is really good, yeah.
• Flamethrower has some pretty significant startup and endlag, so you can't exactly throw it out whenever you want. Its range is pretty damn big to start with, but it quickly peters off so you can't effectively wall people out with it. All things considered, it's a really big commitment for something you primarily want to zone with and only does about 5% in that situation. It is quite nice for edgeguarding, but the character honestly has a plethora of powerful edgeguarding options, so it's not the hugest deal.
• Nair and Fair do autocancel out of a shorthop, but only with a few frames of leeway in Fair's case, meaning a shorthop Fair is only going to be usable while rising, making it useless as an anti-air unless you're willing to commit to the highest amount of landing lag on a forward-air in the game. For real, Charizard's landing and ending lag on moves is kinda messed up how high it is, especially when you compare his damage output per move to other characters. Overall high lag amounts to having no particularly safe options at any time (outside of like, jab and down-tilt), which really hurts the character when he has to be played by an imperfect human player.
• Dash speed is nice, walk speed is actually pretty good too. His head and neck though, goddamn.
• Up-tilt is a very nice move, but it only has utility as an anti-air due to it only hitting directly above Charizard. It's a really good anti-air mind you, but it's not good for much else.
• Up-smash, while disjointed and fast, has very awkwardly positioned hitboxes that will cause it to whiff on opponents slightly diagonally in front of and above you, as well as behind you. The first hit can also occasionally not properly link into the second hit, and it usually also only links into the weaker hitboxes, making it not actually that good for killing unless you hit them with a specific hitbox. It's also pretty laggy, even though it's his least laggy.
• Fly is a pretty good out-of-shield option (as are up-smash and shieldgrab), but out-of-shield options were noticeably hampered in version 1.1.1 due to the shieldstun changes. With that in mind, Fly has some pretty small range on it, and will very often fail to connect all the hits if you B-reverse it, you don't properly follow the opponent's DI or they were above you when you started the attack. And if for any reason you fail to land that last hit, you're very likely going to be taking a hard punish sometime during your slow helpless fall with almost no ability to drift side to side into 30 frames of landing lag. The shieldstun changes actually hurt Charizard's viability a lot even though no direct changes were made to the character, due to the character's main strengths lying in his powerful out-of-shield options, and he received little benefit in exchange due to his aforementioned poor ending lag/damage per hit.

The character has some very apparent strengths, which is why it's hard to call him a really bad character, but he also has a very large number of weaknesses, some obvious and some more subtle, that kinda totally mess with Charizard's general quality of life, so to speak.

 

[Kirby Dragons]

Dedede can actually edgeguard very well using his Gordos (they have enough knockback to kill opponents trying to recover), and sometimes his down tilt and Super Dedede Jump. Gordo Toss is also a CQC move; he can hit with both the hammer and the Gordo for an easy combo. At low percents, he also has down throw to aerial true combos. Dedede has a great back aerial that can punish and gimp. It works well on grounded opponents. Forward tilt can be used OoS, I believe, and is tedious for the opponent because of its range and multi-hitting. Super Dedede Jump is (very arguably) the best up special in the game, since it gives him heavy armor, it goes super high, it can be cancelled at any time, it meteor smashes and buries, and it's also a projectile.

I see him as the second best super heavyweight, after Donkey Kong and before Charizard.

 

[Trifroze]

Charizard might just be the most commitment heavy character in the game, I can't think of anyone else that has such lack of safety when looking through the roster. Even Zelda does better in that regard. It's a huge deal when, instead of having a tool that you can throw out ~10 times without being punished and it only needs to work once, it needs to work every time because otherwise you're getting punished for it. And Charizard's reward for landing those options isn't even all that good for his archetype.

 

[FimPhym]

D3 is a pain in the arse for any character who lacks a safe, reliable way to reflect Gordos back. He's pretty free for anyone who doesn't lack that.

This is true in the sense that dedede loses to lots of characters.

It's false in the sense that throwing gordos in neutral stopped being a good tactic even on for glory by about this time last year.

It's okay to not know about dedede but ideas like this are embarrassing

 

[Wintropy]

I see him as the second best super heavyweight, after Donkey Kong and before Charizard.

that's a bold statement. out of interest, i want to rebut some of these theories.

- super dedede jump is not the best up-b in the game. no argument. it just isn't good. it's only arguably good as a recovery (and even then it's held back by how predictable its trajectory and frame data is). when the hitbox is projected, you can't change the direction you're going in, so it's criminally easy to dodge and punish; canceling it cancels the hitbox and puts dedede in freefall, which makes him even more vulnerable. even if it connects and buries, what can you really do to followup? most of dedede's moves are too slow to be useful in that situation and the opponent needs to be at high percents for them to even be buried for a sufficient period to make punishment possible. i guess you can use f-tilt or d-tilt or something, but in that case...why even bother using this incredibly unsafe, punishable move? if you have the opportunity to use up-b, why not just tilt them there and then? using it in neutral is not a good idea. its only saving grace is the fact that the stars make it a tiny bit more difficult to punish on the ground and mean (short of tether grabs) he can't be grabbed instantly when he touches don. it does have meteor potential, but that requires a hard read to be anything other than a joke move: if you throw yourself off-stage and miss, well done, you just killed yourself. when dedede has an otherwise decent edgeguarding game, i can see no reason why you'd ever consider doing this except by total accident or to troll the other guy.

- gordo toss is only a cqc move if the opponent has no idea what they're doing and stand right in front of dedede's hammer. the hammer animation is, what, f14 or something (somebody correct me on this)? i can't think of any situation in which you'd use dedede's hammer as a weapon of its on except, again, as an accident or to troll. if you know the opponent is daft enough to run right at you and do nothing, gordo can be a useful (yet very slow on startup) wall, but that's about it. gordo should not be used in neutral except in very special circumstances (of which none come to mind).

dedede just isn't a good character in 1v1. his slow, predictable moves mean he's easy to read and punish and he suffers in neutral, his main projectile option has a 2% damage threshold so only very specific characters can be effectively punished by it, he has the weakest airspeed in the game and no reliable way to escape combos, he has very few good, safe cqc options and even his grab reward is mediocre at best. i think he's held back from absolute non-viability by having a decent advantage state (if he can get you in an unfavourable position and hit you, it's going to hurt) and survivability (super heavyweight with a good recovery, not bad). i just don't think these strengths outweigh his very significant weaknesses. sorry, i don't think he's very good.

This is true in the sense that dedede loses to lots of characters.

It's false in the sense that throwing gordos in neutral stopped being a good tactic even on for glory by about this time last year.

It's okay to not know about dedede but ideas like this are embarrassing

i don't know, i think there's some merit to the idea. i think pit has a tougher time than most others in this matchup due to his most reliable airs (n-air and f-air) not reflecting gordo instantly, so you have to think a tiny bit more if he throws it at you. that and it's irritating as hell to try and kill dedede with...well, with pit.

of course, these tiny weaknesses don't really outdo pit's strengths in this matchup (faster mobility, better frame data, great grab reward, arrows that can reflect gordo), but it's something to point out.

 

[Trifroze]

Labbing with Ganondorf again, what's funny is that he's actually the safest (super)heavy in the game if we're purely talking shield safety of attacks. The fastest options in the game can't punish a powershielded falling bair or nair let alone normally shielded ones, in addition to normally shielded uair and fair, assuming these are all spaced halfway properly. 95% of the characters (i.e. anyone not named Sheik or Wario) can't punish dtilt either, and some characters including Mario, Pikachu and Yoshi can't punish a spaced fsmash either. Usmash, powershielded and spaced or not, goes without saying.

Ganondorf's landing options are every bit as viable as someone like Bowser's because of Ganondorf's aerial safety and wizkick if you want to compare to Bowser's down b. This leads me to a confident conclusion that Ganondorf's viability is literally only dependent on his mobility and the startup frames of his jab. Increase his overall mobility and decrease his jab's startup frames, and his viability rises directly relative to those adjustments. He's been seeing buffs in pretty much every patch, but I doubt these two types of buffs will ever happen to him, and it's a shame. Not really sure if Ganondorf is the worst superheavy, but then again their archetype clusters all of them pretty densely together anyway.

 

[bc1910]

I think Charizard trades some reward for speed, compared to a normal heavy. Sadly this doesn't accomplish much because it takes his reward out of that "stupid" level, yet he's still too slow to compete with the fast characters.

 

[meleebrawler]

Mewtwo's Uthrow and Ness' Bthrow are both better than Zard's Uthrow. Lucas' Uthrow is also better factoring DI. It's a good kill throw but not second best.

Still doesn't stop Mewtwo naysayers from claiming it's better, just because of Zard's rage potential (which he needs a ton of before it starts comparing or outdoing Mewtwo's) or auto-landing on platforms. Apparently it's a blasphemy that any character has killing uthrows that can compare to Mewtwo's.

 

[adom4]

Labbing with Ganondorf again, what's funny is that he's actually the safest (super)heavy in the game if we're purely talking shield safety of attacks. The fastest options in the game can't punish a powershielded falling bair or nair let alone normally shielded ones, in addition to normally shielded uair and fair, assuming these are all spaced halfway properly. 95% of the characters (i.e. anyone not named Sheik or Wario) can't punish dtilt either, and some characters including Mario, Pikachu and Yoshi can't punish a spaced fsmash either. Usmash, powershielded and spaced or not, goes without saying.

Ganondorf's landing options are every bit as viable as someone like Bowser's because of Ganondorf's aerial safety and wizkick if you want to compare to Bowser's down b. This leads me to a confident conclusion that Ganondorf's viability is literally only dependent on his mobility and the startup frames of his jab. Increase his overall mobility and decrease his jab's startup frames, and his viability rises directly relative to those adjustments. He's been seeing buffs in pretty much every patch, but I doubt these two types of buffs will ever happen to him, and it's a shame. Not really sure if Ganondorf is the worst superheavy, but then again their archetype clusters all of them pretty densely together anyway.

Mobility buffs will never happen (maybe it's for the best though lol), jab buff is the best thing Ganondorf can get right now, he really REALLY lacks a quick GTFO move, F-tilt is godlike but it's still a tad slow for a GTFO move.
And personally i think Ganon is either the 2nd or 3rd worst superheavy after DDD (he might be better than Bowser but i'm not 100% confident in that).

Still doesn't stop Mewtwo naysayers from claiming it's better, just because of Zard's rage potential (which he needs a ton of before it starts comparing or outdoing Mewtwo's) or auto-landing on platforms. Apparently it's a blasphemy that any character has killing uthrows that can compare to Mewtwo's.

To be fair it is a bit better on certain stages, but yeah i agree Mewtwo's U-throw is overall better.

 

[meleebrawler]

I think Charizard trades some reward for speed, compared to a normal heavy. Sadly this doesn't accomplish much because it takes his reward out of that "stupid" level, yet he's still too slow to compete with the fast characters.

DK does the whole "trade some power for speed" schtick much better anyhow. At least on a per-hit basis.

 

[Deleted member]

that's a bold statement. out of interest, i want to rebut some of these statements (i may or may not be playing devil's advocate here):

- super dedede jump is not the best up-b in the game. no argument. it just isn't good. it's only arguably good as a recovery (and even then it's held back by how predictable its trajectory and frame data is). when the hitbox is projected, you can't change the direction you're going in, so it's criminally easy to dodge and punish; canceling it cancels the hitbox and puts dedede in freefall, which makes him even more vulnerable. even if it connects and buries, what can you really do to followup? most of dedede's moves are too slow to be useful in that situation and the opponent needs to be at high percents for them to even be buried for a sufficient period to make punishment possible. i guess you can use f-tilt or d-tilt or something, but in that case...why even bother using this incredibly unsafe, punishable move? if you have the opportunity to use up-b, why not just tilt them there and then? using it in neutral is not a good idea. its only saving grace is the fact that the stars make it a tiny bit more difficult to punish on the ground and mean (short of tether grabs) he can't be grabbed instantly when he touches don. it does have meteor potential, but that requires a hard read to be anything other than a joke move: if you throw yourself off-stage and miss, well done, you just killed yourself. when dedede has an otherwise decent edgeguarding game, i can see no reason why you'd ever consider doing this except by total accident or to troll the other guy.

- gordo toss is only a cqc move if the opponent has no idea what they're doing and stand right in front of dedede's hammer. the hammer animation is, what, f14 or something (somebody correct me on this)? i can't think of any situation in which you'd use dedede's hammer as a weapon of its on except, again, as an accident or to troll. if you know the opponent is daft enough to run right at you and do nothing, gordo can be a useful (yet very slow on startup) all, but that's about it. gordo should not be used in neutral except in very special circumstances (of which none come to mind).

dedede just isn't a good character in 1v1. his slow, predictable moves mean he's easy to read and punish and he suffers in neutral, his main projectile option has a 2% damage threshold so only very specific characters can be effectively punished by it, he has the weakest airspeed in the game and no reliable way to escape combos, he has very few good, safe cqc options and even his grab reward is mediocre at best. i think he's held back from absolute non-viability by having a decent advantage state (if he can get you in an unfavourable position and hit you, it's going to hurt) and survivability (super heavyweight with a good recovery, not bad). i just don't think these strengths outweigh his very significant weaknesses. sorry, i don't think he's very good.

You pretty much hit the nail right on the head. I've been maining Dedede in this game since launch and he was my main in Brawl, but good lord he's such in a bad spot right now. He's gotten no attention in patches besides getting a bunch of dumb nerfs (to moves like fair, decreasing the damage reflection threshold on Gordos) in pach 1.0.4., then being soundly ignored since. With other previously seen low-tiers like , , , and to name a few getting very noticeable buffs and him still being unchanged, all of his matchups are getting way harder to manage with when they were before and he's practically been left in the dust at his point with the direction this game's meta is heading. Like you said, literally anybody with any sort of good projectile or good rushdown game can just outright lame out or shut down Dedede due to his nonexistent approach options and fragile projectile. That, and his large frame and having the fastest falling speed in the game make him incredibly easy to combo. It's a hard life maining this penguin, man.

And to go with your second point, the animation for Gordo Toss legit almost takes the same amount of time it takes for to do Stone twice. His frame data is generally just absolutely pathetic, and none of his aerials autocancel out of a shorthop save for back-air and even then the landing lag on most of his aerials is pretty disgusting and you can't do much to react once you hit the ground because you're left in a vulnerable position easily. Forward air and back air's animations don't even match the hitboxes. It mystifies me how they haven't fixed that like they did with .

Dedede is the only heavyweight that has trouble killing. He can't punish effectively due to his moves being so godawful slow, and his finishers (dash attack and forward smash, the latter of which comes out on frame 42. That is almost 3/4 of second.) aren't effective at all against remotely decent players. The only real safe moves in his toolkit are nair, dtilt, dsmash and ftilt for it being a good poke at decent distances. That, and his grab game in early percents is alright (dthrow leading into followups like nair, fair, bair or an uair chain). What would help Dedede out the most is if he had access to a quick and reliable kill-confirm like's ding-dong. Making utilt function like it did in Brawl would do absolute wonders for him in that regard. Another thing that's silly is how that he's literally the only superheavy with no solid kill throws. Forward and back throw don't even KO Mario at the edge of Final Destination until north of 180%, and bthrow's diagonal knockback puts the enemy in an advantage state. Sigh.

tl;dr Yeah Dedede really sucks but I still love the big guy. He has all these problems he really should not be having, and it pisses me off. Hopefully he gets the buffs he deserves one of these days.

 

[adom4]

Another thing that's silly is how that he's literally the only superheavy with no solid kill throws.

would like to have a word with you.

 

[Deleted member]

would like to have a word with you.

I actually forgot about Ganon... lol. But yeah, he needs one too. Fthrow would fit the bill, in my opinion.

or maybe up throw because his animation when he does it is like "FOR JUSTICE!"

 

[Smog Frog]

at least he can kill before 180% near the ledge(150%~). the same cant be said for our poor friend .

but on the upside, they both have throws that do 13%(the highest % a throw does in this game outside of high aura , only other throw i can think of that does this is fthrow)

 

[Deleted member]

at least he can kill before 180% near the ledge(150%~). the same cant be said for our poor friend .

but on the upside, they both have throws that do 13%(the highest % a throw does in this game outside of high aura , only other throw i can think of that does this is fthrow)

Ganon's foward tilt, man... always fear the boot!

But yeah, Ganon and Dedede have really damaging throws. It just sucks that they all lose their utility outside of low percents.

 

[meleebrawler]

You pretty much hit the nail right on the head. I've been maining Dedede in this game since launch and he was my main in Brawl, but good lord he's such in a bad spot right now. He's gotten no attention in patches besides getting a bunch of dumb nerfs (to moves like fair, decreasing the damage reflection threshold on Gordos) in pach 1.0.4., then being soundly ignored since. With other previously seen low-tiers like , , , and to name a few and him still being unchanged, all of his matchups are getting way harder to manage with when they were before and he's practically been left in the dust at his point with the direction this game's meta is heading. Like you said, literally anybody with any sort of good projectile or good rushdown game can just outright lame out or shut down Dedede due to his nonexistent approach options and fragile projectile. That, and his large frame and having the fastest falling speed in the game make him incredibly easy to combo. It's a hard life maining this penguin, man.

And to go with your second point, the animation for Gordo Toss legit almost takes the same amount of time it takes for to do Stone twice. His frame data is generally just absolutely pathetic, and none of his aerials autocancel out of a shorthop save for back-air and even then the landing lag on most of his aerials is pretty disgusting and you can't do much to react once you hit the ground because you're left in a vulnerable position easily. Forward air and back air's animations don't even match the hitboxes. It mystifies me how they haven't fixed that like they did with .

Dedede is the only heavyweight that has trouble killing. He can't punish effectively due to his moves being so godawful slow, and his finishers (dash attack and forward smash, the latter of which comes out on frame 42. That is almost 3/4 of second.) aren't effective at all against remotely decent players. The only remotely safe moves in his toolkit are nair, dtilt, dsmash and ftilt for it being a good poke at decent distances. That, and his grab game in early percents is alright (dthrow leading into followups like nair, fair, bair or an uair chain). What would help Dedede out the most is if he had access to a quick and reliable kill-confirm like's ding-dong. Making utilt function like it did in Brawl would do absolute wonders for him in that regard. Another thing that's silly is how that he's literally the only superheavy with no solid kill throws. Forward and back throw don't even KO Mario at the edge of Final Destination until north of 180%, and bthrow's diagonal knockback puts the enemy in an advantage state. Sigh.

tl;dr Yeah Dedede really sucks but I still love the big guy. He has all these problems he really should not be having, and it pisses me off. Hopefully he gets the buffs he deserves one of these days.

Protip: if your character isn't getting buffs, blame the japanese :D.

Also Meta Knight likely already had the tools to be high tier before his buffs, they didn't affect his combos, only his edgeguarding.

at least he can kill before 180% near the ledge(150%~). the same cant be said for our poor friend .

but on the upside, they both have throws that do 13%(the highest % a throw does in this game outside of high aura , only other throw i can think of that does this is fthrow)

I think 's bthrow does 13%, and 's is close as well (more with buster of course).

 

[TTTTTsd]

Ryu B-Throw does 12%. It's not bad regardless, none of Ryu's throws are.

 

[Smog Frog]

bthrow does 12%. of course he has a faster pummel so he might technically get more out of it, but it only does 12%.

goddammit 'd

 

[Deleted member]

Protip: if your character isn't getting buffs, blame the japanese :D.

Also Meta Knight likely already had the tools to be high tier before his buffs, they didn't affect his combos, only his edgeguarding.

True about MK. People probably would've explored him more if somebody like Leo cleaned house with him before he ended up getting buffs.

What are 's results in Japan like anyway? I know he has Macha but that's the only notable Japanese D3 player I know of.

 

[meleebrawler]

Ryu B-Throw does 12%. It's not bad regardless, none of Ryu's throws are.

They're just yet another thing true to Street Fighter: throws don't combo into anything, just cause a chunk of damage while positioning.

 

[Nobie]

Super Dedede Jump will probably never stop being vulnerable. After all, it's the attack in the Kirby games that you're supposed to punish the most.

Another thought I had re: neutral and footsies is that, in other fighting games, the two terms are virtually synonymous. If they're more separate ideas in Smash or the latter a subset of the former, then it is more possible to have a character with a bad or mediocre neutral but good or even excellent footsies. This might explain why certain characters are viewed negatively.

 

[Trifroze]

DK does the whole "trade some power for speed" schtick much better anyhow. At least on a per-hit basis.

Ironically he still kills much better and does more damage off of his conversions than the other superheavies.

 

[Dre89]

Though his Uthrow arguably makes him better at killing than both of them... Meh, IDK. He's less versatile in that department at any rate. And his neutral and disadvantage leave a lot to be desired.

No

He is way, way worse at killing than either of them. DK kills off grabs at like 70%. The character who dies the latest to grab is D3, at around 96% or so. Dsmash is frame 11 and kills earlier than Zard's uthrow. He's also very good at gimping with bair. Catching double jumps in the air with uair kills around the same time as Zard's uthrow.

Bowser is like the best character in the game at killing people pre100 without combos. Frame 11 downb, frame 9 bair. Safe usmash on aerial opponents (will only kill pre100 with rage). Sideb is a tier 2 kill option for Bowser and it kills around the same time as Zard's urthow. He even has combos, frame 7 jab into downb, and soft-nair into bair.

Both of them also have backthrows which kill only a bit later than uthrow.

Serously though, Zard's uthrow doesn't kill until like 120% with DI unless you land on the top BF platform or something. That's his problem, he doesn't kill early enough with reliable options for how much he loses neutral and gets combod.

 

[KeithTheGeek]

I have a lot I could say about Dedede's kit, but I think there are a key few areas that could be addressed to make him stronger.

Spoiler

• Better CQC options. Faster jab and ftilt are the main suspects here. Dedede's jab 1 and jab 2 are decent options but you can't get anything guaranteed from them, as well as being really slow jabs in general. Ftilt, meanwhile, is one of Dedede's greatest poking tools so a minor speed boost to it could let it do its job more efficiently. I'd also like to see his rapid jab finisher have a bit more launching power, but that's not very necessary.
• Cleaner hitboxes on his aerials, and faster aerials in general. Shaving some of the cooldown from bair and fair would give them better utility, and making the hitboxes better on them would hopefully mean less whiffs at close range. Another change I think would be for the better is a larger hitbox on nair, and I think nair should come out at least 1-2 frame faster. IIRC right now it's frame 7? Uair can be left as-is, it's actually an amazing tool for what it does.
• Fix Gordo Toss. The biggest thing is that it needs to be sped up. It's significant amount of start up time means it's ineffective at its intended uses. The other change I would like to see would be changing the percent threshold needed to deflect it from 2% to around 6-7% at a minimum. The vast majority of attacks would still be able to bounce it back, but a higher percent requirement means it would actually require some intentionality on the opponents part and prevent most weak projectiles from doing the job for them. Of course, things like charged Shadow Ball or Aura Sphere could still accomplish this, but at least it would make more sense visually than ZSS's uncharged paralyser shot.
• Better kill set-ups/kill confirms. Personally I think a kill throw would work the best with Dedede's current design.
• Let him have better combo options going into higher percents by reducing the KBG on dthrow. Dedede has trouble getting in period, he should have a better advantage state when he does get it. Being able to effectively threaten shield would also make sense for him.
• On that note, more shield damage on either his smashes or Jet Hammer.
• Faster inhale would help improve Dedede's landing options somewhat.

There's a lot more you could touch up for this character, but the crux of the matter is that Dedede doesn't really have a place in today's meta game. He's a slow character that relies heavily on reads, punishes, and general trickery, while also having some of the worst frame data in the game. At best he's unreliable at the things he does. He has multiple landing options, but they're all pretty bad and he has to mix them up using his multiple jumps and fall speeds. He has the tools to be really good at edge-guarding, but due to the nature of the Gordo and his slow aerials they're actually really easy to work around. He has a notably bad disadvantage state, while his advantage state isn't nearly where it should be to offset this.

 

[Amadeus9]

Metaknight was a contender for one of the worst fighters in the game until 1.0.4. Seriously have you seen the change logs? Uair and dairs hit boxes were practically inside Metaknight's body.

I fail to see how d3 is better than zard and dorf. Zard can fortress decently enough, and ganon can kill you accidentally off stray hits... but d3 is just... This big unsafe hurtbox. I at least think he's better than Bowser, but that's not saying much.

 

[Dre89]

D3 being better than Bowser and Zard is laughable. Laggiest moveset in the game with no ground speed means that anyone with fast aerials can reflect gordos on reaction and not got punished for spamming those aerials. His mobility and frame data is so bad that you can just bait stuff out at punish it. Zard and Bowser at least have burst to be threatening in neutral, particularly because they can punish shielding.

DK does the whole "trade some power for speed" schtick much better anyhow. At least on a per-hit basis.

DK's frame data and damage on-hit/reward is way better than Zard's.

Jab is frame 5, dtilt is frame 7 but has a FAF of 23. Utilt is frame 5, but the hittbox appears all around on him on that frame before his hand even makes the animation. Move is stupidly good because it's a good gtfo, covers alot of options and has good reward. It becomes even more disgusting when you perfect pivot it towards an opponent.

His worst tilt is ftilt, which isn't terrible, but there's rarely ever reason to use it over jab or dtilt. The main reasons would be if you angled it upward to anti- air, or to knock someone off stage for a potential bair-gimp.

That leads me onto my next point, Zard has nothing comparable to bair.

Just looking at their kits, DK is straight up better in virtually every department. Comparable mobility but weighs more, and I think the only moves of Zards that are better are nair, usmash sideb and downb. DK is better in every other regard.

 

[Amadeus9]

The idea that zard trades power for speed is completely off. His kit lends towards playing a fortress playstyle. Stand still and use jab. Hide in shield and use upb oos. Shoot some flame. Maybe use fair a couple times. It's the only part of his moveset that works, but it works ok. D3 doesn't really have anything that actually, like, works. He's one of the few fighters to have a basically nonexistent neutral. Basically the worst set of frame data in the game, moves that barely work... gross.

DK doesn't even belong in the same conversation as the other super heavies. Lol.

 

[Routa]

Edit: I hate mobile version. Will rewrite answer later when on home computer. :S

Edit2: it was going to be about the Bowser MAYBE being the best killer thing.

 

[DunnoBro]

Couldn't sheik have just Naired out of Mario's dair in that situation or would the added hitstun from rage allow it to true combo into the last hit?

If mario has 40% or more(when rage begins) you can't airdodge the dair I'm pretty sure.

 

[Deleted member]

I have a lot I could say about Dedede's kit, but I think there are a key few areas that could be addressed to make him stronger.

Spoiler

• Better CQC options. Faster jab and ftilt are the main suspects here. Dedede's jab 1 and jab 2 are decent options but you can't get anything guaranteed from them, as well as being really slow jabs in general. Ftilt, meanwhile, is one of Dedede's greatest poking tools so a minor speed boost to it could let it do its job more efficiently. I'd also like to see his rapid jab finisher have a bit more launching power, but that's not very necessary.
• Cleaner hitboxes on his aerials, and faster aerials in general. Shaving some of the cooldown from bair and fair would give them better utility, and making the hitboxes better on them would hopefully mean less whiffs at close range. Another change I think would be for the better is a larger hitbox on nair, and I think nair should come out at least 1-2 frame faster. IIRC right now it's frame 7? Uair can be left as-is, it's actually an amazing tool for what it does.
• Fix Gordo Toss. The biggest thing is that it needs to be sped up. It's significant amount of start up time means it's ineffective at its intended uses. The other change I would like to see would be changing the percent threshold needed to deflect it from 2% to around 6-7% at a minimum. The vast majority of attacks would still be able to bounce it back, but a higher percent requirement means it would actually require some intentionality on the opponents part and prevent most weak projectiles from doing the job for them. Of course, things like charged Shadow Ball or Aura Sphere could still accomplish this, but at least it would make more sense visually than ZSS's uncharged paralyser shot.
• Better kill set-ups/kill confirms. Personally I think a kill throw would work the best with Dedede's current design.
• Let him have better combo options going into higher percents by reducing the KBG on dthrow. Dedede has trouble getting in period, he should have a better advantage state when he does get it. Being able to effectively threaten shield would also make sense for him.
• On that note, more shield damage on either his smashes or Jet Hammer.
• Faster inhale would help improve Dedede's landing options somewhat.

There's a lot more you could touch up for this character, but the crux of the matter is that Dedede doesn't really have a place in today's meta game. He's a slow character that relies heavily on reads, punishes, and general trickery, while also having some of the worst frame data in the game. At best he's unreliable at the things he does. He has multiple landing options, but they're all pretty bad and he has to mix them up using his multiple jumps and fall speeds. He has the tools to be really good at edge-guarding, but due to the nature of the Gordo and his slow aerials they're actually really easy to work around. He has a notably bad disadvantage state, while his advantage state isn't nearly where it should be to offset this.

This is practically all I want for D3. That, and back throw sending at a horizontal angle like most back throws and killing at around 130%ish near the ledge would be reasonable.

 

[LiteralGrill]

So I got three Zelda experts to talk in depth about her strengths, weaknesses, viability, and more. Check it out on the front page!

Any characters you guys would like to see tackled like this next?

 

[Deleted member]

So I got three Zelda experts to talk in depth about her strengths, weaknesses, viability, and more. Check it out on the front page!

Any characters you guys would like to see tackled like this next?

, yo. Most people don't realize what kind of stuff her players have done, and I'd love to see Samus get a more positive outlook around here. It'd also be really cool to see something on as well!

 

[meleebrawler]

So I got three Zelda experts to talk in depth about her strengths, weaknesses, viability, and more. Check it out on the front page!

Any characters you guys would like to see tackled like this next?

Ooh, ooh, or . Too many people are content to just look at his weight and write him off before even considering what he can actually do.

 

[Mr. ShinyUmbreon]

So I got three Zelda experts to talk in depth about her strengths, weaknesses, viability, and more. Check it out on the front page!

Any characters you guys would like to see tackled like this next?

Cool, It seems nowadays the bottom tier characters get a ton of attention, some of them even move up to like Doc.
I would love to see an article about Pit/Dark Pit though, he's got everything he needs to do well at a tournament except people to play him, like pre-Leo meta knight. He's not difficult to use like Peach and Yoshi, his problem is how little exposure he gets, most of my wins on Anthers are because people don't know the matchup well. He can do well against most of the top tiers, aside from ZSS and Sonic that is.

 

[wedl!!]

Having discussions with people on how Mewtwo's "broken hitboxes" or poor physics don't invalidate the character's strengths is giving me an aneurysm. Please have M2 experts discuss the character.

 

[TTTTTsd]

So I got three Zelda experts to talk in depth about her strengths, weaknesses, viability, and more. Check it out on the front page!

Any characters you guys would like to see tackled like this next?

Low tiers I'd suggest for this?

Doc, Samus. No particular order.

Doc had the notable MLG usage and I think that's an incredibly relevant thing to talk about. There's probably enough Doc pros to give you info.

Samus is super not talked about and is probably the best choice presented however. I think she has a lot of interesting stuff that people tend to gloss over, though still a very flawed character regardless. I'd find a tidbit on her to be very interesting.

 

[LiteralGrill]

I figured people in this thread would like this idea! I know not all character experts have the time to talk a ton about who they play and figured these kinds of articles could supplement discussion well

 

[Y2Kay]

It really sucks to be Zard. He could be really good, but there isn't really a way to make him great in competitive play without being OP on the casual level. If flamethrower could reliably cancel projectiles and had better air speed, he could easily be mid tier. But a Zard like that would be a terror in FFA......

 

[meleebrawler]

Having discussions with people on how Mewtwo's "broken hitboxes" or poor physics don't invalidate the character's strengths is giving me an aneurysm. Please have M2 experts discuss the character.

The issue is not that people think Mewtwo's problems make him unviable, but that most people are unaware or heavily underrate the strengths he does have.

 

[Deleted member]

It really sucks to be Zard. He could be really good, but there isn't really a way to make him great in competitive play without being OP on the casual level. If flamethrower could reliably cancel projectiles and had better air speed, he could easily be mid tier. But a Zard like that would be a terror in FFA......

You know what I wish he had? His Brawl fair. If he had that in this game without the janky sourspots that it did in Brawl, he'd have a legit good spacing tool.