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

[Mo433]

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?

Yooo Kirby is the perfect canidate for this! There's no clear outlook on him. Some people think he's high tier, and some people think he is trash.

 

[Deleted member]

The only one i'd argue is a somewhat noticeable disadvantage is Link.
DDD isn't really that bad, you say characters can lame out Ganon & while that is true, Ganon can lame them out even harder.
for example DDD, he has absolutely no reason to approach him, if the Ganon tries to play too aggressively then DDD kinda bodies him but if the Ganon tries to play safe & slowly (basically lame), DDD is much much easier.
add to that that DDD is not really that hard to edgeguard, easy to juggle & being insanely easy to combo Ganon can get massive reward on a character that isn't that hard to get in on (D-throw to Nair works until like 50% on DDD).
Ganon also has decent tools to deal with Gordo ledgetraps (drop U-air to be exact) & Nair + DA covers the other gordo setups.

On the other hand DDD can combo Ganon just as hard, he generally outranges him so even with his awful frame data he can keep Ganon out well, also Ganon can't really recover from D-smashes because of the angle.
Personally i think the MU is also even but MAYBE it's slightly in DDD's favor, i'm not 100% sure in that (playing online against him sure as hell didn't help either).

I've played the MU a good amount of times before, but I've mostly played defensive Ganons. I still think D3 has the (slight) edge even though Ganon has tools against him. D3 has the dthrow -> shorthopped uair chain that does well against Ganon due to his weight and can rack up to 50-60% damage on him. Ganon has jab and uair to reflect Gordos relatively quickly, which usually means Dedede has to rely on disjoints most of the time.

Like you said, Ganon really cannot recover from Dedede's down smash due to the angle so it's a pretty important move for Dedede at high percents especially since it comes out relatively fast and covers his lower body well. Ganon's at a disadvantage when he's offstage, especially when D3 has options like Gordos and fair/bair to keep him off. I also fail to see how Dedede isn't that hard to edgeguard, especially if a Dedede uses their jumps and Super Dedede Jump (which has super armor) carefully. With all that said, Ganon can approach better due to Wizkick and Flame Choke so there's that.

tl;dr Both sides have to play carefully and Ganon indeed kills more reliably, but the MU is in Dedede's favor since Ganon has the worse disadvantage state offstage and is outranged by Dedede generally.

 

[adom4]

I've played the MU a good amount of times before, but I've mostly played defensive Ganons. I still think D3 has the (slight) edge even though Ganon has tools against him. D3 has the dthrow -> shorthopped uair chain that does well against Ganon due to his weight and can rack up to 50-60% damage on him. Ganon has jab and uair to reflect Gordos relatively quickly, which usually means Dedede has to rely on disjoints most of the time.

Like you said, Ganon really cannot recover from Dedede's down smash due to the angle so it's a pretty important move for Dedede at high percents especially since it comes out relatively fast and covers his lower body well. Ganon's at a disadvantage when he's offstage, especially when D3 has options like Gordos and fair/bair to keep him off. I also fail to see how Dedede isn't that hard to edgeguard, especially if a Dedede uses their jumps and Super Dedede Jump (which has super armor) carefully. With all that said, Ganon can approach better due to Wizkick and Flame Choke so there's that.

tl;dr Both sides have to play carefully and Ganon indeed kills more reliably, but the MU is in Dedede's favor since Ganon has the worse disadvantage state offstage and is outranged by Dedede generally.

i never try to challenge super DDD jump, i try to get him before he can use it, usually by baiting out a Gordo cover & U-airing him.
But honestly if i had to give someone the edge it would be DDD, whether is it even or DDD's favor is mostly opinion i guess.
EDIT: also jab isn't that great for Gordo reflecting, Nair & Dash attack are much better in that, Dash attack especially since it's hard to react to.

 

[bc1910]

Duck Hunt got a good buff this patch with how shieldstun works now. Frisbee locks you in shield for so long, the frisbee itself and the shots all have hitlag modifiers.

He also got his dodges' endlag buffed by 1 frame at some point.

I'm not saying he doesn't need help but it looks like he was designed to be one of the most annoying characters in the game (honestly could be as homage to people getting annoyed at his laugh in his game) and it's often better if those characters aren't that good. It wouldn't surprise me if that's what they are thinking.

I'd be up for worse dodges, no hitlag modifier on frisbee, and a better moveset. All of that would make him less annoying and more competitively viable. But it might take away from his intended combat persona so idk.

Either way he definitely needs smashes that work and an Uthrow that kills at decent percents. Around the same time as Greninja's (160 with no rage) would be good. Having a character struggle to kill that much makes no sense to me no matter how they were intended to play.

 

[williamsga555]

I feel it's in Dedede's favor by a decent amount. He can wall out Ganon pretty well with most of his spaced options, and recovering low avoids almost any attempt Ganon would have at hitting him offstage.

It's not anywhere near free, though. Ganon's one of the few characters that can reliably end us under 100% while also being able to get us to that percent very quickly off of just a few strings. Dedede has to respect him constantly, but I think if he does just that, it's just as hard for Ganon to get things rolling as it is against other campier characters.

Iunno, it's a strange matchup where both characters kind of have to play reactionary because neither can break through the other's walling tactics (what does Ganon do against spaced bair? what does Dedede do against spaced dtilt?). It's like their respective neutrals just don't work against each other, so it becomes a low-speed game of baiting out poor spacing options and punishing accordingly.

 

[LancerStaff]

Speaking of this "game balance" mentality, I wonder why DHD isn't getting more buffs.

He is irrefutably garbage in FFAs, and gimmicky at best in doubles, he truly can only function in singles so it's weird he hasn't gotten more buffs. I'm hoping it's due to early impressions depicting him as top tier making them hesitant rather than just his sheer unpopularity.

I think he's the only example of a character that is low tier in ALL game modes. (Odd considering he was worked from the ground up unlike other essentially doomed chars like zard or zelda)

Even team attack off DHD is bad.

I'm more inclined to think DH requires a rather unique mindset to work in FFAs... Often when I see people complaining about a character's FFA viability they either don't understand how the character is supposed to function in FFAs (like a Palutena that wanted to play "spam smash attacks" like a heavy instead of turtling and following up on other's attacks with Uair and Usmash) or expected instant/extremely high results. (Which would be quite a few Samus players.)

I suspect that to succeed in FFAs with DH you need to utilize his Fsmash more. Namely charging it to increase the range. Get close, get out a gunman, and charge that Fsmash and pray somebody falls into the last hit.

oh yeah, it's not horrible by any means. pit doesn't do horrible matchups. i just think pit, played well and optimising his options, has the edge over ganon. disjoints and good mobility helps. i think pit definitely has the advantage.

...until ganon knocks pit off-stage, in which case ganon has the edge. ganon should not fear pit coming back. his edgeguarding is so good.

i think what it comes down to is who wins neutral. i think pit has the better options for keeping ganon out in that sense and he should be winning the neutral game, but it doesn't take much for ganon to knock pit out if he wins instead. it's definitely not a matchup where either side bodies the other. i'd put it at +1 in pit's favour, but no more, it's too volatile.

I really don't think Pit has to fear Dorf offstage. Namely that he doesn't have a solid answer to the armor on Fspecial or a way to contend with arrows. His aerial mobility is too low for Pit to really think twice about using them.

...Well, pretty sure Flame Choke beats Upperdash. So don't get offstage when you're a stock down. Pretty confident Pit has the tools required to keep it from slipping that far though.

 

[adom4]

I'm more inclined to think DH requires a rather unique mindset to work in FFAs... Often when I see people complaining about a character's FFA viability they either don't understand how the character is supposed to function in FFAs (like a Palutena that wanted to play "spam smash attacks" like a heavy instead of turtling and following up on other's attacks with Uair and Usmash) or expected instant/extremely high results. (Which would be quite a few Samus players.)

I suspect that to succeed in FFAs with DH you need to utilize his Fsmash more. Namely charging it to increase the range. Get close, get out a gunman, and charge that Fsmash and pray somebody falls into the last hit.



I really don't think Pit has to fear Dorf offstage. Namely that he doesn't have a solid answer to the armor on Fspecial or a way to contend with arrows. His aerial mobility is too low for Pit to really think twice about using them.

...Well, pretty sure Flame Choke beats Upperdash. So don't get offstage when you're a stock down. Pretty confident Pit has the tools required to keep it from slipping that far though.

You're not gonna always be able to recover with side B, if Ganon could recover with side-B all the time almost no one would risk going out against him lol.
It ain't easy edgeguarding pit but there is absolutely no risk in going down since his up-B has no hitbox, Ganon should wait & either read or try to react quickly enough to his up-B.

 

[Nu~]

You're not gonna always be able to recover with side B, if Ganon could recover with side-B all the time almost no one would risk going out against him lol.
It ain't easy edgeguarding pit but there is absolutely no risk in going down since his up-B has no hitbox, Ganon should wait & either read or try to react quickly enough to his up-B.

Unless Pit is recovering really low, he has no real reason to use up B. Side B isn't always reliable, but arrows are to be feared when you are trying to edgeguard pit. If you mess up, you risk being counter gimped.

 

[DunnoBro]

Duck Hunt got a good buff this patch with how shieldstun works now. Frisbee locks you in shield for so long, the frisbee itself and the shots all have hitlag modifiers.

The issue is you need to shoot it prematurely to get all the shots to connect.

You can't hit the shield with frisbee, then have the shots hit their shield. There's also periods of only the frisbee hitbox being able to be out, and it can't be shot yet.

This is a pretty big deal considering you need to wait to shoot it and not just mash if you want to kill confirm/combo. And it doesn't even kill confirm that well so it's doubly frustrating.

It's pretty clearly an unintended buff with no real benefit. He gets little to nothing off shooting them this way and it's still a super laggy move they can just roll through and punish.

 

[adom4]

Unless Pit is recovering really low, he has no real reason to use up B. Side B isn't always reliable, but arrows are to be feared when you are trying to edgeguard pit. If you mess up, you risk being counter gimped.

That's why i said it ain't easy catching it, Ganon's best option is to react to his up-B's start up if he uses it, even if Ganon misses his aerial it ends quickly enough so he can recover before pit can gimp him back (U-air & B-air mostly).

 

[DunnoBro]

I suspect that to succeed in FFAs with DH you need to utilize his Fsmash more. Namely charging it to increase the range. Get close, get out a gunman, and charge that Fsmash and pray somebody falls into the last hit.

"Just charge fsmash" isn't really ever a viable strategy lol Even in FFAs. Especially with a FAF of almost 70.

And gunmen don't work at all in ffas. They just get killed or I don't even get to capitalize off their hit because of other players around. Similar with can and all the bodies. Duck hunt's average kill % just doesn't work in FFAs. Same issue with sheik. All their good positioning and coverage options don't mean jack when you gotta worry about captain fabulous swooping in with raptor boost to kill you mid-combo.

 

[Pazzo.]

While a character may be 'good' in a FFA, Sakurai is clearly trying to balance a character for all modes.

If that character has to play different strategies, then so be it.

We wouldn't be getting balance patches if he cared about relegating characters to one mode.

 

[Mr. Johan]

re: Flare Blitz as a landing punisher.

Can't the opponent just wait until they hear the startup sound, and UpB on reaction? Charizard goes too far and suffers too much endlag to be able to capitalize on their helpless state. Only exceptions to this I suppose would be the Starfox guys, the Mother boys, Jigglypuff if she somehow lost all her five jumps, and potentially Yoshi, but other than them, idk

 

[Pazzo.]

re: Flare Blitz as a landing punisher.

Can't the opponent just wait until they hear the startup sound, and UpB on reaction? Charizard goes too far and suffers too much endlag to be able to capitalize on their helpless state. Only exceptions to this I suppose would be the Starfox guys, the Mother boys, Jigglypuff if she somehow lost all her five jumps, and potentially Yoshi, but other than them, idk

The startup on Flare Blitz kills it.

I can see it as a good mixup and tech chase tool though.

 

[KeithTheGeek]

Most of the times I've landed a hit with Flare Blitz have been after pressuring them into a defensive option (usually rolling). Perhaps you could bait the air dodge landing and capitalize on it that way? Although at that point a charged smash may be a better punish option.

I mean you're not going to hit Flare Blitz any ways unless they over commit to a bad option, like a Mario landing with fair. Although I have hit a Diddy who was rolling out of a trip with Flare Blitz after I hit him with his banana peel. Maybe there's some applications in a 2v1 situation?

 

[C0rvus]

re: Flare Blitz as a landing punisher.

Can't the opponent just wait until they hear the startup sound, and UpB on reaction? Charizard goes too far and suffers too much endlag to be able to capitalize on their helpless state. Only exceptions to this I suppose would be the Starfox guys, the Mother boys, Jigglypuff if she somehow lost all her five jumps, and potentially Yoshi, but other than them, idk

Well, Fox can shine stall, so that's an option. But yeah, Flare Blitz can be a niche punish option from midscreen, but it's super reactable, and nets a free punish if it's shielded.

It's still super good for recovery. Zard is an unsafe character, but there are times where you simply cannot mess with him, recovery being one of them. He has so many armored moves and invulnerability on key moves, that he needs to be approached carefully. Bad character otherwise. Bottom 10 almost for sure.

 

[PND]

People asked a couple pages back, here's the video playlist from Capital City Smash:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCTrv1TDmcuCiPxCoXphAbKg387nWNBl1

All of singles is up (Except HoH| Venom vs Artyuu, that match had an error while uploading and I'm reuploading it soon. It will be in that playlist once it's ready)

 

[LancerStaff]

You're not gonna always be able to recover with side B, if Ganon could recover with side-B all the time almost no one would risk going out against him lol.
It ain't easy edgeguarding pit but there is absolutely no risk in going down since his up-B has no hitbox, Ganon should wait & either read or try to react quickly enough to his up-B.

Pit has more jumps though... For the most part he can.

No risk? Maybe at an arm's length offstage. Pit moves almost as fast as Sonic can run once he does, so by the time you react to the direction he chose he's at the ledge. You don't want to be underneath Pit offstage. Ever.

Even on stages with small underside slants Pit will at least have two directions to travel in should he be forced to use his Uspecial. Most of the time it's three. Since it literally has enough distance to rise out of the depths of hell Pit very rarely needs to use more then one jump to get in range of the ledge. Don't think there's a man alive that can always react in a situation where Pit could be jumping or Uspecialing. At best, you have a 50-50 chance of picking the right angle with Pit having used his jumps, and that'd require a big mistake on Pit's part or a lot of luck on yours. At worst, you have three potential angles to pick from and a jump that if you react to it puts you in a bad position. And that's only after just Fspecialing to the ledge doesn't reach.

"Just charge fsmash" isn't really ever a viable strategy lol Even in FFAs. Especially with a FAF of almost 70.

And gunmen don't work at all in ffas. They just get killed or I don't even get to capitalize off their hit because of other players around. Similar with can and all the bodies. Duck hunt's average kill % just doesn't work in FFAs. Same issue with sheik. All their good positioning and coverage options don't mean jack when you gotta worry about captain fabulous swooping in with raptor boost to kill you mid-combo.

Can't say I'm an expert with Duck Hunt... But comparing them to Sheik I find to be flawed because Sheik does indeed work in FFAs. She's not really a rushdown character in FFAs but more an opportunist.

I just find it hard to believe that Duck Hunt is unworkable when literally every other character is fully functional in FFAs.

 

[DunnoBro]

Can't say I'm an expert with Duck Hunt... But comparing them to Sheik I find to be flawed because Sheik does indeed work in FFAs. She's not really a rushdown character in FFAs but more an opportunist.

I just find it hard to believe that Duck Hunt is unworkable when literally every other character is fully functional in FFAs.

I didn't say he doesn't work I said he's just bad in FFAs

Sheik's bad in FFAs too and for the same reasons which is why I compared them.

"Just play opportunist" omits the fact that the characters which don't have to play opportunist still withhold that option and thus are still superior characters.

 

[LancerStaff]

I didn't say he doesn't work I said he's just bad in FFAs

Sheik's bad in FFAs too and for the same reasons which is why I compared them.

"Just play opportunist" omits the fact that the characters which don't have to play opportunist still withhold that option and thus are still superior characters.

Captain Falcon doesn't have to play opportunist because his recovery is trash and almost everything he has is easily punishable by a third party. FFAs aren't just about kills yaknow. It's also about survival and denying others kills. Sheik for instance can shut down other's lengthy KO throws with needles, and do it safely too. Or then Pit can turn the tables on a faraway situation with his arrows and control who gets kills and when. Duck Hunt I imagine has similar capabilities.

 

[Megamang]

From what i understand, we know a lot more about playing to win at a high level in singles than in FFAs. Can anyone point me to a large FFA tournament? There are interesting ways to do these imo, including 1st and 2nd place brackets out of 'pools', time mode vs stocks...

Anyways, if there was an offline tournament with cash prizes and people trying anything to win, we'd see a different meta. But being able to press buttons and beat other buttons is a good option in any mode; i bet shiek would be very present in any ffa tournament. She can edgeguard with a huge, lingering hitbox that freakin launches her back on stage protected with more of the same hitbox... she can turn others' edgeguard attempts into two kills with needles and bouncing fish. It sucks to go from edgeguarding to being between shiek and the death zone. Im sure with some practice she is good in FFAs, at least where the general skill level is high. If its low enough where a person can land charged smashes consistently of course the powerhouses will win in score... though if its just one guy, shiek can shut down most powerhouses.

 

[bc1910]

Sheik isn't good in FFA. Interrupting the KOs of others means little when you can't steal them yourself.

FFA favours survivability and raw KO power. Sheik has neither.

 

[epicnights]

The concept of a FFA tournament is... interesting, to say the least.

I feel like time would undoubtedly be the better format for FFA, as stock FFA rewards a camping playstyle that would lead to timeouts. If I had to give a ruleset for such an event, it'd probably be something like this:

• Timed 5 minutes
• Items: Off
• Equipment is banned.
• Custom Moves are banned. (optional)
• Amiibo are banned.
• Single Elimination (?), best of 3. Finals are best of 5.
• Mii fighters are legal, must use guest size. Movesets are unrestricted.

Stagelist might be something different, I'm not sure.

 

[Mister Eric]

If you have seen Mister Eric VS Boss, you can see Mister Eric missing a Side-B and ate a FJP.

It reflects, sure. But it's super laggy and gets bodied by shields. That's enough to render it a crap reflecting move. Too much risk for little reward, just like Green Missile.

Any time I side b, it's on accident lmao.
I'm just really lacking on my mechanical ability with rob lately. Really need to lab him out more.

 

[LancerStaff]

Sheik isn't good in FFA. Interrupting the KOs of others means little when you can't steal them yourself.

FFA favours survivability and raw KO power. Sheik has neither.

Sheik survives because she doesn't throw out anything laggy ever.

The type of person who says Sheik is bad in FFAs is the same type of person who thinks Bowser/Shulk/Ryu is the undisputed best FFA character. Which is to say that they haven't actually played a significant amount of FFAs because Sheik isn't nonexistent and Bowser/Shulk/Ryu aren't that common. Truth be told I've seen an equal amount of the four.

It's the same thing as when people put Roy in anything above C- in 1v1s... It's an instant tell that they lack real experience in that mode of play. FFAs aren't devoid of depth.

 

[Trifroze]

Found a 0 to death with ZSS, making a coverage of it tomorrow or the day after or so. Need to look into all the details, but it's guaranteed to work on many top tiers for instance and relatively reliable and easy to pull off.

You could argue it's not a big deal since she kills with combos that start from 20-30% anyway, but it's now even lower :^]

 

[DunnoBro]

I'm not really looking to go deep into a theoretical FFA meta talk but we do know about doubles, and sheik in doubles is most certainly not as polarizing as she is in singles because it exacerbates her weaknesses of killing and being light and so very comboable. And negates hers strengths of positioning/walling by adding all these other variables.

Those are compounded moreso in FFAs, especially when she has no teammate to rely on for kills.

I also don't really care about how sheik does in the other game modes because she's amazing in 1v1s and I know for a fact DHD is underwhelming in all of them at every level of play.

I'm confident I've played this character more than anyone, in every kind of mode or situation. (Customs, FFA, Team attack off, Crazy Orders, etc) Been playing him since before even the official Japanese release and was one of the first people to even know he was in the game. I spent over 10 hours this week alone in training mode labbing practicing optimal ledge get-up baits/punishes with a turbo controller. (Probably 150+ in training mode overall)

If you don't want to believe me when I tell you he's ass in every game mode despite my at-length explanations I'm more than confident enough in my experience to just let you keep thinking as such.

 

[BSP]

Mobility is still important in FFAs because it still dictates who's most likely to get items first barring getting completely screwed by the random chance. Sheik is the 7th fastest character in the game on the ground, so she at least has that going for her FFA wise. I would be surprised if the FFA consideration that happens when balancing occurs doesn't assume items on.

 

[Lyserdon]

Well, Fox can shine stall, so that's an option. But yeah, Flare Blitz can be a niche punish option from midscreen, but it's super reactable, and nets a free punish if it's shielded.

It's still super good for recovery. Zard is an unsafe character, but there are times where you simply cannot mess with him, recovery being one of them. He has so many armored moves and invulnerability on key moves, that he needs to be approached carefully. Bad character otherwise. Bottom 10 almost for sure.

(This was the last post but I'm replying to the Flare Blitz discussion in general)

Flare Blitz can also be used to punish a fair number of projectiles. I try not to use it much unless it will kill. It also combos from uthrow and dtilt (edit: i think dtilt->flare blitz might require a missed tech) at low percents if you're into that.

As mentioned it's also hard to challenge as a recovery mixup. Fly is a great move but it's not a totally free recovery.

Also the recoil damage is usually worth it for the recovery options it opens up or obviously if it's going to kill. It's a very very situational tool and dragon rush is usually going to see a lot more use in a match, but it's a functioning part of his kit.

 

[Ghostbone]

ALSO

I noticed ZeRo rolling towards Rosalinas after dthrowing them and then punishing them when they try to buffer a luma stuff.

Since her aerials are fairly lengthy, if roll can consistently avoid luma stuffing does this mean she can be pseudo 50/50'd?

It would be worse than 50/50 since if she doesn't buffer luma stuff she can easily avoid it if you roll.
And if you know she's not buffering luma stuff you still have to go through the normal 50/50.

 

[Dre89]

I should've mentioned this in my first reply, but I've heard from @A2ZOMG and a few other Ganon mains that his range outpaces even some sword users like Marcina, so I'd be somewhat hard pressed to call that terrible, let alone as terrible as you're implying.

Ganondorf loses to range because it's easy for ranged characters to punish his commitments. It's also easier to thow out a hitbox and beat out his burst movements like downb sideb and dash attack. If you just mix up your movement and shield whenever he can engage you there's little he can do. It's easy for ranged characters because they can punish him from further away and with low commitment.

For example, I know that DK absolutely bodies Ganondorf. If the DK plays very anal, it's like 80-20 in his favour. At the start of the game, you can just play shield footsies, and if he makes any kind of commitment you can dash attack- double utilt- pivot grab or shield grab his landing and he's at like 60-70% and you only need to do 25 more % before he dies to ding dong.

Even if you don't grab his landing, you can just shield and reset to neutral and continue to punish him for trying to do anything. He's fairly easy to gimp too but you wreck him so hard on-stage that I find going off-stage is not worth the risk. DK is just better in every regard, and it's easiy for him to achieve his win conditions. Only things that keep it from being 9-1 are that Ganondorf can wreck DK in advantage if the DK gets impatient and he can gimp him.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Please. We hardly get any meaningful discussion about 1v1s. Why the hell is an FFA discussion suddenly relevant?

 

[bc1910]

Sheik survives because she doesn't throw out anything laggy ever.

The type of person who says Sheik is bad in FFAs is the same type of person who thinks Bowser/Shulk/Ryu is the undisputed best FFA character. Which is to say that they haven't actually played a significant amount of FFAs because Sheik isn't nonexistent and Bowser/Shulk/Ryu aren't that common. Truth be told I've seen an equal amount of the four.

It's the same thing as when people put Roy in anything above C- in 1v1s... It's an instant tell that they lack real experience in that mode of play. FFAs aren't devoid of depth.

Survivability doesn't mean the same thing as it does in 1v1s. Well, not exactly. Sheik may be hard to hit, but there are a hell of a lot more stray attacks to avoid in FFA, and she's light. So she has to avoid a lot more potential KO threats, while her own raw KO moves don't kill until long after those of almost everyone else on the roster. She falls down on survivability, KO potential and crowd control.

"Not good" doesn't necessarily mean bad, below average would be a better way to describe Sheik here because she still has safety, mobility and disruptive moves (needles) going for her. At any rate, if someone's saying Sheik isn't average at best in FFA then I don't really know what kind of FFAs that person has been playing. And, ignoring the left-field Shulk reference, if the same person doesn't think Bowser or Ryu are particularly good in FFA that kind of speaks for itself as well.

Incidentally (assuming you're talking about online/For Glory/With Friends FFA, since there's no competitive medium) I've probably seen an equal amount of Sheik and Zelda in 1v1. Why would popularity be used to judge effectiveness?

 

[DunnoBro]

It would be worse than 50/50 since if she doesn't buffer luma stuff she can easily avoid it if you roll.
And if you know she's not buffering luma stuff you still have to go through the normal 50/50.

Well she's big and floaty and retains heavy disadvantage without luma stuff to anti-juggle with. Which is why i called it "pseudo 50/50"

But for all intents and purposes it's like calling out nairs/dragon punches. Yea, they don't theoretically NEED to but the characters that have them actually tend to need to.

 

[DanGR]

Ghostbone DunnoBro
Buffering the Luma input doesn't force Rosalina to attack, while still getting the Luma hitbox. Rolling after dthrow is a way to 1. avoid the potential, initial recalling luma hitbox, and then 2. put oneself in a position such that if you jump up to hit Rosalina with an aerial (meaty ones work best for this), you'll intercept luma as it reaches Rosalina. 3. All while still being safe from a potentially delayed Luma aerial during your jump because of the spacing away from Luma via the roll.

It's not a true 50:50. A Luma upair and option select Rosalina jump (and hit-confirm->Rosa upair) are both virtually guaranteed. If they jump immediately after dthrow, they get luma upaired. If they roll you just miss the Luma upair and Rosa jump.

This ALL depends at least partially on percents and Luma positioning.

 

[Y2Kay]

Please. We hardly get any meaningful discussion about 1v1s. Why the hell is an FFA discussion suddenly relevant?

I brought it up because it's an important factor when considering buffs for characters like heavies. My point was that Zard will probably never be really good because a really good Charizard would be a terror on FFA ( he already kinda is now) and it'll probably stay that way unless he gets some stupid cheese combo like DK

I'm pretty sure this topic isn't red ( I believe bashing FFA is tho) but if it is my B thinkaman.

 

[Teshie U]

Duck Hunt got a good buff this patch with how shieldstun works now. Frisbee locks you in shield for so long, the frisbee itself and the shots all have hitlag modifiers.

He also got his dodges' endlag buffed by 1 frame at some point.

I'm not saying he doesn't need help but it looks like he was designed to be one of the most annoying characters in the game (honestly could be as homage to people getting annoyed at his laugh in his game) and it's often better if those characters aren't that good. It wouldn't surprise me if that's what they are thinking.

I'd be up for worse dodges, no hitlag modifier on frisbee, and a better moveset. All of that would make him less annoying and more competitively viable. But it might take away from his intended combat persona so idk.

Either way he definitely needs smashes that work and an Uthrow that kills at decent percents. Around the same time as Greninja's (160 with no rage) would be good. Having a character struggle to kill that much makes no sense to me no matter how they were intended to play.

Not everyone needs a kill throw. Especially a killing upthrow, as these don't require good positioning like killing fthrow/bthrows.

Greninja has one of the best killing upthrows, but its attached to an unreliable grab game. Nothing on the level of Duck Hunt setting up traps that pretty much force you to shield and get grabbed, or get hit and get grabbed. Considering the projectile setups from throws already being there (throwing them into the can for KOs), I'd be reluctant to just throw in a kill throw in basically the most godlike category for kill throws (up).

 

[Rizen]

For example, I know that DK absolutely bodies Ganondorf. If the DK plays very anal, [+stuff]

In my experience playing as Ganon this is true. Ganon hates opponents who run, don't commit and play anal. DK so a real pain to approach if he's not being stupid.

 

[David Viran]

Found a 0 to death with ZSS, making a coverage of it tomorrow or the day after or so. Need to look into all the details, but it's guaranteed to work on many top tiers for instance and relatively reliable and easy to pull off.

You could argue it's not a big deal since she kills with combos that start from 20-30% anyway, but it's now even lower :^]

Surprised this went completely unnoticed. I'm curious to what this death combo is.

 

[Megamang]

Greninja has an insane dash grab and a pivot grab with great recovery, its just his standing grab that is lacking... id say hes at least as good as DHD at grabbing for sure. He can 'captain falcon' you about as well as cap'n.