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

[DunnoBro]

In general the most helpful effect of "unfamiliarity" is the kind that only needs to show up once or twice before the stock is gone.

People can adapt to pokes and frame data, they can't adapt to death.

 

[LancerStaff]

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?

I've seen a lot more Sheiks then Zeldas on 1v1 for Glory though.

Usually when you see a lot of the character they're either easy to play or are rewarding to learn. Sheik's not exactly popular, but it's not like she's as rare as Pac or WFT and arguably takes more effort to function in FFAs then either. Clearly she has something going for her.

Bowser's overrated as heck in FFAs. Dude still can't land. Unless you're fighting a bunch of people who don't know how to roll then Dspecial and Dair won't be that effective. Even if you hit one or two then somebody else is most certainly going to punish him for either move. Same with Fsmash and it's endlag. Ryu is too, or at least not a straight upgrade of Dorf like people think he is. He doesn't have range and power combined like Dorf does, and his combo tools aren't as effective because third parties exist. Dorf just smashes things for massive damage. His throws aren't even as effective as one would think when people realize to not get close when he's fighting somebody else.

Really, FFAs are a lot more fair and balanced then people give it credit for.

Yeah the amount of people who call Greninja easy to edgeguard is getting a bit silly. Sure, he doesn't have a hitbox in front of him on HP, but that's pretty much the only weakness. It's fast moving, versatile, screws up people behind him and is long distance. Greninja also has Shadow Sneak, Substitute and a double jump that is nearly as high as the "special" double jumps like Ness'. His fast Uair covers people looking for spikes. His recovery is very good. I think Villager is the best at edgeguarding him, and I honestly don't find anyone else that hard to recover against.

Lucario messes with everyone on the ledge. If anything we're one of the best at escaping his ledge trap because we can jump offstage, HP away (pushing him toward the centre of the stage), then HP back and regrab the ledge.

And yet people think Pit is easy to gimp for similar reasons... Which is infuriating. Well, until they make fools of themselves trying to.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

And yet people think Pit is easy to gimp for similar reasons... Which is infuriating. Well, until they make fools of themselves trying to.

Only the really, really bad recoveries are easy to gimp in the sense of "hit them too far away for them to recover", and even then it generally requires the victim to not have their double jump unless they're named Little Mac. But simply tacking on some damage is something different, and I can see some "ungimpable" characters (in the sense that they can recover from the blast line or close to it) still being vulnerable in that sense during their recovery. Rosalina and Villager come to mind.

EDIT: Meteors are a thing too FWIW.

 

[DunnoBro]

Honestly there are essentially three levels of edgeguardability in this game.

1: Sheik, ZSS, Sonic, MK
(Don't even bother tier)

2: Diddy, Fox, Rosalina, Wario
(Pretty susceptible but you need to meet certain conditions before you'll yield high reward)

3: Falcon, Luigi, Ness
(Throwing them offstage at anywhere near high percent reliably yields in reward)

*Mac, Ganon, and Doc are unique in the "Often die just because they got hit at a bad angle" tier.

In this game with so few kill opportunities, providing a new opportunity for your opponent to generate advantage every time you're offstage is huge. No hitbox/invincibility recoveries are definitely in that 3rd tier generally. (Rosalina's is super fast with the ability to recover high and anti-ledge with uair which is why she's tier 2)

 

[TTTTTsd]

You don't really gimp Pit, you just predict his angle and try and block him to either net damage or meteor his ass.

Generally speaking if he overshoots the ledge and you're playing a fast character you can whiff a meteor and punish so for Pit I generally guard the ledge since that's where I see most Pits go.

But no you don't "gimp" Pit, the definition of gimp can't really be applied to something like this. You CAN edgeguard though, for sure.

 

[MARTH_IS_BAE]

WHY is ness considered top tier. So many bad matchups. Such a bad recovery. No way will he survive competitively. This is abrupt but I keep seeing people say this everywhere and why.

 

[DunnoBro]

Pretty sure he's just considered high tier not top. And while his recovery is bad he probably has the most consistent killing ability in the game.

 

[G. Stache]

Luigi, Ness
(Throwing them offstage at anywhere near high percent reliably yields in reward

I know I've been going on about Luigi so much that it's like I'm trying to advocate him for SS tier, but if you can manage to do a jump less cyclone, he's a lot less easy to gimp. The reason he's an easy target is green missile (just fire it very low and you're pretty good against quite a few edgeguards) and over reliance on his double jump. Linear recovery can be a hassle at times, but it's nothing that bad. But, going back to jump less cyclone, it takes away his greatest weakness with his recovery and gives his recovery even more raw distance. I don't think Luigi's recovery is anything too special (and it's not like people can just do a jump less cyclone without godly mashing) but some people seem to think it's as free as Doc's and Mac's. Honestly, it's still better than Falcon's and Ness' in my opinion. (Should be noted that my opinion is tainted and probably dripping with bias when it comes to this topic. Please take it with a grain of salt.)

 

[Y2Kay]

I believe Ness is a borderline top tier. Pretty sure his spot will be taken by the likes of chars like

 

[LancerStaff]

Meh. Don't think I've ever seen somebody else bring up how strong Pit's horizontal recovery is. Even tough it's, yaknow, three jumps, arrows that can be fired as fast as Luigi's fireballs, and a Fspecial with unbeatable super armor and is completely immune to all projectiles. How many characters can truly mess with that? Probably just Greninja. Heck, you can't even go for the ledge vulnerablity with most characters because you'll be close enough to trigger the attack.

 

[Amadeus9]

How can anyone think mk is any worse than 7 - 8th

Ness has huge exploitable flaws counteracted by huge strengths. Are the strengths good enough to completely counteract his weaknesses? No not really.

Also I'm pretty sure "but what even is top tier, what should we even consider tiers lol", is explicitly banned by the op

 

[Y2Kay]

How can anyone think mk is any worse than 7 - 8th

Ness has huge exploitable flaws counteracted by huge strengths. Are the strengths good enough to completely counteract his weaknesses? No not really.

Also I'm pretty sure "but what even is top tier, what should we even consider tiers lol", is explicitly banned by the op

I'm wasn't completely sure myself. I'll play it safe tho an edit it

 

[DunnoBro]

I know I've been going on about Luigi so much that it's like I'm trying to advocate him for SS tier, but if you can manage to do a jump less cyclone, he's a lot less easy to gimp. The reason he's an easy target is green missile (just fire it very low and you're pretty good against quite a few edgeguards) and over reliance on his double jump. Linear recovery can be a hassle at times, but it's nothing that bad. But, going back to jump less cyclone, it takes away his greatest weakness with his recovery and gives his recovery even more raw distance. I don't think Luigi's recovery is anything too special (and it's not like people can just do a jump less cyclone without godly mashing) but some people seem to think it's as free as Doc's and Mac's. Honestly, it's still better than Falcon's and Ness' in my opinion. (Should be noted that my opinion is tainted and probably dripping with bias when it comes to this topic. Please take it with a grain of salt.)

It is better than Falcon's and Ness's (overall since he doesn't have to deal with stuff like fludd or gpull) but it isn't quite fox or diddy tier. This is why I listed him first, he's still a character you can throw off and kill raw. Can't really do that to diddy or fox, gotta get their jump first. He dies if you just get his jump.

That's the main separator.

Get sheik's jump, her bf, she's still coming back unless you stuff vanish. Similar with ZSS.

Get fox's jump, just gotta get firefox/phantasm.

But the likes of luigi, falcon, and ness... You just need their jumps often of the time, and if you need to do more it's often easy.

 

[FullMoon]

"So many bad match-ups" as in...?

What are all of Ness's bad MUs, I know there's Rosalina, Sheik and Sonic but what else?

 

[meleebrawler]

Meh. Don't think I've ever seen somebody else bring up how strong Pit's horizontal recovery is. Even tough it's, yaknow, three jumps, arrows that can be fired as fast as Luigi's fireballs, and a Fspecial with unbeatable super armor and is completely immune to all projectiles. How many characters can truly mess with that? Probably just Greninja. Heck, you can't even go for the ledge vulnerablity with most characters because you'll be close enough to trigger the attack.

Completely immune to projectiles, yes, but it also sends him flying up like someone who stepped on hot coal leaving him wide open unless the projectile is really laggy. It's mainly good because he can quickly transition to deep vertical recovery if need be.

 

[LancerStaff]

Completely immune to projectiles, yes, but it also sends him flying up like someone who stepped on hot coal leaving him wide open unless the projectile is really laggy. It's mainly good because he can quickly transition to deep vertical recovery if need be.

Pit also has complete horizontal control while rising and then falling. Just thinking out loud here, but what are the projectiles with the lowest endlag? And it'd have to be a projectile it doesn't reflect too and it reflects probably a third of all projectiles. Mario's fireballs I don't think are fast enough for him to hit Pit for a benchmark.

 

[Mario766]

As @A2ZOMG said earlier, you won't be able to kill until really high percentages. Save the platform camping until said percentages.

While you do absolutely nothing in that time while Mario puts out a ton of safe hitboxes that will pressure you into doing an option

 

[FullMoon]

Pit also has complete horizontal control while rising and then falling. Just thinking out loud here, but what are the projectiles with the lowest endlag? And it'd have to be a projectile it doesn't reflect too and it reflects probably a third of all projectiles. Mario's fireballs I don't think are fast enough for him to hit Pit for a benchmark.

Depending on the projectile even getting them sent back at you might help. Like Greninja firing a shuriken to trigger the uppercut, getting hit by the reflected shuriken but since they have little hitstun it basically allows him to skip the endlag.

Not sure how well this works in practice but it sounds plausible to me in this case.

 

[Wintropy]

LancerStaff , i trust your understanding of pit's technical details, so i need to ask: why is it that pit can still be spiked by, say, falcon's d-air even when using upperdash? something to do with the hitbox connecting on the non-invincible frames? does anybody even know how the invincibility frames on upperdash work? i've seen chatter on it, but never a coherent response.

i don't want to discredit your research, you know more about it than i do, but it definitely doesn't feel as totally invincible as you say.

 

[Mr. Johan]

If Pit Arms Arcfire Robin more or less gets a Fair for free since that Fireball's going nowhere near him.

Same applies to Elthunder on powershield. Yay lag reduction.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Pit can be hit out of Side-B because the armor isn't Frame 1. It's Frame 11-26 while the move duration is 35 frames. Ergo, if you hit him before F11 or after F26, no armor. This is why armor in this game is usually kinda weird since a lot of the moves that have it don't have it immediately.

 

[thehard]

Weirdly, Sheik is probably easier to edgeguard than ZSS and MK, if you exploit Vanish's ledgesnap vulnerability. The latter two often poke you through the stage or have more ways to mixup their recovery

 

[Dre89]

Probably DK

"Oh let me just approach and- wow his grab range is ridiculou- im dead"

It's more his frame data and the range on bair that people underestimate.

It's actually really hard to ding dong top tiers because if they know they're in range they can just avoid grabs at all costs by just throwing hitboxes that are safe on shield. This works because if DK takes too much damage he'll get too much rage for it to work. Likewise, just fishing for grabs won't work against someone conscious of what you're trying to do, so you need tto mix up your attacks, but if you damage them too much you'll put them out of range.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

Honestly there are essentially three levels of edgeguardability in this game.

1: Sheik, ZSS, Sonic, MK
(Don't even bother tier)

2: Diddy, Fox, Rosalina, Wario
(Pretty susceptible but you need to meet certain conditions before you'll yield high reward)

3: Falcon, Luigi, Ness
(Throwing them offstage at anywhere near high percent reliably yields in reward)

*Mac, Ganon, and Doc are unique in the "Often die just because they got hit at a bad angle" tier.

In this game with so few kill opportunities, providing a new opportunity for your opponent to generate advantage every time you're offstage is huge. No hitbox/invincibility recoveries are definitely in that 3rd tier generally. (Rosalina's is super fast with the ability to recover high and anti-ledge with uair which is why she's tier 2)

So what tier would Mario and Yoshi fit in in your opinion?

While you do absolutely nothing in that time while Mario puts out a ton of safe hitboxes that will pressure you into doing an option

Mario doesn't really have the strength or range to have people respect his moves bar frame data. That's another point I was trying to make.

 

[DunnoBro]

So what tier would Mario and Yoshi fit in in your opinion?

Tier 2. Yoshi at the bottom of it though.

Mario's probably the top of tier 2 though, the angle his upb goes is perfect to challenge the 2-frame with and the only thing that makes him truly vulnerable in some MUs. If they can't do that he's essentially a "don't bother"

 

[Ikes]

An Ftilt that kills at 120, Dair to gimp people and stage spike and kill outright off ledgeguards if they read a Bair instead, Fthrow kills at 140, the quickest Dash Attack in the game to force option selects that can lead to grabs worth 12%, a "can't seal stocks" kit does not make.

I don't care if his combo game isn't the greatest, if he's got the kit to wreck you in shield or in landing and keep you constantly searching for a safe spot, he's gonna get that damage up.

I've said it once and i'll say it again

having a kill throw that deals 12% is absolutely insane.

coupled with mobility and good defensive, offensive, and pressure game as well as a good disadvantage, neutral, and advantage makes him terrifying. Even if his Fthrow doesnt kill near kill %, that basically guarantees the next one will. He can't be gimped since he has arguably the single best recovery in game and a terrifying offstage game. He dies late due to higher weight but is harder to combo than most heavies due to a considerably faster movespeed and slightly slower fall speed. His frame data basically guarantees that most air battles will result in a trade or his win. his dtilt also has some short links.

combo game doesnt matter when you get meaty % off almost every attack.

He also has a good track record in tournament. Don't see how he isnt at least top 10.

I bet Wario mains cringe whenever someone says "our character beats Wario because lol range". Just like saying "shielding" completly counters character X because he can't do anything lol. I find it ludicrous that one single trait/option completly shuts down a character here in smash 4 where I feel that every character, yes even Zelda, has tools deal with difficult situations. Some are more difficult, some are less rewarding but the thing is they have them which is why I find it hard to believe that there are many if at all 80:20 MUs

That is not to say that it wasn't like that in past games like say Brawl where one single throw could invalidate like a big majority of the cast( like Grab Climbers the character) but I don't think S4 has that kind of stuff.

there are people who genuinely think shulk beats wario due to range

LOL

doesnt matter how big your sword is if you're slow. Wario may have bad range but his mobility can artifically extend his hitboxes and he has no trouble catching swordies due to most of them having slower startup. Not to mention his frame 8 command grab pretty much eats through any move slower than it (hint: most sword attacks) and most of his important aerials are < frame 8.

 

[Blobface]

I do think that over time we'll see Sheik get edgeguarded a bit more. She'll always have an amazing recovery, but given how slow (albeit invincible) vanish is, exploiting the ledgesnap vulnerability is definitely a feasible thing.

 

[Man Li Gi]

Can people give a legit analysis of characters instead of giving skin deep analysis of DK (or characters that aren't as popular)? I keep seeing stuff like "yeah he has a great reward on grab....his grab tho....grab........grabbbbbbbbbbb.......". This is even on the commentators as they do the same. I understand that DK isn't really the most relevant or popular character, but it seems like people completely discount some characters to one trait instead of looking at the big picture. What if for some reason or another, the DK player can't land a grab around the ding dong percents? Is he now a completely booty character, is he awesome without it, or is he mid tier? While I have my opinions on him with or without grab, I wanna see others opinion on it.

The fact we see one thing and say pretty shallow things is kinda concerning to me. The same goes for M2.

 

[DunnoBro]

Well I just noted it as his most notably potent trait if the opponent isn't familiar with him at all. I didn't mean to make it sound like the be all end all of the character overall.

 

[TopOfAllWorlds]

The shield stun update has effectivly sealed Jigglypuff into top 20 characters in my personal opinion and here is why.

Jigglypuff has an amazing nuetral game against characters who cannont wall her out.
I am not talking about characters like the links who can effectivly wall jiggs out. I mean characters like Charizard, Bowser Jr., Bowser, Captain Falcon, etc.

Jigglypuff does fine against most fast characters.
The sonic match isn't bad and instanly turns sour for him once he is off stage. Siek doesn't have anything to combo jiggs to rediculas percens wth because of how light weight jiggs is. Diddy may be the only quick character with a real advantage against jigglypuff.

Fair is safe on shield.
Fair is jigglypuffs best spacing option and a good one at that.The fact that it's disjointed and safe on shiel without any landing lag is outstanding. The fact fact you can carrie your oponet off the stage into the blast zone and then come back to the stage afterwords agains nearly every character is enough to get jiggs into the top 20 alone, the fact that it combos into rest should be enough to cement her into top 20.

Fair and Dair combo into rest for kills at low percent.
Yes you read it. She can COMBO you into rest in smash 4 too. So not only can you be at 40% and still get KO'd by chaining Dair Rest (Dair to rest is a true combo that kills mario at 40% off the top of the screenon FD). I can combo you with dair to dair (Di trap) to rest for a 30% kill or play it safe and use dair to fair to rest to rest for a 30% kill. With that combo the target is sent into the air by jiggs down air so rest kills earlier. Dair to fair to rest kills mario at 30% on FD (True combo). If you get trapped in the air while jigglypuff is around then you are dead.

Jigglypuff Vs Rosalina is a good matchup.
This is probably going to make people angry for some reason but it's true. Rosalina is a combo bag for jigglypuff. It is just so easy to combo rosalina into rest. Rosa can't beat jiggs airgame either. Jiggs can just airdoge all rosalina airials because the last so long.

Jigglypuffs F-Special DESTROYS SHIELDS!
Don't go anywhere near puff if your shield is even close to halfway damaged. Puffs fair can nearly destroy a shield in one hit and now with new updae is hard to punish! Puff has MASSIVE shield pressure now. if your shield is broken and your around 40 percent it's a stock gone. Dair was also buffed by shield stun.

Jigglypuffs offstage game
If you are offstage, don't expect to come back unless your Roy, Shiek, or Mario. Jiggs Nair beats out Fox and Falcos side b's, and almost evry other recovery. nair lingers for a long time, making it hard on teleports too. Nair also combos into bair offstage making early kills really easy because she can also just carrie you to the blast zone too if you are at the correct precent or make a mistake in DI.

What is holding jiggs back from being top 15?
Link
Toom Link
Villager
Marth
Ike
and Roy

These are the hardest counters to Jigglypuff so far. However, if puff gets a buff, expect her to move up.


Side Note: Being hard to combo due to being floaty is the only reason shiek isn't in that list, and is the sole reason why I go jigglypuff everytime someone goes shiek.

 

[C0rvus]

I recall @TheReflexWonder used to play Jigglypuff and he did very well with her. He said that Puff has a good Rosalina MU. I wonder how he feels about the MU now and Puff's MUs in general. There are very few Puff mains and far fewer worth listening to. I dabble myself but cannot make meaningful statements about her lol.

 

[Rizen]

Jiggz doesn't seem very good to me but IDK much about her. What are her favorable MU?

 

[Pyr]

What is Jiggs supposed to do against a patient player that respects her pokes, but is more then willing to trade hits and anti-air Jiggs all day? It's not like the lightest character in the game can afford to take trades. That, and her anti-shield button has a minimum of 18 frames of end lag past the hitbox. 33 if you hit on the first active frame. Against someone who knows what pound does, you likely won't break the shield.

And your earliest kill option in rest? It has a coin-flip chance to getting you killed in response because of how kills off the top work in Smash 4.

I don't see her in top 40, let alone top 20.

 

[Blobface]

What is Jiggs supposed to do against a patient player that respects her pokes, but is more then willing to trade hits and anti-air Jiggs all day? It's not like the lightest character in the game can afford to take trades. That, and her anti-shield button has a minimum of 18 frames of end lag past the hitbox. 33 if you hit on the first active frame. Against someone who knows what pound does, you likely won't break the shield.

And your earliest kill option in rest? It has a coin-flip chance to getting you killed in response because of how kills off the top work in Smash 4.

I don't see her in top 40, let alone top 20.

Side note here, but I'm pretty sure killing with Rest doesn't carry a chance of getting revenge killed.

Kills off the top only result in an explosion death (which is faster) if they come from relatively low knockback like ZSS up B, IIRC. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Amadeus9]

The shield stun update has effectivly sealed Jigglypuff into top 20 characters in my personal opinion and here is why.

Jigglypuff has an amazing nuetral game against characters who cannont wall her out.
I am not talking about characters like the links who can effectivly wall jiggs out. I mean characters like Charizard, Bowser Jr., Bowser, Captain Falcon, etc.

Jigglypuff does fine against most fast characters.
The sonic match isn't bad and instanly turns sour for him once he is off stage. Siek doesn't have anything to combo jiggs to rediculas percens wth because of how light weight jiggs is. Diddy may be the only quick character with a real advantage against jigglypuff.

Fair is safe on shield.
Fair is jigglypuffs best spacing option and a good one at that.The fact that it's disjointed and safe on shiel without any landing lag is outstanding. The fact fact you can carrie your oponet off the stage into the blast zone and then come back to the stage afterwords agains nearly every character is enough to get jiggs into the top 20 alone, the fact that it combos into rest should be enough to cement her into top 20.

Fair and Dair combo into rest for kills at low percent.
Yes you read it. She can COMBO you into rest in smash 4 too. So not only can you be at 40% and still get KO'd by chaining Dair Rest (Dair to rest is a true combo that kills mario at 40% off the top of the screenon FD). I can combo you with dair to dair (Di trap) to rest for a 30% kill or play it safe and use dair to fair to rest to rest for a 30% kill. With that combo the target is sent into the air by jiggs down air so rest kills earlier. Dair to fair to rest kills mario at 30% on FD (True combo). If you get trapped in the air while jigglypuff is around then you are dead.

Jigglypuff Vs Rosalina is a good matchup.
This is probably going to make people angry for some reason but it's true. Rosalina is a combo bag for jigglypuff. It is just so easy to combo rosalina into rest. Rosa can't beat jiggs airgame either. Jiggs can just airdoge all rosalina airials because the last so long.

Jigglypuffs F-Special DESTROYS SHIELDS!
Don't go anywhere near puff if your shield is even close to halfway damaged. Puffs fair can nearly destroy a shield in one hit and now with new updae is hard to punish! Puff has MASSIVE shield pressure now. if your shield is broken and your around 40 percent it's a stock gone. Dair was also buffed by shield stun.

Jigglypuffs offstage game
If you are offstage, don't expect to come back unless your Roy, Shiek, or Mario. Jiggs Nair beats out Fox and Falcos side b's, and almost evry other recovery. nair lingers for a long time, making it hard on teleports too. Nair also combos into bair offstage making early kills really easy because she can also just carrie you to the blast zone too if you are at the correct precent or make a mistake in DI.

What is holding jiggs back from being top 15?
Link
Toom Link
Villager
Marth
Ike
and Roy

These are the hardest counters to Jigglypuff so far. However, if puff gets a buff, expect her to move up.


Side Note: Being hard to combo due to being floaty is the only reason shiek isn't in that list, and is the sole reason why I go jigglypuff everytime someone goes shiek.

This is it, CCI has hit a new low.

 

[Pyr]

Side note here, but I'm pretty sure killing with Rest doesn't carry a chance of getting revenge killed.

Kills off the top only result in an explosion death (which is faster) if they come from relatively low knockback like ZSS up B, IIRC. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Well, we have this thread (which is from the Jiggs forum nicely enough): http://smashboards.com/threads/star-ko.410916/

But, unless it's been patched out, you can go to training mode and kill off the top at various percents and get different results. There might be factors that aren't exactly coin-flippy, but I couldn't dig info for it.

There was also a thread debating if Star KOs should follow an imminent death clause because people like to kill themselves before the match actually ends and it screws them over. The random component was part of it. Can't find it anymore, though.

 

[Lavani]

I do think that over time we'll see Sheik get edgeguarded a bit more. She'll always have an amazing recovery, but given how slow (albeit invincible) vanish is, exploiting the ledgesnap vulnerability is definitely a feasible thing.

I feel the exact opposite. Watch Vinnie's matches from TO11 and count the number of times he recovers with Vanish and doesn't snap from above the ledge. The only two instances that come to mind were when he went deep to avoid a bair from ESAM, and against ScAtt he had to recover low to avoid Leaf Shield edgeguarding after Bouncing Fish was shielded, at which point he opted to skip the ledge altogether and trade with dtilt using the reappearance hitbox instead...and then gets another vertical snap after that thanks to Lylat's tilt and a well-placed diagonal teleport.

Sheik's unique "jump, then teleport" upB makes it quite feasible for her to snap to the ledge from above even if she's below it before using upB. So if she wants to go to the ledge, she can make it there safely, and if she doesn't want to or can't for whatever reason, she almost always has other options.

 

[thehard]

I forgot about that dumb thing.

Is that an intentional feature or a coding quirk?

 

[Dre89]

Can people give a legit analysis of characters instead of giving skin deep analysis of DK (or characters that aren't as popular)? I keep seeing stuff like "yeah he has a great reward on grab....his grab tho....grab........grabbbbbbbbbbb.......". This is even on the commentators as they do the same. I understand that DK isn't really the most relevant or popular character, but it seems like people completely discount some characters to one trait instead of looking at the big picture. What if for some reason or another, the DK player can't land a grab around the ding dong percents? Is he now a completely booty character, is he awesome without it, or is he mid tier? While I have my opinions on him with or without grab, I wanna see others opinion on it.

The fact we see one thing and say pretty shallow things is kinda concerning to me. The same goes for M2.

Well to be fair we haven't been talking about DK's viability overall. DK has only been mentioned in relation to other heavies, whom he is clearly better than.

People focus on his grab because it's the difference between him being high-tier and mid-tier. Not just ding dong, but also the damage he gets out of combos. DK's grab game is much more complex than people realise, it basically has it's own meta. I'm not exaggerating when I say that there's about 20 or so options out of grab that are all optimal in different circumstances.

His grab is a big deal, but people talk about it as if it's the only thing he has. Bair, dash attack, utilt, jab and dtilt are all top tier moves in a vacuum. Upb is also really good. Default upb is much better than the custom one if you're experienced with DK and understand all its applications. It has much more utility and reward.

His recovery is also much better than people give it credit for. He's actually more vulnerable off-stage at lower percents than higher percents. At lower percents, he doesn't have much knockback to use for DI mixups. So if he gets knocked below the stage he's vulnerable to spikes. At mid to higher percents however, you can often just DI away from the stage if they're trying to gimp you, and they'll have to return to the stage before you do because your horizontal recovery is much better. Having a horizontal recovery also let's him mix up whether he recovers high or low. Purely vertical recoveries normally force a character to recover low because the recovery is useless when above stage. DK doesn't have that problem. Aerial upb is also frame 6, so you can often use it on reaction to the opponent's movement and beat out their attack or just recover without doublejumping and catch them off-guard. At higher percents you can also turn-around charge cancel your punch so they have to deal with your bair, which makes contesting him much harder.

His gimping is really good, with spaced bairs beating out a lot of stuff and frame-trapping airdodges into other moves (including potentially another bair). But it's not that relevant meta-wise because he can't gimp a lot of top tiers.

His main weaknesses are his disadvantage and his neutral against defensive opponents. His dashgrab sucks so he has no burst options that work on shields. He also loses to most top tiers. Top tiers body him in neutral, are all practically ungimpable, and can't be shieldgrabbed because they're too safe on shield. So you're reliant on pivot grabs, which only work against aggression, and jab-grab, which is hard to set up. If a top tier doesnt want to get ding donged, they don't have to. Just play defensively and avoid grabs at all costs. Eventually you'll either damage him enough so he has too much rage, or he'll damage you too much so you're no longer in the window.

He also gets absolutely bodied by ZSS. It's at least 8-2. It'd probably be 9-1 if he didn't have massive grab reward on her. Grab beats every single option he ha except pre-emptive jumping, but grab is also free on landings and will kill him at like 50%. Grab is also hard for DK to punish if he was in the middle of another actions during the grab, unless it was a RAR towards her.

Match-up wise, DK loses to too many relevant characters to be considered a good solo character. But he's good as a pocket because once you learn his grab combos and his fundamentals like sh double bair, instant dash attack, bair frame-traps etc. he can do well in a lot of MUs with minimal investment.

 

[Blue Ninjakoopa]

The shield stun update has effectivly sealed Jigglypuff into top 20 characters in my personal opinion and here is why.

Jigglypuff has an amazing nuetral game against characters who cannont wall her out.
I am not talking about characters like the links who can effectivly wall jiggs out. I mean characters like Charizard, Bowser Jr., Bowser, Captain Falcon, etc.

Jigglypuff does fine against most fast characters.
The sonic match isn't bad and instanly turns sour for him once he is off stage. Siek doesn't have anything to combo jiggs to rediculas percens wth because of how light weight jiggs is. Diddy may be the only quick character with a real advantage against jigglypuff.

Fair is safe on shield.
Fair is jigglypuffs best spacing option and a good one at that.The fact that it's disjointed and safe on shiel without any landing lag is outstanding. The fact fact you can carrie your oponet off the stage into the blast zone and then come back to the stage afterwords agains nearly every character is enough to get jiggs into the top 20 alone, the fact that it combos into rest should be enough to cement her into top 20.

Fair and Dair combo into rest for kills at low percent.
Yes you read it. She can COMBO you into rest in smash 4 too. So not only can you be at 40% and still get KO'd by chaining Dair Rest (Dair to rest is a true combo that kills mario at 40% off the top of the screenon FD). I can combo you with dair to dair (Di trap) to rest for a 30% kill or play it safe and use dair to fair to rest to rest for a 30% kill. With that combo the target is sent into the air by jiggs down air so rest kills earlier. Dair to fair to rest kills mario at 30% on FD (True combo). If you get trapped in the air while jigglypuff is around then you are dead.

Jigglypuff Vs Rosalina is a good matchup.
This is probably going to make people angry for some reason but it's true. Rosalina is a combo bag for jigglypuff. It is just so easy to combo rosalina into rest. Rosa can't beat jiggs airgame either. Jiggs can just airdoge all rosalina airials because the last so long.

Jigglypuffs F-Special DESTROYS SHIELDS!
Don't go anywhere near puff if your shield is even close to halfway damaged. Puffs fair can nearly destroy a shield in one hit and now with new updae is hard to punish! Puff has MASSIVE shield pressure now. if your shield is broken and your around 40 percent it's a stock gone. Dair was also buffed by shield stun.

Jigglypuffs offstage game
If you are offstage, don't expect to come back unless your Roy, Shiek, or Mario. Jiggs Nair beats out Fox and Falcos side b's, and almost evry other recovery. nair lingers for a long time, making it hard on teleports too. Nair also combos into bair offstage making early kills really easy because she can also just carrie you to the blast zone too if you are at the correct precent or make a mistake in DI.

What is holding jiggs back from being top 15?
Link
Toom Link
Villager
Marth
Ike
and Roy

These are the hardest counters to Jigglypuff so far. However, if puff gets a buff, expect her to move up.


Side Note: Being hard to combo due to being floaty is the only reason shiek isn't in that list, and is the sole reason why I go jigglypuff everytime someone goes shiek.

I think it does OK versus R.O.B., up tilt to rest is a true combo at percentages below 100 (I want to say around 50; it's been so long since I've played a competent Jigglypuff) and he's fairly easy to harass off-stage. If done with modest precision, Jigglypuff's approach through jumps can weave through R.O.B.'s neutral game and force him to just spam n-air and f-tilt (which is an underrated anti-air from R.O.B., the hitbox starts on his torso and is thus deceptively quick) to avoid being crossed up
so many times. Unfortunately for Jigglypuff, R.O.B.'s n-air kills it like it killed everyone in Brawl so it has to always punish its start-up or fade back. If Jigglypuff is grounded, retreating will help R.O.B. recover his control. If it's aviating, it can move back in, but Pound or a fast-fall -> dash/shield grab works better since R.O.B. will most likely use the autocancel to shield or something.

Also, how does Jigglypuff deal with Sheik's f-air?