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

[Wintropy]

I wish Mac was a viable character. I love the character, I love his design, I want him to be viable...

But he isn't. And short of a dramatic overhaul to his design or the competitive ruleset, I don't think he can ever be viable.

This is a character that is as one-dimensional as as a terminal vector. He excels in one thing, and that one thing is ground-based combat. The boy is insane in his element. If you try to coast to victory on the proviso that "it's just Mac, he can't threaten me", you will get bopped. Unless you have a very reliable and safe disjoint or projectile game, fighting Mac to a boxing match is, nine times out of ten, suicide. You have to really shut down his options for a head-on confrontation to be anything but a blitzkrieg to your stock.

The thing is that, if you don't want to play his game, he doesn't have much to pressure you into doing so. Mac is terminally easy to cheese. If you just want to say "lol jk" and bait him into disadvantage, and if you have the tools to put him out and keep him out, there's not much he can do to defy you, short of playing extremely cleverly and making sure he stays in his zone. He's one of the few characters (the others probably being just Ganondorf and Doc) that can be killed due to unfavourable knockback trajectory: you don't need to hit him off the blastzone, because most of his stocks will probably be dropped by not having the momentum to make it back to the stage. If he's knocked off-stage, the entire dynamic of the game changes: now he can't keep up the momentum and rearrange your face with his squishy green fists, now he has to shift tacks to just survive. When he has momentum he's great, but the second he drops it, he risks dropping the stock or even the very game. That is a crippling weakness to have in a game where stage control is vital to survival.

It's been said before, but Mac is basically that guy in a traditional fighter that can empty your vitality gauge in about five good hits, but whose gauge is half the size of everybody else's. You have to play constantly on point and absolutely minimise damage so you don't get bodied. One wrong move and it can be very difficult to recover. Mac is very true to his own game, in that he's a spry wee fella that has to duck and dodge strikes from opponents twice his size and strength and get creative to beat them back, because while he's got the guts to get the job done, he can't withstand more than a few hits himself. I don't think that kind of gameplan is sustainable in Smash, where safety is king and half the battle is being able to make it back to the stage in one piece.

Mac, in my opinion, doesn't really have much room to develop. By virtue of his extreme design, the best he can hope to do is refine what he's good at and minimise opportunities for his weaknesses to be exploited - yet as the greater meta develops and people become safer yet more daring and better off-stage techniques become increasingly commonplace, Mac is going to find it very difficult to keep up and remain relevant (if he's even relevant now, which I don't think he is). He's a great counterpick if you're comfortable with the stage you're on and his matchup with the other guy is doable, and in that sense, I think he's probably one of the strongest (yet most niche) counterpicks you can have: if you know Mac is optimised for the conditions of your next fight, he can be a terrifying opponent indeed.

But as a solo viable main? Unless your name is Sol, I don't see it happening. Even then, I don't think Sol's ever been to a major, or if he has, he definitely hasn't done well enough to make big waves - Mac is inherently held back in his potential by the very nature of his design, and that's difficult to sustain in a meta dominated by characters that have great matchups with him. None of this is new, but I just wanted to offer my own perspective on the matter. Mac will body you if you don't respect him, but I don't think there's very many characters that really do need to respect him in the meta.

 

[Teshie U]

If you thought DJ Jack was the last high-level Ryu you'd be able to watch this weekend, you're wrong. There is a crazily stacked single-elimination tournament at Kyoto University featuring Ranai, 9B, Edge, Komorikiri, Rain, Aki, Earth, Kie, and more. Come watch on SHI-Gaming for incredibly high stakes and valuable matchup knowledge. There is also an English bracket here (translation courtesy of @juddy96) for those of you who can't afford to watch it live, and replays/videos will be available afterward.

EDIT: results link.

Lol, I must have missed any 9B on stream. Never seen the Pit vs Ryu matchup, would be interesting to see how he got 2-0d.

Good day for Ryu anyway though. Dj Jack won a matchup twice that we saw ESAM slaughter Trela in. Trela won the most stacked tournament TX has seen in a few months without dropping a single game.

 

[Wintropy]

I just saw the results, very impressed that Earth 2-0'd 9B. I don't know much about the Pit / Ryu matchup myself, but I remember Emblem Lord saying it was probably even, due to Pit's disjoints being effective at keeping out Ryu and being able to play footsies with him on essentially equal footing. That said, I don't think there's enough footage of it right now to say for definite how it goes. It'd be a great help for both Pit players and Ryu players to examine this match in detail, since it will no doubt demonstrate a high degree of skill with two of the most optimal players of their respective characters. I think anybody would kill for that kind of top-quality demonstration of their mains.

Djent , where will the replays of these matches be uploaded? I'd love to study Earth's set.

 

[Djent]

For the people who are curious about Earth vs. 9B, I can tell you that it was not on-stream. However, it was probably recorded and will be on the SHI-G YT channel in the next few days.

There were also other notable R1 upsets off-stream (OCEAN beat Edge's Sheik with R.O.B. and Atelier beat Kie's Peach). The one we did get to see was Gomamugitya (Lucario) beating Aki (first Sheik, then a switch to Ryu). He then took Ranai to game 3 in R2 (again off-stream). It's notable that Lucario's results only seem to be improving with time (see also: Day, Kamicario).

 

[A2ZOMG]

He also probably does better vs Ganon. Mario's gripes on this MU are that he gets out-traded really hard, and also has a bad range to boot, and he struggles to kill Ganon as his vertical survivability is like a truck. Doc does better in damage output and pills are harder to PS because they bounce hillariously high. Doc also edgeguards Ganon better because Ganon likes to recover low, Doc Tornaadddoooooooo.

If Doc can also do D-throw + F-air then that'd be a plus. U-smash is also a horizontal/diagonal killing move and has better coverage, so Ganon generally has less defense against that. Mario probably loses vs Ganon, but I can see Doc vs Ganon being even. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Ganon master, bless me with thy words A2ZOMG .

D-throw F-air isn't guaranteed on Ganon (it can be airdodged) but there's a lot of reason to not airdodge it when Doc can bait it pretty hard with Up-B and U-smash (notably, since it sends at a diagonal angle backwards, it's actually fairly awkward for Ganon to recover against when he has no B reverses to change the direction he's facing).

Atm I think due to shield changes and due to tipper Ganon N-air only doing 8%, Mario and Doc both beat Ganon about 55/45. I mean, they still have to approach him really carefully and Ganon's edgeguards are still a huge gamechanger, but Ganon no longer gets nearly the same reward for keeping them at ideal spacings especially when anti-airing them. Doc is still easier for Ganon to juggle when Ganon gets in, which offsets Doc's better edgeguards imo.

What makes Luigi's current Fireballs bad?

Yes, I am aware of the 3 frame increase in lag, yet I've still seen it lead into a few things here and there, so I can't see it as THAT bad.



2manycooks? Doc players like A2ZOMG bring him up quite often. Plus A2Z himself has stated to be a ranked player in SoCal.

Where the hell did I ever say I was ranked?

The only thing I recall stating is that the ACTUAL power ranked players in my area, arguably one of the strongest Smash regions in general, rarely ever gimp my Doc (hence, his recovery really is not bad), and usually kill me out of juggles.

 

[DunnoBro]

I thought we already had the discussion that just because you're not getting gimped doesn't mean your recovery isn't ass since you're still dying because of your bad recovery. (DHD, Falcon, Pit, etc)

 

[Dre89]

I thought we already had the discussion that just because you're not getting gimped doesn't mean your recovery isn't *** since you're still dying because of your bad recovery. (DHD, Falcon, Pit, etc)

I'm kind of confused as to how someone dies due to their recovery if they're making it back to the ledge. Do you mean they're taking a lot of damage before making it back?

 

[A2ZOMG]

I thought we already had the discussion that just because you're not getting gimped doesn't mean your recovery isn't *** since you're still dying because of your bad recovery. (DHD, Falcon, Pit, etc)

I also made the point that Doc's recovery has legitimate mixups, and furthermore I don't generally get killed offstage with Doc that often outside of generic hard reads or really bad DI, which generally kills anyone except the best recoveries in the game against someone who knows how to edgeguard.

Duck Hunt and Falcon have really linear and easily reactable recoveries with few mixup options outside of double jump (I guess Duck Hunt has the Can to cover his options sometimes). Not sure where you get the idea Pit's recovery is bad at all. Multiple midair jumps, armored SideB, and his Up-B goes far enough to be a viable high recovery option.

 

[DunnoBro]

I also made the point that Doc's recovery has legitimate mixups, and furthermore I don't generally get killed offstage with Doc that often outside of generic hard reads.

I don't think those reads are as hard as you think. Doc only has a few angles and distances he can recover from. Sure he has mix-ups, but so does little mac.

Overall though, recoveries don't get that bad to begin with in this game. But Doc's is easily bottom tier and irrefutably leads him to his doom in a lot of situations almost all other characters just wouldn't have to deal with.

 

[Y2Kay]

Not sure where you get the idea Pit's recovery is bad at all. Multiple midair jumps, armored SideB, and his Up-B goes far enough to be a viable high recovery option.

Me neither. I guess it's because Up B has no hit boxes, but even then, it goes fast enough and definitely far enough. I'm not even joking when I say there's only one time in my smash history where I couldn't recover with pit........

I hate you with a burning passion Lylat

 

[Mr. ShinyUmbreon]

I thought we already had the discussion that just because you're not getting gimped doesn't mean your recovery isn't *** since you're still dying because of your bad recovery. (DHD, Falcon, PIT, etc)

Bruh? How the hell is Pit's recovery bad? Because Up-B has no hitbox? Side-b? 6 jumps?

 

[DunnoBro]

Bruh? How the hell is Pit's recovery bad? Because Up-B has no hitbox? Side-b? 6 jumps?

I mostly brought it up for the "not getting gimped but does die/get hit because of it" reasoning, not the "bad" one. His recovery was also previously discussed in this thread on that matter.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I don't think those reads are as hard as you think. Doc only has a few angles and distances he can recover from. Sure he has mix-ups, but so does little mac.

Overall though, recoveries don't get that bad to begin with in this game. But Doc's is easily bottom tier and irrefutably leads him to his doom in a lot of situations almost all other characters just wouldn't have to deal with.

Like what?

If you DI like a good player and leave the option open to recover high, which is what happens 99% of the time in high level play, you don't really get edgeguarded outside of hard reads that would kill basically any character.

You DI badly, yeah Doc's recovery sucks. Guess what, so does everyone else that doesn't have a top tier recovery. Bad DI against someone that knows how to edgeguard = lost stock. Applies to basically the vast majority of the cast. And the number of characters in the cast that has an extra third jump to outmaneuver or stall away from edgeguard attempts reactively without going into freefall is a strict minority. Saying Mac has mixups is not even close to comparable to what Doc is able to do to reactively avoid edgeguards.

As I said earlier, recovery tiers are basically like 10% of recoveries are top tier, another 10-15% are bad, and the rest are average. Doc's recovery firmly classifies as average, and even if it's arguably the lower end of it, the difference in effectiveness between the higher and lower end of "average" recoveries is not that big.

 

[DunnoBro]

As I said earlier, recovery tiers are basically like 10% of recoveries are top tier, another 10-15% are bad, and the rest are average. Doc's recovery firmly classifies as average, and even if it's arguably the lower end of it, the difference in effectiveness between the higher and lower end of "average" recoveries is not that big.

Honestly if you acknowledge he could still be bottom tier recovery, you should make it clearer you don't think having a bottom tier recovery is that big of a deal in this game instead of debating over the label of "bad recovery" for him. (Because it isn't. See: Ness, Falcon)

Regardless, my original point of "not getting gimped" doesn't mean a recovery isn't bad still stands which is all I was trying to say.

 

[Wintropy]

Just because Pit's up-b travels far and fast, doesn't mean you shouldn't try to hit him if you get the chance. It's very easy to trace due to the vectored nature of its trajectory. Even if you can't intercept it, you know that nine times out of ten he's going to go for the ledgesnap, so you can either trump or get him to buffer an input and try to read it.

His options become cordoned off quite significantly when he commits to up-b. Prior to that he can duck and weave and play merry hell with your edgeguarding shenanigans, but if you can pressure him into going low and bait him into going for PoF, he doesn't have that much freedom with his options. DunnoBro's right in that sense: you won't gimp him because he will get back to the stage if he wants to, but you can definitely get good damage and potentially the stock if you can read his recovery.

 

[Y2Kay]

Just because Pit's up-b travels far and fast, doesn't mean you shouldn't try to hit him if you get the chance. It's very easy to trace due to the vectored nature of its trajectory. Even if you can't intercept it, you know that nine times out of ten he's going to go for the ledgesnap, so you can either trump or get him to buffer an input and try to read it.

His options become cordoned off quite significantly when he commits to up-b. Prior to that he can duck and weave and play merry hell with your edgeguarding shenanigans, but if you can pressure him into going low and bait him into going for PoF, he doesn't have that much freedom with his options. DunnoBro's right in that sense: you won't gimp him because he will get back to the stage if he wants to, but you can definitely get good damage and potentially the stock if you can read his recovery.

Oh, that's not what I meant. If pit recovers with PoF you should definitely go for the free damage. I mentioned it's speed because I don't want it to be confused with Up B's like duck hunt dog, where he's just begging to be hit.

 

[Wintropy]

Oh, that's not what I meant. If pit recovers with PoF you should definitely go for the free damage. I mentioned it's speed because I don't want it to be confused with Up B's like duck hunt dog, where he's just begging to be hit.

I wasn't responding to you or anybody in particular, but thank you for pointing that out!

The other interesting thing about PoF that separates it from other recoveries of its own type is the fact that you can go very low and still expect to safely recover. If he's within recovery distance, a slanted stage will enable Pit to just hit the underside of the stage and keep traveling until he hits the edge and autosnaps. It doesn't that much of a difference if the opponent's going to edgeguard him, since he still has to go by the same trajectory, but it does mean he's got the option and going deep and still making it back if the going gets tough. He doesn't have to remain in one tight spot next to the edge, he's got room to breathe if he needs it.

 

[DanGR]

A character's air stats and upb speed are so much more important to recovery than the distance of the up-b. High air acceleration, deceleration, and speed allow characters to feign different movements. High fall speed + a quick snapping upb let characters fast fall air dodge through more air space and quickly transition to the ledge. A long upb distance is useful for varying the timing on your snap, but there's too much counterplay to the slower, longer distance upbs for that to be much of a compensation. Those slow recoveries cross the line from "vary ledge snap timing" into "if they react properly, I'm dead" territory. It's rare that I play a recovery attempt correctly and find myself thinking, "I wouldn't have died there if this character's upb happened to travel further. Ah well."

That all said, I'm inexperienced with/against Doc, but I can understand why A2ZOMG would think Doc's recovery isn't among the worst. I can think of plenty that I see as at least theoretically worse.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

What characters, when optimized fully, would probably have the most devastating punish games? Like, if you made one mistake, Which characters would put you in the grave the fastest?

 

[Y2Kay]

with aura probably put you in the grave the fastest with a mistake. I don't know if he has the best punish game though.

 

[FullMoon]

Greninja is a candidate considering his footstool combos are pretty devastating.

 

[Y2Kay]

Greninja is a candidate considering his footstool combos are pretty devastating.

So true. The combos off of footstools and missed ground techs are ridiculous and awesome.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

What characters, when optimized fully, would probably have the most devastating punish games? Like, if you made one mistake, Which characters would put you in the grave the fastest?

That would be dependent on how hard the character's punish game is and how hard the character gets punished.

From what I've seen, the best punisher is Ryu on fast fallers like Falcon, Greninja, and Fox. None of them can really except his up tilt lock that also prevents them from apporaching from the air. True Shoryuken can also kill them all slightly below 100%.

There are many other examples of good punishers I could bring up, but this is the most notable one as of now.

 

[Dre89]

What characters, when optimized fully, would probably have the most devastating punish games? Like, if you made one mistake, Which characters would put you in the grave the fastest?

ZSS because she kills the earliest and can punish pretty much anything with a grab if she knows what they're going to do.

DK against non-camping/zoning characters, because any forward movement they do is pivot grabbable, and he can kill most of the cast in three grabs.

Before people say it, Ganondorf is not one of those characters. The hard punishes he has require people to commit to options that have massive commitments on them. It doesn't matter if you can read a Sheik, a good one will rarely commit to something so laggy that's it's punishable by something like an fsmash.

 

[Y2Kay]

It's not reliable all the time, but can punish with disable. If you pull it off at high percentage the opponent can kiss their stock goodbye.

 

[Wintropy]

What characters, when optimized fully, would probably have the most devastating punish games? Like, if you made one mistake, Which characters would put you in the grave the fastest?

In theory I'd say Ganondorf, considering he probably has (one of, if not) the highest kill threat per hit ratio of any character in the cast. His ability to get into that kind of position is what holds him back, due to his mediocre neutral game and dearth of safe confirms, so I'd say that even fully optimised he isn't the best.

I'd say it's Ryu, personally. Optimise his footsies, get into your opponent's space with expert efficiency and his ability to convert weak, safe hits into big damage speaks for itself. Not quite absurd cheese degrees of good, but definitely the most efficient.

 

[bc1910]

What characters, when optimized fully, would probably have the most devastating punish games? Like, if you made one mistake, Which characters would put you in the grave the fastest?

The ones that already do. ZSS, MK and Ryu have the best punish games. I don't think anyone else's kit quite matches up.

A few others could get close. Pikachu comes to mind, his aerials can frame trap airdodges and he's an absolute pain to land or recover against. DK can kill certain characters with a couple of punishes; he can get a guaranteed ~50% off weak DA to cargo Uthrow to aerial strings and then kill with a ding dong. Pac-Man has some insane punishes, usually involving key drops, but they're hard/impossible to set up (the most devastating ones require a shieldbreak).

Greninja has 0-death combos, but they all require janky footstool setups and to be honest I don't know how easy they are to escape with DI. Assuming they're hard to escape with DI (and it does look that way for fastfallers at least) then Greninja's optimized punishes are very scary.

Shoutouts to Luigi and arguably Peach, who have some disgusting combos, but don't convert their punishes into kills as well as the others I mentioned.

Lucario and Wario deserve mentions as special cases. Lucario can optimize his punishes by getting beaten up then killing with Aura boosted smashes. Wario can just stall and then Waft everyone at 50. Both characters take risks to have scary punish games though. Lucario himself risks death from one good read and Wario risks being camped out, timed out or simply opened up by good players/characters.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

I'm sorry if I didn't say this earlier, but when I said the most devastating punish games, I meant by consistency. Lucario isn't consistent at his punish game (or another game that is), and pac-man doesn't get super high reward very time. Think in terms of ice climbers; they get 0-deaths from every blunder you make. That's basically my question. What character(s) in this game is the nearest to ice climbers in terms of punish games?

 

[bc1910]

I'm sorry if I didn't say this earlier, but when I said the most devastating punish games, I meant by consistency. Lucario isn't consistent at his punish game (or another game that is), and pac-man doesn't get super high reward very time. Think in terms of ice climbers; they get 0-deaths from every blunder you make. That's basically my question. What character(s) in this game is the nearest to ice climbers in terms of punish games?

Same answer, just ignore the Lucario/Wario part of my post. I was thinking along these lines the entire time, who is the best at converting one punish on an opponent at 0 into a kill. Can Pac-Man do that? Yes, hence why I mentioned him. Can he do it consistently? Hell no, but he can still do it better than the 80% of characters who can't do it at all. He's worth noting because he can do it off something semi-feasible in a real match (shieldbreak) unlike, say, Roy, who can 0-death with a fully charged neutral B but will never hit it ever.

This is why I noted Lucario/Wario as special cases. They still fall into the same category but aren't consistent/have to meet special requirements to be part of it.

 

[Mario766]

Ike is a candidate. He gets upwards to 60+ off one grab if truly optimized with simple footstool combos. Add in the fact that one more hit at 60 puts you at ~80 and you're in N-Air -> Something death territory. Not a one-touch wonder but no character has really simple 0-deaths.

This ain't mahvel.

 

[Ffamran]

I'm sorry if I didn't say this earlier, but when I said the most devastating punish games, I meant by consistency. Lucario isn't consistent at his punish game (or another game that is), and pac-man doesn't get super high reward very time. Think in terms of ice climbers; they get 0-deaths from every blunder you make. That's basically my question. What character(s) in this game is the nearest to ice climbers in terms of punish games?

Ryu hands down, ZSS feet down, and perhaps Meta Knight sword down. You make any mistake against them and they're somehow played at a tool-assisted level of optimization, then you're likely to lose stocks faster than you can even process anything. Hell, you're probably likely to lose entire sets within seconds. Could you imagine a grand finals where the player from losers side won in under a minute of in-game time? That would be insane. Freaking video would be 4 minutes long and you're like, "Wow! What did the player do to win that fast?", and then you realize in a total of 6 matches, it took 58 seconds for the losers side player to go 6-0 against his opponent and the other 3 minutes and 2 seconds was just the other player figuring out how to write his will. It'd be probably be impossible since respawn invincibility and other stuff, but man, would it be hilarious, painful, and awesome to watch.

Edit: Me fail wording? Unpossible.

 

[Dre89]

In theory I'd say Ganondorf, considering he probably has (one of, if not) the highest kill threat per hit ratio of any character in the cast. His ability to get into that kind of position is what holds him back, due to his mediocre neutral game and dearth of safe confirms, so I'd say that even fully optimised he isn't the best.

I'd say it's Ryu, personally. Optimise his footsies, get into your opponent's space with expert efficiency and his ability to convert weak, safe hits into big damage speaks for itself. Not quite absurd cheese degrees of good, but definitely the most efficient.

I said this before, but Ganondorf is nowhere near the best. The really early kill moves he has like fsmash require characters to commit to options with enough endlag that he can punish it, or enough start up that he can beat it out. Just because you can read someone doesn't mean they'll actually commit to those kinds of options.

Really, the characters that have the strongest punish games are the ones that heavily punish the low commitment options that people use in neutral with fast options. That's characters with massive damage out of grabs or fast kill confirms like ZSS, MK, Ryu, DK, Bowser etc.

 

[Blobface]

In theory I'd say Ganondorf, considering he probably has (one of, if not) the highest kill threat per hit ratio of any character in the cast. His ability to get into that kind of position is what holds him back, due to his mediocre neutral game and dearth of safe confirms, so I'd say that even fully optimised he isn't the best.

I'd say it's Ryu, personally. Optimise his footsies, get into your opponent's space with expert efficiency and his ability to convert weak, safe hits into big damage speaks for itself. Not quite absurd cheese degrees of good, but definitely the most efficient.

Pretty much correct. Ganondorf hypothetically gets the hardest punishes. I mean, he has four ways he can instantly kill you, and one grab at the ledge, even at 0% could result in a stock. In reality though he doesn't get them anywhere near consistently enough to be called an amazing punisher.

 

[Deleted member]

The performance Big D had with against ZeRo's at NWMDZ today just reminded me how crippling having such a large hurtbox and falling speed is. Like, legitimately depressing. Big D could literally do nothing that entire match and it was more or less the character holding him back rather than his skill. Why this character has gotten literally zero attention in balance patches for almost the entire year this game has been out baffles me.

 

[Ikes]

What characters, when optimized fully, would probably have the most devastating punish games? Like, if you made one mistake, Which characters would put you in the grave the fastest?

Wario, Mac, and Jigglypuff

basically anyone with a harsh "if this lands you're dead" mechanic.

though obviously how is jigglypuff even gonna get in a position where she can punish with much of anything?

 

[Skeeter Mania]

The performance Big D had with against ZeRo's at NWMDZ today just reminded me how crippling having such a large hurtbox and falling speed is. Like, legitimately depressing. Big D could literally do nothing that entire match and it was more or less the character holding him back rather than his skill. Why this character has gotten literally zero attention in balance patches for almost the entire year this game has been out baffles me.

Link, please?

 

[meleebrawler]

It's not reliable all the time, but can punish with disable. If you pull it off at high percentage the opponent can kiss their stock goodbye.

To say nothing of that lovely Shadow Ball which results in a lovely 26% and strong killing potential on whiffs that would normally be safe. Same can be said for Samus, and as a matter of fact she can get some mean juggles going on mistakes or swiftly punish a whiff with fsmash for the kill, plus shield-breaking strings after the latest patch. But I digress.

Disable is basically like Warlock/Falcon Punch, Jet Hammer etc. except actually useful as a punish and not just a hard read tool. But even without that Mewtwo can get kill setups off things like jab, utilt and nair, and versatile combos from dtilt.

Link, please?

He got a more reliable usmash and comboing dthrow. Hardly ignored.
...Er, unless you meant a link to the match.

 

[SubconsciousRose]

The performance Big D had with against ZeRo's at NWMDZ today just reminded me how crippling having such a large hurtbox and falling speed is. Like, legitimately depressing. Big D could literally do nothing that entire match and it was more or less the character holding him back rather than his skill. Why this character has gotten literally zero attention in balance patches for almost the entire year this game has been out baffles me.

It's been said before by some people and I think it may be the reason as well is that the dev team views him as a character more centered around free for alls in general and in that regard he's fine as he's very heavy and has very far reaching recovery and just possesses many tools that are pretty good for that environment.

But his general character design just doesn't seem to fit the 1v1 meta at all in this game and then that raises the question as to what happened between Brawl and Smash 4. And I think that Dedede was better in brawl for the wrong kind of reasons in the grabbing aspect with his absurdly massive grab range (barely smaller than Ivysaur's which was a tether) combined with his down throw chaingrab capabilities. But he did receive some nerfs such as removal of his old bair which was just a much better move in general since it functioned similarly to Donkey Kong's, and his utilt was severely nerfed in kill power, among other changes.

Honestly I feel you in that I wish more could be done for Dedede that he could actually be viable in a 1v1 metagame but I'm not sure what the dev team will do if anything for him at this point that will help him. Like pretty much all of the lower to bottom characters in this game, he possesses aspects that are quite good (gordo ledge traps and amazing survivability) but they don't save the character from the huge negative aspects that come along with it.

 

[Deleted member]

Link, please?

It was on stream here, but it's still going on but we'll probs get the matches uploaded sometime tomorrow.

It's been said before by some people and I think it may be the reason as well is that the dev team views him as a character more centered around free for alls in general and in that regard he's fine as he's very heavy and has very far reaching recovery and just possesses many tools that are pretty good for that environment.

But his general character design just doesn't seem to fit the 1v1 meta at all in this game and then that raises the question as to what happened between Brawl and Smash 4. And I think that Dedede was better in brawl for the wrong kind of reasons in the grabbing aspect with his absurdly massive grab range (barely smaller than Ivysaur's which was a tether) combined with his down throw chaingrab capabilities. But he did receive some nerfs such as removal of his old bair was just a much better move in general since it functioned similarly to Donkey Kong's, and his utilt was severely nerfed in kill power, among other changes.

Honestly I feel you in that I wish more could be done for Dedede that he could actually be viable in a 1v1 metagame but I'm not sure what the dev team will do if anything for him at this point that will help him. Like pretty much all of the lower to bottom characters in this game, he possesses aspects that are quite good (gordo ledge traps and amazing survivability) but they don't save the character from the huge negative aspects that come along with it.

Dedede literally has all the tools to be good, but there's a glaring amount of things that bring him down overall as a character. The main thing withholding him back is garbage frame data and ridiculous amounts of landing lag on his aerials, and no reliable kill confirms or a kill throw. If he got an all-around frame-data buff (reduction of 10 frames on most of his attacks sounds reasonable at least), his up tilt getting increased knockback and fthrow being able to kill around 110% and bthrow getting its angle changed to a horizontal one, we've got a decent character on our hands. The fact also is Gordos are a weak tool in neutral thanks to them being able to be reflected by mostly anything, they need a reflection threshold increase badly (5-6% maybe?). They're alright for covering ledge options and setting up into Dedede's aerials, but they shouldn't be so fragile.

 

[meleebrawler]

It was on stream here, but it's still going on but we'll probs get the matches uploaded sometime tomorrow.



Dedede literally has all the tools to be good, but there's a glaring amount of things that bring him down overall as a character. The main thing withholding him back is garbage frame data and ridiculous amounts of landing lag on his aerials, and no reliable kill confirms or a kill throw. If he got an all-around frame-data buff (reduction of 10 frames on most of his attacks sounds reasonable at least), his up tilt getting increased knockback and fthrow being able to kill around 110% and bthrow getting its angle changed to a horizontal one, we've got a decent character on our hands. The fact also is Gordos are a weak tool in neutral thanks to them being able to be reflected by mostly anything, they need a reflection threshold increase badly (5-6% maybe?). They're alright for covering ledge options and setting up into Dedede's aerials, but they shouldn't be so fragile.

Give Gordos a 6% threshold, and suddenly Sheik can't reflect them at all except with Bouncing Fish. I know we all kinda hate her but she doesn't deserve to be shafted like THAT.

There are times when I ponder if a lot of the Smash cast could benefit in some way by having a more limited version of Ryu's light/heavy mechanic, but for aerials. Say Mario taps forward for his 64 fair and holds for his current one. Dedede taps backward for his old bair, likewise for dair. Bowser and Samus could get access to their old nairs for landing etc.