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

[David Viran]

You sdi the first hit.

It's why people fall out so much.

And the first hit has a SDI multiplier of .5 so it's really weak. SDI is not the reason people fall out. It's really just DIing left or right when hit or up b was just positioned bad.

 

[Ghostbone]

TBH most people are still stupid about how they DI the staircase of death. They DI closer to the side blastzone to die when they should have just been stubborn, DIed in, ate the damage, and survived. Not counting cases with platforms, rage or low ceilings.

DIing in causes you to go higher so you'll be closer to the top blastzone when you get up-b'd so you'll probably die earlier lmao. You can't make your trajectory completely horizontal afaik so DIing towards the top blastzone doesn't seem like a viable option. Plus you're just setting yourself up to die to initial hits of up-b before even getting hit by the final hit.

Like I'm sure people DI away when they could have DI'd in and gone too high for up-b to link, but DIing in usually won't help you live.

 

[RonNewcomb]

And just to weigh in on footsies, they exist in this game, just...not as footsies. The principle exists at least.

The reason it seems to be so relevant in Street Fighter and less so in anime fighters is because anime fighters (and smash) have wwwaaayyy more mobile characters than Street Fighter.

You can't defend yourself in the air at all in Street Fighter, it's a 100% commitment, so your ground spacing is tied into basically everything, including your approach. Not the case in Anime Fighters with air blocking, double jumps, air dashes. Or in Smash, with air dodging, rolls, double jumps, ect.

It more matters if we're interested in stretching SF's definition of footsies to cover what we do in the neutral of Smash: air footsies. ("Wingies"?)

As important as frame data is in SF, I bet few SFers know their main's frame data on their aerials. SFers rarely meet each other air-to-air, and when they do, it's almost always a jabbed air reset for the loser, which can't be comboed off of, so who cares even if you lose such exchanges a lot. And you can't throw two normals in mid-air either, SNES glitches aside. And you can't weave in mid-air, which kills any sense of air footsies more than anything. Hence good aerials in SF are measured in terms of "priority", the intentionally nebulous term comprised of the size, placement and duration of hitboxes and hurtboxes. Which we'd say means range+disjoint. But startup+cooldown on aerials is really important for air fighters which have weaving, like Smash. So, air footsies is a thing, because there isn't much difference between being airborne or grounded here: even spot-dodge still works.

(Actually at least one character in SF can weave in mid-air: Edmund Honda, the sumo wrestler, upon throwing out a neutral-jump HP. But it's for getting past slow fireballs without landing on an SRK, not really for air-to-air interactions.)

SF also has landing lag like Smash, but it's a standard 2 frames for everyone's normals, 0 frames for empty jumps, and what few aerial specials there are, which you can also land out of, just consider the landing lag to be part of the special move itself not of the physics as a whole. So SFers don't discuss landing lag at all because it's short enough to not matter: hitstun and blockstun of non-jab aerials is like 4x as long or more.

Marvel only has weaving after a character super-jumps, and if anime fighters have any weaving at all -- airdashes and double-jumps don't count -- then I don't know of any.

 

[David Viran]

DIing in causes you to go higher so you'll be closer to the top blastzone when you get up-b'd so you'll probably die earlier lmao. You can't make your trajectory completely horizontal afaik so DIing towards the top blastzone doesn't seem like a viable option. Plus you're just setting yourself up to die to initial hits of up-b before even getting hit by the final hit.

Like I'm sure people DI away when they could have DI'd in and gone too high for up-b to link, but DIing in usually won't help you live.

I'll give you that rage makes up b janky with the kills off the top but i'm talking when zss doesn't have enough rage to do so. Most of the time, on a stage like FD, if you just DI in on the combo then you will not die off the top unless zss has rage.

 

[Jucchan]

So it seems Abadango wrote something about counterpick theory on his blog

Is there someone who would do the kind task of translating it? Jucchan maybe?

Here's the translation:

Is Counterpicking Strong?
Isn't it true that the more balanced a game is, the stronger counterpicking is? I'm not so confident that this is true anymore. As long as no one character is way ahead of the others, players usually have one pocket character as a secondary (I am also one of these people). USF4 is overflowing with Evil Ryu and Elena, but I think the character that is easy to use, strong, and good for a pocket in Smash 4 is (atm) Meta Knight. He has many good matchups and is not hard to use. If it were the previous patch, characters like Luigi. If you use her well, Rosalina is good too.
However, the popular idea that "having secondaries is strong" is obscuring the disadvantages of using secondaries, so I, as a user of multiple characters, will write about my thoughts the pros and cons of doing so.

Pros
You can fight advantageous or well-practiced matchups
Obviously, since you are counterpicking, you can force your preferred matchup against a solo-main. This is the #1 pro of secondaries. I think the most popular usage is to use secondaries to cover your main's bad matchups.

It becomes harder to prepare against you
This is simply because the more characters an opponent has, the more you have to prepare against. This is only a real advantage when all of your characters are strong.

It's fun to use many characters
Well, it's a game, so of course it's more fun if you can use many characters.

You can avoid the ditto
I think that there are many people that dislike dittos (I am one of these people too). By using a secondary, you can avoid the ditto.

You can get better at the game in general (maybe)
When only using one character, you tend to only get better at that character, not the game. I think that people that are really good a one character but become very bad when using any other are either clumsy or bad at the game.

Cons
You become weak to counterpicks and double-blind picks
Secondaries are usually only trained towards doing certain matchups, so if you get counterpicked on your secondary you are at a large matchup experience disadvantage. In addition, if two multi-character players face-off, there will certainly be a double-blink pick first game. It means that you can't only train secondaries for counterpicking, but also for being counterpicked against.

You need more practice time than solo-mains
In order to cover the first con, you need to train your secondaries as if they were your main. However, time is limited, and you need twice the training time (main+secondary) compared to a solo-main (even more if your two characters control differently). If you spend the same time training as a solo-main, of course the quality of your characters will be lower than theirs. Spending a lot more time training is the only solution that would solve the first con, so you are forced to accept either the first con or this one.

"Easy" counterpicks do not exist
If you are counterpicking, that means you think that you gain a matchup advantage doing so. It means that from your opponent's standpoint it's a disadvantageous matchup, and the first matchup that they will try to train themselves in. If you counterpick just because it's an advantageous matchup and without properly training yourself, your supposedly disadvantaged opponent will rather be at an advantage.

You don't have a main to rely on in a pinch
This is another comparison to solo-mains, but solo-mains only use one character. No matter who the opponent is, they do not waver. However, since multi-character players use various characters, there times when they don't know who to choose (especially when none of the characters have a clear advantage against the opponent). You are at a mental disadvantage at the character select screen. Although you might end up choosing the character that the opponent seems to dislike the most, it's clear that in the long run this is not a reliable strategy.

It's not hype
Generally, the crowd does not want to watch the character with the advantage winning. The crowd wants the disadvantaged character somehow beat the advantaged one, so even if your counterpick works as planned and you win, it's not hype. In comparison, it is cool and hype when a solo-main overcomes a disadvantageous matchup.

Conclusion
What do you think? Don't you think that the cons seem to be larger than the pros? By the way, my opinion as a player who has used multiple characters and continues to use multiple characters is that Being a solo-main is better. (Of course, you have to main a character that is fairly strong) I think that there are many people that split up their time practicing multiple characters when you improve much faster as a solo-main. I think that it is best for people that can't seem to do well at tournaments to limit themselves to one good character. If you want to add a character, I think that you should play that character only, extensively, for a certain period of time.
In Brawl, I used Olimar, Falco, and Wario, but I couldn't choose who to use against Meta Knight and switched it around depending on the opponent or how I felt before the match. In the end, I used Wario the most, and relied on him the most. For now, (as long as there aren't nerfs,) I want to use Meta Knight only in as many matchups as possible.
I only thought of this while writing this but I can't understand players in Melee that use Sheik against Fox but use Fox against Sheik

 

[Nu~]

And there it is. He finally dropped pacman.

I agree with his conclusion. I don't like the idea of stretching yourself thin myself

 

[wedl!!]

In this discussion of counterpicks and Abadango, I can't help but be reminded of the wonderful period where Pac-man mains thought they went even or better with almost the entire roster.

 

[meleebrawler]

It's eerily happening to me too, I've been using Mewtwo more and more lately on For Glory and the other characters I've played are starting to take a backseat.

 

[Sonicninja115]

Aba is dropping Pac-man?!? In times like this, it is best to quote Star Wars
"Nooooooooooo!" (Darth Vader)

 

[FullMoon]

I've been soloing Greninja now but was thinking of picking up Lucas again just because I like him. Reading Abadango's post though, I think I might just stay with Greninja for better or worse.

Even if it means potentially having to go through 3 Sonics in this hedgehog infested country.

 

[TTTTTsd]

I'd just like to sneak back in and leave a relevant note, I don't totally disagree with Aba (I don't at all, really, I think the decision is ultimately preference and what works for you as a player) butttt

Having a secondary is how Nairo managed to win MLG and get out of Loser's Finals. It's just something worth thinking about.

Remember, a top player's opinion is a combination of knowledge and what works for THEM in particular when it comes to scenarios like this (it's also important to note he used to use Pac-Man, a character who IMO requires an excessive amount of work for a secondary especially). If you're set on a decision and you think you'll enjoy picking up a character to play in friendlies, on the side, or just as a fun secondary, I'd say do it. Just weigh the consequences and most importantly pick what works for YOU.

Generally speaking secondaries are best picked when they're relatively simple characters (i.e. Mario, Luigi (pre-patch), Dr. Mario, etc.) because you don't have to invest a large amount of time in. That's all I got.

P.S. "It's not hype" doesn't apply when you CP Dr. Mario =V.

 

[StarshipGroove]

i'm not an expert but in my opinion no character in this game has a design that is so unrewarding, or botched, that it can't be made viable by overtuning his/her moves with major damage buffs or improving a few things

for Ganondorf i'd give him
-autocancel on dair
-remove ability to tech flame choke
-dthrow that leads into flame choke at low percentages and fair at ko %
-sped up jab

not sure if that'd fix him, but it sure would help.

 

[Thinkaman]

i'm not an expert but in my opinion no character in this game has a design that is so unrewarding, or botched, that it can't be made viable by overtuning his/her moves with major damage buffs or improving a few things

for Ganondorf i'd give him
-autocancel on dair
-remove ability to tech flame choke
-dthrow that leads into flame choke at low percentages and fair at ko %
-sped up jab

not sure if that'd fix him, but it sure would help.

I personally wouldn't speed up jab, but there's a few other options. In BBrawl, invincible Wizkick proved to be the single most beneficial help in Ganon's worst matchups. Ganon in Smash 4 seems to have less awful polarization in the face of projectiles and their users, due to the meta and the engine though, so that might no longer be the case.

Also, I could buy the argument that Zelda is fundamentally flawed, for a sufficiently loose enough definition of "fundamentally flawed." You obviously could break her with overtuning; wouldn't be hard.

Have I mentioned this month how badly I want Zelda to be able to cancel Phantom charge a la Deep Breathing? Might as well get it out of the way now. (Man, it would legitimately fix so much--people would be surprised how much that move would matter)

 

[LightLV]

I disagree with the notion that buffed shields were bad for heavies. Let me tell you something about DK's shield in melee: it was a free shield poke waiting to happen. His shield was absolute trash and the buff to shields only helped him and the rest of the heavies. No shield push is annoying (unless your facing Luigi, in which case every attack will send him sliding like he's on ice), but manageable. And, another thing about buffed shields in general: they help with a heavy's approach. Faster characters don't not have to rely on shield as much for an approach, and a larger amount of fast characters seem to receive projectiles more frequently than heavies (we have Tink, ZSS, Sheik, Mario bros, pikachu, yoshi, etc.) and for heavies we have charizard/bowser with a projectile that's used for approaching the same way Ike's Aether is used as an off stage edge guarding tool (as in away from the ledge). And we have gordos from DDD which are a great approach option...when they're not getting reflected back towards you 95% of the time. Heavies need all the approach options they can get. Dash into shield is still more viable than it ever was. So that gives heavies a way to approach. A very predictable approach, but at least it's something. In the end, I'd argue that buffed shields help the super heavies more, as they can protect themselves better from pressure that aren't grabs and they can theoretically use their strong moves to pressure shielding better than most (or just grab if you're zard or DK). I like the new and improved shields for heavies. It's the grab happy meta that the heavies don't like. But hey: at least I'm not getting punished by Marth for the 50th time just because I mistakenly pressed the R button.

I don't see any way in which buffing shields helps heavy characters. It gives them nothing, but takes away something they should be good at, which is offensive pressure. Higher damage = higher shieldlag + higher shieldpush = ability to throw out safer attacks.

If Bowser's Fair was safe on shield AND had the potential to knock you off platforms/ledges AND had the potential to break your shield, Bowser would now have a viable pressure tool that would either have to be sidestepped or avoided to deal with. Block it on the edge of a platform? Possibly eat an Fsmash if you don't tech. Block it near the ledge? Stage control.

Those are options. But Bowser doesn't have that. His options on a shielded Fair are...well, to get shieldgrabbed. Or empty jump and grab, but every character in the game has that option, so that's moot. SHEIK on the other handdddd....well, she can Fair you and then just move out of the way because it's safe with spacing. And im not saying all moves have to be rendered completely safe on block, but you shouldn't just be able to shielddrop to Fsmash so damn easy in this game. Or shieldgrab to downthrow to THINGS and now i'm at 45%????

I don't think we can be objective by saying Sakurai's views on competitive play are "wrong."

Perhaps we should just say that Sakurai prefers his games to not be limited to one form of enjoyment.

I said "i think they're wrong but not unfounded". Which is implying it's only my opinion, and i'm aware that it's only my opinion, and acknowledge the fact that Sakurai is developing from a viewpoint that isn't nearly as selfish as my own.

You're using a strict definition of footsies being absolutely ground-based when it's not. The way we play footsies is entirely different than street fighter; that doesn't mean it's less important. Same thing with anime fighters and marvel games.

I was just kind of being funny with words. I said the principle still exists. In Smash 4 spacing is damn near the entire neutral, because for most characters there is no pressure game.

 

[L9999]

And there it is. He finally dropped pacman.

I agree with his conclusion. I don't like the idea of stretching yourself thin myself

Not surprising, you called it months ago.

 

[thehard]

While untechable grounded Flame Choke would obviously improve Ganon, I don't think it'd be as interesting as the mixup we have now. Same with Mewtwo's Confusion.

 

[**Gilgamesh**]

I'd just like to sneak back in and leave a relevant note, I don't totally disagree with Aba (I don't at all, really, I think the decision is ultimately preference and what works for you as a player) butttt

Having a secondary is how Nairo managed to win MLG and get out of Loser's Finals. It's just something worth thinking about.

Remember, a top player's opinion is a combination of knowledge and what works for THEM in particular when it comes to scenarios like this (it's also important to note he used to use Pac-Man, a character who IMO requires an excessive amount of work for a secondary especially). If you're set on a decision and you think you'll enjoy picking up a character to play in friendlies, on the side, or just as a fun secondary, I'd say do it. Just weigh the consequences and most importantly pick what works for YOU.

Generally speaking secondaries are best picked when they're relatively simple characters (i.e. Mario, Luigi (pre-patch), Dr. Mario, etc.) because you don't have to invest a large amount of time in. That's all I got.

P.S. "It's not hype" doesn't apply when you CP Dr. Mario =V.

I think what Abadango meant was a dedicated known secondary. Remember we know that ZeRo only uses Sheik and Diddy Kong; this has been established and we know that his secondary is Diddy Kong as far as I know. Nairo pulling out Dr.Mario was a total suprise to everyome. ESAM (who btw was practicing the ZSS MU for Nairo at MLG while Nairo has no one to practice the Pika MU near ESAM level) was shocked at this. I believe Abadango is looking at the Grand Spectrum of Secondaries as time goes on, suprise secondarily becomes less effective. What happend at MLG was a spescosl case since Nairo just flat out used Dr.Mario and we're not sure if he'll continue to use Doc.Mario vs ESAM as time goes on.

 

[Kung Fu Treachery]

I think they already have ditched some prior things, thankfully, and kept some too! To note:
- Mario is no longer average in everything
- Doc still has D-Throw Fair (only on Fastfallers but it still works! Pretty neat!)
- Dashgrabs in general have been beefed up
- There are likely more examples haha, I definitely see your point, I just wanted to bring up the exemptions as they're also frequent, this game feels very much transitional in character identity = )

I do agree, in some cases sticking to the old designs is in some ways problematic. But I don't think this game's guilty of it in as many fronts as some would like to believe. Stuff like Samus jab needs to change, but things like Falcon's moveset can probably be left alone without changing it because it's not really required.

On that note, I'm taking a solid break from this thread, but this was an interesting read and its basic ideas correlated with mine so I figured I'd post a response. Take care, sir, you have my blessing for this post.

And yes, if Smash was health based Duck Hunt would be really good, and so forth. Regular fighters don't need kill moves although some characters can have some radically good moves/mixups that put them ahead of other characters, it's very different but in some ways identical!

i'm not an expert but in my opinion no character in this game has a design that is so unrewarding, or botched, that it can't be made viable by overtuning his/her moves with major damage buffs or improving a few things

for Ganondorf i'd give him
-autocancel on dair
-remove ability to tech flame choke
-dthrow that leads into flame choke at low percentages and fair at ko %
-sped up jab

not sure if that'd fix him, but it sure would help.

Yeah, I think I spoke too broadly about "failed" kits. Perhaps a better idea is emphasizing different parts of a character's moveset? Like, when has Falcon Kick ever been good? Maybe we could give that a try. To go back to my Puff example, she won't get her Melee edgeguarding back, but Sing has been totally useless 4 games running. Would it be so bad if that move actually did something?

It actually might be bad. Maybe Sing is the wrong type of move to buff, and we'd all be miserable. I haven't really thought about it.

You could certainly break any character if you tinkered around enough with them. I sometimes daydream about a Zelda where you didn't have to sweetspot anything. Easy-mode Din's Fire and Lightning Kicks. Sure, she would be an overcentralized abomination, but she'd be much stronger. Ideally we can come up with more subtle solutions than my idle musings provide.

 

[Big-Cat]

I don't see any way in which buffing shields helps heavy characters. It gives them nothing, but takes away something they should be good at, which is offensive pressure. Higher damage = higher shieldlag + higher shieldpush = ability to throw out safer attacks.

If Bowser's Fair was safe on shield AND had the potential to knock you off platforms/ledges AND had the potential to break your shield, Bowser would now have a viable pressure tool that would either have to be sidestepped or avoided to deal with. Block it on the edge of a platform? Possibly eat an Fsmash if you don't tech. Block it near the ledge? Stage control.

Those are options. But Bowser doesn't have that. His options on a shielded Fair are...well, to get shieldgrabbed. Or empty jump and grab, but every character in the game has that option, so that's moot. SHEIK on the other handdddd....well, she can Fair you and then just move out of the way because it's safe with spacing. And im not saying all moves have to be rendered completely safe on block, but you shouldn't just be able to shielddrop to Fsmash so damn easy in this game. Or shieldgrab to downthrow to THINGS and now i'm at 45%????

There's risk and reward to his FAir. Sheik, though, IMO is her FAir just being too damn stupid. In fact, Sheik in general has little commitment on her moves that she's not a fair comparison. I honestly think she'll see recovery frame nerfs in the future.

 

[Ffamran]

I personally wouldn't speed up jab, but there's a few other options. In BBrawl, invincible Wizkick proved to be the single most beneficial help in Ganon's worst matchups. Ganon in Smash 4 seems to have less awful polarization in the face of projectiles and their users, due to the meta and the engine though, so that might no longer be the case.

Dude. It's a jab. No jab in this game or any game should be above frame 6 in my opinion, especially in Smash when you have moves with startup below frame 3. Ryu's a special case where his heavy jab is like a "neutral tilt" or "pseudo-Smash". Ganondorf's jab should be at most frame 4 if Roy's allowed to have his wacky disjointed frame 5 jab that basically has a reverse hitbox ordering to Ganondorf's. If it has to be slow for whatever awful reason, Ganondorf's jab should not take 25 freaking frames to recover which is only 2 frames faster than his Ftilt and 2 frames slower than his Dtilt. Slow down the game and notice how Ganondorf has to brace himself before kicking low instead of just sticking his arm out or doing a simple front kick. Dtilt is a complicated maneuver compared to jab and Ftilt and Ftilt has merit on its power, but jab? Nada. Ain't got nothing but being 2 frames faster which makes it an average-speed move, but a hella slow jab.

Also, Shulk is not a bloody moron and it's not rocket science to freaking jab, so he should not have a frame 5 jab, especially when Cloud's jab is estimated to be frame 4 to 5 and he kicks. He freaking kicks compared to making a fist and sticking it out there. Oh, and please let Little Mac hold down attack to do his 3-hit jab while rapidly tapping it makes him rapid jab. Be nicer to not accidentally fumble into a rapid jab because you tapped too fast...

 

[Trifroze]

Zero Suit Samus? She can kill you at 40% off of a grab. I'm really scared of ZSS's grab.

Everyone needs to stop thinking this is true, it only happens if you get grabbed near the ledge and DI closer towards the offstage during the combo, DI boost kick wrong, or DI towards platforms at around 15-25% letting ZSS extend her up airs. It's not a killing combo without the victim killing themselves with bad DI.

Footsies do exist you just have to expand the definition to take into account. The principles are the same. You claiming that there's no footsies in marvel is a straight up lie.

It's an SF term. If you have to expand the definition the term changes and isn't what I've been talking about. Why would you expand a term and create unnecessary confusion rather than use a more descriptive new term that doesn't link the game into something it has nothing to do with?

 

[Megamang]

I don't see any way in which buffing shields helps heavy characters.

Did you read the post you quoted? It outlined lots of ways shields help heavy characters.

Watch a heavy try and take on ZSS or Rosa. Shield is an integral tool to their game, their heavy punishes benefit from the powershielding system a lot.


Now, what you suggested, ledge push on aerials, would benefit heavies only when they are pressuring. Their weakness isnt the pressure they exert, but how they can actually assert themselves in neutral vs the blond beasts. Imagine if zss's uair could knock you off platforms for a free dsmash, even when shielding. Or if a luma dair shielded at the ledge meant you fell (free rosa dair if lunar landed). Basically, the options everyone has (shield, roll, etc) need to be good enough to evade zss rosa etc with some success or the heavies would never win a game.


Now, if only bowsers fair knocked you off... then yea, he would benefit.

 

[meleebrawler]

While untechable grounded Flame Choke would obviously improve Ganon, I don't think it'd be as interesting as the mixup we have now. Same with Mewtwo's Confusion.

Thing is, even with no tech Ganondorf still doesn't get guaranteed followups on everyone. Mewtwo, though? Man... people just have no idea how stupid Confusion would be if it got guaranteed followups.

It has perfectly constant knockback which means it would NEVER stop working, and so people would pretty much do nothing except try to land it. The two lethal command grabs we have (Force Palm and Flying Slam) are balanced by their low reach. Confusion has very large range for a non-tether grab. And that's not even considering all the other uses Confusion has.

Some people think Mewtwo needs stupid stuff like this to compete. I say "do you really want Mewtwo to be that polarizing?".

 

[Mario766]

Yo Untechable Flame Choke?

I'll pitch my support for it.

It won't change anything though. Ganon would still get bodied by a lot of the cast.

 

[LiteralGrill]

This is the third time I'll mention that Ganon's Flame Choke is techable now to remove item infinties from Brawl. Yeah, it wasn't just done 'for the lols' or something. items are the future of competitive smash bow down to your item overlords

 

[Mario766]

RIP that idea.

I'd take the trade though honestly.

 

[Ffamran]

It's an SF term. If you have to expand the definition the term changes and isn't what I've been talking about. Why would you expand a term and create unnecessary confusion rather than use a more descriptive new term that doesn't link the game into something it has nothing to do with?

Doesn't seem anything strictly related to Street Fighter or just traditional 2D fighters. Definition of footsies from Shoryuken, a Street Fighter-centric site, is: "Footsies: A complicated playstyle combining spacing, zoning, and pokes. Generally refers to close- to mid-range poking that revolves around baiting the opponent to throw out a poke and punishing the whiff with your own." Note how nothing was said about footsies being a Street Fighter-only idea. Also, zoning is defined as this: "Zoning: Finding the perfect distance to limit your opponent’s options. Ryu wants to find the distance from which if his opponent jumps over a Hadouken, he can easily Shoryuken them out of the air."

While this site, https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Glossary_of_fighting_games, has footsies defined as this: "'Footsies' is oldschool slang for the mid-range ground-based aspect of fighting game strategy. It refers to a situation where both players are outside of combo range and attack each other with long-range, generally safe attacks (pokes). The ultimate goal is to control the flow of the match, bait the opponent into committing errors, and punish everything." For me, this definition is Falco's game plan in a nutshell.

Hell, zoning as defined by the above site: "Zoning is a tactic in 2D fighters usually used at mid-range or far mid-range, the purpose of which is to out-prioritize your enemy's moves. The idea is to space yourself so that you are in a position to respond to or punish any entry angle or attack of your opponent's. Ideally, you can use certain pokes and attacks to beat your opponent's attacks, punish his advances or jumps, and hopefully shut down his offensive options, while landing hits. In attempting to zone, it is important to know the properties of your own attacks as well as the attacks of your opponent, in order to find the best move to use in countering your opponent's move. The ability to predict your opponent's next move, and having good reflexes to react to that move, are also important", could be the general term and spacing is, to me, interchangeable with footsies and zoning.

All fighting games have footsies, spacing, and zoning. For some, footsies is strictly close to close-mid-range and zoning is strictly long to long-mid-range. Still, zoning as a general term can be used with anyone. For example, Marth can zone, except his zone is limited to Falchion's length and that's the zone he wants people to be at versus Link preferring people to be at his Master Sword's length for close combat and at his projectiles range for mid- to long-range combat. The difference is just how they're applied in each game, but the concept is not limited to just one game.

Also, range itself can be a case by case concept where say, Roy's out of range is outside the tip of his Sword of Seals, edge of range is just barely away from the tip of his sword, long-range is the tip of his sword, mid-range is the middle of his sword, and close-range is his base of his sword. That's if you follow a boxing/melee idea of fighting. Another one of a boxing range idea would be Roy's long-range is outside of his range, just outside is barely past the tip of his sword, in-range is the middle, and inside fighting is the base of his sword. Sources that came from Googling "boxing range": http://www.myboxingcoach.com/fight-tactics-range2/ and http://www.expertboxing.com/boxing-strategy/fight-tips/controlling-range-and-rhythm.

 

[Mario766]

If anything, footsies is much more expanded because of the platforms + length of stages. The game isn't stuck to a screen, it's a huge stage with some having platforms and ledges. In SF, you have a flat stretch of land, 2 walls and that's it. Smash has a lot more depth which leads to more complex footsies play and movement options. This is one of the reasons Smash 4 was lamented early, lack of those movement options making the game look slower and less competitive.

 

[KakuCP9]

This is the third time I'll mention that Ganon's Flame Choke is techable now to remove item infinties from Brawl. Yeah, it wasn't just done 'for the lols' or something. items are the future of competitive smash bow down to your item overlords

I think changing the angle the beam sword jab sends people in order to prevent jab locks would be enough to stop those un-techable infinites which isn't too difficult.

 

[wpwood]

="Trifroze, post: 20527736, member: 89021"
It's an SF term. If you have to expand the definition the term changes and isn't what I've been talking about. Why would you expand a term and create unnecessary confusion rather than use a more descriptive new term that doesn't link the game into something it has nothing to do with?

The fact is, it's just easier to think of it as still being footsies but being more complex. Which is basically what it is. Why make a completely new term for something that almost everyone else seems to understand as being called footsies? Words have different origins that differ very much from their contemporary meanings, so what does it matter if we continue using the word footsies?

On the note of buffing Ganon, please buff wizard's foot. I play Ganon some for fun and to work on punish game, and I really think wizard's foot needs some buffs to make Ganon better. Maybe put armor on the move and don't have it trade with projectiles. It is a great movement and coverage option that Ganon has, it just gets annoying when a fireball from Luigi or Mario can stop the dark magic around Ganon's foot. Also give Ganon armor like Bowser. HE IS LITERALLY WEARING ARMOR. Something that will probably never happen but would be amazing, armor on the initial jump of up b, it would change some of the way to edge guard Ganon and would be a huge buff to his recovery (The thing holding him back the most)

 

[LightLV]

There's risk and reward to his FAir. Sheik, though, IMO is her FAir just being too damn stupid. In fact, Sheik in general has little commitment on her moves that she's not a fair comparison. I honestly think she'll see recovery frame nerfs in the future.

This is going to be a longer reply because i dont think people really think about this in Smash 4:

Spoiler

I'm using Sheik as a comparison because Bowser and Sheik are two fundamentally different characters. Sheik is "damn stupid" because she's able to abuse an option that other characters simply don't have, and I'm just trying to explain how it doesn't actually have to be that way if the defensive mechanics in this game weren't actually skewed in her favor.

Shiek is a speedy character and her attacks do little damage, but she's able to link them together if she gets the hit and her landing lag is nearly nonexistent. As a result, she has the ability to strike and get out fast. She is not the type of character that would benefit from increased shieldpush or shieldlag to begin with. Therefore, the inability for OTHER characters to benefit from these shield mechanics is indirectly buffing her.


So, consider for a moment, if shield values were not so stacked against the attacker.

This already (sorta) happened in 1.1, remember? Sheik became MARGINALLY more safe. Fair is 4~5% damage, which makes her more safe on shield with the new shieldlag formula but not enough to even be noticeable -- she was already safe. She gets no benefit from the scaling of the mechanic because she's not designed to.

But Bowser? 11~12% damage Fair, 19% Bair. Ganondorf has an 18% Fair, 17% Bair. Dr. Mario's Fair gets as high as 16%, and these are all kill moves. This is extended to other characters like all swordsmen and definitely characters like Robin and Buster/Smash Shulk. Not to mention grounded moves, and the fact that i think both the attacker and defender were knocked back to some degree.


Would it be a tier-rearranging change? Don't know. But what I do know is that the AVERAGE ranking of every character will undoubtedly increase, because the characters at the top would not benefit from this as much as the characters at the bottom....except characters like Mario and Captain Falcon, who are fast and hit pretty hard. But changes like these don't happen in a vacuum, as seen with 1.1.1's damage control with wakeup attacks and Marth/Lucina's shield breaker. (not to mention Perfect Shield still exists, so that's still an option.)


The thing is, characters with slower-but-stronger attacks and weak approach game desperately need the ability to be offensive because it gives them an avenue to pressure the opponent. It gives you attacks in your arsenal that your opponent is forced to respect, which only strengthens your other options (such as grab mixup). For heavies, no defensive pressure is significantly worse because ontop of them being sluggish with low mobility, they have massive hitboxes and get comboed easier. Rage helps a bit, but trying to survive while praying your opponent makes a silly mistake is a losing strategy against a solid opponent.

 

[Trifroze]

People who actually use the term footsies in Smash are few and far between, spacing is used much more often and for good reason. Same goes for actually understanding those terms. People who choose to say footsies, or in general make comparisons to other fighters which seldom get the point across and which few will even understand, give off the feeling "look there's this other thing that's not really related to what we're talking about but I know something about it and therefore I will bring it up". There's always a better way to describe neutral in Smash than a term borrowed from completely different kinds of games, and there's always a better way to explain things than making comparisons to something few have ever played or even watched.

 

[C0rvus]

I agree with Abadango's sentiments on playing multiple characters. Having counterpicks sounds nice on paper, but consider the importance of matchup experience. If, for example, your pocket Rosalina comes out to snuff out your main's Ness problem, that's an MU that Ness mains are going to want to know as best they can. They will likely be more ready for it than you are. It's a strong point against playing multiple characters, which is a pain for people like me who cannot just play one.

Also MK is best pocket character. That's why I'm working hard on one of my own

 

[Megamang]

L LightLV

The issue is that the top characters dont often need to shield against the heavies, they simply outmanuever them, stuff them, or camp them with projectiles. On the other hand, the heavies need a good shield to prevent constant harrasment.

Unless you are suggesting simply buffing a few heavies moves so they hurt shields more/pushback shields more, which would be fine by me.

 

[Sonicninja115]

What are people's thoughts on Diddy? Is he still top 5 because ZeRo is insane? I think people tend to place him too high...

 

[Baby_Sneak]

People who actually use the term footsies in Smash are few and far between, spacing is used much more often and for good reason. Same goes for actually understanding those terms. People who choose to say footsies, or in general make comparisons to other fighters which seldom get the point across and which few will even understand, give off the feeling "look there's this other thing that's not really related to what we're talking about but I know something about it and therefore I will bring it up". There's always a better way to describe neutral in Smash than a term borrowed from completely different kinds of games, and there's always a better way to explain things than making comparisons to something few have ever played or even watched.

I think bringing up footsies, or another term that talks about all the different principles to not get hit and actually hit your opponent (neutral game is popular here) would be really beneficial to Everyone, since good spacing is specific to moves and positioning of the player based on the opponent and doesn't bring up the whole mental game aspect of the game. And I'm sorry if I'm responding to you too much, but you're bringing up a interesting topic to me.
EDIT: oh, and here's my source (now, my source DOES say that footsies is slang for the mid range ground based part of fighting game strategy, but later in the paragraph, he saids nobody talks about footsies in concrete terms because it's seen as a complex and elusive subject, so it's my guess he's talking about its most barebones definition because of the game it was formed in).
EDIT2: might as well tackle this thing too

Here's the translation:

Is Counterpicking Strong?
Isn't it true that the more balanced a game is, the stronger counterpicking is? I'm not so confident that this is true anymore. As long as no one character is way ahead of the others, players usually have one pocket character as a secondary (I am also one of these people). USF4 is overflowing with Evil Ryu and Elena, but I think the character that is easy to use, strong, and good for a pocket in Smash 4 is (atm) Meta Knight. He has many good matchups and is not hard to use. If it were the previous patch, characters like Luigi. If you use her well, Rosalina is good too.
However, the popular idea that "having secondaries is strong" is obscuring the disadvantages of using secondaries, so I, as a user of multiple characters, will write about my thoughts the pros and cons of doing so.

Pros
You can fight advantageous or well-practiced matchups
Obviously, since you are counterpicking, you can force your preferred matchup against a solo-main. This is the #1 pro of secondaries. I think the most popular usage is to use secondaries to cover your main's bad matchups.

It becomes harder to prepare against you
This is simply because the more characters an opponent has, the more you have to prepare against. This is only a real advantage when all of your characters are strong.

It's fun to use many characters
Well, it's a game, so of course it's more fun if you can use many characters.

You can avoid the ditto
I think that there are many people that dislike dittos (I am one of these people too). By using a secondary, you can avoid the ditto.

You can get better at the game in general (maybe)
When only using one character, you tend to only get better at that character, not the game. I think that people that are really good a one character but become very bad when using any other are either clumsy or bad at the game.

Cons
You become weak to counterpicks and double-blind picks
Secondaries are usually only trained towards doing certain matchups, so if you get counterpicked on your secondary you are at a large matchup experience disadvantage. In addition, if two multi-character players face-off, there will certainly be a double-blink pick first game. It means that you can't only train secondaries for counterpicking, but also for being counterpicked against.

You need more practice time than solo-mains
In order to cover the first con, you need to train your secondaries as if they were your main. However, time is limited, and you need twice the training time (main+secondary) compared to a solo-main (even more if your two characters control differently). If you spend the same time training as a solo-main, of course the quality of your characters will be lower than theirs. Spending a lot more time training is the only solution that would solve the first con, so you are forced to accept either the first con or this one.

"Easy" counterpicks do not exist
If you are counterpicking, that means you think that you gain a matchup advantage doing so. It means that from your opponent's standpoint it's a disadvantageous matchup, and the first matchup that they will try to train themselves in. If you counterpick just because it's an advantageous matchup and without properly training yourself, your supposedly disadvantaged opponent will rather be at an advantage.

You don't have a main to rely on in a pinch
This is another comparison to solo-mains, but solo-mains only use one character. No matter who the opponent is, they do not waver. However, since multi-character players use various characters, there times when they don't know who to choose (especially when none of the characters have a clear advantage against the opponent). You are at a mental disadvantage at the character select screen. Although you might end up choosing the character that the opponent seems to dislike the most, it's clear that in the long run this is not a reliable strategy.

It's not hype
Generally, the crowd does not want to watch the character with the advantage winning. The crowd wants the disadvantaged character somehow beat the advantaged one, so even if your counterpick works as planned and you win, it's not hype. In comparison, it is cool and hype when a solo-main overcomes a disadvantageous matchup.

Conclusion
What do you think? Don't you think that the cons seem to be larger than the pros? By the way, my opinion as a player who has used multiple characters and continues to use multiple characters is that Being a solo-main is better. (Of course, you have to main a character that is fairly strong) I think that there are many people that split up their time practicing multiple characters when you improve much faster as a solo-main. I think that it is best for people that can't seem to do well at tournaments to limit themselves to one good character. If you want to add a character, I think that you should play that character only, extensively, for a certain period of time.
In Brawl, I used Olimar, Falco, and Wario, but I couldn't choose who to use against Meta Knight and switched it around depending on the opponent or how I felt before the match. In the end, I used Wario the most, and relied on him the most. For now, (as long as there aren't nerfs,) I want to use Meta Knight only in as many matchups as possible.
I only thought of this while writing this but I can't understand players in Melee that use Sheik against Fox but use Fox against Sheik

I agree and disagree. I agree since One should solo-main if they don't do good at tournies to build themselves a foundation to rely on. However, i also disagree because unless your main character is Mario, pit, or *insert solo-viable fundamentalist character*, you're going to be building your foundation on a slope and will have an extreme play style that would be inconsistent due to the lack of proper fundamentals.

 

[LiteralGrill]

I think changing the angle the beam sword jab sends people in order to prevent jab locks would be enough to stop those un-techable infinites which isn't too difficult.

He can do it with a lot more items than just the sword too. Ganon with items in Brawl was downright silly for real. Top tier maybe. Too bad item standard play never really caught on.

 

[wpwood]

How bad does Olimar and, the better one, Alph get shut down by reflectors? I think reflectors can shut him down pretty hard, and if most of you agree how can Olimar counter it. I figure since we're talking about solo-mains and secondaries would it be better for an Olimar player to have a secondary for characters with reflects or do Olimar's other tools offer him enough to get around reflectors? I was just watching Xandu and FeelTension fought Logic's Olimar and I didn't see a single reflect come from him, I just wonder how good of an option FeelTension was neglecting to use.

 

[Blobface]

Oh boy Ganondorf buff time

Here's Ganon's gameplan: Get an idea of the players tendencies and habits with empty movement and Ganon's few safe moves like B-air, D-tilt, and U-smash. Once you think you can land a hit, make a commitment like Flame Choke (ground or aerial), Dash Attack, Wizkick, an aerial approach, tomahawks etc.

Now clearly, this is a far less efficient than using safe pokes to win neutral. Ganon is not always going to make the correct decisions, and his committal approaches will be punished. But due to his incredibly high reward, he doesn't need to make the right decisions near as often as his opponent...

ideally, at least.

In reality Ganondorf's reward is really inconsistent. The cause of this inconsistency is a combination of Flame Choke being techable and Ganondorf's throws not being able to reasonably kill outside of setting up for edgeguarding. Both tools, Choke and edgeguarding, are a big part of both Ganon's damage racking and killing ability, but they have some nasty holes in them. Generally this is tolerable, but it's particularly bad against specific characters that have both good options out of Flame Choke and difficult-to-edgeguard recoveries, such as Sheik, Ryu, and Ike (in order of severity). Against these kinds of characters, Ganondorf's A+ reward is watered down to the point where it no longer makes up for his committal, unsafe gameplan.

Put simply, buffing Ganondorf should be focused on reducing the often character-specific inconsistency his reward suffers from. This would include:

1. Untechable Choke: Choke provides big damage and early kills to Ganon, but due to the inconsistent nature of tech rolls, it's almost a moot point against some characters. Item infinites could be easily fixed without making Choke techable by simply having item based hits not jab lock Flame Choked opponents. Beam Sword already knocks people into a standing position instead of jab locking, there's no reason it couldn't be done with other items.

2. Kill Throw: Ganon has to work hard for grabs, but if he grabs you at high %'s and you have a good recovery, he probably isn't going to get much. It's fine for Ganon having a relatively hard time landing normal grabs, but if he does he should be rewarded for them. I personally vouch for buffing U-throw to kill at 150-120% (no rage, full rage), particularly since Ganons rarely use it anyway. Buffing F-throw or B-throw runs the risk of overtuning Ganondorf's edgeguarding against some characters, and any D-throw kill confirm, given Ganon's power, would be absurdly hard to balance properly with rage.

In addition, a few Quality of Life buffs:
Dark Dive changes/rework. At the very least, get rid of the pointless full second of lag after a successful hit.

Wizkick BKB increase. It's unsafe on hit at low %s, and all things considered it really should kill, even if it kills relatively late.

Small Jab/Grab buffs. Nothing drastic, but small improvements would definitely be a plus.

A few tiny end lag buffs

Some changes to N-air. Comboing better at close range, dealing more damage but not comboing when tippered.

 

[wpwood]

2. Kill Throw: Ganon has to work hard for grabs,

I would ask for a better grab range before asking for a kill throw. I've missed so many grabs of people standing right in front of me. Too used to Palutena's grab range I guess, which sometimes I have to question how something grabbed with her.