Have you met Zan?
I'm kind of busy atm testing z-axis stuff, so this'll have to be short.
This wouldn't have anything to do with trying to get an answer to these posts, would it?
http://smashboards.com/threads/the-...-rules-q-a-thread.378930/page-9#post-20572019
http://smashboards.com/threads/isle...cial-skype-group.376731/page-30#post-20577702
But seriously though. You're not wrong in that Toon's low damage output is an issue and it is certainly true that he must approach shields and patient play differently from other members of the cast, but he doesn't outright lose to them because of this. You're wrong about all his meaningful damage coming from JC bombs. I don't know what gave you that idea. And I'd disagree about not having to care about being grabbed until you're at kill percents; if this were the case, people would never bother avoiding them. If you can't see the value in admittedly
relatively minor throw (+ pummel) damage putting the opponent from a position of neutral to arguable disadvantage, then maybe you've just been spoiled by smash 4's overall strong grab game.
I don't believe I have anything insightful to say as this is all basic stuff, but here goes.
What you are essentially describing is the obstacle that must be overcome in order to play Toon effectively at all. Much of Toon's game necessarily revolves around safely harassing shields and adopting correct responses (in relation to the choices the opponent makes) in order to break their defence. It's not a simple matter of looking at a bomb in hand blocking your ability to grab and thinking, 'well gee, I guess I can't threaten shields, what now?' or looking at how slow the grab is and how little guaranteed damage you can get out of it and taking that to mean Toon has no answer to shields. While I agree that a good shield-game is absolutely essential for versing Toon, Toon mains are more than well versed at playing around them because of this. What you need to be thinking as Toon is, 'am I in a position where their potential actions OoS are threatening me, and if so, am I currently unable to act?'; if not, what's the problem? Keep safely harassing their shield, or safely throwing out attacks that would hit them if they used an OoS option, all while baiting responses, and then beat the responses, not the shield directly. Then, through conditioning, beating the shield directly with grab or dash grab becomes a perfectly legitimate option too, just to keep them on their toes and keep your momentum going.
The lack of damage output makes Toon very frustrating to use, especially against other characters who can rack up ~60% in the blink of an eye. But just because he is frustrating to use this does not mean he is a bad character. You have to ask, to what exactly should this frustration be directed? The character, or yourself? I know this is a cop out to say 'oh it's the player that is bad, not the character', but it is absolutely a fact that some characters require less effort and less concentration to win with than others, and it is also a fact, last time I checked, that this criteria does not determine tiers. Any character with poor damage output per move, including high tiers, must rely on the player to compensate for it by learning to extend combos/strings, learning to maintain the advantage for as long as possible, learning to win the neutral consistently, learning to seal stocks early/efficiently, and of course learning to avoid unnecessary/avoidable damage yourself. The better the player, the more they'll be able to make use of a character's natural mobility and overall speed to do just that, such that poor damage output per move becomes less of an issue. I believe that Toon's natural mobility and overall speed scrapes by to allow top players to compete with him at a high level, a level that Link will not see.
Right, assuming that the opponent isn't interested in the bait and punish game, assuming you've conditioned the opponent to stay in shield which Link is worse at forcing, and also assuming that you yourself haven't been conditioned to not grab for fear that you will whiff and receive a larger punish from the opponent because of your slow and punishable grab.
What Link has is a greater threat attached to his grab, which naturally makes the opponent want to avoid making a habit of standing in shield waiting for you to do something, but this does not = beating shield.
This all stems from the fact that you see the scenario where the opponent is standing in shield waiting for you to do something, as a crippling problem for Toon, which has been addressed above.
lol no.
I'll put it this way. When you see a Link dash towards you without a bomb, what exactly do you think he's going to do? Dash attack is out of the question; too slow and cumbersome. Link has no good dash rising aerials, so that's not going to happen. Other than simply shielding or stopping and doing something out of a skid, all he's really got is dash grab, which is slow, and now also predictable. Toon on the other hand has a burst dash attack, rising aerials as well as a good ground speed and aerial mobility to reverse his momentum if need be, and he's not afraid of crossing up, e.g. with one of the fastest rolls in the game, or getting in close on occasion where his U-tilt is very threatening. Toon's burst is a threat. Link's is a joke.
I've spoken about this before in some earlier post, but arguably Toon is better at killing. Besides, you said it yourself:
Why wasn't I invited to this party?
http://smashboards.com/threads/link...-found-in-the-op.379659/page-35#post-20457552
Yeah, no, there's more to frame data than start-up frames. Care to compare their FAFs?
Bomb's can be 'powershielded', but not in the traditional sense. Bombs themselves aren't a hitbox. They merely generate a hitbox, i.e. the bomb blast, so if the bomb hits a shield within three frames, you won't get the 'ting' and you'll still have to go through the 7 frames of shield drop etc, etc. You can however powershield the bomb blast itself if you happen to hit shield on the same frame that the bomb blast hitbox is generated, i.e. the frame after the bomb has detected an enemy hurtbox, and of course you can powershield the explosion if the bomb hits the ground. If however the bomb enters into the shield-sphere
before the shield is even up, and then it is 'powershielded', then it behaves differently, which leads me on to the next bit.
When Toon's bomb, not the blast, is shielded in any normal way, i.e. not 'powershielded', it immediately stops trying to detect the hurtbox of the enemy who shielded it. It will then fall to the ground and explode only upon impact with the ground; prior to this, it is harmless. If however the bomb itself is 'powershielded' then it
will continue to detect your hurtbox on the way back down, effectively punishing you for being good.
Link's Throw game is definitely better. See the link above.
Now, back to testing. Leave me alone.
