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

[aεrgiα]

define "honest." I define it as when you have no nonsense gimmick to rely on to win, or a shenanigan to abuse. Nothing is abusable. In that sense, pit and Mario bros are some that I think are honest.

i dont think i would put mario in that category tbh, cape, fludd and most of all dthrow to utlit are all abusable in most to all(dthrow utilt) mus

edit: 4 frames of invincibility, yes, itd be something if the hitbox came out anywhere near then, the deadly power lasting so long is great... until u look at how quickly that deadly power becomes... not so deadly, the intangibility on the head would be great... if it wasnt surrounded by hurtboxes on all sides except for above, where noone is going to be hitting u from since thats where the hitbox is... and justifying a broken move by saying it wouldnt be shoryuken otherwise isnt a very good argumet.
also even if we assume his usmash is a good move, which it isnt lol, but you seem to think so for whatever reason, my point still stands that his other moves dont work perfectly fine

 

[Mazdamaxsti]

Off topic, but people underrate Jigglypuff.

Actually, people use the wrong reasons to say puff is bad. I don't disagree with her being damn near if not IN bottom tier.

I just see a lot of misinfo about puff, especially since not many puff mains on this thread speak up about her.

Puff has good aerials, really good. They all do a decent amount of damage, combo, and are for the most part all safe from shield-grabs.

Here comes my next point, a lot of people think she is bad on shields, which is true, but she's also safe against them. Moves like b-air and f-air can be retreated and made almost 100% safe, and pound does a good amount of shield damage.

Some people call pound just a gimmick, it really isn't. It hurts shields, goes through spotdodges, and combos into things. It's a good move that can condition your opponent to roll a lot and use shield less.

One major thing about puff is rest. Again, some say "risk not worth reward" and "gets punished hard even if it kills". Puff's rest KILL combos are both rising d-air and f-air. She has a true 0-death on l/4 characters and another 1/4 have like a couple frames to escape. (Falling u-air, u-tilt, rising d-air, f-air, rest).

Now. The reasons she is still bad:

She's light AF. Everybody knows this, not worth discussing.

She's linear. She doesn't have very many options in your face, she has no mixup potential and you can easily telegraph everything she does.

Bad vertical recovery. Obv.

Bad at killing. If she can't get her rest combos from like 20-50, she can't kill for crap. All her kill moves are slow and laggy, and it's hard to gimp a lot of characters because of good recoveries.

Easiness to counter. She has a ton of bad MUs because of this, she is easy to counterpick.


Just decided to put my thoughts on Puff.

 

[S_B]

tfw you main a character with a tether, no key dribble for me(its so fun doing it though)

Does Z-dropping also z-air at the same time?

 

[Emblem Lord]

Please tell me you're joking or being sarcastic. Just because a character is good, or even great, doesn't automatically mean they need to be nerfed. Ryu and Cloud do not invalidate ANY characters within the cast so I really don't see any problems.


A character's "competitive impressions" would be much better if people stopped whining and asking for nerfs rather than trying to improve their favourite character as much as possible.

I know you like Ryu but lying is beneath you.

Ryu should NEVER lose to Falco, Jigglypuff or Ganondorf. Ryu is Ganondorf on steroids.

Cloud in the game means Marth and Lucina do not exist anymore.

 

[Mazdamaxsti]

I know you like Ryu but lying is beneath you.

Ryu should NEVER lose to Falco, Jigglypuff or Ganondorf. Ryu is Ganondorf on steroids.

Cloud in the game means Marth and Lucina do not exist anymore.

I don't think you get it. Having a character with similar traits and being better does not make the other character non-existent. People play who they want. Just because Cloud has some traits Marth does, doesn't mean Marth is now unviable. Mr E (for example) will still take names because of what he does with the character.

 

[Emblem Lord]

When a char has the same gameplan but can get more out of it then yes...that character is invalidated.

Melee Marth > Melee Roy

 

[Wintropy]

I mean, EL isn't wrong. From a purely competitive perspective, Cloud is a better swordfighter than Marth in almost every way - if you want to play a character that resembles Marth in spirit, but you're more interested in viability than loyalty, Cloud is a good choice. He's one of the best "true" swordfighters in the roster right now, so if that's your game and you're stuck between Marth and Cloud, you may as well just pick Cloud.

That doesn't mean people who don't want to pick the "best" choice are wrong. We've had this discussion before, but if everybody just wanted the best chance of winning, they'd pick Sheik. There's nothing wrong with picking Marth if that's what you're into. You just won't have as good a chance of winning, putting it bluntly, as you would with Cloud.

EDIT: 'd by the man himself.

 

[Djent]

Can somebody please link me to the genesis 3 stream so I know how to watch it?

Here is a schedule.
Multitwitch (WiiU only)
Multitwitch (WiiU + Melee)

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I don't even think "fun" needs to enter into it, but options? Oh yes, options are HUGELY lacking for lower tiers.

Consider some of moves the higher tiers have, and how versatile those moves wind up being. Sheik's bouncing fish is a fantastic attack, throw followup, escape tool, AND recovery option. ZSS' flipkick as well.

Diddy's monkey flip is three moves in one: it's a recovery tool, a command grab, AND an attack, and it can also spike while giving Diddy another jump, all depending on which buttons the player decides to press.

Ryu has options depending upon how long he holds buttons, and he has special inputs, etc.

What this all means in the end is that these characters just have more OPTIONS: They have more moves they can use in various situations, more moves that will wind up being answers to whatever their enemies throw at them, allowing them to win more frequently.

Why is it so hard to ledge guard Sheik and ZSS? Because they each have "supplemental" recovery abilities that allow them to comfortably return to the ledge from all but the furthest of launches (also their recoveries are dangerous to challenge).

So yeah, characters with more options are consistently going to rise to the top simply because it's basically as if they have an extra button on their controller. They effectively have more moves than other characters, and so long as those moves aren't useless, those options will benefit them.

It would be neat if, in SSB5, they took the custom moves for characters and baked them all into one move.

For example, Bowser's custom down+Bs are trip bomb and wind bomb. Instead of making them customs, you could hold down+B to have him use wind bomb, and double-tap B to use trip bomb. Bam. Options.

Otherwise, the "extra button" characters are always, ALWAYS going to rise to the top. The only exception is really Rosalina, but she has insane hitboxes and I guess you could call Luma one gigantic option in itself...

Rosalina is kind of Ryu-lite in this context since Luma gives her a second attack for every button input, specials notwithstanding. She can't pick and choose which one to use since Luma will always attack if it can, but she does have basically double the attack options of everyone else.

Although as a mild counterpoint to the idea that more options = viability, I suggest Robin and Shulk as examples of how it's possible to undertune a character to make up for their additional options and make them less viable as a result. Robin can do bronze or Levin aerials and Thunder is four very unique projectiles condensed into one move. He can also produce surprisingly strong throwable items on a regular basis, if not necessarily on demand. But he's slow as balls and bronze attacks aren't actually that useful and basically exist as a penalty for not managing the Levin Sword properly. Shulk has Monado Arts, no explanation needed for how those give him options, but his base stats and frame data aren't up to snuff on their own so he has to broadcast his intention via Art selection most of the time.

 

[MF Viewtiful]

It all depends on your personal goal in this game. If you truly wanna win and be the best, playing the best characters is the way to go 100%. Doing anything else would be a waste.

Now playing for fun is a way more varied and complex thing. Some people will play whatever character they connect with, no matter how whack. I personally like strong characters with options left and right. Some people like playing Zelda and Dorf. I don't claim to understand that, but hey, that's your prerogative. A part of me wishes this game was more like that busted Hokuto no Ken game, where even the worst character Jagi could have his day in the sun.

 

[Blobface]

I wouldn't say unwinnable, but EL's made his opinions on matchup ratios clear, and I don't see any reason to start debating matchup ratio semantics again.

Sadly though it is pretty true that Ryu just outclasses Ganon in this matchup. Better neutral, better reward, better disadvantage, really makes me salty honestly. Ganon can make it work though if he plays ultra-anal and abuses the few benefits he has. Like, I would honestly consider not even really trying to approach since Hadoukens don't really threaten Ganon.

I don't really know how Ryu handles neutral, but I do know Ganon's neutral (and advantage and disadvantage for that matter) revolves around getting your opponent to fear certain things Ganon is capable of. Is Ryu similar?

Finally, I think Cloud is going to suffer more and more if, keyword IF, people actually go offstage and edgeguard him. To be honest if Cloud is in a position where he needs to use his Up-B to recover he should die at least 1/3 times.

 

[Emblem Lord]

I wouldn't say unwinnable, but EL's made his opinions on matchup ratios clear, and I don't see any reason to start debating matchup ratio semantics again.

Sadly though it is pretty true that Ryu just outclasses Ganon in this matchup. Better neutral, better reward, better disadvantage, really makes me salty honestly. Ganon can make it work though if he plays ultra-anal and abuses the few benefits he has. Like, I would honestly consider not even really trying to approach since Hadoukens don't really threaten Ganon.

I don't really know how Ryu handles neutral, but I do know Ganon's neutral (and advantage and disadvantage for that matter) revolves around getting your opponent to fear certain things Ganon is capable of. Is Ryu similar?

Finally, I think Cloud is going to suffer more and more if, keyword IF, people actually go offstage and edgeguard him. To be honest if Cloud is in a position where he needs to use his Up-B to recover he should die at least 1/3 times.

First you jump at them and fair....then your fair links to a fair...which can lead...to more fairs.

Then...your opponent never presses a button ever again.

Then you shieldbreak them.

Body bagged

 

[Plain Yogurt]

Maybe it's cause I didn't play Brawl competitively, but I've been playing Lucas as a secondary since release and I've never felt like his moves "don't work" with the exception of PKT2 just kinda doing whatever.

Maybe dair doesn't autolink because they figured a multihit disjoint that leads into a meteor that starts on frame 10 shouldn't be a thing? I mean Kirby has a sorta similar thing but it's frame 18 and isn't disjointed. I dunno. Besides like maybe Cloud (frame 11? but no multihit) does anyone really have anything like that? Regardless, this isn't a Lucas exclusive problem: Pac-man and I believe Jigglypuff can have trouble keeping people in their multihit dairs as well. If it isn't an exclusive issue I have to imagine the move is not "broken" and it just isn't intended to sweep people into the air.

Uair being a niche move doesn't mean it's dysfunctional. I've never noticed any issues with fair's hitbox? If anything that move's weird in that it seems to hit further than the hexagons show from what I've noticed.

Honestly it's hard to care about Lucas's USmash when it's a SUPER-hard-I-broke-your-shield punish anyways. I personally go for DSmash or PK Freeze if I'm trying to punish the 2-frame with the former covering the regrab just fine in most situations. For what it's worth it probably links better on characters who poke their head over the edge.

DSmash losing its hitboxes is a bit puzzling at first but if you add up the damages its base damage is 42. Correct me if I'm wrong but that's around the full health of a shield, yes? With no slipping off edges in shield that'd be a frame 20 shield breaker at the edge, assuming the shieldstun would be high enough that the opponent couldn't drop shield between hits. Whether that's a fair reason (uncharged Marth Shield Breaker is frame 19) is not my place to say, but there is some possible logic there.

I've always felt that all the "my character's hitboxes don't work" claims that have gone around were a bit dubious(,, though theirs' DID get better so what do I know lol), but with the Lucas mains it always strikes me less as "my character doesn't work" and more "my character isn't what he used to be."

What IS messy is Nair and PKThunder. People finally noticing Nair wasn't really using autolinks is unfortunate; I sorta guessed you could get out of it when I noticed that Lucas sorta passes through the opponent as opposed to carrying them with him but I hoped it wouldn't be quite that bad. A bit foreboding for the Boy from Nowhere once people start screwing over his favorite early combo move more. No other comment on PKThunder.

TL;DR A few months later and Yogurt still doesn't get what Lucas's "design flaws" are, although his Nair is doing it's best to explain it to him.

 

[Game7a1]

I just see a lot of misinfo about puff, especially since not many puff mains on this thread speak up about her.

Might be because Puff is regarded very poorly/negatively (and I mean beyond the bottom tier notion kind of negative) in this thread, and trying to disrupt that is a bit dangerous unless one wants to get mauled over. I think the same goes for other lower tier characters. Not all, but some.
Low-tier characters are only going to get respect if they provide the results. That's just how it is.

Maybe it's cause I didn't play Brawl competitively, but I've been playing Lucas as a secondary since release and I've never felt like his moves "don't work" with the exception of PKT2 just kinda doing whatever.

Maybe dair doesn't autolink because they figured a multihit disjoint that leads into a meteor that starts on frame 10 shouldn't be a thing? I mean Kirby has a sorta similar thing but it's frame 18 and isn't disjointed. I dunno. Besides like maybe Cloud (frame 11? but no multihit) does anyone really have anything like that? Regardless, this isn't a Lucas exclusive problem: Pac-man and I believe Jigglypuff can have trouble keeping people in their multihit dairs as well. If it isn't an exclusive issue I have to imagine the move is not "broken" and it just isn't intended to sweep people into the air.

Yeah, sometimes when I use Dair with Puff, not all hits connect. The opponent just gets out midway or I move too fast for all the hits to connect and move past them (same goes for shields too, but to a lesser extent).

 

[Blue Ninjakoopa]

Welcome to the life of Brawl Falco Nair and Fair and Smash 4 pre-1.0.8 Falco Nair and Samus Uair.


Wouldn't be surprised. His Specials and Side Smash were in the game after all; they were Ness's. Even Roy's stuff was in the game since outside of Flare Blade, Blazer's animation, Counter's animation, jab, Ftilt, and Fair, all of Roy's moves belonged to Marth except for Side Smash which looks like Link's and Dair which is Ike's. Hell, you could even stretch it and say Mewtwo was a Zelda semi-clone since Melee. Oh, and Little Mac has some stuff from Captain Falcon; Little Mac's tech rolls, pitfall, and I think tumble animations are all Captain Falcon's. Games, especially ones with lots of content, have to cut corners and the more you ask them to do things, the more they will have to cut corners to meet deadlines.

Smash 4 should have released with only 25 characters max, the original 12, the 3 third-parties Mega Man, PAC-MAN, and Sonic, and 11 newcomers. People would be pissed as hell if that happened, but they, the developers, would have so much time to fine-tune the game like they were working on nanomachines and more time overhauling and fine-tuning Melee and Brawl veterans, and even DLC characters who are the arguably highest quality characters. I mean, if Zelda hasn't worked in 3 freaking games, then there's something wrong.

This post got me thinking about the history of clones in Smash Bros. and just how many characters share animations (directly) with other characters. Ness for example in Smash 64? Shares get-up attacks with Mario/Luigi, as well as an f-tilt. They interestingly also share a polygon in the FPT. Samus and Captain Falcon were a few moves away from being semi-clones, sharing jab 1s, DAs, floor attacks (both), n-airs, down smashes, and up tilts. Kirby and Jigglypuff were also semi-clones, but now Jigglypuff has most of Kirby's smash 64 stuff just with different properties (she kept the forward drill Kirby did as f-air, but Jiggs' is a single sex kick, for example). For more on Kirby/Jigglypuff and Samus/Falcon, see the chart that I made.

In Melee, Ganon and Samus share a "parent" in Captain Falcon, having the same floor, ledge, and dash attacks, as well as ax kick u-tilts.

In Brawl, I joked that Sonic was a "Frankenstein" of sorts, since his f-smash was DK's giant punch, his up air was Wolf's up smash (this is maybe why Seagull Joe mains him in Smash 4? JK), his up smash was Samus's screw attack, his f-air was Falco's f-air, his up tilt was Falcon's up smash, his f-tilt was Pikachu's f-tilt, and his back air was ZSS's back air. In Smash 4 his d-smash is a split like Fox's. But of course Sonic isn't really based on any of those characters and his moves actually come from Sonic the Fighters. It's just weird that their animations are so similar to so many other moves.

In regards to Zelda, I think she and Peach shared a "design frame" in the early stages of Melee's development, which is why they have similar dash attacks both when holding a weapon and when not holding one (when holding a weapon it actually looks cloned), and they have similar n-airs.

Oh, and Diddy Kong's forward aerial in Brawl and Smash 4 is almost exactly the same as Mario's Smash 64 f-air in execution and function. Additionally Wii Fit Trainer's back air is very similar in animation for Mario's back air in 64. They both do the "cobra" pose. It's a stretch but it's interesting.

 

[Charoite]

That is not specific of smash, every fighting game does that, (example: arc system removed luna form from Nu 13, to Lambda in Chrono phantasma. )

 

[Novh]

I might be the only one but Trela seems to be in the top 15 beast players in the world.

 

[Vyrnx]

Maybe it's cause I didn't play Brawl competitively, but I've been playing Lucas as a secondary since release and I've never felt like his moves "don't work" with the exception of PKT2 just kinda doing whatever.

Maybe dair doesn't autolink because they figured a multihit disjoint that leads into a meteor that starts on frame 10 shouldn't be a thing? I mean Kirby has a sorta similar thing but it's frame 18 and isn't disjointed. I dunno. Besides like maybe Cloud (frame 11? but no multihit) does anyone really have anything like that? Regardless, this isn't a Lucas exclusive problem: Pac-man and I believe Jigglypuff can have trouble keeping people in their multihit dairs as well. If it isn't an exclusive issue I have to imagine the move is not "broken" and it just isn't intended to sweep people into the air.

Uair being a niche move doesn't mean it's dysfunctional. I've never noticed any issues with fair's hitbox? If anything that move's weird in that it seems to hit further than the hexagons show from what I've noticed.

Honestly it's hard to care about Lucas's USmash when it's a SUPER-hard-I-broke-your-shield punish anyways. I personally go for DSmash or PK Freeze if I'm trying to punish the 2-frame with the former covering the regrab just fine in most situations. For what it's worth it probably links better on characters who poke their head over the edge.

DSmash losing its hitboxes is a bit puzzling at first but if you add up the damages its base damage is 42. Correct me if I'm wrong but that's around the full health of a shield, yes? With no slipping off edges in shield that'd be a frame 20 shield breaker at the edge, assuming the shieldstun would be high enough that the opponent couldn't drop shield between hits. Whether that's a fair reason (uncharged Marth Shield Breaker is frame 19) is not my place to say, but there is some possible logic there.

I've always felt that all the "my character's hitboxes don't work" claims that have gone around were a bit dubious(,, though theirs' DID get better so what do I know lol), but with the Lucas mains it always strikes me less as "my character doesn't work" and more "my character isn't what he used to be."

What IS messy is Nair and PKThunder. People finally noticing Nair wasn't really using autolinks is unfortunate; I sorta guessed you could get out of it when I noticed that Lucas sorta passes through the opponent as opposed to carrying them with him but I hoped it wouldn't be quite that bad. A bit foreboding for the Boy from Nowhere once people start screwing over his favorite early combo move more. No other comment on PKThunder.

TL;DR A few months later and Yogurt still doesn't get what Lucas's "design flaws" are, although his Nair is doing it's best to explain it to him.

That Lucas hitbox video a while back was literally one of the dumbest things I have ever seen. It was all made up problems/omg-not-the-same-as-brawl problems.

 

[Ffamran]

This post got me thinking about the history of clones in Smash Bros. and just how many characters share animations (directly) with other characters. Ness for example in Smash 64? Shares get-up attacks with Mario/Luigi, as well as an f-tilt. They interestingly also share a polygon in the FPT. Samus and Captain Falcon were a few moves away from being semi-clones, sharing jab 1s, DAs, floor attacks (both), n-airs, down smashes, and up tilts. Kirby and Jigglypuff were also semi-clones, but now Jigglypuff has most of Kirby's smash 64 stuff just with different properties (she kept the forward drill Kirby did as f-air, but Jiggs' is a single sex kick, for example). For more on Kirby/Jigglypuff and Samus/Falcon, see the chart that I made.

In Melee, Ganon and Samus share a "parent" in Captain Falcon, having the same floor, ledge, and dash attacks, as well as ax kick u-tilts.

In Brawl, I joked that Sonic was a "Frankenstein" of sorts, since his f-smash was DK's giant punch, his up air was Wolf's up smash (this is maybe why Seagull Joe mains him in Smash 4? JK), his up smash was Samus's screw attack, his f-air was Falco's f-air, his up tilt was Falcon's up smash, his f-tilt was Pikachu's f-tilt, and his back air was ZSS's back air. In Smash 4 his d-smash is a split like Fox's. But of course Sonic isn't really based on any of those characters and his moves actually come from Sonic the Fighters. It's just weird that their animations are so similar to so many other moves.

In regards to Zelda, I think she and Peach shared a "design frame" in the early stages of Melee's development, which is why they have similar dash attacks both when holding a weapon and when not holding one (when holding a weapon it actually looks cloned), and they have similar n-airs.

Oh, and Diddy Kong's forward aerial in Brawl and Smash 4 is almost exactly the same as Mario's Smash 64 f-air in execution and function. Additionally Wii Fit Trainer's back air is very similar in animation for Mario's back air in 64. They both do the "cobra" pose. It's a stretch but it's interesting.

Like what Charoite said, other games do that too. There's a point where you can't use anything else, especially with humanoid characters. With more animal-like characters, you get more freedom, but even then, it's not much. For example, let's say Chesnaught was in Smash as a playable character. It's going to be a likely chance he ends up with Bowser's Up Smash.

The thing is how to make them different despite looking the same like how Captain Falcon and Samus's Utilt's basically have mirrored properties. The problem is when similar moves, function and animation-wise, are "too" different for the wrong reasons. Case in point would be the excessive landing lag on Roy's Dair compared to Ike's or the extremes for Falco, Pikachu, and Sonic's Fair at launch where Falco's was frame 12, hit every 6 frames, did 8% total, and had 32 landing frames while Pikachu's which does not autolink is frame 10, hits 5 times with 1 frame gaps, does 9.8% total, and had 15 landing frames, and Sonic's was frame 5, hits 6 times with 1 frame gaps, does 7% total, and had 26 landing frames. Even though Falco's Fair was praised, he did end up with the short end of the stick. Funny thing is that the landing lag was 33 in Brawl and if all the hits connected, it would have done 11%. Also, it was frame 6. So, ignoring its SDI issues, Fair was basically nerfed from Brawl. 1.0.8 brought it closer to Pikachu's Fair by reducing its startup to 10, making it hit every 4 frames instead of 6, and also drastically reducing its landing lag to 25. Also, the last hit because of how the loop hits were altered, is instant unlike before where there was a 2 or 4 gap - I can't remember. They all pretty much serve as aerial combo moves and also, technically, all of them should be able to edgeguard with them, but Pikachu's got Bair and Fair not auto-linking means he can't drag people down while Sonic's just doesn't linger enough since like Pikachu's, it hits at individual frames unlike Falco's which "refreshes" each hit. That being said, the advantages of having high active frames wasn't enough to justify having an extreme amount of landing lag and startup that borders noticeable - frame 12 is when things start to be noticeably slow, right? At the same time, there's kind of the issue of Pikachu's Fair's landing lag now... Yes, none of these moves should be used near the ground even if they auto-cancel well, but it's a big gap, though not as big when Falco's was 32.

Spoiler: Degenerate Falco ranting

 

[Spinosaurus]

Off topic, but people underrate Jigglypuff.

Actually, people use the wrong reasons to say puff is bad. I don't disagree with her being damn near if not IN bottom tier.

I just see a lot of misinfo about puff, especially since not many puff mains on this thread speak up about her.

Puff has good aerials, really good. They all do a decent amount of damage, combo, and are for the most part all safe from shield-grabs.

Here comes my next point, a lot of people think she is bad on shields, which is true, but she's also safe against them. Moves like b-air and f-air can be retreated and made almost 100% safe, and pound does a good amount of shield damage.

Some people call pound just a gimmick, it really isn't. It hurts shields, goes through spotdodges, and combos into things. It's a good move that can condition your opponent to roll a lot and use shield less.

One major thing about puff is rest. Again, some say "risk not worth reward" and "gets punished hard even if it kills". Puff's rest KILL combos are both rising d-air and f-air. She has a true 0-death on l/4 characters and another 1/4 have like a couple frames to escape. (Falling u-air, u-tilt, rising d-air, f-air, rest).

Puff's aerials deal so little knockback that they're a risk even on hit. This character simply doesn't function until your opponent is already at high percent, and considering you're using the lightest character and have gotten damaged by this point you're pretty much screwed already. Taking this into account, there's no reason to challenge a retreating Puff. She can do the job for you.

Pound does a lot of damage to shield but why does that matter when it's punishable and you're using a character that can't afford to trade let alone get hit? Pound is hardly threatening. And she absolutely does not want your opponent to condition to roll, she has no answers to them.

This character is bad. Why her being the worst in the game isn't the consensus yet is beyond me.

 

[Blue Ninjakoopa]

Like what Charoite said, other games do that too. There's a point where you can't use anything else, especially with humanoid characters. With more animal-like characters, you get more freedom, but even then, it's not much. For example, let's say Chesnaught was in Smash as a playable character. It's going to be a likely chance he ends up with Bowser's Up Smash.

The thing is how to make them different despite looking the same like how Captain Falcon and Samus's Utilt's basically have mirrored properties. The problem is when similar moves, function and animation-wise, are "too" different for the wrong reasons. Case in point would be the excessive landing lag on Roy's Dair compared to Ike's or the extremes for Falco, Pikachu, and Sonic's Fair at launch where Falco's was frame 12, hit every 6 frames, did 8% total, and had 32 landing frames while Pikachu's which does not autolink is frame 10, hits 5 times with 1 frame gaps, does 9.8% total, and had 15 landing frames, and Sonic's was frame 5, hits 6 times with 1 frame gaps, does 7% total, and had 26 landing frames. Even though Falco's Fair was praised, he did end up with the short end of the stick. Funny thing is that the landing lag was 33 in Brawl and if all the hits connected, it would have done 11%. Also, it was frame 6. So, ignoring its SDI issues, Fair was basically nerfed from Brawl. 1.0.8 brought it closer to Pikachu's Fair by reducing its startup to 10, making it hit every 4 frames instead of 6, and also drastically reducing its landing lag to 25. Also, the last hit because of how the loop hits were altered, is instant unlike before where there was a 2 or 4 gap - I can't remember. They all pretty much serve as aerial combo moves and also, technically, all of them should be able to edgeguard with them, but Pikachu's got Bair and Fair not auto-linking means he can't drag people down while Sonic's just doesn't linger enough since like Pikachu's, it hits at individual frames unlike Falco's which "refreshes" each hit. That being said, the advantages of having high active frames wasn't enough to justify having an extreme amount of landing lag and startup that borders noticeable - frame 12 is when things start to be noticeably slow, right? At the same time, there's kind of the issue of Pikachu's Fair's landing lag now... Yes, none of these moves should be used near the ground even if they auto-cancel well, but it's a big gap, though not as big when Falco's was 32.

Spoiler: Degenerate Falco ranting

Ah, I see. Very interesting.

In response to the Falco thing, yeah, that hit always confused me. But I was more bugged about it not making the "slice" sound effect, lol. Dr. Mario has a similar hit with his down aerial. It's kind of like the stars on Yoshi's down B or D3's up B except you can't see it, it's just this weird quake hitbox. Bowser Jr.'s f-air does the same thing, but it's weirder because the wrecking ball thingy is seen dispensed in like 1 frame. I imagine it was put in place for defense but I agree it's pretty silly. Perhaps if they made it so that, if Falco connects this weird hit, his lag is cancelled and he can follow up with something a la Bowser Jr.'s or Mario's down aerials (his lets him get a grab most of the time) then it'd fit a lot better and compliment Falco's already impressive combo game. I'd also give it to Dr. Mario's down air.

Spoiler: Blaster overhaul idea

 

[ぱみゅ]

Puff's aerials deal so little knockback that they're a risk even on hit. This character simply doesn't function until your opponent is already at high percent, and considering you're using the lightest character and have gotten damaged by this point you're pretty much screwed already. Taking this into account, there's no reason to challenge a retreating Puff. She can do the job for you.

Pound does a lot of damage to shield but why does that matter when it's punishable and you're using a character that can't afford to trade let alone get hit? Pound is hardly threatening. And she absolutely does not want your opponent to condition to roll, she has no answers to them.

This character is bad. Why her being the worst in the game isn't the consensus yet is beyond me.

It might be a mixture of her strategy not being horrible, her having a couple good moves (like Bair), and the fact she is amazingly good at escaping combos and bad situations. I can only wish Zelda had any of those.

 

[Browny]

Puff nair oos is a really good kill option I dont see talked about often. Decently powerful, fast and usually safe on block.

tbh I think the majority of my KOs with puff (my 3rd most played character) are from nair. She might not kill reliably but she can do it safely sometimes.

 

[Rizen]

That Lucas hitbox video a while back was literally one of the dumbest things I have ever seen. It was all made up problems/omg-not-the-same-as-brawl problems.

He did the same thing for Zelda too.

Does Z-dropping also z-air at the same time?

Yes, unless you do it immediately after jumping off the ground.

 

[Wintermelon43]

Here is a schedule.
Multitwitch (WiiU only)
Multitwitch (WiiU + Melee)

What timezone?

 

[Zannabluke]

gmt is +8, cet is +9 for any europeans

 

[Wintermelon43]

gmt is +8, cet is +9 for any europeans

???
I just mean what timezone is that schedule going off of?

Because if It's going off it's own time, I'm gonna need to use the past broadcast to see most of top 32 or all of it, and all of top 8.

 

[Peppermint1201]

???
I just mean what timezone is that schedule going off of?

Because if It's going off it's own time, I'm gonna need to use the past broadcast to see most of top 32 or all of it, and all of top 8.

it's in PST

 

[Routa]

gmt is +0, cet is +1 and eet is +2 for everyone

Clad if I could help

Anyways I hear people always talking about Japan vs 'Murica in Sm4sh. Also Mexico and Australia are also often mentioned. You rarely hear people talking about Europe, South America etc. when it comes to players getting results with characters. Why so?

 

[Wintermelon43]

it's in PST

Yeah, so thanks Genesis for govng me a good birthday present of not being able to watch the top 32 or top 8 of it.

They WILL have top 32 and top 8 past broadcasts, right?

 

[Baby_Sneak]

i dont think i would put mario in that category tbh, cape, fludd and most of all dthrow to utlit are all abusable in most to all(dthrow utilt) mus

edit: 4 frames of invincibility, yes, itd be something if the hitbox came out anywhere near then, the deadly power lasting so long is great... until u look at how quickly that deadly power becomes... not so deadly, the intangibility on the head would be great... if it wasnt surrounded by hurtboxes on all sides except for above, where noone is going to be hitting u from since thats where the hitbox is... and justifying a broken move by saying it wouldnt be shoryuken otherwise isnt a very good argumet.
also even if we assume his usmash is a good move, which it isnt lol, but you seem to think so for whatever reason, my point still stands that his other moves dont work perfectly fine

You're not caping anybody with a good recovery. You're not FLUDDing anybody with a good recovery. This is fact. Dthrow to Utilt is a overrated combo that'll net you some
Percent. Some can't even be comboed into it.

 

[aεrgiα]

Does Z-dropping also z-air at the same time?

yeah, i mean u can do zdrop out of the first few frames of the ground jumping animation(so "rising" zdrop from the ground) but other than that zair always comes out

Maybe it's cause I didn't play Brawl competitively, but I've been playing Lucas as a secondary since release and I've never felt like his moves "don't work" with the exception of PKT2 just kinda doing whatever.

Maybe dair doesn't autolink because they figured a multihit disjoint that leads into a meteor that starts on frame 10 shouldn't be a thing? I mean Kirby has a sorta similar thing but it's frame 18 and isn't disjointed. I dunno. Besides like maybe Cloud (frame 11? but no multihit) does anyone really have anything like that? Regardless, this isn't a Lucas exclusive problem: Pac-man and I believe Jigglypuff can have trouble keeping people in their multihit dairs as well. If it isn't an exclusive issue I have to imagine the move is not "broken" and it just isn't intended to sweep people into the air.

Uair being a niche move doesn't mean it's dysfunctional. I've never noticed any issues with fair's hitbox? If anything that move's weird in that it seems to hit further than the hexagons show from what I've noticed.

Honestly it's hard to care about Lucas's USmash when it's a SUPER-hard-I-broke-your-shield punish anyways. I personally go for DSmash or PK Freeze if I'm trying to punish the 2-frame with the former covering the regrab just fine in most situations. For what it's worth it probably links better on characters who poke their head over the edge.

DSmash losing its hitboxes is a bit puzzling at first but if you add up the damages its base damage is 42. Correct me if I'm wrong but that's around the full health of a shield, yes? With no slipping off edges in shield that'd be a frame 20 shield breaker at the edge, assuming the shieldstun would be high enough that the opponent couldn't drop shield between hits. Whether that's a fair reason (uncharged Marth Shield Breaker is frame 19) is not my place to say, but there is some possible logic there.

I've always felt that all the "my character's hitboxes don't work" claims that have gone around were a bit dubious(,, though theirs' DID get better so what do I know lol), but with the Lucas mains it always strikes me less as "my character doesn't work" and more "my character isn't what he used to be."

What IS messy is Nair and PKThunder. People finally noticing Nair wasn't really using autolinks is unfortunate; I sorta guessed you could get out of it when I noticed that Lucas sorta passes through the opponent as opposed to carrying them with him but I hoped it wouldn't be quite that bad. A bit foreboding for the Boy from Nowhere once people start screwing over his favorite early combo move more. No other comment on PKThunder.

TL;DR A few months later and Yogurt still doesn't get what Lucas's "design flaws" are, although his Nair is doing it's best to explain it to him.

jiggs and pac at least connect most of the time, lucas needs to be moving straight up(no left or right) and hope the opponent isnt moving down to have a chance to connect all the hits :/ why make it multihit if the hits dont connect, id be fine with making it come out 10 frames later if at least all the hitboxes connected properly, if this was intentially done that just makes it worse, if they dont connect, i dont see how you can say it functions perfectly :/ since you say it isnt meant to sweep people into the air, fine, but what is it meant to do? are you meant to hit people with only the very last hit, which comes out on frame 34, to use it to edgeguard/spike people with?

uair well i guess you can say its being salty more than anything really, ness gets to keep his busted hitbox from brawl despite already being the better character, yet lucas' get nerfed so much that its basically unuseable in anything outside of combos and sometimes juggles. this hurts especially because it was one of his options in neutral in brawl and they nerfed it and all neary all his other options in neutral(only pkfire and zair now) make of it what you will, but unwaranted nerfs never make anyone happy so i guess u can say im just salty about it(especially if you consider all the other "nerfs" he got).

fair, no the issue with the hitbox isnt the reach on it(though to answer your semi question, that actually matches the hexagon pretty accurately) its when it comes active, its the same issue that ftilt had before this patch which they fixed. the best way i can think of to Replicate this is to input the fair shortly after reaching the apex of a shorthop and fast falling it :/ the hexagon visuals come out before the hitbox does, its great when you see the visual hitbox come out inside your opponent yet they dont get hit and punish you for it.

nope usmash at the ledge doesnt link and since the tooltip says it does(and it did so in brawl too) i cant say it functions perfectly in the sense of intended use, and its not about the 2 frame, its about hitting people that have lost their ledge invincibility, i agree that dsmash is a much better option to punish the 2 frame.

as for dsmash, yes u can drop shield, because the first hit pushes the opponent so far back the other 2 hits dont connect, so it wouldnt break a shield unless they purposely run back into the move and put their shield back up...


as for the video, since someone mentioned it, yes even i thought certain things were overexaggerated(like the pkthunder on stage part for eg.) but sadly that doesnt make the other things pointed out in the video any less true

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

Yeah, so thanks Genesis for govng me a good birthday present of not being able to watch the top 32 or top 8 of it.

They WILL have top 32 and top 8 past broadcasts, right?

I think they will, someone posted it on reddit.

 

[aεrgiα]

You're not caping anybody with a good recovery. You're not FLUDDing anybody with a good recovery. This is fact. Dthrow to Utilt is a overrated combo that'll net you some
Percent. Some can't even be comboed into it.

if by anybody with a good recovery youre refering to only zss and sheik then yes, if meta knight for eg. has a bad recovery then youre not caping anyone with a good recovery, but in my books mk has a good recovery... dthrow to utilt, however overrated it may be, is still abuseable, also is usmash spam at kill % honest? before you missunderstand, i dont think mario is "jank" or broken or gimmicky, i just wouldnt say hes an honest character in the sense that he doesnt have anything which he can abuse...

 

[Baby_Sneak]

if by anybody with a good recovery youre refering to only zss and sheik then yes, if meta knight for eg. has a bad recovery then youre not caping anyone with a good recovery, but in my books mk has a good recovery... dthrow to utilt, however overrated it may be, is still abuseable, also is usmash spam at kill % honest? before you missunderstand, i dont think mario is "jank" or broken or gimmicky, i just wouldnt say hes an honest character in the sense that he doesnt have anything which he can abuse...

You're comparing everyone to sheik and ZSS......... That's something you shouldn't do. At all.

And you can't spam Usmash. It's not possible at a high level to hit someone like that by spamming.

 

[David Viran]

And you can't spam Usmash. It's not possible at a high level to hit someone like that by spamming.

Tell that to ally. He's clutched a couple of close sets by only throwing out multiple Usmashes.

 

[Zelder]

Why would you even play a character that didn't have something you can abuse? Serious question - why play a character who's options are so bad that they lack one dominant/domineering tool?

 

[Nobie]

Why would you even play a character that didn't have something you can abuse? Serious question - why play a character who's options are so bad that they lack one dominant/domineering tool?

Because they might have a lot of decent but not dominant tools, allowing for versatile play?

Because some people prefer to take risks to get higher rewards?

Because some people are masochistic (serious)?

 

[Plain Yogurt]

jiggs and pac at least connect most of the time, lucas needs to be moving straight up(no left or right) and hope the opponent isnt moving down to have a chance to connect all the hits :/ why make it multihit if the hits dont connect, id be fine with making it come out 10 frames later if at least all the hitboxes connected properly, if this was intentially done that just makes it worse, if they dont connect, i dont see how you can say it functions perfectly :/ since you say it isnt meant to sweep people into the air, fine, but what is it meant to do? are you meant to hit people with only the very last hit, which comes out on frame 34, to use it to edgeguard/spike people with?

uair well i guess you can say its being salty more than anything really, ness gets to keep his busted hitbox from brawl despite already being the better character, yet lucas' get nerfed so much that its basically unuseable in anything outside of combos and sometimes juggles. this hurts especially because it was one of his options in neutral in brawl and they nerfed it and all neary all his other options in neutral(only pkfire and zair now) make of it what you will, but unwaranted nerfs never make anyone happy so i guess u can say im just salty about it(especially if you consider all the other "nerfs" he got).

fair, no the issue with the hitbox isnt the reach on it(though to answer your semi question, that actually matches the hexagon pretty accurately) its when it comes active, its the same issue that ftilt had before this patch which they fixed. the best way i can think of to Replicate this is to input the fair shortly after reaching the apex of a shorthop and fast falling it :/ the hexagon visuals come out before the hitbox does, its great when you see the visual hitbox come out inside your opponent yet they dont get hit and punish you for it.

nope usmash at the ledge doesnt link and since the tooltip says it does(and it did so in brawl too) i cant say it functions perfectly in the sense of intended use, and its not about the 2 frame, its about hitting people that have lost their ledge invincibility, i agree that dsmash is a much better option to punish the 2 frame.

as for dsmash, yes u can drop shield, because the first hit pushes the opponent so far back the other 2 hits dont connect, so it wouldnt break a shield unless they purposely run back into the move and put their shield back up...


as for the video, since someone mentioned it, yes even i thought certain things were overexaggerated(like the pkthunder on stage part for eg.) but sadly that doesnt make the other things pointed out in the video any less true

Yeah it's a bit like Shulk's in that regard (can't be moving left/right). Perhaps I'm used to that so it just makes sense to me. I dunno man. I still find it to be a decent move as far as dairs go and I usually manage to get the spike about as often with it as I do Bair. That was just my guess on why they designed it that way because you don't put autolinks on almost every multihit and then just say "whoops I guess we forgot Pac, Jiggs, and Lucas. Oh well." They have some sort of reason behind it, so I just was guessing what it might be.

Well at least you admit there's some salt talking. And I agree that Ness's is silly in comparison. In regards to his neutral I find spaced Fair to be useful when they start closing in a bit. It was pretty safe BEFORE its landing lag was reduced this last patch.

Ah so it's a bit like what Samus and Mewtwo had and what Zelda has with Nayru's. Okay that's fair. Still, I've never really noticed it myself.

Huh not even on the guys who peek over? Well that is a bit of false advertising then. Still wouldn't DSmash be a better regrab punish anyways since you're closer to the side blast zone? Still not a big deal in my opinion, though it should be fixed since it is advertised to do that.

Not at the edge. Looking at that Lucas video DSmash barely moves Lucas at all. Again I'm just guessing at reasons they might have done that (Shulk's typically shield pokes unless he's in buster with a bit of smash charge).

 

[Radical Larry]

A note about Jigglypuff is that she has a wall of pain on many characters, and that's one of, if not her only, kill option against her opponents, especially with the likes of Sheik and Ryu, who would easily recover back to the stage. On a character like Cloud, Puff doesn't need to actually Wall of Pain him with her F-Airs, because one to three of them (two off stage) will do the job.

And a note about Falco, because I have to ask, is there any fundamental evidence or even foundation that Ryu beats Falco?