Character Competitive Impressions

[RWB]

Saw some real nice Mii Brawler play by DaPuffster right now. Piston Punch gets so much mileage.

 

[Conda]

Saw some real nice Mii Brawler play by DaPuffster right now. Piston Punch gets so much mileage.

Yeah watching the stream too, Puffster is putting his up B to good use by using that fixed hitstun.


But I have to be honest - I'm hoping that gets patched because stuff like that is not fun for spectators to watch. People really weren't digging the whole situation, and a lot of talk about Smash being buggy and noncompetitive due to balance issues ensued. It's definitely not impressive for a competitive game to have things like this going on at actual tournaments.


Comments like this: "As much as I like this game, it's really hard to take it seriously as a competitive game with stuff like that." are worrisome.

People are seeing Brawler get 40% kills with set knockback design-oversights - I have to say, we may have to do something. This isn't impressive to spectators, and can in fact hurt the competitive scene's growth. If stuff like this existed in Starcraft 2, it wouldn't be where it is today (of course, it's where it is today due to the lack of things like this and support from the devs who take their game very seriously).



Not to mention Rosalina vs Brawler matches were really wearing down the viewers. It's kind of a double-dip in "Really? this is competitive smash? This is boring and gimmicky..." territory for a lot of spectators.

It's a shame that rosalina so good, as she's one of the most boring characters for spectators who want to watch a pro-level fighting game. Imo hurts smash's spectator value a bit, which is bad for any competitive game.

 

[Emblem Lord]

@ A2ZOMG and @NAKAT

Perhaps you are both right. You both come from opposite but equally important sides of the gaming community spectrum. Two animals. One of intellect and understanding. The other of skill and strong instincts. I feel we are at our best as a community when we strive to understand and communicate our view points.

Stats are hard to argue. Mario is definitely lacking. You cannot argue that. But you can't argue with results either. High level players are putting in work with him. So maybe Mario isn't high tier BUT maybe this means being a lower tier doesn't mean all that much in this game. Perhaps the tiers are close enough that anyone can be competitive. Ganon took second at one of the largest majors thus far in Japan. That is very telling of the games balance at a high level at this point in the games competitive lifespan.

I say for now...let's focus on breaking the game down

so we can all cry in unison when Sakurai and Namco Bandai **** on our hardwork by patching out all the cool ****.

sounds like a good plan to me

double post

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Launch Star Attack can be angled, just about as much as the default. For me to get the maximum vertical angle I have to input upB, then quickly swivel the stick so far it would have B reversed if the button timing was off.

Guardian Luma has an air stall effect on it (even if Luma is dead iirc)

Guardian Luma just boosts Rosalina's jump height if you do the two simultaneously, it doesn't let her stall in midair AFAIK.

Not to mention Rosalina vs Brawler matches were really wearing down the viewers. It's kind of a double-dip in "Really? this is competitive smash? This is boring and gimmicky..." territory for a lot of spectators.

It's a shame that rosalina so good, as she's one of the most boring characters for spectators who want to watch a pro-level fighting game. Imo hurts smash's spectator value a bit, which is bad for any competitive game.

I find Rosalina matches interesting enough, but then again she is my main so I'm biased as hell.

 

[RWB]

Yeah watching the stream too, Puffster is putting his up B to good use by using that fixed hitstun.


But I have to be honest - I'm hoping that gets patched because stuff like that is not fun for spectators to watch. People really weren't digging the whole situation, and a lot of talk about Smash being buggy and noncompetitive due to balance issues ensued. It's definitely not impressive for a competitive game to have things like this going on at actual tournaments.


Comments like this: "As much as I like this game, it's really hard to take it seriously as a competitive game with stuff like that." are worrisome.

People are seeing Brawler get 40% kills with set knockback design-oversights - I have to say, we may have to do something. This isn't impressive to spectators, and can in fact hurt the competitive scene's growth. If stuff like this existed in Starcraft 2, it wouldn't be where it is today (of course, it's where it is today due to the lack of things like this and support from the devs who take their game very seriously).



Not to mention Rosalina vs Brawler matches were really wearing down the viewers. It's kind of a double-dip in "Really? this is competitive smash? This is boring and gimmicky..." territory for a lot of spectators.

It's a shame that rosalina so good, as she's one of the most boring characters for spectators who want to watch a pro-level fighting game. Imo hurts smash's spectator value a bit, which is bad for any competitive game.

Pretty sure you can reliably vector out of the early kill hit of Mii Brawler's Up B. I believe it was Thinkaman who discovered it...

 

[Conda]

@ the clash tournaments tournament, Rosalina hate is strong. A lot of people, including Zero, are taking part in some pretty heated talk over Rosalina's design -- what her drawbacks are, if any. No drawbacks seems to be the understood reality of her moveset, as we see Dabuz take on NAKAT's skilled Fox in ways that just seem... well, broken. Or at least clearly advantageous. Her movepool and tools have all of the benefits you could want, with barely any drawbacks or lack in killing power (which is something Fox and many other characters have to put up with).

Zero is actually writing quite a bit about how he feels about Rosalina in chat.

I don't think this is a fringe comment about Rosa any more. Even the commentators were surprised at the things Rosalina was able to do, and how easily she was able to do them, and how safe she always was.

edit: I don't want to speak for Zero, so I invited him here to speak for himself.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

@ the clash tournaments tournament, Rosalina hate is strong. A lot of people, including Zero, are taking part in some pretty heated anger chat over how broken Rosalina is design-wise. No drawbacks seems to be the understood reality of her moveset, as we see Dabuz counter very skilled Fox play with ease, by spamming her moves that don't have any drawbacks.

Zero is actually writing quite a bit about how he feels about Rosalina. I don't think this is a fringe complaint any more, even the commentators were surprised at the things Rosalina was able to do, and how easily she was able to do them, and how safe she always was.

I don't want to join on the stream when it sounds like it's already half over and struggle to catch up, so will there be VODs or Youtubes or something after it's done? And approximately when would that be?

 

[ChronoPenguin]

I'm saddened to notice how little of an improvement Kirby needs to become good. I believe that giving Kirby a slightly above average horizontal air speed and running speed would make him rise from bottom 5 or 10 to a competitively viable character. This character has literally no way to get close with it's current mobility.

Any thoughts on the character?

You can already kind of varify this.
Put 2 pieces of raw speed equip (no passives) on Kirby. He can then approach and plays wonderfully. Understandably Sakurai doesn't want everyone the same but it is a shame.

 

[Jaxas]

@ the clash tournaments tournament, Rosalina hate is strong. A lot of people, including Zero, are taking part in some pretty heated anger chat over how broken Rosalina is design-wise. No drawbacks seems to be the understood reality of her moveset, as we see Dabuz counter very skilled Fox play with ease, by spamming her moves that don't have any drawbacks.

Well this is basically the "Overall Metagame Thread" more than the Character Competitive Impressions thread, so we may as well use the topic to try and find weaknesses/counters to Rosalina I suppose.

Just to get the basics out there again...
- Her purposefully implemented weaknesses are light weight, floatiness, and the fact that killing Luma (which isn't that hard, from what I've seen; haven't played top Rosalumas myself) makes her much weaker.
- The weight is offset by the fact that hitting her is very difficult, and floatiness does not translate to being comboed constantly as Luma can cover for that.
So theoretically one should just kill Luma -> kill Rosalina. This is very difficult in practice, however, as Rosalina can punish players hitting Luma. Also, while Luma can't block she beats grabs, so a shielding Rosalina is, essentially, safe. Attack > Grab > Shield, but if you remove grab then a shielding Rosa is super strong.

What ways are there to get around Rosalina's shielding (or just landing the grab without being punished in general)? Are throws invincible in this while throwing? And what characters have strong grab games and extremely fast pummels?

Also, what characters are good against Rosalina? I've heard talk of Peach being at least even, but is there anyone who we know at this point to have an advantage over Rosalina? If not, who has potential? (No idea, but could super-rushdown Palutena theoretically challenge her with things like DA/Bair on Luma, or just flying in too fast to react to? How does she handle Sonic?)

Obviously most of this has been gone over before, but I haven't seen a solid conclusion reached; maybe we just don't have the info, but we can at least try as hard as possible, right?

 

[Conda]

The clash tournaments twitch channel will have it.

NAKAT's Fox ended up taking the tournament which is great, but he had to overcome Rosa's wall of pain and general bs-ness. Rosa didn't have to put up with nearly as much, and she had much stronger tools to use. That's where the intensity of the set was - the underdog fight.

 

[Ffamran]

Well this is basically the "Overall Metagame Thread" more than the Character Competitive Impressions thread, so we may as well use the topic to try and find weaknesses/counters to Rosalina I suppose.

Just to get the basics out there again...
- Her purposefully implemented weaknesses are light weight, floatiness, and the fact that killing Luma (which isn't that hard, from what I've seen; haven't played top Rosalumas myself) makes her much weaker.
- The weight is offset by the fact that hitting her is very difficult, and floatiness does not translate to being comboed constantly as Luma can cover for that.
So theoretically one should just kill Luma -> kill Rosalina. This is very difficult in practice, however, as Rosalina can punish players hitting Luma. Also, while Luma can't block she beats grabs, so a shielding Rosalina is, essentially, safe. Attack > Grab > Shield, but if you remove grab then a shielding Rosa is super strong.

What ways are there to get around Rosalina's shielding (or just landing the grab without being punished in general)? Are throws invincible in this while throwing? And what characters have strong grab games and extremely fast pummels?

Also, what characters are good against Rosalina? I've heard talk of Peach being at least even, but is there anyone who we know at this point to have an advantage over Rosalina? If not, who has potential? (No idea, but could super-rushdown Palutena theoretically challenge her with things like DA/Bair on Luma, or just flying in too fast to react to? How does she handle Sonic?)

Obviously most of this has been gone over before, but I haven't seen a solid conclusion reached; maybe we just don't have the info, but we can at least try as hard as possible, right?

Isn't it bad to focus on a small group of characters and leave the others to develop their potentials and their weaknesses left unknown? Instead of focusing on the "powerful" ones, we should weed out the "weak" ones and crush any hope of them becoming playable. MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Still, while it's good to talk about Rosalina & Luma and Shiek, it'd be nice if we get more talk on others like how to gimp Bowser Jr. or how Mr. Game & Watch fares against the cast, etc.

 

[Conda]

Well this is basically the "Overall Metagame Thread" more than the Character Competitive Impressions thread, so we may as well use the topic to try and find weaknesses/counters to Rosalina I suppose.

Just to get the basics out there again...
- Her purposefully implemented weaknesses are light weight, floatiness, and the fact that killing Luma (which isn't that hard, from what I've seen; haven't played top Rosalumas myself) makes her much weaker.
- The weight is offset by the fact that hitting her is very difficult, and floatiness does not translate to being comboed constantly as Luma can cover for that.
So theoretically one should just kill Luma -> kill Rosalina. This is very difficult in practice, however, as Rosalina can punish players hitting Luma. Also, while Luma can't block she beats grabs, so a shielding Rosalina is, essentially, safe. Attack > Grab > Shield, but if you remove grab then a shielding Rosa is super strong.

What ways are there to get around Rosalina's shielding (or just landing the grab without being punished in general)? Are throws invincible in this while throwing? And what characters have strong grab games and extremely fast pummels?

Also, what characters are good against Rosalina? I've heard talk of Peach being at least even, but is there anyone who we know at this point to have an advantage over Rosalina? If not, who has potential? (No idea, but could super-rushdown Palutena theoretically challenge her with things like DA/Bair on Luma, or just flying in too fast to react to? How does she handle Sonic?)

Obviously most of this has been gone over before, but I haven't seen a solid conclusion reached; maybe we just don't have the info, but we can at least try as hard as possible, right?

Regarding her light weight, being light weight has never been a huge detriment to many characters competitively so I wouldn't list it as important really. MK was light, Fox was light, etc. Rosa has the tools to avoid hits in the way a lot of lights don't.

Now regarding the actual effects of being light weight, they aren't that big unless you are open for punishments a lot or have a hole in your movepool (ie long endlag on moves, bad air game, bad ground game). Rosa has none of these drawbacks. And she' can't be grabbed most of the time, so goodbye to kill throws in those instances.

Fox couldn't kill her many times with all 3 smash varieties at 110-120%, so her weight isn't too much of an actual drawback in this matchup. And Fox's kill power is not out of the ordinary in weakness, it's average.

If Rosa landed a smash, it nearly always resulted in a kill with Fox at around 90% at times.


edit: I agree with the above poster on 'less talk about the top 5' - you'll know this by reading my posts in this thread haha. But a tournament just happened, so we're heated up on this topic.

 

[Luco]

I will say though that they were both playing really rally well at the end of that.

And salem mentioned something which I agree with in that Rosalina's landings can be punished and I think that started to happen more as the set wore on.

 

[Starbound]

Also, what characters are good against Rosalina? I've heard talk of Peach being at least even, but is there anyone who we know at this point to have an advantage over Rosalina? If not, who has potential? (No idea, but could super-rushdown Palutena theoretically challenge her with things like DA/Bair on Luma, or just flying in too fast to react to? How does she handle Sonic?)

In my opinion, Peach certainly feels like a Rosalina counter. Grounded Lumas are absolutely invalidated by Peach's float, as Luma can't stay floating in the air whereas he can stay put on the ground for a bit. Peach can float over Luma and dair the troll (Luma) while Luma can't reach. Alternately, she can fly over the troll and go straight to Rosalina. My experience in the match has been that you don't want to keep Luma out because Peach will break your defenses and she will do it fast. I know a few Peach players and they seem to have an easier time with Rosalina than players who don't main Peach. I don't have any experience against Palutena, and I think the Sonic matchup is close to even. ZSS also feels like a Rosalina counter but not to the extent Peach does.

I'm really curious if the extra time Luma takes to spawn in the Wii U version (about 8 seconds to about 13 seconds) will change people's opinions on Rosalina.

 

[Jaxas]

Isn't it bad to focus on a small group of characters and leave the others to develop their potentials and their weaknesses left unknown? Instead of focusing on the "powerful" ones, we should weed out the "weak" ones and crush any hope of them becoming playable. MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Still, while it's good to talk about Rosalina & Luma and Shiek, it'd be nice if we get more talk on others like how to gimp Bowser Jr. or how Mr. Game & Watch fares against the cast, etc.

I was actually hoping to both talk about Rosaluma and everyone else, specifically in a "Rosalina can be punished reliably during X, and Y character is really good at doing so so lets look into them, especially with how they match up against Rosalina" way; I do agree that we need to talk about less well-known characters a lot more, though

In my opinion, Peach certainly feels like a Rosalina counter. Grounded Lumas are absolutely invalidated by Peach's float, as Luma can't stay floating in the air whereas he can stay put on the ground for a bit. Peach can float over Luma and dair the troll (Luma) while Luma can't reach. Alternately, she can fly over the troll and go straight to Rosalina. My experience in the match has been that you don't want to keep Luma out because Peach will break your defenses and she will do it fast. I know a few Peach players and they seem to have an easier time with Rosalina than players who don't main Peach. I don't have any experience against Palutena, and I think the Sonic matchup is close to even. ZSS also feels like a Rosalina counter but not to the extent Peach does.

I'm really curious if the extra time Luma takes to spawn in the Wii U version (about 8 seconds to about 13 seconds) will change people's opinions on Rosalina.

How is Peach in this MU without the TLC (the Down-B toss lag/hitstun cancel)? I've actually been wanting to pick up Peach as a secondary, but I just don't have the character knowledge yet to speak to it at all

 

[Conda]

I will say though that they were both playing really rally well at the end of that.

And salem mentioned something which I agree with in that Rosalina's landings can be punished and I think that started to happen more as the set wore on.

Only by characters with high speed, though. And attack speed on top of that, as her landing lag is still super quick and her options out of lag are super quick and ranged/disjointed. You can't challenge any of her hitboxes basically.


Let's also keep in mind what Rosa seems to be doing to tournaments currently - forcing character switches. A lot of characters don't seem to be switching for many characters, but they do against Rosa because she's that polarizing. We would've loved to see @NAKAT as Ness because we love Ness, but there's the general understanding in the stream chat and by commentators that "Oh well yeah of course against Rosalina he logically switched out to someone faster and safer."

This has been my experience learning about the meta so far, I could be wrong though.

 

[Ffamran]

Regarding her light weight, being light weight has never been a huge detriment to many characters competitively so I wouldn't list it as important really. MK was light, Fox was light, etc. Rosa has the tools to avoid hits in the way a lot of lights don't.

Now regarding the actual effects of being light weight, they aren't that big unless you are open for punishments a lot or have a hole in your movepool (ie long endlag on moves, bad air game, bad ground game). Rosa has none of these drawbacks. And she' can't be grabbed most of the time, so goodbye to kill throws in those instances.

Fox couldn't kill her many times with all 3 smash varieties at 110-120%, so her weight isn't too much of an actual drawback in this matchup. And Fox's kill power is not out of the ordinary in weakness, it's average.

If Rosa landed a smash, it nearly always resulted in a kill with Fox at around 90% at times.


edit: I agree with the above poster on 'less talk about the top 5' - you'll know this by reading my posts in this thread haha. But a tournament just happened, so we're heated up on this topic.


Let's also keep in mind what Rosa seems to be doing to tournaments currently - forcing character switches. A lot of characters don't seem to be switching for many characters, but they do against Rosa because she's that polarizing. T
his has been my experience learning about the meta so far, but it could just be coincidental and useless info.

I remember a video posted in the Ike section with about a player named Ryuga who although was in the Loser's Finals, wrecked a Rosalina & Luma player. Ike can freaking combo! Thread here: Can we talk about Ryuga's Ike?

Safe to say, fear can make people do worse. Oh crap, it's that one "high tier" character! Instead of thinking about that, it'd be better to think about winning. Ike's durability, range, and raw power was able to counter the supposed "OP" character.

 

[Nobie]

Would it be enough to nerf the power of Gravitational Pull? Maybe reduce its range or make it usable only when on the ground (like DK's old down b)?

Edit: Whoops, I realize this makes it sound as if I think Rosalina definitely needs another nerf. It was more a question asking how much would it take for Rosalina's rock-solid set of tools to be powerful without forcing character switches to such an extent.

 

[Conda]

I was actually hoping to both talk about Rosaluma and everyone else, specifically in a "Rosalina can be punished reliably during X, and Y character is really good at doing so so lets look into them, especially with how they match up against Rosalina" way; I do agree that we need to talk about less well-known characters a lot more, though


How is Peach in this MU without the TLC (the Down-B toss lag/hitstun cancel)? I've actually been wanting to pick up Peach as a secondary, but I just don't have the character knowledge yet to speak to it at all

The problem is as I pointed out above, players seem to usually be switching out when facing Rosalina, so we don't have much data on lower tier characters trying to put up with top-level Rosa players at tournaments. There's likely a reason for that, as these players engage in many friendlies and discover who they can go up against Rosalina as. This is her power so far and it may be what is leading to relatively low character variety (or at least character-type variety) in tournament finals.

 

[Starbound]

How is Peach in this MU without the TLC (the Down-B toss lag/hitstun cancel)? I've actually been wanting to pick up Peach as a secondary, but I just don't have the character knowledge yet to speak to it at all

Most of the Peachs I've played don't bother much at all with vegetables and instead just go for aerial assault, which is likely due to the threat of Gravitational Pull.

 

[Luco]

Only by characters with high speed, though. And attack speed on top of that, as her landing lag is still super quick and her options out of lag are super quick and ranged/disjointed. You can't challenge any of her hitboxes basically.


Let's also keep in mind what Rosa seems to be doing to tournaments currently - forcing character switches. A lot of characters don't seem to be switching for many characters, but they do against Rosa because she's that polarizing. We would've loved to see @NAKAT as Ness because we love Ness, but there's the general understanding in the stream chat and by commentators that "Oh well yeah of course against Rosalina he logically switched out to someone faster and safer."

This has been my experience learning about the meta so far, I could be wrong though.

I must say, I don't know which out of Ness and Fox does better against Rosalina, and I was expecting him to switch to Ness because he's mentioned he sees it as a 60-40 MU at worst before, but I guess it was Fox this time.

I will agree though in that some characters will find it harder to punish those landings than others. Hmm...

 

[Conda]

I remember a video posted in the Ike section with about a player named Ryuga who although was in the Loser's Finals, wrecked a Rosalina & Luma player. Ike can freaking combo! Thread here: Can we talk about Ryuga's Ike?

Safe to say, fear can make people do worse. Oh crap, it's that one "high tier" character! Instead of thinking about that, it'd be better to think about winning. Ike's durability, range, and raw power was able to counter the supposed "OP" character.

This is likely a case of character vs player. I've studied Ryuga's matches, and he played against a wide variety of characters and players on his way to the top.

No player has to fight many Ikes. Losing to one does not mean you won't learn how to deal with his tools eventually (nair to jab is still the BnB which let him get that far). Just because they lost to Ike now doesn't mean he is uncounterable or actually hard to deal with. You cannot make metagame conclusions based on one Ike player doing well at one tournament. If it becomes a trend and many Ike players are able to disrupt the meta, then yeah there we go - broad data. Without broad data, these are exceptional cases of great players doing well with a character.

I'm happy he did well, but it has nothing to do with the discussion of Rosalina having a higher grace:drawback ratio than any other character.

Being top tier or even imbalanced by design does not mean you will never be beat, it means you have a huge effect on the metagame that is usually disruptive to character variety and viability at the higher brackets in tournaments.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Well this is basically the "Overall Metagame Thread" more than the Character Competitive Impressions thread, so we may as well use the topic to try and find weaknesses/counters to Rosalina I suppose.

Just to get the basics out there again...
- Her purposefully implemented weaknesses are light weight, floatiness, and the fact that killing Luma (which isn't that hard, from what I've seen; haven't played top Rosalumas myself) makes her much weaker.
- The weight is offset by the fact that hitting her is very difficult, and floatiness does not translate to being comboed constantly as Luma can cover for that.
So theoretically one should just kill Luma -> kill Rosalina. This is very difficult in practice, however, as Rosalina can punish players hitting Luma. Also, while Luma can't block she beats grabs, so a shielding Rosalina is, essentially, safe. Attack > Grab > Shield, but if you remove grab then a shielding Rosa is super strong.

It's my impression that Rosalina has a fairly hard time covering the diagonal above her head without Luma. Her best tool there is fair, but it's unsafe if whiffed or blocked and has a fair bit of landing lag. Her utilt, while an excellent disjoint, isn't a good antiair since it has basically zero horizontal range.

I've also noticed that Luma is only a good defense tool when linked to Rosalina. When she sends it out, she sacrifices defense for stage control. Luma Shot leaves an opening where Luma can't act (because it's barreling forward) and Rosalina is stuck in her "go forth my minion" animation. This would be a good opportunity for a lot of characters to move in and punish, especially since Luma does not stop when it hits a shield. (This weakness is less pronounced with Luma Warp, since it's so fast.)

Also, shielding Luma is completely safe unless Rosalina is nearby since Luma cannot grab you. That said, she has some tricky desyncs where Luma attacks while she does something else. The most notable example is her boost grab; Luma will do its dash attack while Rosalina grabs, which lets her pick up prone targets as Luma bops them into her grabbox.

I want to say she struggles against hard rushdown in general, but that may be a personal failing. Teleporters like Zelda may also work at bypassing her defensive wall entirely.

As a final general thing, Luma is helpless once hit with enough knockback and can't do anything until it lands. If you hit it over a pit it's completely doomed. It also can't shield. Shield pressure may end up being a good answer to Luma specifically since it's not always protected by Rosalina's shield.

What ways are there to get around Rosalina's shielding (or just landing the grab without being punished in general)? Are throws invincible in this while throwing? And what characters have strong grab games and extremely fast pummels?

In my experience if you go for the throw immediately it's really hard for Luma to bop you out of it in time. For some reason it has a hard time doing a back air when Rosalina's indisposed, it keeps doing forward air. In addition, some throws like Mario, Luigi, and Wario's back throw work especially well because the spinning produces hitboxes that knock Luma away. So in practice it's more "Rosalina can't be pummeled" instead of "Rosalina can't be grabbed." Also in my experience even when I break free with Luma I still take 3% from nowhere, so that's something at least.

Also, what characters are good against Rosalina? I've heard talk of Peach being at least even, but is there anyone who we know at this point to have an advantage over Rosalina? If not, who has potential? (No idea, but could super-rushdown Palutena theoretically challenge her with things like DA/Bair on Luma, or just flying in too fast to react to? How does she handle Sonic?)

Luma will not go into the air unless a) Rosalina put it there with Luma Shot or b) it's jumping when Rosalina does. To keep it in the air, Rosalina must spam attacks, which can be punished. Therefore characters with good air control like Peach, Jigglypuff, and Wario are better equipped to avoid Luma, as they can simply go for an air approach and use their air control to bait out whiffed antiairs.

Any piercing projectile will of course go through Luma and hit Rosalina unless she uses Gravitational Pull. Off the top of my head that's Metal Blade, Robo Beam, Water Shuriken (charged), Thoron, and a whole lot of customs with piercing properties. Sheik's needles also tend to sneak past Luma if she has enough charged up. ZSS's Paralyzer will stop Luma cold no matter what it's doing. Link and Toon Link are capable of putting out so many projectiles that hitting Rosalina is almost inevitable unless she literally spams Gravitational Pull, which can be punished. Explosives like Crash Bomber detonate on contact with Luma and the splash can tag Rosalina. PK Fire and Arcfire do an excellent job of trapping Luma since it can't SDI.

Obviously most of this has been gone over before, but I haven't seen a solid conclusion reached; maybe we just don't have the info, but we can at least try as hard as possible, right?

I expect once the Wii U version drops we'll see a lot more people start playing (since the 3DS is viewed by many as a side dish) and it'll certainly see more widespread tournament use, both of which will lead to improved metagame development due to sheer player volume.

Hope this helped a bit.

 

[Bighands-Senpai]

In my opinion, Peach certainly feels like a Rosalina counter. Grounded Lumas are absolutely invalidated by Peach's float, as Luma can't stay floating in the air whereas he can stay put on the ground for a bit. Peach can float over Luma and dair the troll (Luma) while Luma can't reach. Alternately, she can fly over the troll and go straight to Rosalina. My experience in the match has been that you don't want to keep Luma out because Peach will break your defenses and she will do it fast. I know a few Peach players and they seem to have an easier time with Rosalina than players who don't main Peach. I don't have any experience against Palutena, and I think the Sonic matchup is close to even. ZSS also feels like a Rosalina counter but not to the extent Peach does.

I'm really curious if the extra time Luma takes to spawn in the Wii U version (about 8 seconds to about 13 seconds) will change people's opinions on Rosalina.

imo Mario's underrated as a great match to Rosaluma, as well. The most reliable way to kill her is to kill Luma first, then air combo her to death, which Mario certainly delivers with his cape and nair+uair+up b combo alone. A well-timed cape in particular can be a bane to her if she overconfidently launched Luma to finish the job. FLUDD is also a great way to push away a Rosalina trying to recover with her up b, I've found. Just don't use fireballs.

 

[BestTeaMaker]

Just my two cents based on the subreddit ranking stats concerning Rosalina. Our top player right now is a Peach user, who easily ranks high in a lot of tourneys he participates in. He easily 3-0'd several Rosalina players.

 

[TSM ZeRo]

Rosalina's very OP IMO. I'll be frank. Every Rosalina player I've talked to argues the character is barely top 5, while Haven/Dabuz are completely ok with her being the best in the game.

She's very lagless, trascendental priority, her jab kills, reliable spacing/damage/kill moves, can't be projectile camped except vs Sheik's custom needles -that are punishable by shield > DA), solid recovery, good/powerful and quick aerials, throw combos, kill throws, man... the list goes on. I don't think she has any bad match ups, other than Sheik maybe being even, but I think it's +1 for her. Dabuz may think differently than me, but we usually agree on most things regarding Rosalina.

Bottom line, she's way better than Fox and most other characters, regardless.

 

[Ffamran]

This is likely a case of character vs player. I've studied Ryuga's matches, and he played against a wide variety of characters and players on his way to the top.

No player has to fight many Ikes. Losing to one does not mean you won't learn how to deal with his tools eventually (nair to jab is still the BnB which let him get that far). Just because they lost to Ike now doesn't mean he is uncounterable or actually hard to deal with. You cannot make metagame conclusions based on one Ike player doing well at one tournament. If it becomes a trend and many Ike players are able to disrupt the meta, then yeah there we go - broad data. Without broad data, these are exceptional cases of great players doing well with a character.

I'm happy he did well, but it has nothing to do with the discussion of Rosalina having a higher grace:drawback ratio than any other character.

Being top tier or even imbalanced by design does not mean you will never be beat, it means you have a huge effect on the metagame that is usually disruptive to character variety and viability at the higher brackets in tournaments.

It's more of a case of an "underdog" character going against the supposed "OP" character. By leaving out fighters and people just chickening out, it makes it so there's little data on those match-ups. There's plenty of ways to gimp Rosalina & Luma as there are ways to gimp Ike. Ike's main problem like in Brawl is his speed and recovery which are better in SSB4, but are still problems for him. He makes it up with raw power, range, and durability. Also, as noted with the Rosaluma player not knowing and remembering that Ike's Aether can clip through the stage, the player was getting hit over and over until after a couple of matches.

Battles are as much about skill as they are about knowledge. Remember the Pachirisu incident? People just did not know how to counter a "trash Pikaclone". Anything can kill you; everything has a weakness. You can't just walk in with Sheik and expect to win every fight because "Sheik's a high-tier fighter". It's not uncommon for unnamed grunts to have killed commanders and generals. Never leave out any variable; expect the unexpected.

I don't leave matches unless I'm forcefully disconnected. Even if I lose constantly, I'm still going to put up a fight since there's always something to learn - losing is sometimes the greatest victory. I just fought a Lucario yesterday and lost 2-3? fights and only won one. Why? I noticed a pattern and learned about Lucario while fighting the guy. I noticed he always charged his Aura Sphere and used it as a way to kill me when I'm off-stage or when he gets desperate at higher percentages. I won by reflecting his Aura Sphere back at him - instant KO. I just knew he would do it. He also rarely followed me off-stage or used tilts.

It's like how Deep Blue won against Garry Kasparov through observation and basically "becoming" Kasparov - your greatest enemy is yourself. Kasparov was said to have lost because he lost his nerve and because while he had tactics to win against others, he never learned his weaknesses. You have to know everything in fight.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Rosalina's very OP IMO. I'll be frank. Every Rosalina player I've talked to argues the character is barely top 5, while Haven/Dabuz are completely ok with her being the best in the game.

She's very lagless, trascendental priority, her jab kills, reliable spacing/damage/kill moves, can't be projectile camped except vs Sheik's custom needles -that are punishable by shield > DA), solid recovery, good/powerful and quick aerials, throw combos, kill throws, man... the list goes on. I don't think she has any bad match ups, other than Sheik maybe being even, but I think it's +1 for her. Dabuz may think differently than me, but we usually agree on most things regarding Rosalina.

Bottom line, she's way better than Fox and most other characters, regardless.

Transcendent priority? Really? That would be major news if true, this is the first I've heard of Rosalina having it.

 

[Conda]

It's my impression that Rosalina has a fairly hard time covering the diagonal above her head without Luma. Her best tool there is fair, but it's unsafe if whiffed or blocked and has a fair bit of landing lag. Her utilt, while an excellent disjoint, isn't a good antiair since it has basically zero horizontal range.

A lot of characters can't cover certain angles. This isn't a drawback, she just may not have 'everything ever'. But she can cover he forward diagonal - that's what nair is for.

@ TSM ZeRo has written a bit about Rosa above, and I agree with what he's said on a fundamental level. I'm going to go into more detail here:

It's important to not take what I'm about to say as "SHES BROKEN SHE IS UNBEATABLE", but rather "her drawbacks are not actually drawbacks compared to the drawbacks everyone else has to deal with."

Rosalina's only drawbacks are that sometimes she has to fight alone like everybody else - she's simply reverting to a more neutral strength level like everyone else where their power:weakness ratio is somewhat even. Yet she still has her imbalanced movepool. She is nothing like Ice Climbers or even Olimar.

I think we spend too much time discussing Rosalina in a microcosm rather than actually discussing her as we would anyone else. We treat her like a boss in a videogame - "Her weakness is when Luma is dead - she becomes just like everyone else at that point! for like 13 seconds."

She doesn't have drawbacks in her movepool and overall design the way almost every other character does, and this hasn't been proven false yet.

So to those who say "But she's really light."
Fox is as light as Rosa, Kirby is lighter. Where are their mechanics and move disjoints etc that balance out their weight lightness?

I've also noticed that Luma is only a good defense tool when linked to Rosalina. When she sends it out, she sacrifices defense for stage control.

By 'sacrifice defence', you mean 'revert to the exact same defence level as everyone else in the game.' Again, not a comparative and equivalent drawback as there are no negatives involved, just a lack of specific benefits.

Also, shielding Luma is completely safe unless Rosalina is nearby since Luma cannot grab you.

Fox's entire moveset for the most part is safe to block and shieldgrab, he has to use speed and focus on trapping and punishing in order to land anything heavier than a jab, dash, or nair for the most part.
The reason why is because he's balanced for speed, and loses a lot due to it. He has a lot of drawbacks simply for having speed and a dash-usmash.

That's all he gains for all of his drawbacks.
Many other characters are the same with how drastic their drawbacks are compared to their strengths. Even Sheik with the (overstated) loss in kill power. Rosalina doesn't have this type of balance in her by design, for whatever reason.

I want to say she struggles against hard rushdown in general, but that may be a personal failing. Teleporters like Zelda may also work at bypassing her defensive wall entirely.

I'd disagree, as a lot of rushdown in this game depends and relies on grabs, and she negates them with ease. And she doesn't have real drawbacks due to that, which is my whole point. She simply loses the ability to do that when Luma dies, which is her returning to neutral power state, not becoming 'weaker', just 'more normal'. After you kill Luma, she's not weaker than you, she's just on your level. This is the problem.


You and many other people are treating Rosalina like she's a camper - get behind her defensive wall! Use piercing projectiles!
But when you watch her played by player like Dabuz - she's a rushdown monster due to her attack speed and disjoint/priority/damage/KO heavy moveset. She can camp to stay safe if she wants to focus on punishing when she's at high % and wants to be safe, but that isn't all you have to worry about with Rosa. She can play your game better than you because she hasn't any actual drawbacks, meanwhile you DO, because you're playing someone who is designed with drawbacks in mind. Rosalina's drawbacks are just moments of 'I dont have all of my strengths right now for a little bit'.

In my experience if you go for the throw immediately it's really hard for Luma to bop you out of it in time.

It's always hard for other characters to interrupt your throw, because they can't. Again, to counter Rosa's grab-interrupting features, you have to kill Luma first. That's fine. But then she reverts to normal power levels. She's not weaker than you, she's now on your level.

Any piercing projectile will of course go through Luma and hit Rosalina unless she uses Gravitational Pull.

Meanwhile all characters get hit by both piercing and non-piercing projectiles by default. When you kill Luma, Rosa reverts to being like every other character. Not weaker, just normal.

 

[Conda]

Just my two cents based on the subreddit ranking stats concerning Rosalina. Our top player right now is a Peach user, who easily ranks high in a lot of tourneys he participates in. He easily 3-0'd several Rosalina players.

I'll speak for myself - I am not saying she cannot be beaten by better player. I am saying her design is broken as she doesn't have the same strength:drawback ratio as everyone else. She gets tools, yet not the drawbacks to counteract those tools. Many other characters are way undertuned in this way, Samus being an example. But some are overtuned, Rosalina being the best and most clearly evident example.

That is all I am personally discussing. I do not think she is unbeatable, but her strengths coupled with lack of actual weaknesses in return for those strengths is metagame-effecting in a big way.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

The guy asked what to do against Rosalina and I'm trying to deliver. I didn't mean to insinuate that she was below everyone else without Luma if that's what you got out of it.

I'll speak for myself - I am not saying she cannot be beaten by better player. I am saying her design is broken as she doesn't have the same strength:drawback ratio as everyone else. She gets tools, yet not the drawbacks to counteract those tools. Many other characters are way undertuned in this way, Samus being an example. But some are overtuned, Rosalina being the best and most clearly evident example.

That is all I am personally discussing. I do not think she is unbeatable, but her strengths coupled with lack of actual weaknesses in return for those strengths is metagame-effecting in a big way.

However, I think we can agree on this. She's very polarizing.

 

[Ffamran]

The guy asked what to do against Rosalina and I'm trying to deliver. I didn't mean to insinuate that she was below everyone else without Luma if that's what you got out of it.


However, I think we can agree on this. She's very polarizing.

Well, considering she's connected to stars - Luma - and is basically the guardian of the galaxy... Polaris.

 

[Jaxas]

How big of an effect do you guys think the Luma-respawn nerf will hurt her in the upcoming patch?
Also, the more I think about it the more I think that punishing her recovery might be a key point in the matchup against her (lingering hitboxes, well-timed spikes, cape, etc shouldn't be too difficult with the very linear recovery). The problem then becomes getting her off the stage, and how floaty she is (if she gets to recover stage-level or above, then it's much more difficult to cover all the angles. If you can force her to go to the ledge, that's another story)

 

[ParanoidDrone]

How big of an effect do you guys think the Luma-respawn nerf will hurt her in the upcoming patch?

Increases reward for killing Luma and incentivises some players to actually go for that kill instead of ignoring it. I'm fine with it myself, there have been a few times I was surprised at how fast I got Luma back. (8 seconds really isn't that long.)

Also, the more I think about it the more I think that punishing her recovery might be a key point in the matchup against her (lingering hitboxes, well-timed spikes, cape, etc shouldn't be too difficult with the very linear recovery). The problem then becomes getting her off the stage, and how floaty she is (if she gets to recover stage-level or above, then it's much more difficult to cover all the angles. If you can force her to go to the ledge, that's another story)

The best thing about her recovery is the sheer range. The second best thing is how much control she has over the launch angle. If you can place yourself in its path then yeah, it's just a matter of timing the gimp but that's a pretty big if.

 

[A2ZOMG]

How come greninja doesn't have the best edgeguarding? I mean he can use up b to continuously keep his or her opponent off the stage along with occasionally jumping off to knock them back with back air.

Missed this earlier. If you're comparing to Pikachu, it really just comes down to Pikachu's unparalleled ability to cover options. The raw distance Pikachu gets on his recovery combined with his great lingering aerials and projectiles, there's nothing that compares with it in this game. Also of note is in addition to how far he can reach, he risks very little diving extremely deep to edgeguard due to the speed and safety of his Up-B, making him not vulnerable to counter-gimping.

Greninja's Up-B is a great tool, no doubt, but it can be outplayed and avoided by not committing to your Up-B when he uses it.

 

[Deathcarter]

How big of an effect do you guys think the Luma-respawn nerf will hurt her in the upcoming patch?
Also, the more I think about it the more I think that punishing her recovery might be a key point in the matchup against her (lingering hitboxes, well-timed spikes, cape, etc shouldn't be too difficult with the very linear recovery). The problem then becomes getting her off the stage, and how floaty she is (if she gets to recover stage-level or above, then it's much more difficult to cover all the angles. If you can force her to go to the ledge, that's another story)

Not all that much. The Luma nerf really just gives the opponent more reward for outplaying Rosalina as opposed to making it easier to outplay her. The characters who benefit the most from this nerf are those who already had effective methods in dispatching Luma to begin with.

 

[gameprodigy12]

Rosalina's very OP IMO. I'll be frank. Every Rosalina player I've talked to argues the character is barely top 5, while Haven/Dabuz are completely ok with her being the best in the game.

She's very lagless, trascendental priority, her jab kills, reliable spacing/damage/kill moves, can't be projectile camped except vs Sheik's custom needles -that are punishable by shield > DA), solid recovery, good/powerful and quick aerials, throw combos, kill throws, man... the list goes on. I don't think she has any bad match ups, other than Sheik maybe being even, but I think it's +1 for her. Dabuz may think differently than me, but we usually agree on most things regarding Rosalina.

Bottom line, she's way better than Fox and most other characters, regardless.

But you must agree that the hate for her is out of control and unneeded. People shouldn't hate on her.

@ the clash tournaments tournament, Rosalina hate is strong. A lot of people, including Zero, are taking part in some pretty heated talk over Rosalina's design -- what her drawbacks are, if any. No drawbacks seems to be the understood reality of her moveset, as we see Dabuz take on NAKAT's skilled Fox in ways that just seem... well, broken. Or at least clearly advantageous. Her movepool and tools have all of the benefits you could want, with barely any

edit: I don't want to speak for Zero, so I invited him here to speak for himself.

The hate for her is out of control and unneeded, I can understand listing reason for thinking she might be OP even though she isn't. But hating on her and saying it's boring to watch is out right over the top.

 

[Flamecircle]

I was thinking about this earlier.

Rosalina is the best character as long as she has Luma.
Rosalina is less good without Luma. (debatable extent)
Therefore, the character to beat Rosalina beats Luma efficiently.


Thinking through the cast, I can't think of anyone but Falco that can do the job.
Falco's void reflector is key. I think its the only fast, midrange, piercing projectile that will knock luma as far as it does. Near the ledge, Luma dies. Even on stage, hitting Luma opens Rosalina up enough that approaching isn't overwhelmingly unfavorable.

Not saying this would be the end-all-be-all answer, and that you should always keep a pocket Falco, but Falco at least has a true midrange threat that Rosalina has to respect. That's something, right?

 

[NairWizard]

What is this about Rosalina's transcendent priority? Are we talking about Luma or Rosalina?

But you must agree that the hate for her is out of control and unneeded. People shouldn't hate on her.

I really don't understand the mindset that fuels your posts. You seem to be obsessed with announcing that Rosalina is the best character in the game and definitely in top tier, but then you don't want anyone to hate her or dislike her. You don't give any reasons for thinking what you think, but want everyone to agree with you anyway. Why does it matter to you that your character is regarded as the best? Why does it matter to you that anyone hates her?

My apologies if this is harsh.

 

[Mr. Johan]

I was thinking about this earlier.

Rosalina is the best character as long as she has Luma.
Rosalina is less good without Luma. (debatable extent)
Therefore, the character to beat Rosalina beats Luma efficiently.

Kind of. It depends on what Rosalina has herself that can help give a matchup the extra edge or reset it back.

Robin's Fire Jab and Levin Fair for example are excellent at kicking Luma out without committing a whole lot - Fire Jab alone sends Luma clear offstage from Battlefield's center. But because Rosalina still has Gravitational Pull, Robin still has to work hard with his projectile specials and Levin Sword spacing correctly to take real advantage of the grace period.

Rosalina's not dead weight while going solo. If her own tools help her out, it's going to be hard for the Luma-killer regardless.

Or maybe Robin's the outlier to this, idk.