Character Competitive Impressions

[NAKAT]

Ughhhhhhhh Rosa and Mii Fighter. ...

 

[Yokoblue]

As for good characters against Rosalina, may I answer with Yoshi ?
Yoshi Up air usually dodge luma and straight hit Rosalina, Yoshi grab (neutral b) also dodge the punish from luma.

Good thing as well against Rosalina is spike and Yoshi has a good spike (though a bit slow) but you can hit it easy since her UP B is really predictable/vulnerable

As for nerfs, I think only putting luma a bit farther when people grab Rosalina would be the perfect thing.

 

[Conda]

Ughhhhhhhh Rosa and Mii Fighter. ...

Congrats though. You made it through two different kinds of jank and came out the victor. That's impressive, and as Fox no less.

I mean, you made it past Brawler's bugged fixed-hitstun up B, and Rosalina's laundry list of strengths without any real weak point to abuse. Watching players beat good Rosalinas can be like watching torture sometimes. Entertaining torture I guess, but it's definitely a different game and not indicative of Competitive Smash overall. Dabuz is definitely a great player though, I'm speaking moreso about Rosalina and her design as a character.

That may be part of why the audience can get bored, since it feels like all they see is Rosalina at times whenever they watch high level play (and Sheik, but she's fast at least and plays at a quicker pace). It can get a little samey after a while for the spectators. You really helped shake things up.

As for good characters against Rosalina, may I answer with Yoshi ?
Yoshi Up air usually dodge luma and straight hit Rosalina, Yoshi grab (neutral b) also dodge the punish from luma.

Good thing as well against Rosalina is spike and Yoshi has a good spike (though a bit slow) but you can hit it easy since her UP B is really predictable/vulnerable

As for nerfs, I think only putting luma a bit farther when people grab Rosalina would be the perfect thing.

I have to state again - many people treat Rosa like she's a camper, and you have to counter her by tossing projectiles past Luma to hit Rosa and BANG you win. That's not how she works at high level play. Maybe in For Glory people do the shoot luma -> spam Luma moves. But players like Dabuz use her full moveset to its potential aggressively. You don't need to rely on Luma, it's just a super powerful buff while its active, and while it's deactivated you're only left with your powerful and disjointed moveset and powerful kill moves.

Watch Dabuz play as rosa and try and formulate a strategy that would work against someone who plays her like that. She is an absolute force, and not the slow spammy camper this forum tends to make her out to be.

 

[Jaxas]

As for good characters against Rosalina, may I answer with Yoshi ?
Yoshi Up air usually dodge luma and straight hit Rosalina, Yoshi grab (neutral b) also dodge the punish from luma.

Good thing as well against Rosalina is spike and Yoshi has a good spike (though a bit slow) but you can hit it easy since her UP B is really predictable/vulnerable

As for nerfs, I think only putting luma a bit farther when people grab Rosalina would be the perfect thing.

Yoshi's aerial mobility combined with Nair seems to do pretty well at running in, hitting Luma (-> death), and retreating as well, from what little I've seen

 

[san.]

Congrats to NAKAT.

Ike's custom SideB2 knocks Luma in the air and stuns him until he touches the ground. Don't think custom Ike is going to have many fundamental problems dealing with her.

 

[Conda]

Congrats to NAKAT.

Ike's custom SideB2 knocks Luma in the air and stuns him until he touches the ground. Don't think custom Ike is going to have many fundamental problems dealing with her.

Was Dabuz a sitting duck without Luma? Does she lose her nair, kill throw, lingering hitboxes, attack speed, range, disjoints, recovery, etc without Luma?

No, she doesn't - she keeps all of these things and simply loses some of her strengths. She still has a ton left over though.

Some characters have half of what she has when she's alone, and they don't get to have Luma knocked away because they don't have Luma to begin with.

Yoshi's aerial mobility combined with Nair seems to do pretty well at running in, hitting Luma (-> death), and retreating as well, from what little I've seen

My point is dealing with luma is not 'dealing with rosalina'. She doesn't care, you bring her down to your level (if that), you don't bring her lower. She loses a buff, but still does not have weaknesses the counteract her moveset strengths.
She can avoid you for the 13 seconds to get back luma if she feels she needs it, otherwise she can do just fine because of her moveset alone. She'll have to adjust of course, but that means "I can't get grabbed because I can't interrupt the grab without Luma" or "I can't combo my jab into Luma's jab for super damage without Luma" - which is how every other character is.


We see this in high level play, yet many people still act as if she is nullified without Luma. She is not, she is just brought closer to the normal power levels that other characters are at. You can knock her off the ledge but she can still recover. You can chase her down but she can still teleport around.

She is lacking holes in her design that other characters have, and that's a problem as other players have had to adjust their characters choices to try and best deal with such a character at tournaments.

 

[MachoCheeze]

What if attacking Luma also meant damaging Rosalina? As in her damage % would increase.

 

[Jaxas]

What if attacking Luma also meant damaging Rosalina? As in her damage % would increase.

I think that could be neat, as long as it was only a relatively small portion of the damage (1/4th or so, at max) as Luma can't block, and if you hit it you can combo it like you can the sandbag; you just have to watch out for a now forced-to-attack Rosalina trying to stop you as a rushdown character.

We see this in high level play, yet many people act as if she is nullified without Luma. She is not, she is just brought closer to the normal power levels that other characters are at. I've seen really smart cool people here argue otherwise, but I don't see it.
She is lacking holes in her design that other characters have, and that's a problem as other players have had to adjust their characters choices to try and best deal with such a character at tournaments.

I do agree with this, however that also means that if people can find a fairly reliable way of getting Luma consistantly dead (unlikely to be constant, but...), then Rosalina is a standard-power character, which can then be fought by normal by Yoshi, for a previously-used example.

The problem definitely being getting Luma gone consistantly against a high-level player, which is really unlikely

 

[Yokoblue]

My point is dealing with luma is not 'dealing with rosalina'. She doesn't care, you bring her down to your level (if that), you don't bring her lower. She loses a buff, but still does not have weaknesses the counteract her moveset strengths. She can avoid you for the 13 seconds to get back luma if she feels she needs it, otherwise she can do just fine because of her moveset alone.

We see this in high level play, yet many people act as if she is nullified without Luma. She is not, she is just brought closer to the normal power levels that other characters are at. I've seen really smart cool people here argue otherwise, but I don't see it.
She is lacking holes in her design that other characters have, and that's a problem as other players have had to adjust their characters choices to try and best deal with such a character at tournaments.

We're not saying that killing luma is the most important thing in the world but it can help a lot. I wouldn't say that without the WiiU nerf but with it, it could become a good aspect of a lot of MU against Rosa.

Dabuz is the only player I've looked in about every tournament he entered since I was maining Rosa for a while.
I know how Dabuz Rosa plays and retreating UP-B with Yoshi and neutral air can really be a threat since they stop her in her aggressiveness and since she's floaty she's easy to do follow up on.

Speaking of that, one of the other weakness that people don't often mention is the inability of Rosalina to get out of combos. Once you have a nice string, it's really hard for her to move away. Yes she has tools in the air and it's probably one of her biggest strength when she is aggro but when she get hit its another story. II think characters with good strings like Fox, Ness and Sheik can really exploit that.

 

[Shaya]

Was Dabuz a sitting duck without Luma? Does she lose her nair, kill throw, lingering hitboxes, attack speed, range, disjoints, recovery, etc without Luma?

No, she doesn't - she keeps all of these things and simply loses some of her strengths. She still has a ton left over though.

Some characters have half of what she has when she's alone, and they don't get to have Luma knocked away because they don't have Luma to begin with.
.

Welcome to top tier characters. They're probably going to exist.
But in Ike's defense. He has much bigger aerials, range, kill power and weight than Rosalina. Ike shrugging off gods with overpowered mind controlled minions is just the destiny of the Radiant Hero

Rosalina's got the faster recovery, ground movespeed and dash attack. Ike definitely a contender for trolling solo-Rosalina.

 

[NAKAT]

Ughhhhhhhh Rosa and Mii Fighter. ...

Congrats though. You made it through two different kinds of jank and came out the victor. That's impressive, and as Fox no less.

I mean, you made it past Brawler's bugged fixed-hitstun up B, and Rosalina's laundry list of strengths without any real weak point to abuse. Watching players beat good Rosalinas can be like watching torture sometimes. Entertaining torture I guess, but it's definitely a different game and not indicative of Competitive Smash overall. Dabuz is definitely a great player though, I'm speaking moreso about Rosalina and her design as a character.

That may be part of why the audience can get bored, since it feels like all they see is Rosalina at times whenever they watch high level play (and Sheik, but she's fast at least and plays at a quicker pace). It can get a little samey after a while for the spectators. You really helped shake things up.

Glad you enjoyed. It was hard. Dabuz is a very strong player behind an extremely strong character.

Congrats to NAKAT.

Ike's custom SideB2 knocks Luma in the air and stuns him until he touches the ground. Don't think custom Ike is going to have many fundamental problems dealing with her.

SAN!????????

 

[Dabuz]

Just saying, hate when people say Rosa is the best in the game, or even top 3. She has like...quite a few bad MUs which I see only getting worse over time. Too bad most people don't take the time to learn her weaknesses (which there are a lot of).

 

[Mota]

Just saying, hate when people say Rosa is the best in the game, or even top 3. She has like...quite a few bad MUs which I see only getting worse over time. Too bad most people don't take the time to learn her weaknesses (which there are a lot of).

I'd like to hear your opinion on what her weaknesses are. Who are her bad MUs. Just quick dot points.

Your text color is really hard to read on Samshboards Dark

 

[Dabuz]

Losing momentum, characters who can apply pressure on her and prevent her from being aggressive...so pretty much Fox, Sheik, Pika, Sonic, ect. give her a hard time.

Edit: I honestly don't see her even being top tier in a year or so considering she's getting nerfed in a way which makes her weakness even more exploitable.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Assuming the crying about Rosalina was in fact successful, we should start crying about Sonic. THAT will make the game better, frankly. Sonic being competitive is just the worst thing ever, and I'd be ready to argue him as the best character overall (especially with what I hear about Hammer Spin Dash).

Still mad as **** about puppeteer characters and their obnoxious almost binary balance levers. Even if Rosalina is fundamentally not quite as stupid as other real puppeteers in fighting games.

 

[Espy Rose]

You have zero idea what you're talking about as far as Sonic is concerned.

 

[YeahVeryeah]

A2: Sonic is unhealthy for the game. He should be nerfed.

Sonic Main: No he shouldn't you don't know anything.


Now, the only thing I know about sonic is its really fun to hop around with ->B with speed equipment, so I won't add my .02 to that. However, Espy, A2 has said stuff about why Sonic bad for game. You... just denying what his saying. I'm not saying he's right about sonic's balance, but he's definitely going to win over the echo chamber's hearts if you're all he's arguing with.

 

[Espy Rose]

I do it because I've had to do this song and dance a million times.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Well, explain yourself. I'm actually kinda curious about Sonic and you seem to be the only main of his for miles.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Luco]

You have zero idea what you're talking about as far as Sonic is concerned.

Play nice, Espy.

I don't see Sonic as being the best in the game, not above Sheik, not above ZSS. He is scarily aggressive, but I think he has various difficult top tier match-ups including diddy and possibly ZSS.

... Not that I pretend to know much about it, so more insight on him would be appreciated.

 

[X3I]

What do you guys think about Game & Watch ? He seems pretty good in this game but his forum is dead and no one talks about him here...

- He has an overall strong mobility (one of the best dash/foxtrot in the game) ;
- Fast Jab (I think it has 3 frames of start-up), it's powerful to break a potential combo and it also destroys some projectiles ;
- DA is fast and has a very short recovery, so it's nice to approach. You can combo it 3 times at the beginning of a match ;
- Ftilt is broken (especially in pivot) and almost outpriorities everything. One of his best move, that closes some match-ups ;
- Dtilt and Uair can steal jumps and recovery somewhat easily, allowing a fatal blow or a Judgement during the free fall ;
- Nair is an excellent combo starter and a shield breaker. You can combo it with Utilt, Nair or UpB when it hits ;
- Fair is awesome to chase, kill, and has a very low recovery. It's a disjoincted hitbox too, like most of his move ;
- Dair is amazing in air-to-air and can also be used to edgeguard, or on a platform to hit downward. Though, it's unsafe on block ;
- Bair is still very usefull to zone and on block (shield breaker, disjoincted hitbox, nice damage and knockback...) ;
- All his smashes are safe in block, quick, kill early on sweespots, and the Usmash has upper invincibility on some frames ;
- These invincibility frames on the Usmash allow you to punish an air approach with it really easily, for strong damages ;
- UpB is one of the best move in this game. It's quick, goes high, permits combos, is safe, and add mobility... I love to spam it ;
- Do I really have to explain why Bucket is awesome for a lot of match-ups? Even absorbs explosions now, and can fill instantly ;
- Chief is kind of great to edgeguard and to prevent some air approaches... even though a lot of projectiles are better ;
- Judgement is almost guaranted after a Dthrow, so if you are lucky, you can steal a stock easily (which is funny :3) ;
- This Dthrow is by the way godlike, and allows a lot of combo (Nair, UpB, Judgement, Bucket...) ;
- Good customs, especially Giant Chief to edgeguard and the Hard UpB to combo/kill/play faster.

To resume:
- Strong mobility (Dash, Foxtrot, UpB) ;
- Strong quick attacks (Jab, Nair, UpB) ;
- Strong combos (Utilt, Nair, Fair, UpB)
- Strong footsies (Dash Attack, Ftilt, Usmash) ;
- Strong air-to-air (Uair, Nair, Bair, Dair, Fair) ;
- Strong zonning/pokes (Chief, Bucket, Fair, Nair, Bair) ;
- Strong edgeguard (Dtilt, Dair, Fair, Chief, UpB) ;
- Strong kill moves (Smashes, Judgement, Bucket) ;
- Strong throw (which gives you 1/9 chance to kill).

"Hit & Run" is what describes him the best. You have to abuse of his mobility and of his defensive options. Especially Ftilt and UpB.

He seriously counters a lot of "potential top tier", like Lucario, Rosalina, Sheik... And seems to only have trouble against swordmen (such as Marth or Lucina). He's light too, so you can't do a lot of mistakes...

Well, I think he is good in this game.

 

[Nabbitnator]

Welcome to top tier characters. They're probably going to exist.
But in Ike's defense. He has much bigger aerials, range, kill power and weight than Rosalina. Ike shrugging off gods with overpowered mind controlled minions is just the destiny of the Radiant Hero

Rosalina's got the faster recovery, ground movespeed and dash attack. Ike definitely a contender for trolling solo-Rosalina.

Isnt she even faster when she fox trots as well?

 

[Thinkaman]

I think there's enough patch and Little Mac speculation here for me to cross-post Sakurai's article. However, if you want to discuss it, I suggest you go to a patch thread.

"average and mediocrity are almost the same"

Patch to adjust the balance of the game "Super Smash Bros. for 3DS / Wii U" will be distributed in around mid-November. Until now, when I completed a Smash Bros game, there was no further development after that. But that makes it impossible for the game to be played for years. This time We have a mechanism of patch delivery. So, We decided to do a balance adjustment before November 21 when the Wii U version will be sold in North America. But there is a problem about this. You can't play online between a hardware that is patched and one that is not patched.

On the Wii U version, there's no problem because it updates automatically if connected to the Internet and the gameplay between more than 2 devices is limited to online. On the Nintendo 3DS Version, however, there are some people who are not connected to the Online, and hardwares that are patched and ones that are not patched will likely be mixed. On the other hand, We can't afford to separate the balance of the 3ds version from that of the Wii U version...

We have a tutorial on how to update the game on the official Smash Bros website. It's definitely necessary, so I'd like you to download it. If any of your friends are in trouble with doing it, please help them. I'll explain how we adjust the gameplay balance. Firstly, a monitor team assembles information and do practices multidirectionally. Specifically, researching the results, KOs, and trendy tactics in online matches. Next, I get the team to make a proposal about the balance adjustment. I also ask them to consider that killing fighters' advantages and getting rid of their disadvantages too much spoils the fun.

In response to the proposal, I adjust the balance. If that proposal is too difficult to be dealt with a patch, or spoils the fun, I pass it up and use another proposal. After a test play of the monitor team, the patch contents will be confirmed. We can actually see the results of the online matches. The winning percentage of respective fighters can be checked. It's comprehensive data of the global matches, which is deadly accurate.

Of course we can't publish this data, but I can tell you one thing. In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the winning percentage of all fighters lines up in a stepwise manner. but this time, there's someone with the lowest percentage of all fighters by an overwhelming margin. It's "Little Mac". His advantages and disadvantages are both extremes. Although he has a high-performance dodge and a megaton punch that dominates everyone, his jump ability is quite low. A simple back throw + an aerial pursuit can be fatal for him.

But those who have a lot of experience in online matches will probably feel strange about this. I think most of you consider him rather powerful. His low winning percentage is most likely due to the fact that those who think "Little Mac is too powerful!" play as him and get beaten up. A lot of people use him because there's an impression out there that he's dominating all the time, but that doesn't mean you can win easily when you play as him. This phenomenon might be ideal. I have often featured in my column that I regard dynamic range as important. But I also suggest that it's not right to look at things only based on the results in online matches. I believe that taking the average of fighters performance is a bad move in the game.

Source: Famitsu scan via http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/632937-super-smash-bros-for-nintendo-3ds/70561893

 

[Freezie KO]

I'm glad I'm not alone in my frustration with Sonic's character design. Fighting that character feels more like an overly tedious test of my patience rather than a true showing of my skill.

Has nothing to do with him being a good character. I can deal with Rosaluma/ZSS/Yoshi/Diddy's shenanigans just fine and I've beaten plenty of Sonics. However, at the end of the day I'm playing Smash 4 to have fun. Fighting against Sonic just isn't fun for me.

Agree with this. Playing against Sonic and campy no-risk Sheiks just isn't fun for me. Rosa is S-tier, but I'd gladly play against her instead of Sonic or Sheik.

 

[kid craft 24/sonic master]

What a lot of people don't understand about sonic is easy it is to punish his approach options or simple beat them outright. His spin attacks require much more commitment this time especially given that he loses his ability to double jump when using a spin attack from the air. His spin attacks can also just be clashed with or beaten out by most characters jabs due to the fact that the amount of damage he does off spin dashes was nerfed. When you looks at sonic overall it's not the character that's inherently good it's the game engine that's benefited sonic. The increase in hitstun, the way ledges and dodging works, alongside some small buffs like a meteor smash on dair and auto snapping the ledge with up B as long as he is facing the ledge, as well as some buffs in KO power in certain attacks(particularly his smashes and his bair). Many people still forget that sonic can be cypher gimped like snake could in brawl still if he doesn't grab the ledge (this also applies to megaman), which is something that can be done quite often given our up-b doesn't travel as high as it used to alongside how we can only use our neutral B - Homing Attack once and if we miss, we plummet hard with little time to recover.

Whenever i see people complaining about sonic it' not because he is overwhelmingly good, it's that the opponent just can't recognize his attack patterns, or seem to react to his approach options which is isn't something you should attribute to sonic being OP. As i've said man times to many people, he feels like a bottom high tier/ top mid tier character at best.

 

[Judo777]

Best recoveries in this game:



These characters almost certainly messed up if they actually got hit offstage.

Best edgeguarding? Most likely

Really surprised Sheik isn't on that list, her recovery seems insanely good.

 

[deepseadiva]

Wow I am actually very impressed by his mention of "dynamic range". Little Mac is definitely the most well designed character in Smash history.

Peach second.

And then Marth.

 

[KenMeister]

To be honest, Little Mac having the lowest win margin doesn't surprise me. If anything, I kinda saw it coming, what with the amount of scrubby Macs I've seen in proportion to anyone else (and then there's the occasional smart one, which is 20% of the time for me). I've probably JV 3 stocked more Little Macs than I can count, let alone just finishing them off in less than a minute. lol

 

[Terotrous]

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.

This is what I've been saying for quite a while. The problem with Rosalina is that Solo Rosalina is a mostly fine character. As a puppet character, effective use of Luma should make her really strong, but with Luma used ineffectively or dead she should be the worst character in the game and she's clearly not. Giving her the strong advantages of having a puppet without a serious drawback is going to make her very OP.

 

[KenMeister]

This is what I've been saying for quite a while. The problem with Rosalina is that Solo Rosalina is a mostly fine character. As a puppet character, effective use of Luma should make her really strong, but with Luma used ineffectively or dead she should be the worst character in the game and she's clearly not. Giving her the strong advantages of having a puppet without a serious drawback is going to make her very OP.

I think the saddest reality of this is that if you look at the Paletuna/ Pit (they have a youtube video somewhere of it) commentary on her, they specifically state that she's alright even without Luma. So it's like Sakurai actually knew about this, and thought nothing of how disproportionally stupid it is. Weaknesses, what's that?

 

[Terotrous]

I think the saddest reality of this is that if you look at the Paletuna/ Pit (they have a youtube video somewhere of it) commentary on her, they specifically state that she's alright even without Luma. So it's like Sakurai actually knew about this, and thought nothing of how disproportionally stupid it is. Weaknesses, what's that?

I'm pretty sure accessibility was the goal here. If you had to do smart things with Luma for Rosalina to be viable, a lot of people who like the character probably wouldn't be able to play her. The Ice Climbers are much more like what a puppet character should be (Sopo is a ridiculously terrible character), but it's not like anyone cared about them as a character before Melee so it was okay for them to be a character that only pros could use well.

If that is indeed the goal of Rosalina (for her to be an easy-to-use puppet character), the answer is probably to make it so that Luma only attacks when Rosalina attacks, and can't do anything if Rosalina is not in a position where she can attack (ie, shielding, grabbed, being hit, dying, in the middle of a move, etc). I feel this would make her much less interesting as a character, but what competitive players find interesting probably wasn't their priority.

 

[X3I]

Rosalina, Rosalina...
Game & Watch, guys ! :'(

 

[Terotrous]

Rosalina, Rosalina...
Game & Watch, guys ! :'(

If only you could bucket Luma. That'd be so hilarious.

 

[A2ZOMG]

You have zero idea what you're talking about as far as Sonic is concerned.

You also do realize I'm being somewhat facetious right? Otherwise I wouldn't have brought up Rosalina's situation to compare.

By all means, please argue why Sonic shouldn't be nerfed. I want to hear the opinion of one of the best Brawl Sonic mains before we start getting super emotional. Because clearly, we don't want knee jerk reaction balance changes from Nintendo. Not saying that's ACTUALLY the intention of Rosalina's nerf, only suggesting there is a possibility that it could be that way.

Really surprised Sheik isn't on that list, her recovery seems insanely good.

It's very good at short distances...you can't do as much against characters that don't fear jumping out really deep.

 

[KenMeister]

I'm pretty sure accessibility was the goal here. If you had to do smart things with Luma for Rosalina to be viable, a lot of people who like the character probably wouldn't be able to play her. The Ice Climbers are much more like what a puppet character should be (Sopo is a ridiculously terrible character), but it's not like anyone cared about them as a character before Melee so it was okay for them to be a character that only pros could use well.

If that is indeed the goal of Rosalina (for her to be an easy-to-use puppet character), the answer is probably to make it so that Luma only attacks when Rosalina attacks, and can't do anything if Rosalina is not in a position where she can attack (ie, shielding, grabbed, being hit, dying, in the middle of a move, etc). I feel this would make her much less interesting as a character, but what competitive players find interesting probably wasn't their priority.

I highly doubt accessibility was the priority here, even Sakurai goes out of his way to make complex characters that take time to understand to do well with, look at Shulk for example. I remember he even said something similar about Ness in Brawl, being that character you needed to put time into to do well with (though past history has shown us that he doesn't always implement that idea well). Even though Sakurai aims for accessibility for everyone, that doesn't necessarily prevent him from making characters with intentionally higher learning curves, even from a designer's standpoint.

 

[Terotrous]

I highly doubt accessibility was the priority here, even Sakurai goes out of his way to make complex characters that take time to understand to do well with, look at Shulk for example. I remember he even said something similar about Ness in Brawl.

Yeah but look at the two characters you just named. They're both characters from obscure RPGs that were only known to hardcore gamers. There definitely seems to be a correlation between how well known a character is, and how easy they are to use. I don't think it's a coincidence at all that Mario and Pikachu tend to be two of the easiest characters to learn.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Yeah but look at the two characters you just named. They're both characters from obscure RPGs that were only known to hardcore gamers. There definitely seems to be a correlation between how well known a character is, and how easy they are to use. I don't think it's a coincidence at all that Mario and Pikachu tend to be two of the easiest characters to learn.

Mega Man? He seems pretty hard to use, or at least wildly different.

 

[Rockaphin]

Agreed, but what about their recovery? Villager has interesting options, but they're certainly not at the same level as Lucario, Palutena or Zelda.

Yeah I don't think he's the best when it comes to edge guarding, but he can heavily counter specific characters with the bowling ball.

If only you could bucket Luma. That'd be so hilarious.

Pocketing Luma would be hilarious as well. lolz

 

[Terotrous]

Mega Man? He seems pretty hard to use, or at least wildly different.

I don't think that's really a counterexample. Sure, Megaman was really mainstream on NES, but over time his franchise started to become more niche (and if you were a fan of Megaman on NES you've been gaming for at least 20 years). I wouldn't consider something like Megaman Zero or Battle Network to be all that much more prominent than something like F-Zero or Fire Emblem (and note that those characters are a bit more technical than the likes of Mario and Pikachu, as well).

 

[Flamecircle]

You also do realize I'm being somewhat facetious right? Otherwise I wouldn't have brought up Rosalina's situation to compare.

By all means, please argue why Sonic shouldn't be nerfed. I want to hear the opinion of one of the best Brawl Sonic mains before we start getting super emotional. Because clearly, we don't want knee jerk reaction balance changes from Nintendo. Not saying that's ACTUALLY the intention of Rosalina's nerf, only suggesting there is a possibility that it could be that way.

It's very good at short distances...you can't do as much against characters that don't fear jumping out really deep.

Not him, but looking at Blue play Sonic at tourneys, I'm seeing just a better brawl sonic, which seems like a pointless statement, but bear with me.

He's better in that his spin dash makes him much better at getting damage in this game safely, but it's completely shut down by just shielding. Of course you fear the running grab, but from a neutral position the spin dash is shieldable on reaction, so you're not just waiting in shield. Spin dash has very strong mixups, but at the end of the day it's all blockable. After each dash, Sonic isn't perfectly open to a punish, but I'd say in the air near the opponent isn't a great position. It can be mixed into UpB, but that's also a disadvantageous position. And even when he does hit, the spindash doesn't go into backair particularly well, so it's not a very effective kill string.

So while Sonic gets in ridiculously easy, it's not a perfect option select- your choices are limited. I think its sort of like how easy shiek can get damage- easy shield pressure and light combos.

Sonic is the same in that he struggles with the kill, outside of a clean bair. You see blue fishing for Fsmashes a great deal, which stops working when he gets further in the bracket.

So in short, Sonic's gameplan feels a lot like Shiek's, only Sonic has a safer time getting damage and a harder time getting the kill (no fish)

But this is armchair analysis. If sonic has other decent kill options, feel free to correct me.