Character Competitive Impressions

[A2ZOMG]

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.



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

Btw, Sakurai is a ****ing genius. We need more people like him as game designers, hell it's only mildly upsetting he doesn't have the time to be a community pillar. As much as I get salty over Melee and Brawl, I have to give the man some real credit. This guy's imagination and insight are unreal and he makes AMAZING games. Is there a book about this guy? Because he probably deserves one if he didn't write one already.

Though at any rate, I don't think most people browsing this thread are probably surprised that Little Mac's win ratio is extremely low on For Glory, especially due to overusage.

On the topic of Mega Man, I'd say using him competitively is actually pretty tricky because item tossing is both the best and most complicated attack in the game, and making full use of Mega Man requires you having really good control over Metal Blades.

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.

So while Sonic gets in ridiculously easy, it's not a perfect thing. Sort of like how easy shiek can get damage.

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.

Sonic unlike Sheik has a moderately powerful KO throw, and it's worth noting his KO setups from throws are generally a lot better in this game. His trap potential from say U-throw is some of the strongest in the game due to hitstun and DI changes making it much harder and riskier to escape from his followups. That's a fairly easy way to trap people into something like U-air, which in that position can KO people relatively early.

Other things that I really dislike on Sonic are the range on his F-tilt (it's excessive for seemingly no reason) and just how much respect you're forced to give his F-smash, not because the move itself is that reliable, but just because of the way you're forced to position against Sonic due to his insane runspeed destroying the concept of conventional spacing, not to mention the move also having a lot of leanback. It allows Sonic to get away with almost randomly throwing F-smash when on a potential threat basis it's really awkward to get in position to punish it, even though the move is not that fast.

 

[Flamecircle]

it's right above look up

Sheik has the same kill setup, and her uair is a very strong kill move.

I think you're a little excessively against sonic, though. His runspeed is dangerous, but Fsmash is hardly a strong threat. His Fsmash is hard to punish, but it's also incredibly hard to hit with. It has pretty high startup compared to its range- almost as bad as Samus' Fsmash, really.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Sheik has the same kill setup, and her uair is a very strong kill move.

I think you're a little excessively against sonic, though. His runspeed is dangerous, but Fsmash is hardly a strong threat. His Fsmash is hard to punish, but it's also incredibly hard to hit with. It has pretty high startup compared to its range- almost as bad as Samus' Fsmash, really.

You certain this works when DIing away from Sheik? Unless I'm mistaken, it's only really easy for her to set up into F-air out of throw, and then after that, she wouldn't be able to land a clean hit from U-air assuming airdodge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtqPHo0UZv8&t=12m49s

Most of the times Sheik lands U-air in that set are after F-tilt which didn't get DIed, so I don't think her throw setups are as good as you are suggesting.

In contrast the position Sonic puts you with U-throw is less affected by DI, making it the stronger setup throw.

 

[DanGR]

I don't know whether it's because of 3ds shenanigans, a lack of rosalina knowledge, lag, or what, but Nakat made a lot of the same mistakes consistently with fox and didn't capitalize on dabuz's mistakes over and over. If we're going to talk about those sets at all as they relate to rosalina's viability, which I think is kinda silly considering the 3ds' limitations and how that affects matchups against rosalina, understand that those matches weren't exactly telling of a matchup played evenly. Rosalina is way easier to use correctly on the 3ds too, while the counterplay is limited. You guys are jumping the gun.

 

[Conda]

Sheik has the same kill setup, and her uair is a very strong kill move.

I think you're a little excessively against sonic, though. His runspeed is dangerous, but Fsmash is hardly a strong threat. His Fsmash is hard to punish, but it's also incredibly hard to hit with. It has pretty high startup compared to its range- almost as bad as Samus' Fsmash, really.

If Sonics fsmash is 'incredibly hard to hit with', then nearly everyone's is. His fsmash is great. He doesn't have kill issue drawbacks, which a character with his strengths should have something equivalent too. It's another, albeit less extreme IMO, case of strengths without proportionate weaknesses. Compare Samus or Kirby to Sonic and Rosa, and you'll see the former two have a ridiculous amount of setbacks that counteract their few strengths (which is the norm in smash), meanwhile the latter two don't to the same extent.

 

[Thinkaman]

If Sonics fsmash is 'incredibly hard to hit with', then nearly everyone's is.

I'm inclined to agree. Sonic f-smash is only difficult to land in comparison to the rest of his moveset.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Sonic's fsmash is absolutely ridiculous.

 

[Dabuz]

I don't know whether it's because of 3ds shenanigans, a lack of rosalina knowledge, lag, or what, but Nakat made a lot of the same mistakes consistently with fox and didn't capitalize on dabuz's mistakes over and over. If we're going to talk about those sets at all as they relate to rosalina's viability, which I think is kinda silly considering the 3ds' limitations and how that affects matchups against rosalina, understand that those matches weren't exactly telling of a matchup played evenly. Rosalina is way easier to use correctly on the 3ds too, while the counterplay is limited. You guys are jumping the gun.

Nah, Rosa is easier to use on a controller, gives her a few more important options just by having a cstick.

 

[Lenus Altair]

Nah, Rosa is easier to use on a controller, gives her a few more important options just by having a cstick.

EVERYONE gets better and gains options with the use of a GC controller. The question is, who gains the most/more relevant options.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Gonna chime in and say Fox is gonna be loads more hype on that GC controller. Added precision, it will just make him that much better. I won't make estimations about the rest of the cast (Fastfalling short hopped Uairs will help my game with Doc) but I think Fox is gonna reap some good benefits from being on the GC controller.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

How come sonic speed gets his praise, Falcons speed occasionally discussed,lightweight gets paletuna valued. Shulk's speed recieves zero input other then a quick comparison to lightweight by Shaya.

All im saying if were talking the benefits of speed for mix-ups, punishes, traps,etc.
There is a swordsman who can operate in the top echelons for 7/15/20s.

 

[Lenus Altair]

How come sonic speed gets his praise, Falcons speed occasionally discussed,lightweight gets paletuna valued. Shulk's speed recieves zero input other then a quick comparison to lightweight by Shaya.

All im saying if were talking the benefits of speed for mix-ups, punishes, traps,etc.
There is a swordsman who can operate in the top echelons for 7/15/20s.

Maybe people jus't aren't really feeling it.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

http://mynintendonews.com/2014/11/1...in-smash-bros-nintendo-3ds-characters-online/

Well look at that.

 

[Conda]

How come sonic speed gets his praise, Falcons speed occasionally discussed,lightweight gets paletuna valued. Shulk's speed recieves zero input other then a quick comparison to lightweight by Shaya.

All im saying if were talking the benefits of speed for mix-ups, punishes, traps,etc.
There is a swordsman who can operate in the top echelons for 7/15/20s.

Good topic. Shulk has proven to be pretty flexible with not as much landing lag as we first felt, and can be quick at attacking if he sticks to certain moves (similar to Ike). Shulk is definitely a speed demon too, but the difference is he doesn't get much out of his grabs, and thus he isn't rewarded for speedy grabs as much as other speedy characters. He also doesn't have as much in the combo department.

 

[Terotrous]

Most people seem to think that Jump Shulk is more offensively dangerous than Speed Shulk, since he usually wants to be approaching with aerials rather than grounded normals. Jump also allows him to do longer combos if he does get a hit.

 

[Tagxy]

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.

I think this could be true, Im not sure who the other contenders are though. Im going into the lab once the wii U hits with pikachus offstage game. Virtually every aspect of his offstage game was enhanced and I can't even think of anything that was nerfed. He could end up quite ridic offstage. Obv too early to tell, but even the "good recovery" characters seem vulnerable.

Late edit: I think pikachu could end up doing well vs rosalina. Obv still early etc. Also not sure why people complain about transcendent priority, it was a big deal with MK because he had a long sword that came out fast.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Good topic. Shulk has proven to be pretty flexible with not as much landing lag as we first felt, and can be quick at attacking if he sticks to certain moves (similar to Ike). Shulk is definitely a speed demon too, but the difference is he doesn't get much out of his grabs, and thus he isn't rewarded for speedy grabs as much as other speedy characters. He also doesn't have as much in the combo department.

Shulk is absolutely rewarded for grabs in Default Speed and Hyper Speed because a grab leads them offstage, these two monado versions can hot swap to Jump/Smash and get the edgeguard at rather low %s especially Speed -hyper smash - Fair/airslash

In decisive he doesnt get the same off-stage presence with speed as the other modes but has less downtime on his speed and is faster then default Speed.
There is no guarantee out of a throw but they enable juggles because of his mobility.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Shulk's weird. Gets more reward from an advantaged position than most other characters. Has better tools to get out of disadvantaged positions than most other character. But he really lacks a solid B&B option in neutral because everything he has is situational. Whether Shulk will end up being a good character or not will depend on how his players deal with the "situational" part of the story.

 

[NAKAT]

@ 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

Talking to Mew2king right now who is also declaring Mario to be a good character. He isn't the first amongst other top level players to agree with this.

 

[Conda]

Shulk's weird. Gets more reward from an advantaged position than most other characters. Has better tools to get out of disadvantaged positions than most other character. But he really lacks a solid B&B option in neutral because everything he has is situational. Whether Shulk will end up being a good character or not will depend on how his players deal with the "situational" part of the story.

Regarding neutral and only neutral:

Currently his meta revolves around playing like Ike in neutral. Nair approaches, jabs if close, some tilts, and many grabs. It's working for him which is good, but it is as two dimensional as Ike.

However, Shulk can chase and do a lot of other things, so he's more of a sandbox character in that way. You just have to feel out your strings and be aggressive, or else you'll lose momentum and have to revert to neutral. And his general sluggishness and limited options in neutral put him in a 'meh' position. At least that's how I feel so far, Ike is the same way.

The two are nothing alike otherwise of course, it's just the coverage/lowlag nair, quick jab, and focus on grabs that makes them play similar in neutral.

 

[Emblem Lord]

M2K also said Sheik was average.

Food for thought.

But if it turns out to be true then hey im happy for mario players.

 

[Flamecircle]

I suppose I could see that Sonic's smash could be 'ridiculous' in terms of difficulty to punish whiffed ones. Same with LM and Rosalina's dsmashes, just shorter.

 

[Terotrous]

Doesn't M2K have a history of making some really strange statements about tierlists? I seem to recall him declaring Ivysaur to be god tier in PM because he lost to an Ivysaur player or something like that.

 

[Jabejazz]

Or when he lost to a Brawl Samus player in Japan and said she was super strong.

Or when he lost to Earth's Pit and said he was at least high tier.

Or...

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Regarding neutral and only neutral:

Currently his meta revolves around playing like Ike in neutral. Nair approaches, jabs if close, some tilts, and many grabs. It's working for him which is good, but it is as two dimensional as Ike.

However, Shulk can chase and do a lot of other things, so he's more of a sandbox character in that way. You just have to feel out your strings and be aggressive, or else you'll lose momentum and have to revert to neutral. And his general sluggishness and limited options in neutral put him in a 'meh' position. At least that's how I feel so far, Ike is the same way.

The two are nothing alike otherwise of course, it's just the coverage/lowlag nair, quick jab, and focus on grabs that makes them play similar in neutral.

Recall Default/hyper have the option of M-canceling an approach such as b-air/fair. While you did say current meta something to consider is Shulks walk speed in monado Speed being akin to a few dashes. Allowing him to technically keep tilts avaolable while still outpacing members of the roster. If im not mistaken default Speed is around kirbys dash.

His approaches will probably broaden

edit on test his walk speed im almost 100% is faster then Kirbys dash, slower than marths dash though. Probably hovering around Pit which is enough to out speed half the casts dashes in a walk.

 

[Conda]

Recall Default/hyper have the option of M-canceling an approach such as b-air/fair. While you did say current meta something to consider is Shulks walk speed in monado Speed being akin to a few dashes. Allowing him to technically keep tilts avaolable while still outpacing members of the roster. If im not mistaken default Speed is around kirbys dash.

His approaches will probably broaden

Yeah precisely, that's why I said 'current meta' but you caught that. Good reading haha. Shulk's definitely an interesting character due to these possibilities.

 

[Sinister Slush]

I wouldn't trust every single word a top player gushes about.

 

[ROOOOY!]

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

I'd like to re-iterate this point.
Also;
- fsmash is average
- his CQC is ****
- his custom specials are pointless and at best a gimmick

 

[Conda]

I wouldn't trust every single word a top player gushes about.

We shouldn't toss them away just because it makes us feel better than them though. Take their comments the same way you'd consider the comments of posters on this forum. This isn't a place top-level players are interviewed or anything, they're just posting amongst other players. Let them, and don't grill them.

I'm tired of people talking about M2K and other players like they are stupid just because they were wrong about things they said. We all have been. I've been for sure. But I want to be free to say things and be disproven and live and learn. You wouldn't want people to come in and crap over a statement you say just because you said something last year that was incorrect.

We're just giving some top-level players a tabloid celebrity treatment and holding them to their every word, as if they have to be right allll the time. It's like how we demand politically correct talk from our politicians 100% of the time, and if they slip up, then we dislike them.

It's silly. Ease up y'all, we're in this together to learn and figure things out. Let each other speak off the cuff and don't be weird about it.


Anyways, back on topic.

 

[Jabejazz]

I'm tired of people talking about M2K and other players like they are stupid just because he was wrong about things he said. We all have been. I've been for sure. But I want to be free to say things and be disproven and live and learn.

It's all in good fun. Take it with a grain of salt the same way we take their claims. I don't think anybody means harm here.

We're just giving some top-level players a tabloid celebrity treatment and holding them to their every word. Same thing we did to NAKAT earlier in this thread. Ease up y'all, we're in this together to learn and figure things out. Let each other be wrong sometimes and don't be weird about it.

Still, some substance about the claim other than "I'm a really good player." always help if we want the discussion to go somewhere.

I'd like to re-iterate this point.

- fsmash is average, although nigh unpunishable
- his CQC is **** but he doesn't play the footsies game so who cares. also ftilt outranges dimensions nbd
- I don't know what Hammer Spin Dash is, other customs aren't particularly great though

I agree 100%

 

[Conda]

It's all in good fun. Take it with a grain of salt the same way we take their claims. I don't think anybody means harm here.



Still, some substance about the claim other than "I'm a really good player." always help if we want the discussion to go somewhere.



I agree 100%

I agree, we're seeing eye to eye.

 

[Terotrous]

I'm tired of people talking about M2K and other players like they are stupid just because they were wrong about things they said. We all have been.

That's just it. M2K may be super good at Smash, but he's still human and just as susceptible to being wrong about tiers as the rest of us. I agree in that I think Mario is pretty decent, but just because one person says so doesn't make it so. It's going to have to be proven by tournament results.

 

[The Real Gamer]

I personally think it's funny how the "higher tier" mains are always downplaying their characters.

"Rosaluma struggles against rushdown."
"Sheik can't kill."
"Lucario sucks without Aura."
"Just shield Sonics spindash."

Not saying they're wrong but I don't understand how saying something simple like "Sonic's F Smash is average" is enough information to change anyone's mind on the character's strengths.

 

[Conda]

I personally think it's funny how the "higher tier" mains are always downplaying their characters.

"Rosaluma struggles against rushdown."
"Sheik can't kill."
"Lucario sucks without Aura."
"Just shield Sonics spindash."

Not saying they're wrong but I don't understand how saying something simple like "Sonic's F Smash is average" is enough information to change anyone's mind on the character's strengths.

Agreed haha. Rosa players focus on telling us to simply get rid of Luma and everything will be gravy. But they forget to realise that, by getting rid of Luma, you are simply bringing Rosalina to the same power level as everyone else for a while. Not weaker, like with the Ice Climbers or Olimar without Pikmin, but on the same normal power level.

That's the problem - she shouldn't simply be "less effective than usual" without Luma, she should be less effective in the way ICs and Olimar are without their puppets.

Countering her simply means turning off her buffs, and leaving her as a normal character like Sheik or Greninja for a while. And then she gets her buff back. Shulk has to deal with drawbacks in his mechanic, but Rosalina doesn't. That's the issue. And she has disjoints, kill throws, range, attack speed, and other stuff that even normal characters don't have in unison.

It's similar for Sonic. His spindash is a thing he uses, but dealing with his spindash is NOT dealing with sonic. Dealing with Sheik's rushdown is NOT dealing with sheik. But they at least have some drawbacks in their design. Sonic less so, he has everying like Rosa, but at least he's not disjointed which is basically the only things you can try and take advantage of.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

"Flare blitz damages Zard"

 

[Terotrous]

Agreed haha. Rosa players focus on telling us to simply get rid of Luma and everything will be gravy.

It's actually just bait to get you to commit to hitting Luma so they can punish.

"Oh look at me, I am so helpless without my poor Luma! Please don't attack him heh heh heh".

 

[ROOOOY!]

Not saying they're wrong but I don't understand how saying something simple like "Sonic's F Smash is average" is enough information to change anyone's mind on the character's strengths.

I only mentioned fsmash because everybody is raving about it despite it having mediocre range and pretty poor startup time. Most of the arguments on why characters are good are as equally as threadbare. I haven't seen anything about Sonic except 'I can't punish him ;_;'.

 

[Espy Rose]

After reading the last page, I'm unsubbing from here. No amount of explaining will change anything.

 

[NairWizard]

I personally think it's funny how the "higher tier" mains are always downplaying their characters.

"Rosaluma struggles against rushdown."
"Sheik can't kill."
"Lucario sucks without Aura."
"Just shield Sonics spindash."

Not saying they're wrong but I don't understand how saying something simple like "Sonic's F Smash is average" is enough information to change anyone's mind on the character's strengths.

It's easier to see the weaknesses of a character when you play *as* that character and realize that, hey, everything isn't so easy as you thought it would be; there are some areas in which you will struggle and have to work harder than your opponent. It's not about downplaying your character to make your character not look top tier; it's about trying to convey the obstacles that a character has to success. The best Rosalina, Sheik, Lucario, and Sheik players don't get to be the best for free just by using their characters: they need to put in nearly as much work as the people that they are beating.

oh, and Lucario really does suck without Aura. Character is unusable until 50% or more. Any trade he makes ends unfavorably for him, his range is terrible, he has to watch out for gimps, and don't even think about landing a comeback kill after losing a stock. I don't understand the problem with Lucario's design. I think he's one of the fairest characters in the game and very well designed. He's high-risk high-reward, kind of like Little Mac, and high-risk high-reward is a legitimate playstyle, just not a very consistent one for tournaments.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Interestingly as a Doc player I don't have to shield Sonic's spindash, I can just Down-B and I think it actually beats it! (Gotta do extra testing)