Character Competitive Impressions

[Shaya]

Rage + Kill throws is the dumbest thing to brace this game.
Seeing Denti die to a stale sonic back throw at 95% from like almost centre stage... ughhhhhhhhhh

 

[mountain_tiger]

Rage + Kill throws is the dumbest thing to brace this game.
Seeing Denti die to a stale sonic back throw at 95% from like almost centre stage... ughhhhhhhhhh

Rage in general was a terrible idea.

Though kill throws are fine IMO, since grabs generally have poor range compared to most attacks.

 

[Jabejazz]

@ Nabbitnator I guess in this case "bad" is a relative term.

Nobody in this game is like Melee Kirby or Brawl Ganondorf, really. Most everyone can do SOMETHING right, it's really more a matter of "The other characters are just BETTER", perse.

When is bad not a relative term though?
A character is bad compared to the rest of the cast. Brawl Ganondorf in a roster containing only himself wouldn't be bad. If you have nothing else to base yourself on, you cannot claim that the character is bad, or even good, for that matter. That's why characters like Mario, Luigi, Doc, Swordfighter, TripleD, etc. are qualified as bad. When looking at the whole picture, there are much better options out there. This doesn't mean that the bad options are unusable, they're just worse.

Rage + Kill throws is the dumbest thing to brace this game.
Seeing Denti die to a stale sonic back throw at 95% from like almost centre stage... ughhhhhhhhhh

Amen to that. I play a Ness main regularly, and he has this amazing habit of just yelling "DEAD" whenever he gets a grab on me at ~100%. Before he even lands the throw, he's fully aware of the incredible amount of bull**** this BThrow yields.

I swear I'm having nightmares now.

 

[HeroMystic]

Rage in general was a terrible idea.

Though kill throws are fine IMO, since grabs generally have poor range compared to most attacks.

The problem is shield-grabbing make this a low-risk high-reward type of deal.

Grabs have always been prominent in all smash games with the exception of Smash64. But I never seen this a good thing.

 

[Nobie]

When is bad not a relative term though?
A character is bad compared to the rest of the cast. Brawl Ganondorf in a roster containing only himself wouldn't be bad. If you have nothing else to base yourself on, you cannot claim that the character is bad. That's why characters like Mario, Luigi, Doc, Swordfighter, TripleD, etc. are qualified as bad. When looking at the whole picture, there are much better options out there. This doesn't mean that the bad options are unusable, they're just worse.



Amen to that. I play a Ness main regularly, and he has this amazing habit of just yelling "DEAD" whenever he gets a grab on me at ~100%. Before he even lands the throw, he's fully aware of the incredible amount of bull**** this BThrow yields.

I swear I'm having nightmares now.

There are inevitabally going to be better and worse characters, but the degree of separation between those characters is a significant factor, if only because having a fighting chance at least means more players of that character will be around to develop their meta.

In the original Guilty Gear XX, May was a low tier character, but when you looked at her actual matchup chart what made her one of the "worst" in the game was that she had a few bad matchups, one good matchup, and a ton of 4:6's. She also had in her arsenal an attack that could turn the match around in an instant (a punch that had a high dizzy rate and could potentially combo into an instant kill as a result), which made even the characters who beat her wary of her power, sort of like Ganondorf. If the worst characters in Smash 4 are like this, where they're mostly disadvantaged but not oppressively so (though of course the verdict is still out on this), then it's just healthier for the game in general.

 

[Jabejazz]

There are inevitabally going to be better and worse characters, but the degree of separation between those characters is a significant factor, if only because having a fighting chance at least means more players of that character will be around to develop their meta.

Absolutely. All I'm saying is that, when people hear "bad" their mind shift to "unusable garbage" because that's pretty much what we had in past iterations, while bad simply means "one of the less effective options you are being offered". Whether this less effective option is unusable to a crippling degree or simply translates to having to work slightly harder against the better options isn't relevant. The character is still effectively "bad" within the parameters of the game.

I know I'm flipping tables over the use of the word "bad", but for the sake of discussion, we shouldn't be scared to label less effective, but still potentially usable characters as "bad".

 

[Tristan_win]

Rage + Kill throws is the dumbest thing to brace this game.
Seeing Denti die to a stale sonic back throw at 95% from like almost centre stage... ughhhhhhhhhh

This statement so outlines why I don't like how rage and decay are in the game. Rage quickly becomes more important then decay sometimes even as low as 70%. So what's really the point to decay now?

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

The problem with Rage is just that it can hurt you for being ahead... I hate that a lot more than helping people who are behind. The subtle difference is that a guy can come back at 0% after you kill them and your combos just don't work until you die. Stupid IMO

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Sounds like a stretch to me. DHD is really good and underrated.

So is Gunner?
Only dhds presence is wrapped in a can.

Rage is a snowball mechanic. The person a stock behind is at the disadvantage not the winner.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Absolutely. All I'm saying is that, when people hear "bad" their mind shift to "unusable garbage"

Yeah if my statement didn't clarify that too well that's basically exactly how I feel as well.

And of course we shouldn't be afraid to say "bad", but in this context and in the context of past Smash games that changes that discussion entirely. It's one of those fine lines in this community, like...seeing it in relation to Smash is sooooo different from say, any other game.

It's why the worst characters to me in this game I only class as below average. I don't like to discourage people from checking a character out especially with relativity and such.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Rage is a snowball mechanic. The person a stock behind is at the disadvantage not the winner.

I don't see Rage snowballing as an inherently bad thing. It just makes sealing the first stock a more important objective competitively, and it also serves as an equalizer for that first stock.

Lucario however does take the comeback/snowball mechanic way too far, both numerically, and mechanically.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Rage definitely makes cornered characters with strong OoS options that much scarier.

As in, Dolphin Slash esque Up+B's (Looking at Marth and Doc here)

 

[TheMagicalKuja]

There basically is no intelligent way to really play against Sonic if you don't have an extremely safe projectile to stop his ground mobility. He slows the game down to a crawl, because trying to pin him down is for the most part extremely unproductive. Sonic vs most characters devolves into a guessing game that is mostly in his favor numerically. He gets in on you for free, and you only really win against him if he messes up. In Brawl, he was bad because his reward was a lot worse in comparison. He was still completely toxic to play against.

Captain Falcon also ignores midrange. So does Little Mac. Big difference is they pay a price for dominant mobility in their negative state. Trying to pin them down is not a completely bad idea, because they don't get out of traps easily. So there's strategically a lot of intelligent gameplay involved in playing against these characters. But Sonic, okay, you guess right and hit him. Now what? Each time Sonic gets in on you in contrast, he probably hurt you more.

Sonic can be grabbed out of spindash. Happened to me with Bowser a few times, not to mention his priority is awful, so chucking out a hitbox or grab box is usually enough to crush any predictable Sonic's advances.

I suppose I agree that being able to hold his spindash indefinitely AND hop with it is a little cruel, so I'd be fine if that ability gets stripped out in favor of making the hop reset the timer (to make it useful and make Sonic trade off on it, as the hop is slow, floaty, and doesn't have a hitbox). I believe he loses charge if he hops as well (and if he doesn't that's also a good nerf). And I guess since people find Hammer SD so scary the timer can be more strict on that move.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Indefinite Spindash charging is silly and I really don't like it. Being able to jump out of it is fine, I get that, makes it a dynamic move, but indefinite charging just scares me. It can stay in but my salt is always eternal.

 

[Trifroze]

Rage is very good. Fast and quick characters, with Snake being the only real exception for a couple years, have always been the most successful characters in Smash. This mechanic tilts it the other way just enough while also greatly rewarding smart and careful play and increasing comeback potential.

 

[KlefkiHolder]

Idk if Jiggs, Olimar, ICs, a bunch more of Brawl, and like all of PM follows that.

Sure, fast is generally better, but a lot of big and slow characters have just been poorly designed for 1v1. Nintendo makes them for FFAs, and it shows.

Just take one look at PM where Ike, DK, Samus, Bowser, and other heavies/slow charcters do well, and PM is a game with a faster engine than Brawl as well, and one similar to Melee. That's because they're actually balanced for 1v1 there. With Smash 4, this is actually happening as well.

 

[Thinkaman]

Idk if Jiggs, Olimar, ICs, a bunch more of Brawl, and like all of PM follows that.

Sure, fast is generally better, but a lot of big and slow characters have just been poorly designed for 1v1. Nintendo makes them for FFAs, and it shows.

Just take one look at PM where Ike, DK, Samus, Bowser, and other heavies/slow charcters do well, and PM is a game with a faster engine than Brawl as well, and one similar to Melee. That's because they're actually balanced for 1v1 there. With Smash 4, this is actually happening as well.

Some characters excel at different modes, and are balanced accordingly. Ganon would win every Time FFA if he was a viable Stock 1v1 top tier. Sheik would win every Stock 1v1 if she was a viable Time FFA top tier.

The primary balance impact of custom moves is allowing characters limited by by balance in one mode to take options that are instead optimized for other modes.

So Sheik can at least take Piercing Needles in certain FFAs, and Ganon can at least take Wizard's Dropkick in certain 1v1s. Christmas is saved!

It should be no surprise that heavyweights, whose default movesets dominate FFAs and suffer in 1v1s, benefit the most from custom moves.

 

[TTTTTsd]

BTW @ Thinkaman I'm inclined to agree that vectoring being gone helps both Marios quite a bit, I can at least attest for Doc.

A lot of his setups and positional stuff off of D-Throw is a lot better now, it's harder to escape strings, and his kill moves are WAYYYYYYYY more potent now.

Definitely a noticable improvement. Upper low tier char now, my opinion ENTIRELY but the past few days with him that I've had feel noticably better not just for the controller, I can say that much.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

It should be no surprise that heavyweights, whose default movesets dominate FFAs and suffer in 1v1s, benefit the most from custom moves.

Sez you, Thinking Man. D3's customs are all hella gimmicky, even the Gordos. :v

The only one that I would personally use for him is the Dashing Jet Hammer. Maybe Rising Dedede but idk.

Smooth Criminal

 

[KlefkiHolder]

Sez you, Thinking Man. D3's customs are all hella gimmicky, even the Gordos. :v

Smooth Criminal

Dedede doesn't need customs, as he is perfect.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Dedede doesn't need customs, as he is perfect.

This guy. This guy.

He knows.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Jabejazz]

Rising Dedede and Taste Test are interesting options.

Nothing to write home about though; he gets really minimal improvement from his customs.
But as Klefki mentioned, being perfect is a good start.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Oh yeah, I forgot about Taste Test.

But yeah, minimal improvements at best. I'd rather go with the defaults.

Smooth Criminal

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Rage is a terrible, terrible mechanic. Reward the player that plays worse for ... playing worse? Mighty competitive, I must say.

 

[Trifroze]

Idk if Jiggs, Olimar, ICs, a bunch more of Brawl, and like all of PM follows that.

Sure, fast is generally better, but a lot of big and slow characters have just been poorly designed for 1v1. Nintendo makes them for FFAs, and it shows.

Just take one look at PM where Ike, DK, Samus, Bowser, and other heavies/slow charcters do well, and PM is a game with a faster engine than Brawl as well, and one similar to Melee. That's because they're actually balanced for 1v1 there. With Smash 4, this is actually happening as well.

I know next to nothing of PM unfortunately, I was mainly talking about the official games from the standpoint of "why have rage effect rather than fix heavies some other way". The only way to make slow, heavy and hard hitting characters better without making them faster and destroying variety is to make them hit all the more heavy, and the rage mechanic does basically just that.

Rage is a terrible, terrible mechanic. Reward the player that plays worse for ... playing worse? Mighty competitive, I must say.

If you can stay alive long enough at high percentages to land a decisive rage kill let alone two on your opponent, you're certainly playing better than him. Same goes for Lucario, although if rage buffed damage I'd have a problem as well as then it would work like a rubberband pulling the two players closer together in terms of damage all the time.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

If you can stay alive long enough at high percentages to land a decisive rage kill let alone two on your opponent, you're certainly playing better than him.

If you get wrecked to the point where you can randomly kill your opponent at fraudulent percent then you're the better player? You sure about that?

 

[TTTTTsd]

IDK I think without rage the game wouldn't really be better or worse off without it, really.

I'm not going to complain about Up+B OoS getting better at high %s though, I will take what I can get.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I reckon the game would be noticeably better without rage. Especially in a setting where survival can longer be affected by mechanics like DI or VI like it happened through the new patch.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Hey I won't argue with it being better or not but if it benefits my character thanks to an already ludicrously good OoS option with sweetspotted Up+B, I will take it.

Butttttt it's not anything short of a comeback mechanic, but it's of relatively minor proportions compared to other ones I've seen.

 

[Nocally]

Rage is a terrible, terrible mechanic. Reward the player that plays worse for ... playing worse? Mighty competitive, I must say.

You just characterized Lucario perfectly.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Hey I won't argue with it being better or not but if it benefits my character thanks to an already ludicrously good OoS option with sweetspotted Up+B, I will take it.

Butttttt it's not anything short of a comeback mechanic, but it's of relatively minor proportions compared to other ones I've seen.

You call it a comeback mechanic till you fail to kill someone and they 3 stock you with a Smash rage power instant vision from 20%.
Just snowballing until they take the stock and reduce your pressure, but by then you're still coming in with stock parity and a % lead.
Rage favours the person makibg worthwhile leads.
Beating on Lucario sub 70% isn't even an indication of playing well, the character is supposed to suck before then.

Only time rage favors the loser is...on stock parity and for rage to be significant you have to be ~100% as sub 80% rage is a joke. Given there are multiple characters who kill at 100%. Rage on stock parity is anti-snowball and otherwise promotes it.
I like it.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Rage kind of cuts both ways. On one hand it can be crippling for a lightweight who struggles to kill without it drop the first stock, but on the other hand it also means Ganon/Bowser can come back from a stock deficit by trading around 160% worth of damage and avoiding kill moves. Overall I feel it's much easier to come back when you're behind than it was in Brawl, but it's also easier to blow a match wide open by getting the first kill, living to high %s, and getting a hard read with a kill move to take out your opponent at mid %s.

 

[Tristan_win]

This will most likely be the most scrubby thing I've said in a while ...so... VI was for the most part taken out. This leads me to believe that Nintendo is paying attention to us....so with that said couldn't we all whine like babies hard enough and maybe get rage removed?

They remove VI, they have the power.

 

[A2ZOMG]

If you get wrecked to the point where you can randomly kill your opponent at fraudulent percent then you're the better player? You sure about that?

That's not really a realistic description of Rage. Keeping in mind that its effects are only really noticeable at percents where most things are likely to kill you, and it does not affect shieldstun or damage per hit. Rage doesn't make you safer for the large part, rather it reduces the disadvantage of surviving a while for your first stock. Then it slightly promotes snowballing for sealing the first stock, though even that is realistically pretty minor.

Lucario Aura in contrast is both more extreme numerically, and actually makes him a safer character for getting wrecked.

I have more reason to believe that Rage is helpful for balancing matchups without being really detrimental strategically.

 

[Tristan_win]

That's not really a realistic description of Rage. Keeping in mind that its effects are only really noticeable at percents where most things are likely to kill you, .

I somewhat disagree with this statement as I believe as we get closer to unlocking our characters combo potential we will feel the effects of rage more and more. Recently I've made a thread about Sheik fthrow into BF and after much research I've found rage plays a rather large part in deciding if the combo will be successful or if it will fail. I think this pattern will continue for all combo starters that are heavily effected by rage (which I think could only be throws)

 

[Radical Larry]

The Rage Effect is really helpful for Ganondorf players, especially due to Ganondorf's already god-like knockback scaling on all of his attacks. Combine that with his useful attack speed now, as well as people being able to survive ~260% damage with him, he's definitely going to screw your day up. My best advice is to avoid sending him toward the upper blast line; a good Ganondorf player will use Wizard's Foot and send you to the KO early, especially with Rage; no one should KO ~30%-40% on Bowser.

 

[Terotrous]

I still think the primary function of Rage is as an anti-comeback mechanic that rewards the person who gets the first kill. It's not huge for characters with a lot of kill power, but some of the characters with lesser power suffer quite substantially from it.

 

[Conda]

How is the crowd in this thread feeling about Smooth Lander being welcomed into the competitive ruleset? If we can achieve neutral stats, hypothetically (but somewhat realistically) speaking.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

The Rage Effect is really helpful for Ganondorf players, especially due to Ganondorf's already god-like knockback scaling on all of his attacks. Combine that with his useful attack speed now, as well as people being able to survive ~260% damage with him, he's definitely going to screw your day up. My best advice is to avoid sending him toward the upper blast line; a good Ganondorf player will use Wizard's Foot and send you to the KO early, especially with Rage; no one should KO ~30%-40% on Bowser.

Shulk kos 20% Bowser . Please nerf.


Smooth lander comes off dumb I put it.on today balanced my stats didn't feel the game was better. If it becomes a thing whatever that's fine but I'm not advocating for it.

 

[Nabbitnator]

what is smooth lander?