Character Competitive Impressions

[Signia]

You should watch more of Leffen's stream. He's not kidding when he says Diddy is one of the better characters, and that's not even factoring in that peanut-hitstun-cancelling and the air dodge and side-b cancelling the peanut. He's very fast on the ground and the air with a very useful command grab / air dash aerial in side-b that looks amazingly fun. His aerials and fall speed allow for a very strong (true) combo game while still having a decent zoning game. His grabs start his combos and are hard to VI due to the speed of the throw animation.

It's my understanding that in Brawl he played primarily like a zoning character, and in this game he can only have one banana out, so it seems like he's a worse character, but without those preconceptions he looks solid, especially the way Leffen plays him. He seems like one of the few effective offensive characters in the game.

Oh hey would you look at that somebody called it (this was in response to people thinking he was bad Sep 26).

 

[The Real Gamer]

Hey I'll quote you on this so you better become the Axe of Charizards

I'd be thankful to become 1/2 the player Axe is.

In terms of Zard... He has now has a plethora of quick/reliable kill moves, super armor (Rock Smash is underrated), an extremely strong punish game, high priority aerials that auto-cancel, decent grab range, great space control, very versatile off stage game...

If Zard is low tier I'm not seeing it.

 

[NocturnalQuill]

I'd be thankful to become 1/2 the player Axe is.

In terms of Zard... He has now has a plethora of quick/reliable kill moves, super armor (Rock Smash is underrated), an extremely strong punish game, high priority aerials that auto-cancel, decent grab range, great space control, very versatile off stage game...

If Zard is low tier I'm not seeing it.

He's got potential. I think it's just a matter of figuring him out.

 

[Thinkaman]

Zelda as I've stated I feel actually is reasonably solid in this game. She isn't helped a lot by customs, but her default specials are mostly pretty useful. Zelda has a very strong ability to get out of bad situations with her Up-B, which aside from being a great recovery move in this game also can be used as a punish for KOs at long range making Zelda amazing during land trap situations. She also has other great tools like her grab, Jab, D-tilt, and Naryus which make her quite competitive in footsies. And she hits pretty hard, almost as hard as Ganon on several of her moves. So basically, Zelda survives pretty long, and punishes hard, and while her ground mobility is low, her normals are great in footsies.

No doubt, I think she is WAAAY more usable.

I was playing around with her customs last night; Din's 2 is decent, and I think Nayru's 3 is way better than it seems at first glance. It's a much needed air-to-air diagonal option and air-to-air air-dodge punish.

I honestly don't see how Little Mac will do worse on the Wii-U. The fundamentals of his game are pretty much extremely reactive and hinge on conservative spacing. If anything, laggy environments aren't exactly his friend, when it's more difficult to space correctly and play footsies during lag.

I feel like lag encourages/incentivizes rolling (or penalizes it the least, of all actions), which Little Mac doesn't mind people doing one bit. Rolling into him is madness, and his dash attack is one of the most reliable and painful away-roll punishes.

You think WFT's lack of range is a problem? How do you think I feel about poor range in Super Footsie Bros for the 3DS/Wii-U when I look at my old main Mario? In Mario's case, the balance team succeeded in making his recovery noticeably worse, Caping projectiles more strict, removing Jab cancels from him and most characters besides Yoshi, and not seriously making his combo game more reliable while still slapping him with the universal damage nerfs. Mario is bottom 5 in this game on default settings, easy. Yes customs help him a decent amount, I won't argue against that.

Dat frame-3 21% OoS kill move! o_o

God help us all.

Why do you think Marth needs to space attacks so much more precisely than Lucina? Lucina does hardly any more damage than Marth on non-tipped attacks.

Only to kill; the damage difference is slight. (usually 2%)

 

[Funkermonster]

How do peeps feel about ROB

 

[Mamp]

How do peeps feel about ROB

I think he's really good in this game. He's been buffed in some areas and nerfed in others, but overall I feel that he's a lot better than in Brawl. Chibo and Vinnie both did very well with him at KTAR X recently, here are some videos:

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Feel like the pits will be felt valuable because their off ledge game is strong. Highly potent recoveries. In this respect pit may out perform dark pit as maneuverable arrows will lend to stronger gimp potential.

Is it me or Olimar is doo-doo? Won a game with him but the whole time I'm thinking this is garbage.

 

[Thalassa]

How do peeps feel about ROB

R.O.B feels better than it was in Brawl, in my opinion. It's a bit faster and was given a lot more "oomph" in general. They nerfed its damage slightly but the overall increase in KO power makes up for it.

Is it me or Olimar is doo-doo? Won a game with him but the whole time I'm thinking this is garbage.

Olimar seems to have been gutten quite spectacularly this game. Can't say I'm complaining though, he was not fun to fight at all.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Robs off ledge game is good to me in fact its big. Kind of guy who will go deep for Pit/Jump Shulk/ Villager and has good chance of success.

I'm going to play with Olimar a bit more but my initial impression is he is the worst character in the game.

 

[san.]

I think people are sleeping on Pit a little bit, since he seems to have some good range this time around with decent finishers. The way this game rewards good range/heavy characters is quite great. It's difficult to space aerials and get good timing online, but I can usually string a lot of attacks with Ike starting from a single hit since his range can't be contested easily and he hits harder than others with good range. I think Ganondorf is nice with less things cheesing him this time around, but boy he would've been devastating if you couldn't tech grounded spikes and his Side B. People also exaggerate how much "weaker" some heavy hitters are. Once you learn the percentage range where you can kill someone with certain moves, they're probably going to kill if they don't crouch (at least vertically-oriented ones).

I'm starting to get annoyed with the rage mechanics and I wish they weren't there or the moves weren't so negatively affected at times. For instance, Ike can downthrow->aether most characters at low rage and other characters at low percent for an easy ~30%, but they bounce out at high rage. Non-floaty fast characters like Sheik and Greninja can shield Ike's 3rd jab at low rage, but they can't get out at high rage. Having to micromanage my percent along with VI makes it difficult to ensure followups, but luckily the mechanics are solid enough where you still have the advantage even if they barely dodge.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Rage mechanic only annoys me because of Lucario. His knock back gain is ****ing ********.

To say 1 thing for Olimar the improved recovery is definitely visible. At least allows him an off ledge game. With no pikmin out its actually amazing vertically and horizontal. Can hit bottom of FD into the blast zone and still come back.He should definitely be going for every gimp opportunity. With no pikmin you can go under FD and recover on the other side. Which is a huge difference from his tether days.
Eh may have to reassess my opinion of him on recovery alone. He isn't a monster on stage from fights against him; His ground game comes off kinda trashy but the air isnt too bad. you basically can't stop his recovery on some stages and if he gets you off stage he can most definitely go for blood.

 

[Mamp]

Yeah, I don't think Olimar has been nerfed as much as people think; he still has ridiculous range on most of his moves, is decently fast, and has a great projectile for racking up quick damage. As well, the buffs to his recovery allow him to take better advantage of his strong aerial game. While I doubt he will be as good as he was in Brawl, he's still a very solid character.

 

[RascalTheCharizard]

Just wanted to drop some thoughts on Lucina, after using her over 120 times online (With Friends and For Glory combined).

1. Foxtrot Dtilt is amazing
2. I don't know if most Lucina players use RAR SH Bair much but it's pretty good. I mainly use it when I'm trying to apply aggressive pressure, as it starts from below (which at least to me, makes it easier to approach with), deals more damage than Fair and hits the opponents at a better angle for followups. In particular, it's a good way to put Little Mac players in a bad position as it hits opponents more upwards and a flying Mac is a free Mac. SH Fair I use more for defensive pressure when I'm just trying to space moves without worrying about followups and the like. SH Nair is a decent option against "fatties", or when you just need a move that has its hitboxes stay out longer.
3. Her Fsmash is a very potent killer but I feel like I have to fish a little too hard for it sometimes. Best used to punish a landing or if you read how someone is going to get back onto the stage correctly, from my experience. SH Dair groundbounce can provide as a semi-effective setup for it but of course, your opponent can just tech it and punish you. Offstage Bair works to a degree. Other than those, my KOs primarily come from Usmash. Said Usmash is the one thing from Lucina that I feel is definitively better about her in comparison to Marth (granted I haven't played much as or against Marth anyway). She gets a nice slide when using it out of a dash/run and it's surprisingly easy to land, both by catching landing opponents and by just going straight at them with it.
4. Somewhat predictably, I think her best matchups are for the most part close range characters who she can just beat out with her sword. Toon Link and ZSS give me the most trouble, as approaching them is beyond just being a chore and requires heavy amounts of patience for something so unrewarding.
5. For that matter, she lacks true combos. According to the combo counter in Training Mode, Uair -> Utilt is a thing at around 10-40% on most if not all of the characters I tested (ie. Little Mac, Fox, Mario, Rosalina, Bowser and Samus) and she can get Uair and/or Bair off of Dthrow on the majority of the characters I tested it on when they're at 0%, though vectoring/DI plays a part in this so you'll have to predict where they'll go upon being thrown. These are when Lucina is at 0% herself btw, no Rage Effect here. Also on Fox Dthrow grants even more true combos (by what Training considers to be true combos, at least), including into Usmash and can continue to be a combo move up to at least 50% from what I've tested. Dthrow is a good move against him. Finally Uair seems to be capable of true comboing into more moves than just Utilt (including into itself!), I just need to test more. All of that said, she still can string together hits quite well, as opponents generally have just enough time to jump/airdodge your followup, in which case you just read what they'll do and punish them for it with the aerial they tried to escape from in the first place lol.
6. Dancing Blade is pretty useful as a damage racker. I generally try to keep going Up as they link together the best. When my opponent starts getting cheeky and tries to airdodge the 4th hit, I generally opt for 4th hit Down instead to punish said airdodge.
7. I feel like the lag and 3DS controls hurt her a bit, as they make precise spacing much more difficult. With how freaking ridiculous shields and rolls are in this game, that's a big deal. Spacing makes the difference between getting punished for every attack and applying safe pressure. Speaking of rolls, good luck trying to punish those without reads. Lucina has no reliable ways to deal with roll spammers. I find RAR Bairs are hard to do correctly because of the lag and controls as well.

I think Lucina's probably going to have very polarising matchups. Not going to try to predict her tier placement, but I'm doubting it's top. With all of the crazy camping characters that Newcomers R Us has brought us, Lucina needs more tools at a distance in order to be a primary threat, in my opinion.

 

[Thinkaman]

I think Lucina's probably going to have very polarising matchups. Not going to try to predict her tier placement, but I'm doubting it's top. With all of the crazy camping characters that Newcomers R Us has brought us, Lucina needs more tools at a distance in order to be a primary threat, in my opinion.

I agree. (though my Lucina experience is more limited than yours) Luckily, for competitive play, Dashing Assault is a terrific anti-camp move.

 

[san.]

Can't Lucina just swat most of those projectiles away with her aerials? I think it's a little hasty how Marth/Lucina will turn out without the ability to space aerials vs. the bait & rush that's prevalent on the 3DS.

Are there any good videos with Lucario? I'm trying to understand how aura makes him that much better over the others. I want to possibly get good with him but I'm not getting the feel of what he's supposed to be doing that easily.

 

[RascalTheCharizard]

Can't Lucina just swat most of those projectiles away with her aerials? I think it's a little hasty how Marth/Lucina will turn out without the ability to space aerials vs. the bait & rush that's prevalent on the 3DS.

Technically yes, but most players will just go in and punish the endlag of your aerials for doing so, or throw out another projectile to keep forcing you to "swat" them and not making any real progress in the match.

I dunno, projectiles aren't unbeatable or anything. Maybe I just suck even more than I already thought I did.

 

[Luco]

Yo Rascal, are you sure Lucina can't punish roll spammers and that it's not just online lag being silly? Marth (and thus Lucina) has always stood out to me as a character famous for punishing that kind of thing; I never assumed it would be different this time around. Mind if I ask what prompted your thoughts on it? :o

 

[RascalTheCharizard]

Yo Rascal, are you sure Lucina can't punish roll spammers and that it's not just online lag being silly? Marth (and thus Lucina) has always stood out to me as a character famous for punishing that kind of thing; I never assumed it would be different this time around. :o

Again, I'm pretty bad so it could just be me that's the problem.

But the way I see it there are three things that are reliable roll punishers:
1. Moves with a lot of active frames
2. Moves that make the user travel a good distance as they attack
3. Projectiles

These are things that Marth typically lacks. I suppose Lucina (and Marth) could have Dsmash fill the first category as if they roll into you they'll get hit by the first part and if they move towards you and roll behind they'll get hit by the back swing if you time it right. For the second category, dash attack and Usmash are probably the best options to fulfil that role. It really sucks that dash attack is crazy punishable (mostly on shield than on hit, however).

 

[Luco]

Well in Brawl, my traditional approach when I was a bit of a newbie was to roll behind the opponent before my attack. When trying this tactic against Shaya he punished me with a tipper Fsmash and scolded my tactic, saying it was a viable approach every once in a while but I overdid it. The way I see it, Marth (and Lucina) should get a free Fsmash on a roll spammer as the Fsmash covers a large portion in front of them and tends to smash rolls due to a long period of active frames which tends to encroach on rolls as their invincibility frames run out.

That's why I was curious when you mentioned it ahah. You're not that bad a player, so I trust your judgement. I'll test it out a bit myself and see what I come up with!

 

[RascalTheCharizard]

Well in Brawl, my traditional approach when I was a bit of a newbie was to roll behind the opponent before my attack. When trying this tactic against Shaya he punished me with a tipper Fsmash and scolded my tactic, saying it was a viable approach every once in a while but I overdid it. The way I see it, Marth (and Lucina) should get a free Fsmash on a roll spammer as the Fsmash covers a large portion in front of them and tends to smash rolls due to a long period of active frames which tends to encroach on rolls as their invincibility frames run out.

That's why I was curious when you mentioned it ahah. You're not that bad a player, so I trust your judgement. I'll test it out a bit myself and see what I come up with!

I'll give it some thought. I've got a bunch (~6) replays of me vs a guy by the name of ZERO that I plan to upload to my Youtube channel in these upcoming days so you'll be able to see what I'm like from that. (Though in said matches he doesn't use rolls much and also doesn't use many projectile-focused characters, so in the end you may not get to see how I struggle with both of those but whatever.)

By the way, I was there watching some of your set when you slayed Attila at BAM6. Your Lucas is insane!

 

[Torn_Smash]

I think people are sleeping on Pit a little bit...

People still sleeping on Charizard I see...

Donkey Kong is very solid in this game, people are sleeping on him.

Summary of this thread: A lot of people are sleeping apparently

 

[Shaya]

Rolling away from Marth was good in this game. Until dash breaker.
Marth/Lucina still have low commitment play from full hop forward airs, and it has to be respected (if you dash in, M/L can react with a slew of things to wreck you).

The issue with this prior to dash breaker was the opponent didn't have to respect full hop retreating fair, they could just stand still, run away or otherwise wait for an action with more commitment from him (like a landing aerial or dancing blade).

Now that I have full hop fair, which cannot be punished used optimally, I can react to aggressive choices made by an opponent from that (as was already the case), and can PUNISH defensive choices made by the opponent with dash breaker or any other dash option (they have to RESPECT them all). Hence, Marth is top tier [in design].

Dash breaker on hit will always pull yourself and your opponent towards the ledge, and once you're in an edge guarding position against Marth, you lose, as is the case in Melee/Brawl. The lack of a grab game/safe fair disallowed us the means of forcing opponent's into that situation, but not any longer; dash breaker is the best move in the game. I am no longer concerned about any match up bar Bowser or Mac (they have range/speed that is greater than shieldbreaker disjoints from what I can see), probably more worried about dittos than those two. Rush downs like Sheik/Greninja will remain good against him, but in Sheik's case at least, she cannot camp him anymore (I like how dash breaker will go through her gravity bomb).

 

[Luco]

I'll give it some thought. I've got a bunch (~6) replays of me vs a guy by the name of ZERO that I plan to upload to my Youtube channel in these upcoming days so you'll be able to see what I'm like from that. (Though in said matches he doesn't use rolls much and also doesn't use many projectile-focused characters, so in the end you may not get to see how I struggle with both of those but whatever.)

By the way, I was there watching some of your set when you slayed Attila at BAM6. Your Lucas is insane!

Thankyou so much!! Although, he did SD on that last set and I'm still sure he's the better player by far, but it was a pretty crazy surprise and a lot of fun. The funny thing about that set was I was freaking out about it all and he's just like "oh you need to have some self-confidence. You can WIN IT!!" And I was like ;_;.

So I tested it a little bit with both Marth and Lucina, if I was predicting the roll I felt I could get in the punish decently; though if I wasn't expecting it then i'd usually get hit. Considering we're talking about roll spammers, I feel Marth and Lucina will get the advantage in that situation; but I do think rolls have been buffed significantly and against quite a few people (M/L included), they'll be a viable option every once in a while (like, a lot more than in Brawl, sometimes even rolling occasionally got you destroyed in brawl because many characters had such slow rolls it was painful ;_; ). So I think it's the general buff on many rolls that's working against ya for the time being, but I don't play M/L often enough to know and it could be a much bigger deal than i'm making it out to be. =3

 

[mimgrim]

Rolling away from Marth was good in this game. Until dash breaker.
Marth/Lucina still have low commitment play from full hop forward airs, and it has to be respected (if you dash in, M/L can react with a slew of things to wreck you).

I just want to point out that if Marth/Lucina Fair at the highest point in their Short Hop they won't receive landing lag from it. Just something I thought was worth pointing out.

 

[Thinkaman]

I just want to point out that if Marth/Lucina Fair at the highest point in their Short Hop they won't receive landing lag from it. Just something I thought was worth pointing out.

This doesn't seem to be the case? It does auto-cancel out of SH, but you can't wait that late to do it.

 

[mimgrim]

This doesn't seem to be the case? It does auto-cancel out of SH, but you can't wait that late to do it.

When I say highest point I basically mean right after you SH. :L

 

[Luco]

Haha i've noticed that. I'm so used to the double Fair with them, so when I try to do it in this game I just fail miserably *le sigh*

 

[Shaya]

But every dash attack in the game out of shield punishes short hop forward air.
If you're coming from a melee background you're likely the type to think that getting back on the ground so you can jump and do another aerial is great. However, the amount of range/distance Marth can travel in a full hop is more so than every character can consistently punish.While you're suffering 20 frames of landing lag on the ground, that's 20 frames I'm retreating in the air, with the options of double jumping, fast falling, using a special or even executing another forward air/neutral air on fall at maximum spacing for an auto cancel.

Short hop fair is a commitment and you're bad for trying.

 

[RascalTheCharizard]

Short hop fair is a commitment and you're bad for trying.

Proof that I'm bad right here. I've been trying that quite a bit. I'm guessing this ties into why I've been finding poking with ground moves much more useful than using SH aerials recently.

That's not to say I don't use aerials out of full hops, but I don't use them anywhere near as much, especially in the neutral.

 

[Signia]

@ R RascalTheCharizard
Can't you just dash side-B rollers on reaction if fsmash is too slow?

@ Shaya
What is Dash Breaker's drawback? That's the custom shieldbreaker, right?

Also, can't someone who shields a rising retreating full hop fair just release shield and dash under you and trap you?

 

[RascalTheCharizard]

@ R RascalTheCharizard
Can't you just dash side-B rollers on reaction if fsmash is too slow?

Interesting idea. I know in PM I occasionally use Double Edge Dance to catch people in situations where I feel confident that whatever move I was originally going to use will just go through an opponent (especially since I basically know DED's timing off by heart and can put the hits together as quickly or slowly as I desire). Next For Glory session I'll see if I can use this to catch some people between intangibility periods.

 

[Shaya]

@ Shaya
What is Dash Breaker's drawback? That's the custom shieldbreaker, right?

Also, can't someone who shields a rising retreating full hop fair just release shield and dash under you and trap you?

That's the optimal thing to do yeah. Characters like MK in brawl needed to dash roll to get the length, he couldn't naturally dash. And characters like Fox and Sonic could get in from a power shield, but otherwise it was still possible to outspace.

Marth's aerial mobility is pretty good, forward air shield stun is pretty good. Marth's fast fall is also pretty good.

The draw back is that it doesn't have shield breaking properties.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Are there any good videos with Lucario? I'm trying to understand how aura makes him that much better over the others. I want to possibly get good with him but I'm not getting the feel of what he's supposed to be doing that easily.

I don't think there are any notable vidoes of Lucario out yet - in fact I don't even know if there are any top level Lucario players at all right now. From playing as him as well as against him I can assure you though that Lucario is really stupid in this game.

Aura really does make him that much better. The aura effect itself has been increased and with rage being a thing in this game Lucario can start killing opponents around 80% with Force Palm [80% on both, myself and the opponent, was just about the lowest % I could land a kill with that move]. His other KO moves are all pretty safe on shield and he has powerful edgeguarding tools too. In a game where it seems that a lot of the characters struggle to get their KOs Lucario is the one character that kills opponents earlier than you'd expect. Imagine playing Trela's Lucario in Brawl with higher KO power and that you can no longer gimp. His counter has also been dramatically powered up.

Gameplay-wise, Lucario has good footsies and a strong mid-range zoning game. His jab, grab, utilt and dtilt are the prefered grounded close-range options, mixed up with fair and defensive moves [his rolls are still very good]. For mid range zoning game Fsmash, ftilt, bair and aura sphere are all good, disjointed moves that are hard to punish allowing Lucario to safely pressure his opponents from mid-range. Pivot ftilt and fsmash are fantastic options and are good tools to ledge trap opponents. I honestly don't think that Lucario is that hard a character to play because he has been largely left the same as in Brawl except better in almost every way. Even his "gimmicks" such as reverse neutralB to escape juggle traps still work. The only move that I can tell to have been nerfed is his Aura Sphere. Its KO power seems to have decreased whereas the cooldown lag has been increased but that only means that you have to use that move a bit less than you would've done in Brawl.

 

[Luco]

That's the optimal thing to do yeah. Characters like MK in brawl needed to dash roll to get the length, he couldn't naturally dash. And characters like Fox and Sonic could get in from a power shield, but otherwise it was still possible to outspace.

Marth's aerial mobility is pretty good, forward air shield stun is pretty good. Marth's fast fall is also pretty good.

The draw back is that it doesn't have shield breaking properties.

And if only yoyo had enough priority to punish landings it would be smoooooooth sailing.

But Marth's not a fan of new-fangled toys, so GG GG, GG.

 

[Shaya]

Its KO power seems to have decreased whereas the cooldown lag has been increased but that only means that you have to use that move a bit less than you would've done in Brawl.

You don't think it's extremely efficient at trapping landing? When people have to contest with neutral air, dash attack, his side b, etc etc and people cannot air dodge past it into shield?

 

[~ Gheb ~]

You don't think it's extremely efficient at trapping landing? When people have to contest with neutral air, dash attack, his side b, etc etc and people cannot air dodge past it into shield?

Yes, I think so!

 

[King Funk]

I tested and played with Lucario a lot. Will write a long post on him soon.

 

[Killress]

I'm really think Pac Man is an incredible character. Doesn't seem like that many people use him. He has so many mixups and can punish a lot of options.

 

[The Real Gamer]

If max aura/rage Lucario has any exploitable weaknesses I'd love to hear them, because I sure as hell cant find any.

 

[Thalassa]

I'd argue the fact that he is high percentage is exploitable enough. Lucario is a high risk/high reward character and heavy damage is every bit as risky to him as it to you.