Character Competitive Impressions

[Shaya]

If you main Yoshi you learn to never roll, brawl was just spotdodge everything since we thankfully had one of the legendary spotdodges like link falco and I think ROB. For Smash 4 we still have that spotdodge I'm sure + OoS options now.

It was the links, falco, wario, pikachu, yoshi IIRC.

 

[Sinister Slush]

I might've gotten ROB confused because of the Y axis or whatever spotdodge similar to DDD.
But yeah people know what I mean I believe.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Stuff about Yoshi

Shhhhhhhhhhh, Yoshi is actually a secret member of this game's elite 4 ...

Don't tell anyone though!

 

[Shaya]

Swords are bad design and I say that as someone who played someone who was a sword character all but visually in a past installment. Putting the range of a character's normal attacks far out of the range of their vulnerable points and making all of the attacks low lag was never a good decision. The fact that Marth is still pretty decent after his severe nerfs and MK is potentially all right after his buffs in 1.0.4 really is a testament to just how powerful disjoints are on their own.

Now about Rosalina...

Marth didn't really get severe nerfs. People equate not being able to double aerial in a short hop as the end of everything (meanwhile all they're doing is giving themselves massing landing lag trying because he can still act out of most of his short hop aerials [specials + jumps]). Somehow a Marth on wifi (I'm pretty sure most people tend to agree Marth is/was terrible on wifi) is beating M2K because he's [ab]using neutral air and not otherwise giving himself 20 frames of extra lag every time he short hops for no effect. Mr E (Eric I believe) is a long term Marth player and honestly I think Marth, much like in the Melee->Brawl transition has a lot going for him with playstyles/patterns only being refined, not being overtly changed or taken away in the early meta.

Marth has multiple disjointed moves with transcended priority still, smaller hitboxes which are reaching further ('zomg but marth has a butter knife' is the best confirmation bias hoax of the 21st century) [his range got BUFFED on like 9/10 of his attacks, but I wouldn't be surprised if majority of the cast have 'range buffs', bar MK/Oli].

What he really got hit by was damage reductions. Neutral air and up tilt having their damages halved, fair (still the bread and butter move of legends) losing 1/3rd of it's damage. Dancing Blade had risk scaled upwards by a lot, dolphin slash had risk taken off with rewards/range/oos usability being heavily taken away. Meanwhile game engine is making shieldbreaker look better by the day, with the 57% increase in minimal shield time (and power shielding being 27% of that window instead of 42%).

What's really hard to quantify is how much the removal of RCO helped him. Take away a character's 10:90 predicament against every competent player with every character in the cast and it's almost like yoshi being able to jump out of shield. I'm still not used to only needing to just time and space to get off the ledge now rather than pray to god/sell the soul to satan for enemy controller failure to not lose my stock.

I can't help but probably make Marth sound good, but he's still... iffie. The restrictive auto cancels + damage culls together make me a little bitter (please, I just want Shayair back). The low shield stun in this game doesn't bode well for this character (once people figure out they can do more than just shield/dash grab), but for every patch the top tiers get nerfed, Marth will get a lot more potent. His difficult match ups really seem to only be against the top characters, but I would hazard a guess a lot players feel this particular way about their character.

 

[Vengeance_NS]

So I talked with zero over Twitter last night about Wario. He seems to think Wario is high tier with a lot of potential and it seems most people agree he's def tourney viable. Time to step my game up.

 

[Spinosaurus]

So I talked with zero over Twitter last night about Wario. He seems to think Wario is high tier with a lot of potential and it seems most people agree he's def tourney viable. Time to step my game up.

He just needs tournament representation right now.

 

[Vengeance_NS]

He just needs tournament representation right now.

That's what I'm here for.

 

[Turokman5896]

That's what I'm here for.

Please, rep my man wario

 

[san.]

Controversial(?) opinion: I think that Mii Swordfighter with a minimum height, maximum weight Mii is quite viable. Normals are better than Toon Link's and he can kill from throw combos because you can't VI upwards anymore. Mostly due to the fact that minimum height/max weight is pretty broken by design in general, giving Miis great damage, disjoint (not necessarily range), and speed. Specials leave a lot to be desired. They cover some weaknesses, but are still watered down versions of other moves for the most part. All upBs don't recover high enough as well.

 

[DavemanCozy]

Nakat, plz play more Fox. It's so good. I'm glad Robin's getting love too, I've been saying for a while he's a good candidate for top 10. Tomes might break after certain uses, but damn his projectile game is as top tier as you can get. Arcfire setups also hurt. So much hurt from that Levin sword.
---
I've been watching and playing team matches more often than 1v1 lately, I'm enjoying dubs quite a lot in this game.
is a scary one in teams. Perhaps he's not so solid in 1v1 due to his easily gimpablity, but damn he makes a good teammate.

 

[Lenus Altair]

The more I play Pit, the more it seems like he has very few bad match ups. I think he is edged out by the quality of some of the top tiers characters options/damage potential, but he never seems more then at a slim disadvantage against them (and not all of them. Most I'd say are neutral.)

Pit's problems seem to fall into two categories. Either characters that can abuse survivability without being combo prone (as in not big framed or floaty) or characters that actually disrupt or otherwise have a better neutral game.

Characters like and have been giving me more trouble then most, more surprisingly the latter. Dat reflector. Falco will probably end up higher then most folks give him credit for. He is a character that seems better every day with his amazing neutral options.

Since there has been a lot of Shulk talk recently/last night, I throw out that PIt seems to do fine against him. As in even.

Shulk does seem like a very potent character for all the reasons listed in the last few pages. What I find to be the best way to play against him is to force him to wiff. A lot. Most of his attacks invovle notable commitment, and with the right arts are safe on shield. But mobile characters or characters with quick/good dash options cam get some solid hits off him darting around his commitments.

Also against Shulks that like their Vision counters, using more of your multihits helps shift the Risk/Reward to your favor (outside of the usual baiting/grabing them.) Pit's SHNair is a good option in the matchup since it hits frame 8 or so.

 

[|RK|]

Shulk can't use Nair off-stage generally because of its high frame count. Excluding back slash its probably the least safe option he has off stage except for maybe counter.

Fair is satisfactory and I don't think there's anything outside of a projectile that outranges his back air...maybe aura Lucario force palm. Also note Fair is frame 14 some characters can deal with it (puff and pit for instance)

Dunno if anyone's said it, but Lucario's Force Palm is a projectile.

 

[TTTTTsd]

So I talked with zero over Twitter last night about Wario. He seems to think Wario is high tier with a lot of potential and it seems most people agree he's def tourney viable. Time to step my game up.

Well yes, it's Wario. He has air mobility that lets him weave in and out (not as good as it was in Brawl but it's still strong), Bike is nothing but buffed, and even without Wectoring his recovery is noticeably improved thanks to corkscrew distance buffs. Waft retains its old kill power which makes it incredible in this game, both with the 2 stock meta being a maybe standard, and with the fact that there's not much that can kill at 50% (or EVEN LOWER depending on his opponent's weight + how far they are from the blastzone) in this game, which gives Waft even more use as a pocket kill move with a giant hitbox. Did I mention Waft can destroy Villager's recovery? If you fart on the balloons before he ledgesnaps it hits BOTH balloons and kills him (at least, it did for me on 3DS when I ledgefarted). His DTilt which was already a good poke got even better (it interrupts SO MUCH now), USmash is legit way better IMO.

The only thing he lost was a godlike FSmash (replaced with a moderately OK FSmash) and Autocancel Dair, but he got so much by lieu of system and moveset buffs.

Wario will always be Wario.

 

[Chuva]

The more I play Pit, the more it seems like he has very few bad match ups. I think he is edged out by the quality of some of the top tiers characters options/damage potential, but he never seems more then at a slim disadvantage against them (and not all of them. Most I'd say are neutral.)

Pit's problems seem to fall into two categories. Either characters that can abuse survivability without being combo prone (as in not big framed or floaty) or characters that actually disrupt or otherwise have a better neutral game.

Characters like and have been giving me more trouble then most, more surprisingly the latter. Dat reflector. Falco will probably end up higher then most folks give him credit for. He is a character that seems better every day with his amazing neutral options.

Since there has been a lot of Shulk talk recently/last night, I throw out that PIt seems to do fine against him. As in even.

Shulk does seem like a very potent character for all the reasons listed in the last few pages. What I find to be the best way to play against him is to force him to wiff. A lot. Most of his attacks invovle notable commitment, and with the right arts are safe on shield. But mobile characters or characters with quick/good dash options cam get some solid hits off him darting around his commitments.

Also against Shulks that like their Vision counters, using more of your multihits helps shift the Risk/Reward to your favor (outside of the usual baiting/grabing them.) Pit's SHNair is a good option in the matchup since it hits frame 8 or so.

That's also my impression. When people were debating Pit vs Marth viability, I think Pit probably has the most balanced MUs of the game (ala Ken in USF4), whereas Marth's might be more polarizing. Pit might not have anything notably abusive like Ness Bthrow and Diddy's Dthrow - Uair, but he is very versatile with few weaknesses. I can't see him not being a consolidated competitive pick (Nairo is already doing work with Dark Pit).

Some people point at his inefficiency to get kills but in my experience that's not necessarily true. His smashes have really good frame data, Fsmash beats spot-dodges, his offstage and gimp game is decent and Side-B is always an option that needs to be respected.

I'm not a dedicated Pit player, so I'd like to ask: Wasn't Rosalina considered arguably his worst Match-up or did her nerfs alleviate that? And how does he fare against Mac's dominant neutral?

 

[Spinosaurus]

Well yes, it's Wario. He has air mobility that lets him weave in and out (not as good as it was in Brawl but it's still strong), Bike is nothing but buffed, and even without Wectoring his recovery is noticeably improved thanks to corkscrew distance buffs. Waft retains its old kill power which makes it incredible in this game, both with the 2 stock meta being a maybe standard, and with the fact that there's not much that can kill at 50% (or EVEN LOWER depending on his opponent's weight + how far they are from the blastzone) in this game, which gives Waft even more use as a pocket kill move with a giant hitbox. Did I mention Waft can destroy Villager's recovery? If you fart on the balloons before he ledgesnaps it hits BOTH balloons and kills him (at least, it did for me on 3DS when I ledgefarted). His DTilt which was already a good poke got even better (it interrupts SO MUCH now), USmash is legit way better IMO.

The only thing he lost was a godlike FSmash (replaced with a moderately OK FSmash) and Autocancel Dair, but he got so much by lieu of system and moveset buffs.

Wario will always be Wario.

He lost a really good NAir, tires and his aerial mobility is much worse off now. (It's still pretty good, but not godlike lol) Also losing the kill power on UAir sucks and now he doesn't particularly have any reliable ways to kill from the upper blastlines. USmash is alright but I wouldn't call it reliable. Above all the the mechanics changes aren't favourable to him here, especially the air dodge change, so he can't approach reliable especially when his range problems are more apparent with his worse air mobility.
Bite is soooo good now, at least, and Bike is bonkers.

He's still fun as ****, too.

 

[TTTTTsd]

I addressed air mobility, air dodge change is universal so I don't really count that since it applies to everyone who relied on it before for approaching, ledgestealing and recovery buffs for Wario are HUGE. Pretty sure USmash has head invul like Mario's doesn't it? I count that as reliable, having a good anti air is always nice, and since vertical blastzones are small it's not like it's a bad move for killing at higher %.

Wario's approach is still meh but I think he's fine.

Also his new Nair is unbelievably silly. The second hit combos into legitimately any aerial he wants at basically any low %, I think that's a pretty fair trade in the context of this game's mechanics.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

That's also my impression. When people were debating Pit vs Marth viability, I think Pit probably has the most balanced MUs of the game (ala Ken in USF4), whereas Marth's might be more polarizing. Pit might not have anything notably abusive like Ness Bthrow and Diddy's Dthrow - Uair, but he is very versatile with few weaknesses. I can't see him not being a consolidated competitive pick (Nairo is already doing work with Dark Pit).

Some people point at his inefficiency to get kills but in my experience that's not necessarily true. His smashes have really good frame data, Fsmash beats spot-dodges, his offstage and gimp game is decent and Side-B is always an option that needs to be respected.

I'm not a dedicated Pit player, so I'd like to ask: Wasn't Rosalina considered arguably his worst Match-up or did her nerfs alleviate that? And how does he fare against Mac's dominant neutral?

IIRC Rosalina was bad for Pit because her range was better on basically everything and GPull meant he couldn't camp her with arrows. The nerf to her nair may have changed that a little but I'm not sure it was enough to pull the matchup back to even.

 

[|RK|]

Try playing Kirby with the Monado against Shulk, that's the most fun matchup in smash history for me.

So much of this. Monado Kirby is fantastic.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Can you inhale your own guy in doubles? I wonder if that's a legit strat for Shulk and Kirby in that case lol. Surprised nobody's tried it.

 

[FlareHabanero]

I'm not a dedicated Pit player, so I'd like to ask: Wasn't Rosalina considered arguably his worst Match-up or did her nerfs alleviate that? And how does he fare against Mac's dominant neutral?

The main problem with that match up is Pit is forced to be offensive. You can't stall at all, since a combination of Gravitational Pull and Luma makes Palutena Bow completely useless. Because of that, Rosalina has the advantage for the ranged and neutral game. However, it's not unwinnable, since Pit has some dirty tricks too. For example, using Guardian Orbitars to deflect a full charged Luma Shot can KO at 70%-80%.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

He lost a really good NAir, tires [...]

What are you talking about? Wario's nair is still kinda ******** and tires can heal Wario so I wouldn't say that Wario "lost" these moves. Although tires are admittedly not what they used to be they still have their legitimate use.

Can you inhale your own guy in doubles? I wonder if that's a legit strat for Shulk and Kirby in that case lol. Surprised nobody's tried it.

Both characters suck in doubles though.

 

[Nobie]

So much of this. Monado Kirby is fantastic.

Is it just my imagination or does Monado Kirby actually combo better than Shulk can?

 

[TTTTTsd]

Is it just my imagination or does Monado Kirby actually combo better than Shulk can?

Well Speed Monado on Kirby is probably the scariest thing ever. Honestly Monado lets Kirby select a lot of stuff to make him WAYYY better.

****ing Kirby with Jump Monado. What the **** and how the **** do you edgeguard it?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Well Speed Monado on Kirby is probably the scariest thing ever. Honestly Monado lets Kirby select a lot of stuff to make him WAYYY better.

****ing Kirby with Jump Monado. What the **** and how the **** do you edgeguard it?

Falcon Punch to the face?

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Pretty sure Kirby can also pull off some nasty combos with Monado Buster. Looks like Shulk is the matchup where copying the opponent's abilities makes the biggest difference for Kirby by far.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Falcon Punch to the face?

I think I'd punch myself first for letting him copy that ability X_X.

Monado Kirby changes that entire MU and makes it probably one of the best things ever, I wanna see that in a high/top level tournament one day, just to watch the craziness.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Honestly though, I think it's pretty unlikely for a high-level Shulk to actually get dominated by a Kirby just because of how hard it is for Kirby to actually get a chance to swallow Shulk in the first place.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Honestly though, I think it's pretty unlikely for a high-level Shulk to actually get dominated by a Kirby just because of how hard it is for Kirby to actually get a chance to swallow Shulk in the first place.

Especially since on the one hand it's Kirby, who has basically no range, and on the other it's Shulk, aka "biggest sword in Smash and I don't mean that metaphorically or euphemistically."

I mean, can Kirby do anything to get through SH nairs?

 

[Asdioh]

Meanwhile game engine is making shieldbreaker look better by the day, with the 57% increase in minimal shield time (and power shielding being 27% of that window instead of 42%).

You lost me, what do these numbers and "minimal shield time" mean?
But yes, I've used shieldbreaker quite a few times (Kirby main) and it's very very good.

Is it just my imagination or does Monado Kirby actually combo better than Shulk can?

Buster Kirby is legitimately overpowered. Uptilt retains its good hitstun, while having even less knockback and more damage. You can easily get shulk from 0% to 50% or even 70% with uptilt and followup combos.
I haven't been impressed by Shield Kirby though, he still dies at low percents. I tried figuring out his weight in Shield/Smash forms with Aerodrome's advice, but it was too much of a pain to figure out

I kind of want to write a long post about all of Kirby's combos and options that make him sound good, but despite them he's not a very good character. I think I'll hold off though. Suffice to say he has bad/notgood matchups against some of the best characters such as Diddy, Sonic, Rosalina, Yoshi, and probably Lucario, and struggles against some others that aren't usually considered top tiers like Marth/Lucina and imo Pikachu, Peach, Pit, anyone with strong disjoints and defensive games.
He DOES do well against a lot of other decent characters though, like Fox/Sheik/ZSS/Captain Falcon, his ability to crouch a lot of their moves and uptilt comboing them greatly is a big help.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Yeah, but it would be incredibly entertaining.

It's like one of the few matchups where copy ability is actually such a boon that it might change the dynamic completely.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Yeah, but it would be incredibly entertaining.

It's like one of the few matchups where copy ability is actually such a boon that it might change the dynamic completely.

It's also completely adorable when Kirby calls out the Arts. The tiny Monado on his back is just icing on the cake.

New meta: Make the opponent forfeit due to sheer cuteness.

 

[Esquire]

The more I play Pit, the more it seems like he has very few bad match ups. I think he is edged out by the quality of some of the top tiers characters options/damage potential, but he never seems more then at a slim disadvantage against them (and not all of them. Most I'd say are neutral.)

Pit's problems seem to fall into two categories. Either characters that can abuse survivability without being combo prone (as in not big framed or floaty) or characters that actually disrupt or otherwise have a better neutral game.

Agreed, Pit feels like a much more balanced character in this game, and has good (not great) tools for almost all aspects of his game. An exception is gimping, where I actually do feel that Pit has "+" tools for preventing recovery, particularly the bow and Guardian Orbitars. Another exception is juggle defense, where I do think Pit lacks a safe downward descent from being juggled (NAir is good, but doesn't have a great downward hitbox, while DAir has bad ending lag issues both in the air and from air to ground). Besides these two things, most of Pit's match-ups will be best described as "doable" sans the Spacies, which is never a bad thing. Wins will come down to the player's performance with Pit and not "lack of options".

There are few characters that can consistently beat Pit in neutral, IMO, but characters that can disrupt the neutral game absolutely give Pit trouble. Spacies fit this bill totally, particularly Fox. Falco meets some of this, but also has been changed to have more aerial options, one of Brawl Pit's only chance of maintaining an advantage on Brawl Falco.

Small characters, in general, give Pit trouble as well. I've seen Kirby, Jigglypuff, and even Olimar just go untouched by FTilt, aerials and jabs just because of their stature. DTilt is awesome, but fighting smaller characters in Smash 4 with Pit has increasingly felt like a high-low game from Street Fighter.

Characters like and have been giving me more trouble then most, more surprisingly the latter. Dat reflector. Falco will probably end up higher then most folks give him credit for. He is a character that seems better every day with his amazing neutral options.

As said above, Falco has always given Pit trouble ever since Brawl. Falco's buffed recovery and more balanced aerial options eliminated a lot of what Pit had going for him in the match-up, and Falco's slower movement speed, weaker ground options and wind-ups aren't much of a negative against a very average-in-mobility Pit. If anything, this match-up feels like it was turned on its head, where Pit's chances are now greater on the ground through reach and lesser in the air. Which stinks when Pit's strength is gimping. Falco is underrated, definitely, but the main point here is that regardless of how "poor" a character may be, there are definitely match-up issues with certain character archetypes for Pit.

Lucario...I'm actually not seeing where this is an abnormally hard match-up for Pit sans the general "Aura is strong" thing. Both fighters are roughly the same speed, Pit has greater reach in his normals, Pit's aerials space out Lucario extremely well, and Lucario doesn't like arrows when it's trying to recover offstage (either interrupts ESpeed or forces Lucario to land in unsafe spots). Side Special spacing at high percentages gives Lucario an option to space out Pit later on, as does elongated Smash attacks, but IMO I really like Pit's odds against Lucario. Completely opinionated, but this seems to be 6-4 Pit at worst.

Since there has been a lot of Shulk talk recently/last night, I throw out that PIt seems to do fine against him. As in even.

Shulk does seem like a very potent character for all the reasons listed in the last few pages. What I find to be the best way to play against him is to force him to wiff. A lot. Most of his attacks invovle notable commitment, and with the right arts are safe on shield. But mobile characters or characters with quick/good dash options cam get some solid hits off him darting around his commitments.

Also against Shulks that like their Vision counters, using more of your multihits helps shift the Risk/Reward to your favor (outside of the usual baiting/grabing them.) Pit's SHNair is a good option in the matchup since it hits frame 8 or so.

Shulk eliminates Pit's greatest advantage since Brawl -> SSB4, which is his greater reach on normals and aerials, but the fact that Pit can beat a non-heavy character in close quarters combat is definitely an unusual advantage for Pit to have. I personally find that reverting back to Brawl Pit's playstyle of heavy arrow spacing (which is hard for Shulk to punish unless he has Speed equipped) and focusing on hitting him horizontally is the best strategy. Forcing him to play his mid-range game up close will make Shulk very uncomfortable, and only the most patient Shulk players will be able to resist throwing out at least one or two unsafe moves (DSmash and FTilt tend to be the emergency "get off me" tools) to try and gain some distance. Shulk's jab combo isn't great (not bad, but nothing too good either), and Pit's jabs are actually faster.

The mobility arts (Speed and Jump) are actually Shulk's best option against Pit, as Pit's quick moves lack good damage and knockback while Shulk can easily space out and approach Pit with the added buffs. Still, I feel as though this match-up will be marked as "doable" for both characters, with Pit having slightly more tools to deal with Shulk than vice-versa. Shulk also hates getting gimped, so there's that.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Monado Kirby is B-throw, b-air into dtilt, trip, grab, pummel, u-throw or possibly f-throw to f-air string, drag downwards back into the stage and go for another grab/dtilt.

Its a volatile MU. Too bad normal inhale is crap and makes it hard to get.


As far as shulk vs anyone speed is almost always the best option in everything. Broke art is broke. Strengthens his mid range threat and he breaks through spam.

As for sword fighter? He is part of why I put the tiers the way I do.
He is underwhelming not unusable or at least not proven to be given his spacing options. Disjoints are still powerful tools. He does have a good U-air. Obviously up 1 is garbage but his version of Firefox works well enough. Cape is probably his best down special given what itcan offer him.

 

[Lenus Altair]

That's also my impression. When people were debating Pit vs Marth viability, I think Pit probably has the most balanced MUs of the game (ala Ken in USF4), whereas Marth's might be more polarizing. Pit might not have anything notably abusive like Ness Bthrow and Diddy's Dthrow - Uair, but he is very versatile with few weaknesses. I can't see him not being a consolidated competitive pick (Nairo is already doing work with Dark Pit).

Some people point at his inefficiency to get kills but in my experience that's not necessarily true. His smashes have really good frame data, Fsmash beats spot-dodges, his offstage and gimp game is decent and Side-B is always an option that needs to be respected.

I'm not a dedicated Pit player, so I'd like to ask: Wasn't Rosalina considered arguably his worst Match-up or did her nerfs alleviate that? And how does he fare against Mac's dominant neutral?

You're right about his Fsmash, and his gimp potential alleviates his kill struggles in a lot of matchups, but he still has to fish/get a read for a kill and while his frames are good, they arn't entirely safe. The commitment time some of his multihits have play into his vulnerabilities too.

As Rosalina the nerfs helped a lot. It has certainly made a worthwhile option for Pit to try and take out luma. While Rosalina can stay back and GP all day long, its a pretty low risk option for Pit anyway. He can control his arrows around Luma enough times to potentially disrupt the groove (if luma isn't already in melee with him.) I haven't played the match up enough post patch to have a great sense of where exactly to stands, but its closer to even for sure.

Little mac is a wash really. As Pit I play an extremely defensive/reactive game. Retreating SHFairs and just retreating/pivot grabs like CRAZY make up my game. Full hoping Dair's past him also can get a nice pop up. The matchup feels really hard until you rack 60 percent on him or so and then the momentum starts to balance out, as most every option you have will launch him in the air and it becomes safer to use SideB to knock him up with super armor of your own (the knock back gets to the point he can't fast fall to ground quick enough before you can recover and pressure him.) Pit rocks him HARD in the air, and once he is put off stage Pit is character where his odds of getting back on are extremely low. Often times you can just drag him down with arrows with no risk to yourself.

I feel the match up is pretty even overall. Notably in little macs favor at the start of his stock, balancing out a little bit as he gets to high percents, and when you do shift it his disadvantage, Little Mac is one of the hardest characters (if not THE hardest character) to shift the game back to neutral, especially against an autocancelling, multiple jumping, projectile gimp capable angel boy. Either little mac will wail on you or you'll wail on him. There isn't much middle ground.

 

[Terotrous]

So after playing an impressive Yoshi for a while tonight, I have to ask: does Yoshi have any inherent weaknesses?

Yoshi is definitely a solid all-rounder for the most part. He is very vulnerable to footstools, so if you can force him to recover low he can taken out fairly easily, but not all characters have good options to do this. He also doesn't have any super braindead kill options, so it's possible to live long against him as long as you play safe and watch out for run up UpSmash. If you force him to try to make reads you can get punish opportunities if he guesses wrong.

 

[Asdioh]

What I don't understand is how Yoshi's vulnerable to footstools, since footstools don't send your character down if you're mid-action (aerial, airdodge)?
How do you even edgeguard Yoshi with Kirby? I desperately tried it against on (on wifi) yesterday, but he would throw eggs to cover himself, and outprioritize me with Nair or whatever when I tried to Bair, and otherwise just outmaneuver me with his practically twice as fast horizontal airspeed :/

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Especially since on the one hand it's Kirby, who has basically no range, and on the other it's Shulk, aka "biggest sword in Smash and I don't mean that metaphorically or euphemistically."

I mean, can Kirby do anything to get through SH nairs?

This is specifically for glory.
However, Nair starts low and if it's being SHFF he lacks coverage above. Obvious utilt ia a huge threat considering its KBG and range, however as far as Nair goes Kirby can aim to get in a 45 spot and FF as shulk lands from the botched Nair and get a N-air or d-air. Alternative shulk changes his pacing for greater coverage but Kirby's in will generally be a spot dodge/roll/aerial feints sometimes mixed with the AD. As for making shulk commit to something laggy, he generally doesn't have to given Kirby's range until he's in advantage.

A tactic I notes from a marth player was the approaching air dodge into Nair.fair. Which worked until he had used it to predictability and realized I can beat out his spacing.

However as Kirby facing shulk I attempted similar except instead of retreating I advanced.

A fair amount of people recover low (high shulk) and off stage stone is a viable edgeguard mix up. Grounding stone does it worse mind so may want to stick to stone.

 

[Vengeance_NS]

Wait so are we mostly agreeing warios nair is good. I didn't kikenit at first but I saw Zeros Wario video and he seems to think it's great and so do a lot of you guys.

 

[Lenus Altair]

Agreed, Pit feels like a much more balanced character in this game, and has good (not great) tools for almost all aspects of his game. An exception is gimping, where I actually do feel that Pit has "+" tools for preventing recovery, particularly the bow and Guardian Orbitars. Another exception is juggle defense, where I do think Pit lacks a safe downward descent from being juggled (NAir is good, but doesn't have a great downward hitbox, while DAir has bad ending lag issues both in the air and from air to ground). Besides these two things, most of Pit's match-ups will be best described as "doable" sans the Spacies, which is never a bad thing. Wins will come down to the player's performance with Pit and not "lack of options".

There are few characters that can consistently beat Pit in neutral, IMO, but characters that can disrupt the neutral game absolutely give Pit trouble. Spacies fit this bill totally, particularly Fox. Falco meets some of this, but also has been changed to have more aerial options, one of Brawl Pit's only chance of maintaining an advantage on Brawl Falco.

As said above, Falco has always given Pit trouble ever since Brawl. Falco's buffed recovery and more balanced aerial options eliminated a lot of what Pit had going for him in the match-up, and Falco's slower movement speed, weaker ground options and wind-ups aren't much of a negative against a very average-in-mobility Pit. If anything, this match-up feels like it was turned on its head, where Pit's chances are now greater on the ground through reach and lesser in the air. Which stinks when Pit's strength is gimping. Falco is underrated, definitely, but the main point here is that regardless of how "poor" a character may be, there are definitely match-up issues with certain character archetypes for Pit.

I've consistently had more problems with Falco then Fox, personally. I play Pit as a much more heavily grounded character in S4 then Brawl, and I can make Fox respect my neutral game at mid range where he has to play with my disjointed tilts. Falco doesn't have to deal with that since his thrown reflector is a pretty free "no" option to all of that. I actually feel better in the air against Falco, as the disjoints on nair and fair he still has to respect and throwing his reflector there isn't a good an option.

Small characters, in general, give Pit trouble as well. I've seen Kirby, Jigglypuff, and even Olimar just go untouched by FTilt, aerials and jabs just because of their stature. DTilt is awesome, but fighting smaller characters in Smash 4 with Pit has increasingly felt like a high-low game from Street Fighter.

You're right there. Though Kirby's air game aint what it used to be versus Pit, so no worries. I havent faced a good Jiggles in S4, but Olimar is a pain for sure. At least you can force him to run out of pikmen.

Lucario...I'm actually not seeing where this is an abnormally hard match-up for Pit sans the general "Aura is strong" thing. Both fighters are roughly the same speed, Pit has greater reach in his normals, Pit's aerials space out Lucario extremely well, and Lucario doesn't like arrows when it's trying to recover offstage (either interrupts ESpeed or forces Lucario to land in unsafe spots). Side Special spacing at high percentages gives Lucario an option to space out Pit later on, as does elongated Smash attacks, but IMO I really like Pit's odds against Lucario. Completely opinionated, but this seems to be 6-4 Pit at worst.

I'm surprised you'd see it in Pit's favor. The range he eventually gets and the damage he builds is more then Pit can handle. I feel you need the gimp on him or get a good FSmash read otherwise he'll max that aura and take it. And while you can harassas Lucario quite well, his recover becomes insane distance wise, so you need him to hit a blast zone to end it. I have trouble seeing this in Pit's favor, but there is certainly room for me to be proven wrong.

Shulk also hates getting gimped, so there's that.

Yeah, that's for sure! Pardon me not mentioning the obvious, but I focused on smaller things haha.

 

[Terotrous]

What I don't understand is how Yoshi's vulnerable to footstools, since footstools don't send your character down if you're mid-action (aerial, airdodge)?

Yeah, footstool is kind of a mixup. You can't always go for it or he'll just stick out Uair. You have to alternate between attempting footstool and sticking out an attack so he considers air dodging or whatever, then you can get him.

The main reason he's vulnerable to footstools is because without his double jump, he's basically dead offstage. His UpB gives very little vertical height.