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I'll risk saying it; Pac-Man is awful. Customs on helps him since he gets some really good options (On-Fire Hydrant is ridiculous!), but he's still a low tier character from where I'm sitting either way (customs is just a question of whether low tier has viability, not of whether he's in it). He's just so unsafe as a character, and he lacks solid goto options or really anything oppressive to do to assert his dominance. He's not even really a power character; for how unsafe so much of his stuff is, he should probably hit as hard as Bowser, but he doesn't. I also foresee him getting worse as the metagame advances; if he ever got to be a real threat in the metagame, people would just practice catching his fruit, and that would be a really big problem for him since it's not like he has any kind of a real rushdown game (unsafe attacks AND the worst grab in the game, great combo) so if you as a player had no fear at all of camping him I dunno what he would do.
I dont understand how he is unsafe at all, he has: A dash attack that basically cancels into Ftilt, one of the quickest fairs in the game, a decent projectile game, powerful, somewhat lingering and disjointed smashes, stage control, an okay combo game, almost broken recovery, decent damage output and a very solid aerial game outside of fair. Oh and I should also mention Pac's edgeguarding, which, with oranges, apples, side-b, bairs and nairs, is exemplary.
You said that people might start practicing to catch the fruit but the usefulness of Bonus Fruit comes from its versatility and somewhat unpredictability. If you are throwing out the same fruit time and time again, you deserve to be punished. I do not understand how someone, in a pressure situation, could catch every single one of Pac's fruits if he uses them in the way in which they should be used.
You also claim he has no rushdown, I disagree he has a short hop double fair and dash attack that are great moves. DA can even lead into fair and nair if they are low enough on percent. He also does not necessarily need to approach. Characters that lack projectiles are going to have to approach Pac eventually and when they do, you can start using all of his traps.
I somewhat agree that heavy projectile characters such as Villager will give Pac trouble, however, once he gets in, then the tides will turn as he can take much greater control of the stage than Villager can (seriously, just attack the tree and that can cause all kinds of problems for them).
I also do not think you are looking at his traps and set ups entirely the right way. Yes, in theory his hydrant disrupts him as much as the opponent but that isnt the point. Its an utter godsend in the RosaLuma matchup because it can desync them and if the Rosa decides to use Luma Shot, too bad because that Luma is gonna get stuck by the hydrant. Pac can also take advantage of hydrant dashing and surfing to surprise the opponent. Yes these techs are available to the opponent but its more of a surprise element than a telegraphed thing. Many times I have caught competent opponents out by hydrant dashing a smash attack. It also helps get him out of juggles. If a character wants to come up from underneath you like a Sheik or Greninja to finish you off in the air, too bad they are gonna receive a hydrant in their face. Oh and tramps are also great. I have not entirely got the hang of setting them up yet, but you can use it OoS and can force the opponent to either jump over it, go airborne (where Pac will have quicker moves most of the time and be able to gain control) or wait for it to disappear. These are all punishable. Using it in tandem with Bonus Fruits and hydrants is going to be hell for whoever you are up against. You said Pac man being behind in a game is going to give him some trouble… Well, if you are behind Pac in a game, how are you going to weave through all the ****
covering the stage?
He is a versatile character and a lot of people are ignoring him at this stage but I am sure he is a force to be reckoned with in the future. Abadango is already doing great stuff for us over in Japan but I have not heard of much else going on in other regions. He has plenty of weaknesses so I agree with Aerodrome's placing of him but I have no idea how you could come to the conclusion he is awful unless nobody who is actually good with him has actually played against you. Feel free to discuss this with me though.
I don't know who came up with the idea of increasing Hydrant's HP by 1. It's the worst nerf that came with the new patch by a landslide. It makes Hydrant so much worse because bair and melon can no longer OHKO it .... that 1 HP increased the risk of using that move way too much. It's still a solid move but nowhere near as good as it was before.
I don't know who came up with the idea of increasing Hydrant's HP by 1. It's the worst nerf that came with the new patch by a landslide. It makes Hydrant so much worse because bair and melon can no longer OHKO it .... that 1 HP increased the risk of using that move way too much. It's still a solid move but nowhere near as good as it was before.
I have a hard time seeing Falco as bad because of how easy it is to hit people with him, and the great damage he gets out of it. He can jab from a mile away, ftilt is more or less safe on block if spaced, and he can basically outcamp anyone besides Ness.
I guess the only flaw in his gameplan is how reliant you are on the bair to clear out a stock as his kill setups go a bit too high up at high damage, but hey, characters have been successful with just a good backair before. (DK)
I've been playing Marth a lot, this character seems super underrated (mantra of the thread I know). In spite of his nerfs the game's mechanics have done him a lot of favors. Landing tippers is easier then ever, and I can't see his offstage gameplay being outside top tier in the game and extremely deadly now that fair and bair kill.
I cant say I know a lot about it yet but I feel like Marth could end up doing very well against diddy. Im not sure how much the banana comes into play, but aside from his kit onstage diddy offstage seems to get wrecked by Marth (side b, fair, up-b, bair air, uair).
Also Marth uair is kind of crazy, it hits so low to the ground now you can do a rising uair from a jump and hit an opponent up. Fair also has low reach to the ground (lower then Brawl's) which is extremely rare in this game now, in fact I think Marth has the best low reaching forward facing aerial attack by a long shot. If Marth got double fair I thikit would definitely be too good. Sorry @Shaya
but Im still in the "dont buff marth" train.
Also maybe went under the radar but Mr. Eric got 3rd at a NY/NJ tournament beating dabuz's Rosalina
I don't know who came up with the idea of increasing Hydrant's HP by 1. It's the worst nerf that came with the new patch by a landslide. It makes Hydrant so much worse because bair and melon can no longer OHKO it .... that 1 HP increased the risk of using that move way too much. It's still a solid move but nowhere near as good as it was before.
I don't know who came up with the idea of increasing Hydrant's HP by 1. It's the worst nerf that came with the new patch by a landslide. It makes Hydrant so much worse because bair and melon can no longer OHKO it .... that 1 HP increased the risk of using that move way too much. It's still a solid move but nowhere near as good as it was before.
It definitely wasn't, but it makes the move less safe to throw out just for kicks now because you can no longer kick it (or orange it?!) at the opponent for free. Which I'm fine with.
EDIT: let me clarify, it was fine as an option for Pac-Man. But people could literally sit behind it and kick the hydrant at opponents. Not a good strategy but that's just it, it promoted degenerate Pac-Man play. It's too bad they had to remove that option from him but that's how it happened. His smashes are still an option although much more committal.
No, but having your strategy forced on one thing like Pac Man will make people complain and get it nerfed, which will probably make things worse. Yes, it's more enjoyable to watch or fight Pac-Man. But is it enjoyable to use him anymore? I can safely say not as much for myself, winning is extremely difficult since i can't grab( We all know Pac's grab is utter crap) , I can no longer K.O until really late (hydrant is slow to kick out now, smashes are stupid slow), making me useless vs shields. Yes I still have stage control, but i don't a good quick way to attack someone who simply jumps (Again, Inky is not good, and Hydrant is too slow. You know how slow a bair and ftilt is? Slow enough for them to hit you and the hydrant, which will almost immediately betray you), not even Little Mac
It definitely wasn't, but it makes the move less safe to throw out just for kicks now because you can no longer kick it (or orange it?!) at the opponent for free. Which I'm fine with.
EDIT: let me clarify, it was fine as an option for Pac-Man. But people could literally sit behind it and kick the hydrant at opponents. Not a good strategy but that's just it, it promoted degenerate Pac-Man play. It's too bad they had to remove that option from him but that's how it happened. His smashes are still an option although much more committal.
Or, they could nerf bair by 1%, now you have to charge up a melon. Or Smash it. Yes it promoted degenerate play. But Pac lost the ability to quickly use his best gimp move, disruptor, and joke(Little mac can play golf. He just never says fore.). Since it's way easier for the opponent to destroy the hydrant before you, Putting it down anywhere is far more a risk for you and reward for them then risk to them and reward for you. The hydrant is still there but 75ZZ% of the cast can destroy it before you and hit you twice.
Yup. Now i have to kill everyone with edgeguarding, and literally no other way. Yay. With how unsafe his grabs, smashes, hydrant, and other stuff are, he should be Bowser strength to make up... Yeah, that will never happen. Pac Man wasn't even that good before the patch. And even though the characters that are toxic to fight against should suck competetively (like Pac Man), now that they took that away, they should heavily buff him to make up. Yeah I;m serious. Before he was toxic to fight. Now he's a free win. Before he was usable. Now it's an auto lose.
And his hypothetical tier position will only get worse, since people will learn to catch fruit if he ever gets anywhere significant on the hypothetical tier list, counter his hydrant, and gimp his recovery. 2 of those some people already know, and I put all 3 into action. It isn't even hard.
So since he's no longer a toxic character who sucks, he's now a character who sucks. So i say they buff him heavily. They could reverse the hydrant health but give it a cooldown (somewhere from 3-10 seconds, the higher would mean less health), making him not toxic. Then make his smashes either quicker or linger, and make his useless dair disjointed or higher in range and damage to make it usable.. Lastly, give him a safe grab, i don't care is the smashes suck, i don't want to turn into a ball and flow a predictable line just to damage shields.
So here are my thoughts, not quite in a full list though I could make one.
I'll risk saying it; Pac-Man is awful. Customs on helps him since he gets some really good options (On-Fire Hydrant is ridiculous!), but he's still a low tier character from where I'm sitting either way (customs is just a question of whether low tier has viability, not of whether he's in it). He's just so unsafe as a character, and he lacks solid goto options or really anything oppressive to do to assert his dominance. He's not even really a power character; for how unsafe so much of his stuff is, he should probably hit as hard as Bowser, but he doesn't. I also foresee him getting worse as the metagame advances; if he ever got to be a real threat in the metagame, people would just practice catching his fruit, and that would be a really big problem for him since it's not like he has any kind of a real rushdown game (unsafe attacks AND the worst grab in the game, great combo) so if you as a player had no fear at all of camping him I dunno what he would do.
Unsafe in what sense? Ground Attacks? Most of his melee attacks are pretty quick without much lag. Of course, they're not great on block, but not many tilts are. Outside of his Smash attacks, grab, and Side B, nothing I do with him feels like a hard commitment. In general, he feels unsafe because you can't throw out grab whenever you want, meaning you'll probably be striking shields a lot. This is where Up B will come in to use. It'll take a while to get used to, but it'll be smarter to run on top of the opponent and up B with Pac Man whenever you feel like risking a grab.
Aerials? The only one that's really lacking is Dair. FH Nair is pretty difficult to punish, and I'd imagine SH or FH retreating Fair would be the same way. SH Bair is a commitment in the sense that he can't jump before hitting the ground, but the FH one is pretty safe.
Specials? Side B is unsafe on block for sure, and possibly on whiff depending on the situation. All of his other specials, for attack purposes, are very difficult to punish. He can do nearly whatever he wants out of the BF animation, hydrant is safe unles he's standing right next to you (but he shouldn't be placing it in that situation), and up B is unblockable/beats spotdodge and it's difficult to aggressively follow him because you have to jump over the trampoline or get tossed airborne.
In the disadvantaged state, he's pretty resistant to juggles as long as hydrant is available. Most characters have to respect it completely, and for those who don't, he can still throw it down early and use the water spurts to his advantage in order to avoid getting punished.
As for lacking solid go to options or anything assertive, my go to option in neutral is to charge whatever fruit I want and proceed from there. If my opponent doesn't approach, I get keys and throw them along with launching hydrants at them. If that doesn't work, I apply pressure with aerials + hydrant while closing the gap, and I pressure them into doing something that gets them keyed.
I'm mentioning key a lot. I know it can be caught, but I don't think it is a good idea to let Pac Man get them. Once he has one, he has an effective punish for nearly anything. If you start tunnel visioning for the key, you open yourself up to his other stuff, notably up B if you start shielding a lot. Otherwise, if you do anything laggy while he has one, or he reads a projectile move that won't stop Key's hitbox, you're eating 15%.
For oppressive options, if Pac Man is in the lead, he shines. How do you approach:
The trampoline forces you airborne and stops you from simply smashing the hydrant away. Pac Man is safe from any SH aerials because of the hydrant. If you land in front of it, if he has a key, he throws it and you take 28%. If he has an orange, he can throw that at you too. I believe Galaxian retains a hitbox even if it runs into something much stronger than it, so he could throw that too if he has it. If you launch the hydrant, he can punish the launch. If you full hop over both, the character just forced you to full hop. Not fun. He can pressure you with aerials, and he can run to wherever you're going to land, shield, and up B you for unblockable %.
As for power, his damage per hit is decent, and his smashes aren't lacking by any means for a character his speed and size.
For catching fruit, I think Pac Man players would advance too and get smart enough not to let you catch his fruit. Similar to how Rosalina, in theory, can always just GP anything Pac Man does, she can't be ready to do it all times, and Pac Man can punish accordingly. To always be ready to catch his fruit would basically mean never committing to anything.
Characters that can outcamp him will probably give him trouble, no doubt about it. The main problem with Pac Man's rushdown is that he can't grab reliably. I think up B will help circumvent that problem, but it will still be an issue.
The thing with Hydrant is that once it's down it in theory doesn't do more for Pac-Man than for his opponent; water pushes both sides around indiscriminately, and both sides can take advantage of those situations. Now, he can choose when and where to deploy it and it is really disruptive on the match which if he had a really good camp game I'd see a vision of him working (disrupt everything to make his camp game super hard to deal with), but his projectile is catchable and generally a pretty telegraphed move which to me would seem to really kill the point. Like if it's Pac-Man vs Villager, Villager is up a stock, and Villager's gameplan is to hide behind the tree/run away as it suits him and shoot slingshot bullets all day until time runs out, what does Pac do? How does Pac-Man force the issue and make himself a problem? I mean, Pac can mess with the opponent's mobility options a lot which is nice, but everything he does also messes with his own options and it's not clear how he can transition a disrupted stage into a winning game state for himself since if the opponent doesn't care if the match is slow and boring it doesn't seem like it helps Pac-Man to make it that way even if he can do so easily..
If you're a character without a charging projectile or a way to constantly pressure Pac Man from a range, the hydrant helps him more than you because if you don't go around it or deal with it, he charges whatever fruit he wants. If you do have the latter option, you probably leave yourself vulnerable to a key whenever you do it.
Hydrant also meatshields any non-piercing projectiles.
I touched on his camp game in the Pac Man metagame thread:
As of late, I've been thinking that 's greatest potential is as a camping character that doesn't approach unless he absolutely has to, or he is facing an opponent that can out camp him.
I'm sure it didn't take you guys long to figure out how effective:
is as a stage control setup once you get the lead, and it only gets worse once you throw platforms into the mix. Seriously, nobody can get around this setup safely, except maybe . The trampoline stops them from quickly smashing the hydrant away, and if they short hop, they're going to be stopped by the hydrant, which you can then proceed to throw something at them or read a launch by them and side B into them.
Now, just imagine that for every single time they committed to crossing your hydrant by full hopping, you:
1: roll towards your trampoline once they've landed and bounce to the other side of the stage. If they try to chase you, they have to waste time launching the hydrant or jumping over it. If you have practiced sufficiently to know where to land so that if they Fsmash your hydrant at you, you won't get hit by it, this is safe. Then, you set up another trampoline and wait for them to try again, respawning your hydrant once you can.
2: Jump at them and Bair/Uair/Fair and reset the situation,except with them having more % now.
3:Shield and grab, or unshield and use tilts/jab to hit them.
4: Assuming you've already Bair'd your hydrant, you Ftilt launch it them as soon as they jump, forcing an AD, and then you punish the lag.
As for the Villager example, Villager will be one of the characters that gives Pac Man a hard time, but here's what I would consider doing (note: theorycraft since I haven't been able to play a good villager yet):
If Villager is going to the other side of the stage, planting his tree and whatnot, I'd run to the other side and charge up a key, which his tree won't stop. It doesn't stop hydrant launches either.
I would launch hydrants at him and time key throws so that if he pockets the hydrant, he gets hit by the key. If I ever read a slingshot or gyroid, my key will pierce through his shot and hit him, giving me the advantage in that war. If he moves forward to pester me with shots and gyroids, I hide behind the hydrant and keep charging it while keeping track of how close it is to being launched.
If he pockets my hydrant, big deal. I can place another one and continue what I'm doing, with assurance that he can't pocket dumb key throws.
If that didn't work, I'd charge up key and walk at him. If he sets a gyroid, I throw the key and hit him. If I read a slingshot, I hit him. If he swings at the tree, he gets hit. I could also just run at him since his grab is pretty bad too and up B him.
I haven't had the opportunity to fight a good villager yet, but I don't think Pac Man would be helpless or anything. I think it would be a frustrating MU for both sides.
Edit: Let me add something.
Last tournament, I fought against Lee Martin's Lucina/Ness as Pac Man. The most frustrating thing about the matches was the fact that if Lee spaced his aerials correctly (99% of the time), I could not grab him at all. I was left at a loss and questioned what Pac Man could do about it, since other top players would do the same thing. Honestly, his grab feels sooooo crippling at times. It's too risky to grab even obvious stuff.
Getting around it will be the key to unlocking his potential.
One option is to go on the offensive more and utilize up B's potential as an unblockable move.
Another idea is to use Key catching tech and get it down consistently. Remember how in Brawl ZSS was a bit limited OOS without a suit piece? Imagine trying to hit Pac Man's shield when he has a Key in hand. Or anything in hand for that matter.
It's frustrating for Villager but I do think he beats Pac-Man. Speaking of Villager, though, his grab is probably worse than Pac-Man's. I'm not sure how long it takes for Pac-Man's grab to come out (Villager's takes 14 frames) but I'm almost certain from playing against it that Pac-Man has a longer grab duration and a better range. I'd take Pac-Man's grab over Villager's in a heartbeat. I also don't know any good Villagers who honestly camp behind their tree, it's usually a poor strategy.
Also, cry me a river about not being able to kill easily. Game & Watch has it as bad if not worse IMO since Pac-Man's smashes are hard to punish once they're out because they linger like G&W's FSmash used to (I am so upset about that change).
Seeing as @B0NK was manly enough to post his tier list, I decided to post my first few months impressions of what a tier list should/would look like if it was released right now.
S Tier:
A Tier:
B Tier:
C Tier:
D Tier:
E Tier:
Hyrule Tier:
Please don't kill me. I'd like some input that isn't "MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER ISNT IN THAT POSITION".
I am fairly certain S to C tier is fairly accurate. Less certain about D tier. I have a lot of people telling me Bowser Jr. is really good for example.
People are welcome to ask what my thoughts are of a characters perceived strengths and weaknesses too.
Quoted my list I posted the other day without comments for reference to my point of view. I will note though that my list isn't trying to make hard tiers, but just establish how I group characters as equals. There is room for some merging.
I'm surprised you have DeDeDe in the same tier as characters like Pit, Marth, Pikachu, and Peach. What makes you feel he is viable enough to warrant being in the middle of the cast? Likewise, how is Mario a Better characters then the 4 I just mentioned?
What makes you feel that there is such a huge disparity between Link and Young Link?
Pac-Man's Up-B is a ridiculous lingering unblockable control move
Hydrant is not a zero sum benefit for Pac-Man because it aids him in stalling time to pick the fruit he wants, going back to how item tossing is the best attack in the game.
Most of Pac-Man's moveset is average to above average, outside of the fact that he is definitely held back by the lack of a standard grab in footsies.
Pac-Man looks terrible and limited, until you realize that he's the type of character that actually is very good at forcing people to play on his terms by shutting out options.
There exists the trend of Rosalina being 3rd on peoples' tier lists behind Diddy/Sheik, even though she loses solidly to virtually every fast character with a decent grab game. Not only this but the anti-Luma metagame is progressing increasingly more quickly every week since the Wii-U's release. Her lack of either a decent combo breaker or mobility option to get away from juggling + her floatyness + her weakness to Luma dying make for a volatile character in a tournament setting. As it stands now, her polarizing matchup spread against everyone who isn't fast makes her 7th on my list, right behind Sonic.
I agree. I said prior to the nerf that I thought Rosalina was a top 2 or 3 character, and that after the nerf she fell off a bit, but was still solidly in my top 10.
I still think Rosalina has the tools to win tournaments. However, I expect her results to be far less impressive than that of other characters. I think you'll see the likes of Diddy, Sheik, Fox, Ness, Yoshi, Sonic, Mario, Luigi, etc. winning more major tournaments than Rosalina will. And that will mostly be because, generally speaking, top players don't like playing Rosalina.
Rosalina can be frustrating to use because of how easily Luma is knocked away, so if an opponent keeps hitting Luma away then playing Rosalina can often feel like a game of trying to stall until Luma gets back.
She's also not the type of character that will really go in on opponents and whoop ass, like most top players are used to doing. Her play style is about spacing and patience. That's just not appealing to many people.
A character's tournament results are not only about the potential of a character, but a character's ability to be appealing enough to make the top players want to learn the character inside and out.
---
And speaking of that, how many top players do you think have tried mastering Donkey Kong so far? Probably not too many. Yet last night we saw how much potential even supposedly low tier characters have.
The more I see of this game the more I appreciate just what an incredible job Sakurai has done with character balance this around. At this point in time I wouldn't be surprised to see any character take down a tournament, as long as they can get a few very good players to stay committed to them. (Having said that, we will obviously have a disproportionate amount of wins from characters like Diddy and Sheik because of the sheer number of top players who are committed to those characters right now)
I don't really find Mii Gunner confusing; I find his toolset just too incomplete. I mean, sure, you have a solid traditional zoning game with projectiles, very solid even. What is your fallback if they get past that first line of attack, especially a character like Fox who finds the idea of his opponents just running away throwing projectiles amusing? Gunner doesn't seem to have one. If you are successfully keeping them out with projecitle zoning, it takes forever to win too since he just doesn't finish stocks well; you have them living to 150-170% every stock knowing that if you ever lose momentum horrible things happen to you. If Gunner loses momentum and the opponent is rushing him hard and in his face, he has awful options to get them off, awful options to protect himself if they're only kinda out, and is in extreme peril off-stage with his poor recovery. He can't even shift gears if he sees zoning is wrong against a particular player; his non-zoning game is just so thoroughly incompetent he has to keep trying to play his one style of game all the time which is the kind of rigidity that tends not to speak well of a character (as a Brawl G&W main, I'm remembering my least favorite things about my old character right now). So yeah, Gunner is really oppressive when he's working; I just find it too easy for the game to go ways where he's not working, and he more than any other character lacks flexibility to handle match siutations in which his game isn't working and he has to claw back while playing the other guy's game. That makes me feel like he's the biggest risk to pick out of any character, and being a risky pick is for me the essence of being a bottom tier character in a well balanced game which this one is.
I disagree most with this (solid writeup on the rest; I don't agree that Diddy is the best character in the game in any way with customs off--it just doesn't hold statistically--but that's a debate for another time), and by enough of a margin to write a quick answer before heading out. You seem to have arrived at a fundamental misunderstanding of Mii Gunner. Although he's probably the best zoner in the game in terms of keeping people out (transcendent projectiles, reflector, number of projectiles are the reasons), he doesn't actually want to keep people out. He doesn't do much damage when he keeps away from his opponent. The gunner's preferred style, rather, is to use his projectiles to create openings and to go in. I'll get into a more thorough analysis of his kit when I have more time, but to start with you can take a look at his b-air, which does 12% and autocancels. If you use grenades to create space and then rush in with the Mii's fast dashgrabs and autocanceled b-airs you will put opponents into bad positions, from where they can be hit with the Gunner's tremendous up-air and up-smash.
He's one of the best characters in disadvantage, by the way, because of the f-air momentum shifts and multiple b-reverse tricks. If you take up-b 3 you've got a pretty good recovery and an amazing edgeguarding game using your grenades, flame pillar, and n-air to knock people away from the ledge.
I'd peg this character as top 10 rather than last position. Don't know what character you've been playing, but it can't be the same Mii Gunner that I've been playing. Took me all the way to Winners Finals in a rather stacked bracket, and all I did was go in every match.
@san. can weigh in with his impressions since I know he's been using a lot of Gunner too.
I completely forgot about Pac Man recatching his own fruits and using them to give himself a substitute for not being able to shieldgrab poorly spaced aerials.
The only cons about this are that he gives up his grab () and it takes time...but who's pretty good at stalling?
Let me elaborate, because this could be big. This could address a huge flaw in his game.
Pac-Man can regrab his galaxian after throwing when it goes in its shuttle loop.
He might be able to regrab his orange throwing it at a hydrant right in front of him.
I believe strawberry and cherry linger long enough for him to easily grab them.
Melon can be caught up with, but that takes a lot of space. It also moves slowly, so I don't think it will be too optimal for this. Apple might be a bit unorthodox as well.
If he has a Galaxian/Orange/Key in his hand, he gains a reliable long ranged OOS option that does 9%/8%15% and does not stale, with the first two being re-catchable after throwing from hand. Now his shield can't be battered for free.
Combine this with the fact that he has a move that is unblockable and forces characters to jump....
The more I see of this game the more I appreciate just what an incredible job Sakurai has done with character balance this around. At this point in time I wouldn't be surprised to see any character take down a tournament, as long as they can get a few very good players to stay committed to them. (Having said that, we will obviously have a disproportionate amount of wins from characters like Diddy and Sheik because of the sheer number of top players who are committed to those characters right now)
Sheik, yes. Diddy, no. A lot of people (M2K included) are just playing Diddy like a rushdown character, getting D-throw and U-air to get kills. As we seen in the tournament, players have started to figure out Diddy and are beginning to make him falter. Diddy is still strong but I can't see him as a dominant force at this point in time. I feel Players will jump off the bandwagon and go back to the characters they really want to play.
I have hopes that this character roster is balanced, but we've yet to tap the potential of all characters and this game in general. Players are still abusing shield as if they're playing Brawl, and not enough respect is being given in general (Ally got so many kills from people just flying into Mario's U-Smash). There needs to be a shift in mentality first, and then we'll really start seeing the gap in tiers.
I'm starting to feel that Lucina is the worst character in the game. Outside of spacing and edgeguarding, what does she do competently? She's below average at killing (outside of U/Fsmash), she's almost completely unsafe on shield, and she doesn't rack up damage like Marth. And as far as her (and Marth's) spacing game is concerned, it's nowhere near as potent as Marth's was during Melee/Brawl meaning most of the cast doesn't struggle THAT hard to get in and either gets more reward for getting in on Lucina than she does on them and/or kills her earlier than she kills them considering she's a lightweight.
Even without comparing her to Marth, I don't see many redeeming aspects about her in comparison to the rest of the cast with two caveats: customs on makes her edgeguarding a lot more potent with access to Dolphin Jump and I believe she's better than Olimar on the 3DS version given the Pikmin's braindead AI (unless they fixed that in the patch).
TL;DR She's Roy in a game without any trash characters (except 3DS Olimar) to make her look better in comparison.
Sheik, yes. Diddy, no. A lot of people (M2K included) are just playing Diddy like a rushdown character, getting D-throw and U-air to get kills. As we seen in the tournament, players have started to figure out Diddy and are beginning to make him falter. Diddy is still strong but I can't see him as a dominant force at this point in time. I feel Players will jump off the bandwagon and go back to the characters they really want to play.
I have hopes that this character roster is balanced, but we've yet to tap the potential of all characters and this game in general. Players are still abusing shield as if they're playing Brawl, and not enough respect is being given in general (Ally got so many kills from people just flying into Mario's U-Smash). There needs to be a shift in mentality first, and then we'll really start seeing the gap in tiers.
This post is so important given people are still trying to box this game one way or another from whatever past they used to understand from Brawl/Melee but the game has only been out in North America for the Wii U for
I'm starting to feel that Lucina is the worst character in the game. Outside of spacing and edgeguarding, what does she do competently? She's below average at killing (outside of U/Fsmash), she's almost completely unsafe on shield, and she doesn't rack up damage like Marth. And as far as her (and Marth's) spacing game is concerned, it's nowhere near as potent as Marth's was during Melee/Brawl meaning most of the cast doesn't struggle THAT hard to get in and either gets more reward for getting in on Lucina than she does on them and/or kills her earlier than she kills them considering she's a lightweight.
Even without comparing her to Marth, I don't see many redeeming aspects about her in comparison to the rest of the cast with two caveats: customs on makes her edgeguarding a lot more potent with access to Dolphin Jump and I believe she's better than Olimar on the 3DS version given the Pikmin's braindead AI (unless they fixed that in the patch).
TL;DR She's Roy in a game without any trash characters (except 3DS Olimar) to make her look better in comparison.
Then yeah she would be the worst but thats an impossible situation. Nintendo may not be the best at balancing, but I don't think anyone on their team has brain damage.
Then yeah she would be the worst but thats an impossible situation. Nintendo may not be the best at balancing, but I don't think anyone on their team has brain damage.
Then yeah she would be the worst but thats an impossible situation. Nintendo may not be the best at balancing, but I don't think anyone on their team has brain damage.
Lucina may not excel at much (except disjoints) but she doesn't do anything bad, either. Marth's archetype is very well-rounded and Lucina plays that same game, just without the tippers that give Marth his strong rewards.
We know a clone of Marth can be unviable though. I'm probably being a bit harsh against her since she definitely performs well against non-heavyweight characters who struggle to get in on her like Kirby, Mr. G&W, & Mario and characters with gimpable recoveries like Ike, Little Mac, & Mario.....that and I had forgotten that characters like Mr. G&W and Wii Fit Trainer exist. She's still pretty overrated in my opinion and I predict will end up bottom five, Marth clone or not.
Lucina may not excel at much (except disjoints) but she doesn't do anything bad, either. Marth's archetype is very well-rounded and Lucina plays that same game, just without the tippers that give Marth his strong rewards.
I think you actually hit that nail on the head. Lucina's main problem in my view isn't that she's a character who's inherently bad. Edgeguards come naturally to her and even with her disadvantages she can still zone competently. It's just that she's in a game where almost every other character is good, or at least does what she can do better. Marth was already covered because he has the option to tipper in addition to edgeguarding. Other characters like Rosalina/Ganondorf can edgeguard arguably better than Lucina too because they send the opponent out much further. Lucy also has a significant dearth of killing moves compared to the majority of the cast. Lucina is probably not bottom 5, but she's certainly in the bottom half and I'd probably peg her as barely bottom 10 myself.
I've come to the conclusion that to be a bad character in this game, you have to be largely unremarkable,(i.e. not terribad like in Melee/Brawl but just average) and most of the characters who I see people consider bad (Doc, Samus) fall into that category. WFT is the main exception to this rule, mostly because instead of being average, the cast literally hates her guts and they have characteristics that make her matchups against them problematic, such as being short, having reflectors, or having disjoint that beats out her range.
You know I've only played Marth a few times but I feel like I understand his basic gameplan and strengths and....
yeah, that seems about right honestly.
I think Doc does better against him than Mario though because Megavitamins are more annoying than fireballs and Marth's options are in general a bit laggier in the air. It might be better for Doc but not favorable or even IMO.
WFT is the main exception to this rule, mostly because instead of being average, the cast literally hates her guts and they have characteristics that make her matchups against them problematic, such as being short, having reflectors, or having disjoint that beats out her range.
Or hell, no disjoints that still beat her regardless. Super janky hitboxes only go so far.
She's a character that is fairly hard to get a good grasp of, and even when you surmount that, it still yields nearly no rewards.
She bad bruh.
Correct me if wrong.
"Let's say you hit someone on frame 4 of their shield, so it isn't a power shield.
You hit them with a 10 damage move which is about 6 frames of shield stun." ~ Shaya.
Kirby vs Villager.
Kirby has 10 landing Lag on Nair. His fastest action is frame 3 Jab, hits tilts come out either on frame 4 or 5 depending on the move. His grab is frame 6.
Villagers fastest option is Jab as well. Hits tilts come out from 8 or later, and his grab is frame 14.
From what I understood of Shayas earlier chart Shield stun ~10% damage is around 4-5 frames of shield stun.
Then we're looking at Villager going 5 frames of Shield stun, 7 to shield drop next attack 3 or 8 frames later, that or he Grabs.
Eg. 15 (jab), 19 (grab), 20 (tilt) Frames in total between Kirbys Nair and an incoming attack. Off a SHFF then, does Villager really punish Kirby in any meaningful way OOS, given the state of Villagers jab? You can eat quite a few of those jabs and be relatively fine given the alternatives.
As far as the relevance to Competitive Impressions. It's 1) To bring up Villagers CQC options OOS relative to the cast 2) Bring up the Air-Ground transition of Kirby, and how X-matchups may not be so problematic for him given his frame data.
Partially given that we all agree so far that Kirby just can't approach, as a result of a) being spaced out b) Safe options.
Granted tether/tetherish Grabs have been poor in that respect in general but food for thought?
Marth/Lucina vs Shulk is funny, because the whole battle is just a training ground for Shulks to learn their spacing.
Coming up at six is SolidSense's Greninja tiering.
Is he pro-Gren, anti-Gren? We do know he is quite the Pikachu main, so maybe he will side with the type chart, but given Greninja's ability, that might not even matter! However, it does seem to be causing quite the stir. More details after the break.
