Character Competitive Impressions

[Nobie]

G&W's Up Smash and Fsmash have "buffs" that you choose to ignore... kinda silly.
The Down smash being bigger range and having sweetspots that kill and sour spots that set up for a tech chase is bad?
Fsmash that angles upwards as an anti air and can be easily achieved out of run/dash?
Up Smash helmet is practically invincible from aerial moves, when you have such an amazing dash attack, pretty good dash grab and an array of fast-ish tools that can be done out of dashes (his ground movement/mobility feels better than Brawl) than people have to respect/fear him in a lot of situations.

His true weaknesses really are his light weight. His general kit otherwise is pretty dumb; sheik and diddy are true losses, but he can kinda wreck them with certain up-b trade situations (or other aerials).

I would say because other characters are balanced a bit better than Brawl on average, G&W looks worse than in Brawl, where he was definitely towards the higher regions and had cheese like bucket breaking. But his capabilities aren't really worse, if not he's more adjusted to this game's play style than most other characters who are stuck as either too slow to compete or their brawl strategies aren't viable (and they may not have others).

Would you say that, rather than being a glass cannon, G&W is now about being as slippery and hard to pin down as his 2-D shape implies?

 

[InfinityCollision]

It's also an old Brawl tech where I wouldn't be surprised if it existed in Melee, too.

Pivots have been around since 64.

 

[Shaya]

Would you say that, rather than being a glass cannon, G&W is now about being as slippery and hard to pin down as his 2-D shape implies?

He was kinda that slippery in brawl, he just didn't have the frame data or ground mobility to really compete against the likes of Meta Knight or Marth's disjoints.
Ftilt is a nice disjoint, up b is a little nerfed but can still trade windboxes to break combos, his jab is fast and big, dash attack is fast and big.

 

[Minordeth]

Let's talk about the Mac and his status post-Wii U release. Still a monster, or an imposter? He has really fallen off the FG scene, and it seems like the tourney scene to the point where I feel he is almost underrated. Sure, he gets gimped like no one else, but no one exemplifies risk/reward like Little Mac. I feel like Mario is actually a strong counter to the Mac, but unsure of the rest of the MUs.

 

[KevJames]

Let's talk about the Mac and his status post-Wii U release. Still a monster, or an imposter? He has really fallen off the FG scene, and it seems like the tourney scene to the point where I feel he is almost underrated. Sure, he gets gimped like no one else, but no one exemplifies risk/reward like Little Mac. I feel like Mario is actually a strong counter to the Mac, but unsure of the rest of the MUs.

The thing about Mac is that his metagame isn't very dynamic. His options are limited to the ground. He's the most "one-trick pony" character among the cast. His abysmal recovery is something that his been on display since the very beginning of the 3ds version, and mac players still cannot find a way around that weakness. And unfortunately, It will continue to be an obstacle for Little Mac players.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Let's talk about the Mac and his status post-Wii U release. Still a monster, or an imposter? He has really fallen off the FG scene, and it seems like the tourney scene to the point where I feel he is almost underrated. Sure, he gets gimped like no one else, but no one exemplifies risk/reward like Little Mac. I feel like Mario is actually a strong counter to the Mac, but unsure of the rest of the MUs.

Mac is still very strong, but not very forgiving. He also has a number of very frustrating MUs and struggles on platform-heavy stages. I'm inclined to say that he works best as a secondary, as in the right hands he's very effective, but it's an uphill battle against a lot of characters and on a lot of stages.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Let's talk about the Mac and his status post-Wii U release. Still a monster, or an imposter? He has really fallen off the FG scene, and it seems like the tourney scene to the point where I feel he is almost underrated. Sure, he gets gimped like no one else, but no one exemplifies risk/reward like Little Mac. I feel like Mario is actually a strong counter to the Mac, but unsure of the rest of the MUs.

I expect he'll still see moderate success online at the very least, where latency just makes him harder to punish. (This goes for everyone, really, but I think Little Mac benefits more than most characters from it.) And even though his air and recovery games are complete booty, his ground game still has to be respected, so discounting him completely isn't a good idea.

I don't think he'll ever be top tier, he's too polarized for that, but it wouldn't surprise me if he wins a few key matchups that make him worth learning.

Also, I'm not sure if I'm imagining it, but did Little Mac's decline coincide with Sakurai's interview where he said he was really popular in For Glory but also had an absymal win rate?

 

[madworlder]

I'd think Mac's competitiveness is directly tied to stages he'd want to play on. He needs a lot of land, preferably with no other platforms. He might need to secure Delfino or Wuhu since they can force the opponent to come to him at times and have the potential to be walk-offs. Common stage choices like Smashville and Lylat Cruise could end up being the death of that character competitively.

 

[Luco]

I agree with @ madworlder , I think the stagelist will be vital in determining his viability; although to some extent even on places like FD he'll flat out get gimped by some characters. Like what are our most common stages - the 3 big starters, plus like Duck Hunt, Lylat, Delfino, maybe Wuhu, Town and City, Castle Siege, Halberd, Kongo Jungle 64... I feel the majority of these stages will benefit others moreso than him (Halberd, Castle Siege maybe? Town and City, SV, BF, Lylat, even Delfino at times may be awkward). Not sure what other factors would directly work into it. this discussion needs more mac mains.

 

[Lavani]

@ Jigglymaster 's mentioned it several times in this thread already, but now that there's tournament footage I just want to say that Mii Brawler's combo game and kill power with Helicopter Kick are really, really dumb. The fact that a character with air speed surpassing Speed Shulk can end combos with an air-usable kill move that can still move sideways before the kill blow to get even closer to the blast zones first is just way too good.

 

[PingPongCop]

Don't see how Shulk has better combos when Ike gets free followups from Nair, Dtilt(probably the best Dtilt in the game) and throws. Uthrow -> Uair can snag early kills but is actually quite difficult to execute and is rage dependent, unlike a certain monkey.

EDIT: Okay, maybe like top 5 Dtilt since DDD's is pretty damn good and I'm not too sure on the entire cast yet but Ike's Dtilt is just so good complimented with SH Fair.

Yeah, I'd go to say Game & Watch, Ganondorf, and DDD got him beat in the d-tilt area.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Some of what I'm hearing about G&W is kinda odd to me; I kinda feel like people maybe didn't understand him all that well in Brawl. I was about to give a huge Brawl G&W clinic, but this is the 4 topic so going into depth about how he worked in Brawl wouldn't help anyone (I will point out to Shaya that his usmash and dsmash already did those things and to my buddy Thinkaman that it wasn't the MKs that kept me down it was the Snakes).

So, to keep it 4-centric, let's talk about what G&W's core gameplan actually is. G&W has horrible "boxing" potential as his moves don't really flow into each other well at all and are really slow/unsafe to use at point blank, but he has a ton of really big disjoints so you have to look at him like he has a sword just like Marth except unlike Marth his sword is a bunch of random objects and not a single blade. Generally speaking his aerials are a lot better than his ground moves, and he also has very high aerial mobility overall (it's weird but averages out to very good!). This makes him the best air to air character in the game. Even in 4, I would not be confident air to airing G&W with anyone who is not also G&W except maybe the super unconventional Villager stuff and Shulk with that wall of nair who at least needs to stay low to the ground while G&W is more than happy to fight way up there. He has pretty significant holes in his gameplan otherwise. His aerials pretty much beat everything, but they don't flow together. In fact, none of his moves do which means he is one of the most rigid characters in terms of playstyle. His entire gameplan is to use his good movement to set up spacing for his good, disjointed pokes which are mostly but not quite entirely aerials. If things begin to go wrong, Fire is a good panic button for a lot of reasons. Keep poking and chipping away by relying on the best spacing you can muster, avoid ever playing cqc since you pretty much always lose at that (somewhat less hard now thanks to rapid jab working and dthrow having a pay-off but it's still not good overall), use your priority to lock down fast characters and your movement to control the match pace against other disjoints, and always have an eye open for ambiguous situations in which you can land a power move since the risk-reward tends to be pretty good and you are in this for the long haul.

This just seems a lot harder with bair being a lot less safe and less rewarding all at once, the power move pay-off is considerably lower now, and you don't survive as long either. G&W is a very rigid character so I'm not really seeing the alternative. He's never going to have a fast paced, mix-up based offense. He just lacks the tools for it in a huge way. He'll always have to play slowly and rely on patient spacing to get his edge, and while I don't think he's a ruined character (he can still do it okay, just not as well as he used to), it's an already hard road to victory that seems even harder now. His "jank factor" is basically the natural way his moveset does unusually well in an early metagame. In an early metagame, many players lack patience and play faster than their characters can handle, and many players lack tight control over their characters. Both of these things result in players just running into the wall that is G&W's priority, but that will change with time as the strong offenses and defenses both from other players get far more precise and disciplined.

I do think he has one extra avenue here that mostly stems from how both of his new up+B options give him a super crazy vertical game and Short Order Chef is actually a legitimate projectile; I could imagine playing what is basically projectile run-away to force people to play the up-down game more and using his Fire variants a lot to win at that. That relies on the custom move cause emerging victorious of course, and even with that, I'm not entirely sold that's a top tier gameplan so much as a mid tier one.

I'm not sold on G&W having such good MUs versus top characters here. He probably does okay against Diddy and Sheik, (definitely not sold on him winning those but they are probably pretty fair to him) but on the other side, I'm seeing likely big negatives for him against Lucario and Yoshi which could be a big problem going forward and while a lot of people don't believe in him for some reason I would be very, very scared to fight Shulk with G&W and would be very concerned with fighting any power character honestly. If I wanted to go anti-metagame at this point, I'd be looking into Peach and Jigglypuff a whole lot harder than I'd be looking into G&W; they seem to offer a lot of the same positives in terms of the stuff thye can challenge with less downside from where I'm sitting.

In terms of the engine changes and pros-cons other than weight for G&W to answer a specific question, yes he can challenge landings really well with his disjoints but the downside is that he doesn't exactly inspire his foes to jump at him very much (most characters do better just keeping their feet on the ground against G&W, though Short Order Chef could help him use this more for sure). G&W still has an awful "combo" game while other characters can now possibly string hits against him. G&W really just hates everything about the ledge changes; his ledge game was super good in Brawl and while still probably decent here is definitely way less consequential and way less powerful. In general honestly most characters jump less than they used to, and since G&W's best areas are air to air and even out of shield anti-air with Fire that's a bummer for him. The upside is that the average recovery being worse makes his good gimp game relatively more important which may be the area strong G&Ws have to focus very hard in 4, but even that's bittersweet as his own recovery is very much on the list of recoveries that are a lot worse.

Sorry to post so much about G&W; that's pretty much the long version of why I'm not sold. If I saw a very strong G&W playing offline do stuff fundamentally different than what he could do in Brawl and see success I could be persuaded I've missed the point on 4 G&W for sure (I always consider it highly credible that anyone, including me, has missed the point of characters in a game this young), but for now I feel pretty great about my decision to drop him as a main.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

@ Jigglymaster 's mentioned it several times in this thread already, but now that there's tournament footage I just want to say that Mii Brawler's combo game and kill power with Helicopter Kick are really, really dumb. The fact that a character with air speed surpassing Speed Shulk can end combos with an air-usable kill move that can still move sideways before the kill blow to get even closer to the blast zones first is just way too good.

Helicopter Kick is one the few moves in this game that are on par with Diddy Kong's uair in terms of how skewed their risk-reward ratio is. There is virtually no risk involved whatsoever because both moves can be comboed into easily. And the reward for both moves is insane, even at low percent [HK alone deals no less than 17%].

 

[meleebrawler]

Some of what I'm hearing about G&W is kinda odd to me; I kinda feel like people maybe didn't understand him all that well in Brawl. I was about to give a huge Brawl G&W clinic, but this is the 4 topic so going into depth about how he worked in Brawl wouldn't help anyone (I will point out to Shaya that his usmash and dsmash already did those things and to my buddy Thinkaman that it wasn't the MKs that kept me down it was the Snakes).

So, to keep it 4-centric, let's talk about what G&W's core gameplan actually is. G&W has horrible "boxing" potential as his moves don't really flow into each other well at all and are really slow/unsafe to use at point blank, but he has a ton of really big disjoints so you have to look at him like he has a sword just like Marth except unlike Marth his sword is a bunch of random objects and not a single blade. Generally speaking his aerials are a lot better than his ground moves, and he also has very high aerial mobility overall (it's weird but averages out to very good!). This makes him the best air to air character in the game. Even in 4, I would not be confident air to airing G&W with anyone who is not also G&W except maybe the super unconventional Villager stuff and Shulk with that wall of nair who at least needs to stay low to the ground while G&W is more than happy to fight way up there. He has pretty significant holes in his gameplan otherwise. His aerials pretty much beat everything, but they don't flow together. In fact, none of his moves do which means he is one of the most rigid characters in terms of playstyle. His entire gameplan is to use his good movement to set up spacing for his good, disjointed pokes which are mostly but not quite entirely aerials. If things begin to go wrong, Fire is a good panic button for a lot of reasons. Keep poking and chipping away by relying on the best spacing you can muster, avoid ever playing cqc since you pretty much always lose at that (somewhat less hard now thanks to rapid jab working and dthrow having a pay-off but it's still not good overall), use your priority to lock down fast characters and your movement to control the match pace against other disjoints, and always have an eye open for ambiguous situations in which you can land a power move since the risk-reward tends to be pretty good and you are in this for the long haul.

This just seems a lot harder with bair being a lot less safe and less rewarding all at once, the power move pay-off is considerably lower now, and you don't survive as long either. G&W is a very rigid character so I'm not really seeing the alternative. He's never going to have a fast paced, mix-up based offense. He just lacks the tools for it in a huge way. He'll always have to play slowly and rely on patient spacing to get his edge, and while I don't think he's a ruined character (he can still do it okay, just not as well as he used to), it's an already hard road to victory that seems even harder now. His "jank factor" is basically the natural way his moveset does unusually well in an early metagame. In an early metagame, many players lack patience and play faster than their characters can handle, and many players lack tight control over their characters. Both of these things result in players just running into the wall that is G&W's priority, but that will change with time as the strong offenses and defenses both from other players get far more precise and disciplined.

I do think he has one extra avenue here that mostly stems from how both of his new up+B options give him a super crazy vertical game and Short Order Chef is actually a legitimate projectile; I could imagine playing what is basically projectile run-away to force people to play the up-down game more and using his Fire variants a lot to win at that. That relies on the custom move cause emerging victorious of course, and even with that, I'm not entirely sold that's a top tier gameplan so much as a mid tier one.

I'm not sold on G&W having such good MUs versus top characters here. He probably does okay against Diddy and Sheik, (definitely not sold on him winning those but they are probably pretty fair to him) but on the other side, I'm seeing likely big negatives for him against Lucario and Yoshi which could be a big problem going forward and while a lot of people don't believe in him for some reason I would be very, very scared to fight Shulk with G&W and would be very concerned with fighting any power character honestly. If I wanted to go anti-metagame at this point, I'd be looking into Peach and Jigglypuff a whole lot harder than I'd be looking into G&W; they seem to offer a lot of the same positives in terms of the stuff thye can challenge with less downside from where I'm sitting.

In terms of the engine changes and pros-cons other than weight for G&W to answer a specific question, yes he can challenge landings really well with his disjoints but the downside is that he doesn't exactly inspire his foes to jump at him very much (most characters do better just keeping their feet on the ground against G&W, though Short Order Chef could help him use this more for sure). G&W still has an awful "combo" game while other characters can now possibly string hits against him. G&W really just hates everything about the ledge changes; his ledge game was super good in Brawl and while still probably decent here is definitely way less consequential and way less powerful. In general honestly most characters jump less than they used to, and since G&W's best areas are air to air and even out of shield anti-air with Fire that's a bummer for him. The upside is that the average recovery being worse makes his good gimp game relatively more important which may be the area strong G&Ws have to focus very hard in 4, but even that's bittersweet as his own recovery is very much on the list of recoveries that are a lot worse.

Sorry to post so much about G&W; that's pretty much the long version of why I'm not sold. If I saw a very strong G&W playing offline do stuff fundamentally different than what he could do in Brawl and see success I could be persuaded I've missed the point on 4 G&W for sure (I always consider it highly credible that anyone, including me, has missed the point of characters in a game this young), but for now I feel pretty great about my decision to drop him as a main.

No mention at all of his dash attack which not only punishes
really well, but also pops them into the air where he wants them?

Lucario can potentially spell trouble with one wrong move if G&W doesn't get
the kill quickly, but outside of Aura Sphere (prime bucketing
material) and Force Palm (also bucketable, but not safely), his
range is pretty bad and so G&W can keep him out well.

Yoshi isn't easy for anyone to fight, but G&W can do
a good job stopping aerial rushes with his own and Chef,
forcing Yoshi to mostly throw eggs and rush on the ground.

Edit: I will definitely agree, though, that G&W really pines
for more ways to get people in the air.

 

[Chuva]

Regarding Mac and stages: He actually does quite well on Battlefield and Lylat from the few I've seen of high-level play, since he usually has control on the ground and can shark people who are standing on the lateral platforms. He also has his super armor to anti-air people coming from above. Smashville might not be as good though since they are moving platforms. Prism Tower is kinda weird for him because of the platform layout.

Platforms doesn't necessarily mean a negative aspect for Mac. Unless he is already losing and his opponent is using them to stall for time.

 

[Jabejazz]

Counterpicking Mac on Duck Hunt has to be absolutely hilarious.

Can the poor guy even reach the tree platform?

 

[KlefkiHolder]

Counterpicking Mac on Duck Hunt has to be absolutely hilarious.

Can the poor guy even reach the tree platform?

Up B is needed

You should check Kongo. He has to nearly be on the edges to get to the top side plats with his jumps. Ganon too, or they use their up b's.

Kongo is still hell for Ganon.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Counterpicking Mac on Duck Hunt has to be absolutely hilarious.

Can the poor guy even reach the tree platform?

Up B is needed

You should check Kongo. He has to nearly be on the edges to get to the top side plats with his jumps. Ganon too, or they use their up b's.

Kongo is still hell for Ganon.

He can reach it in a single jump if you are creative. You can actually control where the dog will pop up as a platform and use it to approach the tree. This works for both Ganon and Mac, Ganon's up air near there is seriously scary, same for some of Mac's moves.
On Kongo Jungle, Ganon can single jump up air to reach the highest platform, Mac is stuck using the revolving platforms if he wants to get in though which isn't fun.

 

[san.]

There seems to be 1 frame (at least) of vulnerability. This also goes for dairs/downward angled ftilts/fsmashes with large/longlasting hitboxes like ROB's for most practical. Ike can eruption every recovery with perfect timing with this.

We always thought that ledge snapping was more difficult or something before, when there's really just vulnerability.

Edit: I'm not 100% convinced there's vulnerability in all scenarios, but it seems good for most upB recoveries I think.

 

[KlefkiHolder]

He can reach it in a single jump if you are creative. You can actually control where the dog will pop up as a platform and use it to approach the tree. This works for both Ganon and Mac, Ganon's up air near there is seriously scary, same for some of Mac's moves.
On Kongo Jungle, Ganon can single jump up air to reach the highest platform, Mac is stuck using the revolving platforms if he wants to get in though which isn't fun.

Mac can actually use his double jump to reach the plats on Kongo, he just needs to be on the flat parts on the side, or very high up the slants. Ganon has some of these problems just not as harsh. And as for him single jumping to the plats, I don't know what you mean? I'm not sure if even Falco can use one jump from below to get to the side plats easily (though it wouldn't surprise me), let alone Ganon. I'll have to take another look at it.

Ganons up air is good for that, I agree, but Macs doesn't really have anything to threaten you from below. I guess Up B is decent, but isnt it weaker when launched from the air? He is also very vulnerable on whiff.

And while using the dog is something, it's certainly not great and quite easy to react to.

 

[Jabejazz]

The edgeguarding game is real.

And I thought my timing with bairs was just superb to the point that I would hit them before they ledge snapped.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Hard to tell through just that video but the window looks bigger than just 1 frame imo.

 

[Jigglymaster]

@ Jigglymaster 's mentioned it several times in this thread already, but now that there's tournament footage I just want to say that Mii Brawler's combo game and kill power with Helicopter Kick are really, really dumb. The fact that a character with air speed surpassing Speed Shulk can end combos with an air-usable kill move that can still move sideways before the kill blow to get even closer to the blast zones first is just way too good.

Yeaah thats pretty much Brawler's bread and butter. Even if he misses the move he can kind of weave in and out changing his air momentum to avoid getting punished. The move probably single handedly turns him from low tier to possibly the best character in the game. Without the move he just has no way to kill, think of it this way, his entire moveset does nothing but combo, none of his aerials, throws, or tilts will kill, and all of his smash attacks are either slow (Fsmash), weak(d-smash), or both (u-smash). The character really struggles without the move but also does a little bit too good with it. Though, if Mii Brawler does get patched I don't think its going to be Helicopter Kick, Sakurai would be looking at Piston Punch's One Inch Punch first for sure.

Imo if they wanted to fix Mii Brawler I would cut the % Helicopter kick does, turn down the knockback on the last hit, then buff his U-smash or something so he can at least have 1 reliable non B move kill.

 

[san.]

Testing it now, and the timing isn't strict at all if you have good attacks against it. Drill dairs such as Mii Swordfighter, Jigglypuff, and Kirby can just spam it at the ledge. It's actually easy against teleporting upBs.

Jigglypuff can pretty much use anything. You get your double jump back, but this is still pretty big against non-hitbox recoveries.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

Testing it now, and the timing isn't strict at all if you have good attacks against it. Drill dairs such as Mii Swordfighter, Jigglypuff, and Kirby can just spam it at the ledge. It's actually easy against teleporting upBs.

Jigglypuff can pretty much use anything. You get your double jump back, but this is still pretty big against non-hitbox recoveries.

kirbys always seemed to be the scaryest since it has a low metoer effect.

 

[KlefkiHolder]

On mobile, can't really watch it because of data and what not, but by the sounds of it it seems sex kicks are also quite nice here.

Is that true? Puff has even another great tool for this then. I guess Pound would work as well.

 

[san.]

kirbys always seemed to be the scaryest since it has a low metoer effect.

Mii Swordsman's is arguably even better than Kirby's.

 

[Jigglymaster]

Mii Swordsman's is arguably even better than Kirby's.

I really like swordfighter's d-air, it lasts forever, it sends the opponents downwards if done in the air and the landing lag of it is actually an attack, so you either end up autocancelling it or sending out the attack, which is pretty cool.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

Mii Swordsman's is arguably even better than Kirby's.

undoutably i would just say that kirby has the easyer time off stage.

 

[Mr. Johan]

So unless the opponent either has an alternate/easy means to get back to the stage other than the ledge, or has something to protect himself as he's going to the ledge, he's getting crushed by those with good timing or tools.

The former is an easy countermeasure to it, but the latter still isn't completely foolproof. The only characters I can think of that can pull it off would be Robin and Samus, by virtue of the former's always-igniting Arcfire and shield-trapping Arcthunder and the latter's Missile barrage, but those can...simply be jumped over if the character can get to the body in time.

Yeah, this could change matchups. Particularly those with spikes.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I think it will hurt Sheik less than other characters though because she has mix-up options offstage [kinda]. Rosalina, Megaman, Palutena, Falcon and Greninja are characters I can see getting wrecked by it though.

 

[Mr. Johan]

This kinda demoralizes Lucario too. Either he has to recover high and eat an attack for it, or go for the ledge and risk an early death from someone with a spike/Villager with a bowling ball or tree.

He just can't afford to be off the stage at 60-100% now.

 

[Vengeance_NS]

so guys im struggling really bad. i know sonic and yoshi are both fanstastic characters. both are considered top tier and i cant decide for thelife of me who is a stronger character. i feel yoshi might struggle against shiek and fox and super rushdown charaxcters which a good majoirty of the other high tier characters are? how do you feel he does in those MUs? he has a strong moveset and options but im worried hes not as strong as people feel. then sonic i love but i feel he struggles agaisnt heavy zoning and he can get stage counter picked badly. he doesnt do well on stages with a ton of platforms and i think hes not as strong as people are saying he is. so completitvely speaking against other top tier characters who is stronger yoshi or sonic?

 

[~ Gheb ~]

For what it's worth, I think Lucario was nerfed harder than any other character by the patch already. The removal of VI just makes him so much less scary. If he really becomes that easy to gimp then his viability may get crippled to a point unforeseen a few weeks ago.

 

[Jaxas]

For what it's worth, I think Lucario was nerfed harder than any other character by the patch already. The removal of VI just makes him so much less scary. If he really becomes that easy to gimp then his viability may get crippled to a point unforeseen a few weeks ago.

Honestly, as someone who dropped Lucario post-patch, yeah it hit him really hard.
He was already not as good as people thought (it seemed to me at least like people were trying to fight Brawl Lucario and avoiding his range, which he just doesn't have any of anymore) because people aren't as familiar with this game so they were getting hit with things they didn't know to watch out for; Lucario basically only kills off of reads, he just does it really well. And if you miss that read, chances are you're dead.

The combination of people learning how to fight him, VI being removed, and the landing lag nerf already hit him really hard, so this (especially coupled with the ES landing lag) really sucks for him.

This isn't to say that Lucario is a bad character by any means (well, he would be without aura but that's kind of the point), just not top tier like people have been saying for a while. Especially not post 1.04.

 

[NairWizard]

There seems to be 1 frame (at least) of vulnerability. This also goes for dairs/downward angled ftilts/fsmashes with large/longlasting hitboxes like ROB's for most practical. Ike can eruption every recovery with perfect timing with this.

We always thought that ledge snapping was more difficult or something before, when there's really just vulnerability.

Edit: I'm not 100% convinced there's vulnerability in all scenarios, but it seems good for most upB recoveries I think.

This is a pretty huge discovery, had to post about it. We've named the characters who get hit the hardest, but the character who benefits the most is probably ZSS, since the tether recovery is now a much safer option relatively.

 

[san.]

Invincibility UpBs that snap such as Sonic's are also difficult to intercept this way.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

so guys im struggling really bad. i know sonic and yoshi are both fanstastic characters. both are considered top tier and i cant decide for thelife of me who is a stronger character. i feel yoshi might struggle against shiek and fox and super rushdown charaxcters which a good majoirty of the other high tier characters are? how do you feel he does in those MUs? he has a strong moveset and options but im worried hes not as strong as people feel. then sonic i love but i feel he struggles agaisnt heavy zoning and he can get stage counter picked badly. he doesnt do well on stages with a ton of platforms and i think hes not as strong as people are saying he is. so completitvely speaking against other top tier characters who is stronger yoshi or sonic?

Uhhh ... Yoshi is pretty much universally agreed to be Fox' worst matchup and possibly the only one that Fox loses flat-out. If you want a character that does NOT struggle against Fox in some way then Yoshi is pretty much your best option. That said, Sonic does well enough against Fox so Fox shouldn't be your main concern for either character. Right now I'm not sure if Yoshi has a losing matchup at all though Sheik seems to be a contender. Then again Sonic may not lose any matchup either so it's kind of up in the air right now. I couldn't say who's stronger between them though. Nobody can at this point tbh.

 

[Vengeance_NS]

Uhhh ... Yoshi is pretty much universally agreed to be Fox' worst matchup and possibly the only one that Fox loses flat-out. If you want a character that does NOT struggle against Fox in some way then Yoshi is pretty much your best option. That said, Sonic does well enough against Fox so Fox shouldn't be your main concern for either character. Right now I'm not sure if Yoshi has a losing matchup at all though Sheik seems to be a contender. Then again Sonic may not lose any matchup either so it's kind of up in the air right now. I couldn't say who's stronger between them though. Nobody can at this point tbh.

I feel sonic overall doesn't have a ton of depth and he's just high on the tier list because it's early on. And I'm just worried about stage counter picks depending on what stages are viable. You may be right about yoshi but maybe I suck at rushdown characters when I play him. He has way more kill options than sonic and his egg tossss create great ledge guarding setups. But what I fear is why does no one play Yoshi if he's top 5 ahead of sonic ok tier list. What am I missing out on.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Invincibility UpBs that snap such as Sonic's are also difficult to intercept this way.

Wouldn't it be the opposite? Sonic lacks a hitbox, something like puffs Nair should eat it upon vulnerability. I wonder if this will really hurt Ness. You get a rather large time to react and time yourself against pk2

As for Brawler talk. While his up special finishes are a large part of his game. Soaring Axe Kick is acceptable despite lacking helicopter and pistons oomph. Heaven forbid you ever manage a d throw and read into it for the spike. Swordfighter has it worse as far as a default up.

As far as defaults go the only thing Brawler can't really work with is the head on assault. Foot flurry is workable and only reason it isn't used is feints superior flexibility not because its bad. Head on assault though....

Anyways I think on the topic of Brawler he is better with defaults then he is assumed to be and still valid.