Character Competitive Impressions

[Dr. James Rustles]

I agree with this sentiment, I always interpret the two as the antithesis of each other and use them as secondaries given their nature as niche characters. They also get KO'd slightly earlier than most of the cast as she is the lightest in the game, and, as we all know, Little Mac has the recovery of cement blocks in water. Her ground game is slightly better in this game than past entries, but her strength obviously lies in her aerials.

I've been a huge pusher of Jiggs being great, however most people don't understand how she works fully in this game and why she's so good. She has clear weaknesses like her weight, but still, her strengths are incredible and has arguably the best reliable kill power in the game. I can go on but she doesn't seem like a very popular character.

It's fair to say she is the antithesis of Little Mac, but unfortunately for Little Mac having an air game will always be superior to having a ground game. The stage selection allows picks like Battlefield or Lylat where you can stall or force Little Mac to follow, whereas with Jiggs she will always be able to answer an opponent whether they are grounded or not.

 

[ZHMT]

When I said that no one had been "dedicated to her yet" I mainly meant at a a top level, didn't mean to discredit you or other Puff mains. And I DO think she's a good character. Her extra jumps make it had to anticipate when she's actually going to come at you with an attack... or just float harmlessly away. And Rest is something to be respected, especially at higher percents. She has some of the best sex kick aerials in the game and her Jab leads into several things (grab and dash attack at least). Not really sure where I'd place her numerically on a tier list just because there are so many good characters. I just think you're going to have a hard time convincing top players to use her over characters that can apply similar pressure with aerials but who also have superior ground mobility and better long-range pressure. For an extreme example, what are the virtues of using Jigglypuff over Yoshi?

She falls under the category of characters who folks claimed to have potential but have no visible rep. That group also includes Pikachu, Peach, Pit, Palutena (I promise I didn't mean to make that alliterative), Duck Hunt, Falcon, and Shulk. I'm probably just not aware of some usages of these characters and wouldn't mind seeing some solid play with them.

Esam is winning tournaments in South Florida with Pikachu. Also isn't Pikachu doing well in Japan?

Jigglypuff vs Yoshi, they both have similar air speed but play very different so a comparison isn't very important. Yoshi is heavier and has a trickier recovery to deal with because of super armor. Yoshi also is better on the ground than Puff and has setups into up air kills and an egg projectile. Jiggly has better kill potential and a safer grab, evasive crouch, requires less commitment, and better at edge guarding. They play totally different, just have similar air speed.

Robin and Puff has similar ground speed, but there are tons of reasons to play one over the other.

 

[HeroMystic]

Outside of the silly doom 'n gloom, this was never addressed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ7Ehn0RQ_I

Near the beginning, Zero lists his top 1-7, which he says is 1. : 2. : 3. : 4.N/A 5. ::/:: 6. N/A 7. ::/:

Thoughts? I personally only agree with Sheik being #1, who I honestly think is better than Diddy Kong by a tiny bit.

Zero is obviously a better player than most of us here, but I'm left wondering how he continues placing Mario as a top tier character. A lot of Mario mains continue to say he's mid tier (with A2 saying he's trash), and I have the personal opinion that plenty of characters have stronger punishing rewards than he does.

 

[Shaya]

Or we can just play the ****ing game and try to figure out counterplay, rather than wallowing in that kinda self-prophetic nonsense.

Honestly I'm beginning to hate coming to this part of the site because every single day I see people piss and moan about this. Nerf this, buff that, this character wins too much, etc. It's fine to note trends and whatnot, but for Christ's sake stop acting like it's the end of the world because a strong character exists in the meta right now.

Smooth Criminal

I've made it generally obvious what the context of any of my opinions are, the meta right now and is no way completely indicative of the future. But when people aren't even on the same page ("oh sheik's kill power keeps her in check") it means (to me) people are about 1-1.5 months behind in understanding the meta/top characters. I'd rather learn and gain more perspectives, I read and evaluate everything I can. When someone says to me Sheik isn't that strong, I'd like to hear why, I'll learn something (I can see why Kirby doesn't do badly by design, for example), I have a competitive drive and I'm on the journey to improve. The mountain is tall dude and the clouds aren't even half of it. What's wallowing to you? Accepting something and continuing to improve/learn or hoping someone else figures it out for you?

The meta moves fast, it wasn't long ago we thought the mario bros were terrible. What changed that? Was it a fluke that Ally played Mario? A lot of "top" players were aware of his Mario. What other things are out there? If there's nothing more than face value then I can feel confident in my broad statements. 65:35s doesn't mean the world is over or the game is dead. But chances are you're losing to that character at this stage of the meta just as hard as MK beat your character at the same point of the Brawl meta; IF NOT HARDER because things like chaingrabs/true combos were mostly found early, things that weren't "there" for MK and primarily worked against him.

Either way, I'm playing the game. A lot.

Outside of the silly doom 'n gloom, this was never addressed.



Zero is obviously a better player than most of us here, but I'm left wondering how he continues placing Mario as a top tier character. A lot of Mario mains continue to say he's mid tier (with A2 saying he's trash), and I have the personal opinion that plenty of characters have stronger punishing rewards than he does.

Mario has fantastic mobility specs, great grab range, good grab game, pretty good frame data. His spot could get worse as time goes on but Mario's ability to move around the stage fast and take positional control is pretty good. Up-B is awesome offensively. Cape and Fireballs are good tools for stage control and mitigating his neutral weaknesses.

Vectoring removal made Mario significantly better than people were expecting, too. Much like Diddy Kong.
Up Tilt "nerf" made it a combo/set up move for much longer, similar to Sheik's fair.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I'll bite on the "why not Sheik at the top" thought in there.

Sheik is a very good character, but I just don't see her as top 1/top2 potential. I mean, I just look at her side by side with Sonic. She has longer limbs and access to projectiles. Sonic has very similar amounts of combo potential and off-stage presence (everyone knows how sickeningly good Sheik is at this but not everyone knows how sickeningly good Sonic is at this too). Sonic has considerably more kill power, a better juggle game, and more survivability (he's heavier and has a better recovery). Sonic is also radically more mobile which is just such a ridiculously huge deal that will only matter more and more with time. I just don't see how Sheik wins this point by point comparison which doesn't mean she's a bad character (Sonic is top tier), but you can't be top 1/top 2 if this sort of logic can be applied with you versus any character. Sheik is a lot easier to play than Sonic which will help her do better than him now, but I just see no way in the long run she can outdo him. I also think people are massively sleeping on Lucario (a semi-heavy character with an infinite recovery who becomes a monster when he doesn't die; this character is just nuts and only gets better as Lucarios learn to play more carefully) and am entirely sure Diddy is just plain better than Sheik and will be for as long as his uair is what it is since he's just as robust all around but forces you to play around "that one thing" in his way too good uair while Sheik doesn't force anything like that of her opponents and has to win in some kind of an honest way. I also believe in Rosalina versus Sheik which is hard to do a direct comparison side by side since they're two super different characters, but I think her control game will really begin to assert itself with time as well since she does just dominate space in a way no other character can do and has so many smart ways to assert a threat. Put it all together, and Sheik is in the pool of characters I see fighting for 5th best which is pretty decisively not best in the game (but still pretty good overall!).

So my position there isn't really that Sheik is worse than the best because of something wrong with her; there's really nothing wrong with the character or any notable flaws. She does everything important well and has many practical ways to win matches. I expect Sheik will be a 100% viable, strong pick for the entirety of smash 4's lifespan. It's just that I think the other characters vying for the top just offer something more, and by virtue of not having what they have, she has to fall at least somewhat. She's still an elite character, just not top 1/top 2 by my reckoning. I'm also honestly not super impressed with tournament results as of this point; I remember that Snake was considered super overpowered in Brawl at this point in the lifespan, and we all know how that turned out. Snake was a good character, but he was pretty distinctly not #1 or really even in the running for it by the time it was said and done. When I look at characters, I'm more interested in taking everything I know now and trying to see what is going to prove strong with time, and to me, these sorts of discussions are really more about discovering what's already in the game than about following the current meta which is more of a data source to me.

 

[meleebrawler]

Looking at some tournament Sheik play, she seems to "fish" (har har)
for offstage down Bs and stage spiking bairs in order to get kills.

Her combos don't lead into kill moves, only failed recoveries.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

I've made it generally obvious what the context of any of my opinions are, the meta right now and is no way completely indicative of the future. But when people aren't even on the same page ("oh sheik's kill power keeps her in check") it means (to me) people are about 1-1.5 months behind in understanding the meta/top characters. I'd rather learn and gain more perspectives, I read and evaluate everything I can. When someone says to me Sheik isn't that strong, I'd like to hear why, I'll learn something (I can see why Kirby doesn't do badly by design, for example), I have a competitive drive and I'm on the journey to improve. The mountain is tall dude and the clouds aren't even half of it. What's wallowing to you? Accepting something and continuing to improve/learn or hoping someone else figures it out for you?

The difference here is that I'm not jumping the gun like almost everybody else and putting these strong characters on some pedestal where they'll centralize the game indefinitely. I'm confident that things'll change over time.

I should clarify that it's really not just you, Shaya. Hell, it's only loosely related to you and your commentary. The Smash community as a whole seems to have this kinda doom and gloom thing going, where the facts at the present are casting this dreadful shadow over the unseen future.

And sorry that you think I'm "waiting on somebody to answer things for me," but quite frankly, I don't give a **** about the posturing, because that's the kinda stuff that holds you back from getting better.

The meta moves fast, it wasn't long ago we thought the mario bros were terrible. What changed that? Was it a fluke that Ally played Mario? A lot of "top" players were aware of his Mario. What other things are out there? If there's nothing more than face value then I can feel confident in my broad statements. 65:35s doesn't mean the world is over or the game is dead. But chances are you're losing to that character at this stage of the meta just as hard as MK beat your character at the same point of the Brawl meta; IF NOT HARDER because things like chaingrabs/true combos were mostly found early, things that weren't "there" for MK and primarily worked against him.

I never said Mario was a bad character. Everybody else did for whatever reason. Never had an opinion on Luigi, though.

Either way, I'm playing the game. A lot.

Good. So am I.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Nobie]

The Lucina boards recently figured out that her perfect pivot up tilt slides substantially further than Marth's. It's just one small difference, but in a world where players can perfect pivot consistently, does this have any chance of changing any of her matchups significantly, or at least making some of them different enough from how Marth would approach them? Also, does it give her another approach tool, seeing as up tilt hits front and back?

 

[HeroMystic]

Mario has fantastic mobility specs, great grab range, good grab game, pretty good frame data. His spot could get worse as time goes on but Mario's ability to move around the stage fast and take positional control is pretty good. Up-B is awesome offensively. Cape and Fireballs are good tools for stage control and mitigating his neutral weaknesses.

Vectoring removal made Mario significantly better than people were expecting, too. Much like Diddy Kong.
Up Tilt "nerf" made it a combo/set up move for much longer, similar to Sheik's fair.

All of which are good points but doesn't take into account for his weaknesses and downsides, which is low attack range, an average recovery, his weight and fall speed makes him susceptible to being juggled, and average difficulty getting a KO, especially by the supposed top tiers. While he has strong set-ups, his follow-up potential gets neutered by the fact that characters with a good N-air can use it to get out of his follow-ups beyond the second hit with correct DI.

Now understandably, if this is expected then the Mario player can mix it up to continue his follow-ups, which is where his frame data comes into play since this combined with his mobility can allow him to punish any mistake a character makes. I believe mix-ups is where Mario shines the most, since all of his moves synergize so well together that he can use them to properly set up a combo. B-air > F-tilt is one of my favorites, as well as N-air > Jab and D-air > Any aerial. Reading what an opponent is about to as Mario is rewarding since all that effort to pick apart a character's habits doesn't go to waste.

The reason why I hesitate with pinning Mario as a top tier character is there's actually a good amount of match-ups where Mario struggles. While I'm convinced he has a pretty decent MU against Sheik in the current meta, he has an uphill fight against Diddy, Luigi, Marth, probably ZSS and Ness as well. A lot of this is because Mario can't really handle being in a disadvantaged state. He has no easy way of quickly regaining control of the pace without resetting the positions and working on getting back in, which emphasizes what I stated previously about his neutered follow-up potential.

After playing many matches and watching videos, I believe once people start playing safer against him, he'll falter some. I'm still reserving judgement on where his true placement is, since he doesn't seem to get wrecked by anyone at all, but I've never considered him top tier.

I never said Mario was a bad character. Everybody else did for whatever reason.

While I appreciate the fact that high/top level players find Mario to be a great character, I'm always looking to understand why rather than just staring at the results. I've pretty much proven to myself that I'll be playing Mario regardless of his tier placement since I've mained him in Melee and Brawl. During the time I just haven't seen the details behind why players find him awesome, which is why I was so confused at the praise for him. I'm happily eating my words though.

If we can find a way to allow Mario get more rewarding follow-ups, I can see him being a very strong character for Smash 4's lifespan.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

It ain't that he's awesomesauce top tier. I just think Mario's kit is too strong to warrant a place anywhere near bottom 5 (whatever that is) like certain people have been going on about. I would place D3 down there wayyyy before Mario.

And I don't mean to sound so negative about my character, either. I don't think D3 is complete garbage. He's just...lacking in a few areas, and it hurts his standing quite a bit. He can't punish as hard, he can't do neutral well, he has difficulty approaching certain characters/situations...it's a freaking litany chanted by me and my peers, man. But I know D3 can win, and that's exactly what drives me. His kit supports it (albeit barely). I see a buncha 6/4s before I see 8/2s, if you follow.

And if I end up a low tier hero? Eh, whatever. I'm pretty sure I'm right, though.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

The good thing about King Dedede is that his attacks have really awesome hitboxes. If he can actually get hit stuff out to challenge other people hitting buttons, he usually wins. He's pretty slow so that's hardly a given, but in a slower paced neutral situation, he can play a real "wall of priority" style that is a pain to handle. I'm not convinced he's awful for sure.

As per Mario, have you guys been following our work in the frame data topic? This is a breakdown of the start-up frames of every normal and grab every character has (Olimar's full data isn't entered into that table yet but we do know it, not important right now):

http://pastebin.com/NJ4Q5PzU

The only character who has better average frame data than Mario is Luigi, and it's reasonably close. Yes, Mario has better average frame data than Sheik and Fox (barely but he does, though that calculation does give perhaps undue weight to grabs which doesn't matter for Sheik but is very slightly biased against Fox), and there's a pretty big gap between the characters with the best frame data and the rest which means in most match-ups Mario has a large attack speed advantage. However you look at it, Mario's frame data is incredible; only two normals with double digit start-up frames with those being merely f15/f16 is pretty great. Mario doesn't have slow moves that are hard to hit with given that only two of his moves are even physically possible for a human being to react to and even then not by a very big margin.

I was testing invincible moves today. Most of the traditional invincible moves like Marth's Dolphin Slash and Bowser's Whirling Fortress are actually not frame one invincible in this game. Mario's Super Jump Punch and Dr. Mario's Ol' One-Two are the only two moves I could find in the entire game that are frame 1 invincible and then hit shortly thereafter (both of their up-2s are f1 invincible and don't hit, and ZSS down specials are all f1 invincible but can only hit after great delay). That means, as long as Mario carries default up-B and Dr. Mario carries up-3, they are the two characters with the best OoS option in the game. This matters a lot; no one else can hold shield, hit a button, and be guaranteed to get an attack out with no gap to be hit.

I think people have this long standing notion that Mario is some average guy. No, he's not. Mario is a speed character, one of the fastest in the game, and I think that has to become the main way we look at him if we're going to understand how he works in this game. There's a lot to be said about him and about how this game plays, but just looking at the numbers I'm seeing examining the game on a technical level, it's hard not to be impressed with Mario and very hard to see a character with this level of raw numeric quality not being good on some level.

 

[David Viran]

The game is too young for results to be as accurate as they should be. The best players win because they are the best players right now, even if they use characters that aren't very good. People have been dedicated to her, they just aren't the players you hear about regularly. Sure, her weight is an issue, and rage doesn't help there. However if she was heavier she would likely be a broken character. Her weight helps balance the glass cannon type she is. Know who else was a glass cannon? Fox in Melee. Dying early really only matters a lot if its easy to land ko moves or kill throws. In Melee it was hard to grab a good Fox player. In Brawl, Marth had fthrow to dair chaingrabs on Falco and other characters which killed. But it was hard to grab a good Falco at that percent.

Speaking of the character not having representation, she's not an easy character to play. It's going to take more time for people to figure out everything she has to offer than the average character. 90% of my playtime goes into Jigglypuff. If a top player did this, more people would see how she works because of exposure and she would be jumped on. I'm calling it now, give it time.



So she's just not going to grab? It's a tether grab, every grab is a risky grab. Characters with tether grabs have to risk more than others every time they try to grab. In order to beat one of the best defensive options in the game they need to take a risk. Sorry for the redundancy here but its intentional and its because I keep hearing people say how good X characters tether grab is. Once a character with a tether starts grabbing, I'm gaining advantage over time through conditioning. Her tether is probably the best tether as well, but it still has a similar issue with all of them.

yeah sorry I should have been more specific I meant zss didn't grab much in other MU and jiggly most of the time likes to be in the air where she can't shield.

 

[HeroMystic]

@ Amazing Ampharos

Ask and you shall receive it seems. That's wonderful information on Mario, and very glad to see Mario's Up-B is f1 invincible instead of Brawl's invincibility which I believe was on frame 3.

Looking at your thread, it is tagged that the invincibility for Mario/Doc's Up-B is grounded. Does this mean there's no invincibility when aerial, or was this just not tested?

 

[PK Gaming]

The good thing about King Dedede is that his attacks have really awesome hitboxes. If he can actually get hit stuff out to challenge other people hitting buttons, he usually wins. He's pretty slow so that's hardly a given, but in a slower paced neutral situation, he can play a real "wall of priority" style that is a pain to handle. I'm not convinced he's awful for sure.

As per Mario, have you guys been following our work in the frame data topic? This is a breakdown of the start-up frames of every normal and grab every character has (Olimar's full data isn't entered into that table yet but we do know it, not important right now):

http://pastebin.com/NJ4Q5PzU

So it seems that Robin's grab startup isn't that bad. Huh, I was under the impression he was slower than average, but I guess I was conflating it's god awful recovery with start up.

 

[Chuva]

Once people stop getting bodied by Mario's Usmash for free, we might have a more accurate judgement of his overall power or placement. I'm still of the opinion he is a very good character though, despite his unfavorable MUs.

And is Mario's Dair safe on block? I don't think I've ever seen people successfully punish it in any tournament match I've watched.

 

[BSP]

I was testing invincible moves today. Most of the traditional invincible moves like Marth's Dolphin Slash and Bowser's Whirling Fortress are actually not frame one invincible in this game. Mario's Super Jump Punch and Dr. Mario's Ol' One-Two are the only two moves I could find in the entire game that are frame 1 invincible and then hit shortly thereafter (both of their up-2s are f1 invincible and don't hit, and ZSS down specials are all f1 invincible but can only hit after great delay). That means, as long as Mario carries default up-B and Dr. Mario carries up-3, they are the two characters with the best OoS option in the game. This matters a lot; no one else can hold shield, hit a button, and be guaranteed to get an attack out with no gap to be hit.

@NAKAT I stand corrected. SJP got buffed from frame 3 to frame 1.

Time to get better. I guess I haven't been going fast enough.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

The good thing about King Dedede is that his attacks have really awesome hitboxes. If he can actually get hit stuff out to challenge other people hitting buttons, he usually wins. He's pretty slow so that's hardly a given, but in a slower paced neutral situation, he can play a real "wall of priority" style that is a pain to handle. I'm not convinced he's awful for sure.

By and large, I agree with this. About the slower paced neutral, though, that's situational. I gotta work reaaaaaaal hard in certain MUs ("picka top tier!" --- Sanford Kelly) to land hits because D3's neutral is...well, almost nonexistent sometimes.

Another big thing is punishing stuff. @Juushichi pointed this out. Sure, D3 can hit like a Mack truck, but sometimes it can be difficult to convert hitconfirms into something meaningful (like, oh say, a freaking stock), even at lower percentages. A lot of his "combos"/strings at low percents are tight enough as it is, and at higher percentages they're almost moot. At the point where you don't need to rack up damage anymore, nearly all of D3's normals can set up for an offstage kill or an on-stage KO; the downside, however, is now you gotta start making some hard reads and/or condition your opponent into ****ing up big time. It's not impossible, but with Gordos being largely unreliable and D3 being the fat cumbersome dude that he is, it can be tricky. Not to mention his Smash attacks, most of which are slow-ish and telegraphed (d-smash and u-smash are good enough, though).

D3's ace comes from his grabs, normal or command-wise, because resetting to neutral does help him a bit. People saying D3 is a grappler with a dookie projectile aren't far off the mark. He wants you up and away from him, preferably without the bull**** of projectiles and stuff walling him out as he capitalizes on your disadvantaged(?) position. Fair, nair, uair, bair (ESPECIALLY RAR'd bair, imo)--- D3 has a very nice aerial repertoire, and I daresay with a couple of those normals disjointed, he's got the means to do air-to-air pretty damn well. While you're coming back down to Earth/stage, as long as D3 can get to a preferred spot, that weird parabolic-shaped diameter about half his character-length away where his jabs, ftilts, uptilts, dtilts, and everything else starts the walling game as @ Amazing Ampharos mentioned.

I know somebody's going to mention Gordos here, so yes, I guess squeeze them in somewhere too. :v

I hate all of you for making me post such a long ass explanation of ****.

Smooth Criminal

 

[TTTTTsd]

By and large, I agree with this. About the slower paced neutral, though, that's situational. I gotta work reaaaaaaal hard in certain MUs ("picka top tier!" --- Sanford Kelly) to land hits because D3's neutral is...well, almost nonexistent sometimes.

Another big thing is punishing stuff. @Juushichi pointed this out. Sure, D3 can hit like a Mack truck, but sometimes it can be difficult to convert hitconfirms into something meaningful (like, oh say, a freaking stock), even at lower percentages. A lot of his "combos"/strings at low percents are tight enough as it is, and at higher percentages they're almost moot. At the point where you don't need to rack up damage anymore, nearly all of D3's normals can set up for an offstage kill or an on-stage KO; the downside, however, is now you gotta start making some hard reads and/or condition your opponent into ****ing up big time. It's not impossible, but with Gordos being largely unreliable and D3 being the fat cumbersome dude that he is, it can be tricky. Not to mention his Smash attacks, most of which are slow-ish and telegraphed (d-smash and u-smash are good enough, though).

D3's ace comes from his grabs, normal or command-wise, because resetting to neutral does help him a bit. People saying D3 is a grappler with a dookie projectile aren't far off the mark. He wants you up and away from him, preferably without the bull**** of projectiles and stuff walling him out as he capitalizes on your disadvantaged(?) position. Fair, nair, uair, bair (ESPECIALLY RAR'd bair, imo)--- D3 has a very nice aerial repertoire, and I daresay with a couple of those normals disjointed, he's got the means to do air-to-air pretty damn well. While you're coming back down to Earth/stage, even, D3 can get to a preferred spot where he can begin his own wall, that weird parabolic-shaped diameter where his jabs, ftilts, uptilts, dtilts, and everything else that starts the walling game as @ Amazing Ampharos mentioned.

I know somebody's going to mention Gordos here, so yes, I guess squeeze them in somewhere too. :v

I hate all of you for making me post such a long *** explanation of ****.

Smooth Criminal

But the good news is we all love you for injecting optimism into our meta and discussion. Always good!

Yo for real, I think D3 is pretty polar and really wall-y. But I think, as you said, he has a kit that sometimes barely works, but other times it's destructive. I have high hopes for him in the right hands, I'm positive he can do stuff.

As far as Falco goes, the more I play with him the more I feel like he's gonna make an impact later rather than sooner, as more people fluctuate into the game and play him, because I think he's a fairly strong character being lumped in with weak ones atm. That could be just me but it's how I feel, his general spacing and his kit doesn't seem low to me. Good jabs, good tilts, reflector is excellent. Dunno though, this is simply an impressions thread after all!

 

[Makorel]

I think people have this long standing notion that Mario is some average guy.

Well personally I always thought he was pretty super.

Also surprised to see that Mario has basically the same frame data in both Plumber and Doctor form. I didn't expect trading speed for power to have such a drastic effect by itself.

 

[HeroMystic]

And is Mario's Dair safe on block? I don't think I've ever seen people successfully punish it in any tournament match I've watched.

D-air can be grabbed out of shield as long as one waits for Mario's D-air to end on the last hit, though Mario can weave into his target to avoid getting grabbed (the opponent would have to pivot and at that point Mario can use an aerial to punish the lack of respect).

I imagine if Mario is crossing up the shield, it's virtually impossible to punish without good OOS options like Marth's B-reversed Dolphin Slash, or Bowser's Fortress which seems to be reserved to just a few amount of characters. Even further you have to be quick on the punish.

 

[Nobie]

As far as Falco goes, the more I play with him the more I feel like he's gonna make an impact later rather than sooner, as more people fluctuate into the game and play him, because I think he's a fairly strong character being lumped in with weak ones atm. That could be just me but it's how I feel, his general spacing and his kit doesn't seem low to me. Good jabs, good tilts, reflector is excellent. Dunno though, this is simply an impressions thread after all!

When I look at Falco in action on tournament streams and such, he seems like a very "honest" character. By that, I mean he doesn't have any especially glaring weaknesses, and he has both decent combos and KO power, with very few "gimmicks," sort of like the Pits. In contrast, Melee Falco had an entire class of combos exclusive to him due to the way his reflect and down air worked, and in Brawl he had a chain grab.

 

[meleebrawler]

I think people have this long standing notion that Mario is some average guy. No, he's not. Mario is a speed character, one of the fastest in the game, and I think that has to become the main way we look at him if we're going to understand how he works in this game. There's a lot to be said about him and about how this game plays, but just looking at the numbers I'm seeing examining the game on a technical level, it's hard not to be impressed with Mario and very hard to see a character with this level of raw numeric quality not being good on some level.

Some people cited another form of numeric data as
to why Mario was not good. Namely, his lower damage.

But you just have to look at Luigi, who trades off
air mobility and approaching ease for bigger damage,
to see how scary a mobile character like Mario would
be with his brother's damage numbers.

(And then no one would pay attention to Weegee... again.)

@ HeroMystic basically summed this up in Mario's thread by stating
Mario's low damage doesn't make him bad, just not crazy good.

 

[TTTTTsd]

When I look at Falco in action on tournament streams and such, he seems like a very "honest" character. By that, I mean he doesn't have any especially glaring weaknesses, and he has both decent combos and KO power, with very few "gimmicks," sort of like the Pits. In contrast, Melee Falco had an entire class of combos exclusive to him due to the way his reflect and down air worked, and in Brawl he had a chain grab.

That's definitely how I feel. He's an honest spacing character who relies on solid fundamentals and good conversions off of D-Throw at low %.

I honestly LOVE him in this game but Doc is my true love that I can't main because reasons (mainly because mobility)

Also if Mario did the damage he did in Melee or something like that he'd easily be Top 10 in my eyes because combining that with mobility would equal hilarity.

 

[HeroMystic]

Well personally I always thought he was pretty super.

Also surprised to see that Mario has basically the same frame data in both Plumber and Doctor form. I didn't expect trading speed for power to have such a drastic effect by itself.

Its not so much the trade-off as it is the power boost is too little. I've said this before but Doc only really has boosted DPH on Bair, U-tilt, and F-air. His KO options are more plentiful but Mario is racking up damage faster and his edgeguarding is stronger than Doc's.

If Doc's Up-B and Bair Ko'd earlier he'd be in a great spot. Otherwise you might as well play Luigi since he's everything Doc wants to be.

 

[TTTTTsd]

It's more Dr. Mario's mobility if you ask me. His damage racking being slightly worse than Mario's would be a hindrance IF he didn't KO around 10-15% earlier than him consistently. His strings are empirically more damaging in certain areas but again, what kills him is a lack of movement speed on the ground, and his recovery. His kill options are very very diverse and he's not suffering in damage either, it's REALLY about his movement and his recovery.

If A or B was addressed he would be significantly better, if both were he'd be closer to where Mario is.

 

[Luigi player]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ7Ehn0RQ_I

Near the beginning, Zero lists his top 1-7, which he says is 1. : 2. : 3. : 4.N/A 5. ::/:: 6. N/A 7. ::/:

Thoughts? I personally only agree with Sheik being #1, who I honestly think is better than Diddy Kong by a tiny bit.

I think it's very nice to see them say that because I can agree with the top 3 for right now. Not sure which order, but while Diddy seems like the strongest he kinda has some flaws and Sheik is just reeaaally good, so it's definitely possible that she's the best. Pikachu being third I can see after what ESAM did. Although I do see Rosalina and Fox being contenders for that spot, and Lucario as well.

Funny to see Mario and Luigi up there. Like I said before in this thread I was waiting for the Luigi hype, and it seems to be here now. I don't think he's as good as top 5 or 7, though, his recovery is way too punishable. As for Mario, I'm really surprised. I see him as being a very good mid tier, maybe high tier character.

 

[Shaya]

The difference here is that I'm not jumping the gun like almost everybody else and putting these strong characters on some pedestal where they'll centralize the game indefinitely. I'm confident that things'll change over time.

I should clarify that it's really not just you, Shaya. Hell, it's only loosely related to you and your commentary. The Smash community as a whole seems to have this kinda doom and gloom thing going, where the facts at the present are casting this dreadful shadow over the unseen future.

And sorry that you think I'm "waiting on somebody to answer things for me," but quite frankly, I don't give a **** about the posturing, because that's the kinda stuff that holds you back from getting better.

Fantastic. You're a meta-denier. You aren't a competitive player in my eyes.
Top players are going to keep working, and the less-driven players like yourself will get weighed down by it.
I know it wasn't just me.

I think that because your only contribution other than your last post (that you had to add "i hate you all for making me post") in a month has been the populist card like-farming crap, straight up. And you know it. So, yeah, you're waiting for the answers. Otherwise you wouldn't have that attitude.

The reason why I hesitate with pinning Mario as a top tier character is there's actually a good amount of match-ups where Mario struggles. While I'm convinced he has a pretty decent MU against Sheik in the current meta, he has an uphill fight against Diddy, Luigi, Marth, probably ZSS and Ness as well.

While I appreciate the fact that high/top level players find Mario to be a great character, I'm always looking to understand why rather than just staring at the results. I've pretty much proven to myself that I'll be playing Mario regardless of his tier placement since I've mained him in Melee and Brawl. During the time I just haven't seen the details behind why players find him awesome, which is why I was so confused at the praise for him. I'm happily eating my words though.

Well, this game doesn't have the same meta setters like in Brawl, stuff which nullifies match up design due to heavy risk/reward skews (i.e. get grabbed at 0% for more than half your stock then get super camped). So realistically, characters should have a poor match up or two somewhere. I don't think having a few poor match ups puts you outside of top tier at this stage (well, I wouldn't want to put Mario in the same tier as Diddy/Sheik, but anywhere after that is feasible).
Tyrant thinks Ness is 3rd over Pikachu, but Ness would most definitely have harder match ups in this game that are below him in 'viability'. Stuff like Rosalina and Mario should have a pretty okay time against him.

But yeah, at this stage, I think viability is based off of power levels more so than match ups/popularity combination. Screw bad match ups, your character can have 15 bad match ups but can have similar capabilities to Sheik/Diddy and be a top 5 character in many people's eyes. Match ups aren't developed yet to have an alternative perspective.

 

[Lavani]

Mario's Super Jump Punch and Dr. Mario's Ol' One-Two are the only two moves I could find in the entire game that are frame 1 invincible and then hit shortly thereafter (both of their up-2s are f1 invincible and don't hit, and ZSS down specials are all f1 invincible but can only hit after great delay). That means, as long as Mario carries default up-B and Dr. Mario carries up-3, they are the two characters with the best OoS option in the game. This matters a lot; no one else can hold shield, hit a button, and be guaranteed to get an attack out with no gap to be hit.

Woah woah woah, hold up, where are you getting this from? I can't give an exact frame on when his invincibility starts, but Mario can definitely be hit out of the startup for a very short period of time. I'm inclined to think it's still 3f.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Fantastic. You're a meta-denier. You aren't a competitive player in my eyes.
Top players are going to keep working, and the less-driven players like yourself will get weighed down by it.
I know it wasn't just me.

Right, I deny the meta because I sit here and refuse to proliferate the kinda thinking (e.g. "OMG SO STRONK!") that makes the Smash Community a ****ing joke in the eyes of its peers. Piss off, Shaya.

I think that because your only contribution other than your last post (that you had to add "i hate you all for making me post") has been the populist card like farming crap. And you know it. So, yeah, you're waiting for the answers. Otherwise you wouldn't have that attitude.

And quite frankly, despite your breadth of knowledge, you don't have an entirely accurate forecast of what's in store for the future either. You keep jumping from character to character, aka flavor of the month, trying to pin down something that won't be concrete for at least another year or two. I personally don't mind espousing a little humility and saying I don't have the answers, and I certainly don't mind learning from my peers that do.

I don't post for popularity, I post because I ****ing feel like it and whenever I have something to contribute. Just like you. So go ahead, keep talking. Keep condescending to me.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Shaya]

Right, I deny the meta because I sit here and refuse to proliferate the kinda thinking (e.g. "OMG SO STRONK!") that makes the Smash Community a ****ing joke in the eyes of its peers. Piss off, Shaya.



And quite frankly, despite your breadth of knowledge, you don't have an entirely accurate forecast of what's in store for the future either. You keep jumping from character to character.
So go ahead, keep talking. Keep condescending to me.

When have I ever said I have an entirely accurate forecast?
Why do you want to live in a dream world where the game is balanced?
Sheik/Diddy dominating apex? Sure, it's a huge fear. A FEAR. Not a forecast. They're that strong right now.

You're taking me as condescending, but I'm responding to your attitude. It's one that isn't going to get you winning. And it's one I'm pretty sure you know you already have. If you think this area of the site is representative of the entire community, a section which is saturated by newer/less experienced players over others... Yeah... I question your competitiveness, and I'm saying that not to insult you but for you to realise that emotional pressure you seem to have on yourself.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Who are you to ****ing judge whether I'm competitive or not? Hell, I don't see you doing anything aside from posturing all the damn time. Should I not take you seriously? Shall I call you anti-competitive for harboring irrational fear?

**** you. The only person living in a dream world here is you. Take your metrics and shove 'em up your ass, I'm done with this baseless and banal argument.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Antonykun]

@ Shaya and @ Smooth Criminal : Sheesh calm down you too. I really don't want this place to devolve into a poo flinging contest. The game is still young like not even half a year young. Diddy, Shiek, and the crew are really strong right now but unless we have a time machine to go forward in time we'll never know if those guys remain over centralizing. So there's no reason not to put these guys in the spot of top tier right now, but this doesn't mean that later in the future they might get trumped by someone we consider low tier now like Mii Swordfighter.
Both of you have real points about the meta right now but please don't throw personal attacks at each other

 

[FlareHabanero]

I think the problem here is that people do not want to adapt to the situation, but instead enforce it more. That's not a healthy way of going about these things, and will ultimately cause stagnation in the metagame. At least have patience for a bit instead going ballistic.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

So 65:35 or worse 90% of the cast is probably underselling it, I really don't see much difference between Brawl MK and S4 Sheik besides lack of planking and a lot less characters with tools to deal with that perfect design than ever before (good thing MK didn't have THE BEST PROJECTILE IN THE GAME or top-tier mobility specs in every single department).

-> only characters I see actually being competitive against her (i.e. Match ups ZeRo has played a lot and prefers to go Diddy Kong for). Could maybe see Jiggs, Peach, Pika, Yoshi or Brawler at the moment as well.

Just going to comment on this because it's been bugging me.
We have 51 characters in this game. Arguable with Apex Mii fighter rule change (1111,2222,3333 for Mii's) a tad more.
You're saying that it's possibly underselling it that Sheik has 65:35 on 45/50 (excluding herself) characters.

I don't want to be the math sticker but lets reground this?
You presume 6 characters, we've past 90% from the start.
Lets talk your other 5, we're now at 40/50 characters. Kirby vs Sheik might by Kirbys favourite top-tier match up. I'll put it to 11.
22% of the cast already is removed. We've got Lucario as a MU that has to be considered as well. We can already put it to 12. If it is a Sheik meta and there are about 12 if not more characters then we're already talking about 25% of the cast being just fine in a Sheik dominated game, in the current state of things.

Im assuming you've deliberately left out Sonic.
Which leaves me to also wonder about hypothetically
1) Sheik vs Pacman
2) Where does your previous comment that "G&W janks top tiers" fall relative to Sheik?
3) Pit?
4) Is every heavy just being thrown immediately into this idea of crap MU's? What about DK?

In any event even if we say take out Kirby, include your initial six, hypothetical five and put Lucario in ? marks. That is 20% of the cast. Start delving into other characters and Sheik's presence can increase or decrease in the coming months.

To Tl;dr: You really want to put Sheik on that pedestal?

 

[Big-Cat]

I think the problem here is that people do not want to adapt to the situation, but instead enforce it more. That's not a healthy way of going about these things, and will ultimately cause stagnation in the metagame. At least have patience for a bit instead going ballistic.

Patience? Don't you know that fast everything is a prerequisite to being viable in this game?

 

[Kofu]

Esam is winning tournaments in South Florida with Pikachu. Also isn't Pikachu doing well in Japan?

Jigglypuff vs Yoshi, they both have similar air speed but play very different so a comparison isn't very important. Yoshi is heavier and has a trickier recovery to deal with because of super armor. Yoshi also is better on the ground than Puff and has setups into up air kills and an egg projectile. Jiggly has better kill potential and a safer grab, evasive crouch, requires less commitment, and better at edge guarding. They play totally different, just have similar air speed.

Robin and Puff has similar ground speed, but there are tons of reasons to play one over the other.

Like I said I am probably uninformed about some characters' tournament results (at least partially because I don't follow them and pretty much all I hear is "Diddy and Sheik").

I don't know, they play different but since the majority of Puff's game relies on aerial pressure, it stands to reason that characters who can play similarly but also do other things could, if not invalidate Puff, make it hard for her to find a niche. I feel like aerial approaches are less strong in this game in general and since she has no way to force approaches she's going to be approaching or baiting approaches a lot. Not 100% sure on this but I wouldn't be surprised if Puff has superior acceleration to Yoshi which gives her an edge in the comparison. But Yoshi's aerials have more range than Jigglypuff and his second jump gives him more immediate flexibility with his jumps. His jab also leads into attacks and his ground game seems more flexible/usable than Puff's (not that hers is bad, mind you, I think it's fine). I'm not convinced that Yoshi has less reliable kill setups since his jab leads into USmash and eggs can trap opponents into getting hit by, say, UAir.

Obviously they're not totally comparable but I think it's a reasonable question. I'll stop this after this post, I don't really use either character enough to properly compare them.

 

[HeroMystic]

It's more Dr. Mario's mobility if you ask me. His damage racking being slightly worse than Mario's would be a hindrance IF he didn't KO around 10-15% earlier than him consistently. His strings are empirically more damaging in certain areas but again, what kills him is a lack of movement speed on the ground, and his recovery. His kill options are very very diverse and he's not suffering in damage either, it's REALLY about his movement and his recovery.

If A or B was addressed he would be significantly better, if both were he'd be closer to where Mario is.

I'll reiterate that his mobility is a problem, and a pretty strong one. Being a character with low range and poor speed is a terrible combination to have, but it could be offset by packing a heavier punch when it matters. While he has an extreme amount of kill moves (five I believe?), they could stand to be a bit more powerful to make him that much more threatening to combat up close, which is where he shines.

Ironically, his bad recovery stems for the fact that his aerial speed is poor, so it just goes back to mobility.

 

[meleebrawler]

I think the problem here is that people do not want to adapt to the situation, but instead enforce it more. That's not a healthy way of going about these things, and will ultimately cause stagnation in the metagame. At least have patience for a bit instead going ballistic.

It's kind of a vicious cycle.

1. Character does well in tournaments.
2. People talk/complain about the strengths of said character.
3. People become interested in learning the character after hearing the talk.
4. More people rep character at tournaments, maybe discovering new things in
the interim.

..and so on.

Saying a character is overpowered or dominating (like, super dominating)
can often just come across as a salty player's attempts to undermine
the other player's efforts and justifying their loss (a john, if you will), especially
early on in the game's life. This kind of talk historically has done NOTHING
to stop players from playing who they want.

Probably the reason this game feels more balanced than other
Smash games is that there isn't a character or set of characters
that determine whether or not your character will succeed at tournaments (not yet, at least).
But because we're generally used to the "one character to rule them all" mindset
that happened in previous games, it's easy to believe the same can happen
in Smash 4.

No game is perfectly balanced. There will be choices that
are a cut above the rest in situations the community places
the game in. The key is making sure everybody has a chance
to win when pitted against anybody else, and so far that seems
to be the case for the majority. No one should be ashamed to pick
either the "top" or "bottom" characters at this stage, so
please don't undermine or dismiss other player's efforts
to play the characters that they want to play. As long as
they put the effort into what they do, they are good players.

Edit: This post has gotten me a new trophy.
Thank you everyone who made this possible by liking.
Even @ Shaya , surprisingly.

 

[Morbi]

It's kind of a vicious cycle.

1. Character does well in tournaments.
2. People talk/complain about the strengths of said character.
3. People become interested in learning the character after hearing the talk.
4. More people rep character at tournaments, maybe discovering new things in
the interim.

..and so on.

Saying a character is overpowered or dominating (like, super dominating)
can often just come across as a salty player's attempts to undermine
the other player's efforts and justifying their loss (a john, if you will), especially
early on in the game's life. This kind of talk historically has done NOTHING
to stop players from playing who they want.

Probably the reason this game feels more balanced than other
Smash games is that there isn't a character or set of characters
that determine whether or not your character will succeed at tournaments (not yet, at least).
But because we're generally used to the "one character to rule them all" mindset
that happened in previous games, it's easy to believe the same can happen
in Smash 4.

No game is perfectly balanced. There will be choices that
are a cut above the rest in situations the community places
the game in. The key is making sure everybody has a chance
to win when pitted against anybody else, and so far that seems
to be the case for the majority. No one should be ashamed to pick
either the "top" or "bottom" characters at this stage, so
please don't undermine or dismiss other player's efforts
to play the characters that they want to play. As long as
they put the effort into what they do, they are good players.

I would probably assert that mentality deterred a lot of people from using the Ice Climbers in Melee, or at the very least, stopped a lot of wobbling. Ice Climbers are always undermined based on my empirical knowledge, even in Brawl. However, in regards to Smash 4, I do not believe that there is an equivalent. Not even Diddy.

 

[obeymalleo]

Just like you. So go ahead, keep talking. Keep condescending to me.

Smooth Criminal

Just want to point out that Shaya was not talking, but typing.