Character Competitive Impressions

[TriTails]

Well I'm going to say it again, Wario's kit is that of a jack of all trades. Nothing too amazing, but he has everything he could possibly want. I think he's suffering from middle man syndrome (I'm pretty sure its not called that) where he lacks any specific thing that makes people go "OMG so OP" like say Diddy's That One Move, Mario's WOMBO COMBO, Sheik's way-too-many-things-to-list. Seriously though Wario only lacks projectiles and he makes up for it with his mobility in the air.

Um.... Ride his Bike at full speed and jump outta it out of the blue?

 

[Kofu]

Anyway.

Game & Watch Meta.

G&W's up smash has invincibility from frame 4 behind his head. This is important.
Pivoting into reverse up smash, or just in general ensuring you're facing back against an opponent gives you a realllllllllly broken tool which only very low hitting moves (some dtilts) get through. I was playing with a Socal player @Eternal phoenix Fire (Zenas) and he was doing such trickery with Fox (he slides gracefully, and the sweet spot on usmash even hits from behind him, quite spooky) and after having him jab my shield from behind 1-2 as a shield trap, I just IDGAF'd an up smash OoS and then the notion hit me. pivot usmash during a dash or turn around shield (to face backwards) for reliably beating horizontal options as well.

G&W has a move that gives him practical entire body invincibility from frame 4, that can be done out of shield, and has short enough cool down that on shield-hit the move is safe (people get jabbed on most aggression attempts).

I also realised that I forgot you could side-b out of a dash and this hits low to the ground. Oh, when people don't tech dash attacks you can dash side-b for a similar reward at worse (although not as practical without precision) or something that can net you a lot of damage/kill (8 freezes, 6 electrocutes, most weak hits don't send very far at all, maintaining positional advantage).
Also as many people know, there's the whole down throw-> side-b combo which is guaranteed at low enough percent and will kill most above 10-15%.
I had really forgone it for a while although I knew it was real, but the 10-15% kill part wasn't really "there". I opted for nairs at low percent out of dthrow but at very low percent that actually doesn't work (lol), sometimes up smash is the same. But yeah, down throw -> side b into regrab on weaker hits is kinda-real and the reward is worth the attempt.

G&W for cheesy 0-20% hyper danger zone game against everyone, hooray. Unfortunately starting matches with this on a semi-consistent basis and still sometimes losing goes to show the G&W struggle

Not going to lie, most of my side-B kills are either from making people run into it or using the move where I would usually use an aerial. Not too many DThrow to Judge kill combos on my side. As far as Judge goes, anything 5 and above is usually good to connect with. 5 is actually the electrocuting hit and since it hits more than once it gives the best shield pressure out of all the numbers (a lucky shield break with 3 notwithstanding). 6 is fire and has the second highest knockback (you CAN kill with this but it's at 150% in most cases), 7 knocks the foe far enough away and you get a 8% healing item, 8 resets and you can usually get another hit out if it, and 9 is obvious. What makes 5s so good is why Chain Judge is so appealing, although I've realized that the move is probably less effective in the air since it doesn't just give one solid smack and people will sometimes fall out of it before the finishing blow connects..

I need to use USmash better, but I blame input lag for making my retaliation attempts fail.

But yeah, I agree, he does well at low percents but as the percent on both characters climbs he starts to struggle.

Random quip, Shaya, but it seems like the characters you're enjoying using most are Falco, Marth, and Game & Watch, at least from your posts in this thread. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Shaya]

I'd say I'm on that ZSS grind now.
She's awesome.
Because she's broken. Third best aerial mobility with her range? An Up-B that kills at 90% when I'm the young Dolphin Slasher? High skill caps + potential for all of her aerials make me squee, reminds me of my brawl Marth days when I discovered the shayair. So many options, with each one feeling splendid in use. No match ever feels impossible to bring back due to the stupidity of her up-b.

G&W is very silly in doubles (even without bucket abuse), so I'm going out of my way to ensure it's competent/potentially the best in the world.
Falco feels great when he's in his groove. Back air and up air stuff combo set ups are lovely. Great for Sheik and Fox friendlies.
Marth is less and less enjoyable as almost-forgotten playstyles and strategies are rekindled with ZSS because she actually has pressure tools/safety in her arsenal to use them (that are very similar to Brawl Marth imo), going back to him is great though as it reminds me what Marth can do if I'm willing to forgo any sense of risk/reward and just do stuff that isn't safe but can actually work . The more I pay attention to sakurai angle hits and some tidbits for follow ups with Dash Attack, Dolphin Slash and Dancing Blade, I also think of the melee-esque scenarios where you can find yourself a forward smash tipper confirm through non-tech ground bounces.

 

[Conda]

The way ZSS is designed keeps me from enjoying playing as her - I like her playstyle, but there's too much 'silliness' with her design and animations that just make me opt for a less waifu-designed character I don't need no eternally-oiled-up bodysuit and whip (really guys?). Peach is awesome, as is Lucina. I just hate winning as ZSS and having her show me her crotch for absolutely no reason as her victory pose. GG Sakurai, thanks.

 

[Ffamran]

Yeah, ZSS's random leg stretch is the weirdest victory animation. Just why?

 

[Z'zgashi]

Just close your eyes during the victory animation.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Dont close your eyes.
Sniff real hard.

 

[Nobie]

Well I'm going to say it again, Wario's kit is that of a jack of all trades. Nothing too amazing, but he has everything he could possibly want. I think he's suffering from middle man syndrome (I'm pretty sure its not called that) where he lacks any specific thing that makes people go "OMG so OP" like say Diddy's That One Move, Mario's WOMBO COMBO, Sheik's way-too-many-things-to-list. Seriously though Wario only lacks projectiles and he makes up for it with his mobility in the air.

I don't know if you can actually call Wario a jack of all trades. To me, it's more that he possesses a unique combination of various skewed properties that contrast and complement each other well, and that he has attacks that can handle almost anything. I mean, with Wario you have a small character with short range who's among the heaviest in the game, slow on the ground but nimble in the air, hits like a small truck (as opposed to the super heavies who hit like much larger trucks), and has a really strong recovery. Most of his features have some sort of obvious glaring weakness, but when put together they more or less cover each other. It's like, Wario averages out, but not because all of his traits are 50/100, but because they're either 10s or 90s.

 

[Thinkaman]

Driveby opinion: I am pretty confident that Sheik is the best character in the game, or at least slightly better than Diddy.

Bonus opinion: I'm tempted to say that Sheik and Diddy are very easy to play, but that can be interpreted as too vague and unintentionally condescending. Instead I'll say that it often feels like they have simple, reliable answers in a lot of situations, and it's easy to get remarkable results with minimal time investment.

Double bonus opinion you already knew: Yoshi is an utterly amazing character, and Sheik is easily his worst matchup.

 

[Shaya]

If the reason people choose not to play ZSS is due to that animation, I'm all for it. She's obviously been one of the most intensively loved during design characters in this game~

WAIT A MOMENT

Driveby opinion: I am pretty confident that Sheik is the best character in the game, or at least slightly better than Diddy.

Bonus opinion: I'm tempted to say that Sheik and Diddy are very easy to play, but that can be interpreted as too vague and unintentionally condescending. Instead I'll say that it often feels like they have simple, reliable answers in a lot of situations, and it's easy to get remarkable results with minimal time investment.

Welcome to The Real World, Neo

 

[Z'zgashi]

SUPER SPECIAL AWESOME ULTRA FUDGE COVERED MEGA OPINION:

Pikachu is secretly best character.

 

[Conda]

Driveby opinion: I am pretty confident that Sheik is the best character in the game, or at least slightly better than Diddy.

Bonus opinion: I'm tempted to say that Sheik and Diddy are very easy to play, but that can be interpreted as too vague and unintentionally condescending. Instead I'll say that it often feels like they have simple, reliable answers in a lot of situations, and it's easy to get remarkable results with minimal time investment.

Double bonus opinion you already knew: Yoshi is an utterly amazing character, and Sheik is easily his worst matchup.

I agree with Sheik likely being the best. She's nearly unexploitable, yet certainly not average for being unexploitable. She can be played in so many different ways and captures the 'sandbox fighting game' feeling that Smash is all about. She'd be top tier without needles and grenades, yet she has them. And she's got extra horizontal recovery with bouncing fish now. Fantastic character, you've got everything you could ever want, minus a command grab and powerful low-% KO option.

Considering picking her up, not because she's good, but because I've always enjoyed her playstyle in Brawl and she has one of the only movesets that I feel really captures a fast-speed jack-of-all-trades character. You don't have to follow a flowchart, which is more than I can say for some other characters in Brawl and Smash 4, and can do so many different yet fun things.

Her 'difficulty killing' is as exaggerated and meaningless as MK's 'difficulty killing' was in Brawl. She's obviously not broken the way MK is, but she's definitely my GO-TO character that I think about when I see great players playing 'meh' characters at a very high level -- they'd likely do so much better and have such higher tournament-winning potential if they picked up sheik.

 

[Kofu]

I'd say I'm on that ZSS grind now.
She's awesome.
Because she's broken. Third best aerial mobility with her range? An Up-B that kills at 90% when I'm the young Dolphin Slasher? High skill caps + potential for all of her aerials make me squee, reminds me of my brawl Marth days when I discovered the shayair. So many options, with each one feeling splendid in use. No match ever feels impossible to bring back due to the stupidity of her up-b.

G&W is very silly in doubles (even without bucket abuse), so I'm going out of my way to ensure it's competent/potentially the best in the world.
Falco feels great when he's in his groove. Back air and up air stuff combo set ups are lovely. Great for Sheik and Fox friendlies.
Marth is less and less enjoyable as almost-forgotten playstyles and strategies are rekindled with ZSS because she actually has pressure tools/safety in her arsenal to use them (that are very similar to Brawl Marth imo), going back to him is great though as it reminds me what Marth can do if I'm willing to forgo any sense of risk/reward and just do stuff that isn't safe but can actually work . The more I pay attention to sakurai angle hits and some tidbits for follow ups with Dash Attack, Dolphin Slash and Dancing Blade, I also think of the melee-esque scenarios where you can find yourself a forward smash tipper confirm through non-tech ground bounces.

Cool. Just saw you changed one of your main icons to Game & Watch, that made my day. Not enough respect for him. I probably don't have enough respect for him even though I beat most people I play with him.

I'm working on a massive tier list post that's now mostly done that contains a general summary of how I feel about EVERY STINKING CHARACTER IN THE GAME. That's why it's massive. My writeups have been getting longer the more I've been going them, too. Spoiler: my top 10 in it are . I also learned that Ike's code is "4myfriends." Greatest thing I've seen from Smashboards in a long time.

 

[Conda]

Cool. Just saw you changed one of your main icons to Game & Watch, that made my day. Not enough respect for him. I probably don't have enough respect for him even though I beat most people I play with him.

I'm working on a massive tier list post that's now mostly done that contains a general summary of how I feel about EVERY STINKING CHARACTER IN THE GAME. That's why it's massive. My writeups have been getting longer the more I've been going them, too. Spoiler: my top 10 in it are . I also learned that Ike's code is "4myfriends." Greatest thing I've seen from Smashboards in a long time.

My recommendation - make your big post less about 'tiers' before you post it. Looking forward to reading it.

 

[Z'zgashi]

Top 10 characters imo:

//, , , //, , (/// One of these guys)

 

[Hydde]

Will Sheik be nerfed anytime soom?.

I have to agree she is too strong right now. Extremely fast and responsive compared to the rest of the cast

 

[Big-Cat]

Back onto Sheik, I just thought of something. Sheik has two real weaknesses that most aren't considering. She can only practically kill with edgeguarding and Bouncing Fish. The other weakness is that her attacks are all weak.

For the first one, this means that as a general strategy, stay away from the edge unless you are edge guarding. Do not try to kill at the edge. If Sheik gets you, her great edgeguarding will make it difficult for you to make the return to neutral. Otherwise, stay in the center.

Second one is talked about less. She can easily be murdered by counter poking thanks to priority. All of her attacks have terrible power individually. Her FTilt, for example, deals only 4%. If the opponent is mindful of her spacing, they will stuff out every ground attempt except her specials. So then we have her aerial approaches. Since the viability for a ground approach is lessened because of a lack of power, Sheik will want to opt for aerials as priority then becomes all about hitboxes like in other fighting games. This increased liklihood of going into the air though is a disadvantage. The opponent can just perfect shield upon a successful read or dodge the attack and whiff punish.

 

[Conda]

Back onto Sheik, I just thought of something. Sheik has two real weaknesses that most aren't considering. She can only practically kill with edgeguarding and Bouncing Fish.

That's honestly really not true. Up air kills as well as many other up air kill moves. Up B seems to kill as well as most other trick-based moves (Abandon Ship, Shadow Sneak, etc). Fresh bair can kill at normal %s.

She's not a kill monster, but she's not super below-average - many characters have a similarly 'hard time killing' due to not-that-many-moves being able to kill at low percents. They don't have what sheik has in return, though. That's the whole point.

Also, bouncing fish is better than most other characters' main kill moves. Not being able to kill well without it - which isn't really true - wouldn't be too big a deal as it's such a good move. It covers so many options. You don't need a killing aerial or ground KO move (both of which sheik already has) when you have that.

It's clear that there are some characters with tricks and some without. Those in the higher tiers - a quick banana with trip-inducing bananas and any-% grab combos, an unpunishable ninja with no endlag anywhere, a bodysuit fighter with stuns and ridiculous speed all over, a dinosaur with weight killpower and speed in his pocket, a princess with disjoints and a puppet that she doesnt really need, etc.

Compare these to someone without tricks, like Luigi - he's floaty and has some combos but they're all close range and he's too slow to chase after escaping foes. Marth - he has a sword, but each swing tires him out and his mobility isn't much better than some heavies. Falco - he has a blaster and reflector and some basic-yet-effective moves but feels like you're wading through mud with his mobility.

These characters - the ones without tricks that let them have things other characters dont really get to have without huge drawbacks - can't get by on their traits alone. They have to be piloted by someone who is good at Smash - period. But the characters with tricks? They're kind of playing a different game, where things are tipped in their favour because they have free toys that other characters don't have.

The opponent can just perfect shield upon a successful read or dodge the attack and whiff punish.

Only if there's lag to punish. This goes for other characters too. The ones who are doing so well competitively are ones who match up well against punish-based characters. When there's very little endlag to punish, you cancel out a whole class of characters who focus on punishing their opponent. These characters often have a reduced ability to approach safely compared to others, and they can't do much against characters like ZSS and Sheik unless their general Smash Bros abilities are at a higher level than their opponent's.

 

[Smog Frog]

TAHP 15:


in something resembling that order

 

[HeroMystic]

I'm surprised Luigi isn't in any top 15 lists.

 

[Shaya]

S: *
A:
B: (kinda ordered, they all seem almost equally good)
C: (unordered)

*a part of me feels as if I should have Pikachu in A due to not having much popularity compared to those in S, hence lending a little to theory bros + ESAM overly representing a character as one of the best Smash players.

I don't know about 1111 Brawler either, he could very well have a lot of deficiencies in match ups with that moveset, and I don't know of any tournament 1111 mii brawler sets ever happening.

I feel pretty dirty posting this either way. Pretty "oh tier list post".
I think I've slowly segued into this distinction though with each iteration of posts about either the top or lower half (or other big groupings) characters in the game. Out of all of these the only ones I haven't either seen quite a lot of personally or in tournament yet are Peach (Slayerz not remaining active), Wario, Brawler, Greninja (post-patch), Jigglypuff (no one playing her?), Lucario (post-patch).

 

[Conda]

I'm surprised Luigi isn't in any top 15 lists.

He's solid and can be played well by great players who have their fundamentals down, but I don't see him having the traits that the other top fighters have. He's amazing, but so are so many other characters in the exact same kind of way. He's balanced and well designed. Kind of like how Mario is solid and can do very well, but that doesn't mean he's a truck that changes the metagame the way the other tops do.

 

[KevJames]

The more lists I see of "Top X Characters," the less I actually care who is top 10/15/etc. I don't think we will becoming to any conclusions for quite some time, and its becoming more and more apparent that this is a game based on matchups - more-so than any other iteration of smash.

 

[Timbers]

She can only practically kill with edgeguarding and Bouncing Fish.

upB frame traps on airdodges are sooo so so so easy for her to set up.

also bair

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Double bonus opinion you already knew: Yoshi is an utterly amazing character, and Sheik is easily his worst matchup.

Gotta ask: who else beats Yoshi, or at least goes even (in your opinion)? Because I hate fighting a halfway competent Yoshi but Sheik isn't quite my cup of tea. (I could fake it if I had to but I have a hard time controlling speedy characters.)

 

[Z'zgashi]

Gotta ask: who else beats Yoshi, or at least goes even (in your opinion)? Because I hate fighting a halfway competent Yoshi but Sheik isn't quite my cup of tea. (I could fake it if I had to but I have a hard time controlling speedy characters.)

Sheik, Pikachu, and Sonic beat him, and MAYBE ZSS or Diddy, Sheik is BY FAR the hardest for Yoshi though.

Yoshi has tons of even match ups though, so you can beat him by just being the better player or better at the match up in like 50% of Yoshi's match ups in the game.

EDIT: Like, going down the roster, Id say characters that go even with Yoshi include:
Dark Pit, Diddy Kong, Falco, Fox, Link, Lucario, Lucina, Marth, Mega Man, Meta Knight, Mr. Game & Watch, Ness, Olimar, Pac-Man, Palutena, Peach, Pit, ROB, Robin, Shulk, Toon Link, Villager, Wario, WFT, ZSS

 

[Vengeance_NS]

S: *
A:
B: (kinda ordered, they all seem almost equally good)
C: (unordered)

*a part of me feels as if I should have Pikachu in A due to not having much popularity compared to those in S, hence lending a little to theory bros + ESAM overly representing a character as one of the best Smash players.

I don't know about 1111 Brawler either, he could very well have a lot of deficiencies in match ups with that moveset, and I don't know of any tournament 1111 mii brawler sets ever happening.

I feel pretty dirty posting this either way. Pretty "oh tier list post".
I think I've slowly segued into this distinction though with each iteration of posts about either the top or lower half (or other big groupings) characters in the game. Out of all of these the only ones I haven't either seen quite a lot of personally or in tournament yet are Peach (Slayerz not remaining active), Wario, Brawler, Greninja (post-patch), Jigglypuff (no one playing her?), Lucario (post-patch).

For wario check out Gluttony https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7c-ZKTh76K0

He still plays wario incorrectly as he's too aggressive if he played a little safer he would have won those grand finals vs Leon's ZSS. There is also great footage of him beating a good Diddy kong on his way to grand finals. (At about 48 mins is the Diddy matches and the last 10-12 mins is the grand finals).

Also Lucario is a little better than you think imo. Check out Junebugs Lucario. Character is so scary in rage and aura. At the last Xanadu he killed a fox off a throw who was only at 60%. You have to be a certain type of player to play Lucario. Hes slow and methodical but he's very very good.


As a wario main I personally only struggle with MUs sheik falcon and fox. I feel the matchups are 6-4 right now not in warios favor. However the game is young and I do feel wario has the tools to beat these characters. Bite makes players think twice and judt rushing in and he has great aerials to keep characters out. He has a solid off stage game and lives a long time where these 3 characters die early. I think was the game has been out a few more months people will get more defensive and learn how to handle these rushdown characters and once I figure out those 3 matchups everyone better hide.

 

[Shaya]

How many times are you going to link the same video for Wario :<

 

[Vengeance_NS]

How many times are you going to link the same video for Wario :<

I haven't linked the video in this thread. I linked it on the wario pages tho

@ Shaya
What do u think of Leon's ZSS???

 

[Tagxy]

Well if you want me to lend some more hard data on pika being a fairly good character, let me share some data gathered in another thread. I debated sharing this but may as well:

http://pastebin.com/vRk1UsHe
http://pastebin.com/NJ4Q5PzU

Note:I used these in conjunction with one another (not sure if this has been done yet). I focused moreso on the aerials. I understand there's issues with using "biggest hitbox" info but its still pretty helpful. Instead of discussing personal thoughts I'll leave everyone to reach their own conclusions.

Spoiler

Ok maybe a few personal thoughts. Obviously we're comparing hitbox size to the frame data. Try dividing the size by the frame data for comparisons. With aerials dividing aggregate size over aggregate frame data is messy but still an interesting crude comparison. Some interesting (though perhaps understandable) characters may stand out.

Spoiler

Pikachu's aerials are all around very solid, but in particular his nair is crazy. I used to joke that pikachu had MK's Brawl Nair which makes this amusing to me. Compare the hixboxes of other 3-5 frame aerials, as well as the frame data for other hixboxes with 70. Most take twice as long to come out, though a few others stand out as well. Coupled with the moves low cooldown its deceptively safe (seriously deceptive, as in I really dont think many people realize its this good).

 

[TriTails]

Compare these to someone without tricks, like Luigi - he's floaty and has some combos but they're all close range and he's too slow to chase after escaping foes.

So understated.

He doesn't only has 'some' combos.

And you seem to not use Luigi Cyclone.

Second half of the poost: I literally made a fool of myself when I made this half. So deleted.

 

[Timbers]

- Combos, like Sheik has, and lots of them are all true combos.
- Great grab game, like Ness.
- Solid ground and air game, like Captain Falcon?

These comparisons are incredibly awkward...

Luigi's good, but I think you missed your mark with these.

 

[Z'zgashi]

Luigi is only not top 10 (or top 15, but I think that one is arguable) because he's just too slow and slippery. Cyclone mitigates a good portion of the weakness, but it's not enough to fully make up for his lack of mobility. Still a great character though, I have a pocket weegee I break out in tournament myself.

 

[TriTails]

These comparisons are incredibly awkward...

Luigi's good, but I think you missed your mark with these.

Sorry, not very good at English understanding here....

 

[HeroMystic]

Sorry, not very good at English understanding here....

Essentially he's saying the comparisons don't really work, because all the characters you listed are better at what you're comparing them to.

 

[Yokoblue]

Sorry, not very good at English understanding here....

You compared basically the best character for each categories (or almost) with luigi and said he was even... with all the bests...
Ness grab game is like top 3
Sheik is probably #1 in combo
Wont comment on falcon

 

[Yonder]

IMO, I think Luigi is just 15th, but if he was 20th or something in a future tier list I wouldn't think much of it. My only truly tough matchups with him so far have been...well Villager. Everyone else I at least have had a fighting chance again. But Villager is brutal.

Btw, Villager is underrated. I think he could be top 10. He is quite the character. Best recovery in game, bair and fair keep opponents out, bowling ball gimps recoveries, tree is nice depending on how it is used, pocket shuts down some characters well [pocket a Rob's gyro and keep it..I would know :/], Gyroids offer great distraction, ...everything else is just kind of average to decent, but he's pretty impressive! I'd put Villager over Fox as my 10th anyways.

Sheik is probably #1 in combo

Eh...idk, I've personally been comboed and pulled off better combos with Luigi than Sheik. I think it's a very close bout for best comboer in the game, but it's definitely one of those two.

What differentiates the two is that Sheik is better than Luigi in virtually everything else if not comboing, sides kill power.

 

[IsmaR]

Luigi with customs is the slipperiest **** ever. Quick Missile + Mach Cyclone (though obviously standard Cylcone is better horizontally) is too much mobility for any human.

Just close your eyes during the victory animation.

Or be a girl.

 

[Kofu]

Btw, Villager is underrated. I think he could be top 10. He is quite the character. Best recovery in game, bair and fair keep opponents out, bowling ball gimps recoveries, tree is nice depending on how it is used, pocket shuts down some characters well [pocket a Rob's gyro and keep it..I would know :/], Gyroids offer great distraction, ...everything else is just kind of average to decent, but he's pretty impressive! I'd put Villager over Fox as my 10th anyways.

Hint against the slingshots: use lasting hitboxes. Virtually any sex kick-like move will beat them. Jigglypuff's a frustrating matchup for that reason alone. Fast characters really don't care about Villager's keep out game. Lloid Rocket can slow them down... if he can get it out. The move is really laggy and folks like Captain Falcon and Yoshi can just Dash Attack through it as it spawns to smack Villager in the face. His CQC is a little lacking, too, but his frame 3 Jab and Nair are pretty good at getting people off of him. Having a good portion of your moveset be reflectable is also pretty terrible. I honestly hate fighting Mario because he can pull out the Cape whenever he dang well pleases to potentially screw us over pretty hard. Where he really excels is against other zoners. Pocket has its limitations in lag and one-item capacity but it has such an absurd multiplier on the strength of the projectiles that it makes certain MUs hilarious.

I honestly feel like Mega Man does the keep-out game better than Villager because he can be more aggressive with it and he doesn't have to worry as much about his tools being used against him.

Also, Sheik probably has the advantage in general with combos because of her mobility. Luigi deals much more damage and his DThrow works for longer, however.

 

[Thinkaman]

We had a really good Yoshi appear in our scene. I could only beat him with Little Mac (!), Ness, Sheik, and Charizard (!!!).

Note that I don't play Sheik and don't really play Charizard.

Edit: I'll elaborate on each.

Sheik just trump's Yoshi's moveset speed and deals with his aerial mobility and unique recovery very well. Running speed can actually chase aerial Yoshi. Needles beat Eggs in the neutral, and are pretty safe. Safe recovery basically negates Yoshi's terrifying off-stage game. I've found Bouncing Fish an effective answer to many of Yoshi's actions.

Little Mac - Eggs do a mediocre job at stuffing fast ground approaches, which is why Sonic probably does better than decent against Yoshi. Beyond that, it's basically like playing Sheik with all the chips on the table: Your moveset is faster, you have the run speed to punish, and you have an answer for everything. But if you get hit once, it's basically a stock, and if you get Yoshi, it hurts 3x as much as Sheik. Being able to actually kill Yoshi is a big deal.

Ness - Speaking of. Ness's claim to fame is being able to consistently kill even the most slipperiest of characters at merely mid %s--all he needs is a grab, and if they start acting like the floor is lava then uair work just as well. It's really nice to be able to kill Yoshi. I've never in my life been more thankful for Ness fair than when fighting Yoshi.

Charizard - I tried WFT and Charizard on a whim. (Character I like and know, but don't REALLY play?) WFT did... okay, but Charizard's performance surprised both of us. The combination of run speed and grab range was significant, and Yoshi found high-reward OoS options problematic. Both Flare Blitz and Dragon Rush proved effective answers to Yoshi's general offense, though the usual caveats apply. Rock Smash too! His f4 jab can compete with Yoshi's f3, while doing 12 damage instead of 7. He can, with finesse, challenge a lot of Yoshi's favorite things.

Charizard is the perfect answer for Yoshi, barring a few big problems:

• Eggs. Eggs Eggs Eggs.
• When you do screw up, you are still a heavyweight being juggled by Yoshi.
• Great, you can deal with most of Yoshi's stuff, but what are you planning to do to Yoshi? There are lots of okay answers but no slam dunk.
• Yoshi can slam Charizard's slow recovery quite well.