Character Competitive Impressions

[Z'zgashi]

Yoshi is definitely not top 3 lol.

 

[Sinister Slush]

I honestly don't think Yoshi is gonna be top 10 once the game is a bit older.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

I don't think Sheik needs nerfs; I think she's being overrated because her neutral is so good. She lacks explosive kill power like most of the other good characters; she really only takes stocks if you either make multiple mistakes in quick succession (to get drug off-stage) or get to over 150% whereas most of the other strong characters have ways to kill starting at 80-100% off a single mistake. That's kinda a big deal; I have to play around Sheik's complete package of pressure, but I don't actually have "that button" I have to look out for like Diddy uair, Sonic usmash (or bthrow really), Ness "half his moveset", ZSS Boost Kick, etc.. The closest thing is getting sniped by Vanish; if I were going to nerf Sheik (which I wouldn't do), I'd slightly reduce the kill power on Vanish. Really though, I think she's built just right; she's a good character, but she makes the very real trade of the ability to get wins very fast for her consistent threat level. Characters like Sheik have been dominant in past smash games which probably increases her appeal, but precedent

Of course, the only nerf I'd implement in this game if given the driver's seat would be a very, very slight nerf to Diddy uair kill power (would kill probably about 8% later in most situations). I feel like most characters are viable in the current environment and that it's much easier and more likely to make a good game to focus on bringing in stragglers instead of tearing down leaders in this kind of game. I think the "only buff always!" philosophy is simplistic at best for game design, but this game's particular balance is well suited for it. With custom moves being a system as well, you really have a lot of ways to push characters in different directions without having to make sacrifices. Oh this game would be fun to play with the balance, but that's not really possible so I'm not sure it's the most useful thought experiment.

---

I don't really want to have a long Pac-Man argument, but I'm definitely +1 to the side of Pac-Man being bad and don't really think a better grab would suddenly make him good just decent. I just look at him, see hydrant as one of his strongest moves, see how easy it is for hydrant to hurt him more than help him when he puts it out (usually he tries to land behind it and, before he gets a chance to take advantage of the cover, has an fsmash'd hydrant flying at him), and really struggle to see him as good. The good characters don't have their strong tools so easily turned against them, and how just flat out unimpressive his normals are doesn't really do much for me either... I simply don't believe he beats Sheik and goes even with Diddy and Yoshi; on what game theory does that even work? I foresee Sheik and Diddy just rushing him down and winning on the basis of having better buttons than he does and Yoshi kinda doing the same but also winning the long range game since eggs are better than all of Pac-Man's projectiles. If Yoshi catches a fruit especially and just holds it while chucking eggs, that's going to be a nasty situation in which Pac-Man will be forced to approach...

developers tend to avoid the whole only buff thing since its litterally the quickest way to to make things go out of hand real quick.

but some buff idea's i have are...

ganon
- arial flame choke no longer free falls
- wiz foot has same kill power on both ground and air. (its the air ones kill power\0
- up b gets frame 3 invicibility-frame 15
- fair auto cancel

Charazard
-flair blitz starts faster
-less lag on nair
-fair auto cancel
-bair sweet spot larger.

Zelda
- phantom slash holds the charge
-dins fire comes out frame 3 on release
(thats all i think she needs to be threating)

Samus
-screw kill power similar to zzs
-ontop of the left to right hit box on nair samus her self is also the hitbox
-down b faster explosion time/ no bomb jump when grounded not doing anything
-a kill throw
-less missile lag

Pit
- remove multi hit for a single knock back hit. like meta knight.
-orbitarscomes out on frame 5

Jiggly puff
-sing sleeps you if you dodge roll through it.

Mario
-ever so slightly less lag on fire ball

Luigi
-more hitstun on fireball

Kirby
-stone tranformation faster
-hyper cutter has less end lag so you can act out of it faster
-hammer flip has more lenient movement for mind game

Wii Fit Trainer
-deep breathing last 20 secs
-faster down tilt
- stronger f smash
-faster d smash

Captain Falcon
-Raptor Boost does not free fall

Metaknight
-less lag on tornado
(yeah thats it i personally think meta knights pretty viable already)

Falco
-jab cancel

Little Mac
-Faster Grab
-up b has much more kill power

Marth
-killing dolphin slash
-auto cancel fair (just for u @ Shaya )
-greatly reduced end lag on u tilt

Lucina
-same as marth
-fair, nair, bair, d tilt, f tilt are safe on shield

Pacman
-grab box lasts the durration of the animation to beat spot dodges

Mr game and watch
- f smash has more kill power
-faster air deceleration

D Pit
-f throw more combo orientated
-back throw takes f throws kill power
-orbitars comeout on frame 5

welp thats all i could think/reamember right now lol.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

I honestly don't think Yoshi is gonna be top 10 once the game is a bit older.

Explain yourself, Slushie.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Terios the Hedgehog]

I wouldn't want any loss of utility on Sonic. I would lower spindashes damage by a bit, reduce uair and nair damage by a bit and make dtilt do a bit more and put them vertical so it can combo into utilt. It would mean that he has to place his dtilt well for the good damage and give people more chances.

 

[Makorel]

@ Road Death Wheel For Pit I think that the endlag is a bigger problem when using the orbitars than the startup. Either way they feel like a two sided Mario's cape that's barely laggy enough to be not worth using.

Also more knockback on one of his kill moves. Or higher airspeed. Something to assuage the sinking feeling I get that Lucario is the only reason Pit/Dark Pit aren't fully tournament viable.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

My list doesn't really look like that at all, and it seems to have some different balance ideas. I'd really love to lay out my hypothetical "game has been out for 2 months but oh well here's how to make everything better" patch list (which does exist...), but it doesn't seem terribly appropriate for this thread. I will say that right now I think the bottom 6 are (no particular order) Zelda, Falco, Mii Swordfighter, Little Mac, Olimar, and Pac-Man. Little Mac just needs to be able to deal with platform camping to shoot up the tier list very fast (uair buffs and a bigger full hop, character done!), and most of the others would be pretty easy to fix up since Zelda is really the only truly weak design the others are just undertuned (Falco is pretty much the poster boy for undertuned characters, such a good character waiting to emerge there). Beyond them most characters who need help only need a little tweaking here or there, and I'd put most of my efforts into tweaking various less picked custom moves to make the selections more interesting and dynamic.

I did notice that change list seemed to try to help Charizard more than most. I for a long time thought Charizard was just awful, but I must repent of my wrongheaded ways. Charizard is awesome in this game, and I'm pretty sure now he's the best heavy and is a generally high tier character. Charizard has the biggest grab range paired with good throws, a good jab that does a lot of damage, ridiculously solid anti-air/anti-platform with his god-like utilt and usmash, the overall most dangerous long range aerial in the game in his bair, and his trifecta of great specials. Flamethrower just dominates slow paced neutral since it hits a big area and is really safe on block, Dragon Rush punishes everything and is also an extremely good move for recovery, and Rock Smash is by far the best armored move in the game in the crazy ways it lets you escape danger and also counter aerial approaches with a super strong hit. His extra mid-air jump doesn't really add up to any more recovery distance than other characters get, but it does mean he can turn around in the air without using a special move which for the kit he has is actually an amazing thing to be able to do. Charizard can represent a consistent threat in any situation, is maybe the best character in the game at consistently getting good punishes, and has good escape options when things aren't looking so good. If customs are off and he's forced to use the drastically inferior Flare Blitz over Dragon Rush that kinda sucks, but Flare Blitz is still a pretty good move and Charizard is still a pretty good character (especially since his main competition for "best heavy" is Bowser who is even more hurt by not having his awesome side special customs). In particular Charizard is likely anti-metagame; right now people are loving on speedy rushdown, and I think that's one of the playstyles he deals with best since he can actually punish stuff other characters struggle to punish and the threat of armoring through your stuff is a lot scarier for someone like Sheik than just about anyone else.

I tend to do a poor job keeping secondaries at any kind of level viable for me to pick them in a real match, and Rosalina being so complex doesn't really give me a good window to pick someone else up since she's such an investment. Charizard is IMO the easiest character in the game to play once you understand what he's really about, and he seems to deal with stuff that is otherwise hard for me so easily. I'm legitimately extremely tempted to pick him up as a secondary that I might actually use, and that line of thinking I imagine is going to spread as more people really figure out Charizard.

 

[Kofu]

Game & Watch doesn't really need faster aerial deceleration unless you want him to be the slipperiest aerial bugger in the game. Well, I don't THINK he needs it, as I'm assuming it's similar to Brawl (and it still feels really good tbh).

One thing I've noticed from Marth mains is that they lament the lack of low jump FAir/double FAir. What it really is is that you can't safely fast fall it because the landing lag is ridiculous. @ Shaya since I don't play Marth I didn't get what you meant until I was using Marth to gather data and decided to try out his FAir. Boy howdy that's some stupid lag. You said it was 20 frames or so, right? That's considerable overkill. IMO not having double FAir from a low jump is fine but to have that much lag if you fast fall it? Kind of stupid since the move isn't a lasting hitbox (it is big though).

 

[Makorel]

Charizard is awesome in this game, and I'm pretty sure now he's the best heavy and is a generally high tier character.

...make that two reasons. As a Pit player I'm honestly more afraid of Lucario and the heavies than Shiek or Diddy.

 

[Teshie U]

AA, when you say "best heavy" who are you considering heavy?

I think Wario, Samus and Yoshi are all better than Charizard/Bowser.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Explain yourself, Slushie.

Smooth Criminal

Let's put it something simpleish(?) like this. 90% of people's tier lists right now kinda look like this for the first few

Spoiler: Don't Read This Plz, My Brain is small. >opinions

/ or /

People are still debating whether or not Pikachu should be in the same tier as them but let's just say it's like this anyways
/
??????

7 last spots are still being mixed around for everyone. 5th spot, if the APEX ruleset is sadly carried over to other states, 2222 Mii brawler can be top 5 even without superior 2122
/
/?????

Here's where it gets a bit more complicated for most people. Ness Villager Megaman Yoshi Dark Pit Mario/Luigi Rosalina Greninja Wario Peach Pac-man Captain Falcon Fox Lucario Duck Hunt Shulk Zero Suit Samus have all been some part of somebody's tier list, done well/top 3 at some big regional, or (hate tossing this word around) potential to be top 10.
5-7 is usually where Yoshi is thrown in there if Mii brawler isn't on somebody's list

IMO my early meta list would look like this for top 20ish

/
/ and then because it's still early for everything it'd look like for 8-10 or Cut off here
or or (I honestly dunno how Vanilla Pit is better than Chocolate Pit, and I love vanilla)


The two loudest Yoshi's from both late brawl (MU chart v3) and smash 4 so far has been gashi and I.
His opinions led to some things I can agree upon, but I don't really remember the list of characters he listed as even. But I do wanna quote from him (not exact but basically like this) "We have a lot of Even matchups this time around"

If people are willing to dig through the past 40 or so pages to find that post, kewl. For now though Yoshi's MU spread early on if there was to be a Sm4sh Backroom made and tier list in the coming months discussed after APEX, his MU spread would look like this maybe.

-2:
-1:
0:
+1:
+2:
+3:

Again it's an opinion and guessing along with a couple in there based on minor discussion had from us kinda talking about it in the Yoshi boards, what others have said in this thread or their characters own MU threads that they've started already on their board (posts in here cherry picked mostly from who I believe actually knows what the hell they're saying).

For example: Fox mains saying Yoshi is his worst MU, so put as a +3 I guess if we really beat him that hard?
Gashi believing we still go even or win against Ness so 0/even for now.
Dabuz saying Rosalina beats Yoshi, but no top level yoshi player has come up yet to prove him wrong so leave even for now cuz >light as a feather princess, literally almost lighter than jigglypuff
We beat 2, maybe 3 people in the top 10 so far if not including Yoshi of course, that doesn't sound too hot does it? Going even with the rest is ok but still not great.

I honestly think Yoshi can have a rough time with Mario C.falcon Megaman and Pac-man enough to be put as a -1.

Just looking at the -2/-1 that's 6 spots already where characters not only beat Yoshi but are clearly better than him, 0 through +2 are guesses of course. I imagine Yoshi gives big characters or even bad characters like zelda samus and swordfighter a hard time so might as well put em as +1/+2
Of course since not as many Yoshi results/videos popping up compared to Japan's Yoshi's (tho a good portion of videos from them is Yoshi losing funny enough) Not too sure if even the characters we go even with can be a quarter right.

Either way, despite all the evens Yoshi has, if we wanna compare it to a character in the last MU chart in Brawl that had a good portion of evens a couple of -2's and a handful of -1's after 6 years, he'd rank around the 9th-13th range.
>smash 4 isn't brawl, stop comparing them
I kno, I dumb stop eet. Tell me that after u read if you actually went through this dreadful thing.

Jeez, looking at all those heads made me realize discussions in the future for charts n all that is gonna be hell.... 50+ characters to discuss. Maybe of course, hopefully 10 or so won't even bother and just agree with the ratio the opposing party tossed their way.

If you want, ignore everything in this post. Mostly wanted to point out my thoughts on Yoshi maybe not being in top 10 once the game goes on a bit longer.
For now he's top 10, later on I don't think so quite honestly.

He's good, but as other characters are being cracked open, Luigi Megaman Pikachu (he wasn't even in peoples top 10 during 3ds/first month of Wii U version) Olimar to an extent? more and more contenders for top 10 will happen.
Yoshi really doesn't seem like he has anything else hidden in him to be found out right now. I am the most cynical Yoshi player tho, but o well maybe he'll remain top 10? I dunn think so mang.

Time will tell us till then.

 

[Kofu]

AA, when you say "best heavy" who are you considering heavy?

I think Wario, Samus and Yoshi are all better than Charizard/Bowser.

I think when people bring up the character class "heavies," they're referring to the five heaviest characters in the game: Ganondorf, Charizard, Dedede, DK, and Bowser. They all have the first three traits and mix-and-match with the others:

-Large hutbox
-Long range
-Really powerful attacks (both in damage and knockback but they are related)
-Mobility issues
-Attacks that are either laggy on startup or cool down
-Limited or straightforward recovery

Wario and Yoshi are certainly better characters than those five but aren't quite as heavy and aren't usually considered heavyweights in the same way. Bowser Jr. technically is just as heavy as Charizard but he has a mechanic that makes him lighter than Ganondorf in most circumstances.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

@ Sinister Slush you might be right, but I really have to hand it to the designers of Smash 4. It is very difficult to tell what the top characters will be in a few years, and I think a large part of determining that will come down to some details that people aren't really adjusting to. Shields for example are ****ing terrible -- easy to poke down with pressure if you space correctly and really poor if you commit to them without being hit -- and people are still playing like it's brawl, where approaching with shields and being super defensive with the R button still makes sense.

If you play a character that is unsafe on block, fear not: shielding is bad. Figure out ways to force your opponent to commit to shielding without hitting them and punish them for it... they'll stop eventually. This isn't exactly news if you've been hanging around here, obviously, but punishing shield drop animations is something everyone should learn to do, I think.

As for Yoshi himself, I like the character in Smash 4 and think he has a lot going for him. He's mobile, can't be shield poked, hits like a truck, and he's really simple to play. The simplicity of playing Yoshi compared to other characters might be making him look better than he is, but I think you are exaggerating his issues. He is a flexible character with room for improvement, adaptation, and adjustment, with enough options for a character meta that can evolve. Other characters are being cracked open, but that doesn't mean that Yoshi doesn't still have a fair bit more to offer.

I thought Yoshi was strong in a lot of ways in Brawl, too. He had a few unfortunate problems but it wouldn't have taken many changes to make him high tier in that game.

 

[webbedspace]

7 last spots are still being mixed around for everyone. 5th spot, if the APEX ruleset is sadly carried over to other states, 2222 Mii brawler can be top 5 even without superior 2122

Just a note, the "legal 2222" and "legal 3333" ruleset amendments were rejected, so only 1111 is Apex legal. That this information still hasn't trickled all the way down after 2 weeks is a tad irksome.

 

[meleebrawler]

I don't really want to have a long Pac-Man argument, but I'm definitely +1 to the side of Pac-Man being bad and don't really think a better grab would suddenly make him good just decent. I just look at him, see hydrant as one of his strongest moves, see how easy it is for hydrant to hurt him more than help him when he puts it out (usually he tries to land behind it and, before he gets a chance to take advantage of the cover, has an fsmash'd hydrant flying at him), and really struggle to see him as good. The good characters don't have their strong tools so easily turned against them, and how just flat out unimpressive his normals are doesn't really do much for me either... I simply don't believe he beats Sheik and goes even with Diddy and Yoshi; on what game theory does that even work? I foresee Sheik and Diddy just rushing him down and winning on the basis of having better buttons than he does and Yoshi kinda doing the same but also winning the long range game since eggs are better than all of Pac-Man's projectiles. If Yoshi catches a fruit especially and just holds it while chucking eggs, that's going to be a nasty situation in which Pac-Man will be forced to approach...

You really don't know much about what Pac-Man can do, do you?

If you've used his Pac-Chain move, you've probably noticed how the Power Pellet can knocked
out before the move is completed, where it can then be eaten to heal 2%. If Yoshi just wants to throw
eggs, just block them with the pellet and then he'll have to approach, or else Pac-Man will just heal.

Also, do you even know about planting trampolines on the stage?
I won't go into too much detail, but suffice it to say that it can make a hydrant much harder
to destroy without a strong projectile... which can be blocked completely by ANY fruit.
Plus, if your opponent is keen on destroying your hydrants, you can just punish them for it
or escape while they're distracted.

 

[Antonykun]

AA, when you say "best heavy" who are you considering heavy?

I think Wario, Samus and Yoshi are all better than Charizard/Bowser.

Wario is more of a fat Jigglypuff than an actual heavy.

 

[Thinkaman]

I thought Yoshi was strong in a lot of ways in Brawl, too. He had a few unfortunate problems but it wouldn't have taken many changes to make him high tier in that game.

Yoshi was easily one of the hardest characters to get right in BBrawl.

It was easy to make him good, but hard to depolarize his defensive tendencies. Modest buffs enabled him to just stomp those who had to approach him.

Imagine Smash 4 Yoshi with Brawl Yoshi's weight and pivot grab. Bleh.

 

[Tagxy]

Sort of an odd thing but Ive been looking over this data more:
http://pastebin.com/vRk1UsHe
http://pastebin.com/NJ4Q5PzU

One thing that Ive sort of noticed and that sort of gets mentioned passively are changes to the short hop aerial game that make it hard to hit characters on the ground. Its mostly attributed to size, but going through data this is compounded by the fact that there's legitimately very few attacks that come out quickly and hit low to the ground. I feel right now people are still playing the short hop heavy ground game that went along with Brawl when it may in fact have a larger separation from a true ground game (even the non-shorties can take advantage of this with crouching).

 

[Smog Frog]

I think when people bring up the character class "heavies," they're referring to the five heaviest characters in the game: Ganondorf, Charizard, Dedede, DK, and Bowser. They all have the first three traits and mix-and-match with the others:

-Large hutbox
-Long range
-Really powerful attacks (both in damage and knockback but they are related)
-Mobility issues
-Attacks that are either laggy on startup or cool down
-Limited or straightforward recovery

Wario and Yoshi are certainly better characters than those five but aren't quite as heavy and aren't usually considered heavyweights in the same way. Bowser Jr. technically is just as heavy as Charizard but he has a mechanic that makes him lighter than Ganondorf in most circumstances.

wait, ike isnt a heavy? he certainly has every single one of those heavy traits.

 

[HeavyLobster]

wait, ike isnt a heavy? he certainly has every single one of those heavy traits.

I count Ike as heavy. I rank the heavies best to worst as Ike, DK, D3, Bowser, and Ganon/Zard being tied for worst.

 

[Luco]

I don't have a lot of time to contribute, just spent like 3 hours catching up after a week long camp, but guys... DK with customs is ridiculous, and I would easily chuck him in high tier with that upB windbox thing that does ludicrous stuff to anyone within 1/2 FD distance from him. Like, doing the traditional mindset of "let's get this heavyweight in to the air and combo/juggle him to death" is suddenly no longer viable and why does his downB come out and end so fast and why oh why does storm punch push me to the bottom corner and why god pls why does this character throw me offstage and then proceed to pull me in and spit me out 10 (billion) leagues under town and city when I AD at the wrong time?

I've never said it before, and I've never believed in saying this but this one time, I'll say it: I think people are sleeping on customs DK. :O

 

[Kofu]

wait, ike isnt a heavy? he certainly has every single one of those heavy traits.

Good call, he's just as heavy as Wario (and those two are only beat out by Samus until you get to Ganon). I meant to mention him in my post but didn't for some reason.

 

[thehard]

I don't have a lot of time to contribute, just spent like 3 hours catching up after a week long camp, but guys... DK with customs is ridiculous, and I would easily chuck him in high tier with that upB windbox thing that does ludicrous stuff to anyone within 1/2 FD distance from him. Like, doing the traditional mindset of "let's get this heavyweight in to the air and combo/juggle him to death" is suddenly no longer viable and why does his downB come out and end so fast and why oh why does storm punch push me to the bottom corner and why god pls why does this character throw me offstage and then proceed to pull me in and spit me out 10 (billion) leagues under town and city when I AD at the wrong time?

I've never said it before, and I've never believed in saying this but this one time, I'll say it: I think people are sleeping on customs DK. :O

This game is a snoozefest...and by that I mean everyone is sleeping on everything.

 

[Locke 06]

snippedy dip

Couple of things I found interesting. Olimar in your bottom 6, how spot on you are on how to make Mac more viable (uair/jump height allows him to pressure platforms easier without making him an air fighter), and the Zard love.
I'm curious why you have Olimar so low. Please explain, because I believe he's still suffering from the 3ds perception of his Pikmin. Otherwise, I'm with you on the meh pacman train and similarly unsure about Falco. I feel like I just haven't seen much effective Falco play and I want to say it's because he's changed quite a bit as a character (I've only seen Kietaro play Falco and he just looks like Brawl Wolf at times). As for swordfighter, I try to stay away from that discussion as I know nothing about that character. Zelda is Zelda.

On the topic of Charizard, something to note is that he benefits from rage more than any other character due to his great recovery, heavy weight, and grab game. I think Charizard at high % is scarier than Lucario at high % mostly because of rage infused kill throw and rock smash trades. Add in the fact that he doesn't really combo (therefore is not negatively affected by rage) and thrives offstage with flame thrower and strong aerials, Charizard is the rage monster Lucario wishes he could be.

Side note: a lot of streams and recorded tournaments are on the east coast (notably the MD/NJ scenes) but very little comes out of other big smash scenes. I am mostly talking out of ignorance, but California and Florida have strong smash scenes, right? What are the results over there like?

 

[Asdioh]

Couple of things I found interesting. Olimar in your bottom 6, how spot on you are on how to make Mac more viable (uair/jump height allows him to pressure platforms easier without making him an air fighter), and the Zard love.
I'm curious why you have Olimar so low. Please explain, because I believe he's still suffering from the 3ds perception of his Pikmin. Otherwise, I'm with you on the meh pacman train and similarly unsure about Falco. I feel like I just haven't seen much effective Falco play and I want to say it's because he's changed quite a bit as a character (I've only seen Kietaro play Falco and he just looks like Brawl Wolf at times). As for swordfighter, I try to stay away from that discussion as I know nothing about that character. Zelda is Zelda.

It's already pretty obvious to me that Olimar is going to be good again. Not as absurdly polarizing as he was in Brawl, but at least mid tier. He still has good ranges, he has combos, he has a projectile, and his recovery is actually good. He can go under stages like Villager can. He's just an annoying character to fight and probably even more annoying to learn, because you have to memorize Pikmin order, and memorize the exact properties of what each one can do. He requires a lot of micromanagement, but if there are people that like the character enough, they'll get it down, and then we'll start seeing more Olimar threats (unfortunately, bleh)

Add in the fact that he doesn't really combo (therefore is not negatively affected by rage)

This is actually one of Kirby's biggest problems, if you're at >100 and your opponent is on a fresh stock, your uptilt combos that might have easily netted you 40% or higher are now much less effective, because after only a few uptilts they'll be able to jump out. Rage is sooo awful. If it had to stay in the game, I wish it only affected Smashes :|

 

[Nu~]

I don't really want to have a long Pac-Man argument, but I'm definitely +1 to the side of Pac-Man being bad and don't really think a better grab would suddenly make him good just decent. I just look at him, see hydrant as one of his strongest moves, see how easy it is for hydrant to hurt him more than help him when he puts it out (usually he tries to land behind it and, before he gets a chance to take advantage of the cover, has an fsmash'd hydrant flying at him), and really struggle to see him as good. The good characters don't have their strong tools so easily turned against them, and how just flat out unimpressive his normals are doesn't really do much for me either... I simply don't believe he beats Sheik and goes even with Diddy and Yoshi; on what game theory does that even work? I foresee Sheik and Diddy just rushing him down and winning on the basis of having better buttons than he does and Yoshi kinda doing the same but also winning the long range game since eggs are better than all of Pac-Man's projectiles. If Yoshi catches a fruit especially and just holds it while chucking eggs, that's going to be a nasty situation in which Pac-Man will be forced to approach...

You may not want the argument, but you have certainly poked the bear.
This is an incredibly short sighted and shallow view of Pac-Man. It's almost amazing.
You assume that a Pac-Man user is just gonna drop a hydrant in front of the opponent's face just for it to be blasted away. There is a reason why we only use it when we have distance between us and the opponent. The trampoline only makes it harder for the opponent to break it. Unless you want to jump over both the trampoline and the hydrant just to be met by an usmash. Rush down characters flat out lose to pac-man unless they have a safe and reliable way to stop us from littering the mobility limiting tools. Unless you can teleport or can be omnipresent, you aren't stopping pac from setting up his trampolines and hydrants. And having the opponent knock away the hydrant isn't the end of the world. You can punish the cool down of an opponent after they blast the hydrant away and you are close enough. And unimpressive normals? Please tell me what is unimpressive about an invincible utilt, a frame 7 dtilt, and a frame 5 ftilt. Also, factor in the awesome range we have on both the ftilt and dtilt.
Our aerials may lack range (outside of bair and uair) but they lack cooldown and come out very fast (frame 3 nair and frame 5 fair). Dair is the only unimpressive normal we have, and still has a use for catching ledge rolls.

Let me give you some more insight on why he is a threat:

As far as Pac-Man goes, between all of his special moves, I think he is a legitimate time out threat to 90% of the cast, and against the other 10%, he can hold his own because the characters that outcamp him don't have the best CQC games to demolish him with.

You probably already know this, but Pac Man's specials make approaching a nightmare, and he's loaded with anti-camp tools himself.

He's got the trampoline to make the opponent jump, screw with their approach game, and it also serves as an unblockable attack option that only loses to a preemptive roll. It's also pretty difficult to punish aggressively since it forces jumping.

He's got the hydrant to screw with approaches, meatshield stuff, serve as a projectile, and edgeguard. I don't think many people know since Pac Man is pretty underused, but when he's edgeguarding, he can launch his hydrant with his Up B on the ledge. This leads to a bouncing hydrant over a trampoline, which covers all ledge options except wait and ledge drop, both of which lead to no invincibility on regrab. With a bell or orange, Pac Man gets free punish off of this.

He's got the Bonus Fruit to tank other projectiles (All of them, namely cherry and strawberry though), have varying fireballs (Key, Orange, Apple), a tank (Melon), a combo startar (Galaxian), and the bell to cheeze out 90% KOs.

He's got the Power Pellet to tank other projectiles and heal himself in the process. Unless the opponent has projectiles with a high rate of fire, Pac Man can heal himself when the opponent tries to camp him. He steers his side B into the oncoming projectile, side B gets cancelled while the pellet absorbs the projectile, Pac Man eats the pellet for 2%. Repeat. Combine this power with the trampoline, hydrant, and BF and you've got issues.

So in a nutshell, if your character doesn't outcamp Pac Man, you've got hell coming in order to get past a field littered with trampolines, hydrants, a barrage of fruit, and Pac Man waiting to punish your approach attempts with an unblockable OOS move, a quick poking Fair, and a Falconish U air.

That's not to say that Pac Man is some unstoppable force. Rushdown characters can most definitely apply good pressure once they're in, and his grab is awful + easily exploited. His own attack speed on his beefy aerials (Bair and Uair) leave a bit to be desired, he has difficulty KO'ing, and IMO, he struggles a ton to get back up from the ledge safely.

If you have a projectile but it doesn't have a high enough rate of fire to hit Pac Man when he tries to absorb it with Side B, you have to approach and deal with the above. You heal him for trying to camp him out. If your projectile does have a high enough rate of fire to deal with Pac Man's side B, hydrant probably tanks it without being launched, leaving you back at square one.

I think the reason he's underused is that to use his tools to maximum effectiveness (and for him to appear viable), you have to camp, and sometimes you have to camp hard. If you don't play lame against the likes of Falcon, Sonic, Yoshi, Fox, and so on, Pac Man gets overwhelmed. If you watch Abadango's match vs. Nietono, this is pretty much what he does. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHf2t6m6KxQ)

I don't think anyone is willing to fully devote to this yet, nor is it the most fun strategy, but I think a Pac Man that isn't afraid to use his keep away game to full potential is a dangerous opponent and viable for sure. I don't think he's in top 10 (only because of his grab), but I wouldn't put him any worse than top 20.

I really don't see how we can be anywhere near the bottom, when we have the tools for the top.
Edit: oops. Didn't mean to summon you BSP. Just using you as another voice.

 

[HeroMystic]

If you play a character that is unsafe on block, fear not: shielding is bad.

I'll second this. After fighting a number of Diddys and other characters, the best adjustment I've made thus far is to protect myself with hitboxes. Suddenly people can no longer grab me and they have to work a bit harder in approaching. Just simply holding down Jab (for Mario) forces Diddy to respect me.

In the future, I feel Shield will be used more as a "if all else fails" mechanic, rather than every top player spamming it. I also feel Shields will be used for offense instead of defense.

 

[Makorel]

Side note: a lot of streams and recorded tournaments are on the east coast (notably the MD/NJ scenes) but very little comes out of other big smash scenes. I am mostly talking out of ignorance, but California and Florida have strong smash scenes, right? What are the results over there like?

There doesn't seem to be much of a NorCal Smash 4 scene from my limited experience. I've been looking for large scale tournaments like Xanadu for about a month and I think I've just now found it.

http://smashboards.com/threads/nor-cal-smash-tourney-live-streams-more.382553/

http://www.twitch.tv/cpsiv
https://www.youtube.com/user/CPSfour

That's for Milpitas Golfland Weeklies on Tuesdays. Watched the tournament last night and some people got wrecked harder than others, but I really can't tell how they would stack up to east coast unless they actually played against each other. There's also NCS4 which is an online tournament occurring every Sunday

http://www.azubu.tv/nmesmash

And supposedly there's also Smash 4 at Folsom Street Foundry in San Francisco on Thursdays but I checked their stream and their youtube but all I can find is Melee

http://www.twitch.tv/showdownsmash/profile

I can't speak for SoCal. They've got M2K and Zero right? If so they must be pretty good down there.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Side note: a lot of streams and recorded tournaments are on the east coast (notably the MD/NJ scenes) but very little comes out of other big smash scenes. I am mostly talking out of ignorance, but California and Florida have strong smash scenes, right? What are the results over there like?

I can't speak for all of Florida, but I know here in the Tampa Bay area we got a couple of Sheiks, a D3 (no, not me), a Falcon, and a really good Sonic (StaticManny, the dude that was at KiT). Pretty sure there's also a Fox and a Ness somewhere in this mix, plus Rosalina. Oh, and then there is everybody's favorite simian, Diddy, who has at least one really solid player repping him. That's off the top of my head.

Orlando/Miami is somewhat of a mystery to me. I mean, I'd safely assume the old standbys in Shaky and Nick Riddle are still strong, with ZSS and Ness respectively. I'm not one hundred percent sure, though. Hopefully I get to play/see those guys in the future. last edit I promise


I'm also helping organize stuff in my immediate area too, so there's going to be an influx of new blood soon. We're gonna be streaming and everything. We're shooting probably for the end of February? Something like that.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Terotrous]

Yoshi is definitely not top 3 lol.

I actually think he might be top 5, but if so he's probably #5.

Yoshi's neutral game is amazing. He has one of the game's best projectiles, good, fast pokes, solid hitboxes, and powerful kill moves and punishes. Against most of the cast he can easily control the pace of the match, slowing things down or going in for kills whenever he wants to. He also has excellent survivability, being much heavier than you'd expect and being able to escape some combos and kill setups with his armored double jump. The thing that holds him back from being Sheik is that he doesn't have any really braindead way to land kill moves. If Dthrow to Up Air was a legitimate combo, I think he would be #1 easily, but as it stands his grab has very low reward and none of his safe pressure options lead directly to kills, so he needs a read or a punish to get a kill against most opponents (some characters are easily gimped by soft nair and their matchups against Yoshi are very bad). This forces Yoshi to play honest and most characters can give themselves a fighting chance as long as they refrain from giving him easy kills, but keeping up with him in damage is a real struggle.

Super long post

A fair bit of this makes sense, but seriously, there is no way Fox is +3, and is easier to beat than say, Swordfighter. Fox is +1 at the absolute most. I also see no reason why Fox would find Yoshi harder to fight than Sheik, as I feel everything Yoshi could do to him Sheik could do even worse.


Also, re: Ness, I was playing a pretty good Ness player a few days ago and I'm starting to feel like this might actually be +1 for Yoshi. Yoshi just has pretty good tools to stop a lot of Ness's stuff, and Ness tends to expose himself to punishes fairly often as many of his moves have high commitment. For example, PK thunder harassment is nearly useless against Yoshi. He can easily clank it with Nair, and if it is done anywhere near underneath him he can just Down B, which will clank the ball and hit Ness hard. His double jump also allows him to escape many of Ness's chains, I was almost never hit by any Fair followups before I could escape. Don't get me wrong, Ness is still a good character, I just feel like Yoshi fights him better than most.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

i still dont see yoshi as top 5 but maybe thats cuz my pit has a hard time noticing. so far the same strategy iv been using at some tournys has been most effective against top tier. i so far only have to change my game plan to mid and low tiers.

 

[Terotrous]

i still dont see yoshi as top 5 but maybe thats cuz my pit has a hard time noticing. so far the same strategy iv been using at some tournys has been most effective against top tier. i so far only have to change my game plan to mid and low tiers.

Well, that's kind of the thing with Yoshi. If you play a solid character, he won't just totally shut you down or dominate you, the way that Sheik or Diddy can. However, he will make you work hard the entire match and even if you play really well he'll probably bring it down to the last hit.

Honestly, I feel like Yoshi is just the king of solid characters. He's not broken, he's just really well-balanced and versatile and has lots of great tools. Whether or not this is good enough for top 5 will depend on how many characters prove to have that kind of explosive power or control that stops characters from playing their game.

 

[Chuva]

I have some questions to the resident Pac-Man mains and adepts. Sorry if some answers might be obvious, but I have 0 experience against Pac-Man outside of Wifi friendlies so please bear with me:

How does Pac-Man capitalize from his potent stage control? I'm aware that trampoline sets up some interesting punishes but is there anything else? If Pac-Man needs to make a comeback or to be the one on the offense due to stock or % deficit, what are his options? Is there any gameplan to seal stocks other than hard reads? I read a lot about the defensive and campy potential of trampolines, hydrants and fruits, but how do they perform once Pac-Man is the one that needs to approach and the opponent is being patient (Pshielding fruits, avoiding Hydrants etc?)

 

[A2ZOMG]

I have some questions to the resident Pac-Man mains and adepts. Sorry if some answers might be obvious, but I have 0 experience against Pac-Man outside of Wifi friendlies so please bear with me:

How does Pac-Man capitalize from his potent stage control? I'm aware that trampoline sets up some interesting punishes but is there anything else? If Pac-Man needs to make a comeback or to be the one on the offense due to stock or % deficit, what are his options? Is there any gameplan to seal stocks other than hard reads? I read a lot about the defensive and campy potential of trampolines, hydrants and fruits, but how do they perform once Pac-Man is the one that needs to approach and the opponent is being patient (Pshielding fruits, avoiding Hydrants etc?)

The reason you always have to be careful against Pac-Man is because Keys are legitimately insane. If he predicts any commitment, you eat 15%. If given time, he's also able to set up Hydrant + item recatching shenanigans to give him extra approach options.

I believe it is also worth noting that Trampoline is able to function as an unblockable blitz given the move will force you to jump even if you shield (or dodge, for that matter), but I could be wrong.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

The reason you always have to be careful against Pac-Man is because Keys are legitimately insane. If he predicts any commitment, you eat 15%. If given time, he's also able to set up Hydrant + item recatching shenanigans to give him extra approach options.

I believe it is also worth noting that Trampoline is able to function as an unblockable blitz given the move will force you to jump even if you shield (or dodge, for that matter), but I could be wrong.

lol keys, charge shot, aura sphere, thoron
all these moves are legitimately threating.

 

[A2ZOMG]

lol keys, charge shot, aura sphere, thoron
all these moves are legitimately threating.

Keys don't stale though. Also have the insane startup time associated with item tossing.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

Keys don't stale though. Also have the insane startup time associated with item tossing.

yup i guess that kinda compentates for being the weakest of the charge moves
well not counting below 50% lucario

 

[meleebrawler]

Camping may be the first thing that comes to mind when you look at Pac-Man's tools,
but the truth is that they can also allow him to play somewhat aggressively as well, using
weaker fruit to pester the opponent, deploying trampolines to restrict their movement (as well as
escaping uncomfortable situations up close with Up B as @ A2ZOMG mentioned), coupled with
his quick normals can make him surprisingly effective on the offensive in spite of his below average
movement and range.

Getting the KO is a struggle for Pac, though, without a reliable grab.

 

[Smog Frog]

question, is pac mans grab falcon punchable? like can you punish it with falcon punch on reaction

 

[Z'zgashi]

Snip

Spoiler: Don't Read This Plz, My Brain is small. >opinions

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We definitely dont beat Fox that bad lol. Imo its an even match up, but I could see +1 for us. No idea where Fox players are getting the idea that we body them, Fox is still faster, has safe poke options on our shield, has damaging combos, and has more kill power. We have the better neutral slightly, which is what COULD give us the advantage, but its not an awful match up for Fox by any means, Fox players need to learn to space bairs better so they dont get eaten by our nair OoS.

And Yoshi's MUs imo (its honestly not too much different than yours, only a lot more evens lol):

Spoiler

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