Character Competitive Impressions

[NachoOfCheese]

What about Captain Falcon? Now, before you bring up that whole "he dont haz projectyle so captin falcin iz bad. diddy op," I feel like this doesn't really shut him down, but it forces him to chase your opponent down the whole match. But that's okay, since I find Falcon pretty good at that with his incredible speed. It's kinda like his Melee self. Not necessarily top tier, but kinda hovers right below it, in my (slightly biased) opinion.

 

[HeavyLobster]

What about Captain Falcon? Now, before you bring up that whole "he dont haz projectyle so captin falcin iz bad. diddy op," I feel like this doesn't really shut him down, but it forces him to chase your opponent down the whole match. But that's okay, since I find Falcon pretty good at that with his incredible speed. It's kinda like his Melee self. Not necessarily top tier, but kinda hovers right below it, in my (slightly biased) opinion.

Falcon is a very volatile character. He probably has the best advantaged state in the game, but if you can stop his approaches and put him in a bad position he's pretty easy to gimp. He's good but not great, and not very forgiving as he requires you to outplay your opponent in neutral. He absolutely has the tools to pull this off and can hang with anyone, but he doesn't have any stupid top tier stuff you can use as a crutch.

 

[Lavani]

Random topic starter: So the DK boards are lamenting about blind spots on a lot of his moves
(usually when very close to DK)

I think a lot of these (not fsmash) are due to Z-axis shenanigans, which also screw over a lot of other characters. Like with Greninja, I noticed several of his attacks (mainly fsmash/fair) whiffing when he was facing right, mostly against opponents facing left. Eventually I had the idea to pause and turn the camera and noticed this:

Spoiler

Greninja's arm goes behind Robin facing right, and through her facing left.

Playing on stages such as Flat Zone Ω makes the characters flat and fixes this issue. Trying DK there, I hit 35 out of 35 ftilts pointblank after I'd whiffed a bunch against Robin from both sides on Battlefield.

It applies to more characters too, I recall mentions of Shulk's ftilt whiffing Sheik for similar reasons. Keeping omega versions of "2D" stages in mind would be beneficial for characters affected by this.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

There are a lot of instances where a move's hitbox does not match its animation. In most cases it appears that the hitbox is smaller than the animation [DK sideB is the only exception I can think of right now]. The entire backward swing of Shulk's neutral air has no hitbox despite the move's animation implying the opposite. DKs ftilt whiffs at point blank despite the animation indicating that the opponent should get hit by the arm. And the hitbox of Falco's side B disappears after about 2/3rds of the move's animation for no real reason [Fox doesn't have this issue].

 

[Paper Maribro]

Pac-mans grab box confuses me every time. Sometimes I grab people with my hand, sometimes the hand is a deadspot where the opponent gets a free punish. Sometimes I make a read and throw out a grab and the opponent is sucked in by a relentless tractor beam emerging from Pac-Mans hand and are grabbed all the way from down town but then other times the animation has finished and the opponent is closer to me than when I grabbed them last time and the tractor beam animation harmlessly extends right up to their face and I get punished.

If there is just two things I want for Pacs grab is for it to be 1) Consistency and 2) the animation to match the grab box so I can actually space the damned thing. If they fix this, maybe I will stop whiffing grabs and be confused when my opponent gets sucked in from down town.

;_;

 

[Makorel]

Playing on stages such as Flat Zone Ω makes the characters flat and fixes this issue. Trying DK there, I hit 35 out of 35 ftilts pointblank after I'd whiffed a bunch against Robin from both sides on Battlefield.

I guess that means Duck Hunt is going to be a great stage for DK/Greninja

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Pac-mans grab box confuses me every time. Sometimes I grab people with my hand, sometimes the hand is a deadspot where the opponent gets a free punish. Sometimes I make a read and throw out a grab and the opponent is sucked in by a relentless tractor beam emerging from Pac-Mans hand and are grabbed all the way from down town but then other times the animation has finished and the opponent is closer to me than when I grabbed them last time and the tractor beam animation harmlessly extends right up to their face and I get punished.

If there is just two things I want for Pacs grab is for it to be 1) Consistency and 2) the animation to match the grab box so I can actually space the damned thing. If they fix this, maybe I will stop whiffing grabs and be confused when my opponent gets sucked in from down town.

;_;

Based on a standing training dummy, the last few lines of his tractor beam completely lack a grabbox. You can think of it as having to completely envelop them in it, I suppose.

His hand does have an initial grabbox that comes out faster than the tractor beam. Based on your own observations I conclude that it doesn't last for long and is replaced by the tractor beam's grabbox which may have a dead zone at point blank. Thus a point blank spotdodge could let you avoid and punish. I lack the means to easily test this myself though.

 

[Conda]

The same way every other character should deal with shields. By doing nothing and waiting for them to drop it or roll and hitting them.

Shields are so bad in this game. Some of these discussions are going to look kind of silly in a few months.

When you have a bad grab or a punishable one, then shields become less bad against you as you don't deal with countering them as safely as some other characters with great grabs.

Robin gets around this by having enfire/enthunder to help pressure shields so they can land a surefire grab.

PacMan can't really pressure shields as well without Z-dropping, so he'll have to work harder for safe grabs. But unsafe/risky grabs - which Pac Man's is - can still be used and will work against shields. Thing is - they're unsafe/risky compared to a lot of other grabs in the game.

 

[|RK|]

Man, Kirby's combo game is so tough when he gets in. That's part of why Monado Kirby is so godlike.

 

[Sinister Slush]

So kirby becomes a better character when he gets Monado arts?
Not surprised.

How do people feel about shulk?

 

[Nobie]

I know Diddy is an overdone topic at this point, but I keep looking at the fact that Diddy Kong has really poor aerial acceleration and deceleration on his jumps, unless he really commits to them from the start. Monkey Flip can make up for this, but I feel like it has to be a large enough weakness to be exploited by some characters, especially those who can dominate the sky. Is there something or am I just imagining it?

 

[Ffamran]

So kirby becomes a better character when he gets Monado arts?
Not surprised.

How do people feel about shulk?

People feel like Shulk's good. His Monado Arts allows him to switch what he wants to focus on, increase his survivability, and recovery. Aerials have good coverage, especially Nair and Fair. Nair is sort of deceptive since it's a "ground up" move while Ike's Nair is a "ground down" move. Shulk's Bair can sort of be used as a poking tool despite being telegraphed. I tend to try to land it with the Monado almost touching the ground. I don't know why, but I have weird quirks with certain moves like using (Dr.) Mario's Fair on-stage and fast-falling it onto people.

Anyway, people say he's like Ike except better without customs whereas Ike becomes better with customs. The reason? Both have range, coverage, and power. Shulk has more range and more faster moves, but his other moves have less coverage like Side and Up Smash and Uair, Bair, and Dair being linear moves while almost all of Ike's moves arcs or have good coverage and aren't linear.

That's all I have on Shulk. Oh, and apparently Back Slash can meteor like Ike's Aether's second hit.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Most of that stuff I knew especially his horrid moves (tho disagree with bair) but the thing with back slash sounds hilarious.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Robin was compared to Dorm, but I have a much better comparison.

Sagat in Ultra Street Fighter IV. A character that looks like they should be strong, but then you look at their numbers and mobility and you realize the dev team INTENTIONALLY made them weak out of fear for what they could become. Normals are meh and a very obvious dead zone that many chars can just walk into and start harassing you.

 

[Ffamran]

Most of that stuff I knew especially his horrid moves (tho disagree with bair) but the thing with back slash sounds hilarious.

Well, it's more of a quirk about me. Most Bairs kills, but Shulk's range for it is insane... If he can land it, it's going to hurt.

The Back Slash thing I found out after a Shulk used Back Slash instead of Air Slash to recover which lead me getting meteored, but Falco's second jump and Fire Bird allowed me to get back on stage. Ike's Aether, on the other hand was weird. I think the guy recovered, grabbed the ledge, and the second hit registered leading me to get meteored.

Anyway, Shulk's Uair is a good anti-air tool due because it's fairly fast and because of its vertical range. Like most Uairs, he can juggle with it at lower percents and because of its range. I don't really know what Ftilt is used for aside from spacing and killing at higher percents. Same thing with Dtilt except I don't know when it kills.

Down Smash is a good punish tool because it lasts so long, but it gets easily punished too because of its start up and end lag. Up and Side Smash seem like read and punish moves. Hmm, all his Smashes are good for roll, spot-dodge, and maybe air dodge punishes.

Uair, Bair, and Dair are all commit moves as far as I know and Shulks might not use them unless they're going for the kill.

Vision is weird in a sense you can nick it and it'll send Shulk somewhere else or if it hits, it'll do fair damage or kill. Air Slash is like ZSS's Boost Kick.

Most Shulks I've fought start with Buster or Jump, but I've heard good that Speed is a good option as well. A Shulk will either switch to Jump or Smash for kills depending on if they want an easier time killing in the air and off-stage or if they want to kill on-stage and reliably.

I don't know, I think Shulk's a versatile character, but like pretty much half or two thirds of the cast, there aren't a lot of Shulk players that I know of.

 

[Shaya]

I currently feel Falcon is a top tier-ish (upper high tier) character.
His dash grab, mobility and priority are destructive.

In a grounded game, Falcon's ground speed + fast triangle jumps + beast jab and unbelievably amazing dash grab is looking excessively strong in the meta. I'm not sure what shuts down Falcon in Smash 4 other than heavy camping from Pikachu and maybe Sheik.
Won't be surprised with the top 100 at Apex (there's 800-900 entrants for smash 4) being heavily littered with Falcons, even towards the top 16/8.

His weight coupled with all of this really edges him out in a lot of situations and match ups. He can consistently use rage by surviving to 150% every stock.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Throw him off stage. Watch as his demise unfolds. He has the same weaknesses he has always had since 64 really. His mobility and reward is strong, but put him in a bad situation and things go down hill fast. He is also fairly linear.

ZSS, Sheik and Pikachu are tough for him. Also Kirby and Jigglypuff as they can just duck his grab. This goes for Pikachu as well.

 

[Shaya]

Tough match ups are probably a given to everyone but Sheik/Pika (maybe Diddy) TBQH. Sheik isn't as bad as any of the other games, ZSS has a pretty good time but it isn't one sided.

 

[mimgrim]

I said Ike and Bowser might be near top tier; I never said they were high tier and they're most likely upper-mid tier. Also, is Yoshi a heavyweight or a heavy-middleweight? It's weird since I think Ike, Yoshi, Link, and Captain Falcon are heavyweights, but they're not classified as so with Ganondorf, Charizard, Bowser, and Triple D. Y'know, we might as well call them heavyweights and have Ganondorf and co. as "Snorlaxes" or something...

Bowser/DDD/Ganon/DK/Bowser have always been classified as "fatties" due to their bigger hurtboxes compared to the rest of the cast which make them easier to hit and the being heavy. I don't understand why all of a sudden that term isn't being used for them and why people keep using the more vague and general term "heavies". And no, Wario does not fit the category for "fatty" in this criteria, he's too short.

This has been bugging me recently actually and I remembered reading a post that brought it up and wanted to clarify it.

But with this. What is it about Charizard that make people put him as one of the worse fatties, and one of the worse characters to boot? I just don't get it. Personally I think he's probably the best of the fatties and might just be a high tier character, for similar reasons @Amazing Ampharos gave a good few pages back.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Charizard is not better then Bowser and DK.

Hell no.

 

[Ffamran]

Charizard is not better then Bowser and DK.

Hell no.

You could explain why Charizard's not better than Bowser and DK, especially for the uninformed and the forgetful.

 

[mimgrim]

Charizard is not better then Bowser and DK.

Hell no.

Ok, but why. The why was the whole point of me asking. :L

 

[YAYCONFORMITY]

Bowser/DDD/Ganon/DK/Bowser have always been classified as "fatties" due to their bigger hurtboxes compared to the rest of the cast which make them easier to hit and the being heavy. I don't understand why all of a sudden that term isn't being used for them and why people keep using the more vague and general term "heavies". And no, Wario does not fit the category for "fatty" in this criteria, he's too short.

This has been bugging me recently actually and I remembered reading a post that brought it up and wanted to clarify it.

But with this. What is it about Charizard that make people put him as one of the worse fatties, and one of the worse characters to boot? I just don't get it. Personally I think he's probably the best of the fatties and might just be a high tier character, for similar reasons @Amazing Ampharos gave a good few pages back.

Charizard has things that helps him out over other fatties (better offstage game, good jab, flare blitz, super armor), but he doesn't get the same kind of reward off of his hits, and he struggles just as much to get in. Played in typical heavyweight fashion, he's not as effective for that reason. It's possible people will find better ways to play him that will take advantage of his traits, but until then, he's going to live near the bottom of the tiers.

 

[Metalex]

Throw him off stage. Watch as his demise unfolds. He has the same weaknesses he has always had since 64 really. His mobility and reward is strong, but put him in a bad situation and things go down hill fast. He is also fairly linear.

ZSS, Sheik and Pikachu are tough for him. Also Kirby and Jigglypuff as they can just duck his grab. This goes for Pikachu as well.

Yeah that's definitely one of his weaknesses. It's relatively difficult to fight smaller characters as Falcon.

Falcon is also pretty weak in the neutral game and has fairly limited approach options so dealing with characters with spammable projectiles who can force an approach like Pikachu, Sheik and Mario etc is kinda hard.

 

[TriTails]

Falcon is fairly predictable for me, and like many other characters, his specials are punishable if whiffing. Darn that mobility and dash grab though.

And apparently, in this game there is a hidden rule along with other rules if you want to be top tier material.

If your mobility suck, forget on being a top tier.

And that's why Luigi isn't top tier folks.

 

[Lavani]

A point of consideration:

- Charizard has a 6f, disjointed usmash. This is tied with the fastest grabs in the game.
- upB has superarmor from frame 4, does 17%, and kills Mario without rage at 115% off the top of FD.
- He has one of the longer ranged standing grabs, and his dthrow kills.

Charizard's OoS options are damn scary.

@ YAYCONFORMITY summed up the rest of my thoughts.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Charizard has worse footsies, he is worse at walling then Bowser and DK and I'm fairly certain they hit harder on their tilts. He has better recovery and better edgeguarding, but he is much more limited than them on-stage. Basically he is stronger when he puts people in a bad position, but he has a harder time accomplishing this and while his up b is strong OoS, I feel DK and Bowsers Up b's can punish much more consistently on defense.

I'm still mad they changed Charizards d-tilt. That **** was godly in brawl.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Damnit EL, you beat me to explaining Charizard vs other heavy characters.

I am really curious what you think about Ganondorf, probably because your opinion is different than mine.

 

[Emblem Lord]

He is the King of Evil.

Whatever tier list high level mumbo jumbo I have to say doesn't even matter.

You hear this remix?

Are you ****ing serious? The G-dorf be jammin to this with his Gerudo valley groupies?

I'm done.

Ganon for boss tier.

 

[Nu~]

If your mobility suck, forget on being a top tier.

.

Tell that to snake in brawl. If you have a strong enough defensive game to make up for it, you can still be top tier (something that characters like Luigi and Robin lack)

 

[Smog Frog]

charizard imo is too different from other heavies to be grouped with them. he's more like a fat speedster

 

[YAYCONFORMITY]

Charizard has worse footsies, he is worse at walling then Bowser and DK and I'm fairly certain they hit harder on their tilts. He has better recovery and better edgeguarding, but he is much more limited than them on-stage. Basically he is stronger when he puts people in a bad position, but he has a harder time accomplishing this and while his up b is strong OoS, I feel DK and Bowsers Up b's can punish much more consistently on defense.

I'm still mad they changed Charizards d-tilt. That **** was godly in brawl.

Unfortunately, they took away most of Charizard's good stuff from Brawl. Dtilt was probably his best KO option, his grab feels quite a bit laggier, rock smash doesn't work as well imo despite the super armor, and the power buff on his bair doesn't make up for the speed loss. I just can't adjust to Smash 4 Charizard. Can't tell if it's him or me.

 

[Ffamran]

charizard imo is too different from other heavies to be grouped with them. he's more like a fat speedster

So, Charizard's essentially Bob from Tekken? Hmm, Tekken Tag 2 introduced Slim Bob... I wonder if that's how Skinny Charizard Ridley would play like.

But yeah, Charizard's weird in a sense he's a fatty/Snorlax/heavyweight/need-an-official-classification-here who's fast on the ground, but fights like a heavyweight.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

I currently feel Falcon is a top tier-ish (upper high tier) character.
His dash grab, mobility and priority are destructive.

In a grounded game, Falcon's ground speed + fast triangle jumps + beast jab and unbelievably amazing dash grab is looking excessively strong in the meta. I'm not sure what shuts down Falcon in Smash 4 other than heavy camping from Pikachu and maybe Sheik.
Won't be surprised with the top 100 at Apex (there's 800-900 entrants for smash 4) being heavily littered with Falcons, even towards the top 16/8.

His weight coupled with all of this really edges him out in a lot of situations and match ups. He can consistently use rage by surviving to 150% every stock.

Yeah as a falcon main I can tell you that Sheik is a really unadvantageous matchup. If you don't get shut down by needles, you lose to edgeguarding and impossibly safe aerials.

 

[madworlder]

On the topic of Charizard, who is the worst character in doubles?

 

[TriTails]

Tell that to snake in brawl. If you have a strong enough defensive game to make up for it, you can still be top tier (something that characters like Luigi and Robin lack)

The only gud defensive game in Smash 4 is only Villager lol..... I think?

How exactly slow Snake was in Brawl?

 

[Emblem Lord]

By the end of the Brawl metagame Snake was getting man handled by virtually every other top tier and high tier....sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

[YAYCONFORMITY]

On the topic of Charizard, who is the worst character in doubles?

I actually really like Charizard for doubles. I'm hardly an expert on the format, but Flare Blitz can be harder to react to, and Charizard can take better advantage of his tools when he's not under so much pressure to approach.

 

[Trifroze]

So when will people start using double Villagers in doubles? Apex?

Also regarding Falcon it's hard to see him fall much below the top 10 with the tools he has, combined with the fact that the only match-up I could see being noticeably disadvantageous is Pikachu (only because he shuts down Falcon's grab above half of the time due to his animations) and possibly Sheik, while the likes of Ness, Yoshi and Rosalina seem to be possibly even advantageous. No problems with Diddy either from what I've experienced.

The fact that Falcon can punish anything remotely punishable from almost any distance and then have an amazing advantageous state alone makes many matchups near even. On the other hand, his disadvantage is really bad which keeps him from being a top character. I still think his neutral is pretty good. Many people see it as meh, but honestly if you start thinking of a "20 characters who have better neutral than Falcon " list it gets pretty difficult and you realize very few characters have a particularly good neutral.

 

[Nu~]

The only gud defensive game in Smash 4 is only Villager lol..... I think?

How exactly slow Snake was in Brawl?

Mega man, villager, DH, and pac-man have the best defensive games in this smash imo. Villager and DH are the closest to being pure defensive though.

And snake was Sllloooowww. He had terrible air speed, laggy aerials, poor jump height. It was really bad. But factor in frame 1 grenades that deal 13% and the ability to create a mine feild, it really didn't matter that his mobility was trash. He wasn't approaching anyways.