Character Competitive Impressions

[Shaya]

@ Luco

sheik fair and bouncing fish goes over down smash pretty reliably.
Once everyone PPs away then the match up will be all ours~ Alternatively ZSS players need to find a better option for pressuring at mid range horizontally against her.

The weight of sheik's pressure tends to lead to her getting a lot of grabs on ZSS when she's in deficit.
I really wouldn't put much chance in many characters other than Diddy being able to amass a comeback against Sheik in general either, but ZSS in particular can't really force the kill on Sheik (or in many match ups) because of dat grab.

Also screw FD only in this scenario. And Shu isn't a push over player either.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

@ Luco

sheik fair and bouncing fish goes over down smash pretty reliably.
Once everyone PPs away then the match up will be all ours~ Alternatively ZSS players need to find a better option for pressuring at mid range horizontally against her.

The weight of sheik's pressure tends to lead to her getting a lot of grabs on ZSS when she's in deficit.
I really wouldn't put much chance in many characters other than Diddy being able to amass a comeback against Sheik in general either, but ZSS in particular can't really force the kill on Sheik (or in many match ups) because of dat grab.

Also screw FD only in this scenario. And Shu isn't a push over player either.

yeah im certain shiek preforms much better on fd than zzs does. on battle field it probably woulda been a more even match.

 

[David Viran]

@ Shaya not sure how relevant this is, I was looking up stuff from Choco and stumbled across a match with a Sheik and thought "oh, relevant!" so I'll post it here. Not sure how much of the MU is adaption and player skill (probably a lot considering the first game), but by the last game Sheik almost 2-stocks Choco. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF_YiDl26_w

From a theoretical standpoint both characters seem to rack up damage on each other nicely and both have fantastic mobility options but have issues killing. Sheik seems to slightly force ZSS' hand in neutral because needles, and Sheik has some grab followups as well as ZSS. What other good matches showcasing this MU have we seen so far? I'd be interested to watch them.

Also note that choco doesn't have much sheik experience. He hasn't faced to many sheiks and choco got killed a lot earlier than he should have on his first stock the matches that sheik won.

 

[Luco]

@ Luco

sheik fair and bouncing fish goes over down smash pretty reliably.
Once everyone PPs away then the match up will be all ours~ Alternatively ZSS players need to find a better option for pressuring at mid range horizontally against her.

The weight of sheik's pressure tends to lead to her getting a lot of grabs on ZSS when she's in deficit.
I really wouldn't put much chance in many characters other than Diddy being able to amass a comeback against Sheik in general either, but ZSS in particular can't really force the kill on Sheik (or in many match ups) because of dat grab.

Also screw FD only in this scenario. And Shu isn't a push over player either.

Perfect Pivots are the new Powershields of this game I see

I felt like the grabs were getting punished a few times yeah, though to be fair when he did land them they usually resulted in combos.

@ David Viran : Well fair enough; but then as I mentioned before, who else is showcasing this MU right now?

 

[Pazx]

So these lists have all been talking about Puff pretty highly, but, as a Puff main, I can probably count all the times I've seen Puff talked about in here on one hand.

Anyone here wanna talk about the balloon Pokemon?

I used her a lot in the earlier stages of the game. I mostly bring her out against Rosalina because dair to rest is absolutely devastating and any character with no hitbox on their up special is a free stock every time they're off stage for Puff. I think her weight does affect her in this game more than others because she probably benefits from rage less than other characters.

Rage rest OP.

I've noticed more and more people are finally putting Olimar up in the high tier. I figured that's where he should've been from the start but I haven't explored him as a character that much. What's he got going for him? I'm curious.

He supposedly does alright against Sheik/Diddy and other top tiers (he is certainly a decent character overall) but keeping him from top tier is his matchups against certain characters arguably below him. It's not as simple as reflector > Olimar, but he needs to be incredible wary against any character with a reflector as his smashes can be reflected unlike in Brawl. A speedster like Fox who just happens to have a reflector probably beats him.

Seeing everyone put Marth in bottom tier makes me want to play you guys with him, if only because I feel everyone only changed their tune because of Shaya.

That said I suppose he has that effect not only with Marth but any char he talks about.

Also lol@people talking about ZSS. "She's ONLY 4th AT BEST!!!"

rofl. you people slay me.

But seriously somebody fight me I'm bored.

He's a tier above Lucina, that's for sure.

So I was thinking about the concept of "safety" when doing a move on shield and figured that, since there isn't any sort of universal 1f attack option it's not simply a matter of looking at frame advantage and declaring a move unsafe. Then there's spacing and range and all that jazz.

With that in mind, a question: Who has the fastest and slowest OOS options in the game?

Doctor Mario's only good aspect is upB OoS. That's a frame 3 kill move. Dunno what Puff's jumpsquat is like but SH rest OoS is dangerous too, particularly with frame 1 invincibility.

@ Slow projectiles: Ice Ball (Luigi) is so good. The freezing is trivial but the space control and the free damage (particularly on grab combos) is dirty. I'm not entirely sure if it'd be the ideal neutral special for Luigi, though.

@ Doc Mario: I wanted him to be good, or somewhat viable, I really did. He has some nice combos, but they can all be done better and for longer or for more % by regular Mario. In a customs meta he's improved significantly but in vanilla he's certainly at least a tier below Mario. On top of that, when Mario exists, why would anybody play Doc? This means his meta will develop far slower and pushes him to the lower reaches of the tier list in my eyes. @ Amazing Ampharos Lucina is a direct downgrade to Marth and will likely have the least developed meta in the game and I do not see her being in the same tier as Marth.

@ Ganon: I don't see him being shut down by projectiles like in Brawl. The same goes for all large characters, mobility has improved in Sm4sh and as long as you know how to shield properly it's likely a non issue.

 

[David Viran]

Perfect Pivots are the new Powershields of this game I see

I felt like the grabs were getting punished a few times yeah, though to be fair when he did land them they usually resulted in combos.

@ David Viran : Well fair enough; but then as I mentioned before, who else is showcasing this MU right now?

Choco is the most notable zss player but leon in Europe has been doing well too. I haven't got to see much of him though.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

I used her a lot in the earlier stages of the game. I mostly bring her out against Rosalina because dair to rest is absolutely devastating and any character with no hitbox on their up special is a free stock every time they're off stage for Puff. I think her weight does affect her in this game more than others because she probably benefits from rage less than other characters.

Rage rest OP.



He supposedly does alright against Sheik/Diddy and other top tiers (he is certainly a decent character overall) but keeping him from top tier is his matchups against certain characters arguably below him. It's not as simple as reflector > Olimar, but he needs to be incredible wary against any character with a reflector as his smashes can be reflected unlike in Brawl. A speedster like Fox who just happens to have a reflector probably beats him.



He's a tier above Lucina, that's for sure.



Doctor Mario's only good aspect is upB OoS. That's a frame 3 kill move. Dunno what Puff's jumpsquat is like but SH rest OoS is dangerous too, particularly with frame 1 invincibility.

@ Slow projectiles: Ice Ball (Luigi) is so good. The freezing is trivial but the space control and the free damage (particularly on grab combos) is dirty. I'm not entirely sure if it'd be the ideal neutral special for Luigi, though.

@ Doc Mario: I wanted him to be good, or somewhat viable, I really did. He has some nice combos, but they can all be done better and for longer or for more % by regular Mario. In a customs meta he's improved significantly but in vanilla he's certainly at least a tier below Mario. On top of that, when Mario exists, why would anybody play Doc? This means his meta will develop far slower and pushes him to the lower reaches of the tier list in my eyes. @ Amazing Ampharos Lucina is a direct downgrade to Marth and will likely have the least developed meta in the game and I do not see her being in the same tier as Marth.

@ Ganon: I don't see him being shut down by projectiles like in Brawl. The same goes for all large characters, mobility has improved in Sm4sh and as long as you know how to shield properly it's likely a non issue.

the only true projectile character that i feel shuts down heavys for the most part is DhD

 

[Kool Aid]

Guess we'll have to cook up more techs in the pacman thread until then.
Meanwhile subpar pac man representatives like koolaid are gonna make us the underdogs...

MM me at apex

 

[NachoOfCheese]

I've been using Fox recently and I think I'm starting to prefer him over Pikachu. Not even sure it's viability, but it's like winning with Fox is just so satisfying. I have no idea why that is.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

I've been using Fox recently and I think I'm starting to prefer him over Pikachu. Not even sure it's viability, but it's like winning with Fox is just so satisfying. I have no idea why that is.

along with his new found voice a new found respect?

 

[TTTTTsd]

On top of that, when Mario exists, why would anybody play Doc? .

Because in all honesty given how his movement and everything is entirely different from Mario you're basically playing with a different character?

I mean, there's not a lot of reasons tourney-wise if you're dead set on winning but Doc clicks for me more than Mario when I use him sooooo I sort of can't play Mario! Also I'm pretty sure Doc's Utilt strings about as or even more reliably than Mario's but I'll keep testing this further (it might be the damage difference that factors this in)

Also his only good aspect is up+B OoS? Did you not read the past few pages where Doc Nado was confirmed to be an offstage kill move that rivals Falco's Bair when you edgeguard with it lol? Coupled with its priority on-stage, move is dumb.

 

[Luco]

Choco is the most notable zss player but leon in Europe has been doing well too. I haven't got to see much of him though.

Hmm, that's fine, though it still leaves us with the problem of the MU itself.

We'll leave it for now. I'm not sure there's enough evidence in the boat to give a conclusive answer at this stage. :o

 

[thehard]

Fox does seem good but I've only seen Larry Lurr play him (amazingly). Uptilt out of Side-B, jab-cancel into Up smash, Up smash in general...his improved recovery also really helps in SmUsh. Waiting on Final Battle uploads to see LL's sets again. That was a crazy tournament.

 

[David Viran]

Fox does seem good but I've only seen Larry Lurr play him (amazingly). Uptilt out of Side-B, jab-cancel into Up smash, Up smash in general...his improved recovery also really helps in SmUsh. Waiting on Final Battle uploads to see LL's sets again. That was a crazy tournament.

Uh zero played him very well.

 

[thehard]

Uh zero played him very well.

Oh yeah, wasn't that mostly on 3DS though?

 

[David Viran]

He played him in the invitational too.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I don't see meta development as a real reason for tiering. A tier list is about how good the characters actually are; Lucina is what she is even if no one plays her (and no one should). Yeah, tippers are awesome, but hitting with real hits on the whole sword is kinda awesome too even if relatively less awesome (against an opponent who understands Marth's spacing game and actively contests it, a very large percentage of Marth's hits are non-tippers, and Lucina doesn't have to care about that which is a big deal). She's worse than Marth but not that much worse; I can't imagine the two of them ever justifiably having a character in-between them let alone a whole tier.

Clones are funny since all of them are really bad picks in the strictest sense (you should just play the superior originals), but I'm really unconvinced that the degree to which they are sub-optimal is that large. Doc vs Mario is clearly the biggest case by far and I can grant that's probably a tier's worth of difference, but a lot of people are putting them like 4 tiers apart and seriously that's just too much for what the differences actually are. Pit and Dark Pit are practically the same character (Dark Pit is trivially worse), and Lucina vs Marth is kinda interesting in a way that's obviously in Marth's favor but interesting enough that I don't think it's very much.

Zeton was showing some crazy Fox tech locally. Fox has jab cancels to a huge extent; I saw him loop jab1, jab2, jab1, jab2... five times against Shaky (Ness) who I know was doing competent stuff to escape. When I played him I think he only got three reps on me at best, but Rosalina is really light and floaty so that probably helped me out. Fox utilt, just like Brawl, is still a really dumb move and stuffs a lot of stuff and combos into tons of stuff. Fox no longer loses to stupid stuff like he did in Brawl; I'm convinced he's solid and definitely high tier, but I'm not convinced he has what it takes to move into the tops just because overall I see the upside of the characters ahead of him as even better. He definitely gains a few places with customs though; Twisting Fox is just an incredible move on so many levels, and Charge Blaster is a huge upgrade as well in my eyes (a lot of Foxes seem to prefer the Falco Blaster custom and the speed up-B; I don't agree to those being best but both are definitely way better than defaults).

 

[|RK|]

Continuing RK Joker's adventures in online:

http://giphy.com/gifs/lXiRD78vclGWCzEXe

 

[thehard]

I don't see meta development as a real reason for tiering. A tier list is about how good the characters actually are; Lucina is what she is even if no one plays her (and no one should). Yeah, tippers are awesome, but hitting with real hits on the whole sword is kinda awesome too even if relatively less awesome (against an opponent who understands Marth's spacing game and actively contests it, a very large percentage of Marth's hits are non-tippers, and Lucina doesn't have to care about that which is a big deal). She's worse than Marth but not that much worse; I can't imagine the two of them ever justifiably having a character in-between them let alone a whole tier.

Yeah, exactly, if Lucina is the more consistent less rewarding clone there's no reason you shouldn't CP to her if you can't land any tippers as Marth against someone outspacing you. Theoretically he's superior but that may not work out for you in reality.

 

[|RK|]

I think Luke/D3 is even-ish, imo. D3 can kill him well and early before his Aura stuff kicks in, thanks to a slightly weaker neutral than what we're accustomed to from characters of his ilk. I wouldn't count the little metal ******* out, though. His neutral game isn't that bad. And that rubber-banding B.S. can really hurt in the attrition aspect, and it's especially so with D3, for reasons that are kinda...well, he's fat and he's cumbersome. A few hard reads for D3 are great and all, but Lucario at higher percentages doesn't have to work quite as hard.

@ Shaya

We're a little disorganized down here, but I'm pretty sure there are Florida vids somewhere.

Smooth Criminal

And just for the novelty, you can literally eat Aura Spheres.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

And just for the novelty, you can literally eat Aura Spheres.

Then I get punched in the face for my gluttony, depending on where Luke is.

:v

Smooth Criminal

 

[Lavani]

Why do Kirby and Wario get healed when they eat projectiles but not Dedede?

This bothers me.

Wario's projectile eating animation is much less laggy too iirc, don't know about Kirby's.

 

[|RK|]

Then I get punched in the face for my gluttony, depending on where Luke is.

:v

Smooth Criminal

Lol, that is true.

 

[thehard]

Why do Kirby and Wario get healed when they eat projectiles but not Dedede?

This bothers me.

Wario's projectile eating animation is much less laggy too iirc, don't know about Kirby's.

Because Dedede is already perfect, he doesn't get healed when he eats projectiles.

 

[Nu~]

MM me at apex

Lol. I was talking that good **** wasn't I.
Jersey is much too far from where I live. But it will certainly be fun to watch what you can do on stream. I will admit that lag sucks more for pacman than most characters, but I just didn't see you taking advantage of many of pac's options. Buuut, If that online tourney wasn't you at your best, then I'm very intrigued as to what you can do.
I could play you online though...that's kind of ironic.

 

[Pazx]

Fox does seem good but I've only seen Larry Lurr play him (amazingly). Uptilt out of Side-B, jab-cancel into Up smash, Up smash in general...his improved recovery also really helps in SmUsh. Waiting on Final Battle uploads to see LL's sets again. That was a crazy tournament.

Nakat uses him almost as much as Ness these days I believe.

Because in all honesty given how his movement and everything is entirely different from Mario you're basically playing with a different character?

I mean, there's not a lot of reasons tourney-wise if you're dead set on winning but Doc clicks for me more than Mario when I use him sooooo I sort of can't play Mario! Also I'm pretty sure Doc's Utilt strings about as or even more reliably than Mario's but I'll keep testing this further (it might be the damage difference that factors this in)

Also his only good aspect is up+B OoS? Did you not read the past few pages where Doc Nado was confirmed to be an offstage kill move that rivals Falco's Bair when you edgeguard with it lol? Coupled with its priority on-stage, move is dumb.

I play a lot of Doc in both Melee and Sm4sh but given that this is "Character Competitive Impressions" it is worth noting he is a primarily non-competitive character. I respect the Nado but it's a decent move on a bad character and it's still probably not as good a move as his upB. Mario is better without customs, the only area Doc improves with customs more than Mario is recovery (Gust cape is exclusive to Mario right?). Mario is a more competitive character, and Luigi is a character able to utilise the tornado far better than Doc.

I don't see meta development as a real reason for tiering. A tier list is about how good the characters actually are; Lucina is what she is even if no one plays her (and no one should). Yeah, tippers are awesome, but hitting with real hits on the whole sword is kinda awesome too even if relatively less awesome (against an opponent who understands Marth's spacing game and actively contests it, a very large percentage of Marth's hits are non-tippers, and Lucina doesn't have to care about that which is a big deal). She's worse than Marth but not that much worse; I can't imagine the two of them ever justifiably having a character in-between them let alone a whole tier.

Clones are funny since all of them are really bad picks in the strictest sense (you should just play the superior originals), but I'm really unconvinced that the degree to which they are sub-optimal is that large. Doc vs Mario is clearly the biggest case by far and I can grant that's probably a tier's worth of difference, but a lot of people are putting them like 4 tiers apart and seriously that's just too much for what the differences actually are. Pit and Dark Pit are practically the same character (Dark Pit is trivially worse), and Lucina vs Marth is kinda interesting in a way that's obviously in Marth's favor but interesting enough that I don't think it's very much.

Zeton was showing some crazy Fox tech locally. Fox has jab cancels to a huge extent; I saw him loop jab1, jab2, jab1, jab2... five times against Shaky (Ness) who I know was doing competent stuff to escape. When I played him I think he only got three reps on me at best, but Rosalina is really light and floaty so that probably helped me out. Fox utilt, just like Brawl, is still a really dumb move and stuffs a lot of stuff and combos into tons of stuff. Fox no longer loses to stupid stuff like he did in Brawl; I'm convinced he's solid and definitely high tier, but I'm not convinced he has what it takes to move into the tops just because overall I see the upside of the characters ahead of him as even better. He definitely gains a few places with customs though; Twisting Fox is just an incredible move on so many levels, and Charge Blaster is a huge upgrade as well in my eyes (a lot of Foxes seem to prefer the Falco Blaster custom and the speed up-B; I don't agree to those being best but both are definitely way better than defaults).

Wasn't it confirmed that Marth is always safer on shield than Lucina? Regardless: at optimal levels of play (which is what we base our tier lists on) Marth is significantly better than Lucina in every aspect and therefore Lucina is a direct downgrade. If, hypothetically, the best players were all Marth mains and we made them use Lucina they wouldn't be as good at the absolute highest level of play. Lucina is a crutch for bad players unlike anything that comes to mind in the Smash franchise. It's unlikely there's a significant number of characters between Lucina and Marth provided that they are close to the bottom of the tier list. If Marth is a good character there will be a number of good characters between him and Lucina.

 

[Kofu]

Why do Kirby and Wario get healed when they eat projectiles but not Dedede?

This bothers me.

Wario's projectile eating animation is much less laggy too iirc, don't know about Kirby's.

Just going off memory I didn't think Kirby and Wario were healed by average projectiles; they have to eat physical objects (like Wario's bike). I could be wrong though, and if so that's pretty stupid.

But yeah, Wario's eating animation isn't very laggy at all.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Why do Kirby and Wario get healed when they eat projectiles but not Dedede?

This bothers me.

Wario's projectile eating animation is much less laggy too iirc, don't know about Kirby's.

Is this actually a thing?

How much do they get healed?

 

[Aunt Jemima]

I don't understand why DeDeDe and Wario can eat literally every projectile in the game, while Kirby, who is KNOWN for eating, can't.

 

[|RK|]

Is this actually a thing?

How much do they get healed?

Usually about 1%. Nothing substantial, but you can eat, say Pacman's projectiles as Kirby. And any dropped projectiles. Stronger things overwhelm Kirby, though. But not Wario and Dedede. But Dedede doesn't get healed.

EDIT: Bombs will still hurt when eaten, but knockback isn't a problem. Not sure if the damage stays the same.

 

[Lavani]

Just going off memory I didn't think Kirby and Wario were healed by average projectiles; they have to eat physical objects (like Wario's bike). I could be wrong though, and if so that's pretty stupid.

But yeah, Wario's eating animation isn't very laggy at all.

Oh, so that's how it works. Yeah, I just checked and you're right, physical objects only for healing. I would imagine any projectile still adds Waft charge though, eh? (Wario mains, help)

Is this actually a thing?

How much do they get healed?

It's only 1%, I'm just bothered by the lack of consistency across characters.

I don't understand why DeDeDe and Wario can eat literally every projectile in the game, while Kirby, who is KNOWN for eating, can't.

Stronger things overwhelm Kirby, though. But not Wario and Dedede. But Dedede doesn't get healed.

Huh, didn't know about Kirby being limited in it either. The more you know.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Because Dedede is already perfect, he doesn't get healed when he eats projectiles.

Bruh.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Funen1]

I don't see meta development as a real reason for tiering. A tier list is about how good the characters actually are; Lucina is what she is even if no one plays her (and no one should). Yeah, tippers are awesome, but hitting with real hits on the whole sword is kinda awesome too even if relatively less awesome (against an opponent who understands Marth's spacing game and actively contests it, a very large percentage of Marth's hits are non-tippers, and Lucina doesn't have to care about that which is a big deal). She's worse than Marth but not that much worse; I can't imagine the two of them ever justifiably having a character in-between them let alone a whole tier.

Clones are funny since all of them are really bad picks in the strictest sense (you should just play the superior originals), but I'm really unconvinced that the degree to which they are sub-optimal is that large. Doc vs Mario is clearly the biggest case by far and I can grant that's probably a tier's worth of difference, but a lot of people are putting them like 4 tiers apart and seriously that's just too much for what the differences actually are. Pit and Dark Pit are practically the same character (Dark Pit is trivially worse), and Lucina vs Marth is kinda interesting in a way that's obviously in Marth's favor but interesting enough that I don't think it's very much.

Zeton was showing some crazy Fox tech locally. Fox has jab cancels to a huge extent; I saw him loop jab1, jab2, jab1, jab2... five times against Shaky (Ness) who I know was doing competent stuff to escape. When I played him I think he only got three reps on me at best, but Rosalina is really light and floaty so that probably helped me out. Fox utilt, just like Brawl, is still a really dumb move and stuffs a lot of stuff and combos into tons of stuff. Fox no longer loses to stupid stuff like he did in Brawl; I'm convinced he's solid and definitely high tier, but I'm not convinced he has what it takes to move into the tops just because overall I see the upside of the characters ahead of him as even better. He definitely gains a few places with customs though; Twisting Fox is just an incredible move on so many levels, and Charge Blaster is a huge upgrade as well in my eyes (a lot of Foxes seem to prefer the Falco Blaster custom and the speed up-B; I don't agree to those being best but both are definitely way better than defaults).

I feel like a bit of a distinction needs to be made here. Sure, the various properties of a character are unchanging, outside of patches and stuff - we're left with whichever properties the developers give us, and that could be one way of defining what a character "actually is". However, there's something to be said for how a character's properties can be used (you give some examples with Lucina and Fox in the rest of the post). That's where I think the "meta development" side might come in. People finding out more of what a character can do with what they were given is how we know whether said character is good, bad, overpowered, or anywhere in between - how a character "actually is" in terms of the competitive environment based on the information we know about them. Obviously this information will get better and better over time, but characters who are not played as much as others will naturally undergo this process more slowly. Maybe this is arguing over wording, I don't know. Just that a character's placement in a tier list would be in part, if not helped, then perhaps more solidified by many people playing that character.

 

[Kofu]

What I want to know is how Wario and Dedede can remain fat with that metabolism of theirs. I don't know how many calories an Aura Sphere has but I doubt it's diet food.

 

[Balgorxz]

It's so hard to find good peach players to practice matchups and when I go to local tournaments I always get destroyed by them, I wonder why not many people pick her up, she's excellent.

 

[HeoandReo]

Wasn't it confirmed that Marth is always safer on shield than Lucina? Regardless: at optimal levels of play (which is what we base our tier lists on) Marth is significantly better than Lucina in every aspect and therefore Lucina is a direct downgrade. If, hypothetically, the best players were all Marth mains and we made them use Lucina they wouldn't be as good at the absolute highest level of play. Lucina is a crutch for bad players unlike anything that comes to mind in the Smash franchise. It's unlikely there's a significant number of characters between Lucina and Marth provided that they are close to the bottom of the tier list. If Marth is a good character there will be a number of good characters between him and Lucina.

Ooh, Lucina talk again.

Lucina does have a few things that she does differently, but I have doubts that they're going to make her comparable to Marth. In my time playing both, I would say the only thing that Lucina really has over Marth is that she can fair string a little bit more reliably than Marth can. Even then, those circumstances are very situational. She's not quite fast enough to do it with short hops, so she has to full hop to get it started. Usmash isn't really an advantage in my opinion (or if it is it's a marginal one like her damage vs sourspot Marth) because Marth's usmash hitbox is still pretty good. Better than Melee's at least, and the endlag is more awful than usual so it's another really situational move you probably won't use much.

The different properties of the swords do give each character different strategies for getting the kill, although it's not in Lucina's favour by any stretch. Both can gimp, (Marth's tipper can do it better) both can get kills at the ledge (like lots of people) but the tipper still means that, so long as you're fishing for it, Marth can kill from anywhere on the stage at a reasonable time, and hopefully he doesn't have to get his opponent to 140-150% to do it like Lucina does. Realistically, if she wants to kill below 90 or 100, she must do it at the ledge and it pretty much must be with fsmash or at least semi-charged Shield Breaker. Or fight someone with bad recovery and/or stage spike them on a platform level. She has to do really risky things given her endlag that most of the cast doesn't have to do, or if they have to risk it, they get a lot more out of it such as killing way sooner than 90%.

 

[mimgrim]

I tested the range difference for the entirety of Gunner's and Swordsman's movesets using a short and fat/skinny Miis. It's not too difficult to test, since the skinny Mii will either have ghost range or the fat Mii will miss attacks that looked like they should've hit.

This is really useful information, thanks, and after doing some more serious testing I totally see it now. I've gone ahead and changes all my gunners to short/skinny, now even harder to get hit by the opponent.

From the other parts of your post, Gunner can be played in a variety of ways that works. I like hiding in my own blasts as I get closer up and set up more safety/pressure nets, while pure keepaway isn't that bad either (though imo low damage racking).

I don't know if I would quite call what I'm trying to do pure keep-away... Missiles would probably be better for that in all honesty (or even Flame Pillar). My main reasoning for Stealth Burst is that with Nades and Bombs I don't need the other 2 because that give me true conversions, even at higher percents, and all the Sides are super laggy but I find Burst to be the most useful because it legitimately makes Gunner a more deadly trapper on-top of being an already deadly Zoner. But if I wanted pure keep-away play I would be running one of the other Sides. I'm actually not quite sure what I would call what I'm trying to accomplish but the best I can think of is trying to keep my opponent under pressure for both the character and the actual person (or mental battle) due to all the potentially deadly tools Gunner has. I know earlier I was going on with a 3232 set-up but I have recently changed to 3222 because Up 2 is a legit OoS option and adds to his deadly tools.

I am way too into a character I am not even going to be using outside of the lab for a good while. Dammit why can't people just accept customization.

 

[Shaya]

Re:
NAKAT was knocked into loser's bracket by Slayer's Peach this last weekend. I'm not sure what his character choices were, but I'd assume a mixture of Ness or Fox.

She's obviously strong, just a much higher skill floor than many.

Re:

The kill ability is what really makes me think she's just that much weaker. I find clean kills on Marth with ftilt, dash attack, up air, back air and sometimes up tilt, with all of those bar up tilt being not too difficult to tipper.
I've played her a lot and it's always (to me) the same deal, sometimes strings feeling better/cleaner (max range hitting the same can be nice) but then there are always the multiple scenarios where if I had been Marth, the choice I had just made would've gotten a kill or more reward.
I find with shield breaks, a fully charged tipper breaker or fsmash will kill people at 20-30% while that won't happen on Lucina, not even close.
The only times the opposite exists is when I get an fsmash that almost killed and wasn't a tipper. However I tend to always feel those fsmashes weren't just immediate choices (sour spot fairs!) but rather I had the ability to vary the spacing with stutter steps or perfect pivots in such a way and I feel this is pretty feasible thing to be consistent on. As there are less hitboxes on most of Marth/Lucina's sword attacks, there are less overlaps and as a result tipper hitboxes are more pronounced than in Brawl as well.

Maybe smash attacks are less consistent to tipper with than normals, but I vehemently reject that getting tippers otherwise is "hard" and that fast characters are negating them, hence your choice is invariable. If you aren't at tipper spacing on either character you're likely getting out-speeded/prioritised before they can accomplish anything anyway (those 3 or less frame jabs and tilts with intangible limbs are awesome), the good characters in the game have range with which they'll contest your whiffs with their well spaced tools, and if you aren't whiffing you're hitting at close to your maximum range most of the time from neutral.

 

[Luco]

Re:
NAKAT was knocked into loser's bracket by Slayer's Peach this last weekend. I'm not sure what his character choices were, but I'd assume a mixture of Ness or Fox.

She's obviously strong, just a much higher skill floor than many.

Ahh yes, I definitely agree. I think even with staling on Fair, Peach just looks fantastic in this game. She just has the tools to space so well and having kill power seriously makes this character look good. She reminds me of Yoshi - in Brawl she would have been beastly if she just had kill power (Yoshi's weakness was the shield but same situation), and now she does and all her other tools still work very effectively. =)

 

[warionumbah2]

Just give Doc breezy cape and fast capsule then you got yourself a complete clone that isn't butt cheeks compared to the original.