Character Competitive Impressions

[ParanoidDrone]

It's very important to note that I'm not "against' customs, I just think they need to be thoroughly tested before we can unequivocally declare that the customs-on metagame is superior to customs-off.

How do you propose we test them (in a way people will actually pay attention to) other than actually using them in a tournament? Unless I'm mistaken, side events don't get a whole lot of exposure.

 

[Terotrous]

How do you propose we test them (in a way people will actually pay attention to) other than actually using them in a tournament? Unless I'm mistaken, side events don't get a whole lot of exposure.

In a tournament, of course, that's what I was saying in my first post. We need some tournaments to start using them and stream the results.


I don't think we're actually disagreeing on anything, I'm just not convinced that the results will definitely be an improvement until I see it in action.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I don't think we're actually disagreeing on anything, I'm just not convinced that the results will definitely be an improvement until I see it in action.

Probably, I'm juggling a few things at once right now and my reading comprehension isn't up to par at the moment.

 

[thehard]

I wrote something about AA's custom move project and customs in general here, if you'd like to read: http://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/2t6snk/custom_moves_at_evo_and_beyond_for_the_good_of/

 

[A2ZOMG]

@TriTailsI stand by my Toon Link > Ganon statement. Yeah, projectile spam takes time to set up, but what are you gonna do, rush me down at the speed of slow? That is a very rough matchup for Ganon, however we all know it's only a few reads. In my opinion, Tlink doesn't need to make any difficult reads at all as it's safe to throw out projectiles and well spaced aerials no matter what, and the only hard reads Tlink has to make is air/spot dodge reads which are very punishable (and very baitable, did I mention 3 projectiles?). I'm also not sure Ganon has an answer to utilt + uair + projectile juggling. This probably applies to all large and slow characters vs Tlink.

Ganondorf doesn't really need to rush down, so much as he just needs to patiently close the distance until he's able to exert influence with his longer ranged pokes. TL's projectiles are slow and easily defended against for the most part. He does get strong close range setups from Bombs which have to be reacted to differently, but as I stated, he commits before getting Bombs, and like the rest of his projectiles they aren't that strong at long range where they can potentially be caught. I should let you know that Ganondorf risks overall very little advancing with shield in neutral, because TL does not have strong throw combos. He does have a good B-throw for KOing, but overall much like Link, TL doesn't get really big damage from throws, so for damage building purposes in neutral, I wouldn't say he's really winning against Ganondorf by a lot.

TL's aerials are not exactly safe by themselves. You need Bombs to back them up, otherwise most of them actually are either vulnerable to DA/D-tilt out of shield, or Ganondorf throwing out N-air against them. When Ganondorf is in D-tilt range, Toon Link doesn't have a lot of safe options.

While Ganondorf does suffer against juggles, he does a lot better in the negative state than some of the larger characters due to the unique angle at which he can threaten characters with aerial Wizkick, and because he's actually just a smaller target than the likes of Bowser and Donkey Kong, which gives him a very noticeably larger amount of leeway in finding safe landing positions. Bowser for instance suffers a lot in this matchup because he's literally just too large to ever maneuver around projectile landing traps, and because Bowser Bomb/D-air don't really help him get to the ground when neither can really work against TL's juggle options directly. More important for Ganondorf in this matchup though is TL rarely can do much to Ganondorf's recovery that he really cares about. Ganondorf just needs to dodge a few projectiles and recover low, occasionally tech a perfectly timed stage spike, and he's generally speaking safe offstage against TL, meaning in most cases, it's easy to reset against Toon Link at the ledge. Toon Link doesn't quite get the same luxury against Ganondorf, and while he can stop several edgeguard attempts with projectiles to assist his predictable recovery, Ganondorf in general is better at covering options offstage, and confirming KOs from them.

Speaking of juggles, while Ganondorf will take some damage from them, it's worth keeping in mind when juggling, Ganondorf can challenge and trade favorably or beat all of TL's aerials with his U-air. Throwing Bombs downwards can sometimes help, though these can often be caught.

Basically, even if TL has some advantages in neutral (Bombs as I stated are very good when available), they aren't really large enough to make the matchup easier for him against a Ganondorf that knows the correct responses to his projectiles, carefully walking and shielding and knowing safe spacing for catching items when applicable. I would argue more importantly, TL doesn't benefit enough in the positive state to really have the advantage, while every moment Ganondorf successfully picks at the holes in TL's gameplan matters more because his capitalization by far is better. This matchup was a lot harder in Brawl for Ganondorf where TL's projectile game and aerials were slightly better, and where Ganondorf was easily edgehogged.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I wrote something about AA's custom move project and customs in general here, if you'd like to read: http://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/2t6snk/custom_moves_at_evo_and_beyond_for_the_good_of/

Gah you beat me to it, I was going to post a similar thing this afternoon. Looks like it'll be a case of dueling threads.

 

[Asdioh]

And now I'm watching matches on Trifroze's channel because someone in that thread linked one of the matches. Looks like Dynamiitti IV was played with customs enabled and it's pretty awesome so far.



although... http://puu.sh/ePFbB/afe757fcb4.webm ಠ_ಠ

 

[Terios the Hedgehog]

Man I wish customs were on for Palutena. :C

 

[Terotrous]

And now I'm watching matches on Trifroze's channel because someone in that thread linked one of the matches. Looks like Dynamiitti IV was played with customs enabled and it's pretty awesome so far.

Okay, this is the kind of thing we need more of. Looks like that guy has more videos from the tournament on his channel, so I'll check them out.

 

[warionumbah2]

That Falcon Speed and Power video is a thing of beauty. Deserves more views from that bit where Ike was like "i fight for my - dead"

 

[FullMoon]

Man Palutena with custom is so great to watch. I think I might start to play her as customs become more accepted in tournaments.

 

[Terotrous]

Customs on Palutena is so top tier. Eat your heart out Diddy Kong.

 

[NairWizard]

On Peach...

I think that in a vacuum her tools are great, even with the patch changes that fixed some of her empowering glitches. KO power, fast/autocancelable aerials with decent range, and floats? That sounds like a great package.

But her matchup chart is hard to swallow. She struggles against Sheik and Diddy more than most characters. Sheik can f-air her way past Peach's float onstage and edgeguard through Peach's slow float with her lingering b-air. Peach can recover low to snap to the ledge and prevent this, but it's still not easy (Sheik can drop down f-air or ledgetrump b-air in response to this). Diddy is arguably even worse. Against day-1 Diddys, Peach does pretty well, because Diddy has a hard time grabbing Peach out of her float aerials. But more experienced Diddys will wall her out with large up-airs and f-airs. There isn't much Peach can do against this; almost all of her options are shut down by Diddy's short hop aerials. She doesn't have good enough ground mobility to just eschew float in favor of fighting him on the ground, either, and she'll start to get grabbed if she shields too much.

Now, it's true that Diddy and Sheik are strong, so many characters other than Peach have bad matchups against them, but High and Top Tiers usually don't struggle against both, or not quite as much as Peach does. A few examples: ZSS does well against Sheik despite doing poorly against Diddy, Pikachu beats or goes even with Diddy and probably ties with Sheik, Yoshi loses to Sheik quite badly but doesn't struggle that much with Diddy (maybe a slight loss, I think; there are tools for both characters here), and Megaman vs. Sheik seems like it's in Sheik's favor but Megaman vs. Diddy is probably closer to even.

Peach does unusually poorly against these two characters. She does do pretty well against Pikachu; that's probably her best Top Tier MU, and she has some other good MUs further down the board (ZSS and Rosalina, for example), but in my mind, struggling in arguably the two most important matchups right now doesn't bode well for the character's Top/High Tier status. She's a good character, though, definitely upper half of the cast.

 

[Balgorxz]

No, it's against a training dummy.

I'd be interested in the results of human testing with non-floaties as well though, because as a training dummy even Fox seems to launch too high sometimes, so if proper DI can escape it I don't think it's character specific.

No, it's against a training dummy.

I'd be interested in the results of human testing with non-floaties as well though, because as a training dummy even Fox seems to launch too high sometimes, so if proper DI can escape it I don't think it's character specific.

MK combo
Diddy - starting at 32% you have to be right under his hitbox to be able to pull the 5UAR+UPB combo, if you DI the first one you can get out in the fourth hit, you can also DI in the third one to avoid getting attacked a fourth time, if you miss the DI in the first one and MK hits right under the center of diddys hitbox the combo is guaranteed even using DI.
Luigi - starting at 33% but can be used before that percentage but it can be DI, if you execute this correctly it kills luigi.
I was able to perform it at 15% and at 26%.
Sheik - starting at 42% 3uair into upb is a true combo and can't be DId if performed correctly.
starting at 37% 4uair into upb is a true combo and if you DI the first hit you can get away, if not it's guaranteed
Rosalina - starting at 27% 4uair into upb is a true combo and can you can use DI to get away from the first hit-
ZSS - starting at 33%, you can do a 4uair into upb and it's really hard to DI so it's guaranteed, if done correctly it kills.
starting at 35%, you can use DI to get away from most of the hits.

in other words the combo is safe but not 100% guaranteed

 

[Unknownkid]

Which direction do you push in order to DI Uair Combo?

 

[Teshie U]

Lightweight Palutena is the devil. Its Sonic's rushdown game with Diddy grab game.

And she has an unblockable projectile with a lingering hitbox. Some unholy good version of spindash and warp cancelling all over the place.

 

[David Viran]

MK combo
Diddy - starting at 32% you have to be right under his hitbox to be able to pull the 5UAR+UPB combo, if you DI the first one you can get out in the fourth hit, you can also DI in the third one to avoid getting attacked a fourth time, if you miss the DI in the first one and MK hits right under the center of diddys hitbox the combo is guaranteed even using DI.
Luigi - starting at 33% but can be used before that percentage but it can be DI, if you execute this correctly it kills luigi.
I was able to perform it at 15% and at 26%.
Sheik - starting at 42% 3uair into upb is a true combo and can't be DId if performed correctly.
starting at 37% 4uair into upb is a true combo and if you DI the first hit you can get away, if not it's guaranteed
Rosalina - starting at 27% 4uair into upb is a true combo and can you can use DI to get away from the first hit-
ZSS - starting at 33%, you can do a 4uair into upb and it's really hard to DI so it's guaranteed, if done correctly it kills.
starting at 35%, you can use DI to get away from most of the hits.

in other words the combo is safe but not 100% guaranteed

When you were talking about zss you said it was hard to DI but then said it was guaranteed and then you said you can get out of most of the hits. I'm confused when does this combo end?

 

[Balgorxz]

When you were talking about zss you said it was hard to DI but then said it was guaranteed and then you said you can get out of most of the hits. I'm confused when does this combo end?

depends on the %, below 35% is hard to DI and above that its really easy to get away from the combo.
again the easy way to get away is to DI in the first or fourth attack.

 

[Djent]

Peach does unusually poorly against these two characters. She does do pretty well against Pikachu; that's probably her best Top Tier MU, and she has some other good MUs further down the board (ZSS and Rosalina, for example), but in my mind, struggling in arguably the two most important matchups right now doesn't bode well for the character's Top/High Tier status. She's a good character, though, definitely upper half of the cast.

Losing hard to a few of the best characters yet still remaining highly relevant is what Peach does in every game.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

guh custom moves matches are so awsome to watch. drooling...
cant wait till im capable of using my custom samus and bowser in competitive play.

i preffer my pit vanilla though.

 

[thehard]

Gah you beat me to it, I was going to post a similar thing this afternoon. Looks like it'll be a case of dueling threads.

The more the merrier.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

The more the merrier.

Link here if anyone wants to contribute. </shameless plug> </please don't hurt me admins>

 

[Luco]

Any streams available?



Honestly, my region has almost no scene (we have precisely one weekly for the whole province and it doesn't seem well-attended), so I don't think we can help much in the research department.

Sure, I'll link them to you. ^^

I think once people break past the barrier of 'we're not sure what customs are doing to our meta' this argument will be so much less frequent.

I'm interested in seeing a bit of peach play at some point, btw. :o

 

[Road Death Wheel]

Link here if anyone wants to contribute. </shameless plug> </please don't hurt me admins>

why dont u have likes on this post. WHY?

but at risk of derailing this thread you should probably make a thread somewhere to support this movement perhaps get @Amazing Ampharos in on it and such. if hes not to busy with his own affairs of course.

 

[Zelder]

And now I'm watching matches on Trifroze's channel because someone in that thread linked one of the matches. Looks like Dynamiitti IV was played with customs enabled and it's pretty awesome so far.



although... http://puu.sh/ePFbB/afe757fcb4.webm ಠ_ಠ

3 stocks, customs on, Samus in the Grand Finals?

Is this...is this my dream meta?

 

[Road Death Wheel]

3 stocks, customs on, Samus in the Grand Finals?

Is this...is this my dream meta?

samus was not even using customs 2 that woulda been a very different match other wise.
approaching samus with customs is like the biggest pain in the ass and i love it.

 

[Trifroze]

Palutena is definitely sick with customs on, but on the other hand Kinuski is pretty much the best player in Finland even without them, so it's hard to tell whether it's him or the character being too good with customs yet (her dthrow to uair in lightweight mode is guaranteed and kills at %s much lower than Diddy's equivalent).

 

[Nabbitnator]

I think its possible for palutena to kill as early as 30% with down throw to up air with super speed.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Palutena is definitely sick with customs on, but on the other hand Kinuski is pretty much the best player in Finland even without them, so it's hard to tell whether it's him or the character being too good with customs yet (her dthrow to uair in superspeed mode is guaranteed and kills at %s much lower than Diddy's equivalent).

I find myself much more okay with Palutena being top tier than Diddy. Weird.

 

[Pazx]

A tall, light character with many punishable moves being top tier? Good.

 

[Djent]

I'm just happy to see a talented player who really knows how to use her best customs. Aerolink is strong but has idiosyncratic custom preferences, and Ninjalink is talented but less familiar with her abilities.

And yeah, her setups are pretty dumb. I still can't get over the fact that a few of her normal moves range from situational to bad, but I almost think that's necessary with how absurd her Jab/Grab, DA, aerials (minus DAir), and B moves are.

 

[Nu~]

I find myself much more okay with Palutena being top tier than Diddy. Weird.

Maybe because she's a goddess who kills you with the power of light instead of an annoying monkey who kills you with a disrespectful football hike and a double jointed leg

 

[David Viran]

A tall, light character with many punishable moves being top tier? Good.

You just described zss because she has a lot of moves that are not easy to punish but her punishable moves are super punishable if whiffed.

 

[Kofu]

I was more impressed with Lightweight tbh. Forget turning her into Sonic, that's like activating both the Speed and Jump Monado Arts simultaneously. Absolutely insane.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

I was more impressed with Lightweight tbh. Forget turning her into Sonic, that's like activating both the Speed and Jump Monado Arts simultaneously. Absolutely insane.

and thing is. from that match she did not seem like an arduous mountain top to overcome.


well unless ZeRo decides to main her tham really show how brocken she can be.
I always say to my self diddy dont seem that bad the ZeRo walts in with absolute soul crushing.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I was more impressed with Lightweight tbh. Forget turning her into Sonic, that's like activating both the Speed and Jump Monado Arts simultaneously. Absolutely insane.

And then afterward you're forced into Shield mode without any of the benefits. (Unless you do that thing where you can refresh it whenever while on a platform.)

To be clear, this is a joke.

 

[Sinister Slush]

I'm just happy to see a talented player who really knows how to use her best customs. Aerolink is strong but has idiosyncratic custom preferences, and Ninjalink is talented but less familiar with her abilities.

He uses Palutena still?
Last I checked he mains diddy kong.

 

[Kofu]

and thing is. from that match she did not seem like an arduous mountain top to overcome.

Well, her two most powerful moves (Super Speed and Lightweight) have timers and restrictions on them, which stops them from being overwhelming. If they didn't have those, they'd be absolutely ridiculous moves.

And then afterward you're forced into Shield mode without any of the benefits. (Unless you do that thing where you can refresh it whenever while on a platform.)

To be clear, this is a joke.

It's kind of accurate though

I enjoyed watching those matches. I had heard that Palutena with customs was amazing but it's kind of hard to judge without evidence. After those videos, though? I'm a believer.

I've started to use her in For Glory and I've enjoyed it so far. The only one of her moves that's near useless is DTilt IMO, everything else I've found good uses for. She's a solid character normally but doesn't have a lot that makes her stand out. Her customs, however, change that.

 

[Nobie]

In terms of custom moves, I haven't had a chance to play with them really, but I remember wanting so badly to be able to use Mega Man's Hyper Bombs because who cares about dumb weak Metal Blade huh???

Silly me, not realizing that Metal Blade is one of Mega Man's best moves.

 

[Zephil]

Now I am a believer too, customs is the way to go. Gentlemen we need to make customs the standard rule.

I am fine with leaving 2 stocks in the ruleset if customs are accepted