Character Competitive Impressions

[M15t3R E]

do people still think the dorf is mid tier?

Perhaps. He's better than he was. This video showcases how a Ganondorf can be played.

 

[Chuva]

Hard to rate a character that, for all his flaws, can still kill you in 3 reads

 

[Kofu]

What's aerial declaration?

That'd be aerial deceleration, or how fast you're able to stop going one way in the air and start going the other way. Much of how mobile a character is in the air comes down to this attribute and not quite as much about air speed itself. I believe midair jumping resets your current aerial momentum, though, so that's one way to make up for bad deceleration.

Something people rarely seem to take into account when discussing shulk. Throw in the fact that his aerials are some of the slowest in the game it's not looking good for thr Monado kid. It's sad too because I like shulk but he's just terrible.

I don't think he's bad for it but it does cause him to commit more to his approaches than most other characters. His slow attack speed is another issue but I feel that both problems can be addressed somewhat by using the Speed and Jump arts wisely. I think if people stop trying to go YOLO with Shulk and start playing more patiently with empty low jumps and spacing he'll be very frightening.

 

[Terotrous]

Also, brace yourself for a bold claim:

Custom Palutena Ditto is the best matchup in the game.

I don't have any trouble believing that, I just don't want it to be the only matchup in the game.

still dont think yoshi has a great mu against mac though.

It's actually pretty decent now, thanks entirely to the side B nerf. Like I was posting before, there are now many situations where Yoshi can get an edgeguard attempt on Mac where he couldn't before, and soft Nair wrecks Mac's face. As of 1.04 it's probably 6-4 Yoshi. In 1.00 it was probably 6-4 Mac.

Incidentally, it also just occurred to me that the loss of vectoring also hurt Mac's recovery, which may explain why Mac's recovery seems more than 10% worse compared to 1.00. Everyone lost recovery distance from that change, but Mac was the one who needed it the most.

When a character is all about super armoring through things
wut do

Command Grab.

Or regular grab. Yoshi's ranged grab gives him extra safety against Mac's excellent footsies. Now that you actually get decent reward for a grab it's a good option.

I do think Mac was at least Yoshi's second-worst matchup in 1.00. Sheik was probably #1 (and still is), but there weren't nearly as many Sheik players in the early days since she was hard to play on 3DS.

@ Terotrous I have some issues with your statements here buddy. First of all, I'd like to say I don't think Little Mac would have been anywhere near OP even pre-patch, many of his MUs were still particularly frustrating

Well yeah, I would argue every LM matchup was really frustrating, either for him or his opponent. That's what I was saying about him being a terribly-designed character. His moveset has so much power concentrated in a few moves that he's an extremely inflexible character. He can only really do one thing (poke on the ground), and you either have the tools to deal with him if or you don't. As of 1.04, almost every character does.

As for Palutena, I've gone against a lightweight + superspeed build before in tournament (one of our top players uses Palutena with this build) and I can assure you the 50/50 chance Palutena is taking on super speed is just not good enough to pull her MUs into a 9-1, 8-2 or even 7-3 range. Super Speed is a commitment that certain projectiles will win out on whether she's in the air or on the ground, and I'm not sure as to how normals interact with her so I won't comment, but most of the cast can deal with this move.

Customs-on Palutena is, at the very least, a more mobile Diddy Kong with much better recovery. That is still terrifying, even if it isn't 9-1 terrifying.

 

[Nobie]

Air mobility is actually a really complex thing, and there are so many factors to take into consideration. There's number of jumps, aerial acceleration, deceleration, top speed, and even what happens when you let go of the control stick.

The last one might require some explanation. First, take Mario and just jump forward and let go of the control stick. You'll see that even though you've let go he still continues moving forward a bit. Marth and Lucina go even further.

Now compare this to Mega Man and Jigglypuff. As soon as you let go of the control stick, these characters will drop straight down. It might not seem that important, but this property, along with the other stats, can really affect spacing, and how easily they fall into the opponent's traps.

As for Ganondorf, because of his raw kill power and strong punishment game, I can totally see his matchup chart being mostly 4:6 to 5:5 just because it's hard to ever count him out. There was a somewhat similar situation with May in the original Guilty Gear XX, who had primarily 4:6 matchups. One of the reasons she could never be counted out entirely is that she had not only one of the quickest Instant Kill moves in the game (literally takes the opponent's entire life bar and ends the match if successful), but it was a command grab, AND her forward punch had high dizzying rates. You could have the most massive life lead against May, and then she'd forward punch you on counter-hit, combo into another foward punch, dizzy you, and that was the end. Ganondorf I feel is very similar in that regard.

 

[HeroMystic]

Well, you posted it.

Did Boss find out about it? I don't remember and I'm basically crashing from today's arduous journey with a wonderful (read: taxing) day at uni.

Boss and Mr.ConCon has been using this for a while, roughly since December. I'm surprised this is just now being discovered by the general public.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

Ganondorf the one character who completly ignores the match up chart.

just goes 2 show u this whole read thing really takes games with him. like come on the pika was Disgusting. Dorf makes the read. There does the stock.

@ Thinkaman i just want clairifcaton but is ganodorfs spike the most powerful in terms of damage and knock back?
like iv seen him spike at low percents before and the opponent would just die when off stage. any other character and the oponent would have at least been able to jump and try 2 get back up at low percents. im just guessing if anyone would know it would be you.

 

[Spinosaurus]

That'd be aerial deceleration.

My bad for the misspelling. Didn't even notice. :lol

But yeah there's more to aerial mobility than the maximum horizontal speed. I'd argue Wario has a better aerial moblity than Yoshi, despite the latter being technically faster. Wario flows better in the air. Same for Puff.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

My bad for the misspelling. Didn't even notice. :lol

But yeah there's more to aerial mobility than the maximum horizontal speed. I'd argue Wario has a better aerial moblity than Yoshi, despite the latter being technically faster. Wario flows better in the air. Same for Puff.

does puff have better aerial deceleration than wario? i just kinda though jiggs might make the illusion of that cuz multi jumps.

 

[Spinosaurus]

does puff have better aerial deceleration than wario? i just kinda though jiggs might make the illusion of that cuz multi jumps.

I mean it's kinda hard to know for sure when it comes to that. We don't really have any statistics so it's just hunches. (And it's not like in Brawl where it was OBVIOUS Wario had the best air acceleration and deceleration in the game) I play both for what it's worth, and I feel like I have better control with Wario, but Jigglypuff has multiple jumps so that's another factor.

 

[meleebrawler]

If Greninja's air decelaration is bad, then it's mitigated by how fast he can
return to the ground. Hydro Pump helps as well.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Customs-on Palutena is, at the very least, a more mobile Diddy Kong with much better recovery. That is still terrifying, even if it isn't 9-1 terrifying.

I just want to highlight that this position isn't really reasonable. Diddy Kong's normals are so many worlds better than Palutena's, and they aren't even functionally very similar. Diddy Kong is a character primarily defined by his good normals; how are these two characters comparable? Super Speed is an incredible move on so many levels, but Palutena has a lot of really bad things about her to balance it out. One move that you aren't even allowed to spam freely is not enough to instantly break a character whose tilts are more committed than most smashes, has no grounded moves faster than grab, and who has picky awkward hitboxes on every last aerial. I don't think customs on Palutena is even top 10, though she very well may be high tier overall and is certainly a competitively legitimate character. She's not comparable to Diddy Kong in terms of overall quality or functionality in any case.

---

Also, yeah, making a Ganon MU chart is a kinda futile endeavor. He loses the neutral game to everyone and has all kinds of other problems that can make him lose. The thing is that he's built to pay off very quickly and heavily if you get good reads; I see him as the best character in the game if you know what your opponent is going to do and the worst if you don't. This was kinda true in Brawl too but there were various ways to just lame Ganon out of the game so it didn't matter, and those don't really work in this game nearly so well. Maybe in a more mature metagame we'll be able to see who is relatively more or less resistant to Ganon's nonsense (if anyone can abuse his sloth in a more algorithmic way that doesn't give him opportunities for reads or if anyone gets some really heavy forced stuff against him that makes the reward on hit slanted the other way against Ganon), but for now, I really wouldn't try to guess his match-ups.

 

[Terotrous]

Diddy Kong is a character primarily defined by his good normals;

Let's be real, Diddy Kong is a character who is defined by his amazing throw follow-ups. Yes, he has good normals too, but what makes him so crazy is the insane reward he gets off any grab. There are other characters with great normals (Yoshi, Peach, Fox, ZSS, Pit, etc), but the reward they get from a hit just isn't comparable.

I also think people are really underrating Palutena's normals in general. Yes, some of them are kind of slow, but as Thinkaman noted earlier a lot of them have some useful properties to them, and her aerials are just straight up great.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

No I'm pretty sure Diddy has great buttons on top of his throw rewards. Plus, y'know, his neutral on top of that...

Smooth Criminal

 

[Terotrous]

No I'm pretty sure Diddy has great buttons on top of his throw rewards.

Yes, I'm pretty sure I wrote that when I said "he has good normals too".

The throws are what put him over the top. Tone down his throws and he would still be high tier, but he wouldn't break the game.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Assuming he breaks the game as he is now.

Like, customs-on 9-1 theorycraft Palutena.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Terotrous]

I dunno, Zero 2-stocking literally the entire world makes a good argument for it.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

I dunno, Zero 2-stocking literally the entire world makes a good argument for it.

Bt thats ZeRo though and we have to take that into account. If every pro player that mained diddy had the same result maybe we would be on to somthing. but so far thats not concreate evidence. more like something 2 note. im sure if he played shiek or even fox, (if he played him primarily) may have had similar results.

but its also fair 2 note what im saying might possibly be false as well. We all dont really know where the meta is going and determining who gunna breakthe game is really out of our view right now.

 

[Balgorxz]

I dunno, Zero 2-stocking literally the entire world makes a good argument for it.

I'm pretty sure Zero can 2 stock everyone even with his secondary, knowing this makes me irritated since we could see more entertaining characters sweeping the competition

 

[HeavyLobster]

Palutena with Super Speed is honestly probably closer to being Captain Falcon with a better recovery than Diddy Kong. She can get in on anyone, but if her opponent knows what she's going to do she's going to get punished. She does get great reward for guessing right, and can use Warp to get away when she guesses wrong, which skews risk-reward in her favor, but reliability in neutral tends to win out at the highest levels of Smash, which she doesn't have when compared to Diddy Kong, Sheik, or Pikachu.

 

[Thinkaman]

@ Thinkaman i just want clairifcaton but is ganodorfs spike the most powerful in terms of damage and knock back?
like iv seen him spike at low percents before and the opponent would just die when off stage. any other character and the oponent would have at least been able to jump and try 2 get back up at low percents. im just guessing if anyone would know it would be you.

Yes.

Highest Knockback Spikes:
1. Ganon dair
2. Ganon Wizard's Foot/Assualt
3. DK fair
4. DK dair
5. Diddy dair

Highest Damage Spikes:
19%: Ganon dair
18%: Shulk dair
16%: DK dair, Bowser dair, Toon Link dair, Zelda dair
15%: DK fair, Dedede dair, Duck Hunt dair, Ganon Wizard's Foot, Ike dair, Link dair, Gunner dair, WFT Header

 

[Smooth Criminal]

I dunno, Zero 2-stocking literally the entire world makes a good argument for it.

Because SoCal is the whole world, right? Right?

Smooth Criminal

 

[Road Death Wheel]

Yes.

Highest Knockback Spikes:
1. Ganon dair
2. Ganon Wizard's Foot/Assualt
3. DK fair
4. DK dair
5. Diddy dair

Highest Damage Spikes:
19%: Ganon dair
18%: Shulk dair
16%: DK dair, Bowser dair, Toon Link dair, Zelda dair
15%: DK fair, Dedede dair, Duck Hunt dair, Ganon Wizard's Foot, Ike dair, Link dair, Gunner dair, WFT Header

thank you very much for the clairification

 

[Smog Frog]

so does ganon have his own tier separated from the rest? like not anywhere in high/mid/bottom but just his own little island on the side? like you have the contiguous US then you have alaska and hawaii

 

[Road Death Wheel]

so does ganon have his own tier separated from the rest? like not anywhere in high/mid/bottom but just his own little island on the side? like you have the contiguous US then you have alaska and hawaii

#ConqueredHyruleTier

 

[Unknownkid]

#ConqueredHyruleTier

How about #English Professor Tier, #Librarian Tier or #ChessMaster Tier since he is amazing if you are good at Reading.

 

[Ffamran]

How about #English Professor Tier, #Librarian Tier or #ChessMaster Tier since he is amazing if you are good at Reading.

This is how we learn in Gerudo! HARD READS, PUNISHMENT FROM FAILURE, AND A BOOT TO THE FACE!

Anyway, if Ganondorf ends up with his own tier, it should be placed to the side to indicate his uniqueness as a character who will destroy anyone who messes up. Ganondorf really reminds me of Exdeath from Dissidia, who from what I remember, has no attacks. He only has counters meaning if he reads and predicts everything you do, then you are so screwed. I don't know if we have a Gabranth archetype who does insignificant - no damage in Dissidia since he only had Brave attacks until he enters EX Mode - that allows him to later enter a kill mode and do massive damage. The only characters who I think would qualify would be Luigi and Sheik who have to rack up damage fast so their kill moves actually do something.

 

[Thinkaman]

Sometimes when I Ganon f-smash people, I like to inform them that Indonesia is at a crossroads.

 

[Asdioh]

Yes.

Highest Knockback Spikes:
1. Ganon dair
2. Ganon Wizard's Foot/Assualt
3. DK fair
4. DK dair
5. Diddy dair

This doesn't include customs, right? I know Kirby's Meteor Stone is ludicrously strong, but I don't know how exactly it compares to the others.

I'm not surprised DK Fair is 3rd strongest, but I am surprised his Dair is 4th. I would think some of the other spikes (falcon, mario, ness) would have outclassed it.
Wait, why is Diddy 5th. Why.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

This doesn't include customs, right? I know Kirby's Meteor Stone is ludicrously strong, but I don't know how exactly it compares to the others.

I'm not surprised DK Fair is 3rd strongest, but I am surprised his Dair is 4th. I would think some of the other spikes (falcon, mario, ness) would have outclassed it.
Wait, why is Diddy 5th. Why.

yeah diddys dair is not even that hard 2 land 2...

 

[Ffamran]

yeah diddys dair is not even that hard 2 land 2...

Whose Dair meteor is the easiest to land? I want to say Marth/Lucina, Palutena, or Samus's since they cover a wide arc, but then there's DK's giant foot...

 

[Shaya]

It's diddy or Falcon IMO. Their dairs are sweetspots for extremely long times and cover wide areas/range and come out fast (like similar amount of time as they did in Brawl), unlike every other character's meteors (practically) which are just single small hitboxes usually directly vertically below you only (with any side hits not spiking) with very short sweetspot periods (Marth and Lucina's is only 1 frame, similar for Ness/Falco) and have 50-100% longer start up times.

Marth/Lucina's tipper dair don't meteor, a single frame hitbox that appears below them at the same time the sword does is the only meteor.

 

[Ffamran]

Why Diddy, why...

Wait, really? I thought Marth/Lucina's Dair meteor like Samus's. So, is their Dair more like (Dark) Pit's meteor (which I never figured out how to land)? Kirby's Dair might be the "safest" meteor if it connects, but it's not one of the strongest.

Falco would have had an awesome meteor with Fair's original autolink properties or whatnot, but sadly, that's not the case...

 

[Road Death Wheel]

It's diddy or Falcon IMO. Their dairs are sweetspots for extremely long times and cover wide areas/range and come out fast (like similar amount of time as they did in Brawl), unlike every other character's meteors (practically) which are just single small hitboxes usually directly vertically below you only (with any side hits not spiking) with very short sweetspot periods (Marth and Lucina's is only 1 frame, similar for Ness/Falco) and have 50-100% longer start up times.

Marth/Lucina's tipper dair don't meteor, a single frame hitbox that appears below them at the same time the sword does is the only meteor.

Speaking as a samus main i can definitly vouch her dair is quite easy 2 use. but 2 be fair i also use that move alot so im expected 2 land it a decent amount of times.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Yes, I'm pretty sure I wrote that when I said "he has good normals too".

The throws are what put him over the top. Tone down his throws and he would still be high tier, but he wouldn't break the game.

The chicken or the egg though? Is it his throws (which are normals in a way) that are so good or his frame 3 uair that nukes everywhere above him and kills that make it work? It's all kinda a part of the same package.

Related, I don't think Palutena's normals are bad in the sense of "don't have good uses", but they're bad in the sense of "as a package less advantageous than what other characters, certainly including Diddy Kong, can do". Palutena is really not a good character with 1111. Diddy Kong arguably would be improved by having Palutena's 1111; he'd really miss Monkey Flip and bananas, but he sure wouldn't mind Warp and Counter or honestly even Reflect Barrier. Palutena kinda needs Super Speed to be solid (and the usefulness of the rest of her moves kinda flows from having that one legitimately good threat). Diddy Kong could sacrifice any one thing he has and still be a good character I think; he has a whole lot going for him really.

 

[TriTails]

The only characters who I think would qualify would be Luigi and Sheik who have to rack up damage fast so their kill moves actually do something.

Luigi actually has similiar KO power as other middleweights, and his killing options are far more varied and reliable than Sheik. Dont know why you are mixing him up with her in terms of KOing.

 

[Ffamran]

Luigi actually has similiar KO power as other middleweights, and his killing options are far more varied and reliable than Sheik. Dont know why you are mixing him up with her in terms of KOing.

I think it's the whole combo thing since Gabranth had to land a lot of hits to build up his EX gauge and enter EX mode to do damage. If anything Luigi would be like Squall or something... Fox would be Tidus because they're both fast and they have projectiles, but we're making analogies to a game that plays completely different than SSB.

 

[Man Li Gi]

DK, in my eyes, has lost his fear and distinction for being a mobile, strong heavyweight. While having similar weight, range, and some other attributes, DK is outclassed by Bowser. Bowser doesn't have gaps in hitboxes, has a strong and consistent boxing game, can actually kill way earlier than DK, has great shield damage outside of smashes, a forward aerial approach, a stronger footsie game in general, an extendable recovery, useful custom moves, better OoS options, an AC'able Command Grab,;etc...you get my point. Where ever DK is, Bowser is going to be leagues above him. The nerf DK's power/damage output is quite sickening/disheartening. All we got for it was a Headbutt that is too slow to use practically outside of that mixup (possibly), where it doesn't straight up break shields, it doesn't keep buried opponents in for long along with them taking less knockback than usual. Hand Slap was given an inexplicable extra 14 frames of end lag just because it breaks shields on the 3rd hit (which you usually don't go up to unless they'er on the ledge). People may say "look at Will". I did and bar GOML, where he got 2nd, there hasn't been a sound DK mentioning. Anyway, DK starts off strong in many games, but his simple gameplay is exploited and then he's left in the dust.

 

[HeavyLobster]

DK, in my eyes, has lost his fear and distinction for being a mobile, strong heavyweight. While having similar weight, range, and some other attributes, DK is outclassed by Bowser. Bowser doesn't have gaps in hitboxes, has a strong and consistent boxing game, can actually kill way earlier than DK, has great shield damage outside of smashes, a forward aerial approach, a stronger footsie game in general, an extendable recovery, useful custom moves, better OoS options, an AC'able Command Grab,;etc...you get my point. Where ever DK is, Bowser is going to be leagues above him. The nerf DK's power/damage output is quite sickening/disheartening. All we got for it was a Headbutt that is too slow to use practically outside of that mixup (possibly), where it doesn't straight up break shields, it doesn't keep buried opponents in for long along with them taking less knockback than usual. Hand Slap was given an inexplicable extra 14 frames of end lag just because it breaks shields on the 3rd hit (which you usually don't go up to unless they'er on the ledge). People may say "look at Will". I did and bar GOML, where he got 2nd, there hasn't been a sound DK mentioning. Anyway, DK starts off strong in many games, but his simple gameplay is exploited and then he's left in the dust.

What do you mean DK doesn't have useful customs? Did Kong Cyclone stop existing and no one told me about it?

 

[RWB]

This is how we learn in Gerudo! HARD READS, PUNISHMENT FROM FAILURE, AND A BOOT TO THE FACE!

Anyway, if Ganondorf ends up with his own tier, it should be placed to the side to indicate his uniqueness as a character who will destroy anyone who messes up. Ganondorf really reminds me of Exdeath from Dissidia, who from what I remember, has no attacks. He only has counters meaning if he reads and predicts everything you do, then you are so screwed. I don't know if we have a Gabranth archetype who does insignificant - no damage in Dissidia since he only had Brave attacks until he enters EX Mode - that allows him to later enter a kill mode and do massive damage. The only characters who I think would qualify would be Luigi and Sheik who have to rack up damage fast so their kill moves actually do something.

We do have a sorta Gabranth: Wii Fit Trainer, who is very limited in her moves with her low range and is a bit lacking in killpower... but has a move that puts her in a sorta supermode that can end stocks very fast(Deep Breathing).

The only issue with the Gabranth comparison is that Trainer is very respectable damage-wise even outside DB, while Gabranth really isn't outside EX Mode(Though I'd argue he is easier to hit with in return).