Character Competitive Impressions

[FullMoon]

No. Realistically Greninja's limited neutral could be holding him back but he's still thoroughly under-represented, his amazing edgeguarding is not being utilised properly and his mobility is not being used effectively. There is no way Greninja is anywhere below high-mid, his tools do not have the limitations of an average-or-below fighter. His Apex results may not reflect that of a strong character, but I think he's going to be a dark horse as the game develops.

And before anyone jumps to call me biased, I would happily main Sheik if I felt limited by Greninja. I honestly believe the character is far better than he's given credit for. It might be cliche, but I think Greninja is a classic example of a character who is "very good, but hard to use".

I honestly think Greninja and Peach are the two hardest characters to learn in this game, but both are crazy when played properly.

 

[TriTails]

Makes me wonder if False is going to switch to Sheik from Luigi later on.

I think he will.

Unless he holds the 'I play 4Fun' or 'The reign of Luigi is just about to begin' things, I doubt he will go full Luigi here.

Though, it does seem he likes combo characters .

 

[Nabbitnator]

A good greninja is very very scary. Especially when he overwhelms you. I'd like to not have that happen again but I want to see him grow as a character.

 

[bc1910]

I honestly think Greninja and Peach are the two hardest characters to learn in this game, but both are crazy when played properly.

I completely agree. You only have to look at Peach's frame data to see how scary she could be in the right hands. The same can be said of Greninja (admittedly to a lesser extent) when one considers how strong his Nair and Bair are, how fast his smashes are considering their range, and also how safe his dash grab is considering the insane range it gets. I play a very solid Mario player frequently and people often say Mario gives Greninja trouble because of how fast and rewarding his attacks are, but Greninja can seriously hold his own in neutral purely because of his stellar range (and reward on hit).

I'm excited to see how both Peach and Greninja develop, and I wouldn't be surprised to see either one get buffed in a future patch, too.

 

[Pazx]

I have no idea why everyone's hating on that tier list, the only glaring mistake is Rosalina being near the bottom. If someone well known had posted the same list with just 1 or 2 changes everybody would think it's completely fine. Will give comments on Apex later.

Diddy really is easy-mode but only if your opponent doesn't capitalise on your mistakes. I used him in a tourney yesterday and I don't know much about the character. Playing against a Diddy you need to capitalise on the scrubby mistakes (not autocancelling Fair, monkey flip on the ground, recovery issues, unsafe banana pluck) that players who aren't Zero will make.

 

[Nu~]

So, I started to play more pac man in FG and i noticed my Pac Man really struggles against the defensive mechanics (Shielding and Rolling) when it comes to dealing KOes. This just means I got to watch more Abadango and Kool Aid to learn more traps. Hopefully my Villager knowledge can transfer a bit into learning Pac Man's traps.

EDIT: The more I actually look at Abadango's Pac Man the more I find it difficult to beleive that he doesn't have the potential to be top 10 in Smash 4 the guy is a legit threat.

down smash is amazing for catching rolls (the range is amazing and it lingers) also a trampoline planted on the ground really limits movement. Get it between you both, and then charge to the fruit you need. If they try to approach over the trampoline, you have all the tools to punish the landing (utilt invincibility, Usmash range)
Or just use trampoline on them in the middle of their roll. It ignores rolls, shields and side steps. It really helps to patch up what we lack in our grab.

And yeah. I strongly believe we will end up in top 10 or top 15. Our grab is our only real weak spot (but villager's is worse and he is still a high tier character)

Once we find more traps to combat our lack of a decent grab (like using trampoline to pop normal defensive maneuvers) and master Z dropping techniques with the fruit, we'll be lethal.

 

[⑨ball]

I have no idea why everyone's hating on that tier list, the only glaring mistake is Rosalina being near the bottom. If someone well known had posted the same list with just 1 or 2 changes everybody would think it's completely fine. Will give comments on Apex later.

Having a tier list that's missing the character you play exclusively is a pretty bad sign.

 

[Jaguar360]

Were there any Falcos? *prepares to be disappointed*

Someone used Falco for one round (against Yoshi iirc), but he lost in a close game and switched to DK.

EDIT: 'd by ChronoPenguin

 

[outfoxd]

I don't think it it's actually hard for Duck Hunt to get KOs. All of his aerials and Utilt work as KO moves at high percents. He also has very strong edgeguarding. Actually, I would argue his edgeguarding done correctly is on par with Villager and Pikachu. Can covers a HUGE amount of options by itself, and he can edgeguard very deep with aerials. The only problem he has offstage is he is much more vulnerable to counter gimps than the other two.

Also all of his Smashes are good even though he lacks setups into them. They are all disjointed and faster than average in startup. Combine how short he is, he actually can force a lot of conventional spacing to be extremely unsafe.

Duck Hunt mostly suffers from killing later than his opposition, though unlike G&W, who also suffers from this, he does better in neutral and has better, more universally practical traps in the positive state.

Cosigning on the edge. I'm sure much better DHDs than I can control the ledge, even without connections. Establishing early respect with reverse can BS and Gunmen can scare ugly reactions. I keep saying I'm bad at reads, the dog can just make reads easier.

 

[bc1910]

Pac-man is very very gimmicky, but not in a bad way at all. I think he's a serious threat, and he can compete with the top characters (Diddy in particular) despite his terrible grab. I just hope his awful specs against Sheik don't hold him back. I can agree with top 15 though.

 

[Antonykun]

I honestly think Greninja, Peach, and Pac Man are the three hardest characters to learn in this game, but both are crazy when played properly.

Fixed

 

[⑨ball]

@ Antonykun ,what makes you say Pac Man is hard to use?

I had a brief stint with him and found him relatively easy to get a hang of.

 

[FullMoon]

Pac-Man didn't strike me as that hard to learn, though I guess having to keep track of the property of all the projectiles from Bonus Fruit can be hard.

 

[ATH_]

I think a common habit people need to stop is that people seem to assume that certain characters are bad and then not accepting evidence otherwise.

We need to be more open, especially in this game. There is no definitive BAD character other than MAYBE the Mii Swordfighter and Gunner, and even then, they have perks.

 

[Nabbitnator]

I'd like to put shulk in pacmans place having to be a stance character with properties on his moveset changing.

 

[bc1910]

I think Pac-man is pretty tough to learn as well, but there's a depth to Peach and Greninja that I don't really feel from Pac-man. Maybe it's to do with his limited options when the opponent is shielding, I don't know, but something doesn't sit right with me. Whereas Peach and Greninja have VERY high rewarding options for any situation, usually requiring minimal reads. For example, Greninja can kill from Uthrow at around 90% whether the opponent airdodges or not, he just has to read their reaction properly.

 

[FullMoon]

Oh yeah, proper management of Shulk's arts seems like it could be pretty tough as well.

 

[TriTails]

Luigi is hard to learn for me.

It's hard to get used to the extremely awkward mobility (Floaty, yet slow air speed, and no multiple jumps. You have to use THREE specials in conjuction to recover alone), and also, getting in is an issue. Not to mention how awkward his dash attack and jumping animations are, and his traction makes things wierd as well.

But I'm proud of maining Luigi, because Luigi is .

 

[bc1910]

I'd argue Luigi is relatively simple. Excellent close range game held back by God-awful mobility and mediocre recovery. That's not to say he doesn't have potential though (IMHO he's another candidate for top 15 because his advantage is THAT good), I just don't think he's as hard to figure out as other characters.

 

[Antonykun]

@ Antonykun ,what makes you say Pac Man is hard to use?

I had a brief stint with him and found him relatively easy to get a hang of.

Its the idea that Pac Man NEEDS to know what every single fruit does, have the right fruit charged, and set up said fruit to be done in seconds.
And that's just the fruit, you also need to know how the Hydrant interacts with everything, how it flies based on the attacks, the water, ect.
Those were just two moves and already Pac Man has enough learning and micro management to dwarft almost everyone. These moves btw are key to Pac Man so you better learn all of this and apply it properly or else basic defense will make you cry.

 

[hey_there]

I'd argue Luigi is relatively simple. Excellent close range game held back by God-awful mobility and mediocre recovery. That's not to say he doesn't have potential though (IMHO he's another candidate for top 15 because his advantage is THAT good), I just don't think he's as hard to figure out as other characters.

Jumpless rising cyclone is stupidly hard. Luigi for highest tech skill =3

 

[Pazx]

I think a common habit people need to stop is that people seem to assume that certain characters are bad and then not accepting evidence otherwise.

We need to be more open, especially in this game. There is no definitive BAD character other than MAYBE the Mii Swordfighter and Gunner, and even then, they have perks.

Gunner is pretty good with full customisation, and with no customisation whatsoever the "high tier" brawler is almost as bad as Swordfighter. I'm with you as far as being more open, but calling out two characters for potentially being bad is pretty... hypocritical.

also lucina is bad

 

[TriTails]

I'd argue Luigi is relatively simple. Excellent close range game held back by God-awful mobility and mediocre recovery. That's not to say he doesn't have potential though (IMHO he's another candidate for top 15 because his advantage is THAT good), I just don't think he's as hard to figure out as other characters.

His traction makes his shield slidey. Combine that with his mobility, and you'll get an awkward character.

Oh, and Luigi's mobility may be below-average, but it's not 'God-Awful'.

If you want a 'God-Awful' mobility, see Ganondorf.

Maining had been a pain in the butt. But maybe it's just me. *Remembers fighting a Lvl 9 Lucario as Luigi back then and get kicked in the butt fifthteen times in a row.*

 

[Kofu]

down smash is amazing for catching rolls (the range is amazing and it lingers) also a trampoline planted on the ground really limits movement. Get it between you both, and then charge to the fruit you need. If they try to approach over the trampoline, you have all the tools to punish the landing (utilt invincibility, Usmash range)
Or just use trampoline on them in the middle of their roll. It ignores rolls, shields and side steps. It really helps to patch up what we lack in our grab.

And yeah. I strongly believe we will end up in top 10 or top 15. Our grab is our only real weak spot (but villager's is worse and he is still a high tier character)

Once we find more traps to combat our lack of a decent grab (like using trampoline to pop normal defensive maneuvers) and master Z dropping techniques with the fruit, we'll be lethal.

I appreciate this post, it's good to hear that a Pac-Man main acknowledges that Villager's grab is worse. The rest of the post was good too, I guess.

Nah, I think both Pac-Man and Villager are good characters, with Pac-Man probably being better thanks to his better normals. He just requires a lot of finesse to use and fight against.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I have no idea why everyone's hating on that tier list, the only glaring mistake is Rosalina being near the bottom. If someone well known had posted the same list with just 1 or 2 changes everybody would think it's completely fine. Will give comments on Apex later.

Diddy really is easy-mode but only if your opponent doesn't capitalise on your mistakes. I used him in a tourney yesterday and I don't know much about the character. Playing against a Diddy you need to capitalise on the scrubby mistakes (not autocancelling Fair, monkey flip on the ground, recovery issues, unsafe banana pluck) that players who aren't Zero will make.

I think you completely missed the point why tier lists are counterproductive to this discussion. They don't actually give any useful information. They're just broad opinions, without specific material to actually discuss.

Absolutely nobody should be posting a tier list in the competitive discussion topic. It's okay to argue relative tier placement for specific characters. There's a big difference between that and just simply posting a tier list.

Also Diddy's banana pluck is more versatile than other item generation specials given he can use it as a B reverse. Also I'm pretty sure the easy mode part of him that people default to is his massive ground mobility + good ground moves and grab game, rather than any of the supposed mistakes you cited that inexperienced players would be making.

 

[Locke 06]

There are 2 things at play in terms of "learning" a character. Input skill and knowledge. Pacman, Duck Hunt, and Olimar aren't incredibly high on input skill, but the knowledge they require is very high, making them hard to learn. Greninja, Peach, and Shulk are very input heavy characters and the knowledge on how to use those inputs efficiently is also high (traction issues similar to Luigi, float, and MA switching/canceling).

Mega Man is also pretty technical if he wants to zone with a metal blade in hand. Z-drop>re-catch aerials and item-tilting/smashing. Add in consistent JCT stuff and SH lemons and someone who wants to take Mega Man to a high level has their work cut out for them. SH lemons in particular being a necessary tool that most non-Mega Man players struggle with doing consistently. http://gifyoutube.com/gif/v12eY5 Also, he's awkward AF compared to the rest of the cast. Jump after up-B, stronger utilt than usmash, nair/jab/ftilt wat.


To relate this to actually how good a character is, if you're a high knowledge character, you benefit a ton from a lack of knowledge from your opponent. If your opponent doesn't know the trajectory of each Pikmin toss and you do, or your opponent doesn't know that there's a difference between the tilt and smash DH Discus tosses, you have an advantage. In a competitive tier list, it is usually assumed that both sides have equal knowledge of the MU. At this point in time, nobody has that much knowledge, so those characters have an artificial boost.

Same with gimmicky customs like Villager's exploding balloons. After 2 hours of playing against them, I realized that he can't sweet spot the ledge after they explode, and and they don't explode unless he pulls out another pair, detonates them, or they get hit. This isn't to say those characters or moves aren't good, but I'd argue that the perception of them is higher than they should be.


Edit: At the same time... high knowledge characters can be given a slight boost because even the players of those characters haven't explored the character enough. So it might be a wash.

 

[A2ZOMG]

His traction makes his shield slidey. Combine that with his mobility, and you'll get an awkward character.

Oh, and Luigi's mobility may be below-average, but it's not 'God-Awful'.

If you want a 'God-Awful' mobility, see Ganondorf.

Maining had been a pain in the butt. But maybe it's just me. *Remembers fighting a Lvl 9 Lucario as Luigi back then and get kicked in the butt fifthteen times in a row.*

I would be more inclined to cite characters like Robin, Zelda, Kirby, and Doc as clear cut cases of mobility problems that affect multiple matchups. Ganondorf tbqh, I don't really think suffers specifically from mobility problems except maybe in like two matchups (vs Luigi and Duck Hunt imo make this most obvious). In most cases though, DA and Wizkick have to be respected by the vast majority of characters and give him a lot of burst mobility in neutral. Most of the time though, if Ganon has problems, it usually revolves around his conditional out of shield options.

 

[outfoxd]

^^^ I Only play knowledge characters because I have poor dexterity but I can at least think through things.

Edit: Because their movesets take this research, does this make their metagames intrinsically slower to develop?

 

[TriTails]

Yeah, I'm just talking on how Ganondorf is slow. He doesn't neccesarily has problems with it (Though, he has, especially against Weegee like you said).

Kirby had same running speed as Luigi, and slightly better air speed. Doc while is slower (I think?) on the ground, he is much faster in the air than Luigi.

The reason why Luigi's mobility isn't straight 'God-Awful' is his spammable Fireballs (Something that a lot of characters lacks. A solid projectile capable to be fired at the pace of a plane) and Cyclone.

He is built to chase everyone on the ground anyway, and I'd argue his running speed is quite average.

(How he is slower than Mario while in some games Luigi is faster than Mario I have no clue)

 

[thehard]

Not convinced Sheik is better than Diddy from this tournament so far. I keep seeing her let characters live to 150%+

 

[NairWizard]

Since we're on complexity, as a Pikachu main I'll say that Pika is a mixed bag when it comes to complexity.

At low levels (when you're just beginning to learn Pikachu), he is difficult to use, because knowing how to use tjolts, thunders, and quick attacks at the right moments takes experience and thought. Since all of his moves are good for multiple situations, it's also hard to know what move to use in what situation. You have to know %s for your combos and pressure strings.

At mid levels, though, he is easy to use. Once you know the basics, taking your game to the next level isn't difficult at all. It's just about tightening up your execution. Once you know what all the moves are good for, mixing them up and performing them accurately are minor steps.

But he becomes hard to use again at high levels. He has some severe limitations in his moves--no dominant options like Sheik's f-air or Diddy's up-air or Ness' b-air that you can rely on to be good in any and every clutch situation. You have to use different strategies for different matchups. Things like ledge canceling, using your frames properly after Thunder, and mixing up your edgeguarding become important too. The struggle for mid-level Pikachus to break into high-level is real, and sometimes it's hard to know if you're really there because there are certain matchups you'll still lose despite having an easy time in other matchups.

Shulk, Greninja, Peach, Pacman, and Villager are the most difficult to use, I think, with Megaman trailing slightly behind Villager (because Megaman has a good grab, basically; Villager has to work around his bad grab, and that makes him more complex).

 

[A2ZOMG]

Since we're on complexity, as a Pikachu main I'll say that Pika is a mixed bag when it comes to complexity.

At low levels (when you're just beginning to learn Pikachu), he is difficult to use, because knowing how to use tjolts, thunders, and quick attacks at the right moments takes experience and thought. Since all of his moves are good for multiple situations, it's also hard to know what move to use in what situation. You have to know %s for your combos and pressure strings.

At mid levels, though, he is easy to use. Once you know the basics, taking your game to the next level isn't difficult at all. It's just about tightening up your execution. Once you know what all the moves are good for, mixing them up and performing them accurately are minor steps.

But he becomes hard to use again at high levels. He has some severe limitations in his moves--no dominant options like Sheik's f-air or Diddy's up-air or Ness' b-air that you can rely on to be good in any and every clutch situation. You have to use different strategies for different matchups. Things like ledge canceling, using your frames properly after Thunder, and mixing up your edgeguarding become important too. The struggle for mid-level Pikachus to break into high-level is real, and sometimes it's hard to know if you're really there because there are certain matchups you'll still lose despite having an easy time in other matchups.

Shulk, Greninja, Peach, Pacman, and Villager are the most difficult to use, I think, with Megaman trailing slightly behind Villager (because Megaman has a good grab, basically; Villager has to work around his bad grab, and that makes him more complex).

Outside of Pikachu's technical requirement, I honestly don't quite agree with you about his "limitations". By playing Pikachu, you actually put a lot of limitations on what your opponent is allowed to do because he's just so small, meaning several characters basically aren't allowed to do aerials against him in neutral. That by itself is very abusable.

This is half the reason why Ness is a very good character in this game. He's a small character which forces a lot of things, especially spacing aerials, to be unsafe against him.

 

[Ffamran]

Not convinced Sheik is better than Diddy from this tournament so far. I keep seeing her let characters live to 150%+

Isn't that a Sheik thing that everyone agreed on?

 

[David Viran]

Isn't that a Sheik thing that everyone agreed on?

Some people try to argue against it and when I saw mr. R against nietono's wario and he lived to 180% every stock it seemed pretty clear.

 

[ATH_]

Gunner is pretty good with full customisation, and with no customisation whatsoever the "high tier" brawler is almost as bad as Swordfighter. I'm with you as far as being more open, but calling out two characters for potentially being bad is pretty... hypocritical.

also lucina is bad

I was saying that they were the only two that I could understand, however, they still have lots of perks.

 

[HeroMystic]

Some people try to argue against it and when I saw mr. R against nietono's wario and he lived to 180% every stock it seemed pretty clear.

It really depends on if the Sheik player can mindgame her opponent into Vanish or Bouncing Fish. U-air is her only legit KO move from a set-up, and B-air can kill with a hard read.

 

[David Viran]

It really depends on if the Sheik player can mindgame her opponent into Vanish or Bouncing Fish. U-air is her only legit KO move from a set-up, and B-air can kill with a hard read.

Yeah thats the problem really good players can avoid her good ko moves.

 

[NairWizard]

Outside of Pikachu's technical requirement, I honestly don't quite agree with you about his "limitations". By playing Pikachu, you actually put a lot of limitations on what your opponent is allowed to do because he's just so small, meaning several characters basically aren't allowed to do aerials against him in neutral.

My extensive Pikachu experience leads me to disagree. In the same vein, perhaps, as that in which no one seems to believe that Mario has limitations, yet your experience leads you to believe otherwise?

Ribbing aside, Pikachu's limitations are these:

1) Against an opponent trying to avoid KOs, Pikachu can't afford to fish for up-smash and f-smash because he is light, so trades and punishes go pretty poorly for him. Pikachu doesn't have Sheik's safe burst KO option (bouncing fish) or a setup from a throw like Diddy (the up-throw setups into Thunder aren't DI'ed properly, though to be fair neither is Diddy's--even after DI he can usually land it, at least). Pikachu's KO moves aren't naturally safe. You have to bait an attack on your shield into JC up-smash or punish a ledge getup/roll with a pivot f-smash against characters who aren't particularly susceptible to your edgeguarding.

2) His mediocre range outside of Thunder negatively affects his edgeguarding as characters like Sheik can simply hit Pikachu away when he is trying to land an aerial offstage.

3) Lightness makes trading even below KO percents unfavorable. You can't just expect to f-air against characters like Yoshi and get away with it. Mixing up becomes important because no single move in Pikachu's kit is good enough to use repeatedly without running into a trade, except for Tjolt.

4) His poor airspeed means that he is susceptible to walling tactics. Against a Mario or Yoshi spacing quick aerials, it is hard to get in outside of quick attack, for example. As with #3 above, you have to work around this limitation in matchups by using different combinations of ground and aerial moves. In my experience, b-air is pretty useless vs. Mario, but great against Yoshi, whereas up-air is not so useful against Yoshi, but great against Mario. Another Top Tier like Diddy doesn't have to mix up his game plan nearly as much: f-air and up-air are great in just about every MU, without exception (maybe against Pacman you don't use up-air quite as much because of hydrant or something).

 

[Locke 06]

Edit: Because their movesets take this research, does this make their metagames intrinsically slower to develop?

Not exactly. Depending on the community of the character, their development may be faster than simpler characters. A great example is Shulk vs Charizard. I've recently picked up Shulk and the Shulk boards are constantly coming up with new combos and exploring new things about the Monado Arts. Not to rag on the Charizard boards (since I haven't actually looked), but many people still liken him to Bowser which is straight up false. The amount of progress on various character boards' matchup threads vary from going over 2 matchups to going over 12. That said, the placement of underdeveloped characters in the meta can be very volatile since a discovery could shift that placement significantly one way or the other.

RE: Sheik, I think the idea of "relative health" comes into play. She racks up 150% like most characters rack up 100%. The only reason why it's worth being a "weakness" is because of rage and player mindsets. And it's not hard to kill with a 4 frame BAir on stage or FAir off the edge, especially when you have a million moves that are safe on shield/win neutral like she does.

 

[Smash_Veteran_Amtoj]

Have there been ANY Links at Apex? I've seen some crazy Shulk plays, and they helped me learn a lot, but no Link...