Character Competitive Impressions

[SamuraiPanda]

I've been playing a lot of Shulk again recently. He was the character I thought I'd main going into the game based on his playstyle from what I saw. I was immensely dissapointed with him. But I'm still putting my time into him.

Shulk is a horrible character that REQUIRES a stance to become a better character. But his stances aren't as great as one would hope at times. Blue is his most useful all-around one that works in tons of situations (especially at low percents), but the decreased damage dealt hurts him quite a bit and makes this stance fall short of always being the best one.

Green may actually be his best at mid to high percents because he lands a hit and then can follow up at absurd distances and angles, and this is the ONLY DECENT STANCE that does not decrease his damage output. Green is also incredible for stalling. Need blue to get in versus a campy player? Stall by jumping around with Green until blue is back up. I think Green may actually be his best stance.

Yellow may be best used if you take a stock and are at a high percent when they come back. Lets you rack up some free damage. If you're really evil you stall with Green when Yellow is down. Yellow is greatly hindered because it also decreases his damage.

Purple is garbage. Like I said, Shulk is actually a really bad character at baseline. Purple does not affect his attributes in any meaningful way so you are left with a vanilla Shulk that does more damage with less hitstun and TAKES more damage as well. I can't find a situation for purple to be useful yet but I haven't spent time experimenting in training mode yet.

Red is really situational. The best time I've found to use if is if you are at a low percent and the opponent is at a high percent (like if you come back after they took your first stock, or if you are destroying them one-sidedly). The worst time to use it is when you are both at a high percent because (as far as I've found) your increase in knockback taken is greater than the increase in knockback given. Down throw in red is a decent kill option.

I wish Shulk was better. I struggle in matches with Shulk that I can roflstomp with a handful of other characters. The gamecube controller will help him a lot but I don't think it will help him enough. We'll see though.

 

[Cherubas]

Batting back cannonballs never gets old. Speaking of Ness, how do you guys feel he's faring now that we've had plenty of time to play with him?

I think Ness is pretty good. He's been my main in every game so far (sharing that spot with Bj in this one) and they always seem to shift his power around, making some moves stronger and faster and other moves weaker. In this game I really like his fair and his yo-yos seem pretty good but the spike... I used to love to put on my bumblebee suit and hit people with the stinger, but to me it feels like it's been very heavily nerfed in this game. The sweet spot is less forgiving, and the meteor effect is way weaker. Even when you compare it to other characters, Ness (mind you I never mined the data, I just went on what I could see) felt like he had the most powerful spike of anyone in brawl, challenged only by maybe Ganondorf or something, but in this game even Diddy's spike feels better than Ness'.

That just brings me back to what I said at the start though, Ness' power always gets shifted around. In this game the spike is not where his power lies. His PKT is different which I still need to adjust to so that I can make accurate off-screen PKT2s. Having a gamecube controller will probably "buff" Ness. And although some of his particle effects may not be that great, I love his huge Psi Magnet and the swirly absorb it does.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

I see where you are coming from Panda as I have had similar thoughts.
Smash is problematic, it's not safe at any % basically.
Buster is alright. Reality is Shield is the best, jump combo'd with shield is strong legivity and Speed is your punish game.
I wouldn't say he needs a stance, only thing he ocassionally needs depending on the match-up is Speed.
If anything he should be using M-arts like any other B-move....ocassionally. The more I play Shulk the less priority I put on taking an Art, and if I do it's speed for the sole purpose of allowing me to actually punish some lag. Yet all in all Shield so much defensive significance I still rate it better than Speed.

He has M-art cancel however You generally don't want to be throwing your M-arts on CD just to get one move out of an aerial, it's also telegraphed notably.

I got to say I dont like Jump, it's entirely off-stage based and to me shouldn't be messed with on-stage. It doesn't decrease your damage but instead increases your damage taken which results in more knockback.
You basically have
Jump, Buster and Smash as 3 " It will be problematic for me to be hit" stances. Which frankly makes them all situational. Only ones you can consistently afford are Speed and Shield.

Shulk is iffy on a baseline, his money is in speed, Jump edge guard, and Shield tanking. Buster is entirely about risk/reward. Even still he has to value his base because its lack of trade-offs makes it valid in itself.
Counter has to be respected, and Air-Slash has K.O potential.
Back-Slash is wonky but can actually get projectiles in a pinch, has good range and priority, laggy as hell though. His jab is frankly ass in my opinion. His aerials except U-air are all decent, D-air being a bit of an issue in its range.

 

[MM720]

I dunno if he's ever been mentioned on this thread but Weegee Luigi seems good in this game. (Luigi is too neglected)

His combo game is really strong (it's possible to do dthrow>sourspot nair>grab/dthrow>uair>fair at low percent and dthrow>ftilt>ftilt>sweetspotUpB at medium percent + more).

He's got lots of weak points though. None of his aerials are reliable at KOing until 150% or so (and even then you're more reliant on them failing their recovery) and his smashes (while good) still aren't particularily powerful. The fact that he's so slippery also sometimes hinders you a lot (you can fail to punish stuff like Bowser's down B or Link's dair just because they push you way too far).

Like in the other games, Luigi is a "high-risk, high-reward" character. Doing a early combo> Up B or good edgeguards can win you games really easily (0-death isn't that hard if you get a good lead and pace). On the other hand, if they manage to combo you or they get the early advantage then it's hard to catch up (especially against people like Zelda and Rosalina). Luigi's recovery is also very predictable and easily gimped by either meteor smashes, footstools or plain stopping the side-B by jumping into it off-stage)

Personally I don't think Luigi's gonna be a great character in competitive play, but still fun to play as and very satisfying when you 0-death someone quickly :3

 

[Terotrous]

I dunno if he's ever been mentioned on this thread but Weegee Luigi seems good in this game. (Luigi is too neglected)

Honestly he seems fairly similar to Melee Luigi to me. Nair still blows up your combos, and with vectoring it's now even more of a threat than its ever been. Beyond that he's fast and has good aerials but who knows how he's going to get that stock off.

I've never really believed that he's bottom tier (people place him there in both PM and this game), but I would be surprised if he's any higher than mid.

 

[Running Low]

First i though Little Mac couldn't do anything against Rosaluma even if played correctly, with proper spacing of Luma she could push Mac offstage on distance with no problems but... then i saw this video.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kX5n2VYY0rU&fulldescription=1&client=mv-google&gl=US&hl=es

Little Mac can get around Luma actually pretty fast and once he does it is a little hard to defense herself from his attacks. I think this Rosaluma was played correctly for the spacing, i think he could be a problem for her anyways.

And he's gimping thing appears to work with her, if I'm not wrong.

I don't main him to be clear, but i think that to decide how a MU would go we should we should consider all the options that both characters have.

 

[Starfall11]

Excessive Shulk Criticism

Head over to the Shulk threads bud. He's really far from a bad character. Speed and Jump give him excellent mobility and mixups that are unmatched by most of the cast. Buster has its uses in certain matchups, and is best used at mid-percents to continue combos that wouldn't be possible otherwise. It's far from useless.

Tier placement is still highly speculative until the WiiU version comes out and we see placement in tournaments. Shulk is looking mid-tier at worse though since he has a lot of options at his disposal. He's an extremely tough character to play though, and has a high skill cap. I don't think people should be dismissing him just yet. He has high endlag on all of his attacks, but excellent range and mobility, which is important in a game like Smash.

 

[ChikoLad]

First i though Little Mac couldn't do anything against Rosaluma even if played correctly, with proper spacing of Luma she could push Mac offstage on distance with no problems but... then i saw this video.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kX5n2VYY0rU&fulldescription=1&client=mv-google&gl=US&hl=es

Little Mac can get around Luma actually pretty fast and once he does it is a little hard to defense herself from his attacks. I think this Rosaluma was played correctly for the spacing, i think he could be a problem for her anyways.

And he's gimping thing appears to work with her, if I'm not wrong.

I don't main him to be clear, but i think that to decide how a MU would go we should we should consider all the options that both characters have.

That isn't a very good reference. That Rosalina player wasn't very good, since the Little Mac player was playing much like any I've faced (save for the gimp thing), yet I don't get beat up nearly as much. She was being very basic it looked like, not doig anything very tricky either.

Also, the gimp thing at the end only worked because the Rosalina player messed up the angle on Launch Star. Launch Star takes Rosalina from the magnifying glass to the ledge no problem if aimed vertically. This player barely even left the magnifying glass, meaning they aimed it horizontally by accident. This is actually an issue a lot of Rosalina players have only because the 3DS Circle Pad is not adequate for aiming Launch Star correctly 100% of the time.

 

[RWB]

That isn't a very good reference. That Rosalina player wasn't very good, since the Little Mac player was playing much like any I've faced (save for the gimp thing), yet I don't get beat up nearly as much. She was being very basic it looked like, not doig anything very tricky either.

Also, the gimp thing at the end only worked because the Rosalina player messed up the angle on Launch Star. Launch Star takes Rosalina from the magnifying glass to the ledge no problem if aimed vertically. This player barely even left the magnifying glass, meaning they aimed it horizontally by accident. This is actually an issue a lot of Rosalina players have only because the 3DS Circle Pad is not adequate for aiming Launch Star correctly 100% of the time.

The Mac is played by InfernoOmni, so I'm assuming some of his skill in earlier games have carried over. But yeah, rather meh Rosa.

EDIT: It's a footstool at the end, Omni does them in a lot of his Gimp master videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTee2VTkey4

Footstool on Rosa here as well.

 

[SamuraiPanda]

Head over to the Shulk threads bud. He's really far from a bad character. Speed and Jump give him excellent mobility and mixups that are unmatched by most of the cast. Buster has its uses in certain matchups, and is best used at mid-percents to continue combos that wouldn't be possible otherwise. It's far from useless.

Tier placement is still highly speculative until the WiiU version comes out and we see placement in tournaments. Shulk is looking mid-tier at worse though since he has a lot of options at his disposal. He's an extremely tough character to play though, and has a high skill cap. I don't think people should be dismissing him just yet. He has high endlag on all of his attacks, but excellent range and mobility, which is important in a game like Smash.

Yeah so no character in Smash 4 is that bad.

Buster reduces hitstun along with knockback so no it doesn't really allow for new combos. I said nothing about tiers.

 

[Berserker.]

The hitsun pretty much is the reason why I just go with Jump or Speed instead. It may not be as damaging but at least I'm not taking as much damage and at least I'm much more mobile. I rarely go on smash

Oh and, buster combos only kick in at 60-80% but it's not that consistent. Sometimes or hell even most of the time, the hitsun is still lacking

 

[ChikoLad]

The Mac is played by InfernoOmni, so I'm assuming some of his skill in earlier games have carried over. But yeah, rather meh Rosa.

EDIT: It's a footstool at the end, Omni does them in a lot of his Gimp master videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTee2VTkey4

Footstool on Rosa here as well.

Yeah, but she could have recovered from both of those footstools is what I mean. She just messed up the angling of Launch Star in both instances.

The KOs were the Rosalina player's (or the Circle Pad's) fault for messing up Launch Star after being footstooled. The Mac player didn't really do anything in those cases beyond what I'd expect any good Mac player to do. The Rosalina player was not up to snuff at all though. That's why I think those videos don't say anything about the match-up in general.

 

[HiNiTe]

I don't get why people think Greninja is trouble for her. Sheik is the better ninja against Rosalina if you ask me, and even she is more than manageable.

Because Greninja's moves are safer to land on Rosalina than would be Sheik's and Greninja can juggle Rosalina better, which is problematic for her.

 

[ChikoLad]

Because Greninja's moves are safer to land on Rosalina than would be Sheik's and Greninja can juggle Rosalina better, which is problematic for her.

It's only problematic if Rosalina lets herself get juggled though, which shouldn't happen to begin with, since she has plenty of tools to get out of juggling (and even more to prevent it from happening in the first place). And Sheik has a much more useful projectile (Water Shuriken can be seen coming from a mile away and the charge cannot be held), and has faster moves in general.

Greninja is probably a little better against her in the air than Sheik is, but not by much. Sheik is certainly much more useful against Rosalina on the ground though.

 

[epicgordan]

It's only problematic if Rosalina lets herself get juggled though, which shouldn't happen to begin with, since she has plenty of tools to get out of juggling (and even more to prevent it from happening in the first place). And Sheik has a much more useful projectile (Water Shuriken can be seen coming from a mile away and the charge cannot be held), and has faster moves in general.

Greninja is probably a little better against her in the air than Sheik is, but not by much. Sheik is certainly much more useful against Rosalina on the ground though.

Off the top of my head, Greninja matches up against Rosalina best on a stage where his shadow cannot be so easily seen, and most definitely when Rosalina is offstage. This is because Greninja and his Hydro Pump are the best edgeguarding techniques in the game when used properly. Granted, Rosalina isn't an easy character to edgeguard, but it forces the opponent to either used Gravity Pull to nullify Hydro Pump, and wait for the cooldown to pass to use Launch Star (and risk getting killed in the process), or carefully aim Launch Star away from the Hydro Pump--which in theory is the much better option, but leaves her vulnerable to free fall. And yes, you can theoretically aim Launch Star downwards, but so can Greninja with his Hydro Pump.

But yes, that just makes Greninja that much better in the air than Sheik. In actuality, Sheik's ground game is a terror to deal with.

 

[Terotrous]

Shockwave has two very good Little Macs and a Rosalina player, though unfortunately they didn't get matched up this week.

 

[CatRaccoonBL]

(Oh hey great timing, Rosalina Discussion)

I've been playing Rosalina ever since Smash 3ds came out in the US. Rosalina is the type of character who is good at making people make mistakes and then punishing them for it. This is all due to the fact that the opponent has to deal with two characters at once.

Hit Luma but not Rosalina? Now you are open for Rosalina to attack you. Knocked Rosalina off the stage? Don't forget about Luma. Not to mention a lot of her moves have great startup, like her dash attack, Luma's starbits, down tilt and forward tilt, down smash. Etc.

Her custom moves are...bad. Not going to lie. The only main useful for one is Speedy Starbits. Speedy starbits allow nice chip damage from far away and can provide range that Rosalina needs. Catch and Release is very disappointing. The attack comes out too late and doesn't have an output that is worth it anyway. There are two other potentially useful ones being Luma Warp and Guardian Luma. I'll get to the latter one later. With all that said, she at the very least, has the tools to do her job well enough.

So matchups. RosaLuma are really good against character who don't have much mobility options and have generally overall ending lag on their moves. Bowser is a good example. Characters like bowser don't have too many ways of going about the stage, and a lot of his moves can be easily punished by her after use.

So Rosaluma have a lot of good matchups...for now. People are correct in saying that once people get to know her, they will have an easier time against her by a lot. Not to mention the piercing projectile customs will most likely pose a problem.

I believe overall, Rosalina has a decent amount of matchups in her favor and 50/50. With that said, the characters I see Rosalina having the most problems with are especially problematic. Rosalina seems to have a hard time with characters that are very mobile like Fox, ZSS, and Sheik. They have lots of tools to deal with Rosalina.

ZSS's stun gun is annoying and can easily cause Rosalina and her luma to be stunned long enough to do great damage and put her in the air. The air is a bad spot to be against ZSS. ZSS has some great aerials, but she also has her up smash, and her Up-special. All making for a bad spot for Rosalina to be in.

Sheik has her projectiles that can stun Luma at the worst moments allowing Sheik to get in Rosalina's face and cause quite a bit of damage.

Fox has a reflector as well as the ability to move around quickly and annoy the heck out of Rosalina with his blaster. His up-smash is also great against her if you time it just right.

Rosalina is also good at being juggled, which is also a thing all three, (not to sure about Fox granted), are generally good at doing. It doesn't help that it seems Rosalina is trumped quite close to the edge.

With all that said, there is one potential saving grace. I've been using a custom called Guardian Luma. I've been using this custom quite a bit. In a lot of circumstances it can be better then Gravitational pull. What it is is a giant frontal shield that can pretty much take anything and also do damage to the opponent. It's really good at catching people off guard.

The downsides are of course it has a bit of start-up and it is useless without Luma, but I think the trade-off is worth it, especially to deal with the more annoying moves and to have something to use against non-projectile characters. Hopefully, I can face a sheik, ZSS, or Fox to see how this holds up.

Overall, I think she is a strong character, I'm a little worried about her viability in the future, but I think she has a good chance of keeping up.

Lastly, I've seen some talk that she needs nerfs, and I disagree. Especially in the recovery department. If her recovery was tied to Luma, she could potentially drop to worst character I think. Because the thing that needs to be understood is that unlike Nana, Luma can be killed in one hit by a lot of moves if you play smart. Saying that, if Luma was tied to her recovery, all people would have to do is gimp Luma while Rosalina is trying to recover, and it would be so easy to. As for time it takes for Luma to respawn, I think it is fair...MAYBE just a few seconds longer, but nothing too drastic. Like I said before, Luma can be killed in one hit, which can make it hard to even use him sometimes. I had plenty of moments where he respanwns while the opponent is attacking and he goes right back off the stage.

Rosalina is balanced I feel. People just need to learn her. Both people playing her, and people playing against her. I can easily see her not being viable in the future, and I can also see her being one of the better characters of the game. Rosalina is so interesting and I'm still excited to see what the more pro-players discover about her.

 

[Starfall11]

Yeah so no character in Smash 4 is that bad.

Buster reduces hitstun along with knockback so no it doesn't really allow for new combos. I said nothing about tiers.

It does allow for combos that are not possible around 40-50%. An example would be SH Nair > Jab Combo. Works at 0% in Vanilla Shulk, but Nair hits them too far back mid-percent. If you switch to Buster, you can land the same combo at a higher percent since it reduces knockback.

I didn't mean to imply you said anything about tiers. I just don't think the character should be dismissed early on.

 

[ChikoLad]

(Oh hey great timing, Rosalina Discussion)

I've been playing Rosalina ever since Smash 3ds came out in the US. Rosalina is the type of character who is good at making people make mistakes and then punishing them for it. This is all due to the fact that the opponent has to deal with two characters at once.

Hit Luma but not Rosalina? Now you are open for Rosalina to attack you. Knocked Rosalina off the stage? Don't forget about Luma. Not to mention a lot of her moves have great startup, like her dash attack, Luma's starbits, down tilt and forward tilt, down smash. Etc.

Her custom moves are...bad. Not going to lie. The only main useful for one is Speedy Starbits. Speedy starbits allow nice chip damage from far away and can provide range that Rosalina needs. Catch and Release is very disappointing. The attack comes out too late and doesn't have an output that is worth it anyway. There are two other potentially useful ones being Luma Warp and Guardian Luma. I'll get to the latter one later. With all that said, she at the very least, has the tools to do her job well enough.

So matchups. RosaLuma are really good against character who don't have much mobility options and have generally overall ending lag on their moves. Bowser is a good example. Characters like bowser don't have too many ways of going about the stage, and a lot of his moves can be easily punished by her after use.

So Rosaluma have a lot of good matchups...for now. People are correct in saying that once people get to know her, they will have an easier time against her by a lot. Not to mention the piercing projectile customs will most likely pose a problem.

I believe overall, Rosalina has a decent amount of matchups in her favor and 50/50. With that said, the characters I see Rosalina having the most problems with are especially problematic. Rosalina seems to have a hard time with characters that are very mobile like Fox, ZSS, and Sheik. They have lots of tools to deal with Rosalina.

ZSS's stun gun is annoying and can easily cause Rosalina and her luma to be stunned long enough to do great damage and put her in the air. The air is a bad spot to be against ZSS. ZSS has some great aerials, but she also has her up smash, and her Up-special. All making for a bad spot for Rosalina to be in.

Sheik has her projectiles that can stun Luma at the worst moments allowing Sheik to get in Rosalina's face and cause quite a bit of damage.

Fox has a reflector as well as the ability to move around quickly and annoy the heck out of Rosalina with his blaster. His up-smash is also great against her if you time it just right.

Rosalina is also good at being juggled, which is also a thing all three, (not to sure about Fox granted), are generally good at doing. It doesn't help that it seems Rosalina is trumped quite close to the edge.

With all that said, there is one potential saving grace. I've been using a custom called Guardian Luma. I've been using this custom quite a bit. In a lot of circumstances it can be better then Gravitational pull. What it is is a giant frontal shield that can pretty much take anything and also do damage to the opponent. It's really good at catching people off guard.

The downsides are of course it has a bit of start-up and it is useless without Luma, but I think the trade-off is worth it, especially to deal with the more annoying moves and to have something to use against non-projectile characters. Hopefully, I can face a sheik, ZSS, or Fox to see how this holds up.

Overall, I think she is a strong character, I'm a little worried about her viability in the future, but I think she has a good chance of keeping up.

Lastly, I've seen some talk that she needs nerfs, and I disagree. Especially in the recovery department. If her recovery was tied to Luma, she could potentially drop to worst character I think. Because the thing that needs to be understood is that unlike Nana, Luma can be killed in one hit by a lot of moves if you play smart. Saying that, if Luma was tied to her recovery, all people would have to do is gimp Luma while Rosalina is trying to recover, and it would be so easy to. As for time it takes for Luma to respawn, I think it is fair...MAYBE just a few seconds longer, but nothing too drastic. Like I said before, Luma can be killed in one hit, which can make it hard to even use him sometimes. I had plenty of moments where he respanwns while the opponent is attacking and he goes right back off the stage.

Rosalina is balanced I feel. People just need to learn her. Both people playing her, and people playing against her. I can easily see her not being viable in the future, and I can also see her being one of the better characters of the game. Rosalina is so interesting and I'm still excited to see what the more pro-players discover about her.

I can't respond to all of this right now, but:

-Rosalina's customs are far from terrible. She's one of the few characters who's customs are actually all viable options. Which ones to use are really dependant on the match up, or user preferences.

-Rosalina is way more than viable, and always will be. Characters usually fall from a tier drastically when it is discovered they are a one trick pony (Bowser is looking to be that in this game). Rosalina arguably has more tricks up her sleeve than anyone else in the game, and we are still discovering new ones nearly every day. A character like that doesn't just become unviable out of nowhere.

-I agree with ZSS being troublesome, but I don't think it will stay that way forever. You are greatly exaggerating how good fast characters are against her though, especially Fox and Sheik. I'm gonna need more than a few needles to be convinced Sheik has this huge advantage against Rosalina. Because I just had a match against a fine Sheik player, managed to SD myself early on, I got careless and let them build my damage up to like 100%, and I STILL won the match. And no, it did not go to sudden death. And they did not accidentally SD (final kill was me knocking them too far to recover from).

 

[Jaur]

Donkey Kong is so bad. His badness is compounded by the online lag, but he is really awful. Even his fastest, safest option, jab combo, is interruptible by several other character's jab combos. In other words, if DK is jab comboing you, you can mash jab and hit him out of it. All of his moves have huge start-up and cooldown frames. His recovery isn't very good, and his grab range (and range in general) is laughable. Poor Donkey Kong.

 

[OddCrow]

Donkey Kong is so bad. His badness is compounded by the online lag, but he is really awful. Even his fastest, safest option, jab combo, is interruptible by several other character's jab combos. In other words, if DK is jab comboing you, you can mash jab and hit him out of it. All of his moves have huge start-up and cooldown frames. His recovery isn't very good, and his grab range (and range in general) is laughable. Poor Donkey Kong.

DK is very good, he lives a looong time, has no trouble killing, and has a good toolkit of moves.

 

[Shaya]

The problem is that without him, she's still probably a top 5 character, Luma just pushes her to another level above most of the other top tier contenders who aren't Sheik.

I feel like you're suffering a little bit of Zelda syndrome.
Rosalina by herself is very good, don't get me wrong, but she's good because you're forced to approach her.
She has big hitboxes and likes to stall until luma is around if you get rid of her. If there were no Luma, she'd get nothing out of stalling, and players wouldn't need to approach her at all. And that's where Zelda went into the pits from perceived upper mid tier early on in Brawl to a bottom 3 (or 2) character.
That character has nothing safe on shield by themselves.
That character has no approach at all. Straight up.
Her kill power by herself is mediocre at best, with only one or two solid moves by herself.

Without Luma she would not be top 5. It's so silly to think that she can hold any semblance of strength against characters where the weakness of her size and lightweight would result in outright disemboweling by most of the cast if she actually had to fight people.

Any character who forces approaches and can punish approaches is going to be annoying.
Nearly every character can punish someone approaching them, but not are so conclusively polarizing in their ability to have the game in their pace as Rosalina + Luma.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I feel like you're suffering a little bit of Zelda syndrome.
Rosalina by herself is very good, don't get me wrong, but she's good because you're forced to approach her.
She has big hitboxes and likes to stall until luma is around if you get rid of her. If there were no Luma, she'd get nothing out of stalling, and players wouldn't need to approach her at all. And that's where Zelda went into the pits from perceived upper mid tier early on in Brawl to a bottom 3 (or 2) character.
That character has nothing safe on shield by themselves.
That character has no approach at all. Straight up.
Her kill power by herself is mediocre at best, with only one or two solid moves by herself.

Without Luma she would not be top 5. It's so silly to think that she can hold any semblance of strength against characters where the weakness of her size and lightweight would result in outright disemboweling by most of the cast if she actually had to fight people.

Any character who forces approaches and can punish approaches is going to be annoying.
Nearly every character can punish someone approaching them, but not are so conclusively polarizing in their ability to have the game in their pace as Rosalina + Luma.

Basically this. Rosalina can adequately defend herself without Luma since she still has long range tilts, disjointed aerials, and Gravitational Pull. But Luma is really the key to her offense and stage control. Without it, she struggles to kill, she struggles to keep the opponent where she wants them, and she struggles to be anywhere near as annoying to fight against.

It doesn't help that her recovery, as flexible as it is, remains completely non-threatening unless you take the custom option that gives it a hitbox but halves its distance.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

It does allow for combos that are not possible around 40-50%. An example would be SH Nair > Jab Combo. Works at 0% in Vanilla Shulk, but Nair hits them too far back mid-percent. If you switch to Buster, you can land the same combo at a higher percent since it reduces knockback.

I didn't mean to imply you said anything about tiers. I just don't think the character should be dismissed early on.

I think Shulks relative strength is not clear at the moment. 1000 games played and I can't tell you if he's poor or good. Im waiting to go through more match-up data, but tbh in this early part of Smash life, Shulks acceptance will be how he stacks against the perceived best.

 

[Novice_Brave]

Shulk is a strange beast indeed. His arts, though, should be given a bit more credit. I think they're a very strange mechanic, but one that can benefit him in a really nice but strange way - and yes, sometimes I think its better to go without an art at all for a bit. His attacks all hurt though, in terms of the damage they deal. Buster ftilt is what, 17? Like, jeez! He can rack up that percent with just a few hits. I'd say he's pretty good... but it's difficult to say for sure.

 

[VGPhaze]

Rosalina's only iffy match-up is Zero Suit Samus right now. Because of Neutral B and Down B more than anything.

ZSS' range probably helps too. Can side B reach through Luma to hit Rosalina?

 

[Luco]

ZSS' range probably helps too. Can side B reach through Luma to hit Rosalina?

It would depend on whether Luma's been sent out or not but as a general rule I would be surprised if it didn't.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

ZSS' range probably helps too. Can side B reach through Luma to hit Rosalina?

Provided Luma isn't too far away in the first place then yes. In its normal linked state where it just floats beside Rosalina, definitely. Penetrating projectiles in general go right through it too.

I fought a really good ZSS in For Glory today that beat me pretty soundly. Paralyzer stops Luma cold and I wasn't able to figure out how to deal with Flip Jump before losing. And usmash beats all of Rosalina's aerials clean because its range is massive. (Dair is usually decent at stuffing usmashes and utilts since it's got a pretty big disjoint.)

 

[HiNiTe]

I fought a really good ZSS in For Glory today that beat me pretty soundly. Paralyzer stops Luma cold and I wasn't able to figure out how to deal with Flip Jump before losing.

Rosalina's Nair usually helps with Flip Jump, I'd say, as I fought a similar ZSS with Rosa before and it seemed to work well.

 

[Terotrous]

I feel like you're suffering a little bit of Zelda syndrome.
Rosalina by herself is very good, don't get me wrong, but she's good because you're forced to approach her.

There's no question that that's part of what makes her so dangerous, but I still think you're undervaluing her normals and grabs, they are straight up on par with other good characters. She might not be top 5 if Luma literally didn't exist at all and her B and forward B moves were just nothing, but she's probably still got the tools to be at least mid tier, rather than the absolute bottom of bottom tier that Sopo and Nolimar are.

 

[thesage]

NESS STUFF THAT I CUT OUT

I honestly think Ness is actually decent this time around. Dair is slower, but it has a huge hitbox. You can stand on the ledge and spike people. He traded power for the fact that it's now a true spike and will kill people above 100% always if it hits.

Yoyos are useful.

Pkt juggling is significantly safer.

Pk fire is still a noobkiller move and only that really. Not that good at higher levels of play since you can get out of it in so many ways.

He has sh double aerials. Nair and bair are both good and semi safe on shields if spaced properly and the opponent slides a lot. Uair kills and has a better animation than brawl. No grab release stuff. Pkt customs and lucas' pk fire can be useful alternatives to his moves depending on the matchcup. I think he's definitely going to be at least mid/high tier this game.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Shulk is a strange beast indeed. His arts, though, should be given a bit more credit. I think they're a very strange mechanic, but one that can benefit him in a really nice but strange way - and yes, sometimes I think its better to go without an art at all for a bit. His attacks all hurt though, in terms of the damage they deal. Buster ftilt is what, 17? Like, jeez! He can rack up that percent with just a few hits. I'd say he's pretty good... but it's difficult to say for sure.

Players need to value shield more. Speed decreases damage 28%, shield 30% a mere 2% difference, yet Shield has a better ratio with your opponent because it decreases their damage 33%. As a result its really 3% in Shulks favor + weight at the cost of movement speed. The damage reduction Shulk has is minor given the opponent receives the same reduction.
Its too good.
IMO for Shulk every character with poor K.O potential gets walled out pretty hard by Shulk, who has what ftilt, Dsmash,U-Smash,fsmash,air slash,ftilt and backslash as K.O options. Unless they gimp very well Shulk is fairly comfortable with even trades. His struggle is making results with his delays but Buster is a 20% damage advantage over the opposition and a 40% acceleration which works out fine as even if he gets to a high % himself, he has Shield to be the heaviest character in the game.

 

[Z'zgashi]

Shield sucks, Id rather be able to actually avoid the attack rather than just survive it. Now, if shield also did something additional like gave Smashes super armor or something, THEN it'd be worth it, but losing maneuverability, stage control, and safety both offensively AND defensively just isnt worth a small increase in weight.

 

[adom4]

Shield sucks, Id rather be able to actually avoid the attack rather than just survive it. Now, if shield also did something additional like gave Smashes super armor or something, THEN it'd be worth it, but losing maneuverability, stage control, and safety both offensively AND defensively just isnt worth a small increase in weight.

The weight boost is bigger than you think, he actually becomes even heavier than Bowser (Not by a small amount either):
http://smashboards.com/threads/smash-4-weight-rankings.367479/
It also makes his shield alot stronger.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Shulk's alright, it's just very hard to play him on the 3DS imo. Retreating fair and DACUS are two important options that will only be available on the Wii U version. It'll also take a while until Shulk players figure out optimal use of Monado Arts because it's slightly different for every matchup. Then you have to take into account that certain ATs have yet to be implemented into Shulks game - being able to cancel the ending lag of moves through Monado Art activation is huge. Once players start refining Shulk's edgeguarding game some more and abuse the rage mechanics I think the character can be quite a threat, it'll just take a long time until players get there. I think he'll perform respectably in almost every matchup eventually. Rosalina is the only one who seems REALLY bad for Shulk but she's OP anyway and people will start complaining about her in the near future.

You know who seems really bad? ... Robin. She is slow, lacks mobility and completely lacks the tools to break most characters' defenses. Fast-paced characters can just hit and run against her. Characters with a good projectile game can wall her out for days. People overrate the character because of Nairo imo but once Nakat figured out the matchup with Ness he'd stop losing to his Robin. Things will only get worse when other people start doing similar things as Nakat does. Frankly, Robin seems to be nothing more than a buffed Ganondorf with projectiles, disjointed hitboxes and a better recovery. I don't see much of a future for that character.

 

[KlefkiHolder]

You know who seems really bad? ... Robin. Frankly, Robin seems to be nothing more than a buffed Ganondorf with projectiles, disjointed hitboxes and a better recovery. I don't see much of a future for that character.

Is this supposed to be a bad thing?

 

[Z'zgashi]

The weight boost is bigger than you think, he actually becomes even heavier than Bowser (Not by a small amount either):
http://smashboards.com/threads/smash-4-weight-rankings.367479/
It also makes his shield alot stronger.

I already know that, but my point still stands, Id rather have the mobility to avoid things and not be hit in the first place. Honestly, weight is more a luxury stat, in the long run, weight rarely makes or breaks a character, Id rather have more combat effective stats like damage, knockback (or lack thereof for early percent combos), and speed over weight 99% of the time.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Is this supposed to be a bad thing?

........

I already know that, but my point still stands, Id rather have the mobility to avoid things and not be hit in the first place. Honestly, weight is more a luxury stat, in the long run, weight rarely makes or breaks a character, Id rather have more combat effective stats like damage, knockback (or lack thereof for early percent combos), and speed over weight 99% of the time.

In a game where rage is a thing Monado Shield is actually no minor asset. If it were any other smash game I'd agree that Shield is kinda pointless but in this game most characters gain monstrous amount of knockback once they hit like 180-200%.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Shield sucks, Id rather be able to actually avoid the attack rather than just survive it. Now, if shield also did something additional like gave Smashes super armor or something, THEN it'd be worth it, but losing maneuverability, stage control, and safety both offensively AND defensively just isnt worth a small increase in weight.

Shield is a 3% damage advantage relative to your opponent.
Speed is a 28% damage loss relative to your opponent.
Shield strengthens your shield bubble on top of your weight as well, reducing their damage also reduces their hitstun.

speed is trading a shorter jump and higher movement speed for a 28% loss.
Shield has plenty going for it. it would be good even without Rage.

 

[Jahordon]

A lot of players and streamers have been saying to not buy into the Diddy hype. I don't really understand why not to. What's wrong with Diddy's game?

Compare him with a character like Greninja who everybody is crazy about and yet has no reliable approach.