Character Competitive Impressions

[warionumbah2]

If you ain't got dirt on the top tiers, then you're dirt. Amen.

 

[hey_there]

Perfect pivot shield, you won't get pushed far enough back not to be able to punish it, I believe. Will test this tonight. I'm fairly confident that perfect pivoting removes most of Luigi's traction issues. The mechanic benefits Luigi more than just about everyone.

I've had the same experience with incorporating PP. PP utilt is just so safe and pop everyone up for easy aerials. Little Mac PP ftilt is similarly pretty amazing.

 

[DavemanCozy]

A) you slapped meta knight on mid tier because you're not sure where else to put him, mid tier has mediocre characters that do not have that many great mu against the top and meta knight isn't in that category. And B) this myth of him struggling to kill will hopefully die down. Despite the fact that he he has various kill set ups and more kill moves than his brawl incarnation people still got this twisted. 9th fastest dash in the game and decent air mobility backed with 6 jumps is good enough, his mobility is better than most of the cast.Got video evidence of meta knight killing Rosalina at 85% with shuttle loop and killing villager in its low 80's from a f smash read. http://smashboards.com/threads/do-you-like-the-new-not-as-op-metaknight.382412/#post-18536544

Holy crap...

Instead of slapping me in the face and telling me that Meta Knight is not "mediocre" (when did I even imply that the mid-tier has "mediocre characters"...), what position would you put him in then?

Can you also separate your points in paragraphs? Makes it easier to read.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

If you ain't got dirt on the top tiers, then you're dirt. Amen.

Shame that with 51/52 (whatever the flipping number is) characters it's rather hard to get accurate MU information. Given Sheik has to go through 50 match ups to decide where she stands relative to every individual character, with many of those characters have slower progressing meta's due to lack of play. Even if we adopt the notion, who is dirt won't reliably be known even with "teh internets" for quite awhile.

The majority of the casts "placings" is 98% guesstimate

 

[Scarlet Jile]

The mid-tier is bigger and murkier than it has ever been, and it will be years of shuffling before we can even begin to take tier lists into consideration.

There's a lot of talk about Ganondorf's competitive viability, with most non-Ganons saying he's still lower tier and a lot of Ganons speaking up about his leap up from Brawl to Smash 4. I think the truth lies somewhere in between, honestly. If we freeze time, I think Ganon might be directly in the center of the character roster in terms of good and bad match-ups. But I'm also a little worried that as other characters develop more and more, Ganondorf's meta will stagnate over time and he'll fall into the lower-mid range.

The fact is, as of now, Ganondorf players from Brawl and Melee are probably better with their respective characters than many others whose characters have seen greater change. The ledge mechanics that have changed from Brawl to Smash 4 favor Ganondorf over virtually anyone else in the cast, which is a bigger deal than people realize. The same is true for Yoshi, which is why, in addition to his OoS options, he seems SO much better, when in reality, his moveset is actually inferior in a lot of ways.

Along the same vein, I don't foresee Yoshi being top 10 a year or two down the road. I think he'll probably settle into the mix somewhere in the mid to upper-mid range.

 

[LonkQ]

Speaking of Ike, where would he fail where other heavies might succeed? I honestly don't see what's wrong with him compared to Ganondorf or Bowser, he's not great but he seems generally more solid than both.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Speaking of Ike, where would he fail where other heavies might succeed? I honestly don't see what's wrong with him compared to Ganondorf or Bowser, he's not great but he seems generally more solid than both.

Ike's biggest weakness is his DA is pretty crappy. It's actually a real problem for him midrange when standing outside of his F-tilt/F-air range makes him a lot weaker.

It's also why Close Combat is RIDICULOUS on him. Because it basically solves his ONE critical weakness (Quick Draw is decent, but way riskier and thus can't really be used the same way to threaten people in neutral). Then his other customs give him a real edgeguard game where he didn't have one.

 

[warionumbah2]

Holy crap...

Instead of slapping me in the face and telling me that Meta Knight is not "mediocre" (when did I even imply that the mid-tier has "mediocre characters"...), what position would you put him in then?

Can you also separate your points in paragraphs? Makes it easier to read.

I used my phone when writing that up. Is this better?

A) you slapped meta knight on mid tier because you're not sure where else to put him, mid tier has mediocre characters that do not have that many great mu against the top and meta knight isn't in that category.

And B) this myth of him struggling to kill will hopefully die down. Despite the fact that he he has various kill set ups and more kill moves than his brawl incarnation people still got this twisted. 9th fastest dash in the game and decent air mobility backed with 6 jumps is good enough, his mobility is better than most of the cast.

Got video evidence of meta knight killing Rosalina at 85% with shuttle loop and killing villager in its low 80's from a f smash read. http://smashboards.com/threads/do-you-like-the-new-not-as-op-metaknight.382412/#post-18536544

You said that MK is mid tier 'at best' i view that as him being limited, i view mid tier as mediocre since most characters just have bad MU against the characters that appear often competitively.

Shame that with 51/52 (whatever the flipping number is) characters it's rather hard to get accurate MU information. Given Sheik has to go through 50 match ups to decide where she stands relative to every individual character, with many of those characters have slower progressing meta's due to lack of play. Even if we adopt the notion, who is dirt won't reliably be known even with "teh internets" for quite awhile.

The majority of the casts "placings" is 98% guesstimate

I was only kidding about the dirt thing but it holds some meaning, despite how hard it is to get solid MU is kind of obvious in some characters case that they don't do so hot against Diddy,Sheik,Sonic and others. The majority of those MU will never be important because as you said: low representation, like people are only just recently learning the Pac-man MU after his performance in APEX. Why learn the Bowser MU when he has like 1(?) player in the world? I think this meta will move faster than the past smash games mainly because we have better online and being able to communicate with one another.

 

[Vengeance_NS]

The mid-tier is bigger and murkier than it has ever been, and it will be years of shuffling before we can even begin to take tier lists into consideration.

There's a lot of talk about Ganondorf's competitive viability, with most non-Ganons saying he's still lower tier and a lot of Ganons speaking up about his leap up from Brawl to Smash 4. I think the truth lies somewhere in between, honestly. If we freeze time, I think Ganon might be directly in the center of the character roster in terms of good and bad match-ups. But I'm also a little worried that as other characters develop more and more, Ganondorf's meta will stagnate over time and he'll fall into the lower-mid range.

The fact is, as of now, Ganondorf players from Brawl and Melee are probably better with their respective characters than many others whose characters have seen greater change. The ledge mechanics that have changed from Brawl to Smash 4 favor Ganondorf over virtually anyone else in the cast, which is a bigger deal than people realize. The same is true for Yoshi, which is why, in addition to his OoS options, he seems SO much better, when in reality, his moveset is actually inferior in a lot of ways.

Along the same vein, I don't foresee Yoshi being top 10 a year or two down the road. I think he'll probably settle into the mix somewhere in the mid to upper-mid range.

What types of characters do u see being top 15 a year or 2 from now???

 

[LonkQ]

Ike's biggest weakness is his DA is pretty crappy. It's actually a real problem for him midrange when standing outside of his F-tilt/F-air range makes him a lot weaker.

It's also why Close Combat is RIDICULOUS on him. Because it basically solves his ONE critical weakness (Quick Draw is decent, but way riskier and thus can't really be used the same way to threaten people in neutral). Then his other customs give him a real edgeguard game where he didn't have one.

Yeah, now that I think about it, I'd definitely kill for a Ganondorf or Bowser DA. Still, when I play them I sometimes feel more limited, although that may be because of a lack of experience. Getting in with those two feels a lot more difficult due to size or mobility issues.

 

[NairWizard]

Ike's major weaknesses are susceptibility to juggling and having to approach through projectiles. His dash attack doesn't have a lot to do with it, though he'd like a better one obviously. However, the assertion that customs patch up Ike's weaknesses is not inaccurate; Close Combat + Tempest + Aether Drive almost fixes every weakness that Ike has--projectiles remain a problem but no more for Ike than for, say, Diddy Kong. With customs, I strongly believe that Ike is Top Tier, top 10 at the very least.

One of the big problems is that you just don't have any Ikes at top level. People are still thinking of Ike in terms of his Brawl attributes, when in reality he is a much better character than he used to be. Why are you jabbing still when you could be d-tilting? Why are you not using pivot f-tilt? Because you are thinking like Brawl Ike.

Heck, many Ikes are not even familiar with his combos.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

I was only kidding about the dirt thing but it holds some meaning, despite how hard it is to get solid MU is kind of obvious in some characters case that they don't do so hot against Diddy,Sheik,Sonic and others. The majority of those MU will never be important because as you said: low representation, like people are only just recently learning the Pac-man MU after his performance in APEX. Why learn the Bowser MU when he has like 1(?) player in the world? I think this meta will move faster than the past smash games mainly because we have better online and being able to communicate with one another.

Pac was used in japan but now we're looking at him because he wrecked face here.
Greninja took names here. DUck hunt took names here.

If anything NOT learning the Bowser MU leaves more room for a bowser player to wreck you. The fact that there are so little Bowser players also means it'll be a long time before you actually acquire that MU's experience. So Bowsers will be clutching out surprise wins for awhile... or to be more accurate.
Replace Bowser with Charizard.

Lack of representation doesn't make knowledge advance faster, it slows it down. If we don't get better representation there is going to be holes in what we practically know for awhile. "The internet" doesn't help that if you lack voices on the internet to spread the info. Sword Fighter meta is probably in the same place NOW that it was in fuking October lol and will probably remain that way even if he gets custom access.

With all this ass distribution of players you'll have "random characters" placing in majors only for people to scream "reorganize the tier list!" as if they knew a damn about that character in the first place, to even be proven wrong.

To me Smash 4's development is slow, it only comes off fast if you're focusing on 10 characters out of 50 something. For a community with "experience from Brawl and melee so we know what we're looking for, plus the internet" it is constantly finding itself surprised every 2 weeks as if we're not nearly as clairvoyant and we perceive ourselves to be. We need players.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Ike's major weaknesses are susceptibility to juggling and having to approach through projectiles. His dash attack doesn't have a lot to do with it, though he'd like a better one obviously. However, the assertion that customs patch up Ike's weaknesses is not inaccurate; Close Combat + Tempest + Aether Drive almost fixes every weakness that Ike has--projectiles remain a problem but no more for Ike than for, say, Diddy Kong. With customs, I strongly believe that Ike is Top Tier, top 10 at the very least.

One of the big problems is that you just don't have any Ikes at top level. People are still thinking of Ike in terms of his Brawl attributes, when in reality he is a much better character than he used to be. Why are you jabbing still when you could be d-tilting? Why are you not using pivot f-tilt? Because you are thinking like Brawl Ike.

Heck, many Ikes are not even familiar with his combos.

I honestly can't think of any matchups that Ike specifically loses because of his vulnerability to juggling. Projectiles are a problem sure, but Ike with something like Ganon's Dash Attack would force a lot of characters to not throw out projectiles carelessly, and then they would have to get past Ike's really high grab reward in addition to that after being forced on the defensive. Actually more important than projectiles is high mobility characters who just easily stay out of your threat zone. When I play Ike, I always feel like I'm forced to rely on SideB to keep several mobile characters honest in midrange, and this sucks when default SideB is like -9001 on block.

Funny enough, Ganon with Ike's Jab would probably break most of the game. He would still probably lose to Rosalina gimps, but basically everyone else, even Sheik would probably get bodied.

 

[L7 Zero Cool]

Ike's biggest weakness is his DA is pretty crappy. It's actually a real problem for him midrange when standing outside of his F-tilt/F-air range makes him a lot weaker.

It's also why Close Combat is RIDICULOUS on him. Because it basically solves his ONE critical weakness (Quick Draw is decent, but way riskier and thus can't really be used the same way to threaten people in neutral). Then his other customs give him a real edgeguard game where he didn't have one.

Is DA short for dash attack? And will customs be tourney legal eventually?

 

[warionumbah2]

Pac was used in japan but now we're looking at him because he wrecked face here.
Greninja took names here. DUck hunt took names here.

If anything NOT learning the Bowser MU leaves more room for a bowser player to wreck you. The fact that there are so little Bowser players also means it'll be a long time before you actually acquire that MU's experience. So Bowsers will be clutching out surprise wins for awhile... or to be more accurate.
Replace Bowser with Charizard.

Lack of representation doesn't make a knowledge advance faster, it slows it down. If we don't get better representation there is going to be holes in what we know for a long time. "The internet" doesn't help that if you lack voices...on the internet.

I know Pac-man was used in Japan already. I also know about those 2 but i only named Pac-Man as an example i'm well aware of what they've done and how well they did in Japan.

But as of now his MU doesn't matter. Even if that does happen how long will his reign of terror last? Once again it was an example i could've said DDD,Ganon,Charizard i picked Bowser just cause.

It allows us to get MU experience much easier and quicker without going to people's houses,tournaments etc. We got ladders,this site despite lag being a huge kill joy its extremely helpful. I'm somewhat optimistic on the metas growth but we'll see...

 

[A2ZOMG]

Is DA short for dash attack? And will customs be tourney legal eventually?

Yes and most likely to both your questions.

 

[Antonykun]

If by godawful you mean "is the fastest grab in the game", and by "no reward" you mean "Has a 3% pummel, 4 10% throws, and puts the opponents into the air while playing as Jigglypuff", then yes!

Oh look at me saying stupid and ignorant things about a character after telling a guy not to say stupid things about a character. I still have difficulty against defense that might just be me (though i don't have the same problems as wario) well at least we learned something (i keep wiffing those grabs though).

 

[etecoon]

It also has laughable priority and can be beaten out or clanked with a lot of attacks. Literally, the priority on his spindash is stupid, and when people realize they can stop it with a lot of moves, even a jab or a tilt. I agree that his damage racking is amazing, but you can't ignore that it can be halted if you see it coming.

The timing is hard at close or midrange and the reward he gets off of it is much greater than most characters tilt attacks or jabs. Plus he can cancel the beginning of it or release it with different timings so if you commit to something too early he can punish this also. Then the instant Sonic gets a lead 90% of the spindashes just get canceled and he goes to work timing you out/getting you to avoid the time out via getting back throwed or fsmashed

I am so salty that this character is back, is one of the best characters in the game this time, and Snake is gone

There's a lot of talk about Ganondorf's competitive viability, with most non-Ganons saying he's still lower tier and a lot of Ganons speaking up about his leap up from Brawl to Smash 4. I think the truth lies somewhere in between, honestly. If we freeze time, I think Ganon might be directly in the center of the character roster in terms of good and bad match-ups. But I'm also a little worried that as other characters develop more and more, Ganondorf's meta will stagnate over time and he'll fall into the lower-mid range..

Ganondorf gets curb stomped by Sheik, probably doesn't have very good MUs with the other top characters either. Ganondorf does better against the vastly bigger mid tier than before, but if you're bad against the best and most commonly used characters you're still not viable

 

[HeavyLobster]

The mid-tier is bigger and murkier than it has ever been, and it will be years of shuffling before we can even begin to take tier lists into consideration.

There's a lot of talk about Ganondorf's competitive viability, with most non-Ganons saying he's still lower tier and a lot of Ganons speaking up about his leap up from Brawl to Smash 4. I think the truth lies somewhere in between, honestly. If we freeze time, I think Ganon might be directly in the center of the character roster in terms of good and bad match-ups. But I'm also a little worried that as other characters develop more and more, Ganondorf's meta will stagnate over time and he'll fall into the lower-mid range.

The fact is, as of now, Ganondorf players from Brawl and Melee are probably better with their respective characters than many others whose characters have seen greater change. The ledge mechanics that have changed from Brawl to Smash 4 favor Ganondorf over virtually anyone else in the cast, which is a bigger deal than people realize. The same is true for Yoshi, which is why, in addition to his OoS options, he seems SO much better, when in reality, his moveset is actually inferior in a lot of ways.

Along the same vein, I don't foresee Yoshi being top 10 a year or two down the road. I think he'll probably settle into the mix somewhere in the mid to upper-mid range.

Ganon is definitely not smack dab in the middle right now. Ganon is probably ahead of 1/4th of the cast in terms of viability and lower than the rest. He's just not a total lost cause anymore.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

I honestly can't think of any matchups that Ike specifically loses because of his vulnerability to juggling. Projectiles are a problem sure, but Ike with something like Ganon's Dash Attack would force a lot of characters to not throw out projectiles carelessly, and then they would have to get past Ike's really high grab reward in addition to that after being forced on the defensive. Actually more important than projectiles is high mobility characters who just easily stay out of your threat zone. When I play Ike, I always feel like I'm forced to rely on SideB to keep several mobile characters honest in midrange, and this sucks when default SideB is like -9001 on block.

Funny enough, Ganon with Ike's Jab would probably break most of the game. He would still probably lose to Rosalina gimps, but basically everyone else, even Sheik would probably get bodied.

Jeezus ganon with ikes jab. like dayum.

 

[Thinkaman]

Jeezus ganon with ikes jab. like dayum.

If we're playing this game, I call dibs on Little Mac with Ganon uair.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Jeezus ganon with ikes jab. like dayum.

Really just Ganon's Melee jab and customs legal would give him all the basic tools he needs to hold up against just about every character in the game. Right now the lack of a true jab hurts him against rushdown and the threat of some of Ganon's customs forces campers to play him more respectfully.

 

[NairWizard]

I honestly can't think of any matchups that Ike specifically loses because of his vulnerability to juggling.

Let me put it this way. If Ike had Luigi's n-air, I'd be vouching for +1 Ike in the Diddy, Pikachu, ZSS, and Sheik MUs. Getting combo'd is a problem for any heavy. Ike's n-air is not fast enough to break most juggles/combos.

 

[Scarlet Jile]

Ganon is definitely not smack dab in the middle right now. Ganon is probably ahead of 1/4th of the cast in terms of viability and lower than the rest. He's just not a total lost cause anymore.

I don't know about that. I think he beats or goes even with such a huge swath of the cast this time that he's not in the bottom quarter presently. His only unwinnable matchups are probably Shiek, Rosalina and Pikachu, which is why I didn't say he was competitively viable. I said he was in the middle, and I still think he is.

 

[NairWizard]

If we're playing this game, I call dibs on Little Mac with Ganon uair.

If we are in fact playing "this game," I want Little Mac Quick Attack. Clearly can't do better than that.

 

[DavemanCozy]

I used my phone when writing that up. Is this better?

You said that MK is mid tier 'at best' i view that as him being limited, i view mid tier as mediocre since most characters just have bad MU against the characters that appear often competitively.

Ok, but a lot of characters can KO Rosalina and Villager at those percentages and don't suffer from Meta Knight sword range either. What breaks him to higher tiers for you?

So I acknowledge he's got KO moves and setups going for him, but how reliably can he set them up? In other words, how does MK accomplish his KOs without suffering from "Sheik syndrome" as I implied he does?

The other question I'm basically asking is: what in your eyes makes MK deserve to be better than the mediocre mid-tier position I gave him?

Counter my points man, or link me to posts that explain this. Look, I hope you don't think I'm trying to infuriate you, I'm just looking for answers like any other poster in this board.

 

[HeavyLobster]

I don't know about that. I think he beats or goes even with such a huge swath of the cast this time that he's not in the bottom quarter presently. His only unwinnable matchups are probably Shiek, Rosalina and Pikachu, which is why I didn't say he was competitively viable. I said he was in the middle, and I still think he is.

I agree that his MUs are winnable outside of those 3, but most of them are slightly disadvantaged. Also remember that most characters, including Ganon, are pretty decent overall. I don't think he outright beats many characters at all, though he does go even with quite a few.

 

[Nobie]

It seems to be something of a trend (or at least something come from a couple of people) to claim that Bowser is bottom tier material. Something about that doesn't quite sit right with me, and I don't mean in an "I main the character and you just don't see his true potential!!!" sort of way. It's more that I can't see his combination of tools ever being that bad, other than, yes, you risk getting punished if you mess up because some of your attacks leave you wide open. I'm not a Bowser player so I can't speak from that angle, but he seems a little too...good to be bad?

I mentioned this some weeks ago, but I was watching a Sheik vs. Bowser matchup where Sheik had total control of the set only to end up losing because of three good reads by Bowser. Just having that in mind makes me think that it's hard to ever truly count out Bowser even if he isn't top 15, let alone top 5.

To go off on a bit of tangent from this, I feel like there's a constant contention as to the value of mechanical skill vs. reading and strategy among people, with safety often being prized by a lot of players. It makes sense because, generally speaking, the safer your character is the less chances they have of getting hurt bad, but I think that Smash 4 has tried to make as many strides towards read-based styles, which is why you have such disagreement over a character like Ganondorf.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

If we're playing this game, I call dibs on Little Mac with Ganon uair.

um darn.....uh samus with foxes jab.

 

[Antonykun]

If we're playing this game, I call dibs on Little Mac with Ganon uair.

0.0
ummm Villager with a fast (?) grab?
Her kit is so tightly put together that this was a legitimately difficult exercise to do.

 

[HeavyLobster]

If we're playing this game, I call dibs on Little Mac with Ganon uair.

Sheik with Ness's Bthrow.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Sheik with Ness's Bthrow.

NOPE

Anyways, customs at EVO. Pretty likely now.

What do ya'll think?

Smooth Criminal

 

[warionumbah2]

Ok, but a lot of characters can KO Rosalina and Villager at those percentages and don't suffer from Meta Knight sword range either. What breaks him to higher tiers for you?

Alot of characters can kill early but landing it is the important part, he's got kill set ups thst reliably kill. Range isn't everything, for example Mario has poor range but his decent ground ability and amazing air mobility allows him to get in. Flip that around for MK but with 6 jumps to avoid off stage attacks and stall landings.

If MK attacks were as slow as Tink who has the same range then there'll be a problem. His mid range moves are deadly because they flow into other moves or kill moves. His ground game is amazing and his offstage game is above average due to how early he can kill, as Shaya said his edge guarding is insane but its not braindead like Sheiks.

So I acknowledge he's got KO moves and setups going for him, but how reliably can he set them up? In other words, how does MK accomplish his KOs without suffering from "Sheik syndrome" as I implied he does?

Dash attack has a piercing effect, even if it hits shields he'll keep on going making it somewhat safe. His dash attack covers a lot of range and with his mobility on the ground being good it allows MK to punish any move with lag so long as he stays mid range.

Honestly play MK yourself the kill setups are so simple I cannot put it into words, his u smash is also a good kill option so he'll never get the sheik syndrome unless you're booty at follow ups and reads.

The other question I'm basically asking is: what in your eyes makes MK deserve to be better than the mediocre mid-tier position I gave him?

His MU is looking bright at the moment, he has things that people consider important: mobility, kill moves, kill setups, recovery, edge guarding, OOS options, follow ups out of grabs. He has 6 jumps making so that he doesn't need to approach projectile users. Also his dimensional cape can avoid alot of edge guard attempts. And to top ot all off he has disjointed hitboxes.

Give me a good reason as to why he shouldn't be any higher? If you got anything other than range then im willing to take that into consideration. His biggest weakness is of course range but that can easily be nullified by actually getting in close he's nothing like the swordsman in this game and his weight being a weakness that can't be changed.

Counter my points man, or link me to posts that explain this. Look, I hope you don't think I'm trying to infuriate you, I'm just looking for answers like any other poster in this board.

There's nothing to counter since you pretty much asked me questions like someone said before 'other than weight and range people don't come up with other reasons to rate him so low', you can research yourself if you want more answers kinda late over here.

 

[Thinkaman]

Sheik with Ness's Bthrow.

Diddy with Diddy d-throw.

Spoiler

 

[Nabbitnator]

NOPE

Anyways, customs at EVO. Pretty likely now.

What do ya'll think?

Smooth Criminal

Does each character have 1 set of customs to choose from? The only thing that makes me hesitant is the fact that I now have to know 50-100 match ups.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

...why is it so cumbersome to learn the variable MUs inherent to customs? I really don't get it.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Nabbitnator]

I'm all for customs. I just don't know how learning the match ups would work. Would I be better off learning the best version of each character or which version is a better counter pick against my character?

 

[Vengeance_NS]

How is luigi with customs???

 

[HeavyLobster]

Diddy with Diddy d-throw.

Spoiler

Diddy's broken, huge, lagless aerials are a bigger problem than d-throw. Uair especially is fast, powerful, has a giant hitbox due to Diddy's rubber arms, and has little lag. Uair frametraps are how Diddys get their kills moreso than any sort of true combo out of dthrow.

 

[Thinkaman]

Does each character have 1 set of customs to choose from? The only thing that makes me hesitant is the fact that I now have to know 50-100 match ups.

It's easy to overestimate the complexity that customs add to the game.

Not only are the customs themselves pretty straightforward, but based on a quick tally of my personal opinions the default specials are actually best-in-slot a little over 60% of the time.

This means that on average, assuming equal distribution:

• Around 13% of characters/players will prefer to use all defaults
• Around 35% of characters/players will prefer to use only 1 custom
• Around 35% of characters/players will prefer to use only 2 customs
• Around 14% of characters/players will prefer to use only 3 customs
• Around 3% of characters/players will play Ike use all customs

Most customs are pretty straight forward and simple. They might have important ramifications on a matchup, but it's normally not rocket science. Like, "Ganon can wizkick over projectiles" or "Luigi can approach with an iceball."