Character Competitive Impressions

[Yokoblue]

I love how this thread is basically the "Competitive chat discussion" and not character exclusive at all
We can talk about tournaments, customs, any trending since everything is character based in this game

 

[HeroMystic]

if that giant fire ball custom had less lag i would opt for that move my self. just for the spacing options it so potentially had.

The lag on Fire Orb is pretty ridiculous. It's like all of Marth's landing lag on his aerials combined.

I can see use for it in doubles but that's about it.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

The lag on Fire Orb is pretty ridiculous. It's like all of Marth's landing lag on his aerials combined.

I can see use for it in doubles but that's about it.

well we will always have slow pill.

 

[Terotrous]

The lag on Fire Orb is pretty ridiculous. It's like all of Marth's landing lag on his aerials combined.

I can see use for it in doubles but that's about it.

Yeah, wth Sakurai. "Let's give a character a move that creates pressure, then make it recover too slow for you to take advantage of it!"


Although the balance has improved in Smash4, I still feel like at least some of the balancing is done by having Sakurai's cat walk across the keyboard.

 

[warionumbah2]

Its a shame MK has no viable customs, like Mashed Potato Sakubai reworked MK moveset so that all his default specials link in with each other. Only customs that are worth adding is his Side B variations since other than recovering the default one isn't useful at all...


At least Kirby gets 2 amazing customs.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

Yeah, wth Sakurai. "Let's give a character a move that creates pressure, then make it recover too slow for you to take advantage of it!"


Although the balance has improved in Smash4, I still feel like at least some of the balancing is done by having Sakurai's cat walk across the keyboard.

i would imagine he had to use his feet for some balancing since his arms got all fked up.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Warlock Blade is not remotely game-changing for Ganondorf. It's basically a faster, weaker U-tilt with armor, and rarely hits in 1v1 against decent competition. Dark Fists on the other hand is quite useful for helping him armor through edgeguarding attempts and can kill quite early.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

Warlock Blade is not remotely game-changing for Ganondorf. It's basically a faster, weaker U-tilt with armor, and rarely hits in 1v1 against decent competition. Dark Fists on the other hand is quite useful for helping him armor through edgeguarding attempts and can kill quite early.

i preffer warlock thrust really. speed over power. closest thing to a projectile ganon's getting anyway.
And dark fist is the name of that custom i was describing earlier. that move is scary as fk.

 

[Terotrous]

i would imagine he had to use his feet for some balancing since his arms got all fked up.

No wonder Diddy is so good! He uses his feet for everything! It all makes sense now!

 

[Shaya]

Its a shame MK has no viable customs, like Mashed Potato Sakubai reworked MK moveset so that all his default specials link in with each other. Only customs that are worth adding is his Side B variations since other than recovering the default one isn't useful at all...


At least Kirby gets 2 amazing customs.

It's actually solid on platform stages as you can reliably edge cancel it with the angled bounce. Using stage ledges for a similar effect is risky but also works (and is kinda stupid).

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Its a shame MK has no viable customs, like Mashed Potato Sakubai reworked MK moveset so that all his default specials link in with each other. Only customs that are worth adding is his Side B variations since other than recovering the default one isn't useful at all...


At least Kirby gets 2 amazing customs.

I would say that you shouldn't just dismiss "only Side B variations". As I've toyed with it, I'm increasingly convinced High Speed Drill is actually a very, very good custom. It's like Dragon Rush jr., and that's a very meaningful addition to any character's moveset. You just hit the button in an ambiguous situation and, if you guessed right and they didn't block right then and there, it will quickly hit them and drag them all the way across the stage usually beating out opposing attacks once it gets started up. I also kinda like Dreadful Tornado and the shield piercing down special, but they're a bit more niche (still counterpick-worthy moves).

---

Definitely the main thing Ganon gets is Wizard's Dropkick. Some of his other stuff is pretty great too, but Wizard's Dropkick improves his recovery to such a ridiculous extent while also being a decent on-stage tool. It does so much work to roll back Ganon's weaknesses, definitely a move deserving of major respect on the character.

 

[Nobie]

Are we sure that the shield-piercing Down B has no use? I mean, just the fact that it removes shielding as a punish option on top of Meta Knight's already powerful dash grab makes me think it'd have utlity at least in certain matchups.

 

[warionumbah2]

Mach tornado cannot be replaced imo because that's MK most damaging move and best shield poking tool he has against captain falcon sized characters. I don't think that shield bypassing cape is good, unless it has the same kill power as the default one then hell yeah.

High speed drill sounds pretty useful, I'll hit the lab with this one as it may be useful against zone characters.

 

[NairWizard]

Many different things to talk about. @Radical Larry, I am not trying to dissuade you from using your character, and I'm aware of his strengths (though I believe the jab infinite is gone); but what makes Link better than 30 other members of the cast? How is he in any way better than Ike? I don't see it. This is the character competitive impressions topic, so justification of your impression would be nice.

Definitely the main thing Ganon gets is Wizard's Dropkick. Some of his other stuff is pretty great too, but Wizard's Dropkick improves his recovery to such a ridiculous extent while also being a decent on-stage tool. It does so much work to roll back Ganon's weaknesses, definitely a move deserving of major respect on the character.

Completely disagree; I think default Wizkick is better in nearly all matchups. Imo you should rarely take Wizard's Dropkick. @ Ray_Kalm can offer more, perhaps.

More thoughts on competitive pikachu as I figure things out:

While I think pikachu has a better ground game overall, head to head Fox and Falco make pikachus ground game feel underwhelming. Thank goodness the spacies are tall and pikachu has a decent SH aerial game or these MUs would be a nightmare even with the strong punish game on these two in particular.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said for metaknight. How does anyone fight this character if he chooses to stick to the ground? Speaking of Metaknight, how scary is his punish game potential? Besides Diddy and sort of Sheik punishes are far from being optimized in this game and when it comes to metaknight the skys the limit (literally, I could see him having amazing potential to have legit combo's to star KOs). What a frightening character.

Still kind of meh on Shiek and Diddy. SH centric charaters who excel in the SH centric metagame carry-over from Brawl. As the game becomes more grounded I see pikachu winning both of these MUs. Sheik being heavy does her no favors. The only thing preventing diddy from getting roflstomped in this MU is banana, Ive yet to fully explore in what ways his banana nerfs can be abused. Also like metaknight pikachus punishment game has yet to be optimized and has outstanding potential in this area. The signs are there, including combo's to KO (kill set ups...Ill discuss those eventually but I already listed one earlier in this thread, fair > dash attack).

Heavies and hard hitters are legitimately hard and very scary for pikachu. I think this is just going to be a thing for pikachu. He might have harder MUs but early KO characters are by far his scariest.

Your assessment of Pikachu's MUs matches my own.

I think that he has an OK time vs. Sheik and Diddy. These matchups get increasingly easy for me as I play the game; a good, toned Sheik or a Zero-level Diddy is of course frightening, but I feel confident in saying that my character has the slight advantage vs. both, at worst even.

Meta Knight, I am definitely not so sure about. It's tough.

One thing you should start doing against grounded MKs though is SH autocanceled d-air. If you do it right in front of MK's face he'll think that he can grab you and you can jab before his grab comes out because of the autocancel, d-smash if roll. His best response to this is pivot grabbing you out of your d-air, but most MKs don't do this yet. If he starts doing that, you can pull it back a little and gain ground.

I am so tired of Pika players complaining about how "scary" characters who get camped for free, juggled for free, and gimped for free are to deal with, especially when they can always just Up-B away if they do get hit. On the other hand, there was that one time I 0-deathed a (FG scrub) Pika player in 4 hits as Ganon...

As a Pikachu main I can tell you from my first-hand experience that Pikachu vs. Ganon and other heavies is not free at all. It takes a lot of effort from the Pikachu to play it correctly and not mess up. You cannot ever get too predictable with your QA patterns, because then Ganon abuses you and destroys you.

I have a rather old video of my Pikachu vs. a Japanese Dedede online where he punished my shield patterns a few times (this was before I dropped shielding). I'll upload it today (I always forget to save replays, but luckily I saved this one).

 

[meleebrawler]

Completely disagree; I think default Wizkick is better in nearly all matchups. Imo you should rarely take Wizard's Dropkick. @ Ray_Kalm can offer more, perhaps.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that dropkick is better in his BAD matchups.
AKA those that are good at gimping and/or possess irritating projectiles.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

Many different things to talk about. @Radical Larry, I am not trying to dissuade you from using your character, and I'm aware of his strengths (though I believe the jab infinite is gone); but what makes Link better than 30 other members of the cast? How is he in any way better than Ike? I don't see it. This is the character competitive impressions topic, so justification of your impression would be nice.



Completely disagree; I think default Wizkick is better in nearly all matchups. Imo you should rarely take Wizard's Dropkick. @ Ray_Kalm can offer more, perhaps.




Your assessment of Pikachu's MUs matches my own.

I think that he has an OK time vs. Sheik and Diddy. These matchups get increasingly easy for me as I play the game; a good, toned Sheik or a Zero-level Diddy is of course frightening, but I feel confident in saying that my character has the slight advantage vs. both, at worst even.

Meta Knight, I am definitely not so sure about. It's tough.

One thing you should start doing against grounded MKs though is SH autocanceled d-air. If you do it right in front of MK's face he'll think that he can grab you and you can jab before his grab comes out because of the autocancel, d-smash if roll. His best response to this is pivot grabbing you out of your d-air, but most MKs don't do this yet. If he starts doing that, you can pull it back a little and gain ground.



As a Pikachu main I can tell you from my first-hand experience that Pikachu vs. Ganon and other heavies is not free at all. It takes a lot of effort from the Pikachu to play it correctly and not mess up. You cannot ever get too predictable with your QA patterns, because then Ganon abuses you and destroys you.

I have a rather old video of my Pikachu vs. a Japanese Dedede online where he punished my shield patterns a few times (this was before I dropped shielding). I'll upload it today (I always forget to save replays, but luckily I saved this one).

Regarding the wiz dropkick vs wizkick
wiz kick in my personal opinion is great for anti juggle cuz its high power and killing abilliy.
but wiz drop kick imo is jst better overall when grounded. though i do miss anti juggle shenanigans. also cool thing to note the air wizdrop kick still has alot of kill power though. just not crazy.

 

[Ray_Kalm]

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that dropkick is better in his BAD matchups.
AKA those that are good at gimping and/or possess irritating projectiles.

Somewhat true.

I would only prefer dropkick against Rosalina, Sonic and Diddy Kong.

Particularly characters who are either too fast for Ganon (Sonic), or have very good juggling from below options (Diddy, Rosalina).

Against everyone else, Wizard Foot is always the better choice.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Completely disagree; I think default Wizkick is better in nearly all matchups. Imo you should rarely take Wizard's Dropkick. @ Ray_Kalm can offer more, perhaps.

I believe what Kalm was saying was that Wizkick was sometimes better, and I do think there are certain characters where you need it as a juggle deterrent, but I certainly wouldn't say that it's better in "nearly all" matchups. I've generally found that Dropkick's weaknesses are easier to work around than Wizkick's more often than not, though I think there are definitely MUs where it's a matter of preference.
Edit: Didn't see your post. I do think both are completely usable in most MUs and it largely comes down to preference and which downsides you're better at working around.

 

[RIP_Lucas]

My experience is contrary to that, since I've yet to actually lose to ZSS, Sheik or Rosalina with Ganondorf. He just needs to Perfect Shield and Spot Dodge, and he'll be the one on the upper hand before you know it.



He doesn't have much of a learning curve, people can pick him up and play him, but he does require good reflexes and timing. He's actually a really viable character, and his match ups aren't TOO disadvantaged; people are simply just sleeping on him once more. (Look at Japan's Ganondorf, for example.)



Don't forget the Meteor Bomb for Link as noteworthy, as well as Link's PK Thunder-killing Quickfire Bow. And as Game Changing, put in Ganondorf's Warlock Blade and Wizard's Dropkick, as well as Whirling Leap.

If you can consistently perfect shield and spot dodge any of those characters, they clearly don't know how to mix up. All 3 of them have unpunishable approaches That even on a perfect shield, Ganondorf has almost nothing to do but hope they make a spacing error or something. Needles especially makes every ganon sd

 

[A2ZOMG]

Ganondorf's best custom move is Dark Fists. That move has virtually no downsides and makes Ganon harder to gimp and gives him an extra KO move.

Default Wizkick is faster and better than Drop Kick for midrange, covering dodges and ground spacing. In several matchups it is also the superior option for escaping juggles when more characters have to respect the kill power and angle of the move. I agree with @ Ray_Kalm that Drop Kick is situational and primarily best for counterpicking against gimps and very specific forms of projectile zoning.

@Emblem Lord got to play my Ganon with and without customs. I noticed that even though WDK could help me recover, I suffered more against Marth's ledge traps and juggles, and the superior reward from default also helped me more in midrange than Drop Kick.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Like Wizard's Dropkick literally doubles how far Ganondorf can recover off-stage. Without this move Ganon often dies to non-gimps off-stage just because his recovery doesn't go far enough; with this move that pretty much never happens. When hit high you can also use it to easily get over the middle of the stage, really reducing your opponent's gimping options or putting you entirely out of the way of a juggle. Even if it did literally nothing else, I would find it superior to default since that's a ridiculously potent upgrade and extends almost literally every last stock Ganon ever has. The fact that it does all these other good things is just icing on the cake. If you really need the high priority rushing forward ground move, you do have the option to take Flame Chain for that as well; Flame Choke is a good move, but I'd rather sacrifice it than one of my most important recovery tools if I need that grounded priority. Default Wizard's Foot is a good move but the price of bringing it is just too high.

Don't let me take it away from Dark Fists for being great; Dark Fists is wonderful and should definitely always be taken. My experience just is that it's a "nice upgrade" for Ganon while Wizard's Dropkick is "essential to this character being viable". Viable characters just don't get away with having default Ganon's recovery where you die off-stage even when they don't try to gimp you, but they can get away with Wizard's Dropkick Ganon's recovery which is honestly a pretty decent overall recovery in context of what all of the other characters have.

 

[NairWizard]

Like Wizard's Dropkick literally doubles how far Ganondorf can recover off-stage.

I have never seen a good Ganon die from literally being too far away from the stage after being hit, simply because he is heavy. There are specific moves that send you at weird trajectories, but in general you should just be DI'ing up. Ganon's heavy weight means that unless he's at obscene percents he won't be going far enough to not be able to make it back.

The recovery *distance* is almost entirely a nonfactor.

What is a problem is the linearity of his recovery. Dropkick does address this issue, but by far the biggest improvement here is Dark Fists (Dark Vault is also passable). Normally I just hit Ganon with a d-air or n-air as Pikachu. Dark Fists makes that very tricky to time correctly. Sometimes I don't even bother trying to edgeguard a Ganon with Dark Fists.

Default Wizard's Foot is a good move but the price of bringing it is just too high.

On the contrary, the price of dropping Wizard's Foot is too high.

As every single character that I play, I would rather fight good Ganons who have Wizard's Dropkick over Wizard's Foot. Wizard's Foot is infinitely scarier onstage and off. Ganon's biggest selling point is how his entire arsenal is kill moves. Take that away from him even a little, and you open up an exploitable hole.

I just can't see how Wizard's Dropkick is an improvement at all in the majority of matchups.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Dropkick also gives you better Dthrow followups and knocks the opponent horizontally, helping you get into Ganon's edgeguarding game, and that positional advantage, combined with less lag on the grounded variation, are more valuable than the % damage loss, at least on the grounded version. Characters like Sheik and Pika who can juggle you super easily and are hard to gimp are ones you'll want to keep Wizkick, but grounded Dropkick is more rewarding against a lot of characters who can't get around Ganon's gimp game so easily.

 

[TriTails]

I don't main or use Ganon often, but I think Full Hop -> Wizard Foot near the edge works as a good edgeguarding option, and you can still DJ and Dark Dive to recover. Mess up a bit though = SD.

Grounded WizFoot aimed off the ledge is also good too... Why the heck no Ganons EVEN try to edgeguard despite his great egeguarding options I have no clue. His Dark Dive distance is pretty insane, and if he had a real height double jump, recovery wouldn't be a problem for him anymore.

 

[Thinkaman]

So the main reason I have actually continued to use Wizard's Dropkick in most matchups is the superior ledge-cancel freedom.

Normal Wizard's Foot slows down on contact (including shields), which means the auto-cancel distance varies for contact and no-contact. This means that any Wizkick that would cancel in one circumstance will not in the other.

Wizard's Dropkick does not have this variance, while having slightly greater horizontal distance to boot. Add these two together, and Ganon can perform a very safe move in far more situations.

 

[Antonykun]

I think if Villager mains want to be good with her then they need to master SH Fair/Bair it turns them into something like Brawl Falco's SH Double Lazers.

 

[Nobie]

The reason Wizard's Dropkick has such utility for Ganondorf is that while other characters might not want to give up such a potent KO move, Ganondorf can just go, "Oh, well I'll just my 10 other deadly moves."

 

[FlareHabanero]

I think if Villager mains want to be good with her then they need to master SH Fair/Bair it turns them into something like Brawl Falco's SH Double Lazers.

I wouldn't compare it to Falco's lasers since it's not as fast and there is varying degrees of knockback depending on your range. Also Villager isn't really meant to be aggro to begin with, more like deceptive with an emphasis on set ups and frame traps.

 

[Antonykun]

I wouldn't compare it to Falco's lasers since it's not as fast and there is varying degrees of knockback depending on your range. Also Villager isn't really meant to be aggro to begin with, more like deceptive with an emphasis on set ups and frame traps.

I would say Villager is very aggressive with her setups and traps.

 

[19_]

Hey guys. Tourney Locator is about to start their custom tournament.

http://www.twitch.tv/tourneylocator

 

[thehard]

Hey guys. Tourney Locator is about to start their custom tournament.

http://www.twitch.tv/tourneylocator

Dude I was gonna post EXACTLY that word-for-word... it's not a very special statement but it's still weird to me

I know this is on short notice, but it would be cool if we had a separate chat for Smashboards where we could talk about the tournament without the usual Twitch interference

 

[Thinkaman]

Dude I was gonna post EXACTLY that word-for-word... it's not a very special statement but it's still weird to me

I know this is on short notice, but it would be cool if we had a separate chat for Smashboards where we could talk about the tournament without the usual Twitch interference

Shockwave is a small enough event that twitch chat is fine.

Plus, I'm apparently a moderator for TL's channel????????? I have no idea how or why.

 

[A2ZOMG]

So the main reason I have actually continued to use Wizard's Dropkick in most matchups is the superior ledge-cancel freedom.

Normal Wizard's Foot slows down on contact (including shields), which means the auto-cancel distance varies for contact and no-contact. This means that any Wizkick that would cancel in one circumstance will not in the other.

Wizard's Dropkick does not have this variance, while having slightly greater horizontal distance to boot. Add these two together, and Ganon can perform a very safe move in far more situations.

I find this really overrated, to be honest.

I mean, the ledge cancel on WDK only works at a very specific spacing, especially since the frame window for it is narrower than for default Wizkick.

But even then, what do you really get out of ledge canceling WDK? In the first place, you basically have to use the move from center stage to take advantage of the ledge cancel, which is in its own way telegraphed. Also given the move tends to whiff in close range if your opponent is short or crouching, they would have to also consistently be at relatively long range to actually get hit by this move. Also you don't actually want to use the ledge cancel if you're not actually hitting your opponent, given you just sacrificed some stage control.

While I would definitely prefer default Wizkick to have a consistent ledge cancel, because default wizkick covers grounded options more consistently, and because the ledge cancel window is larger, you actually have more useful applications of default Wizkick for stage control and forcing your opponent to play respectfully.

The other problem with WDK is the move is 20 or so frames startup compared to the 16 on default. This is huge, because this makes WDK less powerful for forcing your opponent to play carefully on the ground when it's easier to defend on reaction.

 

[Pazx]

In the future streams should probably put the custom moveset with the names so people can follow along a little easier, but I'm very excited to watch this.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

The salt on dk's up 3 is real.

 

[Blue Ninjakoopa]

Diddy has a custom banana that sends you upward and sets up for a u-air without d-throw. O_o

 

[HeroMystic]

>Play in custom tournament.
>Don't use Customs.

 

[Ffamran]

>Play in custom tournament.
>Don't use Customs.

I can totally see this for certain characters who don't benefit much from customs or because of play style. Falco doesn't really get much out of his customs aside from Void Reflector, but some people would prefer default Reflector for its speed and ability to reflect both physical and energy based projectiles instead of a reflector that can kill and only reflects physical projectiles. The Fire Bird customs are choices of default, basically a fire Falco Phantasm that can be aimed, and a longer recovery, Falco Phantasm customs are choices of default, I-frame dashing, and "another Side Smash", and the Blaster customs are choices of default that can stun and sometimes gimp off stage by interrupting after a jump, I think, a slower version of Fox's Blaster, and something I don't really know what you do with aside from edgeguard.

Marth and Lucina as well. Crescent Slash can kill well, but some prefer having a good vertical recovery and a fast interrupter with Dolphin Slash. I think this is the same case with Pikachu aside from Heavy Skull Bash. They just gain options rather than overall improving or covering their weaknesses like Palutena, Ike, and Ganondorf.

 

[Pazx]

>Play in custom tournament.
>Don't use Customs.

I have no intention of using customs for most of my characters, it doesn't mean I shouldn't enter a customs tournament. It would however give me confidence in picking a character like Dr Mario.

 

[HeroMystic]

No I don't really care if people use customs or not, but I do see some missed opportunities on stream.