Character Competitive Impressions

[NairWizard]

Meta Knight is still secretly the best character in the game.

After Pikachu.

Luigi's good.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

Meta Knight is still secretly the best character in the game.

After Pikachu.

Luigi's good.

Are you actually being honest solid? i hold your opinion quite highly here. And if so i would love to hear about it. I never thought meta was bad myself.

 

[Saturn_]

Always nice to see another Luigi main. Embrace the power of a first time ever high tier Luigi! [Even though I never thought he was bad in Brawl either asides from his MK, Marth, DDD, and Game and Watch matchups...now he beats all those characters]

I haven't picked anyone as a main yet, I'm just very impressed by him. I'm more than aware of what chars most people think are strong and I'm trying to deliberately work my way up from the weakest, saving the best for last.

Shulk is a lot of fun but I feel like I'm having to fiddle with Monados with my opponent just kills me short hop-fair, you know? You constantly work the Monados while your opponents achieve the same end by running forward and tilting.

 

[A2ZOMG]

The only thing I can think of where you would use Ganondorf's Jab is if you really need that 2 less frames compared to Dtilt and Ftilt in the ground. So, if someone locked you in a Jab combo or something. I have used it in situations like that, but I would rather use his Dtilt, Ftilt, Bair, Fair, Uair, or Nair to get out of stuff or keep myself away from them by punishing before they attack considering Ganondorf's respectable range on his attacks.

Yep. Off the top of my head, situations where having an 8 frame poke versus a 10 frame one come up basically in the following:

*Against Sheik's SH aerial pressure...which is really unfortunate to be frank, given you have to be ABSOLUTELY PERFECT to catch her for 6 damage.
*Flame Choke on specific characters
*Some obscure out of shield situations

Meta Knight is still secretly the best character in the game.

After Pikachu.

Luigi's good.

I'm fine with this given Ganondorf now has the advantage against Metaknight in this game. *shots fired*

 

[NairWizard]

Are you actually being honest solid? i hold your opinion quite highly here. And if so i would love to hear about it. I never thought meta was bad myself.

Nah, I don't think MK is the best character in the game. Right now, I think that would be Sheik or Pikachu (equally likely).

That said, I've decided to add Meta Knight to my list of characters to use in tourneys specifically because of his very good Sheik matchup.

A patient MK who baits and punishes and maximizes his punishes is devastating. He's got guaranteed KO setups (and tons of KO options, including a practically lagless f-smash) and strong edgeguarding, in addition to a great disadvantaged state due to multiple jumps and dimensional cape.

I'm fine with this given Ganondorf now has the advantage against Metaknight in this game. *shots fired*

I think it's even, maybe +1 Meta Knight with customs off. Ganon's reward is great, but his recovery is quite exploitable, and Meta Knight is good at exploiting it (better even than Pikachu: more control over his aerial position + sword disjoint for more safety vs. up-air). There are other reasons, but it's not really a debate worth having here.

I'd still use Luigi for this matchup over Pikachu/Meta Knight anyway, though. Greater margin of error is nice.

 

[Saturn_]

I hope customs are never legal, dear lord they look awful.

 

[warionumbah2]

Yep. Off the top of my head, situations where having an 8 frame poke versus a 10 frame one come up basically in the following:

*Against Sheik's SH aerial pressure...which is really unfortunate to be frank, given you have to be ABSOLUTELY PERFECT to catch her for 6 damage.
*Flame Choke on specific characters
*Some obscure out of shield situations



I'm fine with this given Ganondorf now has the advantage against Metaknight in this game. *shots fired*

Like 3 characters out of 51 have a distinctive edge against him. He's still keeping it 3hunna.

Yoshi and Gdorf have 60:40 advantage against him imo and Sonic is well...Sonic.

On his list placement thing a few members think he's one of the best characters in the game, while i think he's low high tier(at least the same as Mario due to good MU spread against characters that matter).

 

[A2ZOMG]

Like 3 characters out of 51 have a distinctive edge against him. He's still keeping it 3hunna.

Yoshi and Gdorf have 60:40 advantage against him imo and Sonic is well...Sonic.

On his list placement thing a few members think he's one of the best characters in the game, while i think he's low high tier(at least the same as Mario due to good MU spread against characters that matter).

You just lost me...were you talking Metaknight?

And for the record I think Ganondorf wins 55/45. Nothing huge, just Ganondorf is heavy enough that Metaknight tends to have trouble killing Ganon without Smashes or Down-B, and his superior range forces Metaknight to play carefully in neutral. While Metaknight can edgeguard Ganon, his hitboxes aren't as large or lingering as those as some other characters, so I don't feel especially worried about getting gimped by Metaknight.

I disagree Mario does well against characters that matter. Diddy, Sheik, Ness, Luigi, and Pikachu are considerably uphill for Mario. He has slight disadvantages against Rosalina, Wario, Sonic, and Yoshi. At best, he goes even against Fox and Falcon.

 

[Pazx]

I hope customs are never legal, dear lord they look awful.

You've already said this, please attempt to justify your statements next time because "I don't like X" is not a complete post.

 

[warionumbah2]

You just lost me...were you talking Metaknight?

And for the record I think Ganondorf wins 55/45. Nothing huge, just Ganondorf is heavy enough that Metaknight tends to have trouble killing Ganon without Smashes or Down-B, and his superior range forces Metaknight to play carefully in neutral. While Metaknight can edgeguard Ganon, his hitboxes aren't as large or lingering as those as some other characters, so I don't feel especially worried about getting gimped by Metaknight.

I disagree Mario does well against characters that matter. Diddy, Sheik, Ness, Luigi, and Pikachu are considerably uphill for Mario. He has slight disadvantages against Rosalina, Wario, Sonic, and Yoshi. At best, he goes even against Fox and Falcon.

I'll have to practice the ganon mu some more then,since you know the ins and outs of ganondorf I can trust your insight. And yeah I was on about MK .

 

[TheZyzyva]

So I have been following this thread for some time now and it's prompted me to make an account here to particepate (I love the intellectual aspect of games). One of my big questions for everyone is, since we've now seen many personal tier lists, are we making these lists with meta changes in mind? As in, thinking ahead to what May or may not be effective x months down the line as the game develops.

For example, the capt. I love him to death but I don't see his strategy getting working out once players figure out how to stop him. I can't help but feel he's only headed downward.

Compare that to chars like Robin and greninja, who, IMO, we have barely scratched the surfac of what they can do, and I get the feeling our tier lists even 3 months from now will look very different.

Second question for everyone, separate the first (so please forgive a double post), what is it in your eyes that make a character good, and good for the long term?

To look at some commonly discussed chars, Diddy has great combos that are easy to pull off and incredibly rewarding. He's going to stay good because not only are they so easy and difficult to avoid, but h has multiple ways to start them. He doesn't even need bananas or the pop gun to be good, yet he can use them to set people up. Even once people figure out his tricks, his tools are so powerful he will always be good.

Sheik I feel is powerful in a different way. While Diddy has several different ways to draw his combo rifle, sheik has an entire arsenal of combo guns. And none of them put her in any real danger! Diddy invalidates options with his strengths while sheik invalidates options with safety.

To me that's what make those 2 stand out As overpowering. I think ZSS, Sonic, and Rosa are very close to those level of game changing powers but fall just short. Pika gets an honorable mention here but IMO feel he has sheiks kill weakness but not enough from QA to make up for it.

Edit: as in QA doesn't overcome pikas kill weakness like sheiks everything safe does.

 

[Real Smooth-Like]

One thing with Link is how he is weak against shield. Best he can do to combo is D-throw -> B-air -> F-tilt at low percentages (Maybe even 0%?). And we all know just how godly shield is in this game.

That jab -> jab -> Spin Attack though. A good alternative aside from the usual 3 jabs combo.

And how Tink manages to get so low end lag on his F-smash second hit compared to Link I have no clue. He also has lower end lag on his grab...

Apparently, Adult Link now get beaten by his younger selfs, THREE TIMES in a row. At early meta, I thought TP Link was vastly superior comapred to his Toon counterpart... But now...

I gotta completely disagree. First of all, you're saying that Link is weak against shields, which I'm not going to try and play off, he is. And it's a pretty big deal, really hurts his game. But you're acting as if you can just stand there and hold shield and link can't touch you. That's just not true. A good link is gonna punish you for that. At low percentages also, link can get a few more melee hits than that too. He can use his nair fair and bair two times before he touches the ground.


I'm not gonna argue that link has good throws, he doesn't, but they aren't really bad either. They're average but they get still get Link in an advantageous position. At higher percentages the throws will knock your opponent too far away from you to combo with melee attacks, but before they hit the ground it will still give you time to pull out a bomb, depending on the percent of course. Once I pull out the bomb I'm gonna throw that thing at you. If I'm good and make the right reads three things can happen: one, I hit you with the bomb, from there I can follow up with more projectiles and/or melee attacks. Two, I miss the bomb but from there I still got 2 other projectiles I can toss at you to either hit you or prevent you from doing anything to me. No losses on links side. Three, you air dodge. Too bad air dodging sucks in this game. If I'm on the ground I can just dash up to your landing spot and actually use his dash attack, which has a nice tipper effect in which I can kill you at 70 percent if I land it correctly depending on the situation. Or if I'm in the air, remember Links a fast faller, so if I'm close enough to you I can just fast fall to your land spot and dsmash the crap out of you. Obviously there are a lot of things that can go wrong here, but usually I'll be able to get some damage on you from that throw and even more frequently I will come out of the throw in an advantageous position. At least that's my opinion. I haven't met anyone who proved me otherwise yet in battle.

Also for the record, the jab lock isn't gone yet, I don't want to go into detail but if you want me to elaborate I can. I personally think it's an abomination and link doesn't need it. Also jab jab spin attack is a bad option. There are so many better attacks that follow up from jab cancel like d smash or forward smash or f tilt. Grounded spin attack is too punishable.

Your point about tink having less end lag on the back swing is moot in my opinion. Unless you catch a roll or something like that, why on earth would you even use the 2nd f smash if the first one didn't connect? That's a novice mistake that links should never be doing. Never whip out the 2nd f smash if you even think it could whiff. The grab end lag is admittedly a bummer though.

I'm not trying to attack you or anything, I'm just trying to defend my main here. You might think I'm being opinionated because I main this guy, and you know what? Maybe. But still, I think he has potential, at least upper half of the cast(I used to shoot so much higher for him... Reality hit me a little) with customs he's better too. His custom regular boomerang is much better in the fact that it's got two hit boxes and the knock back trajectory is horizontal as opposed to the gales vertical, allowing it to combo into more melee moves, even dash attack if used correctly. And meteor bombs... Like, maybe I think these things are way better than they actually are, but seriously.. Do you know how frickin easy it is to hit a recovering opponent with one of these? Pretty easy( depending on the recovery of course. Ganon is dead always, pikachu is like impossible to hit) and you'd be surprised how many attack and projectiles links bombs beat out. The majority of all projectiles lose to the bomb. link boards have tested it in depth. He can't bomb recover anymore, but they're still nice in a lot of match ups.

I feel like not having a proper dash attack hurts his game a lot. Like the new one is awesome and still good, but there are so many times when I get them in that mid range where I have to fall back and pull out a bomb where instead if I had old dash attack I could use it and then continue to combo them. It's a shame really..

 

[Charls]

I would actualy argue this now that i think about it. But realistically speaking why would you ever use this move EVER?
From what i know at least ganon has combo's that at least involve jab. And when u actually land the jab it knocks opponents far enough away. Samus is frame three and can actually link the second hit if u catch your opponent in the air. Also gets opponents off of you when they are at highish percents.

What does marths jab actually do for him that another option does not cover better? Maybe im just un informed since i don't main him. but is there even any combo's that use marths jab?

@ Shaya @ Emblem Lord ?

Jab doesn't actually "combo" into anything, but then again most of Marth's kit doesn't combo anyways. However Jab is actually very useful for setting traps because of its reliability as an anti-air. Dtilt > Jab is very safe for example, allowing Marth to force air approaches with dtilt which he can then catch with his jab. If the opponent airdodges, free punish; if they shield the dtilt, go for a grab. Worst case scenario they perfect shield the tilt or you tried for jab 2 (ew) and whiffed it. Utilt and Ftilt could replace Jab in theory, but both those moves have noticeably longer cooldowns and leave a large room for breaking said trap.

 

[Antonykun]

I hope customs are never legal, dear lord they look awful.

grabs popcorn

 

[NachoOfCheese]

So I have been following this thread for some time now and it's prompted me to make an account here to particepate (I love the intellectual aspect of games). One of my big questions for everyone is, since we've now seen many personal tier lists, are we making these lists with meta changes in mind? As in, thinking ahead to what May or may not be effective x months down the line as the game develops.

For example, the capt. I love him to death but I don't see his strategy getting working out once players figure out how to stop him. I can't help but feel he's only headed downward.

Compare that to chars like Robin and greninja, who, IMO, we have barely scratched the surfac of what they can do, and I get the feeling our tier lists even 3 months from now will look very different.

Here's my thought on it. Every smash game that comes out starts off with those unique newcomers catching everyone off guard (Little Mac OP). Around this time, heavy power characters get the spotlight, too. (Bowser OP). Now we're in that stage where we know what characters dominate, but some unexplored characters can still rise to power (Melee Jigglypuff, Brawl Olimar). That hasn't really happened yet for anyone aside from Pac-man. As the meta develops, frame data and matchups and usable projectiles become key factors in where characters stand (Sheik, Diddy). Several months down the road, the odds that these characters won't be viable is minuscule. But this game has so many characters that it'll take quite a while for the meta to fully develop. And that's not even including customs or Mewtwo! So we'll see.

 

[Xuan Wu]

I am not sure if there has been any discussion on this already, but something came to my attention a little while back. There was a thread I remember reading that concerned the sword users, saying that Smash 4 may be the first game since 64 that does not have a swordfighter in the Top 10. What constitutes a "swordfighter" in Smash? Does Pit/Dark Pit count as one?

Also, if you were to rank all the sword users from best to worst in the current meta, one with standard specials and one with custom specials, how would your lists look like?

Curious. ^-^

 

[TriTails]

I gotta completely disagree. First of all, you're saying that Link is weak against shields, which I'm not going to try and play off, he is. And it's a pretty big deal, really hurts his game. But you're acting as if you can just stand there and hold shield and link can't touch you. That's just not true. A good link is gonna punish you for that. At low percentages also, link can get a few more melee hits than that too. He can use his nair fair and bair two times before he touches the ground.


I'm not gonna argue that link has good throws, he doesn't, but they aren't really bad either. They're average but they get still get Link in an advantageous position. At higher percentages the throws will knock your opponent too far away from you to combo with melee attacks, but before they hit the ground it will still give you time to pull out a bomb, depending on the percent of course. Once I pull out the bomb I'm gonna throw that thing at you. If I'm good and make the right reads three things can happen: one, I hit you with the bomb, from there I can follow up with more projectiles and/or melee attacks. Two, I miss the bomb but from there I still got 2 other projectiles I can toss at you to either hit you or prevent you from doing anything to me. No losses on links side. Three, you air dodge. Too bad air dodging sucks in this game. If I'm on the ground I can just dash up to your landing spot and actually use his dash attack, which has a nice tipper effect in which I can kill you at 70 percent if I land it correctly depending on the situation. Or if I'm in the air, remember Links a fast faller, so if I'm close enough to you I can just fast fall to your land spot and dsmash the crap out of you. Obviously there are a lot of things that can go wrong here, but usually I'll be able to get some damage on you from that throw and even more frequently I will come out of the throw in an advantageous position. At least that's my opinion. I haven't met anyone who proved me otherwise yet in battle.

Also for the record, the jab lock isn't gone yet, I don't want to go into detail but if you want me to elaborate I can. I personally think it's an abomination and link doesn't need it. Also jab jab spin attack is a bad option. There are so many better attacks that follow up from jab cancel like d smash or forward smash or f tilt. Grounded spin attack is too punishable.

Your point about tink having less end lag on the back swing is moot in my opinion. Unless you catch a roll or something like that, why on earth would you even use the 2nd f smash if the first one didn't connect? That's a novice mistake that links should never be doing. Never whip out the 2nd f smash if you even think it could whiff. The grab end lag is admittedly a bummer though.

I'm not trying to attack you or anything, I'm just trying to defend my main here. You might think I'm being opinionated because I main this guy, and you know what? Maybe. But still, I think he has potential, at least upper half of the cast(I used to shoot so much higher for him... Reality hit me a little) with customs he's better too. His custom regular boomerang is much better in the fact that it's got two hit boxes and the knock back trajectory is horizontal as opposed to the gales vertical, allowing it to combo into more melee moves, even dash attack if used correctly. And meteor bombs... Like, maybe I think these things are way better than they actually are, but seriously.. Do you know how frickin easy it is to hit a recovering opponent with one of these? Pretty easy( depending on the recovery of course. Ganon is dead always, pikachu is like impossible to hit) and you'd be surprised how many attack and projectiles links bombs beat out. The majority of all projectiles lose to the bomb. link boards have tested it in depth. He can't bomb recover anymore, but they're still nice in a lot of match ups.

I feel like not having a proper dash attack hurts his game a lot. Like the new one is awesome and still good, but there are so many times when I get them in that mid range where I have to fall back and pull out a bomb where instead if I had old dash attack I could use it and then continue to combo them. It's a shame really..

I have posted too much walls of text in the past, now looks like Karma is happening.

Thing is, with Link's throws, they don't do much of anything except for 'getoutta my face'. Though, they do give him a time to pull out a bomb, I give them that. I'd argue Link's throws aren't even average though. One of the worse, but not worst because they STILL give Link somekind of reward. I agree with you.

Jab -> Jab -> Spin Attack pushes opponents far away for them to punish the Spin Attack end lag. Unless you are fighting someone like Rosalina, if you manage to connect with this chances they flyaway so far that they won't be able to punish it at all. Of course, do this at mid or higher percentages.

I'm just like pointing out that Tink's F-smash is much less punishable while still getting similiar rewards (Less power, but still... it's still stronk). You can literally use it for fun and don't get punished for it (Unless you are fighting the likes of Sonic). But yeah, that is useless .

Link used to be my main, but I dropped himbecause his playsytle just don't fit to me anymore. I still play him, but not so much anymore. My gameplan is to grab (*Points to the main bar*), and you know the rest.

Thing with his dash attack is it's slow. I'd rather have lighting fast one like Luigi's even though it's punishable. It also teleghraphs itself, so you most likely won't be hitting with this unless you are punishing or your opponent is just plain dumb.

I guess I need to look at him more, but I'm sure Tink will surpass him again in this iteration.

 

[Quickhero]

Hey guys, I'm a little behind on the Custom moves stuff, can you please show me the link to the tournament videos? Specifically ones with Marth, if you can.

On paper...the thing really doesn't sound that interesting. I mean, sure, I see that previously borderline unviable characters became extremely viable and possibly high tier, but the problem is, when the hype dies down. I fear I will just see these characters dominate TOO hard and cause a greater shift in viability then it should, especially since characters like WFT and Donkey Kong being incredibly strong now and characters like Marth, Fox, Meta Knight, and Jigglypuff aren't really benefiting much from these changes (unless for the former Crescent Slash REALLY is as good as some people say, which I just don't see being the case with my current knowledge) and it just seems like in the long term the game is just going to end up with a centralized top tier and increase power creep and just make a more unbalanced meta than the non-custom one. (Also thinking about an even BETTER Rosalina makes me want to barf...)

For this reason, I need to see this for myself, maybe these things ARE wrong and maybe the tournament has more than just a sign of centralization anyways. Maybe custom moves in general need more time, who knows, but from what this thread is saying alone, I can't really say I'm looking forward to this.

 

[warionumbah2]

Also, if you were to rank all the sword users from best to worst in the current meta, one with standard specials and one with custom specials, how would your lists look like?

Curious. ^-^

1. Ike/Shulk
2. Shulk/Ike

- everyone else -

7. Lucina
8. Sword fighter

MK plays nothing like a sword user since most of his game plan revolves around dashing,combo,kill setups etc. He's more like Falcon but with some differences so i didn't include him. Don't know if Pits count as sword wielders or not so i excluded those 2 as well.

@ Quickhero MK isn't gonna suffer as much since most MU will remain the same(Ike,Palutina,Gdorf will change that's for sure), his fast drill custom is actually hella good and helps him against zone characters like MM. Cause he's good already i don't really fear some characters powering up, Marf on the other hand is someone to worry about since he isn't all that great without customs anyway...

 

[NachoOfCheese]

1. Ike/Shulk
2. Shulk/Ike

- everyone else -

7. Lucina
8. Sword fighter

MK plays nothing like a sword user since most of his game plan revolves around dashing,combo,kill setups etc. He's more like Falcon but with some differences so i didn't include him. Don't know if Pits count as sword wielders or not so i excluded those 2 as well.

I keep hearing people say Ike is really good. Enlighten me. XD

 

[Radical Larry]

Is it me, or does Greninja really feel terrible against Luigi and Link in terms of aerial game? His hitboxes and attacks seem so wonky and I always tend to miss his B-Air and F-Air a lot because of that. With the other two, I feel like they just do far better compared to him.

I don't know, Greninja seems like a character people have been overrating for a while, when he has some very terrible attacks aside from a select few, like U-Smash, D-Smash and D-Air.

 

[Xuan Wu]

1. Ike/Shulk
2. Shulk/Ike

- everyone else -

7. Lucina
8. Sword fighter

MK plays nothing like a sword user since most of his game plan revolves around dashing,combo,kill setups etc. He's more like Falcon but with some differences so i didn't include him. Don't know if Pits count as sword wielders or not so i excluded those 2 as well.

I see. So, from what I notice, majority opinion has it that the two-handed sword users are the leading characters of this group after all. Is your list based on their overall attributes, match-up spreads, or both? May I also ask for your opinion on Toon Link and why you think Ike now surpasses him?

^-^

I keep hearing people say Ike is really good. Enlighten me. XD

Precisely what I would like to know as well. All I know is that he is supposedly a monster with customs enabled. ^-^

 

[Smog Frog]

I keep hearing people say Ike is really good. Enlighten me. XD

humongous reach, great power, great mobility for his power level, and decent recovery for his weight class. shulk challenges him for the status of the best sword user in smash 4.

edit: maybe mk as well.

edit 2: customs ike is a monster that i feel is very easily top 15, if not top 10. he has that ******** windbox eruption, a much better version of qd that fixes some of his midrange problems, and a diagonal aether that allows him to edgeguard with his great aerials.

 

[Firefoxx]

I keep hearing people say Ike is really good. Enlighten me. XD

He lost some KO power from Brawl (not a ton, but its noticeable) but he gained a kit that is practically lagless. Jab, d-tilt, nair, fair, and bair all have low start up and end lag and all three aerials auto-cancel. This, combined with his above average air speed, gives him a surprisingly good combo game. u-tilt KO's way earlier than a move that fast has any right to. His grab game is also great and he gets excellent rewards off of down and up throw, including combos at KO percents. Plus f-smash still exists.

Vanilla Ike has his share of weaknesses (recovery, edge-guarding, approaching and being juggled) but customs can fix most of those.

 

[meleebrawler]

Is it me, or does Greninja really feel terrible against Luigi and Link in terms of aerial game? His hitboxes and attacks seem so wonky and I always tend to miss his B-Air and F-Air a lot because of that. With the other two, I feel like they just do far better compared to him.

I don't know, Greninja seems like a character people have been overrating for a while, when he has some very terrible attacks aside from a select few, like U-Smash, D-Smash and D-Air.

You probably don't play Greninja much if you think Dair is one of his best moves.
Rewarding, yes, but predictable and punishable.

His hitboxes are just fine (except for weird point-blank Fsmash whiffs), it's probably more his
mobility that's screwing with your aim (not to mention the timing needed for Fair).

Greninja's moves for the most part aren't really suited for approaching or challenging other moves.
Instead he baits his opponents with his great mobility (mastering on-stage Hydro Pump use is just
as important for him as it is for Pikachu) and shurikens and punishes mistakes. Once Greninja has his opponents
where he wants them is when his moveset shines.

 

[Nobie]

1. Ike/Shulk
2. Shulk/Ike

- everyone else -

7. Lucina
8. Sword fighter

MK plays nothing like a sword user since most of his game plan revolves around dashing,combo,kill setups etc. He's more like Falcon but with some differences so i didn't include him. Don't know if Pits count as sword wielders or not so i excluded those 2 as well.

@ Quickhero MK isn't gonna suffer as much since most MU will remain the same(Ike,Palutina,Gdorf will change that's for sure), his fast drill custom is actually hella good and helps him against zone characters like MM. Cause he's good already i don't really fear some characters powering up, Marf on the other hand is someone to worry about since he isn't all that great without customs anyway...

Would Dedede count as a pseudo swordsman? His hammer disjoints are crazy.

 

[FullMoon]

Is it me, or does Greninja really feel terrible against Luigi and Link in terms of aerial game? His hitboxes and attacks seem so wonky and I always tend to miss his B-Air and F-Air a lot because of that. With the other two, I feel like they just do far better compared to him.

I don't know, Greninja seems like a character people have been overrating for a while, when he has some very terrible attacks aside from a select few, like U-Smash, D-Smash and D-Air.

I'm pretty sure Greninja has an advantage over both Luigi and Link, I can't see how you can miss b-air so often since it's such a straight-forward attack. F-Air can be hard to time well due to the start-up but it's just a matter of getting used to it.

Also D-Smash and D-Air are bad what are you even talking about.

And hey, Greninja has a high skill ceiling for a reason, you either dedicate some time to learn the character or you're not going to get anywhere and be left with the impression that he's bad. He's made to bait and punish characters and once he does get that important first hit in, that's when getting him away from you is hard just because of how good he is at chasing you. Plus he has a wide selection of combos and kill-setups as well as respectable power for someone as fast as he is.

 

[Charls]

Personally I don't think there are any reasons not to consider the Pits swordfighters. They have roughly the same range for some of their disjointed attacks as other of the more traditional swordmen. Their biggest diference to the rest of them is access to a diverse toolset which allows a certain liberty in how they adapt to matchups, althought the same could be argued for some other swordsmen as well. And if we're speaking of the semantics on what comprises a "sword", one could argue they simply use [very] short swords.

 

[warionumbah2]

humongous reach, great power, great mobility for his power level, and decent recovery for his weight class. shulk challenges him for the status of the best sword user in smash 4.

edit: maybe mk as well.

edit 2: customs ike is a monster that i feel is very easily top 15, if not top 10. he has that ******** windbox eruption, a much better version of qd that fixes some of his midrange problems, and a diagonal aether that allows him to edgeguard with his great aerials.

MK doesn't fall into that category yeah he uses a sword but his main moves and combo starters are from his hands and feet. Like you don't space with any of MK move that involves his sword.

@Amazing Ampharos Just wanna thank you for telling me about fast drill custom its most likely MK best custom, was up against a sheik player on smashladder and I was at high percent so I was pretty much flying around everytime she landed a fair I used the custom at the other side of FD to blitz the sheik player putting her in a disadvantaged state and helped me get in close without worrying about needles. Then the horizontal distance when recovering, sweet Jesus.

Custom ike is the best swordsman and I don't know which is better between default shulk and default ike.

 

[Radical Larry]

I'm pretty sure Greninja has an advantage over both Luigi and Link, I can't see how you can miss b-air so often since it's such a straight-forward attack. F-Air can be hard to time well due to the start-up but it's just a matter of getting used to it.

Also D-Smash and D-Air are bad what are you even talking about.

And hey, Greninja has a high skill ceiling for a reason, you either dedicate some time to learn the character or you're not going to get anywhere and be left with the impression that he's bad. He's made to bait and punish characters and once he does get that important first hit in, that's when getting him away from you is hard just because of how good he is at chasing you. Plus he has a wide selection of combos and kill-setups as well as respectable power for someone as fast as he is.

I see where you get at this; I actually fought a Greninja not too long ago with Ganondorf and he was fairly decent and kicked the living hell out of me. Then he made the mistake to use Shadow Sneak on our last stocks near the edge, resulting in Ganoncide. Though I will say, the Greninja guy both deserved the Flame Choke and the honorary win (even though Ganoncide lets the initiator automatically win it).

He did use a good D-Air > F-Air combo, as well as a D-Air > N-Air (which was punishable by Ganon's U-Air), but I didn't see much U-Smash action from him and just kept on hitting perfect shields. He did try to use the Hydro Pump gimp, but I took advantage of it like Mario's FLUDD attack and just managed to rise an incredible height with Ganondorf, thus aiding my recovery immensely.

(Neat little trick, if you want to practice Perfect Shielding, the recommended character is Ganondorf. Trust me, it works.)

 

[Antonykun]

On the subject of Pits being Swordfighters, I will add that they became 100x more fun when I thought of them as Brawl Marth with Wings (Don't kill me @ Emblem Lord )

 

[FullMoon]

I see where you get at this; I actually fought a Greninja not too long ago with Ganondorf and he was fairly decent and kicked the living hell out of me. Then he made the mistake to use Shadow Sneak on our last stocks near the edge, resulting in Ganoncide. Though I will say, the Greninja guy both deserved the Flame Choke and the honorary win (even though Ganoncide lets the initiator automatically win it).

He did use a good D-Air > F-Air combo, as well as a D-Air > N-Air (which was punishable by Ganon's U-Air), but I didn't see much U-Smash action from him and just kept on hitting perfect shields. He did try to use the Hydro Pump gimp, but I took advantage of it like Mario's FLUDD attack and just managed to rise an incredible height with Ganondorf, thus aiding my recovery immensely.

(Neat little trick, if you want to practice Perfect Shielding, the recommended character is Ganondorf. Trust me, it works.)

Funny, I got beaten by a Ganondorf just yesterday, though those were pretty close matches and I won one of the three matches we played.

D-Air has it's uses, but you really commit to it so it's not something you can use very often, though at least it's safe on shield. D-Smash can be used to put the opponent in a bad angle off-stage which can really mess with some recoveries as well, but the long start-up makes it only good for reads.

Playing Greninja is a lot about resource management I'd think, you can't get predictable, so you need to learn how to use all of Greninja's moves so you can always keep mixing things up. All of his moves are decent at worst and he has a lot of versatility in what he can do with his specials, which is great. You need to be able to think very fast to use him properly I'd say, but I think for all his problems, Greninja can offer some good reward since his kill-setups and gimping ability makes him able to take stocks pretty easily if the opponent makes just one mistake.

Honestly I think the only thing Greninja needs to get into top tier status is getting his pre 1.0.4 shurikens back.

 

[Disgaea D2]

TBH, I haven't seen a lot of G&W in Competitive Play. I think he is considered the new Ganondorf for Smash 4 other than Olimar and Wii Fit and is heavily nerfed in Smash 4? (I play mostly G&W and I'm bad). Do any of you agree with this?

 

[Antonykun]

TBH, I haven't seen a lot of G&W in Competitive Play. I think he is considered the new Ganondorf for Smash 4 other than Olimar and Wii Fit and is heavily nerfed in Smash 4? (I play mostly G&W and I'm bad). Do any of you agree with this?

Wut, I don't even

 

[Yonder]

Ah so your just having the new exposure hypness/exploration. thats cool.

some quirky charaters you may wana playaround with.

DK
Bowser
Pits
Zelda
Ike.

Those are some with neat transitional changes.
For some reason i feel like you tried ganon already. (everyone loves ganon.)

@ Y Yonder i would argue that luigi still loses Those MU's. It just so happens that those character are no longer dominant.

I'm going to disagree here, Luigi wins all these matchups. Just by a hair though [55:45] Not total wins, but he definitely does not lose them.

Meta Knight: Range is very deceptive and near bad as Luigi's. He has to approach Luigi, and Luigi beats him up onstage. MK can gimp him offstage, though, but usually does too quickly to Luigi. One mistake with shuttle loop or dimension cape, his killing moves = Free Up B. He doesn't override all of Luigi's attacks like Brawl and no longer has solid hitboxes. He outspeeds Luigi on the ground, but barely outspeeds him in the air, making him vulnerable to tornado kills, as he's going to want to kill off the top too. Barely any answer to fireballs sides mach tornado.

Marth: Very punishable on his attacks from landing lag and smashes, A missed F smash can easily result in an Up B. Fireballs Marth has little answer to except countering, Luigi can dominate the air and ground with these [Unless Marth swats them away, which still slow his movement]. He still outranges Luigi though outside of fireballs, but approahing his easier here so once Luigi gets in, Marth is done and can only counter to save himself. Also prone to dair spikes offstage. I'd agrue 55:45 Luigi or even.

DDD: Combo bait. One grab and he's dead like DK, Luigi racks up damage like lightening. Gordos are vurtially useless due to fireballs always reflecting them back. He has range, but he's actually SLOWER than Luigi in the air [And ground? Not sure]. Super easy to juggle, only advantage DDD has here is that he is the hardest character to kill in the a game, so a few good hits from DDD can kill Luigi. Good luck hitting Luigi though with reflectable projectiles and horrible movement. DDD only dominated Luigi n Brawl due to an infinite. It's gone now, and it shows how DDD loses here. At least DDD can gimp with Gordos though, which is nice. 60:40 Luigi.

Game and Watch: His aerials outrange Luigi's sides from Luigi's bair also great at edgeguarding. He dies way too early to Luigi though while not killing early enough in return. Fireballs are snuffed flatout, but if baited correctly the end lag can be used for a grab or up B up to 3 times. I like doing this. In Brawl Game and Watch Game and Watch could edgeguard, kill, and survive with bucket braking. Now he can just edgeguard, and it's not enough here. 55:45 or even. Like Marth, only with less range but less endlag on most things. And an eh projectile. But stops fireballs more effectively.


Tides have changed on his matchups. You got to outmobilize and outrange Luigi to beat him here. Here are the matchups I think Luigi loses from hardest to easiest.

Villager [65:35]
ZSS [60:40]
Toon Link [60:40]
Pit/Dark Pit [60:40]
Shulk [60:40]
Pac Man [55:45]
Mega Man [55:45]
Falco [55:45]
Mac [55:45]
ROB [55:45]

Sides Villager, I don't think he has any polarizing matchups like Brawl. Another respective member on here says Villager is even to Luigi's favor though, so maybe it's just knowing the matchup.

 

[Emblem Lord]

The Marth information is straight up incorrect.

That match is even.

Marth dominates neutral. Luigis options are cyclone and......try to bait something so he can grab. However his grab reward is huge so even if Marth shuts him down, one punish and Luigi is now winning the battle of attrition.

 

[Blue Ninjakoopa]

@ Emblem Lord Does Mario beat Marth or vice versa? Or is that MU even?

 

[HeavyLobster]

TBH, I haven't seen a lot of G&W in Competitive Play. I think he is considered the new Ganondorf for Smash 4 other than Olimar and Wii Fit and is heavily nerfed in Smash 4? (I play mostly G&W and I'm bad). Do any of you agree with this?

Olimar isn't considered bad anymore. He's generally considered high-mid or so now. Zelda is the other character generally thrown around when bottom tier is being discussed. Not sure about Wii Fit but I think they're generally considered mediocre on default but pretty solid with customs. G&W isn't THAT bad but he's kind of weaker than most of the rest of the cast. Customs do give him a legit projectile and a reliable Side-B so he's more viable there but still not great. He's nowhere near Brawl Ganon levels of bad though. No one is. He's not an optimal character for tourney play but you can do just fine with him at lower levels of play.

 

[Emblem Lord]

I think it's even. Easier to punish on block with Dolphin Slash OoS. Still has good grab reward. Scarier edge guarding then Luigi. Worse overall options in neutral though.

 

[FullMoon]

@ Y Yonder I think you should add Greninja to the list of bad MUs for Luigi. Greninja outcamps him with a faster projectile with more range and forces Luigi to play his game, which already puts him in a bad spot. Greninja can bait cyclone as an approach option and punish the end lag of it with a grab. Luigi really can't escape Greninja once in a disadvantage thanks to his bad mobility, while the frog is a contender for best mobility in the game. Off-stage, it only takes a b-air to really mess with Luigi's recovery as well unless you're really good at mashing that cyclone.

On the plus side for Luigi, he can combo Greninja pretty well and N-Air can help him escape juggling, but even then it's really hard for Luigi to approach Greninja safely and start a combo when he can pretty much zone him out with shurikens. Cyclone is also beaten by fully charged shurikens so there's that too.

I think Greninja vs Luigi is 60:40 Greninja's favor since he pretty much forces Luigi to play his game all the time.