Character Competitive Impressions

[Yonder]

@ 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.

Honestly, I forgot Greninja. Yeah I can agree with 60:40, Amsa beating 2 strong Luigi players [Boss, J Miller] is further evidence of this too.

And I did say it was even or slight Luigi favor for Marth, Emblem. So if you said it's straight up incorrect, why would you list the same ratio as me? A bit contradictory. He's no where near as scary for Luigi in this game. I'd lean more towards even like you said, but that's only from like, the best Marths ever. Not easy, but not really hard either.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Your analysis was incorrect not the ratio.

The way you described the match was like a day one Marth fighting a master luigi.

I honestly couldnt tell if you were trolling or not.

 

[deepseadiva]

You know who we're forgetting to mention and talk about more? Greninja.

 

[FullMoon]

For a moment I thought I had made that post @ deepseadiva made and I was like "wait, when did I post that?!" until I looked at the username.

 

[Nu~]

You know who we're forgetting to mention and talk about more? Greninja.

I could say the same about Pac-Man.

 

[Charls]

I think a big part of the misconceptions and general lack of knowledge on Greninja - outside of his board, mainly - comes from how little play he sees. I only played what I would consider a "great" Greninja just the other day, and that was in For Glory so any actual analysis was hampered by common FG issues (FD only, lag, bla bla ect.). Adding to that is how strange Greninja can seem at times. It has been stated several times how Greninja is a hard character to play optimally. Well, I can't put my finger on it but fighting against him also feels hard, or a bit surreal at times. Being as slippery as can be makes his bait game exeptional, so going against the frog necesitates restraint and I don't mean sitting there in shield either. In a way, Greninja gets into your psyche unlike many other characters can. Greninja mains, feel free to correct me on anything I said.

 

[Nu~]

I feel the same way. Fighting him with Pac-Man makes greninja a bit more predictable (the tranpoline, hydrant, and fruit mess up all approaches)
But still...I feel like I'm fighting a ghost. You can feel the incoming threat, but you don't know when it will pop out...
Or like your fighting in the smoke.
It's pretty fun lol

 

[Conda]

Enough talking about the pride of playing to win or playing for pride etc.

I think a big part of the misconceptions and general lack of knowledge on Greninja - outside of his board, mainly - comes from how little play he sees. I only played what I would consider a "great" Greninja just the other day, and that was in For Glory so any actual analysis was hampered by common FG issues (FD only, lag, bla bla ect.). Adding to that is how strange Greninja can seem at times. It has been stated several times how Greninja is a hard character to play optimally. Well, I can't put my finger on it but fighting against him also feels hard, or a bit surreal at times. Being as slippery as can be makes his bait game exeptional, so going against the frog necesitates restraint and I don't mean sitting there in shield either. In a way, Greninja gets into your psyche unlike many other characters can do. Greninja mains, feel free to correct me on anything I said.

Great way to put it. He can definitely do a lot.

Since we're on the topic, this is a Greninja Tips & Tricks video I just put out. Take a look at some of the fun crap Greninja players can pull off.

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

 

[spiderfreak1011]

I think we're not talking about as much as we could be either. : P Albeit, a good Greninja probably would be more useful and prominent in competitive play than Shulk honestly.

 

[FullMoon]

I think a big part of the misconceptions and general lack of knowledge on Greninja - outside of his board, mainly - comes from how little play he sees. I only played what I would consider a "great" Greninja just the other day, and that was in For Glory so any actual analysis was hampered by common FG issues (FD only, lag, bla bla ect.). Adding to that is how strange Greninja can seem at times. It has been stated several times how Greninja is a hard character to play optimally. Well, I can't put my finger on it but fighting against him also feels hard, or a bit surreal at times. Being as slippery as can be makes his bait game exeptional, so going against the frog necesitates restraint and I don't mean sitting there in shield either. In a way, Greninja gets into your psyche unlike many other characters can do. Greninja mains, feel free to correct me on anything I said.

Well I can't really say much about that since by playing the frog I can't really know if I'm messing with my opponent's head or not, but Greninja is indeed very good at the bait-and-punish game because his speed and amazing dash grab pretty much allows him to punish any mistakes an opponent makes within a good distance, and if the opponent is too close they're vulnerable to things like d-tilt kill setups.

A Greninja player with good control over his mobility is very slippery and can really throw someone off I'd assume, which can result in a lot of mistakes that Greninja will gleefully take advantage off. Just look at how aMSa moves with his Greninja, it's crazy how much he zips around with no trouble.

 

[Blue Ninjakoopa]

I think the reason we don't see Pac-Man, Greninja, or WFT often is because those characters have intense demand for moveset awareness, precision, and patience. Most players find that unappealing and just opt for Link, Sheik, and Captain Falcon respectively.

 

[FullMoon]

By the way @ Conda one thing I noticed in your video is that you said that the trigger time for Greninja's Substitute is pretty small, it's actually lasts longer than Little Mac's, Marth and Lucina's and is tied with Palutena's in duration. Plus it leaves Greninja invulnerable for a while if he's hit by something that doesn't trigger Substitute.

 

[Blue Ninjakoopa]

Also I'm not saying that those characters' styles are a bad thing, I think they're all viable competitively and better than most people think they are.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

Considering also has an infinite jab combo now, will this affects his placement on the tier list?

 

[dragontamer]

Considering also has an infinite jab combo now, will this affects his placement on the tier list?

I'm worried about that guy's testing methodology. PacMan breaking out means a 3-frame hole, which means Mario's Nair or Up-B should also break it.

 

[Antonykun]

You know who we're forgetting to mention and talk about more? Greninja.

You have a very peculiar way of saying Olimar
Also any "infinite" that can be broken by a frame 3 n-air is not an infinite

 

[NairWizard]

Greninja needs to play a strong ground game. He's in the Fox and Meta Knight class of characters: characters who play reactively with baits and punishes, dash attacking or grabbing when an opening presents itself.

One issue is the startup lag on Greninja's dash grab. It's easier to stuff with d-tilts/f-tilts than most other dash grabs. When Meta Knight runs at me and I'm playing Pikachu, I have to wait until he's right on top of me to jab, because if I d-tilt I might miss my window and get grabbed anyway. But when Greninja runs at me, I can use d-tilt pretty confidently because I know that his grab won't catch me instantly. This allows me to cover his other options better (such as his dash attack).

Because of that startup lag, I think that other reactive/bait-and-punish characters are the hardest for Greninja to face. Fox and Meta Knight seem like his worst matchups, especially because he doesn't get out of disadvantage that easily (his n-air is awkward).

I don't think that Sonic is nearly as bad as some Greninjas seem to think, though, if you make good use of jab; Sheik is probably also not that bad, though both of these characters can play a bait-and-punish game to an extent so maybe they are that bad after all.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Sheik doesnt have to do anything but charge needles and throw them right in the frogs mouth forcing him to do the one thing he cannot do safely.

Approach.

Then Sheik beats him up for his audacity.

 

[incrediblej]

Who we need to talk about out of these I only use pacs shulk luc and oli been practicing dh trio and bowj

who we discuss but don't think theres enough potential to make serious gamechangers for them out of these I only use toon lunk and lank, ive tried practicing galco but he feels a bit clunky so I've been practicing fox, mega I've tried and am still trying to use him good hard to kill with him its hard for me though and not sure about the others

 

[Antonykun]

Seriously have you seen Nairo's D Pit?! Like how is that NOT a game changer?! Also Floats are way more of a game changer than like most of the cast just because she can move and attack at the same time.

 

[Luigi player]

Greninja needs to play a strong ground game. He's in the Fox and Meta Knight class of characters: characters who play reactively with baits and punishes, dash attacking or grabbing when an opening presents itself.

One issue is the startup lag on Greninja's dash grab. It's easier to stuff with d-tilts/f-tilts than most other dash grabs. When Meta Knight runs at me and I'm playing Pikachu, I have to wait until he's right on top of me to jab, because if I d-tilt I might miss my window and get grabbed anyway. But when Greninja runs at me, I can use d-tilt pretty confidently because I know that his grab won't catch me instantly. This allows me to cover his other options better (such as his dash attack).

Because of that startup lag, I think that other reactive/bait-and-punish characters are the hardest for Greninja to face. Fox and Meta Knight seem like his worst matchups, especially because he doesn't get out of disadvantage that easily (his n-air is awkward).

I don't think that Sonic is nearly as bad as some Greninjas seem to think, though, if you make good use of jab; Sheik is probably also not that bad, though both of these characters can play a bait-and-punish game to an extent so maybe they are that bad after all.

Actually, Greninjas dashgrab is really good. It's frame 9. Same as MKs, and frame 8 being the fastest dashgrabs.
The slow ones are his standing and pivot grabs (frame 14 and 15).
With such good grabrange as Greninja his frame 9 dashgrab is one of his best assets.

 

[FullMoon]

Because of that startup lag, I think that other reactive/bait-and-punish characters are the hardest for Greninja to face. Fox and Meta Knight seem like his worst matchups, especially because he doesn't get out of disadvantage that easily (his n-air is awkward).

I think the best way for Greninja to get out of disadvantage is Hydro Pump, the water pushes the opponent away and allows Greninja to get some distance from them. If the opponent is trying to hit you in the air, Hydro Pump can even make them go super high and depending on the character this might even make Greninja go from disadvantage right into an advantage state since usually he wants the opponent to be over him.

But yeah, I think Sonic, Fox and Sheik are Greninja's worst MUs but I don't think they're higher than 60:40. Meta Knight I'm not too sure on because I don't have much practice against him, so I'd have to practice the MU some before really saying something about it.

Overall I think you're quite right on that. Greninja struggles the most against other bait-and-punish characters who can keep up with his mobility, but other than the three character above and possibly Meta Knight, I don't think Greninja has other MUs where he's at a disadvantage, as far as top tier are concerned, Sheik and Sonic are his main worries (not sure where Fox would be right now) and he does have a good winning MU against Luigi and might have a very slight advantage over Pikachu and Diddy too so I'm pretty confident on the frog's ability to win a tournament by himself.

 

[Nu~]

3 60:40's?
Is greninja a secret top tier?

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Considering also has an infinite jab combo now, will this affects his placement on the tier list?

It's not an infinite. It can be DI'd or shielded at high-ish percents, much easier when D3 has high rage.

Not to mention the only thing that comes close to "true comboing" out of that is the finisher and the dtilt. Anything else out of jab1 and jab2 can be avoided by shielding or di.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Firefoxx]

Yeah Greninja's dash grab is quite good, it only seems slow because the water-vortex thing comes out slightly before the actual grab does.

 

[NairWizard]

Interesting, good to know re: dash grab. I must have been mistaking his standing grab for his dashgrab.

If his dash grab is that good, then I can't see him having very many disadvantageous matchups at all. Though I haven't played aMSa.

 

[FullMoon]

The thing about Greninja is, while he might not have many disadvantageous MUs, he doesn't have too many "relevant" advantages either. For instance, I think the only one of the current top tiers he has an advantage against are Luigi and maybe a very slight advantage on Diddy and Pikachu. ZSS, Rosalina, Yoshi, Ness, etc all seem to be even to me.

So out of the most popular characters, Greninja still has an disadvantage to the second most popular character in the competitive scene, which is a pretty bad thing. Losing to Sonic is also really bad, so Greninja is certainly very good, but those two characters are very popular right now and that ends up holding the frog back.

 

[TriTails]

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]

Can you elaborate on those two? Maybe it's just me that is lacking in experience, but...

ZSS' Paralyzer gets eaten by Fireballs, so ZSS has to approach. And Luigi's playsytle is leaning more on punishing to approach since his approach sucks. And I do believe he combos ZSS fairly hard too, and ZSS is light, Luigi can kill her easily. And most ZSS players I face lurks around for grabs, she whiffs a grab = She is either getting comboed or dead. Any ZSS mains can correct me?

Falco seems like even to me. His mobility isn't great too (Luigi outspeeds him on the ground, while Falco doesn't seem to be all that faster in the air), and his lazers are slow to fire (Luigi can't duck under them though....), and Luigi combos him hard. I think Luigi's only big threats is his reflector (Why Falco must kick it foward? Why?) and his attack power is actually pretty strong (That F-smash is frekken stonk).

Also, add in Jiggly. Her air game trumps Luigi (This can be said for about every of her MU lol) and she beats out Cyclone with N-air hard. Luigi can't exactly combo her either. I also heard her aerials pushes Luigi's shield fairly hard, and you can't exactly force a ground battle here.

Maybe Pika too? Dunno...

Welp, any criticism is welcomed. I need to expand my other characters knowledge too.

Edit: And also @ FullMoon , Luigi isn't top tier.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

Who we need to talk about out of these I only use pacs shulk luc and oli been practicing dh trio and bowj

who we discuss but don't think theres enough potential to make serious gamechangers for them out of these I only use toon lunk and lank, ive tried practicing galco but he feels a bit clunky so I've been practicing fox, mega I've tried and am still trying to use him good hard to kill with him its hard for me though and not sure about the others

i would argue that none of these characters have anything thats seriously gunna be "game changers" there gameplan looks to not be changing anytime soon. expecialy pits, sonic, lucario, robin, and DHD

 

[Firefoxx]

Edit: Luigi isn't top tier.

I admittedly know very little about Luigi, but he has an even or better match-up against the best character in the game and his reward off grabs is higher than any other character in a game where grabs are crazy important. He might not be "top tier" but he's probably close enough that that distinction doesn't really matter.

 

[FullMoon]

Everybody seems to claim Luigi is very high on the tier list, so I just went on that assumption. Luigi does seem to be pretty popular in any case, so having a winning MU against him is still a good thing to have.

 

[NairWizard]

The thing about Greninja is, while he might not have many disadvantageous MUs, he doesn't have too many "relevant" advantages either. For instance, I think the only one of the current top tiers he has an advantage against are Luigi and maybe a very slight advantage on Diddy and Pikachu. ZSS, Rosalina, Yoshi, Ness, etc all seem to be even to me.

So out of the most popular characters, Greninja still has an disadvantage to the second most popular character in the competitive scene, which is a pretty bad thing. Losing to Sonic is also really bad, so Greninja is certainly very good, but those two characters are very popular right now and that ends up holding the frog back.

That Pikachu advantage is pretty important I think, even though there aren't many top Pikachus at the moment.

The only matchups I see Pikachu as potentially losing are Greninja and Meta Knight.

If Pikachu ever gets big, pull out that Greninja army.

 

[Nu~]

So what is everyone's opinion on what makes a high tier in this game?
I want to know what the upper half will look like in the future.

 

[Ffamran]

On the Luigi vs. Falco question.

I actually think Falco is disadvantaged because of his mobility, especially his air speed and fall speed making it easy for Luigi to combo him. I think they have pretty even frame data - I know Falco has one of the faster frame data -, but Luigi outranges Falco in melee. None of Falco's attacks stretch his limbs and it's seems both precison based. Although the hitbox and properties of his Up Smash causes some issues. If Luigi gets Falco in the air, then Falco doesn't have much to counter back if Luigi keeps countering him since Nair comes out at frame 3 and isn't particularly strong until the last hit and his frame 4 Bair has little to not front hitbox since it's just his leg hitting. Why Falco has Wolf's Bair I have no idea since his Bair in Brawl was already unique compared to in Melee and compared to Brawl Wolf's Bair and Fox's reverse whip kick Bair. The rest of his aerial options are Uair at frame 10, Fair at frame 12, Dair at frame 16, and Reflector at frame frame 5. None of those aside from Reflector have good range while Fair I believe is out-prioritized by Luigi Cyclone.

Falco wants Luigi off stage and spaced away from him on stage. Luigi wants Falco off stage and underneath him, in the air, and to be close as possible to limit his options.

Luigi can also zone and force approaches with Fireball if he does something like fire above limiting Falco to ground approaches since firing on the ground would lead to reflects, however, Falco can't keep Reflector out as long as he wants, move like Fox, shut people outike the Pits' Orbitars, stop people like Palutena, have I-frames and a good, lingering hitbox like Zelda's Nayru's Love, or heal like Ness's PK Magnet meaning you could bait a reflect and punish him.

Edit: Forgot about this. Luigi hits hard and fast; Falco just hits hard, but not as hard as Ganondorf.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Luigi vs Falco is so dumb. Falco technically can wall Luigi with superior tilts and doesn't really care much about the Fireball zoning, but any time you mess up well...everyone knows Luigi is a train wreck character.

It would be Falco's favor if we only judged neutral, but the risk/reward is just so stupid in this matchup.

 

[TriTails]

I had problems with Falco because I kept getting my reflected Fireballs getting thrown to my face lol.

That said, I do believe Luigi's frame data is better. F3 N-air, F5 U-air, F6 Bair, F7 F-air and F10 D-air. And also F2 jabs, F4 DA, F6(?) tilts, F12 F-smash, F6 U-smash and D-smash, and I don't remember grabs.

I don't think Luigi outranges Falco. Luigi's attacks doesn't seem to stretch his limbs, just like Falco, unlike the Hoo Hah spider monkey we know...

@ A2ZOMG How does Falco walls Luigi? I do believe you can do a running Cyclone and get away with Cyclone's mobility because Falco isn't fast.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

I had problems with Falco because I kept getting my reflected Fireballs getting thrown to my face lol.

That said, I do believe Luigi's frame data is better. F3 N-air, F5 U-air, F6 Bair, F7 F-air and F10 D-air. And also F2 jabs, F4 DA, F6(?) tilts, F12 F-smash, F6 U-smash and D-smash, and I don't remember grabs.

I don't think Luigi outranges Falco. Luigi's attacks doesn't seem to stretch his limbs, just like Falco, unlike the Hoo Hah spider monkey we know...

Diddy was trained by mr fantastic.

 

[Ffamran]

Luigi vs Falco is so dumb. Falco technically can wall Luigi with superior tilts and doesn't really care much about the Fireball zoning, but any time you mess up well...everyone knows Luigi is a train wreck character.

It would be Falco's favor if we only judged neutral, but the risk/reward is just so stupid in this matchup.

Jigglypuff vs. Falco is much worse since Jigglypuff pretty much invalidates half of Falco's moveset since Jigglypuff moves well in the air and her aerials are just absurd. Falco can only land Ftilt, Utilt, Reflector, Blaster, and Dash Attack. Smashes are too slow, especially on end lag of Up Smash, Dtilt and Down Smash only works if Jigglypuff is on the ground for some reason, why you would use Fire Bird is beyond me, Falco Phantasm is telegraphed enough that Jigglypuff can hop over and float on to punish it, and Jab just gets interrupted by Bair or Rest. Aerials-wise, they work if Falco can ever manage to catch up or he doesn't get outranged by Jigglypuff's inflatable limbs of doom.

 

[TriTails]

How to defeat Jigglypuff: Use Master Ball

Seriously though, Jiggs aerials are insane.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I had problems with Falco because I kept getting my reflected Fireballs getting thrown to my face lol.

That said, I do believe Luigi's frame data is better. F3 N-air, F5 U-air, F6 Bair, F7 F-air and F10 D-air. And also F2 jabs, F4 DA, F6(?) tilts, F12 F-smash, F6 U-smash and D-smash, and I don't remember grabs.

I don't think Luigi outranges Falco. Luigi's attacks doesn't seem to stretch his limbs, just like Falco, unlike the Hoo Hah spider monkey we know...

@ A2ZOMG How does Falco walls Luigi? I do believe you can do a running Cyclone and get away with Cyclone's mobility because Falco isn't fast.

Yo, Falco also has a 3 frame N-air, a 4 frame B-air, 2 frame Jab.

The main important thing is Luigi does have a 6 frame grab opposed to Falco's 8 frame grab. But Falco's frame data is honestly also pretty crazy good.

Also tbh I wouldn't bother using Cyclone against Falco specifically minus catching him during juggle situations. Other than that, blocked Cyclone is one of the easier ways for Falco to get free Smashes (Falco's F-smash has REALLY huge range, so it's rarely ever safe to do that on Falco's shield). Or he can Reflector on reaction to keep it out.

Jigglypuff vs. Falco is much worse since Jigglypuff pretty much invalidates half of Falco's moveset since Jigglypuff moves well in the air and her aerials are just absurd. Falco can only land Ftilt, Utilt, Reflector, Blaster, and Dash Attack. Smashes are too slow, especially on end lag of Up Smash, Dtilt and Down Smash only works if Jigglypuff is on the ground for some reason, why you would use Fire Bird is beyond me, Falco Phantasm is telegraphed enough that Jigglypuff can hop over and float on to punish it, and Jab just gets interrupted by Bair or Rest. Aerials-wise, they work if Falco can ever manage to catch up or he doesn't get outranged by Jigglypuff's inflatable limbs of doom.

Up-smash out of shield has to be respected, and most of the time if Jigglypuff is spacing to avoid that, you can Reflector out of shield to punish. I actually think this matchup is fine for Falco because it's one of few matchups where he doesn't have to worry a lot about KO confirms as long as you don't try too hard to actually force KOs. Getting edgeguarded easily for recovering low is rough but I feel Falco actually has very good options to respond to Jiggs spacing. Jigglypuff also can't juggle him as efficiently as some other characters when he's above her, which is also helpful.