Character Competitive Impressions

[Thinkaman]

Does Mac ever need a reason to dash outside of dash-grabs and setting up an uppercut?

I mean, let's not discount his dash attack. It's a good move, a robust punishment option. It's also faster than human reaction time and has great range.

 

[Shaya]

If Mac isn't going to use his KO punch before he is vulnerable to lose it, then he's going to lose it to smart spacing/good characters.
I'm pretty sure every Mac player knows that pressure. So heck, if your experience is Mac waits for a down tilt or roll/dash punish opportunity, then you're really not doing it right (on both character's parts). Because otherwise I'm perfectly fine for waiting out his punch invulnerability.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

If Mac isn't going to use his KO punch before he is vulnerable to lose it, then he's going to lose it to smart spacing/good characters.
I'm pretty sure every Mac player I go against knows that pressure.

KO punch is such a mental tax to deal with on both sides. The opponent having to both seriously respect the option that can end the game or turn it around. And the mac's pressure to not mess up his opportunity to either win or give his is last shot at winning.

 

[warriorman222]

lol

tempted to use as signature

I am.

 

[Shaya]

Wait, tier lists have an actual function, and aren't just notes left on the wall of the kool kids klubhouse?

News to me.

I'm glad you're joking, but I don't think the audience around you knows this.

I am.

Also this is not a social thread.
Warning to everyone, next time I'm away for 2-3 days, I won't ignore all the posts I'd otherwise normally infract when I catch up (I've been overseas for the past 2 months, these are frequent for now). The standard is getting degenerative here, I don't like it.

 

[ShiekShallKill]

"It's oblivious"? Man this has to be one of the most meta posts ever.

I, have nothing to say to that. Lol.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

I'd say that's pretty much universally agreed upon, so does anyone else have someone they'd like to discuss? As long as it's not drop kick Ganondorf again, I'd like to see what people are currently thinking.

Bowser can't land.

Now how does Bowsers ground game stack against Sword Fighters.
Or make that different. Given Sword Fighters track record at the bottom of the list, how will he *actually* fair in match ups amongst our roster, because I don't think he runs drastic disadvantages, especially if I can replace Stone Scabbard and Gale strike.

 

[Thinkaman]

The standard is getting degenerative here, I don't like it.

In particular, I'd like to avoid a culture of smug shaming of "stupid" opinions and tongue slips beyond a simple laugh.

This ain't The Daily Show. We're discussing a serious children's video game. Like bowling, there are rules.

 

[Vincent21]

Conservative play hurts little mac because his biggest pro is his speed and low lag attacks. If you're too afraid of getting hit off stage by a projectile, you can't really use either, so your only real options are dash into shield, walk, or hope to catch them off guard. A charged aura sphere kills Mac's neutral game for that reason

His speed is only a pro for repositioning. For when someone makes a punishable mistake at distance and you need to reposition. It doesn't hurt his game to walk; you're supposed to mostly just walk at them. Low lag attacks allow you to walk forward as a big wall of options.

Walking is amazing and if you think you're gimping him by making him walk instead of run you're doing it wrong :v

 

[FlareHabanero]

I think people playing as some characters should put more emphasis on walking, especially characters that are clearly not designed to be athletic.

 

[Thinkaman]

It is best to think of running as a completely separate state from the normal ground state, just like being aerial.

Think of things in a ground/running/aerial schism.

 

[Blue Ninjakoopa]

I'm curious; which characters are wholly disadvantaged when fighting Little Mac?

 

[HeroMystic]

I do agree walking needs to be utilized more, especially from me. After playing Mario so much, I always either dash or do short hops. Walking is a complete foreign concept to me.

I'm curious; which characters are wholly disadvantaged when fighting Little Mac?

Last I heard on a CT stream, Marth/Lucina have a heavy disadvantage against him.

 

[Chuva]

I don't know of anyone LM completely, absolutely loses to on a character basis besides arguably MK. Pikachu is rough but not hopeless. Shulk and Rosalina are pretty tough too.

Stage dependent, but Rosalina is not tough for Mac.

 

[Thinkaman]

I'm curious; which characters are wholly disadvantaged when fighting Little Mac?

I bet he beats Falcon. The only things Falcon has that annoys Mac is a great dashgrab and that uair. Otherwise, LM outclasses him at his usual strong points while getting absurd reward on everything due to Falcon's gravity and weight.

Stage dependent, but Rosalina is not tough for Mac.

My annoyance as LM against Rosa is the high hitlag of hitting Luma negates LM's usual speed advantage. Spaced f-tilts that would normally connect safely will hit Luma on the first strike, making the second blockable on reaction to Rosalina. Throw in solid grab/throws, good juggling, and top tier platform camping... and it's a bit rough.

 

[HeroMystic]

My practice partner who mains Falcon picked up Ness to counterpick Little Mac, so I'm inclined to believe Mac does beat Falcon.

 

[Conda]

Why would Marth be disadvantaged against LM? This whole time as you guys have been talking about LM, I've been thinking "hmm, Marth could use ___ in this situation, and ___ in that situation." Or is this generally coming from the feeling that people feel Marth stanks?

And swordfighter isn't as broken as we feel. SF is a generic character and may end up underperforming, but there doesn't seem to be anything broken or non-working in their moveset.

 

[NairWizard]

Wait, tier lists have an actual function, and aren't just notes left on the wall of the kool kids klubhouse?

News to me.

Like Shaya, I liked this joke. But I hope it doesn't confuse anyone into thinking that tier lists shouldn't have functional relevance.

Standards are the most important part of any tier list or any structured ranking system. When you can't even agree that you are talking about the same thing, you can't make a tier list.

It doesn't have to be "consistency" or "likelihood of winning a national" as the metric; those are just my preferred metrics. But there must be some kind of guiding rule that tells us how to measure characters, and not just 2 tablespoons of results, 4 teaspoons of theorycraft, and a dash of gut instinct.

 

[Thinkaman]

In my experience, Mac dislikes disjoint/range and prefers opponents who have to compete on speed... because he will win.

I just did a quick test, and yeah, LM's reward on d-tilting Falcon is indeed nuts. It's better than the reward for hitting Sheik.

I can't think of a single case where something like a frame-3 safe-on-block-and-dodge move leads to this level of reward.

 

[CommanderRin]

Expanding on above (Conda) Marcina's quite potent space control can really ruin a LM's day once he's thrown in the air.

I feel like it's more of a back and forth rather than it being a thrashing.

Also if LMs recovering low, Marcina can just drop down and use counter.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

I do agree walking needs to be utilized more, especially from me. After playing Mario so much, I always either dash or do short hops. Walking is a complete foreign concept to me.



Last I heard on a CT stream, Marth/Lucina have a heavy disadvantage against him.

play some ganon for bit it helps u see the ulility of walking.
but for the most part i also believe walking is a stronger option on most heavy characters

 

[Thinkaman]

play some ganon for bit it helps u see the ulility of walking.

Real men use Falcon u-tilt as their preferred mode of transportation.


Let's consider this from the bottom: Does Zelda have any explicitly favorable matchups?

 

[Djent]

But there must be some kind of guiding rule that tells us how to measure characters, and not just 2 tablespoons of results, 4 teaspoons of theorycraft, and a dash of gut instinct.

Actually, if the Smash community just understood this much, our efforts to chronicle power imbalances would be 3x more useful.

 

[Blue Ninjakoopa]

Last I heard on a CT stream, Marth/Lucina have a heavy disadvantage against him.

I bet he beats Falcon. The only things Falcon has that annoys Mac is a great dashgrab and that uair. Otherwise, LM outclasses him at his usual strong points while getting absurd reward on everything due to Falcon's gravity and weight..

I can kinda see Lucina and Marth having trouble in that MU, and I definitely see it being uphill for Falcon. Do characters with similar physics and movesets to Falcon also have trouble (Ganon, Falco, Fox)?

 

[Vincent21]

My practice partner who mains Falcon picked up Ness to counterpick Little Mac, so I'm inclined to believe Mac does beat Falcon.

I play both. I'd pretty much be comfortable putting money on this statement. Falcon can't do anything on the ground to approach Mac and his typical advantages against most of the cast are completely nullified. ftilt and jab remove his entire ground game from the equation and when all he has for getting in are SH moves and fishing for the few punishes he can get on LM where the little boxer CAN'T just hold jabs to stop him.

It sucks.

Fox is typically another character you can pick LM into, but I wouldn't go any say his advantage there is pronounced. Ganon of course loses hard to this character, and Marth/Lucy don't care for him either.

I don't know how to feel about Falco though, because I simply never see enough of them. I'll leave someone with mu experience to set the table on that one.

Oh, one more thing: Can I just say the idea of structuring our character understanding and later tier placement, from the bottom up as opposed to the top, actually seems like a great idea?

It seems to make a lot more sense to take each character from the foundation and say "well who does he/she/it beat, and why?" and just fundamentally build up what we think about the character from the information we get. The more characteristics you establish, the more confidence you have getting to the discussion on nitty gritty 55:45 50:50 stuff and the better an understanding we have now that you've established all the things from 70:30 and 10:90 good and bad mus and have given the readers and posters so much more input to foil off of when trying to extract valuable data from their personal experiences.

It's a better way to play the game AND to build an agreeable tier than the more current darts at a board type of thing.

 

[Thinkaman]

I can kinda see Lucina and Marth having trouble in that MU, and I definitely see it being uphill for Falcon. Do characters with similar physics and movesets to Falcon also have trouble (Ganon, Falco, Fox)?

I bet LM does fine against Fox and Falco but have never played a good one of either. I also think LM performs acceptably against Sheik, who otherwise has a lot of nasty tools to ruin his lunch with.

Ganon... no clue. He doesn't fall as fast, and doesn't suffer those nasty guaranteed-dtilt-smash-followups like this more fit friends.

I feel like Ganon can play his read game just fine against LM? It's probably even.

 

[HeroMystic]

Why would Marth be disadvantaged against LM? This whole time as you guys have been talking about LM, I've been thinking "hmm, Marth could use ___ in this situation, and ___ in that situation." Or is this generally coming from the feeling that people feel Marth stanks?

Better if I just laid out the video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofujBVaPhNY

Summary is LM has very high reward whenever Marth/Lucina makes a mistake and kills very early.

 

[warionumbah2]

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

One sided destruction right here. Her fair at 1:58 sent Mac nowhere...

Edit: 600th post. http://i.imgur.com/k5gnA7f.gif

 

[Project Quarantine]

Conservative play hurts little mac because his biggest pro is his speed and low lag attacks. If you're too afraid of getting hit off stage by a projectile, you can't really use either, so your only real options are dash into shield, walk, or hope to catch them off guard. A charged aura sphere kills Mac's neutral game for that reason.

I disagree. Mac benefits from conservative play because of his strong offensive to presence at neutral. While running, all you can do is pivot, usmash, dash attack (probably into shield), roll back and shield. However when you walk towards a player, you are offered better options and mobility. Rolling back is always a good way to mix up approaches, influencing players to approach you. The only way Mac struggles is against a projectile like needles (hence the bad sheik MU). Charged aura sphere is a matter of reaction time really, easier to pull off than needles. Because of this, it becomes a skill based matter at neutral and conservative.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Real men use Falcon u-tilt as their preferred mode of transportation.


Let's consider this from the bottom: Does Zelda have any explicitly favorable matchups?

Zelda does well against Mario, Luigi, and Doc, as none of them have solid midrange tools to easily beat her high reward walls (including reflector), and she actually gets more reward than they do in juggle and edgeguard situations.

 

[Vincent21]

That video basically painted what I was saying about Lucario in that mu. You just walk at him and powershield auras and use all of your moves, which are soooo much better than his because your ground game is stupid. Conservative play is positive.

 

[Project Quarantine]

I bet he beats Falcon. The only things Falcon has that annoys Mac is a great dashgrab and that uair. Otherwise, LM outclasses him at his usual strong points while getting absurd reward on everything due to Falcon's gravity and weight.

Falcon is actually one of LMs worst MUs because the dash grab can punish things that literally no other char in the game can. Saying that is one of the only disadvantages for Mac is in vain due to how important it is. On top of that, air juggles are hard to get out of for Mac and falcon's great edge guarding makes easy early kills. Counter is readable.

The only thing bad about falcon is that he falls quick and recovers linearly, so is suceptable to being Dash Attacked on landing and edge guarded. To address that, at neutral, falcon gets breathing room because of lack of projectiles which doesn't force approaches.

 

[Vincent21]

How is dash grab punishing you when you beat/stuff it with a 1-frame jab in the majority of scenarios?

 

[Blue Ninjakoopa]

I bet LM does fine against Fox and Falco but have never played a good one of either. I also think LM performs acceptably against Sheik, who otherwise has a lot of nasty tools to ruin his lunch with.

Ganon... no clue. He doesn't fall as fast, and doesn't suffer those nasty guaranteed-dtilt-smash-followups like this more fit friends.

I feel like Ganon can play his read game just fine against LM? It's probably even.

I imagine Ganon's f-tilt is particularly devastating to Mac.

What do you think of Bowser, and does he have an advantage over any character? Despite his buffs I don't see much of him, and in high level play I always see him lose.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Better if I just laid out the video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofujBVaPhNY

Summary is LM has very high reward whenever Marth/Lucina makes a mistake and kills very early.

I don't feel that video is a fair representation. Large difference in player utilization of space basically gave that to Mac. Lucina's best spacing was what a single dancing blade? Which is to be expected because if you want to play footsies, with Mac you're going to have to lab his effective ranges.

 

[Antonykun]

Bowser can't land.

Now how does Bowsers ground game stack against Sword Fighters.
Or make that different. Given Sword Fighters track record at the bottom of the list, how will he *actually* fair in match ups amongst our roster, because I don't think he runs drastic disadvantages, especially if I can replace Stone Scabbard and Gale strike.

the thing about Swordfighter's specials is that they are, at best, Ok. It's actually their normals that are pretty good. SoL is annoyingly inconsistent but really good at max range and I swear Chakram makes Arcfire's endlag worth it. Hero's Spin and the Cape are legitimately good though, but they really don't help too much against Swordfighter not good neutral.

 

[Shaya]

Eh,
when Little Mac doesn't have a single answer to full hop forward air, I don't really feel the match up is that bad. Things like his dsmash on the ledge though are kinda harsh for us.
Definitely doesn't have the options to disrespect KO-punch, but fair can outspace that and I feel like you can reactively down tilt to be safe against any "dash movement".
But yeah, no character I play other than Falchions disrespects Mac's ground game with aerials as much as I think they do (only characters I feel are doing full hop aerials in neutral in this current meta are them, Ganondorf and Ness). I can't be even remotely as safe throwing out pokes with the likes of ZSS.

Vex and Shippo are on different levels in Smash (no offense to Shippo, BFF <3). Wouldn't say that's indicative of the match up. Mac is one of the few characters Mars can apply aggressive pressure upon. It is quite a rare commodity for him.

My general feels / experiences with Falco against Mac are...
Falco's ground normals are structurally better than Macs. He out does Mac on the ground playing with him toe to toe and it's disgusting. [Note: in the match up, not universally]
Who's jab is better? Falcos
Who's ftilt is better? Falcos.
Who's down tilt is better? Well it doesn't matter, most of Falco's moves reach over it hitting Mac without trading/clashing. Falco's outranges his and is also putting him into juggle city.
Falco effectively outranges Mac on the ground and combos him excessively hard from each hit.
Ftilt will knock him into the ground for guaranteed dash attack or knock him into the air/off stage. Up Tilt repetitions on him up to 50-60% (if he jumps he'll die, he HAS to take it; no he cannot counter or up-b through it).
Who can just jump off stage with Fair for a 95% (I'd say 100% but sometimes weird clashes on some stages allow him to tech I guess) of the time gimp?
He can also on stage laser his recovery (lol) and use the invincibility of his legs on down smash too.
Throw in a transcended priority poke that's twice his maximum range (god it's disgusting with void reflector) and we're golden.

Why is this match up better for Falco than say Fox (although not to say Fox doesn't do well either)?
Longer range, higher damage (clashes that will always come out on top for Falco against Mac), a grab game and too many easy gimp options.

 

[HeroMystic]

I don't feel that video is a fair representation. Large difference in player utilization of space basically gave that to Mac. Lucina's best spacing was what a single dancing blade? Which is to be expected because if you want to play footsies, with Mac you're going to have to lab his effective ranges.

I actually agree. The fight itself isn't much to look at. I mainly focused on the commentary itself. If it wasn't from Pierce7D I'd ignore it, but considering he played Marth in Brawl and mains Little Mac in this game I figure it's something worth noting.

 

[Shaya]

I actually agree. The fight itself isn't much to look at. I mainly focused on the commentary itself. If it wasn't from Pierce7D I'd ignore it, but considering he played Marth in Brawl and mains Little Mac in this game I figure it's something worth noting.

Eh, East Coast perspectives on that match up have been universally "ITS TERRIBLE FOR HIM" since inception. It doesn't get played ever anywhere so it's easy to assume (I'd personally go G&W* > Falco > Marth > ZSS in tournament though so eh) on it. I don't know where EL is on his thoughts at this stage, but at the least I believe he agrees with Mac's predicament against full hop fair. That isn't 100% of the match up though.

*Paper beats Rock, DON'T YOU KNOW?
Also like every G&W match up, it's the power of the jank.
I wouldn't be surprised if I could time a Mac out dtilt/uairing him above the ground indefinitely on a stage like FD while he's in free fall.

Maybe I should do a G&W diatribe again soon, god is he broken.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

the thing about Swordfighter's specials is that they are, at best, Ok. It's actually their normals that are pretty good. SoL is annoyingly inconsistent but really good at max range and I swear Chakram makes Arcfire's endlag worth it. Hero's Spin and the Cape are legitimately good though, but they really don't help too much against Swordfighter not good neutral.

His normals are his selling point, but problem is gale strike doesn't cover *jack squat* in his game where as SoL does. Blurring Blade kind of does, but blurring Blade is really in the same context as Counter, and Cape, except given it's hits don't link correctly I wouldn't really bother with it.

You don't really need SoL to give you high reward on hit, you need it as a projectile option to help condition opposition and cover your transition from Long-Mid range, as well as a retreating option and the occasional off-stage pressure. You don't really get this with gale strike because it's horrendously laggy. All this comes in together (as well as SoL to hit the occasional landing) gives Sword Fighter the backbone to actually play his footsies. Chakram has similar start-up and end lag but then you lack lose a horizontal movement option to utilize in a pinch. You might as well stick with Airborne Assault or Slash launcher. If Blurring blades multi-hits werent dreadfully escapable you could actually gamble with it and then take Chakram as a side Special, drop Counter/Cape and take Power Thrust as a movement spec. Everything would be gravy.

If Stone scabbard hit for like 18/20% for connecting it, and Gale strike lets say had almost no end lag but kept his start-up, I could see the 1111 kit being solid. You'd throw out the Gale strike, and could threaten to follow up on it or react if they jump/rolled over it, but it wouldn't be a CQC option due to its horrendous start-up, so you play footsies. As it is now it's a ******** special that cancels out some other projectiles but no one really cares because it's not like he can do anything before or from it to make you really respect it.

I mean hell his Jab could be better in its flow as well, but his normals are pretty much fine where they are even at Default size.