Character Competitive Impressions

[RIP_Lucas]

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

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.

I'm speaking as a Lucario and Sonic main, and from these character's perspective, Little Mac's approach options and neutral game are not anything to be afraid of.

I'm going to focus on Lucario, if you want to know why Sonic is a bad match up for Little Mac, just watch https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCMQtwIwAQ&url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbnTjUZV5S0&ei=So7iVJuGJsGLNom8hIAG&usg=AFQjCNHyJsuTriZMNZX8C34m40Ze5cfEMg&sig2=nme0BnbK20O8ZiOuTQIZlA&bvm=bv.85970519,d.cWc (second fight, 2:50ish)

If Little Mac tries the stereotypical YOLO dash attack -> jab combo, Lucario will always either Aura Sphere if he has one charged, or shield grab after the jab.

If Little Mac tries to roll backwards, he's putting himself in position to take an aura sphere (at mid percents and higher, Aura Sphere is big enough to reliably hit during the vulnerable frames of a roll)

If Little Mac tries to walk towards lucario, he's just going to get spaced out by force palm. Or worse, Aura Sphere.

Little Mac's best option is to dash into shield, but that's leaving himself open to a grab. It can neutralize the Aura Sphere though and puts you in a better position to put pressure on Lucario. The problem of course is that a good Lucario will see this coming and save the Aura Sphere for a safer time (like punishing the roll) and opt to shield, spot dodge, roll, jump, or something else to avoid ready on the dash approach more often than not and that makes Dashing into Shield mediocre as an approach option as well

Basically, Little Mac's approach game vs Lucario's camping game is a terrible match up for Little Mac. Not winnable, but you've got to flat out out play your opponent, something I have not seen a ton of little mac mains be able to do.

 

[Conda]

@ Shaya Good stuff, I agree regarding marth/g&w.

I've been labbing and looking at Falco a lot lately. I love him as a character but darn it if I wish he was more fluid and freeform, and less limited.

Falco has some representation due to niche popularity (gimr and keitaro play him sometimes), but there's still very little info/talk/development about him. Which is pretty bad for developing a character for others to learn from. A lot of characters are really lacking in this area. All that's really happened so far regarding general understanding of what makes Falco 'make sense' as a character is bair + good footsies. His subforum is still dead as well which hurts overall development (if one player discovers something, nobody else discovers it unless its shared - so SHARE STUFF people! Especially if you main an unpopular character).

Falco's mobility isn't that bad, but he doesn't have burst mobility built into his moveset aside from Side B, making him feel 'stuck in place' and very unfluid. His atrocious aerial mobility hurts his air game - it'd work nicely if he could move better in the air... being a bird and all. His walk speed is basically the same as his run speed, which would be good if he could at least quickly change spacing with a dash - but his dash basically offers no burst movement.

For me, Falco generally has an awkwardness about him. The very-below-average aerial mobility coupled with below-average ground mobility makes moving around to space into close range from long or mid ranges difficult. I feel I can't land punishes as Falco, which sucks because he's not built to approach.

And his grabbing has been an issue. His grab feels like it sucks for multiple reasons - tiny dash grab range, small and tiny window for landing grabs, can't grab people close to him when dash grabbing, super tiny standing grab range, etc. It's the tiny range and window that hurts a lot though. Grabbing to punish feels difficult because, coupled with the low dash grab range, characters often are in minimized-hurtbox state when landing or whiffing, and Falco's weird and tiny grab window makes landing grabs in these situations hard. I often whiff a grab and miss it, but if I grab again right after I can finally land it - making Falco's grab-landing game feel super awkward.

He does have his good aspects, but he feels like he suffers from the same flaws Marth and Samus does, which is good moves but generally very punishable on shield and, similar to Samus, everything in close-range feels like it falls apart after 1 shielded/spotdodged/evaded attack.

Falco is super light and, along with Fox, is very easy to edgeguard, so he should have some clear upsides. But really, when he 'comes together' it feels like it's just because his average attacks are landing and working out. Nothing really feels above average to the point that it makes up for his weaknesses.

 

[Antonykun]

@ ChronoPenguin
I just realized we're talking about Swordfighter in a competitive setting :D

Anyways, to answer the original question Swordfighter's biggest weakness Imo is their not good/bad neutral coupled with horrendous disadvantage and lack of overall reward.

Also just wanted to let you know I also consider SS and GS booty.

I really do wish their normals were better for neutral. Nair is uber laggy and only deals 6% at most without having some sort of AC like Ike.
Fair is a joke until someone can prove to me other wise.
F-tilt is Fsmash jr.
The only really good normals at neutral are d-tilt and jab and they aren't enough.

It's when Swordfighter is in advantage though that's when they shine U-air combos/mixups and D-air/Cape Gimps are salivating at times

 

[Shaya]

Okay okay.
time.

Remember, your goggles need to be prescribed by a shaytometrist. I really don't understand how brawl G&W players don't love this character.

Let me start off by saying that I recently discovered a viable (by viable, I mean stupid broken) G&W team with Villager. Lloyd rocket fills up bucket. However, not the physical projectile, just the explosion. A regular explosion is 2 stacks and any third fill I'm pretty sure is 0% kill sufficient (maybe 10% or less). Villager riding the rocket's explosion is three I believe.
It was by accident I realised this about 2.5-3 weeks ago and I was thought storming how to make it work until it struck me in Houston playing with @BC.
One solution is to just be ready to bucket when the lloyd runs into something, like... a shield even.
The bigger and better solution is, setting up a tree and then shooting rockets into it. It's extremely quick to set up and the tree naturally provides defenses. A tournament I went to later that week in Dallas I teamed with someone who had never entered a double's tournament before and didn't main Villager, we got 5th out of like 30 teams. Usually 4 or 5 stocking all but the two teams we lost to (which got 1st and 3rd).

Pivot jump cancelled up smash allows us to abuse his almost 20 frames of invincibility facing forwards. The slide is pretty good.

Down Smash is a lot better of a move than I gave it credit for. It's hammer strikes are still killing sub 100%, and the sourspot is juggle set up. Well spaced it is seemingly not easy to punish. The nuance I hadn't realised was that it's actually an anti-air, the release arc downwards is a ginormous above the ground (and no where near hurtbox) hitbox. As a move it covers ever single ledge option from a character (ledge jump, ledge jump drop, get up attack, get up, roll) and seems to hit below the stage enough to destroy most recoveries trying to sweetspot.

Fsmash is overlooked (and former G&W players think it's nerfed) as an upwards angled anti-air that has ALL THE DASH OPTIONS IN THE WORLD to work with it.

Chef is growing to be one of the best projectile moves in the game. It's wavebounce/b-reversal is ludicrous. Edge cancelling with it is super easy and allows you crazy set ups (dash towards ledge, sliding b, edge cancel, immediately chef again, suddenly covering all recovery angles from above while being unbeatable below the stage). The fry pan is unknown to the cosmos, but is kinda gross. I believe it has extra large shield damage. Try b-reversing into shields, both either while facing forward to cross over (really good and sneaky, especially as auto cancelled fair is pretty solid) or while facing backwards (people have to respect that back air).

Up Air...
Ode to up air.
You are the wind beneath my wings.
You kill so early.
You are crazy good horizontally, but not safe enough to land in front of someone's shield. However, the cross up? 9/10 chars don't have an answer and first hit of uair landed combos into up air (among other things). I don't know the frame data for it actually, but I believe it's pretty short, enough so that you can land cross over with uair having both hit shield, the second hit is pretty safe.

Auto cancelled fair is worth aiming for, and he is a potent full hop in neutral character. The sour spot combos at all percent basically, I'm feeling as if it's possible to get up smashes out of it.

HAVING ISSUES GETTING KILLS?
Stop caring about it.
That's the solution.
He can outplay + damage just about everyone and only falls apart trying to confirm kills. This is apparently Sheik's weakness (hint: it isn't), but no it's definitely Gdubs' curse. Fortunately fresh jab kills and beats just about everything.

Also he has a top 5 dash attack. He is vying for that spot from (imo) .

 

[Ffamran]

Why is this match up better for Falco than say Fox (although not to say Fox doesn't do well either)?

Knockback and raw power in this case since Fox hits fast, but does not have Falco's power or hit stun from Blaster without customs. It's essentially Falco being a faster Ganondorf with a projectile while Fox is the Captain Falcon in this scenario. In certain match ups for Falco, it's probably a bad idea to ever trade with him. You hit Falco three times to get him to 20% and Falco can hit you once for 13% with a Bair or 15% with a Down Smash. Same thing with Ganondorf who will tank hits and ruin your day with rage and raw power. Or Bowser, DK, Ike, Jigglypuff's aerials, etc. There are some characters where trading or taking just one hit is a bad idea since almost all their attacks do a lot of damage and knockback.

I don't fight enough good Little Macs, so it makes fighting them difficult since I'm more prepared to fight the spammy Little Macs. In this situation it's a combination of Falco's good frame data and overall power. Aerial mobility might not matter much since they're both slow in the air, but that means either of them can juggle the other or just abuse the other's poor air speed. On the ground, Little Mac is fast, but it might not matter if Falco can poke him. At the same time Little Mac can super armor early game and switch between going it slow and easy to blazing fast which Falco can't. The greatest advantage goes to Falco's ability to go deep off stage which is probably overkill in this match up. Still, a well timed Dair and I believe Fair from Little Mac might be able to wreck Falco off stage.

 

[Kofu]

One comment about Ganon vs. Mac: if Ganon gets a Flame Choke off on Mac, Mac's day kind of gets ruined. His back tech roll is so slow Ganon can DTilt him anyway so the only safe option is to roll away from Ganon (or maybe I'm getting the two mixed up, can't remember). Either way Ganon can really pressure Mac with Flame Choke and he edgeguards him hard. Little Mac has a solid speed advantage though.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

@ Shaya Good stuff, I agree regarding marth/g&w.

I feel like Falco has some representation due to niche popularity (gimr and keitaro play him sometimes), but there's still very little info/talk/development about him. All that's really happened so far regarding general understanding of what makes him 'make sense' as a character is bair + good footsies. His subforum is still dead , similar to Fox - both characters are reasonably popular tournament characters but with barely anybody actually helping out other in their subforum or in the competitive subforum.

Falco's mobility isn't that bad, but he doesn't have mobility built into his moveset, making him feel 'stuck in place'. His walk speed is basically the same as his run speed, which would be good if he could at least quickly change spacing with a dash - but his dash basically offers no burst movement.

For me, Falco generally has an awkwardness about him. The very-below-average aerial mobility coupled with below-average ground mobility makes moving around to space into close range from long or mid ranges difficult. I feel I can't land punishes as Falco, which sucks because he's not built to approach.

And his grabbing has been an issue. His grab feels like it sucks for multiple reasons - tiny dash grab range, small and tiny window for landing grabs, can't grab people close to him when dash grabbing, super tiny standing grab range, etc. It's the tiny range and window that hurts a lot though. Grabbing to punish feels difficult because, coupled with the low dash grab range, characters often are in minimized-hurtbox state when landing or whiffing, and Falco's weird and tiny grab window makes landing grabs in these situations hard. I often whiff a grab and miss it, but if I grab again right after I can finally land it - making Falco's grab-landing game feel super awkward.

He does have his good aspects, but he feels like he suffers from the same flaws Marth and Samus does, which is good moves but generally very punishable on shield and, similar to Samus, everything in close-range feels like it falls apart after 1 shielded/spotdodged/evaded attack.

Falco is super light and, along with Fox, is very easy to edgeguard, so he should have some clear upsides. But really, when he 'comes together' it feels like it's just because his average attacks are landing and working out. Nothing really feels above average to the point that it makes up for his weaknesses.

Your correct about samus. i just wana touch up on a few more notes/ correct.

Samus for the most part really does not like shields but not quite because she lacks safty. This is not the case she does have a few solid options. Its more along the lines where once things get really close quarters and shes not in a position she can take advantage of. She is more or less left with no reliable/spammable answer to shields. The lstart up lag on her grab really hurts her, she can't take control of the situation cuz she can be disresected in that regard. She almost always has to give up an advantagous positioning when things get rough. and start rebuilding her foundation elsewhere.

 

[Yokoblue]

Regarding the discusion on Mac:
You guys seems to theorize a lot of his matchup.
What I mean by that is that you say Little Mac lose to X because of X. In reality though, little mac ground speed is so fast that it goes beyond reaction time a lot.

How do you guys explain that in.... Shockwave I think ? There was 2 little mac that scored top 3 every week for like the first 5-6 shockwave ? I think it was Bwett and another. We even saw GF Little Mac vs Little Mac. How do you explain that MVD had a pocket Mac that actually won a few times (1 on stream afaik). He has a least a semi-good matchup against Grenindja then.

I think if we apply theory only, Mac might really be the worst character MU-wise. In pratice though it seems to be different...

 

[Road Death Wheel]

Regarding the discusion on Mac:
You guys seems to theorize a lot of his matchup.
What I mean by that is that you say Little Mac lose to X because of X. In reality though, little mac ground speed is so fast that it goes beyond reaction time a lot.

How do you guys explain that in.... Shockwave I think ? There was 2 little mac that scored top 3 every week for like the first 5-6 shockwave ? I think it was Bwett and another. We even saw GF Little Mac vs Little Mac. How do you explain that MVD had a pocket Mac that actually won a few times (1 on stream afaik). He has a least a semi-good matchup against Grenindja then.

I think if we apply theory only, Mac might really be the worst character MU-wise. In pratice though it seems to be different...

being the worst character in this game is not as bad as persay being the worst character in another game. Bottom tier is this game is much more closly related to mid tier in any other smash.

 

[Ffamran]

Which is why I say that anything that Falco has over Little Mac aside from a good off stage game is pretty much moot since he's so damned slow and despite having a good grab game, Falco's hand will literally phase through people's bodies and nothing registers except for a boot to the face for attempting to grab at pointblank. Ike in armor, wielding Ragnell, and wearing a cape has overall better mobility than a skinny, blue pheasant only wearing greaves, a scouter, light clothing, and probably a lightweight Blaster.

I bet Ganondorf can run circles around him if the Ganondorf knows what's he doing. Hell, Robin runs circles around Falco. Wolf ran circles around Falco in Brawl if neither of them used their Blasters and Wolf's (fake) limping! Sure, he walks fast and falls fast, but when your dash speed is barely faster than your walk speed and your air speed is molasses, it will be frustrating.

If Brawl Falco didn't have his Blaster, then he'd probably be near Fox and Wolf - maybe even below them. The ability to force approaches like that was amazing even if it looked spammy and dirty. Now, Falco can't approach nor can he force approaches well.

 

[Yokoblue]

being the worst character in this game is not as bad as persay being the worst character in another game. Bottom tier is this game is much more closly related to mid tier in any other smash.

That doesnt answer what I'm saying. I know that the gap is really small, doesnt matter for the fact that some matchup arent as bad as people think. In theory they might be 70-30 but in pratice it seems closer to 60-40.

 

[Vincent21]

If Little Mac tries to roll backwards, he's putting himself in position to take an aura sphere (at mid percents and higher, Aura Sphere is big enough to reliably hit during the vulnerable frames of a roll)

If Little Mac tries to walk towards lucario, he's just going to get spaced out by force palm. Or worse, Aura Sphere.

Little Mac's best option is to dash into shield, but that's leaving himself open to a grab. It can neutralize the Aura Sphere though and puts you in a better position to put pressure on Lucario. The problem of course is that a good Lucario will see this coming and save the Aura Sphere for a safer time (like punishing the roll) and opt to shield, spot dodge, roll, jump, or something else to avoid ready on the dash approach more often than not and that makes Dashing into Shield mediocre as an approach option as well

Basically, Little Mac's approach game vs Lucario's camping game is a terrible match up for Little Mac. Not winnable, but you've got to flat out out play your opponent, something I have not seen a ton of little mac mains be able to do.

The best option being to dash into anything objectively incorrect. Beyond reason. That's a bad option all of the time. If you're walking at someone and they try to out-space you with... anything, you armor it because your smashes are armored. It's that simple. That's all you do. If you whiff because you're too far, they'll get punished with jabs for any follow-up. If you're close enough to hit one, then case closed. If you're so far all of that is silly, you powershield. You're walking so your options are all free. You're walking so nothing you do is a free punish.

You're winning if you're walking.

Walking is the best option, and it's also a good option. There is nothing even ambiguous about that either. Aura Sphere is a guaranteed powershield almost, if you're walking, even at shotgun blast range. Spacing falls onto palm (a bit slow, don't you think) and what? Any normal you'd do from there it getting armored or ftilted and losing. Like if he walks at you and just responds correctly you have to move. You can't space him that way. It's not feasible.

I think the problem that comes with discussing Little Mac is that you have a whole lot of baggage and so little positive play to point to. I mean it's great this time I have a gameplay with Vex showing this specific match-up and why walking beats any zoning Lucario might fancy doing, but normally discussing Little Mac boils down to

"well when I run into them I normally do X, Y, and Z and he's pretty helpless"

so then you, the person who plays him and are, yourself, not dumber than a bag of hammers (clarity: that's a shots fired on For Glory Mac players, not the person you're talking to) like most FG LM are like

"well he has a lot of good answers to that kind of play if he just patiently approaches with C"

and they go

"HAH! Patience!? Do you even play Little Mac?"

and you're just like -_-

I mean the character isn't even defined in peoples mind by his actual capabilities like, say, the other overused For Glory character Falcon. People don't look at Little Mac and differentiate the bad habits that trend and define him online from the fundamentals of the character, if they even know what those fundamentals are.

Dash attack being his best option for, well, anything? That's not even just a questionable opinion, that doesn't make sense outside the context of For Glory! It's his most punishable on-shield option and literally loses him games if he commits to it in the wrong location on the screen. To get that kind of impression from him is to have seen 100 For Glory LM try this and draw the conclusion "well they never learn... maybe that really is their best option and this character is just trash?" and it's so frustrating to try and combat that kind of incidental indoctrination.

And I can't actually blame people for that, because where else are you going to draw conclusion on the game except from your personal experiences and the consistent patterns you get from field research? We can't all go to tourneys, and even those of us who do don't see enough of this character to have a clear understanding of what he does!

But yeah. Honestly, Mac wins games by just walking up to you and poking you until you make a mistake. And with so... so many safe ground-to-ground poke options he excels at this, and is probably the only character with a bad grab who can do this.

But I can say that 100 different ways, but it isn't real until someone sees it on Streams and Screens.

 

[FullMoon]

How do you guys explain that in.... Shockwave I think ? There was 2 little mac that scored top 3 every week for like the first 5-6 shockwave ? I think it was Bwett and another. We even saw GF Little Mac vs Little Mac. How do you explain that MVD had a pocket Mac that actually won a few times (1 on stream afaik). He has a least a semi-good matchup against Greninja then.

I've gone against good Macs before and I can say Mac has a 40:60 MU against Greninja only because Greninja only needs to get Mac in the air (not even offstage, just in the air) to juggle him like crazy. Of course, getting Mac off the ground is very hard and it's very easy for Greninja to get destroyed if he's not careful, so it's a MU that's very tough for both parties, but I think Greninja has an advantage because at least he can keep up with Mac's ground game somewhat, while when Little Mac is thrown up, he's in a pretty glaring disadvantage. And of course, Hydro Pump and B-Air can make Mac's life miserable.

That's what I think at least. aMSa did lose to Little Mac at APEX, but if I'm right if he had angled one Hydro Pump better he could've won, so like I said it can go either way. One can end the other very quickly, I just think Greninja has an easier time getting Mac where he wants him to be.

 

[Shaya]

Falco has a really good walk speed, perfect pivot and he probably has the largest turn pivot in the game.
Mobility doesn't ever seem to be my issue with Falco. He technically forces the approach against just about everyone.

I feel as if my only struggles with Falco are against characters with similar range (or more) at better speeds.
It's a short list tbh.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Okay okay.
time.

Remember, your goggles need to be prescribed by a shaytometrist. I really don't understand how brawl G&W players don't love this character.

Let me start off by saying that I recently discovered a viable (by viable, I mean stupid broken) G&W team with Villager. Lloyd rocket fills up bucket. However, not the physical projectile, just the explosion. A regular explosion is 2 stacks and any third fill I'm pretty sure is 0% kill sufficient (maybe 10% or less). Villager riding the rocket's explosion is three I believe.
It was by accident I realised this about 2.5-3 weeks ago and I was thought storming how to make it work until it struck me in Houston playing with @BC.
One solution is to just be ready to bucket when the lloyd runs into something, like... a shield even.
The bigger and better solution is, setting up a tree and then shooting rockets into it. It's extremely quick to set up and the tree naturally provides defenses. A tournament I went to later that week in Dallas I teamed with someone who had never entered a double's tournament before and didn't main Villager, we got 5th out of like 30 teams. Usually 4 or 5 stocking all but the two teams we lost to (which got 1st and 3rd).

Pivot jump cancelled up smash allows us to abuse his almost 20 frames of invincibility facing forwards. The slide is pretty good.

Down Smash is a lot better of a move than I gave it credit for. It's hammer strikes are still killing sub 100%, and the sourspot is juggle set up. Well spaced it is seemingly not easy to punish. The nuance I hadn't realised was that it's actually an anti-air, the release arc downwards is a ginormous above the ground (and no where near hurtbox) hitbox. As a move it covers ever single ledge option from a character (ledge jump, ledge jump drop, get up attack, get up, roll) and seems to hit below the stage enough to destroy most recoveries trying to sweetspot.

Fsmash is overlooked (and former G&W players think it's nerfed) as an upwards angled anti-air that has ALL THE DASH OPTIONS IN THE WORLD to work with it.

Chef is growing to be one of the best projectile moves in the game. It's wavebounce/b-reversal is ludicrous. Edge cancelling with it is super easy and allows you crazy set ups (dash towards ledge, sliding b, edge cancel, immediately chef again, suddenly covering all recovery angles from above while being unbeatable below the stage). The fry pan is unknown to the cosmos, but is kinda gross. I believe it has extra large shield damage. Try b-reversing into shields, both either while facing forward to cross over (really good and sneaky, especially as auto cancelled fair is pretty solid) or while facing backwards (people have to respect that back air).

Up Air...
Ode to up air.
You are the wind beneath my wings.
You kill so early.
You are crazy good horizontally, but not safe enough to land in front of someone's shield. However, the cross up? 9/10 chars don't have an answer and first hit of uair landed combos into up air (among other things). I don't know the frame data for it actually, but I believe it's pretty short, enough so that you can land cross over with uair having both hit shield, the second hit is pretty safe.

Auto cancelled fair is worth aiming for, and he is a potent full hop in neutral character. The sour spot combos at all percent basically, I'm feeling as if it's possible to get up smashes out of it.

HAVING ISSUES GETTING KILLS?
Stop caring about it.
That's the solution.
He can outplay + damage just about everyone and only falls apart trying to confirm kills. This is apparently Sheik's weakness (hint: it isn't), but no it's definitely Gdubs' curse. Fortunately fresh jab kills and beats just about everything.

Also he has a top 5 dash attack. He is vying for that spot from (imo) .

He gets BODIED by Rosalina. Like really really badly. So that sucks. I don't think he has any other matchups quite that horrible though fortunately.

I'm not so sure why you think U-air is good in neutral...really not seeing it. Yes crossover U-air and N-air are okay on shield (12 frames landing lag), but when are you ever going to have the time to do that against most players? And while U-air is a good KO move...actually connecting the 2nd hit is really hard to do.

Also Chef does not have extra shield damage, but the Pan + projectile is a total of 9 damage a pop which is a sizeable amount of damage.

I would like F-smash more if it wasn't a frame 17 move that only lasted two frames and also extended G&W's hurtbox forward for the whole duration...not to mention the sweetspot is much harder to land in this game. D-smash is basically the exact same from Brawl with the sourspot having less knockback (but still good damage). U-smash is silly, though I am a little annoyed that it's basically the cornerstone of his gameplan right now.

Yes I agree G&W's Dash Attack is one of the best in the game, and his strong low% grab reward in conjunction with that means he has to be respected in neutral. But really...his extreme low weight is actually a really huge problem both for surviving AND getting KOs. I'm tempted to take Extreme Judge on him just for the sake of abusing Rage boosted F-tilt for KOs...because G&W to be frank honestly suffers a lot from getting the short end of the stick when it comes to Rage.

 

[Nu~]

Okay okay.
time.

Remember, your goggles need to be prescribed by a shaytometrist. I really don't understand how brawl G&W players don't love this character.

Let me start off by saying that I recently discovered a viable (by viable, I mean stupid broken) G&W team with Villager. Lloyd rocket fills up bucket. However, not the physical projectile, just the explosion. A regular explosion is 2 stacks and any third fill I'm pretty sure is 0% kill sufficient (maybe 10% or less). Villager riding the rocket's explosion is three I believe.
It was by accident I realised this about 2.5-3 weeks ago and I was thought storming how to make it work until it struck me in Houston playing with @BC.
One solution is to just be ready to bucket when the lloyd runs into something, like... a shield even.
The bigger and better solution is, setting up a tree and then shooting rockets into it. It's extremely quick to set up and the tree naturally provides defenses. A tournament I went to later that week in Dallas I teamed with someone who had never entered a double's tournament before and didn't main Villager, we got 5th out of like 30 teams. Usually 4 or 5 stocking all but the two teams we lost to (which got 1st and 3rd).

Pivot jump cancelled up smash allows us to abuse his almost 20 frames of invincibility facing forwards. The slide is pretty good.

Down Smash is a lot better of a move than I gave it credit for. It's hammer strikes are still killing sub 100%, and the sourspot is juggle set up. Well spaced it is seemingly not easy to punish. The nuance I hadn't realised was that it's actually an anti-air, the release arc downwards is a ginormous above the ground (and no where near hurtbox) hitbox. As a move it covers ever single ledge option from a character (ledge jump, ledge jump drop, get up attack, get up, roll) and seems to hit below the stage enough to destroy most recoveries trying to sweetspot.

Fsmash is overlooked (and former G&W players think it's nerfed) as an upwards angled anti-air that has ALL THE DASH OPTIONS IN THE WORLD to work with it.

Chef is growing to be one of the best projectile moves in the game. It's wavebounce/b-reversal is ludicrous. Edge cancelling with it is super easy and allows you crazy set ups (dash towards ledge, sliding b, edge cancel, immediately chef again, suddenly covering all recovery angles from above while being unbeatable below the stage). The fry pan is unknown to the cosmos, but is kinda gross. I believe it has extra large shield damage. Try b-reversing into shields, both either while facing forward to cross over (really good and sneaky, especially as auto cancelled fair is pretty solid) or while facing backwards (people have to respect that back air).

Up Air...
Ode to up air.
You are the wind beneath my wings.
You kill so early.
You are crazy good horizontally, but not safe enough to land in front of someone's shield. However, the cross up? 9/10 chars don't have an answer and first hit of uair landed combos into up air (among other things). I don't know the frame data for it actually, but I believe it's pretty short, enough so that you can land cross over with uair having both hit shield, the second hit is pretty safe.

Auto cancelled fair is worth aiming for, and he is a potent full hop in neutral character. The sour spot combos at all percent basically, I'm feeling as if it's possible to get up smashes out of it.

HAVING ISSUES GETTING KILLS?
Stop caring about it.
That's the solution.
He can outplay + damage just about everyone and only falls apart trying to confirm kills. This is apparently Sheik's weakness (hint: it isn't), but no it's definitely Gdubs' curse. Fortunately fresh jab kills and beats just about everything.

Also he has a top 5 dash attack. He is vying for that spot from (imo) .

You've restored a little bit of my faith in my former main *sniff*
I try to avoid the G&W threads though...so much negativity about the character

 

[Cenizas]

Regarding the G&W anecdote, how do you feel about Panic Overload? You gain an extremely massive and disjointed oil spill in exchange for less power and a smaller area to bucket stuff. For some reference, 2 bombchus deal 60% and kill Mario at 0% at edge of FD with the default, and Panic Overload deals 45% and kills at 25%. I chose to use bombchus since a ridden Lloid rocket was mentioned, which does 16%. Idk whether Oil Panic takes KB into account though, but whatever.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

I just realized we're talking about Swordfighter in a competitive setting :D

Anyways, to answer the original question Swordfighter's biggest weakness Imo is their not good/bad neutral coupled with horrendous disadvantage and lack of overall reward.

Also just wanted to let you know I also consider SS and GS booty.

I really do wish their normals were better for neutral. Nair is uber laggy and only deals 6% at most without having some sort of AC like Ike.
Fair is a joke until someone can prove to me other wise.
F-tilt is Fsmash jr.
The only really good normals at neutral are d-tilt and jab and they aren't enough.

It's when Swordfighter is in advantage though that's when they shine U-air combos/mixups and D-air/Cape Gimps are salivating at times

Huh?
without having some sort of AC...

If I recall his AC's are 29 which I believe is B-air, U-air and Nair are like 30 something maybe 35 or something, F-air is 51, D-air is 90?

You can Rising B-air/Nair, U-air if not being more lax then that and get your AC.

F-air has plenty of range coverage infront of him, while not suited for using in neutral, it presses advantage just fine. Ftilt is still fine, use it for a whiff punish, especially if you're facing a character with questionable grab reach. Not everything is about being safe. Hell this game explicitly gives almost everyone and their mother a solid pivot option.

 

[Ffamran]

Hahaha! I got bodied by @ Antonykun !

I decided to play some games and I saw, "Antonyk...", because the 3DS doesn't show the entire name if it's too long and I was like, "Oh, crap... Is that... I think it is." Of all the characters I don't fight a lot, it's Villager and a good Villager is as rare as a good Little Mac or good anyone on For Glory. Then the match starts and I see Rosalina & Luma and I'm like, "Oh, crap. The other character I rarely see on For Glory and I'm using Ganondorf of all people." When the match started, I was still wondering about if this really was Antonykun. After the match - I lost -, I check the profile and it had "[SB]" and what could "SB" stand for? Smashboards. Switch to Ike after a two matches since I think Ike has a more favorable MU than Ganondorf - I still lose. Then I switch to Falco since he's the only other character I know well and Antonykun switches to Villager with the striped dress and I have no idea what kind of hairstyle that is - triple tails? - and I'm like "Well ****. Of course this happens to me." I get bodied even more.

Of all the characters, I never see Villager which is all right since Villager is less popular, but I rarely see Sheik, Diddy, Mega Man, and Rosalina & Luma. It's more of Luigi, Fox, and Captain Falcon. See, this is what happens to people who have no idea what the MU is like. You can be as skilled as you want, but if you have no idea how to fight a certain MU, you're at a disadvantage, especially if you're not Zero who can just exploit openings on the fly or is at such a high skill level that the disadvantage isn't enough to make the fight horrible. This is why I advocate discussion on all characters, popular or not; low tier or not. Everyone's going to feel that moment of, "Oh, crap. How do I fight X character?"

Oh, and apparently Greninja's Dair cannot be challenged well. This might be a Falco only thing, but I decided it would be a great idea to tank 4-6 Dairs from Greninja to see if I could hit Greninja before Greninja hits me with a Uair. Well, it works if I'm on the side, but don't go underneath Greninja unless you know if that move has higher priority. I bet Shulk's Uair would wreck Greninja's Dair because the Monado's hitting and not Shulk like Falco's messed up feet now after getting slammed by Greninja over and over.

 

[outfoxd]

The best option being to dash into anything objectively incorrect. Beyond reason. That's a bad option all of the time. If you're walking at someone and they try to out-space you with... anything, you armor it because your smashes are armored. It's that simple. That's all you do. If you whiff because you're too far, they'll get punished with jabs for any follow-up. If you're close enough to hit one, then case closed. If you're so far all of that is silly, you powershield. You're walking so your options are all free. You're walking so nothing you do is a free punish.

You're winning if you're walking.

Walking is the best option, and it's also a good option. There is nothing even ambiguous about that either. Aura Sphere is a guaranteed powershield almost, if you're walking, even at shotgun blast range. Spacing falls onto palm (a bit slow, don't you think) and what? Any normal you'd do from there it getting armored or ftilted and losing. Like if he walks at you and just responds correctly you have to move. You can't space him that way. It's not feasible.

I think the problem that comes with discussing Little Mac is that you have a whole lot of baggage and so little positive play to point to. I mean it's great this time I have a gameplay with Vex showing this specific match-up and why walking beats any zoning Lucario might fancy doing, but normally discussing Little Mac boils down to

"well when I run into them I normally do X, Y, and Z and he's pretty helpless"

so then you, the person who plays him and are, yourself, not dumber than a bag of hammers (clarity: that's a shots fired on For Glory Mac players, not the person you're talking to) like most FG LM are like

"well he has a lot of good answers to that kind of play if he just patiently approaches with C"

and they go

"HAH! Patience!? Do you even play Little Mac?"

and you're just like -_-

I mean the character isn't even defined in peoples mind by his actual capabilities like, say, the other overused For Glory character Falcon. People don't look at Little Mac and differentiate the bad habits that trend and define him online from the fundamentals of the character, if they even know what those fundamentals are.

Dash attack being his best option for, well, anything? That's not even just a questionable opinion, that doesn't make sense outside the context of For Glory! It's his most punishable on-shield option and literally loses him games if he commits to it in the wrong location on the screen. To get that kind of impression from him is to have seen 100 For Glory LM try this and draw the conclusion "well they never learn... maybe that really is their best option and this character is just trash?" and it's so frustrating to try and combat that kind of incidental indoctrination.

And I can't actually blame people for that, because where else are you going to draw conclusion on the game except from your personal experiences and the consistent patterns you get from field research? We can't all go to tourneys, and even those of us who do don't see enough of this character to have a clear understanding of what he does!

But yeah. Honestly, Mac wins games by just walking up to you and poking you until you make a mistake. And with so... so many safe ground-to-ground poke options he excels at this, and is probably the only character with a bad grab who can do this.

But I can say that 100 different ways, but it isn't real until someone sees it on Streams and Screens.

I'm visualizing this in terms of real life boxing and it makes a lot of sense, that Mac is meant to be an aggressive counterpuncher who doesn't so much wait for an opponent to make a mistake but makes them to do dumb stuff by being faster than they think and drawing out what feels like the correct option. Show 'em the jab, then punish the answer.

 

[Antonykun]

Hahaha! I got bodied by @ Antonykun !

I decided to play some games and I saw, "Antonyk...", because the 3DS doesn't show the entire name if it's too long and I was like, "Oh, crap... Is that... I think it is." Of all the characters I don't fight a lot, it's Villager and a good Villager is as rare as a good Little Mac or good anyone on For Glory. Then the match starts and I see Rosalina & Luma and I'm like, "Oh, crap. The other character I rarely see on For Glory and I'm using Ganondorf of all people." When the match started, I was still wondering about if this really was Antonykun. After the match - I lost -, I check the profile and it had "[SB]" and what could "SB" stand for? Smashboards. Switch to Ike after a two matches since I think Ike has a more favorable MU than Ganondorf - I still lose. Then I switch to Falco since he's the only other character I know well and Antonykun switches to Villager with the striped dress and I have no idea what kind of hairstyle that is - triple tails? - and I'm like "Well ****. Of course this happens to me." I get bodied even more.

Of all the characters, I never see Villager which is all right since Villager is less popular, but I rarely see Sheik, Diddy, Mega Man, and Rosalina & Luma. It's more of Luigi, Fox, and Captain Falcon. See, this is what happens to people who have no idea what the MU is like. You can be as skilled as you want, but if you have no idea how to fight a certain MU, you're at a disadvantage, especially if you're not Zero who can just exploit openings on the fly or is at such a high skill level that the disadvantage isn't enough to make the fight horrible. This is why I advocate discussion on all characters, popular or not; low tier or not. Everyone's going to feel that moment of, "Oh, crap. How do I fight X character?"

Oh, and apparently Greninja's Dair cannot be challenged well. This might be a Falco only thing, but I decided it would be a great idea to tank 4-6 Dairs from Greninja to see if I could hit Greninja before Greninja hits me with a Uair. Well, it works if I'm on the side, but don't go underneath Greninja unless you know if that move has higher priority. I bet Shulk's Uair would wreck Greninja's Dair because the Monado's hitting and not Shulk like Falco's messed up feet now after getting slammed by Greninja over and over.

Wait where you that Ganon/Ike/Falco? Amusingly I only switched to the Swagager because my sassy levin Sword (Luma) kept getting smacked over and over again.

That reminds me of some of the crazy edgeguards i did and I remembered "Silly Antonykun, with aerials like those and a recovery like that, of course Villager has god tiered edgeguarding."

Like seriously this is what I imagine my opponent sees when they're off the stage.

Spoiler

EDIT we should probably stop thinking of Luma as a character and more as Rosalina's Levin Sword. It really helps with playing as them.

 

[Blue Ninjakoopa]

Which is why I say that anything that Falco has over Little Mac aside from a good off stage game is pretty much moot since he's so damned slow and despite having a good grab game, Falco's hand will literally phase through people's bodies and nothing registers except for a boot to the face for attempting to grab at pointblank. Ike in armor, wielding Ragnell, and wearing a cape has overall better mobility than a skinny, blue pheasant only wearing greaves, a scouter, light clothing, and probably a lightweight Blaster.

I bet Ganondorf can run circles around him if the Ganondorf knows what's he doing. Hell, Robin runs circles around Falco. Wolf ran circles around Falco in Brawl if neither of them used their Blasters and Wolf's (fake) limping! Sure, he walks fast and falls fast, but when your dash speed is barely faster than your walk speed and your air speed is molasses, it will be frustrating.

If Brawl Falco didn't have his Blaster, then he'd probably be near Fox and Wolf - maybe even below them. The ability to force approaches like that was amazing even if it looked spammy and dirty. Now, Falco can't approach nor can he force approaches well.

It's funny, because Falco and Wolf were the two fastest characters in Star Fox: Assault (Wolf had a rank of 5 stars, Falco had 4, Fox had 3). Maybe if this were Assault Falco instead of Command Falco lol.

In all seriousness though, while I agree he can't really force approaches, blaster shots from across the stage are something to get started with.

I can definitely understand why Falco's metagame hasn't developed much. It seems like there's difficulty pinpointing where to begin. Does he even have any usable customs?

 

[A2ZOMG]

It's funny, because Falco and Wolf were the two fastest characters in Star Fox: Assault (Wolf had a rank of 5 stars, Falco had 4, Fox had 3). Maybe if this were Assault Falco instead of Command Falco lol.

In all seriousness though, while I agree he can't really force approaches, blaster shots from across the stage are something to get started with.

I can definitely understand why Falco's metagame hasn't developed much. It seems like there's difficulty pinpointing where to begin. Does he even have any usable customs?

Falco has some incredibly good customs.

Reflector Void is very slightly slower than default, but does a whopping 9%, slightly bigger hitbox, and knocks people very high. Also destroys rather than reflects projectiles. Basically an F-tilt on steroids.

Distant Firebird hits harder than default and goes farther. Nuff said really.

Also if you never use SideB offensively, Falco Phase is a good move for recovery as well. The dash has no hitbox but is basically completely invincible.

 

[FullMoon]

Oh, and apparently Greninja's Dair cannot be challenged well. This might be a Falco only thing, but I decided it would be a great idea to tank 4-6 Dairs from Greninja to see if I could hit Greninja before Greninja hits me with a Uair. Well, it works if I'm on the side, but don't go underneath Greninja unless you know if that move has higher priority. I bet Shulk's Uair would wreck Greninja's Dair because the Monado's hitting and not Shulk like Falco's messed up feet now after getting slammed by Greninja over and over.

You would be correct. Moves such as Rosalina and Shulk's Up-Air which have a separate hitbox always beat Greninja's D-Air. Against them you probably shouldn't use D-Air much unless you're just trying to get back to the ground and they're far away.

You shouldn't be using D-Air much anyway, though it can be good for punishing people who shield-grab expecting a N-Air, when Greninja can just bait it and then stomp on them and follow up with a N-Air or F-Air depending on %.

 

[Blue Ninjakoopa]

Falco has some incredibly good customs.

Reflector Void is very slightly slower than default, but does a whopping 9%, slightly bigger hitbox, and knocks people very high. Also destroys rather than reflects projectiles. Basically an F-tilt on steroids.

Distant Firebird hits harder than default and goes farther. Nuff said really.

Also if you never use SideB offensively, Falco Phase is a good move for recovery as well. The dash has no hitbox but is basically completely invincible.

Cool. Any good ones for Blaster?

 

[Road Death Wheel]

Cool. Any good ones for Blaster?

i prefer default blaster. the other one is like less distance fox blaster and has less lag witch is cool.


and one i should probably lab more sice its peaked my interest. but its like a orb shot with a controled explosin.

 

[Ffamran]

Wait where you that Ganon/Ike/Falco? Amusingly I only switched to the Swagager because my sassy levin Sword (Luma) kept getting smacked over and over again.

That reminds me of some of the crazy edgeguards i did and I remembered "Silly Antonykun, with aerials like those and a recovery like that, of course Villager has god tiered edgeguarding."

Like seriously this is what I imagine my opponent sees when they're off the stage.

Spoiler

EDIT we should probably stop thinking of Luma as a character and more as Rosalina's Levin Sword. It really helps with playing as them.

Yep, I was the brown Ganondorf, brown, purple cape wearing Ike who SD'd by Aethering away from the ledge, and the multi-colored Falco. I have no idea how to fight either of them, so I just go on auto-pilot and get screwed over. On the first match, I was both giddy and excited, so I forgot that Ganondorf's supposed to be the punisher and not Rosalina.

My rule of thumb when fighting enemies in any game: hit them. I don't care if they can one-hit-kill me, they have incredible edgeguarding, they can snipe me across from the map, they have I-frames for whatever reason, I just run the hell up and start wailing or try to figure out how to murder them. This might be why I suck at strategy games.

It's funny, because Falco and Wolf were the two fastest characters in Star Fox: Assault (Wolf had a rank of 5 stars, Falco had 4, Fox had 3). Maybe if this were Assault Falco instead of Command Falco lol.

In all seriousness though, while I agree he can't really force approaches, blaster shots from across the stage are something to get started with.

I can definitely understand why Falco's metagame hasn't developed much. It seems like there's difficulty pinpointing where to begin. Does he even have any usable customs?

For customs, like it's mostly Void Reflector that people agree on as the most beneficial since it adds another kill tool for Falco that's fairly fast, frame 9, I believe, and has good range. The fact it sends people diagonally upwards makes me believe you can use it to kill in the air. The only issue is this: I don't have any of the customs, but Burst Blaster and I think Burst Blaster's not worth it because you lose Falco's natural hit stun from his not-godplayer Blaster. Explosive Blaster is iffy, the Fire Bird and Falco Phantasm customs are just play style choices except for Falco Charge which seems like a crappier Side Smash and takes away Falco's decent burst movement option and a good recovery booster. Fire Bird customs boil down to default, fast and less distance, and slow and more distance while the Falco Phantasm options are default with meteor properties, I-frame dashing, and the crappier Side Smash. As for Reflector, there's the default, a slower, but it speeds up projectiles custom, and a decent kill and launcher move that negates energy-based projectiles and reflects physical ones.

As for metagame and knowing what moves do what, it's kind of slow. I don't know if anyone aside from Pawclaw and Cyro who someone said spends more time on another forum checks the Falco boards. I don't know if GimR or Keitaro do, while Izaw seems to be everywhere, so there's that. I don't think Falco has big names maining him, but there are people who have him as a secondary or just use him like Keitaro and GimR. You found Kato, but he's apparently the only Falco known in North Carolina? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVIwnzTR8rI.

Here's the thing, I don't know if Falco's a main or a secondary to his Bowser. And then there's Zex, who has an insane Sheik, but that might be because Kato has no idea how to fight (Zex's) Sheik: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp--TK4vWew.

Essentially, the Falco metagame boils down to a couple of players figuring out things and winning purely on skill at this rate. Some people still try to Brawl it out and have habits of trying to short hop double laser or use his Blaster too many times; some still don't use Dtilts, Ftilts, Uairs, Fairs, or Reflectors. Remember when Fox's Jab repeat was found out or that Diddy's Dtilt could combo into itself? Yeah, those things spread like wildfire while things like Falco's metagame, Dr. Mario's reverse Super Jump Punch and Doctor Tornado for edgeguarding, Ike's Dtilt, Mega Man pivoting Side Smash, and a bunch more are just left unknown.

We need representors for a ton of characters that are MIA and have potential. I mean like players like aSMa for Greninja, Abadango for Pac-Man, Salem for Villager, Boss and J. Miller for Luigi, or Ally for Mario. I don't know any Dr. Mario mains aside from I think TKBreezy and Rice. Check out Rice and his Dr. Mario which I don't remember seeing Doctor Tornado being used as an edgeguard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ90sIJ07KY.

People still believe that Ike's bad because there were no Ikes at Apex for various reasons. It was the biggest tournament to date for many people and not seeing a character or seeing a character get bodied usually leads to assumptions of, "Oh, this character is trash", despite how early it is in the metagame.

The masses can and will influence things because of one or two factors: a good, influential player or a character losing horribly in a match. Remember when people said Rosalina, ZSS, and Sheik? were OP? Yeah, wrong, it's Diddy who apparently was buffed in 1.04 if I read correctly and who was already good, but nobody paid attention until Diddy's reign.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Cool. Any good ones for Blaster?

Burst Blaster is nearly identical to Fox lasers if that's your thing. I haven't checked data on it to see if there are any useful differences...but as far as I can tell it's viable if you really want to use it. The other custom Explosive Blaster is pretty useless though.

 

[RIP_Lucas]

The best option being to dash into anything objectively incorrect. Beyond reason. That's a bad option all of the time. If you're walking at someone and they try to out-space you with... anything, you armor it because your smashes are armored. It's that simple. That's all you do. If you whiff because you're too far, they'll get punished with jabs for any follow-up. If you're close enough to hit one, then case closed. If you're so far all of that is silly, you powershield. You're walking so your options are all free. You're walking so nothing you do is a free punish.

You're winning if you're walking.

Walking is the best option, and it's also a good option. There is nothing even ambiguous about that either. Aura Sphere is a guaranteed powershield almost, if you're walking, even at shotgun blast range. Spacing falls onto palm (a bit slow, don't you think) and what? Any normal you'd do from there it getting armored or ftilted and losing. Like if he walks at you and just responds correctly you have to move. You can't space him that way. It's not feasible.

I think the problem that comes with discussing Little Mac is that you have a whole lot of baggage and so little positive play to point to. I mean it's great this time I have a gameplay with Vex showing this specific match-up and why walking beats any zoning Lucario might fancy doing, but normally discussing Little Mac boils down to

"well when I run into them I normally do X, Y, and Z and he's pretty helpless"

so then you, the person who plays him and are, yourself, not dumber than a bag of hammers (clarity: that's a shots fired on For Glory Mac players, not the person you're talking to) like most FG LM are like

"well he has a lot of good answers to that kind of play if he just patiently approaches with C"

and they go

"HAH! Patience!? Do you even play Little Mac?"

and you're just like -_-

I mean the character isn't even defined in peoples mind by his actual capabilities like, say, the other overused For Glory character Falcon. People don't look at Little Mac and differentiate the bad habits that trend and define him online from the fundamentals of the character, if they even know what those fundamentals are.

Dash attack being his best option for, well, anything? That's not even just a questionable opinion, that doesn't make sense outside the context of For Glory! It's his most punishable on-shield option and literally loses him games if he commits to it in the wrong location on the screen. To get that kind of impression from him is to have seen 100 For Glory LM try this and draw the conclusion "well they never learn... maybe that really is their best option and this character is just trash?" and it's so frustrating to try and combat that kind of incidental indoctrination.

And I can't actually blame people for that, because where else are you going to draw conclusion on the game except from your personal experiences and the consistent patterns you get from field research? We can't all go to tourneys, and even those of us who do don't see enough of this character to have a clear understanding of what he does!

But yeah. Honestly, Mac wins games by just walking up to you and poking you until you make a mistake. And with so... so many safe ground-to-ground poke options he excels at this, and is probably the only character with a bad grab who can do this.

But I can say that 100 different ways, but it isn't real until someone sees it on Streams and Screens.

I'm just going to say this once:

If you're trying to approach a lucario out of neutral, you're not going to get close enough to do half the things you mentioned. The best option is still to approach into shield, and if you're going to do that, you might as well dash to give them less time to think

I know Little Mac is good ground to ground, but that's not something he realistically gets to do nearly as much as you claim, and as I feel I've pointed out pretty strongly, even ground to ground isn't always a favorable match up for him (Sheik, Lucario, and Rosalina can beat him at his own game with low lag spacing tools that out range mac, Sonic and Pikachu can win via aerial approaches, and I'm not even going to talk about just out playing a little mac and edge guarding like a lot of characters can do).

Most high tier characters can handle Little Mac no problem. You keep talking up walking, but that in match ups like Sonic, he doesn't even need to do that (any good sonic will end neutral ASAP via a dash into shield or an aerial approach), he can just stand and wait for them, and he still probably loses.

Basically, Little Mac is not that good. He will win you some matches easy because you have to know how to play against him, and not a ton of people know how to do that, but against a player of equal or higher skill level (basically a tournament), Little Mac is not a great choice to main. He may have use as a counter pick, I really don't know because he far from counters any of my main characters, but he has too many bad match ups with common characters to be a tournament main.

 

[Ffamran]

Burst Blaster is nearly identical to Fox lasers if that's your thing. I haven't checked data on it to see if there are any useful differences...but as far as I can tell it's viable if you really want to use it. The other custom Explosive Blaster is pretty useless though.

Is Fox's Blaster consistent? Burst Blaster does 2% when the laser hits closer to Falco and does 1% when used far away. I think it might be the first half of its distance does 2% while the second half does 1%.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Mac wins on the ground vs Marcina, but this is a match where their throws are amazing. They send Mac flying off the stage where he does not want to be. Marcina can kill at 0 with a throw and half decent edgeguarding.

Mac wins on the ground. Dies anywhere else.

It's hard for me to call the match. LM's seem to give it to Marcina. Alot of crying about off stage gimps and what not.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Is Fox's Blaster consistent? Burst Blaster does 2% when the laser hits closer to Falco and does 1% when used far away. I think it might be the first half of its distance does 2% while the second half does 1%.

Checking from the data dump, Fox Blaster does significantly more damage on average. 3 close, 2 somewhere in the middle, 1.4 far. In fact his Impact Blaster also does more damage from what Thinkaman's data dump suggests.

I'll go do you a favor and check in training mode if there's a speed difference and report back.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

Is Fox's Blaster consistent? Burst Blaster does 2% when the laser hits closer to Falco and does 1% when used far away. I think it might be the first half of its distance does 2% while the second half does 1%.

Fox's blaster does 3% up close and 1-2% from afar. Burst blaster does have the benefit of having slightly less recovery time however.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Fox's blaster does 3% up close and 1-2% from afar. Burst blaster does have the benefit of having slightly less recovery time however.

@ Ffamran Pretty much this. Burst Blaster while it has significantly weaker DPS than Fox Blaster (and shorter range) is slightly lower commitment.

Ironically enough, Fox's Impact Blaster also has slightly less total commitment than firing a single laser from Falco's Blaster, but Falco's Blaster has the benefit of greater range and the "rapid Fire" function and doing consistent damage at long range.

Basically I guess you can run any of the Blaster customs on Fox and Falco except Explosive Blaster...that one seems useless.

 

[Conda]

Falco has a really good walk speed, perfect pivot and he probably has the largest turn pivot in the game.
Mobility doesn't ever seem to be my issue with Falco. He technically forces the approach against just about everyone.

I feel as if my only struggles with Falco are against characters with similar range (or more) at better speeds.
It's a short list tbh.

I think that's a little brief. I'd love to hear you give more of your thoughts on Falco and for other people to join in. Does his meta lie in using PP techs, or does he have good enough of a kit to excel with good fundamentals-based play? (ie, is he all-around-GOOD enough to be like Mario, or does he have crippling shortcomings that makes him more sensitive to matchups)

 

[Project Quarantine]

The best option being to dash into anything objectively incorrect. Beyond reason. That's a bad option all of the time. If you're walking at someone and they try to out-space you with... anything, you armor it because your smashes are armored. It's that simple. That's all you do. If you whiff because you're too far, they'll get punished with jabs for any follow-up. If you're close enough to hit one, then case closed. If you're so far all of that is silly, you powershield. You're walking so your options are all free. You're walking so nothing you do is a free punish.

You're winning if you're walking.

Walking is the best option, and it's also a good option. There is nothing even ambiguous about that either. Aura Sphere is a guaranteed powershield almost, if you're walking, even at shotgun blast range. Spacing falls onto palm (a bit slow, don't you think) and what? Any normal you'd do from there it getting armored or ftilted and losing. Like if he walks at you and just responds correctly you have to move. You can't space him that way. It's not feasible.

I think the problem that comes with discussing Little Mac is that you have a whole lot of baggage and so little positive play to point to. I mean it's great this time I have a gameplay with Vex showing this specific match-up and why walking beats any zoning Lucario might fancy doing, but normally discussing Little Mac boils down to

"well when I run into them I normally do X, Y, and Z and he's pretty helpless"

so then you, the person who plays him and are, yourself, not dumber than a bag of hammers (clarity: that's a shots fired on For Glory Mac players, not the person you're talking to) like most FG LM are like

"well he has a lot of good answers to that kind of play if he just patiently approaches with C"

and they go

"HAH! Patience!? Do you even play Little Mac?"

and you're just like -_-

I mean the character isn't even defined in peoples mind by his actual capabilities like, say, the other overused For Glory character Falcon. People don't look at Little Mac and differentiate the bad habits that trend and define him online from the fundamentals of the character, if they even know what those fundamentals are.

Dash attack being his best option for, well, anything? That's not even just a questionable opinion, that doesn't make sense outside the context of For Glory! It's his most punishable on-shield option and literally loses him games if he commits to it in the wrong location on the screen. To get that kind of impression from him is to have seen 100 For Glory LM try this and draw the conclusion "well they never learn... maybe that really is their best option and this character is just trash?" and it's so frustrating to try and combat that kind of incidental indoctrination.

And I can't actually blame people for that, because where else are you going to draw conclusion on the game except from your personal experiences and the consistent patterns you get from field research? We can't all go to tourneys, and even those of us who do don't see enough of this character to have a clear understanding of what he does!

But yeah. Honestly, Mac wins games by just walking up to you and poking you until you make a mistake. And with so... so many safe ground-to-ground poke options he excels at this, and is probably the only character with a bad grab who can do this.

But I can say that 100 different ways, but it isn't real until someone sees it on Streams and Screens.

I'd perform this at an opera house tbh.

Walking is legit. It is so passive and confusing, opponents aren't ready to react to anything, while they often are unsafe to you. All you need is reaction time.

 

[HeroMystic]

I think that's a little brief. I'd love to hear you give more of your thoughts on Falco and for other people to join in. Does his meta lie in using PP techs, or does he have good enough of a kit to excel with good fundamentals-based play? (ie, is he all-around-GOOD enough to be like Mario, or does he have crippling shortcomings that makes him more sensitive to matchups)

I can only give a half-hearted analysis since I've only played Falco in friendlies.

Essentially, Falco seems to be fundamentals. He can't combo hard like the top tiers, but he has pretty good damage and a pretty strong juggler. Reflector gives him a solid disjointed spacing tool and even assists with his recovery. Blaster is more or less there to stuff predictable approaches and get stage control.

Being aggressive with Falco takes some work. He works a lot like Luigi or Doc where he prefers to keep his opponent right above him so he can take advantage of his fall speed to combo. He works a lot better when you play patiently and settle for just spacing out your opponent and doing hard punishes.

I personally want to experiment more with his specials. I feel Falco Phantasm in general could see more use.

 

[Conda]

Burst Blaster is nearly identical to Fox lasers if that's your thing. I haven't checked data on it to see if there are any useful differences...but as far as I can tell it's viable if you really want to use it. The other custom Explosive Blaster is pretty useless though.

VERY crucial differences that need to be pointed out, if this discussion is going to be helpful for lurkers reading this for info (hi y'all!):

Falco's custom blaster that makes it a "fox-ish blaster" is much shorter range than Fox's or Falco's default blaster, in a very meaningful way. It does less damage than Fox's due to much slower firing speed than Fox's. Also cannot be rapid-fire machinegunned like Fox's - lasers only comes out at a fixed speed.

Fox's custom blaster that makes it a "falco-ish blaster" is much shorter range than Fox's or Falco's default blaster, in a very meaningful way. It does less damage than Falco's due to much slower firing speed than Falco's. Also cannot be rapid-fired like Falcos - Fox puts the blaster away after each shot even when mashing the button.

Also regarding their other customs.
Fox's power-blaster variant is decent - long startup, but low lag after the shot is fired. Fox can act pretty quickly once the shot is finally fired, making it less punishable when spaced well. Basically acts like a weak megaman fsmash. Can kill decently at higher percents, actually packs a punch.

Falco's power-blaster variant is utter complete garbage, one of the worst specials in the game. Startup before the projectile is fired is fast, but the shot takes a while to actually have a hitbox - it's just a very weak windbox at the start. Once it explodes into a multi-hit explosion hitbox, it has a hitbox that does less KB than Fox's power-blaster version. The hitbox is tiny as well, making it easy to whiff, and easy for your opponent to evade.

The lag after firing is what makes this move pointless - Falco is forced to stand still and do nothing WHILE the projectile moves forward, but also during the multi-hit explosion. Falco can act once the projectile is finished doing its biz and everything is back to neutral. This move is absolutely pointless and the most punishable of the mid-range projectile in the game. It's basically like taking away his lasers and replacing them with a really bad version of PK Flash.

 

[Ffamran]

@ HeroMystic , check out the Phantam Spike! thread on the Falco boards. With a good read, you can short hop Falco Phantasm after a F-throw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lGSyxyPYl9Q.

F-throw to Falco Phantasm I think is a true combo at low percents. And then there's this that is sort of like pivot Falco Phantasm and using the back of its hitbox, but for nefarious purposes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ffJebEF8dQs.

 

[warriorman222]

What do we do about the Persistent Pikmin Power Amplification? Here is my thread on it, it has the Youtube link in it.

I suggest we wait and see if it's too bad. If it is, we ban the combination of a reflecting move and Order Tackle. If it's fine, then we do nothing.

What course of action do you guys suggest?