Character Competitive Impressions

[Terotrous]

Man characters can do some really mean things to pikmin. Villager can pocket them and have them die of suffocation there , Rosalina can make them collapse under heavy gravitational weight, and Wario flat out eats purple pikmin.

Is there other characters that can do such sadistic stuff on them?

Olimar can throw them off the side to their doom!

And he does it just because he wants a different colour, not for self-defense. Clearly he is the worst Pikmin abuser (which comes as no surprise to anyone who played the games).


Anyway, that's an interesting point about how easily you can get the Pikmin off. Who else is really bad at it? It seems like Nair is usually the best move to use, so maybe people with slow or weird Nairs? Palutena perhaps?

 

[Blue Banana]

Nairs that cover the users' hurtbox or make them the actual hurtbox can usually knock off or kill latched Pikmin. Take Sonic, PAC-MAN, or (Dark) Pit's nairs, for example.

Is there other characters that can do such sadistic stuff on them?

I remember seeing a match on a stream between Olimar and King Dedede where Dedede can swallow purple side B's or fsmashes with Inhale, leaving him vulnerable for a moment.

For all the ways that Pikmin can be interacted by other characters, I'm disappointed that eaten Pikmin don't get a lingering ghost in this game.

 

[DavemanCozy]

For all the ways that Pikmin can be interacted by other characters, I'm disappointed that eaten Pikmin don't get a lingering ghost in this game.

That's because Kirby and Dedede consume their souls

 

[Unknownkid]

I don't know if Kirby can eat Pikman since there is a lot things that he cannot eat/swallow but Dedede and Wario can. Funny enough, once Kirby obtains Dedede and Wario's power - he can eat anything.

And the last Kirby fact of the day - due to Kirby size, he can beat Dedede's Inhale (both Kirby own and Dedede's Power) 80% of the time. It doesn't matter if Kirby approach with Inhale or Dedede does. I test this against a fellow Dedede player on FG. We literally stop fighting and try to Inhale one another for the remainder of the match. It was interesting.

 

[NairWizard]

@ NairWizard could you mayhaps go down on some edguarding Pika can do?

It's character-dependent. A few examples:

can be edgeguarded by grabbing the ledge and Thundering in place at the right time. No matter how she angles her recovery, unless she has the attack custom she will get hit if you time it right. If she doesn't get hit because she made it to the body of the stage (the ledge itself is covered by Pikachu's body, so she can't make it there usually), and you do it correctly, you won't regrab the ledge, and you can QA to her position on the stage and up-smash or dash attack her for the KO.

is vulnerable to b-air when he's using Balloon Trip. The hitbox of b-air is so compressed that you can hit the balloons without hitting Villager's body and send him plummeting. You can't do this if he's too high above you, but you can nail him with a Thunder since he has to descend at some point. Catching him out of Loid Rocket is easy for Pikachu because if he lands on stage with it, Pikachu can QA to his location, or Thunder if Villager is above.

loses to jump f-air if he uses side-b (need to be below the lip of the stage to use this if he's aiming straight for the ledge). If he's going to use up-b, he'll either do it hugging the side of the stage or from some distance out. If he's hugging the side of the stage you want to d-air. If he's some distance out then you want to falling n-air. Up-air is his anti-edgeguarding tool, but you can d-air through it because of the way d-air extends Pikachu's hitboxes. N-air is a little harder to do this with, so just mixing up d-air and b-air (which can also beat his up-air due to the compression) should be good enough if you're uncertain of when to use n-air.

becomes stationary when he uses his up-b, so you can jump out literally on top of him, airdodge past any possible f-air or n-air, and Thunder in place. If you do it right, you should be on top of him or near him. The Thunder will collide with the burst of PKT2, but Pikachu won't take any damage, and Ness loses his stock. This takes guts to do, though, and also practice. Most of the time he'll just recover without up-b because of it, too, so you should try to catch him with your lingering b-air to eat airdodges and tear through f-air. Be careful Thundering Ness from way below him; if you make it obvious he can absorb it.

and so on.

The only characters that you can't edgeguard in some way are customs Palutena (too many mixups), customs Ike (well, you can, it's just really hard), Jump Monado Shulk (super hard), Meta Knight (never worth it), and Sheik (seldom worth it). Some characters like Ganondorf get harder to edgeguard with customs, too, but it's still possible.

 

[Cenizas]

Does anyone know if Hardy Pikmin differ in what it takes to shake them off?

 

[Antonykun]

It's character-dependent. A few examples:

can be edgeguarded by grabbing the ledge and Thundering in place at the right time. No matter how she angles her recovery, unless she has the attack custom she will get hit if you time it right. If she doesn't get hit because she made it to the body of the stage (the ledge itself is covered by Pikachu's body, so she can't make it there usually), and you do it correctly, you won't regrab the ledge, and you can QA to her position on the stage and up-smash or dash attack her for the KO.

is vulnerable to b-air when he's using Balloon Trip. The hitbox of b-air is so compressed that you can hit the balloons without hitting Villager's body and send him plummeting. You can't do this if he's too high above you, but you can nail him with a Thunder since he has to descend at some point. Catching him out of Loid Rocket is easy for Pikachu because if he lands on stage with it, Pikachu can QA to his location, or Thunder if Villager is above.

loses to jump f-air if he uses side-b (need to be below the lip of the stage to use this if he's aiming straight for the ledge). If he's going to use up-b, he'll either do it hugging the side of the stage or from some distance out. If he's hugging the side of the stage you want to d-air. If he's some distance out then you want to falling n-air. Up-air is his anti-edgeguarding tool, but you can d-air through it because of the way d-air extends Pikachu's hitboxes. N-air is a little harder to do this with, so just mixing up d-air and b-air (which can also beat his up-air due to the compression) should be good enough if you're uncertain of when to use n-air.

becomes stationary when he uses his up-b, so you can jump out literally on top of him, airdodge past any possible f-air or n-air, and Thunder in place. If you do it right, you should be on top of him or near him. The Thunder will collide with the burst of PKT2, but Pikachu won't take any damage, and Ness loses his stock. This takes guts to do, though, and also practice. Most of the time he'll just recover without up-b because of it, too, so you should try to catch him with your lingering b-air to eat airdodges and tear through f-air. Be careful Thundering Ness from way below him; if you make it obvious he can absorb it.

and so on.

The only characters that you can't edgeguard in some way are customs Palutena (too many mixups), customs Ike (well, you can, it's just really hard), Jump Monado Shulk (super hard), Meta Knight (never worth it), and Sheik (seldom worth it). Some characters like Ganondorf get harder to edgeguard with customs, too, but it's still possible.

I see so I have to lean the Matchup. Oh BTW don't try to edge guard Extreme Balloon Trip Villager

 

[NairWizard]

I see so I have to lean the Matchup. Oh BTW don't try to edge guard Extreme Balloon Trip Villager

I have no experience against EBT Villager. What makes it difficult?

 

[Cenizas]

I have no experience against EBT Villager. What makes it difficult?

Hitting the balloons will make them explode, knocking you away. Villager can sacrifice one balloon to keep you from coming in, without affecting our max reach. Also, exploding both balloons, whether by an opponent or manually by Villager, will eject him a fair distance upwards so he can snag a ledge grab.

 

[mimgrim]

I have no experience against EBT Villager. What makes it difficult?

The Balloons explode, dishing out damage and knockback.

 

[Unknownkid]

Hitting the balloons will make them explode, knocking you away. Villager can sacrifice one balloon to keep you from coming in, without affecting our max reach. Also, exploding both balloons, whether by an opponent or manually by Villager, will eject him a fair distance upwards so he can snag a ledge grab.

So there is nothing you can do?

 

[NairWizard]

Interesting. What are the downsides?

This is in general a trend of customs on: many characters get a better recovery (and better edgeguarding too, as a result sometimes).

 

[Blue Banana]

Does anyone know if Hardy Pikmin differ in what it takes to shake them off?

It takes a few more hits for one to inflict on latched Pikmin to shake them off.

 

[Cenizas]

So there is nothing you can do?

No. Villager really relies on the ejection for most of the height of it, and he's in freefall for the way up, which ofc can be abused. But it is still difficult if you don't have good projectiles, as you'll put yourself in a bad position and most likely refresh the up-B. And if your projectiles aren't strong enough Villager can purposely run into them to refresh his recovery as well. The best strategy is to just respect EBT and then punish when Villager ejects himself towards the ledge.

@ NairWizard the Balloon Trip itself dosen't go as high, so Villager has rely on the ejection to climb back on, where he is in helpless state.

 

[Antonykun]

Interesting. What are the downsides?

This is in general a trend of customs on: many characters get a better recovery (and better edgeguarding too, as a result sometimes).

The only down side is less recovery (so no scrooging under the stage) and slower recovery, still worth it because you still make it back 99.99% of the time.
Oh yeah and the ejection won't autosnap the ledge.

 

[BlackNitrous1]

This post is vitualy meaningless without more info. Where do u think mega man is placed?

cuz so far its general concensus that hes top 20.

personally believe hes top 15, but currently hes barely #25 on eventhubs/tiers/ssb4

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Seguing back to Olimar for a second, I believe that Pikmin can latch onto different parts of the body, which may influence the attacks one should use to dislodge them.

 

[Antonykun]

personally believe hes top 15, but currently hes barely #25 on eventhubs/tiers/ssb4

That's because eventhubs is full of bologna. :/ like Wario is like 38th tier despite being better than like 30 characters at the very least

 

[BlackNitrous1]

That's because eventhubs is full of bologna. :/ like Wario is like 38th tier despite being better than like 30 characters at the very least

Yeah that's what I figured. If anyone knows a better site for tier listings pls let me know. I know there is no official wii u one yet, its all voting/opinion based, thus, inevitable bolgna

 

[Cenizas]

Seguing back to Olimar for a second, I believe that Pikmin can latch onto different parts of the body, which may influence the attacks one should use to dislodge them.

I've noticed that the body thing seems to affect Order Tackle. I throw a yellow ikmin, and the naturally higher arc makes it so they usually land on character's heads. I Order Tackle and the opponent doesn't get hit by it, I was able to tell because they weren't in hitstun. It's strange since latched pikmin on other parts of the body seem to hit. This probably doesn't mean much in the long run but one does have to wonder whether a lot of stuff like this is a glitch or bad design.

 

[Antonykun]

Yeah that's what I figured. If anyone knows a better site for tier listings pls let me know. I know there is no official wii u one yet, its all voting/opinion based, thus, inevitable bolgna

I think @Thinkaman mad a good tier list but seriously all you need to know is which characters are legitly good like Quick Attack Pikachu

 

[Hippieslayer]

How does glide work better then teleport? Just curious because I cant control glide very well but for attacking.

Also for olimar am I not supposed to kill his pikmin when they are on me?

on its own it wouldn't work, but with super speed and lightweight added into the mix she has enough tools to manage her recovery without it becoming predictable

glide let's her keep her offensive pressure going non stop, with it she always has the option of going in fast with a safe on block aerial, even if she's in her slow post lightweight state and has super speed on cooldown, with it you can never feel safe against her, even if it doesn't compare to her 2 insane customs

though I'm generalizing of course, for some matchups teleport ought to be better

 

[Conda]

So I think we're realising that Dr Mario really isn't that bad, he seems balanced in having a poor recovery, like little mac/ganondorf/captainfalcon/ness, and has legitimate strengths to warrant the lower recovery. I mean, it's still pathetically low, and the run speed difference to mario is bigger than it should be, but Dr Mario doesn't have a problem building up damage OR killing, and he ends up playing quite melee-ish - risky to recover with, but rewarding to edgeguard with.

 

[popsofctown]

So I think we're realising that Dr Mario really isn't that bad, he seems balanced in having a poor recovery, like little mac/ganondorf/captainfalcon/ness, and has legitimate strengths to warrant the lower recovery. I mean, it's still pathetically low, and the run speed difference to mario is bigger than it should be, but Dr Mario doesn't have a problem building up damage OR killing, and he ends up playing quite melee-ish - risky to recover with, but rewarding to edgeguard with.

Is there a legitimate reason to play Doc instead of Mario though? I don't think there is. By the time Doc is smiling about his ability to kill 20% sooner than Mario can, Mario has racked up 30% damage.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Well given that they offer two incredibly different playstyles outside of a few things carrying over I don't see why someone WOULDN'T if they felt at place with him.

Not to be snarky or anything but of all the clones Doc is the most distinct of the three and is a much different character both on paper and in execution.

His movement is different, his sweetspots (notably Nair) is different, his jump height is different....really the only similarities are in frame data and animations. Some combos carry over (Doc's Utilt stuff = more reliable) and Doc has like 2-3 more kill moves than Mario so he can opt to avoid some move staling if he sets up an Up+B, or even a Bair offstage I guess since his kills at better %s than Mario. Lets him save USmash.

 

[meleebrawler]

It takes a few more hits for one to inflict on latched Pikmin to shake them off.

Isn't Sticky Pikmin Throw supposed to make them harder to shake as well as sticking longer?
And Hardy just helps prevent shake-offs by death?

 

[Blue Banana]

Isn't Sticky Pikmin Throw supposed to make them harder to shake as well as sticking longer?
And Hardy just helps prevent shake-offs by death?

Sticky Pikmin Throw increases the rate at which latched Pikmin hit the opponent at the cost of lower damage per hit. I'm not sure if the time they're latched onto the opponent is longer than default.

Hardy Pikmin Pluck greatly increases the survivability of Pikmin at the cost of taking nearly half a second to pluck one Pikmin (according to the frame data? Not sure since it wasn't clearly labeled). For example, a red Pikmin can take 9 Mario dsmashes (front side) before dying. It seems to work well with Sticky Pikmin Throw because the extra health allows latched Pikmin to make use of the fact of being harder to shake off without dying prematurely.

 

[Kofu]

@ NairWizard

Antonykun basically said it, but Extreme Balloon Trip's downsides are that it's less flexible vertically and that he can't ledge snap during the jump from exploding the balloons (once he starts to fall he can). The bigger issue is that if he grabs the ledge with them intact, the balloons remain, and one will float up through the stage, still capable of explodijg if Villager uses the move again or you attack it.

Game & Watch can bucket the explosions and Ness can absorb them, for what it's worth.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Is there a legitimate reason to play Doc instead of Mario though? I don't think there is. By the time Doc is smiling about his ability to kill 20% sooner than Mario can, Mario has racked up 30% damage.

Doc has a 3 frame kill move that can be done out of shield and also can be used on both ground and air, reversed during hitlag, and just generally speaking makes it incredibly unwise to get predictable when pressuring Doc's shield.

Like Christ man, that by itself is seriously huge. Absolutely no character in the game can really screw with Doc's defensive game.

Also Doc's damage per hit is considerably higher than Mario's, and some of his combos, especially U-tilt combos and stuff like U-air -> B-air is considerably more devastating when Doc pulls it of. I mean Doc B-air is literally 2 Mario U-airs at once, and unlike Mario because he doesn't jump as high, it's more consistent out of shield as well.

Plus unlike Mario he actually has real low edgeguards. Super Sheet, Tornado, D-air, and even Up-B from Doc are all waaay better than most things Mario has for punishing low recoveries, so even though Doc can't quite chase as fast on stage for U-smash juggles, he often has better responses to low recoveries into ledge resets which is actually a pretty big problem for Mario. Especially in a custom environment, Doc's low edgeguards actually are really scary good.

 

[Quickhero]

No. Villager really relies on the ejection for most of the height of it, and he's in freefall for the way up, which ofc can be abused. But it is still difficult if you don't have good projectiles, as you'll put yourself in a bad position and most likely refresh the up-B. And if your projectiles aren't strong enough Villager can purposely run into them to refresh his recovery as well. The best strategy is to just respect EBT and then punish when Villager ejects himself towards the ledge.

@ NairWizard the Balloon Trip itself dosen't go as high, so Villager has rely on the ejection to climb back on, where he is in helpless state.

Can confirm...it's stupidly hard to edgeguard as someone such as Marth against a Villager with EBT because he just doesn't care at all about any attempts at edgeguard. Even if he is at the BOTTOM at the stage, his ejection will just pop him back to the stage, and you can't really punish him by punishing when he's grabbing the ledge because his balloons will just hit you and stop any attempts at punishing when you're (likely anyone) with no projectiles like Marth. :\

Though I can say that it's possible to do well against Villager as Marth, you really just gotta play standard traps and just keep on attacking (generally with F-Air) whenever you can and just try your best to attack horizontally rather than vertical, because then his balloons won't really help him out much in terms of saving himself from getting punished, and pass through Lloid Rockets/Counter if needed and just kill him with well spaced aerials. Btw be sure to take Dolphin Slash/Jump because Villager will zone and gimp you very easily with Crescent Slash.

 

[NairWizard]

Is there a legitimate reason to play Doc instead of Mario though? I don't think there is. By the time Doc is smiling about his ability to kill 20% sooner than Mario can, Mario has racked up 30% damage.

Doc isn't a worse Mario. He is a worse Luigi.

They both have bad airspeed, mobility issues on the ground (Luigi's traction, Doc's run/walkspeed), and an exploitable recovery, with some super threatening options when "in" against an opponent.

The difference is that Luigi's strengths are greater, and there are ways to play around his weaknesses. His reward on hit is crazy, his aerials have huge hitboxes, his fireball reduces his dependency on movement, perfect pivoting negates his traction issue, and Jumpless Cyclone jetboosts his recovery. Customs definitely help Doc out a lot in this comparison, but Luigi is for the most part a better Doc, who can play Doc's defensive game against most characters (caveat: Doc does enjoy a notable advantage against certain zoners because of cape) while maintaining excellent offensive pressure.

 

[TTTTTsd]

I wouldn't even draw a comparison to Luigi because when you go past BARE BASIC facts their neutral is entirely different and Doc is a lot less reliant on throws (he actually thrives more off of catching you with a Utilt although Doc's D-Throw is the immortal 80 degree angle so good luck trying to DI out of a followup).

Like they have some similarities but he's not a "worse" anyone, really. Also Luigi can't play Doc's defensive game against most characters because his Up+B is vastly different. The crux of Doc's shield game is the fact that you have to respect that Up+B.

I can only compare him to Mario through certain move functions and animations. Anything else is just general stuff you could apply to a larger margin of characters.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Doc isn't a worse Mario. He is a worse Luigi.

They both have bad airspeed, mobility issues on the ground (Luigi's traction, Doc's run/walkspeed), and an exploitable recovery, with some super threatening options when "in" against an opponent.

The difference is that Luigi's strengths are greater, and there are ways to play around his weaknesses. His reward on hit is crazy, his aerials have huge hitboxes, his fireball reduces his dependency on movement, perfect pivoting negates his traction issue, and Jumpless Cyclone jetboosts his recovery. Customs definitely help Doc out a lot in this comparison, but Luigi is for the most part a better Doc, who can play Doc's defensive game against most characters (caveat: Doc does enjoy a notable advantage against certain zoners because of cape) while maintaining excellent offensive pressure.

I would rather play Doc against Ness, because Pills actually can't be absorbed. Plus the matchup against Falcon I would argue is better for Doc due to more reliable edgeguard options.

 

[popsofctown]

Worse Luigi works too.

 

[Conda]

Would you rather edgeguard someone as Dr Mario or as Luigi? Dr Mario has better tools for this job by far, and numerous ones at that. Also he has mobility specs that allow him to edgeguard better, such as faster falling. Not to mention the power of the following: his nair that gets stronger as it sours, the cape, doc tornado (default or wind variant), and PILLS.

 

[Radical Larry]

Is there a legitimate reason to play Doc instead of Mario though? I don't think there is. By the time Doc is smiling about his ability to kill 20% sooner than Mario can, Mario has racked up 30% damage.

By the time Mario can really get back into an air dodge, Doc would have use U-Smash from 10% to 70% damage because of Down Throw > U-Smash. Since Doc has negligible base knockback on U-Smash from low percentages, he will have a very easy time just racking up that damage, faster than Mario can, actually.

 

[Funen1]

Seguing back to Olimar for a second, I believe that Pikmin can latch onto different parts of the body, which may influence the attacks one should use to dislodge them.

Yeah, this was what I alluded to in my last post. On Ness, for instance, N-air will hit Pikmin on his torso or lower, but not on his head. U-air, however, hits all around him, but it slightly slower to come out.

Sticky Pikmin Throw increases the rate at which latched Pikmin hit the opponent at the cost of lower damage per hit. I'm not sure if the time they're latched onto the opponent is longer than default.

Hardy Pikmin Pluck greatly increases the survivability of Pikmin at the cost of taking nearly half a second to pluck one Pikmin (according to the frame data? Not sure since it wasn't clearly labeled). For example, a red Pikmin can take 9 Mario dsmashes (front side) before dying. It seems to work well with Sticky Pikmin Throw because the extra health allows latched Pikmin to make use of the fact of being harder to shake off without dying prematurely.

It does seem like Sticky Pikmin Throw naturally keeps Pikmin on you longer overall if you don't do anything else. Initial testing showed me that Pikmin thrown with Sticky Pikmin Throw do attack something like 30-40% faster than normal (haven't gone too in-depth with this yet), and they deal around twice as many hits, more than off-setting the smaller amount of time between the hits.

And yeah, Hardy Pikmin Pluck seems to give them a lot more health than I would've expected (considering they have single- to low-double-digit HP normally). Reds and Yellows took like 5 Ness F-smashes (~20% each) before dying, matching your 9 Mario D-smashes. Testing this out with Jab 1s instead ended up "timing out" the Pikmin that were separated from Olimar; that's how much more health they have. I'm curious now to see how good of a combination Hardy plus Sticky might be. Didn't @Denti say after Tourney Locator's first customs tournament that he didn't feel Olimar's customs were that useful? Maybe he can shed some more light on how they work.

 

[Smog Frog]

honestly the only character thats a worse version of another is marth>lucina.

 

[David Viran]

Sorry a little late but @ NairWizard what do you think about pikas edge guard game against zss. Just curious.

 

[NairWizard]

Sorry a little late but @ NairWizard what do you think about pikas edge guard game against zss. Just curious.

You can n-air the tether, and b-air otherwise. If you get used to the down-b animation you can Thunder her out of it pretty consistently, unlike Sheik's Bouncing Fish. There's nothing really special about what you have to do vs. ZSS; she's just pretty mobile so it's hard to trap her in a given situation. She's not really scary offstage though, as long you don't get hit by up-b (which shouldn't ever happen), so Pikachu can go off the stage every time to try to catch her.