Character Competitive Impressions

[Amazing Ampharos]

I feel like people tend to just get scared by Rosalina more than anything. Luma Warp and Shooting Star Bit are pretty much designed to make hanging back not doing much active against Rosalina a pretty terrible tactic. She can harass you with the star bits, she controls the spacing since she's the one who isn't scared to move around, and she can throw a safe power move via Luma Warp at you at any time. You can play a ranged game against her with those customs, but you had better be someone like Villager with a real plan to do this and not just a player who is scared and is not hitting buttons on account of fear. However, if you just respect her a whole lot less, you begin to see the downsides...

-Shooting Star Bit is nowhere near as controlling as it seems. People like to compare it to Falco laser, but it's actually the inverse of Falco laser nearly completely. Falco laser was always a passable grounded harassment tool that became ridiculous when used in the air. Rosalina's SSB is a pretty good grounded harassment tool that becomes honestly flat out bad when used from the air. Luma's position locks during the start-up of the move (unlike Falco's gun that continues to fall with Falco); that means that Rosalina falling and sniping specific spaces with star bits is a lot slower and more awkward than shooting the same things with Falco. SSB also fully commits both Rosalina and Luma for the entire animation without any early way out for either other than getting hit, and it leaves the duo at substantial frame disadvantage on block in most situations so it's almost always unsafe to use at close range and often loses ground when used against a shield at longer ranges. Just walk forward and powershield, and you'll be in before you know it if she's seriously going to spam it. It's also not transcendent like a laser; SSB can be hit out of the air, and it's not even very high priority (Sonic clashes with it while spinning around, for instance). It's still a good move and all for harassment purposes and helping her break extremely defensive opposing strategies, but the hype is overblown.

-Luma Warp as an offensive threat is pretty much predicated on the concept that Rosalina controls the spacing. This should not happen uncontested. Rosalina's mobility is all around mediocre; it's not awful, but most characters can move faster than her. Luma Warp goes the same distance every time and has some amount of start-up; know what that range is, play footsies, and dance around it. If your character is not Ganon or someone like that, you can move fast enough to do this (and if it is Ganon or another slowpoke, you probably have tools that can kill Luma really fast at least). Believe me from the Rosalina perspective whenever I try to tag someone with Luma Warp and they actually just ran in past Luma it's a really bad time. Now Luma is way over there while this unkind character is right up in Rosalina's face. Even if they are on the other side from from Rosalina, it's not as bad, but most characters have some move that can just bop Luma if I sent it out alone and unsupported like that. I watch dabuz just hit people with this a lot and I dunno how he does it other than getting into the other guy's head; those Luma Warp snipes are him making hard reads which speaks more to him being a really good player than the move being overpowered. Like Luma Warp is still an amazing move since it lets me move Luma around and generally actually play actively with two characters which is awesome (default Luma Shot is just so slow), but it's not broken or anything even close to that since every character in the game has substantial counterplay against it.

To speak specifically about Sheik vs Rosalina since it came up, Penetrating Needles are really obnoxious. They pierce through Luma, and the massive shield damage makes it intolerable for Rosalina to block many of them. They're a really big upgrade over default needles in this MU for Sheik. Skimming Grenade is also a move that is pretty much designed to be a middle finger to Luma; Luma can't spotdodge or block, it's really easy to hit wherever you wan with Skimming Grenade, and it often kills Luma so I have to be really smart not to let Luma end up in positions you can snipe it that way. I actually think the customs help Sheik in this match-up a bit more than Rosalina since for all the extra ability I get to utilize Luma you get more ability to negate Luma, but it's still super competitive either way and is IMO a really great match-up just from the perspective of someone who enjoys playing the game competitively.

 

[[Obnoxshush/Dasshizer]]

Just landed a Fox Flash spike in a ranked match. 'Twas beautiful. I don't really see the disadvantage with that custom (unless someone can point one out).
And I like twisting fox. Gets the same distance as regular up b and that thing kills incredibly early. Super valuable for Fox. Sure, it has startup, but the hitbox is the size of Smart Bomb so I'm okay with it. And the hitboxes last forever, so I think it's best application is destroying low recoveries. So many stage spikes man.

(Technically its Fox Flash since its only a Wolf flash if a wolf does it, and also because there's no purple streak,that and the Japanese translation for the move is Fox Flash.) Though being able to up B out of it is a really good boost, there really aren't any bad things about it unless you accidentally land into a explosive, attack, other harmful item, Falcon punch. As for Fox's twister, I wish he'd yell something while he did it to make it feel more epic like BARREL ROLL!

 

[Luco]

Too lazy to actually type this out, so it's been copied from the Zelda Social, but it was posted first in the Falco boards:

Anyway, @zCyRo found out you can reflect Falco's Reflector: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIVa2g8zB9U. That confirms that Falco's Reflector is a projectile and what the Pits' Upperdash and Electroshock Arm were doing, but now I'm wondering if Pally's Reflect Barrier, Mario's Cape, Dr. Mario's Sheet, Zelda's Nayru's Love, and Fox's Reflector can do this. Also, Mega Man's Skull Barrier reflects, right? The thing is that since Falco's Reflector travels and the Arms have a unique property regarding projectiles, then maybe only Pally can reflect Reflector since it's outside and not close to or a part of them like Mario, Dr. Mario, Zelda, and Fox's reflect moves. It's also going to be a frame time thing since by default, it's out at frame 5 and traveling and common sense would say you can't reflect a Reflector.

The bat reflects it and it's sooooo funny, but incredibly impractical so nothing of note. =P

HA! HA-HA! Falco's obviously the worst character in the game, fool! Foolish fools foolishly only know how to say foolish statements. C-c-c-combo breaker, you foolish fool! ... Wait a minute...

Yeah, tier lists won't be out for a while and even then, it's not going to be as crisp as a tier list made next year.

To be fair though, we could theoretically always say that a tier list made now won't be as good as one made later and use that as justification not to make one, which I would be inclined to disagree with for obvious reasons. But at this point in time the meta is still quite fluid and so yeah the argument holds up until we can establish a slightly better meta.

But I'd also mention it's probably good to think about one in the near future, considering lots of people just coming into the competitive scene like to have a tier list in their head to kind of know where the meta currently sits.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

Why do people keep coming here for tier lists or tier talk. Its not our responsibility to make one.We are not the tier commitee. (I think)

 

[NachoOfCheese]

I think a tier list isn't nearly as valuable as knowledge of what tools you have versus what tools your opponent has. Once you're familiar with the matchups of your main(s), you don't need a ranking for your character. Whether a character is 3rd or 23rd or 10th on the tier list is irrelevant. Fox is still fox. Kirby is still Kirby. Pit is still Dark Pit (shots fired?). If Brawl Lucas were suddenly put in 2nd on the tier list, it wouldn't make him any better at all. Nothing changed about the game. Just our perception of it.
With that said, we should still have a tier list in the future, for numerous reasons, but I think classifying characters as S tier A tier B tier etc. would be most beneficial for now. I feel as though this would reduce this ridiculousness of how every time someone makes a tier list there's always someone who says something like: there's no WAY Mega Man is better than Ike! Or something along those lines. There's just too many characters and variables for that at this point.

 

[Project Quarantine]

People easily forget how many custom specials exist that allow you to one-shot Luma too, we're yet to really see a solid solution to someone like dabuz passively playing/dodging while Luma respawns yet, but it shouldn't be infallible.

There is another move that every character can do which can one-shot Luna (near the edge). It's called a jab.

In all seriousness, Luma warp is really good. However, as people come up with uses for it, more people will come up with ways to remedy its power. I think it will take some getting used to, but it's not ban-worthy.

 

[Yikarur]

No Customs should ever be banned. We don't ban default moves either lol

 

[TriTails]

Pit is still Dark Pit (shots fired?).

Spoiler

: WHAT!? But you are a copy of ME!
: Come on now. Think about it. If I was a copy, why would I kick my own butt?

Oh, and BTW. Does Pittoo has the same MUs as Pit? I figured out those arrows might make a difference, but I still can't see them being put a tier apart like some tier lists say if their Mus are very similiar.

Unless you guys are telling me those tier lists are bias.

 

[Luco]

I think a tier list isn't nearly as valuable as knowledge of what tools you have versus what tools your opponent has. Once you're familiar with the matchups of your main(s), you don't need a ranking for your character. Whether a character is 3rd or 23rd or 10th on the tier list is irrelevant. Fox is still fox. Kirby is still Kirby. Pit is still Dark Pit (shots fired?). If Brawl Lucas were suddenly put in 2nd on the tier list, it wouldn't make him any better at all. Nothing changed about the game. Just our perception of it.
With that said, we should still have a tier list in the future, for numerous reasons, but I think classifying characters as S tier A tier B tier etc. would be most beneficial for now. I feel as though this would reduce this ridiculousness of how every time someone makes a tier list there's always someone who says something like: there's no WAY Mega Man is better than Ike! Or something along those lines. There's just too many characters and variables for that at this point.

There are two issues with this perception that I have.

The first is that if you're a newer competitive player, you may not have the time to dedicate yourself to learning 51+ (considering customs change quite a few MUs severely) MUs and knowing exactly what tools beat out what. Learning this stuff takes time, a lot of it, and if we don't have some kind of information to put out there that people can use as a general guideline, besides solidifying what our meta is to the outside world (because "Aw man we're sooooo meta and don't even have a tier list" complicates things a lot when half the competitive scene already has a rough tier list in their head anyways and will just spout that as the 'official' one).

The second issue is, whether or not we like it, players will gravitate towards the higher end of the spectrum (as evidenced by almost half the competitive Brawl playerbase using MK and very few using Ganny), so placing may be important. We have to be careful about what image we put out to the wider community here. Placings, but more importantly tiering will be important - depending on whether we tout this game as the most balanced in our history or the most unbalanced may be reflected in our tier list. Additionally, if there IS a split in viability is important, then it may be important to know who's on the upper side of a split and who is not.

Just things to consider.

 

[LiteralGrill]

From what I know, there probably wont be an official backroom to make a tier list really. Even though I enjoy doing the project, I really don't want the reddit tier list to be the only thing out there with people taking it too seriously as there are obviously discrepancies every month. I wouldn't mind just making a small group for folks to discuss these kinds of things and make a tier list and have offered to before, I'm just not sure if it's honestly better than all of the people in here who talk about characters so much to just sit down and do it themselves. I'd be more than happy to facilitate such a thing as well, especially after Mewtwo comes out (because I don't wanna have to start all over again after that).

 

[Luco]

From what I know, there probably wont be an official backroom to make a tier list really. Even though I enjoy doing the project, I really don't want the reddit tier list to be the only thing out there with people taking it too seriously as there are obviously discrepancies every month. I wouldn't mind just making a small group for folks to discuss these kinds of things and make a tier list and have offered to before, I'm just not sure if it's honestly better than all of the people in here who talk about characters so much to just sit down and do it themselves. I'd be more than happy to facilitate such a thing as well, especially after Mewtwo comes out (because I don't wanna have to start all over again after that).

Please! I'd love to help with such a project, and any services I could offer are ones I'd be glad to. If you want to get a tier list up and running, count me in! I'm sure there'd be lots of others wanting to help, too.

It just makes me sad that peeps won't be able to get a ribbon/banner thing. Those are so cool eheheh. =P

 

[Judo777]

No Customs should ever be banned. We don't ban default moves either lol

We haven't in the past because then people just have inputs on their controllers they aren't allowed to press. Banning custom moves, allows the banned move to be replaced.

Not disagreeing with your point, but i don't think comparing it to default moves is fair.

 

[Terotrous]

Little Mac might truly wind up being the worst with customs. Windboxes are a sad sad story for him.

I could definitely see this. He just gets so much easier to gimp for many characters, and his recovery doesn't really get much better.


In other news, I can't say I enjoy hearing about all these great custom options. Yoshi has to put in so much more work in Customs on and he gets no new tools to help him do it

 

[Yikarur]

it's probably not the fairest point to make, you're right. But no move should ever be banned because I don't think one single move can make a character broken to an extend that only that single moves needs to be banned.

 

[bc1910]

Oh, and BTW. Does Pittoo has the same MUs as Pit? I figured out those arrows might make a difference, but I still can't see them being put a tier apart like some tier lists say if their Mus are very similiar.

Unless you guys are telling me those tier lists are bias.

There will always be some bias on any tier list. Even fundamental things like certain characters being more/less useful in certain metagames can create bias. It doesn't mean the lists aren't useful though.

Anyway, I think Dark Pit's MUs are basically the same but ever-so-slightly worse than Pit's across the board, although some are ever-so-slightly better. His arrows deal more damage which is great, it can allow Dark Pit to win camp wars with characters like Falco by safely outdamaging them, without resorting to the highly punishable Down B reflector. Pit is unlikely to outdamage certain characters with arrows alone. However Pit has much more control over his arrows' trajectory, which gives him a better edgeguarding option than Dark Pit, which makes a big difference in lots of MUs. Overall Pit's arrows are probably better because they're just so much more flexible, but the extra damage on Dark Pit's arrows can be useful.

I think Dark Pit's Side B is a little worse overall. It kills slightly earlier by the edge of the stage but kills significantly later than Pit's midscreen. Dark Pit's Side B is probably better for edgeguarding but Pit's allows more flexibility in where he can actually nab KOs on-stage, which is useful since the Pits have trouble killing in general. It's kind of like how upward KO throws tend to be better than horizontal ones. Dark Pit's Side B is probably better in MUs where the other character likes camping near the edge of the stage, either with projectiles (e.g. Samus) or to fish for Bthrow KOs (e.g. Ness). Also Dark Pit's Side B is really good at killing Luma.

Finally his Ftilt has less knockback than Pit's, which is a straight-up nerf since it's too laggy to use the reduced knockback to combo. I don't really get why his Ftilt is weaker when he has no compensation for this anywhere else in his moveset. So yeah, it just means Pit has a KO option that Dark Pit doesn't have until higher percents.

I agree with you that they shouldn't be a whole tier apart. Pit is probably better but they are so similar they really shouldn't be more than a couple of spots apart on any tier list, let alone an entire tier. They are probably the most similar clones in the history of Smash; learning to play one of the Pits at high level means you can play the other at high level, realistically. It's useful because even though Pit is better in general you have access to Dark Pit's unique advantages in some MUs as well.

 

[Brinzy]

In other news, I can't say I enjoy hearing about all these great custom options. Yoshi has to put in so much more work in Customs on and he gets no new tools to help him do it

There are quite a few characters in this boat. Be glad that Yoshi is actually a good character.

 

[Smog Frog]

poor zelda, the only low tier to not be imrpoved in some way by customs

 

[Judo777]

poor zelda, the only low tier to not be imrpoved in some way by customs

I like the shield break down b personally

 

[NairWizard]

I could definitely see this. He just gets so much easier to gimp for many characters, and his recovery doesn't really get much better.


In other news, I can't say I enjoy hearing about all these great custom options. Yoshi has to put in so much more work in Customs on and he gets no new tools to help him do it

I think that Egg Lay Launch is a significant upgrade from Egg Lay. It gives you more stage control and is slightly faster, too, which makes it harder to spotdodge on reaction. Great move; almost a strict upgrade, in my opinion. Every Yoshi should be running it.

 

[Jaguar360]

poor zelda, the only low tier to not be imrpoved in some way by customs

That's actually false. The Zelda boards have been doing some research and have found Farore's Squall to be useful defensively in some matchups like ZSS to escape combos and such. The longer recovery can also help and there is still an "elevator" of sorts with Squall to U-air.

The Din's Fire customs are pretty much straight upgrades. Din's Flare moves a lot more quickly than the default, making it useful for edguarding and spacing and Blaze can set up nice traps and can be acted out of.

Phantom Breaker creates shield pressure and is always a ranged attack no matter how long it has been charged and Phantom Strike acts as a nice guard to Zelda since it always goes right in front of her and it is stronger than the other Phantoms.

The Naryu's Love customs are a bit more niche, but still useful. Rejection can be useful for gimping recoveries in some matchups, has intangibility frames, gives Zelda advantage on hit and retains the reflector. We're still investigating Passion, but it seems useful for punishing some whiffed attacks, air dodges and landings at close-mid range and the hitbox is ~1.5-2x that of Love. It does lose the reflector, however and is punishable itself.

The only custom we've found truly subpar as of now is Farore's Windfall. Customs Zelda is being a bit slept on right now. She's probably still low tier with them, but she gets better just like the rest of the cast does.

 

[Kofu]

Dark Pit has one advantage over normal Pit, and that's Electroshock Arm's greater utility at dispatching Luna thanks to its launch angle.

Aaaaand that's it to my knowledge.

 

[FullMoon]

I imagine Electroshock Arm would be better against Little Mac as well in order to have another tool to get him offstage.

 

[Smog Frog]

how many customs are used as anti-luma technology? these are just off the top of my head:
dragon rush
wizard's drop kick
shifting shuriken
dedede storm
dash (wave)slash
lick
flame chain
penetrating needles

also somewhat convenient that these are for chars that otherwise struggle with rosa(barring sheik)

shoutouts to ganon for having 2 of these

 

[Terotrous]

I think that Egg Lay Launch is a significant upgrade from Egg Lay. It gives you more stage control and is slightly faster, too, which makes it harder to spotdodge on reaction. Great move; almost a strict upgrade, in my opinion. Every Yoshi should be running it.

Eh, I'm not convinced. For one thing, the opponent can break out of it way faster, so you can never get a free hit afterwards, and due to the trajectory it's also harder to get a juggle against most characters. About the only thing it does is positions you to toss an egg, but I'd much rather have guaranteed damage than a chance at damage.

It's possible it may have use in very specific matchups (perhaps against people who really have trouble approaching, like Ganondorf), but I feel like the default is quite a bit better overall. If I want stage position, I'll just use Yoshi's standard grab, Fthrow and Bthrow function fine as stage positioning tools. Egg Launch is actually very similar to Yoshi's back throw in terms of damage and trajectory, and as everyone knows, Yoshi's throws aren't a huge threat. The potential 20%+ damage for getting command grabbed is the one thing that makes you afraid to shield against Yoshi.


Ultimately, while Yoshi's customs have a few interesting options, his default kit is actually very solidly put together and has great synergy, which is why you see almost all Yoshi's running 1111 in Customs on tournaments. I definitely think it's his best overall set.

 

[Yikarur]

Yoshi doesn't really get a hit of it anyways. Egg Launch is the better move overall. The default grab is bad and shouldn't be considered to replace egg launch. Egg Launch is far better.

 

[bc1910]

I imagine Electroshock Arm would be better against Little Mac as well in order to have another tool to get him offstage.

It kind of launches him too high to be particularly useful. It's basically a 45 degree launch angle. It's not too hard for Mac to recover at this angle by simply drifting back towards the stage, airdodging when necessary. In general it's not hard for characters to recover when they've been launched into the top corner hence why I'm skeptical of Electroshock Arm actually setting up edgeguards well.

 

[Terotrous]

Yoshi doesn't really get a hit of it anyways. Egg Launch is the better move overall. The default grab is bad and shouldn't be considered to replace egg launch. Egg Launch is far better.

At like 20%+ you can always get free USmash after Egg Lay. FSmash becomes possible at higher percents to avoid staling USmash.

I've heard a couple people say you can mash out of Egg Lay before the hit at moderate percents, but I have never seen this done by anyone, either in matches I've played or on streams. If this is possible, I want to see a video of this being done. Even if you can do it it must require such a massive degree of mash that even the pros cannot do it consistently.

Default grab is also fine in terms of hitboxes / range, it's much better than most other tether grabs in terms of speed and lacking deadzones. If Yoshi had good throws it would be quite potent.

 

[Yikarur]

People always mash out early enough. You almost always get punished for hitting the egg with an smash. I'd rather dash attack the egg or nair/upair.

 

[Terotrous]

People always mash out early enough. You almost always get punished for hitting the egg with an smash. I'd rather dash attack the egg or nair/upair.

Yeah I can't remember the last time I saw someone punish an upsmash unless they did it way late. Usually they pop out in a position where they couldn't punish it anyway unless it's a character with a very specific aerial, and they'd have to be pressing it just as they pop out, which reduces the degree they can mash (lest they pop out with something else like double jump or a B move).

It really is pretty free damage. If you really want the position from Egg Launch that's fine, but I don't think it can be called "purely better". It's a tradeoff. I play a fairly offensively-oriented Yoshi so I would never want to trade a potent mixup for minor positioning, but I suppose if you play an extremely defensive Yoshi it might be worth it.

 

[Seagull Joe]

Is there a universal list on how to DI moves? I keep reading on the boards that I'm literally DI'ing into my own death most of the time. I just learned I need to hold down when hit by on Saturday last game of a second set and that I should hold down when hit by 's SL (I held left/right/up).

 

[Sinister Slush]

Should mention Egg launch gives us stage control and does 3% more damage than regular egg lay.
Oh and of course, since nintendough only nerfed regular neutral B's start up, the customs stayed the same, so egg launch has pre-nerfed start up still of course.

 

[Terotrous]

Should mention Egg launch gives us stage control and does 3% more damage than regular egg lay.
Oh and of course, since nintendough only nerfed regular neutral B's start up, the customs stayed the same, so egg launch has pre-nerfed start up still of course.

IMO you gain almost as much stage control on a regular Egg Lay since the opponent is forced to recover in the air. With a few exceptions most characters don't want to be above Yoshi so they'll yield stage position for a safer escape.

Slightly faster startup frames is something, but honestly the Egg Lay nerf wasn't that severe, it's only a couple frames or so.

I suppose this one could be a preference issue. As people have noted previously, there's actually a fair amount of flexibility in how you play Yoshi, so some Yoshi's may prefer this move. At the very least, 1111 is his most offensively potent set. His other customs generally allow you to trade offense for safety (the shooting stars down B does too), though IMO he's generally safe enough and needs the offense.

 

[Sinister Slush]

IMO you gain almost as much stage control on a regular Egg Lay since the opponent is forced to recover in the air.

Wot
I mean... if you egglay someone off stage, you're basically saying you're near the ledge of the stage. Egg launch throws them even further back and would either possibly kill them (if an ass recovery like little mac or Dr. Mario) or just sets them up even more for a fair spike.
I'm not seeing the whole Neutral B > Egg launch in your head.

Slightly faster startup frames is something, but honestly the Egg Lay nerf wasn't that severe, it's only a couple frames or something.

It was definitely severe. Dunno if you're exclusively for glory where it doesn't feel like it's something big, but actual matches yes, it is a big difference.
When a Special wind up lasts as long as our slowest aerial on start up (fair) there's something very wrong here.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

The main idea with Egg Launch is that you put your opponent off-stage which is a potential gimp situation. Yoshi has a pretty good set of options for gimping as well; it's less about damage (since yeah default will usually give more damage directly) and more about creating situations that can lead to kills or at least difficult recovery situations that can lead to eating way more hits than a single smash tends to represent in terms of damage. I wouldn't say default is an irrational choice, but Egg Launch definitely has a much higher potential reward since putting opponents off-stage can directly transition to game wins.

I also see default Egg Roll as a truly useless move. It's slow in terms of move commitment and Yoshi's movement, it has extremely low priority, and even if you do hit the pay-off is poor. Heavy Egg Roll has armor which can let it bully its way through certain things (like opponents getting caught rapid jabbing), and Light Egg Roll puts you all the way over there so it's an escape option (your opponent is approaching and you have an opening and would prefer to just avoid conflict) and also a very rarely useful but somewhat more often than never surprise attack. In what possible situation is Egg Roll a solid option? If you just use side special randomly by accident it is less committed, but if you only ever do your moves on purpose, I see both customs as things you use rarely and default as a move you use never. Both customs are pretty marginal, but wouldn't you rather have a move that is rarely useful than a move that is never useful? Is there some use for Egg Roll that I'm just not aware of?

---

Is there a universal list on how to DI moves? I keep reading on the boards that I'm literally DI'ing into my own death most of the time. I just learned I need to hold down when hit by on Saturday last game of a second set and that I should hold down when hit by 's SL (I held left/right/up).

My experience is that this is super character specific stuff. Like holding down against ZSS Boost Kick is usually correct if you use Sheik or Falcon or someone else who falls fast. As Rosalina, I usually hold up; my character is floaty and up gets me out more often than down. Spacing also plays a role in escaping these multi-hits; sometimes it seems like you can escape by just holding away from the center of where the move hits (I've escaped a few "barely connecting" Link usmashes that way). That sort of thing makes it hard to make universal rules for dealing with these multi-hit killers; there are several variables that can change what the best thing to input is.

 

[Terotrous]

Wot
I mean... if you egglay someone off stage, you're basically saying you're near the ledge of the stage. Egg launch throws them even further back and would either possibly kill them (if an *** recovery like little mac or Dr. Mario) or just sets them up even more for a fair spike.

You don't have to Egg Lay them off the stage, that's the point. If done midscreen, they're forced to recover in the air, and Yoshi can aim a meaty attack at them as they pop out of the egg. In order to avoid a Uair, most people will just retreat towards the ledge, giving you control of the stage.

It was definitely severe. Dunno if you're exclusively for glory where it doesn't feel like it's something big, but actual matches yes, it is a big difference.
When a Special wind up lasts as long as our slowest aerial on start up (fair) there's something very wrong here.

Yoshi Fair startup is 16f. I tried to find startup on Neutral B, but I'm not seeing it anywhere. Does anyone have actual startup info?

At any rate, there was side by side testing done when the patch came out (I was searching through the 1.0.4 thread and couldn't find it, if anyone has it they can post it) and I'm pretty sure the difference was 3 frames or less.

The main idea with Egg Launch is that you put your opponent off-stage which is a potential gimp situation. Yoshi has a pretty good set of options for gimping as well; it's less about damage (since yeah default will usually give more damage directly) and more about creating situations that can lead to kills or at least difficult recovery situations that can lead to eating way more hits than a single smash tends to represent in terms of damage. I wouldn't say default is an irrational choice, but Egg Launch definitely has a much higher potential reward since putting opponents off-stage can directly transition to game wins.

The thing is that the opponent can mash out of Egg Launch so fast that unless you're very close to the ledge, facing away from the ledge, and they have high damage you may not get a gimp situation at all. And if you are, Egg Lay may have just killed outright in that situation.

Also, getting a chance to land a Uair as Yoshi is also a great way to get kills, and Egg Launch never gets you this.

Nevertheless, I am perhaps willing to buy the argument that against characters with very poor recovery (Mario, Ganondorf, Little Mac, etc), Egg Launch might be better. I do however think there are some matches where it would be significantly worse, such as against Sonic. You're not going to edgeguard him anyway, you really want that damage.

I also see default Egg Roll as a truly useless move

No argument there. However, I feel all of the Side Bs are equally useless. Heavy Egg Roll is too slow, and Light Egg Roll doesn't let you recover early enough to do anything on the way down. The only time Yoshi ever uses Side B is as an accident, so I like SideB 1 since I can cancel it the fastest.

 

[Ffamran]

Is there a universal list on how to DI moves? I keep reading on the boards that I'm literally DI'ing into my own death most of the time. I just learned I need to hold down when hit by on Saturday last game of a second set and that I should hold down when hit by 's SL (I held left/right/up).

Oh yeah, I remember that, but I think you were the only one told to DI it correctly while some others didn't... I don't really remember. A thread on how to DI certain moves could work, but I don't know if people really need this or it's something people will learn later on. You could lurk the character boards to see of they mention how to DI their moves and combos.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

My testing suggested to me that default Egg Lay hits on frame 21 (and Lick does too) while Egg Launch hits on frame 20. So yes, neutral special is always slower than fair for Yoshi. I don't know that 1 frame of start-up is a huge deal given that honestly all of these moves are pretty slow, but it doesn't hurt at least.

My position on the Egg Rolls is that you shouldn't do any by accident. Heavy Egg Roll has no "general" use, but there are certain kinds of opponent mistakes it is the best move to punish (things like standing there rapid jabbing with high priority rapid jabs). I don't really endorse it but do see it as a clear upgrade over default. Light Egg Roll I actually rather like as an escape and think in the long run will prove to be the best option. Even if you never really plan to hit with it (it's pretty rarely realistic, only good for hitting very particular kinds of enemy movements that don't come up a lot), there are cases where you can use it to evade an approach and reach a better stage position just because of the raw movement on the thing. We have a local Yoshi who runs it and keeps finding little situations here and there where it's a move that does something more than nothing for him, and since default really does do nothing for him, that leads me to value Light Egg Roll as the best option in the slot.

 

[Yikarur]

Egg Roll is underrated. it's a move you really could use and I think the default is the best at it. You will probably still neer use it but if you do you're the safest.

@ Terotrous Your talk about egg lay and egg launch is pure theorycrafting. The opponent has invincibility frames when breaking out of the egg so you can almost never follow up from that. They have more control of the game when being in the egg then you. You have to commit your position to try to make anything out of egg lay and then they can just break out whenever they see that you're commiting. You're completely overrating this move. This is not how it works in practice. The Egg from Egg Lay and the break out is not high enough to force anyone onto the ledge. It's pretty easy to reset to neutral from the breakout.

lol@Testing

http://smashboards.com/threads/yoshi-frame-and-misc-data-thread-wip.391441/

 

[David Viran]

The main idea with Egg Launch is that you put your opponent off-stage which is a potential gimp situation. Yoshi has a pretty good set of options for gimping as well; it's less about damage (since yeah default will usually give more damage directly) and more about creating situations that can lead to kills or at least difficult recovery situations that can lead to eating way more hits than a single smash tends to represent in terms of damage. I wouldn't say default is an irrational choice, but Egg Launch definitely has a much higher potential reward since putting opponents off-stage can directly transition to game wins.

I also see default Egg Roll as a truly useless move. It's slow in terms of move commitment and Yoshi's movement, it has extremely low priority, and even if you do hit the pay-off is poor. Heavy Egg Roll has armor which can let it bully its way through certain things (like opponents getting caught rapid jabbing), and Light Egg Roll puts you all the way over there so it's an escape option (your opponent is approaching and you have an opening and would prefer to just avoid conflict) and also a very rarely useful but somewhat more often than never surprise attack. In what possible situation is Egg Roll a solid option? If you just use side special randomly by accident it is less committed, but if you only ever do your moves on purpose, I see both customs as things you use rarely and default as a move you use never. Both customs are pretty marginal, but wouldn't you rather have a move that is rarely useful than a move that is never useful? Is there some use for Egg Roll that I'm just not aware of?

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My experience is that this is super character specific stuff. Like holding down against ZSS Boost Kick is usually correct if you use Sheik or Falcon or someone else who falls fast. As Rosalina, I usually hold up; my character is floaty and up gets me out more often than down. Spacing also plays a role in escaping these multi-hits; sometimes it seems like you can escape by just holding away from the center of where the move hits (I've escaped a few "barely connecting" Link usmashes that way). That sort of thing makes it hard to make universal rules for dealing with these multi-hit killers; there are several variables that can change what the best thing to input is.

It's a DI mix up if you always hold up when zss does up b unless zss has a ton of rage she can easily catch it by slightly holding back and seagull was talking about DI ing the last hit to survive.

 

[NairWizard]

On the subject of Yoshi overall, there are a handful of problems that Yoshi has that you don't really see until you try to play Yoshi yourself. His frame data and hitboxes are all great, but three things hold him back from being a really top threat:

1) Being able to spotdodge Yoshi's command grab on reaction. The command grab needs to be unreactable, to truly make people fear shielding against Yoshi's aerials.
2) Poor throws/punishable grab. The risk:reward for Yoshi grabbing is just not very good, so shielding against a grounded Yoshi is even safer than shielding against an aerial one (at least with the aerial Yoshi you have to worry about his multihit moves that could do heavy shield damage).
3) KO confirms. Jab -> jab -> up-smash and random down-b reads are the only ways I've really managed to net kills with Yoshi. Would be nice if he had even just one more KO move, because what I usually find as Yoshi is that I've taken 60% and my opponent has taken 150%, because trades are almost always in my favor, but then I just can't land a KO move before I get killed.

I think that some people rate Yoshi highly due to how intimidating he seems when he executes well, because of his frame data, midweight, and short hurtboxes. His weaknesses seem to be missed by those who don't actively play the character.