Character Competitive Impressions

[DavemanCozy]

I cannot say 's aerials aren't overwhelmed by Diddy's ridiculous ones. But walls aren't perfect. If Diddy had time to pull out a banana, Peach had time to pull out a turnip. Which mitigates the situation a bit. And again, if the Peach can spot an error in Diddy's wall, fair is absolutely the perfect stock ending punish any character would want.

I like what you're saying. Peach's movement did get buffed a bit in this game, something she has desperately wanted. Let's her space those Fairs better and keep mindfull distances. Seems like an ordeal as well though.

How is the trajectory of veggies useful vs Diddy? What can turnips do in case she wants to, say, limit Diddy's approach or what does she get out of hitting him? I know her combo game with turnips is pretty powerful in this game.

Wario is interesting. Question though: if Wario eats a banana, can Diddy just pull out another? The perfect tools versus banana is definitely Gravi Pull and Pocket. Moves that straight up steal the banana and give it to you. But I guess making it disappear is good - if not great. And an easy answer to Monkey Flip is sexy. :O

Yes he can.

Nice thing about eating a food item is the recovery it gives Wario also reduces the time it takes the Wario Waft Fart to charge by a second. And every little bit you shave off matters a lot, his full fart KOs very early. Half waft is pretty good too, so you can do those more often as well.

An annoying thing is that a lot of not top tiers get little off a throw or others have awful grabs and that might be a huge reason why the top tiers are who they are.

This is honestly nothing new. Smash Bros has been this way since Melee had Fox uthrow Uair, Sheik dthrow Fair/Uair, etc out of throws, while some of the mediocre characters had awful grabs (Melee Link, Melee Zelda, Zelda in Brawl.... Zelda)

 

[Sinister Slush]

Wario eats the banana, not keep it in his stomach to vomit up later similar to villager's pocket. So yes he can pull another banana out.

 

[ZarroTsu]

Something great I noticed on FG (lolFG), is that any bad Diddy can be countered by just spamming Wario's Bike.

How capable of combating Wario's bike is Diddy?

 

[Ffamran]

Not discounting the FAir, because I know the awesomeness that is Peach's FAir. The bigger issue I see is getting Diddy to the point where FAir starts killing without it becoming stale. Can she get in to rack up the damage required for this without dying in the process? She's got Turnips, and turnips are really, really good. But Diddy has a Banana.

Peach shouldn't be spamming Fair anyway. If anything's getting stale, it's going to be her Nair and Dair.

 

[Pyr]

Well, I'd rather eat a banana than a turnip. In the literal sense, anyway.

Can Peach reliably bait something from Diddy by floating around and then punish?

Maybe. Bair and Nair are 6/5 frame start-up respectively. Everything else is 10/12/16 frame startups out of a float. A Diddy that plays safe and walls you out would have get baited really hard. A Diddy that knows this, though, would have no reason to do something unsafe. That said, every time the Diddy reads you doing something, Peach loses 20-30%. I think she'd have a hard time.

 

[Nabbitnator]

Speaking of , I've been thinking about her as a Diddy... answer? Not a counter of course (hahaha no). But she has interesting tools versus him. What are Diddy's "worst" matchups? I might forward Peach as a good enough one as any:

I think we can gimp diddy pretty well. Luckily we dont have to worry about that dthrow up air combo but mainly fair.

(Got too lazy to quote the other post)
I believe just using empty floats to force diddy to hold shield can allow some pressure or bait him into attacking.

 

[NairWizard]

Well, I'd rather eat a banana than a turnip. In the literal sense, anyway.

Just so you know, Diddy throws banana peels, not bananas.

The malevolent chimp adds insult to injury by eating the banana before tossing the peel at you.

I bet those peanuts are empty shells too.

 

[Jaxas]

I have been wondering about the existence of this kind of thread as well.

I asked a similar questions back in the General, but no one answered either:
http://smashboards.com/threads/the-smash-4-question-and-answer-thread.392840/#post-18695070

Answer? I dunno about that, Diddy's f-air can snipe her and wall her pretty well. But if you know something I don't about her tools, do share.

I think Wario is a more interesting answer, being able to eat banana and peanuts and answer his Monkey Flip command grab with Bite command grab (beats it, though not the attack kick)

Huh, looks like I may as well make one then.

Here's my attempt at it; please suggest topics to cover there.
Community Reference for dealing with specific situations (Current: Diddy Dthrow & Villager at the Ledge)

I'm going to be going back through this thread to quote some people on Ledge Villager, too.

 

[HeroMystic]

An annoying thing is that a lot of not top tiers get little off a throw or others have awful grabs and that might be a huge reason why the top tiers are who they are.

Eh... not so much. Off the top of my head, the ones with bad/no Follow-ups from grabs:

(*)

From that list, the ones who have no kill throws:



*Robin has Nosferatu as a command grab, and ArcFire/ArcThunder which rewards Robin with a free grab, so I'm tempted to take him off the list. I decided not to though.

This makes the odd men out, with Fox/Yoshi being Top 15 in this game and Little Mac being an obvious design choice.

Tether grabs are universally awful, but I'd only attribute that issue to Link, as if he legitimately had strong follow-ups from grabs he'd probably be in high tier. Samus has way bigger issues and ZSS gets around that issue with stuns.

I wouldn't attribute the top tiers' grabs as their main reason to being top tier, but rather their ability to demand control of the match through their neutrals and special toolkit.

Edit: Took out MM, added Yoshi.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Don't forget Yoshi.
Bad grabs, bad throws, AND can't kill.
No good rolls either and all aerials unsafe on shield.

 

[Radical Larry]

Actually, Link has a great follow-up after his U-Throw, in which you spam the U-Tilt after a bit of time, and finish it off with U-Smash or U-Air. So Link has at least a good, if not great, follow up from one of his grabs.

I can go from 0% to 47% with Link's U-Throw > U-Tilt combo and the U-Smash/U-Air finisher, for example.

 

[HeroMystic]

Don't forget Yoshi.
Bad grabs, bad throws, AND can't kill.
No good rolls either and all aerials unsafe on shield.

I legitimately thought about Yoshi for awhile, but decided against it since I figured his command grab giving him extra damage is enough to be considered good follow-up damage.

Isn't D-air safe on shield if all hits land?

 

[Sinister Slush]

All hits landing on a full shield requires us to 1. Be offstage and use Rising dair (any command after DJ removing the armor, so putting us at risk if we're smacked) to hit the enemy that's still hopefully on stage and being dumb by shielding instead of attacking.
2. Be on a platform begging us to dair them.

Dair nerf made us incapable of autocancelling dair on platforms with height like SV and BF, but we can do Bair now I guess, woo?

Even if we have our command grab, nerf made it take 20+ frames before the tongue actually comes out, and most we'll get out of it before someone comes out is an egg toss or 2 tilts, maybe a Running Usmash but then if we do that and miss then all we got is 7/6% on em.

 

[Pyr]

I legitimately thought about Yoshi for awhile, but decided against it since I figured his command grab giving him extra damage is enough to be considered good follow-up damage.

Isn't D-air safe on shield if all hits land?

Not a yoshi main, but the last hit of Yoshi's dair can be side-stepped (after it completely destroys your shield). I'm 99% sure that all the hits landing breaks a shield.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Dair doesn't break shields.
Ever.

 

[Locke 06]

Mega gets dthrow>FAir>non-guaranteed followup off grabs along with dthrow>Uair (uair does 15-20% by itself so...) if the opponent doesn't airdodge immediately. Also, dthrow>RAR BAir works well on heavies and often strings into either DJ BAir or falling BAir where the 3rd hit doesn't connect allowing for a non-guaranteed followup (usually grab reset).

Also, at high %'s, Leaf Shield + Pummel + bthrow does around 4 or 6 + 6 + 12 = 22-24%. Which is slightly insane at a % range where very few characters get high % rewards off of grabs.

 

[Pyr]

Dair doesn't break shields.
Ever.

My mistake. Most of the time I side-step it or it pokes me out.

 

[HeroMystic]

Mega gets dthrow>FAir>non-guaranteed followup off grabs along with dthrow>Uair (uair does 15-20% by itself so...) if the opponent doesn't airdodge immediately. Also, dthrow>RAR BAir works well on heavies and often strings into either DJ BAir or falling BAir where the 3rd hit doesn't connect allowing for a non-guaranteed followup (usually grab reset).

Also, at high %'s, Leaf Shield + Pummel + bthrow does around 4 or 6 + 6 + 12 = 22-24%. Which is slightly insane at a % range where very few characters get high % rewards off of grabs.

Wondering how I forgot all of that after playing you a billion times. Taking MM off the list.

@ Sinister Slush What's the guaranteed damage off of Yoshi's command grab? Considering the opponent is mashing as if his life depended on it?

 

[|RK|]

Just so you know, Diddy throws banana peels, not bananas.

The malevolent chimp adds insult to injury by eating the banana before tossing the peel at you.

I bet those peanuts are empty shells too.

Actually... I think that they are. The only time he shoots peanuts at you is during his Final Smash.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Well, being in the egg halves damage you do to people.
Neutral B does 7%, depending if they do no inputs and just land behind you while being 0%, we'll prolly have enough time for 1 or 2 tilts of our choice and 1 smash.

We'll say Usmash
Neutral B 7%, 1 Usmash is then 16% in total. If Neutral B and a tilt, 9-12% (dtilt tip of it does less damage and an angled ftilt does 1% more than regular ftilt)
As for mashing like crazy, hard to tell cause we can guess wrong and miss our moves completely, so again 7% all we'll get.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Eh... not so much. Off the top of my head, the ones with bad/no Follow-ups from grabs:

Am I dumb or something? Because I'll get a U-throw and everythings good to me. My throws put people exactly where I want them. I play around with Kirby and I don't know what any other Kirby player thinks, but Kirbys throws don't all do wtf I want them to do. If Kirbys U-throw just put them straight above him, I'd be happy about it. Any U-throw or D-throw that puts them straight 90 degrees above you, is good to me, unless the kb is so poor you're unsafe for doing it. Shulks U-tilt is a giant anti-air, that goes right where U-throw puts you. You can utilize this to mix in U-air, get regrabs off the situation or hell even a U-smash. It's very favorable position and this is ignoring what he can connect out of a throw.

 

[HeroMystic]

Am I dumb or something? Because I'll get a U-throw and everythings good to me. My throws put people exactly where I want them. I play around with Kirby and I don't know what any other Kirby player thinks, but Kirbys throws don't all do wtf I want them to do. If Kirbys U-throw just put them straight above him, I'd be happy about it. Any U-throw or D-throw that puts them straight 90 degrees above you, is good to me, unless the kb is so poor you're unsafe for doing it. Shulks U-tilt is a giant anti-air, that goes right where U-throw puts you. You can utilize this to mix in U-air, get regrabs off the situation or hell even a U-smash. It's very favorable position and this is ignoring what he can connect out of a throw.

If going by positional advantage, I'd take off the list immediately for what you stated. I was mainly concerned with attack strings.

But the fact that people are arguing about this just enforces my point that a good grab game doesn't make the character a top tier.

 

[NairWizard]

A good throw game is not necessarily a good grab game.

The ability to get grabs is as important as the ability to follow up on those grabs. The Top Tiers don't just have good grab followups; they have ways to condition you into getting grabbed in neutral, and the mobility to capitalize on that conditioning. Consider Sheik's Needles, or Diddy's banana, or Pikachu's Thunderjolts, or Luma--all grab bait, through and through.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Well diddy having the fastest dash/standing grab and 2nd fastest pivot grab (in terms of frame data) that helps him immensely in his grab game to add onto his good throw game already.

 

[Teshie U]

Meanwhile Pacman has what is probably the worst Grab in the game, with mediocre throws and endlag that makes every spotdodge a death sentence for him.

 

[Ffamran]

Meanwhile Pacman has what is probably the worst Grab in the game, with mediocre throws and endlag that makes every spotdodge a death sentence for him.

The upside is that he gets a lot out of throws from what I heard, but the issue is the grab itself.

Who has the best grab game anyway? And who has the best throw game? I'm going to assume Captain Falcon and Meta Knight have the best grab games, but I'm not sure about throw game since yes, Sonic and Ness have good kill throws, but aside from that, what do they get out of their throws? Ness has a Fair chain out of D-throw, but almost everyone can combo out of D-throw and Sonic's D-throw has been underrated from what someone said a while ago.

 

[Teshie U]

Pacman has Dthrow leading into things well and his Pummel does 3+ damage which is nice, but thats about it. Backthrow and Upthrow kill at really high percents and the amount of rage needed for them to kill means you definitely risked you life even trying to grab someone.

Best grab is situational. Tethers have the range to grab people out of attacks that are otherwise frame safe (Samus can reach past megaman's pellets and villagers tree to grab them), and some grabs are quick with absurd ground speed make them even more viable (Falcon, MK, Sonic) and then some grabs have great range and endlag while being tied for fastest (Megaman).

Falcon's annoying slide grab plus his strong follow up game easily puts him in top 3 grab games I'd say. Its much easier to avoid Diddy and Luigi grabbing you though.

 

[A2ZOMG]

The upside is that he gets a lot out of throws from what I heard, but the issue is the grab itself.

Who has the best grab game anyway? And who has the best throw game? I'm going to assume Captain Falcon and Meta Knight have the best grab games, but I'm not sure about throw game since yes, Sonic and Ness have good kill throws, but aside from that, what do they get out of their throws? Ness has a Fair chain out of D-throw, but almost everyone can combo out of D-throw and Sonic's D-throw has been underrated from what someone said a while ago.

Pac-man's throws are pretty average. His D-throw and B-throw both do about 11% which is pretty good, and his D-throw has okay followup potential early while his B-throw has some KO potential not too unlike Mario B-throw.

Also the best throw game is obviously Luigi. His damage output AND kill potential out of grab is just...on a completely different level.

The best character at getting grabs though that's Sheik. At least she doesn't have a KO throw for the most part.

 

[Ffamran]

Not to mention the Luigi, Sheik, and Fox can Jab cancel to grab which makes their grab games better then others who can't hit confirm to a grab. I think Sonic might be able to Jab cancel to grab and maybe Captain Falcon can too, but his Jab is good enough as is even though Jab cancel to Dtilt or a hit confirm to Utilt spike near the ledge would be cool. Oh, and Palutena can Jab once and grab, but aside from D-throw I don't know much about what she can do out of throws and without customs, her grab game is like most characters.

 

[Blue Ninjakoopa]

R.O.B.'s jab 1 to grab works at low percents on characters who don't have an aerial quick enough to use before R.O.B. grabs them, and is guaranteed at higher (KO) percents due to the increased duration of flinch the opponent suffers (which is great because R.O.B.'s up throw can KO). Except on Mario, who can d-air. And some fastfallers can fall quickly enough to attack if they have a ground move that's fast enough, like Captain Falcon and Fox.

 

[Aunt Jemima]

Kirby has an odd grab game.

Kirby has really, really strict grab combos. So far, here's the ones that are known:

B-Throw:
> B-Air (0~27% depending on character)
> U-Air (0~13% depending on character)
> Jump > B-Air (?~?% needs more testing)
> Upper Cutter (0~55% depending on character, unsafe at low percents)
> Copy Ability (WFT, Samus, DK, etc.)
> HUP Cancel > ??? (this needs a lot more testing, could be useful)

F-Throw:
> F-Air > basically anything > extend combo depending on move choice (0~31% depending on character)

D-Throw:
> Upper Cutter (0%, unsafe, DI away breaks this)

U-Throw:
> Upper Cutter (needs more testing, could be useful, can frame trap)

Now, here's the problem. Things like B-Throw > B-Air work on half the cast, but unless you're Dedede, Villager or Ness, it usually only works from 0~10%. B-Throw > U-Air, F-Throw combos, etc. only work on a couple characters, mainly floaties and heavies. Copy Abilities only work on the character that has that ability. Upper Cutter is unsafe at low percents depending on throws, removing most of it's viability.

However, luckily, Kirby doesn't need grab combos. Kirby's Pummel + U-Throw more than makes up for this. Due to having the 2nd fastest pummel DPS (excluding aura Lucario), Kirby can rack up a lot of damage this way. He can get around 16~24% from pummel + U-Throw depending on percents, which fits nicely with his f6 grab. Along with that, Kirby can get into a grab pretty easily. Jab, U-Tilt, D-Tilt, N-Air, F-Air, D-Air, U-Air, and probably a couple other moves all set up into grab. D-Air > D-Tilt > D-Tilt > Pummel + U-Throw can do 39~47% depending on how much pummels you can get in. Along with that, shields will generally be up high against Kirby, as most of his moves are either multi-hit, long active frames or short IASA frames, allowing Kirby to generally avoid spotdodge punishes. This allows Kirby to tomahawk with his multiple jumps, which allows him to get grabs easily. The main problem Kirby has with his grab is the range... those little pink hands just don't reach far.

---

I'm gonna hold out on posting information about this at the moment, but with the help of @Spirst, we may have found Kirby's true role in the competitive customs-on meta. It's interesting. Not really what I expected, but... it's cool! Also, this isn't one of those "bring it up but don't post" sorta things. I'm just waiting until tests are finished and this becomes more solid, as I'm against posting stuff before validating it.

 

[thehard]

I'm gonna hold out on posting information about this at the moment, but with the help of @Spirst, we may have found Kirby's true role in the competitive customs-on meta. It's interesting. Not really what I expected, but... it's cool! Also, this isn't one of those "bring it up but don't post" sorta things. I'm just waiting until tests are finished and this becomes more solid, as I'm against posting stuff before validating it.

You tease!

I hope we haven't forgotten Pac-Man can somewhat mitigate his poor grab with the power of Hydrant pushback and (his grab's) slight "tractor beam" effect (do we know the specifics of this yet?)

 

[NairWizard]

He can get around 16~24% from pummel + U-Throw depending on percents

This was a nice post, but I doubt this. up-throw does 10% iirc. There's no way you're getting in 12-14 pummels. It's a fast pummel, but don't underestimate high-level mashing speed. Against Nairo you're probably getting in, like, 5 at high percents.

 

[Aunt Jemima]

I hope we haven't forgotten Pac-Man can somewhat mitigate his poor grab with the power of Hydrant pushback and its slight "tractor beam" effect (do we know the specifics of this yet?)

I have no idea if it's already known by Pac-Man mains, but the other day Spirst was showing me some weird Hydrant pushback thing he found while messing around. If Pac-Man starts charging a fruit right when he dashes into the Hydrant, he'll go through it (or something like that). You can use the fruit charge cancel to instantly act out of this while being pushed by the water, throw the fruit to have a hydrogushed fruit + hydrogushed Pac-Man rushdown, etc. which is pretty interesting. Apparently you can just run up and dash grab the hydrant to go through it, though, extending Pac-Man's grab to half of FD.

Ehh... some of that info may be wonky, mainly with how Pac-Man actually gets through the hydrant. I know the extended grab range and hydrogush shenanigans are true, though. I'm not sure about the specifics of getting through the hydrant, so that was just taken from the stuff I was sent.

This was a nice post, but I doubt this. up-throw does 10% iirc. There's no way you're getting in 12-14 pummels. It's a fast pummel, but don't underestimate high-level mashing speed. Against Nairo you're probably getting in, like, 5 at high percents.

Oh, if somebody is super-mashing, you'll probably only get to 16~19% even at higher percents. Probably should have stated that, but I usually forget about grab mashing unless it actually becomes a problem where the opponent is out the second I grab them or if I need to mash out of some dumb low % combo stuff/dumb pummel spam. Thanks for the correction!

 

[thehard]

I'll be needing a webm of that...

Abadango made a video a little while ago of a tech where Pac-Man could airdodge into his hydrant and act out of it immediately. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q2tpmAjBf8 Can't wait to see this at EVO.

 

[Terotrous]

[quote

Let's talk about Meta Knight!

I now think Meta Knight is literally better than everyone thinks, including myself. Don't think too hard about that.

I would like to point out that my response to your last tier list was that MK was too low

Actually, I think there's a decent chance we may be underrating all of the former Brawl top tiers (except Diddy obviously). Almost all of them lost the jank that made them so strong, so the knee-jerk reaction was "they suck now", but it's becoming increasingly clear that they're at least not as bad as we originally though. MK still has really combos and pressure. Olimar still has scary disjoints and zoning. Marth still has good pokes and his customs seem pretty solid. Dedede and Falco... still exist? That's more than you can say for the Ice Climbers at least. Seriously though I still think those two are playable, though they're definitely not great.

I agree, I was reading that post and Yoshi came to mind immediately as a much more honest character than Diddy. He's a powerful character but his power is balanced out by an appropriate risk/reward ratio on most of his attacks. Plus, as you said, he requires a solid read to kill at reasonable percents. Diddy just doesn't take the risks one would expect for how easily he can get early kills.

I think Ganondorf is very honest too. Rewards solid fundamentals very well, but can get bodied really quickly if you make too many mistakes. I think this is true of most of the heavies, although many of them have more unique, specialised tools than Ganondorf (especially with customs on).

Yeah Ganon is also a very honest character. Most characters in this game are, save a few of the top tiers.

Few things wrong with this, firstly NO viability against the entire cast is not what is important. Viability against the best characters are what matters much more. King Dedede murdered well over half of the cast in Brawl, he was still B-C tier because he had awful MU's with the top tiers. It doesn't matter if you can reliably kill Ganondorf at 40% if you see one every 7 tournaments.

I'm not talking purely about tier lists, I'm talking about the conditions that create a balanced and diverse metagame. You're right that Dedede and Melee Sheik made like half the cast of their respective games invalid. This is a terrible thing. We definitely do not want any characters like this in the game.

I was simply saying, you are saying that other members of the cast aren't viable when Rosalina and Sonic have better results than Sheik at large scale tournaments.

That's not quite what I was saying. What I'm really saying is that Sheik and Diddy are most damaging to the metagame overall, due to the nature of their design. Rosa and Sonic are also very strong, but they have very specific playstyles that a number of lower tier characters do have answers to. Diddy and Sheik are just so solid that most weaker characters are just totally outclassed by them.

The patch that removed vectoring was the patch that turned top 10 diddy into a clear winner

I was actually going to make a post about this. I feel like most of the metagame problems we currently have occur because of the sudden decision to remove vectoring in favour of DI. I'm quite certain the majority of the game balancing was done using vectoring, and then they just reverted it because the initial reception was not good. This results in a lot of true combos that they likely didn't intend to exist (ie, hoo haw) and various characters being inordinately weak (Little Mac, Heavies) because their survivability took a big hit.

Rolls have the exact same frame data as in Brawl I believe

I believe Shaya posted a long time ago that characters in Brawl varied a ton, with some having great rolls and others having terrible rolls. Now, everyone has a roll that is comparable to the great rolls from Brawl.

Even if we have our command grab, nerf made it take 20+ frames before the tongue actually comes out, and most we'll get out of it before someone comes out is an egg toss or 2 tilts, maybe a Running Usmash but then if we do that and miss then all we got is 7/6% on em.

It's worth noting that the nerf was literally 1 frame according to the frame data on the Yoshi board.

Also, I'm pretty sure Fair can be spaced to be safe on most characters (obviously, different characters have different punish options).

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

This was a nice post, but I doubt this. up-throw does 10% iirc. There's no way you're getting in 12-14 pummels. It's a fast pummel, but don't underestimate high-level mashing speed. Against Nairo you're probably getting in, like, 5 at high percents.

I could be wrong but I don't think he meant 16-24 damage from pummeling .

 

[Sinister Slush]

It's worth noting that the nerf was literally 1 frame according to the frame data on the Yoshi board.

Also, I'm pretty sure Fair can be spaced to be safe on most characters (obviously, different characters have different punish options).

It's still one frame, + end lag you're forgetting.
Against the top tiers/characters that matter he can't properly space fair

 

[Aunt Jemima]

I could be wrong but I don't think he meant 16-24 damage from pummeling .

There's no way you're getting in 12-14 pummels. It's a fast pummel, but don't underestimate high-level mashing speed.

...

Does G&W gain anything from customs, or no? (not directed specifically at you, @ A AlMoStLeGeNdArY )

 

[thehard]

I hear Chain Judge is good for shield pressure. And you get actually great damage rewards to boot.