Character Competitive Impressions

[Thinkaman]

G&W up-b 2 and 3 grant his kit some very important kill power. His neutral-b options are not to be overlooked either.

 

[Aunt Jemima]

G&W up-b 2 and 3 grant his kit some very important kill power. His neutral-b options are not to be overlooked either.

His Chef customs are good? I'd love an explanation to that. I've heard about his Up B customs, but I'm wondering how it would trade off compared to his default in conjunction with his whole kit itself, as they change attributes that make the default so good. Such as, how is his edgeguarding affected by these customs? Can he himself now be easily edgeguarded? Things of that sort.

 

[Lavani]

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

According to MasterCore, Egg Lay's startup was increased 17f→21f (and grabbox size was reduced). Lick and Egg Launch startups were always 21f and 20f, respectively (though Egg Launch also lost grabbox size).

 

[Sinister Slush]

You should check the yoshi stickies, tero. Hell most people in here when looking for Yoshi stuff
Anyways, I hate how they nerfed the hitboxes for it too. Grab armor no longer a thing just wasn't enough of a nerf to egg lay in general was it Ninteddy?

 

[Judo777]

[quote

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.



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



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.



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.



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.


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.



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).

Well thankfully Sheik will never completely outclass any character in the game, because she is the worst in the game at one thing, so everyone outclasses her in that department.

 

[S_B]

because she is the worst in the game at one thing

Wearing gender-appropriate clothing...?

But seriously, Shiek has enough damage racking and an insane combo game that her lack of kill power clearly doesn't hamper her ability to win games.

You should check the yoshi stickies, tero. Hell most people in here when looking for Yoshi stuff
Anyways, I hate how they nerfed the hitboxes for it too. Grab armor no longer a thing just wasn't enough of a nerf to egg lay in general was it Ninteddy?

Grab armor is sorely missed by many characters, including Bowser, Ganondorf, Yoshi and Lucario...

 

[meleebrawler]

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.

Those spotdodges need to be timed well, though, or else the grab's meaty frames will get them.
With good timing and spacing you can even do this against rolls. And if Pac-Man's hand is touching
the opponent when it starts it actually comes out pretty quickly, so a Pac player who knows what he's doing
won't have TOO much trouble landing it, he just needs to be careful since it probably does have the worst endlag
of all grabs. I'd make a case for Villager's grab being the worst since it comes out slow no matter what,
doesn't have long active frames like Pac's and lags after, even if not as much as Pac's. Though he does get
nice rewards for landing it with a powerful Bthrow, and anything that sets up turnip juggles is nice.

Ganon and Robin both have terribly short grabs with questionable endlag (Robin moreso), but they both
compensate in different ways, Ganon with his choke and Robin setting up grabs with Arcthunder/fire.

Wearing gender-appropriate clothing...?

But seriously, Shiek has enough damage racking and an insane combo game that her lack of kill power clearly doesn't hamper her ability to win games.

I'd say it's more the ability of her strings to force people off the stage and then edgeguard them
that make her fearsome, since onstage the only things that will kill without a hard read or punish
is Uair and maybe Bair. That and Bouncing Fish are only truly effective offstage at killing.

 

[Xavix]

Wearing gender-appropriate clothing...?

But seriously, Shiek has enough damage racking and an insane combo game that her lack of kill power clearly doesn't hamper her ability to win games.

I do think sheik has some of the best kill moves in the game, including up smash, up b, up air, bouncing fish, etc.
EDIT: although a number of these are somewhat difficult to land and unreliable *cough*up b *cough*

 

[S_B]

I'd say it's more the ability of her strings to force people off the stage and then edgeguard them
that make her fearsome, since onstage the only things that will kill without a hard read or punish
is Uair and maybe Bair. That and Bouncing Fish are only truly effective offstage at killing.

True, but Shieks regularly land these options as well.

Either way, buffing Shiek's kill power without any other changes would be an awful idea.

I guess that raises a question for any Shiek players: would you trade better kill power on most attacks for combo power and safe on shield aerials?

In other words, a Shiek that can kill at lower percents but can't combo anywhere near as well and isn't as safe when attacks are shielded?

 

[Judo777]

Wearing gender-appropriate clothing...?

But seriously, Shiek has enough damage racking and an insane combo game that her lack of kill power clearly doesn't hamper her ability to win games.



Grab armor is sorely missed by many characters, including Bowser, Ganondorf, Yoshi and Lucario...

That doesn't refute my point. Her kill power is the worst in the game.

And her damage racking ability gets greatly reduced significantly about half way through your stock (90%+ our stuff stops comboing and every win from neutral nets 8-12%)

 

[TriTails]

In other words, a Shiek that can kill at lower percents but can't combo anywhere near as well and isn't as safe when attacks are shielded?

?

 

[S_B]

That doesn't refute my point. Her kill power is the worst in the game.

And yet she's still A-tier.

You don't need good kill power to be one of the best characters in the game.

 

[Shaya]

EggLay into Down B combo, every time~

That doesn't refute my point. Her kill power is the worst in the game.

And her damage racking ability gets greatly reduced significantly about half way through your stock (90%+ our stuff stops comboing and every win from neutral nets 8-12%)

*cough fsmash is a good kill move I promise cough*

 

[Judo777]

And yet she's still A-tier.

You don't need good kill power to be one of the best characters in the game.

Which was the premise of my original post, historically in smash....... yes you do lol.

Every version of smash up to this point, the best character (and even everyone in the top 2 tiers) has had great kill power.

64 (everyone has 0-deaths so point is moot).
Melee Fox, Falco, Jiggs, Marth and Sheik all were freaking powerhouse characters (marth comboing into tippers).
Brawl MK, IC's, Olimar, Snake (honorable mention as he was top tier for probably 90% of the games life)
PM not sure but in early versions everyone just said it was the melee characters again.

Struggling to land kills is not historically a top tier trait. Especially not a best character in the game trait, no best character in smash history has struggled with kills. All best characters in smash have had very reliable ways to kill people (usually long before other characters are capable).

@ Shaya yes it IS powerful when it lands, unfortunately just like in Brawl the two hits don't combo into each other a very large portion of the time. So you need to hit the opponent with a frame 24 move or something along those lines. You have to be standing inside of the other person for it to combo sometimes, and if the first hit lands and the second doesn't the move still stales.

 

[Mr. Johan]

Robin has a combination of short range and long endlag on his grab that only Palutena shares, but Palutena gets guaranteed followups from her grab all the way up to 160% or so. Robin gets....a Dthrow 50/50 read? A Bthrow kill at 150 at the edge?

Factor in what has to be the absolute worst pummel in the game, and it makes me wonder what the devs were sniffing when they were programming Robin's grab and throw game. He has means to get the grab, sure, but even that's a risk and requires a tome/Levin use, and the payout is shaky.



Are grab release shenanigans a thing in this game? Recently I've been intentionally grab releasing with Sonic to look for kneejerk reactions, with some success. From my experience, an immediate Ftilt covers all options except for spotdodges, backroll, sword Jabs, and a shield -> tether grab and gets Sonic some mental pressure advantage, and those aforementioned options are overpowered by an immediate Side B/Down B to really get in their head. Anyone else have something from letting the grab go?

 

[Terotrous]

According to MasterCore, Egg Lay's startup was increased 17f→21f (and grabbox size was reduced). Lick and Egg Launch startups were always 21f and 20f, respectively (though Egg Launch also lost grabbox size).

Okay, so the statement that Egg Launch had the same startup as Egg Lay prepatch and was left untouched was just incorrect. 4 frame startup increase is not completely trivial, though it's still well possible to land it.

You should check the yoshi stickies, tero. Hell most people in here when looking for Yoshi stuff
Anyways, I hate how they nerfed the hitboxes for it too. Grab armor no longer a thing just wasn't enough of a nerf to egg lay in general was it Ninteddy?

It doesn't appear to have the necessary information for this discussion. Since we're talking about safety, what we really need are the ending / autocancel frames of Yoshi's moves.

Well thankfully Sheik will never completely outclass any character in the game, because she is the worst in the game at one thing, so everyone outclasses her in that department.

I seriously hope you're not trying to suggest Sheik has the worst kill potential in the entire game. DHD alone is FAR worse, as are a number of the other lower tier characters.

Honestly, you should probably try playing a character that isn't Sheik for a bit, to get an idea of what the power level of the other characters is like. When you try out someone like Mario it'll feel like everything about him is the worst in the game compared to the super solid character that you're used to.

EggLay into Down B combo, every time~

You really don't want to stale DownB, it's just so vital for getting those early KOs. FSmash is the best if you've got time for it, because opportunities to land it are rare, but USmash is better to stale than DownB if you have to choose.

 

[Kofu]

Robin has a combination of short range and long endlag on his grab that only Palutena shares, but Palutena gets guaranteed followups from her grab all the way up to 160% or so. Robin gets....a Dthrow 50/50 read? A Bthrow kill at 150 at the edge?

Factor in what has to be the absolute worst pummel in the game, and it makes me wonder what the devs were sniffing when they were programming Robin's grab and throw game. He has means to get the grab, sure, but even that's a risk and requires a tome/Levin use, and the payout is shaky.

Does Robin really have short grab range? It's always seemed respectable to me with the only bad thing being its endlag.

Also Palutena's grab range is massive lol

Are grab release shenanigans a thing in this game? Recently I've been intentionally grab releasing with Sonic to look for kneejerk reactions, with some success. From my experience, an immediate Ftilt covers all options except for spotdodges, backroll, sword Jabs, and a shield -> tether grab and gets Sonic some mental pressure advantage, and those aforementioned options are overpowered by an immediate Side B/Down B to really get in their head. Anyone else have something from letting the grab go?

Marth and Lucina can get Crescent Slash sweetspots on a good portion of the cast if they aerial release.

 

[Antonykun]

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.

Villager's b-throw is solid....
Too bad you have to land a 16 frame grab.[/quote]

 

[Judo777]

Okay, so the statement that Egg Launch had the same startup as Egg Lay prepatch and was left untouched was just incorrect. 4 frame startup increase is not completely trivial, though it's still well possible to land it.



It doesn't appear to have the necessary information for this discussion. Since we're talking about safety, what we really need are the ending / autocancel frames of Yoshi's moves.



I seriously hope you're not trying to suggest Sheik has the worst kill potential in the entire game. DHD alone is FAR worse, as are a number of the other lower tier characters.

Honestly, you should probably try playing a character that isn't Sheik for a bit, to get an idea of what the power level of the other characters is like. When you try out someone like Mario it'll feel like everything about him is the worst in the game compared to the super solid character that you're used to.



You really don't want to stale DownB, it's just so vital for getting those early KOs. FSmash is the best if you've got time for it, because opportunities to land it are rare, but USmash is better to stale than DownB if you have to choose.

I play the entire cast. Have since Brawl, won several tournaments with my secondary and tertiary characters.

DHD while not having extremely powerful moves, at least has powerful smashes that can be used as a punish, as well as a pretty strong bair, I bet DHD's bair kills before 150 (sheiks bair kill percent).

 

[Indigo Jeans]

Robin has a combination of short range and long endlag on his grab that only Palutena shares, but Palutena gets guaranteed followups from her grab all the way up to 160% or so. Robin gets....a Dthrow 50/50 read? A Bthrow kill at 150 at the edge?

Factor in what has to be the absolute worst pummel in the game, and it makes me wonder what the devs were sniffing when they were programming Robin's grab and throw game. He has means to get the grab, sure, but even that's a risk and requires a tome/Levin use, and the payout is shaky.



Are grab release shenanigans a thing in this game? Recently I've been intentionally grab releasing with Sonic to look for kneejerk reactions, with some success. From my experience, an immediate Ftilt covers all options except for spotdodges, backroll, sword Jabs, and a shield -> tether grab and gets Sonic some mental pressure advantage, and those aforementioned options are overpowered by an immediate Side B/Down B to really get in their head. Anyone else have something from letting the grab go?

Like Kofu said, Marth and Lucina get Crescent Slash sweetspot on aerial grab releases on everyone except greninja, sheik, fox, falco, wario, and jigglypuff. Also, it isnt guaranteed, but minimum range untethered Luma can nail grounded grab releases with usmash and utilt.

To be honest though, apart from wario shenanigans, I think thats it... WFT would absolutely love some way to abuse the fact that she forces aerial releases, but the endlag makes it impossible.

 

[S_B]

Which was the premise of my original post, historically in smash....... yes you do lol.

SSB history doesn't dictate what's happening right now in major tournaments, though, and right now, Shiek is doing great.

Shiek lacking kill power, as I said, is the only thing keeping her from god tier. If Shiek could combo and edgeguard as well as she can now AND easily land killing blows, we'd be seeing MK 2.0...

 

[FullMoon]

Factor in what has to be the absolute worst pummel in the game, and it makes me wonder what the devs were sniffing when they were programming Robin's grab and throw game.

Actually I'm pretty sure Greninja is the one with the worst pummel.

 

[Gunla]

Actually I'm pretty sure Greninja is the one with the worst pummel.

It's okay... Really, that's all it is.

His pummel doesn't have much of a use, and it's dreadfully slow.

 

[Unknownkid]

Actually I'm pretty sure Greninja is the one with the worst pummel.

Nah, that's Swordfighter. Try it! I dare you...

 

[Terotrous]

DHD while not having extremely powerful moves, at least has powerful smashes that can be used as a punish, as well as a pretty strong bair, I bet DHD's bair kills before 150 (sheiks bair kill percent).

How easily you can land those moves is also a very important part of kill potential. Doesn't help that DHD's smashes frequently don't link properly.

 

[RWB]

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?

He can easily combat it if he has a banana. Banana the bike before Wario can get off and you trip Wario. No banana?
If they jump off, you just shield, and if they attempt to attack you by jumping of you tap jump->Uair.

Also, Banana on the ground can cause some very strange things with the bike. Once Biked over a banana and Wario fell of while the bike went in reverse at top speed off the screen.

 

[Nobie]

Maybe I haven't used other characters enough, but I can't stand Mega Man's pummel. Sure, it's 3% per hit but the animation takes so long and prevents you from being able to input anything else, so often I'll find myself mashing a direction to get a throw after one or two pummels only for the opponent to break out.

 

[wedl!!]

Do you buff them to make them better tournament picks or will they suffer the way Pudge does, being far too popular in 'pub' games to get the buffs they need?

the difference is that icefrog actually has been making pudge/sniper/other past pub picks less awful meanwhile sakurai has his head in his arse

 

[Judo777]

SSB history doesn't dictate what's happening right now in major tournaments, though, and right now, Shiek is doing great.

Shiek lacking kill power, as I said, is the only thing keeping her from god tier. If Shiek could combo and edgeguard as well as she can now AND easily land killing blows, we'd be seeing MK 2.0...

Firstly no, no character will ever be as good as MK. MK was a character that was impossible to put in a bad position, he was strong everywhere. He was considered unbeatable ON THE LEDGE, you know, that place that is a horrible spot for almost everyone else in all of the smash games.

And history DOES dictate what is happening right now. In brawl there were several characters that initially placed very well and were easy pickups to play at mid level. Those character fell off after the first year and remained in C tier or below for the rest of the game (it was GW ROB AND D3 who were top 6 the first 2 tier lists). I am not saying Sheik is necessarily one of those characters (although i DO think she will drop) but just because people are doing well with a character ESPECIALLY this early doesn't mean they are actually that good.

Btw I haven't even mentioned that the rage mechanic in the game hurts Sheik more than every other character in the game. Sheik is a character that will have to deal with the highest amount of rage on the opponent.......every.......single....stock....

@ Terotrous hmmmm hard to land kill moves......and his reliable kill moves not correctly linking......? Yea that doesn't sound like any other character I know of......

 

[Antonykun]

Nah, that's Swordfighter. Try it! I dare you...

Super Slow and deals only 2%
Sack of fries why...
@ Nobie thats 6% plus the throw plus the follow up

 

[Terotrous]

@ Terotrous hmmmm hard to land kill moves......and his reliable kill moves not correctly linking......? Yea that doesn't sound like any other character I know of......

Sheik's kill moves aren't hard to land at all, they just don't kill until somewhat high percents.

I would say the following are characters who have legitimate trouble landing kill moves:



Note that this is not always the same as having trouble killing, though I would say Sheik easily kills better than all of these characters.

 

[Antonykun]

Sheik's kill moves aren't hard to land at all, they just don't kill until somewhat high percents.

I would say the following are characters who have legitimate trouble landing kill moves:



Note that this is not always the same as having trouble killing, though I would say Sheik easily kills better than all of these characters.

That double falco and no Villager tho

 

[Indigo Jeans]

Sheik's kill moves aren't hard to land at all, they just don't kill until somewhat high percents.

I would say the following are characters who have legitimate trouble landing kill moves:



Note that this is not always the same as having trouble killing, though I would say Sheik easily kills better than all of these characters.

Wheres Villager on that list?

 

[Antonykun]

Wheres Villager on that list?

She's probably messing with TC right now.
Seriously though Swordfighter has a slightly easier time landing KO moves than Villager

 

[David Viran]

Sheik's kill moves aren't hard to land at all, they just don't kill until somewhat high percents.

I would say the following are characters who have legitimate trouble landing kill moves:



Note that this is not always the same as having trouble killing, though I would say Sheik easily kills better than all of these characters.

Wow falcos that bad he had to be on the list twice.

 

[S_B]

Firstly no, no character will ever be as good as MK. MK was a character that was impossible to put in a bad position, he was strong everywhere. He was considered unbeatable ON THE LEDGE, you know, that place that is a horrible spot for almost everyone else in all of the smash games.

I dunno. If Shiek was amazing in neutral (check), amazing at edgeguarding (check), amazing at damage racking (check), AND had MK's d-smash, I think she'd be just about there.

And history DOES dictate what is happening right now. In brawl there were several characters that initially placed very well and were easy pickups to play at mid level.

Well, yes and no. As I've said a few times, the meta is still quite young so things will hopefully still change, but at this point, I think it would take some earthshaking discovery along the lines of wavedashing to really upset the tier list that dramatically.

Btw I haven't even mentioned that the rage mechanic in the game hurts Sheik more than every other character in the game. Sheik is a character that will have to deal with the highest amount of rage on the opponent.......every.......single....stock....

While true, Shiek is also insanely good at avoiding damage. With some of the safest aerials on shield in the game, a well-spaced Shiek can approach without much risk involved and for an extremely solid payout. She also has the speed to punish nearly ANY whiffed anything.

I'm not saying Shiek will never have another bad matchup in the game, ever, but I'd be stunned if Shiek ever fell from A-tier.

 

[Judo777]

Sheik's kill moves aren't hard to land at all, they just don't kill until somewhat high percents.

I would say the following are characters who have legitimate trouble landing kill moves:



Note that this is not always the same as having trouble killing, though I would say Sheik easily kills better than all of these characters.

With that logic, all characters have easy to land kill moves, at 300% just about anything will kill. A kill move is something that kills around 100-130.

You put Lucario and Zelda on that list...... I don't even know what to say. Lucario auto kills things at 45% when he gets up to 120%. And Zeldas moves kill absurdely early. Infact her kill moves are her easiest to land moves. Frame 5 dsmash seems hard to connect with.

@ S_B No I mean, MK had NO bad poisitions. Sheik is weak above opponents (blind spot underneathe her, despite having BF she is still prone to getting juggled. She is not strong o the ledge (who is though), there are bad spots for Sheik. MK was extremely strong in ALL of these poisitons. He camped above opponents and on the ledge.

 

[PUK]

Zelda has trouble getting more than 60% though if the opponent is not dumb.
But yeah 70% is more or less the moment she kills.

 

[Terotrous]

Wow falcos that bad he had to be on the list twice.

Lol I think the first one was intended to be someone else.

With that logic, all characters have easy to land kill moves, at 300% just about anything will kill. A kill move is something that kills around 100-130.

That's not really true in this game, only a small handful of characters can kill at 100%. Kill percent is more like 120-150 in Smash4. Of course, rage skews this a bit.

You put Lucario and Zelda on that list...... I don't even know what to say. Lucario auto kills things at 45% when he gets up to 120%.

His kill moves are all slow and hard to land. Bair has like 15 frame startup. His smashes are all slow. Command grab has very little range. He also has zero kill power when not at high rage.

And Zeldas moves kill absurdely early. Infact her kill moves are her easiest to land moves. Frame 5 dsmash seems hard to connect with.

FSmash and USmash have linking problems. Uair lost a lot of kill power from Brawl. Fair and Bair have very tiny sweetspots and are very difficult to land consistently.

 

[Judo777]

Lol I think the first one was intended to be someone else.



That's not really true in this game, only a small handful of characters can kill at 100%. Kill percent is more like 120-150 in Smash4. Of course, rage skews this a bit.



His kill moves are all slow and hard to land. Bair has like 15 frame startup. His smashes are all slow. Command grab has very little range. He also has zero kill power when not at high rage.



FSmash and USmash have linking problems. Uair lost a lot of kill power from Brawl. Fair and Bair have very tiny sweetspots and are very difficult to land consistently.

Which unfortunately rage is inevitable against Sheik so EVERYONE will have skewed kill percents of 100-130.

His command grab isn't that hard to land, and ALL of his moves kill at high aura (which btw is almost inevitable). Dair kills, uair kills, bair kills, ftilt probably kills, aura sphere kills, his grabs kill.

Your linking problems aren't near as common as you make them out to be. Usmash rarely fails to connect. And uair lost some kill power from Brawl aka "no longer kills at 70 now kills at 100". And all of this is moot because........frame........5.......dsmash. You know that smash that is the same speed as pits jab.....that one. Like Zelda having kill issues is a joke, she has issues racking damage but killing people..... is not tough.