Character Competitive Impressions

[S_B]

@ 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.

Yeah, that's why I said almost.

Brawl had different ledge mechanics and there are a LOT of things in this game that work against people on the ledge as well.

Also, never say never with rage: if you can combo escort someone off the ledge at low %, all it would take is a well placed B-air to keep them from returning (obviously depends on the character).

Between fish and vanish, Shiek can recover INSANELY well so she can go deep.

 

[Conda]

Someone explain how Ness can remain relevant in the customs metagame, cause I'm just not seeing it. Windboxes especially screw him over, but even without that, smart experience-filled players who know how to deal with Ness counter Ness in real and demonstratable (as well as proven time-and-time again) ways. Independent of character choice, almost.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

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.

I would argue half these character don't.

 

[Nu~]

I would argue that Pac definitely doesn't struggle to land kill moves with customs on. Freaky strawberry and cherry are the truth, and then add two safe meteor smashes in the form of freaky key and meteor trampoline. Even with customs off, it isn't that bad.

 

[meleebrawler]

Someone explain how Ness can remain relevant in the customs metagame, cause I'm just not seeing it. Windboxes especially screw him over, but even without that, smart experience-filled players who know how to deal with Ness counter Ness in real and demonstratable (as well as proven time-and-time again) ways. Independent of character choice, almost.

Just Ness being very solid on stage and... Lucas Lasting PK Thunder being uncancellable by
hits, as well as Ness not being blocked by bodies.

 

[outfoxd]

I would argue half these character don't.

As killing is about half of what we talk about on the boards I can at least verify dhd has a finishing issue.

 

[meleebrawler]

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.

They probably just overestimated the power of his projectile and Levin game. Having a shaky grab
seems to be common among those with projectile zoning potential (Samus, the Links, Pac-Man, Villager etc.).
Duck Hunt bucks that trend though. Megaman has a good grab since his CQC would be very lacking otherwise.
Sheik has a good grab since needle zoning is secondary in her game plan.

Also, only Palutena's dash grab has poor reach. Pivot has more lateral reach I think, and standing
has surprising reach, especially vertically. At least in 1.0.3 I managed to shieldgrab a Greninja Dair once.

 

[Ffamran]

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

Obligatory: That ain't Falco! That's his cousin Emiliano.

 

[Ulevo]

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.

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.

As a Lucario main I'd just like the chime in here. There's exaggeration on both sides. Lucario with max aura can kill characters, depending on weight and stage position, sometimes as early as 35-40%. Lucario does not usually reach max aura, but reaching 130-140% is not unreasonable nor uncommon. Lucario's individual kill moves themselves are not spammable nor easy to land. That being said, they have set ups that make it easier to kill with Lucario than some people give him credit for. Down air combos in to Force Palm on a lot of characters at higher %, Up Smash can be combo'd out of Aura Sphere Charge, up air is good when baiting air dodges, and there's a lot of neat set ups you can do at the ledge. Back air also becomes safer the higher % Lucario is at because the stun and push on the shield makes it safer, and they need to respect it because it's too dangerous to challenge. Platforms help with it too. Down air is also a really good edge guard tool, and then of course you have your reads in to forward smash, which is less guaranteed.

 

[Seagull Joe]

It's even more unfortunate that people only want to pay attention to majors, when what's on stream are usually weeklies and monthlies.

Our Monthlies had AeroLink(Diddy) vs Epsy(Little Mac), and at TGC, which is basically a regional since people from out of state went here, had a Fox player winning the whole thing, and that ended up being a Fox vs Ness Grand Finals.

Did we forget that TCU had Ally(Mario) vs Will(Donkey Kong) months ago? That isn't an old thing either. Super recently (literally just a few days ago), Ally won a tournament and the Grand Finals match was Mario vs ROB.

Nairo wins tournaments with ZSS, Robin, and Pit. (Admittedly I have heard he recently picked up Diddy though, haven't seen him use it in tournament yet)

Did you guys forget Trela won a tournament with Mii Swordfighter?

Oh, and Seagull Joe and Boss dominates their weeklies and neither of them use Diddy.

Yes, when Majors are in play, there is a lot of players that use Diddy and Sheik. Why? Because they're the best characters in the game, and this does not change with customs. But do you see Top 8 or Top 16 flooded with them? No. That didn't happen in Apex, even with terrible seeding in mind, and that certainly did not happen during any other tournament (except BEAST VI because Europe is weird, but even then a Luigi won that tournament).

Xanadu is almost always won by either me or Boss when OoS is not present. That's and /. Tho I think ChuDat would win all the weeklies if he came with his .

might be one of my top 3 favorite matchups. It's so fun to grab that banana and whale on him. Anyone with good item control would love fighting . Thankfully I had good item control in brawl and PM .

 

[PUK]

You can read and land a fully charged AS, and even without that AS is so scarry if you don't have a good reflector that it can easily bait.

 

[UnownLegend]

The Diddy and Robin match-up must be interesting. Juggling books and bananas all day long

 

[Superbat]

http://smashboards.com/threads/falcos-fast-fire-bird-perfect-landing-slide.395739/#post-18826432
Super cool falco technology. The tech is pretty easy to do as well. Posting it here to see if you guy's think this could change falco's metagame.

 

[Conda]

Strange 1.5 hour gap in the convo...

 

[Ffamran]

http://smashboards.com/threads/falcos-fast-fire-bird-perfect-landing-slide.395739/#post-18826432
Super cool falco technology. The tech is pretty easy to do as well. Posting it here to see if you guy's think this could change falco's metagame.

It was found out before people, @Lavani and @Balgorxz, tested it. I don't have a way to reliably record footage, so I mentioned it knowing Lavani could so there would be proof to my looney claims.

 

[Mr. Johan]

The Diddy and Robin match-up must be interesting. Juggling books and bananas all day long

It only becomes interesting every 8 moves though. Diddy can pull a banana whenever he wants, and it's so monotonous during those times.

Petition for patch to give Robin the ability to manually tome eject whenever he wants plz k thx.

 

[Kofu]

It only becomes interesting every 8 moves though. Diddy can pull a banana whenever he wants, and it's so monotonous during those times.

Petition for patch to give Robin the ability to manually tome eject whenever he wants plz k thx.

They'd have to tome down the knockback on his books if they did that though.

 

[Antonykun]

Sooooooo
Why is Kirby a bad character again?

 

[Mr. Johan]

Nah, because even with a tome eject, he's gotta wait the allotted time until the tome comes back, while Diddy can instantly spawn another Banana and try to trip you again for the guaranteed kill setup.

Just decrease the damage from 18% to 8-9% and we'd be good.

I saw the pun I just can't think of a witty followup.

 

[Firefoxx]

Sooooooo
Why is Kirby a bad character again?

Customs-off the story has always been that he can't get in or stay in, but he will make your life a living hell if he actually does

It'd be interesting if they made every tome except elwind do less damage. I know it regens fastest, but having it be the strongest tome for throwing would be an interesting exercise in risk/reward.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I don't think I've ever run out of Elwind, but I also never use it unless I'm recovering.

 

[Nobie]

Sooooooo
Why is Kirby a bad character again?

What I find fascinating about Kirby is that he's pretty much a rushdown character, but he's rushdown in the sense that he NEEDS to get close and start mixing it up. Other characters that operate along those lines can also choose to play other ways generally, and perhaps due to this, in a game that's fairly defensive and neutral-based like Smash 4, Kirby suffers as a result and by comparison. Also, swordsmen.

It's odd because when you look at Kirby, when you see what he can do, he actually seems impressive. His smash attacks are all really good, his f-smash especially, because it's great for punishing people who mess up their spacing. Down tilt is scary; at low percents combos into itself on a trip for a decent 13% or so total damage, and it leads into other scary things (like forward smash!). Actually, I don't think Kirby actually has a single bad normal aside from range concerns, though maybe they tried to balance that out with lackluster specials.

 

[Smog Frog]

where does stand in the customs meta? i've heard people say he's worse. is he still solo viable in customs?

 

[Shaya]

Sooooooo
Why is Kirby a bad character again?

I've been playing a bit of kirby recently under the guise "he's not bad".
But in short, he isn't great either.

Fighting against characters with longer range than him or with good mobility is a chore. There are exceptions to this, Kirby's size allows for a lot of avoidance of people's tools.

All of his tilts are solid+
His Up smash and Down Smash seem a lot more usable than in previous games. His Up Smash in particular seems to be all sorts of fantastic.
Up air, bair, dair are pretty good moves, on other characters they would bolster their prospects a lot. Nair and fair aren't bad either. He has the lowest landing lag spread in the cast (right?), so on top of the 6 jumps, fast falling and fast fall cancelling you have a lot of good tools to vertically out space.
Jab seems pretty good, a nice upgrade from previous games.
Dash grab is still one of the best.
Up-B finally can be used offensively.

MikeKirby has really good results with him and I can see why.
His wall-out match ups of previous games are nowhere near what they used to be ().

I don't know enough about his customs beyond them being really good helpers apparently.

 

[Nobie]

I've been playing a bit of kirby recently under the guise "he's not bad".
But in short, he isn't great either.

Fighting against characters with longer range than him or with good mobility is a chore. There are exceptions to this, Kirby's size allows for a lot of avoidance of people's tools.

All of his tilts are solid+
His Up smash and Down Smash seem a lot more usable than in previous games. His Up Smash in particular seems to be all sorts of fantastic.
Up air, bair, dair are pretty good moves, on other characters they would bolster their prospects a lot. Nair and fair aren't bad either. He has the lowest landing lag spread in the cast, so on top of the 6 jumps, fast falling and fast fall cancelling you have a lot of good tools to vertically out space.
Jab seems pretty good, a nice upgrade from previous games.
Dash grab is still one of the best.
Up-B finally can be used offensively.

MikeKirby has really good results with him and I can see why. His wall-out match ups of previous games are nowhere near what they used to be ().

I don't know enough about his customs beyond them being really good helpers apparently.

I can't remember which tournament it was, but it was pretty amazing seeing MikeKirby teach other Kirby players how to deal with Sonic's shenanigans (though what I really remember is rapid jabs making Sonic's day difficult).

Also, I feel like Kirby has the advantage vs. Meta Knight in this game, but I'm not good enough with either character to make a fair judgment of that.

 

[Project Quarantine]

I've been playing a bit of kirby recently under the guise "he's not bad".
But in short, he isn't great either.

Fighting against characters with longer range than him or with good mobility is a chore. There are exceptions to this, Kirby's size allows for a lot of avoidance of people's tools.

All of his tilts are solid+
His Up smash and Down Smash seem a lot more usable than in previous games. His Up Smash in particular seems to be all sorts of fantastic.
Up air, bair, dair are pretty good moves, on other characters they would bolster their prospects a lot. Nair and fair aren't bad either. He has the lowest landing lag spread in the cast (right?), so on top of the 6 jumps, fast falling and fast fall cancelling you have a lot of good tools to vertically out space.
Jab seems pretty good, a nice upgrade from previous games.
Dash grab is still one of the best.
Up-B finally can be used offensively.

MikeKirby has really good results with him and I can see why.
His wall-out match ups of previous games are nowhere near what they used to be ().

I don't know enough about his customs beyond them being really good helpers apparently.

My state also has a very good kirby who has mained kirby in every game (even melee). His name is Triple R, he wins or places very high in many of our tournaments.

My opinion on kirby, though I don't have that much experience with the character, is that customs really help the character with combo finishers and neutral threats (jumping sucking thing) . Otherwise, it is imperative to use the dair setup throughout gameplay. While the multiple jumps are convenient, the lack of air speed sometimes leaves you in the air, unable to capitalize on an advantageous position. In addition, I feel Kirby lacks approach options, being a pushdown character.

Dare I ask where Kirby is on the *tier list?* (gasp)

 

[Pazx]

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.

Wario grab release shenanigans have been removed AFAIK.

Dare I ask where Kirby is on the *tier list?* (gasp)

He's not in the top 10 and he's probably not in the bottom 5 and that's all anyone can tell you.

 

[Manta]

How is Marth with customs on? Particulary 313x as it gives great recovery.

 

[Antonykun]

How is Marth with customs on? Particulary 313x as it gives great recovery.

Incoming @Emblem Lord gush in 3...2...1...
Short answer he's pretty solid

 

[Bribery]

I think Kirby better than what a lot of people give credit for but he still has glaring flaws that hold him back. The combination of poor ground and aerial speed, poor range, and lack of approach options make it hard for him to actually get in. He's pretty good at racking up damage once he does get in, but not enough to make up for his flaws imo (especially when characters like Luigi and Yoshi are better at racking up damage without all the nasty flaws that Kirby has).

Kirby also doesn't have reliable kill setups so he usually has to fish for kills with a read or gimp. This is a pretty significant flaw to have on a slow, lightweight character like Kirby. He'd be a lot better if he didn't receive all unnecessary nerfs from Brawl->SSB4, especially the nerfs to his Brawl throws and their follow-up potential. Sakurai pls.

Customs improve Kirby a lot though, mostly because his default specials suck. Even though they don't fix Kirby's fundamental flaws, they give him better options to work with. Upper Cutter is especially amazing. It really completes Kirby's moveset since it combos with a lot of his commonly used moves, like Up-Tilt and Up-Air. It can be used to finish juggles at early %s and lead into kills at higher %s. Up-Tilt > Upper Cutter registers as a true combo in training mode at kill %s so that gives Kirby a reliable kill setup from his most commonly used tilt.

 

[warionumbah2]

Kirby has bad mobility so he resorts to throwing out hitboxes to wall MK out while MK stares at him spazzing out and throws a dash attack to start his combos. Down throw to grounded shuttle loop is guaranteed regardless of DI up until 80% where a dash attack into shuttle loop can kill, MK dominates kirby off stage because of disjoints and better aerial mobility. He's basically fighting an adult version of himself with better mobility and disjoints.

Kirby can edgeguard MK if he for some reason recovers low, but if MK chooses not to there's not much he can do. Drill rush beats his aerials and stage spikes him and cape bypasses his stone edgeguard attempt. Of course once kirby gets in he does the same old, no point in saying anymore since its common knowledge. Its a tedious and boring MU, the kirby player must always be pressing buttons in neutral while the Mk user has to do less other than dancing with him at mid range.

MK without a doubt beats kirby without customs I have yet to play custom kirby with my MK, so to avoid theorycraft imma stop here.

 

[NairWizard]

Kirby is great when you fight him normally. If you go right up into his face with an "I'mma rush you down grrr!" attitude then Kirby is just going to crouch your attacks, d-tilt you, combo you, and f-smash KO you. Then you're sitting there wondering, "the heck? why is this character so low on everyone's tier lists?"

But if you just camp him out, you will win most of the time with good characters. His neutral isn't as good as Luigi's (because no Fireballs or crazy f-air), and his horrible mobility means he has a rough time approaching anyone who doesn't want to be approached.

When Tjolts + Quick Attack are all I need to camp a character out for 5 minutes, you know there's an issue. Kirby's one of the few characters, at least with customs off, that are susceptible to even the weakest of camping strategies.

Jumping Inhale is crazy awesome, though. I don't know how it affects his matchups, other than that they should all be better for him.

I can't remember which tournament it was, but it was pretty amazing seeing MikeKirby teach other Kirby players how to deal with Sonic's shenanigans (though what I really remember is rapid jabs making Sonic's day difficult).

This is mostly unrelated to what you posted, but it reminds me: I wonder why so many Sonics are still just spindashing into jabs. I've seen countless people say, "oh, just jab, that beats out everything Sonic has." Even from really good players. Sonic has so many mixups out of just dashing around (*cue music* at the speed of sound...) that it's actually kind of insane. Just jabbing isn't enough to answer everything. Also, f-tilt has bonkers range for some reason, Homing Attack is a thing, you can hop in the middle of spindash (let's not forget HSD too), Sonic has his own jab... it's unfortunate that people play as and against Sonic so one-dimensionally. Shoutouts to the Sonics who actually use spindash to punish at the appropriate times while maintaining a great mixup game (Espy and 6wx most of all).

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Kirbys not a bad character in a straight brawl, but you don't need to brawl him a lot of the time.
I think its goofy to say if Tjolt and quick attack are all you need to camp out "there is a problem". Pikachu can do that on the majority of the cast, thats the bloody nature of Quick attack. The problem is quick attack in general.
Frankly I don't think the top tier on a general level is Kirbys issue which Is why I hold a favourable opinion of him, in that he does fine for the top picks of the metagame. What I hold a poor opinion on Kirby about is the characters that are less discussed which either kill him in an unexaggerated 3 hits (Hello Ganon) or play footsies with him given a massive range disadvantage (Honestly I say Ike is one of the notable ones). Funny enough Kirby vs Shulk can be volatile until the point you gain the Monado and then you become this thing that would probably beat the majority of the cast confidently if you had it in any other MU.

 

[Antonykun]

Kirbys not a bad character in a straight brawl, but you don't need to brawl him a lot of the time.
I think its goofy to say if Tjolt and quick attack are all you need to camp out "there is a problem". Pikachu can do that on the majority of the cast, thats the bloody nature of Quick attack. The problem is quick attack in general.

Tjolt and QA isn't that bad as far as i know.
Most characters can ignore the Tjolt and throw a hitbox at QA...but pika can just do f-air or bair

 

[ItsRainingGravy]

As long as either Pikachu has a hitbox on Quick Attack, or he has the ability to move twice with it, it will continue to be a silly move. It would become a lot more manageable if it lost one of those things, particularly the ability to move twice with it. Because the speed that it grants Pikachu alone is very powerful, especially when someone masters ledgecanceling with it.

 

[Mr. Johan]

Just give it 64 Quick Attack's startup and without the invincibility.

Beast is instantly tamed.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

As long as either Pikachu has a hitbox on Quick Attack, or he has the ability to move twice with it, it will continue to be a silly move. It would become a lot more manageable if it lost one of those things, particularly the ability to move twice with it. Because the speed that it grants Pikachu alone is very powerful, especially when someone masters ledgecanceling with it.

Excuse me if im wrong but QA is only good because of the little endlag no? if he were to have lets say brawls QA he would be alot more tame?

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Tjolt and QA isn't that bad as far as i know.
Most characters can ignore the Tjolt and throw a hitbox at QA...but pika can just do f-air or bair

If Pikachu wants to play an "honest" game with you? They aren't, Tjolt absolutely isn't. If Pikachu wants to camp you out for 5 minutes, six minutes? A lot of the cast lacks the mobility specs/projectile games to actually stop that on a reasonable level if at all. It's not really how people in *general* play this game.

 

[NairWizard]

Quick Attack is indeed a silly move, but no you can't just camp most characters out with QA lol, what are you talking about @ ChronoPenguin

Most characters actually have mobility and/or range

you can't even time Ganon out with that strategy, you will run into enough d-tilts to lose your stock eventually

Kirby is one of the few with both bad mobility and bad range. The problem isn't Quick Attack, it's Kirby. Pikachu-Kirby would be even if Pikachu had to fight all the time.

 

[ItsRainingGravy]

Excuse me if im wrong but QA is only good because of the little endlag no? if he were to have lets say brawls QA he would be alot more tame?

I am unfamiliar with the Brawl QA, but more endlag would also be a nice solution.