Character Competitive Impressions

[HeroMystic]

A tether recovery seems unwise considering Sheik's recovery is so strong as is. The grenade is far better, even if it isn't utilized 100% of the time.

 

[Jaxas]

A tether recovery seems unwise considering Sheik's recovery is so strong as is. The grenade is far better, even if it isn't utilized 100% of the time.

Yeah, I'm assuming that they took it out so her recovery wasn't absolutely insane, especially since it really didn't do, well, anything useful besides that (at least not that I know of).

 

[Shaya]

Old chain was a very fast recovery tool, but if it whiffed the ledge you would die due to the end lag of it.
Sheik had "everything" in that regard in Brawl (crawl, wall jump, wall cling, tether, etc). Sheik as a low-mid tier in Brawl boasted positive match ups against every tether character because of this as well (even ZSS by most player's standards) [edit: actually, not olimar].

Chain had some match up abuses and legitimately could "chain" to death Captain Falcon and Ganondorf. Meta Knight had a lot of issues dealing with it too.
In "theory" land, your movements with the control stick would create hits that would keep everyone locked in it indefinitely.

It was cheesy.

 

[Kofu]

Old chain was a very fast recovery tool, but if it whiffed the ledge you would die due to the end lag of it.
Sheik had "everything" in that regard in Brawl (crawl, wall jump, wall cling, tether, etc). Sheik as a low-mid tier in Brawl boasted positive match ups against every tether character because of this as well (even ZSS by most player's standards).

Chain had some match up abuses and legitimately could "chain" to death Captain Falcon and Ganondorf. Meta Knight had a lot of issues dealing with it too.
In "theory" land, your movements with the control stick would create hits that would keep everyone locked in it indefinitely.

It was cheesy.

Don't forget about Chain Jacketing!

 

[Minordeth]

I personally know Megafox, as he comes to our weeklies almost all the time and while I would 100% bank on him being the best player in San Antonio or even Texas in taking on Zero, I don't quite believe he's taken on a player of such caliber to bank on him being competition. He also lost to Denti and then Aerolink in our monthly in Feburary (though he beat Denti in TGC1 a week later, and then Shaky) and he does have some predictability in his gameplay, though he adapts fast when anyone catches on to him, and his ability to learn from watching a match or two, live, is out of this world.

Definitely a top tier player who would've made waves in Apex (At the very least top 32, with 100% certainty) and Aftershock, but he's not super-serious about the game like Zero is. He basically goes to our weeklies so we can donate to his college funds.

I didn't catch this earlier. But yeah, he has some predictable patterns, especially in his shield pressure (SH>Fast fall>Nair). He does this even with his secondaries, like Greninja (which he also plays brilliantly). I think if he had the drive like Zero does, he could be a contender for top player, but in the meantime, he is advancing the Fox and even the Greninja metagame quite a bit. He has the adaptation of Zero, without quite the variety in approaches. I mean, what are Zero's tendencies, beside playing an overwhelmingly better game than everyone else?

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

I'm just going to come out and say it ban Diddy.

 

[Shaya]

ZeRo has the best reaction speed I've seen in this game thus far.
Nairo, Ally and Tyrant are known for their amazing reactions but ZeRo has tended to blow them all out of the water in that regard.

You'll know what I mean if you ever have him dash grab through moves you swear to god are still active. Try double diddy down tilt roll against him and see what happens (he's the guy who invented it anyway but still).
"Listen, in my country, that move is too slow to be viable" *qq-ZSS jab*

Actually it's all ZeRo's fault I stopped using down tilt on ZSS at all because the move just isn't safe enough against his reactions. It took me a really long time to realise I don't need to respect other players like him and have been enjoying down tilting lesser peons ever since.

 

[Locke 06]

Honestly a lot of them are. The number of moves that are "strict upgrades" is fairly small, whereas the matchup-specific stuff is far more prevalent IMO. I may be bringing Kong Cyclone against almost everyone, but I'm bringing Hot Slap if I'm against a Kirby or other floaties over normal Ground Slam.

The amount of customs that are strict upgrades is very small. Every custom is designed with some sort of drawback, and the only reason that a "optimal" custom comes up sometimes is that the drawback is minor compared to the reward. Even the really really good customs like Dark Fists and Kong Cyclone have drawbacks (loss of a grab + lower speed and less damage respectively). It's just that what they get from these customs is so much greater than what's taken away.

Snip

Yes, every custom is designed with some sort of drawback. Doesn't mean it's not an upgrade or an "almost strict upgrade." Also, factor in the customs that are "almost strict downgrades," since that makes the other choices (default included) "almost strict upgrade(s)" and there are quite a few. I guess I should have just said "specials" instead of "customs" and from now on I'll be replacing customs with specials in my terminology. Also, I said more and less not stating how many I believe are "almost strict upgrades." To be honest, I think 1 "strict upgrade" (HSB) is too much.
[collapse=off topic]@ NairWizard I know you said you wouldn't take HSB to Rosalina & MM because Luma & lemons stop HSB and allow for a punish... but HSB is still really good in advantage/juggle situations and it's not that bad for recovery... While this may be a matchup specific thing more than that, I'm curious to know your thought process[/collapse]

When I look at the EVO sets and see a single special slot not change for at 9 or 10/11 sets, I see that as an "almost strict upgrade." I'm not going to go in and count... but out of the hundreds of special moves (624), I imagine there are at least 15 specials that dominate their slot.

This isn't a "I hate customs." Just an "I wish" with regards to the "omg jank" conversation that was going on. Although if people pay attention to my posts, they'll realize where I stand with customs.

 

[Minordeth]

FWIW, Dabuz finally did what I said he should have done back at Apex: go Rosalina for Diddy. Yes, it's not an advantageous MU, but Rosa (especially with customs) has more viable options than Olimar in this MU.

 

[19_]

I didn't catch this earlier. But yeah, he has some predictable patterns, especially in his shield pressure (SH>Fast fall>Nair). He does this even with his secondaries, like Greninja (which he also plays brilliantly). I think if he had the drive like Zero does, he could be a contender for top player, but in the meantime, he is advancing the Fox and even the Greninja metagame quite a bit. He has the adaptation of Zero, without quite the variety in approaches. I mean, what are Zero's tendencies, beside playing an overwhelmingly better game than everyone else?

ZeRo has the best reaction speed I've seen in this game thus far.
Nairo, Ally and Tyrant are known for their amazing reactions but ZeRo has tended to blow them all out of the water in that regard.

You'll know what I mean if you ever have him dash grab through moves you swear to god are still active. Try double diddy down tilt roll against him and see what happens (he's the guy who invented it anyway but still).
"Listen, in my country, that move is too slow to be viable" *qq-ZSS jab*

I am pretty sure Zero has COMPLETE control of his character. Playing Diddy to him is probably as simple as breathing (Seriously look at his movement in matches its insane) and with that completely mastered all he needs to worry about are mind games. With techskill set to autopilot mind games are the only thing he HAS to think about.


This is why he adapts so fast: he knows how to play the game and everyone else (myself included) does not.

 

[Dre89]

ZeRo has the best reaction speed I've seen in this game thus far.
Nairo, Ally and Tyrant are known for their amazing reactions but ZeRo has tended to blow them all out of the water in that regard.

You'll know what I mean if you ever have him dash grab through moves you swear to god are still active. Try double diddy down tilt roll against him and see what happens (he's the guy who invented it anyway but still).
"Listen, in my country, that move is too slow to be viable" *qq-ZSS jab*

Actually it's all ZeRo's fault I stopped using down tilt on ZSS at all because the move just isn't safe enough against his reactions. It took me a really long time to realise I don't need to respect other players like him and have been enjoying down tilting lesser peons ever since.

I used to try and be technical and approach with nana mix ups. Now after watching Zero a bit I decided to copy him and just run at people and spam SH fair and occasionally do dash and pivot grabs. I've had so much more success that way. So now I'm basically Zero, minus all the skill and results(and money).

Zero's reaction speed and fundamentals are insanely good, but I do kinda hope that the meta advances enough that Diddys are forced to go beyond just spamming SH fair and having solid fundamentals. Diddy has so much tech and growth potential it's ridiculous but none of it is necessary ATM.

 

[NairWizard]

ZeRo has the best reaction speed I've seen in this game thus far.
Nairo, Ally and Tyrant are known for their amazing reactions but ZeRo has tended to blow them all out of the water in that regard.

You'll know what I mean if you ever have him dash grab through moves you swear to god are still active. Try double diddy down tilt roll against him and see what happens (he's the guy who invented it anyway but still).
"Listen, in my country, that move is too slow to be viable" *qq-ZSS jab*

Actually it's all ZeRo's fault I stopped using down tilt on ZSS at all because the move just isn't safe enough against his reactions. It took me a really long time to realise I don't need to respect other players like him and have been enjoying down tilting lesser peons ever since.

This cannot be understated.

A bit of cold hard truth for you folks aspiring to be top-level players: you need top-level reaction time to do that. There is no top player that does not have good reaction time (not even mew2king, no; his reaction time may be worse than that of other top players but it is still significantly above average). No matter how smart you play or how good your knowledge of the game is, you're still not going to be able to consistently beat other top players (and even many high-level players) without a great reaction time. Reaction time is the single most important factor in fighting games.

That said, there are certain tactics you can use to sharpen your reaction time: there are cues you can train yourself to look for, and you can move your eyes in anticipation of reacting (for example, always keep your eyes trained on your opponent; memorize your own character's patterns so that you never have to look at your character at all, focus 100% on the other character during a match--this will allow you to react a lot faster).

 

[Dre89]

This cannot be understated.

A bit of cold hard truth for you folks aspiring to be top-level players: you need top-level reaction time to do that. There is no top player that does not have good reaction time (not even mew2king, no; his reaction time may be worse than that of other top players but it is still significantly above average). No matter how smart you play or how good your knowledge of the game is, you're still not going to be able to consistently beat other top players (and even many high-level players) without a great reaction time. Reaction time is the single most important factor in fighting games.

That said, there are certain tactics you can use to sharpen your reaction time: there are cues you can train yourself to look for, and you can move your eyes in anticipation of reacting (for example, always keep your eyes trained on your opponent; memorize your own character's patterns so that you never have to look at your character at all, focus 100% on the other character during a match--this will allow you to react a lot faster).

Whilst this is true, I think it's less true for lesser characters like heavies. To be a top level heavy, you still need above-average reactions, but reactions probably aren't as important for optimising heavies as they are for someone like Diddy. This is because you're anticipating rather than reacting most of the time due to your slower options. You also can't punish as much stuff, which means in many of the situations where reactions are important for a Diddy to get a punish, it's not that important for the heavy because the punish was never on for them anyway.

This is why I've always said when you play a heavy against good players with mobile characters nearly every hit you land is virtually a hard read. You need to anticipate their option so far in advance a lot of time.

Again please don't interpret this as me saying 'fast reactions aren't important for heavies at a high level'.

 

[webbedspace]

I'm just going to come out and say it ban Diddy.

I'm just going to come out and say it: unban Kongo Jungle 64.

 

[HeroMystic]

What region do you live in that has KJ64 banned?

 

[Dre89]

I'm just going to come out and say it: unban Kongo Jungle 64.

Is it banned in doubles?

And Diddy is nowhere near bannable status because he's nowhere near MK level. Unlike MK, who has no bad match ups, Diddy has evenish to negative match ups. Also Diddy doesn't single-handedly stop multiple stages being legal and force rules to be made purely to nerf his capability. Seriously, we already have Zero's Falcon taking out other high level Diddys and Diddy is a really bad MU for Falcon. Diddy is already losing positive MUs at a high level play so calling for a ban is just outright ridiculous.

Not that it matters, but this honestly makes the anti MK ban contingent look so much better. Before Sm4sh came out, the pro ban contingent was respectable because they made a good case for MK being over-centralising. But now with this Diddy and custom saga the Sm4sh community has just tainted it's integrity because it's clear now that people will cry ban for any character that's dominating or any mechanic that takes more than a few days to discover a counter for.

 

[webbedspace]

FWIW, Dabuz finally did what I said he should have done back at Apex: go Rosalina for Diddy. Yes, it's not an advantageous MU, but Rosa (especially with customs) has more viable options than Olimar in this MU.

Well, give him credit: customs Rosa is not the same as no-customs Rosa.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Is it banned in doubles?

And Diddy is nowhere near bannable status because he's nowhere near MK level. Unlike MK, who has no bad match ups, Diddy has evenish to negative match ups. Also Diddy doesn't single-handedly stop multiple stages being legal and force rules to be made purely to nerf his capability. Seriously, we already have Zero's Falcon taking out other high level Diddys and Diddy is a really bad MU for Falcon. Diddy is already losing positive MUs at a high level play so calling for a ban is just outright ridiculous.

Not that it matters, but this honestly makes the anti MK ban contingent look so much better. Before Sm4sh came out, the pro ban contingent was respectable because they made a good case for MK being over-centralising. But now with this Diddy and custom saga the Sm4sh community has just tainted it's integrity because it's clear now that people will cry ban for any character that's dominating or any mechanic that takes more than a few days to discover a counter for.

Guy with diddy avatar not for a diddy ban......color me surprised. That aside what stage is someone taking diddy where he doesn't out perform their character? I'm not sure how anyone can watch Zero vs dabuz GF and say yeah that's acceptable. What are these negative MU s ? I don't see them. I honestly would love to know the cool down on some of his mov3s it's rather absurd. Your best bet is to play on a neutral and hope you significantly outplay your opponent.

 

[Dre89]

Guy with diddy avatar not for a diddy ban......color me surprised. That aside what stage is someone taking diddy where he doesn't out perform their character? I'm not sure how anyone can watch Zero vs dabuz GF and say yeah that's acceptable. What are these negative MU s ? I don't see them. I honestly would love to know the cool down on some of his mov3s it's rather absurd. Your best bet is to play on a neutral and hope you significantly outplay your opponent.

Sheik, Pika, Pacman, Luigi, and Villager all have the tools to beat him. Others like Mario may lose slightly but can still win at the highest level. Pacman may seem like an odd choice, but alongside his zoning game hydrant nullifies Diddy's grab and nana game, as well forcing him to fullhop fairs instead of shorthop them.

I find it funny how you're asking for Diddy's weaker MU's when he's already losing good MUs at the highest level of play. Zero's Falcon basically proves that the meta is not at the point where you auto-lose if you pick a negative MU into Diddy at the highest level of play.

 

[Jaxas]

Sheik, Pika, Pacman, Luigi, and Villager all have the tools to beat him. Others like Mario may lose slightly but can still win at the highest level. Pacman may seem like an odd choice, but alongside his zoning game hydrant nullifies Diddy's grab and nana game, as well forcing him to fullhop fairs instead of shorthop them.

I find it funny how you're asking for Diddy's weaker MU's when he's already losing good MUs at the highest level of play. Zero's Falcon basically proves that the meta is not at the point where you auto-lose if you pick a negative MU into Diddy at the highest level of play.

Didn't we just spend the last page discussing that ZeRo seems to be way ahead of everyone else, to the point where character picks matter a lot less with him?

Also, I agree that Diddy has no reason to be banned; he's just extremely good. That doesn't mean that people actually beat him; Sheik is the only one I can actually see potentially going even with him, almost entirely because of her gimp game. Pikachu I have no idea about, though, nor Pac-man.

Luigi beats standard "Hoo Haa" Diddy's because when Diddy charges in for a grab, it's exactly where Luigi wants him. A Diddy (with percent lead) chucking peanuts and bananas, and more importantly walling with Fairs and spaced Dtilts, is not something Luigi wants to have to face, from what I've seen.

Villager... what? Does Villager actually have a good MU against Diddy? I'd actually be fairly surprised if so

 

[NairWizard]

I find it funny how you're asking for Diddy's weaker MU's when he's already losing good MUs at the highest level of play. Zero's Falcon basically proves that the meta is not at the point where you auto-lose if you pick a negative MU into Diddy at the highest level of play.

Not taking sides on the Diddy ban issue, but I have to say: ZeRo's Falcon proved no such thing. ZeRo only proved that a ZeRo-level Falcon can beat a Denti-level Diddy.

Could ZeRo's Falcon beat ZeRo's Diddy?

Willing to bet that the answer is no, or not consistently.

 

[HeroMystic]

I honestly don't care for any speculation without U-throw > U-air taken into account.

 

[NairWizard]

No matter your stance on the Diddy ban, if you think that Diddy has any even MUs or MUs that he loses, you are in denial. The Diddy meta is exploding; up-throw up-air, pivot grabs, side-b into crawl-back d-tilt (both ZeRo and MVD were using this a lot)... Diddy is leaps and bounds ahead right now.

He is 55:45 or better vs. every character in the game.

Pikachu, Sheik, Pacman, Megaman, Luigi, Villager... they are all -1 or worse vs. Diddy, at this moment in time.
Pikachu may have gimps but he can't DI out of up-throw.
Pacman may have hydrant but he doesn't have the KO power out of a throw or the mobility to keep up. Diddy doesn't care about being forced to fullhop when he has a frame-3 aerial escape option.
Luigi may have great grab reward but he still has horrible aerial mobility and gets walled out by f-air.
and so on down the line

Don't be a meta denier. This is the reality right now. Even I (who used to strongly believe that Pikachu and Sheik beat Diddy) have accepted that. Diddy is a lot more than just dashgrab + f-air, and he is showing it.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Sheik, Pika, Pacman, Luigi, and Villager all have the tools to beat him. Others like Mario may lose slightly but can still win at the highest level. Pacman may seem like an odd choice, but alongside his zoning game hydrant nullifies Diddy's grab and nana game, as well forcing him to fullhop fairs instead of shorthop them.

I find it funny how you're asking for Diddy's weaker MU's when he's already losing good MUs at the highest level of play. Zero's Falcon basically proves that the meta is not at the point where you auto-lose if you pick a negative MU into Diddy at the highest level of play.

Or it proves Zeeo beat someone that's not as good as him with a lesser character. Honestly, think diddy's going to kill this game. Way faster thsn MK killed brawl.

 

[Dre89]

Or it proves Zeeo beat someone that's not as good as him with a lesser character.

Exactly

Even at the highest level of play ie. where the top players are at you can still win with lesser characters if you're the better player

Zero's Diddy has also dropped games against non-Diddys too

It's pretty clear at this point that Diddy doesn't invalidate player skill. Being the better player still matters more than being Diddy.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

I honestly don't care for any speculation without U-throw > U-air taken into account.

What's the skinny on this, anyways? Guaranteed low-% kill? Guaranteed with bad DI? How does this one work?

 

[NairWizard]

Exactly

Even at the highest level of play ie. where the top players are at you can still win with lesser characters if you're the better player

Zero's Diddy has also dropped games against non-Diddys too

It's pretty clear at this point that Diddy doesn't invalidate player skill. Being the better player still matters more than being Diddy.

This argument doesn't work. Matchup imbalance has never been about better players losing to worse players, especially when "better" means better by a wide margin, as in the case of ZeRo.

In Brawl, Ally's Snake consistently beat high-level MKs. How many MKs beat Ally at all? I can name them on one hand (mew2king, Anti, Nairo, ZeRo were pretty much it, and Nairo usually lost). You aren't going to sit here and tell me that Meta Knight's matchups weren't imbalanced, are you? The Snake matchup was definitely not even or in Snake's favor.

Matchup imbalance means only that given two players of equal skill, the player with the advantaged character will consistently win. The greater the imbalance, the more consistent that win is.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Exactly

Even at the highest level of play ie. where the top players are at you can still win with lesser characters if you're the better player

Zero's Diddy has also dropped games against non-Diddys too

It's pretty clear at this point that Diddy doesn't invalidate player skill. Being the better player still matters more than being Diddy.

......w/e you say man.

 

[Dre89]

No matter your stance on the Diddy ban, if you think that Diddy has any even MUs or MUs that he loses, you are in denial. The Diddy meta is exploding; up-throw up-air, pivot grabs, side-b into crawl-back d-tilt (both ZeRo and MVD were using this a lot)... Diddy is leaps and bounds ahead right now.

He is 55:45 or better vs. every character in the game.

Pikachu, Sheik, Pacman, Megaman, Luigi, Villager... they are all -1 or worse vs. Diddy, at this moment in time.
Pikachu may have gimps but he can't DI out of up-throw.
Pacman may have hydrant but he doesn't have the KO power out of a throw or the mobility to keep up. Diddy doesn't care about being forced to fullhop when he has a frame-3 aerial escape option.
Luigi may have great grab reward but he still has horrible aerial mobility and gets walled out by f-air.
and so on down the line

Don't be a meta denier. This is the reality right now. Even I (who used to strongly believe that Pikachu and Sheik beat Diddy) have accepted that. Diddy is a lot more than just dashgrab + f-air, and he is showing it.

You realise Pikachu is actually more mobile than Diddy with QACs, can force him to approach, and actually does more percent to Diddy with combos than Diddy can do back to him? This is ontop of having an excellent gimp game on him. He's also really hard for Diddy to SH fair because of his low hurtbox. The two things Diddy has over Pika is that Pika can't directly contest his aerials (he has to punish them instead) and Diddy kills earlier onstage (which is sorta cancelled out by the fact that Pika gimps him easily). It's a close MU but it's winnable for Pika.

Villager's tree nullifies grab and nanas. He's also incredibly good at gimping Diddy because his kit specifically counters all of Diddy's recovery mix ups. He has a reliable answer for every single one and doesn't have to commit early to a gimp option if he knows what he's doing. I'd call it a soft counter, or at least slightly favourable for Villager if I'm being conservative.

Luigi I don't know too much about but I've just heard from a lot of people he does well.

Pacman I said was even because in theory he has the tools to shutdown Diddy's game and proceed to kill him after 100% with apple frametraps and bell set ups. It's hard to carry out because he has a low margin for error against Diddy but he does have the tools for it.

In terms of being a meta denier, what the meta is telling us is that Diddy is the best character. It also tells us that given top Diddys have lost games to non-Diddys, being the better player still matters more than being Diddy.

 

[Bjurrse]

Hoping Mewtwo will be a Diddy killer :o).

The monkey boy has fast attacks, little end lag, is really fast, hits like a truck, insane knockback,easy combos(that kills), great specials(a tripping tool and an excellent command grab).

I used to believe he had a bad recovery, but honestly it does not seem that way anymore. It is really hard to just knock of the barrels and even if its not the best of recoveries, it certainly does not make him bad when he has EVERYTHING else going for him...

Banning him would be silly though, as would banning customs.

 

[Dre89]

This argument doesn't work. Matchup imbalance has never been about better players losing to worse players, especially when "better" means better by a wide margin, as in the case of ZeRo.

In Brawl, Ally's Snake consistently beat high-level MKs. How many MKs beat Ally at all? I can name them on one hand (mew2king, Anti, Nairo, ZeRo were pretty much it, and Nairo usually lost). You aren't going to sit here and tell me that Meta Knight's matchups weren't imbalanced, are you? The Snake matchup was definitely not even or in Snake's favor.

Matchup imbalance means only that given two players of equal skill, the player with the advantaged character will consistently win. The greater the imbalance, the more consistent that win is.

MU imbalance just means that some characters are better than others. MK's MU imbalance was worse than Diddy's because he had no rough MUs and unlike Diddy doesn't have an exploitable weakness.

For a character to be bannable they have to be so overpowering that being the character matters more than being the better player. Or they have to be so overcentralising that multiple stages have to be banned and multiple rules have to be made to nerf them.

Diddy ticks neither box. He's currently the best character in the game, but top level results show that being the better player is more important than being Diddy.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I think it's clear that in the current metagame Diddy Kong is the best character and that a clear counter does not exist yet. Saying something like "he beats everyone at least 55-45" is really pre-mature though; a lot of Diddy's match-ups have yet to have time to really develop. I've certainly heard it suggested Mii Brawler does even or better and from what I've seen could believe it, but since Mii Brawler is extremely poorly explored (small Mii Brawler has barely even seen play anywhere as of now!), who knows? Even Miis aside, I have lots of theory fighter reasons to believe Peach and Jigglypuff should do pretty okay here, but these MUs just haven't been fleshed out yet as those two characters haven't been very popular in the early metagame. Even someone like Luigi who has been popular and explored has angles that are just now developing; there's a lot of reason to believe Ice Balls really help Luigi here, but how fully fleshed out is that aspect of Luigi's game since so many regions are just starting to allow customs? If we go full custom with what no one has touched yet, how well does Volatile Breathing used correctly allow Wii Fit Trainer to escape Diddy's throw combos that seem to be his core defining strength, and what does that mean for the match-up?

To extend the Brawl MK analogy, let's think about where MK was at this point in Brawl's metagame, just shy of 6 months in. MK was just starting to assert himself as the best character, and we still had a lot of avenues along which people suspected he might lose or otherwise be disadvantaged. It turned out that absolutely none of those panned out, but if they had, everything would have been different. It was more like a year into Brawl's lifespan that MK was a much more clear problem, and conveniently for this game, about a year in will be the point at which we'll be able to be pretty sure if a balance patch is ever going to happen. For now there's just too much in this game we really don't understand, honestly a lot more than we didn't understand at this point in Brawl since 6 months into Brawl we had already concluded half of a 39 character cast pretty much sucked and we had nothing like customs to contend with. In this game, we can write off maybe 10 characters at the most out of a 52 character roster (one of which isn't even possible to select yet!) and every character has 81 versions we have to think about...

In terms of the cultural effects, there reached a point where the mains of a majority of characters were convinced dropping their main for MK was the smart, necessary thing to do which was also about the point that over half of the community played MK as at least a secondary if not an outright main. Right now Diddy is a fairly popular character with many Diddy mains seeing success; relatively few players are feeling the need to join the Diddy bandwagon, and it certainly does not seem to be the case that a non-Diddy main can quickly pick him up and improve their tournament performance right now. If that changes, we'll talk, but until that's the situation, I think ban talk only hurts us.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Sakurai: "Diddy? Whatever man as long as Smash Tour is balanced it's all good. Btw lets nerf Greninja."

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

I think it's clear that in the current metagame Diddy Kong is the best character and that a clear counter does not exist yet. Saying something like "he beats everyone at least 55-45" is really pre-mature though; a lot of Diddy's match-ups have yet to have time to really develop. I've certainly heard it suggested Mii Brawler does even or better and from what I've seen could believe it, but since Mii Brawler is extremely poorly explored (small Mii Brawler has barely even seen play anywhere as of now!), who knows? Even Miis aside, I have lots of theory fighter reasons to believe Peach and Jigglypuff should do pretty okay here, but these MUs just haven't been fleshed out yet as those two characters haven't been very popular in the early metagame. Even someone like Luigi who has been popular and explored has angles that are just now developing; there's a lot of reason to believe Ice Balls really help Luigi here, but how fully fleshed out is that aspect of Luigi's game since so many regions are just starting to allow customs? If we go full custom with what no one has touched yet, how well does Volatile Breathing used correctly allow Wii Fit Trainer to escape Diddy's throw combos that seem to be his core defining strength, and what does that mean for the match-up?

To extend the Brawl MK analogy, let's think about where MK was at this point in Brawl's metagame, just shy of 6 months in. MK was just starting to assert himself as the best character, and we still had a lot of avenues along which people suspected he might lose or otherwise be disadvantaged. It turned out that absolutely none of those panned out, but if they had, everything would have been different. It was more like a year into Brawl's lifespan that MK was a much more clear problem, and conveniently for this game, about a year in will be the point at which we'll be able to be pretty sure if a balance patch is ever going to happen. For now there's just too much in this game we really don't understand, honestly a lot more than we didn't understand at this point in Brawl since 6 months into Brawl we had already concluded half of a 39 character cast pretty much sucked and we had nothing like customs to contend with. In this game, we can write off maybe 10 characters at the most out of a 52 character roster (one of which isn't even possible to select yet!) and every character has 81 versions we have to think about...

In terms of the cultural effects, there reached a point where the mains of a majority of characters were convinced dropping their main for MK was the smart, necessary thing to do which was also about the point that over half of the community played MK as at least a secondary if not an outright main. Right now Diddy is a fairly popular character with many Diddy mains seeing success; relatively few players are feeling the need to join the Diddy bandwagon, and it certainly does not seem to be the case that a non-Diddy main can quickly pick him up and improve their tournament performance right now. If that changes, we'll talk, but until that's the situation, I think ban talk only hurts us.

There's already a crap ton of diddy's and there's still some extremely strong players who don't play Diddy. If the switch to diddy it's basically a wrap. You can kiss this game goodbye. Just look at different regions and try to find a region without a diddy destroying locals.

 

[Sinister Slush]

What's the skinny on this, anyways? Guaranteed low-% kill? Guaranteed with bad DI? How does this one work?

Doesn't matter how you DI, it's guaranteed. As for when it no longer gets you hit by Uair or kill %'s for characters no idea on that. Just know it's more reliable than Dthrow into uair to kill someone in say 80% range.

Also oh no, Dre arguing Pika goes even against Diddy.
This is just like Brawl with ESAM and Tagz saying Pika was even with MK.

Please no, the nightmares are coming back...

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

There's already a crap ton of diddy's and there's still some extremely strong players who don't play Diddy. If the switch to diddy it's basically a wrap. You can kiss this game goodbye. Just look at different regions and try to find a region without a diddy destroying locals.

Oh, you mean top players will pick good characters? "Quick, let's ban a character who's not a problem before he can turn into a problem!" If a game is good, it'll survive the existence of a clear "best" character. See also: Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, every single iteration of Street Fighter 4, Street Fighter Third Strike, Mortal Kombat 9, Injustice, every single smash game, almost every single fighting game ever.

 

[ZarroTsu]

I simply hope there's a change to Diddy's repertoire to put holes in his current move set. Everything he has is technically fine, it's an issue of speed, mobility, and lack of endlag on many of his moves. Like ****, the biggest thing I saw on-stream the other day (and to clarify, not that I haven't experienced it, but this was on a silver platter) was when Diddy whiffed a dash grab, he still wins because his endlag is over before you can react to the whiffed dash grab it's BS. Maybe I need new eyeballs.

Fair nerfs off the top of my head: (1) make Uair's animation continue slightly so Diddy spins around a bit after his kick, making it much harder to Uair someone 3 times in a row. (2) Have Diddy pause in the air during his Side-B if he shifts it to a kick, so the other player can actually react to it. (3) Make his whiffed grab more punishable I mean seriously can someone get the lag frames on this thing compared to other grabs?

I mean honestly the biggest problem I've seen is the inability to punish Diddy at all unless the other player is on autopilot and playing predictably. It stops being fun the moment I see an opening only to get punished for thinking I saw an opening on Diddy Kong, for daring to punish Diddy Kong. This has the effect of drawing the match out an extra 3 minutes because I learn I can't punish him and he can punish my attempts at punishes. Again, maybe I need new eyeballs.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Somehow missed this

To extend the Brawl MK analogy, let's think about where MK was at this point in Brawl's metagame, just shy of 6 months in. MK was just starting to assert himself as the best character, and we still had a lot of avenues along which people suspected he might lose or otherwise be disadvantaged. It turned out that absolutely none of those panned out, but if they had, everything would have been different. It was more like a year into Brawl's lifespan that MK was a much more clear problem, and conveniently for this game, about a year in will be the point at which we'll be able to be pretty sure if a balance patch is ever going to happen. For now there's just too much in this game we really don't understand, honestly a lot more than we didn't understand at this point in Brawl since 6 months into Brawl we had already concluded half of a 39 character cast pretty much sucked and we had nothing like customs to contend with. In this game, we can write off maybe 10 characters at the most out of a 52 character roster (one of which isn't even possible to select yet!) and every character has 81 versions we have to think about...

I wanted to extend a bit on this myself on what our state (or at least city in Houston and most likely SA will follow suite while Dallas will continue it's sheepish ways and follow APEX or whatever popular ruleset is being used) will do.
Almost 5 months in and we all already see a resurgence of Diddy everywhere and even players who never won anything or even had a name for themselves now becoming popular due to Diddy.

While customs honestly just extend that time limit from 1 year to maybe a couples months, the fact Vanilla Diddy has won multiple custom tournaments without using any is troublesome. Showing that he doesn't even need more jank to beat other silly things in the game when customs are allowed. Jtailz only went Pika and pressed B for the 5 minute time limit cause he felt like it, he said he felt comfortable with going Diddy too but he wanted to be sure if pressing B and never fighting like custom villager did was effective or not.

What Xyro's going to do is once it's either October or November, he's most likely gonna ban diddy if nothing changes during those months.
50+ characters with customs on or not, if Vanilla Diddy wins EVO and continues his reign spreading the empire even more that's not gonna make him look any better. Or surprisingly if Mewtwo becomes a counter lol

As for MK, it took I believe 2011ish for Olimar's to appear and scare them the 1st time and near the end of Brawl's lifespan for IC to rise and scare MK mains a bit for the 2nd time. So do we gotta wait 3 to 4 years for an answer to deal with Diddy better?
Is this all gonna be another MK incident?

 

[Luco]

Customs makes life so much easier. At least for us. Lasting PK Thunder is one custom which I believe can severely change this MU and actually make Diddy's recovery incredibly vulnerable. We can also challenge his aerials with dat Fair, and having a good grab game with combos and killpower makes our objectives surprisingly similar (we're used to the 'don't get grabbed' mentality from our tear-jerking history, which may not change the MU theoretically but is a funny point to mention )

I'm excited to see the vs MU played out more at high level in a customs on environment.

I'm seeing more and more people getting worried about Diddy as time goes by. I doubt he'll be nearly as oppressive as MK, and a ban is unwarranted should that remain the case. However his power in tournaments should be monitored heavily whilst we transition to a customs on meta and the addition of Mewtwo and whatever balance patches may or may not arrive at that time, if at all (if not then it's one less change to the overall meta to consider, if so then more potential options to beat out the monkey probably).

Reaction speed is something I like to think people get better with over time and playing people, and is part of the process of becoming a high level player more than a requirement for it. I'm sure my reaction time has improved significantly since I joined in 2011, and I highly doubt it's pure co-incidence that gamers' reaction times are on average 5 frames faster than the regular person.

 

[David Viran]

I simply hope there's a change to Diddy's repertoire to put holes in his current move set. Everything he has is technically fine, it's an issue of speed, mobility, and lack of endlag on many of his moves. Like ****, the biggest thing I saw on-stream the other day (and to clarify, not that I haven't experienced it, but this was on a silver platter) was when Diddy whiffed a dash grab, he still wins because his endlag is over before you can react to the whiffed dash grab it's BS. Maybe I need new eyeballs.

Fair nerfs off the top of my head: (1) make Uair's animation continue slightly so Diddy spins around a bit after his kick, making it much harder to Uair someone 3 times in a row. (2) Have Diddy pause in the air during his Side-B if he shifts it to a kick, so the other player can actually react to it. (3) Make his whiffed grab more punishable I mean seriously can someone get the lag frames on this thing compared to other grabs?

I mean honestly the biggest problem I've seen is the inability to punish Diddy at all unless the other player is on autopilot and playing predictably. It stops being fun the moment I see an opening only to get punished for thinking I saw an opening on Diddy Kong, for daring to punish Diddy Kong. This has the effect of drawing the match out an extra 3 minutes because I learn I can't punish him and he can punish my attempts at punishes. Again, maybe I need new eyeballs.

ZSS can get a utilt or jab possibly on Diddy grab.