Character Competitive Impressions

[Smog Frog]

just gonna say yall gettin WAYYY too scared of diddy being another mk lol, diddy doesnt have the cast-invalidating options to be on the level of godtier that mk was.

the closest thing diddy has to a mach tornado is fair, and it isnt anywhere near that

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Let me know when you guys are done talking about Diddy. This conversation is literally getting us nowhere.

 

[GeneralLedge]

To be fair a conversation about any character and his/her flaws or lackthereof will get us nowhere. What's there to discuss, anyway?

Let's talk about Mewtwo. Tomorrow's the big day.

 

[thehard]

Let me know when you guys are done talking about Diddy. This conversation is literally getting us nowhere.

Is there an end goal for this thread?

I liked how LT used Battering Banana on stream yesterday to juggle Will's DK; that's a character that almost never wants to be in the air. Default Banana -> f-smash is less useful on a big guy like DK, as well. I think we wrote that one off too soon. Another cool thing about it is that it can still serve as stage-control, you get popped up if you step on it all the same. PLUS, I think Diddy would prefer getting hit up into the air over tripping if his opponent manages to grab the peel. You could probably snipe someone that tries rushing you with an up-air. JC glide tosses into up-air? Hoo-Hah into u-air into aerial Battering Banana (into Rocketbarrel Attack)? This thing has to have uses.

Also I want to see someone do a Monkey Flip -> Wavebounced Exploding Popgun as the hardest of reads/edgeguard

 

[Smog Frog]

how would mewtwo fare if just ripped straight from melee? i feel that melee was too offensively focused for mewtwo to succeed. thoughts?

e: mewtwo is very likely not dropping tomorrow. however, if patterns do in fact repeat themselves, we'll have a date either today or tomorrow.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Let's talk about Mewtwo. Tomorrow's the big day.

How.
31st is just when you can't enter smash wii u and 3ds anymore to get free Mewtwo. "Spring" of 2015 is still until the end of May.

 

[webbedspace]

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.

Smash@Xanadu has a Luigi destroying locals, whose usual GF rival is a Sonic main. That's, uh, one.

 

[HeavyLobster]

how would mewtwo fare if just ripped straight from melee? i feel that melee was too offensively focused for mewtwo to succeed. thoughts?

e: mewtwo is very likely not dropping tomorrow. however, if patterns do in fact repeat themselves, we'll have a date either today or tomorrow.

Still big, slow, and floaty, and two of his specials just suck. His kill throws and teleport are good, but he'd probably be low tier even if he'd be more viable than in Melee. Mewtwo needs either a speed or weight buff, along with the reworking of a few other tools, before we can really talk about him as a viable character. The odds are not favorable for Mewtwo being an overwhelming character, as Mewtwo's innate flaws are still there and his strengths are not likely to cancel them out, as broken kill throws are the sort of thing that's easily noticeable to pick up on during testing as opposed to stuff like Sheik's safety, which takes a bit more skill to really abuse. Diddy fell through the cracks because he was overshadowed by Rosa with insta-respawning Luma and Sheik with kill moves during the 3DS era, with popgun cancelling jank overshadowing the other problems he posed. I don't think we'll see anything similar with Mewtwo, who lacks Diddy's smaller frame and decent weight as well. Mewtwo might well turn out to be a decent character, but I seriously doubt he'll be a standout competitively who'll remake the meta.

 

[HeroMystic]

Smash@Xanadu has a Luigi destroying locals, whose usual GF rival is a Sonic main. That's, uh, one.

It's actually the Sonic that is destroying their locals.

My locals are getting destroyed by a Fox main (Megafox), whose only competition is a Sonic main.

However, @ Sinister Slush is right. We are getting a resurgance of Diddy mains (and we're getting a lot of Mario mains for some reason). They're being kept down due to pure difference in skill level, but I have a feeling this'll change after a number of months.

It's really frustrating that people are willing to do the same song and dance we did with Brawl MK.

 

[Mr. Johan]

Sometimes I feel that just doubling Diddy's jump squat frames would be enough. It removes the ubiquitous Uair escape/anti-approach option because now it's coming in at 15 frames as opposed to 8. Fair would also be quelled by doing this, and this instantly turns Hoo-Hah into a mindgame.

But I see no problem with editing Monkey Flip so that simply tapping the two buttons gives him just the flip portion, while inputting the move like a Smash Attack like Skull Bash or Levin aerials gives him just the kick with the greater flip distance.

Maybe make Bananas cause slight hitstun if hit anywhere that's not the feet too? I dunno, just stickballing here.

 

[Sinister Slush]

However, Sinister Slush is right. We are getting a resurgance of Diddy mains (and we're getting a lot of Mario mains for some reason). They're being kept down due to pure difference in skill level, but I have a feeling this'll change after a number of months.

It's really frustrating that people are willing to do the same song and dance we did with Brawl MK.

"There's nothing wrong with MK, no need to ban him" -MK player #500,000
Now it's the same story with Diddy.

Nothing says skill then throwing out high priority gigantic hitboxes on frame 4/6 than Fairs Dtilts and Uairs from Diddy while being one of the few to have the best grab data in the game.

 

[GeneralLedge]

The worst thing that could happen in the MT update is if Diddy is untouched and other characters are nerfed. That is the fear in the depth of my heart.

I wonder how much of an impact it would have if Diddy's old banana mechanics returned; specifically, the peel staying out until actually destroyed or the item expires, instead of 'two throws'.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Give Diddy's Uair like 2 extra frames of startup and 6 more frames of cooldown. Also make Fair come out a couple frames later and do 1% less. Maybe make his grabs a bit laggier or something. The rest is fairly manageable.

The worst thing that could happen in the MT update is if Diddy is untouched and other characters are nerfed. That is the fear in the depth of my heart.

Not likely, unless Japan's view of Diddy is substantially different from ours. Even if Diddy were left untouched I wouldn't shed a tear if Timber Counter's duration were reduced, though nerfing Sheik or other top characters without toning Diddy down is insanity.

 

[LiteralGrill]

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

Well I'd like to call to the stand one of the best Villager players I know, @Villyness (V) on this one. She managed to take a game off of Zero at one point, and gets to face off against probably the best Smash 4 players in all of Australia and a Diddy main Tibs. V if you see this, I figure you'd be perfect to talk on this matchup.

 

[Antonykun]

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.

Tree may beat Diddys keepaway it really doesn't matter as diddy can just sit at Villager's blindspot and throw f-air and d-tilt and Villager can't challenge that very well.

 

[thehard]

Hey guys guess who's Top 3

 

[Sinister Slush]

Guess who's saying it.
Mew2king!!!

 

[mimgrim]

Ness is going to forever be the bane of M2K rofl.

He said something very similar about Ness in version 3.02 of Project M (because he didn't realize that Ness' Dair was a meteor, and thus could be canceled, and thought it was a spike instead).

Pretty much any character he loses to is a top tier. As soon as he figures out how to beat the character they lose that status. Just the kind of person he is, and he probably gets ragged on a little too much about it but eh.

 

[Blobface]

To be completely honest, the only thing I might nerf about Diddy is the range of his attacks. Diddy to me seems to be based around the idea of a character that's both strong and fast, but his range makes it too much. His long range allows him to put out considerably too much shield pressure, and with Diddy, we all know where that goes. If Diddy actually had to work to get in because he could be spaced out, he'd be considerably less dominating.

With that said, I really don't mind having Diddy as our strongest character. Diddy doesn't cheese you out with insane amounts of safety or ridiculous edgeguards. He's not a very polarizing character; he doesn't invalidate anyone, he just has a slight advantage across the entire cast. Diddy's matchup spread is probably mostly 55:45's with a few 40:60's and 50:50's spread around it.

Let's also not forget that no matter how hard we try to balance, there will always be a "strongest character". If we nerf Diddy too much without nerfing Sheik, we'll create a game where the strongest character is one of the most polarizing. If you look at the usage statistics, usage is pretty even across the cast outside of the top 10. This is a good thing and we should keep it.

 

[Funen1]

The almighty M2K asking for help on a matchup? Who da thunk it? :V

In all seriousness, were these matches recorded? It would certainly help to see what both players were doing throughout their matches. I already know to take some things M2K says with a grain of salt, but to be somewhat fair, Diddy is also generally not considered Ness' worst matchup (either even or -1 depending on who you talk to). Most likely that's where M2K got the idea Ness is so good.

 

[GeneralLedge]

With how balanced the rest of the cast is, the stand-outishness of the 'strongest character', regardless of who it may be, is questionable.

There can be a character easy to play or low risk/high reward, but that character shouldn't dominate the entire cast. That's ludicrous. There needs to be at least a few hard counters to every character, so that in the event where someone smug thinks they can win a tournament set by switching to Diddy, someone else can switch to the hard counter, instead of the same character. Or hell, MAIN that hard counter so nobody who fights you can switch to Diddy for a free win.

Regardless of if a character is statisticly better or not, stand-outishness should be snuffed by pulling out a character nobody expects and winning as a result. That hasn't happened yet, and it's questionable if it will. Is that a result of a bad character, or bad players?

 

[HeavyLobster]

There needs to be at least a few hard counters to every character, so that in the event where someone smug thinks they can win a tournament set by switching to Diddy, someone else can switch to the hard counter, instead of the same character.

Hard counters shouldn't exist at all. It's unhealthy for the match to be decided at the Character Select Screen, because that defeats the purpose of actually playing the game. Matchups worse than 60-40 in general are thankfully relatively rare in this game, and adding them in as a deliberate design decision would make the game worse from a competitive standpoint.

 

[Bjurrse]

Been playing King Dx3 a lot recently. He is a really fun character to play, but it did not take long until I remembered that the damn gordos get reflected by almost everything .

Even if i don´t care for Diddy, I´d rather they buff weaker characters instead of nerfing him. But hopefully they can tweak him just a little. No little mac or Greninja nerf though, plz. He is an aggresive character afterall! Maybe they could add the option to mute the freaking monkeyscreams.

 

[Dre89]

For people complaining about customs jank-

 

[Gamegenie222]

The almighty M2K asking for help on a matchup? Who da thunk it? :V

In all seriousness, were these matches recorded? It would certainly help to see what both players were doing throughout their matches. I already know to take some things M2K says with a grain of salt, but to be somewhat fair, Diddy is also generally not considered Ness' worst matchup (either even or -1 depending on who you talk to). Most likely that's where M2K got the idea Ness is so good.

I was there at Roll Tier V cause it's in my state and only GF was recorded for smash 4 cause of one of the streamers not showing up along with some other issues.

Here's the match though and commentary is meh as we didn't have our main smash 4 nerds commentating here so it's sloppy. Letting ya know right now.

EDIT: First time posting in here for being a lurker for so long hello.

 

[deepseadiva]

Pretty much any character he loses to is a top tier. As soon as he figures out how to beat the character they lose that status. Just the kind of person he is, and he probably gets ragged on a little too much about it but eh.

There's something to be said for someone who's very own experience with the game is his metric of measurement. Especially valuable when that metric is the person that won the tournaments for every Smash game ever created.

For people complaining about customs jank-

That might be a good Facebook post, but we know Pikachu's Quick Attack elongates and flattens him, resulting in funny things hitting him at certain times.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

For people complaining about customs jank-

Is that...Diddy hitting Pikachu out of Quick Attack from like 10 feet above him with fair?

What the actual ****.

 

[HeroMystic]

Is that...Diddy hitting Pikachu out of Quick Attack from like 10 feet above him with fair?

What the actual ****.

Pikachu's hurtbox extends weirdly during QA. Been a thing ever since Brawl, if not since Melee.

 

[Funen1]

I was there at Roll Tier V cause it's in my state and only GF was recorded for smash 4 cause of one of the streamers not showing up along with some other issues.

Here's the match though and commentary is meh as we didn't have our main smash 4 nerds commentating here so it's sloppy. Letting ya know right now.

Thanks for the video. Didn't know there would have been legitimate streaming issues with Smash 4 over there, but fortunate that GF were recorded at least, no matter who ended up playing. Great stuff from both players, still looked close throughout most of the games. And yeah, I see what you mean about the commentary, but I tend to tune things like that out when watching a match anyway.

Also I like how all the instant replays for the first set were PKT2 kills. People can't seem to get enough of it. :V

For people complaining about customs jank-

When I first saw this I was like "even in death, Snake's up tilt can hit you". Doubt this is really anything to worry about though, based on what others are saying about how QA works.

 

[Conda]

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

Great post, but I have to raise my eye brows at this statement. This is exactly what we've seen. I'm not saying it accounts for a ban or anything, but I definitely would not agree with this specific statement.

 

[Djent]

Hard counters shouldn't exist at all. It's unhealthy for the match to be decided at the Character Select Screen, because that defeats the purpose of actually playing the game.

Yeah, agreed...

Matchups worse than 60-40 in general are thankfully relatively rare in this game, and adding them in as a deliberate design decision would make the game worse from a competitive standpoint.

...but I don't share your optimism WRT matchups. Super lopsided MUs are almost always rare when no one has a clue as to what optimal play entails. But once people figure out what to do (like we're starting to see with ****ty Kong) they start becoming quite frequent. Recall that UMvC3 was "balanced" when it first came out, and now players acknowledge that 4:6 is a "good" Zero MU (new success hack: be a player/character named Zero ).

In fact, I'll bet that this game's top tier (regardless of who ends up being in it) goes 6:4 or better against 80% of the remaining cast. If I'm wrong, I'll be wrong in spite of the history of this series + the trajectory of player opinions so far.

 

[mimgrim]

I'm starting to get tired/bored of Greninja now (Is still the character I have stuck to the longest so far for Smash 4).

Hrmmm. Who to move onto next.

 

[GeneralLedge]

Mii Sword. Get all the future nerfs to Greninja, today!

EDIT: But seriously though, Mii Sword's forum gets like one post a week in its entirety; it's really, really dead and could use some new players

 

[Ffamran]

The worst thing that could happen in the MT update is if Diddy is untouched and other characters are nerfed. That is the fear in the depth of my heart.

I wonder how much of an impact it would have if Diddy's old banana mechanics returned; specifically, the peel staying out until actually destroyed or the item expires, instead of 'two throws'.

Wasn't Diddy buffed from patch 1.03 to 1.04? Someone mentioned this a while ago.

I'm starting to get tired/bored of Greninja now (Is still the character I have stuck to the longest so far for Smash 4).

Hrmmm. Who to move onto next.

Play as Falco! *gets slapped by a giant cactus dipped in rattlesnake venom*

 

[deepseadiva]

Mii Sword. Get all the future nerfs to Greninja, today!

EDIT: But seriously though, Mii Sword's forum gets like one post a week in its entirety; it's really, really dead and could use some new players

You know, I picked her up the other day, and honestly I liked nair a lot.

And also the spinning sword charge blast that flies you across the stage.

 

[mimgrim]

Play as Falco! *gets slapped by a giant cactus dipped in rattlesnake venom*

Too immobile and the lack of SHL or SHDL feels bad (even if it is better game design).

I like Brawl Falco and Melee/PM Falco too much to be able to play Smash 4 Falco comfortably.

 

[Ffamran]

Too immobile and the lack of SHL or SHDL feels bad (even if it is better game design).

I like Brawl Falco and Melee/PM Falco too much to be able to play Smash 4 Falco comfortably.

*goes back to reflect on his life decisions and why he decided to main Falco*

Eh, I liked each game's Falco except PM 'cause I never played it and because I didn't like how he got reverted to Melee Falco instead of combining his best traits in Brawl and Melee to create this awesome character in PM - he kept like only his Brawl Jab combo if I remember correctly. Oh well.

 

[Antonykun]

Hey guys guess who's Top 3

It is now my goal to defeat m2k to the point of him saying SWORDFIGHTER OP.

 

[mimgrim]

*goes back to reflect on his life decisions and why he decided to main Falco*

Eh, I liked each game's Falco except PM 'cause I never played it and because I didn't like how he got reverted to Melee Falco instead of combining his best traits in Brawl and Melee to create this awesome character in PM - he kept like only his Brawl Jab combo if I remember correctly. Oh well.

To be fair Project M started out as a case of "can we give Brawl Falco Melee Shine" soooooo... yea (Melee Shine is still a horribly designed move though). Also a lot of his Brawl stuff his inferior to his Melee stuff in a more Melee like environment (Melee Dair is more superior in every way, and even that has been nerfed (well, it is really more of a design change that can be considered as both a nerf and buff really) as of 3.5, or Melee Nair is too good to pass up) or makes his gameplay a lot more stale (seriously, SHDL on Melee Falco is a scary as all hell thought) or just doesn't really make a difference either way (Brawl Fair and Melee Fair are both bad but Melee Fair probably has more niche uses in general) with the exception being Brawl Jab which is just plain godlike. Plus he does have access to Brawl tech in Project such as RAR, B-reversing, DACUS, and the like (he also use to be able to do that Gatling Combo in 3.02 but not sure if he still can in 3.5) which gives him new flavor from the Melee environment but are criminally underused because the majority of his players in Project M are Melee players and just plain laziness.

 

[Kofu]

Diddy was, IIRC, the only top tier character to not get legitimate nerfs from 1.03 to 1.04, but he was only then starting to gain popularity. He was also helped by the removal of vectoring.

Also, for more QA shenanigans, search for a Boss/Anther match from Brawl.