Character Competitive Impressions

[Smog Frog]

Link is being slept on once more.
Oh, and am I the only one who thinks Rosalina isn't as viable as she seems? Sure, she has great follow-ups with grabs and some decent attacks and combos, but she's a very weak knockback character akin to Sheik, and without Luma, she's powerless (and often people just roll with her until she gets Luma back). Also, her light weight and floatiness, as well as predictable recovery, factor in this.

She seems to be more like a Middle Tier Character. Her weaknesses are very evident and if one exploits them, they will give Rosa a very tough, somewhat unwinnable (for Rosa) time.

yes you are

 

[Locke 06]

Early misconception Villager/Diddy is 45:55 at best

A good Diddy MU is 45:55.
"Pikachu doesn't lose to Diddy too hard" speaks to me as 45:55, which is a good Diddy MU.

This is Diddy, we're talking about.

How does Villager do against Sheik? ZSS? Pika? Yoshi? They all are incredibly mobile with ++ recoveries against bowling balls and slingshots.

 

[Unknownkid]

Is it customs or non customs?

Looks like Custom Tournament. What custom(s) can aid Metaknight against Diddy? HDS?

 

[warionumbah2]

Looks like Custom Tournament. What custom(s) can aid Metaknight against Diddy? HDS?

HSD makes Diddy less dominant in neutral when he has a nana in hand, HSD beats his monkey flip and banana throw but HSD isn't safe on shield so its a gamble. Its better than nothing though.

But he's playing ZeRo so yea... it just had to be Diddy out of all the top tiers. smh demonic spider monkey.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Link is being slept on once more.
Oh, and am I the only one who thinks Rosalina isn't as viable as she seems? Sure, she has great follow-ups with grabs and some decent attacks and combos, but she's a very weak knockback character akin to Sheik, and without Luma, she's powerless (and often people just roll with her until she gets Luma back). Also, her light weight and floatiness, as well as predictable recovery, factor in this.

She seems to be more like a Middle Tier Character. Her weaknesses are very evident and if one exploits them, they will give Rosa a very tough, somewhat unwinnable (for Rosa) time.

She does not have very weak knockback akin to Sheik. Yes she sucks without Luma, but she also pwns with Luma, how large a part of a match does she spend without Luma on average if the player controlling her is pro? Typically not a very large part. Her recovery sucks, granted, but that's the one weakness you don't exaggerate. Diddy Kong's isn't the best either. There have been several characters who were top or high despite weak recoveries in the Smash Series.

Her floatiness isn't a weakness per se because her attacks are built to function well along with that floatiness, it's a part of what defines her as a character, floatiness tends to be a weakness but Rosa compensates with sick aerials which function perfectly with and in many cases are even enhanced by her floatiness.

As far as people rolling with her until she gets Luma back, so what? If that works what's the problem? I feel inclined to point out however that people don't get to decide whether she is good or not. What do the actual good Rosa players do when Luma is gone? That's what matter. She has more options than rolling without Luma. Her Dash attack is still very good, her tilts are still quick and have good range, she's far from a sitting duck. She is not optionless without Luma, she's just really weak and relatively vulnerable. Since you don't actually need to do anything other than survive and not take a bunch of damage it's not that big a deal.

But maybe your post was just bait seeing as you finish by deeming her Mid Tier. Unless people can learn to consistently bop Luma, consistently keeping her out of games for a majority of the time she's gonna be really good.

 

[Antonykun]

A good Diddy MU is 45:55.
"Pikachu doesn't lose to Diddy too hard" speaks to me as 45:55, which is a good Diddy MU.

This is Diddy, we're talking about.

How does Villager do against Sheik? ZSS? Pika? Yoshi? They all are incredibly mobile with ++ recoveries against bowling balls and slingshots.

EFF SHEIK

ZSS and Pika are managable and about even ZSS might be disadvantaged tho.

Yoshi is a textbook example of a pain in the ass. Disadvantaged for sure.

 

[Smog Frog]

http://www.twitch.tv/teamsp00ky customs top 16 coming up

fair warning that chat is 20x more cancerous than your normal chat

 

[Hippieslayer]

Why are people using charge shot with Mii Gunner? I don't get it, the move is pretty weak even fully charged, the grenade does good damage, is great for edgeguarding and keep away what with its delay allowing you to act in sync with its detonation, and it lets you get guaranteed fairs and dash attacks when you hit with it.

Moreover it also lessens the need to have the pk fire clones because of its aerial trajectory, in fact because of the time it takes for the nade to detonate unless it hits something its ****ing great for covering yourself when you get knocked far away diagonally from your opponent, you can toss out multiple nades to cover your descent. This opens up the possibility of using stealth bombs, stealth bombs are not great in themselves, but because they require the opponent to read your timing of them as well as requiring your opponent to strain their eyes they are pretty darn good for flustering and annoying opponents leading to mistakes being made on their part.

Edit: Btw looks like Ito is going Diddy, thanks for that faux hype *******. Ito got totally wrecked 2. Bah.

 

[andimidna]

Link is being slept on once more.
Oh, and am I the only one who thinks Rosalina isn't as viable as she seems? Sure, she has great follow-ups with grabs and some decent attacks and combos, but she's a very weak knockback character akin to Sheik, and without Luma, she's powerless (and often people just roll with her until she gets Luma back). Also, her light weight and floatiness, as well as predictable recovery, factor in this.

She seems to be more like a Middle Tier Character. Her weaknesses are very evident and if one exploits them, they will give Rosa a very tough, somewhat unwinnable (for Rosa) time.

Lolol please send this to sakurai before the 15th

Ok so I guess I'll just talk about rosa for a while and see if anyone is interested in anything I think
People seems so confused about Rosa, I see so much radical bs statements that just can't be generalized like they're being so often. I've started to think what makes her hard to rate in MUs and tier lists is there's almost a luck factor when it comes to Luma. There's no guarentee you'll lose it once, but also no guarentee you'll keep one for more then a few seconds. Rosa matches are weird that way. Sometimes right as my luma appears and I'm shielding someone will just throw out a dash attack on my shield and then luma is gone and that's it. But another thing not always accounted for is her mobility/ability to escape approaches for 12.5 seconds. There's no guarentee she'll get touched without her luma or especially be put into a situation where she must kill. Not that her up air isn't completely capable of killing near 100 without luma. Also people overrate lumas survivability. I'm so done with for glory when people just run up and dash attack in neutral every time and even though I read it I still lose a piece of my character. Sounds mid tier from that perspective. But just watch the better Rosas, like Dabuz, that doesn't happen or at least not So often. Also playing for glory teams yesterday my friend also 0-death a ganon on omega duck hunt with dthrow up air (both) luma up air. Obviously bad DI is a factor cause lol for glory, but that shows her knock back is strong either way, definitely not sheik level. But her combo game isn't sheik level. Personally, my view on the rosa meta is different that mosts. I see the current meta and Fundementals actually being utilized in tournament for her as bottom of top 10, as dabuz already claimed she was. But despite being such an already explored character I see still a lot more possibilities and potential. Which leaves me ranking her around 5 like most.
However, this patch could be pretty dangerous... Possibly In her favor. Rosalina has a lot of really decent MUs among the mid tiers and low tiers, however is plagued with losing MUs to almost every top tier, that's just how it turned out. However they are the most at risk for hard nerfs, so even if she loses some knock back on up tilt and up air, she could end up with better MUs overall. I don't think the characters nerfed in past patches will get hit much (rosa, sheik, greninja). So time for sheik + rosa top tier! Hmm... That sounds familiar.
Also, while I'm not certain she'd have much of a future if this game stayed the same and no customs, her future in customs is undeniable. And no she's not #1 in anything either.
Btw I wouldn't mention the roll thing if you want your stuff considered, it's ok to add some personal experience but reflecting off tournament matches will mean much more
And while this should never happen in tournament, I'm just saying it cause it's hilarious, but with some characters if you charge a smash Attack and get hit by lumas up tilt you can die at 0. It feels so gud.
I don't stay on one topic easily

 

[Djent]

Damn, looks like Ito decided to be free in the Diddo instead.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Rosa is actually really darn hard to play optimally, I think ppl underestimate this factor when they judge her. Not hard as in "oh noes I have to learn all this technical stuff which is super hard to execute" but hard as in you have to be constantly aware of Luma and know her behavior from the inside out, as well as hard as in many times you have a lot of options given time and knowing which is the optimal one to pick isn't as easy as is the case with other characters because she's not that linear a character imo. I'm not that knowledgeable about her though so maybe I'm totally wrong about this.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

@Pierce7d

There was nothing cheesy about that, it was just a hard read

Thank you for spreading good info in the most cancerous twitch chat I've seen in a long while. Also that custom fox is awesome.

EDIT:

Velphelt_revolver: well since its customs... I guess the diddeh fear is sorta decreased.

LOL you wish.

 

[Shaya]

Hmm list teim!?

No Weakness:
Mild Weakness, No intolerable match ups:
Abusive Strengths, Match Up Weakness (i.e. Diddy/Sheik Fodder):
Noticeably Strong, Meta Relevant Match up Strengths:

Underdeveloped / Bearable Meta Relevance:
...
I put my trust, in youuuuu, but in the end it Doesn't Even Matter: ....
...
Trash:

Customs off; I bothered to order things this time (bar Abraham Lincoln Tribute at the Park).


I may be overhyping Fox in customs off. I think he's probably a lot more readily abused than other characters, without the most versatile recovery and his neutral/zoning game not outdoing the more mobile characters. But his results don't lie. Third strongest character in the NA meta.

No, they don't necessarily lose to diddy and/or sheik. But that's likely a good reason they're being held back. I still maintain Pikachu is not that great, alphaomega headbutt given him reason to be used in the customs meta and people are appropriating him as great otherwise [again]. But eh. This character just doesn't seem worthwhile with Sheik around, has yet to prove it has anything but a disadvantage against both of those characters too although everyone here talks like he hard counters Diddy all the time :< Olimar may be better one tier down. He's a pretty common/popular character though; slight overhype there most likely.

Megaman, Mario, Rob; very good results exist for these characters. Pits not so much in NA but they're apparently very popular in Japan. Villager is rated relatively high by most people, not really having a break out in NA though; customs hype may be working against them having an accurate placing.

Yoshi/Wario are oft seen as high tier. You can play them and instantaneously see some of their strengths and go "wow". Very heavy characters with a lot of mobility. But they just don't seem to be able to fit into the meta in NA and we're probably about to observe more Yoshi nerfs due to Japan's rating of him and we're just going to sit here being like "what was good about him in the first place?" when it happens. Poor Yoshi mains :<
Rest of these characters have non-customs off results/strengths in some way (bar MK, depending on how you look at it). MK may be overrated or underrated, I'm not sure. He does seem to be a cut above a lot of others in terms of "theory", having all the specs you need to be top tier... and people proclaiming their top tier characters have disadvantages against him (lol) but I like MK and agree he's strong, just caught between not knowing how far the bias goes in our community for him.

I feel as if Palutena, Jigglypuff and Lucina are noticeably worse than everyone else. A complete lack of results ("even swordfighter has a tournament win!") and close to nothing going for them bar single moves; Palutena is bair, jigglypuff is nair and lucina is... fsmash? Either way none of these are even likely close to best in the game, but it's a lot of what they rely on, in an advantaged state they still have good things but I just don't see how they ever can achieve things in tournament settings. In my mind, clearly the worst characters in the game right now.

 

[Hippieslayer]

@Pierce7d



Thank you for spreading good info in the most cancerous twitch chat I've seen in a long while. Also that custom fox is awesome.

The chat wont load for me lols, maybe thats for the better hehe. I think Pierce should be made moderator so that he can ban everyone spreading falsehood from the chat.

Also who is the commentator that sort of doesnt know what hes talking about?

 

[ZarroTsu]

I've been having great fun with Dedede's Bouncing Gordo custom. I find the trick is to aim AROUND your opponent so they don't have the immediate chance to bounce it back at your face, and instead continue attacking normally while it bounces back and forth and limits your opponents options. It's especially great when the camera zooms in and it's off the screen, and then it bounces in and thwacks your opponent in the back. What they can't see can, in fact, hurt them. It's fun, and that's what matters most. To me.

 

[Pazx]

In my opinion Meta Knight is an underrated character and Mii Brawler is an overrated (the jury's out though) character, I see them at similar levels of viability in that they're both very respectable characters but have very significant drawbacks.

Once Mii Brawler is figured out I really don't see him taking tournaments. 3 stock best of five is a significant issue for the character as high level opponents effectively have to do something wrong to get caught in a helicopter kick combo. If the character were more honest he'd be significantly below Mario in my opinion. What would he have over other short ranged fighters? Air speed. I don't like implying any character is cheap or dishonest but if we are to say that Diddy's throw combos are cheesy we can acknowledge that they work anywhere on any stage. Mii Brawler's "cheese" is diminished once people work out they shouldn't go near the ledges and should avoid walkoff stages. A lot of the character feels gimmicky (another word I dislike) and while I'll continue to use him I wouldn't against Zero or anyone who has seen the tricks before. Once people figure him out he becomes very limited and I group him with other similarly limited characters, such as Meta Knight.

Meta Knight is a very, very viable character but he's limited in multiple ways. His approach is limited due to no shorthop aerial approach, his dash attack and grab while good are still limited in their own ways (frame data is meh, MK lurching forward is only good whilst people don't expect it). This leaves him with empty short hops, dash into shield mixups and the usage of forward and down tilts. Fsmash is also a good move but it's something that shouldn't catch people once they understand it. MK still has a ridiculous advantage state but he has to work very hard to get there and at the absolute highest level that is a very significant drawback.

 

[Radical Larry]

Okay, to be fair, the last post was half-troll and half-serious.

But anyways, it still boggles me on how Ganondorf's reverse Warlock Punch can send opponents behind you, but I guess it's hitbox placement being wonky. It's definitely a very scary read tactic capable of garnering KOs when you jump from the edge, and it's also a very scary shield breaker tactic as well, making opponents either have to dodge or not shield for quite a bit.

To make this clear; it can indeed KO from 0% on a character like Pit with rage on and having the attack send the opponent backwards. Since they expect for it to strike them forward, their DI will be horribly off and end up probably KO'ing them in the process, should it actually hit them behind Ganondorf.

The attack is a very hard read when jumping off ledges and can guarantee a stock if used well. I think it's far more viable than that of Warlock Blade, since Blade has little knockback compared to Punch.

 

[Hippieslayer]

okay ito plz go mk now you have at least a 2% chance of winning that way instead of 0%

EDIT: Okay dat was ****ing hype

 

[Patriot Duck]

I'm seeing a lot of aggressive play on Teamsp00ky's stream. The chat is also showing some signs of positivity, which is a nice change of pace.

 

[Pazx]

Oh my god Ito's MK is so good

I think Falcon wins the matchup, but ZeRo hasn't played it much.

 

[Shaya]

From my experiences. MK 'competing' at the highest level is a pretty awful/cancerous/lame/stupid/whyyyyy play style. I'm thinking M2K playing MK dittos in 09. MK doesn't really have to commit. His dash specs (dash to shield is still good) and rolls allow this to be the case.
So every time you play against MK in tournament who actually wants to win? Slowest paced match up that I've played against in this game, maybe maybe slightly faster than uber passive Sheik. And there's not much you can do about it because MK is just that solid at punishing commitments.

Diddy/Luigi would trash his play style due to their dominant dash grab games, but when you look at the risk/reward over the course of a single match, most characters don't have reliable tools for dealing with him holding shield into reactive retreats or guaranteed punishes. The risk/reward that's involved with shuttle loop set ups are just silly.

If they were going to nerf Dedede for gordos on wifi or dthrow goodness (although dthrow was reversed on wiiu right?), or Mac's recovery so people on wifi can gimp him easier, I wish they'd just tack on nerfs to MK so he actually... does things (or more so readjusting things so he isn't just dash, shield, backroll only the character)
And as I say that we finally see Ito bring out the MK. I doubt we'll actually be seeing that type of play style from him though. Falcon is comber fodder and gets out dash-gamed by MK.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Speaking of MK, Ito is taking games off Zer0. WITH METAKNIGHT. On Spooky's stream right now.

EDIT: okay, game. Singular. That went south fast.

 

[Superbat]

THATS MY ***** ITOL. (Metaknight main) *** he dead. He's still hype. @ HeroMystic that's enough tournament representation for you? lol

 

[Lavani]

Really just looked like ZeRo used game 1 to figure Ito out more than anything. He was playing a very different game from game 2 forward.

Still very glad we got to see MK in grand finals though.

 

[warionumbah2]

I think the MU is even, MK should really seal kills from edgeguards because Falcon won't die to Shuttle loops that early unless its on Helberd. And as you could see he landed an F-Smash and converted into a combo which sent Falcon off stage.

Falcon has the better neutral but unlike top tiers his recovery is very weak.

Edit: after those games MK doesn't need a nerf shaya, the playstyle is cancerous for the person who's playing it but for the MK user its hella fun but stressful. They should fix the little bugs that MK has and his hitboxes, don't know about buffs but we'll see soon enough.

 

[L7 Zero Cool]

So even with customs on Ike is still seen as arond C tier at best?

I ask because I really don't want to waste time with a character that flawed again. Used him in Brawl and tried to make it work. Pretty much made me quit the game lol.

I may try out Sheik, Luigi, or Fox intead. I gues we'll see how things look when the patch drops on the 15th. Any word on how intense the update will be? Maybe they'll just tweak small stuff like Diddy's throw game and Sheik's tilts?

 

[bc1910]

stuff

Very interesting. Care to elaborate on why you think Zelda doesn't belong down there in Trash Tier? Not saying I think she belongs there, just interested in your reasoning. A lot of people chalk her up as being worse than Palutena and Jiggs, at least.

Also I'd have thought you'd put Rosalina and ZSS the other way around considering your tier names, Dabuz often laments the Rosa/Diddy and Rosa/Sheik MUs~

 

[Teshie U]

we wont know what in it until the day it hits and people test things

and then we wont have proof until the real smash labbers get into the actual data and see the changes

 

[dean.]

If they were going to nerf Dedede for gordos on wifi or dthrow goodness (although dthrow was reversed on wiiu right?)

His Wii U dthrow is his 1.0.4 dthrow if that's what you're asking; there's no difference between 3DS and Wii U.

 

[thehard]

Wasn't there a period where the 3DS and Wii U were unsynched?

 

[HeroMystic]

THATS MY ***** ITOL. (Metaknight main) *** he dead. He's still hype. @ HeroMystic that's enough tournament representation for you? lol

To take a game off ZeRo is pretty impressive regardless. Despite that he went and bopped him for the rest of the set. That said Itol made some game-ending mistakes every match and ZeRo is just that good.

I can definitely see him being A- tier in the current meta.

 

[Djent]

Goddamn it I went into a food coma and missed the one MU I wanted to see.

Anyway, I think vs. is more unusual than it is actually bad for Falcon. Sure Falcon isn't used to getting out-dash-grabbed and gets juggled to hell, but he actually has an amazing neutral and doesn't have to play an entirely reactive game. And it's not like Mr. Mediocre Airspeed himself likes getting caught up in Falcon's UAir strings either. I'd consider it a clear advantage for Falcon if he could actually recover vs. MK.

 

[Shaya]

So even with customs on Ike is still seen as arond C tier at best?

I ask because I really don't want to waste time with a character that flawed again. Used him in Brawl and tried to make it work. Pretty much made me quit the game lol.

I may try out Sheik, Luigi, or Fox intead. I gues we'll see how things look when the patch drops on the 15th. Any word on how intense the update will be? Maybe they'll just tweak small stuff like Diddy's throw game and Sheik's tilts?

From my perspective... Ike gets hyped up here, especially with customs (I can genuinely agree that he does "stupid" things with his customs), but even with all of that there just isn't any showing whatsoever for this character to merit high appraisal. He probably has the potential to compete. I would just say there's close to half the cast right now who are likely easier to learn and compete with overall. But who knows.

Very interesting. Care to elaborate on why you think Zelda doesn't belong down there in Trash Tier? Not saying I think she belongs there, just interested in your reasoning. A lot of people chalk her up as being worse than Palutena and Jiggs, at least.

Also I'd have thought you'd put Rosalina and ZSS the other way around considering your tier names, Dabuz often laments the Rosa/Diddy and Rosa/Sheik MUs~

Customs on/off really can jade things seeing as most tournaments are running customs on right now. In the past I firmly believed rosa lost to diddy/sheik too. The distinction between the two would really come down to ZSS having more notable weaknesses than Rosa (in my eyes), although they both probably only have issues with two characters at most (well I believe ZSS beats Rosa at least in customs off, Dabuz thinks its even or advantage rosa in customs on though)

Zelda has this historic "she's bad" feeling about her, much like Ganondorf does/did (I'm sure I can find someone out there who's active in the scene who still thinks he's last). People thought Mario and Luigi were trash too. I've at least seen firsthand how trash those three characters are while Zelda seems to somehow compete here and there.
This game is different to both Brawl and Melee, she's definitely in a more solid state than she was in Melee where she was completely outclassed with a disparate balance skew. In Brawl she had no luck in her abilities (no chain grabs/etc) and the meta came to focus on campy play/timeouts and it became obvious Zelda had no approach whatsoever. She may have the latter weakness still (although this is a more fast paced game) but when it comes to the former she is not invalidated; she has very solid moves in down tilt, dash attack (I could list other things, but at least I'm very confident in those) and can actually hit confirm into combos and has kill set ups. I hate belittling what's mostly a well spirited group, but their mindset is "our character is bad and she can't be anything but" in everything they talk about; there isn't much high level representation in her (Nairo and Scary/Ed are who I know) so their demographic doesn't seem to have a meta-driving spirit going for them, likely holding them back. I also hear things like having a good Pikachu and Rosalina match up; Nairo did beat Nietono's Sheik with her too @_@ [although honestly that has more to do with player than character IMO]

 

[A2ZOMG]

Hmm list teim!?

No Weakness:
Mild Weakness, No intolerable match ups:
Abusive Strengths, Match Up Weakness (i.e. Diddy/Sheik Fodder):
Noticeably Strong, Meta Relevant Match up Strengths:

Underdeveloped / Bearable Meta Relevance:
...
I put my trust, in youuuuu, but in the end it Doesn't Even Matter: ....
...
Trash:

Customs off; I bothered to order things this time (bar Abraham Lincoln Tribute at the Park).


I may be overhyping Fox in customs off. I think he's probably a lot more readily abused than other characters, without the most versatile recovery and his neutral/zoning game not outdoing the more mobile characters. But his results don't lie. Third strongest character in the NA meta.

No, they don't necessarily lose to diddy and/or sheik. But that's likely a good reason they're being held back. I still maintain Pikachu is not that great, alphaomega headbutt given him reason to be used in the customs meta and people are appropriating him as great otherwise [again]. But eh. This character just doesn't seem worthwhile with Sheik around, has yet to prove it has anything but a disadvantage against both of those characters too although everyone here talks like he hard counters Diddy all the time :< Olimar may be better one tier down. He's a pretty common/popular character though; slight overhype there most likely.

Megaman, Mario, Rob; very good results exist for these characters. Pits not so much in NA but they're apparently very popular in Japan. Villager is rated relatively high by most people, not really having a break out in NA though; customs hype may be working against them having an accurate placing.

Yoshi/Wario are oft seen as high tier. You can play them and instantaneously see some of their strengths and go "wow". Very heavy characters with a lot of mobility. But they just don't seem to be able to fit into the meta in NA and we're probably about to observe more Yoshi nerfs due to Japan's rating of him and we're just going to sit here being like "what was good about him in the first place?" when it happens. Poor Yoshi mains :<
Rest of these characters have non-customs off results/strengths in some way (bar MK, depending on how you look at it). MK may be overrated or underrated, I'm not sure. He does seem to be a cut above a lot of others in terms of "theory", having all the specs you need to be top tier... and people proclaiming their top tier characters have disadvantages against him (lol) but I like MK and agree he's strong, just caught between not knowing how far the bias goes in our community for him.

I feel as if Palutena, Jigglypuff and Lucina are noticeably worse than everyone else. A complete lack of results ("even swordfighter has a tournament win!") and close to nothing going for them bar single moves; Palutena is bair, jigglypuff is nair and lucina is... fsmash? Either way none of these are even likely close to best in the game, but it's a lot of what they rely on, in an advantaged state they still have good things but I just don't see how they ever can achieve things in tournament settings. In my mind, clearly the worst characters in the game right now.

Both Palutena and Jigglypuff have a good Dash Attack and F-air. Palutena also has above average grab reward and a teleport, while Jigglypuff has the broken short crouch and a legitimate shield break threat. Dunno how you can say they're the worst.

Lucina though yeah, I'd agree she's among the bottom 10 or so. I'd tenatively rank bottom 10 something like this.

Bowser, Kirby, Zelda, Toon Link, Lucina, WFT, G&W, Samus, Little Mac, DDD

Kirby and G&W might be underrated because of that crouch, though both of them are more limited than Jigglypuff in neutral, debatably slightly better with KO setups in some matchups. But at the same time I do think they have some extremely hard matchups that they won't be winning in tournament.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

From my perspective... Ike gets hyped up here, especially with customs (I can genuinely agree that he does "stupid" things with his customs), but even with all of that there just isn't any showing whatsoever for this character to merit high appraisal. He probably has the potential to compete. I would just say there's close to half the cast right now who are likely easier to learn and compete with overall. But who knows.



Customs on/off really can jade things seeing as most tournaments are running customs on right now. In the past I firmly believed rosa lost to diddy/sheik too. The distinction between the two would really come down to ZSS having more notable weaknesses than Rosa (in my eyes), although they both probably only have issues with two characters at most (well I believe ZSS beats Rosa at least in customs off, Dabuz thinks its even or advantage rosa in customs on though)

Zelda has this historic "she's bad" feeling about her, much like Ganondorf does/did (I'm sure I can find someone out there who's active in the scene who still thinks he's last). People thought Mario and Luigi were trash too. I've at least seen firsthand how trash those three characters are while Zelda seems to somehow compete here and there.
This game is different to both Brawl and Melee, she's definitely in a more solid state than she was in Melee where she was completely outclassed with a disparate balance skew. In Brawl she had no luck in her abilities (no chain grabs/etc) and the meta came to focus on campy play/timeouts and it became obvious Zelda had no approach whatsoever. She may have the latter weakness still (although this is a more fast paced game) but when it comes to the former she is not invalidated; she has very solid moves in down tilt, dash attack (I could list other things, but at least I'm very confident in those) and can actually hit confirm into combos and has kill set ups. I hate belittling what's mostly a well spirited group, but their mindset is "our character is bad and she can't be anything but" in everything they talk about; there isn't much high level representation in her (Nairo and Scary/Ed are who I know) so their demographic doesn't seem to have a meta-driving spirit going for them, likely holding them back. I also hear things like having a good Pikachu and Rosalina match up; Nairo did beat Nietono's Sheik with her too @_@

Re: Zelda, I recall seeing some early 3DS matches where Zelda made good use of Farore's Wind to completely ignore zoning from the likes of ROB and Duck Hunt. IDK if that's actually a legit thing still or if it was just no one being used to Farore's Wind having a hitbox on reappearance, but it was interesting to see how she basically negated their game plan like that.

 

[Blobface]

Bowser, Kirby, Zelda, Toon Link, Lucina, WFT, G&W, Samus, Little Mac, DDD

Is that customs on or off? And do you think Little Mac is just plain bad or that he just has too many catastrophically bad matchups to make up for his strengths?

 

[Xuan Wu]

So even with customs on Ike is still seen as arond C tier at best?

I ask because I really don't want to waste time with a character that flawed again. Used him in Brawl and tried to make it work. Pretty much made me quit the game lol.

I may try out Sheik, Luigi, or Fox intead. I gues we'll see how things look when the patch drops on the 15th. Any word on how intense the update will be? Maybe they'll just tweak small stuff like Diddy's throw game and Sheik's tilts?

I am genuinely curious about this as well. The problem probably is that there are no videos of good customs Ike play at the moment, so any discussion regarding customs Ike is mostly speculative. I remember there being discussion a few months back that Ike is supposedly a monster and Top 15 in a customs environment. For me, sadly, this was overhyped.

Anyway, I assure you picking up Ike in this iteration would be worthwhile as it is almost unanimously agreed his attributes were overall buffed, including air speed and combo ability; the latter of which is now becoming especially important for consolidating his metagame, much like his Jab cancels in SSBB. He still has flaws, but they are less crippling to him now than before.

My advice, as any competitive Ike main would say, is to make use of his new toolkit, such as comboing with D-tilt and controlling space with auto-cancelled aerials F-air and B-air.

^-^

 

[A2ZOMG]

Is that customs on or off? And do you think Little Mac is just plain bad or that he just has too many catastrophically bad matchups to make up for his strengths?

Customs off, because WFT with customs on is actually a threat.

And Little Mac is a candidate for being the worst character because of how he gets hard countered, mostly. He DOES have random good matchups (Luigi is probably his best relevant matchup), but then he has a number of 35/65 or 3/7 matchups against some top tiers, while having mostly 45/55 matchups against the majority of the cast. Also stages are a problem for him.

It's either him or DDD imo as the overall worst. Both have random good matchups, but both also have matchups they really just have no hope of winning.

 

[Shaya]

Both Palutena and Jigglypuff have a good Dash Attack and F-air. Palutena also has above average grab reward and a teleport, while Jigglypuff has the broken short crouch and a legitimate shield break threat. Dunno how you can say they're the worst.

Lucina though yeah, I'd agree she's among the bottom 10 or so. I'd tenatively rank bottom 10 something like this.

Bowser, Kirby, Zelda, Toon Link, Lucina, WFT, G&W, Samus, Little Mac, DDD

Kirby and G&W might be underrated because of that crouch, though both of them are more limited than Jigglypuff in neutral, debatably slightly better with KO setups in some matchups. But at the same time I do think they have some extremely hard matchups that they won't be winning in tournament.

Dthrow fair is all Palutena has on anyone who knows how to deal with it (i.e. don't attack the shield after the fair). This includes at 0% percent, where a very small selection can be naired to regrabbed, but not against anyone good.
Dash Attack is good, but not that good without light weight or super speed. You'd really have to be a fool to get hit by what's her only option when it's like half the range of every other dash attack in the game.

Jiggs probably does have more usable moves I agree. But I don't think anyone has more crippling weaknesses than she does without any noticeable strength.

 

[Ffamran]

we wont know what in it until the day it hits and people test things

and then we wont have proof until the real smash labbers get into the actual data and see the changes

Yeah, full testing and not, "Oh, Diddy's Uair looks weaker". The 1.0.5 patch and Falco's Blaster being "faster"... If only.

To take a game off ZeRo is pretty impressive regardless. Despite that he went and bopped him for the rest of the set. That said Itol made some game-ending mistakes every match and ZeRo is just that good.

I can definitely see him being A- tier in the current meta.

Another thing not related to the thread's subject, but do people actually let themselves get bodied to learn a MU or take a glimpse at someone's habits? I don't mean sandbagging which this might be, but like fighting, but holding back a little or letting yourself get punished only to see what the other player does. A commentator mentioned NinjaLink lets people get away with punishable things until the right moment like they're in kill range instead of punishing it right then and there which could waste a free stock for him since the other player would probably wise up and stop doing it or do it less frequently. Also, some characters like Lucario, Bowser, Ganondorf, DK, Triple D, Marth, and Charizard might even be able to use this as a tactic. It's like those wacky exploits people find where there's a weapon, magic spell, or item that makes them really strong, but they have to be really low in health.

Related to the thread topic: what can Mach Tornado not do? As in who or what can punish it well, negate it, etc.?

So even with customs on Ike is still seen as arond C tier at best?

I ask because I really don't want to waste time with a character that flawed again. Used him in Brawl and tried to make it work. Pretty much made me quit the game lol.

I may try out Sheik, Luigi, or Fox intead. I gues we'll see how things look when the patch drops on the 15th. Any word on how intense the update will be? Maybe they'll just tweak small stuff like Diddy's throw game and Sheik's tilts?

If you're going off of the tier lists posted here recently, they were based on votes from the community or mostly redditors which is basically the masses. Ike's been placed low by people who don't analyze him and just go off of what Brawl Ike was or first impressions. People here would say at worse, Ike's low tier, though at least, he should be mid tier. The other issue is that there aren't a lot of Ike players or footage of him in high level play. Ike never showed up at Apex because the players did not like Apex's rules, the weather, or other reasons. It's the opposite of say, Captain Falcon being everywhere and people thinking the Capt.'s way better than he should be because he's everywhere in high level play or even Diddy and Luigi bandwagoners who have no idea what they're doing, but pick them thinking they can win automatically.

People even believe that Shulk invalidates Ike's existence because by default, Shulk's much more flexible, but with customs, Shulk doesn't have access to a windbox to edgeguard, a differently angled recovery, or the ability to dash through things with Close Combat. Even then, Shulk lacks Ike's consistency of being strong and durable all the time while Shulk has to choose from being strong, fast, durable, etc., and those don't last the whole time. Vanilla/Monado-less Shulk would be closer to Ike, but that's not how Shulk will play, especially at tournaments. Shulk will make use of his Monado Arts and be inconsistent to throw off people. Saying Shulk invalidates Ike is like saying Sheik invalidates Greninja when they don't play like each other and when they do try to play like each other, they're not playing to their strengths.