Character Competitive Impressions

[Shaya]

Fox is definitely stupid.
Out of anyone out there, I think his claim for being third best in the game, customs off and with a bit more contention but still arguably customs on as well, is near unrivaled.

Like Up throw Up Air on Diddy turns him from "best character in the game but measurable/comparable" into "demon bane **** my life", Fox' jab has similar application and is plainly way too good and should NOT exist (and any idiot who argues otherwise will feel my wrath). If it wasn't for this single thing that gives him amazing stage position, amazing damage/combo set up and guaranteed kill set ups on a frame two move he wouldn't be doing nearly as well as he does in tournament as he does now. Who are Fox' worst match ups apparently? The two characters who don't get repetitions on: Sheik and Zero Suit Samus. Sheik just falls into the ground and can always jab first, ZSS jab 1 is always faster too. Fox can shield before either can attack him though.
Fox has the third best results out of any character by a noticeable margin. Although not a perfect source, my scouring through smashboard's rankings and tournaments generally have me finding at least one Fox existing in every region with very good results. If we took away Diddy/Sheik right now, Fox would be overlooking the rest of the cast in a domineering manner still, there are just way too many tournament wins (1st place) being taken by Fox. NAKAT, DEHF, Megafox, SK92 when Fow doesn't show up, ksev. You will not be able to name even 3 other people bar those using diddy and sheik with this much consistency in first placements as Fox.

What are his weaknesses? Light weight, under-par grab game [for a top tier], recovery.
On his recovery, it isn't easy to gimp. He still has side b into up b (which can get to the ledge from close to outside camera view) that cover excessive distance, it is similar to Diddy in a lot of ways but slightly less versatile. With customs, it's different; he really only seems to gain strengths and applications while having weaknesses reduced (Wolf Flash and either of the alternative up-bs).
His grab game is solid at early percent, getting him follow ups and momentum he can capitalize on. At higher percent he'll struggle against held shields because it is generally very safe. With custom lasers he can frame trap from throws a lot longer/get chip damage, and with wolf flash he can combo out of throws depending on DI. As I've said numerous times now, swap Falco's throws with Fox' and he would be no.1 in the game, Diddy would be our savior, dark knight and everything he does would amaze us.
His neutral game of keep away and lasers is still strong/relevant in a lot of match ups. His falco laser turns him into a menace that is difficult to approach and practically always forces the approach from the opponent.

We don't see enough Fox play and hence why people underrate him. SoCal/West Coast in general are poorly covered by streams (well, they're always there, but struggle having more than 50 viewers), Texas is in a similar/worse boat. But I behoove you to follow through with tournament data research. It's all there. Clear and notable dominance.

The only mobility spec this character isn't basically top three in is aerial mobility. Everything else is up there/top. Walk speed, dash to run, fast fall, pivots, so on and so forth.
His ftilt, nair, bair and fsmash are reliable to be safe-ish on shield. Jab and Up tilt will rarely let you down either.
He -definitely- has close to the best nair jab and up tilt in the game. His ftilt might be too, very low end lag plus stupidly easy to combo/link up from. But Sheik ftilt boyz.
Up tilt, forward tilt, nair and jab are all kill set up moves and reliable damage racking and combo moves as well. He definitely has the grounded mobility to have guaranteed punishments on techs, ftilt and nair are not "gimmicks" or reliant on the opponent messing up.

What actually are his poor match ups? By any inclination of design, I don't see how any truly would be. Fox has everything Sheik would dislike when you don't consider his jab not being abused against her; basically same/better frame data and mobility, with kill power firmly being on Fox' side; Sheik's reliability of gimping him being the only downside. Against Diddy beyond everything we all know, his mobility allows him to keep the game "honest" a lot better than most characters, with a lot of reliable bread and butter moves that are for the most part better than dash grabs, Diddy's fair isn't as effective against him due to his slighter height and his speed.
I don't believe any other character in the game can claim to have as good of a match up against both Diddy and Sheik as Fox does.
Rosalina is a match up I just have not seen with this character at all but I can envision why it could be hard for Fox.
Luigi? Sonic? Like... maybe? I think customs (based laser) allows a solid keep away game against Luigi and keeps Sonic honest in neutral. NAKAT seems to be winning against False' luigi (arguably second best in NA) and run even/perhaps ahead of 6WX in head to head.


With the up coming patch I truly hope they fix Fox's jab. It's definitely one of the most abusive things in the game and contrasts with all known design paradigms/systems to have these things not exist. With that changed, the likelihood of Fox maintaining his dominance will go down by a lot, I'm pretty sure but he'll still retain a lot of the things that I believe keep him in and around 5th place. Jab to reverse up tilt seems just as applicable (reverse up tilt being 4 frames) and will be giving Fox bairs/uairs at kill percent too, he'll just have to work harder at getting damage / won't have as much of a frustrating to deal with frame two tool that people have to respect.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

When I think of good moves belonging to Zelda, I think of:

• Farore's Wind - Safe recovery that doubles as a ridiculously potent 7f kill move usable OoS
• Nayru's Love - Reflector with invincibility and lingering hitboxes that functions as a solid get-off-me move.
• Dair - Very powerful sweetspotted spike, even the weak hit lingers for an extra 10 frames and also spikes.
• Dtilt - Quick poke that sets up other moves and can even combo into Farore's Wind at specific percents.
• Dsmash - Frame 5, good launch angle, lowish end lag. Kind of has kill power.

2 out of 4 of her specials are among her best moves; Din's is terrible and Phantom is questionable, but I wouldn't say her specials are her weak point.

I don't think NL is good it's situational at best and a lot of commitment. It's strength lies in the fact that it's faster than most of her options (idk how fast this move is in the wii u version ) and the partial invincibility.

Results aside I'd still put pikachu sonic and ZSS ahead of fox.

 

[Nobie]

Fox is definitely stupid.
Out of anyone out there, I think his claim for being third best in the game, customs off and with a bit more contention but still arguably customs on as well, is near unrivaled.

Like Up throw Up Air on Diddy turns him from "best character in the game but measurable/comparable" into "demon bane **** my life", Fox' jab has similar application and is plainly way too good and should NOT exist (and any idiot who argues otherwise will feel my wrath). If it wasn't for this single thing that gives him amazing stage position, amazing damage/combo set up and guaranteed kill set ups on a frame two move he wouldn't be doing nearly as well as he does in tournament as he does now. Who are Fox' worst match ups apparently? The two characters who don't get repetitions on: Sheik and Zero Suit Samus. Sheik just falls into the ground and can always jab first, ZSS jab 1 is always faster too. Fox can shield before either can attack him though.
Fox has the third best results out of any character by a noticeable margin. Although not a perfect source, my scouring through smashboard's rankings and tournaments generally have me finding at least one Fox existing in every region with very good results. If we took away Diddy/Sheik right now, Fox would be overlooking the rest of the cast in a domineering manner still, there are just way too many tournament wins (1st place) being taken by Fox. NAKAT, DEHF, Megafox, SK92 when Fow doesn't show up, kev. You will not be able to name even 3 other names of any character bar diddy and sheik with this much consistency in first placements as Fox.

What are his weaknesses? Light weight, under-par grab game [for a top tier], recovery.
On his recovery, it isn't easy to gimp. He still has side b into up b (which can get to the ledge from close to outside camera view) that cover excessive distance, it is similar to Diddy in a lot of ways but slightly less versatile. With customs, it's different; he really only seems to gain strengths and applications while having weaknesses reduced (Wolf Flash and either of the alternative up-bs).
His grab game is solid at early percent, getting him follow ups and momentum he can capitalize on. At higher percent he'll struggle against held shields because it is generally very safe. With custom lasers he can frame trap from throws a lot longer/get chip damage, and with wolf flash he can combo out of throws depending on DI. As I've said numerous times now, swap Falco's throws with Fox' and he would be no.1 in the game, Diddy would be our savior, dark knight and everything he does would amaze us.
His neutral game of keep away and lasers is still strong/relevant in a lot of match ups. His falco laser turns him into a menace that is difficult to approach and practically always forces the approach from the opponent.

We don't see enough Fox play and hence why people underrate him. SoCal/West Coast in general are poorly covered by streams (well, they're always there, but struggle having more than 50 viewers), Texas is in a similar/worse boat. But I behoove you to follow through with tournament data research. It's all there. Clear and notable dominance.

The only mobility spec this character isn't basically top three in is aerial mobility. Everything else is up there/top. Walk speed, dash to run, fast fall, pivots, so on and so forth.
His ftilt, nair, bair and fsmash are reliable to be safe-ish on shield. Jab and Up tilt will rarely let you down either.
He -definitely- has close to the best nair jab and up tilt in the game. His ftilt might be too, very low end lag plus stupidly easy to combo/link up from. But Sheik ftilt boyz.
Up tilt, forward tilt, nair and jab are all kill set up moves and reliable damage racking and combo moves as well. He definitely has the grounded mobility to have guaranteed punishments on techs, ftilt and nair are not "gimmicks" or reliant on the opponent messing up.

What actually are his poor match ups? By any inclination of design, I don't see how any truly would be. Fox has everything Sheik would dislike when you don't consider his jab not being abused against her; basically same/better frame data and mobility, with kill power firmly being on Fox' side; Sheik's reliability of gimping him being the only downside. Against Diddy beyond everything we all know, his mobility allows him to keep the game "honest" a lot better than most characters, with a lot of reliable bread and butter moves that are for the most part better than dash grabs, Diddy's fair isn't as effective against him due to his slighter height and his speed.
I don't believe any other character in the game can claim to have as good of a match up against both Diddy and Sheik as Fox does.
Rosalina is a match up I just have not seen with this character at all but I can envision why it could be hard for Fox.
Luigi? Sonic? Like... maybe? I think customs (based laser) allows a solid keep away game against Luigi and keeps Sonic honest in neutral. NAKAT seems to be winning against False' luigi (arguably second best in NA) and run even/perhaps ahead of 6WX in head to head.


With the up coming patch I truly hope they fix Fox's jab. It's definitely one of the most abusive things in the game and contrasts with all known design paradigms/systems to have these things not exist. With that changed, the likelihood of Fox maintaining his dominance will go down by a lot, I'm pretty sure but he'll still retain a lot of the things that I believe keep him in and around 5th place. Jab to reverse up tilt seems just as applicable (reverse up tilt being 4 frames) and will be giving Fox bairs/uairs at kill percent too, he'll just have to work harder at getting damage / won't have as much of a frustrating to deal with frame two tool that people have to respect.

If I recall, I've seen some high level Fox players mention that Captain Falcon is a tough matchup mostly because of up air.

 

[Antonykun]

He is fun as hell with customs but he has a legit unwinnable match vs zss and tough matches vs several top tiers.

Are you really sure it's a 0:100 vs ZSS? I know that its a hyper bole but still :/

Anyhows what i really wanted to talk about is what viable means.
Viable IIRC is that a character is very capable of winning a regional or better?We can talk about Viability based on potential or result.Marth has not won any regionals IIRC so he he doesn't bring much results w/e most good characters don't win regionals because diddy

@ Emblem Lord is a badass with marth I'm sure but when he has said it multiple times that Marth is not good that does put his viability in question

 

[deepseadiva]

If I recall, I've seen some high level Fox players mention that Captain Falcon is a tough matchup mostly because of up air.

Doesn't lose super hard to as well?

I remember reading that before too.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

When I think of good moves belonging to Zelda, I think of:

• Farore's Wind - Safe recovery that doubles as a ridiculously potent 7f kill move usable OoS
• Nayru's Love - Reflector with invincibility and lingering hitboxes that functions as a solid get-off-me move.
• Dair - Very powerful sweetspotted spike, even the weak hit lingers for an extra 10 frames and also spikes.
• Dtilt - Quick poke that sets up other moves and can even combo into Farore's Wind at specific percents.
• Dsmash - Frame 5, good launch angle, lowish end lag. Kind of has kill power.

2 out of 4 of her specials are among her best moves; Din's is terrible and Phantom is questionable, but I wouldn't say her specials are her weak point.

Her Dash attack is fine. With her slow ass grab feels like shes just better off shield dropping outside of FW opportunity.

 

[Shaya]

Are you really sure it's a 0:100 vs ZSS? I know that its a hyper bole but still :/

Anyhows what i really wanted to talk about is what viable means.
Viable IIRC is that a character is very capable of winning a regional or better?We can talk about Viability based on potential or result.Marth has not won any regionals IIRC so he he doesn't bring much results w/e most good characters don't win regionals because diddy

@ Emblem Lord is a badass with marth I'm sure but when he has said it multiple times that Marth is not good that does put his viability in question

unwinnable doesn't mean 100:0. Once you get towards 65:35 or worse you're starting to look at a match up that shouldn't be winnable against two evenly skilled players, let alone ones which have skill discrepancies.
ZSS is likely Marth/Lucina's worst match up. Think of it like this: every move they use is so laggy zss can grab it (and on shield it's definite). They're also combo fodder for her. It's like Dedede vs most of the lower tier in brawl that he could chain grab. "Oh I have no neutral game whatsoever because everything I do is punished with 30% and a terrible position I may not get back from". Amplified even worse because the "may not get back" is actually "combo'd to death".

ZSS > Sheik / Sonic > Diddy/Luigi > Olimar into 40:60s/45:55s with just about everyone else; 50:50s on Falcon by lovely design and against a lot of the 'slower' characters [imo].

If I recall, I've seen some high level Fox players mention that Captain Falcon is a tough matchup mostly because of up air.

Falcon is a very popular tournament character too. Doesn't seem to really matter enough to hold fox back.

Doesn't lose super hard to as well?

I remember reading that before too.

I've heard that early on in the game but almost the opposite in more recent times. Mac and other match ups that may be mildly tough isn't the argument I'm most focusing on.

 

[Ffamran]

Admittedly, part of Ganon's stigma has to do with how his matches usually go. He either stomps all over his opponent or he gets pestered to death, very little in-between. That's just an unfortunate aspect of his design really. When a character gets the ridiculous amount of reward Ganon does on hit, the only way to avoid somewhat binary matches is to make the character awful or to make him too good.

While Ganondorf has taken a fair share of tourneys (he's right in the middle when it comes to the results rankings), I haven't ever seen a Ganondorf win a tourney on stream. And mark my words, he'll get bandwagon'd so hard once that happens. When Ganon wins, he wins hard.

No Falco has won any streamed or recorded tournament and of those that were unrecorded, he places like, upper 10 - I should check the tournament thread in the Falco boards. Falco gets stigma from not being Melee/Brawl Falco, losing chain grabs like it was a fair thing he could do and was a universal lost which I'm fine with since it was just stupid at times, losing short hop double lasers as a severe nerf that makes every move he has invalidated because the ability to shoot as fast as Fox, but have hitstun and 3% is such a fair thing for Falco to be able to do, and never winning any known tournament. At Apex he got bodied or was switched out to Diddy and DK. That's not a reputation anyone wants and then you have other "low tiers" or "bottom fives" winning tournaments or getting a hype like Zelda, Mii Sword Fighter, or customs Palutena. To the masses, this solidifies that Falco's one of the worst if not the worst character in the game. I already compared and showed that Falco's hit frames didn't change all the much and damage-wise, he's consistent throughout the games too. His main strength in Melee and Brawl was being able to exploit the hell out of the games while in SSB4, he makes Superman - old school, boy scout Superman - look like a criminal.

Lesser known tournaments, matches not recorded, and even stuff known with Falco rarely shows him getting him bodied. Falco just does well without being overwhelming. Also, you could give Falco Fox's Impact Blaster and he'd have a better projectile game. He would only be able to shoot once per draw, but that's enough.

What you define as broken is absurd. Ike is probably going to be in the better half. Is he improved from brawl? Yes...does that make him good in this game? I don't think so. It's been a while since I've seen nairo's Zelda or Robin granted I don't catch every stream.

Toon Link seems a bit worse to me link is pretty bad as well. Falco is interesting I'm not sure if he's above mid or not. But his customs seem strong and look as though he could be a threat. What you should recognize and a lot of other people is the importance of frame data in these discussions. I personally can't write off a character like falco with his frame data. Does that translate to a top character? I don't believe so but it shows his potential.

Yes people can be swept along by others opinion. However, isn't this thread the perfect place to dispel the non sense and discuss character viability? I learn a lot from this thread and I don't try to go with the popular opinion but my opinion.

It was an exaggeration and it is still broken, but on an extreme level of broken.

Also, like I've said before, frame data isn't everything. It doesn't fix Dr. Mario's issues of recovering and for whatever reason being really slow on the ground compared to Mario. No, his coat and not getting out much because he's a doctor doesn't justify him being that slow or having those kinds of jumps. Dr. Mario's wall jump is shorter than Little Mac's! That said, Dr. Mario's not bad, but he's not amazing. He does well so long as he doesn't get gimped by sending him horizontally off the stage which the same can be said for anyone not named Kirby, Meta Knight, Jigglypuff, or (Dark) Pit.

Captain Falcon's frame data isn't all that great compared to Fox, Sheik, and Mario. It's made up by his movement speed, grab game, range, and power. Samus's frame data is good too, but how her moves work and her reliance on Charge Shot really limits her. I want to see the monster she was before the game was released, but that's probably not going to happen. Sonic players should be abusing his frame data, but oh well. Isn't Kirby's frame data good? If so, then he suffers from similar problems as Falco: forcing approaches or approaching in general. These two once they're in, will tear people apart. You have to consider everything about the character.

The issue with popular, uninformed opinion is that they're massive. I could prove 10 people here that Falco's good, but people out there who don't know, don't care to research, or don't think for themselves, will just bandwagon on Falco's bad.

SSB4 being balanced and open to balance patches makes it so that viability is more possible even with the worst character in the game. The worst character in this game at least has a chance to be rebalanced or has a chance to stand because SSB4 isn't Melee or Brawl. I mean, Brawl Ganondorf could win, but it was a difficult battle for him and saying, "Don't get grabbed", in Brawl is much more painful than in SSB4. In Brawl, getting grabbed could mean 0 to death over and over, but in SSB4, getting grabbed means a stock or damage which you can still make up for with a character who doesn't get screwed over by the game mechanics.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

im like...completely mind****ed right now. I...ok...hsdhdjfhjufdjhfju....marth right now is not viable. He is fun as hell with customs but he has a legit unwinnable match vs zss and tough matches vs several top tiers.

What makes this match so bad, anyways? I realize that ZSS has similar range and frame data and better risk/reward in general, but I still have trouble against some marths, including those who don't actually play much Marth - just getting cheesed by high-damage stuff because if I want to kill I have to commit really hard.

@ Shaya I'm pretty sure Fox also loses pretty badly to Little Mac - Mac just outboxes him so hard, and you have to work really hard to deal with that jab. I can just sorta walk around, throw out rapid jabs and ftilt, and Fox is not really great at keeping me stuck in the air or edgeguarding me. Plus crazy damage off dtilt setups due to fall speed. That said, the number of Macs flying around is low enough that this really doesn't matter, whereas his spread against the high tiers (particularly with things like Fox Twister in customs) is decent.

 

[thehard]

In my limited experience it's really hard for to get in on . He also gets destroyed by d-smash edgeguarding with his linear recovery and Mac can power through his smashes with his own SA-ed, faster smashes. Jab and f-tilt are the real killers here, they punish your punishes.

 

[Shaya]

Well I don't always like this pull, but I'm under the impression that ZeRo thinks Fox destroys Mac. Gimme like 5 minutes though~

"Mac should never land"; Fox gets a lot of out grabs at every point, dash attack is bogus and down smash is great for killing him recovering.

Mac dsmash is really good for edge guarding Fox, and his up-b allows him to get out of jab locks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYukA-kC6xU

there's this where he doesn't explicitly talk about it going one way or another. Monkey is the best Little Mac I've personally seen/played against too. Down tilt seemed to be easy for ZeRo to get out of and mid range game plan otherwise didn't seem to favour Mac at all.
But on the point of theory, Fox has dominant mid range tools and that is Mac's main point of weakness.

Fox boards average it as mild disadvantage to a 60:40 advantage.
Mac boards consensus seems to be even or slight disadvantage.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

No Falco has won any streamed or recorded tournament and of those that were unrecorded, he places like, upper 10 - I should check the tournament thread in the Falco boards. Falco gets stigma from not being Melee/Brawl Falco, losing chain grabs like it was a fair thing he could do and was a universal lost which I'm fine with since it was just stupid at times, losing short hop double lasers as a severe nerf that makes every move he has invalidated because the ability to shoot as fast as Fox, but have hitstun and 3% is such a fair thing for Falco to be able to do, and never winning any known tournament. At Apex he got bodied or was switched out to Diddy and DK. That's not a reputation anyone wants and then you have other "low tiers" or "bottom fives" winning tournaments or getting a hype like Zelda, Mii Sword Fighter, or customs Palutena. To the masses, this solidifies that Falco's one of the worst if not the worst character in the game. I already compared and showed that Falco's hit frames didn't change all the much and damage-wise, he's consistent throughout the games too. His main strength in Melee and Brawl was being able to exploit the hell out of the games while in SSB4, he makes Superman - old school, boy scout Superman - look like a criminal.

Lesser known tournaments, matches not recorded, and even stuff known with Falco rarely shows him getting him bodied. Falco just does well without being overwhelming. Also, you could give Falco Fox's Impact Blaster and he'd have a better projectile game. He would only be able to shoot once per draw, but that's enough.


It was an exaggeration and it is still broken, but on an extreme level of broken.

Also, like I've said before, frame data isn't everything. It doesn't fix Dr. Mario's issues of recovering and for whatever reason being really slow on the ground compared to Mario. No, his coat and not getting out much because he's a doctor doesn't justify him being that slow or having those kinds of jumps. Dr. Mario's wall jump is shorter than Little Mac's! That said, Dr. Mario's not bad, but he's not amazing. He does well so long as he doesn't get gimped by sending him horizontally off the stage which the same can be said for anyone not named Kirby, Meta Knight, Jigglypuff, or (Dark) Pit.

Captain Falcon's frame data isn't all that great compared to Fox, Sheik, and Mario. It's made up by his movement speed, grab game, range, and power. Samus's frame data is good too, but how her moves work and her reliance on Charge Shot really limits her. I want to see the monster she was before the game was released, but that's probably not going to happen. Sonic players should be abusing his frame data, but oh well. Isn't Kirby's frame data good? If so, then he suffers from similar problems as Falco: forcing approaches or approaching in general. These two once they're in, will tear people apart. You have to consider everything about the character.

The issue with popular, uninformed opinion is that they're massive. I could prove 10 people here that Falco's good, but people out there who don't know, don't care to research, or don't think for themselves, will just bandwagon on Falco's bad.

SSB4 being balanced and open to balance patches makes it so that viability is more possible even with the worst character in the game. The worst character in this game at least has a chance to be rebalanced or has a chance to stand because SSB4 isn't Melee or Brawl. I mean, Brawl Ganondorf could win, but it was a difficult battle for him and saying, "Don't get grabbed", in Brawl is much more painful than in SSB4. In Brawl, getting grabbed could mean 0 to death over and over, but in SSB4, getting grabbed means a stock or damage which you can still make up for with a character who doesn't get screwed over by the game mechanics.

Mobility backed up buy strong frame data is an eaxy recipe for a strong character. However you can learn to play around poor mobility you can't however mitigate poor frame data. This becomes extremely apparent when playing against shiek or diddy with like a shulk or palutena.

 

[Emblem Lord]

What makes this match so bad, anyways? I realize that ZSS has similar range and frame data and better risk/reward in general, but I still have trouble against some marths, including those who don't actually play much Marth - just getting cheesed by high-damage stuff because if I want to kill I have to commit really hard.

@ Shaya I'm pretty sure Fox also loses pretty badly to Little Mac - Mac just outboxes him so hard, and you have to work really hard to deal with that jab. I can just sorta walk around, throw out rapid jabs and ftilt, and Fox is not really great at keeping me stuck in the air or edgeguarding me. Plus crazy damage off dtilt setups due to fall speed. That said, the number of Macs flying around is low enough that this really doesn't matter, whereas his spread against the high tiers (particularly with things like Fox Twister in customs) is decent.

You are losing because you think you have to do stuff.

Stop it and realize what this game is and what Marcina cant do. They only beat good chars by tricking them into hitting buttons and Marcina can out button almost anyone. Stop hitting buttons and block/roll intelligently.

Dead Marcina is dead.

Marcina loses to ZSS because everything is punishable on block except full jump rising fair which puts you in a horrible position. ZSS right under you, so thats basically a death sentence. They do not have a neutral game vs her. It's literally just bait her into thinking she has to do something and then punish her. Once she gets wise to the situation (like Nairo did vs me) its lights out for the Ylissean dynasty..

 

[Jams.]

Fox is definitely stupid.
Out of anyone out there, I think his claim for being third best in the game, customs off and with a bit more contention but still arguably customs on as well, is near unrivaled.

Like Up throw Up Air on Diddy turns him from "best character in the game but measurable/comparable" into "demon bane **** my life", Fox' jab has similar application and is plainly way too good and should NOT exist (and any idiot who argues otherwise will feel my wrath). If it wasn't for this single thing that gives him amazing stage position, amazing damage/combo set up and guaranteed kill set ups on a frame two move he wouldn't be doing nearly as well as he does in tournament as he does now. Who are Fox' worst match ups apparently? The two characters who don't get repetitions on: Sheik and Zero Suit Samus. Sheik just falls into the ground and can always jab first, ZSS jab 1 is always faster too. Fox can shield before either can attack him though.
Fox has the third best results out of any character by a noticeable margin. Although not a perfect source, my scouring through smashboard's rankings and tournaments generally have me finding at least one Fox existing in every region with very good results. If we took away Diddy/Sheik right now, Fox would be overlooking the rest of the cast in a domineering manner still, there are just way too many tournament wins (1st place) being taken by Fox. NAKAT, DEHF, Megafox, SK92 when Fow doesn't show up, ksev. You will not be able to name even 3 other people bar those using diddy and sheik with this much consistency in first placements as Fox.

What are his weaknesses? Light weight, under-par grab game [for a top tier], recovery.
On his recovery, it isn't easy to gimp. He still has side b into up b (which can get to the ledge from close to outside camera view) that cover excessive distance, it is similar to Diddy in a lot of ways but slightly less versatile. With customs, it's different; he really only seems to gain strengths and applications while having weaknesses reduced (Wolf Flash and either of the alternative up-bs).
His grab game is solid at early percent, getting him follow ups and momentum he can capitalize on. At higher percent he'll struggle against held shields because it is generally very safe. With custom lasers he can frame trap from throws a lot longer/get chip damage, and with wolf flash he can combo out of throws depending on DI. As I've said numerous times now, swap Falco's throws with Fox' and he would be no.1 in the game, Diddy would be our savior, dark knight and everything he does would amaze us.
His neutral game of keep away and lasers is still strong/relevant in a lot of match ups. His falco laser turns him into a menace that is difficult to approach and practically always forces the approach from the opponent.

We don't see enough Fox play and hence why people underrate him. SoCal/West Coast in general are poorly covered by streams (well, they're always there, but struggle having more than 50 viewers), Texas is in a similar/worse boat. But I behoove you to follow through with tournament data research. It's all there. Clear and notable dominance.

The only mobility spec this character isn't basically top three in is aerial mobility. Everything else is up there/top. Walk speed, dash to run, fast fall, pivots, so on and so forth.
His ftilt, nair, bair and fsmash are reliable to be safe-ish on shield. Jab and Up tilt will rarely let you down either.
He -definitely- has close to the best nair jab and up tilt in the game. His ftilt might be too, very low end lag plus stupidly easy to combo/link up from. But Sheik ftilt boyz.
Up tilt, forward tilt, nair and jab are all kill set up moves and reliable damage racking and combo moves as well. He definitely has the grounded mobility to have guaranteed punishments on techs, ftilt and nair are not "gimmicks" or reliant on the opponent messing up.

What actually are his poor match ups? By any inclination of design, I don't see how any truly would be. Fox has everything Sheik would dislike when you don't consider his jab not being abused against her; basically same/better frame data and mobility, with kill power firmly being on Fox' side; Sheik's reliability of gimping him being the only downside. Against Diddy beyond everything we all know, his mobility allows him to keep the game "honest" a lot better than most characters, with a lot of reliable bread and butter moves that are for the most part better than dash grabs, Diddy's fair isn't as effective against him due to his slighter height and his speed.
I don't believe any other character in the game can claim to have as good of a match up against both Diddy and Sheik as Fox does.
Rosalina is a match up I just have not seen with this character at all but I can envision why it could be hard for Fox.
Luigi? Sonic? Like... maybe? I think customs (based laser) allows a solid keep away game against Luigi and keeps Sonic honest in neutral. NAKAT seems to be winning against False' luigi (arguably second best in NA) and run even/perhaps ahead of 6WX in head to head.


With the up coming patch I truly hope they fix Fox's jab. It's definitely one of the most abusive things in the game and contrasts with all known design paradigms/systems to have these things not exist. With that changed, the likelihood of Fox maintaining his dominance will go down by a lot, I'm pretty sure but he'll still retain a lot of the things that I believe keep him in and around 5th place. Jab to reverse up tilt seems just as applicable (reverse up tilt being 4 frames) and will be giving Fox bairs/uairs at kill percent too, he'll just have to work harder at getting damage / won't have as much of a frustrating to deal with frame two tool that people have to respect.

I feel like Sonic also has a claim to be third best in the game. While the rankings aren't highly accurate, Sonic is third in tournament wins behind Diddy and Sheik, starting from the beginning of this year; he also has similar usage statistics to Fox in this time period, indicating Sonic mains are finding more success with the character. As for strong players in good regions winning tournaments with Sonic, Seagull Joe and StaticManny both consistently win tournaments, while 6WX and Espy Rose are also top placers that may have won events (I think 6WX has, not sure about Espy).

I don't have much personal experience with Sonic, so I won't go into an in-depth analysis about his domineering traits, but he seems like another character without any real weaknesses. He seems like a character that can control the pace of the neutral in almost every matchup, can rack damage quickly, escape disadvantage fairly well, and also kill reliably. I may just be missing things due to a lack of intimacy with the character though.

I do think Fox (at least from your points and some tournament result scouring) has stronger matchups against Sheik and Diddy, which could edge him out over Sonic (or anyone else) for that third place. However, I think Sonic does have some claims for that third place over Fox from both a theoretical perspective and from results. This is also for customs off; my impression is that Fox's customs benefit him more than Sonic's customs.

 

[meleebrawler]

The more things change the more they stay the same. Zelda being bad is because they didn't do anything to actually make her better. Zelda lost a lot of kill power she's still has poor mobility and a lot of slow moves. She probably has the worst set of specails in the game. They took away her dtilt lock her jab is still trash as is her grab. Her dthrow is worse as is her uair utilt usmash and dsmash. If you're not going to address a character weaknesses of course they're going to continue to suck.

Her nair also seems to be worse.

Actually I feel Smash 4's Zelda has a better time killing than in Brawl. There's the infamous elevator, lightning kicks
are just as strong if not stronger and come out just as quickly (only their endlag is bad), Fsmash is a bit stronger,
Ftilt launches forward making it easier to kill with. Only moves that are truly weaker are Uair, Usmash (which is legitamately
straight up worse) and Utilt (repurposed as combo move). Jab actually leads into things at low percents, and her grab has
been sped up to the point where you can't just spotdodge on reaction.

Zelda is not good in any game because her plan revolves around very hard-to-land moves
to get good results. Lightning kicks pretty much doom her to inconsistency.

 

[Shaya]

Yeah, Sonic is definitely looking towards my fourth (maybe third) for much the same reasons as Fox + your mentions.
Manny and Joe have a lot of first placements in their region. 6WX is in a tougher region and doesn't have similar first placements going for him. I believe Megafox mostly maintains dominance in San Antonio (where Espy resides).
Xanadu tournaments are heavily covered by the rankings list, so there's a lot of over saturation of those results. My criteria for "third best results" was the widespread usage of the character combined with said great results.

 

[HeroMystic]

Megafox indeed has dominance and Espy is usually second in line. When cities group together, Megafox usually remains in first place while Espy falls off but is usually in Top 8.

 

[Jaguar360]

Zelda has several good moves. It's just that her specs and U-smash and Din's Fire are bad.

Jab is not good for a jab since it's so slow (comes out at frame 11 iirc), but it has good followups a low-mid percents.

U-tilt is a solid combo move and has decent speed. Also a decent anti-air.

F-tilt is a fairly quick and reliable kill move and a good anti-air when angled up.

D-tilt is quick, easily sets up followups and allows Zelda to duck under some moves.

N-air is a fairly quick aerial and a good followup from D-throw at mid-low percents. Can also be fastfalled to get followups off of it.

F-air and B-air are super strong when sweetspotted and quick for their power, though they are very laggy and can be difficult to sweetspot.

U-air is strong and guaranteed from D-throw at a range of percents. (Yes, I'm rather certain that it's only escapable from D-throw later on)

D-air is a good spike and has nice on-stage followups if they don't tech. The sourspots are weak, though.

F-smash is great when the last hit connects. It's strong and I think it has good priority. Not too reliable though unless you space it to only get the last hit.

D-smash is a really fast smash attack and the angle that it sends you at makes it difficult to recover.

Naryu's Love is damaging, has invincibility frames, covers rolls and is a reflector all in one. It is a really great move tbh.

Farore's Wind is amazing as a recovery, kill move, punish and movement option.

Phantom Slash is underrated. It covers landings from mid-range, edgeguards, covers Zelda and has a lot of range when charged enough to get both hits.

I'd go as far as saying that Naryu's, Farore's, Phantom Slash, d-tilt, f-tilt and d-smash are amazing moves. It's the low movement speeds, light weight and tall hurtbox that get her along with her lack of a reliable long range projectile. Custom Din's Flare alleviates that last problem and Farore's Wind can somewhat compensate for the first. Even with her great moves though, I would still say that Zelda is low tier, as there are many characters that she's better than, if any.

 

[Cenizas]

Actually I feel Smash 4's Zelda has a better time killing than in Brawl. There's the infamous elevator, lightning kicks
are just as strong if not stronger and come out just as quickly (only their endlag is bad), Fsmash is a bit stronger,
Ftilt launches forward making it easier to kill with. Only moves that are truly weaker are Uair, Usmash (which is legitamately
straight up worse) and Utilt (repurposed as combo move). Jab actually leads into things at low percents, and her grab has
been sped up to the point where you can't just spotdodge on reaction.

Zelda is not good in any game because her plan revolves around very hard-to-land moves
to get good results. Lightning kicks pretty much doom her to inconsistency.

FORWARD AERIAL

Zelda quickly spins in midair into a judo kick charged with powerful magic at the ball of her foot.

BnB Data Table

Move Name|Hit Frames|Damage|Hit Angle|Landing Lag|Approximate KO %
Lightning Kick|9-13|4% (Sour-Spots) / 20% (Sweet-Spot) |Sakurai Angle|23 frames|451% (Outer Sour-Spot) / 550% (Inner Sour-Spot) / 93% (Sweet-Spot)

Complex Data Table
(Words go here.)



BACK AERIAL

Zelda quickly kicks behind her, and just like her forward aerial, it holds impressive magical power at the ball of her foot.

BnB Data Table

Move Name|Hit Frames|Damage|Hit Angle|Landing Lag|Approximate KO %
Reverse Lightning Kick|6-9|4% (Sour-Spots) / 20% (Sweet-Spot) |Sakurai Angle|25 frames|451% (Outer Sour-Spot) / 550% (Inner Sour-Spot) / 89% (Sweet-Spot)

Complex Data Table
(Words go here.)

Spoiler

Fair
Hitbox Active: 8-12
FAF: 40
Fresh Damage: 4.2/21 (more damage at toe; sweetspot active on frame 8 only)
Landing Lag: 22 frames
Autocancel: 1-7, 25-39
Advantage on Block: -23/-33 (normal shield drop) / -30/-40 (jump/grab oos) (does not include landing lag)

Bair
Hitbox Active: 5-8
FAF: 36
Fresh Damage: 4.2/21 (more damage at toe; sweetspot active on frame 5 only)
Landing Lag: 22 frames
Autocancel: 1-4, 26-35
Advantage on Block: -22/-32 (normal shield drop) / -29/-39 (jump/grab oos) (does not include landing lag)

I'm still looking, but clearly you can see Lightning Kicks got nerfed from Brawl currently.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Actually I feel Smash 4's Zelda has a better time killing than in Brawl. There's the infamous elevator, lightning kicks
are just as strong if not stronger and come out just as quickly (only their endlag is bad), Fsmash is a bit stronger,
Ftilt launches forward making it easier to kill with. Only moves that are truly weaker are Uair, Usmash (which is legitamately
straight up worse) and Utilt (repurposed as combo move). Jab actually leads into things at low percents, and her grab has
been sped up to the point where you can't just spotdodge on reaction.

Zelda is not good in any game because her plan revolves around very hard-to-land moves
to get good results. Lightning kicks pretty much doom her to inconsistency.

You do realize that her jab did that in brawl right ? how much did they speed up her grab ? she still has a slow grab maybe the slowest non tether grab in the game....they took away utilt and uair kill power. If they did the same to lk she wouldn't even be Zelda anymor,

 

[BJN39]

Spoiler

Fair
Hitbox Active: 8-12
FAF: 40
Fresh Damage: 4.2/21 (more damage at toe; sweetspot active on frame 8 only)
Landing Lag: 22 frames
Autocancel: 1-7, 25-39
Advantage on Block: -23/-33 (normal shield drop) / -30/-40 (jump/grab oos) (does not include landing lag)

Bair
Hitbox Active: 5-8
FAF: 36
Fresh Damage: 4.2/21 (more damage at toe; sweetspot active on frame 5 only)
Landing Lag: 22 frames
Autocancel: 1-4, 26-35
Advantage on Block: -22/-32 (normal shield drop) / -29/-39 (jump/grab oos) (does not include landing lag)

I'm still looking, but clearly you can see Lightning Kicks got nerfed from Brawl currently.

Good Cenizas, use the data to show people how much was nerfed! >:D

But from my quoted block, the complex data tables disappeared (Due to being in quote boxes themselves.) so some comparative data is missing. But if you want to see it, you can just follow the redirect arrow from my quoted post, in Cenizas post.

But yeah, @ meleebrawler unfortunately as Cenizas was pointing out, LKs are really not as fast, (Albeit, 1 frame.) OR as strong. In fact, their sweet-spot KB stats were lowered from 35/95 [FAir] / 40/96 [BAir] in Brawl, to 25/95 [FAir] and 28/96 [BAir] in SSB4. 10+ whole BKB points.

With that in mind, they aren't as powerful as Brawl, but retain their difficulty to land. (And you're basically in helpless fall because of the super long endlag lmao.) Ironically, even though as you pointed out Ftilt hits forward now, its KB was reduced as a result of the 1% decrease from Brawl also making IT weaker. (It really isn't a good KO move in SSB4.) Then add in the KB destroyals of UAir, Usmash, and Utilt, as well as a small KB nerf to Dsmash (While less powerful could still KO.) and she's lost basically all of her reliable KO moves. We're left with a bunch of situational, or unreliable and/or hard read KO moves, smh.

 

[Blobface]

But yeah, @ meleebrawler unfortunately as Cenizas was pointing out, LKs are really not as fast, (Albeit, 1 frame.) OR as strong. In fact, their sweet-spot KB stats were lowered from 35/95 [FAir] / 40/96 [BAir] in Brawl, to 25/95 [FAir] and 28/96 [BAir] in SSB4. 10+ whole BKB points.

I would like to note that Base Knockback is what Rage increases, so it may of had to do with that.

Even then, it's not like Zelda survives to incredible %'s anyway. Just out of curiousity, do we know how much Rage actually increases knockback? Like the actual KB value?

Speaking of rage...

I've been testing Dark Fists' kill percents, and I figured I'd test mario, on FD, with full 150% rage. I DI'd downward with another controller for the second hit.

It killed at 36%.

That is all.

 

[Cenizas]

Thanks for coming with the save gorl, sassing this place up one Zelda rant at a time.

No matter, if we're still talking about Zeldawful, while she's still rock bottom of the tier list, I'd put her above Dedede quite confidently . That man just isn't powerful enough for his weight, and he's the Roast Turkey of combo food. He's slow and Gordos are more of a hindrance than anything, even Din's Fire can pester opponents from afar w/o getting socked in the face. Zorldo also has semi-reliable moves that kill pretty darn early if I do say so myself, something Dedede should boast as well yet clearly does not. Zelda has a workable combo game at lowish percents too. I'd say more, but it's late for me and I'm on mobile.

 

[Locke 06]

I would like to note that Base Knockback is what Rage increases, so it may of had to do with that.

Even then, it's not like Zelda survives to incredible %'s anyway. Just out of curiousity, do we know how much Rage actually increases knockback? Like the actual KB value?

Speaking of rage...

I've been testing Dark Fists' kill percents, and I figured I'd test mario, on FD, with full 150% rage. I DI'd downward with another controller for the second hit.

It killed at 36%.

That is all.

Rage boosts knockback as part of the final multiplier in the knockback formula. Due to the way the formula is structured, base knockback is the most important until %'s where the move will kill without rage (in which case it doesn't really matter).

Also, since Dark Fists kills off the top, DI'ing downwards is only slightly better than not DI'ing at all, assuming the launch angle is not 90°. Vertical vectoring is gone.

 

[Blobface]

Also, since Dark Fists kills off the top, DI'ing downwards is only slightly better than not DI'ing at all, assuming the launch angle is not 90°. Vertical vectoring is gone.

Would DI'ing out really effect the knockback that much? You'd also run the risk of getting hit in the wrong direction and increasing your knockback.

 

[Unknownkid]

Yeah, Sonic is definitely looking towards my fourth (maybe third) for much the same reasons as Fox + your mentions.
Manny and Joe have a lot of first placements in their region. 6WX is in a tougher region and doesn't have similar first placements going for him. I believe Megafox mostly maintains dominance in San Antonio (where Espy resides).
Xanadu tournaments are heavily covered by the rankings list, so there's a lot of over saturation of those results. My criteria for "third best results" was the widespread usage of the character combined with said great results.

I believe Larry Lurr deserve a honorable mention. He won Kawaii Kon in Hawaii against a Diddy that beat both NinjaLink and DKwill Custom sets.

 

[Hippieslayer]

r there vids of that?

 

[Shaya]

I believe Larry Lurr deserve a honorable mention. He won Kawaii Kon in Hawaii against a Diddy that beat both NinjaLink and DKwill Custom sets.

Larry Lurr/DEHF are the same person.

 

[GSM_Dren]

Fox is definitely stupid.
Out of anyone out there, I think his claim for being third best in the game, customs off and with a bit more contention but still arguably customs on as well, is near unrivaled.

Like Up throw Up Air on Diddy turns him from "best character in the game but measurable/comparable" into "demon bane **** my life", Fox' jab has similar application and is plainly way too good and should NOT exist (and any idiot who argues otherwise will feel my wrath). If it wasn't for this single thing that gives him amazing stage position, amazing damage/combo set up and guaranteed kill set ups on a frame two move he wouldn't be doing nearly as well as he does in tournament as he does now. Who are Fox' worst match ups apparently? The two characters who don't get repetitions on: Sheik and Zero Suit Samus. Sheik just falls into the ground and can always jab first, ZSS jab 1 is always faster too. Fox can shield before either can attack him though.
Fox has the third best results out of any character by a noticeable margin. Although not a perfect source, my scouring through smashboard's rankings and tournaments generally have me finding at least one Fox existing in every region with very good results. If we took away Diddy/Sheik right now, Fox would be overlooking the rest of the cast in a domineering manner still, there are just way too many tournament wins (1st place) being taken by Fox. NAKAT, DEHF, Megafox, SK92 when Fow doesn't show up, ksev. You will not be able to name even 3 other people bar those using diddy and sheik with this much consistency in first placements as Fox.

What are his weaknesses? Light weight, under-par grab game [for a top tier], recovery.
On his recovery, it isn't easy to gimp. He still has side b into up b (which can get to the ledge from close to outside camera view) that cover excessive distance, it is similar to Diddy in a lot of ways but slightly less versatile. With customs, it's different; he really only seems to gain strengths and applications while having weaknesses reduced (Wolf Flash and either of the alternative up-bs).
His grab game is solid at early percent, getting him follow ups and momentum he can capitalize on. At higher percent he'll struggle against held shields because it is generally very safe. With custom lasers he can frame trap from throws a lot longer/get chip damage, and with wolf flash he can combo out of throws depending on DI. As I've said numerous times now, swap Falco's throws with Fox' and he would be no.1 in the game, Diddy would be our savior, dark knight and everything he does would amaze us.
His neutral game of keep away and lasers is still strong/relevant in a lot of match ups. His falco laser turns him into a menace that is difficult to approach and practically always forces the approach from the opponent.

We don't see enough Fox play and hence why people underrate him. SoCal/West Coast in general are poorly covered by streams (well, they're always there, but struggle having more than 50 viewers), Texas is in a similar/worse boat. But I behoove you to follow through with tournament data research. It's all there. Clear and notable dominance.

The only mobility spec this character isn't basically top three in is aerial mobility. Everything else is up there/top. Walk speed, dash to run, fast fall, pivots, so on and so forth.
His ftilt, nair, bair and fsmash are reliable to be safe-ish on shield. Jab and Up tilt will rarely let you down either.
He -definitely- has close to the best nair jab and up tilt in the game. His ftilt might be too, very low end lag plus stupidly easy to combo/link up from. But Sheik ftilt boyz.
Up tilt, forward tilt, nair and jab are all kill set up moves and reliable damage racking and combo moves as well. He definitely has the grounded mobility to have guaranteed punishments on techs, ftilt and nair are not "gimmicks" or reliant on the opponent messing up.

What actually are his poor match ups? By any inclination of design, I don't see how any truly would be. Fox has everything Sheik would dislike when you don't consider his jab not being abused against her; basically same/better frame data and mobility, with kill power firmly being on Fox' side; Sheik's reliability of gimping him being the only downside. Against Diddy beyond everything we all know, his mobility allows him to keep the game "honest" a lot better than most characters, with a lot of reliable bread and butter moves that are for the most part better than dash grabs, Diddy's fair isn't as effective against him due to his slighter height and his speed.
I don't believe any other character in the game can claim to have as good of a match up against both Diddy and Sheik as Fox does.
Rosalina is a match up I just have not seen with this character at all but I can envision why it could be hard for Fox.
Luigi? Sonic? Like... maybe? I think customs (based laser) allows a solid keep away game against Luigi and keeps Sonic honest in neutral. NAKAT seems to be winning against False' luigi (arguably second best in NA) and run even/perhaps ahead of 6WX in head to head.


With the up coming patch I truly hope they fix Fox's jab. It's definitely one of the most abusive things in the game and contrasts with all known design paradigms/systems to have these things not exist. With that changed, the likelihood of Fox maintaining his dominance will go down by a lot, I'm pretty sure but he'll still retain a lot of the things that I believe keep him in and around 5th place. Jab to reverse up tilt seems just as applicable (reverse up tilt being 4 frames) and will be giving Fox bairs/uairs at kill percent too, he'll just have to work harder at getting damage / won't have as much of a frustrating to deal with frame two tool that people have to respect.

I can agree with you that Fox is definitely a character that can compete with the top tiers, especially against Diddy. From watching Larry lurr live at the tournament @ Unknownkid was mentioning, a Fox that is played on point seemingly destroys his competition. His jab game is powerful and completely ****s on fast fallers such as diddy.

r there vids of that?

Here's two sets with Larry's fox against top diddy players. He is relentless with his punishes and jabs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b71F5-2pNQ vs Jtails (Winner's SF)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmyjPS0BIKI vs LethalTrilogy (Grand finals)

---

And stemming from discussion in the previous pages, Yoshi is overrated at the moment. There's not enough high level representation of him, and Japan seemingly puts him in third because they don't have an answer to Yoshidora lol. Yoshi is a decent character, and I'd put him borderline top 10. He doesn't benefit too greatly from grabs as the others do and his kill setups are pretty much nonexistent.

 

[Meru.]

But yeah, @ meleebrawler unfortunately as Cenizas was pointing out, LKs are really not as fast, (Albeit, 1 frame.) OR as strong. In fact, their sweet-spot KB stats were lowered from 35/95 [FAir] / 40/96 [BAir] in Brawl, to 25/95 [FAir] and 28/96 [BAir] in SSB4. 10+ whole BKB points.

A lot of moves had their knockback nerfed to compensate for rage.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

Its so hard to even take the meta seriously right now knowing we are only a few days off from patch

@Thinkaman Im sure there aint gunna be patch notes looking forrward to the patch changes thread with ya. *i know your gunna be there*

I know....

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Its so hard to even take the meta seriously right now knowing we are only a few days off from patch

@Thinkaman Im sure there aint gunna be patch notes looking forrward to the patch changes thread with ya. *i know your gunna be there*

I know....

Freaking I'm pretty sure I'm going to drop my main. The character that I'm attempting to learn is probably going to get nerfed as well. So I'm not looking forward to this patch at all. But we shall see what happens.

 

[Meru.]

Its so hard to even take the meta seriously right now knowing we are only a few days off from patch

@Thinkaman Im sure there aint gunna be patch notes looking forrward to the patch changes thread with ya. *i know your gunna be there*

I know....

Going from the last balance patch, they are very conservative with patching so I doubt characters will change a lot. Some slight buffs and nerfs will be given to the upper and lower tiers respectively, and half of the cast will probably be left untouched. Chars like Diddy and Sheik will likely stay good, characters like Zelda will likely stay bad (I hope I'm wrong). The metagame may alter slightly, but it will likely continue mostly in the way it did.

 

[meleebrawler]

Going from the last balance patch, they are very conservative with patching so I doubt characters will change a lot. Some slight buffs and nerfs will be given to the upper and lower tiers respectively, and half of the cast will probably be left untouched. Chars like Diddy and Sheik will likely stay good, characters like Zelda will likely stay bad (I hope I'm wrong). The metagame may alter slightly, but it will likely continue mostly in the way it did.

Herein lies the problem with Zelda's kicks from a design standpoint: theoretically if someone could
consistently land them she'd be nigh unstoppable. Therefore simply having a small sweetspot isn't
enough as one has to account for perfect aim; they need to be punishable if they miss, too.

Trust me, if Zelda's kicks had Brawl or Melee frame data SOMEONE would eventually complain about
Zelda being able to throw potentially 20% damage aerials with extreme knockback willy-nilly.

Does anyone know what complaints were lodged against Project M Zelda?

Edit: Oh, and another thing... Does Zelda weigh the same as Sheik?

 

[HeroMystic]

Would DI'ing out really effect the knockback that much? You'd also run the risk of getting hit in the wrong direction and increasing your knockback.

Holding Up is the only way to increase knockback vs vertical kill moves.

DI'ing in the direction you that gives you the best horizontal angle is the best way to survive.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

Going from the last balance patch, they are very conservative with patching so I doubt characters will change a lot. Some slight buffs and nerfs will be given to the upper and lower tiers respectively, and half of the cast will probably be left untouched. Chars like Diddy and Sheik will likely stay good, characters like Zelda will likely stay bad (I hope I'm wrong). The metagame may alter slightly, but it will likely continue mostly in the way it did.

The only difference this time though is that he thought there was so little difference that he simply tryed sneaking that balance patch in under our nose. this time there is an open declaration. Im not saying its going to be a crazy big change but im also not saying it is not.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Herein lies the problem with Zelda's kicks from a design standpoint: theoretically if someone could
consistently land them she'd be nigh unstoppable. Therefore simply having a small sweetspot isn't
enough as one has to account for perfect aim; they need to be punishable if they miss, too.

Trust me, if Zelda's kicks had Brawl or Melee frame data SOMEONE would eventually complain about
Zelda being able to throw potentially 20% damage aerials with extreme knockback willy-nilly.

Does anyone know what complaints were lodged against Project M Zelda?

Edit: Oh, and another thing... Does Zelda weigh the same as Sheik?

No one was complaining about Zelda's LK in brawl.....why would they complain about it now?

 

[Road Death Wheel]

No one was complaining about Zelda's LK in brawl.....why would they complain about it now?

Cuz humans suck.

 

[Trifroze]

This where I disagree. Falcon is overall one of the less scary characters when it comes to edgeguarding outside of his D-air and sourspot F-air on more predictable recoveries. In general though Falcon has a much harder time edgeguarding than he does juggling when his tools for hitting things below him (as well as in front of him) are not nearly as reliable. It's not like edgeguarding with Ganon who has some of the most massive lingering aerials in the game in his N-air, U-air, and F-air that can cover wide arcs in several directions, including below him. Falcon's good high priority aerials are U-air and B-air, both of which offstage are by far more telegraphed and require specific commitments to set up and also still don't have the ability to reliably cover things below Falcon. More commonly when I watch Falcon players, even good ones, go for throwing their opponent directly offstage, this leads to situations where they end up being forced to guess in ledge trap situations.

Instead, if you used U-throw by the ledge, in several matchups you would have a lot more time to react to your opponent drifting downwards even if they tried to get under you to reset to the ledge. Something to keep in mind is this type of setup tends to not require you to go offstage quite as deep to punish your opponent's drifting due to the limits of changing direction in midair, which gives you more options to pursue them. And if they recover high, that's great given you're Falcon who has some of the most reliable guaranteed air traps in the game.

At higher percents uair juggles generally stop being useful because you just want the kill which a usually stale uair won't get you until about 140% on most stages, whereas Falcon has many tools to get either a gimp or a straight up kill after around 40-50% offstage on virtually every commonly used character. Whereas Falcon doesn't have Ganon level reverse uair or lingering nair or fair, he has a meteor with a much better hitbox and a lingering bair which is much easier to land offstage with the addition of being able to scare your opponent with dair (hence the 40-50%). Either way it's a kill, and reading the common and understandable airdodge will result in something like this:

We've seen stuff like this go down in tournaments fairly commonly, and it's where Falcon really shines too. If your opponent does make it to the ledge, you have a holdable jab which shuts down your opponent's every ledge getup option other than roll (in which case they eat fsmash), and speed + great dair and dtilt to pressure them even without resorting to that. Also drop zone dair is too good.

 

[Flamecircle]

Since we touched on the topic of unwinnable matchups, anyone have a list of them?

I assume DHD and Pacman can't win against Rosa, and DDD probably loses to a lot of characters.