Character Competitive Impressions

[WeirdChillFever]

Pac vs Rosa
Unwinnable? No
Hard? Yes

Pac is more than his fruits and hydrant, it's just a less deep playstyle.
If you can kill Luma, it becomes easy with Fair, Nair and Bair.

Killing Luma is hard unless Rosa sends Luma out.
Hydrant, Key and Nair all get the twinky off-stage.

My two theorycraft sets.
*summons @ Nu~ for more.*

 

[Nu~]

People still think we can't win against rosa? That's funny.

Many pac-mains used to feel the same way until we looked at the matchup from a different perspective:

Call me a masochist, but I'm enjoying the rosalina matchup now. GP is fun to play with.

GP is incredibly punishable in mid range. If she tries to use it on my fruit in mid range, I just pick it up with a dash attack for a free z drop and free damage. Rosa should never use GP on the hydrant because if he are within a 1/3 of the distance of FD close to her, we can punish it (who cares about its low cooldown if the move lasts a year long)
I'm starting to think that Rosa's GP might be worse than the average reflector because of how laggy and nonoffensive it is. As long as you stay within mid range, her GP only helps you by giving you your fruit back as a z droppable item.
Keys and melons are your best friends. The key eats luma and blows rosa away, and in combination with the hydrant, it's an instant luma destroyer. You have to use the key at mid range or closer however, so that you can catch it once it hits the ground and she remains in the GP animation.
Any further and you just gave rosa your key unless the opponent just didn't see it coming fast enough.

The melon is good because you can run with it. If rosa GPs, then you can pick it up quickly with a dash attack since you are so close to it. If she shields, Luma gets blown back, and you can recatch the melon.

Rosa's uair loses to hydrant. This is pretty big, because rosa can't juggle us well like she can to any other character. If she baits the hydrant and uses an aerial GP, then ff nair her, or use the time to escape the area right above her.

GP only forces us to play a more mid range/CQC game, but it doesn't hinder us in any way. We shouldn't camp with pac-man anyway.

Now for Rosa's CQC.
She outranges us, it's pretty obvious. But her attacks last for centuries. If you powershield her nair, you can immediately follow up with a nair of your own or a double fair into nair. This is what makes the trampoline so amazing in this matchup. She can't approach us safely, and she is too slow to catch our landing. Fight rosa in the air, only if you are in her face. Stick to the ground if you are a distance away so that you can play the punish game. Her dair can be punished OoS by trampoline, her uair can be punished by the hydrant, her fair should never be used as an approach due to its landing lag and weird hitbox, and her nair can be punished out of a powershield or shield drop.

I don't fear rosa any longer.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

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.

Im pertty sure nobody said anything is unwinnable im sure no ratio is 0:100

 

[Chuva]

Rosalina is far from unwinnable for Pac-Man.

DDD, Ganondorf, Dr. Mario and Bowser Jr all have a worse time against her in my opinion.

 

[Flamecircle]

Im pertty sure nobody said anything is unwinnable im sure no ratio is 0:100

Unwinnable as previously defined as approximately 65:35 or worse.

I don't really see how pacman can keep the matchup above that ratio when he basically can't grab or effectively use his projectiles outside of a surprise key. It really reduces him to a mediocre Mario.

DHD has the same issue. The can is his Nana, the factor that makes him strong. Without it, he's just a character with decent moves.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Unwinnable as previously defined as approximately 65:35 or worse.

ffs can't people just say 70:30?

Smooth Criminal

 

[Nu~]

Unwinnable as previously defined as approximately 65:35 or worse.

I don't really see how pacman can keep the matchup above that ratio when he basically can't grab or effectively use his projectiles outside of a surprise key. It really reduces him to a mediocre Mario.

DHD has the same issue. The can is his Nana, the factor that makes him strong. Without it, he's just a character with decent moves.

Did you read my write up at all?

Rosa can't GP us safely unless we play the long range game. GP becomes a liability in mid range because we can just pick up our fruit and punish her during the rest of her animation.

 

[Djent]

Numbers like 65:35 and 70:30 aren't actually odds ratios (lol), so it's pretty arbitrary what we decide is the cutoff for viability. We just have to be sure everyone is on the same page so that the numbers aren't assigned on different scales.

 

[Mr. Johan]

Wasn't there talk before on how Megaman's Skull Barrier custom makes the Olimar MU completely one-sided?

 

[HeroMystic]

7:3 is what one would consider "Hard Mode" where you have to significantly outplay your opponent, much like how 6:4 is what one would consider "Difficult" where you have to mildly outplay your opponent. Going past 7:3 is the point where the disadvantaged character's options start to become completely invalidated with relative ease.

 

[Antonykun]

ffs can't people just say 70:30?

Smooth Criminal

65:35 is the excact number off a 5:5 scale that shows that you should not win in that MU

 

[bc1910]

Going from the last balance patch, they are very conservative with patching so I doubt characters will change a lot.

I'm not sure this is the case for everyone, sadly. Literally everything that was strong about except his Nair was nerfed in that patch, even minor things like Uair. That doesn't really speak for conservative balance, nor do I think hitting literally everything that's even slightly strong is an effective way to balance. Come to think of it, almost everything that was strong about was nerfed as well including stuff like Down Smash, but it didn't affect her as much since her basic design (puppeteer with a respawning puppet) is so strong. I guess Luma's moves weren't really nerfed either, which is where most of her strength comes from. Despite the lesser effect on Rosalina, the nerfs applied to her don't really show signs of conservative balance.

On the other end of the spectrum you had getting buffs to half his moves and much better KO potential all around, and getting damage buffs to almost every move with general buffs to Monado Arts as well. I don't think either of those characters were buffed conservatively, in fact I think we're quite lucky that Shulk doesn't have better frame data since buffs of that magnitude could be devastating on a character with faster moves.

I hope they ARE a little more conservative at nerfing the powerful characters this time around.

 

[Djent]

Okay, so Super Sumabato just happened this weekend, and the results were pretty interesting:

1) Edge (undefeated)
2) Saiya (lost to Shogun and Edge)
3) Choco (lost to Edge and Saiya)
4) Songun (lost to Edge and Saiya)
5) Shogun (lost to Choco and Songun)
5) Kie (lost to Choco and Saiya)
7) Ranai (lost to Kie and Shogun)
7) Earth (lost to Edge and Saiya)

This tourney had over 200 entrants and some of Japan's best competition was present, so I think it's reasonable to say that G&W is viable and certainly not bottom tier. Though most people agree that Peach and Falcon are good, both are lacking results of this caliber (except Zero's Falcon because Zero). Saiya and Kie have been to several previous Sumabato events where they didn't perform as well, but now they are finally showing what their characters are capable of.

A lot of the matches are now up on Shi-Gaming's channel. I'm still watching the matches, but I'll probably want to discuss particular matchups later.

 

[A2ZOMG]

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.

Even factoring the threat of Falcon's dropzone D-air which does give him a pretty significant range of influence, Falcon still tends to be limited covering low recoveries that can hug the stage with the assumption you specifically save your midair jump and airdodge to put you past the specific zone where Falcon can reach you with D-air. Obviously when that option doesn't exist for his opponent, I acknowledge Falcon's D-air (or sourspot F-air/B-air for that matter) can be devastatingly powerful.

Several characters can do aerials or getup attack depending on matchup or spacing against Falcon's Jab if I recall. His autoJab while good CAN sometimes be randomly shielded by ledge stand (only vulnerable for 1 frame universally, if I recall).

Rosalina is far from unwinnable for Pac-Man.

DDD, Ganondorf, Dr. Mario and Bowser Jr all have a worse time against her in my opinion.

Doc still can separate Luma with B-throw and Tornado not unlike how Mario can, and something very important to consider is that Doc has Jab cancel Up-B on Rosalina. If anything, he probably does better than average against Rosalina compared to most of the not explicitly top tier cast.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Numbers like 65:35 and 70:30 aren't actually odds ratios (lol), so it's pretty arbitrary what we decide is the cutoff for viability. We just have to be sure everyone is on the same page so that the numbers aren't assigned on different scales.

Yeah, I know that, but 65:35 is like...

Why? What are you trying to say there? You're just on the cusp of not winning the MU? It's really confusing and unclear, proper mathematics aside.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Djent]

But if we don't use numbers, how will we pretend to have precision that we actually don't?

 

[Locke 06]

Wasn't there talk before on how Megaman's Skull Barrier custom makes the Olimar MU completely one-sided?

Alternative specials make the MU very different, from danger wrap to hyper bomb and hardy pikmin to order tackle. I don't know the vanilla MU well enough to say anything past MM wins offstage and very slightly wins the zoning game while having his utilt trump card in cqc.

Mega man's beat matchups, in my opinion and experience in the vanilla metagame.


These are all characters I would consider Mega Man to have enough of an advantage to at least call it a soft counter, or 65:35.

You may discuss.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

Alternative specials make the MU very different, from danger wrap to hyper bomb and hardy pikmin to order tackle. I don't know the vanilla MU well enough to say anything past MM wins offstage and very slightly wins the zoning game while having his utilt trump card in cqc.

Mega man's beat matchups, in my opinion and experience in the vanilla metagame.


These are all characters I would consider Mega Man to have enough of an advantage to at least call it a soft counter, or 65:35.

You may discuss.

by vanilla do you mean by customless?

 

[Locke 06]

Im pertty sure nobody said anything is unwinnable im sure no ratio is 0:100

by vanilla do you mean by customless?

Yes. I prefer vanilla, because customless sounds like the vanilla metagame is missing something when it's perfectly fine as is.

Alternative specials = customs. Since they aren't really "customized" specials. I am fine calling characters customized, but specials aren't really "customs."

Just a vocabulary pet peeve.

Edit: it's like "pro-life" vs "anti-choice."

 

[DEHF]

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 don't think Fox is 3rd best character or even a top tier.

 

[Nu~]

I don't think Fox is 3rd best character or even a top tier.

Do explain.
This sounds interesting

 

[Road Death Wheel]

Yes. I prefer vanilla, because customless sounds like the vanilla metagame is missing something when it's perfectly fine as is.

Alternative specials = customs. Since they aren't really "customized" specials. I am fine calling characters customized, but specials aren't really "customs."

Just a vocabulary pet peeve.

Edit: it's like "pro-life" vs "anti-choice."

its was just that i was not sure what your were talking about. vanilla can be used to describe many things.

 

[Sinister Slush]

A lot of the matches are now up on Shi-Gaming's channel. I'm still watching the matches, but I'll probably want to discuss particular matchups later.

Wow, was up all night and randomly going through smashboards stuff and eventually went on the shig channel to find aiba or dora videos. Now there's more being uploaded every few minutes.

Hope one of those two get vids up.
Also >no Yoshi in top 7
Is Japan done putting Yoshi as top 3 yet?

 

[A2ZOMG]

Personally me, while I see why @ Shaya really dislikes Fox's Jab cancel (I agree it shouldn't be one of Fox's strengths), I do think Fox has some glaring flaws that weren't covered.

He's one of the worst characters in the game at actually winning if he's ever behind. Remember how EL says "how does Fox do anything without getting mauled?" This especially applies when Fox actually has to make up for a stock deficit. Fox doesn't have safe or even effective edgeguards due to his low horizontal air speed and relatively small hitboxes. Grabbing the ledge against Fox is generally speaking pretty free, and he has no really easy way to punish ledge getups aside from grab, which doesn't kill til post 200%. You thought Mario sucked at getting kills easily? Fox takes the GOLD MEDAL for having some of the most unreliable KO options in the game.

The fact he's super light really also can't be understated. In a game where rage boosted KO throws are a big part of the meta, constantly being vulnerable to KO throws as a character who has to primarily fight in close range is actually a noticeable risk.

That being said, he has virtually every tool you would want to outplay people in neutral. A laser for forcing approaches, a top 5 Dash Attack/Dash grab, amazing vertical mobility to get around spacing games. So he's good at getting ahead for the most part. But boy if you lost the first stock as Fox, he sucks beyond belief.

 

[Judo777]

... If Zelda has problems racking damage, how exactly does this not directly translate into having kill issues? You might say that Duck Hunt has no problems racking damage but has problems ending the stock, but I cannot think of a single character that has problems building damage but no problem ending a stock. Not even Ganondorf.

Zelda does not lack kill power, but simply holding your shield when you finally got the opponent to 70% for some Farore's cheese doesn't mean she doesn't have kill issues.

- Fsmash, Usmash, and Farore's are her best kill options overall and can all be SDI'd. (Note: any matchup that involves her opponent easily falling out of smash attacks dramatically hurts Zelda in the matchup. Hello, ZSS hard-counter.)
- Aerials require precision to get anything out of them most of the time, except nair which is only a "kill move" off stage. None of them are safe on shield. All of them have significant landing lag. None of them are good for approaching.
- Phantom and Din's are very obvious and laggy attacks.
- Tippered Ftilt kills at like 140% on a good day. Sweetspotted dash attack kills a bit sooner, but it's a dash attack.
- Dsmash, the move you're touting as an amazing kill move because it's frame 5, is one of the weakest smash attacks in the game. It flat out KOs at like 120% on a somewhat light character at the edge of the stage and does 12%... when it's fresh. It's good for gimping awful recoveries and setting up edgeguard situations for the vast majority of the cast that actually doesn't have awful recoveries, but on its own it's actually an extremely pathetic kill move. That's ok though, it's a tradeoff.
- Throws kill at high %s unless you're in the perfect position.

Sure, you land one good kick or one solid Farore's at the right % and you're done. The problem is her toolkit is simply too awful to reliably get damage in against an opponent that's actually trying to win. You said it yourself: she has problems racking up damage. If she has problems racking up damage, and if her kill moves are actually pretty difficult to land in a lot of situations, how can you say "Zelda having kill issues is a joke"? She's fortunate that rage is a mechanic to begin with.

You are correct, that any character that has trouble racking damage, will in some sense have trouble getting kills do to the nature of having a hard time landing moves in general. Unfortunately this is not what really defines struggle to get a kill.

Characters that most would consider, struggling to get kills are character that have to use VASTLY different and harder to land moves, than the moves that they would use to rack damage. Classic examples are Sheik (she doesn't use BF or vanish or fsmash to rack damage traditionally and all of these moves are significantly harder to land), duck hunt (doesn't usually kill with projectiles or or his standard keep away, at least he doesn't kill at good percents with those things).

The characters that don't have issues landing kills are the characters that do THE SAME THING they rack damage with, to kill. The only thing Ganon has to do to kill you at 100% is HIT you with like ANYTHING. Which is difficult, but obviously not too difficult because he already hit you 8 other times this stock, thats why you are at 100%. The best characters in the game at killing are the ones that have this rule AND rack damage well. Sonic, Diddy and Ness kill you with the same thing they do to rack damage, grab you. So in a sense similar to Ganon, yes Zelda does struggle racking damage, but she CAN do it, and if she DOES do it, all she has to do is hit you again (with like dsmash, or dins, or fsmash, or usmash or fair, or bair, or upb lol) and you die. No addition setup is required, do the same thing you did to get that damage last time, and you will kill someone.

Also 120% is a perfectly good kill percent, thats like pits fsmash kill percent. Thats like a Ness or Sonic throw kill percent. 120% is nothing to scoff at, if i didn't mention it before, frame 5 is pits jab speed, which is absurdely fast for a smash.

 

[deepseadiva]

5) Kie (lost to Choco and Saiya)

Interesting watching the set vs Ranai's campy ass Villager. He would get hit by 3x slingshots repeatedly, but then make up that damage in a 3 move combo. And then kill under 120% because Peach is so goddamn STRONK in this game.

 

[Brinzy]

@ Judo777 , your argument about characters who use the same moves to rack damage and kill is a good one. I just want to note that I said 120% on a light character by the edge. I'm pretty sure Pit's Fsmash kills earlier than Zelda's Dsmash by a significant margin.

 

[DEHF]

Do explain.
This sounds interesting

He doesn't outright destroy most of the cast and has bad match ups. Diddy, Sheik, and a few other characters I would consider top tiers don't really have any bad match ups. If they do, it's only about 1 or 2. I would say Fox definitely more than two bad match ups.

Personally me, while I see why @ Shaya really dislikes Fox's Jab cancel (I agree it shouldn't be one of Fox's strengths), I do think Fox has some glaring flaws that weren't covered.

He's one of the worst characters in the game at actually winning if he's ever behind. Remember how EL says "how does Fox do anything without getting mauled?" This especially applies when Fox actually has to make up for a stock deficit. Fox doesn't have safe or even effective edgeguards due to his low horizontal air speed and relatively small hitboxes. Grabbing the ledge against Fox is generally speaking pretty free, and he has no really easy way to punish ledge getups aside from grab, which doesn't kill til post 200%. You thought Mario sucked at getting kills easily? Fox takes the GOLD MEDAL for having some of the most unreliable KO options in the game.

The fact he's super light really also can't be understated. In a game where rage boosted KO throws are a big part of the meta, constantly being vulnerable to KO throws as a character who has to primarily fight in close range is actually a noticeable risk.

That being said, he has virtually every tool you would want to outplay people in neutral. A laser for forcing approaches, a top 5 Dash Attack/Dash grab, amazing vertical mobility to get around spacing games. So he's good at getting ahead for the most part. But boy if you lost the first stock as Fox, he sucks beyond belief.

I don't understand how you can say Fox is bad at making up a stock deficit when you later say Fox has virtually every tool to outplay in the neutral. Being able to outplay someone in neutral is one of the biggest necessities you need to make a comeback.

Fox can edge guard pretty well, though it isn't very safe. He can fair spike into foot stool to guarantee a stock. Fox, along with every character in the game have more than one way to reliably punish edge get ups.

Both Fox and Mario have great KO options in Smash 4, they're not low or bottom tier characters. Also, Fox does not have a top 5 dash grab, it's probably average.

 

[Radical Larry]

Rosalina is far from unwinnable for Pac-Man.

DDD, Ganondorf, Dr. Mario and Bowser Jr all have a worse time against her in my opinion.

Ganondorf actually has an easier experience with Rosalina than Pac-Man, to be fair. He's the type of character like Shulk; you need to wait and bait out Rosalina, because patience is a virtue. He's also quite capable of KO'ing Luma pretty easily, making him more dangerous than you would think; using a B-Air, F-Air, U-Air or U-Smash > U-Air combo will get Luma off stage pretty fast. Since he has no projectiles, he automatically shuts down Gravitational Pull, and he would also shut down Luma Shot with any one of his attacks.

As for KO'ing Rosalina, I say Ganondorf has the easiest time KO'ing her, especially when Rage is applied. It just takes a couple combos and a Smash attack or Warlock Punch to take a stock from Rosalina if you're very, very patient. Ganondorf's aerials are safe against Rosalina on ground and in air, and if he is sent upward, a little Wizard's Foot will KO Rosalina early; but to do this, you'll have to dodge any incoming U-Air attacks by going the direction your back is facing, then hit. In terms of using his Warlock Punch reversed, he can KO Rosalina at an early 17% to 25% with a bit of rage, and 0% if he hits with the closest hitbox to his body, sending Rosalina flying backward (yes, that happens).

He has a very easy time edge-guarding Rosalina, and if she's off the edge, he could shut her down easily with all of his aerials. He has a very easy time gimping Rosalina and sending her backwards, and can actually go far and still recover from it. U-Air is especially effective off stage.

However, he does have disadvantages against Rosalina, which are the fact he can get constantly thrown and hit with follow-up attacks by Rosalina, and if she does get in, she may do massive damage back. Her Side Special can definitely aid in edge-guarding Ganondorf, and her D-Air could send him far or meteor, and she too has a plethora of attacks that can edge-guard, and very good smashes in the game capable of KO'ing Ganondorf. She is also not an easy character to get grabbed by his Flame Choke suicide grab, and can actually punish him hard for it if he doesn't connect.

Her D-Smash, being a semi-spiking smash attack, is dangerous for Ganondorf near the ledge, as it would render his recovery useless at a higher damage, if he already used his jump (although this is remedied with customs on). She is also one not to let Ganondorf get to her if he rushes her down, making him be patient and devise a strategy.

Either one of them can take an easy stock against another, but I say Ganondorf has an easier time against Rosalina than Pac-Man does against her.

Now I end with a question; who else, other than Ganondorf, can KO an opponent at 0% damage?

 

[Road Death Wheel]

@ Judo777 , your argument about characters who use the same moves to rack damage and kill is a good one. I just want to note that I said 120% on a light character by the edge. I'm pretty sure Pit's Fsmash kills earlier than Zelda's Dsmash by a significant margin.

indeed it does. but its is pretty risky to miss though. im not gunna say its hard to land cuz its frame 10. same with samus's

 

[Lavani]

Now I end with a question; who else, other than Ganondorf, can KO an opponent at 0% damage?

Pre-1.0.4 Meta Knight.

 

[meleebrawler]

He doesn't outright destroy most of the cast and has bad match ups. Diddy, Sheik, and a few other characters I would consider top tiers don't really have any bad match ups. If they do, it's only about 1 or 2. I would say Fox definitely more than two bad match ups.


I don't understand how you can say Fox is bad at making up a stock deficit when you later say Fox has virtually every tool to outplay in the neutral. Being able to outplay someone in neutral is one of the biggest necessities you need to make a comeback.

Fox can edge guard pretty well, though it isn't very safe. He can fair spike into foot stool to guarantee a stock. Fox, along with every character in the game have more than one way to reliably punish edge get ups.

Both Fox and Mario have great KO options in Smash 4, they're not low or bottom tier characters. Also, Fox does not have a top 5 dash grab, it's probably average.

If I just took a stock lead against Fox and I feel comfortable in the fact that shield will protect me from most if not all
Fox's kill moves and don't fear his throws which are weak at KOing and don't lead into anything guaranteed... yeah.
Although you definitely can't sleep against him because of his speed.

 

[Locke 06]

If I just took a stock lead against Fox and I feel comfortable in the fact that shield will protect me from most if not all
Fox's kill moves and don't fear his throws which are weak at KOing and don't lead into anything guaranteed... yeah.
Although you definitely can't sleep against him because of his speed.

What prevents you from doing that without a stock lead?

 

[Conda]

If I just took a stock lead against Fox and I feel comfortable in the fact that shield will protect me from most if not all
Fox's kill moves and don't fear his throws which are weak at KOing and don't lead into anything guaranteed... yeah.
Although you definitely can't sleep against him because of his speed.

He can throw you off the edge, where he can starp trapping. Or into the air, to trap and juggle. He can do a lot of creative stuff.

But yes, 'guaranteed' stuff, and many options that lead to guaranteed kills, is a big part of what makes a top tier a top tier. It's an important aspect.

What prevents you from doing that without a stock lead?

Fox has a large risk.v.reward tilt built in. You gotta just 'go for crazy crap' a lot as fox, if you want to get anything done. Same as with Captain Falcon. Being speed-based means you can play differently than more methodical fundamentals-based characters, and baiting becomes a much more prominent strength.

So as Fox, you need to have breathing room %-wise. If you try to do your 'Fox stuff' when you're at 100% yourself, when your opponent breaks a string of yours with a nair or uair, that will likely KILL you. But if you're at 50%, it won't and you can try to reset to neutral.

Nothing's ever really too safe as Fox, you're almost always taking a risk and making a gamble. It's your ability to lose a bet but still stay in the game that defines 'safety' to Fox. When you're behind in a match, it becomes harder to stay in the game after each gamble's loss.

 

[irokex13]

Alternative specials make the MU very different, from danger wrap to hyper bomb and hardy pikmin to order tackle. I don't know the vanilla MU well enough to say anything past MM wins offstage and very slightly wins the zoning game while having his utilt trump card in cqc.

Mega man's beat matchups, in my opinion and experience in the vanilla metagame.


These are all characters I would consider Mega Man to have enough of an advantage to at least call it a soft counter, or 65:35.

You may discuss.

Calling this one out. How does Megaman counter Robin?

 

[HeroMystic]

Fox's kill confirms:

N-air > U-Smash
D-air > U-Smash
Side-B > U-air
Jab > D-Smash/U-Smash (character dependent)

U-Throw can lead to U-air or B-air if you are read correctly.

 

[Conda]

Calling this one out. How does Megaman counter Robin?

Wondering about Falco myself. Down B counters pellets and negates Megaman's tools in that range, which is megaman's favourite range.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I don't understand how you can say Fox is bad at making up a stock deficit when you later say Fox has virtually every tool to outplay in the neutral. Being able to outplay someone in neutral is one of the biggest necessities you need to make a comeback.

Fox can edge guard pretty well, though it isn't very safe. He can fair spike into foot stool to guarantee a stock. Fox, along with every character in the game have more than one way to reliably punish edge get ups.

Both Fox and Mario have great KO options in Smash 4, they're not low or bottom tier characters. Also, Fox does not have a top 5 dash grab, it's probably average.

Fox can easily get grabs thanks to his run speed at high vertical mobility which can put people on the defensive when he approaches, but doesn't get a lot of followups from it. So even though he can win neutral very easily simply because it's really hard to avoid getting grabbed by him, his chances of actually getting a KO from it are extremely low. Basically if you have a stock lead against Fox, what does he even do when you just wait and shield?

Secondly, where do you even set up F-air offstage without landing D-smash? For that matter, it doesn't help Fox very much when his opponent hugs the stage after just airdodging past the really narrow horizontal zone that Fox can cover offstage.

Fox doesn't have a lot of range on his attacks, and his Smashes are all really unsafe when they miss. Among basically the entire cast, Fox has one of the worst times making hard reads on ledge getups. Sure, it's simple enough to cover a ledge getup with a move for damage purposes, but when you're going for the KO, what do you even do as Fox except try to bait and predict?

Fox has good KO options when you're forced to approach him unsafely (which he does easily from the beginning of the game). Mario's KO options are realistically still pretty bad though he's sorta saved by his B-throw being okay (he suffers from the same problem as Fox, doesn't have very consistent air or offstage KO options, meaning shielding and grabbing the ledge is extremely safe against him). Both these characters also are much stronger on walkoff stages as a result where you can't ledge reset against them.

Maybe you know some weird frame traps I haven't checked for, but every time I play against Fox, I always find the matchup very easy whenever he throws away the first stock, given he can't punish ledge resets very hard without really risky reads.

Fox's kill confirms:

N-air > U-Smash
D-air > U-Smash
Side-B > U-air
Jab > D-Smash/U-Smash (character dependent)

U-Throw can lead to U-air or B-air if you are read correctly.

Something these KO confirms have in common: Fox has no easy way to set them up out of throws except on walkoff stages.

 

[Conda]

Does Falco have an easier time landing K.O.s than Fox? Or rather, does Falco share the same weaknesses Fox has?

I find recovering extremely more safe/easy as Falco, due to his slower fallspeed and MUCH better double jump. Falco can save his doublejump and juggle without needing to use it, meanwhile Fox will have to use his doublejump VERY often to try and avoid being landing trapped and in order to gain enough vertical height when needed.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Does Falco have an easier time landing K.O.s than Fox? Or rather, does Falco share the same weaknesses Fox has?

I find recovering extremely more safe/easy as Falco, due to his slower fallspeed and MUCH better double jump. Falco can save his doublejump and juggle without needing to use it, meanwhile Fox will have to use his doublejump VERY often to try and avoid being landing trapped and in order to gain enough vertical height when needed.

Falco's ability to land KOs is very matchup dependent, from my experience. U-throw U-air is amazing either on Halberd or certain light characters especially if they don't have excessive horizontal air mobility. Also Falco's B-throw is a legitimate KO option, which can save him a lot if you outplay someone who is pressuring you at the ledge.

Falco has some better edgeguards in F-air, B-air, and D-air as well, but I would say Falco does also have notable trouble easily getting KOs, and sometimes you're forced to fish for D-tilt if they don't die to U-air or your edgeguards.