Character Competitive Impressions

[Blobface]

I think it's likely we'll be seeing more Captain Falcon in general. Previously, Diddy did all the same things, but better. Now that that's not an issue for him, he may become more prominent.

 

[Ulevo]

So apparently I'm the only one thinking that Falcon might be the next one on the top.
Really powerful character with simple tactics, though fairly abusable.

Falcon is not top.

 

[RedBeefBaron]

I think it's likely we'll be seeing more Captain Falcon in general. Previously, Diddy did all the same things, but better. Now that that's not an issue for him, he may become more prominent.

There are some similarities but Diddy is much better in the neutral with low killing power at advantage while falcon excels at closing stocks quickly at advantage after working harder to land a solid first hit since he has a mediocre neutral. Those weaknesses will end up balancing otherwise crazy characters. Falcon would be broken if he had Diddy's bananas like Diddy would be broken if he had early kill setups off of easier confirms... Glad they changed that.

 

[Shaya]

Falcon is not top.

You'll be hard pressed to find a character in this game with better bases and numbers than Falcon does right now.
Rosalina is a hard to quantify thanks to Luma.

But otherwise between things like mobility specs, damage output, frame data, character specs (weight/range), he outshines just about everyone else I can think of. The only thing he has against him are lacklustre special moves.

Falcon is the Snake of this game. Every number or tool he has is overloaded yet the abilities he has aren't bat**** insane intrinsically. Over time we'll get better at exploiting him, but that isn't going to stop him from facerolling in an advantageous state much easier than everyone else. The exception is Fox.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

First of all, why are people saying Nintendo isn't balancing customs on account of them not being changed in the patch when in reality several customs were changed in the patch? This makes no sense to me. I am really not making this post for another custom argument, but that claim is objectively false and needs to stop being made immediately.

What's more interesting to talk about is Mewtwo; I've been putting in some substantial time with the character today checking him out and playing against a bunch of people. I'll throw in my answer for how good he is to start; I think he's very mid tier. Mewtwo has too much range, too many grounded moves with low cooldown, and too easy of a time killing to be a bad character, but his low speed and dubious overall neutral are too bad for him to be a good character. I think he hashes out to around the middle of the cast, and in terms of playstyle, I think he's kinda like a weird Ganondorf in that he can pay off so big but he's really slow and it's really easy for horrible things to happen to him.

Mewtwo's biggest problem seems to be that he has truly awful approach options; he has stuff that's safe on block, but none of it seems practical at all to use on the move (and he moves so slowly on top of that!). If Mewtwo is losing by a substantial amount and his opponent starts running away from him and playing good defense, I can see him getting into a ton of trouble (I felt like I had zero options to catch Sonic other than make bad risk guesses, Shadow Ball a lot, and try to not be behind). More on where he struggles later, but for the most part, being forced to approach was what I felt made me lose as Mewtwo.

If you can force the opponent into slower footsies, dtilt and utilt dominate space, his jab is flat out incredible, and he has some pretty good air to airs (though I find jumping at grounded opponents almost never pays off). All of his smashes are pretty good to throw out on reads; usmash is pretty fast and pulls people in from a pretty big area over Mewtwo's head, dsmash is almost always safe if you manage to get it out (insanely low cooldown), and fsmash just hits really far forward and kills very early. Shadow Ball is a really horrible projectile for any kind of zoning or spatial control, but it hits so hard for the release speed that it's an incredibly good punishment option. You just charge it at a free moment and hold onto it for a long time, and if your opponent ever does any kind of unsafe movement or whiffed poke that Shadow Ball can punish you get a big pay-off. This was the core of my game with Mewtwo, and it worked really well for me for the most part. I also grabbed a lot, mostly just did fthrow unless bthrow would put them off stage or uthrow would kill; Mewtwo's dthrow has to be the sorriest dthrow in this game because it has a million years of lag so it sets up for absolutely nothing.

More specific gameplay observations:

Mewtwo's nair at first seems incredible and then seems awful and settles on "solid but with flaws". Mewtwo's nair has more landing lag than you'd really like and has way less priority than it seems like it should, but you can slide around covered in hitboxes that hit the opponent in VERY favorable ways so you can really exploit if if you're clever. I feel like nair is mostly a punishment and reads tool; you see your opponent already in the air either committed to something that will lose to nair or you just read that they are not going to stuff the nair. You catch them and drag them along, and if you use your air control and attack timing right you can set up for all kinds of nasty situations (I wasn't making combos work but I'm pretty sure it's possible; what I was pulling off was ejecting people off-stage out of the nair which seemed really strong).

Mewtwo's fair is god-like. It doesn't seem like it can really be used for shield pressure due to Mewtwo's t-rex arms kinda working against him, but the speed/power/safety combination on this thing is just nuts. If you just go for it aggressively in horizontal air to air situations it's really practical to win most of the time with this, and it's also a great kill move. My experience is that you really can't force fair on an opponent playing to avoid it but the mere existence of it does a great job of forcing a lot of respect.

Every move that hits with the tail does awkwardly low knockback. Dtilt's incredibly fast endlag makes it actually combo, but all of the others seem to have the same problem that they hit over big areas but don't even do enough knockback to inflict the hitstun necessary for real follow-ups. This often creates awkward situations like "well I could uair him easily, but uair is so ridiculously unrewarding to hit with that I kinda don't want to". Having to kinda play around such a large portion of your moveset, only using it when you simply don't have the option to use one of your more rewarding on hit moves, is a very strange dynamic that is not terribly favorable for Mewtwo.

Mewtwo has what I believe may be the best rapid jab. It links very reliably and does damage at a pretty good rate. It's especially hilarious against Fox; if you hit deep with jab 1 and go right into rapid jab, you do like 20% before Fox can get out even using proper SDI. It's really funny. Mewtwo can also jab1 -> grab which is pretty fun itself; I think Mewtwo has jab cancel potential in general that will need explored.

Mewtwo also has what I believe to be the best meteor. It hits stupid hard (it seriously has to be almost as strong as Ganon's), it has a nice little disjoint under Mewtwo, and Mewtwo's physics and good recovery make it pretty practical to just go out there and hit with it. On day two I'm still not good at landing it, but I see it's very possible and IMO will be a more important part of Mewtwo's game than a meteor is for any other character.

Speaking of versus Fox, I was able to combo three dtilts in a row against Fox. Fox's physics seem to really help Mewtwo combo in general; I imagine Mewtwo will be able to do things on offense against Fox that work against almost no one else. As per Fox's jab cancel combos, I dunno if it's just that my local Fox is worse than the one dabuz was playing against (almost definitely is), but I was able to SDI out up and away far enough to do a double jumping airdodge to escape after around 4-5 loops just about every time. It was a lot of damage still and pretty stupid to get hit by, but I see people saying Fox gets 50% from jabbing Mewtwo and I was only taking around 20% which is a massive difference (though Fox gets a chase after doing that 20%, still awful to get hit by). My takeaway was that Fox beats Mewtwo but that Mewtwo can do enough dumb stuff to Fox that Mewtwo can win (and that the match-up is stupid).

The match-up I saw Mewtwo struggle in the most when played "directly" was actually versus Ganondorf. In grounded footsies Ganon's dtilt just beats everything Mewtwo can do, and in air to air the option that is Ganon uair really hurts Mewtwo badly. Mewtwo's weight is mostly not a big deal since being light is not a major disadvantage in this game in general, but if Mewtwo gets caught jumping and Ganon just reads it with Dark Fists (which seems a lot easier to do against Mewtwo than against most others) Mewtwo is dead at insanely low percentages. I'm pretty sure Ganon has a solid advantage in the match-up over Mewtwo; Mewtwo's main option seems to be to charge Shadow Ball and try to whiff punish Ganon a lot (like bait out whiffed dtilts since Ganon will be abusing dtilt like crazy in this MU), but Ganon has several viable ways to punish Shadow Ball charging so it's hard for Mewtwo. I haven't played Falcon vs Mewtwo, but if I had to guess, it's probably also pretty bad news for Mewtwo.

For the miscellaneous stuff... Even though it seemed incredible at first, I'm getting a sense Confusion is mostly gimmicky and bad (not useless, just very niche). Mewtwo has an awkwardly hard time grabbing ledges, and I don't know why (it seems like something you could learn, but I just don't get why it's more strict with him than with everyone else). I am legitimately unsure why Disable is in the game; does it have any possible use at all? That about sums up my time exploring Mewtwo; I think all of that stuff together hashes out to about mid tier, very interesting character. I'm really curious where he develops from here; he is kinda like a weird Ganon, but the weirdness gives him what seems to me to be a lot more nuance than most characters so I expect people who put a ton of time into Mewtwo to be able to do some pretty good stuff.

 

[Minordeth]

Because of a Nintendo error, I won't be getting Mewtwo till tomorrow, but the possibility of a lighter, faster Ganon with a projectile makes me happy inside. I can see his lag plus weight really hurt him competitively, but who knows? It's only day two, and he is a really, really weird character.

EDIT: I'll go with AA's train of thought based off a few matches as Ganon vs. Mewtwo, but in my initial match, even with no access to the character, Ganon stomped Mewtwo. There is a caveat there, in that Mewtwo racks up damage ridicullously fast. I was at 60% before I knew it. Of course, with Ganon, returning that 60% isn't too hard. The second caveat is that no one really knows how to use Mewtwo yet.

 

[FullMoon]

I think it's likely we'll be seeing more Captain Falcon in general. Previously, Diddy did all the same things, but better. Now that that's not an issue for him, he may become more prominent.

As if Captain Falcon wasn't already everywhere...

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Pikachu is... really unseen for me to be sure it's a counter.

It's bad. Pikachu is insanely fast, tiny, can camp CF out pretty hard, and every single time CF ends up offstage, his stock can end hella fast. CF's only saving grace is that he kills pretty fast, but he has to land a hit, and bairs only get you so far against a tiny speedster like Pikachu.

 

[Shaya]

First of all, why are people saying Nintendo isn't balancing customs on account of them not being changed in the patch when in reality several customs were changed in the patch? This makes no sense to me. I am really not making this post for another custom argument, but that claim is objectively false and needs to stop being made immediately.

It makes sense to me as "balancing" doesn't mean the same to people as "bug fixing". And an entire character's special set being altered together in one go is dubious (Zelda). "Objectively false" is also really hard to get behind when the context is of a subjective nature. No one is going to argue with you that customs weren't patched, that's straight forward and unambiguous, however they aren't going to become aligned with your rhetoric when your proof for your conclusion is an outlier.

It's bad. Pikachu is insanely fast, tiny, can camp CF out pretty hard, and every single time CF ends up offstage, his stock can end hella fast. CF's only saving grace is that he kills pretty fast, but he has to land a hit, and bairs only get you so far against a tiny speedster like Pikachu.

I'm a never-ending bag of antipikachuhype. He is probably top 10 characters overall I've put time into this game. Yes I know he is insanely fast and tiny, the off stage back air is hella real. Not sure if he distinctively out camps him. Definitely not going to argue CF wins the match up or anything, just not sure it's a "counter".

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Just to get back to the Ness discussion I don't think very much of him at all. I don't think he's top ten or top 15. I'm not sure how much he's changed since the patch but he's just doesn't seem to have much going for him.

 

[Ulevo]

You'll be hard pressed to find a character in this game with better bases and numbers than Falcon does right now.
Rosalina is a hard to quantify thanks to Luma.

But otherwise between things like mobility specs, damage output, frame data, character specs (weight/range), he outshines just about everyone else I can think of. The only thing he has against him are lacklustre special moves.

Falcon is the Snake of this game. Every number or tool he has is overloaded yet the abilities he has aren't bat**** insane intrinsically. Over time we'll get better at exploiting him, but that isn't going to stop him from facerolling in an advantageous state much easier than everyone else. The exception is Fox.

I play against enough Falcon to see his strengths. His assets are good, but they do not outshine what a character like Sheik or Luigi has to offer. I'm also not convinced that Diddy will drop down as far as people believe.

 

[Trifroze]

lol.

Is Mewtwo really that confusing for you guys to grasp?

Come on now.

He is ganondorf with a projectile and safer neutral at the expense of being huge and light.

He's actually not that huge, his tail doesn't have a hurtbox and he's Zelda height. He plays nothing like Ganondorf either, these "kinda like character x" analogies really don't work well.

Not only can customs Lucario do that, he can have 2 of those projectiles onscreen simultaneously.

The thing about Snaring Aura Sphere is that most characters can run into it on reaction, powershield it and fsmash Lucario in his endlag without getting hit by the projectile a second time. It's not a very good custom when exploited properly.

 

[Thinkaman]

The post I've been wanted to do for ages, that the placebo crowds wouldn't let me.

Let's talk about Mewtwo.

Good Auto-Cancels and Bad OoS

Let's get this out of the way first: Nair FH ACs pretty liberally, almost as soon as the hitboxes vanish. Everything else SH ACs. Mewtwo has a lot of freedom as long as he is on the offensive.

Meanwhile, Mewtwo's OoS options are trash. He has a decent grab and modestly-fast-but-low-range u-smash. Don't overlook fair. Beyond that, nair is okay but that's it. The saving grace is that he does have kill throws, and u-smash is nothing to scoff at. Still, few characters have as poor OoS options as this.

His Teleport is so short that unlike Palutena, it has no use-case--even situational--of being used in place of a roll.

F-Smashes

Mewtwo has no "d-smash", but he does have 3 "f-smashes", each with pros and cons.

F-smash is frame 19.
It does 15%/19% (more at tip, like Samus) uncharged.
The range is medium, pretty good among f-smashes.
It has very high shield push and high endlag.
This means it is unpunishable for most characters on normal block and punishable on spot-dodge but chargeable; so swim at own risk.

D-smash is frame 21.
It does 15% uncharged.
It has lower range, and unlike the other options is decent at hitting enemies on ledges.
Medium shield push and very low endlag.
This means it is unpunishable for all characters on normal block and unpunishable on spot-dodge, plus chargeable.

Disable is frame 16, and cannot clash. (It is a transcendent projectile.) If they jab you on frame 16, it doesn't matter.
Can be started in the air while landing to come out even faster.
Can be done while running.
It always leads to a partially charged shutter-stepped-tip f-smash for ~20-25%. (More enemy damage and slower mashing = more damage, but you can always get an f-smash. The daze wakeup animation time is long enough.)
It is slightly longer range than f-smash, but will miss low-ducking opponents as well as miss opponents not facing Mewtwo.
It has very poor shield push and high endlag.
This means it is liberally punishable by any character in the game on block and punishable on spot-dodge; unchangeable.
Reflectable.
Cannot hit enemies who are in tumble.
Only hits a single target. (Luma blocks it)

These 3 options are very similar, and Mewtwo can consider all 3 alternatives in almost any case where he would use one. As a general rule, there is a general spread of Speed+Power+Range vs. Safety:

(fast AND strong AND ranged) Disable <---> F-smash <---> D-Smash (safe)

Edit: I want to emphasize that no frame ~16 move in the game has a punishment quite as harsh as disable, with good range to boot. It's VERY aggressively positioned on the speed/power/range curve, and has all of these weird unique disadvantages to make this possible.

Reflector + Strong Projectile

No character in any Smash game has ever truly had a strong projectile and a reflector until now. Ness, Mii Gunner, and Villager all have disqualifying traits to their projectiles for purposes of this discussion.) It is a unique combination; something is normally "against the rules." (This is on top of his projectile being both very powerful and very safe, though low damage without charge.)

This means that Mewtwo can force approaches better than almost anyone. Letting him charge up and spam his super-safe 25% KO-ing death ball is a non-starter. Trying to harass him with poke is also a non-starter, though the extent to which reflectors can combat this varies as always.

But not only does Mewtwo uniquely enjoy both of these neutral advantages, he also benefits from the unique dynamic of having both with regards to enemy reflectors.

Mewtwo has a favored sweetspot range where he can throw a Shadow Ball, and Confusion it back if it is reflected! No other character in the game does this with a KO-able projectile, except Villager in very isolated cases with default Timber + Pocket.

Mewtwo's Confusion is a 1.4x multiplier. Many of you know where this is going.

Once a projectile reaches 50% (so for Mewtwo, a 2.0x multiplier), it cannot be reflected again. This means if Shadow Ball is reflected by an ordinary 1.5x reflector, and Mewtwo Confusions it back, it is now at 2.1x and will break any further Reflect attempts.

Taking into account the enemy reflector ratio...

• 2.1x Fox Amplifying Reflector
• 2.0x (Dark) Pit Amplifying Orbitars (safe on break)
• 2.0x Ness F-Smash
• 1.8x R.O.B. Reflector Arm
• 1.5x (Dark) Pit Guardian Orbitars (safe on break)
  
• 1.5x (Dr.) Mario Cape (default or Gust)
• 1.5x R.O.B. Rotor Arm (default or Backwards)
• 1.5x Mii Swordfighter Rainbow Slash
  
• 1.4x Fox Reflector (default or Big)
• 1.4x Mii Gunner Echo Reflector
• 1.4x Mewtwo Confusion
• 1.25x Nayru's Love (default or Rejection)
• 1.2x Falco Reflector
• 1.2 Mega Man Skull Barrier (can only reflect up to 25% instead of 50%, so moot point)
• 1.17x Palutena Reflect Barrier
• 1.0x Falco Accele-Reflector (increases projectile speed significantly)

...Mewtwo can select a strength of Shadow Ball that will allow him to win the ping pong (ideally max 25% where possible.) Consult the following chart:

And of course, it can still be negated/absorbed by the usual suspects:

• Ness PSI Magnet (default or Forward)
• Mr. G&W Oil Panic
• Falco Reflector Void
• Rosalina Gravitation Pull or Guardian Luma
• Villager Pocket (all)
  • Pocket resets the multiplier to 1.9x. Villager can always Pocket Shadow Ball, but you can always reflect it back.
• Mii Gunner Absorbing Vortex

In other words, Mewtwo is uniquely well equipped to fight Mario, R.O.B., default (Dark) Pit, and default Palutena at range.

Confusion

Confusion is a pretty cool move! It's a shockingly big micro-jump when used in the air, almost like a Yoshi up-b. It's a command grab, which means it does beat super armor but also follows regrab prohibition timing. You cannot Confusion someone shortly after a grab including another Confusion.

Confusion does a respectable 9%. It puts the opponent at a slight frame advantage but an awful position. This is very similar to how Palutena's Jab1 works, but more pronounced and without a grab option. The opponent has these options and consequences:

• Do nothing
  • Mewtwo gets a free sweetspot f-smash, even if he shielded and has to drop it.
  • This is strictly the worse option.
• Do nothing but tech (either in-place or roll)
  • This will dodge a buffered uncharged f/d-smash, but that's about it.
  • Pretty bad.
• Air dodge (into ground)
  • Will have landing lag and eat a free sweetspot f-smash, even if he shielded and has to drop it.
  • Will dodge buffered tilts, but suffer a small frame disadvantage based on fall speed.
  • Not advisable.
• Double jump away
  • No guaranteed Mewtwo followup, ever.
  • ...but now you're in the air about Mewtwo with no (or one less) double jump.
  • Usually the best, safest option.
• Do an aerial
  • Will suffer landing lag.
  • Will interrupt a f-smash.
  • Will usually interrupt fair and tilts (even u-tilt), unless it's just really slow.
    • Characters with slow fairs but fast nairs (like Mario) can do nairs instead
  • Will eat a Mewtwo tipper f-smash if he shutter-steps backwards to dodge (punishes the landing lag)
  • Mewtwo can always powershield it.
    • ...But Mewtwo's OoS options are very poor.
    • If the aerial is poorly spaced, he can OoS u-smash.
    • If the aerial has enough landing lag, he can shield-drop hyphen u-smash, Disable, Shadow Ball, or f-smash.
      • Landing hitboxes on fairs like Bowser Jr, Pikachu, or Falco will give Mewtwo less time.
      • Disable may miss due to the landing animation style.
    • Otherwise, he will probably just shield-drop f-tilt.
    • Remember, he can't grab! (Which is what you'd normally do in this situation.)
• Do a Sheik fair
  • No landing lag (auto-cancels)
  • Mewtwo can powershield it, but frame advantage is almost zero (after Mewtwo shield-drop) due to no landing lag.
    • Mewtwo can only jab Sheik OoS, and not if she DIs properly.
    • Remember, he can't grab! (Which is what you'd normally do in this situation.)
  • Will interrupt all other actions, including movement or spot dodge.

But now what about Aerial Confusion?

• You can still double jump away, but you are much less likely to have that option here.
• Mewtwo has slightly less frame disadvantage; he can air dodge any counter-attack, including Sheik fair.
• Mewtwo can follow up on most characters with uair. If Mewtwo has his double jump, he can double-jump fair or nair as well. These will all lose to most fast enemy aerials, and can be avoided by a buffered air dodge.
• If Mewtwo unleashes a fully charged Shadow Ball, it will hit any enemy who does a buffered air-dodge or any non-moment-altering aerial other than a Sheik fair.
• A delayed air dodge will avoid the Shadow Ball, but eat the instant DJ fair.

In conclusion I think Mewtwo loses to Sheik and Fox pretty bad, and probably Diddy, Falcon, and Mac too. (He hates pressure and vertical kills.) Otherwise a cool character with a few surprisingly interesting tools. The Ganondorf analogy is very apt; the more you examine him, the more his decisions bear a striking resemblance.

 

[warionumbah2]

same height as = Huge

He's not even that big he's ever so slightly bigger than Sheik.

Edit: I don't think Mewtwo can be solo mained, he gets bopped by too many characters most of them being common tourney picks.

 

[Smog Frog]

exactly how bad is the fox matchup? is it 6:4 or 7:3? or is it one of those MUs thats super annoying but not a big disadvantage? and more importantly, is mewtwo viable? like can you reasonably expect to place well without secondaries? i have a gut feeling that he wont be solo viable.

 

[Thinkaman]

exactly how bad is the fox matchup? is it 6:4 or 7:3? or is it one of those MUs thats super annoying but not a big disadvantage? and more importantly, is mewtwo viable? like can you reasonably expect to place well without secondaries? i have a gut feeling that he wont be solo viable.

I'm not going to give aimless numbers having never played the matchup myself, but here's why I believe Fox beats him:

• Mewtwo, like Robin, dislikes rushdown and pressure.
• Mewtwo hates vertical KO power; that's Fox's jam.
• Fox Reflector is a good ratio for Ping Pong, it can be held, and he can jump out of it on reflect.
• Default Fox lasers are nimble harasssment that non-held reflectors like Confusion are less effective against.
• Confusion isn't especially expletive on him.
• A light, floaty, large character is the single worst possible abuse case for Fox jab.

Edit: I realized many of the same apply to Yoshi:

• Vertical kills
• Tall victim--easy to fair
• Generous jab -> u-smash windows due to weight and floatiness
• Eggs not practical to reflect
• Fast when Yoshi wants to be
• Decent nair for challenging Confusion

The saving grace is that Confusion beats Yoshi double jump armor.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Fox has pretty much always been agreed to be like A-Tier by most people. I don't think he's even with Yoshi though.

Nobody really underrates Fox anymore [if anybody ever did]. If there one upper tier character that nobody seems to know about it's Wario. The japenese are the only ones who seem to understand how good that character is.

Couldn't you give us a little heads up on Wario? Your thoughts on him and stuff? I know you are a smart and knowledgeable guy so even if you feel you're not too sure it'd still be very interesting to hear.

 

[ZarroTsu]

What I feel makes Mewtwo especially scary is (a) If you aren't dead, you CAN recover. Confusion, B-reversed Shadowball's recoil, and Teleport all together make him goddamn insane. People can already easily go under FD with him on day 2. It took at least a few weeks before Bowser Jr was recorded, iirc. And (b) Thanks to confusion pulling Mewtwo upward, it becomes an intricate mindgame as to HOW you're going to recover. You can recover both high and low, and unless you do so predictably, your opponent should never be able to gimp you unless you lose your second jump somehow.

But really, I can't get over how crazy good the distance is on B-reversing Shadowball in the air. That in itself is a recovery. Mewtwo has three. Jesus.

 

[meleebrawler]

The post I've been wanted to do for ages, that the placebo crowds wouldn't let me.

Let's talk about Mewtwo.

Good Auto-Cancels and Bad OoS

Let's get this out of the way first: Nair FH ACs pretty liberally, almost as soon as the hitboxes vanish. Everything else SH ACs. Mewtwo has a lot of freedom as long as he is on the offensive.

Meanwhile, Mewtwo's OoS options are trash. He has a decent grab and modestly-fast-but-low-range u-smash. Don't overlook fair. Beyond that, nair is okay but that's it. The saving grace is that he does have kill throws, and u-smash is nothing to scoff at. Still, few characters have as poor OoS options as this.

His Teleport is so short that unlike Palutena, it has no use-case--even situational--of being used in place of a roll.

F-Smashes

Mewtwo has no "d-smash", but he does have 3 "f-smashes", each with pros and cons.

F-smash is frame 19.
It does 15%/19% (more at tip, like Samus) uncharged.
The range is medium, pretty good among f-smashes.
It has very high shield push and high endlag.
This means it is unpunishable for most characters on normal block and punishable on spot-dodge but chargeable; so swim at own risk.

D-smash is frame 21.
It does 15% uncharged.
It has lower range, and unlike the other options is decent at hitting enemies on ledges.
Medium shield push and very low endlag.
This means it is unpunishable for all characters on normal block and unpunishable on spot-dodge, plus chargeable.

Disable is frame 16, and cannot clash. (It is a transcendent projectile.) If they jab you on frame 16, it doesn't matter.
Can be started in the air while landing to come out even faster.
It always leads to a partially charged shutter-stepped-tip f-smash for ~20-25%. (More enemy damage and slower mashing = more damage, but you can always get an f-smash. The daze wakeup animation time is long enough.)
It is slightly longer range than f-smash, but will miss low-ducking opponents as well as miss opponents not facing Mewtwo.
It has very poor shield push and high endlag.
This means it is liberally punishable by any character in the game on block and punishable on spot-dodge; unchangeable.
Reflectable.
Cannot hit enemies who are in tumble.

These 3 options are very similar, and Mewtwo can consider all 3 alternatives in almost any case where he would use one. As a general rule, there is a general spread of Speed+Power+Range vs. Safety:

(fast AND strong AND ranged) Disable <---> F-smash <---> D-Smash (safe)

Edit: I want to emphasize that no frame ~16 move in the game has a punishment quite as harsh as disable, with good range to boot. It's VERY aggressively positioned on the speed/power/range curve, and has all of these weird unique disadvantages to make this possible.

Reflector + Strong Projectile

No character in any Smash game has ever truly had a strong projectile and a reflector until now. Ness, Mii Gunner, and Villager all have disqualifying traits to their projectiles for purposes of this discussion.) It is a unique combination; something is normally "against the rules." (This is on top of his projectile being both very powerful and very safe, though low damage without charge.)

This means that Mewtwo can force approaches better than almost anyone. Letting him charge up and spam his super-safe 25% KO-ing death ball is a non-starter. Trying to harass him with poke is also a non-starter, though the extent to which reflectors can combat this varies as always.

But not only does Mewtwo uniquely enjoy both of these neutral advantages, he also benefits from the unique dynamic of having both with regards to enemy reflectors.

Mewtwo has a favored sweetspot range where he can throw a Shadow Ball, and Confusion it back if it is reflected! No other character in the game does this with a KO-able projectile, except Villager in very isolated cases with default Timber + Pocket.

Mewtwo's Confusion is a 1.4x multiplier. Many of you know where this is going.

Once a projectile reaches a 2.0x multiplier, it cannot be reflected again. This means if Shadow Ball is reflected by an ordinary 1.5x reflector, and Mewtwo Confusions it back, it is now at 2.1x and will break any further Reflect attempts.

Mewtwo will be unable to Confusion reflectors with a 2.0x reflect power or higher:

• (Dark) Pit Amplifying Orbitars
• Fox Amplifying Reflector
• Ness F-Smash

Mewtwo will get the last laugh on any reflector between 1.5x and 1.8x power:

• (Dr.) Mario Cape (default or Gust)
• (Dark) Pit Guardian Orbitars
• R.O.B. Rotor Arm (any)

Mewtwo will lose to to reflectors between 1.2x and 1.4x power; they will still be able to reflect a second time (and Mewtwo can't):

• Nayru's Love (default or Rejection)
• Fox Reflector (default or big)
• Falco Reflector
• Mii Gunner Echo Reflector
• ...Mewtwo Confusion

Mewtwo will be able to get the last laugh again for the two weakest reflectors in the game:

• Palutena Reflect Barrier (2 Confusions)
• Falco Accele-Reflector (3 Confusions, almost impossible)

And of course, it can still be negated/absorbed by the usual suspects:

• Ness PSI Magnet (default or Forward)
• Mario/Doc Shocking Cape
• Game & Watch Oil Panic
• Falco Reflector Void
• Rosalina Gravitation Pull or Guardian Luma
• Villager Pocket (all)
  • Pocket resets the multiplier to 1.9x. Villager can always Pocket a projectile, but you can always reflect it back.
• Mii Gunner Absorbing Vortex

In other words, Mewtwo is uniquely well equipped to fight Mario, R.O.B., default (Dark) Pit, and default Palutena at range.

Confusion

Confusion is a pretty cool move! It's a shockingly big micro-jump when used in the air, almost like a Yoshi up-b. It's a command grab, which means it does beat super armor but also follows regrab prohibition timing. You cannot Confusion someone shortly after a grab including another Confusion.

Confusion does a respectable 9%. It puts the opponent at a slight frame advantage but an awful position. This is very similar to how Palutena's Jab1 works, but more pronounced and without a grab option. The opponent has these options and consequences:

• Do nothing
  • Mewtwo gets a free sweetspot f-smash, even if he shielded and has to drop it.
  • This is strictly the worse option.
• Do nothing but tech (either in-place or roll)
  • This will dodge a buffered uncharged f/d-smash, but that's about it.
  • Pretty bad.
• Air dodge (into ground)
  • Will have landing lag and eat a free sweetspot f-smash, even if he shielded and has to drop it.
  • Will dodge buffered tilts, but suffer a small frame disadvantage based on fall speed.
  • Not advisable.
• Double jump away
  • No guaranteed Mewtwo followup, ever.
  • ...but now you're in the air about Mewtwo with no (or one less) double jump.
  • Usually the best, safest option.
• Do an aerial
  • Will suffer landing lag.
  • Will interrupt a f-smash.
  • Will usually interrupt fair and tilts (even u-tilt), unless it's just really slow.
    • Characters with slow fairs but fast nairs (like Mario) can do nairs instead
  • Will eat a Mewtwo tipper f-smash if he shutter-steps backwards to dodge (punishes the landing lag)
  • Mewtwo can always powershield it.
    • ...But Mewtwo's OoS options are very poor.
    • If the aerial is poorly spaced, he can OoS u-smash.
    • If the aerial has enough landing lag, he can shield-drop hyphen u-smash, Disable, Shadow Ball, or f-smash.
      • Landing hitboxes on fairs like Bowser Jr, Pikachu, or Falco will give Mewtwo less time.
      • Disable may miss due to the landing animation style.
    • Otherwise, he will probably just shield-drop f-tilt.
    • Remember, he can't grab! (Which is what you'd normally do in this situation.)
• Do a Sheik fair
  • No landing lag (auto-cancels)
  • Mewtwo can powershield it, but frame advantage is almost zero (after Mewtwo shield-drop) due to no landing lag.
    • Mewtwo can only jab Sheik OoS, and not if she DIs properly.
    • Remember, he can't grab! (Which is what you'd normally do in this situation.)
  • Will interrupt all other actions, including movement or spot dodge.

But now what about Aerial Confusion?

• You can still double jump away, but you are much less likely to have that option here.
• Mewtwo has slightly less frame disadvantage; he can air dodge any counter-attack, including Sheik fair.
• Mewtwo can follow up on most characters with uair. If Mewtwo has his double jump, he can double-jump fair or nair as well. These will all lose to most fast enemy aerials, and can be avoided by a buffered air dodge.
• If Mewtwo unleashes a fully charged Shadow Ball, it will hit any enemy who does a buffered air-dodge or any non-moment-altering aerial other than a Sheik fair.
• A delayed air dodge will avoid the Shadow Ball, but eat the instant DJ fair.

In conclusion I think Mewtwo loses to Sheik and Fox pretty bad, and probably Diddy, Falcon, and Mac too. (He hates pressure and vertical kills.) Otherwise a cool character with a few surprisingly interesting tools. The Ganondorf analogy is very apt; the more you examine him, the more his decisions bear a striking resemblance.

Missed two thing in the absorb/negate category.

Also I'd like to say that Dair is stupid strong even if you don't get the spike hitbox (it can hit at the Sakurai angle).

 

[wedl!!]

does anyone want to join in on laughing at eventhubs for having bad tier lists

fox #22, olimar bottom, mewtwo above falcon, lucario #5? how do people trust garbage poll '""tier lists""" like this

Kinda wish every character had either a crawl or a wall jump/cling too. One or the other. It would keep mobility specs consistent in some form or another, at least.

i can't actually think of a good reason as to why not every character can wj/crawl other than "MUH LORE". although mac and villager can wall jump despite the fact they never jump in their own games so that's something.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

@ Hippieslayer

Wario's bike is pretty stupid. Most of the moves you wanna use in neutral don't have big enough a hitbox to hit Wario off of it so he can just cut through a lot of characters' footsies with it. Wario can jump off of it at any time so if you're not sure the bike is actually gonna hit your opponent you can just jump off and see what happens next. A lot of the time your opponent will shield so you can just bite him [bite is super good in smash 4]. If the opponent dodges the bike and tries to aggro you, Wario can just retreat and start the whole process over again. There really isn't a whole lot of risk involved in this approach but it kind of stops working if the opponents has a lead. If you jump off the bike and it hits your opponent you can actually combo into stuff like nair too. I'd say Wario's bike is pretty much the best projectile in the game or at least one of them. Works as a shield against a ****load of moves, combos into stuff or puts the opponent into bad positions, can kill, can heal Wario, helps him charge fart faster and is an amazing recovery option.

His ground game is actually very solid. Jab, ftilt and dtilt kind of cover a lot of spots and ranges nicely and his nair is one of the few legitimately good OoS options in the game imo because it hits on the 5th frame and allows for follow-ups. His smashes kinda suck though but he doesn't really need them. Ftilt and rage fart are good enough kill options for him. I like his grab game too. His grab is solid and uthrow, fthrow, bthrow and bthrow are all pretty good.

It's really hard to put Wario in a disadvantaged position because his aerial mobility allows him to retreat out of sticky situations and bike blocks off a lot of **** as well. You can't really juggle him or harass him offstage. Wouldn't be surprised if Wario was top 10.

 

[Banette]

• Fox Reflector is 1.4x and "wins" any sort of Shadow Ball ping pong. It can also be held, so it wins at any configuration of distances.

On this point, the in-game tips explicitly state that projectiles that deal 50% damage or more cannot be reflected - as opposed to the x2.0 factor you claim. There is no difference in the case of Mewtwo's fully charged Shadow Ball, but if this 50% maximum holds true, can't this issue be circumvented by well... Just not fully charging the move? The Shadow Ball would have to deal 18% or less for Mewtwo to win the pingpong match.

I lack the means to test this claim myself unfortunately, and am unaware of any prior research on reflectors' mechanics, but I felt that there was no harm in bringing this up.

 

[outfoxd]

@ Hippieslayer

Wario's bike is pretty stupid. Most of the moves you wanna use in neutral don't have big enough a hitbox to hit Wario off of it so he can just cut through a lot of characters' footsies with it. Wario can jump off of it at any time so if you're not sure the bike is actually gonna hit your opponent you can just jump off and see what happens next. A lot of the time your opponent will shield so you can just bite him [bite is super good in smash 4]. If the opponent dodges the bike and tries to aggro you, Wario can just retreat and start the whole process over again. There really isn't a whole lot of risk involved in this approach but it kind of stops working if the opponents has a lead. If you jump off the bike and it hits your opponent you can actually combo into stuff like nair too. I'd say Wario's bike is pretty much the best projectile in the game or at least one of them. Works as a shield against a ****load of moves, combos into stuff or puts the opponent into bad positions, can kill, can heal Wario, helps him charge fart faster and is an amazing recovery option.

His ground game is actually very solid. Jab, ftilt and dtilt kind of cover a lot of spots and ranges nicely and his nair is one of the few legitimately good OoS options in the game imo because it hits on the 5th frame and allows for follow-ups. His smashes kinda suck though but he doesn't really need them. Ftilt and rage fart are good enough kill options for him. I like his grab game too. His grab is solid and uthrow, fthrow, bthrow and bthrow are all pretty good.

It's really hard to put Wario in a disadvantaged position because his aerial mobility allows him to retreat out of sticky situations and bike blocks off a lot of **** as well. You can't really juggle him or harass him offstage. Wouldn't be surprised if Wario was top 10.

I learned at a weekly yesterday playing him over my DHD that having a character with warios aerials and his recovery makes his offstage game kind of a nightmare .

 

[Smog Frog]

On this point, the in-game tips explicitly state that projectiles that deal 50% damage or more cannot be reflected - as opposed to the x2.0 factor you claim. There is no difference in the case of Mewtwo's fully charged Shadow Ball, but if this 50% maximum holds true, can't this issue be circumvented by well... Just not fully charging the move? The Shadow Ball would have to deal 18% or less for Mewtwo to win the pingpong match.

I lack the means to test this claim myself unfortunately, and am unaware of any prior research on reflectors' mechanics, but I felt that there was no harm in bringing this up.

i think what he's getting at is that a fully charged shadow ball does 25%, so a 2x reflector would make it 50% and unable to reflect it again.

 

[Nobie]

If 50% is the limit on reflecting projectiles, would it be a feasible tactic as Mewtwo to only partially charge Shadow Ball against Fox or anyone else with a 1.4x reflector?

Also, might it be possible to purposely stale your Shadow Ball a bit to win that 50% war?

 

[Hippieslayer]

@ Hippieslayer

Wario's bike is pretty stupid. Most of the moves you wanna use in neutral don't have big enough a hitbox to hit Wario off of it so he can just cut through a lot of characters' footsies with it. Wario can jump off of it at any time so if you're not sure the bike is actually gonna hit your opponent you can just jump off and see what happens next. A lot of the time your opponent will shield so you can just bite him [bite is super good in smash 4]. If the opponent dodges the bike and tries to aggro you, Wario can just retreat and start the whole process over again. There really isn't a whole lot of risk involved in this approach but it kind of stops working if the opponents has a lead. If you jump off the bike and it hits your opponent you can actually combo into stuff like nair too. I'd say Wario's bike is pretty much the best projectile in the game or at least one of them. Works as a shield against a ****load of moves, combos into stuff or puts the opponent into bad positions, can kill, can heal Wario, helps him charge fart faster and is an amazing recovery option.

His ground game is actually very solid. Jab, ftilt and dtilt kind of cover a lot of spots and ranges nicely and his nair is one of the few legitimately good OoS options in the game imo because it hits on the 5th frame and allows for follow-ups. His smashes kinda suck though but he doesn't really need them. Ftilt and rage fart are good enough kill options for him. I like his grab game too. His grab is solid and uthrow, fthrow, bthrow and bthrow are all pretty good.

It's really hard to put Wario in a disadvantaged position because his aerial mobility allows him to retreat out of sticky situations and bike blocks off a lot of **** as well. You can't really juggle him or harass him offstage. Wouldn't be surprised if Wario was top 10.

Yeah I'm kinda thinking the european and american wario's I've seen aren't really appreciating the bike like they should, it's not at all like in brawl. Wario doesn't really have a huge damage output, but he compensates by being very hard to kill, cant gimp or combo him thanks to bike and aerial mobility, and add to that that he's a heavy mofo. Good at baiting and punishing, jab isnt particularly damaging but it does set up for additional pressure. D-throw puts opponents in a good spot for wario to follow up. Up-throw does so much damage its worth it even if you cant follow up (16% I believe).

Add to that he can kill. Fart, f-throw (if percentage is high enough also backthrow), and f-tilt. I really like F-tilt, it has good range, isn't easily punished and is great for catching landing, rolls and whatnot, very nice to pivot.

He just doesn't feel all that dangerous because he doesn't go in and wreck ppl like other good characters, but he has what it takes to win in the end imo.

 

[Spinosaurus]

Wario's Bair is a really solid kill move as well, and it auto cancels.

Uthrow does like 11%

 

[Hippieslayer]

oh yeah totally forgot about that for some reason lol

up-throw does 10% even ;S dunno where I got 16% from, mustve read some faulty source

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Camping with Wario works differently than it was in Brawl for Wario due to significantly worse horizontal aerial mobility, but the shorter airdodge, much better ground tools, and less bull**** to deal with (no infinites, no grab-release, no chaingrabs, etc.) generally means he can play the passive game better than before. It's also easier for him to land his more decisive moves.

 

[Terotrous]

Reflector + Strong Projectile

No character in any Smash game has ever truly had a strong projectile and a reflector until now. Ness, Mii Gunner, and Villager all have disqualifying traits to their projectiles for purposes of this discussion.) It is a unique combination; something is normally "against the rules." (This is on top of his projectile being both very powerful and very safe, though low damage without charge.)

This means that Mewtwo can force approaches better than almost anyone. Letting him charge up and spam his super-safe 25% KO-ing death ball is a non-starter. Trying to harass him with poke is also a non-starter, though the extent to which reflectors can combat this varies as always.

This part is really significant. After playing Mewtwo more last night, I think this is by far his biggest strength. As noted by AA, Mewtwo's approach is quite bad, but he doesn't really have to approach thanks to this, or at least he can do it very cautiously. Attempting to zone out Mewtwo just doesn't really work, the only one who might be able to pull it off is Yoshi.


Also, maybe this is just me, but I feel like the reflecting hitbox on Confusion is really good. I don't think I missed a single reflect last night, and I'm still new to the character (and to playing a character who has a reflector, period).

 

[A2ZOMG]

Yeah I'm kinda thinking the european and american wario's I've seen aren't really appreciating the bike like they should, it's not at all like in brawl. Wario doesn't really have a huge damage output, but he compensates by being very hard to kill, cant gimp or combo him thanks to bike and aerial mobility, and add to that that he's a heavy mofo. Good at baiting and punishing, jab isnt particularly damaging but it does set up for additional pressure. D-throw puts opponents in a good spot for wario to follow up. Up-throw does so much damage its worth it even if you cant follow up (16% I believe).

Add to that he can kill. Fart, f-throw (if percentage is high enough also backthrow), and f-tilt. I really like F-tilt, it has good range, isn't easily punished and is great for catching landing, rolls and whatnot, very nice to pivot.

He just doesn't feel all that dangerous because he doesn't go in and wreck ppl like other good characters, but he has what it takes to win in the end imo.

He also loses very noticeably to Ganondorf.

 

[Ffamran]

Mewtwo will be able to get the last laugh again for the two weakest reflectors in the game:

• Palutena Reflect Barrier (2 Confusions)
• Falco Accele-Reflector (3 Confusions, almost impossible)

Question on Falco's Accele-Reflector: Wouldn't it be difficult to Confusion reflect it back because Accele-Reflector doubles the speed of projectiles? It was the only time I considered Accele-Reflector being used since default Reflector does pretty much everything while coming out faster and the doubling might not matter since it's a ranged Reflector unlike Fox's. Then again, considering Mewtwo's lightweight and the gambling effect of you could get screwed by a stronger Shadow Ball by being stupid, Reflector Void might be a better choice since Falco has access to another vertical kill move.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Not only is Mewtwo similar to Ganondorf minus the weight, I'm also seeing some odd parallels to Zelda of all people in that his (perceived) archetype is weirdly out of place on such a light character. (Zelda being slow and defensive yet fairly light.)

Confusion does seem to have a very generous reflection window, I'm not sure of the frame data (Dantarion pls) but I've never gone wrong with throwing it out early.

 

[Thinkaman]

On this point, the in-game tips explicitly state that projectiles that deal 50% damage or more cannot be reflected - as opposed to the x2.0 factor you claim. There is no difference in the case of Mewtwo's fully charged Shadow Ball, but if this 50% maximum holds true, can't this issue be circumvented by well... Just not fully charging the move? The Shadow Ball would have to deal 18% or less for Mewtwo to win the pingpong match.

I lack the means to test this claim myself unfortunately, and am unaware of any prior research on reflectors' mechanics, but I felt that there was no harm in bringing this up.

If 50% is the limit on reflecting projectiles, would it be a feasible tactic as Mewtwo to only partially charge Shadow Ball against Fox or anyone else with a 1.4x reflector?

Also, might it be possible to purposely stale your Shadow Ball a bit to win that 50% war?

Holy crap this is obvious, why didn't I think of it?

My thought process over and over again, as I tested this was "Gee, I sure wish Mewtwo could voluntarily lessen the multiplier on his Confusion!" I never even considered that he can obviously do that to his Shadow Ball damage itself.

Wow I'm stupid.

I can confirm that this works, as it obviously should.

Here's a chart:

So this is a big deal against Fox, but a good Fox will jump out of the last Reflector.

You can also use it to beat Ness f-smash and Pit Amp. Orbitars, but beating Orbitars doesn't matter (due to the weird way they work), and throwing giant energy projectiles at Ness is still a terrible idea for other reasons.

Question on Falco's Accele-Reflector: Wouldn't it be difficult to Confusion reflect it back because Accele-Reflector doubles the speed of projectiles? It was the only time I considered Accele-Reflector being used since default Reflector does pretty much everything while coming out faster and the doubling might not matter since it's a ranged Reflector unlike Fox's. Then again, considering Mewtwo's lightweight and the gambling effect of you could get screwed by a stronger Shadow Ball by being stupid, Reflector Void might be a better choice since Falco has access to another vertical kill move.

So this is totally true, BUT it's just as likely to leave Falco holding the increasingly-fast hot potato as Mewtwo. There are some distances that Mewtwo wins, and some that Falco wins. It's an okay choice, but Reflector Void is still a crazy good move and default Reflector is still more punishing and more consistent.

 

[Ffamran]

So this is totally true, BUT it's just as likely to leave Falco holding the increasingly-fast hot potato as Mewtwo. There are some distances that Mewtwo wins, and some that Falco wins. It's an okay choice, but Reflector Void is still a crazy good move and default Reflector is still more punishing and more consistent.

Yeah, I thought about it, but the issue is that Accele-Reflector comes out at frame 9, does 2%, has little knockback, and only reflects when it's kicked out in return for doubling projectiles. Default's sheer speed and reflecting on the way back already makes it safer while Reflector Void's power is very rewarding. Accele-Reflector is an option, but I'd rather take the other 2. It's one of those where it could work, but there's other, safer, and/or more rewarding options.

Brawl Wolf's Reflector on the other hand would be much better since there's also the intangibility frames to fake out a reflect.

 

[Thinkaman]

Missed two thing in the absorb/negate category.

Good catch on Oil Panic, but (Dr.) Mario Shocking Cape doesn't negate projectiles, or interact with them in any way.

Also, I intentionally left out Skull Barrier, because it for some reason can't reflect fully charged Shadow Ball. Investigating further today.

Edit: It can't reflect any projectile that does at least 25%. Odd.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Good catch on Oil Panic, but (Dr.) Mario Shocking Cape doesn't negate projectiles, or interact with them in any way.

Also, I intentionally left out Skull Barrier, because it for some reason can't reflect fully charged Shadow Ball. Investigating further today.

Edit: It can't reflect any projectile that does at least 25%. Odd.

I've seen videos of it canceling out stuff like Fireball. Is it just acting like a normal move in that clanking a projectile kills it?

 

[Thinkaman]

I've seen videos of it canceling out stuff like Fireball. Is it just acting like a normal move in that clanking a projectile kills it?

Correct.

 

[Anomilus]

• Do a Sheik fair
  • No landing lag (auto-cancels)
  • Mewtwo can powershield it, but frame advantage is almost zero (after Mewtwo shield-drop) due to no landing lag.
    • Mewtwo can only jab Sheik OoS, and not if she DIs properly.
    • Remember, he can't grab! (Which is what you'd normally do in this situation.)
  • Will interrupt all other actions, including movement or spot dodge.

Can't test it right now, but can't Mewtwo jab into Disable? She still wins by DI'ing correctly, but otherwise "only jab" is not a bad thing considering Mewtwo's Jab 1 leads into other moves (barring grab in this situation).

 

[Thinkaman]

Can't test it right now, but can't Mewtwo jab into Disable? She still wins by DI'ing correctly, but otherwise "only jab" is not a bad thing considering Mewtwo's Jab 1 leads into other moves (barring grab in this situation).

There is no way that Mewtwo can guaranteed Jab 1 into a frame 16 move.

Edit: Like, we're not talking about merely blocking it. In that amount of time, she can do whatever the hell she wants. She can f-smash before Disable would hit.