Character Competitive Impressions

[Amazing Ampharos]

I seem to have a lot to respond to.

The problem with the "git good" argument regarding balance is that people care more about the games balance at mid-high level rather then top. Compare Melee and Brawl for that, MK at TOP level had pretty inconsistent results that weren't much worse then other competitive games. But he dominated mid-high level and was prone to Cinderella stories, and this was (incorrectly) attributed to the same degree of dominance at top level. In Melee fox has similar results at the top, but people are generally willing to give that a pass because below top level you can give fox a hard time.

Whether that's logical or not that's just the way it is, and customs advocates should be rightly worried of the perception of fairness/balance at mid- high level. At the very least though it can be said to potentially make the game unfun for mid-high level play which constitutes a ton of players, so changing that perception if possible is key.

Custom gimmicks don't dominate locals in Kansas though, and if we have anything, we have mid-high level players. Of course, we also play all the time with customs on so it's just the game we know; we definitely saw players get rocked by Hammer Spin Dash the first time they saw it (we have two local Sonics who take great advantage of that move), but everyone has learned how to play around it as well as they've learned to play around everything else. We've actually seen it be a positive dynamic around here, just expanding the range of things players can go for. What makes Kansas so different from your local scene? When I see customs work so well here at home and also at a national scale among top players, it's just really hard for me to see the specific type of player who is needing help especially since it seems like we seldom get good cases of players articulating specific complaints clearly.

My specific issue is that, outside of @ Amazing Ampharos (whom I thank for making the effort to actually producing an argument), no one including yourself has been willing to accept that in the customs meta, there are tactics and strategies that are abusive in the tournament scene, and dealing with these players who are willing to abuse them just aren't fun. Funny how Smash Attack had this very player reach 4th place by abusing Villager camping and Kong Cyclone. Even further, LGL are being proposed now. The LGL rule isn't saying "Villager camping is unbeatable". The LGL rule is saying "Villager camping is stupid and we want it to die".

I feel like we need to actually look at the games in depth at Smash Attack 6 that let CaptainAwesum do as well as he did (4th place). First he beat Snakee's Rosalina in a ridiculously tense set. Snakee misplayed and dropped game one to Villager, but he came back and beat that Villager in game two and seemed clearly on the road to winning the set. The captain counterpicked Battlefield/Kong Cyclone and went to work. Snakee generally responded to Kong Cyclone poorly, running into it a lot and never punishing bad landings with it (as spammy as Captain was, he could have just run away and spammed Shooting Star Bit honestly). Regardless, he just boxed his way to a good lead, but he was just failing to land any kind of a kill and started to play really scared (not asserting control over the match at all). This happens a lot in game 3 losers bracket games in tournaments; the nerves got to him, and it hurts a control based character like Rosalina the most since you lose so badly with her if you lose focus (and she also has no "easy" kills; you have to be on-point to land fatal blows with her). Either way, Snakee's lead was big enough that he has time and eventually lands a Luma Warp that was a forced convert to an fsmash kill... and messes up his execution and doesn't fsmash. The dance continues and he does it again; he hits with another Luma Warp that is a forced kill set-up and just drops his input. After this the dance continues and DK finally snipes with an off-stage kill. Snakee outplayed CaptainAwesum but made significant execution errors and played scared in a critical game three, and it cost him the win. This should mean a lot to him as a player but wasn't about the customs beating him.

Next CaptainAwesum played against Bloodcross who basically imploded. Bloodcross had been sent to losers by JohnNumbers in some fascinating and complicated Wii Fit Trainer vs Charizard matches (related, this match-up would never, ever happen in customs off) and was clearly rattled by the loss from the start. He played as Fox and played like a madman. He ran in with the lead for no clear reason. He would hold his reflector against projectiles, Villager would throw projectiles, and he'd drop the reflector and run into the projectiles, getting hit. His solution to Villager ledgestalling was to jump above the ledge and aim Twisting Fox down which doesn't actually make any sense and just kept getting him hit. He only seemed to try the "down smash the non-invincible ledgegrab" thing I keep saying once, and it killed Villager when he did it. After getting that kill that way, he went back to trying to challenge it with Twisting Fox which doesn't work and lost the game. He counterpicked Halberd and still didn't seem to know what to do but kept it close despite not really playing in a strategic way. However, he lost the first stock and then immediately forfeited the match, leaving the play area visibly upset. Bloodcross does not seem to be a bad player so I believe on another day he would have been able to win, but his mind was not in the game and he defeated himself. Custom Villager gets no points for this win.

Then it gets golden. Mike Kirby using Meteor Stone annihilates CaptainAwesum, landing early kills with it in both games (Villager was around 20% when it killed him in the second game). Mike Kirby never used the "don't approach when you have the lead" strategy; he just challenged everything and won convincingly. CaptainAwesum then got on the stream to talk about his loss. He accused Mike Kirby of being scummy for not explaining his customs before the game and generally attributed his loss to being surprised by Meteor Stone. He worded his johns carefully so the commentator interviewing him took him as a good sport and even praised him for having a good attitude. This set twitch chat off since they had just watched him get basically two fluke wins in a row using his gimmicky strategies, lose resoundingly to a straight up solid player, and then talk like that on stream. I'm not even trying to criticize him; it's incredible for the scene when people act like he did. He cast himself as a near perfect villain, and there's a great storyline at the next tournament if he gets paired against any of his last three opponents. Players like him get streams emotionally invested in the game. He didn't really make custom Villager look all that powerful either; it took some massively good fortune for him to place as well as 4th. I don't think anything bad happened at that tournament, and I remain convinced custom Villager is a decent but not notably good character (probably around 10th best in the cast, kinda polarizing but very tame compared to similar characters from other games and the customs aren't the main thing that make him polarizing).

I don't make any claims for broken. The only argument I would make is strategically or mechanically different to the rest of the game. How one perceives that would be up to the beholder. Anyone with wit can word a conundrum that cannot be beaten when you hold all the cards on subjective terming. This is coming from the guy who honestly uses the word objectively just to spite me I'm pretty sure, he knows what he's doing.

Come on Shaya; I pick my words for many reasons but not to spite you. I think you are sometimes intentionally difficult and are inclined to play devil's advocate, but I actually do like you and wouldn't go out of my way to spite you. The response I really wanted was for people to actually delve into specific customs so we could talk about them; I really feel like all cases of "custom jank" are primarily due to a lack of player education on effective tactics. I obviously can't explain how to beat all 408 custom moves just because even I can only type so much so I need directed toward which moves the anti-custom side has issue with so we can properly document the appropriate counter-strategies, thus reducing people's reason to criticize customs by teaching them how to beat the things that are problems for them. I'm also a bit of a natural cynic and suspect some anti-custom people are slow to publicly commit to detailed criticism of specific customs for tactical political reasons, and I do want to defeat those people politically by trying to force them to commit. So yeah I'm killing two birds with one stone, but I promise I'm altruistic in the end.

---

I do get a sense that Villager is a character a lot of people really don't understand; this is making is clear to me I need to produce an anti-Villager guide that both shows very specifically how to beat the ledgestalling (it's not like walk-off camping at all; it's just a bad tactic that should lose 100% of the time in a consistent, formulaic fashion) and discusses in general how to fight against this weird, annoying character including his customs (the short version is that if you play a heavy you're probably screwed but are screwed whether customs are on or not, and everyone else can deal with Villager's various gimmicks). A good guide on this topic hopefully should diffuse the anti-Villager sentiment that seems to be at the heart of a lot of anti-custom concerns. I'll do it as a video since more people seem to pay attention to those, but I won't be able to make it until the weekend since I'll need a recording partner to show both sides of exchanges and such. Jaxas had a really good thread he even called "dealing with jank" that has a lot of good intel, and while I can only do so much, I definitely do hope that will get revived and filled with information about countering Kong Cyclone and other such moves that often concern people. If we work together and spread good, helpful information, we can definitely make this customs on game a lot more fun for everyone which I think is an everyone wins scenario. I think that's something good to pursue.

 

[Trifroze]

So when's SWF making a tier list? Legit though, are there any plans for one or is it condemned redundant because of balance patches?

Many who considered Diddy to be in a league of his own probably agree that it's not the case anymore even though he's still good. I used to say Diddy, Sheik and Sonic were the top three and coincidentally they were the ones who got nerfed the hardest in 1.06. Not sure what my or anyone's top 3 would be anymore, and as such not sure how the general perception of top 10 has changed because of that.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Shulk kinda sucks until he kills you at 50% with Vision. Then he's kinda broken.

 

[PUK]

Wii Fit has much better planking than Villager.
World needs to know that exploding balloons aren't real, but invincibility moves are.

I don't think she's bottom 10 in terms of inherent strengths anymore.
But I think she does considerably worse vs the best characters than those averaging around her perceived position.
She has brawl-level abusive air and spot dodges, but top tiers don't care about that ****.
Her nair and ftilt are kinda ridiculous, but small characters don't care about that ****.

Like, I wonder if there's a character other than maybe Samus who deals with Sheik's needles worse than Wii Fit? She doesn't have issues with needle, because ftilt beats any follow up mid range and AC header allows her to avoid everything long range. Close range she has the same issue as everyone.
How's she dealing with Diddy's anti-air game and dominant ground control? Spam sun salutation, and reverse Fair can bypass Diddy AA game. She has enough mobility to camp, or at least avoid most of confrontations
How can she ever land or use her best strategies (off stage/aerial baits) against Pikachu? Funny matchup actually, but hard for WFT yes.
Olimar, Megaman and I would assume Mario/Luigi aren't entirely fun for her either. She doesn't care about luigi/Mario grab game because of her strange physic, and is one of the few character which can gimp luigi. Don't know the olimar match up, seems really hard
However, what she can handle? She handles pretty well, she could even have positive match ups against highish characters.she's one of the worst ZSS MU, she's good agaisnt falcon and she kills Fox all day yes. But she struggles a lot agaisnt rosalina, a little less against pikachu and some other high tier

All things considered she's in the end of the high tier/ top mid tier, and without a doubt one of the most underrated characters with MK. She has flaws, but it's more a matter of skill than a character issue.
She doesn't beat Diddy/shiek even in 1.0.6 but can give them a hard time. And her worst MU are the tiny character, but i would say they are not that hard: some things like reverse Ftilt and pivot grab, and Back air OOS can work so she's not like ZSS. She's not combo food, and hard to gimp. She's not juggle food either, as she has access a b reverse and her Fair is disjoint, AC, and hit under her. Yes she's unsafe on shield on most of her moves, but not all, and the ones which are safe are the one which matters. And deep breathing allows early kill with Ftilt/Bair/Uair/SS
And she get soo much from custom it's hilarious. I don't even talk about jumbo, but header and sun custom are good

 

[A2ZOMG]

Shulk's throws are meh without monado shenanigans?

Thats kind of the character. His options do TONS of things depending on his opponents, percent, his percent and the mode he is in.

Dthrow in buster mode setting up for massive 2 hitters for damage. Or dthrow straight up killing in smash and setting up for strong jump mode edgeguarding.

He doesnt have safe kill setups I guess, outside of just making a good read or edgeguarding, but once you are at kill percents, he can just use shield mode and fish for things if he has you cornered. You can't kill him for being wrong and if he was at low to mid percents, he can just go into smash mode and suddenly you can't get grabbed, jabbed, faired, tilted or ANYTHING.

Shulk really does tend to excel at all the things that make Ike good + he gets to alter physics whenever he wants.

You can ledge stall against any Monado art you refuse to fight against, and his ability to really harshly punish you for this is not actually very good given the high commitment on his moves.

Shield is pretty much garbage. Should almost never be used due to the mobility disadvantages. The counter to Shield is grabbing Shulk and Up-throw. He literally has nothing he can do once you do this, and it's free damage + fresh moves if he insists on using Shield. As if Shulk didn't already have problems with being juggled, even Ganondorf can U-throw chase Shield Shulk consistently. Shield blows.

Also even if Smash can get Shulk some cheesy early kills against people who don't just stall it out, one thing to keep in mind is that Shulk makes a huge gamble when running Smash, given he also takes a lot more knockback in that mode. Smash is also pretty bad for that reason. Shulk ALSO dies at mid percents pretty easily while running Smash especially if he makes a bad read by the ledge and gets backthrown by most of the cast (going to remind you, his ledge pressure options are not very strong).

Buster and Jump are his best arts, and both are situational. Buster at least doubles as extra safety on block due to shieldstun mechanics. Jump improves Shulk's mobility, recovery, and edgeguard options and actually doesn't cost Shulk anything offensively unlike Speed.

So you claim Shulk gets to excel at the things that make Ike good. Firstoff, he doesn't have anywhere near Ike's combo or trap game. Ike can get around ~20% consistently off low to mid percent D-throw/U-throw. U-throw in particular sets up strings at high percents due to its low growth rate, and even in situations where it fails to true combo, it forces immediate jumps or airdodges, which still basically leads to 50/50 death setups on the entire cast. Ike's side throws also are the best non-killing side throws in the game for edgeguard setups. It's only a minor shame Ike also sucks at edgeguarding good recoveries (even with Jump, Shulk's edgeguarding is mostly mediocre due to his slow aerials), though Ike unlike Shulk has a very clear advantage in edgeguarding predictable recoveries due to Eruption.

Next, Ike's aerials besides B-air aren't exactly fast, but they are faster than Shulk's, and both his F-air and B-air autocancel in short hops. Notably, his aerials also generally kill earlier than Shulk's and have less landing lag, aside from N-air, though Ike's N-air is way scarier than Shulk's due to the high damage combo potential into he has from it while Shulk struggles to get a followup outside of low percents and running Speed, which is still noticeably worse than what Ike gets out of N-air. Shulk may have slightly better hitboxes on N-air and F-air, but his U-air unlike Ike's is mostly really bad and makes him unable to easily juggle most characters.

tl;dr, most Monado Arts are gimmicks unless you're camping a lead and threatening a timeout to force your opponent to approach, and even with some of the minor advantages they provide, Shulk's moveset is mostly just blatantly worse than Ike's and gives him less opportunities to outplay his opponent in both neutral and positive state even factoring Monado Arts shenanigans. Both get bodied in the negative state, but Ike's clearly superior neutral and positive state are significant advantages he has over Shulk. Does more damage, has better traps and combos out of throws, has faster attacks just generally speaking. Why play Shulk when Ike is both less complicated and better?

 

[meleebrawler]

You can ledge stall against any Monado art you refuse to fight against, and his ability to really harshly punish you for this is not actually very good given the high commitment on his moves.

Shield is pretty much garbage. Should almost never be used due to the mobility disadvantages. The counter to Shield is grabbing Shulk and Up-throw. He literally has nothing he can do once you do this, and it's free damage + fresh moves if he insists on using Shield. As if Shulk didn't already have problems with being juggled, even Ganondorf can U-throw chase Shield Shulk consistently. Shield blows.

Also even if Smash can get Shulk some cheesy early kills against people who don't just stall it out, one thing to keep in mind is that Shulk makes a huge gamble when running Smash, given he also takes a lot more knockback in that mode. Smash is also pretty bad for that reason. Shulk ALSO dies at mid percents pretty easily while running Smash especially if he makes a bad read by the ledge and gets backthrown by most of the cast (going to remind you, his ledge pressure options are not very strong).

Buster and Jump are his best arts, and both are situational. Buster at least doubles as extra safety on block due to shieldstun mechanics. Jump improves Shulk's mobility, recovery, and edgeguard options and actually doesn't cost Shulk anything offensively unlike Speed.

So you claim Shulk gets to excel at the things that make Ike good. Firstoff, he doesn't have anywhere near Ike's combo or trap game. Ike can get around ~20% consistently off low to mid percent D-throw/U-throw. U-throw in particular sets up strings at high percents due to its low growth rate, and even in situations where it fails to true combo, it forces immediate jumps or airdodges, which still basically leads to 50/50 death setups on the entire cast. Ike's side throws also are the best non-killing side throws in the game for edgeguard setups. It's only a minor shame Ike also sucks at edgeguarding good recoveries (even with Jump, Shulk's edgeguarding is mostly mediocre due to his slow aerials), though Ike unlike Shulk has a very clear advantage in edgeguarding predictable recoveries due to Eruption.

Next, Ike's aerials besides B-air aren't exactly fast, but they are faster than Shulk's, and both his F-air and B-air autocancel in short hops. Notably, his aerials also generally kill earlier than Shulk's and have less landing lag, aside from N-air, though Ike's N-air is way scarier than Shulk's due to the high damage combo potential into he has from it while Shulk struggles to get a followup outside of low percents and running Speed, which is still noticeably worse than what Ike gets out of N-air. Shulk may have slightly better hitboxes on N-air and F-air, but his U-air unlike Ike's is mostly really bad and makes him unable to easily juggle most characters.

tl;dr, most Monado Arts are gimmicks unless you're camping a lead and threatening a timeout to force your opponent to approach, and even with some of the minor advantages they provide, Shulk's moveset is mostly just blatantly worse than Ike's and gives him less opportunities to outplay his opponent in both neutral and positive state even factoring Monado Arts shenanigans. Both get bodied in the negative state, but Ike's clearly superior neutral and positive state are significant advantages he has over Shulk. Does more damage, has better traps and combos out of throws, has faster attacks just generally speaking. Why play Shulk when Ike is both less complicated and better?

Because he can be much more mobile than Ike. Period. Also, how does one ledge-stall Shulk when
he can just hit you with down-angled Fsmash or Dsmash for grabbing more than once?

Ike may be easier to learn and use due to having a more potent moveset, but it comes at the cost of flexibility.
If an Ike player is losing, there's not much he can do to rectify except play better. Shulk's arts can let him almost
completely alter his strategies on the fly, for example he can use speed to threaten with running grabs, or use
jump to evade projectiles. Even Shield, as limited and situational as it may be (which is why Hyper Shield is much better),
can help mitigate damage taken during disadvantage. All Ike really does is space aggressively with Nair and Dtilt,
with maybe the odd Fair or Bair, as well as trying to close some distance with the highly punishable on block Quick Draw.
Though given the relative difficulty Ike has getting in compared to Shulk with his arts and more favorable hitboxes, it's
only fair that Ike generally gets more reward for doing so.

 

[DavemanCozy]

Shulk kinda sucks until he kills you at 50% with Vision. Then he's kinda broken.

It's the worst move if you whiff it, and the best move if it works. It's up there with Rest and the KO punch as one of the highest reward, highest risk moves of the game.

Shulk is overrated, imo. His moves are too laggy, Rosa, Sheik, Diddy (even nerfed), Pikachu and Fox all give him a hell of a time.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Because he can be much more mobile than Ike. Period. Also, how does one ledge-stall Shulk when
he can just hit you with down-angled Fsmash or Dsmash for grabbing more than once?

Ike may be easier to learn and use due to having a more potent moveset, but it comes at the cost of flexibility.
If an Ike player is losing, there's not much he can do to rectify except play better. Shulk's arts can let him almost
completely alter his strategies on the fly, for example he can use speed to threaten with running grabs, or use
jump to evade projectiles. Even Shield, as limited and situational as it may be (which is why Hyper Shield is much better),
can help mitigate damage taken during disadvantage. All Ike really does is space aggressively with Nair and Dtilt,
with maybe the odd Fair or Bair, as well as trying to close some distance with the highly punishable on block Quick Draw.
Though given the relative difficulty Ike has getting in compared to Shulk with his arts and more favorable hitboxes, it's
only fair that Ike generally gets more reward for doing so.

Both Shulk's F-smash and D-smash can easily be reacted to as they're quite slow, and also both are very unreliable for covering ledge stand. Shulk is really really bad at ledge trap scenarios when you just wait for him. He has no easy way to punish people who wait, and mix up ledge jump and ledge stand, and he generally has to make a risky read to cover each of these options individually. This basically leaves Shulk with D-tilt as his only real pressure option against people who wait on the ledge, and Shulk's D-tilt is not exceptionally scary.

Ike does way better than Shulk when losing because he has a 7 frame B-air that can never be disrespected, and his grab game is better and leads to better KO setup opportunities. He also has ledge trump B-air to threaten ledge stalling while Shulk's ledge trump B-air is really bad. In rare ledge regrab scenarios Ike also does better with his significantly stronger F-smash and D-smash, as well as his own D-tilt which actually has combo followups at low to mid percents.

Speed grabs from Shulk are cool and all until we factor that aside from the damage nerf (which alone makes Shulk's risk/reward actually pretty awful with Speed) Shulk's throws are bad, and his aforementioned weak offstage/ledge trap game also means that he actually struggles to get momentum from Speed. Don't get me wrong, Speed has uses, but it's also not actually very powerful on Shulk when you factor how little synergy it has with most of Shulk's kit (his DA and SH aerial approaches are crappy, and it also reduces his damage).

Ike doesn't really have more trouble than Shulk getting in when he's better at forcing preemptive blocking with generally superior aerials. Sure, it sorta sucks for Ike that he relies on Quick Draw for grounded mobility (though with Close Combat the gap between him and Shulk becomes even greater when Shulk doesn't get anything nearly as useful as Close Combat in customs) but at the same time it's also actually a better midrange blitz than anything Shulk has aside from Speed Grab (which doesn't really outdo Quick Draw by much in terms of reward anyway). I don't really get where you claim Shulk has flexibility outside of his rather gimmicky Monado cancels. Most of Shulk's other Monado shenanigans really only help him significantly in situations where he's already winning and you need to chase and fight him to make up for a deficit, but Ike actually just gets more reward from most things, and his offensive pressure is actually just better overall because his attacks are better.

 

[Flamecircle]

Spoiler

I disagree. Equipment is strong, its RNG based on acquisition and potency, its effects themselves are possibly unreasonable not that I delve deep into it. Then again...pokemon also has plenty of RNG, with high potency, that can change a match in multiple situations. Only difference? I can turn these off in Smash and I can't in pokemon. I'm working with 6 units all featuring IV's, Natures, and abilities which are handed to me by RNG (that can be weighted), whom then have a sizeable pool each of moves to use, items to hold and EVs to train.

Let me correct your statement.
Most data about a pokemon can be inferred in one turn. I can't see its IVs or EVs, hell I can't see its Nature or ability. Now Its ability may have an effect that will obviously reveal itself to me (Hello Drought, or hell Poison Heal for instance) and items can be in the same boat (leftovers/berries/life orb for example). I'll presume "probably has these 4 moves, though it might also have X or Y so keep an eye out for that" based on MU knowledge.

I can infer what equipment and customs you have as well. The custom abilities and the Custom moves will reveal themselves in time. The statistical bonuses however are hidden so I can't reasonably figure that out within 30 seconds.

--------------------------------------------
Smash: 1 character, 4 moves to change with 3 options each, 3 equipment slots with an assload of different equipment that changes attributes notable. Everything but the character is randomly acquired.

Pokemon: 6 characters (if talking 1v1 singles), 24 moves amongst them all to change with an assload of options, 6-18 ability possibilities amongst them all, EV's to train, IV's which are randomly sorted out on capture. All have 1 item slot as well. Finally 20 (well technically 25) nature possibilities that each one of those 6 will have. This is in addition to an inherit crit rate.

Lets put an example of how this can work. Mind if I use the Advance generation for this comparison?
The opposition switches a Tyranitar to my Blissey. What I don't realize is that this Tyranitar is a) a mixed attacker or b) a full special attack Tyrannitar. I EV trained my Blissey for physical, mind you it has imperfect IV's of some sort.
All of this I did not know, I could infer it based on the reality that mixed T-tars existed, but then I'm still forced to make a prediction which may back-fire. The reality is that it was a full special attack T-tar and I just switched out my special wall...
I bring in Skarmory hoping to roar out a D-dance set, and eat a Critical Fire Blast that burns to boot, on the switch in. Well wish I had the clairvoyance to know Im facing a Modest T-tar.

Think I rather would of gone "why the hell is this Ganon moving so ****ing fast"...must be speed equip, since I'll have visually noticed that from the start given the distance apart we start at, which at least gives me a much greater clue of where he is statistically.

I guess I should have explained more clearly. You can infer most information in a turn in pokemon. In smash, you can tell Ganon has a speed equip, but you can't tell what that does for his moves. All the information you had on punishing and dangerzones is gone. You need to relearn the matchup.

The true difference between pokemon and a fighting game is that the fighting game is a game of perfect information. You know all options the opponents have, and your skill and knowledge decides the winner. Adding in variables that affect every aspect of play ruins the knowledge factor of that.

 

[DavemanCozy]

Also even if Smash can get Shulk some cheesy early kills against people who don't just stall it out, one thing to keep in mind is that Shulk makes a huge gamble when running Smash, given he also takes a lot more knockback in that mode. Smash is also pretty bad for that reason. Shulk ALSO dies at mid percents pretty easily while running Smash especially if he makes a bad read by the ledge and gets backthrown by most of the cast (going to remind you, his ledge pressure options are not very strong).

Smash can help early on in the game to avoid getting combo'd as much because of the increased KB. Smash is not bad at all for that reason, it's bad because it keeps Shulk at default movement specs, which are bad.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Smash can help early on in the game to avoid getting combo'd as much because of the increased KB. Smash is not bad at all for that reason, it's bad because it keeps Shulk at default movement specs, which are bad.

You also deal less damage with Smash, which isn't cool for multiple reasons including obvious damage building and also safety on block. Smash Shulk is extremely unsafe on block. On the flipside, this is also why Buster is actually not terrible.

 

[DavemanCozy]

You also deal less damage with Smash, which isn't cool for multiple reasons including obvious damage building and also safety on block. Smash Shulk is extremely unsafe on block. On the flipside, this is also why Buster is actually not terrible.

That is true, Smash's shieldstun is comparable to Little Mac's aerials. At the very least they deal good knockback on hit, which at low % is not as bad as it seems.

And yeah, Buster is actually one of his best arts for this reason. D-tilt, N-air, F-air, U-air, and even B-air all become more threatening. His grab game gets a lot better too, he racks up tons of damage with D-throw -> F-smash at low % or F-throw -> F-air / Dash Attack (DI dependant) at mid-%. U-throw -> U-air is also really good, though it's escapable by jumping.

 

[Sinister Slush]

I just wanna say something real quick.
While in jump mode you actually take more damage than you would in Buster mode. Granted it's a mode where you shouldn't get hit too much anyways but it's still there. Speed buster and Smash arts prolly better to use on stage and jump of course for offstage fair kills.

Anyone that starts the match in buster art is most likely them feeling confident enough to just outplay the opponent, albeit it's rare that it happens.
Speed is just swinging your sword around trying to get the advantage.

 

[PUK]

When i face shulk as Zelda/rob/falco/WFT/etc i don't care about his mobility because he has poor way to contest my approach or to approach himself. His counter is good but you can ruin it.
But ike is both harder to approach and wall because his Nair is safe if well spaced, and jab is fast enough to block most retaliation.


On another subject, does ledge invincibility come back after being ledge trumped. If not it would make LM edgeguard really hard to bypass.

 

[Sinister Slush]

No it doesn't.
Need to be hit for ledge invincibility to come back.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

On another subject, does ledge invincibility come back after being ledge trumped. If not it would make LM edgeguard really hard to bypass.

You should never get ledge trumped. If you buffer a Ledge Jump, Ledge Climb, or Ledge Attack, you will do them on the first possible frame even if another character is on the ledge.

Little Mac ledgeguards are pretty hard to bypass, anyway, though.

 

[A2ZOMG]

You should never get ledge trumped. If you buffer a Ledge Jump, Ledge Climb, or Ledge Attack, you will do them on the first possible frame even if another character is on the ledge.

Little Mac ledgeguards are pretty hard to bypass, anyway, though.

You can't buffer Ledge Climb, so Ledge Trumps are a viable way to pressure people who Ledge Climb a lot (important, given it has very safe frame data universally). Ledge Roll in contrast can be buffered.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

My mistake; that was a mistype. You can always react to someone near the ledge, though, so the best that that "pressure" gets you is a mix-up between the other three ledge options. It's something, but you're better off trying to react to movement from the ledge at optimal spacing, IMO.

 

[Megamang]

You should never get ledge trumped. If you buffer a Ledge Jump, Ledge Climb, or Ledge Attack, you will do them on the first possible frame even if another character is on the ledge.

Little Mac ledgeguards are pretty hard to bypass, anyway, though.

Do you have any ideas to punish this tendency? I have been mixing up a running, FF'ed ledge trump with running and shielding at the ledge and working on a reactive punish. This works alright but I'm not sure if this is due to my opponent's lack of knowledge of his options.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Do you have any ideas to punish this tendency? I have been mixing up a running, FF'ed ledge trump with running and shielding at the ledge and working on a reactive punish. This works alright but I'm not sure if this is due to my opponent's lack of knowledge of his options.

Going for the ledge trump is rarely worth it, in my experience.

The two most consistent options for getting off the ledge safely seem to be Ledge Jump and Ledge Climb. If you can put an attack out to catch a Ledge Jump and have it finish before Ledge Climb would finish (there's about 20 frames between the two vulnerable states), you can deal with both at once on reaction, theoretically. An aerial without too much landing lag, some Jabs, etc.

 

[Megamang]

Going for the ledge trump is rarely worth it, in my experience.

The two most consistent options for getting off the ledge safely seem to be Ledge Jump and Ledge Climb. If you can put an attack out to catch a Ledge Jump and have it finish before Ledge Climb would finish (there's about 20 frames between the two vulnerable states), you can deal with both at once on reaction, theoretically. An aerial without too much landing lag, some Jabs, etc.

And I presume ledge attack beats most of those options?

Its so odd that ledge jump is an option now, im used to melee just having a kill yourself button when on the ledge.

 

[A2ZOMG]

And I presume ledge attack beats most of those options?

Its so odd that ledge jump is an option now, im used to melee just having a kill yourself button when on the ledge.

Not necessarily. Ledge Attacks are vulnerable before the hitbox comes out, so some lingering hitboxes can cover ledge attack, climb, and jump simultaneously. One important thing though is that almost none of them are kill moves except for Bowser Jr U-smash.

Also because ledge climb is literally vulnerable for only one frame before you can shield, KO throws and being heavy enough to survive people grabbing your ledge getup are actually important in this game. You have a 4 frame window to grab a ledge climb before they spotdodge or roll.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Ledge Climb is vulnerable for two frames, I think, rather than one. I'm not sure if you can buffer moves out of ledge options in this game.

 

[Megamang]

Thanks for the ledge advice!


As for competitive character impressions: Who do you all feel gives Shiek the hardest time? I found a pocket megaman was nice to deal with Diddy, but I am at a total loss on shiek. To a lesser extent I wonder the same thing about Rosalina and Luma, but for now does anyone have thoughts on who does well against Shiek?

I know outplaying the player is always the best option, but I really enjoy having pocket characters for competitive sets; I've played smash since 64 and would like to think my skills translate across the cast.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Shulk is still better than a whole batch of characters. Some people are unaware of how big the gap between the best and the worst characters in this game is though.

Still, Shulk is definitely not bottom 15.

 

[KenMeister]

Thanks for the ledge advice!


As for competitive character impressions: Who do you all feel gives Shiek the hardest time? I found a pocket megaman was nice to deal with Diddy, but I am at a total loss on shiek. To a lesser extent I wonder the same thing about Rosalina and Luma, but for now does anyone have thoughts on who does well against Shiek?

I know outplaying the player is always the best option, but I really enjoy having pocket characters for competitive sets; I've played smash since 64 and would like to think my skills translate across the cast.

Lucario is probably Sheik's worst matchup, and probably her only losing MU. Everything else would probably be considered even or in her favor. Luigi's boxing game significantly outdoes Sheik's though, especially when he gets close, and has a significantly better punishment game when Luigi has the ability to get of Sheik's strings better than anyone else and can combo her really well due to her fastfall speed, racking around 40%'s worth of damage. And yeah, pocket Mega Man is actually not a bad option for Diddy, given the majority of people on the Mega Man boards consider the MU even.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Speed is the best art you'all crazy. Same grab frames as Falcon, Similar speed bracket. The diminished damage is meagre relative to your success rate of getting damage.

You can air slash after trumping, and you'll get kills, not that you need to given that you can just return to the stage and are in a great situation once their invincibility is gone.

You get all you need off a U-throw to follow up. Shulks U-tilt is more then generous. Busters shield safety is overstated this is more relevant for Decisive Buster that hits on all cylinders when it comes to shield safety where regular does not.
Shield safety is far less relevant to Speed given that speed can grab you which discredits the shield to begin with, throw for stage positioning or a u-throw chase.

The goal of Smash should be another tool of landing punish. When you out-range most counter options, generally all you have to deal with an aerial enemy then is an air dodge inherently, counter offensive options often will lack KO power to capitalize on Shulks drawback. You most certainly can use it on stage but then "Shield safety" becomes a risk you have to consider, one that doesn't actually mean a damn against someone in the air since there is no shield in the air, and if you're putting them into a situation where they have to consider air dodging into the ground, you're increasing the safety of your action anyways since they're getting 20+ frames tacked on before they can contest you. This does not discredit the reality that characters have other options to avoid linear landing traps (monkey flip, teleport, etc), but emphasizes that Shulk Smash arte plays off the advantage state which in Smash typically is an opponent off the ground unable to shield and rarely able to threaten a KO back from such a position. Now I can aim for the same with Ike undoubtably, but grabs are harder to acquire as a slower character.


I His Counter kills before Ikes, He gets more grabs then Ike, those grabs put him an advantageous position, he can capitalize of advantage by switching artes.
You can talk about chasing Shulk in shield but its not particularly relevant. Shulks cancel out of shield when its purpose is fulfilled.
Shield is risk management, that doesn't make it good but it provides it as an option in addition to being a MALLC option.
Lets say Marth U-throws me, I could ledge drift. One thing I can also do however is shift to shield and go for the vision, If I make the wrong read, the punishment on Shield shulk will be minimal and can I switch to jump and come back at the ledge. If this is typical I can also MALLC from Shield, You don't have to accept it for a binary focus despite its limited uses. The consideration that Vision + Shield can make for the opponent giving "weak" punishments (they're losing 33% damage regardless of their punish option) and Shield + MALLC can also provide coverage. Ike doesn't have these kind of skews, neither does Marth.

Jump takes 20% more damage. Speed does 20% less damage. Your opposition doesn't kill you any faster in Speed, they do in Jump. Speed has less reward on success, Jump has greater risk on failures, quite frankly I rather Speed given its mobility is on air and ground and I have other stances for damage leads and kills, notwithstanding off-stage play.

Shulk has problems, his frame data can be one but it's exaggerated. He is a stance based character and some of his stances are undertuned so he is not getting the reward out of them quite frankly I think he should be. Given the other monado wielder...Kirby has a lot stronger bases, he'll get a lot more out of it. For what he is supposed to be however, Buster still doesn't hit hard enough through on Decisive Buster and vanilla Buster looks horrible. Speed and Jump are fine. Shields drawbacks are too potent and Smashes advantage is too close in potency to its drawback again you throw on Dec Smash and vanilla Smash almost doesnt make sense. Dec speed doesn't really do much over regular Speed, but since other vanilla options are undertuned you consider utilizing it anyways by default. If you're in close combat, you will lose as Shulk, he's not a CQC character outside of grabs you generally have no business in that range.

Shulk isn't adept at ledge pressure, that can't go unstated. When you're the fastest disjointed character on a whim you should be pushing landings. Like he needs to use his dash attack, when his flipping Walk in Speed is comparable to some dashes.

Ike isn't as good as getting a grab, nor the off-stage game, Ike doesn't have the same coverage, because he unfortunately doesn't have the range nor speed possibility. Ike has better reward on hit generally, ledge pressure and he gets combos out of grabs yes.

I guess I should have explained more clearly. You can infer most information in a turn in pokemon. In smash, you can tell Ganon has a speed equip, but you can't tell what that does for his moves. All the information you had on punishing and dangerzones is gone. You need to relearn the matchup.

The true difference between pokemon and a fighting game is that the fighting game is a game of perfect information. You know all options the opponents have, and your skill and knowledge decides the winner. Adding in variables that affect every aspect of play ruins the knowledge factor of that.

....and turns it into pokemon lol. We've come full circle. No surprise that Nintendos invitational was Smashballs and equipment, you could smell the Pokemon thought process a mile away.

 

[Megamang]

Lucario is probably Sheik's worst matchup, and probably her only losing MU. Everything else would probably be considered even or in her favor. Luigi's boxing game significantly outdoes Sheik's though, especially when he gets close, and has a significantly better punishment game when Luigi has the ability to get of Sheik's strings better than anyone else and can combo her really well due to her fastfall speed, racking around 40%'s worth of damage. And yeah, pocket Mega Man is actually not a bad option for Diddy, given the majority of people on the Mega Man boards consider the MU even.

What does Lucario have that is so significant against shiek? Not doubting you, I just thought it would be one of the established top characters that would be the answer. She has such a good combination of damage racking and extreme safety, as well as the needles... how can Lucario deal with a time-out shiek who uses needles efficiently?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

What does Lucario have that is so significant against shiek? Not doubting you, I just thought it would be one of the established top characters that would be the answer. She has such a good combination of damage racking and extreme safety, as well as the needles... how can Lucario deal with a time-out shiek who uses needles efficiently?

I think the thought process is that Sheik has an easy time racking up damage but a hard time killing outside of Bouncing Fish reads or sweetspot usmash, especially now that bair is nerfed. Lucario, meanwhile, gets stronger the more he's damaged. Basically her weakness plays directly into his Aura.

 

[Blue Ninjakoopa]

Junebug vs. Neo perfectly illustrates the Sheik/Lucario matchup, for those who want to see it played out. Here's a link to their Grand Finals match: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKFyOs2TTmg

It's pretty much how I lose to Yoshi all the time as R.O.B. after the u-throw nerf. :.)

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Guys, is it just training mode or is Mewtwo's confusion to Fair a true combo?

 

[Djent]

Shulk is still better than a whole batch of characters. Some people are unaware of how big the gap between the best and the worst characters in this game is though.

Still, Shulk is definitely not bottom 15.

Yeah, there's this persistent idea that this game is "balanced," which seems true at the high end of the cast, but not really if you look at the worst characters in comparison. Customs do a little to fix this, but even then the best get better, and some characters are still fundamentally flawed.

 

[PUK]

You should never get ledge trumped. If you buffer a Ledge Jump, Ledge Climb, or Ledge Attack, you will do them on the first possible frame even if another character is on the ledge.

Little Mac ledgeguards are pretty hard to bypass, anyway, though.

What i want to say is: you re offstage, you go to the ledge, LM is waiting for you. LM will put you in a bad position no matter what your ledge actions is, ledge jump is by far the best, and is pretty bad.
So you wait for LM move, to see if you can avoid death and he ledge trump you, and climbs just after. Now you won't get invincibility so you have to choose to go above LM without second jump, or on the ledge without invincibility. Death death death.
And i often ledge trump people, because they take time to choose their ledge action, so it's not that rare. Even in a competitive level.

 

[Ffamran]

Crawl sliding, thanks Lavani for explaining, is used, right? I remember people talking about it during the 3DS days.

Speaking of Sheik
Lookit guys

 

[ccthirteen]

I know that answers to this question will (in some cases) be laden with bias based on which characters the player has had the most experience with but, here is my query:

Which character on the roster has the best options for being able to alternate between offensive and defensive play at a competitive level? I'm talking great approach and defensive options.

I've personally had a lot of experience with KD3 and Yoshi. To a lesser extent, I've had runs with ZSS, Wii Fit Trainer and Mario. I've found myself loving Yoshi and his offensive capacity, as well as KD3 and his strength in versatility. What do you think?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Guys, is it just training mode or is Mewtwo's confusion to Fair a true combo?

It's just training mode. Confusion puts Mewtwo at a -5 frame disadvantage on hit, the opponent can always jump at the very least before you can do anything.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

I think the thought process is that Sheik has an easy time racking up damage but a hard time killing outside of Bouncing Fish reads or sweetspot usmash, especially now that bair is nerfed. Lucario, meanwhile, gets stronger the more he's damaged. Basically her weakness plays directly into his Aura.

Doesn't Shiek just destroy Lucario in the neutral though?

 

[A2ZOMG]

Shulk is still better than a whole batch of characters. Some people are unaware of how big the gap between the best and the worst characters in this game is though.

Still, Shulk is definitely not bottom 15.

There's only a few really unwinnable matchups in this game. Not sure though I believe you that Shulk is better than more than 15 characters.

Speed is the best art you'all crazy. Same grab frames as Falcon, Similar speed bracket. The diminished damage is meagre relative to your success rate of getting damage.

You can air slash after trumping, and you'll get kills, not that you need to given that you can just return to the stage and are in a great situation once their invincibility is gone.

You get all you need off a U-throw to follow up. Shulks U-tilt is more then generous. Busters shield safety is overstated this is more relevant for Decisive Buster that hits on all cylinders when it comes to shield safety where regular does not.
Shield safety is far less relevant to Speed given that speed can grab you which discredits the shield to begin with, throw for stage positioning or a u-throw chase.

The goal of Smash should be another tool of landing punish. When you out-range most counter options, generally all you have to deal with an aerial enemy then is an air dodge inherently, counter offensive options often will lack KO power to capitalize on Shulks drawback. You most certainly can use it on stage but then "Shield safety" becomes a risk you have to consider, one that doesn't actually mean a damn against someone in the air since there is no shield in the air, and if you're putting them into a situation where they have to consider air dodging into the ground, you're increasing the safety of your action anyways since they're getting 20+ frames tacked on before they can contest you. This does not discredit the reality that characters have other options to avoid linear landing traps (monkey flip, teleport, etc), but emphasizes that Shulk Smash arte plays off the advantage state which in Smash typically is an opponent off the ground unable to shield and rarely able to threaten a KO back from such a position. Now I can aim for the same with Ike undoubtably, but grabs are harder to acquire as a slower character.


I His Counter kills before Ikes, He gets more grabs then Ike, those grabs put him an advantageous position, he can capitalize of advantage by switching artes.
You can talk about chasing Shulk in shield but its not particularly relevant. Shulks cancel out of shield when its purpose is fulfilled.
Shield is risk management, that doesn't make it good but it provides it as an option in addition to being a MALLC option.
Lets say Marth U-throws me, I could ledge drift. One thing I can also do however is shift to shield and go for the vision, If I make the wrong read, the punishment on Shield shulk will be minimal and can I switch to jump and come back at the ledge. If this is typical I can also MALLC from Shield, You don't have to accept it for a binary focus despite its limited uses. The consideration that Vision + Shield can make for the opponent giving "weak" punishments (they're losing 33% damage regardless of their punish option) and Shield + MALLC can also provide coverage. Ike doesn't have these kind of skews, neither does Marth.

Jump takes 20% more damage. Speed does 20% less damage. Your opposition doesn't kill you any faster in Speed, they do in Jump. Speed has less reward on success, Jump has greater risk on failures, quite frankly I rather Speed given its mobility is on air and ground and I have other stances for damage leads and kills, notwithstanding off-stage play.

Shulk has problems, his frame data can be one but it's exaggerated. He is a stance based character and some of his stances are undertuned so he is not getting the reward out of them quite frankly I think he should be. Given the other monado wielder...Kirby has a lot stronger bases, he'll get a lot more out of it. For what he is supposed to be however, Buster still doesn't hit hard enough through on Decisive Buster and vanilla Buster looks horrible. Speed and Jump are fine. Shields drawbacks are too potent and Smashes advantage is too close in potency to its drawback again you throw on Dec Smash and vanilla Smash almost doesnt make sense. Dec speed doesn't really do much over regular Speed, but since other vanilla options are undertuned you consider utilizing it anyways by default. If you're in close combat, you will lose as Shulk, he's not a CQC character outside of grabs you generally have no business in that range.

Shulk isn't adept at ledge pressure, that can't go unstated. When you're the fastest disjointed character on a whim you should be pushing landings. Like he needs to use his dash attack, when his flipping Walk in Speed is comparable to some dashes.

Ike isn't as good as getting a grab, nor the off-stage game, Ike doesn't have the same coverage, because he unfortunately doesn't have the range nor speed possibility. Ike has better reward on hit generally, ledge pressure and he gets combos out of grabs yes.

Against FALCON, I don't want to jump period if I don't have to, plus Falcon's grab reward and traps are by far a lot better than Shulk's. Against Speed Shulk, I'm not afraid of throwing out moves to stop him from moving. His only "strong" offense is grab, when the rest of his moves are still rather slow. Furthermore when most of Shulk's aerials are like 14+ frame startup and 20+ frames landing lag (aside from N-air), Shulk can't air trap like Falcon can to discourage people from jumping out of his throw setups and going for ledge resets. The comparison isn't even close.

Ike's dashgrab while limited by his slower run speed still has very good range, and is highly effective out of shield and in midrange. Furthermore, empty hops from Ike are more threatening due to faster aerials. If it's harder to get a grab as Ike, it's not really by a whole lot, but his reward out of grab is simultaneously both better and more consistent than Shulk's. Land traps AND combos are better.

While it's true that Shulk can edgeguard fairly deep with Monado jump, this is somewhat overhyped. Being able to edgeguard deep doesn't change a lot of matchups when you can simply midair jump and airdodge against Shulk's edgeguards and come out safe given his air traps are horrible. Ike has the same problem offstage, but his throws unlike Shulk's are better at forcing low recoveries, which he can sometimes punish extremely hard with his stronger F-air, or more importantly cover with Eruption which can kill people vertically at like 50%.

I know that answers to this question will (in some cases) be laden with bias based on which characters the player has had the most experience with but, here is my query:

Which character on the roster has the best options for being able to alternate between offensive and defensive play at a competitive level? I'm talking great approach and defensive options.

I've personally had a lot of experience with KD3 and Yoshi. To a lesser extent, I've had runs with ZSS, Wii Fit Trainer and Mario. I've found myself loving Yoshi and his offensive capacity, as well as KD3 and his strength in versatility. What do you think?

The answer to that is easy. Sheik. Either camps you to death with needles or rushes you down with absurdly safe aerials.

 

[Blue Ninjakoopa]

Yeah, there's this persistent idea that this game is "balanced," which seems true at the high end of the cast, but not really if you look at the worst characters in comparison. Customs do a little to fix this, but even then the best get better, and some characters are still fundamentally flawed.

I think view is more so that the game is more balanced than previous iterations, rivaling the balance of the first Smash Bros. game. But it isn't 100% balanced; is it even possible to fully balance a cast of unique characters? In any fighting game? One always ends up just being better than everyone else, like Kabal in MK9.

 

[ccthirteen]

The answer to that is easy. Sheik. Either camps you to death with needles or rushes you down with absurdly safe aerials.

I had wondered about Jiggs though. I've considered going with her or Kirby based on my impressions using them in friendlies and FG. I've enjoyed both of their air options a lot, though practicing rest setups will prove difficult for me, being someone who never focused much on her in melee.

My issue with Sheik has always been having few kill options in Smash 4.