Character Competitive Impressions

[Scarlet Jile]

Should I post Ito's or not... I mean, I could link you all to it: http://smashboards.com/threads/the-...neral-discussion.370875/page-18#post-19081917. Whatever, discuss Ito's opinion... Sorry, Ito.

That +5 vs. Ganondorf.

I think someone swapped out Ito's copy of Smash 4 with Brawl.

 

[Gunla]

Also Mewtwo is fun guys, have you seen that Fair and Teleport cancel? Oh man, stuff!

It's great stuff, right? So is the Shadow Ball slide!

Edit: You don't know when the MU ratio is accurate. Discussion is all you have, and some discussion is better than no discussion. Unless you want to do the research yourself, you have to trust others. Then you need to decide who you can trust. You have no other choice.

Absolutely.

While we may not always be even somewhat correct, I think it's much better to learn with time and/or make a mistake with something than just wait until we have data for absolutely every possible thing we could need. We get things to work off of, and we can make progress as the meta develops. MUs will change, MUs will be reconsidered, and frankly, that's good; we realize that we make mistakes, and we can learn for the future.

 

[Blobface]

Ito's list in general is bonkers. Smash 4 is a game where 3:7's are rare, yet this list is almost half 3:7's or worse.

 

[Thinkaman]

MK having 75:25 matchups against DK, Zelda, and Ganon is crazy.

 

[deepseadiva]

The 80:20 vs Mac I buy.

The boy has some very serious problems against select characters.

 

[Locke 06]

lol. Non rich-text editor doesn't save drafts.

Whoops. Here's my significantly shorter version of Kirby vs Mega Man.

Kirby has trouble approaching on the ground (until someone masters the timing of crouch walking underneath 3 pellets... which may be better than PS'ing the 3 pellets like computers do). Bad air mobility means he has trouble approaching diagonally (especially without getting walled out by FAir/BAir disjoints) so he tries to camp the air and bait an anti-air with multi-jumps. However, projectile anti-air doesn't care about multi-jumps. Usmash disjoint also beats DAir. When Kirby does get in, he can't afford to get his utilts shielded because MM utilt kills ~70% with no rage. Customs help Kirby by giving him a functional recovery that doesn't get spiked 90% of the time and a combo finisher that can kill, neither of which are his biggest problems in this matchup.

@ Gunla - Yes. While I haven't been part of a backroom or anything like that, I imagine the backroom has to start somewhere too. If one does get established (to many users' shegrin), the "Starbucks" discussion is a good place to start and the character boards can help with a foundation for them to work off of. Like any research, you can't start until you know what questions to ask and the best way to come up with questions is to get a lot of people together and just talk.

lol shegrin

 

[Ffamran]

Ito's list in general is bonkers. Smash 4 is a game where 3:7's are rare, yet this list is almost half 3:7's or worse.

MK having 75:25 matchups against DK, Zelda, and Ganon is crazy.

Ito did say it was his current list and where he lives, there might not be a DK, Zelda, or Ganondorf that's good enough to make him feel like there's anything worth noting. Remember Dabuz's list? I bet there's no good Falco players in NY, so why should he care where Falco is. Falco could have been placed dead last and it wouldn't matter or even Peach as low tier as potentially, there are no good Peach players there or his (old) belief that Rosalina was not top 3. Why? Since he's considered to be the best Rosalina player in the known world and there aren't a lot of high level much less any Rosalina players at his level, it's nothing for him while others would say Rosalina's much more difficult or not depending on their region. Yoshi high tier in Japan? Nobody in Japan has answers to the top players who use Yoshi. Or the Villager I mentioned, Skillager, who feels like Falco is a bad MU for his Villager. Why? Only one, known, competent Falco at his level.

That's something to take in consideration. I mean, if Will was a regular where Ito lives, DK could have had a higher rank for Ito. Or if Pon or Gungnir were regulars where Ito lives or if Nairo decided to troll with Zelda and managed to consistently wreck Ito's Meta Knight, there might be a change in Ito's ranking of Ganondorf and Zelda.

 

[Sinister Slush]

I think Ito's list is bad.
Absolutely no way Yoshi can go 65:35 against MK.

Also, ratios are ok when people actually discuss them for a couple weeks or so and both sides agree to a ratio.

 

[Unknownkid]

I think Ito's list is bad.
Absolutely no way Yoshi can go 65:35 against MK.

Also, ratios are ok when people actually discuss them for a couple weeks or so and both sides agree to a ratio.

I don't know Slush. Your Yoshi is pretty insane until Espyrose got in and smack you around.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Ito's list in general is bonkers. Smash 4 is a game where 3:7's are rare, yet this list is almost half 3:7's or worse.

3-7 aren't rare people are just in denial. I've been saying it for a while now but this game isn't balanced.

 

[Quickhero]

3-7 aren't rare people are just in denial. I've been saying it for a while now but this game isn't balanced.

This game isn't purely balanced, but a fighting game with perfect balance is as possible as finding a unicorn. Of course this game isn't balanced, but it's the closest Smash game (and fighting game period) to balanced. Even if you consider it because this game is too early and/or because of the mechanics, but this game legitimately doesn't have that many match-ups that are extremely lopsided. Megaman vs King Dedede and a few Little Mac match-ups are all I can think of. Most match-ups in the game are a small advantage/disadvantage or 50/50, and that's something unheard of in a fighting game, let alone one with this many characters.

 

[Blobface]

snip

This makes MU discussion problematic in general. Even people like Zero or Mew2king have definitely not played all 2000+ matchups in the game.

IMO the best way to get a decent MU ratio is to have as many people as possible involved (from both characters), generally limiting how much of a problem familiarity can be.

 

[Sinister Slush]

I don't know Slush. Your Yoshi is pretty insane until Espyrose got in and smack you around.

What does that have to do with what I said.

 

[TheZyzyva]

Ah the glorious MU discussion discussion. I do thoroughly enjoy reading the debates for and against.

Honestly I do think having specific MU discussions is really important, but going about it can be very difficult. Its really hard asking two sides that are emotionally invested to try and be objective, while at the same still be knowledgable and experienced. We need people that are humble and open-minded, but can still sift through the bunk.

The biggest obstacle is getting the right minds together for each MU discussion, and then making sure that they arent so insular that the few insightful randos are totally ignored. Good points can come from anywhere afterall.

All in all getting accurate MU ratios is certainly difficult, but I believe the exercise itself is beneficial, so long as we (everyone involved) keep level heads. The knowledge gleaned from the discussion will ultmately be more important than the ratio decided upon.

 

[JoeR]

I agree that the game appears very balanced. The front runners were Diddy and Sheik in my opinion, but Nintendo has done a good job policing characters so far with patches by nerfing Diddy a good bit. Almost every character has some kind of counter which is great. I love playing lost of chars anyway.

 

[Shaya]

Honestly, I probably prefer Ito's match up ratios to the average that we get elsewhere.
It seems roughly closer to what I'd think of "out of 100 matches" if there actually are large-ish skews.

Whether or not his opinions are correct or not is a different story. Feeling something is not that bad is pretty normal, but [pre-patch] Sheik and Diddy having numerous 70:30s or worse was all-but-certainly the case in practice at high level.

Winning 1 out of every 3 matches against a top tier is pretty good. I would say that it being any better than this a lot of the time wouldn't match with anecdotal instances we're aware of.

For example, all of my tournament sets against similar-skilled Diddy's playing ZSS have gone 2-1; with every game I lost usually being close. Seemed pretty obvious to me I'm dealing with roughly a 65:35 match up. Keeping a match from being a 2/3 stock blowout or whatever is definitely a lot easier than actually taking said match.

 

[Antonykun]

I agree that the game appears very balanced. The front runners were Diddy and Sheik in my opinion, but Nintendo has done a good job policing characters so far with patches by nerfing Diddy a good bit. Almost every character has some kind of counter which is great. I love playing lost of chars anyway.

but having a counter is not a good thing for the game as it means games can be won at the character select screen

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Honestly, I probably prefer Ito's match up ratios to the average that we get elsewhere.
It seems roughly closer to what I'd think of "out of 100 matches" if there actually are large-ish skews.

Whether or not his opinions are correct or not is a different story. Feeling something is not that bad is pretty normal, but [pre-patch] Sheik and Diddy having numerous 70:30s or worse was all-but-certainly the case in practice at high level.

Winning 1 out of every 3 matches against a top tier is pretty good. I would say that it being any better than this a lot of the time wouldn't match with anecdotal instances we're aware of.

For example, all of my tournament sets against similar-skilled Diddy's playing ZSS have gone 2-1; with every game I lost usually being close. Seemed pretty obvious to me I'm dealing with roughly a 65:35 match up. Keeping a match from being a 2/3 stock blowout or whatever is definitely a lot easier than actually taking said match.

That's basically how I come to my MU conclusions. When I play a MU i tend to get a feel for it and see if there's options I have in the MU. Some of these MU's are extremely skewed and I've been on the wrong side of them too many times. I'll say this pre patch diddy MU felt helpless for me and it still feels helpless now. But it could just be me but there's some MU's that I don't see Roslina winning

 

[ItoI6]

i posted that on a social thread its really not that serious lol

also i dont really think 70-30 is really that bad it just means if both are equal high level players one is gonna win about 7/10 games. in brawl i saw some people list mk vs low tiers like link or mario as 70-30, but really a top mario or link player probably wouldnt have even been able to take 1 out 100 games against a top mk player. 70-30 is realistic and its not even that unbalanced tbh

i list the advantage that high because those characters cant land at all vs mk. also if a character is just worse than another character then they will just lose regardless of whatever specific traits they have, i mean you might have something matchup specific like greninja hitstun canceling side b so he punishes mk shuttle loop on hit but usually you can tell who wins just by whoever has the better character.

i also thought pre-patch diddy was like 70-30 or 80-20 vs the bottom half as well.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

i posted that on a social thread its really not that serious lol

also i dont really think 70-30 is really that bad it just means if both are equal high level players one is gonna win about 7/10 games. in brawl i saw some people list mk vs low tiers like link or mario as 70-30, but really a top mario or link player probably wouldnt have even been able to take 1 out 100 games against a top mk player. 70-30 is realistic and its not even that unbalanced tbh

i list the advantage that high because those characters cant land at all vs mk. also if a character is just worse than another character then they will just lose regardless of whatever specific traits they have, i mean you might have something matchup specific like greninja hitstun canceling side b so he punishes mk shuttle loop on hit but usually you can tell who wins just by whoever has the better character.

i also thought pre-patch diddy was like 70-30 or 80-20 vs the bottom half as well.

Eh, given that 70:30 means you're likely to win 7 out of 10 matches against an equally skilled player, that's still better than 2/3 odds. (Conversely, if you're on the losing side, that's less than 1/3.) That doesn't really say "not that bad" to me, especially when 2 out of 3 games is enough to win a set.

 

[ItoI6]

im okay with accepting that i just need to be better than my opponent in certain matchups so that i have a fair chance with a character that i enjoy playing. its not like i cant just outplay them.

 

[Antonykun]

hmm one the subject of MUs I wonder if Swordfighter has any "winning" matchups (or even just even MUs)

 

[|RK|]

Is it possible to calculate this? If we had a centralized system for tournaments and tournament results, we could use a program to scour the data. Of course, we'd need to report characters per set as well... I'd just like real numbers, honestly.

 

[Djent]

If game results were independent (lol), it'd be a simple binomial calculation.

Unfortunately, they aren't. I still wish MU ratios were actual win-% estimates because then we'd have a way of directly comparing our incomplete theoretical models with an oversimplified empirical model. But as of now, we can't even do that right.

 

[Ffamran]

i posted that on a social thread its really not that serious lol

also i dont really think 70-30 is really that bad it just means if both are equal high level players one is gonna win about 7/10 games. in brawl i saw some people list mk vs low tiers like link or mario as 70-30, but really a top mario or link player probably wouldnt have even been able to take 1 out 100 games against a top mk player. 70-30 is realistic and its not even that unbalanced tbh

i list the advantage that high because those characters cant land at all vs mk. also if a character is just worse than another character then they will just lose regardless of whatever specific traits they have, i mean you might have something matchup specific like greninja hitstun canceling side b so he punishes mk shuttle loop on hit but usually you can tell who wins just by whoever has the better character.

i also thought pre-patch diddy was like 70-30 or 80-20 vs the bottom half as well.

I just needed something to cause a somewhat relevant discussion.

 

[|RK|]

If game results were independent (lol), it'd be a simple binomial calculation.

Unfortunately, they aren't. I still wish MU ratios were actual win-% estimates because then we'd have a way of directly comparing our incomplete theoretical models with an oversimplified empirical model. But as of now, we can't even do that right.

Yeah. I feel like matchup numbers will always just be pulled from our asses, lol. I don't see why we can't do it like Kotaku's videogame reviews. Ignore the inaccurate number system.

"This matchup is about even"
"This matchup is terrible for x"

The words even make it clearer. In the meantime, we continue to argue about what the numbers mean "exactly" and what is or is not good when it comes to these numbers. Give us a short writeup, give us a sentence summary, call it a day.

EDIT: I have... ascended.

 

[Blobface]

@ Ffamran do you think Falco is bad or that he's just underrepresented? I'm not really willing to commit to one side or the other since he barely shows up...

 

[|RK|]

Oh, and what the hell, man?

http://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/3417l1/discoveries_on_living_longer_in_smash_4/

I saw the thread about DI returning when it started, and since then I have been acting as though this were the case.

 

[HeroMystic]

@ Ffamran do you think Falco is bad or that he's just underrepresented? I'm not really willing to commit to one side or the other since he barely shows up...

I'm not Ffamran, but Falco's underrepped because he's an underwhelming character.

He's a high damage per hit character that doesn't take a lot of reads to get you into kill percents, and now that Falco's U-Smash connects correctly he now has a solid punishing tool that also acts as a kill move. However, once you realize Falco has no way to apply pressure against you without putting himself at risk (a quality that almost every top or even high tier has), you start seeing the holes in his gameplan. Being a lightweight and having a gimpable recovery doesn't help matters either.

 

[MrTeddyBear]

Oh, and what the hell, man?

http://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/3417l1/discoveries_on_living_longer_in_smash_4/

I saw the thread about DI returning when it started, and since then I have been acting as though this were the case.

Isn't this just holding towards the stage when hit by a move like Sonic's b-throw or Ness's b-throw? I thought it was related to horizontal vectoring still having a sort of influence in the game which would be why it's better to hold completely to the side than at a perpendicular angle.

 

[Quickhero]

@ HeroMystic I don't think Falco's Side-B isn't what you would consider easily gimpable, since that's the recovery used 90% of the time. I get what you're saying though, and I believe there are characters that can't apply massive pressure without being in risk themselves, but it doesn't make the match-up so lopsided that Falco gets rekt by everybody. It makes sense why he is underrepresented, but it doesn't mean he is a bad character or anything.

EDIT: BLOBFACE NOT FFAMRAN DERP.

 

[|RK|]

Isn't this just holding towards the stage when hit by a move like Sonic's b-throw or Ness's b-throw? I thought it was related to horizontal vectoring still having a sort of influence in the game which would be why it's better to hold completely to the side than at a perpendicular angle.

Right. So no matter what, hold left or right.

 

[Ffamran]

@ Ffamran do you think Falco is bad or that he's just underrepresented? I'm not really willing to commit to one side or the other since he barely shows up...

Both. (This looks like a rant already...)

Spoiler: Rant about Falco's design and his status in past games

If we're going from a design perspective and this is my radical opinion, but the only reason Falco was good in Melee and Brawl was because of Fox. Fox, Captain Falcon, Mario, and perhaps Kirby are characters by design good where they will only get screwed over if you wreck their frame data such as severely increasing end lag, landing lag, lowering knockback, damage, etc. In Melee, we had Marth who was also good by design, but as shown in SSB4, making it so he's "slower" than Ike and Shulk when landing with aerials which makes him require much more, unnecessary precision makes him a very difficult character to use, especially when you look at other characters who get so much by doing simpler things.

Back to Falco and Fox, add in that Fox was able to abuse the hell out of Melee which means Falco can too. Even though his moves functioned differently, by design, he was a damn good character because of Fox. Roy could have been the same had he not had deadzones and his sour-spots weren't pitiful compared to Marth's. Roy had the makings of a strong character, but numbers screwed him over as it did Marth and Lucina in SSB4. Take away wavedashing, the knowledge or auto-cancelable moves, waveshining, etc. in Melee and take away the knowledge of chaingrabbing, short-hop double lasers, DACUS, etc. in Brawl and Falco would be mid-tier at best. Because of this, Falco was a bad character in a sense of he was a dirty character in Melee and Brawl and because he rode on Fox's good design. What about Ganondorf and Luigi? Ganondorf took on his own role as a powerful, but slow punisher and Luigi was basically the Ken of Mario's Ryu. Even then, they deviated enough that in past games where they benefited from their "originals", they're carving out their own paths. Oh, and neither of them are broken like Falco was in previous games. Sure, Luigi had a long wavedash in Melee, but how does that compare to someone being able to slide around walling you out with lasers or just outright walling you out with lasers in Brawl and chaingrabbing you to death?

Ironically, it's Wolf, the anti-hero, rival, and antagonist of Star Fox who ends up being a fairer character. Wolf abused his Bair and air speed, but that's not really abusing the game itself like what Fox and Falco did. Wolf only abused his design and the tools given to him while getting screwed by the game by having a 60 frame delay to meteor-canceling and chaingrabbing.

In SSB4, he's surviving purely on slightly butchered frame data unlike Marth or Meta Knight; Marth is barely surviving with his strong rage and tippers while Meta Knight is more than surviving; he came back as a true knight who fights much more fairly than in Brawl. Falco's main problems of gimpable recovery, horizontal mobility, and approaching are emphasized in this game. Melee and Project M "fixed" his mobility by allowing everyone to wavedash. Add in the ability to auto-cancel his Blaster and waveshining and Falco's recovery meant little if he could wreck you before you so much as laid a finger on him. In Brawl, you couldn't wavedash or waveshine, but somehow, it was a great idea to give him an even faster Blaster and let him short hop double laser. Yeah, his approach was basically force you to approach while he walls you out with lasers that stun, covered the length of Final Destination, and fired quickly. His recovery and mobility meant little if he could just camp you like that. He doesn't have those options anymore.

Fox overcomes his poor approach options and Blaster's end lag with raw speed; Falco doesn't have raw speed. Fox can quickly Jab cancel and Jab lock to hit confirm and pressure people up close; Falco can't do that reliably nor does he have known hit confirms. Fox still has a sex kick since 64, his Nair, to interrupt and make his disadvantage less painful; Falco lost his Melee and Brawl Bair and gained Wolf's Bair in animation for no good reason. Fox Illusion has a full hitbox or a hitbox on Fox which makes his recovery safer; Falco Phantasm only has a partial hitbox or no hitbox on Falco and only hits with the trail. Default Fire Fox still travels further than Falco's Distant Fire Bird and I think it travels faster and charges faster too. Fox's Dash Attack remains frame 4; Falco's gained double the startup for no reason I can think of that as it's not a good kill move, spamming it is stupid, and it doesn't even do major damage or have major disjoints. Dair gained 11 frames of startup and it's now a slow, but powerful spike like Captain Falcon and Ganondorf's, but here's the problem, Falco's slow as sin and can't rush and follow up with a spike like Captain Falcon and it's weaker than Ganondorf's Stomp which instant spikes you at 0%. Oh, and I think it looks more telegraphed than the Capt. and Ganondorf's since Falco winds up while they just lift their legs up. Had it been a frame 12 spike, it might not be as bad or it could have stayed as a frame 5 spike, but made much, much weaker and it would have been fine as Falco can't randomly spam Dair to do anything after all.

Blaster doing less damage than Luigi's Fireball and having more end lag is just stupid. Luigi spams more Fireballs than Falco does in this game. Had the end lag been decreased, Falco's Blaster wouldn't be that bad, but it's sad to see him slowly put his Blaster away and just stare at his doom even if he's across the stage. I don't want it to be able to auto-cancel and allow him to spam the hell out it, but having similar end lag to Luigi's Fireball or Wolf's Blaster or I believe, Fox's Impact/64 Blaster would greatly make Falco's game better as he can reliably force approaches. Falco's Blaster lasers don't even need to travel that far and 1/2 of FD would be fine.

The other issue would be that Falco hasn't really evolved compared to Ganondorf, Young-to-Toon Link, Luigi, and hell, even Dr. Mario. Aside from Reflector, Fair, and his Up Smash, he's pretty much too similar to Fox in a sense of what Falco can do, Fox can do better or more efficient or safer while Ganondorf evolved to become a slow and powerful character who shares aerials, Side Smash, grab, throws, etc. and Luigi has his own game plan that flows well unlike Falco's who's game plan is just "What?". In Melee, it was combo the hell out of people, well he can't do that well anymore as his combos are more of DI reading and early-game moves linking shenanigans and in Brawl, it was wall with lasers, force approaches with lasers, and kill, meteor, or gimp which he can't do that reliably in SSB4. Compare this to Ganondorf who's the opposite of Captain Falcon; Ganondorf plays it safe, waits for openings, tanks when needed, and punishes while Captain Falcon rushes in, avoids damage, pressures hard, and opens windows to punish. Falco just ends up as this mixed bag of what he does, anyone can do much better. Falco edgeguards and gimps, well, Meta Knight, Kirby, Rosalina, Jigglypuff, and Pikachu do that better, Falco punishes and Ganondorf, Fox, Captain Falcon, Diddy, and even Zelda do that better or more efficiently, Falco combos and Luigi, Fox, ZSS, Captain Falcon, Sheik, Diddy, and Mario do that better or more reliably. You get the point, right? Falco just doesn't have a clear, defined game plan or if he does, his kit just doesn't flow as well or hasn't evolved to flow with it.

Some changes were just unnecessary like the increased startup to Dash Attack and even Side Smash gaining 1 frame of startup. Come on, really? What's Falco going to do with a previously in Brawl frame 16 Side Smash? Spamming that makes Ike Side Smash spammers look good because Ike has much more range. Much slower grabs - frame 8-9 is his slowest followed by Melee, frame 7-8, and Brawl, 6-7 - also hurts. It wasn't his fault he could chaingrab in Brawl, but even then, was it necessary to make it 2 frames slower and not just revert it to his Melee grab speed? Bair becoming Wolf's in animation means no sex kick and no reliable option to stop people from pummeling him to a bloody, feathery pulp. Blaster would be the most major issue where it seems like it's slower than Melee's even without auto-canceling Melee's. Take away his Blaster in all of his games and you'll see his issue with approaching. He can't get away with having no projectiles like Ganondorf or Captain Falcon as he's not a heavyweight and he doesn't have the raw speed, raw power, or range like those two. He's not even like Luigi who could never use Fireball and just outright make use of Luigi Cyclone, his ability to Jab to grab reliably, hit/grab confirms to kill, etc. Look, if Falco could Dtilt to Bair or F-throw to Bair, Fair, and Dair, he'd have a less harder time as he doesn't have known hit confirms, but has known kill confirms with practically all of his moves. He's not Yoshi who makes up hit confirms by being fast, having several disjoints, and being durable enough to just wait it out and punish.

What you end up with is a really powerful character up-close, with fantastic vertical mobility, a strong edgeguarding game, and the ability to combo with kill moves who is plagued by limited - hell, you could say nonexistent - approach game, gimpable recovery, horrible disadvantage, poor air speed and his fall speed backfiring him in several matchups e.g. Palutena, Rosalina, Jigglypuff, and perhaps Meta Knight. The funny thing is that because of his strengths, he stands up against characters like Diddy, Sheik, Fox, Captain Falcon, and apparently Villager fine. He and Diddy are just two lightweights who hit incredibly hard for their weight, can cheese each other with their Uairs; Falco and Diddy trading hits isn't that big of a deal. Sheik is noted to having poor killing power, but Falco's noted as having strong killing power. Yeah, enrage Falco and it's going to be bad for Sheik. Rookie Sheiks probably will have trouble against Falco, but Zex-level Sheik's don't care, but there's a question: is there even a Zex-level Falco anywhere? Probably no. Fox and Falco just boils down to Ryu vs. Ken or Mario vs. Luigi. Captain Falcon basically fights a more mobile, skinnier, weaker Ganondorf who has access to a projectile. Villager has to deal with Falco's strong hits up close and ability to edgeguard not to mention that Falco doesn't really have to approach and neither does Villager. Whoever makes the most mistakes and they're dead meat.

Falco could easily be changed to have a faster Dash Attack and grab, better IASA for his Jab, and lowered end lag on his Blaster and I bet he would shoot up to become a strong contender for a mid tier. Right now, it's debatable if he can make it past low-mid for many. If Bair was restored to its Melee/Brawl form, Falco Phantasm had a full hitbox, Fair was slightly faster like, frame 10 or even 8, and Up Smash had lowered end lag alongside the above changes, dude would be mid-tier or high-mid without a doubt. Basically, number changes that Marth and Lucina need as well along several other characters like Samus and Zelda.

Spoiler: Speculah BS

In the early days, people made suggestions that Falco should have a different moves like a different Up Special or things to not only make him stand out more, but probably also to make him flow better. Someone said he should have had an electric-theme to contrast him from Fox's fire theme and Wolf's wind/slashing theme. Thunderbird for his Up Special which I feel like could have been a much faster charging Fire Bird that does little to no knockback unlike Fox's where hits once and hard or Wolf where he carries people with him for a strong finisher. If he really "needs" that end lag, he could have used a sniper rifle or rifle from Assault or dual Blasters like in the Subspace Emissary cutscene. Phantasm, eh, I guess it could have been changed so he travels horizontally on the ground, but is angled downwards like he was diving in. I like his Reflector, but it would have been nice if the kick actually does damage too.

Falco could have been the Star Fox fighter with a Gentleman since Fox would fulfill the Jab cancel and Rapid Jab fighter and Wolf had fulfilled the regular Jab combo fighter.

@ HeroMystic I don't think Falco's Side-B isn't what you would consider easily gimpable, since that's the recovery used 90% of the time. I get what you're saying though, and I believe there are characters that can't apply massive pressure without being in risk themselves, but it doesn't make the match-up so lopsided that Falco gets rekt by everybody. It makes sense why he is underrepresented, but it doesn't mean he is a bad character or anything.

EDIT: BLOBFACE NOT FFAMRAN DERP.

I see lots of Falco and Fox players just live by Phantasm and Illusion to recover and it's just bad because it's getting way too predictable. I think it was the Mega Man boards that said 90% of the time they fight a Falco, Phantasm will be used to recover. Fox's Fire Fox despite how slow it is to charge, probably travels farther than Illusion and could be used to recover at awkward angles. Fire Bird can too, but Falco needs to be much closer which hey, if you have a spike or can gimp well, slap Falco and he's dead.

The issue with Phantasm is that it doesn't have a complete hitbox or a hitbox on Falco meaning anything will interrupt him if you hit where he's traveling towards you and even above you if you time it right. Or you could just remember how far it travels and just wait at the end to punish. Fox will clank more often with Illusion than Phantasm because of the full hitbox.

 

[HeavyLobster]

I see lots of Falco and Fox players just live by Phantasm and Illusion to recover and it's just bad because it's getting way too predictable. I think it was the Mega Man boards that said 90% of the time they fight a Falco, Phantasm will be used to recover. Fox's Fire Fox despite how slow it is to charge, probably travels farther than Illusion and could be used to recover at awkward angles. Fire Bird can too, but Falco needs to be much closer which hey, if you have a spike or can gimp well, slap Falco and he's dead.

The issue with Phantasm is that it doesn't have a complete hitbox or a hitbox on Falco meaning anything will interrupt him if you hit where he's traveling towards you and even above you if you time it right. Or you could just remember how far it travels and just wait at the end to punish. Fox will clank more often with Illusion than Phantasm because of the full hitbox.

FG Falcos who think Phantasm beats Warlock Punch are almost as bad as Shulk players who don't know any buttons exist except and + .

 

[Cassio]

How come no one ever talks about falcos redic dtilt when discussing him? The length overreaches the animation by a lot and is outright longer then most characters horizontal reach. I would think that can apply safe pressure and doesn't it also combo?

Since peeps are posting MU ratios, thought id post esams on pikas. Don't really agree with several of these but here they are

Quick overview of what Match-ups are in my opinion. I will do more detailed analysis when I get the time.

Bowser: 65-35 Pika
Bowser Jr: 6-4 Pika
Captain Falcon: 6-4 Pika
Charizard: 65:35 PIka
Dark Pit: 55:45 Pika, maybe 60-40
Diddy Kong: 5-5 (Pre-patch) 6-4 or worse (Post patch) Pika
Donkey Kong: 6-4 Pika
Dr. Mario: 6-4 Pika
Duck Hunt: 65-35 Pika (Poor puppy)
Falco: 6-4 Pika
Fox: 55-45 Pika (Maybe worse, not a lot of exp in this MU)
Ganon: 7-3 Pika
Greninja: 6-4 Pika
Ike: 65-35 Pika
Jigglypuff: 7-3 Pika
King Dedede: 55-45 Pika
Kirby: 6-4 Pika
Link: 65-35 Pika
Little Mac: 6-4 Pika
Lucario: 6-4 Pika
Lucina: 6-4 Pika
Luigi: 5-5 or 55:45 Pika (Don't really understand this character yet)
Mario: 55:45 Pika
Marth: 6-4 Pika
Megaman: 55:45 PIka
Metaknight: 6-4 or 65-35 Pika
Mewtwo: 65-35 Pika
No information on any mii fighters
Mr. Game and Watch: 6-4 Pika
Ness: 55-45 Pika
Olimar: 55-45 Pika
Pac-Man- 6-4 Pika
Palutena: 65-35 (no customs) 55:45 (customs) Pika
Peach: 55:45 Pika
Pikachu: 100-0 Pika
Pit: 55:45 Pika, maybe 60-40
ROB: 65-35 Pika
Robin: 65-35 Pika
RosaLuma: 6-4 Pika
Samus: 75-25 Pika
Sheik: 5-5 (No customs) 55:45 (Customs) pika
Shulk: 6-4 Pika
Sonic: 6-4 Pika
Toon Link: 6-4 Pika
Villager: 65-35 (No customs) 55-45 (Customs) PIka
Wario: 55-45 Pika
WFT: 60-40 Pika
Yoshi: 5-5
Zelda: 65-35 Pika
ZSS: 55-45 Pika

As you can tell...I think his MU spread is ridiculous.

A general note to most MUs...Pikachu gets in REALLY easily against preeettty much everybody and has amazing damage output and pressure when he does. Most characters that rely on keep away (Like Rosaluma) can't play their normal game vs Pika, which helps a lot. In terms of boxing, pika is top 2 in the game and creates a bunch of openings and combos out of practically nothing.

Pikachu can edgeguard nearly every character in the game to a fairly effective level, which is amazing since he gets in, combos people across the stage, and then kill them.

Aggressive zoning is pretty annoying for Pika to deal with, which si why Sheik and Yoshi are the 2 most difficult MUs for pika IMO. However, when Pikachu does get in he can do a lot of damage to both of these characters and can manipulate the stage to his advantage really well.

With customs, Pikachu generally gains a +.05 at least in every MU (Besides specified) since HSB is STUPIDLY AMAZING

 

[Ffamran]

How come no one ever talks about falcos redic dtilt when discussing him? The length overreaches the animation by a lot and is outright longer then most characters horizontal reach. I would think that can apply safe pressure and doesn't it also combo?

Since peeps are posting MU ratios, thought id post esams on pikas. Don't really agree with several of these but here they are

It only combos early if you hit with the disjoint; hitting with the body or tail just results in a launcher. Basically, people should learn to space it like Marth players using sour-spots and sweet-spots for different purposes. Same with Uair's body hit doing little knockback which I think you use to gimp with or cause hitstun and Bair, but it's a frame 10 move and you have to hit with Falco's body and not his legs.

Falco only has three disjoints that I'm aware of: Dtilt, Fair, and Reflector. Of those disjoints, Reflector's the largest, then landing Fair, aerial Fair, and Dtilt. Dtilt has a slight disjoint from where his tail ends which is pretty long or it stretches - his Dtilt might have the same reach as Fox's which would explains his and Ganondorf's grabs not resembling their hands as Falco and Ganondorf probably share Fox and Captain Falcon's grab range. Side Smash just bulldozes over stuff - it's late at night, but I think it's transcendent for some funny reason. One of, I believe, Liquid's matches had him Side Smash through someone's move and hit them.

 

[FullMoon]

im okay with accepting that i just need to be better than my opponent in certain matchups so that i have a fair chance with a character that i enjoy playing. its not like i cant just outplay them.

Color me intrigued though, Greninja wining 60:40 against Meta Knight is not something I would expect when from my experience it seems to be roughly even. What exactly about Greninja is bad for you?

How come no one ever talks about falcos redic dtilt when discussing him? The length overreaches the animation by a lot and is outright longer then most characters horizontal reach. I would think that can apply safe pressure and doesn't it also combo?

Since peeps are posting MU ratios, thought id post esams on pikas. Don't really agree with several of these but here they are

So according to that Pikachu beats everyone that's not Yoshi or Sheik and maybe Luigi, which are only even?

... Right then.

 

[Shaya]

Relevant history of ESAM and Pikachu match up ratios:

Spoiler

(Rated M15+)

If Falco's down tilt is quite good, it does combo into up air pretty reliably at low-mid percent and if they poorly DI it, that's double jump uair for the stock at later percent. It's not as fast as the fast down tilts though, and Falco doesn't really have a means of making his down tilt a heavy fear from the opponent.

You can't really deny ESAM's match up ratios, but it's probably better to think of them as just that, ESAM match up ratios, not Pikachu ones.
Asides from ZSS/Dedede, I would say all of the 55:45s/50:50s are commonly seen as good characters against pikachu.

 

[Cassio]

It only combos early if you hit with the disjoint; hitting with the body or tail just results in a launcher. Basically, people should learn to space it like Marth players using sour-spots and sweet-spots for different purposes. Same with Uair's body hit doing little knockback which I think you use to gimp with or cause hitstun and Bair, but it's a frame 10 move and you have to hit with Falco's body and not his legs.

Falco only has three disjoints that I'm aware of: Dtilt, Fair, and Reflector. Of those disjoints, Reflector's the largest, then landing Fair, aerial Fair, and Dtilt. Dtilt has a slight disjoint from where his tail ends which is pretty long or it stretches - his Dtilt might have the same reach as Fox's which would explains his and Ganondorf's grabs not resembling their hands as Falco and Ganondorf probably share Fox and Captain Falcon's grab range. Side Smash just bulldozes over stuff - it's late at night, but I think it's transcendent for some funny reason. One of, I believe, Liquid's matches had him Side Smash through someone's move and hit them.

It's longer then foxes, diddys, and pikas which makes no sense visually. I remember testing this because I was frustrated by losing the dtilt spacing battle vs a dtilting falco since pikas dtilt is as long as or longer then most reasonable dtilts in the game.

Might've been better to say useful horizontal range. Reflector, fair, and other long horizontal moves tend to be punishable on shield. Dtilt is fast and has reasonably low cool down, I'd imagine it's hard to punish on shield.

 

[BBC7]

So according to that Pikachu beats everyone that's not Yoshi or Sheik and maybe Luigi, which are only even?

... Right then.

Well, it's not unusual that a top-tier has 5-5 as their worst matchup in Smash Bros. Pikachu was already top 3 before according to ZeRo, and 1.0.6. didn't touch Pikachu all that much. Pikachu is better with customs so that's also something, especially if you can get that infinite down.