Character Competitive Impressions

[Mr. Johan]

I've had a situation where a Z-drop tome -> Levin Dair can force a stagebounce into an Fsmash for the KO at low percents. Not sure if it's guaranteed, but it proves that even Robin has something to work with for stagebounces.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Ground bounce, footstool? 95% of the world isn't even on edgeguarding yet. Rosaluma, duck hunt, pit? Players still getting hit by Ness pk2 recovery trying to gimp it lol.

 

[Sheddy]

Ground bounce, footstool? 95% of the world isn't even on edgeguarding yet. Rosaluma, duck hunt, pit? Players still getting hit by Ness pk2 recovery trying to gimp it lol.

I will say even though I don't main Ness hitting someone with PK Flash feels so good lol

 

[Shaya]

Ground bounce, footstool? 95% of the world isn't even on edgeguarding yet. Rosaluma, duck hunt, pit? Players still getting hit by Ness pk2 recovery trying to gimp it lol.

You don't mention that getting hit by PK thunder2 does gimp him and is sometimes purposeful~

 

[otter]

She's been boring since 2014.

I'm not specifically targeting rosalina (tho I do hate her), or I'm not even asking for nerfs. I'm just being sarcastic I how whiny the community is being right now. Like now, everybody is over CF to be nerfed because cancer, so I'm guessing luigi's next, then Rosalina, then Pika, Then ZSS, then wario, then Mario, then ganondorf, then Mii's, until we go through the entire cast and everybody is weaker than brawl ganondorf >____>.

This is what the NetherRealms community (Mortal Kombat, Injustice) community is like, and it does real damage to the scene.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

It's not just smash though, All gamed with patches is like that, though with smash it's more gradual and less super Nerf and buffing.

 

[Sheddy]

I feel like small nerfs and buffs like we got so far is alright for example Diddy up air got nerfed but not to the point that it is useless it can still kill just not at as early as before small nerfs like that is ok not nerfs like poor MK had in smash 4

 

[Smog Frog]

are you implying that is bad

 

[wedl!!]

Ummmmm...

mk is not bad??? are you high

 

[Superbat]

Meh MK mains have gotten used to ignorance. Mk is farrrrr from bad. He has his far share of pretty stupid stuff. Dash attack to up aerial brain dead death combos, free af tornado 23% punishes, and shuttle loop being too stronk.
@ Project Quarantine MK got severely nerfed. Its just that they went easy on him and didn't nerf him like kirby ssb64
@ wedl!! why you gotta roast people tho? lol
THE LAST THING YOU WANT is mk with short hop Aerials. omg would he be so broken. SH backair to forward smash or short hop fair. Bruh most MK mains dont want that **** He's finally not getting hated now.

 

[Project Quarantine]

I think he means that mk got nerfed from brawl to smash4.

I feel like small nerfs and buffs like we got so far is alright for example Diddy up air got nerfed but not to the point that it is useless it can still kill just not at as early as before small nerfs like that is ok not nerfs like poor MK had in smash 4

Is it not?

 

[Trifroze]

MK is actually good, he just needs either a damage buff on his moves, more range in general or one of fair/bair/nair to SH AC to be the same level as some of the top threats, but I doubt it'll happen. Either way I feel he'll be one character that'll move up in people's tier lists as time goes on.

Still, I agree that going from 1st to about 20th is a major nerf. Broken -> good is a pretty large change.

 

[Deathcarter]

I feel like small nerfs and buffs like we got so far is alright for example Diddy up air got nerfed but not to the point that it is useless it can still kill just not at as early as before small nerfs like that is ok not nerfs like poor MK had in smash 4

You're talking about the janky hitboxes Meta Knight had at first right? Because I don't see how Meta Knight getting nerfed was otherwise excessive. Falco on the other hand, he's a character people should be weeping over.

 

[Freezie KO]

One of the things I don't realize about this game's balance is how they give fast rushdown characters like ZSS and Sheik and even Yoshi such amazing projectiles. I mean, it's obvious those characters would easily become the best. How do the devs not realize this in balancing and development?

And my worst experiences with campers are not with Duck Hunt or Toon Link who are balanced around camping. It's with the characters that can camp and still have the best tools to counter you when you come in or rush you down when you try to zone.

 

[Antonykun]

best way to think of
Immagineminus the absurd advantage (though 's is still bonkers) and range/sh aerials but add one of the best disadvantage states in the game

 

[Sheddy]

just saying I'm not saying MK is bad but he did get major nerfs and my point was as long as nerfs or buffs are not insane like MK had between Brawl to smash 4 I'm ok with them

 

[Jaguar360]

One of the things I don't realize about this game's balance is how they give fast rushdown characters like ZSS and Sheik and even Yoshi such amazing projectiles. I mean, it's obvious those characters would easily become the best. How do the devs not realize this in balancing and development?

And my worst experiences with campers are not with Duck Hunt or Toon Link who are balanced around camping. It's with the characters that can camp and still have the best tools to counter you when you come in or rush you down when you try to zone.

Well ZSS makes sense since the stunning is meant to enhance the rushdown play and Paralyzer isn't that great a projectile on its own. Yoshi's really only a problem now that they buffed his K.O. power a bit. His design made sense because that's how he plays in his games: using eggs to attack while being fairly mobile with a few close combat options. Since he still has to fish for K.O.s now and has an iffy recovery, his design mostly makes sense imo. I have no defense for Sheik.

 

[Ffamran]

I feel like small nerfs and buffs like we got so far is alright for example Diddy up air got nerfed but not to the point that it is useless it can still kill just not at as early as before small nerfs like that is ok not nerfs like poor MK had in smash 4

See, this is what I don't understand. People complained about Meta Knight being broken in Brawl and wished he was nerfed. He's a fair fighter now aka nerfed, but nerfed appropriately, and people complain about his nerfs. Really? He went from being a broken dirtbag to an honorable knight. His only issues are hitboxes still not matching his animations - Ftilt is a major offender for this.

You're talking about the janky hitboxes Meta Knight had at first right? Because I don't see how Meta Knight getting nerfed was otherwise excessive. Falco on the other hand, he's a character people should be weeping over.

Stupidest things nerfed about Falco: Dash Attack, Bair, grab, and Blaster. Dash Attack gaining twice the startup is just unnecessary. His old frame 4 Dash Attack wasn't broken in anyway. Why the hell does it need to be a frame 8 move now? 5 or 6 frames would have been fine if it was that much of an issue, but 8? Come on, man. Bair losing a front hitbox hurts Falco's disadvantage, grab being slower than Ganondorf's is sad too when it was the game, I repeat: the game, and not Falco that allowed him to chaingrab. A frame 8 grab is a bit too much when frame 7, his Melee grab, would have been fine, and then there's Blaster.

End lag. That's the most major thing about it. Reduced end lag would be great for Falco if not being able to auto-cancel it, but only able to shoot once from a short hop like in Melee and without wavedashing or waveshining, Falco can't slide from one end of the stage and spam lasers or wall people out like in Brawl. Fox should have been able to auto-cancel his default Blaster since he can't do much with it other than tack on 1% per shot if it hits. What's he going to do? Stall the game and rack up 999%?

Dair is in a situation of yes, it was crazy for a frame 5 spike like that to exist, but 11 frames of startup and not considering Falco as a whole makes it worse than having a frame 16 Dair on Captain Falcon and Ganondorf. Ditto that on Wii Fit Trainer having a slow and weak Dair spike with little range. 26 frames of ending lag is much more painful compared to 28 on Ganondorf since his Dair does something to shields, guarantees a spike kill because of how powerful it is, and Ganondorf's durable while 21 frames of ending lag for Captain Falcon isn't much when you consider how fast he is and his ability to slap you off stage, get a running start, and Nipple spike you.

Everything else about Falco flows well, but with little options to approach, force approaches, force his way through shields - if only his Bair pushed people in shields - or find easy ways around shields hurts his game. I mean, you could remove his Blaster and he'd be the same character he is now. That's how bad his Blaster is designed in this game. It's okay when you pop off a shot towards people off stage, catch someone right when they jump to gimp, but on-stage and even across the stage, it's not that great. It's okay, "free" damage against slow characters like Ganondorf or characters with large hurtboxes like King Dedede, Bowser, DK, and Mewtwo or characters who don't have much when it comes to dealing with projectiles like Marth, Lucina, or Ike, but it's not much when you consider other projectiles like Luigi, Rosalina, Mario, Dr. Mario, Link, Toon Link, Pac-Man, Villager, Wii Fit Trainer, Fox, or even King Dedede, Bowser, and Charizard.

I thought about it and if they really wanted to stop Falco from quickly laser spamming, they could have made it where he had a revolver-type Blaster instead. Fires fast with the first shot - basically a quick draw like in classic Westerns -, but horribly slow for consecutive shots, and the end lag is short like Luigi's Fireball or Brawl Wolf's Blaster. Oh, but Falco can fire once and put away his Blaster and fire again. Yeah, the end lag wouldn't be that short. Luigi and Brawl Wolf did that, but it wasn't like what Falco could do in Melee or Brawl.

 

[Ulevo]

I get kinda tired of this back and forth debate on whether or not Meta Knight is good or bad relative to Brawl Meta Knight in Smash IV. The comparison is ridiculous, honestly. This isn't Brawl. The topic of Brawl Meta Knight shouldn't even exist in the discussion.

Here are the characters that, in my opinion, are likely better than Meta Knight in the vanilla meta:



There are some characters out of these 9 I am not completely sold on. With that said, assuming these were the only characters definitively better than Meta Knight, that would rank him in the top 10. I feel that's about right.

In the customs meta, he's a lot worse.

 

[Shaya]

Personally think MK only needs his ftilt to be a little bit more usable and he's golden, he's otherwise strong at what he can do and really seems to have no single struggle other than being light. He doesn't have safety on shield but rarely needs to commit to hitting shields in the first place.
But hey, Shuttle Loop has RCO, so it's balanced (I swear I'm drawn to characters with this horrible affliction through some sort of preordained destiny).

Also on perspectives and cheese tasting, no single character in this game is "unbeatable" nor without weaknesses (Diddy was [close]). A strong character isn't necessarily speced fairly even if by design they can be overcome. Overtuned characters leads to abusive playstyles that are frustrating for opponents, yet their abilities to compete when rebalanced don't really go down (unless it's a "gimmick", i.e. Lucario), if the repeated nerfs to Sheik, Sonic or Rosalina are anything to go by. The tipping point of "playing around weaknesses" to "just doing what the character's good at negating all of it" is a very very fine line, there's always top/high/mid level considerations to take within it too.
I don't believe most tournament-goers are losing to Falcon's thinking "damn you sakurai, he ruined the game!", it's just a matter of the difference in risk/reward and what that allows the character to do without solid recourse; is it bad that the people who are beating Falcons are still complaining? Maybe. I know exactly how to beat Falcon but it is not an enjoyable experience playing against him (and if streams are anything to go by, the frequency of a player losing to a Falcon and then opting for a ditto is just bizarre). I'm very certain most others feel similar about many characters, it's natural. 1-2% off a lot of moves would be a "major nerf", but I doubt it would structurally change him, if not make his combo game a bit more interactive and reduce his safety on shield, the latter being my main concern that makes him "abusive", when a Falcon has to start needing spacing or being in the (recognizable) perfect position to succeed he'll be a more 'honest' character in my eyes (I'm not trying to make out he can ignore all smash fundamentals and still succeed *cough ICs cough*).

Also watching ZeRo still opt for Diddy Kong in tournament (at least against Xzax in grand finals) @ FaD. I'm not sure if it's a pride thing or it's just that it's still his best/most comfortable character to play. Up to this point his Diddy was still virtually infallible, and even post-Mr. ConCon loss I still don't know for sure if it isn't just frustration / lack of specific match up experience (high/top level Luigis are pretty few, IMO) that made him feel the [temporary?] switch was necessary. But I wouldn't be surprised if he chose to use Sheik in that match up from now on (knowing in his mind he'll usually opt for his strongest option), but I would like to see him overcome the match up or show it was just a "one off".

 

[Ulevo]

@ Shaya Shuttle Loop doesn't have RCO (you're referring to lag install correct?)

Also, his Sheik was way more convincing. I'm thinking he'll be switching mains.

 

[Shaya]

I got hit somewhere between the first and second hits the other day and couldn't act with normal landing lag afterwards (was hit into a platform), immediately was like "oh god NOT AGAIN; can't I just spam Up-B in peace?".

 

[bc1910]

MK is still really good. For people to complain about him being overnerfed just proves that people will complain about anything and everything. Generally speaking MK is the second best character in the game at "Falconing" (being threatening at midrange with a dash attack/dashgrab 50/50) because he has a good dash speed and gets good reward out of both attacks, hell he can kill off both of them.

Well ZSS makes sense since the stunning is meant to enhance the rushdown play and Paralyzer isn't that great a projectile on its own. Yoshi's really only a problem now that they buffed his K.O. power a bit. His design made sense because that's how he plays in his games: using eggs to attack while being fairly mobile with a few close combat options. Since he still has to fish for K.O.s now and has an iffy recovery, his design mostly makes sense imo. I have no defense for Sheik.

Sheik was designed to contrast Zelda, trading power for speed. So she's supposed to be this really speedy character with cool combos who has terrible KB growth on her moves and thus can't kill you very easily. But in this game her attacks are SO speedy and safe relative to the rest of the cast it makes her more polarising. Plus her and Zelda being separated paved the way for bouncing fish, I expect the devs were eager to finally give her a decent kill option and ended up making one of he best moves in the series.

 

[Jaguar360]

MK is still really good. For people to complain about him being overnerfed just proves that people will complain about anything and everything. Generally speaking MK is the second best character in the game at "Falconing" (being threatening at midrange with a dash attack/dashgrab 50/50) because he has a good dash speed and gets good reward out of both attacks, hell he can kill off both of them.



Sheik was designed to contrast Zelda, trading power for speed. So she's supposed to be this really speedy character with cool combos who has terrible KB growth on her moves and thus can't kill you very easily. But in this game her attacks are SO speedy and safe relative to the rest of the cast it makes her more polarising. Plus her and Zelda being separated paved the way for bouncing fish, I expect the devs were eager to finally give her a decent kill option and ended up making one of he best moves in the series.

What you say is true, but I was mostly trying to respond to why it is fair/unfair that these characters have good projectiles. The problem with Sheik is that her needles are so safe, fast and disruptive yet she's also a great rushdown character with safe attacks, long combos and strings and a solid grab game. Her only flaws are kill power and light weight, the former which is exaggerated and compensated by edgeguarding and setups into U-smash and Bouncing Fish and the latter which is compensated by a great recovery and general evasiveness.

I'm not saying that Sheik is an outright terrible design though, but that kind of design just makes her very likely to come out on top.

 

[David Viran]

What you say is true, but I was mostly trying to respond to why it is fair/unfair that these characters have good projectiles. The problem with Sheik is that her needles are so safe, fast and disruptive yet she's also a great rushdown character with safe attacks, long combos and strings and a solid grab game. Her only flaws are kill power and light weight, the former which is exaggerated and compensated by edgeguarding and setups into U-smash and Bouncing Fish and the latter which is compensated by a great recovery and general evasiveness.

I'm not saying that Sheik is an outright terrible design though, but that kind of design just makes her very likely to come out on top.

Well a lot of good characters in this game have some pretty untouchable recoveries so edge guarding only takes you so far same with kill set ups. Once you get past the percent range where the set ups won't work it's going to be pretty difficult to take a stock.

 

[Blobface]

As someone who mains a character that gets butchered by Sheik (customs off, anyway), the only thing I'd change about her are needles. I'd give them just soft hitstun ala Fox's D-air multi-hit instead of actual knockback/the ability to take you off the ground.

F-air is incredibly strong sure, but as long as you don't try to hard punish it and instead guess what she'll do next, you'll at least be able to function. Outside of her combos, Sheik gets garbage reward off of hit, so a few wrong guesses shouldn't cost you much.

Course, maybe I'm just seeing the game through Ganon Glasses™, where 2 hits = 10+ hits from Sheik.

 

[Pyr]

As someone who mains a character that gets butchered by Sheik (customs off, anyway), the only thing I'd change about her are needles. I'd give them just soft hitstun ala Fox's D-air multi-hit instead of actual knockback/the ability to take you off the ground.

F-air is incredibly strong sure, but as long as you don't try to hard punish it and instead guess what she'll do next, you'll at least be able to function. Outside of her combos, Sheik gets garbage reward off of hit, so a few wrong guesses shouldn't cost you much.

Course, maybe I'm just seeing the game through Ganon Glasses™, where 2 hits = 10+ hits from Sheik.

Sheik Fair - 5% damage
Ganon FSmash - 24%

2 Fsmash Ganon is worth almost 10 Sheik Fair. Match checks out. =D

Hyperbole aside, I agree. Sheik is almost literally a "death of a thousand cuts" situation in Smash. You've got a couple of guesses before you die. Get a gash or 2 in.

 

[Shaya]

IMO Sheik is definitely manageable for
and my "inkling metre" also has

Despite I'm sure just about every player of those characters hating Sheik to some extent, I'm sure her players share similar feeling towards them in some way
I know Ness and Lucario probably seem alright too, but I feel pretty poorly about the latter's viability overall and Ness is probably less popular than even ZSS at this point.

In contrast, prior to this patch I probably thought the only characters worth playing/advancing otherwise in a Diddy meta at all were Sheik, Brawler, Sonic or Fox, none of which I felt could go even with him.

 

[Sheddy]

I've noticed Bowser Jr is really good against characters like and and it seems like the down b really messes with there rushdown playstyle and forces them to go slow which at least for me has made fighting them easy once they slow down and have to jump to avoid it

 

[Nocally]

I've noticed Bowser Jr is really good against characters like and and it seems like the down b really messes with there rushdown playstyle and forces them to go slow which at least for me has made fighting them easy once they slow down and have to jump to avoid it

What are your view on the Pikachu and sheik match-up? Jr´s down-b can be annoying, but characters with good air to ground game doesn't seem to mind that much, at least in my experience.

 

[TriTails]

Wait, Sheik isn't manageable for Luigi?

 

[Shaya]

Wait, Sheik isn't manageable for Luigi?

I just haven't seen enough of the match up or Luigi in general (I see Boss every week but we rarely see more than just a few base match ups) to feel confident in knowing. I have a ZSS perspective and the for the reasons I see why she does good against Sheik is what I went about listing, didn't intend it to be conclusive either. Also knowing other characters could be brought up only helps sell my argument ("sheik ain't that bad") anyway

 

[Sheddy]

What are your view on the Pikachu and sheik match-up? Jr´s down-b can be annoying, but characters with good air to ground game doesn't seem to mind that much, at least in my experience.

Pikachu I tend to notices try to play safe so when I come to them I do a more rush down playstyle with his side b and his disjointed attacks as for Sheik I tend to keep a safe distance and wait for them to make a opening to charge in a hit and run playstyle tends to work on most Sheik players

 

[Sodo]

Where does Monado Kirby rank among the game's characters? 1v1 it's hard to say because it's obviously a MU thing but I feel like Kirby is easily one of the best doubles partners with Shulk, given his ability to rack up damage with Buster and clean up offstage with Jump. Speed, Shield, and Smash all have their niches, obviously.

 

[Yoshi Kirishima]

One of the things I don't realize about this game's balance is how they give fast rushdown characters like ZSS and Sheik and even Yoshi such amazing projectiles. I mean, it's obvious those characters would easily become the best. How do the devs not realize this in balancing and development?

And my worst experiences with campers are not with Duck Hunt or Toon Link who are balanced around camping. It's with the characters that can camp and still have the best tools to counter you when you come in or rush you down when you try to zone.

I wouldn't say they are rush down, even though they are fast.

ZSS is a zoner, Sheik has a great neutral, Yoshi's a pretty all around character.

ZSS and Sheik are good at the mid distances, and don't ideally want to be up and close and battering the opponent with attacks like a pure rush down character would be. They can wait it out and punish.

 

[Freezie KO]

I wouldn't say they are rush down, even though they are fast.

ZSS is a zoner, Sheik has a great neutral, Yoshi's a pretty all around character.

ZSS and Sheik are good at the mid distances, and don't ideally want to be up and close and battering the opponent with attacks like a pure rush down character would be. They can wait it out and punish.

Well, they don't rushdown because they don't have to. And same with thunder jolt spamming Pikachus. They have all the tools, but of course, they'll just sit back and force the opponent to approach because it's safer.

 

[Z'zgashi]

As an MK main in this game, his weaknesses are killing problems, lack of safe on shield options (which isnt a huge deal but is still a small issue), and lack of fast landing aerials. All of his aerials have long landing lag unless auto canceled, but they also dont auto cancel unless the aerial is used so high off the ground that it wont hit anyone. Either he needs less landing lag on something like fair or nair, longer range or less cooldown on ftilt or dtilt, or more knockback on nair, or jab finisher (so it has a use). Obviously not all of these, just one, but without them he'll forever sit in the middle of mid tier at best.

 

[Sheddy]

since we are talking about mains pro and cons as a Morton main he has amazing ranging potential with almost all of his attacks having disjointed attacks making most of his attacks safe but at the cost of his smash attacks having lag time. One thing alot of people don't know is Morton and the Koopa's actually have two hit boxes their body and the kart itself making it both good and bad good because the kart if hit only take 0.8 but if you hit the koopa's themselves the damage is 1.5 so it can be good and bad depending on where you hit them from. their recovery is also pretty good since the side b can be hopped making it good for recovery but the up b can put you into a huge weakness as I said when they are out of the kart they take more damage. The biggest con I think for the Koopa's are their smash attacks they are very powerful but have lag to them making them pretty open to counter attacks. As for Meta I've noticed other rangers like and tend to give the Koopa's a challenge

 

[warionumbah2]

MK doesn't struggle to kill, he has kill setups to hold your hand. And on tall characters(Mario height and above) running up smash is a legit kill move.

He has 2 kill throws,3 killing special moves,OOS kill option,8 kill setups all which are easily accessible. MK spoils players with options to kill. F-Smash is dumb against Fox and Falco's recovery.

 

[Yikarur]

http://smashboards.com/threads/comp...haracter-should-be-allowed-custom-off.398225/

just putting this in here because of the debate 5 pages ago. @Aerodrome @ bc1910 @ wedl!! @Jamurai @Jigglymaster
and I think everyone's voting goes after the paradigm I explained in the thread and every custom:off tournament should do this anyway.