Character Competitive Impressions

[Teshie U]

http://www.twitch.tv/katysm4shleague

trela's legendary mii swordsman on right now

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

Greatly in her [Sheik's] favor since she has everything to beat captain falcon reliably and is consistent in doing so (one of his worst MU)

Sorry if this is old and no one cares at this point but I just thought I'd add a bit.

As a Falcon main in Smash 4, I can say it is a bit in Sheiks favor (I feel like i's around 4:6 in Sheiks favor). She certainly has the tools necessary to easily beat Falcon, but not to the point that she's impossible to face. It's fairly manageable. Sheik can beat Falcon in the air, but if Falcon can get in of course he's going to do a lot of damage. Add that to Sheik's lack of general kill power and you've got Falcon living for quite a while, if he isn't gimped of course, not to mention Sheik being rather light and suddenly what was once a large lead for Sheik can suddenly shift into Falcon's hands.

Honestly, I usually have a harder time with Mario and his easy bake dthrow to utilt and the followups from that than I normally do with Sheik.

That being said, I actually like fighting less than favorable match ups like Sheik. Presents a decent challenge.

 

[Djent]

http://www.twitch.tv/katysm4shleague

trela's legendary mii swordsman on right now

I...can't believe I just saw vs. in Winners Finals.

Paging Nassim Taleb.

 

[Antonykun]

http://www.twitch.tv/katysm4shleague

trela's legendary mii swordsman on right now

and ofcourse I missed it :/

 

[Hippieslayer]

http://www.twitch.tv/katysm4shleague

trela's legendary mii swordsman on right now

I missed it and there are no past broadcast wtf?!

 

[Antonykun]

I missed it and there are no past broadcast wtf?!

he's in grand finals so wait until then

 

[Hippieslayer]

I want Trela to team with Dapuffster

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Now let Swordfighter win Evo.
Im eager for the Smash meta where top tier is comprised of Marth,Pit, Swordfighter, Ike and Link.

 

[Antonykun]

I want Trela to team with Dapuffster

question: who is the best gunner?
I want Dapuffster + Trela + Best Gunner to form a 3v3 team :3
but seriously I need to step up my swordfighter play like dang that was default 1111 swordfighter.
uhhg now I have a hard time making swordfighter sucks jokes

 

[mimgrim]

I wanna play Gunner but until Miis get set in stone in how they are handled at tournament I'm staying away from them. :L

 

[Kofu]

question: who is the best gunner?
I want Dapuffster + Trela + Best Gunner to form a 3v3 team :3
but seriously I need to step up my swordfighter play like dang that was default 1111 swordfighter.
uhhg now I have a hard time making swordfighter sucks jokes

I don't know if @ san. is the best Gunner but I think he's the biggest name that uses the character. I don't know if he's used him in tournament, either.

 

[deepseadiva]

I wanna play Gunner but until Miis get set in stone in how they are handled at tournament I'm staying away from them. :L

LOOOVE Gunner. So much goodness in one character. Crazy hitboxes on uair and fsmash. Range on ftilt. Villagers fair. And all the delicious customization with the specials.

 

[Teshie U]

Gunner fair is a better zoning tool than villager's by far I'd say. Villager's doubles as a KO move, but gunner's auto retreats and I think its laser priority? I've never seen it clash, I just spam it and it wins so I'm not sure.

Gunner has some good ideas worked into the character though. Toon Link dsmash, working Samus upsmash. I dont like any of his specials really. Worst recovery of all the miis sadly.

 

[deepseadiva]

Worst recovery of all the miis sadly.

I was trying to find the "best" one and I'm not really sure.

ALL the rest of the specials are fantastic though. Charge Shot I would call quintessential, but it's lovely having so many options. PK Fire, Missles, and a Reflector all on one character? Yes please.

 

[Teshie U]

That side B isn't remotely as good as pk fire or arc fire. Without the multi hit trapping effect and/or the activation on shield, it accomplishes nothing more than ftilt and isn't nearly as safe.

 

[Luco]

Idk I've been told by ness mains Rosalina's his worst MU. I also don't agree on having a great neutral game. To me his neutral game is pretty *meh*. His aerials are good but his range is pretty piss poor.

According to Zero's top 5 of Rosalina diddy shiek lugi. Who does Ness actually have a positive MU vs?

We tend to believe Sonic is our worst MU (though some of our top players have mentioned Sonic may not be as awful as we think and we have to play the MU similar to ICs in Brawl) and Rosalina is a -1, our onstage game against her is fine and GP isn't insta-death if we're not right next to her when she GPs (because GP causes PKT to swirl around her which can damage Ness and allow him to use PKT again). I dunno, some of the other Ness mains can probably explain it better than me.

We've just made a thread where we give MU ratings for, and discuss our MUs against a rough top 12 or so (we used some outside source, from memory I think it included Diddy, Sheik, Yoshi, Pikachu, CP, Mario, Luigi, ZSS, Ness, Fox, Rosaluma and Sonic). We also have a few -1's outside of here btw (Megaman might be -1 or even, not sure at this point), but I'd totally advise for you to go check it out to see what we think at this point in time, if you want me to link it for you (I can VM it to you).

Also I never said "great" neutral, I said reasonably strong. And in a game where few characters actually have totally safe options in footsies, I feel like Bair is important, especially as a landing option. Would people have been happier if I said 'decent' instead of 'reasonably strong'?

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

We tend to believe Sonic is our worst MU (though some of our top players have mentioned Sonic may not be as awful as we think and we have to play the MU similar to ICs in Brawl) and Rosalina is a -1, our onstage game against her is fine and GP isn't insta-death if we're not right next to her when she GPs (because GP causes PKT to swirl around her which can damage Ness and allow him to use PKT again). I dunno, some of the other Ness mains can probably explain it better than me.

We've just made a thread where we give MU ratings for, and discuss our MUs against a rough top 12 or so (we used some outside source, from memory I think it included Diddy, Sheik, Yoshi, Pikachu, CP, Mario, Luigi, ZSS, Ness, Fox, Rosaluma and Sonic). We also have a few -1's outside of here btw (Megaman might be -1 or even, not sure at this point), but I'd totally advise for you to go check it out to see what we think at this point in time, if you want me to link it for you (I can VM it to you).

Also I never said "great" neutral, I said reasonably strong. And in a game where few characters actually have totally safe options in footsies, I feel like Bair is important, especially as a landing option. Would people have been happier if I said 'decent' instead of 'reasonably strong'?

It's not instant death but it's almost is. When your recover is invalidated like that it changes everything IMO. I've seen Ness players do ******** things in the hopes to recover. I don't believe another character can make you guys be that afraid. I'm not really sure how good your onstage game is. It's not like you out range her and I do believe that she's faster on the ground than Ness. If we're talking customs then we got luma warp and control the stage even more. Although I could be a bit mistaken on my ideas of the MU though. I wouldn't mind running some sets with you.

 

[Luco]

It's not instant death but it's almost is. When your recover is invalidated like that it changes everything IMO. I've seen Ness players do ******** things in the hopes to recover. I don't believe another character can make you guys be that afraid. I'm not really sure how good your onstage game is. It's not like you out range her and I do believe that she's faster on the ground than Ness. If we're talking customs then we got luma warp and control the stage even more. Although I could be a bit mistaken on my ideas of the MU though. I wouldn't mind running some sets with you.

I personally think that it has a lot to do with luma being firewood if she's hit once already, and we also have it really good when you're offstage as well. Rosaluma being freakishly light also means you can die at sub-100% to Bthrow if we have a little bit of rage active. I really wish there was more high level play between the two to look at.

I'm not in Australia at the moment and I won't be until mid-late November, unfortunately. I do have my 3DS but it's ultra laggy against USA I've noticed. All that said, I'd be happy to do some sets with you at some point, and if not now, then once I get back (AUS - USA is much better than where I am atm haha).

 

[~ Gheb ~]

It's a bit strange to see Rosie being considered top 5 so undisputedly ... considering the Luma nerf she received is actually quite tremendous. Is it really so unlikely that two out of Fox, Sonic, Yoshi, Pikachu, ZSS and Mii Brawler are better than her that everybody believes her to be top 5 with such certainty?

Even if Zero's top 5 isn't a "best character" list but "most relevant" I have to disagree. Rosalina and Ness have rather little relevant representation at the moment - Sonic is far more relevant to the current metagame than they are and Fox/ZSS are represented solidly as well. By representation or relvance I'd say Sheik, Diddy, Sonic, Luigi and Fox are top 5 [likely in that order].

 

[Shaya]

Dabuz is the great wall of China and it's not like ESAM with Pikachu where we resoundingly go "oh it's just ESAM" (contrast of methodical vs anticipation based play; one's much easier to 'get' in theory). In ZeRo's mind, Rosalina is significantly more relevant to him as a player in the lead up to Evo then Fox who he gets to [poor Larry] beat up on 2-3 times a week, him knowing very well that Diddy will not be so disgustingly easy (killing from 60%) against her as it was before. With the saturation of top players being in Tri-state, there's general consensus among them of Rosa's position that he has no reason to doubt.

Luigi and Ness (FOW) are two characters which strong mains of have threatened him before as well (pre-patch I'm almost certain no player on Earth had taken more tournament games from ZeRo than FOW, and we all know about Concon)

I agree though that the nerf to Luma is pretty apparent to me while playing against her. I could see Marth/Lucina being advantageous against her tbqh, everything they have basically one shots it and her transcended priority (which allows her to beat/punish most characters attacking Luma) is negated against them a lot with their disjoints. But two things are apparent when considering Dabuz, his ability to control Luma/keep it safe and basically him never getting capitalized on while Luma is on cool down. Strength of the character hasn't exactly changed, just the difficulty. Meanwhile I think the back air nerf on Sheik was a lot bigger than people are considering as well (Nairo thinking she's 3rd is like the biggest breath of fresh air, thank god).

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I really don't see how Marth and Lucina are supposed to be advantageous against Rosalina ... like, she doesn't even need Luma to shut them out, her standard kit is probably strong enough to deal with them. I also think both have exceptionally bad matchups against Falcon, Mewtwo and just about everybody else who is hard to approach. That includes a Luma-less Rosalina in my book as well.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

I think there's generally nowhere for Rosalina to go but down. She's got a lot of great and extreme traits, but her gameplan is too simple.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Dabuz is the great wall of China and it's not like ESAM with Pikachu where we resoundingly go "oh it's just ESAM" (contrast of methodical vs anticipation based play; one's much easier to 'get' in theory). In ZeRo's mind, Rosalina is significantly more relevant to him as a player in the lead up to Evo then Fox who he gets to [poor Larry] beat up on 2-3 times a week, him knowing very well that Diddy will not be so disgustingly easy (killing from 60%) against her as it was before. With the saturation of top players being in Tri-state, there's general consensus among them of Rosa's position that he has no reason to doubt.

Luigi and Ness (FOW) are two characters which strong mains of have threatened him before as well (pre-patch I'm almost certain no player on Earth had taken more tournament games from ZeRo than FOW, and we all know about Concon)

I agree though that the nerf to Luma is pretty apparent to me while playing against her. I could see Marth/Lucina being advantageous against her tbqh, everything they have basically one shots it and her transcended priority (which allows her to beat/punish most characters attacking Luma) is negated against them a lot with their disjoints. But two things are apparent when considering Dabuz, his ability to control Luma/keep it safe and basically him never getting capitalized on while Luma is on cool down. Strength of the character hasn't exactly changed, just the difficulty. Meanwhile I think the back air nerf on Sheik was a lot bigger than people are considering as well (Nairo thinking she's 3rd is like the biggest breath of fresh air, thank god).

Iggy Xaltis and falln are pretty strong in their respective regions. Which is strong regions respectively. So she has good rep though. Her problem are her MU's VS top tiers.

I think there's generally nowhere for Rosalina to go but down. She's got a lot of great and extreme traits, but her gameplan is too simple.

I believe she has more stuff than is normally shown. Tech wise she only has room to grow.

 

[Smog Frog]

i believe can go either way. there's just so much stuff to be found for this character, good and bad.

where does stand to you guys? is he still top 5 or has he dropped out?

 

[Shaya]

Sonic, Diddy and Sheik seem like the strongest designs in the game to me, personally (for what we understand about what's regularly top tier in Smash). Results/popularity wise, only Fox holds a candle to any of them.
Sonic's nerfs IMO were of less net loss than Sheik. Back throw is still a kill move at reasonable points. His kill options (not trying to make out they're extremely good or anything) otherwise are all still relatively intact while Sheik had her most applicable kill options reduced by half.

There just aren't enough prolific characters existing in the meta right now to firmly see Sonic as out of top 5, at worse being at a very similar power level to those in and around there. Joe's been losing to Boss at Xanadu's lately (I think for at least the past 2-3 weeks), and I haven't heard much of 6WX lately... but the results to indicate otherwise still aren't there. Now is really the time for Pikachu, Fox, Mario, Luigi and ZSS to start showing what unnerfed high tiers can do (well, Luigi and his fireball slap on the wrist).

 

[wedl!!]

is still absurdly good, it's just that people have adapted better to his plan. bthrow nerf is also a big deal. i still think his overall kit makes him right in there alongside as characters who will most likely always be top 5/10 just because of how overpowering their kits are. i'd say sonic is probably 5th if i had to put him anywhere; he's like right next to , who he just about loses to. in customs he drops a bit lower because of being a hard mu and other characters like and improving so much with customs.

top 10 looks like this to me:

(w/o customs)

(w/ customs)

 

[thehard]

@ Shaya
6WX has been focusing on school (got straight A's his last semester so it paid off for him) and is doing an internship soon for 3 months. He might have some time here and there for Smash though.

Speaking of which, his guide to custom Sonic: http://smashboards.com/guides/my-guide-to-custom-sonic.399/

 

[Luco]

I feel like Brawler's success rides too strongly on Dapuffster for him to be top 3 or even top 5. Like he won a tournament two weeks ago and that's great but otherwise his appearances have been sporadic and I don't think matches up to the quality of the others in top 5 at all. I feel like at the very least he should swap spots with Fox?

 

[mimgrim]

LOOOVE Gunner. So much goodness in one character. Crazy hitboxes on uair and fsmash. Range on ftilt. Villagers fair. And all the delicious customization with the specials.

I love him to. A small skinny gunner a ****ing scary zoner and sooooooo much fun. But until everything is set in stone in how Miis are handled I'm staing away from them (and even then I might continue to stay away from them if I don't like how they are handled.

I was trying to find the "best" one and I'm not really sure.

ALL the rest of the specials are fantastic though. Charge Shot I would call quintessential, but it's lovely having so many options. PK Fire, Missles, and a Reflector all on one character? Yes please.

Cannon Uppercut is the best Up-Special overall. Not because of recovery distance but because of it's kill potiential (it can even spike if you do it right) and providing a very potent OoS option.

Charge Shot is not quintessential. Grenade Launch is far more useful/better. Flame Pillar is pretty meh, tbh, because it doesn’t last long enough to capitalize off of anything due to the pillar ending right when you get out of endlag. I know @ san. likes Gunner Missile a lot because of the combos it opens up while I prefer Stealth Burst for the trapping potential it has. San also prefers to use Reflector for some MUs but I prefer to stick with Bomb Drop for everything because I don’t think a reflector is particular necessary for Gunner in any MU due to his already strong zoning capabilities (easily the best zoner in the game).

 

[Scarlet Jile]

I feel like Brawler's success rides too strongly on Dapuffster for him to be top 3 or even top 5. Like he won a tournament two weeks ago and that's great but otherwise his appearances have been sporadic and I don't think matches up to the quality of the others in top 5 at all. I feel like at the very least he should swap spots with Fox?

You have it completely backwards. One dude actually bothered to play this ridiculous character and already has tournament results. Imagine what is going to happen when he becomes popular and his meta explodes.

 

[Appledees]

I'm kinda curious to see where Megaman is gonna place as the meta goes on. He has alot great strengths but alot of it is really hard to use at a high level and his weaknesses while not the worst are very bad in some matchups (Like Mario,Shiek,Fox).

Where would you guys place him as the meta progresses? Personally I always felt that he was in the top 15 range at the very least; Top 20 at the worst.

 

[webbedspace]

I feel like Brawler's success rides too strongly on Dapuffster for him to be top 3 or even top 5. Like he won a tournament two weeks ago and that's great but otherwise his appearances have been sporadic and I don't think matches up to the quality of the others in top 5 at all. I feel like at the very least he should swap spots with Fox?

Mew2King co-mained Fighter in MVG Sandstorm alongside Palutena (lost Loser's Finals to Nairo) so I guess he's looking out for them now.

 

[Asdioh]

So I was looking at the character usage statistics for 3ds/wiiu, and http://smashboards.com/rankings/smash-3ds.7/league/teams Greninja has the most "#1" placings on 3ds. Were these statistics only taken before the WiiU came out, and then stopped? Are the WiiU statistics still being taken, because Diddy Kong still has more than double anyone else's wins.
It makes me wonder how pre-nerf Greninja would fare in the current metagame. I'd guess top 10 at least.

 

[Luco]

You have it completely backwards. One dude actually bothered to play this ridiculous character and already has tournament results. Imagine what is going to happen when he becomes popular and his meta explodes.

Well sure, but why are people putting him in top 3 now when the results are still sporadic? Don't get me wrong, I LOVE it when people talk about a character that's only going to go up, and I definitely take that into account but I don't think we should be using that particular theoretical to say he's top 3 at this stage.

Though I forgot about M2K's relationship with Brawler. I'm still not really convinced he's top 5. :/

 

[Diddy Kong]

Brawler is "good" only cause nobody knows how to fight against it.

 

[FullMoon]

So I was looking at the character usage statistics for 3ds/wiiu, and http://smashboards.com/rankings/smash-3ds.7/league/teams Greninja has the most "#1" placings on 3ds. Were these statistics only taken before the WiiU came out, and then stopped? Are the WiiU statistics still being taken, because Diddy Kong still has more than double anyone else's wins.
It makes me wonder how pre-nerf Greninja would fare in the current metagame. I'd guess top 10 at least.

Considering that right behind Greninja is Rosalina then I'd say it was likely pre-patch.

Still I'm surprised Greninja got the most first place wins when he wasn't the best character even then.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

When Wario is doing a wheelie, the only characters that can shieldgrab him are Bowser, Captain Falcon, Charizard, Donkey Kong, Ganondorf, Ike, Lucario, Lucina, Marth, Mewtwo, Palutena, Peach, Pit, Robin, Rosalina, and Wii Fit Trainer.

However, if Wario runs into a shield at full speed with the Bike, hesitates for a few frames after the hitlag, then starts a wheelie (as compared to buffering the wheelie and getting those two hitboxes as close as possible), you'll end up behind the opponent before they can shieldgrab you, and if they try to shieldgrab immediately, they'll just get hit by the wheelie.

 

[bc1910]

So I was looking at the character usage statistics for 3ds/wiiu, and http://smashboards.com/rankings/smash-3ds.7/league/teams Greninja has the most "#1" placings on 3ds. Were these statistics only taken before the WiiU came out, and then stopped? Are the WiiU statistics still being taken, because Diddy Kong still has more than double anyone else's wins.
It makes me wonder how pre-nerf Greninja would fare in the current metagame. I'd guess top 10 at least.

He would probably be top 10, but he would still lose to Sheik pretty bad. He could never zone her even with better shurikens and none of his nerfs made any difference to what makes her strong against him. He would probably still lose to Fox as well, but the Sonic MU would be significantly better. Pretty much every other MU except Wario (who negates shurikens completely with the bike) would be better, mostly due to better shurikens letting him zone AND approach more effectively, and partly due to his old Usmash being safer and the sourspots being better at killing. Oh and Hydro Pump was ridiculous, probably the only thing that actually deserved a nerf, but I think it made less of a difference to most of his high tier MUs than the old shurikens did.

So IMO he'd still lose to two of the best characters but his other MUs would be good enough to push him into the top 10. He still wouldn't be the best though. Which just goes to show how much he was overnerfed. You don't hit literally everything strong about a character at once and call it "balance".

EDIT: In fairness, not that it makes up for anything but the buff to Shadow Sneak's ending lag was much appreciated. Pretty much made Greninja's already great recovery one of the best in the game. Definitely a significant buff. At least we got something out of patches, when characters like Diddy, Sheik and Rosalina have literally only been nerfed to my knowledge.

 

[san.]

I love him to. A small skinny gunner a ****ing scary zoner and sooooooo much fun. But until everything is set in stone in how Miis are handled I'm staing away from them (and even then I might continue to stay away from them if I don't like how they are handled.



Cannon Uppercut is the best Up-Special overall. Not because of recovery distance but because of it's kill potiential (it can even spike if you do it right) and providing a very potent OoS option.

Charge Shot is not quintessential. Grenade Launch is far more useful/better. Flame Pillar is pretty meh, tbh, because it doesn’t last long enough to capitalize off of anything due to the pillar ending right when you get out of endlag. I know @ san. likes Gunner Missile a lot because of the combos it opens up while I prefer Stealth Burst for the trapping potential it has. San also prefers to use Reflector for some MUs but I prefer to stick with Bomb Drop for everything because I don’t think a reflector is particular necessary for Gunner in any MU due to his already strong zoning capabilities (easily the best zoner in the game).

I'm starting to think that tiny Gunner is better for the speedster MUs. Having faster air speed and better aerial mobility makes it more difficult to catch gunner during the endlag of bomb drop and grenade, and fair has less endlag for more mixups. Getting punished off of a missed grenade is the biggest problem I have when I use him in tournament.

Both gunner and swordfighter have jabs with base knockback and knockback growth. This means that as the opponent's % increases, jab cancels into kill moves begin to work. Tiny gunner has the best jab cancels while the taller gunners have a lot more range.

I think the gunner meta will develop once people develop frame traps after throws and get combos into kill moves. Miis in general have good grabs, but gunner needs to achieve some damage off of them. 1/4 mii has a grab with as much endlag as pikachu's (-1 endlag compared to mario) with more grab range than Mario. Tiny miis have absurdly small endlag on their grabs with horrid grab range that has to be made up with a slide. On the flip side, tiny mii's pivot grab is quite good since they can attack if it whiffs very early.

At low rage and %, gunner's dthrow combos into nair. A decent mixup is to use short hop/full hope grenade, since you can immediately combo an aerial if it hits and it covers air dodges and possibly even landings.

At kill %, gunner can jab cancel into kill moves at certain % and combo out of grenade into smash attacks with good timing. Outside of that, he can really only rely on 5 or 8 frame tilt kill moves, trapping, landing fair, bair, or grenade offstage, or gimps. Fishing for kills is quite bad if the opponent doesn't give you power shield opportunities.

Reflector is decent for a couple MUs, but I'd rather use PSI magnet or bomb drop if possible.

Gunner's strength and weakness both lie with rage. Gunner has one of the best rage scalings in the game with many 50-70b kill moves. The problem is that the base power is so low that if Gunner dies first, he's at a huge deficit in kill power.

As an aside, I think swordfighter is one of the better characters on short ceiling stages. He thrives on low % combos and has many setups into uair below 100%.

 

[Firefoxx]

I think its more because everyone has seen what the character can do, and there are more and more Brawlers popping up every week. At the very least I know Nick Riddle dropped ZSS for Brawler a couple weeks ago (at least in customs on) and beat MVD's Diddy to make it to grands against ESAM. (Where, to be fair, he got annihilated).