Character Competitive Impressions

[ChronoPenguin]

But yes, the Pits' customs are underwhelming outside of Guiding Bow. Only his Orbitar customs are worth considering for the most part.

I got ****ed trying to edgeguard a Pit by breezy flight, super windbox bros is making me very displeased with customs.

 

[Ulevo]

Mega Man can camp well with Rush Coil. Wario can camp well with his Bike. I've also done it as Jigglypuff.

If I'm not one of the characters who abuse or have to deal with the potential camping and I don't want to play on Final Destination, I shouldn't have to spend my second ban on Duck Hunt to make sure I don't have much the same fight anyway. It skews the stage list into there being "also Final Destination" for characters who camp/get camped.

I do not really agree with this. This assumes that the characters that will do well on Final Destination will do well on Duck Hunt. The presence of the ducks, along with the platforms, make this stage quite different for many characters and match ups. As an example, Final Destination is not terrible for Meta Knight, but I would not opt to go to it willingly over his other stage choices. Duck Hunt on the other hand Meta Knight can play on very favourably because of the trees allowing him to score low kills, camp, and the ducks can disrupt projectiles. Characters like Olimar enjoy Final Destination, but would have a terrible time on Duck Hunt against certain characters who can use the trees to avoid him. Lucario needs to stay alive in order to make use of compounding aura and rage, so large stages like Final Destination are good in match ups where Lucario is not pressured in neutral, but is Lucario going to want to go to Duck Hunt when the Ducks can block his Aura Sphere?

 

[GeneralLedge]

Duckhunt gives you a better score than FD tho.

But really Duckhunt gives so much projectile jank that I don't know why it's legal aside from "we need another counterpick stage but nobody likes Wuhu, Mario Kart, or WHZ."

 

[Luco]

@ TheReflexWonder I did a little bit of testing. It seems PKT1 looping isn't guaranteed (not entirely surprising although it looks close-ish), but because of the speed of the bolt and the looping, unless PKT1 is ending I think on heavier/slower characters (or ones with a slow AD) you can loop it back around to overlap on their hurtbox before they come out of AD. You'd want someone to test this with a human player though of course. My training CPUs never got around the dodging the bolt (but I seem to recall falling AD is normally a poor choice against PKT1 for that reason unless the character is mobile enough).

It's not free damage to all characters, I've used it against ZSS offstage before and it's gotten me punished soooo hard, there's definitely characters you want to be far away from if you want it to be 'safe', but it's a great tool and its juggling use is neat.

 

[Ulevo]

Duckhunt gives you a better score than FD tho.

But really Duckhunt gives so much projectile jank that I don't know why it's legal aside from "we need another counterpick stage but nobody likes Wuhu, Mario Kart, or WHZ."

Because there's nothing legitimately wrong with Duck Hunt. That's why. The Ducks, while they can interfere with projectile use, are apparent enough that a player will know they have to account for them. The dog only pops up in a location where a duck has been struck down, meaning this is not only not random, but player induced. The only legitimate concerns over this stage are the concerns of circle camping, and outside of very specific match ups, this strategy is inconsistent at best. If it was something that could be adequately performed against a wide portion of the cast with certain characters, like say Meta Knight or Wario, then I would be more compelled to believe the argument.

tl;dr jank is not an argument.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

If it was something that could be adequately performed against a wide portion of the cast with certain characters, like say Meta Knight or Wario, then I would be more compelled to believe the argument.

In customs, Speeding Bike makes the strategy work against a much larger set of characters than in no-customs.

 

[Djent]

The same arguments were made before Apex 2012.

Watch history repeat itself, seems like people *never* learn.

Regardless of what @ Ulevo 's criteria for being "impressed" are, citing Apex 2012 as a counterexample is kind of misleading, since (even given Japan's IMO excellent regular performances) it was kind of an outlier in some regards. While Japan has made it to Grand Finals half of the times their best have come over, 2012 was notable as the only "Japan-only" GFs and also for the number of Japanese upsets against supposedly "better" players.

For the record (and you know this) I'm very impressed with Japan's scene. I just don't think Apex 2012 has a high probability of "repeating" even with their incredible skill density.

Tournaments which top Japanese player(s) attended, but didn't win:
Apex 2010
Genesis 2
Apex 2013
Apex 2015
Tournaments which top Japanese player(s) attended and won:
Apex 2012
SKTAR 3
Japanese tournaments which top US player(s) attended & lost:
SRT

BTW we need to get our best players over there more often. No reason Japan should constantly have to prove themselves on our soil when we're 0 for 1.

 

[Ulevo]

I admit that it might be just the pool of players playing specific characters. I recently watched Ranai's Villager and he completely changed my impressions on the characters potential. Meanwhile you look at some of the other characters being practiced and they're just awful compared to even some of the mediocre players here.

 

[Quickhero]

I'm not going to lie, the only thing I know about the Japanese scene is that Yoshi is really successful over there and that Abadango is from that scene.

It's safe to say that there are other people like me that just have no idea where the Japanese streams even are lol.

 

[Cassio]

I actually think its most likely the opposite from what I hear everytime someone goes to Japan, but its not something we'll gather from streams entirely. Usually the story is that their average player skill level and character specialists are extremely solid, even if at top level we have some players that can compete with theirs. Zero gave the example of the peach player that 2 stocked his falcon. He's not the first person to say this about Japan, but its probably not common knowledge either.

If were talking about Brawl, Japan when both countries had decent representation is 2-1 with us, but then you also have to include the time 9B came over when Japan had bad rep and still won. Apex 2010, Genesis 2, and Apex 2015 were either before or after Brawl had strong international rep. They also tended to dominate top spots besides 1st and had good records vs our top (like otori being undefeated vs nairo). Japan may be underrated, but it probably wont ever be as bad as apex 2012.

 

[Djent]

BTW here are the results from Umebura 15 (190ish entrants):

1) Rain (undefeated)
2) Choco (lost to Rain twice)
3) Fsann (lost to Choco twice)
4) Nyanko (lost to Rain and Fsann)
5) Pichi (lost to Choco and Fsann)
5) Nietono (lost to Fsann and Nyanko)
7) Shu (lost to Nyanko and Pichi)
7) Nasubi (lost to Rain and Nietono)

Bonus footage: losing

 

[TheReflexWonder]

That doesn't look too varied.

 

[Luco]

It's not the best it could be, with 7 different characters in total in top 8 plus the fact that most players had secondaries/tertiaries.

I wonder what the biggest differences are in our metas. Not seeing any Rosalumas, Sonics, Luigis or even Pikas is curious.

Also Fsann living it up with Ness woooooooo <3

Actually, on that note, it's interesting to see Fsann losing to Choco twice. I'm going to watch how those sets played out tomorrow, I was seeing more and more evidence suggesting we narrowly win out against ZSS so I'm curious as to whether there's any particular techs/strats Choco is using to beat Fsann in those matches.

 

[Djent]

A lot of but other than that the results are fine. Also, Nietono did win one early match with lol.

Noticeably more Japanese rep:
Noticeably more American rep:

 

[Dabuz]

Quote from him: "won a tournament with Dabuz, with Falcon" is an interesting choice of words considering Dabuz didn't make Grand Finals in that tournament (having lost to DFW's own Dakpo).

Actually lost to Denti at that one.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I'm not going to lie, the only thing I know about the Japanese scene is that Yoshi is really successful over there

That's not actually the case.

 

[Kofu]

Bonus footage: losing

Hey, at least he won against Diddy! But lost against Little Mac and Mewtwo

I honestly don't know how to feel about Yoshi. He's solid, but really only that: solid. He doesn't have any super abusable strategy and lacks a real grab game, but he does have good aerials, low-lag (but not necessarily low startup) normals, a great projectile, a command grab, and good range. I'm not quite at the point where I like playing against him but a good Yoshi is very fun to watch.

Those vids highlighted how he needs to be careful with his double jump around the ledge, though. At least twice, he tried to play off the ledge using eggs but got scared away without his double jump and ended up dying.

 

[Antonykun]

the more i play with Swordfighter the more i see him as a watered down Little Mac with an offstage game and a recovery

 

[Sinister Slush]

Bonus footage: losing

I'm shocked to know this happ-
Not really.

I think some of us were too quick on putting Japanese Yoshi's on a pedestal. I will clap my hands to them for giving us SHAD to aerials gimmick.

 

[thehard]

Noticed Pink Fresh is back at Xanadu rocking Pit.

 

[Shaya]

If I recall correctly, Fatality played ZeRo in a Falcon ditto money match at APEX and beat him, for all that's worth.

Well, to be fair, Fatality is pretty good, but the region is underrepresented in the meta / you guys don't travel to destroy other regions :<

Also
"wow this Falcon loses to Wario?
Wasn't that match up in Falcon's favour in Brawl even though Falcon was terrible?"
"Who said it was in Falcon's favour?"
"ALLY"
"Oh, I guess fatality ain't gud"~

I got ****ed trying to edgeguard a Pit by breezy flight, super windbox bros is making me very displeased with customs.

My friend who mained/secondaried [Dark] Pit was pretty disappointed that none of the custom sets ended up including that up-special, which was his preference from day1 as it was still a solid recovery, sweetspotted easier IIRC and really couldn't be challenged by anyone to gimp. One of those things that feel like an obvious oversight by their players on the basis of impression rather than practical experience. Did it end up still not finding its way on any of the custom sets?

I actually think its most likely the opposite from what I hear everytime someone goes to Japan, but its not something we'll gather from streams entirely.

Japan has always had a much higher base skill level (or averaged out) than the West. It's obvious their players study and try very hard (heck I get jab locked on Wifi against japanese players, has it ever happened otherwise? Not even close) to be technically proficient with everything they have access to. This gives us a poor impression over here as we see play that is less focused on reads / optimal options but rather players trying to adopt and strengthen their muscle memory with stuff that does give literal gains but is very minute in any given situation. But then the Apex with Brood happens and we realise that every Brawl player in the west has virtually no tech skill whatsoever and the game changed drastically, very very very quickly. Up to that point the ONLY Brawl player in the West known for being technically strong was Mew2King, we all just hailed it as "Melee skills" when everyone else could achieve the same things with buffering (it's around this time more players started beating M2K); M2K likely wasn't ever "buffering" though, which is crazy to think about.

In the West most top players proclaim Perfect Pivots as useless (and everything else), and that will be maintained until people get their asses handed to them. It's the trickle down affect where we're naturally going to mimic what the best players do and if they refuse to use something, the majority won't either.

 

[thehard]

I do know that both False and ESAM see PPs as useful. Pretty sure a lot of contrary feelings are due to the cycle of:

-PPing videos come out, most labeled as some sort of "THE NEW WAVEDASHING!" clickbait
-Social media initially finds this interesting, then backlash due to "lol Smash 4 tech" + "this has always been in the game" + "too hard to be useful"

And then good players actually use them in-game and prove everyone wrong

 

[HeavyLobster]

Has there ever been a tech that was useless in Smash solely due to difficulty and stayed that way throughout the life of the game? Someone always seems to get it down eventually and reaps a reward for doing so.

 

[Smog Frog]

wavedashing in melee wasnt widely used till ken started taking big tournaments

 

[Shaya]

Perfect Pivots and Pivot Walking (now unable to do in Smash4 with the same inputs as before but I think people figured out an alternative) have basically been just that.
PP Implemented at high level in Smash64 to some extent, completely neglected in Melee (when you have dash cancelling and everything else, it's superfluous) and something Marth mains maybe tried out in early Brawl. Pivot Walking was practically useless on everyone bar Marth or Falco (long fox trots + fast walking speed combination).

Pivot walking was always "rumoured" to allow Marth to grab release tipper forward smash Meta Knight. Could never confirm it though because frame advance codes negated buffering. It happened once in a friendly between Mikehaze and M2K.

So yeah, perfect pivots is basically that technique. Maybe this game it'll be different. I found it weird how "easy" pivoting was and thought it had something to do with the game, but it carried onto Brawl the moment I picked it up again one day (although didn't feel exactly the same). I think it has a lot to do with it requiring newer/less worn out controllers, likely being a significant factor to why top players dislike it (who all have their hard-worked broken in [it takes like dozens and dozens of hours doing it 'right' to bring it to this point] Melee Fox controllers with godlike sticks that M2K always wants to buy, but they aren't capable of inputting pivots). The type of controller optimal for Melee/Brawl is one that negates the use of perfect pivots. Heavy pivot use will likely reduce the life time of a controller by a lot too.

Also Ken brought prominence to dash dashing more so than wave dashing.

 

[Quickhero]

I do know that both False and ESAM see PPs as useful. Pretty sure a lot of contrary feelings are due to the cycle of:

-PPing videos come out, most labeled as some sort of "THE NEW WAVEDASHING!" clickbait
-Social media initially finds this interesting, then backlash due to "lol Smash 4 tech" + "this has always been in the game" + "too hard to be useful"

And then good players actually use them in-game and prove everyone wrong

Honestly I think anybody questioning perfect pivoting should play Marth. I use it really frequently for him and it massively buffs his game because of the amount of options you have now. Great distancing tool for tippers, great mix-up tool for Dancing Blade, and I absolutely love the protection perfect pivot to jab has. It's absolutely amazing and I can't imagine my game without perfect pivoting. :3

 

[Ulevo]

Some characters just do not have a benefit for it. And even for those who do it is actually a difficult technique to do consistently to the point where you will use it properly 100% of the time. There will be times where I'll pivot, and there are other times where I'll just do a dash turnaround and leave myself open.

 

[HeavyLobster]

I think it has a lot to do with it requiring newer/less worn out controllers.

This seems true for me. I've been struggling to get perfect pivoting down on my regular controllers but tried it on the gamepad once and could do it somewhat reliably without having to try too hard. It's definitely something that's usable consistently with the right controller but that aspect of it could deter a lot of people who don't want to or can't afford to keep a bunch of new controllers lying around just to be able to do a particular tech that's very niche for most characters.

 

[Shaya]

Some characters just do not have a benefit for it. And even for those who do it is actually a difficult technique to do consistently to the point where you will use it properly 100% of the time. There will be times where I'll pivot, and there are other times where I'll just do a dash turnaround and leave myself open.

You can at the least still do any dash action from that, jump or roll in or away if you know you flubbed the input near instantly. Option-selecting may not be the right term for it, but I try to think of it like that at least (oh messed up the input, well the 'stall' dash attack still puts people off a lot).

This seems true for me. I've been struggling to get perfect pivoting down on my regular controllers but tried it on the gamepad once and could do it somewhat reliably without having to try too hard. It's definitely something that's usable consistently with the right controller but that aspect of it could deter a lot of people who don't want to or can't afford to keep a bunch of new controllers lying around just to be able to do a particular tech that's very niche for most characters.

God forbid you tell someone their prized controller is **** for performing "tech skill". I'm not sure what will be better for a player in the long run, more reliable control of dashing, walking, buffered up airs etc or perfect pivots. Pretty sure the former is more important, but perhaps there's a good sweetspot to be found.

 

[Quickhero]

This seems true for me. I've been struggling to get perfect pivoting down on my regular controllers but tried it on the gamepad once and could do it somewhat reliably without having to try too hard. It's definitely something that's usable consistently with the right controller but that aspect of it could deter a lot of people who don't want to or can't afford to keep a bunch of new controllers lying around just to be able to do a particular tech that's very niche for most characters.

Man, do people these days not think about cleaning their controllers, and making sure they have a slightly damp cloth to clean their analog stick/circle from the sweat/whatever from playing for long hours? I've never had these issues and I've been using my controller quite rigorously lol.

I think any tech that allows a character to utilize in the slightest is worth learning, unless it's something so ridiculously strenuous for some really specific match-up. (that isn't some infinite chaingrab bs) Perfect pivoting definitely isn't that strenuous, it just takes a week or two of practicing consistently so you get used to it at worst.

 

[Ffamran]

Pivot Walking (now unable to do in Smash4 with the same inputs as before but I think people figured out an alternative) have basically been just that.

Er... What do you mean? Isn't it just walk forward, turn around, walk forward, and repeat? I notice Japanese Falco players doing this a lot. Whether or not it's useful is kind of up to debate since nobody really talks about it and I don't know who the players are and how to ask them.

 

[|RK|]

So I hear ZeRo turned to the dark side, and the Chancellor Leffen said all the rest of y'all ain't ****?

 

[Quickhero]

So I hear ZeRo turned to the dark side, and the Chancellor Leffen said all the rest of y'all ain't ****?

Meh, let them do what they do. Unadulterated drama stirs like Leffen's statement have no reason to have a lengthy discussion here.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

So I hear ZeRo turned to the dark side, and the Chancellor Leffen said all the rest of y'all ain't ****?

All I'll say is that there may be a granule of truth to that smacktalk.

...but I think we all need to step it up big time.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Kofu]

the more i play with Swordfighter the more i see him as a watered down Little Mac with an offstage game and a recovery

Do elaborate, my friend, because I'm not seeing the comparison at all. Little Mac completely outstrips Swordfighter on the ground, at least in speed, and his kit is relatively quick both on startup and endlag. Swordfighter seems to have okay startup but miserable endlag. They both have good range, sure, but Swordfighter's is strictly disjoint while Mac's... really isn't.

Er... What do you mean? Isn't it just walk forward, turn around, walk forward, and repeat? I notice Japanese Falco players doing this a lot. Whether or not it's useful is kind of up to debate since nobody really talks about it and I don't know who the players are and how to ask them.

As far as I know, pivot walking looks like the character is kind of sliding forward but turning back and forth. I'd be interested to learn the practical applications of the technique since I thought it was just amusing to look at.

I think perfect pivoting's usefulness depends on the character. It's a combination of length and what the character can get out of it that they can't normally do. Little Mac and Greninja are two notable winners, since Little Mac's air game is so subpar, being able to PP gives him the ability to keep an opponent in disadvantage for longer and set up more brutal traps. Greninja has it similarly; PP gives him better kill setups and attack options (it's part of the reason why aMSa's Greninja is so entertaining to watch). It seems to me that perfect pivoting's main draws are the ability to use UTilt, DTilt, and DSmash (possibly jab) with burst movement, something not normally possible (I could he wrong though).

 

[Trifroze]

One application I found for Falcon's PP was turning around for the back hit of dsmash which is safe on shield on any character whereas the first hit isn't because you have to wait an extra 10 frames for the backhit to come out before you can shield. Many people including me found it a shame that the forward hit of dsmash was nerfed to 14% and the slower back hit buffed to 18% (they were the other way around in Brawl), but it results in this funny outcome which may find some use. It has decent range too and hits very low.

I'd imagine this being useful for the Marios and Luigi as well due to usmash starting from the back.

 

[Vipermoon]

One application I found for Falcon's PP was turning around for the back hit of dsmash which is safe on shield on any character whereas the first hit isn't because you have to wait an extra 10 frames for the backhit to come out before you can shield. Many people including me found it a shame that the forward hit of dsmash was nerfed to 14% and the slower back hit buffed to 18% (they were the other way around in Brawl), but it results in this funny outcome which may find some use. It has decent range too and hits very low.

I'd imagine this being useful for the Marios and Luigi as well due to usmash starting from the back.

Yeah Sakurai was weird with this game and made almost every down smash that hits front-then-back stronger on the backhit. I guess he wasn't to emphasize that the point of a down smash to him is for reading rolls.

 

[TriTails]

Luigi's D-smash is also safe on shield on the backhit. So I assume he can use it in similiar manner as Falcon.

Did I mention the backhit of D-smash somehow kills earlier than sweetspotted U-smash?

 

[Makorel]

My friend who mained/secondaried [Dark] Pit was pretty disappointed that none of the custom sets ended up including that up-special, which was his preference from day1 as it was still a solid recovery, sweetspotted easier IIRC and really couldn't be challenged by anyone to gimp. One of those things that feel like an obvious oversight by their players on the basis of impression rather than practical experience. Did it end up still not finding its way on any of the custom sets?

I admit that Breezy Flight didn't get past the labbing stage for me. The windbox didn't seem to repel attacks to any significant degree, and I am shocked and surprised to hear that it's effective beyond some wrong place wrong time 1 in 100 windbox jank gimp.

 

[HeroMystic]

One application I found for Falcon's PP was turning around for the back hit of dsmash which is safe on shield on any character whereas the first hit isn't because you have to wait an extra 10 frames for the backhit to come out before you can shield. Many people including me found it a shame that the forward hit of dsmash was nerfed to 14% and the slower back hit buffed to 18% (they were the other way around in Brawl), but it results in this funny outcome which may find some use. It has decent range too and hits very low.

I'd imagine this being useful for the Marios and Luigi as well due to usmash starting from the back.

Mario and Luigi can just do JCR U-Smash, which can be done out of a run. PP is more utilized for D-tilt.