Character Competitive Impressions

[ChronoPenguin]

The KB isn't the same, but the difference isn't large.

 

[Shaya]

Monado stance is weird in that regard. I'm sure the way it's programmed in the back end is a complete mess of manual/unique logic for just itself (if how badly done All-Star is would be any indication)
Palutena lightweight is simply 1.1 damage received and that means you're looking at dying 10% earlier from things, if not more. She doesn't seem to get a unique reduction in knockback received to compensate like Shulk does.

 

[Ikes]

The frame data on Wario D-Tilt is absurdly good (hits frame 5, IASA 18). It is -11 on shield, but Wario's hand isn't a grabbable hurtbox, so it's almost entirely safe on shield when decently spaced against non-tethers, and that's assuming they react to it immediately. It's Pikachu/Meta Knight D-Tilt levels of safe.

It has two hitboxes with the same power/knockback; one on his glove and one on his finger. The glove hit sends more outward and the finger hit sends more upward. The finger hit gives slightly better for frame advantage but the glove hitbox has priority if they're in range of both, and it's obviously hard to space so well every time. Thankfully, all that really means is that the second hit of D-Tilt -> D-Tilt will combo just as well as the first one even if it's slightly stale from just being used immediately before.

Because the knockback is relatively low, it doesn't send opponents into tumble until absurdly high percents. That means opponents never go into tumble, which means that Wario D-Tilt is un-DI-able.

Wario D-Tilt's frame advantage is significantly affected by Rage, but the following numbers all assume 0% Rage on Wario with the glove hitbox:

When the opponent is at 0%, it has +1 frame advantage at worst on the whole cast.

D-Tilt has +5 frame advantage against most characters at 40-50%, which allows it to true combo into itself, Dash Attack, and Half Waft (the last one with prior momentum via a run turnaround or being very close to the opponent before D-Tilting).

D-Tilt has +8 frame advantage against most characters at ~80%, which allows it to true combo into Jab, Dash Grab, Neutral-B and D-Smash (the last two with prior momentum via a run turnaround or being very close to the opponent before D-Tilting).

This move is quite possibly the best low-risk hit confirming tilt in the game.

i ****ing love this move seriously, it's one of my favorite moves as wario, it's just too good
a lot of people are quick to shrug it off but they dont understand how good it really is

not to mention its one of the faster tilts in the game

 

[|RK|]

Saying Greninja is a worse Sheik is like asking Luigi to be Green Mario

 

[Kofu]

The KB isn't the same, but the difference isn't large.

This is accurate, in my Throw KO Percent testing the differences from Speed and Shield compared to default were only by a few percent. Buster and Smash, on the other hand... lol.

 

[|RK|]

Curious - what number would we give the Kirby/Olimar matchup? I hear that as soon as Kirby copies Olimar, he effectively wins the match. Now, I haven't played a single half-decent Olimar (I think), but online, it's super easy to completely shut out players with pretty much the one button.

Thoughts?

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Kirby doesn't just win a MU because his pikmin toss beats out Olimars pikmin toss that is nonsense.
I wouldn't give a number to it. However Pik-Kirby garners more respect in that Olimar can't throw Pikmin indiscriminately knowing that Kirby has grounded projectiles that over-power his in a clash, allowing him to put pressure on Olimar to approach him. Kirby has great tilts for CQC, Kirbys more mobile on the ground, and bolsters multi-jumps in the air.


On the other hand..

Kirby still doesn't enjoy challenging disjointed hitboxes which is exactly the reality of Olimar once he actually challenges kirby, even though Kirbys CQC game is impressive. You're not going to throw Pikmin in CQC/mid-range and yet Olimar can still compete because Kirbys hurtboxes are far more exposed.

I'm aware of the Olimar players on FG growing complacent when Kirby copies them. I don't believe that is at all an appropriate representation, as it simplifies Olimar to being solely Pikmin-toss. Theres not enough Olimar players who like to box or more likely, not enough who expect someone like Kirby to put out any sort of demand for them to.

 

[NegaNixx]

I can't give a number to it I've only played the match up once from Kirby's Side. But Olimar has a pretty solid grab game and while Kirby is good at getting in, Olimar can play hit and run while taking advantage of some of Kirby's less than safe options with shield grabs. When Olimar switches from playing a zoning game to a defensive footsies game it gets a lot more even. Olimar has more than just Pikmin to rack up damage. He has a lot of solid tools. Kirby's negligible landing lag and aerial play wins this for him on top of the benefits of Pikmin toss, Olimar definitely keeps it competitive though.

 

[Ikes]

Kirby doesn't just win a MU because his pikmin toss beats out Olimars pikmin toss that is nonsense.
I wouldn't give a number to it. However Pik-Kirby garners more respect in that Olimar can't throw Pikmin indiscriminately knowing that Kirby has grounded projectiles that over-power his in a clash, allowing him to put pressure on Olimar to approach him. Kirby has great tilts for CQC, Kirbys more mobile on the ground, and bolsters multi-jumps in the air.


On the other hand..

Kirby still doesn't enjoy challenging disjointed hitboxes which is exactly the reality of Olimar once he actually challenges kirby, even though Kirbys CQC game is impressive. You're not going to throw Pikmin in CQC/mid-range and yet Olimar can still compete because Kirbys hurtboxes are far more exposed.

I'm aware of the Olimar players on FG growing complacent when Kirby copies them. I don't believe that is at all an appropriate representation, as it simplifies Olimar to being solely Pikmin-toss. Theres not enough Olimar players who like to box or more likely, not enough who expect someone like Kirby to put out any sort of demand for them to.

Kirby seems to have better matchups the more useful his copy ability is

anyone with a bad copy ability seems to be a worse matchup for kirby, but maybe thats just me

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I should rework my angle on Pac-Man here. I know about the Trampoline and don't deny it's a great tool ("best OoS in the game" is hyperbole but it's good). I think he has a lot of good tools even though I think people underestimate what using them against him can mean (since things like the hydrant equally affect both Pac-Man and his opponent, you can pretend like the Hydrant is your own projectile and use the effects of it to your advantage, stuff like that). Talking about his tools isn't the core of why I think he's really bad though since King Dedede and Mii Swordfighter also have good tools; I'm thinking about MUs and how his weaknesses translate there.

I see two main ways Pac-Man loses. If his opponent is one of the best zoning characters, he gets outcamped and has a really poor toolset for escalating the conflict beyond a losing attrition battle (and eating the pellet just doesn't work in practice; the healing would need to be approximately 3x as big for it to be enough to offset the hits he'll take trying to generate the pellet). My experience with Rosalina (and what dabuz did to abadango at APEX) strongly suggests to me that Rosalina has a large advantage in this MU since she simply does not have to approach ever and Pac-Man has very poor options to get in on her. I think the game theory would support Villager, Olimar, Toon Link, and Mega Man being able to do similar things. On the opposite side, Pac-Man has one of the very worst recoveries in the game to have against a character who is excellent at gimping. His recovery has multiple ways to work and huge distance, but it's really telegraphed and exploitable. If he's too far out for a single bounce on his trampoline to bring him back, he has two equally bad options. He can use the up-B to multi-bounce which is really slow with really limited movement leaving him open to both being swatted out of it and to having his trampoline stolen out from under him, or he could use his side-B which literally draws a line telling his opponent where he's going to go as he recovers. Against a typical character maybe he can be just dynamic enough to muddle through, but against the characters with very high mobility who are also extremely strong off-stage, he has a big problem. We could argue precisely how many characters this is, but I think it's at least safe to include Sheik, Sonic, Fox, Pikachu, Zero Suit Samus, Captain Falcon, and Meta Knight. Characters with poor recoveries in those MUs generally can do "okay" by focusing on center stage and relying on power hits to minimize the off-stage game. Pac-Man's zoning game is more about preventing the loss of space than gaining space (if his opponent is already at center stage, his projectiles are not the best pressure to make them move) and Pac-Man is significantly lacking in power moves so many off-stage exchanges will happen in these match-up. It would be rational to conclude that this style of match-up is also a big losing point for Pac-Man.

At this point I've listed 12 characters, a set of 12 that includes a large number of characters commonly believed to be among the strongest in the game, who would seem to have a large advantage against Pac-Man. If Pac-Man's strengths give him very large advantages in other MUs he could be a counterpick character, but I don't think they really do. I can easily imagine him doing pretty okay in a lot of other MUs (like vs, say, the Mario bros), but I don't think his toolset lends itself well to shutting people down hard and claiming easy wins. If the above match-up analysis is not significantly wrong, this makes Pac-Man one of the worst characters in the game by virtue of having a very bad match-up chart. In what aspect would the Pac-Man fans argue the above analysis is significantly wrong and that Pac-Man does very well in some or all of these match-ups?

For what it's worth, I stand by Pac-Man being a bottom 5 character and as I've learned more about the character have been more and more convinced of this but also assert that it speaks very well for the game for him to be bottom 5. A character like Pac-Man would have been a solid mid in Melee or Brawl, but 4 did such a good job of fixing up would-be low tiers that what used to make a solid mid now makes bottom 5 material. He's still playable just... worse than most other choices.


---

I mostly want to talk about Pac-Man, but to bring up Kirby and good match-ups, from what I've seen Kirby really enjoys MUs against characters who struggle to hit a ducking Kirby. Wii Fit Trainer is the best example of this, but a lot of the full sized human characters (Rosalina, Falcon, Ganon off the top of my head) just whiff a lot if they aren't careful which gives Kirby a nice edge. Kirby is too well rounded (both gameplay wise and literally) to shut other characters down and dominate MUs, but I think being able to make his hurtbox so small is in general a bigger unique thing for him than the powers.

 

[Dabuz]

Pacman is not even close to bottom 5, like...literally no one has an easy time approaching him and even though his worst mus are probs rosa/ oli/ megaman because better camping, he still can play him game with some more aggressive adjustments.

 

[bc1910]

Couldn't agree more. Pac-Man is a difficult character to understand but there's no way a character who shuts down that many approaches with such ease is bottom 5. Pac can literally grind the game to a standstill if he wants, no bad character can do that in this game, heck no-one below high tier can do that in this game (though IMO high tier is quite large).

 

[Nu~]

Pax-Man loses to better camping?Yeah...no. When half of your fruit outprioritizes the opponent's projectiles (mega man and olimar) and you have a better CQC than just about every other camp based character in the game, you will have no problems against them.
@Drippy Already knows how the mega man matchup goes. Every projectile is beat by the melon, Galixian, or key, and ten we can just barge in a take advantage of mega man's poor CQC. Olimar's Pikmin latch onto the fruit, and die when the fruit is thrown. They all lose to apple and higher fruits.

And Rosa isn't even a hard matchup tbh. Abadango just didn't know the matchup. He tried to zone Rosa out...
Like, come on now. We have the options to rush her down in mid range.
GP is rediculously unsafe if the Pac-Man plays in mid range. He can just pick his fruit back up and punish if she manages to GP.

Just about every Pac-Man main on this board has researched the rosa matchup further and come to the conclusion that it isn't in Rosa's favor.
@ BSP plays the matchup in a way to actually camp her out using pellets and hydrant
Me @Sinji and @fromundaman
Play a more aggressive way against her. The misconception that Rosa beats Pac-Man needs to stop.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Pac man wins the Rosalina matchup ?
Yeah... no. She invalidates 2 of his best tools and beats him up close with large disjointed hitboxes. And Luma. Luma exists. Pac man is solid but saying he beats Rosalina is just... pushing it.

 

[Earthboundy]

Does Diddy still beat RosaLuma?

 

[Shaya]

Oh and I feel like Greninja is more like a hybrid of ZSS/Marth than whatever/Sheik.
Mobility/trap/spacing based characters, throw in some smash pokemon archetypes and voila.

Also not intending to be antagonistic, but Pacman seems to have a very high opinion on their match ups, potentially the most overrated I've ever seen (Marth mains, kettle, black). Is there a single match up you/your board considers worse than even? All I ever hear is advantages on everyone and evens with sheik and with such a low amount of results and I doubt, if ever, much consensus between the boards you discuss match ups with I really have to wonder what's truly up?

I can see pac being some underrated, underplayed, exceptionally hard to master character, but... It's hard to take what you hear about anything of pac's seriously (bar third parties) with the zeal we hear the majority of it in.

 

[Nu~]

Pac man wins the Rosalina matchup ?
Yeah... no. She invalidates 2 of his best tools and beats him up close with large disjointed hitboxes. And Luma. Luma exists. Pac man is solid but saying he beats Rosalina is just... pushing it.

That's the misconception right there. She doesn't "invalidate" the hydrant or fruit. GP our fruit in mid range will get her punished, and our hydrant is immediately refreshed if she tries to GP it. Again, we can fair the hydrant and run up behind it to punish rosa. She doesn't get to GP for free in this matchup at all unless the Pac-Man doesn't follow behind his projectiles.
Our Dair has a strange property that allows it to kill Luma immediately, and our attacks come out much faster than hers in close range.

@ Shaya
Sonic is our worst matchup. And we have called boards over to discuss matchups plenty of times. They just don't always show up because few people respect our character.

 

[Smog Frog]

i think fairs hitbox is still intact so probably @ Earthboundy

 

[Spinosaurus]

@ Shaya
Sonic is our worst matchup. And we have called boards over to discuss matchups plenty of times. They just don't always show up because few people respect our character.

Maybe they just don't know the matchup? :V

 

[NachoOfCheese]

That's the misconception right there. She doesn't "invalidate" the hydrant or fruit. GP our fruit in mid range will get her punished, and our hydrant is immediately refreshed if she tries to GP it. Again, we can fair the hydrant and run up behind it to punish rosa. She doesn't get to GP for free in this matchup at all unless the Pac-Man doesn't follow behind his projectiles.
Our Dair has a strange property that allows it to kill Luma immediately, and our attacks come out much faster than hers in close range.

@ Shaya
Sonic is our worst matchup. And we have called boards over to discuss matchups plenty of times. They just don't always show up because few people respect our character.

I disagree but I respect your opinion regardless.

 

[Nu~]

Many Pac-Man mains feel that we don't lose any matchups, but at the same time, we don't beat characters very hard (except little Mac).
Similar to Mario in that regard.
We always have something up our sleeve to handle the opponent, but we don't really invalidate that many characters.
Then again, we are still discussing matchups atm. We've gone over most of the "perceived" top tiers, but still have many more matchups to discuss.

Then when it comes to results, Abadango and Chef Pac have backed up many of our matchup theories so far, and neither utilize all of Pac-Man's options yet.

 

[Teshie U]

megaman bad for pacman? the only time i use pacman is against megaman in tournament.

 

[Nu~]

megaman bad for pacman? the only time i use pacman is against megaman in tournament.

That matchup is firmly in our favor. People just think that Pac gets camped out which isn't necessarily true

 

[Gunla]

I feel like I can't say it enough, but Greninja's similarities to Sheik are basically the ninja motif and her being a decent secondary to cover Greninja's disadvantageous matchups (like Fox, Sonic, Sheik, etc).

The characters can benefit from empty short hops very well, but they are particularly different in most regards.

Oh and I feel like Greninja is more like a hybrid of ZSS/Marth than whatever/Sheik.
Mobility/trap/spacing based characters, throw in some smash pokemon archetypes and voila.

This I can attest to moreso. Greninja requires a lot of spacing with some moves (notably Fair and Uair), and definitely has high mobility.

 

[Trifroze]

The original comparison was Falcon/Sheik. Mobility, traps and spacing are literally all both of them do, although Sheik can also camp.

 

[bc1910]

Yeah of all the characters I think ZSS is the best comparison with Greninja. They have a far closer playstyle than Greninja and Sheik do. Also their mobility is pretty much neck and neck, like most of their stats are only 1 place apart when you rank the characters. They are probably tied for best overall mobility in the game, I know tiny Brawler is a mobility monster but his vertical mobility (jump height and fall speed) isn't great.

 

[Teshie U]

That matchup is firmly in our favor. People just think that Pac gets camped out which isn't necessarily true

I used him because I feel HE outcamps megaman and beats him close up.

 

[Cassio]

Who was it that was saying Lucario might do well against sheik? Apparently aggronizing, a lucario player in socal, took a game from Larry and then Larry switched to fox. I know people know Larry mostly for his fox but I believe he's beaten tyrants diddy with sheik prepatch and is probably socals best sheik besides Zero.

 

[MoosyDoosy]

Many Pac-Man mains feel that we don't lose any matchups, but at the same time, we don't beat characters very hard (except little Mac).
Similar to Mario in that regard.
We always have something up our sleeve to handle the opponent, but we don't really invalidate that many characters.
Then again, we are still discussing matchups atm. We've gone over most of the "perceived" top tiers, but still have many more matchups to discuss.

Then when it comes to results, Abadango and Chef Pac have backed up many of our matchup theories so far, and neither utilize all of Pac-Man's options yet.

Just because you have a tool versus a character doesn't mean you win the matchup or make it even. It just gives you another option which the opponent has to be wary of but I doubt he'd be a total fool and disregard it anyway. You can't just assume that Pac Man will be "unleashed" in the future while assuming your opponents are fools. You have to look at the current state of Pac Man and analyze him from there as well as looking at the general skill level of whatever character you're analyzing Pac Man against. If that was the case we'd be having discussions about a "perfect" Diddy vs "perfect" Sheik but we don't.

 

[Shaya]

Many Pac-Man mains feel that we don't lose any matchups, but at the same time, we don't beat characters very hard (except little Mac).
Similar to Mario in that regard.
We always have something up our sleeve to handle the opponent, but we don't really invalidate that many characters.
Then again, we are still discussing matchups atm. We've gone over most of the "perceived" top tiers, but still have many more matchups to discuss.

Then when it comes to results, Abadango and Chef Pac have backed up many of our matchup theories so far, and neither utilize all of Pac-Man's options yet.

What are the opinions of those two players on those match ups?
I tend to see Pacman as this heavily option rich character... but I don't know how they suddenly give him good match ups with everyone, I really don't. Sonic in Brawl was an exceptional option rich character but still "sucked", or was commonly seen as a gimmick.

I don't believe his shield/grab issues are remedied by trampolining, enough. He has a very poor ground game (imo) while having exceptional aerials, but I don't find they can act as a wall of fortitude like Mario. Being generally very condition-specific combined with very steep requirements to get kills just doesn't scream to me functional enough of a kit to succeed in more match ups than most "perceived top tiers" can boast.

Definitely agree Pac has room to grow and it's good there's so much theory and various options to crack open match up discussions (most characters play a majority of their match ups statically unfortunately). Over the long term if it works out I'll be happy to be wrong, but right now I can't help but be skeptical.

 

[Smog Frog]

Yeah of all the characters I think ZSS is the best comparison with Greninja. They have a far closer playstyle than Greninja and Sheik do. Also their mobility is pretty much neck and neck, like most of their stats are only 1 place apart when you rank the characters. They are probably tied for best overall mobility in the game, I know tiny Brawler is a mobility monster but his vertical mobility (jump height and fall speed) isn't great.

tiny brawler has falco height jumps, he just falls slow

 

[Ulevo]

What the hell, why does this only work on Sheik?

Sakurai, please.

 

[BSP]

I see two main ways Pac-Man loses. If his opponent is one of the best zoning characters, he gets outcamped and has a really poor toolset for escalating the conflict beyond a losing attrition battle (and eating the pellet just doesn't work in practice; the healing would need to be approximately 3x as big for it to be enough to offset the hits he'll take trying to generate the pellet).

If Pac-Man is getting outcamped, the rest of his move set still exists. Outside of smashes and grab, his moves come out pretty quickly and trampoline beats shields + pulls people out of defensive maneuvers, along with being pretty safe against the characters we're considering for outcamping him.

The hydrant water is pretty useful for when people are trying to wall him out too. If the camper isn't doing it from center stage, planting a hydrant past that point means that the water will push them off of the stage unless they spend time shielding, rolling past it, jumping, etc. Meanwhile Pac-Man can harass them from above with Strawberry and Apple.

Pellet healing works unless the camper has a high rate of fire with their projectiles. Even if it doesn't, Pac-Man doesn't have to sit back.

My experience with Rosalina (and what dabuz did to abadango at APEX) strongly suggests to me that Rosalina has a large advantage in this MU since she simply does not have to approach ever and Pac-Man has very poor options to get in on her.

Pac-Man doesn't have to go over there either. Why does he have to approach? Continuous Fair launched hydrants put neutral in his favor unless Rosalina chooses to rush him down.

He can use the up-B to multi-bounce which is really slow with really limited movement leaving him open to both being swatted out of it and to having his trampoline stolen out from under him, or he could use his side-B which literally draws a line telling his opponent where he's going to go as he recovers.

If Pac-Man is under the ledge when he uses Up B, he's not in much danger. The trampoline will save him from meteors and he should be ready to tech stage spike attempts. Between his floatiness, second jump, and side B, he shouldn't have much trouble getting to this point.

For the third jump being stolen, he shouldn't go so low that it's required. If he does end up in that situation, yes, he should be dead.

Against a typical character maybe he can be just dynamic enough to muddle through, but against the characters with very high mobility who are also extremely strong off-stage, he has a big problem. We could argue precisely how many characters this is, but I think it's at least safe to include Sheik, Sonic, Fox, Pikachu, Zero Suit Samus, Captain Falcon, and Meta Knight. Characters with poor recoveries in those MUs generally can do "okay" by focusing on center stage and relying on power hits to minimize the off-stage game. Pac-Man's zoning game is more about preventing the loss of space than gaining space (if his opponent is already at center stage, his projectiles are not the best pressure to make them move) and Pac-Man is significantly lacking in power moves so many off-stage exchanges will happen in these match-up. It would be rational to conclude that this style of match-up is also a big losing point for Pac-Man.

Pac-Man can certainly be edge guarded, but I don't think it's as easy as you're making it out to be.

As for the high mobility characters, let's not forget how Pac-Man can warp neutral for some of them. For Falcon, Sonic, Fox, and possibly MK (not much exp with this one), trampoline does some pretty serious work. Yes, Pac-Man needs time to set it up, but once he does he no longer has to worry about their running and grab games for the most part. He'll have to contend with lagless aerials, but I'll take that over their speed and grab games.

ZSS has a bad grab too, so she's not as bad as you'd think. I didn't test to see if she can run through hydrants, but I usually haven't had issues with her to where I needed to consider it.

Pikachu and Sheik are problems for him though, no doubt.

In what aspect would the Pac-Man fans argue the above analysis is significantly wrong and that Pac-Man does very well in some or all of these match-ups?

You're sleeping on trampoline.

And Rosa isn't even a hard matchup tbh. Abadango just didn't know the matchup. He tried to zone Rosa out...

Which Pac-Man can do if done properly.

Just about every Pac-Man main on this board has researched the rosa matchup further and come to the conclusion that it isn't in Rosa's favor.

I agree.

Also not intending to be antagonistic, but Pacman seems to have a very high opinion on their match ups, potentially the most overrated I've ever seen (Marth mains, kettle, black). Is there a single match up you/your board considers worse than even?

Sheik, Pikachu, Sonic, Fox, and Toon Link are among the worse, 40:60 at best IMO. To me, 40:60 means the opponent has a clear advantage, but you can still win. I think he loses to Mario, DDD (can't KO this guy...), Link, Falcon, and probably others, but I don't think worse than 40:60.

I tend to see Pacman as this heavily option rich character... but I don't know how they suddenly give him good match ups with everyone, I really don't. Sonic in Brawl was an exceptional option rich character but still "sucked", or was commonly seen as a gimmick.

I said the same thing a while ago.

I don't believe his shield/grab issues are remedied by trampolining, enough. He has a very poor ground game (imo) while having exceptional aerials, but I don't find they can act as a wall of fortitude like Mario. Being generally very condition-specific combined with very steep requirements to get kills just doesn't scream to me functional enough of a kit to succeed in more match ups than most "perceived top tiers" can boast.

Yes, trampoline only does so much, and KO'ing is not one of those things. He's never making top tier because of his grab, and outside of ledge traps he can't KO reliably. Even then, the traps have some counterplay.

Definitely agree Pac has room to grow and it's good there's so much theory and various options to crack open match up discussions (most characters play a majority of their match ups statically unfortunately). Over the long term if it works out I'll be happy to be wrong, but right now I can't help but be skeptical.

This goes both ways. Lots of people still don't know how to fight him either. Many of the faster characters can run through fire hydrant, and many players still waste time trying to smack it at Pac-Man instead of realizing

" Hey, he's spent one of his mixups and it's on cool down for a while. I should ignore it and go beat him up"

 

[FullMoon]

I just don't get why we need to compare Greninja with other characters like that when he just plays completely differently from anybody else even if we do have some similarities here and there with other characters (I do agree that ZSS is the closest to being similar to Greninja though) he still has his own unique gameplay style and I never see any other character being called a worse version of another character in the game as much as Greninja even though he plays nothing like them.

 

[Ikes]

What the hell, why does this only work on Sheik?

Sakurai, please.

can someone test this with TL's fire arrows?

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Many Pac-Man mains feel that we don't lose any matchups, but at the same time, we don't beat characters very hard (except little Mac).
Similar to Mario in that regard.
We always have something up our sleeve to handle the opponent, but we don't really invalidate that many characters.
Then again, we are still discussing matchups atm. We've gone over most of the "perceived" top tiers, but still have many more matchups to discuss.

Then when it comes to results, Abadango and Chef Pac have backed up many of our matchup theories so far, and neither utilize all of Pac-Man's options yet.

So the Pac-Man boards feel that they are basically a marginally worse Brawl!Metaknight when it comes to MU spreads? Because that sounds a lot like Brawl!Metaknight, just without stomping on the bottom 25% of the cast.

I'm going to be very blunt right now: I'd argue that calls for a reality check for your board as a whole. Pac-Man is not Brawl!MetaKnight. Nor is he in the same realm as Sheik, Diddy, Sonic, etc. He's a good character yes, but not THAT good. He might be bottom of the top 10 portion of the list at best. And that's probably pushing it considering you have to think about Sheik, Diddy, Rosalina, Mii Brawler (if we're talking customs here as well), Sonic, ZSS, Yoshi, Mario, Luigi, Captain Falcon, Ness, some would argue Greninja is still very good just overly anti-hyped due to his nerfs... and importantly I don't think anybody in that list is claiming to have a MU spread like the one the Pac-Man boards are apparently claiming. Diddy used to before the nerf, Sheik I've seen a few times where she might have a slightly negative MU.

If people see a character board trying to claim a spread like that, with a character that is most likely not top 10, what incentive do they have to even bother trying to have a discussion?

I'm not going to claim I'm an expert on Pac-Man or anything like that, but I'd suspect that you have some 6-4s that should be 5-5s, and some 5-5s that should be 4-6s. Keep in mind 4-6s are certainly still winnable, it doesn't suddenly mean that your top players can't consistently win the MU (particularly when there are so few Pac-Mans, so your top players probably have a lot of experience in that MU while their opponent doesn't).

 

[Zelder]

Yeah, I don't even think Yun had an even to positive matchup spread against the rest of the cast at the height of SS4:AE, and he was deliberately designed to be slightly overwhelming to the rest of the cast.

 

[Antonykun]

So the Pac-Man boards feel that they are basically a marginally worse Brawl!Metaknight when it comes to MU spreads? Because that sounds a lot like Brawl!Metaknight, just without stomping on the bottom 25% of the cast.

I'm going to be very blunt right now: I'd argue that calls for a reality check for your board as a whole. Pac-Man is not Brawl!MetaKnight. Nor is he in the same realm as Sheik, Diddy, Sonic, etc. He's a good character yes, but not THAT good. He might be bottom of the top 10 portion of the list at best. And that's probably pushing it considering you have to think about Sheik, Diddy, Rosalina, Mii Brawler (if we're talking customs here as well), Sonic, ZSS, Yoshi, Mario, Luigi, Captain Falcon, Ness, some would argue Greninja is still very good just overly anti-hyped due to his nerfs... and importantly I don't think anybody in that list is claiming to have a MU spread like the one the Pac-Man boards are apparently claiming. Diddy used to before the nerf, Sheik I've seen a few times where she might have a slightly negative MU.

If people see a character board trying to claim a spread like that, with a character that is most likely not top 10, what incentive do they have to even bother trying to have a discussion?

I'm not going to claim I'm an expert on Pac-Man or anything like that, but I'd suspect that you have some 6-4s that should be 5-5s, and some 5-5s that should be 4-6s. Keep in mind 4-6s are certainly still winnable, it doesn't suddenly mean that your top players can't consistently win the MU (particularly when there are so few Pac-Mans, so your top players probably have a lot of experience in that MU while their opponent doesn't).

*goes to pacman boards*
*Notices 60:40 is a slight advantage*
that explains it

 

[ParanoidDrone]

*goes to pacman boards*
*Notices 60:40 is a slight advantage*
that explains it

I mean...isn't that what 60:40 basically is? A slight advantage?

(The fact that the same numbers can mean different things to different people is why I've stopped caring too much about them.)

 

[Zelder]

50:50 is even
60:40 is an advantage
70:30 is a distinct advantage
80:20 is Mike Tyson versus a child
90:10 is a steamroller versus a person in a sleeping bag
100:0 is you unplugging your opponents controller at the start of the match and then beating them to death with it