Character Competitive Impressions

[Iron Kraken]

Maybe if she had some sort of amazing low % kill option I'd be more worried about her. She has several "bad" smash traits that keep her in check. If she was Kirby's size with some sort of killmove that had invincibility on start up and... wait a minute...

Umm, what? Rosalina DOES have amazing low % kill options. Side-Smash, Up-Smash, U-Air, Dair (either by blasting sideways or spiking, depending on where it connects) can all kill very early. Not to mention her extremely strong gimping ability.

 

[SaltyKracka]

Not to say that Rosalina ISNT the best character, but I certainly feel skeptical about a character with comparatively low mobility being the best in a series that places such great emphasis on it. If you look to previous titles this theme is pervasive as well. Of course Brawl ICs present the best example of a less than mobile character doing well in the series in spite of this, which allows for comparisons to Rosalina. Still, I think people are overhyping Rosalina a bit too much when her slow movement is more than just a typical weakness, especially as players improve their own mobility.

Just FYI, the speed rankings have Rosalina at just above average and average at running and walking speeds respectively. Since there hasn't been any chart made of air mobility, I can't say with any confidence about it, but I seriously doubt she's actually slow in the air.

So just...y'know...check your data before you say dumb things, arright? Don't offend people who main characters with actual mobility problems.

 

[Gea]

Umm, what? Rosalina DOES have amazing low % kill options. Side-Smash, Up-Smash, U-Air, Dair (either by blasting sideways or spiking, depending on where it connects) can all kill very early. Not to mention her extremely strong gimping ability.

None of which kill at "amazingly low %s" unless you are at the blastzone already.

Just FYI, the speed rankings have Rosalina at just above average and average at running and walking speeds respectively. Since there hasn't been any chart made of air mobility, I can't say with any confidence about it, but I seriously doubt she's actually slow in the air.

So just...y'know...check your data before you say dumb things, arright? Don't offend people who main characters with actual mobility problems.

She has pretty good walk/dash speed but when people are talking about her air mobility they are right. She is one of the slowest vertical fallers in the game. She is incredibly floaty.

Edit: I feel like my posts are constantly pooping on Rosalina despite me thinking her one of the best characters in the game. People need to stop overblowing her strengths. Look at the top tournaments this weekend and character placings. Look at attributes that have made former polarizing smash characters polarizing. She is a really, really good character. She isn't a Pikachu, Sheik, or MK in how she is impacting the game thus far.

 

[SaltyKracka]

air mobility they are right. She is one of the slowest vertical fallers in the game. She is incredibly floaty.

Actually, let's talk about this! It's interesting, because aerial mobility does have several components, with horizontal acceleration and top speed, and normal/fastfall speed.

Now, I'm of the opinion that the most important component of aerial mobility is horizontal speed and acceleration, as seen in anybody who's ever played Jiggs or Peach competitively. But you do have a point that floatiness and fall speed are important, not least because of their effect on combos (see, combos that only work on spacies, Brawl chaingrabs and grab-release shenanigans, etc) but also because of their effect on airchasing.

Of course, none of this is relevant because nobody can challenge her aerial hitboxes, but it would be an interesting discussion!

 

[Gea]

So what you're saying is you don't want to have a discussion at all. Great. She should obviously spend the entire match in the air spamming aerials because they cannot be beaten.

 

[deepseadiva]

So much hyperbole in this thread.

 

[Iron Kraken]

None of which kill at "amazingly low %s" unless you are at the blastzone already.

If you don't think Rosalina kills at amazingly low %s I would like to know who you think does. Her Up-Smash can kill most characters around 100%. Her side smash with Luma has absurd range and yet will kill at below 100% if you're relatively close to the edge of the stage. I've seen her U-Air kill at ~85% a lot, and I've seen her Dair (not even counting the spike, which can obviously kill extremely early) send opponents into the blast zone in the 70s% at the edge of the stage. Heck, even her jab can kill early. This has Nakat shaking his head the other day. Not to mention that Luma by himself can kill fairly easy with its side-smash and Dair.

She has pretty good walk/dash speed but when people are talking about her air mobility they are right. She is one of the slowest vertical fallers in the game. She is incredibly floaty.

Her ground mobility is above average, and as SaltyKracka pointed out the theoretical disadvantage of her floatiness in the air is totally negated by the fact that her aerial attack hitboxes have insane range, last for an absurd number of frames, and have priority over pretty much everything.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

She isn't a Pikachu, Sheik, or MK in how she is impacting the game thus far.

This is actually a fairly moot point because the amount of smash 4 tournamnts so far has been rather low and no offline tourney outside of Japan has even cracked the 100-entrants mark yet. But dabuz and Aphro have won tourneys somewhat consistently in regions that are traditionally among the strongest in the USA. The truth is that she's the only dominant character alongside Diddy Kong right now.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Of course, none of this is relevant because nobody can challenge her aerial hitboxes, but it would be an interesting discussion!

'Nuff said.

She may win the matchup in other ways, but if D3 isn't getting knocked around I can almost guarantee he'll beat her air-to-air. I also think characters with disjoints can do so as well.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Tagxy]

Just FYI, the speed rankings have Rosalina at just above average and average at running and walking speeds respectively. Since there hasn't been any chart made of air mobility, I can't say with any confidence about it, but I seriously doubt she's actually slow in the air.

So just...y'know...check your data before you say dumb things, arright? Don't offend people who main characters with actual mobility problems.

Comparative being the key word. Average stats are slow compared to people with real mobility, but I guess I shouldve been more explicit. Shes a floaty character with middling ground mobility (her walk appears to be below average actually). Obviously she and other characters have other great traits to make up for it, but not exactly someone you would call mobile.

 

[Iron Kraken]

Comparative being the key word. Average stats are slow compared to people with real mobility, but I guess I shouldve been more explicit. Shes a floaty character with middling ground mobility (her walk appears to be below average actually). Obviously she and other characters have other great traits to make up for it, but not exactly someone you would call mobile.

It's silly to try to judge a character's traits in a vacuum. If Rosalina's aerial attacks were the exact same as Sheik's, then her floatiness would be an issue. But that's not how it works. The nature of Rosalina's aerial attack neutralize the problem of her floatiness completely, and turn her aerial game into a big advantage.

 

[Tagxy]

Neutralize her floatiness completely? Or people havent learned how to properly take advantage of it properly yet? Im inclined to believe the latter. Its one thing to say mitigates and in some ways being floaty has its advantages, but lets be realistic here.

Also directed at several posts, but having great aerial priority doesnt mean diddly-squat if you cant apply it right. See: melee luigi. Also note, this doesnt mean rosalina cant apply it, but there certainly seems to be some exaggeration going on if someones saying we dont have to analyze other attributes just because she has great priority on aerial.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

"Looking at character traits in a vacuum?"

Are you talking about the people waxing on about Rosalina being high tier? 'Cause if you are, you're right about that.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Gea]

If you don't think Rosalina kills at amazingly low %s I would like to know who you think does. Her Up-Smash can kill most characters around 100%. Her side smash with Luma has absurd range and yet will kill at below 100% if you're relatively close to the edge of the stage. I've seen her U-Air kill at ~85% a lot, and I've seen her Dair (not even counting the spike, which can obviously kill extremely early) send opponents into the blast zone in the 70s% at the edge of the stage. Heck, even her jab can kill early. This has Nakat shaking his head the other day. Not to mention that Luma by himself can kill fairly easy with its side-smash and Dair..

Let's take a quick look at Dabuz since you like bringing him up for proof of Rosalina's success. In actual tournament environment (Grand Finals no less) he made kills at the following %s (post hit):

Vs Ness:
1st match
124% (footstool gimp)
(He never takes the second stock and loses)

2nd match
151% (angled fsmash at the edge)
15% (SD)

Vs Fox:
92% (angled Fsmash at the edge)
120% (angled fsmash at the edge)

Vs Sheik:
178% (fthrow)
126% (uair)

 

[Iron Kraken]

Neutralize her floatiness completely? Or people havent learned how to properly take advantage of it properly yet? Im inclined to believe the latter. Its one thing to say mitigates and in some ways being floaty has its advantages, but lets be realistic here.

Also directed at several posts, but having great aerial priority doesnt mean diddly-squat if you cant apply it right. See: melee luigi. Also note, this doesnt mean rosalina cant apply it, but there certainly seems to be some exaggeration going on.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that Rosalina has an extremely strong aerial game. I'm not saying her floatiness in itself is a positive quality; I'm saying that whatever disadvantage her floatiness presents is easily outweighed by the effectiveness of her aerial attacks.

Let's take a quick look at Dabuz since you like bringing him up for proof of Rosalina's success. In actual tournament environment (Grand Finals no less) he made kills at the following %s (post hit):

Vs Ness:
1st match
124% (footstool gimp)
(He never takes the second stock and loses)

2nd match
151% (angled fsmash at the edge)
15% (SD)

Vs Fox:
92% (angled Fsmash at the edge)
120% (angled fsmash at the edge)

Vs Sheik:
178% (fthrow)
126% (uair)

Rosalina is capable of killing at very low %, relative to most other characters in Smash 4. In general, KOing is harder in Smash 4. But this sample size of 7 KOs isn't saying much. I can find you plenty of other matches (with or without Dabuz) in which Rosalina KOs at low %s.

 

[ThatLunaticFeline]

Of course, none of this is relevant because nobody can challenge her aerial hitboxes, but it would be an interesting discussion!

Nair has literally absurd range. Fair is quicker and also pretty OK rage. All Smashes outreach Rosaluma's hitboxes.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I don't think there is a character like the former top tiers in smash 4. I believe Rosalina to be the best character in the game, but Yoshi and Sonic are really close, Villager is really in their league (I still feel people are really, massively sleeping on this guy and the absurd power of Timber Counter), and none of them are really that far ahead of the rest of the generally high tier characters. Rosalina is also not really that hard to challenge air to air; her aerials are amazing for following up and are definitely good overall, but she's so floaty and her aerials have really long commitments so it's often easy for the other player to whiff punish her by using their own aerial mobility or by coming at her from angles she covers poorly (the only diagonal she easily covers is the one in front of her and above; on the other three diagonals she has weak coverage, and in general for defensive use below, I'm just completely unimpressed with her dair). I don't actually feel like Rosalina has an easy winning algorithm in general; she's really good mostly for the sheer diversity of tactics she can employ and her sheer adaptability at being able to handle all kinds of crazy situations (as a complete contrast to ICs, her helper is something she can choose to use in a ton of different ways as opposed to a babysitting job). There's no one straightforward and simple plan of abusing a few strong moves or tactics that will get her wins even against lower tier characters, and that makes her an interesting top tier.

I've been thinking though; we've been really scattered in here, and smash Wii U is getting close. I think most of us do have internal tier lists that, while probably all individually inaccurate, would average to a good sense of public perception on the balance and might allow us to have more directed discussion (see where we believe average opinions to be most wrong and look into those characters more). Would people be opposed to forming a preliminary community tier list by a bunch of us just putting forth our individual lists and averaging them? I'd probably want to make a separate topic for the process so this one wouldn't be clogged by that kind of discussion killer (and yeah, I have the details of the format worked out if we go ahead with it), but I think the information that could provide would be interesting and could really help us frame this discussion going forward. Thoughts?

 

[Tagxy]

@Ironkraken Saying theyre outweighed isnt helpful since theyre not on a spectrum in that way. Would her aerials become worse if she were less floaty? Im guessing not but if thats the case then she may have other issues. I completely understand Rosalina shines in a different and relevant area that allows her to succeed, and as I said before Im not saying she isnt (or is) the best character. But her middling mobility should raise eyebrows when considering her strength and the smash series.

Also keep in mind Gea was comparing her to MK's ability to kill.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I've been thinking though; we've been really scattered in here, and smash Wii U is getting close. I think most of us do have internal tier lists that, while probably all individually inaccurate, would average to a good sense of public perception on the balance and might allow us to have more directed discussion (see where we believe average opinions to be most wrong and look into those characters more). Would people be opposed to forming a preliminary community tier list by a bunch of us just putting forth our individual lists and averaging them? I'd probably want to make a separate topic for the process so this one wouldn't be clogged by that kind of discussion killer (and yeah, I have the details of the format worked out if we go ahead with it), but I think the information that could provide would be interesting and could really help us frame this discussion going forward. Thoughts?

I think such a tier list formed by averaging everyone's opinion would be quite interesting to read, at the very least. Record it for posterity somewhere and see how accurate it ends up being after a few years.

 

[Iron Kraken]

@Ironkraken Saying theyre outweighed isnt helpful since theyre not on a spectrum in that way. Would her aerials become worse if she were less floaty? Im guessing not but if thats the case then she may have other issues. I completely understand Rosalina shines in a different and relevant area that allows her to succeed, and as I said before Im not saying she isnt (or is) the best character. But her middling mobility should raise eyebrows when considering her strength and the smash series.

Also keep in mind Gea was comparing her to MK's ability to kill.

Fair enough. And Rosalina is certainly no Brawl Meta Knight. I think Rosalina will ultimately be at the top of top tier in Smash 4 (time will tell), but I doubt she'll ever be anywhere near broken, and I hardly think that the top Smash 4 players will be dominated by Rosalina mains (thank goodness).

 

[san.]

I would. I think it would be harmful to make a list based largely on inaccurate data, especially since the list would need to inevitably be disregarded as a whole when moving forward. We need frame data and are still missing info on the most basic traits such as aerial acceleration and max speed.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

@ Amazing Ampharos

I'd be down for that. Might be fun.

Smooth Criminal

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I'm opposed to the idea. Though it probably won't matter, if people want to do it they're free to do so. But don't count on my input.

 

[TTTTTsd]

I only think it'd be good just for fun to look back in 2-3 years and go "Whoa how did we THINK THAT?"

 

[Smooth Criminal]

SAN AND GHEB CONFIRMED FOR FUN KILLERS.

(It isn't a good idea in practice though, I agree. )

Smooth Criminal

 

[TTTTTsd]

I think it's not a good idea but it's a funny idea. I think, at the very least, it'd be something worth looking back at, like one of those childhood time capsule thingies. Granted I can't contribute much besides the placements of like 2-3 chars I play and that's sketchy, but I'd like to see.

 

[ThatLunaticFeline]

I don't think there is a character like the former top tiers in smash 4. I believe Rosalina to be the best character in the game, but Yoshi and Sonic are really close, Villager is really in their league (I still feel people are really, massively sleeping on this guy and the absurd power of Timber Counter), and none of them are really that far ahead of the rest of the generally high tier characters. Rosalina is also not really that hard to challenge air to air; her aerials are amazing for following up and are definitely good overall, but she's so floaty and her aerials have really long commitments so it's often easy for the other player to whiff punish her by using their own aerial mobility or by coming at her from angles she covers poorly (the only diagonal she easily covers is the one in front of her and above; on the other three diagonals she has weak coverage, and in general for defensive use below, I'm just completely unimpressed with her dair). I don't actually feel like Rosalina has an easy winning algorithm in general; she's really good mostly for the sheer diversity of tactics she can employ and her sheer adaptability at being able to handle all kinds of crazy situations (as a complete contrast to ICs, her helper is something she can choose to use in a ton of different ways as opposed to a babysitting job). There's no one straightforward and simple plan of abusing a few strong moves or tactics that will get her wins even against lower tier characters, and that makes her an interesting top tier.

I've been thinking though; we've been really scattered in here, and smash Wii U is getting close. I think most of us do have internal tier lists that, while probably all individually inaccurate, would average to a good sense of public perception on the balance and might allow us to have more directed discussion (see where we believe average opinions to be most wrong and look into those characters more). Would people be opposed to forming a preliminary community tier list by a bunch of us just putting forth our individual lists and averaging them? I'd probably want to make a separate topic for the process so this one wouldn't be clogged by that kind of discussion killer (and yeah, I have the details of the format worked out if we go ahead with it), but I think the information that could provide would be interesting and could really help us frame this discussion going forward. Thoughts?

(I actually collected a bunch of info from around the internet a while back and formed a community tier list, here's the link: http://smashboards.com/threads/character-competitive-impressions.367669/page-43#post-17850841)

Despite that I'm not opposed to a more organized tally/collection

 

[Tagxy]

Technically metaknight had weaknesses. But in retrospect they were the most irrelevant ones to have. His moves had fairly low damage, his attacks killed late in terms of raw power (or were supposed to at least), and he died early.

Also I still think MK wasnt as bad as Fox. People mostly dont understand what a BS move shine really is.

 

[ChikoLad]

I've been thinking though; we've been really scattered in here, and smash Wii U is getting close. I think most of us do have internal tier lists that, while probably all individually inaccurate, would average to a good sense of public perception on the balance and might allow us to have more directed discussion (see where we believe average opinions to be most wrong and look into those characters more). Would people be opposed to forming a preliminary community tier list by a bunch of us just putting forth our individual lists and averaging them? I'd probably want to make a separate topic for the process so this one wouldn't be clogged by that kind of discussion killer (and yeah, I have the details of the format worked out if we go ahead with it), but I think the information that could provide would be interesting and could really help us frame this discussion going forward. Thoughts?

I would be in favour of seeing this, as I believe that, inevitably, the first tier list is never going to be the final one. Therefore, it's never "too early" to make the first one.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

all i can say is after this recent clash tourny stream watch the ike mains flourish.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

all i can say is after this recent clash tourny stream watch the ike mains flourish.

The competition of the tournament was pretty mediocre though Ruyga's Ike definitely has a lot of swag.

 

[Shaya]

[late] but Samus is pretty alright. Long range capabilities, good weight, much better kill power than Brawl, get's out of a lot of combos/strings for free. Tether grabs are a lot better in this game than Brawl IMO, and no character I've seen thus far is really abusing zairs or whatever in the meta yet (TL/Link/Samus aren't too popular), and for Samus it's this... 1/3rd of FD length laser beam with probably only around 10-15 frames of landing lag (eye ball/guessing). Not the type of character I think will end up losing to anyone harshly bar perhaps Sonic, Pikachu and maybe Sheik. In both sonic and sheik's case, I could see the general potency of her zoning/range being able to knock those two out constantly in very annoying ways they may struggle to over come (much like in Brawl, Samus was that match up none of the low/mid tiers liked to play against because she beat [at the very least by design] or sent insane most characters in the middle or lower regions).

In terms of maybe garnering an early community list, I don't necessarily mind (if we get a lull in conversation). I would probably say there should be a few restrictions/assertions in place just to keep things focused (I don't think its possible for us to have a conversation with 50 characters really in mind yet). So maybe some point soon we could have a tally of the top 25% of the cast (the top 13 or 15), with orderings, and then we could probably just talk about outliers plus "near universal consensus".

 

[san.]

It was nice to see that jab still clanks with everything and default Ike can hang in there.

Want to see Ike players use more bair and not just nair since it is a little bit more punishable by a few frames, though the shield damage and push are better. On the other hand, bair seems to have a slightly better vertical hitbox and less landing lag. In Brawl, a spaced nair on a Diddy's shield left enough frames to just catch the banana or trade with a jab, but now it's more punishable, especially on whiff. SideB2 would've helped give the offensive mixup he needed to attack properly since it should clank with the banana if used on the ground and beat it out in the air. I haven't used spaced jab1 on shield enough in 4, but mixing between jab1+followup or reacting with jab2 once the banana was about to be thrown may be a tactic that translates well, too.

Gheb is also correct about the competition, though it was still quite decent outside of the most competitive areas.

 

[ItsRainingGravy]

Would people be opposed to forming a preliminary community tier list by a bunch of us just putting forth our individual lists and averaging them?

Would be a fun idea.

Also, the reason why Rosalina is so strong is probably due to how the game was, for the most part, balanced more towards a "For Fun" environment instead of a "For Glory" enviroment in the grand scheme of things. By this, I of course mean all items, wacky stages, and most importantly FFA matches. The last part is key, because there's one thing that will happen much more often in a FFA match as opposed to a 1v1:

Luma becomes much, much easier to be separated away from her.

This could also be a reason why they gave her Gravitational Pull, as a way to compensate how easily Rosalina could lose her Luma in a FFA match. And additionally this would also explain things such as why Luma's respawn time is so low (this could also apply to Robin's Tomes and Levin Sword).

Another potential reason they could have made Rosalina so good is because the game is, for the most part, catered towards a younger audience. You can somewhat see this with Olimar, with how there is now an arrow above the lead Pikmin indicating which one he is going to use next. Which, while it is very handy, wasn't exactly necessary to have. So it seems as though Sakurai's balancing team wanted to ensure that the thought-provoking characters' general movesets were still potent enough for younger players to still be able to easily adapt to them, without the younger players going to very large lengths to be good with the characters.

Theories aside though, Rosalina might not exactly be broken, but she does feel overly compensated in a 1v1 environment imo.

 

[Shaya]

Also someone was talking about shield stun. I haven't extensively gone through every percent, but at the very least I know that 10% = 8 frames of shield stun (100% certain). And 7% does 6 (IIRC)

In Brawl (and melee and 64 I'm pretty sure), shield stun is based off a few constants and only scales with % damage of the move. Brawl's multihit specials were "bugged" (or it was intended but it was such a weird thing, may still be in this game, I haven't tested) that basically they all went down to 1 frame of shield stun no matter what if the move was already in your decay queue.
(Marth's dancing blade, MK's tornado were like this for sure; otherwise DB1 in Brawl had 5? frames of shield stun [as a 3% move], MK's hits of tornado were like 3 or 4 normally).

 

[A2ZOMG]

Also someone was talking about shield stun. I haven't extensively gone through every percent, but at the very least I know that 10% = 8 frames of shield stun (100% certain). And 7% does 6 (IIRC)

In Brawl (and melee and 64 I'm pretty sure), shield stun is based off a few constants and only scales with % damage of the move. Brawl's multihit specials were "bugged" (or it was intended but it was such a weird thing, may still be in this game, I haven't tested) that basically they all went down to 1 frame of shield stun no matter what if the move was already in your decay queue.
(Marth's dancing blade, MK's tornado were like this for sure; otherwise DB1 in Brawl had 5? frames of shield stun [as a 3% move], MK's hits of tornado were like 3 or 4 normally).

I could be totally wrong, but I recall the Brawl shieldstun formula being based on a divisor of 3. For all I know it could indeed be different. And from what you're listing here, that value appears to be 1.25

 

[Kef]

Also someone was talking about shield stun. I haven't extensively gone through every percent, but at the very least I know that 10% = 8 frames of shield stun (100% certain). And 7% does 6 (IIRC)

In Brawl (and melee and 64 I'm pretty sure), shield stun is based off a few constants and only scales with % damage of the move. Brawl's multihit specials were "bugged" (or it was intended but it was such a weird thing, may still be in this game, I haven't tested) that basically they all went down to 1 frame of shield stun no matter what if the move was already in your decay queue.
(Marth's dancing blade, MK's tornado were like this for sure; otherwise DB1 in Brawl had 5? frames of shield stun [as a 3% move], MK's hits of tornado were like 3 or 4 normally).

So if I understand correctly, shield stun still scales with percent? So a move that does 10% will deal 8 frames of blockstun? That probably means a character like Shiek is around -3 when performing a deep (fresh) Nair on shield and ZSS being around -2 with hers. Interesting.

I think once we get revised data, there should be discussion on the aerial mixup some characters still have in this game. I think that some characters can definitively still play the classic Smash jab/grab mixup game with their low landing lag.

 

[SonicZeroX]

Also someone was talking about shield stun. I haven't extensively gone through every percent, but at the very least I know that 10% = 8 frames of shield stun (100% certain). And 7% does 6 (IIRC)

Falcon's uair does 13% and has only 9 frames of landing lag so maybe it's actually + on block? :o

 

[Hippieslayer]

A preliminary tier list would be cool just to get one done before the WiiU version so that we can see what changes then. It's not gonna be accurate but in the end it may be used in order to deduce the effects of the 3ds controller, what it's consequences where, which characters were affected and how.

 

[Kofu]

Since Shaya asked a few pages back what nerfs G&W got, I'll list the ones that I've noticed, or at least some of the changes that people might consider nerfs. You might have been being facetious/rhetorical, Shaya, but I don't mind going through the changes anyway.

Bucket braking is gone- this is kind of a hard hit for his survivability, but the the technique was an exploit that wasn't an intended use of the move in the first place. Me complaining about it being gone would be like Melee players complaining that wavedashing was removed. It does seem to still halt his vertical momentum, though, so it's possible that he could still live purely vertical knock back by using the bucket. I'd have to test it, though.

FSmash lost its lingering hitbox- I'm a little frustrated by this change, since it makes FSmash a lot easier to punish. Instead it was replaced by a sweetspot/sourspot mechanic that makes killing with an improperly spaced torch harder. All of his smashes got slight adjustments to knockback, though. FTilt has become more usable because of this change, however, since it was more or less outclassed by FSmash in Brawl.

DTilt has more cooldown- this hurt his ground spacing game, since DTilt was his fastest and longest-range ground move (FSmash might have beat it? IDK). The cooldown on the move is probably double if not more compared to Brawl. It got a windbox added to it, though, giving it more strategic use, and jab was buffed to compensate.

All of his aerials but FAir gained more landing lag- also a little bitter about this change. He now has no aerials that autocancel out of a low jump. NAir used to, but not anymore (I also think it lost a part of its hitbox that was in G&W's body, but I've not confirmed that yet). He can't slowfall DAir anymore either, which is more of an inconvenience than anything. For the most part, though, the added lag isn't notable. NAir still seems to string into itself at lower percents, UAir was never really used close to the ground, and you shouldn't spam DAir into the ground that much on principle. BAir's lag is definitely visible, unfortunately, especially since it lost the landing hitbox it had. FAir not having as much lag is amazing. I don't think that the weak hit is safe on hit at low percents, but it's still nice. BAir may yet have a use as a way way to cancel airdodge lag; it still has the bizarre autocancel window really early in in the animation where the turtle briefly appears but doesn't hamper G&W in any way.

DThrow no longer forces the opponent on the ground- is this change really that bad? The old DThrow was really easy to tech which really trivialized the usefulness of the throw. The new DThrow has, from what I can tell, more legitimate follow-ups, especially at low percents. And at higher ones, it leads into Up-B, which is no small thing when his customs for that move have kill power.

IMO most of his nerfs are fairly minor or are only nerfs from a particular perspective.