Character Competitive Impressions

[Shaya]

So basically Flip Jump is just as powerful as Bouncing Fish but it's trickier to use right? I could see that. I still don't like her frame 1 jab (wasn't necessarily equating it to Mac's, I think Mac's is better, just the speed) but if you say it's adhesive for her kit I'll take your word on it.

Like, it could be 2 frames instead, and if it were -1 on the IASA's I'd probably be fine for it, it would still be as effective as it is for shield poking... Heck if it were suddenly better for follow ups or range? I'd take that for a start up nerf too.
But when I try to weigh up her jab as a whole, I'd take Sheik's any day of the week in 99% of situations. Slower, but lower and further reach/high priority, traps into grabs/other things, and is pretty safe. ZSS can't really use her jab any better than Sheiks, but she doesn't have the grab factor/lower IASAs or the hitboxes on it. It's like so close to mediocre but is so helpful to her either way just because it's frame 1 (but I think a lot of characters would still prefer to keep their jabs).
Jab1 -> Up Tilt is actually possible but the range of characters/percents isn't really worth it.

The sweetspot kick can kill horizontally at the ledge around 80%, I'd say the max range of survival is 120-140%, it'll send everyone off the top at that point. The spike hit won't allow Meta Knight to recover from ledge height by 20%ish (maybe less).
It's more powerful than Bouncing Fish in just that sense.

 

[Kofu]

The sweetspot kick can kill horizontally at the ledge around 80%, I'd say the max range of survival is 120-140%, it'll send everyone off the top at that point. The spike hit won't allow Meta Knight to recover from ledge height by 20%ish (maybe less).
It's more powerful than Bouncing Fish in just that sense.

I meant "powerful" as I'm "useful/effective," not really in terms of strength. My bad on that. I knew it was a lot stronger in terms of knockback.

 

[Ikes]

But it has negligible range and charging capabilities, and can be taken out by attacks and projectiles. Plus, it stays for an extremely short time. It's not good for projectile aerial game due to its poor range, and it's bad for Toon Link's projectile game against the other characters with projectiles.

I think Link's Quickfire Bow is significantly better than it due to better range, speed, charge time and overall damage output (damage + time), and that Toon Link's default Neutral is the superior Neutral since it covers more range and gives him more options to control the air and ground.

I seriously am going to say that Toon Link's default moveset is his best moveset aside from his default moveset + Short-Fuse Bomb. There's nothing wrong with the default and it's a huge benefit for him since we have great setups with him already. Short-Fuse Bomb is probably his only custom that is really beneficial to him with its high damage, knockback and ability to help him recover better.

remember that it can be used to gimp and the range argument is negligible since it's simply supposed to litter the stage

and the few seconds it lasts are very significant

 

[Radical Larry]

remember that it can be used to gimp and the range argument is negligible since it's simply supposed to litter the stage

and the few seconds it lasts are very significant

I've only seen it last a second before disappearing. I pull it out, charge it and shoot it, but when I shoot another one uncharged, the charged one is already gone. So littering the stage isn't a possibility, nor does it last a few seconds.

Also, gimping...eh, I don't see any real good off-stage use aside from little edge-guarding potential at the very least. Even then, if your opponent isn't stage spiked, they will possibly have retaliation prepared. And with gimping, the opponent will likely air dodge or even hit it (if lucky). Gimping isn't a great thing for it either, because it may end up benefiting the opponent with proper DI.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Sheik may be in a precarious position in terms of potential nerfs/buffs, but her stats are sooo good in general as it is.

Life is too short for bad matchups, as they say. There's no reason not to have one in your pocket, at least.

Our local Falcon talks about how Sheik/Falcon is a significantly bad matchup, but I don't know much about it. Is that often how it seems to play out?

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Sheik may be in a precarious position in terms of potential nerfs/buffs, but her stats are sooo good in general as it is.

Life is too short for bad matchups, as they say. There's no reason not to have one in your pocket, at least.

Our local Falcon talks about how Sheik/Falcon is a significantly bad matchup, but I don't know much about it. Is that often how it seems to play out?

When I mained Falcon, Sheik was the bane of my existence. Back then it was all about Diddy though, so I didn't see nearly as many Sheiks. When I did, it was never fun. Falcon loses the neutral, advantage, disadvantage, onstage, and offstage game, from my expirience.

 

[Wtfwasthat]

Luigi doesnt need any nerfs. He loses to top tiers like shiek and rosalina and honestly does not have that many advantages when it comes to the mid/low-tiers. Just because you got bodied by a good luigi doesn't mean that he needs a nerf. It will take a while but people will eventually realize luigi can be stopped and will probably fall out of the top 5 or 10. If you take away his grab his approach is literally nothing.

EDIT: Also, with proper DI luigis kill setups kill at like 130% which I dont see how it should be nerfed.

 

[Scarlet Jile]

Luigi doesnt need any nerfs.

"Luigi doesn't need nerfs."

- Luigi

 

[Yonder]

So I just wavedashed in here to see a rising of "Luigi needs nerfs" posts.

I never thought I'd see the day this would happen to ol' Weeg.

Will post later on the matter, off to class.

 

[Wtfwasthat]

"Luigi doesn't need nerfs."

- Luigi

Glad you agree

 

[Quickhero]

"Luigi doesn't need nerfs."

- Luigi

"Let's not beg for nerfs because the metagame is fairly healthy right now and it's very easily possible to make do with what we have."

- People who understand and appreciate the true nature of fighting games.

I think acknowledging Luigi as a strong character is fine, but he definitely doesn't need nerfs. He has a great grab game which allows him to have a great combo game, but he has enough weaknesses so that it's very manageable.

 

[Zelder]

If people would just jump out to meet the Missle, he'd be a lot less scary. Luigi has always had hysterically gimpable recovery (the double jump Down B in Smash4 helps a bit, but still), but no one who complains about Luigi is taking advantage of that.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Please. PLEASE y'all are telling me Luigi doesn't need nerfs.

All you need to do against Fireball -> Dash grab is to take the fireball -> Jab/F-tilt/F-SMASH(!)/Things you probably have.

And also, dash grab is risky.

His dash grab is risky but I believe the reward of landing the grab heavily outweighs the risk of it. Luigi's options out of dthrow are kind of ridiculous. He definitely has the most rewarding grab in the game as far as potential follow ups go because, in the hands of a skilled player, dthrow will almost always lead to something.

 

[bc1910]

Not only do I think there are far more problematic characters than Luigi anyway, I really don't think we should be crying for anything besides a nerf to Sheik's needles and maybe, maybe, MAYBE Fair at this point. Let counterplay develop.

The nerfing/buffing ratio in the patches has been too skewed towards the nerf side IMO. People already complain that characters are mostly weaker than their Brawl selves (even though they may "feel" stronger) and this constant nerfing is not helping. We need to see the low and mid tiers get stronger options for dealing with the good characters. You can argue this causes a power creep (which is a weak argument since it doesn't occur if the buffs are carefully placed) but I'd much rather risk that than sucking all the strength away from this roster.

 

[Fatmanonice]

I don't believe the current situation is anywhere as bad as it was for Brawl. In Brawl, the top 5 had a lot of match ups that just shut down a good sized portion of the cast. With the patches, Sheik and Luigi are the only characters that really feel this way but even then I'd be hard pressed to say that any 90/10 match ups have popped up yet. Nothing yet seems as hopeless as Metaknight vs Peach or Dedede vs DK were in Brawl and with the added addition of customs I feel like there's a lot more "hope" now instead for most of the cast instead of just quietly accepting that some characters have match ups that are virtually unwinnable and keep them from being viable.

 

[Zelder]

Who is Luigi shutting down? Luigi lacks the mobility to really shut someone down.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Who is Luigi shutting down? Luigi lacks the mobility to really shut someone down.

Indeed

At this point, I feel only Sheik needs a nerf. Beyond that, no nerfing (unless you consider Fox's jab stuff a nerf and not a fix, then I guess its two nerfs).

Luigi I feel is rather overrated. Every time I watch gameplay of Luigi I keep going "Don't do that you're going to get gra- and there it is. Stop that already- why didn't you learn from last time?". Besides, if you have a dedicated Luigi in your area, you should have a dedicated pocket Little Mac.

Has Falcon been actually winning a lot of large tournaments? Keep hearing talk about him being "dominating", but I haven't heard of him actually winning anything large.

Want to smooth things out even more beyond those one/two nerfs? Start buffing other characters. Key buffs can change some 50-50s into 60-40s against top/high tiers.

 

[SpottedCerberus]

At this point, I feel only Sheik needs a nerf.

Jeez. Still? Last patch, they took away her only easy kill move left. I'm starting to feel bad for Sheik mains. She's still the best, but any nerfs beyond this point could be really damaging.

Luigi I feel is rather overrated. Every time I watch gameplay of Luigi I keep going "Don't do that you're going to get gra- and there it is. Stop that already- why didn't you learn from last time?". Besides, if you have a dedicated Luigi in your area, you should have a dedicated pocket Little Mac.

Eh. Mac matches up nicely against Luigi, but there are far better counters. I agree with your central point though.

Has Falcon been actually winning a lot of large tournaments? Keep hearing talk about him being "dominating", but I haven't heard of him actually winning anything large.

I get the impression that Falcon only dominates online. I could be wrong though. I don't really follow tournament results. He's annoying and easy to play, but I don't think he's as effective on the highest level of competitive play.

 

[wedl!!]

wait why do people even want nerfed? he's not that oppressive considering his mu spread is so bad (he loses to ,,,, etc. even gives him problems) and his mobility is so awful. like i guess dying to a tornado at 90% off the top is annoying but if you just sdi down it's less of a problem.

the way i see it, is in a fine state. once the metagame develops further (with the technical characters like getting more fleshed out) counterplay will be more developed. he might be a pain now, but gimmicks don't work forever (at high levels, at least).

 

[GeneralLedge]

Jeez. Still? Last patch, they took away her only easy kill move left. I'm starting to feel bad for Sheik mains. She's still the best, but any nerfs beyond this point could be really damaging.

Make only the first needle thrown at a time deal hitstun. Is this damaging?


If anything else, Brawler's Tornado Kick needs something done to it. It can kill at 40% if you get grabbed near a ledge (dthrow -> Tornado). THAT is BS.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Who is Luigi shutting down? Luigi lacks the mobility to really shut someone down.

Luigi in general is combos for days which I feel makes him overwhelming for character who don't handle characters below them very well like Bowser Jr, further highlighted by the fact that he has reliable kill options out of dthrow. Nair's still godly, he can come back from just about anything, and his offstage is pretty solid too. Maybe I'm just ignorant but I haven't seen Luigi had to deal with any really bad match ups either. Does he keep anyone from being viable ala Peach to Metaknight? I'd say no but I feel as though when you look at the proposed top/high tier characters as a whole, I feel like him and Sheik are currently the biggest uphill battles thanks to all the tools they have. Perhaps "shut down" was too strong for Luigi but, at the very least, I think we can agree that Sheik has matchups where she BTFO of her opponents.

 

[Smog Frog]

Indeed

At this point, I feel only Sheik needs a nerf. Beyond that, no nerfing (unless you consider Fox's jab stuff a nerf and not a fix, then I guess its two nerfs).

Luigi I feel is rather overrated. Every time I watch gameplay of Luigi I keep going "Don't do that you're going to get gra- and there it is. Stop that already- why didn't you learn from last time?". Besides, if you have a dedicated Luigi in your area, you should have a dedicated pocket Little Mac.

Has Falcon been actually winning a lot of large tournaments? Keep hearing talk about him being "dominating", but I haven't heard of him actually winning anything large.

Want to smooth things out even more beyond those one/two nerfs? Start buffing other characters. Key buffs can change some 50-50s into 60-40s against top/high tiers.

isnt winning anything because people arent embracing bair walls, dtilt, jab, and his ability to completely lame someone out through the use of bair and are just going for plain stupid stuff. an ideally played poses a threat from midrange while keeping up a bair wall and coming in when the opponent slips up. its very oppressive and undeniably high/top tier.

 

[san.]

Falcon's bair wall doesn't seem very scary. 10 frames and isn't overly large in range. If Falcon gets hit in the air, his model turns around, leaving him open to more punishment. He seems better to me if he occasionally uses those moves instead of walling with it.

I do agree that many players aren't utilizing their entire repertoire of moves, but it's understandable. I had to set C-stick to attack, L as jump, and a lot of practice in order to get most of the inputs I want correctly. Dtilts in general aren't used too well by the average player, mostly because they're slightly tougher to input at will despite most dtilts in the game being fairly good.

 

[SpottedCerberus]

Make only the first needle thrown at a time deal hitstun. Is this damaging?

I honestly don't know. I guess I'm mostly just objecting out of principle. It seems unfair to give her a major nerf every patch. It would have been better if they did it all at once, I think. They aren't giving people time to adapt.

he can come back from just about anything,

But he SHOULDN'T be able to. That's what we're saying. His recovery is really overrated. Boss makes it look great, a lot better than it is; but that's because he's an incredible player. It really isn't very good.

Maybe I'm just ignorant but I haven't seen Luigi had to deal with any really bad match ups either.

Like we've been saying, he has some very bad match-ups against several characters. I think he's -3 against at least one or two of them. They just haven't been used to their full potential yet. Luigi will only go downhill in results from here. We've seen pretty much everything he can do already.

I think we can agree that Sheik has matchups where she BTFO of her opponents.

Oh yeah. But she's the only one with a MU spread like that.

 

[warriorman222]

Make only the first needle thrown at a time deal hitstun. Is this damaging?


If anything else, Brawler's Tornado Kick needs something done to it. It can kill at 40% if you get grabbed near a ledge (dthrow -> Tornado). THAT is BS.

No, it isn't. Just don't get grabbed at the ledge. Also, remember that once you hit 70% you're not dying for almost another 80%. If you "fixed" Helicopter Kick and buffed his kill moves, he'd be one of the worst characters in the game.

You could always try DI and VI. Di towards the throw, VI inwards to the fair, SDI the first 4 Heli-Kick hits, and hold inwards for the last one. Leaves you alive possibly beyond the point it stops comboing.

 

[Macedonian]

Holy cow a lot of people act like getting a small nerf is going to ruin their charachter, I just think the cyclone should kill like 10 to 20 percent later, and I would not be opposed to a compensatory buff for luigi elsewhere.

Also I'm somewhat confused, people act like nerfs are this horrible thing, but are people disputing that we have much more charachter diversity and balance after the last few patches, like I see the nerfs to the hoo ha and sonics Back throw as great.

And I feel I should reiterate we should be hoping for more buffs not nerfs, but I believe the best balance comes from helping both ends.

 

[Fatmanonice]

I'm kind of waiting on my haunches to see who winds up being the "" in this game. In Brawl, was someone who people thought absolutely sucked at the beginning but then over the course of several years became one of the best characters in the game. I find it funny that people kind of thought this way for this game too until had a huge turn around in the past couple of months and could find his way back to high tiers if this momentum keeps steady. As for who I think will strongly evolve as the meta game develops, I feel like people really underestimate the potential of in the hands of a top level player. He kind of suffers from special snowflake syndrome thanks to his playstyle so people aren't exactly lining out the door to play as him but I think that will change if and when decent tournament results start coming in. I also feel like is going to eventually really surprise people too. He kind of reminds me of Brawl , a character that was decent but didn't really take off until more and more tech skills were discovered and mastered. In Brawl, I'd argue that meta games were the most fun to watch develop as time went on.

 

[GeneralLedge]

If you "fixed" Helicopter Kick and buffed his kill moves, he'd be one of the worst characters in the game.

Tell that to all the existing and future 1111 tier lists. Supposedly he's fine without HK or PP at all!

 

[Firefoxx]

Quoting myself for the "Falcon hasn't won anything" crowd.

Since the Mewtwo patch, Falcon has 4 wins in tournaments that the Smashboards rankings have categorized as Regionals. This puts him tied for second with Fox and Diddy. Sheik and Luigi are tied for first with 5 wins in Regionals. If you expand that to include large locals, Falcon drops to 5th with 7 wins. And if you expand it to include locals he rises to 3rd with 28 wins.

Obviously not all tournament wins are the same and not all tournaments are reported on Smashboards but there ya go, Falcon does best at a local level, but he is getting wins.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Most characters have no reason to be scared of Falcon's bair.

His nair is the real deal though.

 

[Nabbitnator]

Make only the first needle thrown at a time deal hitstun. Is this damaging?


If anything else, Brawler's Tornado Kick needs something done to it. It can kill at 40% if you get grabbed near a ledge (dthrow -> Tornado). THAT is BS.

I thought it was dthrow-fair-tornado and after the fair you can di away to make the tornado whiff.

 

[bc1910]

I'm kind of waiting on my haunches to see who winds up being the "" in this game. In Brawl, was someone who people thought absolutely sucked at the beginning but then over the course of several years became one of the best characters in the game. I find it funny that people kind of thought this way for this game too until had a huge turn around in the past couple of months and could find his way back to high tiers if this momentum keeps steady.

I agree with you, I'm also excited to see who that character will be. Mega Man, Greninja and Peach seem like fair bets to me, they're all tricky to use but have mounds of potential and very few bad MUs.

To be fair, it baffles me how anyone ever made that mistake about Brawl Olimar. You only had to look at the character's range, frame data, combos and blue pikmin throws to see that he was special. I suppose MK's dominance kept him down for a long time, but to be honest MK did that to most of the cast so I don't know why Olimar went under the radar so much.

Then again I could be totally biased here, I don't know if you remember someone called ShadowHydra but I knew him quite well. He was an excellent Olimar player who put in a ton of work with the character in 2008/2009, way before Dabuz showed what Olimar was capable of. Hydra wasn't better than Dabuz of course but he's an excellent player to study if you want to look at the foreshadowing of Olimar's strength.

I think Brawl ZSS is a better example of a sleeper character than Brawl Olimar, I mean I know he WAS one but he really shouldn't have been. I think ZSS was less obviously strong.

 

[GeneralLedge]

I thought it was dthrow-fair-tornado and after the fair you can di away to make the tornado whiff.

I've fought a few 0/0 brawlers and they're quick enough to forego the fair and just dthrow -> tornado.

Past a certain threshold this stops working, but that's up to Brawler's agenda. If he's extremely patient he can let you hover at the functional percent and wait for you to slip and get the grab.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Back by popular request kappa

The /r/smashbros Monthly Voted Tier List​

Customs off as usual but there is a requirement to consider Miis on at their full potential moveset wise for the first time, should be interesting.

 

[SpottedCerberus]

Holy cow a lot of people act like getting a small nerf is going to ruin their charachter, I just think the cyclone should kill like 10 to 20 percent later, and I would not be opposed to a compensatory buff for luigi elsewhere.

Also I'm somewhat confused, people act like nerfs are this horrible thing, but are people disputing that we have much more charachter diversity and balance after the last few patches, like I see the nerfs to the hoo ha and sonics Back throw as great.

Yes, those were good. The last patch was mostly good. Some of it was excessive, but I believe it brought us to a point where no character actually needs nerfs. Instead of bringing down the top tiers, who are mostly well-balanced, we ought to buff some of the unviable characters.

I'm kind of waiting on my haunches to see who winds up being the "" in this game. In Brawl, was someone who people thought absolutely sucked at the beginning but then over the course of several years became one of the best characters in the game. I find it funny that people kind of thought this way for this game too until had a huge turn around in the past couple of months and could find his way back to high tiers if this momentum keeps steady. As for who I think will strongly evolve as the meta game develops, I feel like people really underestimate the potential of in the hands of a top level player. He kind of suffers from special snowflake syndrome thanks to his playstyle so people aren't exactly lining out the door to play as him but I think that will change if and when decent tournament results start coming in. I also feel like is going to eventually really surprise people too. He kind of reminds me of Brawl , a character that was decent but didn't really take off until more and more tech skills were discovered and mastered. In Brawl, I'd argue that meta games were the most fun to watch develop as time went on.

Oh, jeez. Bad memories. -_- I remember when, from the time Brawl came out, I co-mained Olimar and Luigi. I thought they were similar in quality and somehow covered each other's weaknesses well. Then, with every patch, Olimar rose and Luigi fell. It was like watching one of your children go off to med school while the other developed a crippling addiction to Cheetos and internet pornography. Still, Brood wrecking m2k was the only competitive Brawl set that actually had me hyped.

I disagree about Ice Climbers, if only because I once got punched in the face for chain-grabbing a casual party-goer to death. It hurt a lot. They were a bit much. Just not fun.

Anyway, I think Pac-Man is the #1 candidate for Sm4sh's Brawlimar type figure. Nobody's even using his tools to their full potential yet. Even Abadango, incredible as he is, isn't there yet.

Quoting myself for the "Falcon hasn't won anything" crowd.

Thx. Actually didn't know that.

 

[Fatmanonice]

I agree with you, I'm also excited to see who that character will be. Mega Man, Greninja and Peach seem like fair bets to me, they're all tricky to use but have mounds of potential and very few bad MUs.

To be fair, it baffles me how anyone ever made that mistake about Brawl Olimar. You only had to look at the character's range, frame data, combos and blue pikmin Uthrow to see that he was special. I suppose MK's dominance kept him down for a long time, but to be honest MK did that to most of the cast so I don't know why Olimar went under the radar so much.

A lot of people dismissed him for his risky offstage game and for having one of the worst recovery moves in the game. A lot of people argued that the random Pikmin were unreliable and that organizing them to be strategically effective was way too much work than what it was worth, basically being way too much to learn and too much to keep track of. Like Yoshi, PT, and Sonic, he was initially seen as a special snowflake character due to his learning curve and seemingly insurmountable flaws but that got chipped away at bit by bit.

 

[FullMoon]

Y'know maybe we should get people to start crying for the worse characters to get buffed instead of trying to nerf every single top tier character that pops up.

The only thing I feel really needs to be fixed is Fox's jab because that is just silly.

As it stands right now I feel like the meta is good enough as it is at least as far as the better part of the cast is concerned, the only thing that needs to be done now is to buff the lower tier characters like Zelda and Samus so that they have a better shot at competing

 

[GeneralLedge]

Zelda needs a speed buff. Every time I play her she feels powerful enough but really, really slow for no reason. It's weird.

Samus, as far as people from her boards have stated, seems fine as-is?

 

[Nabbitnator]

That would be cool to try to get some of the lower characters some help with their stuff. Before buffing maybe certain multihit moves need to connect more reliably. Btw i know everyone is talking about luigi but what about some of the lesser used characters. What can they do in the meta? If certain characters have good match ups or tools to deal with xyz that would be great to research here.

 

[SpottedCerberus]

Back by popular request kappa

The /r/smashbros Monthly Voted Tier List​

Customs off as usual but there is a requirement to consider Miis on at their full potential moveset wise for the first time, should be interesting.

Maybe I'm nitpicking, but I don't really like the categories. Most characters in the game are solo-tournament viable without secondaries. But a lot of them are just mid-tier characters with generally even matchups across the board. Well, that might be an exaggeration, but you know what I mean. The tier list will be really top-heavy if that's how we're considering it. This game is pretty well-balanced.