Character Competitive Impressions

[Luco]

> with Lightning Kicks

I think what he meant was 'lightning fast', as in the flurry of kicks she uses for her Dair (which does indeed deplete shields like crazy), although yeah it confused me for a while too.

 

[Nocally]

I think Falco and Dedede are similar characters.

They are both blue birds with clothes on.

And both are currently on the lower spectrum of current made tier lists.

 

[Diddy Kong]

is an amazingly comic character, especially his croach and his D Tilt.

His viability however, is not so comical. Though he's definitely not the worst character in the game.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Hey, it's June. Shouldn't we have some news about the Lucas patch by now?
>.>
I wonder if they're gonna patch anything other than maybe Fox's jab shenanigans. Some argue it breaks the game, but game-breaking or not, Link's got 'd so I imagine they'll get rid of it. As a DK main this would be a welcome change, but as a Fox user this would bug me.
I would hate if they nerf Weegee. He has clear flaws that can be exploited. Nothing bugs me more than when people beg for someone to get nerfed as a knee-jerk reaction to one tactic (so, fireball-grab-moveset, even though it's easily escapable and punishable on hit).
If Luigi gets nerfed, all it would do for ME is show how pathetic Smash 4 has become. Diddy's nerf was warranted. We most likely would've discovered counter play for his BS, but when he was taking every tourney and getting 70% kills with insane mobility and had no real weakness, it made sense to nerf him. Luigi DOES have weaknesse, and that's the difference. Diddy was Luigi with mobility and bananas. But now they're both fair. Let the meta develop. That's my opinion.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

The big difference between and the other heavies is that most of his attacks are disjointed (and they're HUGE disjoints). A lot of them get partial body invincibility which is similar but Dedede would be insane if his airspeed was noticeably better. He could basically approach with SH BAir because the hitbox is huge, it autocancels, and it does 16%. His multiple jumps let him partially alleviate his airspeed issues too, at least in changing momentum and in edgeguarding. Being able to change the direction he's facing in the air on a whim is also a bit scary.

He's still got a lot of problems but you have to remember that, as far as his hitboxes go, he can outbutton basically everyone and it's a combination of his awful frame data and poor mobility that he doesn't shut most everyone down.

this this this

I think Falco and Dedede are similar characters. They're both slow movement-wise but excel at close-ranged combat where their reach, hitboxes, etc. are really good. Their projectiles aren't designed to keep people out so much as encourage the opponent to come in/give them something to do at different ranges that's sub-optimal but an option nevertheless. Dedede's long reach and wide arcs make it so that he somewhat covers mid-range too, while the Gordos are purposely meant to be less than ideal to give Dedede a weakness approaching. Falco has Reflector and Blaster to cover mid and long range, but again Blaster's function is to take single pot shots if the opponent tries to fall away to avoid a close-ranged follow-up, or again to discourage ranged combat.

Falco actually has a neutral game, D3 doesn't. Biggest difference right there. D3's playstyle also involves you abusing the hell out of his meaty attacks and punishing mistakes from an optimal range, plus grabs grabs grabs (more swordie than swordie).

Smooth Criminal

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Why do people keep saying Luigi Fireball is punishable on hit? He gets better frame advantage as your percent goes up. At KO percents, you do NOT want to block it with your face.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Hey, it's June. Shouldn't we have some news about the Lucas patch by now?

I'd say probably at E3 in an "available for download now" style announcement.

 

[deepseadiva]

The return of Lucas is going to be so sad since it's almost assured he won't get any of his wave break cancel majiggers which made him so fun to master.

 

[Thinkaman]

If Luigi gets nerfed, all it would do for ME is show how pathetic Smash 4 has become. Diddy's nerf was warranted. We most likely would've discovered counter play for his BS, but when he was taking every tourney and getting 70% kills with insane mobility and had no real weakness, it made sense to nerf him. Luigi DOES have weaknesse, and that's the difference. Diddy was Luigi with mobility and bananas. But now they're both fair. Let the meta develop. That's my opinion.

To play devil's advocate, Luigi is above the target level of balance I'd shoot for. Sure, Luigi isn't close to where Diddy was, and isn't even the best character atm; it would obviously be a shame if he was nerfed as much as Diddy, or nerfed while other top characters were left alone. But that's not what most people are talking about.

I think the current state of his d-throw KO threat is just a little too aggressive, an inch above the acceptability level I'd aim for. His 14% f6 bair is also a little aggressive, but that is the only other thing I'd even consider nerfing. (and only slightly) As far as I'm concerned, he can keep Fireballs, he can keep his signature wonder-nair, he can keep his entire ground game.

We can talk about nerfs without them having to be character erasures.


I'd also ask for slight nerfs to Sheik Needle safety, Fox jab bullcrap, and teeny-tiny reductions to ZSS Boost Kick, Ness b-throw, and Brawler Hurricane Kick--I still want them to be clearly the best in the game in game in their respective categories, but I want them to feel less like outliers.


Edit: To be clear, I think Smash 4 is fine with these moves left as current. Also, as a warning, I think these sort of discussions are helping to framing what makes strong characters strong and how that affects their matchups and competitive viability, but let's not get lost down a rabbit hole.

Wishlists are only okay as long as they feed back into the overarching discussion of the real game in front of us, and don't exist for their own sake.

 

[meleebrawler]

The return of Lucas is going to be so sad since it's almost assured he won't get any of his wave break cancel majiggers which made him so fun to master.

But he will also not die to grab releases and have an actually useful tether.

 

[Thinkaman]

Also, I'd like to cast my vote in favor of "Yes, Greninja is actually a rather great character."

I had the joy of playing Alias recently, who made me reconsider my level of respect for the character. He was able to handle my Ness pretty consistently; I could only win games by relying on hard reads with Ganon (a hail mary) or Palutena, who can control the rules of engagement and neutralize his evasiveness via Super Speed.

I feel like Greninja plays differently from much of the cast, and similar to Peach this causes him to be overlooked and underrated. Nair, fair, bair, and u-tilt require more finesse and nuance than comparable moves on other characters--but are quite rewarding. Shadow Sneak seems pretty forgettable, but is actually a really clever and potent mixup solution in a shocking number of situations.

The thing is, Alias made a lot of execution mistakes in our games ("sub-optimalities" might be the better word--he'd be the first to point them out) that showed the character has further potential, as we have seen glimpses of from others. So many times I thought "Oh man, if he had just nailed that Hydro Pump or Shadow Sneak, I'd be toast."

Also, Shifting Shuriken. Why isn't this move regarded as nectar of the gods?

 

[thehard]

Watching Abadango practice customs for EVO, and the Villager he's fighting is doing short hops with Extreme Balloon Trip so they can detonate on-stage. It's pretty interesting and I've never seen an American player do such a thing

Despite the Japanese "not liking customs" (Abadango likes them "so-so") they're still practicing them hard which is nice to see

 

[DanGR]

I see the word "boxing" used a lot when talking about up-close, yomi interactions. Is there a specific definition out there or is it a very generalized term?

Reason for me asking is this: I have a hard time seeing Rosalina as particularly good "boxer" when her quickest attacks against close opponents commit so hard. (5- dtilt, 6-dsmash, 6-dash attack, 7-ftilt. Jab is 8.) Yes, Luma's attacks are generally considerably quicker, but at the cost of not having hitboxes right in front of Rosalina, which is the only location where I'd think the hitboxes matter when discussing characters' boxing games.

So can the term "boxing" be applied to scenarios on the ground in which Luma can hit an opponent, but they can't hit Rosalina? Saying "Rosalina (without specification) has a good boxing game" isn't very characteristic of most of her up-close interactions. In the end, I'd prefer to say Rosalina's boxing game is pretty bad, while Luma's is excellent.

 

[L7 Zero Cool]

Even with customs on Ike still can't crack the top 20 huh?

I saw zero said he feels his recovery isn't good enough and he has problems killing.

 

[Fatmanonice]

anyone else think that Mario's autocombos are stupidly brainless?

That's kind of the point. Mario has always had one of the lowest learning curves of any character in Smash. He's easy to learn but hard to master because he does have some exploitable weaknesses like his lack of range and average recovery. I will say that this may be the best incarnation of Mario that the series has seen yet which is why I can see how people are frustrated with him. In my experience, I'm more annoyed with good Falcons' bread and butter tactics than Marios' because he's arguably just as pick up and play.

 

[FullMoon]

Pre-patch Hydro Pump is certainly indefensible and I'm glad it was nerfed. It's fine the way it is. However I will happily defend prepatch Usmash. That move was never safe on block nor did it combo into itself or combo from Uthrow, people apparently never learned how to jump out of combos until after 1.0.4. Maybe it had a little too much range, but there was no reason to nerf the ending lag to the level it's at now.

Usmash only does 19% if both the sweetspot first hit and sweetspot launcher connect. I agree with you that that is impressive (it also retains its impressive knockback). Otherwise, it does 14% on the launcher, 11% on the sides and 10% in the middle. Not impressive damage values for a Smash Attack.

The ending lag of Up-Smash isn't even that bad, it just means you can't spam it. Pre-patch Up-Smash was almost a movement option.

Also if you hit the sweetspot you're probably going to get the full 19% anyway, unless a trade happens and of course the damage of the other hits would be smaller, they're supposed to be a sourspot.

And I don't know if you're aware of this but you forgot to mention that Down Smash got a range nerf. In fact, all of Greninja's water sword attacks (all smashes + Fair) got a range nerf. The damage buff to Down Smash is not unappreciated but it's something of a compensation buff to an extremely nerfed set of Smashes.

I tested that and Greninja's smashes (and F-Air) all have hitboxes that perfectly match their animations. If there was a range nerf there it was probably because they removed disjoint that wasn't supposed to be there in the first place.

I never noticed any range nerf on them anyway, so any nerf there was in their range was probably minimal.

The Shadow Sneak buff does not even come close to compensating for the Water Shuriken nerf. That nerf changed our entire playstyle, removed a ton of our options in a variety of situations and was basically the mother of all nerfs as far as Sm4sh goes. Shadow Sneak is still virtually unusable against good players on-stage but I agree with you that it has increased offstage prowess.

The shuriken nerf indeed has a bigger impact that the SS buff, however Shadow Sneak is not unusable against good players as long as you play smart with it. Shadow Sneak is a trap move since it perfectly frame traps people who airdodge or roll at the wrong time. Catch your opponents habits and Shadow Sneak becomes very useful.

Greninja's nerfs and Diddy's nerfs are not comparable. Diddy's kill power was adjusted similar to NTSC Melee Fox to PAL Melee Fox, whereas Greninja's kill power is not what was adjusted; his entire playstyle has now changed. He used to have so much freedom in his approach, camping and footsies, and most of that freedom is gone. His current playstyle being closer to what the devs intended or whether Greninja was ever meant to be that strong is irrelevant; the fact is he is much, much worse off now, far worse off than Diddy is for his nerfs.

Greninja's playstyle didn't change that much. He just has to be more careful now, that's all. I still play Greninja the same way as I did before the patch hit (except with less gratuitous Up-Smash usage) and it still works. Greninja's frame data was still bad back then and most of it went unchanged except for Up-Smash and I guess D-Smash (which went mostly unused even back then anyway), shurikens were great but that doesn't change the fact that Greninja's approach was never stellar. Shurikens alone aren't going to carry the character especially when they have considerable start-up.

If Greninja is still "really good", where are the results? Why does he not have the continued results of post-patch Diddy? I know there are other factors at work such as there being more Diddy players than there ever were Greninja players, but the nerfs to Greninja were far more crippling than the nerfs to Diddy. They are not similar at all.

Less people play Greninja because he takes a lot of effort. Players who are only looking out to win are to go for characters that can get them wins more easily and the others go for characters they like to play or just like in general. Pros just don't have much interest in Greninja, except for aMSa. Japan does seem to be overall more interested in Greninja at least.

It also doesn't help that the "better nerf Greninja" crowd makes the character sound worse than he really is and players also spread misconceptions about him around.

Up Smash never comboed into itself as I said earlier, nor did it combo from Up Throw. The jump button is magic. If that's what they're upset about, they're upset about an illusion that only worked in For Glory. No, what they and actually I am upset about is the fact that Greninja is the only character to be hit so hard by a patch that he plays completely differently and has completely dropped off in results.

Greninja was not hit that hard. The only nerf that's really significant is the shuriken nerf and even then it's not like they're bad now, you just can't be spammy with them.

I might be wrong about Greninja's Up-Smash comboing into itself, but it was a really silly Smash attack according to some stuff I've heard (@ Lavani could maybe explain it better?).

People still get too up in arms about Greninja's nerfs when all they did was make so that you can't be too careless with him. Otherwise, Greninja is just as good as he was before, he was just given more risk to compensate for his amazing reward on hit. He's a properly balanced character now and Nintendo seems to be aware of that considering he was left basically untouched last patch.

I do apologize for being a bit too confrontational in my last posts though, as I was a bit stressed out that day.

 

[Nexin]

Also, Shifting Shuriken. Why isn't this move regarded as nectar of the gods?

I actually have talked to one of my friends who mains Greninja about his custom moves a while back. While I'm not sure if every Greninja player shares his opinion on it, he told me that Shifting Shuriken, while good, has a few weaknesses that makes it a more matchup specific move.

While the move sets up an up smash, it has more start up and less range than the default Shuriken, and the move can't be charged, making it less versatile in the long run.

 

[Fatmanonice]

is an amazingly comic character, especially his croach and his D Tilt.

His viability however, is not so comical. Though he's definitely not the worst character in the game.

He's not but he gets largely shut down by characters with strong arsenals of projectiles. are incredibly frustrating if they know the match up, especially where it just feels like you're being annoyed to death with lemons/slingshot hits. I'd argue the other three boil down to patience. The Japanese seem to think he's mid tier or possibly even higher (same goes for ) but I will admit that I'm totally ignorant on their stance on this.

 

[Diddy Kong]

He's not but he gets largely shut down by characters with strong arsenals of projectiles. are incredibly frustrating if they know the match up, especially where it just feels like you're being annoyed to death with lemons/slingshot hits. I'd argue the other three boil down to patience. The Japanese seem to think he's mid tier or possibly even higher (same goes for ) but I will admit that I'm totally ignorant on their stance on this.

Totally deserved for how almost single-handly shut down (who was imo the best incaration of DK to ) ...

THERE I SAID IT!

 

[Gawain]

That's kind of the point. Mario has always had one of the lowest learning curves of any character in Smash. He's easy to learn but hard to master because he does have some exploitable weaknesses like his lack of range and average recovery. I will say that this may be the best incarnation of Mario that the series has seen yet which is why I can see how people are frustrated with him. In my experience, I'm more annoyed with good Falcons' bread and butter tactics than Marios' because he's arguably just as pick up and play.

Agreed on Mario, but I'd disagree on Falcon, because Falcon gets blown up with his weight and fall speed. Characters like Luigi will destroy Falcon players who make mistakes. Falcon's mistakes just cost him too much compared to Mario's for me to say that they're roughly even on the "easy to play" scale. Falcon is also a lot harder to score kills with than Mario, who has really fast smashes with low cooldown, while all of Falcon's are extremely laggy. The only "easy" kill move he has is Raptor Boost, which is extraordinarily punishable.

Even with customs on Ike still can't crack the top 20 huh?

I saw zero said he feels his recovery isn't good enough and he has problems killing.

I wouldn't say Ike is below top 20. At least in my opinion. I will second that he definitely has trouble killing certain characters though. He can't really combo into his kill moves, which is the main issue holding him back to be honest. He almost HAS to get a read to take a stock. Though his edge guarding vs certain characters like those who teleport is pretty darn good.

 

[bc1910]

@ Thinkaman Shifting Shuriken is worse than regular Shuriken in a lot of MUs. It's probably better against Ness and Ganon so I'm not surprised you thought it was good while fighting it with those characters. Though I think regular Shuriken is better against customs Palutena but I don't have enough MU experience to say for sure. But yeah, SS isn't considered godly because it has a lot of ending lag and isn't as good as the regular ones a lot of the time.

I tested that and Greninja's smashes (and F-Air) all have hitboxes that perfectly match their animations. If there was a range nerf there it was probably because they removed disjoint that wasn't supposed to be there in the first place.

I never noticed any range nerf on them anyway, so any nerf there was in their range was probably minimal.

The animations still match the hitboxes but the animations themselves have been made smaller. Greninja used to be able to hit Marth's counter with a well-spaced Fsmash and not get hit by the counterattack, and that is no longer possible. You can see by watching old videos or testing 3DS prepatch that all of his smashes have considerably less range than before. It hurts his spacing and safety in neutral a lot, and his smashes are a lot worse OoS in general.

Greninja's playstyle didn't change that much. He just has to be more careful now, that's all. I still play Greninja the same way as I did before the patch hit (except with less gratuitous Up-Smash usage) and it still works. Greninja's frame data was still bad back then and most of it went unchanged except for Up-Smash and I guess D-Smash (which went mostly unused even back then anyway), shurikens were great but that doesn't change the fact that Greninja's approach was never stellar. Shurikens alone aren't going to carry the character especially when they have considerable start-up.

It might come down to personal difference in playstyle but I cannot play like I did prepatch at all and I think there are plenty of others who can't. Shurikens were excellent at setting up tick throws, and they no longer do that. His spacing took a big hit with his range nerfs. His ability to set up airdodge frame traps was massively reduced by Usmash's ending lag.

Old shurikens alone can't carry him, but they tie everything together beautifully. Their startup keeps them in balance, but their old ending lag allowed you to use them to cover your approach and chase after them. They are now a lot more limited in their use.

Greninja was not hit that hard. The only nerf that's really significant is the shuriken nerf and even then it's not like they're bad now, you just can't be spammy with them.

I might be wrong about Greninja's Up-Smash comboing into itself, but it was a really silly Smash attack according to some stuff I've heard (@ Lavani could maybe explain it better?).

People still get too up in arms about Greninja's nerfs when all they did was make so that you can't be too careless with him. Otherwise, Greninja is just as good as he was before, he was just given more risk to compensate for his amazing reward on hit. He's a properly balanced character now and Nintendo seems to be aware of that considering he was left basically untouched last patch.

Greninja was hit very hard, hard enough to completely erase him from most competitive players' consideration. Like, he beats Luigi which is huge yet very few Luigi players actually consider him a threat. I guarantee you Boss and Concon don't.

His Up Smash definitely did not combo into itself. That move was kind of stupid for other reasons but frankly I think it was one of the most balanced "stupid" moves because it was unsafe on block and did not kill well un-sweetspotted unless you were at the edge. It was also one of only two "stupid" moves Greninja had, among a cast of top, high and even mid tiers who have way more than two overpowered moves. Hydro Pump was the other stupid move, which I cannot defend and do not wish to defend; it warranted a nerf for sure, and that's fine.

Any frame data nerf to a character practically guarantees that they won't be as good as they were before. So while Greninja might still be good he definitely isn't "just as good".

Anyway, I'm starting to bore myself with this now LOL. Sorry to everyone else in the thread... @ FullMoon Thanks for your response and don't worry about sounding confrontational, I don't think you did, just passionate. I think your post had the best of intentions. I just wanted to touch on some things that were incorrect or I didn't agree with.

 

[Zelder]

Outside of 3.0 PM Mario, this Mario is probably the best "tier-wise" Mario we've seen yet, yeah.

 

[deepseadiva]

I see the word "boxing" used a lot when talking about up-close, yomi interactions. Is there a specific definition out there or is it a very generalized term?

Reason for me asking is this: I have a hard time seeing Rosalina as particularly good "boxer" when her quickest attacks against close opponents commit so hard. (5- dtilt, 6-dsmash, 6-dash attack, 7-ftilt. Jab is 8.) Yes, Luma's attacks are generally considerably quicker, but at the cost of not having hitboxes right in front of Rosalina, which is the only location where I'd think the hitboxes matter when discussing characters' boxing games.

So can the term "boxing" be applied to scenarios on the ground in which Luma can hit an opponent, but they can't hit Rosalina? Saying "Rosalina (without specification) has a good boxing game" isn't very characteristic of most of her up-close interactions. In the end, I'd prefer to say Rosalina's boxing game is pretty bad, while Luma's is excellent.

I would agree, but I wonder if people would agree that Luma is the "real" character. Luma is Popo and Rosalina is Nana.

 

[Antonykun]

I would agree, but I wonder if people would agree that Luma is the "real" character. Luma is Popo and Rosalina is Nana.

trying to tell that to the Rosalina boards sounds impossible

Just flashy Villager play :]

this what I mean about timber

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Totally deserved for how almost single-handly shut down (who was imo the best incaration of DK to ) ...

THERE I SAID IT!

Ah the forbidden matchup. Without it, I would agree with that statement.

 

[Djent]

Despite the Japanese "not liking customs" (Abadango likes them "so-so") they're still practicing them hard which is nice to see

IIRC Japan didn't do doubles before 2011, yet Kakera & Otori won Apex 2012 convincingly.

Japan will likely be fine at EVO. They might get knocked into losers early by some highly-changed character (AeroLink's Palu or a Wind Dong), but I can't see customs keeping them out of Top 8.

 

[Kofu]

Watching Abadango practice customs for EVO, and the Villager he's fighting is doing short hops with Extreme Balloon Trip so they can detonate on-stage. It's pretty interesting and I've never seen an American player do such a thing

Despite the Japanese "not liking customs" (Abadango likes them "so-so") they're still practicing them hard which is nice to see

People are so focused on the ledge applications of EBT that they ignore the other trapping/offensive uses of the move. It's a commitment to start up on the ground especially against shorter characters but it's still absurdly good. I haven't done a lot with it but I have used it for onstage traps and even killed with it intentionally. The flexibility it gives Villager is kind of stupid.

 

[Thinkaman]

@ Thinkaman Shifting Shuriken is worse than regular Shuriken in a lot of MUs. It's probably better against Ness and Ganon so I'm not surprised you thought it was good while fighting it with those characters. Though I think regular Shuriken is better against customs Palutena but I don't have enough MU experience to say for sure. But yeah, SS isn't considered godly because it has a lot of ending lag and isn't as good as the regular ones a lot of the time.

Actually, Alias used the default in every match we played. It was a question speaking from theory and other experiences, rather than that experience.

 

[Lavani]

If Greninja really lost range on his water sword moves, it's the first I'm hearing of it and the hitbox data from 1.0.3→1.0.4 is unchanged outside of usmash (unless this was a 1.0.6 thing). Guess I'll look into it next time I turn my 3DS on...on that note, where's the 1.0.6 data dump? I've been refreshing MasterCore every day for a month and a half

Pre-nerf Greninja usmash was dumb, but it never comboed into itself unless your opponent just put the controller down after being hit by it. What it did do was allow Greninja to combo a uair after it though, which was really overkill for a move that hit with disjoint above and to the sides of Greninja, with kill power on both the sweet and sour hits, and 19% total damage with the ability to follow up after for even more. It may not have been truly safe, but it had the same end lag as Ganon's usmash with more area coverage and disjoint on a much more mobile character (who also slides a lot when using it, to boot). It was a low-risk ridiculous-reward move that worked for pretty much all situations; now its endlag is average, its range is nerfed, and the sourspot doesn't kill as well so it doesn't outclass dsmash on its weak hit anymore. I guess you could argue it was overnerfed (I feel like Sheik's usmash has more disjoint now, for one), but it definitely warranted a nerf of some sort and its new endlag isn't excessive or anything.

Re: Shurikens, Shifting Shuriken has more endlag and is a slower projectile, which kind of offsets its reward. Still a great move, just more of a MU thing than something you'd always want to take. Stagnant Shuriken is also good for placing a large lingering hitbox on the field, which can be used to control space against rushdown characters like Falcon or to cover the ledge. Greninja players should learn to love all three of them if playing in a customs environment imo (and iirc some players were working on a list of which MUs to use each one in on their board).

 

[Diddy Kong]

Ah the forbidden matchup. Without it, I would agree with that statement.

I wish they could've just copy-pasted Brawl DK and give him Smash 4 DK's Side B, Up B and Dash Attack. That way, DK might've been a much much stronger secondary to me. It's such a shame that the likes of Bowser are now even faster than him, while he totally outclassed Bowser in everything in Brawl. I MISS DK BEING KING OF HEAVYWEIGHTS MAN!

 

[Unknownkid]

trying to tell that to the Rosalina boards sounds impossible

this what I mean about timber

DAT Pocket B-Reverse Shenanigans!!

Watching Abadango practice customs for EVO, and the Villager he's fighting is doing short hops with Extreme Balloon Trip so they can detonate on-stage. It's pretty interesting and I've never seen an American player do such a thing

Despite the Japanese "not liking customs" (Abadango likes them "so-so") they're still practicing them hard which is nice to see

Do you have a link to this? I want to see how EBT should be used.

 

[Nabbitnator]

People are so focused on the ledge applications of EBT that they ignore the other trapping/offensive uses of the move. It's a commitment to start up on the ground especially against shorter characters but it's still absurdly good. I haven't done a lot with it but I have used it for onstage traps and even killed with it intentionally. The flexibility it gives Villager is kind of stupid.

I like that EBT gives a nice approaching tool to villager on stage and sets up a wall for him too.

 

[Thinkaman]

I like that EBT gives a nice approaching tool to villager on stage and sets up a wall for him too.

Yeah, EBT is fine, the balloons just should not go through the stage.

 

[Space thing]

Greninja used to be able to hit Marth's counter with a well-spaced Fsmash and not get hit by the counterattack, and that is no longer possible. You can see by watching old videos or testing 3DS prepatch that all of his smashes have considerably less range than before.

OK, I tested it and his Fmsahs can still outrage counter. He can't hit Marth if Marth doesn't counter at that spacing, but I don't think he ever could. I also just did a pre-patch video to now comparison and I'm seeing no obvious differences in range on Fsmash or Dsmash. Could you give sources on this? I've never heard or noticed these changes until now. Usmash obviously got nerfed, but it's still pretty crazy.

In any case, a reversal on Greninja's nerfs still wouldn't make that much of a difference aside from the Shuriken nerf and maybe the Umsash nerf. He'd be a better character obviously, but only the old Shuriken really addressed any of the major problems of the character. He always had some trouble approaching and he always had bad out of shield options. Only the old Shuriken would help him deal with these issues to some extent. Everything else would just be overtuning the character IMO.

 

[FullMoon]

I would argue that increasing the knockback on Up-Air and F-Air back to what they were would possibly make those moves worse because that would mean they wouldn't combo into stuff as often. Remember that knockback nerfs aren't necessarily bad, Diddy mains sure know that. Please make Up-Air connect properly again though.

Old shurikens back would be great, but I don't feel it's that necessary of a buff in order for the character to work.

D-Smash is almost never used so I think most Greninja players don't care much about what happens to it.

Up-Smash is fine the way it is, good damage, good knocback, good range, can be combo'd into, slides really far and can even hit on both sides and the end lag is not bad. I actually never noticed a range nerf on Up-Smash.

Do you know what buff that would really help Greninja?

Give him a normal standing grab so that he has an actual OoS option. That alone should bump him back up.

 

[Nexin]

@ Thinkaman Shifting Shuriken is worse than regular Shuriken in a lot of MUs. It's probably better against Ness and Ganon so I'm not surprised you thought it was good while fighting it with those characters. Though I think regular Shuriken is better against customs Palutena but I don't have enough MU experience to say for sure. But yeah, SS isn't considered godly because it has a lot of ending lag and isn't as good as the regular ones a lot of the time.

You're right about the Palutena matchup. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Shifting Shuriken has less range than Explosive Flames, meaning that punishing it safely would be very easy to do. Even if I'm wrong, it still isn't very difficult for Palutena to avoid it.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Why do people keep saying Luigi Fireball is punishable on hit? He gets better frame advantage as your percent goes up. At KO percents, you do NOT want to block it with your face.

It still matters a lot in neutral for actually getting the lead against him. Anything to have control over and punish his fireball game is useful. Scary as he is up close, once you have a lead, he's not exactly hard to run away from.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

I wouldn't say Ike is below top 20. At least in my opinion. I will second that he definitely has trouble killing certain characters though. He can't really combo into his kill moves, which is the main issue holding him back to be honest. He almost HAS to get a read to take a stock. Though his edge guarding vs certain characters like those who teleport is pretty darn good.

If he can land a grab, he can combo into a kill move in a lot of situation.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

He's not but he gets largely shut down by characters with strong arsenals of projectiles. are incredibly frustrating if they know the match up, especially where it just feels like you're being annoyed to death with lemons/slingshot hits. I'd argue the other three boil down to patience. The Japanese seem to think he's mid tier or possibly even higher (same goes for ) but I will admit that I'm totally ignorant on their stance on this.

Link/D3 isn't that bad. Poor Link has a really hard time working around the shielding of his projectiles due to the exorbitant recovery he suffers after the fact; D3 is, in fact, fast enough to get in and punish Link from around mid-range after he throws ****. He's somewhat cumbersome in the mobility department, too. His other buttons are comparable, disjointed, but largely on the slower end of things. TL v. D3 is similar, but TL is very mobile, making it trickier to pin him down from his barrages. His buttons are also a little on the faster side.

Samus is a pain in the ass, but she's manageable---in a customs off environment, anyways. With customs on she becomes tyrannical to D3, capable of shutting him down almost entirely with slow missiles and the like.

Megaman is godawful in all respects. He shuts down D3 the hardest because his midrange game nullifies D3's entirely, not just his long range game. It becomes very difficult to poke/counterpoke when you're just one of the many projectiles away from getting grabbed, juggled, or otherwise murdered while you are in a near-constant disadvantaged state from what's supposed to be your optimal range. ROB and Gunner get honorable mention here as well because they possess similar attributes/abilities inherent to their zoning that **** D3 over like that as well (though I will admit that I don't peg ROB's zoning to be terribly domineering, just the fact that he has a number of great buttons and character attributes that really help him outdo D3 in a lot of critical ways that reinforce it).

Villager's zoning with his projectile-aerials isn't the problem. It's the frame/landing traps that give D3 ****, ala Lloid and Tree (sometimes in tandem). It's especially bad on stages with platforms where Villager can bob and weave and put **** out there to his heart's content. Pocket is also bad news bears as well, because pocketed Gordos are big ouchies. Customs on, well, it's Megaman level disgusting, especially when those setups evolve into death combos that D3 has little answer for (50/50s with Trip Sapling by the edge are grimey, btw).

Smooth Criminal

 

[LightLV]

Mario and Luigi aren't fun to fight strictly because their best attributes come from how hilarious their frame data is. They can literally mash A out of combos and kill you for it.