Character Competitive Impressions

[TTTTTsd]

So Ryu's Down-Throw breaks shields in Doubles if someone is shielding next to him.

I don't know either, but it's hilarious.

I think Roy has some potential in his hit and run game. That mobility is legit.

I agree that he has similarities to Falcon in more than just one regard though Falcon looks overall more threatening than Roy so I can't see Roy go beyond low high tier as things stand. Character ain't bad though and I'm really curious to see what somebody like Neo can do with him.

Is he really the best FE character though? Marth's buffed jab is extremely hype and Ike looks just very competent all around. I couldn't tell which character is better than the other. Gonna be a matter of individual matchups [in which case Roy may actually have bigger issues than Ike and Marth].

I think all the FE chars are really good now. IMO Roy is the best but it's by a small margin and by virtue of only more reliable movement. They seem to have decided that "we're gonna make Marth and Ike MUCH more viable while we also make Roy viable!" and it looks like that's what they did.

 

[FullMoon]

I'm pretty sure all tethers are frame 16 with the exception of Lucas's which is frame 12 to compensate for the shorter range.

Like, I get that they wanted to make Greninja's grab slower to compensate for the bigger range that it has, but I think it would work better if it was like... Frame 9 and active until frame 15. It's still slower than average but the fact that it's long lasting could make it work as some sort of trap grab.

As it stands right now there's literally no reason for anyone to ever use Greninja's standing grab over his dash or pivot grab.

 

[David Viran]

I'm pretty sure all tethers are frame 16 with the exception of Lucas's which is frame 12 to compensate for the shorter range.

Like, I get that they wanted to make Greninja's grab slower to compensate for the bigger range that it has, but I think it would work better if it was like... Frame 9 and active until frame 15. It's still slower than average but the fact that it's long lasting could make it work as some sort of trap grab.

As it stands right now there's literally no reason for anyone to ever use Greninja's standing grab over his dash or pivot grab.

Nope only samus's and zss's grab are frame 16. All the others are frame 14 or lower.

 

[FullMoon]

Huh. Well you learn something new every day.

Nice double post action by the way.

 

[Emblem Lord]

@ Emblem Lord you seem to know a lot about this, so let me figure out something. Anyone else who has experience with traditional fighting games could help me out here too. I was going on earlier about people throwing out the word 'neutral game' without any understanding and using the term to justify why a character is good, in my opinion.

So today I saw this, upvoted a bunch on reddit

"Roy's neutral game is really great in my opinion. His tilts and even his neutral - A come in real handy. Even though his neutral is that simple forward swipe up, it comes out at a decent speed and I've been able to string some extra aerial combos together from it."

Is that correct?

My definition of the neutral game is the situation where both characters are in a standoff and its basically who can force the enemy to over-commit first. The best characters in neutral are characterised by having safe-on-block moves, projectiles and basically never have to commit to an unsafe approach while having really hard defense to get through.

Therefore, this would give Roy a poor neutral game since he has none of those. Having disjointed standing moves doesnt mean anything if you cant force the enemy to approach you.

How does roys neutral compare to sheiks?

I'm perfectly open to being wrong about how I see neutral game here. I just dont see how Roy is going to deal with sheik in neutral, and by that definition, has a poor neutral himself.

No need for me to repeat what you already have a clear understanding of.

I take partial responsibility for people throwing out terms they do not understand. "Neutral game" has become a buzz word almost as widely used incorrectly as the term "Mind games" back in my days of Melee.

Roy has decent neutral, but amazing reward. He isnt really a safe character though. He is misleading because his mobility is so high and his set-ups are consistent. And having a disjoint helps alot so it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking he is a king of neutral. He is not. He CAN outfootsie his opponents because he has the Sword of Seals, but him poking at you is different then Marth poking at you for sure.

Sheiks neutral is monstrous and stupid.

It's just an unfair comparison to make. She commits to nothing and as long as she is the only character that can do this she will remain the queen.

 

[bc1910]

Ha, mind games... blast from the past.

I would happily trade the range on Greninja's standing grab for just a normal grab. Like make the whirlpool smaller or something. It's the whole whirlpool aesthetic that makes his good dashgrab make sense though (the whirlpool is large hence the grab has large range) so I wouldn't want it gone completely.

A trap grab would be nice but honestly I'd be perfectly happy with a f8-9 active grab. Just so it's not reactable and isn't so easily broken by jabs. I think it would make sense to buff the speed of Greninja and Zelda's standing grabs, Zelda's is f10 for no good reason. Zelda's should just be a totally normal grab and Greninja's would be fine around the f8 mark with its current range, it's only got a tiny bit more range than Charizard's.

 

[Signia]

So basically, Roy isn't safer, it's just that being speedy helps him threaten?

I guess that reminds me of Falco and Fox where most of Falco's grounded moves are better/safer/stronger, but he's generally considered inferior due to not being able to close the distances.

Neutral game strength is all about reaction and space. If an opponent can't simply react and act accordingly to an option, that option is an implicit threat. Areas from which you are in range and able to act on these threats are threat zones.

It's harder to react to fast character movement. From a longer distance away, they can force you to choose. So, their threat zones are wider. They have more "effective range."

Risk/reward is important to consider for these options and their respective zones as well. Independent of the threat area, a move with good r/r is more of a threat than others.

This is how everyone should be thinking about the neutral game. Outside these threat zones, everything is a simple matter of knowledge of its counter and acting accordingly and isn't relevant in high level play where people know their stuff. And of course this applies to all fighting games.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I think all the FE chars are really good now.

Robin is bad and idk about Lucina yet. Her lack of sweetspot is highly unimpressive.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

@Amazing Ampharos holds(held?) a REALLY low opinion on , dunno if thats the case now.

I mean I can see why. Lucas's range outside of Zair is pretty abysmal and so is his grab. He reminds me of Brawl Luigi for some reason.

 

[NairWizard]

Going to disagree with @ Emblem Lord a little bit. Neutral in smash has a different meaning from neutral in other fighting games, just like advantage and disadvantage are different (ledges, platforms, offstage--none of which exists in most other fighting games). Mobility is much more important. It's not just your safety in playing footsies. It's your ability to bait commitments from your opponent too. Sheik is great in neutral because she does both: she plays it safe and has great baits/mobility. She is certainly much better than Roy or anyone else in neutral, but we might be only painting part of the picture by talking strictly about commitment-based footsiese.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Thats all true for a regular fighter as well.
Wot is Whiff punishment...

Smashes neutral isn't really full of foreign concepts.

 

[NairWizard]

Thats all true for a regular fighter as well.
Wot is Whiff punishment...

True, there are some connections to be made, especially with certain fighters. It's obviously not to the same degree as in smash though. Just the ability to jump so high, roll behind your opponent, dash so fast, etc. is different from most traditional fighters. The concept of baiting may be the same, but the degree of it is different.

Translating fighting game lexicon to the smash universe has always been slightly problematic. It's not a 1:1 mapping. Ultimately how good a character's so-called neutral game is is about how often a character can convert neutral situations (which are clearly defined as "not advantageous or disadvantageous for either character") into an advantage. That's the simplest and most logical definition. For smash this is done much differently than it is in most other games.


Another way to think about it is: if Roy had Ganon's mobility specs, would he be as good in neutral as he is right now? The answer is quite obviously "no."

 

[A2ZOMG]

I'm pretty sure all tethers are frame 16 with the exception of Lucas's which is frame 12 to compensate for the shorter range.

Like, I get that they wanted to make Greninja's grab slower to compensate for the bigger range that it has, but I think it would work better if it was like... Frame 9 and active until frame 15. It's still slower than average but the fact that it's long lasting could make it work as some sort of trap grab.

As it stands right now there's literally no reason for anyone to ever use Greninja's standing grab over his dash or pivot grab.

Link's tether as I recall is 12 frames, and Toon Link's is 10.

Also just gonna throw out, I believe Link is the best sword character right now, or he competes with maybe Pit/Dark Pit for that (they're still fundamentally extremely solid chars that need more representation). ONLY weakness is his the ending lag on his grab, so like ZSS he fairly suffers from being fundamentally vulnerable to baits. Link has always been a rather high reward character, and the changes to his D-throw allow him to finally exert that threat in midrange, where his main option is grab.

Link's damage output is so stupid that off a D-throw, you can effectively make one or two reads and deal about 50% or so (9% U-tilt, 17% U-smash, 15% U-air? Link's raw damage output is bonkers for Smash 4 standards). Combine this with the fact Link has some legitimate (if very difficult) KO confirm potential out of D-throw, and that Link has great aerials for edgeguards, he's a very viable character right now. The changes to Link's D-throw especially help him in matchups like Fox and Sheik, who are very vulnerable to Link's combos and normally abuse Link pretty hard in midrange.

 

[DanGR]

@ Emblem Lord you seem to know a lot about this, so let me figure out something. Anyone else who has experience with traditional fighting games could help me out here too. I was going on earlier about people throwing out the word 'neutral game' without any understanding and using the term to justify why a character is good, in my opinion.

So today I saw this, upvoted a bunch on reddit

"Roy's neutral game is really great in my opinion. His tilts and even his neutral - A come in real handy. Even though his neutral is that simple forward swipe up, it comes out at a decent speed and I've been able to string some extra aerial combos together from it."

Is that correct?

My definition of the neutral game is the situation where both characters are in a standoff and its basically who can force the enemy to over-commit first. The best characters in neutral are characterised by having safe-on-block moves, projectiles and basically never have to commit to an unsafe approach while having really hard defense to get through.

Therefore, this would give Roy a poor neutral game since he has none of those. Having disjointed standing moves doesnt mean anything if you cant force the enemy to approach you.

How does roys neutral compare to sheiks?

I'm perfectly open to being wrong about how I see neutral game here. I just dont see how Roy is going to deal with sheik in neutral, and by that definition, has a poor neutral himself.

Everyone's neural is sub-par if sheik is par... but she isn't. She's way above average.

A better comparison would probably be c.falcon, who uses his speed and mobility to create openings even though his button options are kinda limited. (Limited, but strong and rewarding.)

 

[bc1910]

Robin is bad and idk about Lucina yet. Her lack of sweetspot is highly unimpressive.

I have always thought Robin is quite good, but I'm in the minority as a lot of people think he's a poor character. Why exactly is he considered bad, or why do you personally think he's bad? I've never had someone give me a convincing reason, it's always just blanket statements like "he can't deal with mobile characters" that don't explain anything.

Anyone who knows about Robin and can tell me why he's not that good, or what should be exploited when fighting him, is welcome to answer this post. I'd appreciate it since I can usually see why bad characters are bad even if I struggle against them or can use them well, but Robin is the exception. I know he has poor mobility but I find he can defend himself better than most immobile characters.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I have always thought Robin is quite good, but I'm in the minority as a lot of people think he's a poor character. Why exactly is he considered bad, or why do you personally think he's bad? I've never had someone give me a convincing reason, it's always just blanket statements like "he can't deal with mobile characters" that don't explain anything.

Anyone who knows about Robin and can tell me why he's not that good, or what should be exploited when fighting him, is welcome to answer this post. I'd appreciate it since I can usually see why bad characters are bad even if I struggle against them or can use them well, but Robin is the exception. I know he has poor mobility but I find he can defend himself better than most immobile characters.

Robin has no midrange game or real mobility, like DDD. Also his grab game is not a serious threat and his recovery sucks. Bad character.

If you can either trivialize his Arcfire zone by rushing him down, or by camping him, he can't win.

 

[Blobface]

Robin (arguably) has worse mobility than Ganon. And unlike Ganon, he didn't play football in college and doesn't have an amazing dash attack to make up for it.

Though really, part of it might just be his lack of representation. I know Nairo used Robin a little bit and... that's it. Are there any notable Robin players?

 

[Ikes]

Robin (arguably) has worse mobility than Ganon. And unlike Ganon, he didn't play football in college and doesn't have an amazing dash attack to make up for it.

Though really, part of it might just be his lack of representation. I know Nairo used Robin a little bit and... that's it. Are there any notable Robin players?

Etika maybe? I mean i've never seen him play a game though. He's more of just a smash news guy.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Like, Mario doesn't really dominate matchups generally speaking. But he's flat out unwinnable for Robin because Mario can freely rush down or camp Robin, and Robin has no way to really chase Mario or pin him down because he has 0 midrange game to abuse against Mario. Plus Robin's low recovery is so terrible that Mario actually can edgeguard it, and Mario is garbage at edgeguarding.

 

[bc1910]

Robin has no midrange game or real mobility, like DDD. Also his grab game is not a serious threat and his recovery sucks. Bad character.

If you can either trivialize his Arcfire zone by rushing him down, or by camping him, he can't win.

Everything you said makes sense, but doesn't arcfire activate if it hits a non-transcendent projectile, and then block subsequent projectiles while it stays active? It seems tricky to outcamp Robin but there's probably something I'm missing.

 

[Mr. Johan]

Arcfire activates on a projectile and on shields, but fat lotta good that's going to help when the Arcfire pillar hangs out in midair anyway.

I can't begin to count how many times someone purposefully ran up to Arcfire, shielded the hit, rolled towards Robin, and punished while Robin's still in endlag. This pillar's gotta be more affected by gravity, really. It simply falls too slowly.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Everything you said makes sense, but doesn't arcfire activate if it hits a non-transcendent projectile, and then block subsequent projectiles while it stays active? It seems tricky to outcamp Robin but there's probably something I'm missing.

Projectiles that arc like Link's arrows or Bombs, Mario's fireballs, Yoshi Eggs, even Diddy Peanuts. Robin doesn't have very easy ways to punish them. Now arguably, you can just simply shield these, but that means Robin isn't walling you efficiently with Arcfire anyway.

As I stated Mario happens to be able to both camp and rush down Robin past Arcfire, so Robin can't win that matchup. Similarly he has no way to beat Fox and probably Sheik either. I would argue Robin, not completely unlike Little Mac and DeDeDe, suffers from some extremely invalidating matchups.

Robin does okay against slower characters who actually are more likely to have to sit still against Arcfire, but the Weapon Durability system hurts Robin a lot here because it means he can't abuse it to wall people.

 

[wm1026]

Has anyone been messing around with Marth after the patch? He is feeling a heck of a lot better to me. That jab is a pretty big buff as it gives him a get off me other than his up B of course. I don't know I am not a Marth main but I definitely feel he is going up after this patch. Any thoughts?

 

[Woohoo982]

Has anyone really played g&w after 1.08? I havent seen that many, even though he's a solid midtier. Also diddy is getting nerfed so bad right now.
Oh and why do people think mii swordfighter is the worst character in the game?

 

[Zelder]

Has anyone really played g&w after 1.08? I havent seen that many, even though he's a solid midtier. Also diddy is getting nerfed so bad right now.
Oh and why do people think mii swordfighter is the worst character in the game?

Zelda is the worst character in the game.

 

[FullMoon]

Zelda is the worst character in the game.

I wouldn't be so sure of that. Zelda got some good buffs in this patch, I think Samus could be the worst now.

 

[Woohoo982]

Zelda is the worst character in the game.

Personally, i think zelda is bad, but 1111 palutena is clearly the worst.
Ok then, why do people think mii swirdfighter is garbage tier?

 

[GeneralLedge]

Ok then, why do people think mii swirdfighter is garbage tier?

Very few people outside of Reddit do. Last I checked, people simply don't discuss Mii Sword at all, because none of his tools are severely outstanding.

Mii Sword, regardless of specials, is comfortably mid-tier. Nothing bad, nothing outstanding. He can win, he can lose.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

True, there are some connections to be made, especially with certain fighters. It's obviously not to the same degree as in smash though. Just the ability to jump so high, roll behind your opponent, dash so fast, etc. is different from most traditional fighters. The concept of baiting may be the same, but the degree of it is different.

Translating fighting game lexicon to the smash universe has always been slightly problematic. It's not a 1:1 mapping. Ultimately how good a character's so-called neutral game is is about how often a character can convert neutral situations (which are clearly defined as "not advantageous or disadvantageous for either character") into an advantage. That's the simplest and most logical definition. For smash this is done much differently than it is in most other games.

The only real problem I see is that most of the fundamental jargon not used in Smash? Counter-poking, whiff punish, pokes, Frame trap, etc? You can apply it all to Smash. No one really talks about counter-pokes, whiff punishes and trades? Neutral often just gets discussed as who has safe moves on shield but not everything anyone is going to do in going to be safe on shield, and virtually everything someone does other then doing nothing is unsafe in some fashion. That's absolutely true for other fighters and remains true in Smash which is part of why mobility is important...its universally important.

What really deviates Smash from other fighters to me is the interactions after a hit and I suppose that we have the bubble shield.

As far as Robin goes? Not feeling the criticism. Almost feels like the Charizard & Swordfighter ****-talking reddit likes to do.
Whats a real shame is how long Nosferatu takes to recover. The thunders are great.

 

[PK Gaming]

Anyone who knows about Robin and can tell me why he's not that good, or what should be exploited when fighting him, is welcome to answer this post. I'd appreciate it since I can usually see why bad characters are bad even if I struggle against them or can use them well, but Robin is the exception. I know he has poor mobility but I find he can defend himself better than most immobile characters.

Horrible mobility, poor recovery, mediocre neutral game and very vulnerable to shield and roll (a good grab game would have really helped here, and Nos just isn't a good enough command grab). That, and the fact he/she has nonexistent tournament representation (nobody in Japan, and very few NA players... who have more or less moved on) and several abysmal matchups against the top tier makes for a pretty poor character.

Still... I don't feel too bad using him/her in most matches. Just gotta deal with the hand you've been dealt.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Nos is more like an equalizing Smash attack ,its got basically the same start-up as most Smashes and evens up any reasonable % gap you may have with someone else if not putting Robin in the lead. It going through shields is just a bonus.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

To be fair prior to the last two patches Mii Swordfighter was quite clearly the worst character. The buffs to dtilt and nair were really quite helpful because they improved his neutral and combo game. Before that he really couldn't do anything, now he actually has something like a damage output.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Who tf cares who the worst character in the game is why does this discussion keep coming up and what purpose does it serve?

 

[Thinkaman]

I have heard every (non-top) character in the game except Samus and Zelda be described as "solidly mid-tier."

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Samus and Zelda are solidly mid-tier.

 

[Thinkaman]

Samus and Zelda are solidly mid-tier.

You *******.

 

[GeneralLedge]

One of these days every character in the game will be a solid mid-tier.

That'll be fun.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

One of these days every character in the game will be a solid mid-tier.

That'll be fun.

Except Bowser.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Except Bowser.

Bowser...somehow needs better landing and recovery options. His moves are great and all, but that negative state...customs help I guess.

But for starters I'd like to know why his B-air and Up-B have so much landing lag.

 

[outfoxd]

DHD either. Never get touched in the patches, floating while the world changes around them.

(Also I know more of the cast is also unchanged. We just want our fixed smashes for Sak's sake).