Character Competitive Impressions

[ROOOOY!]

The point is, people who believed Jigglypuff was magically bad in Brawl don't know what they're talking about, because that's a very VERY inconsistent and BAD analysis of tools.

Realistically, Jigglypuff was already a mostly complete character before, and any buffs she got from there were guaranteed to make her insane. The main nerf to the character is she doesn't stall out games quite as viably, but her neutral, which was already very good, got WAY more threatening.

I don't think you'll find anyone that's either mained or 2nded her across at least the last 3 games that will agree with you that she wasn't bad. I didn't say she was bottom tier or anything, her tools were okay, but the mechanics of brawl really ****ed her over imo.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Okay? I still don't see what that means for this game.

Everyone got new tools, new tools as a whole (newcomers) were added. This changes everything. Just because I can't SHL with Falco anymore doesn't mean Falco is bad (Note, Melee Falco main here and I love playing both incredibly different versions who are both very solid.)

Stop saying that because characters got better that they are good. Let's keep things contained here.

EDIT: Also.... 3k post in the thread HYPE

The point I'm getting across is people need to actually use their head when analyzing tools.

Also Falco wouldn't have been top tier in Brawl if he didn't have an amazing movepool to back up his lasers, which he in fact did keep. Realistically, when your movepool is as good as Falco's, it's pretty hard to be bad.

Also it's worth keeping in mind, there were in general more nerfs to characters than buffs in Smash 4, disregarding physics changes. Most characters in Smash 4 universally do 3-4% less damage on average, there's way fewer really good combos out of throws or low percent combos that extend beyond ~22%

 

[Shaya]

Well, not many characters have comparatively straight buffs. You bring up the point, everyone moving 5 steps forward means no one moves forward.
I definitely take that into consideration. I'm pretty confident in saying a character like Jiggs and Falcon were virtually straight buffed. Capabilities were not taken away.

Of course comparing to Brawl is going to be valid. Look at the differences and question "what did they take away to justify all of this?" nothing.

Please no arguing at the semantics of the non-literal use of the word nothing.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

I'd like to see more Kirby and Ness discussion to be honest. The only insight I get is from the Kirby section, and it feels like not many of us even use him. It's incredibly frustrating when you're using somebody and most battles seem very uphill, or when you're looking for advice, but there doesn't seem to be much info on the match ups or strategies. In most of these posts, it looks like nobody even considers Kirby a threat? Seem like the only times he's gotten discussed here is when I brought him up.

Kirby is a heavy aggressor, his aerials are fast, his tilts are fast. Hell F-smash and D-smash are alright.
But the range is poop. His specials are all laggy as fart.
Thing is if if you allow Kirby to get in range he can cause a ton of damage.
Problem is, with such slow air speed and ground speed Kirby doesn't get in easily at all and his follow up once he knocks them away is poor.

With Customs Kirby may have the strongest ability to recover I've seen so far maybe beaten out by Lucarios aura nonsense.

Upper Cutter is mad sweet ( to me). Hammer Bash kills off the top, it's relatively fast, you cant hurt yourself, it boosts your recovery, quite notable for punishing the laggier moves. Jumping Inhale gives additional Horizontal recovery, it's a lot more reliable to inhale as well.

I do want to restate that I think Kirby is actually very lethal when he gets in, but you aren't getting in easily at all. Mixed with how light Kirby is and it's a problem. You can't get in to hurt them and you don't live long enough to attrition. Your basically taking a risk as kirby doesn't really get much out of his grabs other than damage. A backair on a Heavy out of B-throw maybe, a potential F-air string at most.
Dtilt is pretty great, Kirbys crouch is low, just dtilting removes a significant amount of offensive options that pass-overhead while you get to hit them.

I can actually see Kirby doing really well if someone figures out how to reliably get him in range. Thing is this is a game with a ton of swordsman, a penguin with a hammer, Rosalina, Duckhunt/Villager/Mega spam. It's not going to be easy.

As far as off-stage. Kirby with Customs has no issue staying in the air...at all. However if you're going for the gimp Kirbys range becomes a problem again, you can certainly stay in the air to fight them but if you go for the attack they can throw out their own aerial, so the question is really if you can bait their aerial to make recovering more strenuous, otherwise you just get shot out of the sky back to the stage and they recover safely. Stone can be a decent option since they can't hit you back, but well it's telegraphed.

Final Cutter is meh IMO
Ground Cutter seems interesting, considerable, thing is just like FC it's going to be telegraphed try it out for an edgeguard.
Upper Cutter is my personal fav, but its just adding more recovery which you aren't lacking.

Hammer 1 I typically dont use, Hammer Bash Is the best one to me, fairly reliable. If you Jump and Hammer Bash while in the initial momentum of a jump you get a higher boost, which makes it double as recovery. Giant hammer is weak think it has some heavy armor but its negligible, basically garbage.

Meteor stone takes way too long to come out of to be valid. Grounding stone might be usable sometimes. Might as well just stone 1.

Ice breathe suffers from Kirby syndrome (short range). Jumping inhale is fairly flexible.

Kirby feels like a real contender to me when he's actually in range to hit somebody, and well not at all that when he has to approach them.

Oh and It might just be me but I find his nair mediocre. No range as always, everyone seems to hit you out of it with anything at all. F-air works, you can pull them down with a FF to lead to gimp opportunity's at even 0%. Backair is potent. Just he has a good fast aerial game, strong tilts, smashes could be better but they're pretty decent. Just going to reiterate for the 100th time, he has no range.

 

[KlefkiHolder]

The point I'm getting across is people need to actually use their head when analyzing tools.

Also Falco wouldn't have been top tier in Brawl if he didn't have an amazing movepool to back up his lasers, which he in fact did keep. Realistically, when your movepool is as good as Falco's, it's pretty hard to be bad.

Also it's worth keeping in mind, there were in general more nerfs to characters than buffs in Smash 4, disregarding physics changes. Most characters in Smash 4 universally do 3-4% less damage on average, there's way fewer really good combos out of throws or low percent combos that extend beyond ~22%

A HUGE part of analyzing tools is analyzing application. What works against who, how they work, that sort of thing, and imo past games do not matter as much in that context. Puff having buffs now doesn't mean much because that applies to solely her appearance as a character. As it stands, we lack actual evidence proving that Puff is Top Tier against other characters, or likewise that other characters are Low . Really, we lack data, experience, in Smash 4. I said that I've only seen a few sets of her in this game, and you've called her an undisputed top tier, so show me some evidence in this game please. I lack it.

Basically, I don't want us to be jumping to conclusions based off of version differences.

Me bringing up Falco was just an example because I know Falco and it was something that I could relate to I guess. I remember a lot of people earlier, like right after release, calling him bad because lasers aren't too good anymore.

Physics changes are a huge reason for why I am saying what I am saying, btw.

Well, not many characters have comparatively straight buffs. You bring up the point, everyone moving 5 steps forward means no one moves forward.
I definitely take that into consideration. I'm pretty confident in saying a character like Jiggs and Falcon were virtually straight buffed. Capabilities were not taken away.

Of course comparing to Brawl is going to be valid. Look at the differences and question "what did they take away to justify all of this?" nothing.

Please no arguing at the semantics of the non-literal use of the word nothing.

I'm becoming more tame than when I started out in this (it was more of a rant at that point). Comparison does matter, I just do not want it taking precedence over stuff like matchups in this game or physics. We were just talking about Falcon and the Brawl physics were a huge reason that he just is not good in Brawl. That's just sort of why I think starting over may be better in discussion.

I also have a bit more of a melee background, and similarities between Brawl/Smash 4 are a lot tighter and numerous than Melee/Smash 4 , so some of my argument stems from that.

 

[SonicZeroX]

Teeechnically Falcon did get one nerf from Brawl. He can't auto cancel dair and fair anymore. If it weren't for that + the ability to standing tech meteors then dair -> knee would be legit.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

That fireball cannon is bad. You have to commit to three slow blasts. You lose the ability to land with neutral B. Being able to screw over second jumps is cool, but charizard already has a massive offstage kit, while he needs the approach of flamethrower most of the time.

Dragon Rush is amazing, but I'm starting to think that flare blitz will be important. Kill opponent half a stage away on a good read. Losing a long distance KO move can really hurt, even if its replaced by a less punishable move.

I'm going to have to disagree about Fireball Cannon.

I've had more luck landing with it then I did with the flamethrower. Flamethrower approaches were mostly telegraphed whenever I tried them with my opponents having no difficulty getting around it. Fireball Cannon I had more luck with if only because of the massive range I could use it at for poking. Its locked to 3 shots minimum, but you can angle it downward and force the opponent it deal with it more than flamethrower I find. Its not good for up close approaching, but I find it works well enough to mid range approaching, after which Charizard's speed (or Dragon Rush depending on what the opponent does) works well enough for the last bit. I'd rather have that + risk free gimping/off stage disruption than a marginally more useful approach option in some situations. Maybe would switch to Flamethrower for matches like Sonic I guess where he's speed is going to get around things most of the time anyways.

Dragon Rush vs Flare Blitz I think is going to be partly depending on the MU, partly on the playing style used with Charizard.

Once custom moves get added in, I just don't see a way for Charizard to be bottom. He can either be a long range harassment/punisher, or mid range punisher, while containing great speed for his weight class, and having solid KOing power in either case.

 

[Z'zgashi]

But yeah, in terms of numbers only, Falcon must be close to the most buffed character in this game. Like, I know bowser exists, but eh.

Falcon got more buffs than Bowser, I guarantee it.

I mean if you want a simple example, Bowser > Falcon in Brawl, and Falcon is definitely better than Bowser in this game.

 

[Shaya]

Physics changes are a huge reason for why I am saying what I am saying, btw.

I'm becoming more tame than when I started out in this (it was more of a rant at that point). Comparison does matter, I just do not want it taking precedence over stuff like matchups in this game or physics. We were just talking about Falcon and the Brawl physics were a huge reason that he just is not good in Brawl. That's just sort of why I think starting over may be better in discussion.

I also have a bit more of a melee background, and similarities between Brawl/Smash 4 are a lot tighter and numerous than Melee/Smash 4 , so some of my argument stems from that.

I legitimately feel that if Falcon had retained his same structure/game data as he had in Brawl, he'd still be bottom tier, maybe low due to edge hogging stuff. That character had no range and only two usable moves: jab and up air. Not a single thing of his was safe on shield. He had the worst dash to shield in the game and barely no means of doing anything out of a dash to justify it (Marth had the same [better by 1 frame] but had dancing blade [top 5 move in Brawl tbqh] and all of his amazing/lagless ending aerials). His other mobility quirks were messy and did not flow well. He had no approach, nor pressure, nor reward. He had no grab game whatsoever other than grab releasing Wario into knee (that in itself was enough to make that match up close to even, even when Wario in turn chain grabbed him from like 20-200% [but without a guaranteed kill]).


Hit stun in Brawl existed, the amount of time before one could act was a constant after a certain threshold, but it was still "there"; hence frame trapping. Falcon's kit got the short end of the kit in every single way and it's not because of the engine at all. I could probably give you 1 charge that would've made Falcon good in Brawl, and that would be his down air; if he could dash down air people's shields for pressure, reward or combo starter, he'd be middle tier at least. Nothing to do with the engine, he'd just have suddenly a single extra option in a game where viability wasn't determined purely by the strength of single options, but the amount you had [i.e. better neutral]. Falcon really had zero options. Sakurai has taken Falcon this game and made everything he had bigger and better, the engine barely benefits him anymore than *hick* Marioth.

 

[KlefkiHolder]

I legitimately feel that if Falcon had retained his same structure/game data as he had in Brawl, he'd still be bottom tier, maybe low due to edge hogging stuff. That character had no range and only two usable moves: jab and up air. Not a single thing of his was safe on shield. He had the worst dash to shield in the game and barely no means of doing anything out of a dash to justify it (Marth had the same [better by 1 frame] but had dancing blade [top 5 move in Brawl tbqh] and all of his amazing/lagless ending aerials). His other mobility quirks were messy and did not flow well. He had no approach, nor pressure, nor reward. He had no grab game whatsoever other than grab releasing Wario into knee (that in itself was enough to make that match up close to even, even when Wario in turn chain grabbed him from like 20-200% [but without a guaranteed kill]).


Hit stun in Brawl existed, the amount of time before one could act was a constant after a certain threshold, but it was still "there"; hence frame trapping. Falcon's kit got the short end of the kit in every single way and it's not because of the engine at all.

Ok. I'm willing to trust your opinion and knowledge of Brawl more than mine (as I am admittedly a bit lacking there). Now, I know that he had a myriad of issues outside of physics and whatnot, but my idea was not exactly on par with yours. Thank you for clarifying.

Like I said, I'm opening up on the whole comparison thing, but I still think that we shouldn't say things like Puff is Top Tier because she was incredibly buffed while tour presence is still really low. I'm also sorta opposed to assigning characters tiers at this stage since what we think now most definitely will be changed in a few months. Rose, Shiek, other obviously dominant characters, sure, but I'm uncomfortable going beyond that. Otherwise we get the Mario debacle again. None of this is paragraph directed at you, just us in this thread in general.

And for the record, Puff feels really solid to me in this game, but like most of us, I need a C Stick.

I'm a bit tired after all of this lol.

 

[san.]

I think it's a pretty apt comparison to Brawl moves until we fully understand what makes Smash 4 tick with what's considered good/poor options. If something was changed, re-evaluate it, but if something was made better, just look at the average.

When I played Brawl Jigglypuff, I didn't feel too disadvantaged until I learned that I heavily lose out on trades against most characters, and it was difficult to avoid them outside of resorting to grabs most of the time. Now, she deals pretty good percent comparatively with decent kill moves and she no longer dies at like 70% as easily, too, easing her most fundamental weaknesses. The increased hitstun turned her strings close into combos, allowing me to use pretty much everything good she had from Brawl. No more dair and grab shenanigans, though. Her grab reward is actually quite bad now since most characters can followup with something (saying "bad," but still just as good as before).

She did have surprisingly good momentum cancelling from Brawl. As a whole, I think Jiggs is quite good, but I think that she may be susceptible to little matchup quirks and combos.

I don't care about tiers since I can't possibly know all these other characters at high level, but how good I think a character is. Tourney presence is low, but I've also been a little disappointed with what I saw vs. what I think she can do.

 

[Oilpath99]

Whats the matchup for vs ? I'd say its 55-45 LM.

 

[Shaya]

Right. Yeah I agree it's dangerous to call Jiggs a shoe in for top tier.

Opinions can be a mixture of subjective or objective implications, and obviously they can mess with each other and ruin people's arguments. I think Jiggs was mostly buffed, and what really hurt her in Brawl was reward and the prominence of characters who she otherwise naturally struggled with (MK, Marth); by design she did well against a lot of characters in the cast of all tiers but it was a workload which just wasn't worth it.
Although she may not end up comparatively buffed enough to be a 'top tier', I think we can all agree she's going up.
How high is where we get completely subjective and it's important that people either realise (naturally) or the poster themselves implies this is the case. A bit of both would go along way.
I think the rewards she has been given are bonkers, her design weaknesses on first impressions seem imbalanced (ground game being a lot better than you would think), and as already mentioned her natural counters aren't as effective.
She may have an all new slew of problems come in this game, but as you've pointed out, we're yet to see it. This can go both ways for her, but I think as we develop she will continue to rise, short of us discovering counters.

In a round about way, I think Sonic and Lucario are in much of the same boat. Their designs don't really feel different, their risk doesn't really feel different, just their reward have been amped us by such a large degree that the toxic nature of their designs are only more pronounced.

 

[A2ZOMG]

You're trying me Shaya. You really are. Sometimes, I dunno whether I should be angry or find it funny.

Falcon got more buffs than Bowser, I guarantee it.

I mean if you want a simple example, Bowser > Falcon in Brawl, and Falcon is definitely better than Bowser in this game.

Bowser most definitely was not better than Falcon in Brawl. Unless you believe playing a character who is always dead at 100% somehow isn't competing with Ganondorf for being the worst character.

No seriously. If you ever let Bowser get back to neutral in Brawl after he had 100%, you played the matchup wrong. Absolutely nobody had worse survivability than Brawl Bowser, nor did anyone get so completely crapped on by stage counterpicking as Bowser (literally was only playable on Battlefield and maybe Smashville). Ganondorf legitimately had a favorable matchup against Bowser in Brawl to give you an idea just how ridiculously bad Bowser's survivability is.

(this is important to consider because ledge mechanics are VERY different in Smash 4)

 

[Pudgy Monk]

I'm not sure, as I thought Captain Falcon was one of the worst characters besides Ganondorf. His transition from Melee to Brawl was horrible, as his combo ability was killed because of the new game mechanics and he had few safe hits. Shaya recapped most of it, but Falcon was bad. At least Bowser seemed competent the first few months Brawl came out before everyone realized he was not good. Falcon never had that

 

[Shaya]

Are you telling me that the changes to the engine really benefited the likes of Falcon more so than Marth and Mario? I would think you'd be be more inclined to agree with that. I'm sure you can give me some diatribe of how reward ended up being better for Mario in Brawl, but that shouldn't be the engines fault solely, whatsoever . If the word "Mario" itself is such a trigger towards you, then I would suggest you do something about it rather than holding it to ransom by the sheer threat of a page-full of mini-essays of things I've already read from you countless times.

[I would say the engine of the game not giving me triple jump glitch is actually a massive buff to all three of those characters, who were the worse sufferers of them in the game, edge guarding affects everyone in new ways we haven't fully explored, combos are combos for everyone]

 

[A2ZOMG]

Bowser in Brawl had the unique title of being the one character in the game who could neither land safely, airdodge viably, or get up from the ledge once he was past 100%. There is no character in Brawl who had survivability THIS terrible. Not even Olimar or Ivysaur had it that bad.

 

[Conda]

Can we stop talking about the other games as much, or who was buffed more than the other character? It's getting off track.

 

[GrnFzzTgr]

But then we can't nickname this thread. "Who was buffed?" or "Lets compare games" In all seriousness, like I said earlier, I'd like to see discussion of the LESS discussed characters. This thread is looking more like it's about discussing who is supposedly high-top tier instead of overall impressions.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Can we stop talking about the other games as much, or who was buffed more than the other character? It's getting off track.

It's relevant because Bowser's biggest buffs are literally ledge mechanics and being able to use airdodge while recovering offstage.

 

[KlefkiHolder]

It's relevant because Bowser's biggest buffs are literally ledge mechanics and being able to use airdodge while recovering offstage.

He's also really fast.

Fast is good.

Like really good.

 

[deepseadiva]

Can we stop talking about the other games as much, or who was buffed more than the other character? It's getting off track.

And boring.

So one perspective I've been adopting is thinking in terms of moves with character bodies attacked. Metaknight was actually a glide, a tornado, a shuttle loop attached to a kirby. Shaya brought up Dancing Blade is a top 5 Brawl move. I was curious if people had other top move contenders in this game.

I was thinking:

Luma Shot
Timber
KO Punch
Needles
Aura Sphere

 

[A2ZOMG]

He's also really fast.

Fast is good.

Like really good.

It's good until you realize, you're not allowed to run where you please when you're the fattest character in the game and people shoot projectiles at you.

Bowser much more appreciates his weight not being a straight detriment to him as it was in Brawl. Literally, Bowser's weight in Brawl actually reduced his survivability.

 

[Shaya]

I suppose the productive thing to do at this stage would be to come to some consensus of who are the top characters, and then we go through a course/set direction of going through all the cast primarily focusing on how they do/shape up to those top characters. People could individually shape up a post/something worth debating themselves with this structure in mind; no one's stopping you, why blame us for talking about what we know enough to talk about #_#

When we don't have widespread tournament data of many characters (seriously, when I look at tournament results at this early stage of the game I'm seeing primarily less than 10 of the same characters everywhere, and while I may be misremembering, it was not even remotely that bad at the start of Brawl), sometimes the only thing to base discussion off in an "objective" way is Brawl comparison. Which sucks, I agree, to all the people who didn't play Brawl or to all the characters which either changed drastically or are new to the game.

 

[GrnFzzTgr]

What about villager's slingshot? I find it pretty disruptive and annoying to deal with as an approach. Granted I'm not that good, but still, I've also had it launch sometimes me a fair distance at silly percents. My Kirby going flying at around 66% from a slingshot? Ugh.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I suppose the productive thing to do at this stage would be to come to some consensus of who are the top characters, and then we go through a course/set direction of going through all the cast primarily focusing on how they do/shape up to those top characters. People could individually shape up a post/something worth debating themselves with this structure in mind; no one's stopping you, why blame us for talking about what we know enough to talk about #_#

top 10 in no particular order imo:



If you want to factor crap 3DS controls before Wii-U release, replace and with like... and . But to me almost inarguably will be a very serious threat when people actually can use Up-B really well.

 

[Captain Norris]

How many "Top charactesr" can there be?

top 10 in no particular order imo:



If you want to factor crap 3DS controls before Wii-U release, replace and with like... and .

Sorry for double post, but i needed to get a notification for you. Captain Falcon in probably a top ten imo.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Sorry for double post, but i needed to get a notification for you. Captain Falcon in probably a top ten imo.

As much as I think he's a good character...his weaknesses to traps are...KINDA OBVIOUS.

And he's not QUITE as good as Sonic at being totally disrespectful of zoning. Don't get me wrong, he's almost certainly a viable character because his captialization options are mad legit. He's just more manly and not as dirty as the ones I cited.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Is it me or Mii Gunner is Samus who exchanged recovery for on-stage presence and the recovery sacrifice isnt even steep.

Gunner Camps better, he defends against camping way better. His attacks are scary. His Ftilt is mad cool and I bet on Wii U the retreating F-airs are going to be ridic.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Samus has DAT CHARGE SHOT and ZAIR. Seriously.

 

[Shaya]

Okay, time for bias-mobile 101 being used as the basis for debate. Bare with me.
This is a personal list of 15 characters in this game which I feel are either very strong, have polarising (or new mechanics we haven't learned to deal with) match up strengths or are seemingly popular/common in tournament thus far (or some combination of all three).

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Phew, that was really hard. I know some common popular picks like Greninja and Fox are not there, and as many people know from my opinions I think etc are all good and feasibly top 15. But that doesn't matter.
Wait.. why over Fox? Have you seen his reflector? Shuts down several characters in the cast to possibly hard-counter levels with just a single move (Olimar especially, Villager). If you're a character with a projectile reliant game, I wouldn't be surprised if you struggle dealing with him.
is all new jank, and it was hard for me to think whether or not Duck Hunt kinda takes his cake in terms of relevancy. Both feel like they've dropped off the Earth tournament wise other than first week impressions.

Otherwise, let's not argue too much about that 15 if we can avoid it. I think it's pretty diverse in covering a lot of things.

So, how do you think about your character in relation to the above 15?

I could pick a name out of the hat if you'd like, if we all try go through the door at the same time, things could be bad.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Samus has DAT CHARGE SHOT and ZAIR. Seriously.

Zair is good, Charge shot, meh.
Gunner has either super laser spam, grenade launcher of peace....or his own charge shot.


:O shaya talk about Gunna and Brawler since you mentioned Gunner in your top 15.
Against your 15?
Rosaluma, Villager (so far), Robin (so far), Diddy, have been noteable problems for my Shulk.
At my most comfortable against Bowser, Sheik & Lucario. Some of that is just getting a lot of fights against Luc. If Shulk reads anything Bowser does, Bowser will hate himself. I have little idea why Sheik isn't posing a threat other then completely failing to kill as a result of Shield + Jump.
Not enough exp against: Sonic, Gunner, and it's been some time since Falco.

Of the potential listed.
Jigglypuffs been a problem if I jab im dead, need to completely remove that habit.
Pikachu isnt a problem so far . Shulk is Marth it's not a problem.
Peach has been a bit of an issue as well. Basically floaty characters have been a problem.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Okay, time for bias-mobile 101 being used as the basis for debate. Bare with me.
This is a personal list of 15 characters in this game which I feel are either very strong, have polarising (or new mechanics we haven't learned to deal with) match up strengths or are seemingly popular/common in tournament thus far (or some combination of all three).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Phew, that was really hard. I know some common popular picks like Greninja and Fox are not there, and as many people know from my opinions I think etc are all good and feasibly top 15. But that doesn't matter.
Wait.. why over Fox? Have you seen his reflector? Shuts down several characters in the cast to possibly hard-counter levels with just a single move (Olimar especially, Villager). If you're a character with a projectile reliant game, I wouldn't be surprised if you struggle dealing with him.
is all new jank, and it was hard for me to think whether or not Duck Hunt kinda takes his cake in terms of relevancy. Both feel like they've dropped off the Earth tournament wise other than first week impressions.

Otherwise, let's not argue too much about that 15 if we can avoid it. I think it's pretty diverse in covering a lot of things.

So, how do you think about your character in relation to the above 15?

I could pick a name out of the hat if you'd like, if we all try go through the door at the same time, things could be bad.

Let me start with Ganondorf. Ganondorf in this game I believe primarily struggles against Sheik and ZSS out of the 15 you listed. Pikachu as well. Probably Duck Hunt too although Gungnir magically makes the matchup look easy on For Glory.

This isn't to say he does well against the other characters. I just feel the ones I listed are probably the hardest for him to win against. Though I believe Ganondorf's matchup against Lucario is in fact surprisingly good, due to his ability to KO at early percents before Lucario's aura gets really silly. Also vs Bowser is relatively close, because in this matchup Ganondorf DOES get easier times spacing aerials like B-air which he normally wouldn't get.

 

[Lenus Altair]

And boring.

So one perspective I've been adopting is thinking in terms of moves with character bodies attacked. Metaknight was actually a glide, a tornado, a shuttle loop attached to a kirby. Shaya brought up Dancing Blade is a top 5 Brawl move. I was curious if people had other top move contenders in this game.

I was thinking:

Luma Shot
Timber
KO Punch
Needles
Aura Sphere

I'm not sure I can confidently commit to 5, but I'd feel silly not bringing up Super Speed. If that move were on any of the characters most are considering in their top ten list, I wouldn't be surprised if we suddenly had an S tier character.

Oh, .

 

[deepseadiva]

I'm not sure I can confidently commit to 5, but I'd feel silly not bringing up Super Speed. If that move were on any of the characters most are considering in their top ten list, I wouldn't be surprised if we suddenly had an S tier character.

Oh, .

I definitely think one outstanding move can totally carry a character very far. It has to be incredible, with a solid collection of moves to compliment.

Which Palutena definitely has.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Okay, time for bias-mobile 101 being used as the basis for debate. Bare with me.
This is a personal list of 15 characters in this game which I feel are either very strong, have polarising (or new mechanics we haven't learned to deal with) match up strengths or are seemingly popular/common in tournament thus far (or some combination of all three).

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Phew, that was really hard. I know some common popular picks like Greninja and Fox are not there, and as many people know from my opinions I think etc are all good and feasibly top 15. But that doesn't matter.
Wait.. why over Fox? Have you seen his reflector? Shuts down several characters in the cast to possibly hard-counter levels with just a single move (Olimar especially, Villager). If you're a character with a projectile reliant game, I wouldn't be surprised if you struggle dealing with him.
is all new jank, and it was hard for me to think whether or not Duck Hunt kinda takes his cake in terms of relevancy. Both feel like they've dropped off the Earth tournament wise other than first week impressions.

Otherwise, let's not argue too much about that 15 if we can avoid it. I think it's pretty diverse in covering a lot of things.

So, how do you think about your character in relation to the above 15?

I could pick a name out of the hat if you'd like, if we all try go through the door at the same time, things could be bad.

For Ike... assuming legal customs... with my limited experience and knowledge my guestimations would be...

Bowser: Close one. Dashing Side B is going to be a pain for Ike to deal with, Ike's piecing Side B will be a pain for Bowser to deal with. I don't really feel like any of Bowser's neutral Bs are TOO much of an annoyance. Both are probably KOing each other somewhat quickly, Bowser probably dying sooner if only because Ike has the better recovery options.

Diddy: From what I've heard so far: doesn't look good, but we haven't played around much with the MU.

DHD: I personally think his projectile game is just slow enough that Ike's custom Side B will let him get through most of it fairly easily. I'm more worried about his smashes tbqh. Close for now.

Falco: Probably a small disadvantage

LM: Probably even or slightly in Ike's favor. Both can screw with each other a fair bit, but I think Ike's Uair + Custom Side B knocking opponents straight up into the air is going to mess with LM a fair bit. He's going to have Counter as a option for trying to get out of Uair juggles from Ike... aaaaand nothing else. At all. Not even Airdodge, Uair eats those.

Lucario: Long disjointed hitboxes + strong KOing power means in theory Lucario ain't going to live as long in his insane % range. Slightly in Lucario's favour

Mii Gunner: I need to see this play out before I have any idea. Suspect its going to be veeeeery annoying, going to heavily depend on how easily we can get through the wall of projectiles.

Ness: I feel that Ike has gained more with customs on than Ness has when going from Brawl to SSB4. Probably still evenish but leaning a tad in Ike's favour

Rosalina: Slightly in Rosalina's favour, but not nearly as much as some would initially think/suspect. We can swat Luma around pretty well and basically without trying to do so.

Shiek: Kill me.

Sonic: Sonic's favour, not unwinnable

Villager: Slightly in Ike's favour, if only because we have the range + power to deal with a certain custom tree option...

Yoshi: Probably similar to Sonic in how the MU plays out

ZSS: ZSS's favour. Probably going to be a pain, but still winnable.

 

[Captain Norris]

I think the tiers are going to be considerably close together this time around, making a majority of characters fairly viable.
And that is a fair point @ A2ZOMG

 

[Kofu]

I've got discussion-fodder comments brewing, but ATM I'll just talk about some of the characters that Shaya listed.

I'm not seeing Ness being top 10 material at all. I don't think I've seen many people placing him here, but at the same time his options seem really similar to before. PK Fire might be safer in general (and is harder to escape) and FAir is even better now thanks to the hits linking and carrying the opponent with you, his grab game is really good, and PK Flash can actually trap landings now (which is pretty big because of how powerful it is) but overall his tools seem eclipsed by those of other characters.

His recovery is still easily gimped and he general has a hard time getting in. Once he does, he's a threat, but his defensive game isn't strong enough to compensate for this weakness, especially when his ranged moves are aerials (his second jump helps him escape juggles here though).

IDK, he's solid but not at noteworthy as a lot of other characters.

 

[Shaya]

I DID NOT SAY THEY WERE THE TOP 15 CHARACTERS IN THE CAST OR TIER LIST


I think Marth's pretty good in this game, not top 5 or very unlikely top 10 (a comparative number relative to cast size) this time though. On a design level he's essentially the same, with in some cases buffed rewards, but risk/usability kicked down a peg or two. To Marth players this shouldn't matter, at top level this character required precision, and the punishment for messing up was pretty severe already. He has great hitboxes, fast start up, but mostly short durations and long-ish lag; with good mobility and all the jazz, he is able to achieve many great things, better than a lot of the cast I'd still say. That design "hole" has only been exemplified with the nerfs while his capabilities are still roughly the same.

Customs are nice, Dash Breaker [Assault] gives him a super dash attack completely transcended, is combo fodder for him on hit and can be done from the air. It's the type of option he hasn't had in previous games, and the potency of it has been championed a lot by myself and other Marth players, but we're yet to really fully explore it's implications.

In terms of match ups, I think there are a lot of characters who were looking even-ish in Brawl that were buffed, and we're going to have to deal with that. I don't think they're necessarily all suddenly disadvantages, Marth wasn't universally nerfed by my definition (or anyone else if they've done their research).

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Okay, so out of all the aforementioned characters, I currently only feel like his losing match ups are probably guaranteed against . That match up was hard in Brawl due to his mobility, although all of our hitboxes/disjoints murdered him, the fact is he can shield drop get right up into our face with a dash before our lag ended, all the time. I feel quite a bit of sadness that it feels like his mobility specs were buffed this game, he seems to have the fastest roll class in the game (WHY?), and the general buffing of his range (WHY?) and the short animation of his pivots just make him penultimate baiter and ultimately significantly better in Neutral in the match up. Only saving grace really is our advantage position still destroys him because swords are great. Dash assault may make this closer to even as Sonic loses a lot of his long range capabilities in the match up. Either way, I don't want to see this guy in tournament, ever, for a very long time until I feel confident I can deal with it (but I don't know if he'll be able to this game )

all seem to struggle with his spacing techniques, and with dash assault Rosalina loses nearly all long range pressure against Marth. Bowser can easily even up a match/end us though, so I don't know where it'll go in the future. Mac is in a similar state, but I think our design naturally counters him - little perks like Up throw removing his KO punch at 0% is almost unique to Marth, haha.

No issues with inherently, likely still an even-ish match up and infinitely fun now it's all about attacks rather than camping. I would say we beat , our mobility advantage seems pretty solid, we out range still, pretty edge guardable by our back air, relatively confident we win.

essentially throw **** at Marth all day and he has to work his ass off to get through it. I personally have not enough experience in these match ups or characters, but see the struggles by design. I think Dash Assault will be pivotal for the first three (although it loses to projectiles technically due to it being transceded priority, its just the gap closing / beating their melee options on reaction that seems most important). We don't have the luxury of reacting to sheik's melee actions with a punish in dash assault, and eh, if it wasn't for every Sheik ever just playing a hard-core-camp pokey style against him, I wouldn't be surprised if Marth wins, but that doesn't matter, Sheik doesn't really need to do anything but hard-core-camp and poke against him. For the time being I won't say it's a guaranteed loss, but it'll be a struggle for sure (not my most feared match up at all though, really).
is the satan spawn in this regard. I can't believe Sakurai put a character like this into the game, jesus christ. It's PvE at it's finest tbqh. A lot of damage coming in from Villager all the time, and Marth has to approach, even while winning. I would say by design we win, but I would not be surprised us seeing that match up come up as a loss pretty frequently in tournament if it ever happened, the amount of patience you require is stupid. Why should every action I eventually choose to take have to be 30 seconds apart because of what this character does?


All hard hitters with no holes in their game play that I've seen. At mid range they have similar capabilities to Marth, but honestly with much better rewards or less risk. All of our sword attacks still beat all of their attacks... I guess... it's just they out mid-range us for the most part. Yoshi/Lucario being heavies and hard for us to kill is what will likely send these match ups towards the negative. We probably destroy Lucario up until he hits 80% and then if we cannot kill him by the time he hit's 100% it's probably a hard counter; dash assault seems crucial and may eradicate any and all of my troubles, but I'm yet to go in depth learning it.

tl;dr Good/Fine:
Annoying/Evenish:
Probably losses/hard at this stage:

 

[Voynich]

Okay, time for bias-mobile 101 being used as the basis for debate. Bare with me.
This is a personal list of 15 characters in this game which I feel are either very strong, have polarising (or new mechanics we haven't learned to deal with) match up strengths or are seemingly popular/common in tournament thus far (or some combination of all three).

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Phew, that was really hard. I know some common popular picks like Greninja and Fox are not there, and as many people know from my opinions I think etc are all good and feasibly top 15. But that doesn't matter.
Wait.. why over Fox? Have you seen his reflector? Shuts down several characters in the cast to possibly hard-counter levels with just a single move (Olimar especially, Villager). If you're a character with a projectile reliant game, I wouldn't be surprised if you struggle dealing with him.
is all new jank, and it was hard for me to think whether or not Duck Hunt kinda takes his cake in terms of relevancy. Both feel like they've dropped off the Earth tournament wise other than first week impressions.

Otherwise, let's not argue too much about that 15 if we can avoid it. I think it's pretty diverse in covering a lot of things.

So, how do you think about your character in relation to the above 15?

I could pick a name out of the hat if you'd like, if we all try go through the door at the same time, things could be bad.

How does Wario fare against these guys? I've seen people say that he's got slightly nerfed air game but buffed ground moves