Character Competitive Impressions

[GeneralLedge]

I wonder if a quick fix for Rosa would be reducing her general movement speed (and attack speed?) while Luma is dead. Or would that make too many players angry?

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I'm not going to segregate characters within the same tier so take that into account.

I'm glad you added this part or else I would've had to question your sanity, bruh.

Edit: Actually, I'm still not sure about it lol. Why are DK and Bowser in the same tier as Falcon?!?

 

[Seagull Joe]

I'm glad you added this part or else I would've had to question your sanity, bruh.

Edit: Actually, I'm still not sure about it lol. Why are DK and Bowser in the same tier as Falcon?!?

Intense nerfs. can't dthrow to follow up anymore if you Di away. He also lost hitstun on uairs meaning any frame 3 move will interupt a second Uair attempt (Many Nairs). His Uair and Bair do less now. Just seems like a real substantial nerf. I'll await for results from 's. At least Will holds 's position well. is debatable. He could be moved down a tier. I just think he's overall better then the characters in D and E that I put.

 

[Ryu_Ken]

Link vs Tink matches have gotta happen somehow in a tournament/offline setting. I am so tired of seeing some of the theories and tools being discussed and not see any results from them.

 

[Mikarugi]

Intense nerfs. can't dthrow to follow up anymore if you Di away. He also lost hitstun on uairs meaning any frame 3 move will interupt a second Uair attempt (Many Nairs). His Uair and Bair do less now. Just seems like a real substantial nerf. I'll await for results from 's. At least Will holds 's position well. is debatable. He could be moved down a tier. I just think he's overall better then the characters in D and E that I put.

The only confirmed change for Falcon is uair. His dthrow is the same, his bair is the same. This was confirmed on the patch thread.

 

[Pacack]

Could I get some reasoning for placing Pac so low?

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Why is Bowser not in the Privileged Elite?

Are you on crack

 

[NairWizard]

@Thinkaman

I got a good laugh out of your post, but as usual some minor disagreement from me:

The problem is that only 15-20 characters have consistent enough matchup ratios down the board to be considered viable enough to win a national competition (local doesn't really matter; anyone can win with any character if the competition is lax enough). Competitors at the national level basically will see the game as including only those characters. If ZSS were to be nerfed to the level of Bowser Jr. tomorrow (whom I'd say is at about the 33rd spot), she'd basically be nerfed out of the game as far as top level is concerned, unless Sheik and co. were similarly nerfed.

It definitely would feel bad if Pikachu were nerfed like that tomorrow and I knew that I would no longer be able to win the Sheik MU. Is it a step in the right direction? Sure, Pikachu does deserve nerfs, as does ZSS. But the direct result of such a nerf would be that I would have to choose another character and relearn tournament strategies in order to be a competitor at the highest level. That should feel bad, and you can't really blame people for complaining about that.

But then some characters get to be extra thankful, because they live on the other side of the Moat of Blood, Tears, Salt, and Johns, in the Land of the Privileged Elite--a fabled land where the springs taste like honey and all the d-throws lead to kills. They get to wake up every day knowing that 80% of the roster is worse than them, or otherwise just not winning events.

This is why you might notice that the Land of the Privileged Elite is also labeled the Land of No Complaining. This is because the Land of the Privileged Elite is a magical and sacred place, and anyone who would defile this nirvana by complaining is automatically a certified douchenozzle--exactly like a rich child getting upset when another rich kid gets a BMW that is newer than his.

"Sebastian also has 3 gold iWatches, while father would only buy me 2. Life is so unfair."​

Sure, there are kids in Africa who don't have even have Smash 4. Some don't even have a WiiU! This doesn't invalidate complaints, nor make me feel better about Sheik Needles. The fact that there will always be someone worse off than you doesn't mean that all complaining is bunk.

A better analogy here is that you have two kids who were both given three shiny red trucks, and one kid had two of them taken away after 6 months, with his parents telling him, "Now, Johnny, you can't actually have these three trucks, because it's not fair to other kids in the world who have even less than you do," while the other got to keep all three.

Having something taken away is always worse than being given less of something than someone else. Basic human psychology.

Random analogy of my own: suppose there are 15 world-class soccer teams who all have an equivalent chance of winning the world cup this year. The 5th best team is suddenly told that it must give up 3 of its best members because it is too good relative to 10 other teams that are competing but probably don't have a chance to win, while the other 14 top teams don't get touched. Would feel pretty bad even if it is objectively fair.

Don't follow that analogy too closely (any analogy is weak if you follow it closely enough), just trying to get the point across that there is a legitimate reason for complaints.

I'm slightly taking your post out of context, though: in this particular case, I agree with you that the Diddy nerf was not significant enough to dislodge him from a viable spot, so there shouldn't be any complaining. And if Pikachu were actually to be nerfed tomorrow, I myself would just go ahead and pick someone else so that I could stay in the competition rather than complaining. But I don't mind the complaining as a general principle, so I thought it'd be good to view it through another perspective.

edit: as Djent mentioned too, the post was indeed a great read, any disagreement aside

 

[kenniky]

@Thinkaman

I got a good laugh out of your post, but as usual some minor disagreement from me:

The problem is that only 15-20 characters have consistent enough matchup ratios down the board to be considered viable enough to win a national competition (local doesn't really matter; anyone can win with any character if the competition is lax enough). Competitors at the national level basically will see the game as including only those characters. If ZSS were to be nerfed to the level of Bowser Jr. tomorrow (whom I'd say is at about the 33rd spot), she'd basically be nerfed out of the game as far as top level is concerned, unless Sheik and co. were similarly nerfed.

It definitely would feel bad if Pikachu were nerfed like that tomorrow and I knew that I would no longer be able to win the Sheik MU. Is it a step in the right direction? Sure, Pikachu does deserve nerfs, as does ZSS. But the direct result of such a nerf would be that I would have to choose another character and relearn tournament strategies in order to be a competitor at the highest level. That should feel bad, and you can't really blame people for complaining about that.



A better analogy here is that you have two kids who were both given three shiny red trucks, and one kid had two of them taken away after 6 months, with his parents telling him, "Now, Johnny, you can't actually have these three trucks, because it's not fair to other kids in the world who have even less than you do," while the other got to keep all three.

Having something taken away is always worse than being given less of something than someone else. Basic human psychology.

Random analogy of my own: suppose there are 15 world-class soccer teams who all have an equivalent chance of winning the world cup this year. The 5th best team is suddenly told that it must give up 3 of its best members because it is too good relative to 10 other teams that are competing but probably don't have a chance to win, while the other 14 don't get touched. Would feel pretty bad even if it is objectively fair.

Don't follow that analogy too closely (any analogy is weak if you follow it closely enough), just trying to get the point across that there is a legitimate reason for complaints.

I'm slightly taking your post out of context, though: in this particular case, I agree with you that the Diddy nerf was not significant enough to dislodge him from a viable spot, so there shouldn't be any complaining. And if Pikachu were actually to be nerfed tomorrow, I myself would just go ahead and pick someone else so that I could stay in the competition rather than complaining. But I don't mind the complaining as a general principle, so I thought it'd be good to view it through another perspective.

Or, you know, you could just be like freaking aMSa and win with a low tier anyway

 

[Ulevo]

Intense nerfs. can't dthrow to follow up anymore if you Di away. He also lost hitstun on uairs meaning any frame 3 move will interupt a second Uair attempt (Many Nairs). His Uair and Bair do less now. Just seems like a real substantial nerf. I'll await for results from 's.

Top players should really be more cognizant of nocebo and placebo effects because the community at large takes their opinions with a lot more weight.

 

[DungeonMaster]

Oh my god how many times do I have to repeat myself? This game has no character so ridiculously strong that the character invalidates a portion of the cast. (There isn't even a character in this game that invalidates another member of the cast) Nothing needs to be nerfed.
Just want to say that I'm not angry at you specifically, DungeonMaster, but your post is just another example of a person who just doesn't seem to try to improve around characters, as everything you stated, while amazing, isn't so much that it's ridiculous and is in NEED of a nerf. I was first hesitant to make this post because maybe you were just using the wrong word, but the fact that you mentioned Sheik, a character that a lot of people for some reason believe is this impossible beat God of Smash, made me think otherwise.

Right now the designers are of your opinion, so rest easy. My opinion, looking at for example @ kenniky 's post is that the disjoints on those hitboxes are *too much*. If I kick with Samus right now, an f-tilt, I have to space things down to a handful of pixels to get the kick to land with the ideal hitbox. Rosa luma covers the entire area in front of them with so little care for spacing that it's frankly, not "fair". I'm fine with some unfairness, I'm fine with tiers and I'm fine with uphill battles.
It's the level of unfairness, the disparity between tiers and the slope of the uphill battle which I currently think still needs tweaking.
I also personally dislike disjoints, because it makes playing the game visually hard but that's personal opinion. In this case I advocate a nerf to the strong, rather than a buff to the weak.

 

[NairWizard]

Or, you know, you could just be like freaking aMSa and win with a low tier anyway

aMSa is great (though he doesn't really win nationals, just places well; with a better character like Fox/Falco I think he could be a legitimate runner for top spot at a Melee national, though)

mentioning aMSa reminds me: Greninja is probably top 15 now, but if he were to have been nerfed to the 33rd spot in this last patch without Sheik, Rosalina, and ZSS being touched the Internet would probably have imploded

 

[Marcbri]

Sonic/Diddy players complaining that his character is slightly less top tier is pretty dumb lol, ye maybe Sheik should be nerfed first, but they are still ahead of 40~ characters.

TBH I feel that the game is pretty balanced atm, Sheik specially could be nerfed a bit but I think we could more or less split the tier list in different tiers of S, A and B. Maaybe C but I don't feel that there's suck a difference between top and bottom tiers to justify the existence of S and D/E tiers.

 

[Yikarur]

Ike was a high-mid tier pre-patch and should now be a solid high tier. People need to stop to rate him horribly wrong.

 

[DungeonMaster]

Intense nerfs. can't dthrow to follow up anymore if you Di away.

I'm sure I will suffer from this post at some point... You captain falcon mains still have your d-throw combos even with opponent DI away and respectably high %. They are just more technical to execute correctly. You need to dash for a few frames before jumping into the up-air. These are now identical to Samus d-throw combos, where if you just straight up jump and up-air you will miss. It is a smooth motion and takes some practice to get the momentum boost from the dash while remaining within the combo timing window. I suggest trying to get the d-throw -> up-air to link with Samus first since it's obvious when you've missed the input. More info on ranges and such in the complete Samus combo thread.
There, I've done my good deed for the day. You should thank the dedication of Samus mains next time you see one on glory/tourney.

 

[momochuu]

An Ftilt buff makes the character rapidly better? -dead-. At least 's dair buff makes him able to spike and cover options offstage far easier. An Ftilt buff doesn't seem to matter nearly as much considering his Dtilt is far better in CQC.

Shaky is bae. I'd agree with him on anything related.

Pre-patch Greninja literally had no safe pokes outside of maybe Fsmash. Now he has one in f-tilt. Against some chars, old Greninja could barely touch a shield without getting grabbed for it.

 

[bc1910]

^Do you mean Fair? Fsmash isn't safe at all.

Samus players are not thanked on For Glory, they are treated in the same way as Link mains. Which is, to put it mildly, badly.

 

[Djent]

@Thinkaman's post was glorious, any small issues aside.
@Luigi player the stream was http://www.twitch.tv/vsgc

This FL tournament has me really excited for CEO next weekend. Here's a list of confirmed top players/POI so far:

Spoiler

6WX
ANTi
Mew2King
ESAM
8BitMan
DKwill
Mr.R
NAKAT
MVD
Nairo
Ryo
Shaky
StaticManny
Fatality
TheReflexWonder
Trela
Larry Lurr
Tyrant
Vinnie
NickRiddle
Dabuz
ZeRo

Of course, many of the great FL local players we saw yesterday will also be in attendance. I'm guessing the event will feature 32 pools (450+ and counting), but even so expect many of these high-profile matches to happen early in bracket.

 

[Balgorxz]

IMHO having more than 6 tiers in this game is kind of pointless since the difference between characters isn't that big.

predictions for this patch ->
Competitive Tier 1:
Competitive Tier 2:
Competitive Tier 3:
Viable Tier:
Viable Tier with terrible matchups:
Getting buffed next patch:
Not a real character without customs:

 

[Ryu_Ken]

I hope Link, Ryu, Ike, Roy, and/or swordfighter make some notable progress in that tournament. That would give us some great things to discuss.

 

[Nu~]

IMHO having more than 6 tiers in this game is kind of pointless since the difference between characters isn't that big.

predictions for this patch ->
Competitive Tier 1:
Competitive Tier 2:
Competitive Tier 3:
Viable Tier:
Viable Tier with terrible matchups:
Getting buffed next patch:
Not a real character without customs:

Please tell me how pacman is in that tier. And don't say rosa because me and other pacman mains have already went over why that matchup isn't bad

 

[Sodo]

I hope Link, Ryu, Ike, Roy, and/or swordfighter make some notable progress in that tournament. That would give us some great things to discuss.

Trela is an absolute beast, and with Swordfighter's improvements I definitely think he can make some noise. If you haven't already (I'm sure you have), go look up the tournament that he won with Swordfighter, it's awesome.

 

[Ryu_Ken]

IMHO having more than 6 tiers in this game is kind of pointless since the difference between characters isn't that big.

predictions for this patch ->
Competitive Tier 1:
Competitive Tier 2:
Competitive Tier 3:
Viable Tier:
Viable Tier with terrible matchups:
Getting buffed next patch:
Not a real character without customs:

I wonder how small the gaps are because i know for a fact Bowser, Charizard, and DK have significant trouble against Link.

 

[Wintermelon43]

You aren't allowed to place tier lists here btw.

Also Kirby is defitenely top 15 AT THE LEAST, even top 10 if more people use him, and do good with it.

 

[Zelder]

Please tell me how pacman is in that tier. And don't say rosa because me and other pacman mains have already went over why that matchup isn't bad

To be fair, according to Pac-Man mains he goes 50:50 or better with everyone.

 

[Pacack]

To be fair, according to Pac-Man mains he goes 50:50 or better with everyone.

Not Pika and Sheik. But everyone else is arguable, including Rosalina now that we've had time to learn the matchup.

 

[Nu~]

You aren't allowed to place tier lists here btw.

Also Kirby is defitenely top 15 AT THE LEAST, even top 10 if more people use him, and do good with it.

Explain please

Not Pika and Sheik. But everyone else is arguable, including Rosalina now that we've had time to learn the matchup.

Don't forget sonic. That matchup is pretty difficult.
Sheik is universally agreed to be disadvantageous, but @Froggy finds pikachu to be fine in a customs environment.

 

[Sodo]

To be fair, according to Pac-Man mains he goes 50:50 or better with everyone.

I think he's more theorycraft than anything else right now (admittedly it's warranted), but Abadango is a monster with him. Then again, Abadango is just a monster in general so there's that.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Can we talk about how customs Pac Man is completely ridiculous and nobody knows it? Because frankly he's good already and he benefits a ton from customs. He gets a way to easily z-drop keys in one of his hydrants, incredible zoning tools in all his custom fruit (they give him an incredible matchup spread) and more deadly trampoline traps. Why people are sleeping on this guy is beyond me but customs turn him into borderline Snake.

 

[Zelder]

Not Pika and Sheik. But everyone else is arguable, including Rosalina now that we've had time to learn the matchup.

Yes I'm sure that Pac-Man has Meta Knight-esque matchup ratios.

 

[Pacack]

Don't forget sonic. That matchup is pretty difficult.
Sheik is universally agreed to be disadvantageous, but @Froggy finds pikachu to be fine in a customs environment.

Sonic's also one of those argued ones. I'd place it 55:45 in Sonic's favor, personally, but that's just me.

If we're talking customs, then everything changes, but Pika wrecks us in default environment.

I think he's more theorycraft than anything else right now (admittedly it's warranted), but Abadango is a monster with him. Then again, Abadango is just a monster in general so there's that.

You'd be surprised how much of it has been realized at this point. But we still have a ton of theorycrafting just because of how complicated a character Pac is.

And Abadango is our lord and savior. I don't think anyone dislikes him.

Can we talk about how customs Pac Man is completely ridiculous and nobody knows it? Because frankly he's good already and he benefits a ton from customs. He gets a way to easily z-drop keys in one of his hydrants, incredible zoning tools in all his custom fruit (they give him an incredible matchup spread) and more deadly trampoline traps. Why people are sleeping on this guy is beyond me but customs turn him into borderline Snake.

Very true. Meteor Trampoline was majorly overrated as a custom, though, and we shouldn't have voted it into EVO at all. Default is just better for most scenarios.

 

[Ryu_Ken]

Does Pacman have one of the best dash attacks in the game? It's hard to punish on reaction and it can start combos.

 

[Nu~]

Sonic's also one of those argued ones. I'd place it 55:45 in Sonic's favor, personally, but that's just me.

If we're talking customs, then everything changes, but Pika wrecks us in default environment.


You'd be surprised how much of it has been realized at this point. But we still have a ton of theorycrafting just because of how complicated a character Pac is.

And Abadango is our lord and savior. I don't think anyone dislikes him.


Very true. Meteor Trampoline was majorly overrated as a custom, though, and we shouldn't have voted it into EVO at all. Default is just better for most scenarios.

Now hold on, meteor trampoline is still good. An onstage pitfall trap + frame 3 spike is still crazy. It's very matchup dependent.

Does Pacman have one of the best dash attacks in the game? It's hard to punish on reaction and it can start combos.

I would say so. Although, you can grab him out of it between the chomps if your OoS option is frame 7 or lower. Chars like greninja or link just can't punish it on shield before a Pac-Man uses Up B out of it.

 

[Pacack]

Yes I'm sure that Pac-Man has Meta Knight-esque matchup ratios.

He does not. At all. That is not what is being argued.

But Rosa is actually a lot more manageable than we thought. We just didn't know how to play it for a long time. We've had some of our forumgoers take Dabuz' Rosa 2-3, and he's nowhere near as good as Koolaid or Abadango. We've just helped eachother learn how to counter the matchup better.

Does Pacman have one of the best dash attacks in the game? It's hard to punish on reaction and it can start combos.

It's decent, but it's punishable on shield. You can act immediately out of it, though, which is awesome.

Now hold on, meteor trampoline is still good. An onstage pitfall trap + frame 3 spike is still crazy. It's very matchup dependent.

It's good, but it's still stupid that we don't have default trampoline versions of certain sets at EVO. Abadango in particular hates us for that.

Note: good and overrated are not mutually exclusive concepts.

 

[Sodo]

Yes I'm sure that Pac-Man has Meta Knight-esque matchup ratios.

Why does MK have such even matchups despite being consistently placed in mid to low tier in speculation lists?

EDIT: This sort of sounds like I'm challenging your opinion, which I'm not. Genuinely curious.

 

[Nu~]

Note: good and overrated are not mutually exclusive concepts.

I know lol. But you clearly said that it shouldn't have been voted into any EVO sets which implies that it isn't good.

Why does MK have such even matchups despite being consistently placed in mid to low tier in speculation lists?

It was a bad comparison to brawl Mk matchup spread

 

[Wintermelon43]

Explain please



Don't forget sonic. That matchup is pretty difficult.
Sheik is universally agreed to be disadvantageous, but @Froggy finds pikachu to be fine in a customs environment.

He has great attacks, great xomboing, great air attacks, good recovery, has decent smashes, and has great Grabs and throws.

 

[Nu~]

He has great attacks, great xomboing, great air attacks, good recovery, has decent smashes, and has great Grabs and throws.

So does charizard. These advantages are very subjective and broad.
Also, how do these make up his disadvantages?

 

[Pacack]

I know lol. But you clearly said that it shouldn't have been voted into any EVO sets which implies that it isn't good.

It's good, but it's not so good that it's worth replacing his default, which gives us better recovery and makes us borderline-ungimpable.

 

[san.]

Ike was a high-mid tier pre-patch and should now be a solid high tier. People need to stop to rate him horribly wrong.

There's little to no representation. Of those that do, very few even perform his optimal traps and combos, which should be the base before doing more with the character. I can make some videos displaying some things he can do. Before I lacked motivation, but the new buffs helped bring it back. I am confident that he has a super good trap, punish, and throw game now. Before, you had to be pretty technical with the throw combos at high %, which was very difficult in high-tension situations. I still need to be sure what his actual new landing lag values are. Nair at 14 frames and 13 frames are worlds apart in terms of usefulness.

The buffs do make me feel like I'm a good player now, which is fun.