Character Competitive Impressions

[mimgrim]

On a side note: Is anyone finding Ryu's command inputs as a hindrance while playing him? Sometimes I'll fastfall into a fair and accidentally hadoken...or fastfall into a bair and tatsumaki off the stage...
It could be just me, but I really feel that while the command inputs were a nice touch (I sure appreciated them and loved thinking about the time I first got into SF2 back in the day) that they might become a burden at some point.

Thoughts?

Use C-stick for aerials. Then you don't have to worry about accidentally doing true Specials.

 

[TriTails]

Lightweights have a general advantage in Smash

Less weight means taking less combos due to being sent too far, and they usually have strong combo games or solid damage racking anyways. The only drawback of a lightweight is you take less percent to be sent flying. It's generally a positive to not be combo food compared to being super hard to kill due to weight.

Actually, I frown more when I face against D3 or Bowser rather than Fox, Falco, Meta Knight, Kirby, etc, when I got them to kill percents. Maybe it's just me, but I really don't care if my combos doesn't work as well, they still die pretty early. Combine that with Fox and Falco's bad disadvantages of being fast-faller, they are combo food yet dies early. D3 and Bowser are the biggest combo food, sure. But they take a million years to be KO'd.

TBH, I never have ecountered a problem where comboing a character is hard because 'they are light'. If they are getting knocked too far, then they are nearing kill percents. I have lots more problem when it comes on comboing floaty characters, but never 'light' characters (Unless they are light AND floaty of course). But maybe it's just Luigi and his down throw.

 

[Browny]

Ryu will probably be Top5 of the game at some point.

How does Ryu handle a character that straight up outranges him on the ground?

Hadouken is useless, I just dont physically see how Ryu can touch a character like diddy who will just wall him out forever and dtilt if he ever gets close.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Lightweights have a general advantage in Smash

Less weight means taking less combos due to being sent too far, and they usually have strong combo games or solid damage racking anyways. The only drawback of a lightweight is you take less percent to be sent flying. It's generally a positive to not be combo food compared to being super hard to kill due to weight.

The problem however is that some light weights are still living far longer than heavy weights because their recovery is so much better. For example, I think Pikachu outlives Ganondorf and Bowser quite easily most of the time, unless you hit him with a good read.

Mewtwo's issues are that some of his really important moves are just a little too slow or don't have the hitbox it really should have. His U-tilt and U-air have dead spots that really shouldn't exist where the opponent just goes through it. His weight in Melee was not great, but with throws being viable kills in this game it is very apparent when it takes upwards of 130-140% before rage to kill with U-throw but then Mewtwo can die in the early 100%'s depending on the character.

Rage makes this even worse when Mewtwo can die even earlier and aside from U-throw some kill moves are very unsafe to use or are difficult to end with at higher %'s. Mewtwo is very light but also has a tall hitbox, not the best combination no matter how you look at it.

If Mewtwo's U-throw could kill in the 120% range and D-throw being more viable to get follow-up with getting the kill would be easier.

What I would like with Mewtwo, speaking of Melee, I want his old U Tilt, U Air, Back Throw KO power and the speed of the D Tilt, oh and also his old weight seeing how that even wasn't as bad actually... Am still bummed by this honestly. Mewtwo's weight was his MAJOR COMPLAINT in his Melee moveset. Yet, Sakurai only really adressed his KO power in Smash 4 making his weight even worse than before... It's like, making Zelda even more unsafe, but buff her Din's Fire.

 

[TriTails]

The problem however is that some light weights are still living far longer than heavy weights because their recovery is so much better. For example, I think Pikachu outlives Ganondorf and Bowser quite easily most of the time, unless you hit him with a good read.

Bowser's horizontal recovery with Whirling Fortress is quite surprising actually. Vertical recovery though...

Ganon's the opposite. His vertical is quite good while his horizontal's booty.

Keep in mind Pika is more mobile and as small as a piece of sand though. But I can see him living longer. It's just if he misses and get hit by just a smash attack at dangerous percents (For him, about 85+% if we are counting rage) because he is barely heavier than Rosalina, players with good reads probably will get him, but not Bowser, really. I mean, he still dies, alright. But I hit him with Luigi uncharged F-smash at 130% and he still doesn't die.

 

[wedl!!]

i actually can't think of more than a handful of mus wins that convincingly, just goes even with, has a 55:45 or loses. he beats,, basically characters that play as patiently as him.

 

[HeavyLobster]

By "true" cancel, does that mean frame 1 after the hitlag?

For instance, if you did cr.mk>True SRK, does the invincibility start right after the hitlag ends?

Also, focusing projectiles can be better than shielding because you suffer no shield knockback. The ability to move forward instantly after it allows it to be better than a perfect shield (where you cannot interrupt your shield drop frames with a dash or walk). For someone who has such great reward on a hit confirm, taking 1/2 damage from something like Luigi's fireball is a fine trade to get in for a cr.lk>stuff.

But I agree that Focus Attack and FADC is being overrated. If people think FADC is a cool movement trick, they should look at Sheik's infinitely better movement trick. (FADC still has its uses, but as a mindgame it's not better than needle cancels).

http://gfycat.com/MediumSmallIbadanmalimbe
http://gfycat.com/SkeletalSpotlessBelugawhale

On the topic of Sheik, M2K just lost GF against the consensus best player in the Northwest (Cacogen, no youtube link yet) who plays Sheik (also got sent to losers by him earlier). What is interesting about it -other than the fact that it gives the WA scene some credibility- is that he started as Brawler and then went Charizard. And then they went to Duck Hunt. And the whole time I hoped he would stay away from the tree.

And it went as expected, Charizard lost, but the matchup is now incredibly scary. King of trades with super armor, lives forever, giant grab range, kill throw with rage. Charizard is still incredibly linear, but flame thrower is still amazing and Sheik still has trouble killing. With the amount of stages legal where Charizard's up throw will kill at fradulent %'s with rage (T&C, Halberd, Duck Hunt in particular), this might be a matchup worth exploring. Could Charizard be a bad matchup for Sheik? If Charizard reads needle, could he flare blitz and connect? If it doesn't connect, does Sheik have a jab lock combo for when Charizard flops on the ground afterwards?

Just some thoughts.

Pretty sure Zard doesn't actually win considering how badly he's outclassed in neutral, but it is indeed scary for Sheik and not that awful for Zard, especially with customs, as Rock Hurl has frame 1 Super Armor to break out of a lot of stuff and Zard has much less to fear from it getting baited out and punished than he would vs. a heavy hitter like Ganon or Bowser. My guess is that in customs off Zard loses 60:40 and while I have less experience with the MU in customs on, it's more like 55:45 Sheik or even. I also have to say that now Charizard should probably be above Ganondorf and Bowser in terms of the tier list due to his better top tier MUs, as Sheik, Rosa, and Sonic in particular feel easier for Charizard, and those are probably the most important MUs a character needs to be able to hold up in.

 

[Nocally]

Official weight of all playable pokémon in smash:

12.1 lbs./ 5.5 kg - Jigglypuff
13.2 lbs / 6.0 kg -Pikachu
88.2 lbs./ 40.0 kg -Greninja
126.8 lbs./ 57.5 kg- Lucario
199.5 lbs./ 90.5 kg - Charizard
269.0 lbs./ 122.0 kg -Mewtwo

Would be cool if Mewtwo had an ability like Shulk, but instead of using a futuristic sword, Mewtwo uses his psychic powers to alter his stats, at least that would explain some of his stats in smash.

 

[Fatmanonice]

is spam to win: the character. More than anyone else.

How do you figure? If there's any character in the game that can get away with spamming and still be highly successful, it's freakin' . and are pretty teeth grindingly difficult in the right hands too but their players actually need to know how to get the kill but has no real issues with that thanks to Luma's stupid power and range. If anything, I'd say Roy's like Captain Falcon with a sword and one that spams attacks is going to become predicable very quickly and easy to counter.

 

[Luigi player]

Official weight of all playable pokémon in smash:

12.1 lbs./ 5.5 kg - Jigglypuff
13.2 lbs / 6.0 kg -Pikachu
88.2 lbs./ 40.0 kg -Greninja
126.8 lbs./ 57.5 kg- Lucario
199.5 lbs./ 90.5 kg - Charizard
269.0 lbs./ 122.0 kg -Mewtwo

Would be cool if Mewtwo had an ability like Shulk, but instead of using a futuristic sword, Mewtwo uses his psychic powers to alter his stats, at least that would explain some of his stats in smash.

For all of the Pokemon their weight seems somewhat correct in Smash, except for Mewtwo. It makes zero sense that they made it so light. Here's still hope they'll make him heavier in the next patch... characters can be floaty and heavy. Please, Sakurai...

 

[Antonykun]

For all of the Pokemon their weight seems somewhat correct in Smash, except for Mewtwo. It makes zero sense that they made it so light. Here's still hope they'll make him heavier in the next patch... characters can be floaty and heavy. Please, Sakurai...

is incredibly floaty

 

[TriTails]

Mewtwo is actually heavier than freaking Charizard...

This is why the whole 'character representation' thing is booty in Smash considering there is this beautiful thing called 'balance'.

 

[Ghostbone]

Mewtwo should be like Samus, floaty and heavy. You could double mewtwo's weight and he still wouldn't be that good lol.

Like it literally makes no sense that he's lighter than Pikachu

 

[TriTails]

Mewtwo should be like Samus, floaty and heavy. You could double mewtwo's weight and he still wouldn't be that good lol.

Like it literally makes no sense that he's lighter than Pikachu

Are you kidding me? Making him heavier than Bowser?

 

[~ Gheb ~]

i actually can't think of more than a handful of mus wins that convincingly, just goes even with, has a 55:45 or loses. he beats ,,, basically characters that play as patiently as him.

Mewtwo doesn't beat Ganon.

 

[wedl!!]

Mewtwo doesn't beat Ganon.

does he not? i mean, i guess you can make a contest for them going even or ganon winning in defaults, but ganon definitely wins with customs on.

i think m2 wins neutral but loses everything else due to having the whole "my attributes are crap" flaw amplified by 11 because of ganon hitting like a truck? on second thought, yea, that sounds right.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Mewtwo doesn't beat Ganon.

I'd argue it doesn't beat either. The D has better range, lots of ways to fight Mewtwo in the air, great grab options against it, and can reasonably kill Mewtwo as low as 90% with things like a rage uair. He can also eat shadow ball (all except the full charged one, I believe) and a hard read dash attack or sweet spot fsmash can kill at like 60%. The only issue I can see the D having with Mewtwo is if the player is overly aggressive or just mindlessly throws out gordos to be reflected back.

 

[Ghostbone]

Are you kidding me? Making him heavier than Bowser?

I wouldn't make mewtwo heavier than bowser, but the point was that even if he was he still wouldn't be a good character.

 

[Radical Larry]

D3 doesn't have a good time against sword characters, especially the Links. The Links shut down his only projectile option, and on the ground, D3 can't even get close to Link due to Link's amazing grab range, so rushing in on the two isn't the ideal thought. Plus, his aerials are mostly outclassed by the Links, who have superior aerial game with better speed overall.

Using Gordo isn't going to help unless you mindgame first, and even then, the predictable trajectory will just be hit back.

 

[SolCalibre]

Which character do you hate to fight the most?

1.
2.
3. /

LOL.

Makes me laugh to see that.

 

[Dagon97]

Lightweights have a general advantage in Smash

Less weight means taking less combos due to being sent too far, and they usually have strong combo games or solid damage racking anyways. The only drawback of a lightweight is you take less percent to be sent flying. It's generally a positive to not be combo food compared to being super hard to kill due to weight.

Not nessesarily because with the amount of strange things that can kill you in this game it's honestly a bad thing to be light. For example Sheik is super light but has a fast falling speed therefore still being combo food

 

[Blobface]

How does Ryu handle a character that straight up outranges him on the ground?

Hadouken is useless, I just dont physically see how Ryu can touch a character like diddy who will just wall him out forever and dtilt if he ever gets close.

Well, I played a Ryu from here through wifi as Ganon and it seems pretty bad for him. It's not so much that he can't get hits, it's that he can't get good hits. Several of his attacks are nice and big, but they don't start any combos or net him much reward. A lot of his best combo moves have incredibly short range and it's really hard for him to land them when he's outranged. In 3 games, he only really "got in" once.

With that said, when he "got in", I took 50% or so of damage.

 

[Angry Guy of DE]

Ryu doesn't get to do a whole lot when he gets outspaced, his fireballs are massively unsafe unless used far away and powershielding his jump attacks can get him grabbed easily.

That said his hits can rack up damage easily especially at low percents where U-smash can lead to a situation where you are in the limbo height that falling down with a move can be shield grabbed easily and double jumping can limit what you can do attempting to get back on the ground.

His Tatsu can be a nuisance because it isn't a constant hitbox, it seems like its only where his extended foot is the actual hitbox. Don't be too shocked when Ryu tatsu's over your head and you get clipped on the foot in the back of the head. That said, it has no hitbox above him so after a certain height Ryu has to Tatsu so he can up-B to recover under the ledge. If he tries to Tatsu to get to the ledge he is easy to jump above and spike.

Ganon with platforms can beat up Ryu. Choke follow-ups don't seem possible though.

 

[Yikarur]

Every statement about Ryu here seems so far from reality.
The Ryu's are bad if they don't even manage to get hits on GANON lol

 

[Ffamran]

Lightweights have a general advantage in Smash

Less weight means taking less combos due to being sent too far, and they usually have strong combo games or solid damage racking anyways. The only drawback of a lightweight is you take less percent to be sent flying. It's generally a positive to not be combo food compared to being super hard to kill due to weight.

That's a generalization you don't want to make. It's a combination of weight, fall speed, fastfall speed, air speed, moveset, height, etc. Take Fox and Falco, both known examples of fast fallers. Both get comboed hard, but Fox's Nair allows him to surround himself with a hitbox, Fox is slightly smaller than Falco - Fox and Little Mac are almost the same size -, so he has a smaller frame to be hit with, and Fox's fall speed and fast fall speed are much higher than Falco's and actually lets him live vertical kill moves single digit percents off of Falco who's heavier, but falls slower than Fox.

Now, take Captain Falcon, he's another known fast faller, but his air speed is incredible too. Although he's a tall target and although his fall speed and more average speed aerials allows him to drift out easier. His air speed also allows him to drift back on stage easily too. Wolf and Roy are other examples of characters who make use of their fast fall speed and air speed.

Falco and Mewtwo might as well be night and day, but Falco gets comboed harder than Mewtwo in certain situations while Mewtwo gets comboed harder than in other situations. Both are light, but both have something that goes against them heavily. For Falco, it's his air speed adding onto his fairly tall frame, lack of an aerial to surround himself with a hitbox - none of his aerials completely cover him like Mario, Luigi, Link, Captain Falcon, and Fox -, and then there's his lightweight and fall speed. He's a living juggling pin against some characters such as Rosalina who makes use of her disjoints, floaty nature, good jump, and stupid knockback on some moves like Uair to murder Falco. Mewtwo has a large frame, really lightweight, loopy jump, and lack of really quick aerials to interrupt opponents. Sure, he can air dodge, but people will read that "only" option. Teleport leaves him helpless if he uses it too far from the ground. Falco can take hits more than Mewtwo, but if Falco's getting comboed to hell and back, taking 5 hits as Falco would be the same as taking 2 hits as Mewtwo.

Or look at Link who to my knowledge, is the only character whose fastfall speed is 90% faster than his fall speed which is pretty fast. Link goes from a fall speed of 1.6 to 3.04 when fastfalling. That's just under 0.08 Triple D's fastfall speed of 3.12 and 0.99 greater than Fox's natural fall speed of 2.05. No character in the game can almost double their fall speed by default like Link. Sure, Link's air speed isn't good, he's a big target, but he's heavy - all them dungeon gear - and once he fastfalls, it's a like a meteor dropping down. Fastfall Nair with Link is an amazing tool for him which nobody can really do like him.

Contrast this to Ryu who can only increase his fall speed by 40%; his fall speed is the same as Link's while his fastfall speed is 2.24 which is the same fastfall speed as Charizard and Palutena who are ranked at 37-38 with a fall speed of 1.4. Is this bad? Kind of, but at least it's not like Wolf who could barely fastfall at all; 1.8 to 1.9. Ryu's recovery options although linear are good, his air speed is better than Link's, and he's heavy. Weight plus his natural fall speed already lets him live for a long time. His air speed also lets him drift out and his aerials along with a timed Focus Attack lets him get out much easier than Link who has to rely on Nair or a Bomb to get out.

Source: http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/FallSpeed.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

I have a dream that my favourite smash characters will one day be discussed in a forum where they will not be judged by the value of their weight but by the power of their moveset.

Its... nauseating.

Consider say for example, Mario vs Lucas. Mario is probably going to take about 11 hits to get Lucas to KO %. In the case of Mario vs Mewtwo, instead of 11 to KO its now 10.

Sweet, merciful pasta-based god... A whopping single aerial attack per stock difference.

Its not a case of 'Mewtwo has no room for error' because he is so light, it is actually 'Mewtwo has to try and avoid getting hit 1 more time per stock than other middleweights'. 2 in the case of him being against heavy hitters like bowser etc.

When you look at it that way, suddenly its not so OMG AWFUL. You see the game for what it truly is, its just numbers. Dying 10% earlier every stock isnt some dramatic death sentence. Fox is pretty damn light too, no one complains.

I know Mewtwo has his issues with his size/weight ratio being the worst in the game, but his weight overall, isnt that bad with his sheer damage output to make up for it. Considering that his shadow ball does 26%, dying 10% earlier per stock doesnt seem so bad when you only have to hit the enemy 8 times to get them to KO % while they have to hit you 10 times.

Think about that instead.

Okay let me just say something about this. Yes, I do support your point about weight, but you're not looking at every factor. It's not just Mewtwo dying 10% earlier (which by the way, isn't true. It's at least 20). It's the fact that his hurtbox is huge and his mobility is lackluster and he lacks the ability to overwhelm your opponent. Why do I mention this? Look at all the past smash games. What do the top tiers have in common? They're light. Pikachu, Fox, Meta Knight, and Sheik were all pretty light in their games. But what do they have that Mewtwo doesn't? Overwhelming speed and Frame data. And if Mewtwo had those we'd be crying for nerfs.

 

[Luco]

When it's against half of the top tiers which have reliable, low risk kill confirms, then yes Mewtwo's weight makes a difference. Against DHD you can waltz around and avoid the kill and increase the number of hits required before DHD starts to kill off of less risky/predictable moves. Against or who have kill throws or reliable setups, suddenly the weight becomes REALLY notable. Especially when there's such a stigma towards it, everyone kinda "knows" and goes for the kill more appropriately against these characters. In this thread (http://smashboards.com/threads/nesss-back-throw-and-ko-percents-the-thread.387966/ ) It's really noticeable for us that we can kill Mewtwo at 0% rage from centre-FD at 112% as opposed to, say, Yoshi's 135%. With rage suddenly Mewtwo drops down to the 80s and 90s and that's a big deal. And we KNOW to go for the grab at those percents. So yes, although weight isn't always a death sentence for Mewtwo, it's definitely noticeable enough to make a difference against characters with reliable kill confirms. Add to this Mewtwo's other iffy design traits and it really does stack up, as others have said.

Which brings me to the point I actually came here to make - M2K switching to Charizard doesn't surprise me. Giving that character a kill throw is whack. Unlike Mewtwo, Charizard can live consistently longer against the top tiers that kill more consistently to the point where rage does the work for him. AND on a stage like BF suddenly he's living to 130-140% and Uthrow is killing you off the top platform at sub-100% CONSISTENTLY because a killing Uthrow will always be harder to live against than any Bthrow/Fthrow. The fact that Charizard can kill Mario (MARIO, a heavier-than-average character) WITH NO RAGE at SUB-100% with no/little DI on Mario's part is already insane should he get the grab at centre-stage on DL.

I can't stress NEARLY ENOUGH what a kill throw has done for this character. Give it a bit of time, I would not be surprised at all if this trait alone shot Charizard up more than a single tier. Calling it now~

The reign of has begun.

 

[shadowmm151]

Use C-stick for aerials. Then you don't have to worry about accidentally doing true Specials.

Ah! Yeah that's better. I mix c-stick aerials and regular aerials often because I play with my stick on smash so I mix it up to avoid the momentum issues.

Maybe I'll just have to cave in and change my stick to tilt...but I've been playing with the stick for 14 years now...

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Anyway, in other news, I've decided that the nerf to 's uair isn't really a worthwhile issue. At first I was bummed out as the nerf a) eliminated a kill option and b) made me unable to link to knee as often. After playing with it for the week though, I've found that it doesn't make any less viable. Yes, the kill option is gone, but that also means you can throw out uair ALL the time now! You don't have to worry about keeping it fresh, so you can just let it stale. The move is still amazing and a top combo tool, so you can use it all the time now. Also, letting it stale, at least from what I've found, makes it easier to combo with knee or a dunk off stage. Basically, what I'm saying is that 's game didn't get worse, it just changed a bit. He's still , so let's not lose our heads right away.

Thoughts?

 

[TTTTTsd]

I think all Ryu has to vs. Ganon is wait. Ganon can't really force Ryu to approach and Ryu can punish a lot of his options via shield with Fair because of its range and Ganon's tallness. Jumping at Ryu when he has....the strong version of his jab (the roundhouse kick) among other things is just a bad idea.

I still find it funny that Ryu lacks disjoints/priority even though he had plenty of it in his source game, but I don't think Ganon is bad for him at all assuming good internet/offline and the Ryu plays patiently (like he should).

Ryu "gets in" by playing carefully, landing a big hit, and then chasing you so you can't keep him out further, at least in my eyes that's how he does (most of the time). Alternatively Ryu should be throwing slow fireballs and following them in midrange (out of the enemy's range, mostly, but not too far) vs. anyone without a projectile. Slow Red fireball or Slow Normal Hadouken, mostly to force an action that he can react to, since the slow fireballs can be easily followed.

 

[Thinkaman]

Thoughts?

Falcon uair is the only case in the game I can think of where taking 2% off a character's most important hitbox could have such a low impact on their viability.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I think all Ryu has to vs. Ganon is wait. Ganon can't really force Ryu to approach and Ryu can punish a lot of his options via shield with Fair because of its range and Ganon's tallness. Jumping at Ryu when he has....the strong version of his jab (the roundhouse kick) among other things is just a bad idea.

I still find it funny that Ryu lacks disjoints/priority even though he had plenty of it in his source game, but I don't think Ganon is bad for him at all assuming good internet/offline and the Ryu plays patiently (like he should).

Ryu "gets in" by playing carefully, landing a big hit, and then chasing you so you can't keep him out further, at least in my eyes that's how he does (most of the time). Alternatively Ryu should be throwing slow fireballs and following them in midrange (out of the enemy's range, mostly, but not too far) vs. anyone without a projectile. Slow Red fireball or Slow Normal Hadouken, mostly to force an action that he can react to, since the slow fireballs can be easily followed.

Ryu actually has a ton of disjoint/priority/range on several of his moves to an extent that rivals or in some cases even exceeds Little Mac. Just not on his combo starter tools which are very fast but have short range.

 

[Ryu_Ken]

Last night, I got totally wrecked by a really good Yoshi player. The fact that he was able to punish me hard with Shield pressure to down b and swallow just surprised me. I felt like I played to the best of my ability with Link, Ganon, and Falcon, but I just could not take away the last stock no matter what. He's like a heavier Sheik. I feel more helpless against good Yoshi's than any other top tier character. If more people used him, he'd be S tier by now.

 

[XL_]

Last night, I got totally wrecked by a really good Yoshi player. The fact that he was able to punish me hard with Shield pressure to down b and swallow just surprised me. I felt like I played to the best of my ability with Link, Ganon, and Falcon, but I just could not take away the last stock no matter what. He's like a heavier Sheik. I feel more helpless against good Yoshi's than any other top tier character. If more people used him, he'd be S tier by now.

Yoshi is strong but I feel like he's pretty one dimensional. There's a small handful of Yoshi mains in my state and I either get bodied because I didn't space her out correctly, or I play keepaway and hardly get hit.

His shield pressure is great, and her grab game feels solid though, I'll give it that.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Last night, I got totally wrecked by a really good Yoshi player. The fact that he was able to punish me hard with Shield pressure to down b and swallow just surprised me. I felt like I played to the best of my ability with Link, Ganon, and Falcon, but I just could not take away the last stock no matter what. He's like a heavier Sheik. I feel more helpless against good Yoshi's than any other top tier character. If more people used him, he'd be S tier by now.

I wonder Sinister Slush would say...

Y'know what, I actually just recorded a number of Ganon vs Yoshi replays. I'll upload those soon.

Also Yoshi really isn't anything like Sheik. He's actually a much more similar character to Ganon fundamentally. He's heavily punish and capitalization oriented, and he's terrible in neutral.

What? Yoshi is terrible in neutral? Let's put it this way. He does not have a single attack that directly beats Mario's B-air except like...U-smash. He's garbage at spacing objectively. However he does have high mobility, good landing mixups, above average recovery, and again, his punishes are incredibly good.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Ah! Yeah that's better. I mix c-stick aerials and regular aerials often because I play with my stick on smash so I mix it up to avoid the momentum issues.

Maybe I'll just have to cave in and change my stick to tilt...but I've been playing with the stick for 14 years now...

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Anyway, in other news, I've decided that the nerf to 's uair isn't really a worthwhile issue. At first I was bummed out as the nerf a) eliminated a kill option and b) made me unable to link to knee as often. After playing with it for the week though, I've found that it doesn't make any less viable. Yes, the kill option is gone, but that also means you can throw out uair ALL the time now! You don't have to worry about keeping it fresh, so you can just let it stale. The move is still amazing and a top combo tool, so you can use it all the time now. Also, letting it stale, at least from what I've found, makes it easier to combo with knee or a dunk off stage. Basically, what I'm saying is that 's game didn't get worse, it just changed a bit. He's still , so let's not lose our heads right away.

Thoughts?

Agreed. His up air nerf is like Sheik's Fair "nerf" back in one of the first updates made is an incredible combo tool that she can throw out whenever she wants no questions asked.

Last night, I got totally wrecked by a really good Yoshi player. The fact that he was able to punish me hard with Shield pressure to down b and swallow just surprised me. I felt like I played to the best of my ability with Link, Ganon, and Falcon, but I just could not take away the last stock no matter what. He's like a heavier Sheik. I feel more helpless against good Yoshi's than any other top tier character. If more people used him, he'd be S tier by now.

To be fair, Yoshi has really good matchups against Ganon and Falcon (not sure about Link).

 

[Ikes]

Falcon uair is the only case in the game I can think of where taking 2% off a character's most important hitbox could have such a low impact on their viability.

Meanwhile with Diddy Kong...

i mean I still think he's very good (even upper high tier, I'd say top 15) but that uair nerf was unnecessary and almost crippling. I feel bad for diddy mains.

 

[Blobface]

I think all Ryu has to vs. Ganon is wait. Ganon can't really force Ryu to approach and Ryu can punish a lot of his options via shield with Fair because of its range and Ganon's tallness. Jumping at Ryu when he has....the strong version of his jab (the roundhouse kick) among other things is just a bad idea.

I still find it funny that Ryu lacks disjoints/priority even though he had plenty of it in his source game, but I don't think Ganon is bad for him at all assuming good internet/offline and the Ryu plays patiently (like he should).

Ryu "gets in" by playing carefully, landing a big hit, and then chasing you so you can't keep him out further, at least in my eyes that's how he does (most of the time). Alternatively Ryu should be throwing slow fireballs and following them in midrange (out of the enemy's range, mostly, but not too far) vs. anyone without a projectile. Slow Red fireball or Slow Normal Hadouken, mostly to force an action that he can react to, since the slow fireballs can be easily followed.

Oh I wasn't saying it was in Ganon's favor. I highly doubt that was anything close to optimal Ryu.

But overall, I found it pretty easy to stay in Ganon's optimal range (mid-range).

 

[Zelder]

Meanwhile with Diddy Kong...

i mean I still think he's very good (even upper high tier, I'd say top 15) but that uair nerf was unnecessary and almost crippling. I feel bad for diddy mains.

Wait, the one where they adjusted the hitbox to fit the animation was crippling, or the one where they took away it's ability to kill at like 85%?

 

[Akira213]

I feel bad for diddy mains.

I feel you man. Some people have it really hard; their main is only top 10 instead of top 5. It's a hard life being a Diddy main, no doubt about that.

 

[NairWizard]

@Noa. see your PMs

@Pyr and @moofpi Just use C-stick for all of your aerials, it didn't take me long to get used to Ryu's inputs and not messing up, though I did Tatsu off stage a few times on the 3DS version (for obvious reasons)

Now, after having played Ryu in tournament and in a bunch of friendlies, these are my opinions on his matchups (disclaimer: I won't defend all of these matchup opinions because it's week 2 of Ryu and that would take too long, just wanted to give an overview based on my thoughts and experience so far):

Important matchups that I think Ryu wins:


These characters are all midweights who rely on high damage per hit and/or combo strings. Against lighter characters, they bank on outtrading then using Rage to get easy KOs (d-throw to Cyclone, up-smash, b-throw, and banana -> something, respectively). Against heavier characters, like Ganon or Ike, they rely on strong juggle/combo games instead. Ryu isn't a lightweight, so outtrading him doesn't work, especially since he outfootsies these characters and has more range on some key attacks (like f-air, b-air, and basically all of his grounded moves against theirs). Unlike heavies, though, Ryu isn't that susceptible to combos. His ability to reverse his direction in the air is bad, yes, but FADC, Tatsu, and his great n-air all give him options that other heavies don't have (I mean, just look at the frame data on his n-air. 4 frames of startup, 6 frames of landing lag; compare that to Sheik's f-air, which, while more applicable in neutral due to better range, has 10 frames just of landing lag).

Important matchups that I think Ryu loses:


Now you may look at this list and go, "man, that's all of the top tiers," and to be sure you're right, it is about half of them. Ryu's main weakness is his inability to catch evasive characters, and many of the top tiers are rather evasive. Ryu is a defensive powerhouse, but offensively he's not that great, what with bad hitlag on his attacks on shield, lack of disjoints on key moves, and low ground mobility (awful walk speed/average run speed). He has a hard time getting anything going on these characters because they don't have to fight him.

None of these MUs are terrible for him, though--outside of these characters playing as lame as possible and running away, Ryu actually does pretty well. Luma dies very easily to most of Ryu's attacks. If ZSS misses a tether grab she dies for it. Pikachu's aerials get shut down by true Shoryuken. Sheik gets owned in footsies. etc. They're probably all 45:55 matchups for Ryu, 40:60 at worst. So while he has bad matchups, they're not inherently non-competitive.

Three good characters escaped mention above:


I believe that Ryu probably goes even against both Fox and Falcon; they have better neutrals but due to being fastfallers get punished extremely hard for losing the neutral game. Ryu by comparison can get out of their frame traps sometimes with his options in disadvantage, and generally has a better recovery than either. Ultimately, Ryu may even win both MUs, but for now I think he's just even with them.

Against Sonic, the only way I see Sonic winning is if he gets an early lead (difficult with Ryu's high damage output) and then camps for the rest of the match. If Sonic spindashes into light jab he's eating a ton of percent and possibly dying. His initial dash is kind of bad and he's forced to commit to shield after it, usually, leaving him open to Ryu's great dashgrab. Most Sonics don't play lame enough for me to really understand this MU beyond a theoretical level, though, so I've left it out of my conclusions.

Now, a lot has been said about Ryu vs. disjoints, so here are my opinions on his sword-user matchups, since swords are the biggest disjoints in the game (though characters like Pikachu and ZSS do have some disjoints).

sword matchups that I think Ryu wins:
(the Pits may in fact be even though)

sword matchups that I think Ryu loses:


The characters in the win category just don't have enough safety against Ryu to avoid getting hit hard and put into disadvantaged states that are less than stellar. They mostly have good reward on Ryu, but if Ryu plays patiently, they end up losing, just because of their relative lack of safety on most moves (Link's tether, Lucina's shieldlag, Shulk and Ganon's frame data/close range issues, etc.).

Marth and Ike, though, can play patiently against Ryu and come out ahead in the neutral, while boasting similar reward to the characters in the list of Ryu's advantages. Marth is very safe after this patch, and Ike has a myriad of ranged options that are also relatively fast, like his jab2. These aren't heavy losses by any means, though, because these two swordsmen have really bad disadvantaged states that Ryu can still abuse (Shulk would be in the latter category if he had slightly better frame data, as an aside, since he can play reactionary as well).

So Ryu's problems with disjoints appear to be overstated, when you look at his matchup spread.

Overall, Ryu is a competitive pick since he does well against roughly half of the great characters and more than 3/4 of the average characters. Is he Top Tier? No, not likely. He does lose a few matchups against popular characters. But looking at him in concrete matchup terms instead of strengths and weaknesses does show him to be rather good.