So Doc. Doc has a plethora of killing moves and a decent projectile that doesn't cause ff.
Why is he the worst then (when I say worst, I'm tying him with Samus and Zelda for worst here)? Being a clone of Mario means you have the inherent pros (awesome frame data) and cons ( poor range and very linear recovery). What made Mario good in this game is the notably increase in his overall mobility, a consistent almost brain dead amount of combos, low committal kills yada, yada, yada.
Fireballs compared to pills are superior as Mario's mobility allows bobbing and weaving while also gaining followups, but for Doc, pills allow him to be punished, even on hit.
Doc plays like a heavy, but doesn't even really get the same advantages that other heavies have (better weight, better range, better killing moves). Most of the time, you find yourself soaking hits only to get a couple off and then invariably die due to having a poor recovery like other heavies have. What boggles my mind is that Doc has been made slower and weaker than his Melee iteration. Almost of his former kill have less KB and KBG while dealing less damage. At least now, he has a semi consistent combo game that racks damage up (uair is a god send), but when it comes to finish them off, what do you do? I mean, you have low range dsmash, you got slow fsmash, you have strange angle usmash, then you have suicide fair, then you have (free to punish me ) bair. The way I see it, Doc has 2 kill moves: utilt (yes it kills), and upb. Other characters that have problem finishing people off have a strong keep away game (Pac) or just is lagless (Sheik). Doc also has no offstage game bar cape or pills because everything else does put him in an awful position. You say bair is good....too low range and it sex kicks, so unless your opponent never airdodges, the weak hit is all you get.
With Doc, you find yourself very grounded for fear to expend your second jump to chase someone only to be knocked off and forced to downb to upb. If someone wants to play footsies with you on the ground, you could win.....only if they stay close enough to see your diploma otherwise, he's still not that great. You find yourself playing desperate for grabs as that is really your only way to rack damage up quickly because Pills are punishable and he has 2 or 3 aerial moves with only 1 of them doing substantial damage.
Sure Doc does have more tools than Samus and Zelda in his coat, but the crushing med school loan debts seem to be slowing him down. At least Samus has some offstage presence and controls the space around herself decently. Zelda....well you know.
BESIDES weight and other attributes to make him more viable compared to the rest of the cast, what would you give him?
