Character Competitive Impressions

[Luco]

I would have liked to see Zero's Diddy against Nairo and MVD's against Dabuz as I think we'd have a far better understanding of this characters capabilities and matchups if that were the case.. As it stands, to me he seems like a solid pick for a high tier character (around Brawl Pikachu level) but his matchups with characters of similar or better viability probably hurt him (comparison to Brawl Pikachu not withstanding). He will probably always do decently well against ZSS and Falcon but he has to work a lot harder for less reward in every single one of his matchups.



I cringed when Larry got hit by the claw. Dabuz backed off and the match pace slowed down and it seemed like both players were ready for it but then he empty hops into nothing and gets hit by it. Dabuz wasn't in a position where he could punish a shield or dodge easily either so I have very little sympathy. The incredibly low ceiling is arguably more uncompetitive than the hazards will ever but either way if I were you I'd hesitate to present my opinion as fact. The stage would undoubtedly be better for competition with the removal of any number of it's hazards but that's not something we can do.

Sorry, it's just that match made me cringe as well and it bugs me how quick people are to dismiss hazards from other stages and then point to Halberd and say "it's not that big of a deal." This is one of the few cases where I'd honestly prefer to go more conservative, and ban halberd from the stagelists outright considering you can't do anything about its hazards like you mentioned (not that I dislike the stage or anything), but you're right, I shouldn't be presenting it as fact (although it is factual that players can and do get hit by it as evidenced by that very match) and perhaps I came off too strongly. I've been doing that lately, sorry guys.

 

[webbedspace]

I'd be more OK with Halberd (low ceiling) being legal if Kongo 64 (high ceiling) was also legal to balance out the list. As it is, I'm troubled by it, Delfino, Dream Land 64 and T&C all being "low-ceiling" levels, whereas the "high-ceiling" levels are... FD, Battlefield and Duck Hunt?

EDIT: I know DL64's ceiling from base-to-top is actually the same as Smashville, but the high platforms virtually lower it in a manner similar to T&C.

 

[-Xeroskia.]

What I want to know is why Larry kept taking Dabuz to Halberd of all places.. Rosalina's own up smash and, more specifically, her U-air is way too good to CP low-ceiling stages because "hurr durr Fox up smash/U-air".

Seriously though, Dabuz's triple U-air in one of the games made that move look broken, lol. The 2nd U-air lingering enough to catch out of an air dodge after the first one missed and the late hit comboing into a third U-air to kill incredibly early. I have 0 idea for how Larry could've even attempted to escape that without just plain guessing. That looked like the frame trap of all frame traps.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

So since Rain isn't going to EVO it's gonna be up to Ranai to stop Zero, huh?

Kinda reminds me of the early Brawl days where everybody kept waiting for somebody to beat M2K.

 

[Ryu_Ken]

The look of disappointment on people's faces when ZeRo won was cringe-worthy. It was still a freaking-awesome match and I've never seen a ZSS do that good against Sheik. I don't want to be reminded of Brawl or the Brawl 2.0 insults. The meta's gonna advance, and it seems Ryu and Roy are 2 DLC characters that give Sheik a run for her money.
Dang it, if only I was 1 year 6 days older...

 

[Scarlet Jile]

If you still think Rosalina is anything but top tier, you have no idea how video games work. Frankly, it's astonishing you can even work electronic devices well enough to make your ridiculous opinions public.

So since Rain isn't going to EVO it's gonna be up to Ranai to stop Zero, huh?

Kinda reminds me of the early Brawl days where everybody kept waiting for somebody to beat M2K.

ZeRo gonna have to win for another 2 or 3 years straight before he reaches Ken levels of dominance. Ally started giving M2K a run for his money year 1 and started beating him year 2 as I recall.

 

[Yikarur]

ZSS Up-B is 4 frames, 5 because you require a JC.

you can input jump + upB on the very same frame.

 

[jcx]

ZeRo gonna have to win for another 2 or 3 years straight before he reaches Ken levels of dominance. Ally started giving M2K a run for his money year 1 and started beating him year 2 as I recall.

If ZeRo is going to play for that long, he has to lose at EVO. He actually said that if he wins, he would focus on only Melee for a whole year.

 

[Zelder]

Zero says a lot of things, though.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Yeah, we all saw how his initial foray into Melee went. He's gonna have to play catch up if he wants to place in the money for that game nowadays.

Smooth Criminal

 

[GeneralLedge]

Best case scenario: Zero loses in pools and/or to a previously overlooked low tier character, played by an overlooked/new player. He drops out of focus and becomes a footnote to the event and result.

Worst case scenario: Zero comes in second~fourth place and complains about xxx and then everyone spends another month trying to clean up after him while he goes on to win more $. He stays the focus, regardless that he lost.

Null scenario: Zero wins and goes away. Presumably Smash 4 will cease to exist like a fever dream or something.

 

[Fatmanonice]

It happens and for the first time, an official Smash game is getting patches meaning you cannot stay secure with a character regardless of their "viability". One day, you'll be maining Bowser and he gets a nerf hammer for no reason. You'll complain about how it's unjustified, but you can't do anything. That possibility could be scaring people and the fact Diddy got nerfed or has been the main target of nerfs has lead some players scrambling to find a "good' character.

Which is a bit of a culture shock for a lot of these top players because they were originally top players in Melee and Brawl, where if your character was bad, you'd just lump it for six years or pick someone better. A year into a game, the absolute best and absolute worst were well known. If characters got better or worse, it was because players figured something out about them and sometimes it took years for the potential of certain characters to be learned. Now a character can be radically changed in a single day, upending what we knew about the game. Now we've had a number of characters who have arguably made the jump to viable after wallowing around in a theoretical low tier the whole time span of the game. are characters that people argue have improved so much thanks to the updates that they may eventually take major tournaments while others argue that have promising futures . From my statement alone, that's seven characters (this isn't even considering characters like who are significantly better with customs on) who could eventually make the jump who were hardly ever seen at high levels of play and seven characters who could eventually come to cause problems for high level players. I personally think it's exciting because the game will no longer be about how to take down one or two characters at the very top but instead be about learning about a broader range of match ups. Pro SSB4 players definitely have their work cut out for them but, for the overall health of the community, I think this is a very good thing.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

See, dominant players happen. As other people have pointed out, M2K ran train over everybody in Brawl for something to the effect of 1.5 years. Then people got wise and started giving the kid a run for his money. Same ****'s happened in Melee, too, especially with the evolution of the game from the Ken Era to the 6 Gods Era. It's cyclical.

I'm honestly more concerned with the subtext of his little callout earlier on. I'd hate to see this game die and wither on its vine because people are just throwing in the towels (re: you know who you are) so early on. They're kicking and screaming for something, anything, that'll rattle the current echelon of top characters to its core and bring about the magical nerfs/buffs that'll bring x character on the rise, bring tech to the game that previously was/wasn't there, etc. A lot of them also rely on gimmicks rather than solid play, and when stupid **** gets adapted to, they flail and they don't bother working on the fundamentals that bring in the wins. They think squarely that it's the other character they're going up against in most cases. Hell, even I was guilty of this with Dedede until I started really labbing him. Sure, he still gets bodied by said characters, but I need to also play the player too, which is equally just as important if not moreso.

I'm seeing a very defeatist attitude among this community. Whether Zero's callout was a matter of conceit or not, he's right. We need to step our **** up.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Scarlet Jile]

If the dude can make a living from streaming alone, it might alleviate the pressure of winning all the time. Switching to Melee is a chance to be a fan-favorite underdog again instead of just expected to win. Besides the prize money (which is atrocious for Smash anyway), it's kind of a win-win.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

If the dude can make a living from streaming alone, it might alleviate the pressure of winning all the time. Switching to Melee is a chance to be a fan-favorite underdog again instead of just expected to win. Besides the prize money (which is atrocious for Smash anyway), it's kind of a win-win.

Streaming alone isn't the lion's share of his income. It's winning locals, regionals, and nationals that bring the bread on home. I think being a fan-favorite underdog is second to living.

If he does go into Melee, I hope he does do well, but I personally have my doubts, lol

Smooth Criminal

 

[Scarlet Jile]

I'm seeing a very defeatist attitude among this community. Whether or not Zero's callout was a matter of conceit or not, he's right. We need to step our **** up.

This game ain't over by a long shot. Larry Lurr is the hero Smash 4 needs. Everybody slept on him at APEX 2010 when Brood trampled all over M2K like the US was free, and everybody sleeping on him now.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Oh, I believe in Larry! We livin' like him in that regard.

...as long as he doesn't counterpick ****ing Halberd against a Rosalina player like Dabuz. :v

Smooth Criminal

 

[Balgorxz]

people already talking about giving up

meanwhile...

"So far, Apex title & CEO title. I want the triple crown with the EVO win. I'm happy about my win but I'll practice hard moment I get home."
-Zero's Twitter

 

[Fatmanonice]

See, dominant players happen. As other people have pointed out, M2K ran train over everybody in Brawl for something to the effect of 1.5 years. Then people got wise and started giving the kid a run for his money. Same ****'s happened in Melee, too, especially with the evolution of the game from the Ken Era to the 6 Gods Era. It's cyclical.

I'm honestly more concerned with the subtext of his little callout earlier on. I'd hate to see this game die and wither on its vine because people are just throwing in the towels (re: you know who you are) so early on. They're kicking and screaming for something, anything, that'll rattle the current echelon of top characters to its core and bring about the magical nerfs/buffs that'll bring x character on the rise, bring tech to the game that previously was/wasn't there, etc. A lot of them also rely on gimmicks rather than solid play, and when stupid **** gets adapted to, they flail and they don't bother working on the fundamentals that bring in the wins. They think squarely that it's the other character they're going up against in most cases. Hell, even I was guilty of this with Dedede until I started really labbing him. Sure, he still gets bodied by said characters, but I need to also play the player too, which is equally just as important if not moreso.

I'm seeing a very defeatist attitude among this community. Whether or not Zero's callout was a matter of conceit or not, he's right. We need to step our **** up.

Smooth Criminal

Let them quit then. Brawl started to improve once the top Melee players started to retire, in my opinion. I've said it before but more new players rising to the top is what keeps a game fresh. If top players quit, it's hardly the end of the world. People will act like the world is ending until somebody comes along who starts to clean house with an unexpected character and suddenly people will have hope again like with Dabuz and Olimar in Brawl. Again, the top players of the last two games have a hard time adjusting to their characters getting nerfed and, honestly, we had a lot of foreshadowing of this in Project M when people complained that it was basically a rotating door and that people were ultimately being punished for being good. People are going to parrot the best players until somebody takes their place and, right now, the consensus seems to be that the patches are unfair but, once those people retire, this viewpoint will likely go with them, allowing the metagame to better evolve.

 

[GeneralLedge]

--Delete--

 

[Scarlet Jile]

Holy melodrama, Jesus Christ, man. People don't hate seeing ZeRo win. The kid works his ass off and deserves it. He's a hero to Chili and the classic American story of hard work prevailing over all odds. Why you think ZeRo winning is more cancerous to the longevity of Smash 4 than, say, Rosalina scraping out some wins with unwatchable jank is beyond me.

 

[DunnoBro]

I'll be very surprised to see ZeRo beat ESAM in customs. Though I can see ESAM losing to others along the way. Dabuz, and Nairo have the huge advantage of having more customs practice than any region(though nairo doesn't use them much). MD/VA has had a few, but nowhere near the customs showcase NJ/NY has. Literally all the top custom threats except for pikachu.

Boss, ChuDat, and GIMR think custom duck hunt is top 10 though. I don't even come close to maximizing his full potential honestly. Theoretically, he should have the best Shield in the game. Being able to have such a versatile hitbox while in shield with zigzag, a great grab range, a frame 1-oos option in snag makes it so unless your char has a good shield dash/dash grab (and mega gunmen and zigzag break a lot of tall/big chars grabs) you're not getting in.

Also, getting a grab while zigzag is out with at least 2 shots left should be a kill throw each time. It's just really hard because you have to

Time shots > Throw to Can > Can hits in > Buffer the proper jump angle input to catch with upair or nair

The can NEVER auto combos off forward/backthrow. It will always hit in if you do it right. And considering zigzag itself frame traps for grabs... This is a pretty relevant kill throw. Also, if you grab someone while zigzag sits inside their shield (due to not having a hitbox unless you shoot it) down/upthrow work for the auto combo, or on bigger characters you can just pummel. (https://youtu.be/mxqYaAx9KDE?t=9m37s)

As a result, he mostly only loses to default top tiers with good dash grabs. Custom DK, Villager, and even pikachu have bad MUs vs him. Though in the case of pikachu, switching to default jolt makes it even. All DHD's projectiles eat the custom and then go to hit pikachu in the endlag from it. HSB combos also don't work due to snag beating it point blank, it'd have to be a read.

It's too bad MVD doesn't agree duck hunt's customs are good. I'd be very confident he could win if he learned him.

Custom wario is probably by far the worst MU custom DHD has. Speeding bike lets him truck through everything and even if I get lucky and hit him off it with zigzag, it will never combo due to the horizontal momentum he had. Rose waft also makes wario's edgeguard game unbearable.

Can't wait to see how @TheReflexWonder does if he's going to EVO.

 

[Zelder]

If Zero wins EVO and he stops playing Smash 4, people will stop watching Smash 4...why exactly? Is he taking all the disks with him when he quits?

Also, lol @ thinking a single thing you read in a twitch chat matters for a second. One, they're already watching the stream so they count as a viewer. Two, twitch chat is literally the id of the internet: animalistic, primal, and totally useless for civil society. Don't pay it any attention and you'll be the better person for it.

 

[Fatmanonice]

If anything's "killing us", it's the belief that the health of a community is wholly reliant on one or two players or even one or two characters. Brawl didn't start to improve until people stopped whining about Metaknight and actually put effort into beating the character. Granted, the top and high tiers of the game ultimately revolved around how well people did against Metaknight but it actually moved beyond the "pick or die" mentality that the community had for like the first two years of the game. Nobody in their right mind would argue are as polarizing as those two and yet, as some people say, there is a sense of hopelessness despite the fact you can practically count on your fingers and toes the nerfs that these two have already received. These two aren't completely running away with tournaments across the board like the other two were but, at the same time, they're still really good and still viable so I really don't see what the issue is. We're slowly getting a Smash game that's more balanced than the series has ever had and people seem to be mourning the slow disappearance of top and bottom tiers. Isn't this what we wanted? A game that didn't boil down to five characters having a realistic shot at winning a major tournament with one or two taking a majority of them? A game where characters weren't automatically dismissed because they had such bad matchups with one specific character? Sometimes I read the commentary that people say and I think to myself "what exactly do you people want with this game?"

 

[Luco]

If nothing else, I want someone else to win because ZeRo looked so darn unimpressed/unexcited when he was playing in CEO. It was like M2K all over again . Granted I didn't really get to see GFs but getting to top 4 in such a stacked tournament should be exciting for everyone. I hope someone wins against him so that he has a rivalry, or someone he really has to work hard against to claim victory. Ideally this would be the case for a few players.

 

[Flamecircle]

I'm not 100% sure if ZeRo is THAT much better than everyone else. Sure, he's probably the best, but he had a matchup advantage against Nairo's ZSS, and really exposed her weaknesses. I think Dabuz, Larry, Shaky, or Mr.R would have had a better chance against him. I think ZSS is probably holding Nairo back, unfortunately.

 

[Firefoxx]

If nothing else, I want someone else to win because ZeRo looked so darn unimpressed/unexcited when he was playing in CEO. It was like M2K all over again . Granted I didn't really get to see GFs but getting to top 4 in such a stacked tournament should be exciting for everyone. I hope someone wins against him so that he has a rivalry, or someone he really has to work hard against to claim victory. Ideally this would be the case for a few players.

He didn't look that way after beating Shaky, that's for sure.

I'm not 100% sure if ZeRo is THAT much better than everyone else. Sure, he's probably the best, but he had a matchup advantage against Nairo's ZSS, and really exposed her weaknesses. I think Dabuz, Larry, Shaky, or Mr.R would have had a better chance against him. I think ZSS is probably holding Nairo back, unfortunately.

I think its less that ZSS is holding him back, and more that he needs to actually have a secondary that he feels confident enough to use in a high pressure match like that.

 

[Zelder]

I just wish he would think before he said things. His words hold a lot of weight, for better or for worse, and when he says stuff like "Diddy got nerfed hardcore" or "Roy is top tier guys, you don't even know" without doing the due research, misinformation spreads through the community like wildfire. But that's outside of the scope of this thread, kind of.

 

[exnecross]

I know I'm not one to talk, but I felt like so much of the play during the top 32, and even top 8, at CEO was unoptimal and even downright sloppy a lot of the time. Many of the matches were reminiscent of For Glory matches I've had with nobodies, in fact I felt quite a bit of deja vu. DieNasty's Sheik kinda looked like mine, and I'm definitely not a pro in comparison to the top players.

This meta has a long way to go, for sure. Nairo and MVD were definitely impressive though, and of course Zero is still Zero..

 

[murdokdracul]

Two, twitch chat is literally the id of the internet: animalistic, primal, and totally useless for civil society. Don't pay it any attention and you'll be the better person for it.

That makes more sense than anything I've ever read in my life.

 

[Djent]

I was ready to predict ESAM and Heavy Skill Bash for EVO, but after this weekend I still think Zero is favored. Fundamentals > all else.

Did anyone catch ESAM vs. Ryo? Went to game 3 apparently.

 

[exnecross]

If anything's "killing us", it's the belief that the health of a community is wholly reliant on one or two players or even one or two characters.

It's safe to say that Smash 4 won't have the longevity of Melee, but the notion of the Smash 4 scene "dying" (before Smash 5) is ridiculous, unless of course Smash 5 never happens. Smash 4 will definitely take a huge blow when the next iteration is released, but until then the scene will definitely stay strong.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

lol @ Nairo being held back by ZSS.

 

[Fatmanonice]

I know I'm not one to talk, but I felt like so much of the play during the top 32, and even top 8, at CEO was unoptimal and even downright sloppy a lot of the time. Many of the matches were reminiscent of For Glory matches I've had with nobodies, in fact I felt quite a bit of deja vu. DieNasty's Sheik kinda looked like mine, and I'm definitely not a pro in comparison to the top players.

This meta has a long way to go, for sure.

Which is what people need to keep in mind, especially since we've had four new characters added since launch and likely another 3-4 before Sakurai tells the world to piss off until 2019/2020. That's likely another 2-3 major patches that could cause a disturbance in the force, especially with the strong prospect of the DLC characters getting adjusted and even more low tiers getting risen out of the gutter with a single update (as I noted earlier, the hand of Sakurai has already saved nearly a dozen characters from being forever doomed to total competitive obscurity). This said, we probably won't have a "complete" game until next spring and even then there's the small chance that Nintendo will care enough about the game that we could still get minor patches up until SSB5.

 

[Zelder]

I wonder if the pending NX will mean we get another Smash game sooner rather than later. Of course, knowing Nintendo, there's a very good chance the NX will be a super powered handheld or a Wii U add-on or a wearable shirt that streams videogames or something equally convoluted.

 

[exnecross]

Which is what people need to keep in mind, especially since we've had four new characters added since launch and likely another 3-4 before Sakurai tells the world to piss off until 2019/2020. That's likely another 2-3 major patches that could cause a disturbance in the force, especially with the strong prospect of the DLC characters getting adjusted and even more low tiers getting risen out of the gutter with a single update (as I noted earlier, the hand of Sakurai has already saved nearly a dozen characters from being forever doomed to total competitive obscurity). This said, we probably won't have a "complete" game until next spring and even then there's the small chance that Nintendo will care enough about the game that we could still get minor patches up until SSB5.

I think the fact that perceived low tiers such as Samus, Ganondorf, and Charizard even made an appearance (and won) during the top 32 speaks for itself.

 

[Fatmanonice]

It's safe to say that Smash 4 won't have the longevity of Melee, but the notion of the Smash 4 scene "dying" (before Smash 5) is ridiculous, unless of course Smash 5 never happens. Smash 4 will definitely take a huge blow when the next iteration is released, but until then the scene will definitely stay strong.

Which, really, is enough. Brawl, with its mountain of faults, lasted the 6 1/2 years of its lifetime, even if it was primarily doubles by the end. A handful of people gloated about the "death of Brawl" but, given it did what it was supposed to do for a decent amount of people, it was kind of an empty victory. The people who wanted to keep playing Brawl were able to do so and it never completely died.

 

[exnecross]

Which, really, is enough. Brawl, with its mountain of faults, lasted the 6 1/2 years of its lifetime, even if it was primarily doubles by the end. A handful of people gloated about the "death of Brawl" but, given it did what it was supposed to do for a decent amount of people, it was kind of an empty victory. The people who wanted to keep playing Brawl were able to do so and it never completely died.

Well it's two completely different mindsets. Brawl players looked forward to Smash 4. They wanted to hop on the next game. Smash 4 was going to be their new home. And if Smash 5 comes, a huge bulk of 4 players will just switch right to it. The Smash 4 scene won't be dying so much as "migrating".

Melee is super conservative. There's really no comparison.

 

[Nysyr]

Day =/= Kami
Lucario =/= bad

Rest of your posts appears to consist of baseless johns.

I've said all that needs to be said in my last post.

Comical, you pulled out the john card.

Maybe you should make some guides about how good Lucario actually is, or better yet point us to someone who has made videos about it (let me stop you there because there are none).

But I guess someone who has the #1 top tier in their character rep is allowed to use the most toxic word in smash. You had zero value in your argument. How ****posts like yours aren't reportable I'll probably never know.

 

[NairWizard]

Perhaps a little unrelated to this topic but what impressed me the most about CEO, and what makes me most hopeful for the future of smash 4, is the attitudes of the top players. They were all friendly and humble, accepting their losses when they lost and acknowledging the strengths of their opponents rather than making excuses, and on top of that they were truly competitive and looking to take the top spot from ZeRo, no defeatist attitudes at all. Dabuz, Larry, ESAM, Nairo, and even ZeRo were all truly happy to earn the spots that they earned, no salt or anything in top 8, only tension and effort. I think that made the tournament more enjoyable all around, and with CEO as a backdrop, I'm truly enthusiastic for EVO regardless of the custom situation.