Character Competitive Impressions

[Emblem Lord]

@ Emblem Lord

So because you play Ryu and Marth... how does Marth do against Ryu? In my opinion Marth beats Ryu.

Seems like he can DS out of Ryu's Utilt and Dtilt and I know this doesn't matter too much but Ryu does a lot of damage so counter can be useful in this MU. The main reasons, however, is that Marth will outrange/disjoint Ryu and Ryu will be edge-guarded like crazy.

Marth prolly wins now slightly when taking the buffs in to account. Marth does not care about hadoukens. Just sh nair and he can maintain his own zone while not giving up stage control to Ryu. Ryu is never out of the game though. His reward is simply too huge.

 

[Big-Cat]

I honestly would argue it seems evenish. The disjoint does help Marth a lot in footsies, but Ryu's range is actually pretty similar to Marth's. And tbqh, Ryu's strong dashgrab means he doesn't really have to guess that much against Counter for damage dealing.

Also I personally don't have problems with Marth's edgeguarding as Ryu. Ryu's recovery is one of the stronger ones in this game between FA, Jump+Tatsu, and Shoryuken all being excellent recovery moves.

The main reason though I would argue it's pretty close is Marth's range on his pokes makes it hard for Ryu to safely get in range for hit confirms, and Ryu is pretty punishable on shield and often has to attack preemptively (or rely on Hadoken) to take advantage of his range against Marth's sword.

Downside with Ryu's recovery is that his vertical recovery isn't nearly as good as his horizontal. He can only survive below the stage via Shoryuken.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Hi. I like Sonic.

I like grab-releasing to force 50:50s to whether they try to grab or Jab which aren't long enough or are slow enough to get hit by Ftilt and force a bad position, or they try and spotdodge or roll only to get hit by Spindash and eat a lot of damage.

Any other character got something like this?

Hi I'm D3, I can force ambiguous situations on platforms and ledges with the help of my Gordos and my meaty disjointed normals. I also have cool tools in regarding a psuedo-vortex game out of uair that, while inherently punishable, can force a sort of reductive guessing game.

but I can't do anything

Smooth Criminal

 

[A2ZOMG]

Downside with Ryu's recovery is that his vertical recovery isn't nearly as good as his horizontal. He can only survive below the stage via Shoryuken.

What? Ryu's vertical recovery is the strongest part of his recovery. Shoryuken iirc goes FARTHER than Dolphin Slash and actually has a better hitbox. Input a TSRK and you also still get invincibility frames in the air at the beginning of the move.

Ryu's horizontal recovery while great distancewise is the weak part of his recovery, as he needs to commit to something rather punishable in order to get good horizontal distance on his recovery.

 

[HeavyLobster]

I don't care who beats me frankly, I never personally claimed to be amazing at this game.

OCEAN is the only ROB that legitimately impresses me, especially since Japan is a strong region, and last I checked on SHI-G basically nobody else was accomplishing anything with ROB. Haven't seen Holy play in a while.

Last time I saw Holy play Smash 4 he completely thrashed Kalm in tourney. I would not be so confident that Ganon wins that MU if I were you. He might be Ganon's worst non-top tier MU outside of Villager. Not impossible, but not fun against a good one either.

 

[Vipermoon]

What? Ryu's vertical recovery is the strongest part of his recovery. Shoryuken iirc goes FARTHER than Dolphin Slash and actually has a better hitbox. Input a TSRK and you also still get invincibility frames in the air at the beginning of the move.

Ryu's horizontal recovery while great distancewise is the weak part of his recovery, as he needs to commit to something rather punishable in order to get good horizontal distance on his recovery.

DS goes slightly further. And (while this is also true for Marth) Shoryuken doesn't cover Ryu's back. It also isn't disjointed so all it takes is a Bair or DS from behind. And it's easier to intercept since he rises slightly slower than Marth. DS is i-frames as well starting on frame 1.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

ROB's good i guess, i dont care much cause he's kinda boring

also where's my Donkey Kong discussion at

is he viable without customs, cause I think he could be

*sinister laugh* Get ready for the most biased post on this thread .

DK. Most say he's a garbage character unless customs are on. And... that's actually pretty true. He gets forced to approach and he sucks at approaching. His neutral and disadvantage state are pure ass. And let's not forget that his hurtbox size is just about as big as his proneness to combos. His recovery, while better than it was in Brawl and Melee, is still ass. Ledge mechanics help though. He has almost nothing out of a grab in terms of true combos other than up throw/toss to up air at low-mid percents. So why isn't he the undisputed worst? Results. He gets rep from DK Will and Average Joe, among others. But seriously why is he mid tier? I'll tell you why. His air game, and surprising mobility (10th best air speed or something). Alright let's talk about his famous Bair. It does 13%, comes out on frame 7, has a large, lingering hitbox, is fast enough to do 2 in one short hop, autocancels from a short hop, and true combos into itself. Oh, and it KOs. I'm not kidding, I claim this is singlehandedly the best aerial in the game. If anyone else had it they'd be broken. This move keeps him in the game. And his up air is also really good. It comes out on frame 6 and it KOs and combos into itself. Not quite 1.0 Diddy but it's like Rosalina's without the disjoint and lingering hitbox. His Nair is one of those moves that are really useful for pressuring platforms and it's use offstage is surprisingly low risk and high reward. Not too useful other than that and setting up jab locks if you're lucky. His Fair is garbage. His Dair is trash. The other ones are the only ones that matter.
On the ground, he's got giant punch. A 10 wind punch kills at like 50%. Ridiculous. A fully charged punch kills at around 100 but it has super armor. This thing is disgusting. It's not broken or anything but it turns matches on a dime. Ftilt has disjointed, godly range, dtilt has a 40% trip chance and combos into everything, uptilt has great range and strings into itself and all his aerials (almost never a true combo but it works all the time). Fsmash kills at like 80 but it's punishable af and slow. Up smash is trash with a garbage hitbox, Dsmash is good. Weird hitbox but it's one of his most reliable kill options.
With that said, DK doesn't have any real landing options, which I think is one of his biggest weaknesses. And this gives him a really hard time in some matchups.
Speaking of matchups, I don't have enough tourney experience to give my opinion on all of them, but here are some notable ones:
By far his worst matchup. Worse than Sheik. Worse than Luigi. Worse than Mario. It's one of the few matchups that I consider 35:65. Fox can actually force a mid range game with his blaster, and mid range is where he excels. From here he has grab combos until death percents. Fox beats DK up close in every conceivable way except maybe grab range. It's easy for Fox to get in and he has one of the best advantage states in the game, while DK has one of the worst disadvantage states. And if that wasn't enough, Fox's double jab cheese works until about 150, and at death percents it combos into up smash or down smash. Fox ****s on DK.
Actually a decent matchup. I put it slightly in Marth's favor because DK gets edgeguarded pretty hard and Marth has disjoint. DK has Bair in neutral and advantage which keeps him from getting *****.
It could be worse. A lot of DK's safe moves have low base knockback, which makes getting rid of Luma difficult. One important thing that destroys DK in this matchup: DK's ledge options. For some reason, DK's roll getup has more endlag than any of his smashes, so he has no answers for Rosaluma's jab combo edgeguard. Ledgehop Uair has no disjoint so luma beats that, Luma catches ledge jump, Rosalina gets roll, Luma catches neutral getup... the only thing DK can really do is ledge hop up special, which is dangerous af. Rosalina wins pretty handily.
I only know this matchup because I have a buddy who mains him in my scene. Basically DK can't get in at all.
If I were PacMan I'd love this matchup too. Gorillas can't climb walls.

DK just flat out loses too many high tier matchups for him to be that viable on his own. It's almost always an uphill battle with this guy. Bair can only go so far.
So yeah that's the jist of DK. Thoughts?

 

[Vipermoon]

BTW: I partially take back what I said about him being safe on shield in some cases. Forgot that Ryu has a lot of hitlag on pretty much all of his moves. That makes each of those moves much less safe than they should/could be.

 

[Ikes]

*sinister laugh* Get ready for the most biased post on this thread .

DK. Most say he's a garbage character unless customs are on. And... that's actually pretty true. He gets forced to approach and he sucks at approaching. His neutral and disadvantage state are pure ***. And let's not forget that his hurtbox size is just about as big as his proneness to combos. His recovery, while better than it was in Brawl and Melee, is still ***. Ledge mechanics help though. He has almost nothing out of a grab in terms of true combos other than up throw/toss to up air at low-mid percents. So why isn't he the undisputed worst? Results. He gets rep from DK Will and Average Joe, among others. But seriously why is he mid tier? I'll tell you why. His air game, and surprising mobility (10th best air speed or something). Alright let's talk about his famous Bair. It does 13%, comes out on frame 7, has a large, lingering hitbox, is fast enough to do 2 in one short hop, autocancels from a short hop, and true combos into itself. Oh, and it KOs. I'm not kidding, I claim this is singlehandedly the best aerial in the game. If anyone else had it they'd be broken. This move keeps him in the game. And his up air is also really good. It comes out on frame 6 and it KOs and combos into itself. Not quite 1.0 Diddy but it's like Rosalina's without the disjoint and lingering hitbox. His Nair is one of those moves that are really useful for pressuring platforms and it's use offstage is surprisingly low risk and high reward. Not too useful other than that and setting up jab locks if you're lucky. His Fair is garbage. His Dair is trash. The other ones are the only ones that matter.
On the ground, he's got giant punch. A 10 wind punch kills at like 50%. Ridiculous. A fully charged punch kills at around 100 but it has super armor. This thing is disgusting. It's not broken or anything but it turns matches on a dime. Ftilt has disjointed, godly range, dtilt has a 40% trip chance and combos into everything, uptilt has great range and strings into itself and all his aerials (almost never a true combo but it works all the time). Fsmash kills at like 80 but it's punishable af and slow. Up smash is trash with a garbage hitbox, Dsmash is good. Weird hitbox but it's one of his most reliable kill options.
With that said, DK doesn't have any real landing options, which I think is one of his biggest weaknesses. And this gives him a really hard time in some matchups.
Speaking of matchups, I don't have enough tourney experience to give my opinion on all of them, but here are some notable ones:
By far his worst matchup. Worse than Sheik. Worse than Luigi. Worse than Mario. It's one of the few matchups that I consider 35:65. Fox can actually force a mid range game with his blaster, and mid range is where he excels. From here he has grab combos until death percents. Fox beats DK up close in every conceivable way except maybe grab range. It's easy for Fox to get in and he has one of the best advantage states in the game, while DK has one of the worst disadvantage states. And if that wasn't enough, Fox's double jab cheese works until about 150, and at death percents it combos into up smash or down smash. Fox ****s on DK.
Actually a decent matchup. I put it slightly in Marth's favor because DK gets edgeguarded pretty hard and Marth has disjoint. DK has Bair in neutral and advantage which keeps him from getting *****.
It could be worse. A lot of DK's safe moves have low base knockback, which makes getting rid of Luma difficult. One important thing that destroys DK in this matchup: DK's ledge options. For some reason, DK's roll getup has more endlag than any of his smashes, so he has no answers for Rosaluma's jab combo edgeguard. Ledgehop Uair has no disjoint so luma beats that, Luma catches ledge jump, Rosalina gets roll, Luma catches neutral getup... the only thing DK can really do is ledge hop up special, which is dangerous af. Rosalina wins pretty handily.
I only know this matchup because I have a buddy who mains him in my scene. Basically DK can't get in at all.
If I were PacMan I'd love this matchup too. Gorillas can't climb walls.

DK just flat out loses too many high tier matchups for him to be that viable on his own. It's almost always an uphill battle with this guy. Bair can only go so far.
So yeah that's the jist of DK. Thoughts?

you're forgetting that you can stage spike with cargo throw. Cargo makes his grab game easily one of the most versatile and rewarding in the game even without a kill throw. his grab range (ESPECIALLY dash) is huge and his grab is by no means slow. You mentioned nothing of his grab game which is why im mentioning it.

he can still approach with bair which clanks out a lot of moves too, just putting that out there. It's one of his more versatile tools alongside his godlike tilts.

 

[Shaya]

Ryu and Roy go into freeze frames when activating Marth's counter because of their elongated hit lag.

Ryu cannot recover vertically against Marth whatsoever. Nair will beat spinny spin (I need more coffee the names completely slipped my mind).
Marth can also dolphin slash through shield hits and hit Ryu in his elongated hit lag limbs. It's stupid.

He can outspace FA while also covering forward dash cancels with it.

 

[Nobie]

What I'm about to say has come up before in this thread and elsewhere, but the introduction of Roy and Ryu into Smash 4 has made me hyper aware of how much the Smash community at large values...combos...? Highly aggressive follow-ups? An extended and powerful advantaged state? at perhaps the expense of other facets.

Roy immediately made a splash because of his mobility, ability to KO early, and strong combo game/follow-ups. All of those are good traits to have of course, but not only does Roy come across as Melee-esque in a lot of ways (including fall speed and relatively poor recovery), but he seems to now be the go-to character for people who love safe rushdown, which was a common complaint towards Smash 4, that there wasn't enough get-in-there-and-hit-their-shield-until-they-cry (calling @ Big-Cat ). He's basically the character a lot of players want, because he's supposed to just be charging in a lot of the time.

Then there's Ryu, and I think it's telling that the big emphasis when he was first released was on his powerful combos and his punish game. Looking at the Ryu boards, @ Emblem Lord is often there to teach people the "philosophy of Ryu." The idea that the last thing you want to do as Ryu is give up ground, and that you need to slowly pressure your opponent by taking away their territory and setting yourself up at the ideal range where your superior footsies will win you the game is so fundamentally "fighting game" (of course because it's Ryu), but that's not how Ryu was viewed, and that's not even how neutral is often viewed by Smash players.

The added mobility of Smash in general has defined the neutral as being more about big movements such that Ryu's approach can feel foreign, but on top of that there's sometimes a lack of understanding as to how quiet pressure can do a lot.

 

[Antonykun]

Ryu and Roy go into freeze frames when activating Marth's counter because of their elongated hit lag.

Ryu cannot recover vertically against Marth whatsoever. Nair will beat Tatsumaki Senpukaku (I need more coffee the names completely slipped my mind).
Marth can also dolphin slash through shield hits and hit Ryu in his elongated hit lag limbs. It's stupid.

He can outspace FA while also covering forward dash cancels with it.

Fixed

anyways it's kind of sad to see how bad APEX Brawler is at killing because that mobility is certainly amazing

 

[Ffamran]

Nair will beat spinny spin (I need more coffee the names completely slipped my mind).

Tatsumaki Senpukyaku or just Tatsumaki or the hurricane kick. Tat-su-maki Sen-pu-kyaku... Taaaat-suuuuu-maaaaki Seeeeeeen-puuuuuu-kyaaaaaaku... I can't make a funny with this...

Does input/EX Tatsukmaki even have decent priority or whatever like Luigi Cyclone or Doctor Tornado? Regular aka the lazy Tatsumaki probably doesn't. I remember someone trying to recover with Ryu's Tatsumaki and then got slapped back, but I don't know how it even works or what the input does compared to the regular one does specifically. I can't wait for a Mishima character from Tekken to make it into Smash as DLC. More Shoryukens and Tatsumakis or as Tekken calls them, more Dragon Uppercuts and Spinning Demons.

 

[Mr. Johan]

Feels like these two are the least talked about nowadays.

Did the patch aid them in any way? Either directly or by top-tier shuffling?

 

[Shaya]

If the noted player list is anything to go by, there are more name taking Peaches than there are Rosalinas or Olimars.

Shulk kinda doesn't exist. I think he's just too hard to be optimal with for anyone to want to take that dedication. He probably needs mechanical changes more so than any number buffs. BUT I WORRY, because his kit is feasibly abusive due to it's range and "better mobility specs than Sonic". Like if you thought about speed arts as Luma and Jump arts as full hop air dodge until Luma returns, you can see that he's obviously not having as good of a time doing this as Rosalina does. He feels more like this sandbox character than an actual fighter. While he obviously isn't trash, I think he could be one of the few bonafide low tiers in this game.

 

[Yonder]

Feels like these two are the least talked about nowadays.

Did the patch aid them in any way? Either directly or by top-tier shuffling?

Both win the award for "Zomg so much potential technical character that no one uses properly but are secret high tiers"

Or more so Peach. Shulk has bad frame data. But Zero kind of believes in him so there's that...I think Shulk is interesting to say the least. I'd love to see a good Shulk player make it far.

 

[A_Kae]

DS goes slightly further. And (while this is also true for Marth) Shoryuken doesn't cover Ryu's back. It also isn't disjointed so all it takes is a Bair or DS from behind. And it's easier to intercept since he rises slightly slower than Marth. DS is i-frames as well starting on frame 1.

A small thing to note is that Dolphin Slash only has invincibility on frame 1 when used in the air.

Spoiler: Invincibility data for all of Marth's Up-Specials

Dolphin Slash

• Ground: 4-6
• Air: 1-4

Crescent Slash

• Ground: 8-10
• Air: 1-10

Dolphin Jump

• Ground: 11-13
• Air: 1-10

I know you're talking about recovery here, so air invincibility is what's relevant, I just don't want people getting the wrong idea about DS invincibility.

 

[Vipermoon]

Thanks A_Kae. Don't want people screaming NERF MARF if they think OoS DS has frame 1 inv. like it did in Brawl.

 

[Big-Cat]

What I'm about to say has come up before in this thread and elsewhere, but the introduction of Roy and Ryu into Smash 4 has made me hyper aware of how much the Smash community at large values...combos...? Highly aggressive follow-ups? An extended and powerful advantaged state? at perhaps the expense of other facets.

Roy immediately made a splash because of his mobility, ability to KO early, and strong combo game/follow-ups. All of those are good traits to have of course, but not only does Roy come across as Melee-esque in a lot of ways (including fall speed and relatively poor recovery), but he seems to now be the go-to character for people who love safe rushdown, which was a common complaint towards Smash 4, that there wasn't enough get-in-there-and-hit-their-shield-until-they-cry (calling @ Big-Cat ). He's basically the character a lot of players want, because he's supposed to just be charging in a lot of the time.

I've only complained that people seem to only want no commitment on moves.

 

[FullMoon]

I dunno about Shulk, he's certainly a complicated character to use but I don't think he's low tier. He's pretty adaptable and he still has that ridiculous range of his which I think puts him at mid at least.

At the same time though he does have quite glaring weaknesses that probably will prevent him from going too high so I think he's probably either mid or bottom of high-mid right now.

 

[Shaya]

I dunno about Shulk, he's certainly a complicated character to use but I don't think he's low tier. He's pretty adaptable and he still has that ridiculous range of his which I think puts him at mid at least.

At the same time though he does have quite glaring weaknesses that probably will prevent him from going too high so I think he's probably either mid or bottom of high-mid right now.

Not being useless in a majority of match ups doesn't mean middle tier though.
At least to me.

A middle tier likely needs relevant/workable match ups with at least some high/top tiers. Shulk definitely isn't short of capabilities, but a mixture of being very hard (something which is a fine logic for evaluating viability/tier placement, and for a game like Smash4 is likely most relevant overall) plus not being seen as rewarding for that workload... bleh.
The "best" Shulk I'm aware of is gnes, and he seems to be transitioning away from him recently towards Mario and Roy. He uses his near overwhelming edge guarding well but seems to need the Mario switch for most competent high tier players (Sheik and whatnot). If I was going to be certain about any player being held back by their character, it would be gnes, as he is a godlike national-winning champion level smash player who's decided to opt to keeping his top tiers for friendlies only while having a fun doing the best he can in tournament with a bad character. Ally and Trela, early top level Shulk-fans rarely see much use from them.

People can get upset about a character being called low tier, but my intent is getting that low tier = crap/worthless mentality implication out of at least our "community's vernacular".

 

[Earthbound360]

San (or maybe Ryo?) went Gunner against Boss's Luigi at a different weekly and showed that Gunner can kind of give Luigi a rough time. Probably inspired by that, if I had to guess.

Breh, I've been using Mii Gunner against Luigi for a WHILE now lol.

And thanks @ Luco , but I don't really even hate Ness-Luigi. I just think Gunner is really good against the green plumber XD
Definitely a good matchup there.

 

[FullMoon]

I don't know much about Shulk's MUs against the top tiers as I don't play him so I can't say much about him there.

Still the character always stood out to me as really good even with all the problems he has, there's probably some wi-fi factor to it though since I mostly play online and so it's a bit harder to punish Shulk's lag than it would be normally, I guess.

I wasn't really bothered by Shulk being called low tier, but it was just from my personal experience he seemed to be a lot better than that.

I won't go any further in this topic since Shulk is a character that I don't really understand that well myself.

 

[Teshie U]

Not being useless in a majority of match ups doesn't mean middle tier though.
At least to me.

A middle tier likely needs relevant/workable match ups with at least some high/top tiers. Shulk definitely isn't short of capabilities, but a mixture of being very hard (something which is a fine logic for evaluating viability/tier placement, and for a game like Smash4 is likely most relevant overall) plus not being seen as rewarding for that workload... bleh.
The "best" Shulk I'm aware of is gnes, and he seems to be transitioning away from him recently towards Mario and Roy. He uses his near overwhelming edge guarding well but seems to need the Mario switch for most competent high tier players (Sheik and whatnot). If I was going to be certain about any player being held back by their character, it would be gnes, as he is a godlike national-winning champion level smash player who's decided to opt to keeping his top tiers for friendlies only while having a fun doing the best he can in tournament with a bad character. Ally and Trela, early top level Shulk-fans have been long since last seen.

People are triggered by the term low tier, but my intent is getting that low tier = crap/worthless mentality implication out of at least our "community's vernacular".

Trela also still uses Shulk, but I think the things you mentioned hold him back when focuses on Shulk. I think Shulk is stronger as a solo character than charizard, doc, mewtwo etc. (all that crazy stuff trela uses), but he isn't exceptionally useful against pretty much any good character. You have to dance around and space yourself properly, avoid getting caught in the wrong situation in the wrong art and all of this is just to make trades most of the time.

 

[Kofu]

I don't know much about Shulk's MUs against the top tiers as I don't play him so I can't say much about him there.

Still the character always stood out to me as really good even with all the problems he has, there's probably some wi-fi factor to it though since I mostly play online and so it's a bit harder to punish Shulk's lag than it would be normally, I guess.

I wasn't really bothered by Shulk being called low tier, but it was just from my personal experience he seemed to be a lot better than that.

I won't go any further in this topic since Shulk is a character that I don't really understand that well myself.

Playing as Villager (and you as Greninja) will inherently mask one of his weaknesses if he chooses to go Speed and rushdown, and that is a weakness to shieldgrabs or other quick OoS punishes. It's possible for him to space his attacks safely but his inflexible air momentum makes that a little tricky. Characters with bad standing grabs will naturally find him hard to punish in that way. At the same time I'm aware that this weakness probably isn't an issue with top players.

Shulk's greatest asset is that he can change his specs to be tailored for the state he's currently in/wants to be in. Pretty unique.

 

[FullMoon]

Playing as Villager (and you as Greninja) will inherently mask one of his weaknesses if he chooses to go Speed and rushdown, and that is a weakness to shieldgrabs or other quick OoS punishes. It's possible for him to space his attacks safely but his inflexible air momentum makes that a little tricky. Characters with bad standing grabs will naturally find him hard to punish in that way. At the same time I'm aware that this weakness probably isn't an issue with top players.

That's pretty true, yeah.

I think the thing with Shulk is that making a mistake with him can have a larger impact with him than other characters. If you go into Buster or Jump but start getting combo'd, the damage is going to rack up really fast, get sent offstage in Shield and there's a good chance you're going to end up dead, Smash can get you killed super early, etc. He does have very good reward for using his arts well, but he can get messed up really badly if one is up at the wrong time.

And of course, his frame data is pretty bad and his recovery is very, very exploitable if Jump art isn't in play, especially by windboxes.

That's probably a good part of why he's so difficult to do well with, messing up with him can make things get ugly reaaally fast.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

you're forgetting that you can stage spike with cargo throw. Cargo makes his grab game easily one of the most versatile and rewarding in the game even without a kill throw. his grab range (ESPECIALLY dash) is huge and his grab is by no means slow. You mentioned nothing of his grab game which is why im mentioning it.

he can still approach with bair which clanks out a lot of moves too, just putting that out there. It's one of his more versatile tools alongside his godlike tilts.

Oh no his grab game is awesome. Its just people enjoy guarenteed dthrow combos, which DK doesn't have.
About cargo spiking: on paper, it's pretty awesome. Unfortunately, people often mash out before you are able to get below the stage. Back throw usually kills right before cargo spiking works. But yeah DK's grab range on all 3 grabs reminds me of Melee Marth.

 

[Ikes]

Oh no his grab game is awesome. Its just people enjoy guarenteed dthrow combos, which DK doesn't have.
About cargo spiking: on paper, it's pretty awesome. Unfortunately, people often mash out before you are able to get below the stage. Back throw usually kills right before cargo spiking works. But yeah DK's grab range on all 3 grabs reminds me of Melee Marth.

it works at high percents if you're near the ledge since they have to mash longer, but you definitely need to be quick
it's not super reliable or safe, but its definitely an option if all else fails and generally a KO confirm if you manage it

IDK maybe its cause I'm biased but I think he could be at the lower end of upper-mid tier, B- or C+ or so.

 

[Nobie]

I've only complained that people seem to only want no commitment on moves.

Not accusing you of wanting to have more aggressive play if that's what you mean. Rather, I mentioned you as an example of someone who's experienced the complaint often that people want to be able to attack without impunity despite your best efforts to educate them. I think a lack of offensive commitment or the desire for such connects to what I'm talking about.

 

[NewZen]

Gonna ask, considering everyone's asking about a character's overall meta. Where do many of you think falls in this regard post patch? Considering that he's still pretty much an aggressive projectile user, I still find that many of his options lack some form of reward (Specifically trying to do anything out of grabs and D-air being utter crap now since this nerf in Smash 4 overall). Yes, his projectiles are still some of the better ones overall and his bombs lead into some easy set-ups, as well as his Boomerang, but I don't really see many players, Tourney-wise and mostly scrubs on FG (I don't consider myself the greatestplayer, but holy crap, I can do much better than what half of what I see can do...).

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

The biggest draw to shulk is his range. His range makes him an extremely appealing character. After that there's really nothing there. Unless they change the start up or cool down or both on shulk's moveset his going to stay bad. Monado arts is basically putting lipstick on a pig and they really don't help his weaknesses. He has to have one of the most useless specials in back slash.

Also he should be a better character when he's nit in a Monado stance. He also gets juggled pretty hard. He's like bowser when he's being juggled. I'm not sure why people consider shulk this super hard character to play. He's not he's just bad so he takes a lot of effort to win with.

Also he maybe one of the few maybe the only character who can't really abuse ledge trumps.

Gonna ask, considering everyone's asking about a character's overall meta. Where do many of you think falls in this regard post patch? Considering that he's still pretty much an aggressive projectile user, I still find that many of his options lack some form of reward (Specifically trying to do anything out of grabs and D-air being utter crap now since this nerf in Smash 4 overall). Yes, his projectiles are still some of the better ones overall and his bombs lead into some easy set-ups, as well as his Boomerang, but I don't really see many players, Tourney-wise and mostly scrubs on FG (I don't consider myself the greatestplayer, but holy crap, I can do much better than what half of what I see can do...).

You're not really going to get much from for glory. Tourney-wise I've seen jash I think his name is and some guys from Texas I can't really remember. He seems like a solid character to me. I think when you use his grabs you just want to use it ti great space/positional advantage

 

[Radical Larry]

Frame data doesn't matter with Shulk, it's how you utilize him and his frame data that matters. If I go against people with Shulk, I try my damnedest to utilize him and forget his frame data, and at least try to fight. And hey, despite his "bad frame data", he's actually a pretty decent character.

@ A AlMoStLeGeNdArY Ever try doing a soft get up on a ledge and then dash off with F-Air? It works pretty damn well.

 

[Luco]

I'm going to go ahead and be "that guy" by saying that people said this about Lucario in Brawl too but that fabled player who had enough patience with his playstyle and could topple major tournaments never really came along. Like the Jews, Lucario mains have waited a long time for their Messiah to come though it's debatable if and when that day will ever come.

Oh my goodness this is too much.

I have a lot of respect for Shulk, dat berserker influence rubbing off. He has range going for him, and Shulk mains have put a lot of work into his stances but it obviously hasn't paid off/there's still more floors Shulk mains need to breach first to see any real success, or Shulk is seeing certain higher-tiered MUs he simply can't deal with. That said, I'm pretty sure Trela used Shulk at CEO(?) , which is a nice placement for him.

Also Israel's top player uses Shulk and consistently gets results with him, so he's seeing success in some areas. It's an intriguing idea to give a character top range and bottom frame data specs though, so it'd be a shame to see that ratio minimised in order to improve Shulk but ultimately it might be worth it.

 

[DanGR]

A small thing to note is that Dolphin Slash only has invincibility on frame 1 when used in the air.

Spoiler: Invincibility data for all of Marth's Up-Specials

Dolphin Slash

• Ground: 4-6
• Air: 1-4

Crescent Slash

• Ground: 8-10
• Air: 1-10

Dolphin Jump

• Ground: 11-13
• Air: 1-10

I know you're talking about recovery here, so air invincibility is what's relevant, I just don't want people getting the wrong idea about DS invincibility.

How many frames is Marth's jumpsquat?

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Frame data doesn't matter with Shulk, it's how you utilize him and his frame data that matters. If I go against people with Shulk, I try my damnedest to utilize him and forget his frame data, and at least try to fight. And hey, despite his "bad frame data", he's actually a pretty decent character.

@ A AlMoStLeGeNdArY Ever try doing a soft get up on a ledge and then dash off with F-Air? It works pretty damn well.

I don't know what a soft get up is. Frame data mayters to every character. If shulk's fair was 3 frames and his nair 2 he'd be the best character in the game.

 

[A_Kae]

How many frames is Marth's jumpsquat?

It's five frames.

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

 

[CyberHyperPhoenix]

Give Ganon some of his Brawl shenanigans back. He doesn't really need anything else.

Smooth Criminal

Auto Cancel Dair

 

[Plain Yogurt]

Shulk gets harder and harder to justify playing when all of his sword buddies are high-fiving over their new buffs while he hasn't been touched since the first patch. Monado Arts is still a great move though.

Like if you thought about speed arts as Luma and Jump arts as full hop air dodge until Luma returns, you can see that he's obviously not having as good of a time doing this as Rosalina does.

Meh I think speed is a little overrated. It's probably his best art but both Jump and Buster are worth using offensively as well with Jump's air speed and Buster's improved shield safety and damage. Then Smash is its situational self and I usually find shield to only really be useful for messing up combo timings every once and a while, though I know a few guys on the Shulk boards like it. And of course, all of his arts allow him to landing lag/run cancel, which is nice.

The character just sacrifices so much for his range and Monado Arts. Probably too much. Bad air acceleration with frame 13+ aerials means that even with jump art landing from juggles sucks (and to add insult to injury Jump increases damage taken). All three of his tilts are excellent (up tilt is arguably one of the best anti-airs in the game) but his slower jab and awful grab range can't keep quicker characters off of him well enough to the point that I've actually seen it suggested that using speed or jump to run away is a better option. The devs decided that Air Slash shouldn't ledge snap at the end for some reason (to allow for the second hit all the time I guess? It snaps in this weird point like right after the start-up that I need to research) so windboxes and heck general ledgeguarding wrecks him good since his recovery is fairly linear. Speed gives him a better grab game, but his throw follow ups are lacking.

I understand the character needs weaknesses and you have to take his arts into account when thinking about buffing him (a faster fair would have Jump/Speed Shulk looking like Sheik and would give Buster Shulk crazy shield pressure, for example), but with each patch his strengths look less and less impressive while characters like Ike are getting more buffs than they know what to do with. Throw the Monado Boy a bone or two Nintendo. Reduce Uthrows cooldown so we can get better follow ups off of it. Give dair a lingering hitbox that matches the animation to discourage juggles a bit. Give us a quicker jab. An angled Ftilt. I dunno, SOMEthing.

 

[DunnoBro]

Sooo... I think a good decision for me could be: + Because I can cover Sonic's bad match-ups with Sheik. And I do love Rush Down characters. I don't want to use Ness though. He's now boring to me with the inclusion of Lucas. I love Lucas so much. I do love the DLC characters (except Mewtwo because I don't have him )

I'm currently of the opinion sonic + sheik is the strongest combination in our meta. While perhaps in an ideal meta they wouldn't be, when everyone starts on smashville and it's essentially FD lite for sonic, that's pretty big. This is likely why sonic is considered top 2 in Japan, due to their stagelist letting him play on FD or Smashville 90% of the time.

Then, not only do you have sheik for other stages, but you also have good matchup coverage. Though, while sheik has little to no BAD matchups, she does have to adapt pretty hard to a good few of them. Sonic however tends to play most of his good/even matchups the same way, keeping the skill investment low enough so you only need to practice sheik for sonic's truly bad MUs.

Sonic + Mario seems pretty good too, and possibly a better choice in the long run if the running theme of sheik nerfs keeps up.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I don't think we'll ever see a truly good Shulk player unless 9B makes a breakthrough with the character.