Character Competitive Impressions

[Dabuz]

I am beginning to rethink my position on Battlefield being Sheik's best stage. Looking at the stage blast zone data I recently collected, it definitely seems Smashville is her #1 choice. It is the smallest stage horizontally by far excluding Castle Siege 1, and the platform gives her a lot of Delfino-esque kill set ups.

Battlefield by comparison has far larger blast zones from the ledge and in the ceiling. Even if Sheik has tipper up smash opportunities and the ability to extend combos on stage, I almost think these are worth while trade offs.

It will be interesting to see if people begin striking and banning Smashville against Sheik players rather than defaulting to the stage.

I've been banning SV against Sheik for months now (well, T&C and FD as of late), BF doesn't let her BF as an escape or aggressive mixup option well and she doesn't utilize platforms to juggle too much, IMO it's a bad stage for her.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

So MVD was basically the only Diddy worth of notice it seems?

Yeah but that's okay because the guy makes Diddy seem like he's still broken. I can respect that. It's better than ZeRo who just mains whoever is top tier at the moment.
By the way, what happened to Mew2king? He dead?
And is Dkwill not doing EVO? He drowned in pools at CEO but c'mon we have Customs this time.

 

[PUK]

Yeah but that's okay because the guy makes Diddy seem like he's still broken. I can respect that. It's better than ZeRo who just mains whoever is top tier at the moment.
By the way, what happened to Mew2king? He dead?
And is Dkwill not doing EVO? He drowned in pools at CEO but c'mon we have Customs this time.

M2King has health issues

 

[Ffamran]

If Falco had actual mobility maybe

why is this bird so damn slow

The same reason why Dr. Mario is slower than Triple D on foot and his air speed is bad along with having low jumps. Of all the characters to be slower than and to make Dr. Mario slower than Mario, King Dedede. It's probably not going to change either until maybe Smash 5 if Dr. Mario even comes back. None of the problems have touched those values even a tiny change like bump up Dr. Mario's running speed from 1.312 to 1.4 and make him slightly faster than Link and slightly slower than Peach. Or bump up Falco's running speed to 1.5 instead of the stupid 1.472. Source: http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/DashSpeed.

Nobody's asking for Dr. Mario to run as fast as Sonic or Falco to have air speed faster than Yoshi. Just "minor" little changes. Meanwhile, Roy with his godplayer running speed and air speed compared to Melee Marth and especially compared to Marth and Lucina. Or Mewtwo and his wrecked weight value making him die to mosquito bites.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

M2King has health issues

Oh great now I feel bad for making a joke about it :/

 

[Diddy Kong]

Yeah but that's okay because the guy makes Diddy seem like he's still broken. I can respect that. It's better than ZeRo who just mains whoever is top tier at the moment.
By the way, what happened to Mew2king? He dead?
And is Dkwill not doing EVO? He drowned in pools at CEO but c'mon we have Customs this time.

That loss against Dark Pit made me though.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Honestly, why do people keep saying G&W is low-tier? he has decent tools he can use, a safe dash attack, a great air game and buckets give him even or at least +1 matches against anyone with a projectile. (RIP Ness,Robin,Lucas and Megaman.) So what if he's literally a piece of paper and is as light as one, with all those tools and more how can people possibly say he's C Tier? I say he's A- or B Tier.

His dash attack isn't safe and is just as vulnerable to shield grabs as most peoples'. The bucket is very situational and can easily be baited for punishes. Implying Game and Watch beats Ness and Megaman based on that is not taking the whole match up into account and grossly overrating the bucket's usefulness in the match up. Neither really need their energy based projectiles to defeat Game and Watch. Ness has better aerial options and much better options on shield, especially his throws. Game and Watch trapped in PK Fire followed up with a Fsmash can reasonably kill him as low as 60% while uair, bair, and bthrow can kill at the 100% mark even without rage since Game and Watch is such a feather weight.

Megaman has plenty of options out of throws and the metal blade and still easily knock Game and Watch away with point-blank lemons (good luck hard reading that with the bucket). Game and Watch's approach options are also terrible against Megaman and Megaman can practically camp all day with the metal blades and crash bomb and shield grab with his Yaoi hands if Game and Watch goes for a dash attack or aerial. Game and Watch's most reliable kill options are his usmash and uair but Megaman's a natural fast faller while Ness can reasonably retaliate with pressure below him with a fast falled nair or fair so there's not much reason for either of them to be above him for long.

The thing is that Game and Watch lost a lot of his oomph from Brawl. Dair doesn't hit as hard and has more landing lag, dthrow is no longer a tech chase, bair has lost a lot of its shield poking abilities, dtilt was significantly slowed down, and fsmash/dsmash lost their raw power. In Brawl, Game and Watch was considered to be one of the best characters in the game until people figured him out. All in all, that's the thing, Game and Watch's playstyle has changed so little between the two games that you can still fight SSB4 Game and Watch just like Brawl Game and Watch and be pretty successful. This, on top of the fact that Game and Watch was made worse between the two games, means that 6-7 year old strategies actually are more successful now then they were back in the day. All of this being said, I don't think Game and Watch is nearly as good as you suggest he is.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

That loss against Dark Pit made me though.

I'll tell u what made me : the second nerf to his up air. Like I still can't figure out why they would nerf it TWICE without touching Sheik's needles.

I love ZeRo's theory that it's because he keeps winning with him. His ego is one of the few things in Smash bigger than Ridley.

 

[Vermanubis]

Kalm is weird when it comes to matchups. I honestly don't agree with a lot of his playstyle personally. Look at the recent highlights featuring him doing amazing things in tournament. I don't think Kalm's playstyle is highly representative of what happens in a lot of matchups...outside of the fact that Ganon has a lot of comeback potential.

Nothing against him given he's definitely really skilled, but a lot of the time he wins, I feel he gets away with shenanigans, and when he doesn't he tends to do noticeably worse given his general playstyle tends to be really risky and volatile. Especially compared to other strong Ganon mains like GanonTB and Vermanubis.

That's one reason I mostly ignored when people posted Kalm's tournament results not long ago.

As for the Villager matchup, it's totally winnable for Ganon. Even in customs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRlpY0DG_ck

I have to agree that ROB's definitely not one of our worst. He's not great, and definitely a pick I'd respect in tournament, but I think A2's right in that which it's just a quirk of Kalm's playstyle. His playstyle gets him all-or-nothing results. If you remember his last tournament where it was strictly low/mid-tiers, Lob mentioned in light of what happened that Robin might be one of Ganon's worst MUs, when Kalm himself said it was dead-even, and only a matter of performance.

I also agree about Villager being totally winnable. Though, I still think he's definitely one of our worst, I'd take a Villager over Sheik or Rosa any day. I do wanna comment though that while GanonTB did marvelously in that match, and the Villager was good too, but imo, Villager can be a bit dirtier than was shown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt1CCQwjI4k - this set of Gungnir vs. Ranai's a good example of what makes it such a tough MU in some cases. Not that it's not tough in all cases, but should the Villager be so inclined to safe playing like Ranai... yeah.

All the same, agreed on all points with Villager and ROB.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I'm confused about Evo now. I've heard Rain wasn't going and Ranai was but now it seems to be the other way around?

 

[Firefoxx]

And is Dkwill not doing EVO? He drowned in pools at CEO but c'mon we have Customs this time.

DKWill is going to EVO, but is not a top seeded player

 

[bc1910]

I'm pretty sure all of her throws do 10% or more and put people to the air, which means disadvantage. While none of them guarantee a followup, they are good throws in their own right.

They're decent for damage, but the advantageous position she gets from it isn't great. Her vertical mobility is exceptionally poor so she can't chase an opponent who double jumps and times their airdodge well on the way down, or even just airdodges and fastfalls after the throw. Jiggs much prefers chasing horizontally, Fthrow would be better for this if its angle were shallower. I think her throws are solidly in the bottom half of the roster, decent damage but no real follow-up potential and no kill throw.

But yeah, they do deal decent damage. I guess with that in mind, Jiggs' poor kill options are a bigger weakness than her throws. A decent kill throw would be nice for her. Nothing special, mind, but some ability to kill from a grab. Maybe a Fthrow that kills like, a tad earlier than Mario's Bthrow near the ledge. At least then she'd occasionally be able to punish back roll really hard at kill percent.

 

[Speed Boost]

I'll tell u what made me : the second nerf to his up air. Like I still can't figure out why they would nerf it TWICE without touching Sheik's needles.

I love ZeRo's theory that it's because he keeps winning with him. His ego is one of the few things in Smash bigger than Ridley.

That may be so, but the facts are he went and dominated in Japan right in front of Sakurai after 1.0.6. He took Singles with Diddy and then he and M2K took Doubles with double Diddy.

I think Diddy was a balanced top tier at that point, but Sakurai may have wanted him to drop in usage more. I think he wanted to force top players to play other characters to keep the game fresh.

I mean just look at what a success CEO was with even a little more variety.

 

[adom4]

I have to agree that ROB's definitely not one of our worst. He's not great, and definitely a pick I'd respect in tournament, but I think A2's right in that which it's just a quirk of Kalm's playstyle. His playstyle gets him all-or-nothing results. If you remember his last tournament where it was strictly low/mid-tiers, Lob mentioned in light of what happened that Robin might be one of Ganon's worst MUs, when Kalm himself said it was dead-even, and only a matter of performance.

I also agree about Villager being totally winnable. Though, I still think he's definitely one of our worst, I'd take a Villager over Sheik or Rosa any day. I do wanna comment though that while GanonTB did marvelously in that match, and the Villager was good too, but imo, Villager can be a bit dirtier than was shown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt1CCQwjI4k - this set of Gungnir vs. Ranai's a good example of what makes it such a tough MU in some cases. Not that it's not tough in all cases, but should the Villager be so inclined to safe playing like Ranai... yeah.

All the same, totally agreed on all points.

I personally think Sonic is worse than Rosa for Ganon, maybe i've just gotten better at the matchup but Rosa gives me a lot less trouble than Sonic or Sheik.

 

[Firefoxx]

That may be so, but the facts are he went and dominated in Japan right in front of Sakurai after 1.0.6. He took Singles with Diddy and then he and M2K took Doubles with double Diddy.

I think Diddy was a balanced top tier at that point, but Sakurai may have wanted him to drop in usage more. I think he wanted to force top players to play other characters to keep the game fresh.

I mean just look at what a success CEO was with even a little more variety.

Diddy also still won a ton in 1.0.6 and could still set up inescapable u-throw -> u-air KOs very easily. U-air was still probably one of the best/most versatile moves in the game last patch and now it is merely one of the better u-airs in the game.

 

[Djent]

Ranai not going would be although it kind of makes sense. I guess the KVO flight would go to the next highest-placing person who could attend.

 

[Kofu]

Honestly, why do people keep saying G&W is low-tier? he has decent tools he can use, a safe dash attack, a great air game and buckets give him even or at least +1 matches against anyone with a projectile. (RIP Ness,Robin,Lucas and Megaman.) So what if he's literally a piece of paper and is as light as one, with all those tools and more how can people possibly say he's C Tier? I say he's A- or B Tier.

Decent tools ≠ ability to compete with the top tiers.

You're severely overrating Oil Panic, despite the increase in functionality it got in Smash 4. Collecting levels 1 and 2 saddles him with horrible endlag (over a second), so much so that even characters like Zelda have time to trek across the stage and punish. Using it offstage can also be risky for same reason; do it wrong and you risk dying.

It's helpful in certain matchups and can turn the tide if used right but it's risky.

Also, to all the people saying that his playstyle hasn't changed since Brawl: it has. His ground game is far more functional, FSmash and DSmash aside, and he benefits more from waiting on (or near) the ground than trying to rush the opponent's shield with aerials. In fact, doing that is practically begging to be punished.

His biggest detriments are a combination of difficulty securing kills outside of edgeguards, his light weight, and rage. If one of his aerials (probably DAir or FAir) did more damage/knockback, he'd be noticeably better.

For what it's worth I think he's in the bottom half of the roster, possibly bottom third, but that most of his bad MUs are only slightly in the opponent's favor.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

Diddy also still won a ton in 1.0.6 and could still set up inescapable u-throw -> u-air KOs very easily. U-air was still probably one of the best/most versatile moves in the game last patch and now it is merely one of the better u-airs in the game.

I disagree. I would say diddy's Uair is one of the worst uairs in the game currently since it doesn't kill, doesn't combo into itself, and deals a pitiful amount of damage. If i'm not mistaken, it doesn't break combos anymore either thanks to the hitbox adjustments, harming diddy's disadvantageous state as well.

 

[NairWizard]

I love ZeRo's theory that it's because he keeps winning with him. His ego is one of the few things in Smash bigger than Ridley.

The man has won close to 40 tournaments in a row, dropping only one set in the entire run, and including several nationals/large regionals.

Don't tell me that that wouldn't get to your head a little bit too. ZeRo's ego is fine in proportion to his accomplishments, and Nintendo is likely to have at least made note of his success (which has been mostly with Diddy; Sheik more recently).

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I personally think Sonic is worse than Rosa for Ganon, maybe i've just gotten better at the matchup but Rosa gives me a lot less trouble than Sonic or Sheik.

Eh, I think Pikachu's a worse matchup than all of them.

 

[Vermanubis]

I personally think Sonic is worse than Rosa for Ganon, maybe i've just gotten better at the matchup but Rosa gives me a lot less trouble than Sonic or Sheik.

He very well may be, but I can't comment. Never fought a good Sonic.

 

[PUK]

I disagree. I would say diddy's Uair is one of the worst uairs in the game currently since it doesn't kill, doesn't combo into itself, and deals a pitiful amount of damage. If i'm not mistaken, it doesn't break combos anymore either thanks to the hitbox adjustments, harming diddy's disadvantageous state as well.

Really man it's like saying fois gras is cheap because you used to eat caviar
Diddy Uair is frame 4, has a huge hitboxe over diddy's head and does 6% While it doesn't AC as soon it's still has little endlag

 

[DanGR]

I can respect that. It's better than ZeRo who just mains whoever is top tier at the moment.

Come on man. That kind of attitude doesn't belong here on the competitive forums. We should value someone's choice to play to win, regardless of the fun they're having and their personal connections to the characters, more than anything. It's valuing meta progression as a practical form.

 

[hypersonicJD]

And Zero has tried many other characters. He was actualy searching for Shulk. But he didn't felt like he could have won a lot of important tournaments with him. So he went with Sheik.

 

[Unknownkid]

Come on man. That kind of attitude doesn't belong here on the competitive forums. We should value someone's choice to play to win, regardless of the fun they're having and their personal connections to the characters, more than anything. It's valuing meta progression as a practical form.

While this is true, I rather see a commited player win matches with their limited/nerf options than the same player jumping to the next character in line. That why MVD's Diddy was the most interesting player in CEO. He did things no one would have done if Diddy wasn't tone down a bit.

 

[bc1910]

It's tier whoring, there's no two ways about it. And some people have a problem with it. But making snide comments about it is better left to socials and leddit, because it allows us to observe top characters at the top level of play. Top players gravitating toward top characters makes a lot of theorycrafting about the best characters much clearer.

 

[DunnoBro]

Honestly "tier whoring" is easily the most acceptable it's ever been since you run the risk of getting gutted if it gets too much exposure or nintendo just decides to nerf it. People shouldn't be afraid to push the game to it's limits when those limits can change.

 

[A2ZOMG]

They're decent for damage, but the advantageous position she gets from it isn't great. Her vertical mobility is exceptionally poor so she can't chase an opponent who double jumps and times their airdodge well on the way down, or even just airdodges and fastfalls after the throw. Jiggs much prefers chasing horizontally, Fthrow would be better for this if its angle were shallower. I think her throws are solidly in the bottom half of the roster, decent damage but no real follow-up potential and no kill throw.

But yeah, they do deal decent damage. I guess with that in mind, Jiggs' poor kill options are a bigger weakness than her throws. A decent kill throw would be nice for her. Nothing special, mind, but some ability to kill from a grab. Maybe a Fthrow that kills like, a tad earlier than Mario's Bthrow near the ledge. At least then she'd occasionally be able to punish back roll really hard at kill percent.

Personally me I'd rather buff her Smashes before buffing her throws. I'm sorta against giving really highly mobile characters solid kill throws, given what Sonic did to the game.

Decreasing the ending lag on U-smash probably wouldn't break Jiggs but be a really nice QoL change. What's much more interesting however is her D-smash, which is one of few grounded moves in the game that can hit the 1 frame ledge vulnerability window. Increasing the hitbox duration to make this more reliable, like say on par with Ike Eruption would be pretty fair and reinforce things that make Jigglypuff unique.

 

[DunnoBro]

I've been banning SV against Sheik for months now (well, T&C and FD as of late), BF doesn't let her BF as an escape or aggressive mixup option well and she doesn't utilize platforms to juggle too much, IMO it's a bad stage for her.

This. She has bad platform pressure aside from usmash, which is unsafe on platform shields usually. Yes, she can kill you earlier and has gets slightly more off strings, but she's overall much easier to catch and punish which is worth the trade-off as THAT'S why she's so hard to fight against.

It's fun for sheik to play there, which is why many do and the assumption "she's good there" started, but it isn't optimal. Optimal sheik is campy af.

 

[Ikes]

The issue with making Jiggs better is that she's already very good at what she does. It's just a lot of characters can handle what she does pretty easily. Still I think her range and a few moves like Uair could be buffed pretty safely. And of course Sing being terrible and Rest allowing her to be punished on hit should be fixed but they probably never will.

Not sure about giving her good throws since her tomahawk game would end up rivalling like, Ness', only she'd still have exponentially better shield pressure abilities from the air.

She also needs some way to combat backwards rolling on reaction. She is among the worst in the game at punishing them if not THE worst. I don't know how to fix this without, like, totally changing how Rollout works though, her dash attack is good enough already and increasing her dash speed kind of defeats the point of Jigglypuff. Making her dashgrab better wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, either with more range, making her launch forward more or some combination of both.

change to rest: Rest allways star KOs when KOing an opponent
changes to Sing: Sing now has one continuous hitbox around the user, and the hitbox size has been increased
change to up aerial and forward aerial: hitboxes on these moves are larger

i wish this would happen

 

[Illuminose]

Japanese players that are going to EVO (list from Abadango's Twitter):

Abadango (Top 8 at Apex, best Pac Man in the world, high placings at Umebura. Really solid Wario to cover certain matchups and apparently he uses Mewtwo for some matchups as well.)

DtN|Nietono (Top 8 at Apex, one of the world's best Sheiks though he will probably play Fox as he's switched mains. High placings in Japan and his Fox is very good.)

Nyanko (Second best Sheik in Japan, high placings at Japanese tournaments.)

VGBC|aMSa (9th at Apex)

Rain (Top Sheik, best player in Japan.)

Mr.II

Ayuha ?

El ?

Shimitake

 

[Antonykun]

Japanese players that are going to EVO (list from Abadango's Twitter):

Abadango (Top 8 at Apex, best Pac Man in the world, high placings at Umebura. Really solid Wario to cover certain matchups and apparently he uses Mewtwo for some matchups as well.)

DtN|Nietono (Top 8 at Apex, one of the world's best Sheiks though he will probably play Fox as he's switched mains. High placings in Japan and his Fox is very good.)

Nyanko (Second best Sheik in Japan, high placings at Japanese tournaments.)

VGBC|aMSa (9th at Apex)

Rain (Top Sheik, best player in Japan.)

Mr.II

Ayuha ?

El ?

Shimitake

i could have sworn ganbaranai was also going

 

[NairWizard]

Ranai won a trip to the USA. He had his choice of any US tournament to attend. He chose Apex 2016, not EVO.

 

[Nu~]

Ranai won a trip to the USA. He had his choice of any US tournament to attend. He chose Apex 2016, not EVO.

That...
Is actually really smart

 

[DunnoBro]

The seeding for EVO is so weird man. The japanese got screwed, too.

 

[Woohoo982]

Decent tools ≠ ability to compete with the top tiers.

You're severely overrating Oil Panic, despite the increase in functionality it got in Smash 4. Collecting levels 1 and 2 saddles him with horrible endlag (over a second), so much so that even characters like Zelda have time to trek across the stage and punish. Using it offstage can also be risky for same reason; do it wrong and you risk dying.

It's helpful in certain matchups and can turn the tide if used right but it's risky.

Also, to all the people saying that his playstyle hasn't changed since Brawl: it has. His ground game is far more functional, FSmash and DSmash aside, and he benefits more from waiting on (or near) the ground than trying to rush the opponent's shield with aerials. In fact, doing that is practically begging to be punished.

His biggest detriments are a combination of difficulty securing kills outside of edgeguards, his light weight, and rage. If one of his aerials (probably DAir or FAir) did more damage/knockback, he'd be noticeably better.

For what it's worth I think he's in the bottom half of the roster, possibly bottom third, but that most of his bad MUs are only slightly in the opponent's favor.

eh
id say he's in middle, top of the low-mid at worst.

 

[warionumbah2]

That...
Is actually really smart

He probably was gonna go evo, then someone said 'customs' and he was like.

"**** that noise" and decided on going to apex 2016.

 

[Speed Boost]

The seeding for EVO is so weird man. The japanese got screwed, too.

How so? Are a lot of them in the same pools or something?

 

[Woohoo982]

Here's what a tier list looks like in my opinion:
Top tier:
High Tier:
High-Mid Tier:
Mid Tier:
Low-Mid Tier:
Low Tier:
Bottom Tier:

 

[Smog Frog]

explanations would be nice because that list looks super radical