Character Competitive Impressions

[Spinosaurus]

Am I the only one that likes Nairo's Pit more than his ZSS?

Yes

Jokes aside, Nairo in general is a really enjoyable player to watch. A lot of people would agree with you because Pits see far less usage than ZSS, but his ZSS is really good that I don't really get tired of watching him play as her.

 

[Lavani]

I don't see this used nearly often enough.

I was actually going to comment on something similar today, I never see this used when recovering with potentially lethal upBs ( among others) that can put out hitboxes/snag a kill by delaying their snap.

Also related (this one's for you, @SolidSense):

If you snap to the ledge from above, you have no vulnerable frames. You can do this from below the ledge if you hold down to prevent your ledgesnap until you pass it.

 

[Speed Boost]

@ Spinosaurus @ |RK|

I think Nario's ZSS jumps of the screen. You don't even have to understand Smash to appreciate his movement and flashy kill setups with her. I love watching his ZSS.

That said, I agree with @ Wintropy about watching his Pits. His fundamentals and his grab game in particular are so clean. Since I main the character it gets me hype to see him play Pit at such a high level.

Oh, and it's Nairo so matter what character he is using he is going to make some crazy read or go stupid deep offstage for a kill. I've seen him throw out side B below the ledge on multiple occasions for kills. He's easily the most entertaining player to watch IMO.

 

[Aquamentii]

Pit is just a character who requires strong fundamentals, kind of like sword-Mario. He can play passive or aggressive, and really do anything offstage as long as he doesn't go absolutely nuts and SD. He has a projectile, a (mediocre at best) reflector, a super armor and very laggy kill move, decent power, decent speed, and decent mobility. Oh, and a super long upB. Very well rounded.

 

[|RK|]

@ Spinosaurus @ |RK|

I think Nario's ZSS jumps of the screen. You don't even have to understand Smash to appreciate his movement and flashy kill setups with her. I love watching his ZSS.

That said, I agree with @ Wintropy about watching his Pits. His fundamentals and his grab game in particular are so clean. Since I main the character it gets me hype to see him play Pit at such a high level.

Oh, and it's Nairo so matter what character he is using he is going to make some crazy read or go stupid deep offstage for a kill. I've seen him throw out side B below the ledge on multiple occasions for kills. He's easily the most entertaining player to watch IMO.

Don't get me wrong - his ZSS is incredible. Down Smash to Flip Jump is so stylish, for one thing.

 

[Ikes]

Yea, I've seen some good uses in practice for Dr Mario and Lucina (both off more reliable power with a trade off), but Dark Pit pretty much just has 3-4 moves that are just worse and thats it.

really nailing the "flawed clone" aspect

anyone think he was made deliberately worse to fit his character? B)

 

[bc1910]

Apparently the clones were balanced by pitting them against the originals and tweaking them until they won about 50% of the time. A stupid way to balance anyway, and with Dark Pit almost nothing was changed. It would have been near enough a Pit ditto. So when he won 50% of the time they probably thought "he's fine" even though he's worse in every way that he's different.

Based on patch history they seem to have no intention of fixing him either. Although that's probably due to Sakurai's whole "I can't use Pit but I don't want to buff him" thing. Dark Pit doesn't need significant buffs, just a few differences that make him worth picking over Pit in more than 2 MUs. Less ending lag on Ftilt (or keep the current endlag and increase knockback to Pit's level), dealing a bit more knockback than Pit on his smashes, increasing damage on arrows by an amount that actually makes it worth having less control over them, things like that.

 

[deepseadiva]

I'm gonna swallow my pride and ask, as it was brought up earlier and we're currently debating it over at the Palutena boards: does Default!Palutena have a future? There's a lot of disparaging remarks being made about her underwhelming toolkit and meager representation at tourneys, and I'm wondering what that will mean for her metagame. I think she's got potential, though with the western metagame essentially living and dying with Aerolink, I'm worried she'll quickly stagnate and people will lose faith in her potential.

Default Palutena is like a character skeleton. She has an alright standard moveset (aerials, jab, tilts are bad but usable). But limited to default she has NO SPECIALS basically.

• Reticule is nothing but a little pester thing.
• Reflect Barrier is an empty slot against half the cast.
• Nobody wants a counter.
• Warp is pure recovery.

So you have this alright basic character skeleton, but missing the 4 most important moves a character can have. There's a future for the real Palutena (Explosive Flame, Super Speed, Lightweight, Jump Glide), but the community needs to get its head out of its ass.

Good players will be able to do work with her invincible bair, the free combos from grabs, and usmash. But they're playing half a character. That's #1: completely uninteresting, and #2: harder to win with. I don't expect a lot, but like a said, a good player can do well with fundamentals.

 

[Speed Boost]

really nailing the "flawed clone" aspect

anyone think he was made deliberately worse to fit his character? B)

I have to disagree with y'all on Dark Pit being a "flawed clone". He has negligible differences aside from his Arrows and Side B. His Arrows may have less control but they also are faster and do more damage. I find them to be an effective projectile horizontally and vertically for landing traps. Dark Pit's Side B doesn't kill as early from the middle of the stage as Pit(130ish), but it can kill much earlier on the ledge(100ish). Is Pit a little better, yes. I think the Marth Lucina sword mechanics are much more significant @ Teshie U .

 

[Aquamentii]

Default Palutena is like a character skeleton. She has an alright standard moveset (aerials, jab, tilts are bad but usable). But limited to default she has NO SPECIALS basically.

• Reticule is nothing but a little pester thing.
• Reflect Barrier is an empty slot against half the cast.
• Nobody wants a counter.
• Warp is pure recovery.

So you have this alright basic character skeleton, but missing the 4 most important moves a character can have. There's a future for the real Palutena (Explosive Flame, Super Speed, Lightweight, Jump Glide), but the community needs to get its head out of its ***.

Good players will be able to do work with her invincible bair, the free combos from grabs, and usmash. But they're playing half a character. That's #1: completely uninteresting, and #2: harder to win with. I don't expect a lot, but like a said, a good player can do well with fundamentals.

Really I just want lightweight. Super speed is great but it's not absolutely necessary. EF is the best neutralB, but it isn't that useful either. As much as I like jump glide, I prefer the practical teleport, especially since you can ledge/platform cancel it just fine.

 

[deepseadiva]

Really I just want lightweight. Super speed is great but it's not absolutely necessary. EF is the best neutralB, but it isn't that useful either. As much as I like jump glide, I prefer the practical teleport, especially since you can ledge/platform cancel it just fine.

Lightweight is truly the character defining move.

It activates her kill throw. And like with Charizard we can see exactly how much that affects a character.

 

[Teshie U]

Oh no, I have a reflector how terrible and useless. Its as usable as falco's. Most reflectors do next to nothing against half the cast. Thats the price you pay for being a pain in the ass for villager, megaman, duck hunt etc.

The character need her normals buffed up so people don't feel the need to lean on cheese like lightweight. Lightweight just lets her run from half the cast and she still loses when she gets close to a good character like Fox, Sheik, Diddy, Sonic. Just a polarizing upper mid tier like DDD was in brawl.

 

[|RK|]

GimR beat ZeRo's Diddy in friendlies (three stock match), then ZeRo beat him in a G&W ditto. Such disrespect lol

EDIT: Then ZeRo erased GimR with Sheik, taking only 24%.

 

[DunnoBro]

It's a hard ass combo throw too.

First you need to prepare for it via lightweight, unlike other dumb combo throw chars, she doesn't really get hers in neutral or off punishes/shield grabs. Her dash grab range isn't that great so it's hard to gauge the speed and grab right, then you have all this %, positioning, and DI reading you have to do to get enough off it.

Oh no, I have a reflector how terrible and useless. Its as usable as falco's. Most reflectors do next to nothing against half the cast. Thats the price you pay for being a pain in the *** for villager, megaman, duck hunt etc.

Falcos makes a good "no, don't touch me" while landing due to the quick hitbox. Fox's also gives him a hover which lets him throw off frame traps. Her reflector is objectively the least useful by a fair margin.

Also, duck hunt really doesn't care about reflectors that much since his projectiles are so versatile. Especially in customs.

 

[Wintropy]

Pittoo trumps Pit in a couple of matchups (Rosalina comes to mind, Electroshock is a Luma killer), but that's about it as far as noteworthy differences go. Competitively, they rely on almost the exact same tools and tricks, with their differences only making an impact in very situational circumstances.

I've heard the suggestion that Pit has the better vertical game and Dark Pit has the better horizontal game, though I think that's theorycrafting. Unless anyone wants to educate me to the contrary, I can't imagine the trajectory of one move defining their entire playstyle.

EDIT: Dang it just missed the Pit talk.

Re: Palutena, I worry that people view Lightweight through rose-tinted glasses. I don't think it's a panacea that instantly remedies Palutena's glaring faults. Yeah, it sets up for a great kill throw and makes her combo game more reliable, but is that enough to mitigate her rather hefty drawbacks?

 

[A2ZOMG]

Worth noting that Sheik (and everyone else, actually) can get out of Link's Dthrow > Uair by DI-ing in the direction Link is facing. Having tested this extensively in training I could not get Dthrow > Uair to true combo, which means characters can safely jump out of the combo whereas normally it registers, so they can airdodge out but not jump, and at certain timings I believe Uair frame traps airdodges.

Uair will still be able to hit some opponents, particularly big characters with bad double jumps, but more generally this isn't a kill option Link can rely on against someone who knows how to DI the setup. Still a good mixup, though, and the character is still forced to jump so their landing can be trapped afterwards.

I got it to register a combo with DI on both Sheik and Fox. You just have to input Dash -> U-air with really good timing.

 

[bc1910]

Arrows barely deal more damage, I don't know if they actually travel faster but even taking your word for it, they're just not worth the lack of control. Pit's arrows are incredible for edgeguarding, DP loses out on one of the strongest things about Pit. Arrows would be the main reason to use DP over Pit because the extra damage IS nice sometimes, but yeah... kind of a flimsy reason.

EDIT: I don't have access to my Wii U right now so this is from Smashwiki, take with a grain of salt, but it says DP's arrows are slower than Pit's. It also says they have less range, which I know is true. So yeah, DP arrows looking even less like a good tradeoff.

The thing about DP's side B is that actually, it barely kills earlier than Pit's at the ledge as well. It hits people straight toward the top diagonal blastzone, which is the hardest blastzone to get a kill from. Pit's kills earlier almost all of the time and there's like this tiny window on a tiny part of the stage where DP's kills earlier. Once again it's not worth trading a consistent vertical KO option for 0.5% more damage, worse kill power and the occasional edgeguard setup (which isn't worth as much as it would be for Pit because, lol, arrows).

DP's Ftilt is just flat out worse. People say it's better for frame traps but it has way too much endlag to be trapping anything. No-one has ever given me a good example of a frame trap with this move. Plus, even if it can frame trap, it still just does what Pit's did 30% ago.

I got it to register a combo with DI on both Sheik and Fox. You just have to input Dash -> U-air with really good timing.

I imagine that's on a very strict percent range. Were you able to kill confirm? Couldn't get it to work on Greninja at all and I'm pretty sure my input buffering was perfect but I could be wrong.

 

[Speed Boost]

Default Palutena is like a character skeleton. She has an alright standard moveset (aerials, jab, tilts are bad but usable). But limited to default she has NO SPECIALS basically.

• Reticule is nothing but a little pester thing.
• Reflect Barrier is an empty slot against half the cast.
• Nobody wants a counter.
• Warp is pure recovery.

So you have this alright basic character skeleton, but missing the 4 most important moves a character can have. There's a future for the real Palutena (Explosive Flame, Super Speed, Lightweight, Jump Glide), but the community needs to get its head out of its ***.

Good players will be able to do work with her invincible bair, the free combos from grabs, and usmash. But they're playing half a character. That's #1: completely uninteresting, and #2: harder to win with. I don't expect a lot, but like a said, a good player can do well with fundamentals.

Yeah, I think with Palutena it's obvious Nintendo intentionally gave her horrible specials. She is the poster child for customs, so much so that she was the only character you don't have to unlock customs for.

Characters like Palutena, that are only really viable with customs on, are the losers of Smash 4. I say this because I anticipate the community going away from customs for a while after this experimental period. If only some of the best characters didn't get better, they might have a future.

 

[Wintropy]

Arrows barely deal more damage, I don't know if they actually travel faster but even taking your word for it, they're just not worth the lack of control. Pit's arrows are incredible for edgeguarding, DP loses out on one of the strongest things about Pit. Arrows would be the main reason to use DP over Pit because the extra damage IS nice sometimes, but yeah... kind of a flimsy reason.

That advantage kinda goes out the window when you consider that, due to Pit's improved accuracy, you're probably gonna hit with arrows more frequently and therefore rack up more damage in the long term.

 

[Asdioh]

There's a future for the real Palutena (Explosive Flame, Super Speed, Lightweight, Jump Glide), but the community needs to get its head out of its ***.

I know we're waiting for Evo to see what the "verdict" on custom moves will be, but it seems like Anther's Ladder and my local New England scene just have no respect for them at all anymore. At least locally, people are still johning about custom Villager (because there are an annoyingly large number of them now) but none of them are winning anything, besides maybe Capt. Awesum, and even he isn't taking first place, since Marss' default ZSS still wins everything, and the other high placing characters are largely default top tiers as well.

Makes me sad because I honestly think Kirby's in a similar boat as Palutena. A better character than her, sure, but just like her, I think he's unviable in a customless meta. His only safe special move is Stone... just think about that. And that's only usable offstage, against predictable recoveries, especially now that the ability to do runoff Stones was patched with the edge changes for B moves in 1.0.8.

Oh no, I have a reflector how terrible and useless. Its as usable as falco's. Most reflectors do next to nothing against half the cast. Thats the price you pay for being a pain in the *** for villager, megaman, duck hunt etc.

That's not really true. All the moves in Smash 4 with reflecting properties have viable secondary uses. Even Fox's Reflector, even though it can't shinespike anymore, can at least be used as a way to stall his landing and recovery. Falco's is a usable midrange "get off me" move. Palutena's is the worst at its secondary job of any, I believe.
edit: oh hi

Characters like Palutena, that are only really viable with customs on, are the losers of Smash 4. I say this because I anticipate the community going away from customs for a while after this experimental period. If only some of the best characters didn't get better, they might have a future.

And this is also what I'm talking about, with the "customs are just a temporary gimmick that we'll stop using" mentality. I don't understand where it came from, it seems like the majority of people were pro-customs as if it were the "real" meta the way the game was intended to be, then all of a sudden people were against them? I don't get it, because default top tiers are still dominating even in the customs meta.

 

[Teshie U]

Its the only reflector (outside of customs) that continues to reflect after you regain control of your character. I think people just undersell it because its surrounded by some lackluster options before and after.

Much like Fox being able to stall is more useful because of what could come out of it (lands on you with a meaty combo starter if you take the bait). Palutena can actually force some options with her reflector as well, but she can't really do anything about the situation she created.

I'll admit counters are a bit meh aside from the really stupid ones like shulk.

 

[RedCap-BlueSpikes]

I'm gonna swallow my pride and ask, as it was brought up earlier and we're currently debating it over at the Palutena boards: does Default!Palutena have a future? There's a lot of disparaging remarks being made about her underwhelming toolkit and meager representation at tourneys, and I'm wondering what that will mean for her metagame. I think she's got potential, though with the western metagame essentially living and dying with Aerolink, I'm worried she'll quickly stagnate and people will lose faith in her potential.

I think us lower-level Palutenas overrate AeroLink quite a bit. He's good and obviously our most well-known representative, but I doubt he's our best at this point (I think Ryo might be better). Others have done more with default Palutena in-tournament than he has, they just don't get as much exposure for... whatever reason. Like, has AL ever placed Top 8 at a national? IceNinja and Punishment Divine sure have.

 

[Ikes]

Oh no, I have a reflector how terrible and useless. Its as usable as falco's. Most reflectors do next to nothing against half the cast. Thats the price you pay for being a pain in the *** for villager, megaman, duck hunt etc.

The character need her normals buffed up so people don't feel the need to lean on cheese like lightweight. Lightweight just lets her run from half the cast and she still loses when she gets close to a good character like Fox, Sheik, Diddy, Sonic. Just a polarizing upper mid tier like DDD was in brawl.

wasnt Dedede like high/top tier in brawl though?

 

[A2ZOMG]

I imagine that's on a very strict percent range. Were you able to kill confirm? Couldn't get it to work on Greninja at all and I'm pretty sure my input buffering was perfect but I could be wrong.

Greninja is probably too heavy (his weight is 94, same as Ness, while Sheik and Zelda weigh 85). And yes, I got it to work in normal KO confirm percent ranges.

 

[Ffamran]

Its the only reflector (outside of customs) that continues to reflect after you regain control of your character. I think people just undersell it because its surrounded by some lackluster options before and after.

Much like Fox being able to stall is more useful because of what could come out of it (lands on you with a meaty combo starter if you take the bait). Palutena can actually force some options with her reflector as well, but she can't really do anything about the situation she created.

I'll admit counters are a bit meh aside from the really stupid ones like shulk.

It along with the Pits' Guardian Orbitars can gimp recoveries like Little Mac and Ike's since it pushes people.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

's arrows deal more hitstun as well, which is useful if you hit the opponent close range so they can't punish you immediately. I think his uncharged arrows are faster as well, but thats probably placebo.

 

[bc1910]

Counters really should activate earlier. Most of them have like 7 frames of startup, they really should activate on frame 1-4. They would have some actual use as reactionary tools then. Like, Cross Counter activates on frame 4 I believe, in PSASBR every counter activated on frame 1, there's no reason for counters to be as slow as they are here. Especially considering their reward is pretty limited and often directly reliant on what you got hit with, while you can easily die for whiffing a counter.

Greninja is probably too heavy (his weight is 94, same as Ness, while Sheik and Zelda weigh 85). And yes, I got it to work in normal KO confirm percent ranges.

Interesting, I shall test it myself but I guess that is something Sheik and other light characters have to respect a lot. Although, airdoding after DI away is pretty safe because Link can't follow easily with Uair to frame trap the airdodge thanks to his bottom 10 air speed. Still, having a 50/50 kill mixup on Sheik from a throw is pretty amazing no matter how you slice it, especially when you consider it kills around the 100% mark.

 

[Wintropy]

I think us lower-level Palutenas overrate AeroLink quite a bit. He's good and obviously our most well-known representative, but I doubt he's our best at this point (I think Ryo might be better). Others have done more with default Palutena in-tournament than he has, they just don't get as much exposure for... whatever reason. Like, has AL ever placed Top 8 at a national?

Y'know, this is a valid point, and I apologise for my rash declaration. I guess this is what happens when a community clings onto one good player as a life raft for that character's competitive viability; especially one as small as the Pally community, where any high-level representation is welcome.

's arrows deal more hitstun as well, which is useful if you hit the opponent close range so they can't punish you immediately. I think his uncharged arrows are faster as well, but thats probably placebo.

Is there ever a situation where that will reliably work, though? I don't think I've ever thought an arrow at point-blank range is my best option, not when it has cooldown frames and you can just as easily try for a jab.

I guess if you've already prepped it and your opponent gets up in your face before release, it could work, though I can't imagine how you'd even follow up from it.

 

[Ikes]

Does Toon Link have any big representative? I've seen very few proper tournament toon links and it's kinda disappointing.

 

[Mazdamaxsti]

I know we're waiting for Evo to see what the "verdict" on custom moves will be, but it seems like Anther's Ladder and my local New England scene just have no respect for them at all anymore. At least locally, people are still johning about custom Villager (because there are an annoyingly large number of them now) but none of them are winning anything, besides maybe Capt. Awesum, and even he isn't taking first place, since Marss' default ZSS still wins everything, and the other high placing characters are largely default top tiers as well.

Makes me sad because I honestly think Kirby's in a similar boat as Palutena. A better character than her, sure, but just like her, I think he's unviable in a customless meta. His only safe special move is Stone... just think about that. And that's only usable offstage, against predictable recoveries, especially now that the ability to do runoff Stones was patched with the edge changes for B moves in 1.0.8.

A lot of characters have useless specials. The difference from kirby and Palu is that Palu only really benefits from a grab, which she can't even get. And her aerials are only average. Kirby has good aerials, recovery, tilts, and the likes. I'm not saying high tier but a solid mid-tier without customs is a pretty fine spot for him.

 

[hypersonicJD]

Kirby is pretty good at his own. He just needs the jumping inhale custom and Upper Cutter.

By the way, any advice on landing to the stage with / ? Not from a recovery. I'm meaning from above the stage.

 

[Wintropy]

A lot of characters have useless specials. The difference from kirby and Palu is that Palu only really benefits from a grab, which she can't even get. And her aerials are only average. Kirby has good aerials, recovery, tilts, and the likes. I'm not saying high tier but a solid mid-tier without customs is a pretty fine spot for him.

Ehh I'm gonna have to dispute that. She gets a decent amount from customs besides a cheesy grab.

Explosive Flame is a great long-distance poke / damage-dealer that pierces shield on the last frame, essentially making it (to quote a user on this very site that I can't for the life of me recall) a "ranged command grab".

Super Speed is very difficult to intercept and sets up for follow-ups with her dash, (pivot) grab, n-air, f-air, d-air, b-air and u-smash.

Jump Glide allows her to control the stage from any angle and get some pretty nice setups going on with her aerials and jab.

Yeah, all of her good customs are essentially variations on the theme of "set up and go ham", but it at least offers her versatility and an abundance of approach options, which she just doesn't have in her default set.

EDIT: ffs people you type fast

or i guess i just type slow

By the way, any advice on landing to the stage with / ? Not from a recovery. I'm meaning from above the stage.

Mix it up. You can't afford to be predictable in this situation; trying for a d-air every time, for example, is a surefire way to get shield-grabbed.

Understand how your opponent will react, condition them if you can. Try for a d-air occasionally, and then if you see them shielding on reaction, fastfall and dash / pivot grab. N-air can work to play keepaway if they try for a jump at you, while b-air will usually sweetspot if you're at a safe enough distance to fall to the side and get them to chase you.

 

[Speed Boost]

By the way, any advice on landing to the stage with / ? Not from a recovery. I'm meaning from above the stage.

Just add to what @ Wintropy said briefly. Use your multiple jumps and fastfall to bait reactions from your opponent and land safely. There is nothing wrong with going to the ledge if your opponent is juggling the **** out of your either.

 

[hypersonicJD]

Soo, No aerials can actually help me? Because I do like to use aerials as a tool for: Get off me you freak. Or just to space myself around my opponent.

 

[Speed Boost]

Soo, No aerials can actually help me? Because I do like to use aerials as a tool for: Get off me you freak. Or just to space myself around my opponent.

Your priority is not to be above your opponent, it's almost always going to be a better option to not challenge someone below you. If someone attempts to get you with an up air or something and you are able to avoid it then you can mixup with a fastfall DAir sometimes, but don't just yolo challenge their anti airs.

 

[Wintropy]

Soo, No aerials can actually help me? Because I do like to use aerials as a tool for: Get off me you freak. Or just to space myself around my opponent.

If you're judicious with your tactics, yes, doing something besides using aerials can help. The cardinal sin of any player's strategy is predictability, just tossing out aerials won't help you much if your opponent is halfway savvy.

On another note entirely~

I'm really impressed with how versatile Mii Gunner actually is. Their zoning setups and trap game are real, not to mention they have, on paper, a decent toolkit for dealing with unwanted close-range attention.

So what exactly is it that's holding them back? Lack of kill power? Absurdly long f-smash / u-air frames? General mediocrity?

 

[ぱみゅ]

So what exactly is it that's holding them back? Lack of kill power? Absurdly long f-smash / u-air frames? General mediocrity?

My money is on Mii's General Unpopularity.

 

[hypersonicJD]

But then I don't have a counter attack or just something to protect me when someone is below me or tries to attack. You can't use air dodge forever. It doesn't work at all for me.

 

[san.]

If you're judicious with your tactics, yes, doing something besides using aerials can help. The cardinal sin of any player's strategy is predictability, just tossing out aerials won't help you much if your opponent is halfway savvy.

On another note entirely~

I'm really impressed with how versatile Mii Gunner actually is. Their zoning setups and trap game are real, not to mention they have, on paper, a decent toolkit for dealing with unwanted close-range attention.

So what exactly is it that's holding them back? Lack of kill power? Absurdly long f-smash / u-air frames? General mediocrity?

Lack of grab combos, kill throws, and low frame anti-juggle aerials. 25/0's smashes keep people in, but 0/0's don't, which hurts 0/0's viability. The character is also very technical just to play him. He spaces, zones, edgeguards, and mixes up attacks very well, though. Some of the aerials are niche, such as uair, in a game with a ton of amazing uairs, that also hurts him. The character can actually set-up kills despite what many may think with 25/0 and above, just not with 0/0 that I've unfortunately been forced to use the last few tournaments I used it.

 

[Speed Boost]

I'm really impressed with how versatile Mii Gunner actually is. Their zoning setups and trap game are real, not to mention they have, on paper, a decent toolkit for dealing with unwanted close-range attention.

So what exactly is it that's holding them back? Lack of kill power? Absurdly long f-smash / u-air frames? General mediocrity?

I think consistent rules across tournaments for Miis will help all of them gain more representation and advanced their metas.

I love Mii Gunner's zoning kit. Especially, his FAir. I set my C-Stick to Attack with Mii Gunner so I can get maximum backwards momentum on my retreating FF FAirs. It's so great in combination with the Chargeshot and the PK Fire.