Character Competitive Impressions

[hypersonicJD]

Lucas has better throws because almost every single one of them kill at higher percents. Forward Throw is good for setting up some edgeguarding shenanigans, Back Throw is a killing throw. It doesn't kill as early with Ness but it's still pretty good. Up Throw is good for catching up an opponent and do a headbutt. And his Down Throw has to be his best throw. Has better combos than Ness, you can use the Forward Tilt lock, at higher percents you can do PK Hoo Haa (Down throw into Up Air) and he is better at throwing overall. I think everyone else said why Luca's Throws are better than Ness's.

 

[rm88]

Super late to the party, but I very strongly disagree with Mewtwo being that bad. I'm going to guess his placement is just a product of people realizing he's not very good and then going in the opposite direction. Where would I place him? Probably Lower B / Upper B-. It's funny that he's next to Wii Fit Trainer - they're both floaty, light, slow characters with good recovery and good killing power, but while Mewtwo being even lighter and bigger could make him seem just as bad, he doesn't struggle to land his KO moves which makes him a much safer character IMO.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

He struggles to open people up and to keep people out. He's bad at fighting, from what I can tell.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Lucas has better throws because almost every single one of them kill at higher percents. Forward Throw is good for setting up some edgeguarding shenanigans, Back Throw is a killing throw. It doesn't kill as early with Ness but it's still pretty good. Up Throw is good for catching up an opponent and do a headbutt. And his Down Throw has to be his best throw. Has better combos than Ness, you can use the Forward Tilt lock, at higher percents you can do PK Hoo Haa (Down throw into Up Air) and he is better at throwing overall. I think everyone else said why Luca's Throws are better than Ness's.

As @Amazing Ampharos said, it doesn't matter. 2 amazing throws > 4 good throws. Ness's back throw killing is objectively better than lucas having 3 kill throws that kill later. Plus Lucas's grab is complete ass

 

[Macedonian]

Mewtwo has poor frame data, hitbox size, and throw followups. Very low amounts of true combos and outside of UP throw kills seem like they need to be some hard reads. I don't see how this is a good charachter.

 

[Luco]

@ Luco See this post. I must say I'm shocked you disagree with me on something, didn't see that coming at all

Haha, I suppose we do disagree a lot, don't we? PLAY ME WHEN I COME TO ENGLAND GOSH DARN YOU <3

So a while back at CEO, someone (I think @Ffamran?) mentioned that Keitaro talked about NAKAT [not playing up to standard] on stream for about 10 minutes, and I was curious if anyone could link me to it. I would love to see a return of NAKAT bring brilliant, so I want to see what Keitaro had to say. Also I find it quite funny that the top Ness mains are in between spots 12-16 on EVO's seeding list.

 

[Djent]

Is the discussion because 3xA > Larry? Because that's also something that happened.

was only really held back by so he's bound to be good this time around. I'm not even surprised tbh.

 

[Zelder]

Wii Fit Trainer is also not very good, outside of customs at least. Very fun to play though.

 

[rm88]

Mewtwo has poor frame data, hitbox size, and throw followups. Very low amounts of true combos and outside of UP throw kills seem like they need to be some hard reads. I don't see how this is a good charachter.

He'll never be a very good character unless he gets a buff, but he still has nice range, recovery and superb kill power (not only in that he has plenty of kill moves, but landing them is not a struggle, unlike with Wii Fit Trainer for example). Because of his particular weaknesses he gets wrecked by some particular characters, but he can be pretty good against others. In the end I'm not arguing that he's good, I just don't see him being that bad.

FWIW I get most of my kills with Shadow Ball, f-air and u-throw - those are not as hard to land as his admittedly slow smash attacks.

 

[Yonder]

Nope. That jab is good. F4 with a solid disjojnt.

Slowest jab would be Zelda? I don't think anyone is slower than f11.

Smash wiki...

Edit: fine. Whatever bird. Have your

My bad everyone...I meant PUMMEL is the slowest from a grab. Robin's jab is decent. It was 3 am at the time of posting.

 

[Mr. Johan]

Robin's bad grab and pummel could be forgiven if he had some nutty follow ups to go with it, or could at least kill with them. Making Dthrow like Snake's and forcing tech chases, giving him a Hoo-Hah (which would then be balanced in its own right because Levin Sword is limited), anything.

As it is right now, the best thing the grab has is Fthrow -> Speed Thoron, and Bthrow's high base knockback to give him time to charge Thunder or willingly waste a book to get the item. Otherwise, Jab's better.

 

[GeneralLedge]

One tool Mewtwo has that I find really useful is just his nair. I've had his nair cancel so many opponent smash charges on a whim that either I'm the luckiest ******* alive, or the range is slightly larger than assumed. Plus the landing lag on it is pretty low, so following up after you effectively jab-cancel your opponents previous move is up to where they bounce.

I think Mewtwo's fighting style revolves much more around a bait-and-switch than anything. Confusion and Disable are two moves that in themself sort of scream this to begin with (although I never use Confusion outside of recovery). But when it gets down to it, his two core moves really seem to be nair (for canceling your opponent's move), and dtilt (for popping them up). Follow-ups are high-risk, and the moment you stop playing bait-and-switch is the moment you start losing (aka 'don't go agro, dummy').

While I don't disagree on his weight being junk, I think difficulty in deciding how to play the character is what pushes Mewtwo down the tier list.

 

[Ffamran]

Mewtwo has poor frame data, hitbox size, and throw followups. Very low amounts of true combos and outside of UP throw kills seem like they need to be some hard reads. I don't see how this is a good charachter.

Frame data-wise, I'd say Mewtwo's pretty okay, but his hurtbox is what hurts him badly when he weighs 72 units. If Mewtwo had his Melee weight of 85 which is Zelda and Sheik's weight, he probably wouldn't be dying so early. Being the second lightest character with a huge hurtbox just does not make sense. It's not justifiable with, "Oh, Mewtwo uses his psychic powers to float, so he's really light." 85 isn't light? Falco and Little Mac weigh 82 units and they can die pretty early if not for their fall speed helping out with vertical kills. The next large hurtbox character of 78 units is Rosalina who has Luma for a shield. She's also floaty unlike Mewtwo who has average fall speed - the same as Mario's. This means Rosalina can drift out more easily unlike Mewtwo and just 6 units is enough to allow her to survive longer than Mewtwo horizontally. I really don't know why the developers decided Mewtwo should be even more of a glass cannon - dude's like a paper cannon - while Roy gets to be heavier and faster while keeping his good air speed and power. Oh well.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

He struggles to open people up and to keep people out. He's bad at fighting, from what I can tell.

Actually, keeping people out is one of the things M2 is fairly good at. The problem is that he can't do **** once somebody has gotten close enough to him but characters that aren't patticularly good at approaching all have to ... actually deal with his moves that are legitimately good options [dtilt, ftilt, grab, side B, bair, ...]. For somebody like Fox or Falcon or Yoshi that may be a non-issue but characters like the sword users have to fight M2 on his terms for the most part and that's not quite as easy as some of M2's worse matchups make it look.

I doubt M2 is bottom 5. Zelda, Samus, Robin, WFT, 1111 Palutena and others are probably worse.

 

[Kofu]

And Little Mac is a floaty character.

This wasn't the main part of your post but I'm calling BS. He's tied for the 5th fastest fall speed. How on earth is that floaty? And sure, his max airspeed is... okay but his acceleration is garbage. Little Mac is NOT floaty by any stretch.

 

[PUK]

I doubt M2 is bottom 5. Zelda, Samus, Robin, WFT, 1111 Palutena and others are probably worse.

What the issue with WFT? I keep seeing her in bottom, yet i fail to see how her flaws are truly horrible to the point she's bottom.
have the same range issue
I won't make a list of all her flaws, but each time you can find a lot of character worse, but they are considered mid

 

[TheReflexWonder]

What the issue with WFT? I keep seeing her in bottom, yet i fail to see how her flaws are truly horrible to the point she's bottom.
have the same range issue
I won't make a list of all her flaws, but each time you can find a lot of character worse, but they are considered mid

Very few reliable spacing tools, very few safe KO options, very niche uses for aerials.

 

[Thinkaman]

What the issue with WFT? I keep seeing her in bottom, yet i fail to see how her flaws are truly horrible to the point she's bottom.
have the same range issue
I won't make a list of all her flaws, but each time you can find a lot of character worse, but they are considered mid

Default WFT's projectiles are inconsequential compared to the advantages in speed, power, or both of those characters.

Additionally, 1111 WFT is crippled by dismal OoS and mediocre grab/throw options.

 

[PK Gaming]

that it's pretty good?

Something along those lines, yes.

Robin is bad, but he can still win games

 

[BSP]

Is Mario really not better than Luigi? Luigi seems like a strong counterpick character but clearly not viable on his own. Does Mario have even have any matchups as bad as what can happen to Luigi.

I think there's disagreement on who Luigi loses to and how badly. I'm with you,though. I foresee Luigi getting exposed eventually, as ridiculous as he may be right now.

Meanwhile Mario's been kinda up and down. I still think he's solid top 15, but I don't think he's going much higher. I don't see him in top 8's of majors very often.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Default WFT's projectiles are inconsequential compared to the advantages in speed, power, or both of those characters.

Additionally, 1111 WFT is crippled by dismal OoS and mediocre grab/throw options.

On top of that, all of those characters have better mobility except Dr. Mario. Who's bottom 5.

Like WFT is.

 

[NegaNixx]

Off topic but the forgotten Princess is somone I find has a good Match Up spread against a lot of the top tiers.

Top 10 (IMO/No Order):

Beyond Shiek, ZSS, Maybe Pikachu and Sonic I think she wins or at least goes even with the rest.

Luigi can't combo her as well due to her being floaty and she can combo him back highly effectively. She dominates him off stage and can lame him out with Turnips. Ness is much the same once they're offstage they should be as good as dead. Diddy is the same and she can take his bannana and still fight with aerial attacks. Diddy has a better time then the others due to higher mobility and Monkey Flip. Falcon's advantage is shot due to Float and general floatiness, and Peach's great advantage is awesome in this match-up.

Rosalina is an interesting case, but Booty bumping Rosa means it hits Luma gets knocked and can act out of it super quickly. Edge guarding thag recovery is free, like samples at the grocery store after the inital U-Air to cover ledge from Rosa. Its still a harder match up because you can get zoned out but peach can still approach with turnip baits and spaced fair. She'spretty effective at getting rid of Luma and she cam take advantage of those 12.55 seconds.

I don't know about Fox.

In Order of Peach's advantage:
||
Advantage ends with Fox or Rosa IMO

I'm no professional Peach though.

 

[DanGR]

I always thought of Mario as top 5 material, myself. How many bad match ups does he even have? Luigi... Anything else? (I'm thinking customs on) Consistency is a pretty big winner for me when it comes to tournament viability.

 

[Routa]

So basically... Perfect main combo is Mario, Green Mario and Bad Mario? I mean is there any character that would counter all of them?

 

[Luco]

We believe wins the MU, and although we haven't discussed it, I personally believe Ness goes even with Peach. Back when I was playing in Australia I had a friend who mained peach but was scared to get into the smash 4 competitive scene (he played Melee and Brawl competitively though) and in friendlies we went so so close and at that time I was beating everyone else in my region by a significant margin (granted I was only active for a short period of time).

Getting away from tooting my own horn though, Peach has average mobility but I feel like the value of having aerials that are safe on shield is a big deal against someone renowned for their punish game. She can also make getting the grab like... really hard. I tend to kill Peach with aerials more than Bthrow. Our average mobility means we can also be punished in footsies badly for a mistake or a mis-spacing. And being juggled by Peach is frustrating sometimes.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

The year is 20XX. Everyone now gets their matchup knowledge from fighting level 9 CPUs. Smh

i'm not dumb enough to just trust the lvl 9 and call it a day. i also say the match between Man Li Gi and a toon link player and saw some difficulty with the toon link player had against man li gi.
but i'm not interested by toon link, so i don't care to investigate him further.

 

[Kofu]

Fighting against Peach, I feel like this is what you have to respect: FAir, initial dash (and thus dash grab), DTilt, FAir, dash attack (for cheese KOs), DAir pressure, and FAir. And maybe turnip combos

She's a solid character who I feel does her best weaving in and out until she has an opening, then using her good initial dash to get in. She has a pretty good throw game, item play with turnips, and a unique aerial pressure game thanks to her float. I feel like she struggles with disjoint characters some however, since she can't airdodge during float and simply has to retreat (or cancel the float and often her advantage) if challenged. Honestly I think Dedede does okay against her, for what it's worth (@ Smooth Criminal , care to offer your opinion?).

Her FAir is just disgusting though. It's like Ganon's FAir, only on a character with far better air speed and the ability to mitigate any landing lag if done from a float (I don't think it ACs from a low jump but I could be remembering wrong). The slight damage reduction compared to Ganon's is hardly worth noting.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Working right now, but Peach v D3? Haven't had the pleasure of facing a really solid one yet. On paper? Sure, D3 can keep her at bay kind of with disjoints in theory, but I truly and honestly think that her float shenanigans combined with solid buttons all around could rip open his defense like Popeye flexing on a can. All it would take is one bad read or whiff on D3's part and it's a stock too, because once Peach gets in it would be hard for D3 to get her out.

I don't think D3 is completely helpless in the MU, but again, it's just spitballing.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Macedonian]

I see mario as top 10. Honestly Mario dosnt have to many poor mus at all and seven a does decent against shiek. He's way more concensistent then the likes of zss and and luigi, dosnt seem to have the issues killing that Pika has. Reliable combos, a kill throw and a reflector. His upsmash grants him one of the best smashes in the game IMO. Like really what could be holding mario back from being top 10

 

[Unknownkid]

We believe wins the MU

Really? Care to explain. How close is the matchup?

 

[Kofu]

Working right now, but Peach v D3? Haven't had the pleasure of facing a really solid one yet. On paper? Sure, D3 can keep her at bay kind of with disjoints in theory, but I truly and honestly think that her float shenanigans combined with solid buttons all around could rip open his defense like Popeye flexing on a can. All it would take is one bad read or whiff on D3's part and it's a stock too, because once Peach gets in it would be hard for D3 to get her out.

I don't think D3 is completely helpless in the MU, but again, it's just spitballing.

Smooth Criminal

I don't really think it's in Dedede's favor, but the few times I've played it (not that my opponent was great but I'm not a great Dedede either) it seemed like Peach had to he careful against Dedede's disjoints, particularly UAir and BAir. She struggles to kill him pretty noticeably too.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

@Illuminose I'm not trying to overstate Sheik's advantage in the MU because it's pretty severe. There's more sheik can do to Rosalina's recovery than just nair and bouncing fish. The kill advantage in this MU goes to sheik. She has the advantage in neutral edgeguarding and mobility. She can also escape Rosalina juggle traps with bouncing fish.

I haven't heard any of tge top Rosa players think this MU is even or Rosalina's at a slight disadvantage.

 

[Luco]

Really? Care to explain. How close is the matchup?

So the idea is, unlike Luigi we don't have quite as much to fear from a grab from Mario (after the second or third Utilt I'm pretty sure Nair trades). We also kill more consistently, and edge-guard against him pretty well. He certainly has a set of tools to make us worry about using PKT2 offstage but that's where saving DJ and having a good AD are important. We have good disjointed aerials that trade or beat him in the air (Uair beats his Dair huehuehue ) too. Also if he tries to use fireballs we will happily heal from them and magnet cancel SH away.

I'm pretty sure our track record against him is pretty good too, except for recently I heard Ally's Mario beat one of our top Nesses (I think NAKAT?) but other than that we're supposed to do pretty well.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

off topic, Has anyone looked at boxing and thought they can apply the knowledge of fighting games to boxing and understand some stuff? because i sure can

EDIT: my post is pretty vague and bland so let me explain more i guess. so, in one specific part of the vid [22:49], you will see manny just dipping and weaving outside of david diaz's range to provoke him to attack because manny's hand speed is faster and he will connect first. after the first intiation bob and weave motion, he then goes into a stance, or postion to open up diaz's defense and throws some jabs to get something started, but diaz's defense is super solid, and he holds his guard. Diaz then predicts manny will strike with something heavier, so he changes postion and right after, manny whiffs his attack right above diaz's head. Then, diaz thought it was time to begin his pressure, so he trys to counterattack, along with some attack combinations, or strings, but they all whiff, since manny is fast on reaction and after a change of their postion in the ring, they're back to neutral. one must also notice how long they fight in neutral, but how explosive their attacks come out.
but this is what i'm seeing, you guys might see something different.

 

[BSP]

From what I've seen locally, Rosalina and Sonic really wreck Pac-Man, and I'm pretty sure Villager and Sheik can use similar styles to shut him down (but probably not as hard as Rosa and Sonic do). I don't think Pac-Man is a great character regardless, but honestly he'd probably be 30-35th on the tier list if those MUs were normal but is more like 45-50th because that's a very bad set of characters to be hard countered by.

We're talking about Rosalina right now, but Sonic is 40:60 for Pac-Man. Sheik bodies him at least 70:30 right now, and I don't know about Villager. I haven't played the MU enough against a great one to get a grasp.

*Shameless plug of myself* : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14xkTM0b5HI

That's the third time Brawlman and I have met in tournament, and we've played loads online. He knows how Pac-Man works. Pac-Man can't KO well at all in general, but trampoline does a fantastic job of stopping Sonic from running all over him.

For a general sense of where we are on the skill ladder, later in that tournament Brawlman took Denti to game 5 set 1, but couldn't clutch it out and fell apart set 2. Denti can place top 8 in TX. We could do well if we got out more, but eh.

 

[wedl!!]

d3s walls are annoying but he can get pressured really hard

the mu requires you to get in d3s face essentially

 

[Smooth Criminal]

I don't really think it's in Dedede's favor, but the few times I've played it (not that my opponent was great but I'm not a great Dedede either) it seemed like Peach had to he careful against Dedede's disjoints, particularly UAir and BAir. She struggles to kill him pretty noticeably too.

Oh no, I think it's in Peach's favor, too. She wrecks D3 too hard in neutral/off of a hit confirm.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Luco]

d3s walls are annoying but he can get pressured really hard

the mu requires you to get in d3s face essentially

I feel like most MUs against the king you want to get and stay in his face. Unless you don't ( anyone?). Poor :/

 

[Spinosaurus]

We believe wins the MU

What about ? Been hearing from a few people that he does significantly better than Mario in this, including a Ness main I know, but the only thing I know is that Doc's short hop makes him able to actually hit Ness with his aerials.

 

[A2ZOMG]

This wasn't the main part of your post but I'm calling BS. He's tied for the 5th fastest fall speed. How on earth is that floaty? And sure, his max airspeed is... okay but his acceleration is garbage. Little Mac is NOT floaty by any stretch.

Dunno how else to explain he's one of those characters that gets juggled by Doc Jab2 -> Up-B before he can block. He definitely doesn't fall that fast, at least not instantaneously (Doc for instance I know can't do Jab2 -> Up-B on Pikachu or Fox who are lighter than Mac). And aside from having quick options to interrupt stuff like Mario U-tilt strings, he can't block those either.