Character Competitive Impressions

[Browny]

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.

Yep. Me and my gf have put in stupid amounts of hours into Mewtwo (its like 200 hours each since release) and fighting as and against him its definitely a case of putting up the wall of attacks and seeing if the enemy can even get through it. Either I take the enemy to like, 100% without getting touched once or roy takes me to 40% in one combo and I die to a countered fsmash from the middle of the stage... Yes when they get in it hurts Mewtwo far more than it should, but when Mewtwo spaces properly he can make life very difficult for the opponent.

dtilt, confusion, shadowball and jab can honestly put up a really difficult wall to get through for a lot of characters with those 4 moves countering literally every single option that many characters have.

M2 is weakest vs characters who can break though that wall with the likes of SH nair to approach (fox), just brazenly dash through it (falcon) or just straight up outcamp him like sheik does to everyone. upsmash is a really good counter to aerial approaches but of course, doesnt work well vs non-committal approaches like sheik or yoshi.

When against even the likes of Luigi, or falco/ganon/wft/lucas/ryu there are a bunch of characters who have to guess right if they want to get through his wall of dtilt/confusion/shadowball/jab. A lot of people like to discount confusion because it doesnt combo. That is completely not the point of the attack though, its a reflector and as an approach stuffer will beat out even the strongest attacks. I've seen it stop wind kong in its tracks... thats saying something.

Allow me to reiterate that to other people in the thread.

Confusion overpowers DKs custom upb. No one cares that the move doesnt combo, its defeats almost every approach in the game and works in the air too. It might be hard to land but the point is he has an option to defeat the kong cyclone. How many other characters have even 1 single option to stop it?

 

[A_Kae]

On a more serious note, why don't we discuss... OH! I saw a friend discussing a bit on who to main the other day, and saw they were having a hard time choosing between and . I thought the doggy would be the obvious choice, but maybe people here could talk pros/cons of each and I can send them here to read?

It's my opinion that you don't truly choose your main. It's best to try out all the characters and just find out which one fits your natural playstyle best, instead of just trying to force yourself to use a character that doesn't fit you well. I don't know the situation that your friend is in, so maybe this doesn't apply, I just figured I'd say thoughts on the matter.

As for Pros and Cons, I only have a beginner's knowledge in Robin, and don't know anything about duck hunt.

 

[Ghostbone]

lol at the Zero hate in this thread.

You're all just mad that the player that understands this game the best out of anyone disagrees with you.

You don't need zero's validation for your opinions, so why do you hate it so much when he has a different opinion than you?

 

[Spinosaurus]

Confusion overpowers DKs custom upb. No one cares that the move doesnt combo, its defeats almost every approach in the game and works in the air too. It might be hard to land but the point is he has an option to defeat the kong cyclone. How many other characters have even 1 single option to stop it?

I'm glad you asked!
Wah

 

[Vipermoon]

Now, something like Ike or Diddy's Fair landing lag might be okay. Marth could Fair, not have a lot of landing lag, and continue to do something else. Still, not sure if that's what Marth "needs".

Definitely not Diddy's Fair landing lag. That's 26 frames. 'shivers' Oh and Ike's is now the same as Marth's. Which I've always said was ridiculous.

 

[A_Kae]

lol at the Zero hate in this thread.

You're all just mad that the player that understands this game the best out of anyone disagrees with you.

You don't need zero's validation for your opinions, so why do you hate it so much when he has a different opinion than you?

It's not hate.

We're just disagreeing with him, because he's talking about a character he doesn't understand well enough, and suggesting balance changes based on his understanding.

 

[Ffamran]

Definitely not Diddy's Fair landing lag. That's 26 frames. 'shivers' Oh and Ike's is now the same as Marth's. Which I've always said was ridiculous.

Doesn't Diddy's Fair auto-cancel or last a bit so he can land before suffering landing lag or something? Ike's just auto-cancels, so there's that...

 

[A_Kae]

Doesn't Diddy's Fair auto-cancel or last a bit so he can land before suffering landing lag or something? Ike's just auto-cancels, so there's that...

According to this: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jCAExmeX7PsThQbk9w0JwsJ0xtxTZ6pAno8ZKNOJOKo/edit?pli=1#gid=0

It autocancels past F26 and takes 21 frames of landing lag. Total frames is 38.

Marth's Fair autocancels after F37 and takes 18 frames of landing lag. Total frames is 37.

Edit: The marth data is from memory, just in case it's wrong.

Edit 2: http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Marth

It's actually after F35 that it autocancels, rest of the data was right.

Edit 3: I have diddy's uair data here, not fair. See lower in this thread for the right data

 

[Ghostbone]

It's not hate.

We're just disagreeing with him, because he's talking about a character he doesn't understand well enough, and suggesting balance changes based on his understanding.

lol it's definitely hate, people are going on about how his opinions are worthless and what not.

Ultimately it's just based upon his experience at top level, and he's comparing Marth's options to the options of top/high tiers and it's obvious marth is still extremely lacking in the neutral and follow-up game

 

[NachoOfCheese]

lol at the Zero hate in this thread.

You're all just mad that the player that understands this game the best out of anyone disagrees with you.

You don't need zero's validation for your opinions, so why do you hate it so much when he has a different opinion than you?

Not really. Personally, I'll believe anything Zero has to say about Sheik or Diddy. He knows his **** about them.

But if he did a video on say... Pac man, I would take what he says with the smallest grain of salt. Basically, I trust he knows what he's talking about when he talks about characters he actually uses. Anything beyond that is just his opinion backed by nothing. Which is great and all, opinions are important, but not as substantial as fact. And the fact is that his Diddy and Sheik are on-point and what he says about them should be trusted more than what he says about some random mid-tier.

 

[A_Kae]

lol it's definitely hate, people are going on about how his opinions are worthless and what not.

Ultimately it's just based upon his experience at top level, and he's comparing Marth's options to the options of top/high tiers and it's obvious marth is still extremely lacking in the neutral and follow-up game

Looking back at some posts, I suppose 'hate' might be a bit strong, but it's not totally wrong, at least.

His opinions are based on flawed knowledge. He's talking about stuff he doesn't understand. Look, if he says something about Diddy, I'll probably believe him if I don't have any evidence that disproves it. He knows diddy. He doesn't know Marth. He's making balancing suggestions, but doesn't know the character well enough to know what he needs and what he doesn't.

About Marth being lacking. Talk to @ Emblem Lord or @ Shaya about this. I don't want to make a mistake and say something super wrong here, and they know Marth better than I do. More qualified to talk about that kind of thing.

 

[Ghostbone]

You don't think the guy understands enough about the game and what makes a character good, that he can't identify with relative accuracy when a character lacks the tools to compete at top level? (and according to people here, doesn't understand that certain buffs he suggests would make the characters completely overpowered)

It's just weird that randoms in this thread think they know more about the game than the best player lol.

 

[Vipermoon]

Doesn't Diddy's Fair auto-cancel or last a bit so he can land before suffering landing lag or something? Ike's just auto-cancels, so there's that...

Yup. Diddy can fast fall at the earliest moment and still AC Fair. But the landing lag is otherwise immense and I frankly don't understand why Diddy mains like to land with this outside AC windows. Nor do I understand how they aren't getting punished much for it.

According to this: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jCAExmeX7PsThQbk9w0JwsJ0xtxTZ6pAno8ZKNOJOKo/edit?pli=1#gid=0

It autocancels past F26 and takes 21 frames of landing lag. Total frames is 38.

Marth's Fair autocancels after F37 and takes 18 frames of landing lag. Total frames is 37.

Edit: The marth data is from memory, just in case it's wrong.

Edit 2: http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Marth

It's actually after F36 that it autocancels, rest of the data was right.

I don't know what that source is (or that you read Japanese) but LordWilliam is our friend. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...wju2Vq5a4irDPLvwfxuOKVGxk/edit#gid=1151928857
This says 47 IASA (so 46) and that it has 26 frames of landing lag. I trust LW. You can definitely feel that 26 frames of lag when landing or that the total frames are that high. He doesn't even come close to being able to double jump after SH Fair, for example. Diddy's Fair, esp. since how weak it got, has many issues so I hope people aren't complaining about it.

Oh and they AC on frames 26 and 36 (Diddy and Marf), not after.

Edit: I know what happened! 38 total frames, auto cancelling on 27, and 21 frames of landing lag is Uair (current patch). You just had the wrong one is all.

 

[A_Kae]

Yup. Diddy can fast fall at the earliest moment and still AC Fair. But the landing lag is otherwise immense and I frankly don't understand why Diddy mains like to land with this outside AC windows. Nor do I understand how they aren't getting punished much for it.



I don't know what that source is (or that you read Japanese) but LordWilliam is our friend. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...wju2Vq5a4irDPLvwfxuOKVGxk/edit#gid=1151928857
This says 47 IASA (so 46) and that it has 26 frames of landing lag. I trust LW. You can definitely feel that 26 frames of lag when landing or that the total frames are that high. He doesn't even come close to being able to double jump Fair after SH Fair, for example. Diddy's Fair, esp. since how weak it got, has many issues so I hope people aren't complaining about it.

Oh and they AC on frames 26 and 36 (Diddy and Marf), not after.

I actually don't read Japanese, (but I've been meaning to learn it for a long time now) I just use google translate.

I wasn't too sure about the landing lag, if you and that spreadsheet say it's 26, I'll believe that.

 

[Vipermoon]

I actually don't read Japanese, (but I've been meaning to learn it for a long time now) I just use google translate.

I wasn't too sure about the landing lag, if you and that spreadsheet say it's 26, I'll believe that.

Updated my post. You just had Uair's info by accident.

 

[A_Kae]

Updated my post. You just had Uair's info by accident.

I see my mistake now. I was thinking that diddy fair got the startup and autocancel nerferd for some reason, not uair. I just looked at the far right column and saw those changes and though that that was fair.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

You don't think the guy understands enough about the game and what makes a character good, that he can't identify with relative accuracy when a character lacks the tools to compete at top level? (and according to people here, doesn't understand that certain buffs he suggests would make the characters completely overpowered)

It's just weird that randoms in this thread think they know more about the game than the best player lol.

Sorry we're not **** riding Zero. Most of us are competitive players with out our own character analysis. We don't wait for the best player to hand down their opinion and then parrot that. I assume must if not everyone that post in this thread is seeking to further their game, knowledge, and character. **** ride zero on twitter or something.

 

[Djent]

EVO top 8 predictions:

Spoiler

1) ZeRo
2) ESAM
3) Rain
4) Dabuz
5) Nairo
5) Larry Lurr
7) Mr-R
7) Nietono

These were made with careful consideration of current seeding. I might do semis later if I'm bored.

 

[Speed Boost]

Sorry we're not **** riding Zero. Most of us are competitive players with out our own character analysis. We don't wait for the best player to hand down their opinion and then parrot that. I assume must if not everyone that post in this thread is seeking to further their game, knowledge, and character. **** ride zero on twitter or something.

The salt is real, man. Would you have given him a hard time for **** riding you if he agreed? He just doesn't agree with the idea Zero doesn't know what he is talking about. I don't think Zero is right about everything he suggests to buff characters, but I certainly agree with @ Ghostbone that he should be more than capable of seeing their flaws.

 

[TMNTSSB4]

Pits getting real close to being high teir. I'm liking this

 

[Emblem Lord]

lol at the Zero hate in this thread.

You're all just mad that the player that understands this game the best out of anyone disagrees with you.

You don't need zero's validation for your opinions, so why do you hate it so much when he has a different opinion than you?

There are literally, MAYBE 5 humans on the face of the planet that understand Marth better then me. Zero is damn sure not one of them. He is better then me at the game. But he doesn't know my character like I do.

**** outta here with that garbage.

 

[AUS_Cyclone]

Jeez, Doc is way too low for his own good. He probably won't rise past B+, but putting him as second-worst is underrating.

 

[irokex13]

It's not hate.

We're just disagreeing with him, because he's talking about a character he doesn't understand well enough, and suggesting balance changes based on his understanding.

So you mean like how this whole thread talks about ?

And LOL @ all this Zero hate. He's actually right. You don't go into a tournament fearing ? People get prepared for . Zero wants top tier, relevant threats, not "eh, they could win".

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

The salt is real, man. Would you have given him a hard time for **** riding you if he agreed? He just doesn't agree with the idea Zero doesn't know what he is talking about. I don't think Zero is right about everything he suggests to buff characters, but I certainly agree with @ Ghostbone that he should be more than capable of seeing their flaws.

What salt?

 

[FullMoon]

The thing to keep in mind about ZeRo is that yeah he's the best player, that doesn't make him omniscient about the game.

Being the best in a game doesn't make you know everything about it and what needs to be changed on character to make them good, that's just naive. ZeRo focuses on top tiers because those are the constant threats and the ones he plays with, his knowledge on those of mid and below is obviously going to be very lacking because he just doesn't focus on that.

Another problem with him making balance suggestions based on pure opinion is that, like clearly shown, a top player's opinion has a lot of influence and so ZeRo can spread a lot of misinformation that way that can be harmful.

Expecting someone to know everything about the game is just silly. I'm sure not even the Melee pros know everything about the characters there. Not meaning to insult his skill, but lack of knowledge is probably a big factor of why aMSa does well with Yoshi in Melee, Yoshi is not a constant threat, so Melee pros don't know much about him. The same could be said about ZeRo in regards to Marth/Link.

 

[Minordeth]

Yeah, RE: Zero -
He essentially has the equivalent of a Ph.D... in Sheik and Diddy. Like most Ph.D's in their broader fields, he has specialized, expert knowledge in very specific things. He is an authority on how to play those two characters, but like someone with a Ph.D, his knowledge of the broader field is going to be more limited by default. Basically, him commenting on characters that he doesn't specialize in, is the equivalent of an Epidemiologist critiquing a study on developmental evolution. Yeah, because of his knowledge base, he is going to have some basic knowledge of evo-devo, but his knowledge of a broad field (biology) is going to be inherently limited. It's the reason experts in their fields don't (or shouldn't) attempt to dive into tangentially related subjects where their lack of knowledge becomes apparent.

In the same way, Zero clearly understands a lot about the game, but he is neither a fighting game designer, or a specialized player of the various characters he is commenting on. When he goes into in-depth subject matter outside of his native field (i.e., Diddy and Sheik), his analytic shortcomings become apparent.

That is why you have to take what he, or any other top-level player says about non-main characters with a huge grain of salt, especially in a new "field of study" like Smash 4.

 

[Speed Boost]

What salt?

Are you serious?

 

[A_Kae]

So you mean like how this whole thread talks about ?

And LOL @ all this Zero hate. He's actually right. You don't go into a tournament fearing ? People get prepared for . Zero wants top tier, relevant threats, not "eh, they could win".

It's not quite the same. Yes, people shouldn't be talking about Robin, (or anyone else!) and pretend to know what they're talking about. They should actually know.

But, ZeRo is in a very different position compared to most people in this thread. People listen to him, and they assume he's right purely because he's the best.

 

[Ghostbone]

Sorry we're not **** riding Zero. Most of us are competitive players with out our own character analysis. We don't wait for the best player to hand down their opinion and then parrot that. I assume must if not everyone that post in this thread is seeking to further their game, knowledge, and character. **** ride zero on twitter or something.

Completely discounting someone's opinion isn't seeking to further your own knowledge, it's claiming your knowledge is infallible, and you don't improve that way.

 

[Speed Boost]

The thing to keep in mind about ZeRo is that yeah he's the best player, that doesn't make him omniscient about the game.

Being the best in a game doesn't make you know everything about it and what needs to be changed on character to make them good, that's just naive. ZeRo focuses on top tiers because those are the constant threats and the ones he plays with, his knowledge on those of mid and below is obviously going to be very lacking because he just doesn't focus on that.

Another problem with him making balance suggestions based on pure opinion is that, like clearly shown, a top player's opinion has a lot of influence and so ZeRo can spread a lot of misinformation that way that can be harmful.

Expecting someone to know everything about the game is just silly. I'm sure not even the Melee pros know everything about the characters there. Not meaning to insult his skill, but lack of knowledge is probably a big factor of why aMSa does well with Yoshi in Melee, Yoshi is not a constant threat, so Melee pros don't know much about him. The same could be said about ZeRo in regards to Marth/Link.

To be fair to Zero and those defending him, I don't think there is anything that he suggests in these videos that isn't plausable. He understands what Smash 4 boils down to, and explains it clearly.
He reiterates a lot of the same points in these videos.

1. Successful top tiers can beat shield.
2. Successful top tiers have are strong in neutral.
3. Successful top tiers get guaranteed damage from combos out of throws.

You may question wether his suggestions for buffs are overboard, but there is no question it would make the characters better. So what are we agruing about?

Would turning Marth into sword Sheik make him better? Uh, Yes

Would making Link's grab startup shorter make him better? Uh, Yes

 

[Emblem Lord]

So you mean like how this whole thread talks about ?

And LOL @ all this Zero hate. He's actually right. You don't go into a tournament fearing ? People get prepared for . Zero wants top tier, relevant threats, not "eh, they could win".

I can think of ways to make Marth stronger and in line with his design rather then do what Zero wants which would further invalidate low tiers. But of course Zero isnt thinking like that. He is not considering the overall health of the meta.

If Nintendo starts buffing chars left and right so this game is a land of gods and demons then fine give him fair combos. But until that happens any suggestions of that will be met with my utmost cynicism and snarky attitude that I am known for.

Reduce landing recovery to 14 frames on Fair OR reduce AC window by a few frames. One or the other. Increase all grab damage by 4%. Increase pummel damage by 1%. Change trajectory of tipper fair to be similar to Falcon's d-tilt. Thus increasing the danger of being edgeguarded by Marth. Buff d-tilt damage by 3%. Give other buttons a damage buff of 1% or 2%.

Reward him for spacing correctly with more raw damage and a scarier edgeguarding tool. Marth is still that powerful spacer and now his grabs are more rewarding

 

[Man Li Gi]

To be fair, that's the entirety of this thread.
People just say stuff like "I feel like Game and Watch (insert mindless speculation about matchups that have never been played here)"
Seriously, I know it probably gets annoying when every single time you see "NachoOfCheese" in your alerts you get a post with DK this and DK that but here's the thing. When I post, I'm confident that what I'm saying is valid. If someone asked me to talk about say Palutena, I'm not gonna say anything about her because I don't know anything about her. But people like to talk the talk on here.

Us 5 DK mains gotta stick together!

BTW, if you look real early on in this thread's life, you'll see I was making a hella lot of posts specifically about DK......it annoyed anyone that wasn't a DK main.

 

[A_Kae]

Us 5 DK mains gotta stick together!

BTW, if you look real early on in this thread's life, you'll see I was making a hella lot of posts specifically about DK......it annoyed anyone that wasn't a DK main.

People shoudn't be annoyed when someone talks about their main a lot. I mean, it's them who knows their character best and are most qualified to talk about them.

 

[FullMoon]

To be fair to Zero and those defending him, I don't think there is anything that he suggests in these videos that isn't plausable. He understands what Smash 4 boils down to, and explains it clearly.
He reiterates a lot of the same points in these videos.

1. Successful top tiers can beat shield.
2. Successful top tiers have are strong in neutral.
3. Successful top tiers get guaranteed damage from combos out of throws.

You may question wether his suggestions for buffs are overboard, but there is no question it would make the characters better. So what are we agruing about?

Would turning Marth into sword Sheik make him better? Uh, Yes

Would making Link's grab startup shorter make him better? Uh, Yes

Nothing ZeRo said would actually make the characters themselves wrong, you're right on that.

But here we're concerned more with the balance of the game and giving such large buffs to characters like Marth and Link can potentially make them unbalanced in a way that is unhealthy for the meta. ZeRo's suggestion may be good for the character but not for the balance of the game, which is what people here are (or at least should) be criticizing.

 

[Minordeth]

To be fair to Zero and those defending him, I don't think there is anything that he suggests in these videos that isn't plausable. He understands what Smash 4 boils down to, and explains it clearly.
He reiterates a lot of the same points in these videos.

1. Successful top tiers can beat shield.
2. Successful top tiers have are strong in neutral.
3. Successful top tiers get guaranteed damage from combos out of throws.

You may question wether his suggestions for buffs are overboard, but there is no question it would make the characters better. So what are we agruing about?

Would turning Marth into sword Sheik make him better? Uh, Yes

Would making Link's grab startup shorter make him better? Uh, Yes

Yeah, Link can do all three of those things, what with his improved grab into combos, bombs, Zair, range, and aerials. I mean, a 6-frame tether grab makes him suffocating for lower tiers and other heavies.

 

[Spinosaurus]

When you talk about Wario, that's my bat signal.

He's the only character I'm comfortable talking about, since he's my main of course.

 

[Speed Boost]

Nothing ZeRo said would actually make the characters themselves wrong, you're right on that.

But here we're concerned more with the balance of the game and giving such large buffs to characters like Marth and Link can potentially make them unbalanced in a way that is unhealthy for the meta. ZeRo's suggestion may be good for the character but not for the balance of the game, which is what people here are (or at least should) be criticizing.

Yeah, but it's all theory until it's actually done and tested. So, it doesn't hurt to give your opinion on how to balance a character. That is all he is doing.

 

[TriTails]

The only thing that can be respected from ZeRo is his actual play than words.

I lost it when I heard 'Luigi... at least won't fall below Top 5 at least' on his top tier video.

Yeah, but it's all theory until it's actually done and tested. So, it doesn't hurt to give your opinion on how to balance a character. That is all he is doing.

He isn't balancing the characters.

He want to make them be another annoying top tiers that further destroy the low tiers.

 

[FullMoon]

Yeah, but it's all theory until it's actually done and tested. So, it doesn't hurt to give your opinion on how to balance a character. That is all he is doing.

I have nothing against ZeRo giving out his own opinion on the matter, but when you're such a huge figure in the community you should probably do a lot of researching on that topic before speaking up because a lot of people will take what you say at face value and say stuff that boils down to "this should be done because ZeRo said so"

Not saying ZeRo didn't do his research as I know nothing about Link and Marth to be able to know what should be done about them (I didn't even watch his video) but he does need to be careful about what he says because what he says has a lot more weight than any other player.

From what I've seen so far it doesn't even look like he's giving suggestions on how to balance them, he's giving suggestions on how to make them better, the two are different things. We already do have precedent of Marth's F-Air invalidating characters in Brawl, in this particular case, you can't really say it's all theory because it already happened before.

 

[Man Li Gi]

Yeah, but it's all theory until it's actually done and tested.

........ Can people stop saying theory when they clearly mean hypothesis? My biological lab experiences and my TA job I had for those labs made me a real stickler for when people casually use the term theory incorrectly and think they're right in using it. Every time I see that, I just want to assume everything they after that is complete nonsense.