SFP, i'd like to know your reasoning behind the placements for Peach, Falco, Palutena and Pit. I feel as though the first 3 are too high, and the last character is too low.
First, don't assume I'm something I'm not. I'm a tournament player but I haven't been active in a good region in a very long time and I'm not even close to being a top player. Events here where I live now are very small and my first-hand experience is considerably out of date. I have been playing competitive smash for a long time but i hvaen't been active in large tournaments for a couple of years. Cool? OK.
So Peach:
I've talked about her a lot in this thread, but since I placed her SO high up I think I should talk about it a little more.
Peach is disgusting.
In Brawl, her problems were that she lacked the ability to pressure in a meaningful way after an opponent was sufficiently damaged. Her best tools for dealing damage were also her best kill moves, so she couldn't really kill either. It was very common for Peach to start with a massive lead and then flail around trying to get kills for a while and then lose anyway. Not pretty. Her other problem was that sword characters just ****ed her up; she lacked tools that covered her and she's kind of a big target + her airdodge was trash, so it was pretty easy for characters with big disjoints to knock her around. While this weakness is somewhat intact, the sword characters themselves are just
worse in exactly the areas Peach had trouble with in the first place.
Smash 4 Peach lost some of her early combo potential, although she still has some. Her float pressure is just as brutal. Notably, her kill moves now kill much earlier and her turnips do a little more damage across the board. What this means is that her kill moves (notably fair, which I'll talk about in a second) are no longer stale when it comes time to kill, which they now do better and earlier than ever.
It's also just really hard to avoid her fair. It's massive and disjointed, on par with or better than several characters with actual swords. If Peach puts you in the air with a throw or something else, it can be absolutely terrifying, especially if you're in the 90-110% damage range.
Peach builds damage fast, kills early, pressures defensive options like no tomorrow, has amazing out of shield options, and decent recovery. She does lack mobility, something I think could be a problem for her if she's behind in a very campy match-up. But otherwise I think she's just as good as Rosalina, Diddy, and whoever else. Very strong character.
Palutena:
I think people kinda jumped the gun in saying she was bad early on, but other than that, she can fly forever and her aerials are really hard to deal with, so... welp.
Falco:
Super underrated. Great footsies, solid recovery for the first time ever, high damage on some very safe ground moves, an incredible back air for spacing and off-stage play with good jumps to match, big hitboxes. Just solid as hell.
Pit:
It's worth noting that I think Pit is viable and pretty good. I have him where I do because I'm not AS impressed with what he brings to the table. His projectile is pretty easy to get around to be honest, and he seems to struggle to kill without a hard read. His strengths and weaknesses seem largely to be the same as they were in brawl where he was above average but not really good enough to make an impact. In Smash 4 I think he can, but it's not because he got a lot better, it's because top tier got a lot worse.
