Character Competitive Impressions

[ChronoPenguin]

General presumption I believe most have is
Customs off Shulk > Ike, and Customs on Ike > Shulk, these being on a general level relative to the rest of the cast.

Ike basically gets more out of custom moves then Shulk does, and while shulk does benefit from customs they're really all side-grades outside of Power vision to compliment how you like to play.

 

[Dabuz]

Correct me if i'm wrong but unlike Mario, Doc's up-b doesn't have invincibility, making him potentially the easiest character to edge-guard in this game, I think that more than anything keeps him from being as good as Mario. Otherwise he has tradeoffs that pretty much balance out; he racks up less damage but kills easier and earlier, has a better projectile (imo), replaces edgeguarding and stage control (fludd) with a better way to break through attacks and mixup in general (nado)

 

[Jaxas]

General presumption I believe most have is
Customs off Shulk > Ike, and Customs on Ike > Shulk, these being on a general level relative to the rest of the cast.

Ike basically gets more out of custom moves then Shulk does, and while shulk does benefit from customs they're really all side-grades outside of Power vision to compliment how you like to play.

Yeah, that's basically what I've been seeing as well. Why is Shulk considered better in customs off, though? Is it purely the adaptability of the Monado Arts, or his larger range, or what?

 

[Chuva]

Personally I prefer Ike: better aerials and safer approaches. While Monado offers some cool and useful features (deep edgeguards, Shield + rage effect etc) Shulk outside of buster and sometimes speed is really unsafe.

Ike Bair is glorious.

 

[Kofu]

I don't use Shulk so this is from being on the receiving end of him, but I feel he can play rush down better than Ike thanks to the Speed and Jump arts. He'll track you down relentlessly in the air in Jump thanks to the massive height of his jumps and his frightening fall speed (he steals Falco's jumps and fast fall along with Yoshi's air speed) and Speed lets him cover ridiculous horizontal distance, both in the air on the ground. I think it's fitting that the color for the Speed art is blue .

Ike on the other hand is a consistent amalgam of range and power. He's really not that slow, either. His consistency probably gives him am edge in general, but Shulk's ability to adapt is certainly something to keep in mind.

Shulk's whole design is interesting. He's basically an experiment where you take a character that doesn't excel at any particular trait but has the ability to temporarily become the best in several (usually mutually exclusive) ones (ground speed, air speed, jump ability, damage output, KO potential, weight).

 

[M@v]

Correct me if i'm wrong but unlike Mario, Doc's up-b doesn't have invincibility, making him potentially the easiest character to edge-guard in this game, I think that more than anything keeps him from being as good as Mario. Otherwise he has tradeoffs that pretty much balance out; he racks up less damage but kills easier and earlier, has a better projectile (imo), replaces edgeguarding and stage control (fludd) with a better way to break through attacks and mixup in general (nado)

I have to figure out if it has invincibility or not...I don't believe I've ever seen it straight up beaten yet; although I may of traded with it. It may be only the startup has invincibility. What would be a good way to test this? Have it hit a known invincibility move and see how they react to each other?

 

[Lavani]

You can upB Bob-ombs safely with Mario/Luigi, but Doc gets hit by the explosion.

 

[Chuva]

You can upB Bob-ombs safely with Mario/Luigi, but Doc gets hit by the explosion.

Doc vs Peach matchup confirmed 9-1 Peach's favor

 

[PingPongCop]

I want to shift the topic over to a character much too overlooked in my opinion: Mr. Game and Watch.

Holy crap, this guy rocks. The only thing that holds him back is him being the 2nd lightest character. He's got many lingering, disjointed hitboxes (either one or the other, or both. This includes Dair, Fair, Bair, Nair, technically Uair, Ftilt, Dtilt, Utilt, Fsmash, and Dsmash), powerful aerials and smash attacks, hard to predict and easily comboable grabs, a useful projectile (if timed correctly), a decent recovery, ok running speed, and not to mention his lovely and oh-so satisfying Side and Down Specials.

I think edgeguarding is where he really shines. If you're opponent is off stage, you've got 4 options. Fair if they're in front , Bair if they're behind (in air of course), Bacon if their recovery is hard to interrupt (Fox, Falco, Captain Falcon, Zelda, Shiek, Mario, Link, Marth, Lucina, Diddy Kong, King Dedede, Kirby, Meta Knight) and Up special if you've got the timing (Up special if they've just grabbed the ledge to pop them off and combo by fall -> jump -> Fair or if they're just about to hit the ledge or are slightly below it, use it to hit them and interrupt their recovery.) GnW is also very good at mixups and extending combos with his disjointed hit boxes.

Unfortunately I've yet to see any competitive player seriously pick up GnW and show people what how good he really is.

 

[andalsoandy]

I want to shift the topic over to a character much too overlooked in my opinion: Mr. Game and Watch.

Holy crap, this guy rocks. The only thing that holds him back is him being the 2nd lightest character. He's got many lingering, disjointed hitboxes (either one or the other, or both. This includes Dair, Fair, Bair, Nair, technically Uair, Ftilt, Dtilt, Utilt, Fsmash, and Dsmash), powerful aerials and smash attacks, hard to predict and easily comboable grabs, a useful projectile (if timed correctly), a decent recovery, ok running speed, and not to mention his lovely and oh-so satisfying Side and Down Specials.

I think edgeguarding is where he really shines. If you're opponent is off stage, you've got 4 options. Fair if they're in front , Bair if they're behind (in air of course), Bacon if their recovery is hard to interrupt (Fox, Falco, Captain Falcon, Zelda, Shiek, Mario, Link, Marth, Lucina, Diddy Kong, King Dedede, Kirby, Meta Knight) and Up special if you've got the timing (Up special if they've just grabbed the ledge to pop them off and combo by fall -> jump -> Fair or if they're just about to hit the ledge or are slightly below it, use it to hit them and interrupt their recovery.) GnW is also very good at mixups and extending combos with his disjointed hit boxes.

Unfortunately I've yet to see any competitive player seriously pick up GnW and show people what how good he really is.

D-Tilt is sick. That move alone warrants him good defense against most projectile games.

 

[TheMiSP]

What I think is making him somewhat lacking is his considerable landing lag on aerials (bair) or his loss of strength compared to Brawl (fsmash).

However, I do appreciate his buffed dash attack and ftilt. With these, I'm able to shove in a free hit during those "awkward" seconds where we're both next to each other, whereas I couldn't really do it in Brawl.

 

[rabbit.soaring]

What I think is making him somewhat lacking is his considerable landing lag on aerials (bair) or his loss of strength compared to Brawl (fsmash).

However, I do appreciate his buffed dash attack and ftilt. With these, I'm able to shove in a free hit during those "awkward" seconds where we're both next to each other, whereas I couldn't really do it in Brawl.

I just want to mention that GW can actually cancel his landing lag with Bair. If you look in the GW observations thread(I think) there should be a movie with it. Or google "DeLux Canceling."

EDIT: Also, if the reason you're not liking Bair's landing lag is because you played GW in previous games and you're used to Bair as an approach, Fair is actually a better approach now, so you probably shouldn't bother with trying to keep Fair fresh.

 

[Kofu]

I just want to mention that GW can actually cancel his landing lag with Bair. If you look in the GW observations thread(I think) there should be a movie with it. Or google "DeLux Canceling."

EDIT: Also, if the reason you're not liking Bair's landing lag is because you played GW in previous games and you're used to Bair as an approach, Fair is actually a better approach now, so you probably shouldn't bother with trying to keep Fair fresh.

It's not really cancelling BAir's landing lag, if that's what you're implying. It's cancelling airdodge landing lag by initiating BAir close enough to the ground that the animation starts but the hitbox doesn't come out. It's similar to IASA frames but at the start of the move.

Both FAir and BAir will probably be stale by the time you get the opponent to kill percents, but you can still use them to gimp. You can chase after foes with FAir since it still has respectable knockback even when stale or drop right next to the stage and fast fall it if they're trying to recover low and close to the stage. It's hilariously effective. Alternatively, if you want to go for a stage spike, throw out BAir. It's less effective, though, because stage spikes can be teched. I've had someone tech a BAir stage spike only to be smacked to their death by Fire, though. It was pretty funny.

 

[DeLux]

I thought they removed air dodge cancelling for 1.0.4?

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I mained G&W for years in Brawl and with time grew weary of his significant limitations as a character. He was still good overall and was underrated in my opinion by late tier lists (late stage lists were such a middle finger to the character too), but G&W was not one of Brawl's elite characters. Just consider a basic pro-con versus Brawl G&W:

+Ftilt is in general a way more viable poke
+Dthrow has far superior set-ups if you manage to land a grab, is now useful against skilled opponents
+Short Order Chef is a very good projectile and greatly enhances G&W's long-range game
+Chain Judge is a legitimately useful move which could not be said for basic Judge in any game
+Both Fire variants give G&W a legitimate diversity of extremely powerful options on one of his best moves.
+Rapid jab is now a real option, and while it is his honestly only good option out of landing a jab, it is a welcome option.
=Dash attack is very different. I consider this a mixed bag and overall neither a pro nor a con.
=Grab range is still poor, still very bad at setting up and landing grabs.
=Moves still flow into each other worse than those of literally every other character except Zelda.
-Bair is basically ruined. It does less damage, is now really unsafe on block, and has fewer active frames
-Nair does less damage and seems to me to have somewhat fewer active frames
-Dair, while still steerable, can no longer be slowfalled, weakening his mobility a bit.
-Fire is now considerably worse at grabbing ledges, meaning a far inferior recovery.
-Bucket braking's removal due to shifted mechanics combined with the general physics make his light weight into a real and massive weakness.
-Usmash is weaker and generally worse at what it does though still a core G&W move
-Fsmash is pretty much ruined. It wasn't a good move in the first place, but boy, it is really terrible now.
-Dsmash, while having greater range, is overall a lot worse due to the overwhelming power nerf. Combined with the other two, G&W is no longer a power character.

When I put it together, I feel like 4 G&W is like taking Brawl G&W, improving his weaknesses a little while leaving them as clear and significant weaknesses, and then taking away most of the stuff about him that was good in the first place (easy safe attacks on a shield, power, survivability). If you really dig deep into the customs, especially the Fire variants and Short Order Chef to play a mobile harassment game, I could see a very unexpected character emerging who might make an argument not to be low tier but who still seems to have a dubious core gameplan especially in this engine where run-away is weaker than ever. I see no reason at all I'd ever want to use 1111 G&W in singles if I was already dissatisfied with G&W's general power level in Brawl; what is the reasoning for him being a better investment now than he was back then? I've heard a few people say positive things about him, and I honestly just don't get it at all.

 

[Luco]

I thought they removed air dodge cancelling for 1.0.4?

Not as far as i'm aware, I AD cancel into Nair with Ness all the time.

Yes his SH is long enough so that a buffered (or even non-buffered, it doesn't have to be frame-perfect) AD will finish before it hits the ground, but the IASA frames are still very noticeable.

 

[Nobie]

I mained G&W for years in Brawl and with time grew weary of his significant limitations as a character. He was still good overall and was underrated in my opinion by late tier lists (late stage lists were such a middle finger to the character too), but G&W was not one of Brawl's elite characters. Just consider a basic pro-con versus Brawl G&W:

+Ftilt is in general a way more viable poke
+Dthrow has far superior set-ups if you manage to land a grab, is now useful against skilled opponents
+Short Order Chef is a very good projectile and greatly enhances G&W's long-range game
+Chain Judge is a legitimately useful move which could not be said for basic Judge in any game
+Both Fire variants give G&W a legitimate diversity of extremely powerful options on one of his best moves.
+Rapid jab is now a real option, and while it is his honestly only good option out of landing a jab, it is a welcome option.
=Dash attack is very different. I consider this a mixed bag and overall neither a pro nor a con.
=Grab range is still poor, still very bad at setting up and landing grabs.
=Moves still flow into each other worse than those of literally every other character except Zelda.
-Bair is basically ruined. It does less damage, is now really unsafe on block, and has fewer active frames
-Nair does less damage and seems to me to have somewhat fewer active frames
-Dair, while still steerable, can no longer be slowfalled, weakening his mobility a bit.
-Fire is now considerably worse at grabbing ledges, meaning a far inferior recovery.
-Bucket braking's removal due to shifted mechanics combined with the general physics make his light weight into a real and massive weakness.
-Usmash is weaker and generally worse at what it does though still a core G&W move
-Fsmash is pretty much ruined. It wasn't a good move in the first place, but boy, it is really terrible now.
-Dsmash, while having greater range, is overall a lot worse due to the overwhelming power nerf. Combined with the other two, G&W is no longer a power character.

When I put it together, I feel like 4 G&W is like taking Brawl G&W, improving his weaknesses a little while leaving them as clear and significant weaknesses, and then taking away most of the stuff about him that was good in the first place (easy safe attacks on a shield, power, survivability). If you really dig deep into the customs, especially the Fire variants and Short Order Chef to play a mobile harassment game, I could see a very unexpected character emerging who might make an argument not to be low tier but who still seems to have a dubious core gameplan especially in this engine where run-away is weaker than ever. I see no reason at all I'd ever want to use 1111 G&W in singles if I was already dissatisfied with G&W's general power level in Brawl; what is the reasoning for him being a better investment now than he was back then? I've heard a few people say positive things about him, and I honestly just don't get it at all.

How do you think the physics and mechanics changes have affected Game & Watch aside from his light weight being more of a weakness? For example, I'm thinking of the fact that his dash attack seems really good for punishing landings, but I'm no GW player.

 

[Kofu]

Dash Attack is certainly a good option for that since it moves him forward more in this game than it did in Brawl. If you're close enough to an opponent I'd rather charge a smash attack, though.

@ Amazing Ampharos , while I agree with most of your points, a few things are about his moves are incorrect. NAir still deals the same damage as Brawl (I'm really not sure how it got started that it did less damage) but it seems to cover a little less of his hurtbox/have fewer active frames so the hits don't link quite as well (I think what it actually is is the hitbox actually lines up with the animation now, lol). I also don't feel that DSmash actually has more range. It might, but from what I can tell it doesn't. You forgot to mention the two changes to Oil Panic that make it a slightly less risky move: the ability for certain projectiles to fill it up more than one level, and the ability to absorb explosions (wouldn't he have like that against Snake in Brawl!). They're not game-changing but it makes bucketing things like a fully-charged Charge Shot more rewarding and gives him bucketable options against characters like Sheik.

Cutting his kill power as hard as they did is what will hurt his viability more than anything else except his weight (which is a real detriment now). Increasing the landing lag on almost all of his aerials hurts a bit, too. His game plan will likely be the same as it has always been, weaving in and out, walling people out with his plethora of disjointed attacks and gimping whenever possible.

Even with all of his weaknesses, he has a lot of... stuff (Shaya called it "gimmicky jank") that allows him to harass other characters in ways no one else can. Honestly, his matchups in this game will probably have one of the most bizarre spreads. He probably still loses to characters that simply outrange him, like Marth; to characters with superior mobility and high kill power, like Captain Falcon; and those who he struggles to kill outright (who tend to have high kill power themselves), like DK. I think Mega Man also falls in the last group because he can interrupt so much with his pellets and Metal Blades. But in general he does okay against most of the top/high tier candidates in this game. I don't necessarily think he beats a lot of them, but the matchups tend to be close.

With the exception of Panic Overload and Extreme Judge, I feel like his customs open up new options for him that, while not inherently game-changing, will help significantly in certain matchups. I agree that Chain Judge is pretty much a straight upgrade, at least in consistency. If you got just the right number for a specific situation, normal Judge could be better, but the additional shield safety and higher damage output of the higher numbers of Chain Judge is just great. The Fire customs in particular may change how he's played, like you said. Fire is already a good OoS option and his customs expound on that but in different ways. Heavy Trampoline has more kick in the air while Trampoline High Jump is probably his best kill option if you can get the opponent at point-blank range.

So yeah, he's probably worse overall in Smash 4, but he wasn't really viable in Brawl either because the top tiers invalidated him so much. That doesn't appear to be the case now, but as the metagame evolves that could change.

 

[meleebrawler]

One consistent trend I notice among the cast of Smash 4
coming from Brawl is nerfing the speed of speedy
KO moves.

Meta Knight and G&W's Dsmashes, Falco's Dair, Wario's Fsmash...

Then there's the high-risk, high-reward aerials getting more landing lag
(C. Falcon's knee, Zelda's lightning kicks).

Basically, it seems that the developers went in with the mindset
that no move with high levels of power should be without risk.

 

[Browny]

Except diddys everything

 

[Nobie]

So yeah, he's probably worse overall in Smash 4, but he wasn't really viable in Brawl either because the top tiers invalidated him so much. That doesn't appear to be the case now, but as the metagame evolves that could change.

How much does the current perceived top tier of Smash 4 (Diddy, Sheik, and friends) invalidate G&W relative to the level of invalidation that the top tier of Brawl inflicted upon him?

 

[Thinkaman]

How much does the current perceived top tier of Smash 4 (Diddy, Sheik, and friends) invalidate G&W relative to the level of invalidation that the top tier of Brawl inflicted upon him?

MK was especially severe towards G&W (and ROB) in my experience and observation.

Edit: I recall Snake was a pretty poor matchup for him too.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

G&W will probably show up in tournaments as a pocket anti-Ness.

Bucket invalidates his Up B, Dtilt screws up his second jump like 90% of the time, and a walk-off aerial screws Ness up the other 10%. Ness basically should almost never be coming back to the stage against G&W without taking some serious damage if not getting flat out gimped for it. That probably means G&W wins the damage race overall despite Ness's KOing power vs G&W's featherweight status.

I assume the bucket can absorb PK Fire, yes? Assuming that's the case, G&W also kills Ness's projectile game entirely. PK Thunder or PK Fire don't matter: its free fills for the bucket and G&W's Oil Panic. I'd imagine in the air with his Fair G&W at least gets a lot of trades with Ness as well, and as pointed out above Ftilt is a good poking tool now.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

MK was especially severe towards G&W (and ROB) in my experience and observation.

Edit: I recall Snake was a pretty poor matchup for him too.

Actually, IC was probably harder for him than any other matchup. G&W was just outclassed in like every regard by a couple of characters and he rightfully ended up in the no-man's-land of mid-tier because he ended up losing to like every good character except Pikachu.

Rushdown characters will most likely still prove to be a big prolem for him.

 

[JWrecks]

So I'm seeing lots of shulk vs Ike talk in here and I figure I'd throw my two cents in.

Shulk has pretty lack luster customs, that's true, none of them are exceptional. But I still feel like he matches up better with a majority of the cast regardless. Really good shulk play is gonna take a little while to start coming around for us all to see how good he is, but every so often something clicks and I manage to balance his art swapping, rush down, and absolutely brutal mid range game into something very scary.

Shulk has the better approach options, the better counter, slightly longer ranged tilts, better combos, better options for gimping. And the biggest thing is probably the flexibility he can bring.

Ike is by no means a bad character, he's actually going to feel way better to some types of players ( people who like to bait and punish ) but I really think in terms of competitive viability that shulk will end up near top 10 where as Ike will most likely never get beyond being a top 20 character.

Also I read earlier someone talking about shulk having no autocancelable aerials... Cancelled Nair is one of shulks best approach options and leads into some nasty combos.

 

[Kofu]

How much does the current perceived top tier of Smash 4 (Diddy, Sheik, and friends) invalidate G&W relative to the level of invalidation that the top tier of Brawl inflicted upon him?

He does fine against Sheik in my experience. He can duck under grounded needles, absorb exolosions from side-b and up-b, and because her kill power is low he doesn't have to worry about dying as much. Plus he's all disjoints, which helps against a close-combat fighter like Sheik.

He also does fine against Rosalina, mainly because she's such a tall and light target. He can bucket Star Bits, knock Luma away fairly easily, and gimp her recovery like no other.

As noted he does decently against Ness. I'm unsure it it's totally Game & Watch's favor but he bodies Ness offstage, especially if Ness can't just use his double jump to recover. You can bucket both the PK fire bolt and the pillar, although a pillar bucketed this way is weak.

I feel like he would also do okay against ZSS. He may not win outright, but he can male life hard for her.

He does better because, as of now, he's not totally invalidated by anyone in particular.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

He also does fine against Rosalina, mainly because she's such a tall and light target. He can bucket Star Bits, knock Luma away fairly easily, and gimp her recovery like no other.

Only Shooting Star Bit and Floaty Star Bit, which surprised me. (And Floaty Star Bit still lingers, it just catches its hitbox or something IDK.) Default Star Bits can't be caught in the bucket.

 

[Kofu]

Only Shooting Star Bit and Floaty Star Bit, which surprised me. (And Floaty Star Bit still lingers, it just catches its hitbox or something IDK.) Default Star Bits can't be caught in the bucket.

That was me that said he could collect Star Bits, not Chuva. But really? That's interesting. Not that the inability to absorb them is game-changing for Rosalina, but it does make her a bit more of a nuisance.

 

[InfinityCollision]

So I'm seeing lots of shulk vs Ike talk in here and I figure I'd throw my two cents in.

Shulk has pretty lack luster customs, that's true, none of them are exceptional. But I still feel like he matches up better with a majority of the cast regardless. Really good shulk play is gonna take a little while to start coming around for us all to see how good he is, but every so often something clicks and I manage to balance his art swapping, rush down, and absolutely brutal mid range game into something very scary.

Shulk has the better approach options, the better counter, slightly longer ranged tilts, better combos, better options for gimping. And the biggest thing is probably the flexibility he can bring.

Ike is by no means a bad character, he's actually going to feel way better to some types of players ( people who like to bait and punish ) but I really think in terms of competitive viability that shulk will end up near top 10 where as Ike will most likely never get beyond being a top 20 character.

Also I read earlier someone talking about shulk having no autocancelable aerials... Cancelled Nair is one of shulks best approach options and leads into some nasty combos.

If anything Shulk is the one that has to bait and punish. His tools have great range and he can do interesting things with them via Arts, but outside of Buster he's not exactly safe. His reward comes from optimizing his kit to capitalize on opportunities in the best way possible. Ike on the other hand is an advancing wall of gold-tinted death, and customs do a great job of filling some of the holes in his default kit.

 

[Lavani]

Default star bits are actually a disjoint and not a projectile, they can't even be reflected.

Shulk has the better approach options, the better counter, slightly longer ranged tilts, better combos, better options for gimping. And the biggest thing is probably the flexibility he can bring.

Ike is by no means a bad character, he's actually going to feel way better to some types of players ( people who like to bait and punish ) but I really think in terms of competitive viability that shulk will end up near top 10 where as Ike will most likely never get beyond being a top 20 character.

Also I read earlier someone talking about shulk having no autocancelable aerials... Cancelled Nair is one of shulks best approach options and leads into some nasty combos.

Shulk's definitely more versatile by virtue of Monado Arts, but he also has the issue that the base character lacks qualities Ike has, and stances that can patch one problem create more with their downsides. Shulk needs Buster for his attacks to have any real shieldstun, but Buster hits aren't going to kill so he needs to take risks to connect a kill move. By contrast, Ike has moves that are safe spaced and also have kill power, such as bair and tilts.

Nair doesn't autocancel until 80f, it just has fairly low landing lag (12f). The landing lag is still long enough that you'll eat an OoS grab/aerial/upB for trying to be reckless with it, and it has the inherent problem that it takes awhile before it actually hits in front of Shulk.

 

[-RedX-]

Don't see how Shulk has better combos when Ike gets free followups from Nair, Dtilt(probably the best Dtilt in the game) and throws. Uthrow -> Uair can snag early kills but is actually quite difficult to execute and is rage dependent, unlike a certain monkey.

EDIT: Okay, maybe like top 5 Dtilt since DDD's is pretty damn good and I'm not too sure on the entire cast yet but Ike's Dtilt is just so good complimented with SH Fair.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Don't see how Shulk has better combos when Ike gets free followups from Nair, Dtilt and throws.

Shulk also gets his free follow-ups from nair, dtilt and throws. That's not to say that Shulk's "combos" are "better" than Ike's. But people definitely sleep on Shulk's ability to link moves into each other freely. Things like nair -> jab or uthrow -> utilt -> airslash may not look spectacular but they both deal around 30% damage in buster mode, are guaranteed and still they work at percent beyond 50%.

 

[Z'zgashi]

Shulk also gets free combos out of nair and thanks to buster he gets like 40+% out of super simple stuff like nair > jab combo for example lol.

Also, Shulk has a bit more range, is faster, his up b OoS is probably THE longest ranged like frame 5 move in the game (i dont know exactly what frame it is but its basically exactly as fast as Marth up b oos but 3 times the range) and it also kills, ESPECIALLY when in smash mode.

 

[Shaya]

G&W's Up Smash and Fsmash have "buffs" that you choose to ignore... kinda silly.
The Down smash being bigger range and having sweetspots that kill and sour spots that set up for a tech chase is bad?
Fsmash that angles upwards as an anti air and can be easily achieved out of run/dash?
Up Smash helmet is practically invincible from aerial moves, when you have such an amazing dash attack, pretty good dash grab and an array of fast-ish tools that can be done out of dashes (his ground movement/mobility feels better than Brawl) than people have to respect/fear him in a lot of situations.

His true weaknesses really are his light weight. His general kit otherwise is pretty dumb; sheik and diddy are true losses, but he can kinda wreck them with certain up-b trade situations (or other aerials).

I would say because other characters are balanced a bit better than Brawl on average, G&W looks worse than in Brawl, where he was definitely towards the higher regions and had cheese like bucket breaking. But his capabilities aren't really worse, if not he's more adjusted to this game's play style than most other characters who are stuck as either too slow to compete or their brawl strategies aren't viable (and they may not have others).

 

[Deleted member]

Speed Shulk has great combos (Nair > Dtilt > Grab > Utilt > Air Slash) and an extremely cheesy and safe pivot grab. Not to mention Fair can string into itself and other moves now that it has lower landing lag. Buster Shulk can get damage equivalent to a Smash attack from his jab combo, and his Uthrow can lead into 2 Utilts + Air Slash. With Jump he can recover from anywhere and has edge guarding capabilities near Pikachu levels imo when combined with the massive range he gets from Fair and pokes from Bair.

I don't really play Ike but am looking into him and the wind box neutral b is just amazing for edge guarding. The armor side b is amazing against projectiles he normally has a hard time with. His diagonal aether is almost always superior seeing as it still gets all hits, has a meteor, and has a much better horizontal distance than the default. The only times you won't like playing with the diagonal aether is when you get meteored at a low percent by the edge and barely miss the ledge.

 

[warionumbah2]

So it begins. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vaR4RM-qr0

 

[Lavani]

So it begins. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vaR4RM-qr0

Begins? We've known about this since early October.

 

[meleebrawler]

G&W's Up Smash and Fsmash have "buffs" that you choose to ignore... kinda silly.
The Down smash being bigger range and having sweetspots that kill and sour spots that set up for a tech chase is bad?
Fsmash that angles upwards as an anti air and can be easily achieved out of run/dash?
Up Smash helmet is practically invincible from aerial moves, when you have such an amazing dash attack, pretty good dash grab and an array of fast-ish tools that can be done out of dashes (his ground movement/mobility feels better than Brawl) than people have to respect/fear him in a lot of situations.

His true weaknesses really are his light weight. His general kit otherwise is pretty dumb; sheik and diddy are true losses, but he can kinda wreck them with certain up-b trade situations (or other aerials).

I would say because other characters are balanced a bit better than Brawl on average, G&W looks worse than in Brawl, where he was definitely towards the higher regions and had cheese like bucket breaking. But his capabilities aren't really worse, if not he's more adjusted to this game's play style than most other characters who are stuck as either too slow to compete or their brawl strategies aren't viable (and they may not have others).

You can angle Fsmash? Or is it just it's natural hitboxes?

Some people cannot see Dsmash's changes past it
no longer being spammable and killing regardless of sweet or sourspot.

Sometimes I feel that people expect too much out of being
really lightweight.

 

[warionumbah2]

Begins? We've known about this since early October.

R U 4 real?

 

[san.]

It's also an old Brawl tech where I wouldn't be surprised if it existed in Melee, too.