Character Competitive Impressions

[Ffamran]

I still have repressed trauma from trying to get through Falco's lasers on FD in Brawl. Falco's had his share of high tier jank over the years.

Which was Brawl Blaster and chain grabbing which was available to a lot of characters while Blaster was an unnecessary upgrade from Melee. If Brawl Falco had Melee Falco's Blaster, he probably wouldn't be that horrible to deal with and it would only be chain grabbing that was janky even with a frame 5 Dair spike that required set ups while Brawl Blaster was like, "Hold on, I need to sneeze, so I'm going to wall you off for a bit."

Melee Falco wasn't broken, right? Especially compared to Brawl Falco. He was, like Fox, able to exploit the game's mechanics and engine. Now in SSB4, Falco's a fair character - maybe too fair. I wished he had Melee's Blaster and I'm wondering what if Falco kept his frame 5 Dair spike, but it was weaker. And I wished his Falco Phantsm had a consistent hitbox...

 

[Dre89]

"There's nothing wrong with MK, no need to ban him" -MK player #500,000
Now it's the same story with Diddy.

Nothing says skill then throwing out high priority gigantic hitboxes on frame 4/6 than Fairs Dtilts and Uairs from Diddy while being one of the few to have the best grab data in the game.

If it's so easy to do then just use him to win a tournament then, or at least beat every non-Diddy in it

Apparently spamming aerials and grabs is all you need to do so it's not like you need time to learn the character

Seriously, anyone who says that winning with Diddy doesn't take any skill, put your money where your mouth is and go win tournaments with him off minimal-to-no-practice. People keep making accusations yet no one has backed them up by proving it in tourneys.

 

[JapanGuy]

If it's so easy to do then just use him to win a tournament then, or at least beat every non-Diddy in it

Apparently spamming aerials and grabs is all you need to do so it's not like you need time to learn the character

Seriously, anyone who says that winning with Diddy doesn't take any skill, put your money where your mouth is and go win tournaments with him off minimal-to-no-practice. People keep making accusations yet no one has backed them up by proving it in tourneys.

I'm not all for Diddy, but I will agree with you about the learning your character bit. You can't just go into any Smash game competitively pick your main character, and start winning like that.

 

[Luco]

I'm not all for Diddy, but I will agree with you about the learning your character bit. You can't just go into any Smash game competitively pick your main character, and start winning like that.

Well in Brawl Meta Knight truly was a 'pick up and get results' character. We have a fellow in Melbourne who had only been a part of the smash scene there for about a year and was already like 5th on their PR, and Melbourne was our best region for Brawl. I had been playing for 2-3 years at that point and wasn't even on my PR.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Let's talk about Brawl Metaknight for a moment.

Brawl Metaknight straight-up invalidated a lot of the cast. Not only that, but he did it trivially.

In theory, winning the Game & Watch matchup was as simple as correctly spacing ftilt and upB, which in tandem beat every single option G&W had, save for phenomenally unsafe **** like coming in with Dair (which was also easy to beat on reaction for free).
Beating DK or Bowser? Tornado on landings; they can't do anything about it because nado beats every one of their aerials from the side, and their dair and nair are too big not to clash (and therefore lose) with nado.
Wario? Gets walled by fair really hard, and his air movement barely matters when Tornado wrecks air options so hard. He hits hard enough that capitalizing on mistakes can turn the match, but it's still a matter of "a handful of MK's options make almost every option irrelevant".
Luigi? Like Wario, except that Wario actually has air speed.
ROB? Big target, crappy dair, eats a lot of tornados (also, MK beats every one of his options on the ground pretty trivially)
Peach? Ftilt and upB and there's just nothing she can do.

You seeing a pattern? Fair, ftilt, upB, and nado together provide a toolset that just completely shuts down a lot of characters. His options are not just good, but way better than anything else. It would be like putting, I dunno, Vergil from UMvC3 (and drop the teleports from his moveset) in Street Fighter - ostensibly, the character isn't way out of place, but his options are just so far superior to the comparable options that it invalidates them - there isn't an anti-air in the game that can contend with a well-spaced j.2H (Helm Breaker), for example, and st.H is just so ridiculously huge and disjointed that it's damn near impossible to out-poke him. MK is that - a top tier who is a top tier because his options are obscenely strong. They could do virtually no damage and the character would still be obscenely polarizing.

Diddy though?

Diddy is not.

Diddy has a bunch of strong, potent tools, including phenomenal kill moves, but nothing that even borders on the silliness of Metaknight's ftilt or nado. Diddy is not overpowered because his options invalidate the cast. He's just safer than he needs to be and does more damage than is reasonable.

 

[GeneralLedge]

I don't think Diddy should be banned, I just don't find fighting him 'fun', I find it 'stressful'. And I find it stressful that I have to put in so much tangible effort to fight and beat Diddy, but Diddy does not have to put that same effort to beat me. And then in a setting where this is true, I have to do it a second time, at least.

And I'm not switching to Diddy myself for a morbid proof, or to make it easier. That's dumb. That's exactly what makes it a character problem.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Could Jigglypuff have a decent Diddy matchup? Just random speculation, but her edgeguarding with lingering hitboxes seems like it could be super useful. The puff's Fairs are probably among the best in the game. Same with Nair.
Actually, how are Jigg's matchups in general?

 

[Paper Maribro]

To those already calling for bans to Diddy please watch this and remember that the game hasn't even been out close to a year

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Could Jigglypuff have a decent Diddy matchup? Just random speculation, but her edgeguarding with lingering hitboxes seems like it could be super useful. The puff's Fairs are probably among the best in the game. Same with Nair.
Actually, how are Jigg's matchups in general?

I can't shake the feeling that dying around 60 to uthrow->uair would probably make the matchup a bit painful.

 

[Luigi player]

and kills as low as 70%

If people don't DI and always try to airdodge after the throw then yeah.

Just a few hours ago at a tourney in Vegas we could see FOW always airdodging them and later in some matches it cost him some games. I guess Ness could be a special case because his doubloe jump is a little slow, but he could at least try to doublejump+airdodge.
Diddy often needs a bit more time to even reach his opponent to hit with uair so you can avoid it if you doublejump away most of the time (if DI'd correctly).

I can live Diddys uairs from the ground at 140 or in the air after a dthrow at 130 (if they connect because Diddy is at like 0 % so that it combos) with characters like Sonic. If I wouldn't live it I don't get hit because I DI away and jump away. Airdodging is almost always just a free uair for Diddy even though you could've avoided the uair easily. This information needs to be spread. It's really annoying seeing people do it every time and lose stocks because of it, even though they could've avoided it easily.


Someone else compared Diddy to MK and said Diddy has a really fast smash that kills... well yeah, it is a little fast, I guess. frame 12 is his fsmash. That's nothing compared to MKs dsmash (frame 5) or upB (frame 9, + invincibility on frmae 6-9 (both take 1 frame for the jump into consideration)) out of shield. You basically always had to hope you guess right with your DI since one hits up and the other to the side (so you DI really bad if you guess wrong). And most smashes in Smash4 are really strong and stupidly safe, that's not just something Diddy has. Not to mention MKs gimps are definitely comparable to Diddys early kills (which are easier avoidable, people just don't do it because... I don't know, they probably don't know about it?).

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Someone else compared Diddy to MK and said Diddy has a really fast smash that kills... well yeah, it is a little fast, I guess. frame 12 is his fsmash. That's nothing compared to MKs dsmash (4) or upB (frame 9, + invincibility on frmae 6-9 (both take 1 frame for the jump into consideration)) out of shield.

DSmash was frame 6. And wow, I thought his upB was like frame 5, guess I was wrong. But your point about the DI is spot-on. Diddy's Fsmash hits frame 12... But the strong hit even later, so you have all the time in the world to DI it correctly (that's slightly up and away from the direction you're being hit).

And most smashes in Smash4 are really strong and stupidly safe, that's not just something Diddy has. Not to mention MKs gimps are definitely comparable to Diddys early kills (which are easier avoidable, people just don't do it because... I don't know, they probably don't know about it?).

*grumble grumble ****ty zss smashes grumble grumble*

 

[Blobface]

So according to a few Ganon's that went to tourneys recently, a lot of people still think he's terrible. I don't want to bias anything so I won't say anything for now, but what do you think?

 

[Luigi player]

DSmash was frame 6. And wow, I thought his upB was like frame 5, guess I was wrong. But your point about the DI is spot-on. Diddy's Fsmash hits frame 12... But the strong hit even later, so you have all the time in the world to DI it correctly (that's slightly up and away from the direction you're being hit).


*grumble grumble ****ty zss smashes grumble grumble*

Thanks for correcting, MKs dsmash was frame 5 though, at least it says so in this thread.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Thanks for correcting, MKs dsmash was frame 5 though, at least it says so in this thread.

God Brawl was dumb.

 

[mimgrim]

Melee Falco wasn't broken, right? Especially compared to Brawl Falco. He was, like Fox, able to exploit the game's mechanics and engine. Now in SSB4, Falco's a fair character - maybe too fair. I wished he had Melee's Blaster and I'm wondering what if Falco kept his frame 5 Dair spike, but it was weaker. And I wished his Falco Phantsm had a consistent hitbox...

Melee Falco was pretty borked in Melee, he is much more fair in P:M though due to a more versatile cast keeping him honest.

In the context of Melee, Falco's Lasers are the best projectile in the game. Not to mention Melee Shine actually being very useful in Melee (it is actually less useful in P:M because it doesn't work properly against a lot of characters in that game). He's pretty borked. Not Fox level borked, but still borked.

But all of the Melee top 6 are broke in their own way, rofl.

 

[Ulevo]

So according to a few Ganon's that went to tourneys recently, a lot of people still think he's terrible. I don't want to bias anything so I won't say anything for now, but what do you think?

That depends on how you want to define terrible.

If by terrible you mean he's not top 15, and will likely never win at least a regional, then yes I would say he is.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

So according to a few Ganon's that went to tourneys recently, a lot of people still think he's terrible. I don't want to bias anything so I won't say anything for now, but what do you think?

If you use only Ganon, people will **** on you. But if the opponent picks someone that he has a reasonable matchup (like, not Megaman or someone who can wall you out all game ), then Ganon can be a real threat. Basically, I think he's an awesome, underestimated character but gets screwed by some matchups, so be careful.

 

[Blobface]

What about with customs on? Dropkick is excellent in his worst matchups, and Dark Fists is completely insane sometimes.

 

[S.F.L.R_9]

So according to a few Ganon's that went to tourneys recently, a lot of people still think he's terrible. I don't want to bias anything so I won't say anything for now, but what do you think?

I wouldn't say he's anywhere near top 10, but he's definitely not as bad as in Brawl. What I think really helps him is that he now has a decent combo game, and the new ledge mechanics allow him to edgeguard with his very powerful aerials without risking death. Solo maining Ganon might be difficult due to some very hard matchups, but don't let that discourage you. Imo without customs, he's maybe 45th on the tier list. With customs, perhaps about top 25 or 30 since so many of his issues are patched up.

 

[Luco]

I've seen the light with Ganon.

But seriously I don't believe he's bottom tier and probably not even low tier, bordering on the mids IMO. His damage output and combos combined with customs that help him out a lot for a bunch of different reasons really push him up.

 

[GeneralLedge]

Everyone is mid-tier, really. It's hard to argue otherwise except in specific cases.

 

[Purin a.k.a. José]

Another question of mine...
Let's say I've been launched as Jigglypuff pretty close to the Blast Zone. Do you guys recomend Pound or Rollout to go back?
And, why Ness gets helpless when using PK Flash midair? The same with Zelda and Sheik with Din's Fire and Burst Grenade.

 

[Saturn_]

People seriously think Diddy needs a ban??? Fox in Melee and MK in Brawl are both better than Diddy in Sm4sh...

I'll put it this way: Zero just won Aftershock with a Diddy. Aftershock had about 110 entrants and the best talent from TX and AZ. The top three finishers were Zero, Dabuz, and Denti. On Friday before Aftershock, there was a ~40-entrant Sm4sh tournament (Shockwave 22) but the same top three finishers, Zero, Dabuz, and Denti. Zero won the tournament with Captain Falcon. What's the point I'm trying to make? A Captain Falcon could have won Aftershock. The potential is there, and suggesting Diddy needs to be banned is a joke.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Another question of mine...
Let's say I've been launched as Jigglypuff pretty close to the Blast Zone. Do you guys recomend Pound or Rollout to go back?
And, why Ness gets helpless when using PK Flash midair? The same with Zelda and Sheik with Din's Fire and Burst Grenade.

Pound. Rollout is only useful as recovery when you're in the upper corners, but if you actually hit someone with it then you're trapped in that spinning recoil animation until you land so you're doomed if offstage. (One of her customs doesn't do this but I forget which one.)

Jigglypuff's jumps are generally sufficient to get you back anyway.

 

[David Viran]

I don't think zeros falcon would beat dabuz.

 

[warriorman222]

Another question of mine...
Let's say I've been launched as Jigglypuff pretty close to the Blast Zone. Do you guys recomend Pound or Rollout to go back?
And, why Ness gets helpless when using PK Flash midair? The same with Zelda and Sheik with Din's Fire and Burst Grenade.

Bad game design.

In all seriousness, I guess they don't want characters having multiple ways to defend their recovery. But seriously, it needs to go. There's no reason for me to SD using Din's Fire instead of Farore's Wind because of a misclick.

 

[mimgrim]

Or DK using Giant Punch in the air to go into free fall or Mii Gunner using Steal Shot in the air to go into free fall.

Why Sakurai, why.

 

[Antonykun]

Another question of mine...
Let's say I've been launched as Jigglypuff pretty close to the Blast Zone. Do you guys recomend Pound or Rollout to go back?
And, why Ness gets helpless when using PK Flash midair? The same with Zelda and Sheik with Din's Fire and Burst Grenade.

Never use rollout for recovery. A smart opponent will intercept and punish the rollout. Jigg's air speed/deceleration is so good you only need two jumps to comeback. You can use one or two pounds to maybe only use a jump or less to comeback though. t

 

[S.F.L.R_9]

Another question of mine...
Let's say I've been launched as Jigglypuff pretty close to the Blast Zone. Do you guys recomend Pound or Rollout to go back?
And, why Ness gets helpless when using PK Flash midair? The same with Zelda and Sheik with Din's Fire and Burst Grenade.

There's no legitimate reason for those moves to put the character in freefall. They already aren't very good moves, and the freefall part only makes them worse. Basically, very bad design since you can SD by accidentally pressing the wrong button.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Or DK using Giant Punch in the air to go into free fall or Mii Gunner using Steal Shot in the air to go into free fall.

Why Sakurai, why.

Giant/Storm Punch offstage would be pretty scary to deal with though. That actually makes a bit of sense, though normally the combination of endlag and DK's poor vertical recovery would already limit what you can do with it to an extent. It's not as dumb as Din's freefall at least.

 

[Locke 06]

Yolo storm punch is the best way to end a game and is one of the most deadly suicide moves in the game due to how much respect you need to give DK off stage.

 

[Ffamran]

I don't think zeros falcon would beat dabuz.

Doesn't Captain Falcon struggle a bit against Rosalina & Luma? Not 20:80 bad, but enough where he can't go ham on them.

 

[Kofu]

Or DK using Giant Punch in the air to go into free fall or Mii Gunner using Steal Shot in the air to go into free fall.

Why Sakurai, why.

My favorite is using windboxes to push them off the stage during the attack and still die.

 

[Aunt Jemima]

Yolo storm punch is the best way to end a game and is one of the most deadly suicide moves in the game due to how much respect you need to give DK off stage.

Or, in some characters case, how much respect DK needs to give to them off stage.

Yolo Punch is surprisingly good against custom Villager. Actually, speaking of that, DK's D-Air goes straight through Explosive Balloons. I had to switch away from EB and couldn't use default because DK utterly destroys recovering Villager. I had to use Balloon Jump or whatever it's called, lol.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Doesn't Captain Falcon struggle a bit against Rosalina & Luma? Not 20:80 bad, but enough where he can't go ham on them.

His dash grab is fast enough to give me pause and his gentleman sends Luma flying. I haven't had a chance to fight one with customs on though, I imagine Shooting Star Bit would help out a lot.

 

[Jams.]

If people don't DI and always try to airdodge after the throw then yeah.

Just a few hours ago at a tourney in Vegas we could see FOW always airdodging them and later in some matches it cost him some games. I guess Ness could be a special case because his doubloe jump is a little slow, but he could at least try to doublejump+airdodge.
Diddy often needs a bit more time to even reach his opponent to hit with uair so you can avoid it if you doublejump away most of the time (if DI'd correctly).

I can live Diddys uairs from the ground at 140 or in the air after a dthrow at 130 (if they connect because Diddy is at like 0 % so that it combos) with characters like Sonic. If I wouldn't live it I don't get hit because I DI away and jump away. Airdodging is almost always just a free uair for Diddy even though you could've avoided the uair easily. This information needs to be spread. It's really annoying seeing people do it every time and lose stocks because of it, even though they could've avoided it easily.


Someone else compared Diddy to MK and said Diddy has a really fast smash that kills... well yeah, it is a little fast, I guess. frame 12 is his fsmash. That's nothing compared to MKs dsmash (frame 5) or upB (frame 9, + invincibility on frmae 6-9 (both take 1 frame for the jump into consideration)) out of shield. You basically always had to hope you guess right with your DI since one hits up and the other to the side (so you DI really bad if you guess wrong). And most smashes in Smash4 are really strong and stupidly safe, that's not just something Diddy has. Not to mention MKs gimps are definitely comparable to Diddys early kills (which are easier avoidable, people just don't do it because... I don't know, they probably don't know about it?).

It sounds like you're referring to dthrow->uair. Shaya was most likely talking about uthrow->uair, which is a guaranteed kill right now at some (fairly low) percents, since it seems like uthrow can barely be DIed.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Let's talk about Brawl Metaknight for a moment.

Brawl Metaknight straight-up invalidated a lot of the cast. Not only that, but he did it trivially.

In theory, winning the Game & Watch matchup was as simple as correctly spacing ftilt and upB, which in tandem beat every single option G&W had, save for phenomenally unsafe **** like coming in with Dair (which was also easy to beat on reaction for free).
Beating DK or Bowser? Tornado on landings; they can't do anything about it because nado beats every one of their aerials from the side, and their dair and nair are too big not to clash (and therefore lose) with nado.
Wario? Gets walled by fair really hard, and his air movement barely matters when Tornado wrecks air options so hard. He hits hard enough that capitalizing on mistakes can turn the match, but it's still a matter of "a handful of MK's options make almost every option irrelevant".
Luigi? Like Wario, except that Wario actually has air speed.
ROB? Big target, crappy dair, eats a lot of tornados (also, MK beats every one of his options on the ground pretty trivially)
Peach? Ftilt and upB and there's just nothing she can do.

You seeing a pattern? Fair, ftilt, upB, and nado together provide a toolset that just completely shuts down a lot of characters. His options are not just good, but way better than anything else. It would be like putting, I dunno, Vergil from UMvC3 (and drop the teleports from his moveset) in Street Fighter - ostensibly, the character isn't way out of place, but his options are just so far superior to the comparable options that it invalidates them - there isn't an anti-air in the game that can contend with a well-spaced j.2H (Helm Breaker), for example, and st.H is just so ridiculously huge and disjointed that it's damn near impossible to out-poke him. MK is that - a top tier who is a top tier because his options are obscenely strong. They could do virtually no damage and the character would still be obscenely polarizing.

Diddy though?

Diddy is not.

Diddy has a bunch of strong, potent tools, including phenomenal kill moves, but nothing that even borders on the silliness of Metaknight's ftilt or nado. Diddy is not overpowered because his options invalidate the cast. He's just safer than he needs to be and does more damage than is reasonable.

Ace post. Totally agree. People need to go back and watch some brawl matches and get this ****. Like Nairo vs Dark Peach, its so much worse than diddy. Not even close.

Moreover, as bad as Metaknight was it turned out in the end it wasn't possible to ban him, the consensus was not strong enough, despite him being so bloody strong and invalidating so many characters. I thought banning metaknight was a good idea (this was after years of the brawl metagame consolidating), in the end I was wrong, it wasn't, because it didn't work. I think banning Diddy Kong is an awful idea on its own, but when you consider the fact that the Metaknight ban didn't work then how on earth is a Diddy ban ever going to?

Talking about banning diddy should pretty much be considered trolling/spam as far as I'm concerned, because it's just not going to happen.

@ Blobface Ganondorf is super godawful when you dont factor in how skewered his risk/reward ratio is by the damage and knockback of his moves coupled with his weight. Without customs he's also really gimpable and thus ultimately going to wind up as terrible in the default meta, despite all his power.

 

[Nabbitnator]

If we ban diddy then sheik will rise up. She will gain more and more tech. Then people will get upset with her and ban her. Afterwards we will start banning down the line with each new top 5 because something seems broken. Im thankful this isn't street fighter 4 where it gets patched constantly because a new character is at the top and seems broken.

 

[GeneralLedge]

Doesn't Sheik take some semblance of effort to get kills with, though?

 

[Djent]

So I'm guessing most people agree that beats by now. What other high/top tier MU does Oli allegedly do well in?

He's alright vs. , that I know. But if Diddy is his only other claim to fame, we're probably not looking at a "top 10" character at all.