Character Competitive Impressions

[Plain Yogurt]

The Nowhere kid's got a slick edgeguard game too. His PSI Magnet has weirdly good knockback, PK Freeze covers mid-high recoveries decently in my experience (Although the lack of good follow ups kind of colors things badly there. But hey! ~22 more percent!), down smash covers ledges nicely with some good timing. Too bad his PK Thunder is super unreliable.

Lucas certainly has more obvious weaknesses, but I personally don't think he's too bad off. He just doesn't have the more explosive power Ryu and Roy have.

 

[DunnoBro]

Saying sheik is better because you can make mistakes and still win is WAY off base

I feel like you don't understand that in this game you need to throw yourself into situations where it's likely you made the wrong decision to progress the game state.

How much those mistakes cost you is extremely important, and making a mistake with sheik generally means she just missed one of her million combo starters, maybe lost some good positioning or needle charge on a shield.

For rob, making a mistake means eating eleven billion fairs to the face and getting forced into an edgeguard situation where he has a lot of mistakes he needs to avoid, and it means death if he doesn't.

Perfect play generally is up to players, not characters. We need to observe how specific characters interact to determine matchups, players can innovate on how to play matchups, but there's no innovating how ROB is combo food.

 

[Ffamran]

Sakurai has said that the psychic characters are the ones that are supposed to get the best throws. That's why Ness's B-Throw is still super strong while others like Sonic and ROB's got nerfed.

Source please. Also, this goes against and starts to create an issue where people will wonder about magic characters like Zelda, Rosalina, Palutena, Robin, and hell, even Ganondorf could be considered for brute force magic kill throws. Of those characters, I think Robin's are the strongest. Mewtwo's B-throw should kill even earlier than too since it's a psychic character.

 

[DunnoBro]

Mewtwo's B-throw should kill even earlier than too since it's a psychic character.

Uthrow is probably the "akira throw" Sakurai was going for with mewtwo

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Lucas's Hoo-Hah pretty much requires you to read the opponent's DI pretty well in order to hit, it's not reliable but yeah it's there.

Sakurai has said that the psychic characters are the ones that are supposed to get the best throws. That's why Ness's B-Throw is still super strong while others like Sonic and ROB's got nerfed.

With that philosophy in mind though, it's a bit weird that they would buff Charizard's Up-Throw to the point it is now. Other than Charizard the only character I can think of with a really good throw for killing right now is Toon Link (at least I think that one can kill really early if it gets you in the ledge)

So Lucas having such good throws is not very surprising to me, I was expecting it from the start. They probably gave him the best set of throws to compensate for the bad grab.

Wario's Fthrow kills early. So do DK's, Luigi's, and Peach's back throws. And I wouldn't consider any of those guys Psychic.

 

[DunnoBro]

Wario's Fthrow kills early. So do DK's, Luigi's, and Peach's back throws. And I wouldn't consider any of those guys Psychic.

Ness and Mewtwo have the strongest respective kill throws IIRC. (Bthrow for ness, Uthrow for Mewtwo) Lucas seems to have the most kill throws, though?

 

[Thinkaman]

In a random update in the Brawl Dojo days, Sakurai said that psychic and magic characters tend to have stronger throws, while swordfighters tend to throw for shorter distances.

This rule of thumb seems less true in 4.

 

[Antonykun]

In a random update in the Brawl Dojo days, Sakurai said that psychic and magic characters tend to have stronger throws, while swordfighters tend to throw for shorter distances.

This rule of thumb seems less true in 4.

guess he sees as a sword wielder then

 

[ParanoidDrone]

The Nowhere kid's got a slick edgeguard game too. His PSI Magnet has weirdly good knockback, PK Freeze covers mid-high recoveries decently in my experience (Although the lack of good follow ups kind of colors things badly there. But hey! ~22 more percent!), down smash covers ledges nicely with some good timing. Too bad his PK Thunder is super unreliable.

Lucas certainly has more obvious weaknesses, but I personally don't think he's too bad off. He just doesn't have the more explosive power Ryu and Roy have.

Have you seen Lucas's usmash? It doesn't reach the top platform on Battlefield anymore but it's still pretty ridonkulous. (And his other smashes aren't exactly weak either.)

That said I do think the rest of his per-hit damage is a bit lacking. Nair especially doesn't do a whole lot, and it doesn't help that as far as I can tell, it doesn't use any autolink angles at all so it's pretty easy to mess up and only hit them with one of the multihits for 1% or something.

Come to think of it, how is Lucas supposed to get in? PK Fire is a good-ranged poking tool that he can SH and wavebounce around, that's always useful, but his grab is a tether with all that implies so I have a hard time seeing him getting in too many throw combos. He's not like ZSS where he can stun you and run in to grab right away.

 

[|RK|]

The only thing that I really have to say about customs is that I don't really see them being actively balanced. Maybe some changes are universal when the standard version is changed, but outside of that?

 

[Spinosaurus]

Ness and Mewtwo have the strongest respective kill throws IIRC. (Bthrow for ness, Uthrow for Mewtwo) Lucas seems to have the most kill throws, though?

With the recent patch, Charizard's uthrow seems even better.

But y'know, Sakurai says a lot of things.

 

[Ryu_Ken]

I don't think there's a real distinct "class" of fighters that excel at one thing and share the same/similar traits. Everyone's pretty unique in Sm4sh.

 

[Chuva]

In a random update in the Brawl Dojo days, Sakurai said that psychic and magic characters tend to have stronger throws, while swordfighters tend to throw for shorter distances.

This rule of thumb seems less true in 4.

He was probably aware of the aberration that Rosalina with a kill throw would be.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

He was probably aware of the aberration that Rosalina with a kill throw would be.

...you know, I just sort of took it for granted that Rosalina's throws lacked any real kill power. Except for obvious stuff like 150% bthrow at the ledge but basically everyone can do that.

Zelda's another exception I think, unless her players are holding out on us.

A thought: How would Robin be if he had a kill throw?

 

[NairWizard]

I think giving Ganondorf a kill throw would make a lot of sense for his design and would be a welcome addition to the character.

 

[Lavani]

He was probably aware of the aberration that Rosalina with a kill throw would be.

...you know, I just sort of took it for granted that Rosalina's throws lacked any real kill power. Except for obvious stuff like 150% bthrow at the ledge but basically everyone can do that.

Friendly reminder that the kill power on Rosalina's fthrow/bthrow was nerfed in 1.0.4.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Friendly reminder that the kill power on Rosalina's fthrow/bthrow was nerfed in 1.0.4.

1.0.4 coincided with the Wii U version launch though, correct?

 

[NairWizard]

1.0.4 coincided with the Wii U version launch though, correct?

That's right. You probably didn't notice Rosalina's stronger side throws on the 3DS version because the blastzones were larger. Those pre-nerf throws would have been obnoxious on the Wii U version.

 

[S_B]

Saying sheik is better because you can make mistakes and still win is WAY off base

Thing is, it really isn't at all off base to say this because that's how all fighting games work: two players attempt to make attacks that will create openings for them to deal damage, and they attempt to remain as unpunishable as possible while doing so.

When it comes to doing this, it's expected that a certain number of attempted attacks will succeed while others will fail during the normal ebb and flow of the match as each player attempts to read the other's intentions and counteract them.

The problem with the Shiek vs. ROB matchup (and largely with Shiek in general) is that the player using Shiek can afford to make many, MANY more attack attempts with very little risk involved, putting less effort into reads as well because Shiek's moveset allows her to attempt to attack and withdraw quickly if the approach turns sour.

Meanwhile, the ROB player is at the exact opposite side of this spectrum: every attack ROB attempts to make has a real danger of not only being punished but being punished for a sizable amount of damage. Shiek is also much more difficult to read than ROB, largely thanks to her superior mobility.

Of course, a ROB player who is just that much more skilled will beat a Shiek player who lacks the same skill. No one is arguing that.

The trouble is that the amount of skill advantage needed by the ROB player to defeat the Shiek player isn't typically found at the highest levels of play, and furthermore, if a player is THAT skilled with ROB, s/he'd be better off playing Shiek anyway because Shiek's superior frame data gives them that much more of an advantage.

So yeah, characters with safe options tend to rise in tiers because they can afford to make mistakes and the skill of the player using them can push the character much further.

 

[Blobface]

The only thing that I really have to say about customs is that I don't really see them being actively balanced. Maybe some changes are universal when the standard version is changed, but outside of that?

If by "actively balanced" you mean, not changed as much as default, that's correct. If you mean rarely/never intentionally altered, it's a pretty big stretch to assume that a change to Villagers recovery that primarily affects consecutive uses was just a default change that happened to invalidate a toxic customs tactic.

With that said, while we have started moving away, customs on/off discussion should be posted in the competitive smash ruleset discussion.

 

[Kofu]

A thought: How would Robin be if he had a kill throw?

Robin's BThrow has very high base knockback and would probably kill relatively relative early near the ledge with rage. That said, it's still a decently strong throw.

 

[AaronSMASH]

I feel like you don't understand that in this game you need to throw yourself into situations where it's likely you made the wrong decision to progress the game state.

How much those mistakes cost you is extremely important, and making a mistake with sheik generally means she just missed one of her million combo starters, maybe lost some good positioning or needle charge on a shield.

For rob, making a mistake means eating eleven billion fairs to the face and getting forced into an edgeguard situation where he has a lot of mistakes he needs to avoid, and it means death if he doesn't.

Perfect play generally is up to players, not characters. We need to observe how specific characters interact to determine matchups, players can innovate on how to play matchups, but there's no innovating how ROB is combo food.

Maybe sheik is a hard matchups for rob, but nobody has perfected a single character in this game. So anybody could 'innovate the matchup' and find a way to beat even the best sheik.

 

[outfoxd]

Maybe sheik is a hard matchups for rob, but nobody has perfected a single character in this game. So anybody could 'innovate the matchup' and find a way to beat even the best sheik.

I think the argument is that it's a lot harder for a Rob to divine their path to success than the reverse. And there may be a breaking point where that may not even be possible.

Edit: Sheik can afford to be "less perfect".

 

[Plain Yogurt]

Have you seen Lucas's usmash? It doesn't reach the top platform on Battlefield anymore but it's still pretty ridonkulous. (And his other smashes aren't exactly weak either.)

That said I do think the rest of his per-hit damage is a bit lacking. Nair especially doesn't do a whole lot, and it doesn't help that as far as I can tell, it doesn't use any autolink angles at all so it's pretty easy to mess up and only hit them with one of the multihits for 1% or something.

Come to think of it, how is Lucas supposed to get in? PK Fire is a good-ranged poking tool that he can SH and wavebounce around, that's always useful, but his grab is a tether with all that implies so I have a hard time seeing him getting in too many throw combos. He's not like ZSS where he can stun you and run in to grab right away.

Have you SEEN USmash's startup? He has plenty of kill power but they all have pretty slow startup (though FSmash is reasonable, but of course it's the weakest one...).

Nair's mediocre damage is KIND of reasonable when you take into account that it can link into itself and other aerials, though I have been thwarted in this by 3 frame aerials before, so it isn't airtight (unless latency just messed with my timing). Autolinks would be cool, but I kinda like how I can move freely through my opponent as I hit them to set up my next attack.

Yeeaahh...I'm learning that Lucas has a hard time really getting in. He does a decent job stuffing approaches with his PSI infused attacks and his PK Fire is solid but I fear the day when I face someone outside of FG and he decides to sit there and let me move first. I think a spaced fair is kind of safe, maybe retreating only, I'm not sure. Spaced FTilt MAYbe? Zair too. I wish I had more than For Latency for reference.

I feel like he's mostly gonna have to rely on his movement options (wavebounce, DJC PSI Magnet, etc) along with his low cooldowns to bait things out, and while it is a tether he does have a grab to mix things up with. Maybe this problem'll cripple him too much We'll see.

 

[HeavyLobster]

I know I probably shouldn't get involved, but how is Bowser good at all?

Seems like one of the worst characters in the game to me (and everyone else here, I'm pretty sure).

Big and tall, can't land ever, mediocre aerials (b-air has power yeah but landing it is unnecessarily difficult). A pretty good poke game, I guess, with jab, ground speed, pivot options and Fire Breath, but seems to be the very definition of mediocrity otherwise.

Bowser isn't good, certainly without Dash Slash. He's not awful by any means, but in customs off he's probably the weakest of the heavies now that Zard's been buffed and I've seen what good D3's can do.(customs on he might be a bit better than D3 but the other heavies gain even more than he does from customs) He's fast and can hit hard, but is awful in disadvantage and lacks combos. He might be more reliable in neutral, but the better characters in the game still run circles around him, and he misses out on a combo Dthrow as well as any sort of safe or truly threatening landing option to get him out of trouble. One or both of these things would actually make Bowser quite the threat, as his neutral game is actually fairly reliable compared to Ganondorf or Charizard, he just doesn't get enough reward for winning in neutral and gets punished too hard for losing it.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I thought dk was Zangief and Bowser was Hugo.

Would have responded to this earlier...given it's interesting.

Zangief is very footsies oriented, and his command grab by itself is just a threat for quick raw damage. His entire gameplan especially in SF4 series hinges on winning neutral repeatedly and coming out ahead each time he wins neutral. This is exactly how Bowser operates by design. Very ground and poke oriented, and does great damage on single hits. Limited followup potential, but can kill you from neutral due to his reward.

Hugo is hugely momentum oriented. While he DOES have normals that are arguably fantastic for footsies, he has nowhere near the safety and basic frame data that Zangief boasts. Instead when Hugo manages to corner you, he instantly becomes the most dangerous character in the game and is prone to ending the game extremely quickly given his punish game and ability to cover options when you can't retreat is absolutely devastating. This is much more akin to how Ganondorf works. Ganon has to guess a lot in neutral even though most characters never are completely safe against his normals. Once he gets someone above him or offstage, he instantly becomes scary beyond belief when his tools are exceptionally good for capitalizing on a bad position.

DK isn't exactly a grappler, and I honestly don't know if there's a good parallel from USF4 to compare to. At a glance, I would quickly suggest someone like Dictator or Oni, who excel at block pressure shenanigans while boasting some pretty great pokes. Very debatably T Hawk who excels a little more at air control compared to the other grapplers.

 

[Kofu]

Maybe sheik is a hard matchups for rob, but nobody has perfected a single character in this game. So anybody could 'innovate the matchup' and find a way to beat even the best sheik.

You want to know why ROB vs MK was horrible for ROB in Brawl? Edgeguarding and juggles. ROB had decent pokes and he honestly did fine on the ground. But when MK got ROB in the air, the fight was basically over. It's similar with Sheik in Smash 4 I imagine (haven't played the MU enough to say). Lasers will go through anything and I think grounded Gyros snuff Needles (could be wrong). But ROB has a terrible disadvantaged state and if Sheik gets in he's taking hefty damage if not a stock from edgeguarding.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Ness and Mewtwo have the strongest respective kill throws IIRC. (Bthrow for ness, Uthrow for Mewtwo) Lucas seems to have the most kill throws, though?

Yes on Ness's Back throw but Mewtwo's Uthrow is actually just decent, not one of the best. But yeah 3 of Lucas's throws kill and one combos. That's pretty awesome given how risky his grab is.

 

[Smog Frog]

Yes on Ness's Back throw but Mewtwo's Uthrow is actually just decent, not one of the best. But yeah 3 of Lucas's throws kill and one combos. That's pretty awesome given how risky his grab is.

just decent? what uthrow kills compare to ? only one that immediately comes to mind is ...maybe . but who else has a good killing uthrow???

 

[oldkingcroz]

See and now I'm on the customs should be banned side. DLC chars not having customs is just unfair.

They should be banned. Its not even debatable anymore.

Kid?

Interesting.

Anyway I stand by my stance. That said I live in a very try hard region that will probably NEVER turn off customs and I see no need to try to convert anyone to my point of view. So for all the pro-custom warriors, believe me I have no intention of debating you. And if you are intent on debating me then I will just put you on my ignore list.

Glad we got that cleared up.

As for the "kid" remark, it was merely a figure of speech, in a vain attempt to say not every aspect of the game is fair/ balanced. I meant no disrespect.

Before you put me on your ignore list, can you answer a quick question first? Nevertheless this is my last post on the matter, so it won't escalate past what has already been done/ said.
Anyway- question: In your original post, you said it wasn't fair for DLC characters to be in a customs environment, and that was your reasoning as to why customs shouldn't be used competitively. But why would it be fair to take customs away from the entire cast, just so DLC characters are better/ given the same amount of options as the non-DLC characters? It would make the minority better, sure, but the majority of players play non-DLC characters, and they would get the shaft. Do you see where I am coming from, in regards to this?


Annnnyway, yes Aaron, characters rise and fall in their potential/ meta. Fox wasn't always #1 in Melee (and characters like Yoshi are rising up the ranks as well). But I brought up the ROB/ Sheik matchup mostly to say not every matchup is equal, and this can't be fixed. Smash_Brother said it much better than I did, however.

In regards to kill throws, ROB's isn't really THAT good. It's really rage/ stage dependent. Under most circumstances, it won't kill before 130, though. If your opponent is at 150+, it's pretty much a kill on the non-Bowser weight characters.

 

[Master Raven]

So I saw people talking about Dath earlier and I can report that he beat Phuzix (Sheik) at a weekly tonight. He got 5th/49. He lost to MVD and I.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

just decent? what uthrow kills compare to ? only one that immediately comes to mind is ...maybe . but who else has a good killing uthrow???

Oh. I meant throws in general, not just Uthrows.

 

[Makorel]

On the topic of throws, Pit's Fthrow was indirectly buffed by the new sliding mechanics. No more having to chose between pummeling and falling off the stage and Fthrowing immediately and not quite having enough percent to KO.

 

[Kofu]

just decent? what uthrow kills compare to ? only one that immediately comes to mind is ...maybe . but who else has a good killing uthrow???

Oh. I meant throws in general, not just Uthrows.

Top 10 killing throws as of 1.0.8 (not accounting for rage, DI, or stage position):

BThrow
UThrow
UThrow
UThrow
UThrow
BThrow
UThrow
UThrow
UThrow/ BThrow (tied)

Taken from here.

Oh was that shameless self promotion I guess it was

 

[TriTails]

On another subject. What meteor move you guys think is the best? Not only counting power, but other uses as well (Luigi's D-air, while isn't particularly powerful, combos into his kill aerials when the foe fails to tech. It also has very little startup for a meteor (F10) and has almost no end lag).

Methinks Luigi's D-air would be one of the best if it weren't for the fact that the meteor hitbox is so awkward and it only meteors in the air. Falcon's U-tilt would also be a candidate (I'd put it straight to the best if it weren't for the fact it meteors only on airbone opponents. It's still gud tho), and Ganon's D-air gets a mention simply on how big the hitbox is and it can kill under 10%.

 

[bc1910]

Top 10 killing throws as of 1.0.8 (not accounting for rage, DI, or stage position):

BThrow
UThrow
UThrow
UThrow
UThrow
BThrow
UThrow
UThrow
UThrow/ BThrow (tied)

Taken from here.

Oh was that shameless self promotion I guess it was

Link's Uthrow has strange kill potential compared to Greninja's Uthrow actually, it's not strictly better. It kills Mario about 2% earlier (who I gather your test was on?) but will kill Jigglypuff 1 or 2% later. This might lead you to believe Greninja's is better for killing light characters but actually, Greninja's Uthrow kills Bowser 2% earlier than Link's Uthrow.

It doesn't really matter because the throws are about as powerful as each other since both will kill around 160% but I think it's worth pointing out, cause it's quite strange behaviour. Link's Uthrow is slightly better than Greninja's vs some characters and vice versa.

 

[Nekoo]

On another subject. What meteor move you guys think is the best? Not only counting power, but other uses as well (Luigi's D-air, while isn't particularly powerful, combos into his kill aerials when the foe fails to tech. It also has very little startup for a meteor (F10) and has almost no end lag).

Methinks Luigi's D-air would be one of the best if it weren't for the fact that the meteor hitbox is so awkward and it only meteors in the air. Falcon's U-tilt would also be a candidate (I'd put it straight to the best if it weren't for the fact it meteors only on airbone opponents. It's still gud tho), and Ganon's D-air gets a mention simply on how big the hitbox is and it can kill under 10%.

No need to discuss Is the best , 3 spike ? One you CAN use as a punish (side-b) , one normal meteor ( d-air ) , and one Were you're not even have to Go Off-stage (up-tilt) ? This Man is godly for Meteor

 

[icraq]

That's right. You probably didn't notice Rosalina's stronger side throws on the 3DS version because the blastzones were larger. Those pre-nerf throws would have been obnoxious on the Wii U version.

The launch version of Wii U wasn't the full 1.0.4. Vanilla Smash 4 has pre-1.0.4 Rosalina. Her nair still does 10 dmg, etc. So if anyone was really wanting to see how OP Rosa could be in Smash 4 WiiU, just delete your updates.

Not all of the 1.0.4 patches made it into the Wii U version. I know stuff like Greninja's shadow cancel was removed.

The day 1 patch, 1.0.1 did add all of 1.0.4's changes though.

 

[PUK]

No need to discuss Is the best , 3 spike ? One you CAN use as a punish (side-b) , one normal meteor ( d-air ) , and one Were you're not even have to Go Off-stage (up-tilt) ? This Man is godly for Meteor

but none of them is the best meteor
Dair is really laggy, side b is meh, and utilt is not the easist to land.

 

[Nekoo]

but none of them is the best meteor
Dair is really laggy, side b is meh, and utilt is not the easist to land.

Ah okay ... well , for what i see , Lucas is cool with his B-air . It true combo with D-throw and into himself if the opponent forgot to tech .