Character 'Flaws' Discussion: Recognizing & Capitalizing on Designed Weaknesses

[Conda]

Hey guys, I wanted to start a discussion not about matchups or character tiers, but instead about intentionally designed character weaknesses. I'm talking about weaknesses like "Little Mac's airgame/recovery" or "Ganondorf's speed" or "Rosalina's Luma dying." These are designed 'shortcomings' for characters that balance out their strengths, and can be used against them.

The focus will be on recognizing these weaknesses throughout the cast, and what they actually mean for their metagame and how they'll develop as characters. As a Dr. Mario main, for example, you'll have to find a way to cope with your designed weakness of having a bad recovery.
We'll discuss what these weaknesses mean, how they can be de-emphasized, and how you can avoid them being used against you to spell your doom in competitive matches.

For example, Ness:

He can still be gimped easily out of his PKT. It's less easy this time around, as the default PKT passes through opponents on startup (can't just bodyblock the thunderbolt anymore), but there is also an abundance of wind effects in this game, notably in custom moves, and this imo brings back to life the classic Smash Bros dynamic of Ness being easy to gimp out of PKT.

Also, in Brawl, Ness could play safe by focusing on using his doublejump to recover onto the stage instead of PKT. You'd DJ and airdodge into the stage to have a safe landing. Ness can't airdodge to safety anymore to have a safe landing the way he used to, as there is huge landing lag on airdodging. Thus the best choice now is likely to Nair into the ground (maybe there's a better way to cover his landing upon DJ recovery?) - characters that can punish/outprioritize Ness's nair will have the advantage of being able to prevent Ness from safely landing more often then not.

 

[Snoop]

I think Diddy's recovery is pretty awful. Takes a long time to charge up, letting you be gimped easily and if you get out of it too quickly, you don't have any vertical movement. So, when facing Diddy, get him low off the stage instead of horizontally off the stage because Diddy can use both side-B and up-B out of his jump. Aggressively chase him off the stage and either gimp him, or get him scared enough to prematurely get out of his jetpack.

Having played Dark Pit for a while, I can say that he doesn't deal with being rushed down too well. Not a whole lot of options when you're getting hurled about, and not a whole lot of options to get away from your opponent quickly. To combat this, Dark Pit has his side-B with armor to surprise opponents if you can get in the half-second startup. So, when facing Dark Pit, don't get knocked off the stage (his off-stage game is godly) and be aggressive the whole time.

The only other character I'm proficient enough in to give good advice is Zero Suit Samus. She has a great ground game and her aerials kill, but her aerials are so difficult to hit. If you're not playing against a super duper skilled opponent, just get ZSS into the air and keep her there. She will almost always use her down-air to get onto the ground, but if it doesn't hit, it's got so much ending lag that it's very easy to punish.

 

[Conda]

I think Diddy's recovery is pretty awful. Takes a long time to charge up, letting you be gimped easily and if you get out of it too quickly, you don't have any vertical movement. So, when facing Diddy, get him low off the stage instead of horizontally off the stage because Diddy can use both side-B and up-B out of his jump. Aggressively chase him off the stage and either gimp him, or get him scared enough to prematurely get out of his jetpack.

Good point. It can be scary to even try to edgeguard diddy, though, due to him likely waiting to use Side-b to recover, and that spike can stank.

Zero Suit Samus. She has a great ground game and her aerials kill, but her aerials are so difficult to hit. If you're not playing against a super duper skilled opponent, just get ZSS into the air and keep her there. She will almost always use her down-air to get onto the ground, but if it doesn't hit, it's got so much ending lag that it's very easy to punish.

I find that she can down-b to hop out of any aerial situation that she finds herself losing in, so I'm not sure how well most characters will be able to execute a dominant aerial pressure game on her. Worth a shot for those who can aerially chase her well, and who can punish her down-b hop away.

 

[XxBHunterxX]

I would say that pit has been nerfed significantly since brawl, his blades have a weird hit box where most of my attacks seem to go right through my opponents leavings open for a punish even though the attempt was to punish them. Another is his nair where it only hits from the center of the blades meaning you can be hit out if it very easily.

Also, his lack of good kill moves is bad combined with the weird hit box glitch I've experienced makes it incredibly hard to lad solid blow even if my read is correct. His attacks also do have any good knock back meaning if you don't sweat spot it you'll be punished especially for heavier characters, his upper dash would be better if it went through projectiles instead of clashing with them helping him deal with characters with a better projectile game, his arrows got an undeserved nerf making it harder to control the air with them since they're slower weaker and they disappear after short time

 

[Snoop]

I would say that pit has been nerfed significantly since brawl, his blades have a weird hit box where most of my attacks seem to go right through my opponents leavings open for a punish even though the attempt was to punish them.

I love Pit in the new game and I have to say that he shouldn't even have been called Pit. He's a different character altogether. Playing Brawl Pit and playing Smash3DS Pit are two different animals. In the new game, Pit is all about covering landing options.Not necessarily chasing your opponents, but not leaving them any time where they haven't been knocked into the air by your arrows, dash attack, or big robot arm/boxing glove. His attacks have no knockback because he dominates getting high percents on people while taking very little himself. To secure kills, practice down-air to get that sweet spot spike and practice reading your opponents heavily. He's still good, he just needs an attitude adjustment.

 

[Conda]

Brought discussion to the competitive subforum, as I posted it here by accident. Post your comments there

http://smashboards.com/threads/char...g-capitalizing-on-designed-weaknesses.374329/

@ Snoop @ XxBHunterxX