Character Playstyles in 3.5

[Miryafa]

Are there any handy images for character playstyles? For example:

When I say "playstyle," I'm kinda talking about what the character wants to do in the neutral game, and not the combo/recovery/whatever game.

In the above image I filled in the characters I have some knowledge about. Is there a better image around somewhere? Is there a summary of character playstyles I could use to fill this in? I'm really interested in figuring out what each character is really good at in the neutral game, and putting it together in an easy-to-see picture.

Is what I have above right? For the characters I haven't covered, how should they be listed? Are there more categories I haven't listed? Note again: I'm not talking about what a character can't do (eg. "Captain Falcon has no ranged moves, ergo he must be approaching!" No.), but what they can do well.

I'm using roughly the following definitions:

Aggro - This character approaches the opponent.

Campy - This character doesn't approach the opponent.

Edit: It seems really important that I post this link here, and suggest anyone interested open it and scroll down to the section titled Aggression

And these sub-categories:
Hit & Run: This character can attack and get away without being punished.
Combo: This character can turn confirmed hits into longer strings.
Punishing: This character can punish unsafe moves hard, much harder than characters without this tag. This does not mean a character who can't do anything besides punish unsafe moves - anyone can do that.
Zoning: This character can be hard to approach by shutting down certain methods of attack, approach, or sometimes an entire character. This does not include shielding.
Aerial: This character excels at approaching in the air.
Ranged: This character can attack without approaching (eg. with missiles, boomerang, or needles) enough to put the opponent at KO percent.
Gimpy: This character excels at preventing an off-stage opponent from returning to the stage.


Here's my logic*:

Spoiler: Bowser

What I got from Odds' guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzYHDl1nJ80&index=1&list=PLovBMkMLex7wOo_9VuUyPX7bziX_F2uVN

Spoiler: Captain Falcon

Ridiculously safe on shield. L-cancel knee into Gentleman, roll away, rinse, repeat. And also has a variety of other good moves.

Spoiler: Diddy Kong

According to Kevin, aka Uncle Taint,

Diddy Kong is better than most at zoning. The most effective way to play him is to zone until you can confirm a banana/peanut hit and then string combos.

He also has one of the best off-stage games with peanuts and his recoveries having strong offensive options.

Diddy has one of the best neutral games but he shouldn't have to use it.

Spoiler: Donkey Kong

Shield-grab an opponent, then do crazy things with cargo throws.

Spoiler: Fox

Campy because lasers.
Aggro because shine, multi-shine, waveshine, dair-shine, jab-U-smash, etc.

Spoiler: Ganondorf

He approaches with side-B or Fair or Nair or Dair, then follows up with a jab, grab, or more Dairs/Bairs/Fairs until the opponent is dead.

ganon doesn't excel at extending combos. he hits you 3 times, you end up at 50 and worry about not making another mistake. if anything, he's a punish character with good edgeguard capabilities.

His best game plan is to scare you into giving up stage space, thereby limiting your options, so he can more easily punish you for making a wrong decision.

Spoiler: Ike

Superbly-long disjointed hitbox, strong attacks that can combo into each other because of the aforementioned reach, and quick-draw helps him cross the stage or approach quickly.

Personally, I would put him in Punishing for sure. Since he can punish hard and KO.

But he's also decent at Zoning, but a bit too slow to pull it off. I think Hit and Run would be his other viable option. His combos aren't long, but he can get in quick with his burst mobility, do some solid damage, then get back out.

Spoiler: Kirby

Kirby is a very interesting capitalization character in Project M! He strives for punishes and gimps, implementing reads with this character is very powerful... Kirby plays extremely well against those who are hotheaded and are not respecting him.

Link to Tetraflora's guide.

Spoiler: Link

His game is throwing projectiles.

Spoiler: Lucario

Can create a safe approach with Aura-cancelled down-B or Up-B, then combos with his magic series.

Spoiler: Luigi

Wavedash-dance to create an opening, then attack. If you try to combo him, he'll Nair you.

Spoiler: Mewtwo

What I got from Emukiller's guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e58wagkjRdQ

Spoiler: Ness

According to Hona, Ness can do anything.

Spoiler: Roy

Disjointed hitbox, low-endlag on attacks, strong attacks.

Spoiler: Samus

Land-cancel super-missile, missile, land-cancel super-missile, missile, missile, missile, see Esam.

Spoiler: Snake

Claymore, Tranqilizer, C4, grenade, U-smash, grenade, grenade.

Spoiler: Sonic

Sonic is as campy as they come. He waits for you to screw up then rushed around the world to hit you.

Spoiler: Squirtle

Withdraw (Side-B) makes it really easy to hit-and-run.

Spoiler: Yoshi

We need more info.
I've heard Bair is a pretty safe approach.

Yoshi has an s tier defensive game in the form of his super armor on the double jump, so he often sits back and baits you into attacking. At this point he can counter by djing and convert off that, or parry and pray it works.

Spoiler: Zelda

She's defensive in that Nayru's Love shuts down dash attacks and some projectiles, and Din's Fire can be placed to stop an approach, especially hurting characters that tend to approach in one way, like Luigi along the ground. When the opponent hits Din's Fire, she can (sometimes) come in for a punish.

Actually, I'm on the fence if she should be called punishing. It seems to me like her slow moves make it hard for her to punish.

Spoiler: Old pic

Using roughly the following definitions:

Aggro - This character approaches the opponent.

Campy - This character can deal enough damage to KO, and maybe even get a KO, without approaching.

Punishing - This character forces the opponent to make an unsafe move (without approaching or camping). This does not mean a character who can't do anything besides punish unsafe moves - anyone can do that.

And these sub-categories:
Hit & Run: This character can attack and get away without being punished.
Combo: This character can turn confirmed hits into longer strings.
Defensive: This character can be hard to approach by shutting down certain methods of attack, approach, or sometimes an entire character. This does not include shielding.

*Contains my ideas based mostly on my experience. If yours differs, please post them!
Full disclosure: I main Zelda.

 

[Captain Birdman]

As a Dedede main, I favor the idea that Dedede plays defensively and has a strong punish game. His aggro style isn't as efficient as other characters, but thanks to waddle dashing, aggro Dedede -can- exist (although it's not his best style, for sure).

I consider Falcon an Aggro/Punish character. Half of the reason his dash dance game is so scary is because his punishes can lead to kills.

I also recommend a few extra options, such as characters who excel at Gimps and Edge Guarding as a more crucial/standard part of their gameplay (Examples, Jiggs, D3, maybe Ivysaur).

 

[CORY]

ganon doesn't excel at extending combos. he hits you 3 times, you end up at 50 and worry about not making another mistake. if anything, he's a punish character with good edgeguard capabilities.

but that's not saying much, because if a character can't punish, they're probably not going to be very good. his edgeguarding is pretty solid, though, but not the best. he basically survives on the fact that if he gets one correct read, you're probably taking 60% and possibly will be put into a bad place.

 

[~Dad~]

"AGGRO: GANON, SQUIRTLE, FALCON"

lmao

 

[CORY]

well, falcon really fools people into thinking he's aggro rushdown hyper offense.

then they learn how to dd camp and learn the truth.

ganon, i had no idea how any of those conclusions were reached.

 

[~Dad~]

this thread will probably go nowhere useful

 

[KinGly]

I'd throw Sheik into the punishing, but I think this thread is a bit useless. There are a lot of characters that can be played in many different ways, and categorizing them into one of three groups seems a little... Idk, do whatever, discussion moves the meta I guess.

Edit: my sheik plays punishing, many sheiks (M2K for example) play her very campy, and that works to

 

[Chzrm3]

Idk, whenever I play a good Ganondorf I feel like I must've done something wrong, cause I get punished pretty hard. I'd say Gdorf definitely deserves the 'punish' tag. I agree with DK being there too, makes sense.

 

[muleet]

The point of that thread is interesting, and I don't understand why there are always people who shows only sarcasm without saying anything at all for this kind of thread. ~Dad~, whoever you are, just shut up. Miryafa is trying to say something constructive, that he thought for at least some time. Even M2K or Armada shouldn't show any contempt against unusual ways to classify characters.
(My post will probably be moderated, and in a way it is absurd, considering ~Dad~'s messages.)

 

[~Dad~]

The point of that thread is interesting, and I don't understand why there are always people who shows only sarcasm without saying anything at all for this kind of thread. ~Dad~, whoever you are, just shut up. Miryafa is trying to say something constructive, that he thought for at least some time. Even M2K or Armada shouldn't show any contempt against unusual ways to classify characters.
(My post will probably be moderated, and in a way it is absurd, considering ~Dad~'s messages.)

lmao

 

[ShadowGanon]

Just sayin', whoever said that Ganondorf is aggro should be dragged into a dark room and forced to watch the Avatar: the Last Airbender movie and Dragonball: Evolution.

In actuality, he's somewhere between campy and punishing because his approach is TERRIBLE.

 

[JOE!]

Just sayin', whoever said that Ganondorf is aggro should be dragged into a dark room and forced to watch the Avatar: the Last Airbender movie and Dragonball: Evolution.
.

 

[PlateProp]

Just sayin', whoever said that Ganondorf is aggro should be dragged into a dark room and forced to watch the Avatar: the Last Airbender movie and Dragonball: Evolution.

 

[Miryafa]

Thanks everyone who posted character advice. So I'm seeing:
-D3 is punishing/aggro
-Falcon can be punishing and supposedly not aggro (but no one else has said anything about his approaches)
-Ganon can be punishing, edge-guarding, not combo, and supposedly not aggro (but side-B?)
-Sheik can be punishing or campy

I also recommend a few extra options, such as characters who excel at Gimps and Edge Guarding as a more crucial/standard part of their gameplay (Examples, Jiggs, D3, maybe Ivysaur).

I agree some characters are good at gimping and others aren't. The question is how can they get the opponent into a position to be gimped? Maybe gimping should be a sub-tag. I dunno about edge-guarding though - I think every character can do that.

There are a lot of characters that can be played in many different ways, and categorizing them into one of three groups seems a little...

Yeah, I want to write down all the different ways the characters can be played (when you're playing to their strengths). There's can be more than 3 groups, and probably should be - it's just that I could only think of 3.

 

[CORY]

A command grab doesn't make ganon aggro.

There's really very few characters who can be called truly aggro in this game, the primary example being fox. But, he can also camp like a champ and he punishes super hard, too.

Ganon doesn't move fast enough, nor does he have the mixup potential, combined with safety, to actually rush down and be aggressive. His best game plan is to scare you into giving up stage space, thereby limiting your options, so he can more easily punish you for making a wrong decision.

But that's literally smash 101 for pretty much any character. He does have strong conditioning tools, but his speed makes him have to primarily play patient and wait for a mistake, rather than force one out of you.

 

[ShadowGanon]

10/10 @ CORY nailed it. Ganon has combo potential (though it might only be a 3-hit combo at most), he just prefers to trick his opponents into doing things they don't want to do to start them. Besides, who needs combos when you already hit like a truck?

 

[Miryafa]

Now I'm wondering: do the different playstyles just boil down to "approach/not approach"? With some variations in approach and some different reasons for not approaching?

 

[JOE!]

Way I see it, it boils down to a few things globally:

Approach/camp
grounded/aerial
Gimp focused/ko focused
grab happy/not as grab happy
Big punisher/resets
tanky/frail

Or something like that. Each character is a combination of those traits in some manner.

 

[Miryafa]

Updated the pic to this:

Where red is "approach", blue is "doesn't approach." For the sake of getting discussion moving, I made some guesses based on observation with characters I'm not as familiar with. Is this pretty accurate? How can I make it more accurate?

 

[Karmaic Avidity]

Zelda doesn't really zone like she used to. She can, but it's not her strong suit anymore. She really wants to wait out until you make a mistake, and then kill the h*ck out of you for doing so. She has a lot of tools that rack up damage, and ones that punish little mistakes, like not shielding all of usmash, or improperly punish LC Nayru's.

 

[Miryafa]

Thanks. I added punishing to the pic to account for that - better?

 

[Leafeon]

Wario seems like a zoning character similar to marth or jigglypuff...

 

[KinGly]

Sonic is as campy as they come. He waits for you to screw up then rushed around the world to hit you.

Edit: also, one of the top players in my region plays yoshi, and yoshi's approach is kinda crap according to him

 

[otheusrex]

what a great thread! One thing about Zelda though, " ...when the opponent hits dins fire, she can run in and punish" I'd add the word "sometimes" to that since the combination of her speed, the low KB of dins at most percents, and the minimum distance make this type of punish a lot more situational than it was with 3.02 dins

 

[Miryafa]

Sonic is as campy as they come. He waits for you to screw up then rushed around the world to hit you.

Edit: also, one of the top players in my region plays yoshi, and yoshi's approach is kinda crap according to him

Thanks!

Isn't Sonic great at hit & run though? I thought I heard a sonic player in my region say that, though it's been awhile.

I've also heard Yoshi's approach with Bair is really safe, and the only PM Yoshi's I've seen go in with him.

 

[Starfall11]

As an Ike player for a while now, I absolutely love this thread. Personally, I would put him in Punishing for sure. Since he can punish hard and KO.

But he's also decent at Zoning, but a bit too slow to pull it off. I think Hit and Run would be his other viable option. His combos aren't long, but he can get in quick with his burst mobility, do some solid damage, then get back out.

 

[KinGly]

Thanks!

Isn't Sonic great at hit & run though? I thought I heard a sonic player in my region say that, though it's been awhile.

I've also heard Yoshi's approach with Bair is really safe, and the only PM Yoshi's I've seen go in with him.

Yoshi has an s tier defensive game in the form of his super armor on the double jump, so he often sits back and baits you into attacking. At this point he can counter by djing and convert off that, or parry and pray it works.

 

[Miryafa]

So more like this? (op updated):

 

[QuickLava]

I don't know about all the stuff on this list, but I've seen people go in super hard with Diddy, Samus, and Snake. Diddy and Samus are in an interesting spot, where they can force themselves in on characters that can't cope super well with projectiles. Diddy for example can pull some pretty nasty tricks with banana pressure, especially with all the fancy AGT stuff you can do to keep your opponent on their toes. If you can outpace your opponent, then you pretty much win. You can't beat what you can't mentally keep up with. The same goes for Samus to a lesser extent, with Missile Cancelling. Just the speed alone of firing missiles can be enough to overwhelm your opponent, which is all Samus needs to get in. Combine that with SWD, and you've got a recipe for destruction. I'm not saying that you can't play them the way listed here, but I feel like they have other very viable fighting styles that at least deserve to be mentioned.

 

[GanondorkMSK!]

Honestly, it's true that characters have been made to be used in a certain way, but a lot of characters have enough tools to fit your playstyle.

 

[4tlas]

All characters can be played in all styles, but to differing levels of efficiency. Without the ability to play a particular style, even poorly, the rock-paper-scissor mechanics that are fundamental to all fighting games wouldn't work. This is attack, approach, and parry (shield/spot dodge + counterattack). Other rock-paper-scissors mechanics that run counter to those are grab being inbetween attack and parry, jump is an approach that is also an attack but carries more risk if you are hit (so it counters approach and possibly parry if l-cancel makes it safe on shield), projectiles allow you to attack and do any other option at the same time, etc.

However, what we are talking about is which options are more efficient for each character, right? I think Joe!'s criteria may be a good place to start.

 

[QuickLava]

All characters can be played in all styles, but to differing levels of efficiency. Without the ability to play a particular style, even poorly, the rock-paper-scissor mechanics that are fundamental to all fighting games wouldn't work. This is attack, approach, and parry (shield/spot dodge + counterattack). Other rock-paper-scissors mechanics that run counter to those are grab being inbetween attack and parry, jump is an approach that is also an attack but carries more risk if you are hit (so it counters approach and possibly parry if l-cancel makes it safe on shield), projectiles allow you to attack and do any other option at the same time, etc.

However, what we are talking about is which options are more efficient for each character, right? I think Joe!'s criteria may be a good place to start.

Then I'd retract my statement on Samus and Snake, but is Diddy really a ranged character? Diddy has some of the best offensive potential in the game, so why would he be considered a zoning character?

 

[GanondorkMSK!]

A good amount of Diddy play is trying to bait out a mistake while using the banana as pressure so he get a good combo in, so I'd agree that he is a zoning character.
He doesn't have much ranged going for him besides the banana, which can backfire.

 

[QuickLava]

A good amount of Diddy play is trying to bait out a mistake while using the banana as pressure so he get a good combo in, so I'd agree that he is a zoning character.
He doesn't have much ranged going for him besides the banana, which can backfire.

Yes, I suppose you're right. Nevermind then.

 

[4tlas]

Then I'd retract my statement on Samus and Snake, but is Diddy really a ranged character? Diddy has some of the best offensive potential in the game, so why would he be considered a zoning character?

Diddy could do zoning with 2 bananas. With only 1 he instead does well with aggressively using it as a projectile then capitalizing on those punishes.

I would argue he should be defensive hit & run.

 

[Blitzus]

 

[Jinjo64]

Kirby is amazing at punishment, and even more amazing as a gimpy character. Especially with the CUTTER SPIKE!!! So basically Kirby's game is looking for mistakes since his approach has always been his weakness throughout smash history. (Besides 64 most of the time). And capitalizing HARD on gimping his opponents.

Also I wouldn't say hes 100% campy because with projectile characters...he is always forced to approach since he doesn't have a reliable projectile, has average ground speed, and a really slow air speed. Forcing to keep the pressure on and staying close to his enemies throughout. Since if hes far away...what can he do?

TL;DR Gimpy/Punish. Aerial is debatable due to his air speed.

The first few paragraphs from this would help the Kirby notes a ton as well! http://smashboards.com/threads/tetrafloras-kirby-guide.378197/

 

[Miryafa]

Also I wouldn't say hes 100% campy because with projectile characters...he is always forced to approach since he doesn't have a reliable projectile, has average ground speed, and a really slow air speed. Forcing to keep the pressure on and staying close to his enemies throughout. Since if hes far away...what can he do?

If I might draw your attention this way...

But yeah, everyone has to approach when their opponent can out-camp them and has a % lead. I wouldn't say that makes Kirby an approaching character. Thanks for the link and info though! Added it to the OP.

 

[wiiztec]

Lol Sonic is the complete opposite of campy

 

[~Dad~]

this thread will probably go nowhere useful

hey would you look at that