CT Chia
Smash Obsessed
In the interest of sharing information, I wanted to make my own mini-guide for Mii Gunner and what I think about him. I would love for more people to play the character and get accustom to it. The more Mii mains the better, and greater chances we'll see of them being standardized everywhere!
Personal Background
I was a Samus main in Melee, and a ROB main in Brawl. With Smash 4 I solo mained ROB in the 3DS version, and as time went on in the Wii U version I continued to look for alt characters as well since I wasn't enjoying ROB quite as much anymore with his new style, and eventually found Mii Gunner. Gunner reminds me a lot of Melee Samus, and the character feels pretty second nature to me. I would say that ROB Is still my best at the moment, followed by Mii Gunner, then King Dedede. Despite ROB being my best, I've had to rely on both my Gunner and DDD multiple times in tournament to overcome opponents my ROB couldn't defeat, especially my Gunner. I still enjoy the 3DS version a lot, but I'll barely touch Gunner in it since I'm very poor at wavebouncing on the Circle Pad, which is a huge part of my Gunner game.
My Favorite Mii
If you've seen my streams at all and I get the access to use my system as the stream setup in tournament, you'll know that I try to use the same Mii as much as possible for Gunner - GearsOfWa! This was a joke Mii I made back during the Japanese version of 3DS, which was a Waluigi Mii (I hope he eventually comes to Smash!!) in the High Tech Armor and Waluigi Hat. It's a throwback to the game Gears of War, but with a new spin on it a la Waluigi~
My Mii Set
Unlike most Mii Gunner mains, I opt to not use Grenade Launch and continue to use Charge Blast. I admit that Grenade Launch is probably a better move overall, but I'm not as natural with it, and instead love the setups and damage output from Charge Blast. The style of the character gives you incredibly easy access to charge your blast, and he has some of the best tools in the game to trap into it by forcing airdodges and attacking from a range. Since I've been playing Samus in Smash for about 8 years, the concept of Charge Blast is natural to me. I use Bomb Drop on Down B to basically give me a similar cover to what Grenade Launch does, and is the center of my game. I'm not quite as attached to my Gunner Missile and Lunar Launch, but they feel good. I opt for Lunar Launch to give me good recovery off stage which helps me live a lot longer (and good up high recovery mixups) and go a bit more aggressive off stage. Missiles I use to mixup my projectile game and force air dodges with homing missiles when in the appropriate situation. All of his Side Bs are pretty poor, but Missile seems to have the best use. Overall my set is 1312.
Approach To Gameplay
My Mii Gunner has a relatively programmatic playstyle. Honestly, almost any character I play in Smash is like that. I like to think that I could essentially plan out a giant intricate flow chart of how I play each character, back from Melee and into Smash 4, and my Mii Gunner is no different. Maybe I should try to reprogram the AI script in Brawl one of these days to see if I can replicate me as a player!
When I have the opportunity to charge my Charge Blast, I do. I tend to be a bit more liberal with my Blast, and won't be afraid to use it up in a situation where it may not work. Only when I see that I need about one more Charge Blast to put the opponent in kill percent will I focus a bit harder on it to get a setup that is guaranteed so I can work towards that kill. The frame data on Charge Blast is very different from all of his other projectiles, and is great to use after you've gotten your opponent conditioned to reacting to Bombs, Missiles, or Fairs. The move is deceptively fast, and I particularly enjoy doing it at an opponent dashing at me, which either will hit them, or stop them from approaching me and keep me safe. One of the most guaranteed setups for getting a Charge Blast is to fire a Homing Missile at a recovering opponent, and wait for them to air dodge from that, and punish with the Charge Blast. My favorite setup that I've personally discovered for landing a Charge Blast at 0% or low percent (which is guaranteed on some characters) is to Down Throw, Full Hop Nair, and then they either get hit by the Nair, or Air Dodge it and then you can punish the Air Dodge with a Charge Blast. The Charge Blast is also a good backup kill move to have, as it can get tough to KO some opponents at high percents, where the Blast can still killing usually at around 140-150%.
In order to keep getting your Charge Blast, you need to stay safe. Bomb Drop Bomp Drop Bomp Drop Bomb Drop! Seriously this move is what makes Gunner in my opinion. Without it, he simple isn't the same. It's one of the safest moves in the game in my opinion, and is one of the best projectiles. Unfortunately it was nerfed in a recent patch where it would blow up on contact with a move and hurt the opponent still, but now opponents can attack the bombs to make them explode and clash with them, taking no damage. Even despite this nerf, it's still amazing. This move can basically guarantee safe landing, which is absolutely huge in this game. Almost my entire neutral game is full hopping and then using this move. You can mix it up by jumping forward or back, and wavebouncing the move. Furthermore you can use the move either fairly early to have a lagless landing from it, full hop double bomb, or use it late in the jump to land with it on top of you. It sounds simple, but the mixups you can make from this one move are outstanding. Practice your wavebouncing with it and put a lot of thought into risk analysis with this. Many times I'll put myself into a purposefully laggy situation to coax my opponent to grab me, only to actually be landing ontop of a bomb and have it blow them up. Your bombs don't do damage to yourself (unless reflected), so use that to your advantage. Furthermore, your bombs can eventually kill as well! This move does everything.
With all of this in mind, I play the neutral with heavy bomb usage to learn my opponent and continue to tack on damage. You'll find many safe opportunities to charge up your blast to use that to tack on damage as well. Before you know it, your opponent will be at kill percent, and you should have a good read on how they approach so you can land kill moves like Bair, Fsmash, Up Smash, or land grabs and then harass them with Up Air while they're above you. Did I mention how amazing Up Air is? Use it. Abuse it.
Fun Tricks
This is my current personal tier list:
I put Mii Gunner at 16 from the bottom, or at the bottom of D tier. It looks pretty low, but this is a fairly balanced game outside of the top of the top and the lowest of the low in my opinion. Mii Gunner in classic terms feels to be about a Mid Tier character to me. If restricted to 1111, I'd say Mii Gunner drops to F tier.
Good Matchups for Gunner
For some more important matchups out there of good characters, I'd look to use Gunner against the following:
Stay away from characters with a good reflector, where your projectiles (aka your moveset lol) are useless. Rosalina is potentially Gunner's worst matchup, as she can just wisp away move of your moves, and has Luma as a shield ontop of that. It's awful for Gunner, and I wouldn't recommend relying on Gunner for Rosalina at all. Likewise I would steer clear of Falco as well, and Fox is no fun. Absorbing characters like Ness and Lucas aren't quite as bad as it would seem. They can only bucket your Fair, Charge Blast, and the explosion from Bombs. Charge Blast is easy to restrain yourself from using, Fair is only a small thing and you can mix up other aerials, and absorbing Bomb Drop is actually pretty hard. They have to space themselves far away from the bomb to absorb the explosion without getting hit by the bomb. If the bomb hits them too, they get hit and their absorb doesn't work. I'll still Bomb Drop spam against a Ness all day, and the good landing helps prevent you from getting grabbed.
I hope you could all learn a lot from this guide! I'd love to see more players utilize Gunner, and help push for the #FreeMii movement! I'll continue to update this over time, and answer any questions people have here.
Personal Background
I was a Samus main in Melee, and a ROB main in Brawl. With Smash 4 I solo mained ROB in the 3DS version, and as time went on in the Wii U version I continued to look for alt characters as well since I wasn't enjoying ROB quite as much anymore with his new style, and eventually found Mii Gunner. Gunner reminds me a lot of Melee Samus, and the character feels pretty second nature to me. I would say that ROB Is still my best at the moment, followed by Mii Gunner, then King Dedede. Despite ROB being my best, I've had to rely on both my Gunner and DDD multiple times in tournament to overcome opponents my ROB couldn't defeat, especially my Gunner. I still enjoy the 3DS version a lot, but I'll barely touch Gunner in it since I'm very poor at wavebouncing on the Circle Pad, which is a huge part of my Gunner game.
My Favorite Mii
If you've seen my streams at all and I get the access to use my system as the stream setup in tournament, you'll know that I try to use the same Mii as much as possible for Gunner - GearsOfWa! This was a joke Mii I made back during the Japanese version of 3DS, which was a Waluigi Mii (I hope he eventually comes to Smash!!) in the High Tech Armor and Waluigi Hat. It's a throwback to the game Gears of War, but with a new spin on it a la Waluigi~
My Mii Set
Unlike most Mii Gunner mains, I opt to not use Grenade Launch and continue to use Charge Blast. I admit that Grenade Launch is probably a better move overall, but I'm not as natural with it, and instead love the setups and damage output from Charge Blast. The style of the character gives you incredibly easy access to charge your blast, and he has some of the best tools in the game to trap into it by forcing airdodges and attacking from a range. Since I've been playing Samus in Smash for about 8 years, the concept of Charge Blast is natural to me. I use Bomb Drop on Down B to basically give me a similar cover to what Grenade Launch does, and is the center of my game. I'm not quite as attached to my Gunner Missile and Lunar Launch, but they feel good. I opt for Lunar Launch to give me good recovery off stage which helps me live a lot longer (and good up high recovery mixups) and go a bit more aggressive off stage. Missiles I use to mixup my projectile game and force air dodges with homing missiles when in the appropriate situation. All of his Side Bs are pretty poor, but Missile seems to have the best use. Overall my set is 1312.
Approach To Gameplay
My Mii Gunner has a relatively programmatic playstyle. Honestly, almost any character I play in Smash is like that. I like to think that I could essentially plan out a giant intricate flow chart of how I play each character, back from Melee and into Smash 4, and my Mii Gunner is no different. Maybe I should try to reprogram the AI script in Brawl one of these days to see if I can replicate me as a player!
When I have the opportunity to charge my Charge Blast, I do. I tend to be a bit more liberal with my Blast, and won't be afraid to use it up in a situation where it may not work. Only when I see that I need about one more Charge Blast to put the opponent in kill percent will I focus a bit harder on it to get a setup that is guaranteed so I can work towards that kill. The frame data on Charge Blast is very different from all of his other projectiles, and is great to use after you've gotten your opponent conditioned to reacting to Bombs, Missiles, or Fairs. The move is deceptively fast, and I particularly enjoy doing it at an opponent dashing at me, which either will hit them, or stop them from approaching me and keep me safe. One of the most guaranteed setups for getting a Charge Blast is to fire a Homing Missile at a recovering opponent, and wait for them to air dodge from that, and punish with the Charge Blast. My favorite setup that I've personally discovered for landing a Charge Blast at 0% or low percent (which is guaranteed on some characters) is to Down Throw, Full Hop Nair, and then they either get hit by the Nair, or Air Dodge it and then you can punish the Air Dodge with a Charge Blast. The Charge Blast is also a good backup kill move to have, as it can get tough to KO some opponents at high percents, where the Blast can still killing usually at around 140-150%.
In order to keep getting your Charge Blast, you need to stay safe. Bomb Drop Bomp Drop Bomp Drop Bomb Drop! Seriously this move is what makes Gunner in my opinion. Without it, he simple isn't the same. It's one of the safest moves in the game in my opinion, and is one of the best projectiles. Unfortunately it was nerfed in a recent patch where it would blow up on contact with a move and hurt the opponent still, but now opponents can attack the bombs to make them explode and clash with them, taking no damage. Even despite this nerf, it's still amazing. This move can basically guarantee safe landing, which is absolutely huge in this game. Almost my entire neutral game is full hopping and then using this move. You can mix it up by jumping forward or back, and wavebouncing the move. Furthermore you can use the move either fairly early to have a lagless landing from it, full hop double bomb, or use it late in the jump to land with it on top of you. It sounds simple, but the mixups you can make from this one move are outstanding. Practice your wavebouncing with it and put a lot of thought into risk analysis with this. Many times I'll put myself into a purposefully laggy situation to coax my opponent to grab me, only to actually be landing ontop of a bomb and have it blow them up. Your bombs don't do damage to yourself (unless reflected), so use that to your advantage. Furthermore, your bombs can eventually kill as well! This move does everything.
With all of this in mind, I play the neutral with heavy bomb usage to learn my opponent and continue to tack on damage. You'll find many safe opportunities to charge up your blast to use that to tack on damage as well. Before you know it, your opponent will be at kill percent, and you should have a good read on how they approach so you can land kill moves like Bair, Fsmash, Up Smash, or land grabs and then harass them with Up Air while they're above you. Did I mention how amazing Up Air is? Use it. Abuse it.
Fun Tricks
- Force airdodges horizontally with moves like Homing Missile and punish with a Charge Blast!
- Throw your opponents with Down Throw or Up Throw, and then follow them and punish air dodges with Up Air.
- Use Up Air to attack across an entire platform.
- If you see that your opponent isn't good at powershielding, go for shield breaks. I would confidently say that Gunner is the best character in the game at getting shield breaks, since Bombs on their own do about 40% shield damage.
- If you land a good bomb on an opponent's shield that wasn't power shielded and have a Charge Blast, look to nail the shield break with Missile + Charge Blast, or Bomb + Charge Blast. Fair (and most other moves) usually will shield stab. Missile, Charge Blast, and Bomb are your best moves at finishing off a shield break.
- Fair has fairly low landing lag, and you can even combo Fair to Fair, or Fair to Charge Blast at lower percents.
- A great counter to rush in approaches is a pivot Fsmash, which has incredible range, though is incredibly punishable on shield.
- Due to how far Fsmash hits, it's a great tool to use against opponents that can't sweetspot. Use it against opponents like Little Mac (his Up B doesn't sweetspot) to score low percent gimps.
- Jab 1 and Jab 2 can both link or semi-combo into other moves like Usmash.
- With a combination of rage and your opponent being at high percent, some multi hit moves will fail to link into their strong hitbox, such as Usmash, Dsmash, and Jab 3. Dsmash is probably the most likely culprit of this. If you have a shield broken opponent, don't use Usmash or Dsmash, and go for Fsmash instead.
- Uair is an incredibly long move, so using it off stage almost guarantees death.
- Despite having relatively short landing lag, Fair has deceptively long cool down in the air and isn't particularly safe to use off stage if you are below stage height, or you'll fall too low to recover.
- Your Fair, despite being one of your normals, can be reflected. Your Fsmash and Uair however can not be, so you're okay there.
This is my current personal tier list:
I put Mii Gunner at 16 from the bottom, or at the bottom of D tier. It looks pretty low, but this is a fairly balanced game outside of the top of the top and the lowest of the low in my opinion. Mii Gunner in classic terms feels to be about a Mid Tier character to me. If restricted to 1111, I'd say Mii Gunner drops to F tier.
Good Matchups for Gunner
For some more important matchups out there of good characters, I'd look to use Gunner against the following:
- Yoshi: I think this matchup is one that Gunner wins, and Yoshi is a powerhouse in this game. Bomb Drop stops just about all of Yoshi's approaches, and Gunner completely outranges everything Yoshi has. Despite the usefulness of Reflector in this matchup to stay safe from Eggs, I'd still rather pick Bomb Drop against Yoshi since it makes his life hell. Furthermore, your long range attacks can help edgeguard Yoshi from a safe distance.
- Pikachu: This is another matchup similar to Yoshi where your bombs can stop many of Pikachus approaches. Especially considering that Pikachu has a relatively weak air game and focuses on ground approaches (especially for kills), the ability to land for free is indispensable here. This is probably around an even matchup.
- Ryu: The great thing that Gunner has here in this matchup is multi-hit moves. Ryu relies pretty heavily on his Focus Attack to tank hits with Super Armor to get down to the ground, but only armors a single hit. Gunner can then cover and break Focus Attack with Uair, Bomb Drop (it's two hits!), Usmash, and Fsmash. Outside of this, Ryu loves to stay up close and personal, and Gunner has all the tools to prevent this from happening. I haven't done this matchup as much as I'd like, but I could see this going in Gunner's favor.
Stay away from characters with a good reflector, where your projectiles (aka your moveset lol) are useless. Rosalina is potentially Gunner's worst matchup, as she can just wisp away move of your moves, and has Luma as a shield ontop of that. It's awful for Gunner, and I wouldn't recommend relying on Gunner for Rosalina at all. Likewise I would steer clear of Falco as well, and Fox is no fun. Absorbing characters like Ness and Lucas aren't quite as bad as it would seem. They can only bucket your Fair, Charge Blast, and the explosion from Bombs. Charge Blast is easy to restrain yourself from using, Fair is only a small thing and you can mix up other aerials, and absorbing Bomb Drop is actually pretty hard. They have to space themselves far away from the bomb to absorb the explosion without getting hit by the bomb. If the bomb hits them too, they get hit and their absorb doesn't work. I'll still Bomb Drop spam against a Ness all day, and the good landing helps prevent you from getting grabbed.
I hope you could all learn a lot from this guide! I'd love to see more players utilize Gunner, and help push for the #FreeMii movement! I'll continue to update this over time, and answer any questions people have here.
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