Clouds first impressions thread.

[Zalezus]

@

I don't have him on my 3DS (I don't have any of the DLC period), but I finally got to play him over at my friend's house.
He's... alright. He's extremely easy to gimp, I have no idea what is the KO% for his Up Smash (I know it's a really, really weak move), and his special moves without limit breaker aren't that great. He's also combo food for Mario.
I think his recovery is what's really hurting any potential he might have. One mistake can get you killed very early, and if you want your recovery to be decent, you need to have your limit breaker maxed out and waste it recovering.

I feel compelled to respond:

His Neutral-B, Side-B, and up smash all are subpar if you think about them solely in terms of kill potential or damage. As spacing tools, they get pretty awesome.

My favorite are the free nairs (or RAR nair/bair) you can get from punishing mid-ranged Blade Beam reactions. And Cross Slash quickly covers one of the most vulnerable areas in this game, above and in front/behind.

 

[FamilyTeam]

@


I feel compelled to respond:

His Neutral-B, Side-B, and up smash all are subpar if you think about them solely in terms of kill potential or damage. As spacing tools, they get pretty awesome.

My favorite are the free nairs (or RAR nair/bair) you can get from punishing mid-ranged Blade Beam reactions. And Cross Slash quickly covers one of the most vulnerable areas in this game, above and in front/behind.

Yeah, sorry, I was only looking at them thinking of kill power.
I noticed they seem good for spacing yeah. Though I couldn't implement his Up Smash into anything I found useful. Then again, I didn't play him for that long and I don't plan on maining him, heh. Still really good to know if you're going against him.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

I did check out some Cloud matches at the Replay Channel, but not all of the Cloud players had the smarts to utilize the Limit Break status properly.

If one wants to use Cloud right, you'll probably have to avoid being reckless with Limit Break's boosts, since Limit Break does improve Cloud's recovery; without it, you won't get much horizontal movement out of Climhazzard.

 

[Rioku]

So I got together with a local Villager main today and we sat down with the Cloud v Villager for about 6 hours. He's a lot better than me but man Cloud performs so much better than my Shulk and Ike it isn't even funny. Villager bair and fair gimps are a pain, but, Climhazzard is absolutely hilarious if you know you aren't going to recover you can try and trade stocks.

Villager is pretty rough, but I wouldn't say it's a downright awful MU. Dtilt is great for getting in esp when he's popping a Llyod Rocket, and it's pretty easy to follow a dtilt with whatever. Your up air can challenge his turnips so long as you space yourself to where clouds head doesn't get smacked. This is pretty easy and a fast fall up air beats out the air dodge (that move is way too good) so you can rack up some serious damage with a juggle. Charging limits is key since that was my main way of killing Villager. LB Cross Slash is super fast and Finishing Touch has stupid range above you and I found it a lot easier to land as a mix up from a juggle. You projectile is good and stops his, but it's really slow and leaves you open, use with caution. But for the most part just playing very defensive and keeping stage control was the best way to beat Villager cause once he gets you off stage it's done unless you have a Limit Break.

One thing we did notice during some practice matches against random characters is that at less than 20ish percent down throw to fsmash or cross slash appears to be true as those moves hit before some characters hit the ground. That's a lot of damage out of a throw if it is true. We didn't test it out too much but it worked a lot.

 

[SleuthMechanism]

I am so in love with this character. Finally someone that fills the gaping void pre-smash 4 marth left in my soul. Thanks so much dev team and please don't nerf him.

 

[Kirby Phelps (PK)]

First impressions? Cloud is a Ryu killer.

 

[Super_Smasher6]

I dont particularly find him broken but there's one move in particular that IS broken imo, his dash attack... given how fast it is, why is it able to kill samus at 117%? and Ganondorf with 130%?

 

[Rioku]

I dont particularly find him broken but there's one move in particular that IS broken imo, his dash attack... given how fast it is, why is it able to kill samus at 117%? and Ganondorf with 130%?

It isn't normally able to kill until at least 150% in my experience though I've found some weird instances of his moves killing much earlier than they should. I killed a Pikachu with down tilt at 94%. No idea how or why that happened.

 

[S_B]

Proper play with Cloud centers around building that LB in every spare moment you can, and as it's been pointed out, you can act immediately out of LB charge so you SHOULD be charging it every chance you get.

With it charged, his recovery is god-tier, so you really want to keep it charged as often as possible and only spend the meter when you're sure you're going to land the hit.

Basically, Cloud is a character that's going to reward high-level play extremely well and probably give casuals a lot of fun just spamming his generally powerful kill moves. He's probably one of the most well-designed characters in the game because Sakurai figured out a way to make what might have been yet another swordsman in a sea of swordsmen actually unique.

 

[Sunshine Jesse]

Cloud is fun.

His Little Mac-tier recovery is kind of a bummer. The fact that it's vertical instead of horizontal seems to make it a lot better than it would be otherwise, but it's still a drag, and the accidental SDs are real.

His Aerials all seem really good, almost like explicitly better versions of Ike's (although nair is a tad worse due to the lack of a more lingering hitbox).

I like how he isn't that difficult to KO with. It's refreshing compared to a few other characters I play where you have to paint the Mona-Lisa with the control stick in order to get a kill.

One thing that I appreciate is that he seems good without his Limit Breaks. Normally characters with a meter-building concept are overly balanced around it and suck too hard outside of it, or at least in a lot of other games I play. I was concerned that his Limit Breaks would be really strong but he'd be really weak without them.

He seems well-rounded. Maybe not top-tier, but I definitely see potential for results on a local or regional level.

Also his uair and bair are really OP in Smash Run.

 

[Dr. Shades]

Honestly, as a MK main, Cloud is a good opponent to fight.

1. Cloud is a faster/lighter Ike, but a tougher fighter to gimp/shut down compared to Little Mac. Sure his recovery is bad, but limit break gives Cloud the edge over Mac in terms of usability.

2. Projectiles, the priority of the Buster Sword, and his plethora of lagless moves make him an amazing hybrid.

3. His playstyle has forced me to embrace more bait and punish with dimensional cape rather than a full rush down dash attack/dash grab and suffer no consequences(lookin' at you DK).

4. His anti-air game is great. If I'm not careful, Cloud can easily turn my lag against me and put the match back in his favor. Compared to Little Mac, Ike, and other similar characters, Cloud is the best at it.

All in all, Cloud is annoying but in a good way. I'll just appreciate him more once the For Glory craze settles down and Clouds become more manageable.

Cloud's release is not as bad as vanilla Mac/Bowser and I can tell the devs tried to integrate him into the meta as best they could.

Also, there are people who think that if you're losing to Cloud on For Glory that makes him OP and that Greninja needs a nerf.

 

[Kerfuffle]

IMO, Cloud is one of the only characters that can truly use his great range to space people out. Mix that with his above average damage potential, crazy kill potential, and KO gimmick, I think he's viable at a tourney level without a secondary. sure, he can be gimped easily, but if you're good enough at managing limit meter, you can easily compensate with early kills and limit up-b.