Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[The_Bookworm]

Despite being a popular choice none broke top 32, further making me doubt the character's top tier.

It is noticing, but Kome, the best Shulk player in Japan had a very unfortunate bracket.

Want to know who is the man who ran into Shuton in winner's and then immediately into Abadango in loser's before he can reach top 32? That man is Kome, apparently.

 

[Lacrimosa]

It is noticing, but Kome, the best Shulk player in Japan had a very unfortunate bracket.

Want to know who is the man who ran into Shuton in winner's and then immediately into Abadango in loser's before he can reach top 32? That man is Kome, apparently.

The question would be how close these games were.
Were those games with a (last-hit) last-stock scenario or were they in clear favor of Shuton and Abadango?

 

[The_Bookworm]

The question would be how close these games were.
Were those games with a (last-hit) last-stock scenario or were they in clear favor of Shuton and Abadango?

Shuton was 2-0 and Abadango was 2-1.

 

[Rizen]

Nice to see Toon Link get a bit of representation. I feel like he's being pretty underrated right now, because Young Link overshadows him in some ways.

People also seem to forget that Toon Link is the fastest Link and in a game where speed matters, that's never really a bad thing.

Yeah we got some rare top level TL footage including Ri-ma beating Zackray here. TL definitely has things over YL, and vise versa. IMO they're both high tier.

 

[$.A.F.]

Hot Take: I’m going to be real, I think Plant is nowhere near bottom 5. I’m not going to start saying he’s like a top 3 character who’s absolutely broken, but he’s got the matchup spread of a mid tier or even high tier. First of all, he outright goes even with or beats Ness, Olimar, and Snake and possibly goes even with Wolf and Pichu. Ness legitimately becomes little Mac offstage vs Plant. It’s not even that his recovery is “exploitable” in the way Chrom’s is where in theory it’s trash, but you only get gimped once per set. No, I’m talking about up b and neutral b along with down b actually cancel Ness’s recovery. Ptooie shortens PKTII’s range, Hits the PKT and clanks sending Ness into free fall, and obviously is great for positioning. The other two specials do the last two as well. Not to mention Ness is outranged, and struggles with Ptooie along with having no options against cross up dash attack. Also he’s light enough where Plant can kill him very consistently along with his other advantages. This is a very clear winning Matchup. Next we have Snake who’s even better than Ness and arguably top 5. We should have a giant insurmountable problem winning neutral. And fairly enough, it’s no cakewalk and I won’t pretend that we win it. However, it becomes a lot easier since his best tool is neutered. Yep, poison blows up grenades, charged, uncharged or anything in between. You can also use a lot of floats and stalls you have to just generally bait him into doing stuff or try forcing an approach with poison. Also we can get in with an opening since we have a frame 6 dash attack and a projectile that does half his shield. Still, neutral is hard. Advantage against Snake is really good. We’re too heavy for him to grenade trade that often with us, and Plant’s advantage is really good already and is great at juggling. Not to mention we can exploit his high recovery pretty badly. Overall this matchup feels even or slightly in one or the others favor. Both kill off grab at 160, both beat the other pretty bad in disadvantage though Plant gets more out of it. Both also really don’t want to be IN disadvantage against the other since snake grenade trades will get him to general kill percentages for Plant faster than the other way around. Plant exploits his recovery better and gets slightly more out of advantage while, Snake wins neutral more often even if his neutral gets hampered by the loss of grenades. Olimar is possibly the best character in the game. However, Plant also counters his best neutral tool to a much greater degree, it instakills Pikmin. Playing the Olimar matchup consists of hiding in the cloud and harassing him since it stops him from hurting you at all basically. If Olimar combos weren’t so crazy damaging, we’d win hard, but as of now, it’s like 55/45 Plant Favor solely due to cloud. Pichu is another solidly top 5 character with opinions fluctuating on whether he’s #5 or #1 all the time. He dies at super low percentages, and we live to very high ones though Pichu has the KP to end stocks decently early on Plant even if he is really fat. Also he combos us pretty hard because we’re fat. However, preemptive Ptooie messes up a lot of stuff he wants to do and he can’t camp us since he hurts himself. Poison Cloud and Ptooie in general are very good vs Pichu. They play scared because they can’t commit a lot of the time. Pichu likes approaching from the air a lot. This is pretty good for Plant since he can up smash him at like 60-70 for a really early kill. Also we can extend aerials by hitting thunder jolt. We might actually be positive. As for wolf, I think we go even or lose. He can punish dash attack even if it crosses up, d smash 2 frames very well so you have to punishably recover high on occasion, and his kit is just pretty solid. However, Plant has a lot of stuff still going for him. Long Stem Strike and Ptooie (I think) do very well against his recovery. Jump Ptooie is good against laser, he’s not much faster than Plant, and he has a pretty bad disadvantage against Plant’s pretty good Advantage state. Still, not as confident in this matchup.

So yeah, that sums up some matchups that are really good against characters that are really common and good. I spent like a week looking at stuff and a good hour or two writing this in particular. I personally think that Plant is pretty good because of this or at least not bottom 5. Feel free to quote this post and let me know what you guys think, I’ll (almost) always respond in kind. Peace!

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Someone ny the name of Meshima has documented hitbox and frame data differences for notable moves with and without Arsene. You can see it all conveniently in this Eventhubs article about it. Yeah his hitboxes are absolutely massive once Arsene comes out. No wonder why most pro-platers plan is just to stall out until Arsene goes away. Joker becomes among the "swordiest" of sword charaters while its out

https://www.eventhubs.com/news/2019...nd-just-explode-size-when-his-persona-active/


So Joker had a decent repreenation at another tourament thanks to Tsu. Notabally using him for 2 games when he 3-0'd Zackray at Umebura SP4. Joker has potential to be high tier

 

[DelugeFGC]

I think Plant is mid tier, realistically, but I in no world would call the Olimar MU in plant's favor, nor would I say some of the other things. To a point it sounds like people are respecting the Plant's options a little TOO much, because that's a big problem with the Plant IMO. A lot of his neutral and tools.. it's all threatening and powerful in THEORY, but once you actually start seeing it contested in matches in clever ways? Well.. Plant starts to suffer. There's also not much he can commit to that doesn't leave him open to hard punishes in the Olimar MU, hiding in cloud all day is barely a solution and I personally don't see how it would effect much. There's plenty of ways Olimar can stick % on Plant (like by just Side Bing him and camping him, for example) without ever risking getting caught in a campy Plant's cloud.

I'd say that MU is in Olimar's favor, hard. Because a lot of Plant's neutral game Olimar can simply outdo. Olimar can outcamp the entire roster if he wants to, nobody plays defense like that better than him. As least in the Simon/Richter MU they can harass and pressure him constantly, Plant is stuck with meh mobility, terrible landing lag on his aerials, a projectile that's way better in theory than it is in practice and a Side B that in reality isn't a whole ton better. There is literally jack from stopping Olimar from Side B and FSmash camping Plant (Down B and Neutral B are laughably easy to either clank out or avoid outright) until he builds enough % to risk committing for a kill OR simply letting you get impatient and open yourself up for a punish. The projectile killing Pikmin means little when he can Bmash 3 times and spawn them all back in an instant when he's on the ground.. and don't pretend like Plant has amazing juggle tools to keep him off of it.

Poison Cloud really isn't the amazing tool I see a lot of Plant players say it is, I feel a lot of the reasons why so many Plant players THINK that it is, is because people you play end up giving it waaay too much respect. Once you know how to properly play around it, it's barely an issue.

 

[Sean²]

If poison cloud was like PK Fire or Holy Water and you got stuck inside of it, PP would be a ton better than he is now. But the fact that you can run right through it makes what could have been an amazing combo starter/confirm into a super mediocre move. His down B is easily telegraphed onstage, and offstage you could argue that the ptooie is a better edgeguarding tool in most scenarios. Speaking of the spike ball, a lot of his neutral is centralized around that move. Have the ability to neutralize that threat, and he'll have a lot harder time keeping up with his slow speed and short range. Lucky for him, reflectors don't send it at a good angle to hit him. Sure, he's got some funky moves that kill way earlier than you would expect, and is a lot heavier than at first glance, but it doesn't take much to keep him in check. He's also got a recovery that's pretty easy to intercept with most meteors.

If he was a bit faster and had that one change to his poison cloud, great character. I just think his options are so limited right now that he can't not be a low tier. Maybe not bottom 2 or 3 like most pros are predicting, but definitely not good.

 

[NairWizard]

Hot Take: I’m going to be real, I think Plant is nowhere near bottom 5. I’m not going to start saying he’s like a top 3 character who’s absolutely broken, but he’s got the matchup spread of a mid tier or even high tier. First of all, he outright goes even with or beats Ness, Olimar, and Snake and possibly goes even with Wolf and Pichu. Ness legitimately becomes little Mac offstage vs Plant. It’s not even that his recovery is “exploitable” in the way Chrom’s is where in theory it’s trash, but you only get gimped once per set. No, I’m talking about up b and neutral b along with down b actually cancel Ness’s recovery. Ptooie shortens PKTII’s range, Hits the PKT and clanks sending Ness into free fall, and obviously is great for positioning. The other two specials do the last two as well. Not to mention Ness is outranged, and struggles with Ptooie along with having no options against cross up dash attack. Also he’s light enough where Plant can kill him very consistently along with his other advantages. This is a very clear winning Matchup. Next we have Snake who’s even better than Ness and arguably top 5. We should have a giant insurmountable problem winning neutral. And fairly enough, it’s no cakewalk and I won’t pretend that we win it. However, it becomes a lot easier since his best tool is neutered. Yep, poison blows up grenades, charged, uncharged or anything in between. You can also use a lot of floats and stalls you have to just generally bait him into doing stuff or try forcing an approach with poison. Also we can get in with an opening since we have a frame 6 dash attack and a projectile that does half his shield. Still, neutral is hard. Advantage against Snake is really good. We’re too heavy for him to grenade trade that often with us, and Plant’s advantage is really good already and is great at juggling. Not to mention we can exploit his high recovery pretty badly. Overall this matchup feels even or slightly in one or the others favor. Both kill off grab at 160, both beat the other pretty bad in disadvantage though Plant gets more out of it. Both also really don’t want to be IN disadvantage against the other since snake grenade trades will get him to general kill percentages for Plant faster than the other way around. Plant exploits his recovery better and gets slightly more out of advantage while, Snake wins neutral more often even if his neutral gets hampered by the loss of grenades. Olimar is possibly the best character in the game. However, Plant also counters his best neutral tool to a much greater degree, it instakills Pikmin. Playing the Olimar matchup consists of hiding in the cloud and harassing him since it stops him from hurting you at all basically. If Olimar combos weren’t so crazy damaging, we’d win hard, but as of now, it’s like 55/45 Plant Favor solely due to cloud. Pichu is another solidly top 5 character with opinions fluctuating on whether he’s #5 or #1 all the time. He dies at super low percentages, and we live to very high ones though Pichu has the KP to end stocks decently early on Plant even if he is really fat. Also he combos us pretty hard because we’re fat. However, preemptive Ptooie messes up a lot of stuff he wants to do and he can’t camp us since he hurts himself. Poison Cloud and Ptooie in general are very good vs Pichu. They play scared because they can’t commit a lot of the time. Pichu likes approaching from the air a lot. This is pretty good for Plant since he can up smash him at like 60-70 for a really early kill. Also we can extend aerials by hitting thunder jolt. We might actually be positive. As for wolf, I think we go even or lose. He can punish dash attack even if it crosses up, d smash 2 frames very well so you have to punishably recover high on occasion, and his kit is just pretty solid. However, Plant has a lot of stuff still going for him. Long Stem Strike and Ptooie (I think) do very well against his recovery. Jump Ptooie is good against laser, he’s not much faster than Plant, and he has a pretty bad disadvantage against Plant’s pretty good Advantage state. Still, not as confident in this matchup.

So yeah, that sums up some matchups that are really good against characters that are really common and good. I spent like a week looking at stuff and a good hour or two writing this in particular. I personally think that Plant is pretty good because of this or at least not bottom 5. Feel free to quote this post and let me know what you guys think, I’ll (almost) always respond in kind. Peace!

This is a solid post but great scott man what did the enter button ever do to you?

 

[DelugeFGC]

If poison cloud was like PK Fire or Holy Water and you got stuck inside of it, PP would be a ton better than he is now. But the fact that you can run right through it makes what could have been an amazing combo starter/confirm into a super mediocre move. His down B is easily telegraphed onstage, and offstage you could argue that the ptooie is a better edgeguarding tool in most scenarios. Speaking of the spike ball, a lot of his neutral is centralized around that move. Have the ability to neutralize that threat, and he'll have a lot harder time keeping up with his slow speed and short range. Lucky for him, reflectors don't send it at a good angle to hit him. Sure, he's got some funky moves that kill way earlier than you would expect, and is a lot heavier than at first glance, but it doesn't take much to keep him in check. He's also got a recovery that's pretty easy to intercept with most meteors.

If he was a bit faster and had that one change to his poison cloud, great character. I just think his options are so limited right now that he can't not be a low tier. Maybe not bottom 2 or 3 like most pros are predicting, but definitely not good.

I honestly feel if you reduced the landing lag on his aerials, gave him just a pinch more kill power and changed poison cloud up like you mentioned.. Plant WOULD be high tier. Plant's not super badly designed or incomplete like I've seen some elude.. his kit just ultimately doesn't come together to amount to much in practice. PP is a very, IN THEORY, type of character in the current meta.

 

[ARISTOS]

DK can legit lose entire stocks in losing just one interaction, and that's not something that's common to a lot of characters, be it other heavies (most of whom have decent breaker moves) or top tiers. DK has the misfortune of being a big body with bad air acceleration (a great top speed, but really hard to get there-basically the same issues has in disadvantage) with slowish buttons that are not very safe, but his recovery travels in a predictable path meaning DK has to take a risk to avoid getting hit offstage. When he doesn't have any other options, usually after losing a jump, a lot of characters can easily stuff the recovery attempt.

DK wins when he doesn't have to play the disadvantage game, and he has some tools to do that but it's not a recipe for long term success.

is not built to approach, the whole idea behind the character is to play as a wall/fortress which the opponent has to try and penetrate. It's not meant to be jumping around, which is why it's aerials will likely never be buffed to a high level.

Be lucky this character isn't great/popular because you all would hate it otherwise.

 

[DelugeFGC]

DK can legit lose entire stocks in losing just one interaction, and that's not something that's common to a lot of characters, be it other heavies (most of whom have decent breaker moves) or top tiers. DK has the misfortune of being a big body with bad air acceleration (a great top speed, but really hard to get there-basically the same issues has in disadvantage) with slowish buttons that are not very safe, but his recovery travels in a predictable path meaning DK has to take a risk to avoid getting hit offstage. When he doesn't have any other options, usually after losing a jump, a lot of characters can easily stuff the recovery attempt.

DK wins when he doesn't have to play the disadvantage game, and he has some tools to do that but it's not a recipe for long term success.

is not built to approach, the whole idea behind the character is to play as a wall/fortress which the opponent has to try and penetrate. It's not meant to be jumping around, which is why it's aerials will likely never be buffed to a high level.

Be lucky this character isn't great/popular because you all would hate it otherwise.

Plenty of other characters have more defensive playstyles in neutral and didn't get stuffed with Brawl landing lag on their aerials. There's a difference in not being built to approach, and literally having every aerial you have be unsafe as hell in most situations.. defensive or not.

And on top of having terrible disadvantage, in a lot of MU's DK can take entire stocks off of one interaction.. especially if that interaction is a grab. He probably has the best advantage of ALL the heavies to make up for his piss disadvantage. Not to mention his neutral B can invalidate an entire stock at like 30% if he catches you with a read.

 

[Rizen]

Plenty of other characters have more defensive playstyles in neutral and didn't get stuffed with Brawl landing lag on their aerials. There's a difference in not being built to approach, and literally having every aerial you have be unsafe as hell in most situations.. defensive or not.

And on top of having terrible disadvantage, in a lot of MU's DK can take entire stocks off of one interaction.. especially if that interaction is a grab. He probably has the best advantage of ALL the heavies to make up for his piss disadvantage. Not to mention his neutral B can invalidate an entire stock at like 30% if he catches you with a read.

I agree. DK's possibly the scariest big character to be in disadvantage with. Maybe Ridley's a worse case if you count him. DK can rush you down with Bair walls offstage and actually stay under you when recovering down to the platform. Several big characters can wall you but don't have the mobility to chase you down like DK.

DK's disadvantage state is heavily influenced by if giant punch is charged. If it is you have to respect it as an armored landing option. Edit apparently it only has armor on the ground but headbutt has armor in the air. Interesting.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...uuzIH2DB4iQHVrqiG8VRbRA7Q/edit#gid=2009291155
It's worth mentioning that directional air dodges help him a ton.

 

[$.A.F.]

I think Plant is mid tier, realistically, but I in no world would call the Olimar MU in plant's favor, nor would I say some of the other things. To a point it sounds like people are respecting the Plant's options a little TOO much, because that's a big problem with the Plant IMO. A lot of his neutral and tools.. it's all threatening and powerful in THEORY, but once you actually start seeing it contested in matches in clever ways? Well.. Plant starts to suffer. There's also not much he can commit to that doesn't leave him open to hard punishes in the Olimar MU, hiding in cloud all day is barely a solution and I personally don't see how it would effect much. There's plenty of ways Olimar can stick % on Plant (like by just Side Bing him and camping him, for example) without ever risking getting caught in a campy Plant's cloud.

I'd say that MU is in Olimar's favor, hard. Because a lot of Plant's neutral game Olimar can simply outdo. Olimar can outcamp the entire roster if he wants to, nobody plays defense like that better than him. As least in the Simon/Richter MU they can harass and pressure him constantly, Plant is stuck with meh mobility, terrible landing lag on his aerials, a projectile that's way better in theory than it is in practice and a Side B that in reality isn't a whole ton better. There is literally jack from stopping Olimar from Side B and FSmash camping Plant (Down B and Neutral B are laughably easy to either clank out or avoid outright) until he builds enough % to risk committing for a kill OR simply letting you get impatient and open yourself up for a punish. The projectile killing Pikmin means little when he can Bmash 3 times and spawn them all back in an instant when he's on the ground.. and don't pretend like Plant has amazing juggle tools to keep him off of it.

Poison Cloud really isn't the amazing tool I see a lot of Plant players say it is, I feel a lot of the reasons why so many Plant players THINK that it is, is because people you play end up giving it waaay too much respect. Once you know how to properly play around it, it's barely an issue.

The Pikmin die if they get stuck on you while they’re in the cloud. They die basically by touching it. I’ve tested it with side smash. Or they straight up go back to Olimar after touching it. They go inside, they die extremely quickly almost instantly. According to the discord it stops side b unless it’s purple. It’s just very good in general vs his kit. Also Ptooie has never been easy to avoid and the hitbox is still active and rolls in toward Olimar if it hits a Pikmin which it invariably kills. Also down b and ptooie do a lot of shield damage and are easy to mix up the angle of from in there. And again, it kills or stops Pikmin. As in the f smash won’t even go forward if it touches even an uncharged Cloud. And no good juggling tools? Bro, Ptooie and Up Air are amazing at juggles and both kill Olimar at 100-120 consistently. Up Air is literally frame 7 and can be used in succession in the air due to it having good end lag. Nobody is arguing that Poison is a really good tool unless it’s in a certain matchup where it interacts with another characters kit in unique ways or one of the few characters it’s just a really good tool against. And how does he win hard if he can’t throw Pikmin or use Smash attacks through cloud? You’re tripping. And down special can actually mix up the angle very well inside Cloud and does really good percentage. And how can you Clank it? I mean, charged purple f smash is literally the only move that out prioritizes it and you can mix up the timing or face away if you see it getting charged. Like I said, poison cloud is busted in this MU.

EDIT: NairWizard , if you must know, the enter button killed my father.

EDIT: Also we’re heavier and destroy him in trades.

 

[NuzTheMonkey]

Someone mentioned not being bad OOS? What does have OOS? Genuinely curious.

 

[DelugeFGC]

The Pikmin die if they get stuck on you while they’re in the cloud. They die basically by touching it. I’ve tested it with side smash. Or they straight up go back to Olimar after touching it. They go inside, they die extremely quickly almost instantly. According to the discord it stops side b unless it’s purple. It’s just very good in general vs his kit. Also Ptooie has never been easy to avoid and the hitbox is still active and rolls in toward Olimar if it hits a Pikmin which it invariably kills. Also down b and ptooie do a lot of shield damage and are easy to mix up the angle of from in there. And again, it kills or stops Pikmin. As in the f smash won’t even go forward if it touches even an uncharged Cloud. And no good juggling tools? Bro, Ptooie and Up Air are amazing at juggles and both kill Olimar at 100-120 consistently. Up Air is literally frame 7 and can be used in succession in the air due to it having good end lag. Nobody is arguing that Poison is a really good tool unless it’s in a certain matchup where it interacts with another characters kit in unique ways or one of the few characters it’s just a really good tool against. And how does he win hard if he can’t throw Pikmin or use Smash attacks through cloud? You’re tripping. And down special can actually mix up the angle very well inside Cloud and does really good percentage. And how can you Clank it? I mean, charged purple f smash is literally the only move that out prioritizes it and you can mix up the timing or face away if you see it getting charged. Like I said, poison cloud is busted in this MU.

EDIT: NairWizard , if you must know, the enter button killed my father.

EDIT: Also we’re heavier and destroy him in trades.

A lot of that is MU theorycrafting, and I'll say again you heavily overestimate poison cloud. Purple Pikmin clank Patooie period, therefore Patooie can be clanked. The how doesn't matter, only the can. The juggle tools you mentioned are almost mid-rate juggling tools at best when compared to a proper juggle tool, like Olimar's UAir that can be thrown out 4 times before landing out of a double jump. Or Cloud UAir, or something like that. PP CAN juggle, but he's no where near good enough at it to be super threatening to landing.

I always see you PP players talk about patooie and poison cloud, then the matches start and PP just struggles. No amount of galaxy brain nonsense is gonna matter when you factor in Plant's boatload of weaknesses. His neutral is not nearly as good as you seem to say it is in practice.

Plant loses this MU, I've played enough times to be confident in that, but I'm open to discuss HOW BADLY he loses it. I can't see him winning it, though.. no way. Patooie is a really easy projectile to read and avoid, one of the easiest in the game to do so with, and it's LAUGHABLE as a juggle tool unless you pop it off during true hitstun. A good Olimar player is going to keep a purple on deck that they can quickly cycle to at all times to clank Patooie in this MU, you seem to assume like we don't properly know how to use our Pikmin in different situations when you say ONLY Purple works. If one works, it works.

 

[Yonder]

As someone who now secondaries/mains P.Plant, I think he is underrated. He's probably mid tier. His specials are fantastically good. Nothing is scarier than getting grabbed in a poison cloud for 60+% too. Yeah it's hard to get the grab with his stubby range, but it's frame 6, and you only need one or two grabs in a poison cloud to have kill percents going.

Ptooey is also one of the best projectiles in the game. It does everything + your taxes (less you're Yoshi). Kills, edgeguarding, more safety to get up attacks if you hold it on the ledge (they will get hit/killed if they do a get up while you hold it), it's amazing. Down b is also underrated too,super armor is insanely effectively at defending and counterattacking. It has a pretty generous threshold.

His faults are his shoddy fair, uair, and dair. Dair hitboxes for spike is too small, fair and uair don't chain well and have too much endlag. I like Nair, and bair does it's job as a solid kill move. Also, d throw should follow up into more than just one single fair. His smash attacks are all solid too, particularly u smash.

He's also kinda slow too, so that's a shame.

I just..cant see him as bottom 3 though.

 

[Click5]

Re Shulk:

Hasn’t Nicko been on Twitter the last few days lamenting the Snake match up? He got bodied by Snake three tournaments in a row.

Pretty sure he’s talking about picking up a secondary.

Shulk as high/top tier is a great example of group think gone a muck. Meme worthy

 

[Lacrimosa]

His faults are his shoddy fair, uair, and dair. Dair hitboxes for spike is too small, fair and uair don't chain well and have too much endlag. I like Nair, and bair does it's job as a solid kill move. Also, d throw should follow up into more than just one single fair. His smash attacks are all solid too, particularly u smash.

He's also kinda slow too, so that's a shame.

Another thing to mention is PP's awful recovery. Yes, it has travel distance but you are completely open for any spike a lot of character have.
And even if you play Fox and Peach who don't have an aerial that can spike: They will still hurt PP a lot if they git him off-stage.

If he had a hitbox right above him (for example by just biting) then the recovery would be very good, but right now it's just awful.

 

[PK Gaming]

The aforementioned Tsu vs Zackrary 3-0

Promising stuff from Joker, though I feel like Zackray wasn't playing at his best during that set. Crazy how much this character's success depends on getting that first stock. He can really tack on the extra credit, but has trouble playing from behind.

 

[Repli.Cant]

I dunno y'all, is just crazy underwhelming to me right now. I played him for about 2 and half months, but I eventually fell out of him because he has a number of glaring issues.

He's a character that doesn't want to approach, but his zoning game is... middling, to say the least. Poison Breath has no hitstun meaning it's not necessarily a threat in the same vein of PK Fire or Eiha. Yeah, getting grabbed inside it means taking 90%, but there's this cool thing that completely neutralizes that fact: jump away/towards him. Poison Breath's FAF is 49, and you react and take minimal damage in the long run. Ptooie is pretty large and strong, but it has several blindspots (in that he cannot cover the space in front of him, etc.) that the opponent can make use of and punish with easily.

He's this weird mish-mash of things, really. He's got the projectiles of a zoner, but vs. completely falls apart vs anyone that doesn't have to respect those tools, like the obvious list of , , , but even some characters who aren't exactly perceived positively outside of the people who main them like ,, , , , and even . He has the pretty decent frame data: a f2(!!) jab, a f7 dash attack, f7 ftilt, f8 utilt, Ptooie is f9, but outside of the decent lunge dash attack gives him and Ptooie, he has poor range combined with not very good run speed and straight up poor air speed and accel. His aerials are laggy, both in endlag and in landing lag (bair has 62 frames of endlag), and fair's and uair's hitboxes aren't very good, which is hit biggest problem in my opinion. Approaching with fair feels like a gamble of "will this hit or will the pot phase through their skull?". These issues make approaching in these MUs (and in general, honestly) feel like walking over hot coal.

Lastly, his recovery is... not good. Okay, well, in terms of distance, it's pretty formidable. But Plant's bulbous head extends so far up that it makes 2-framing him easy, since you can whack his head. Dropping down and gimping him with an aerial isn't too difficult either, since the hitboxes only cover the sides, and even then it'd still be worth a trade of a few %s to spike him. Even then, you can just keep hitting him away until he gets so annoyed he shrivels up and dies, or you stage spike him.

P.S. People overrate Poison Breath. It's cool when you make someone stand in it via a shield break or a grab or by knocking the controller out of their hands, but I see no reason to respect it unless it's fully charged, and even then I'd still prefer punishing him and sending him offstage over standing there and respecting something that does no knockback, much like 's laser.

I feel like he's close to being good, but too many things about his kit fall short. I really hope they don't stick with the whole "joke fighter" nonsense and just ignore him. Everyone deserves a fair shot.

 

[$.A.F.]

A lot of that is MU theorycrafting, and I'll say again you heavily overestimate poison cloud. Purple Pikmin clank Patooie period, therefore Patooie can be clanked. The how doesn't matter, only the can. The juggle tools you mentioned are almost mid-rate juggling tools at best when compared to a proper juggle tool, like Olimar's UAir that can be thrown out 4 times before landing out of a double jump. Or Cloud UAir, or something like that. PP CAN juggle, but he's no where near good enough at it to be super threatening to landing.

I always see you PP players talk about patooie and poison cloud, then the matches start and PP just struggles. No amount of galaxy brain nonsense is gonna matter when you factor in Plant's boatload of weaknesses. His neutral is not nearly as good as you seem to say it is in practice.

Plant loses this MU, I've played enough times to be confident in that, but I'm open to discuss HOW BADLY he loses it. I can't see him winning it, though.. no way. Patooie is a really easy projectile to read and avoid, one of the easiest in the game to do so with, and it's LAUGHABLE as a juggle tool unless you pop it off during true hitstun. A good Olimar player is going to keep a purple on deck that they can quickly cycle to at all times to clank Patooie in this MU, you seem to assume like we don't properly know how to use our Pikmin in different situations when you say ONLY Purple works. If one works, it works.

Okay so your first sentence is that the how doesn’t matter, only the can, but then you call my argument flawed because it uses theory craft. What? A matchup is based on theory craft as technically it can only be completely objectively proved by two players who play their character at the absolute most optimal level with the same level of matchup experience with no mistakes whatsoever playing one another. Your argument is theory craft as well with how Olimar’s attributes interact with Plant’s. Anyways, Ptooie kills purple Pikmin on contact, and even then, it only stops Ptooie really if it’s an f smash which due to the angle of Ptooie, won’t hit. Up smash just has the ball drop down onto Olimar’s head purple or nah. Poison cloud generally negates Olimar’s Pikmin moves. That’s not overrated, just a fact which heavily influences this matchup like it or not since it hampers his camping and combo starters. What are you even talking about with the juggle tools? Plant and Olimar can throw the same amount of Up airs out of a DJ (2). Unless you mean you do a full hop up air another full hop up air and two more on the way down. Even then, Plant is so far behind because in the same sequence he can throw out......3 instead of 4. Oh no. Ptooie is great at juggling. It does high damage, travels in an up and down arc constantly and can react to airdodges on either side. And yes, Ptooie and Poison are good IN THIS MATCHUP. Olimar should be able to exploit Plant’s weaknesses yes, but that’s kind of hard when you can only really use 5 low range moves, no smashes, and none of your busted moves. Our neutral is meh, but Poison Cloud allows it to be meh. We get bopped in disadvantage, but if you let yourself into disadvantage, you honestly aren’t playing Plant right in this MU. I don’t care how many times you’ve played this matchup, anecdotal evidence is never evidence. And even then, were the plants playing the matchup like they were supposed to? Were they making good decisions in neutral? What’s their skill level? What’s their matchup experience compared to yours? Did you just outplay them in general? These need answers. Zaki beat the best Cloud in the World in Leo and went game 5 against VoiD’s Pichu? Does this mean that he wins either matchup? I doubt it. And that’s documented top level play. Let alone anecdotal evidence from someone not even PGRd. People were beating Bayonetta players with low tiers online, was she not S Tier now because a lot of scrubs lost to scrubs?

And there’s your problem. Your anecdotal evidence based misinformed preconceptions stop you from looking at objective facts. You literally said that no matter what I said, based on a significantly smaller amount of evidence, you would only concede HOW bad Plant loses. You maintain that a f9 20% projectile with a huge hitbox, and astounding active frames and shield damage, along with a changeable angle is bad. You have attempted to literally cut off all discussion and have said that you are unwilling no matter the evidence to discuss a stance you disagree with no matter the evidence. You don’t even suggest enough evidence in the first place for this to work in your favor. You lament me for theory crafting but maintain that Olimar will constantly have a purple on deck no matter what thus negating Ptooie if thrown at a very specific and un optimal angle while simultaneously killing the purple. Please try harder in your next response.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Hot Take: I’m going to be real, I think Plant is nowhere near bottom 5. I’m not going to start saying he’s like a top 3 character who’s absolutely broken, but he’s got the matchup spread of a mid tier or even high tier. First of all, he outright goes even with or beats Ness, Olimar, and Snake and possibly goes even with Wolf and Pichu. Ness legitimately becomes little Mac offstage vs Plant. It’s not even that his recovery is “exploitable” in the way Chrom’s is where in theory it’s trash, but you only get gimped once per set. No, I’m talking about up b and neutral b along with down b actually cancel Ness’s recovery. Ptooie shortens PKTII’s range, Hits the PKT and clanks sending Ness into free fall, and obviously is great for positioning. The other two specials do the last two as well. Not to mention Ness is outranged, and struggles with Ptooie along with having no options against cross up dash attack. Also he’s light enough where Plant can kill him very consistently along with his other advantages. This is a very clear winning Matchup.

You aren't lying this is one hot take but just...no.

The only thing Ness has to legitimately worry about off stage is is Ptooie. Any attempt to use Plant's down B or poison cloud can be avoided with an upwards angle. Down B doesn't reach low enough and has too much lag to actually allow Plant to followup before Ness has returned to stage. Ptooie is a threat...then you realize Ness has the best directional air dodge in the game with Lucas in terms of distance covered and he doesn't have to rely on Up B to recover most of the time, negating any threat of Ptooie messing over PKT2 to begin with. At high level, if Ness has to use PKT2 to recover he's already likely in a position to get his recovery stuffed and it's not just a Ptooie exclusive thing that can mess him over (If his opponent is in position to gimp him in the first place, if your not in position to do so the moment Ness has started PKT your already too late and attempting to stop if with anything other than a counter/absorber is likely going to get you killed for trying). On the flip side I legitimately ask how Plant is supposed to recover against Ness. Yoyo invalidates any attempt at grabbing the ledge, Plant has no answer for PKT coming at him other than using a Ptooie while high or his down b...which are both reactable and Ness can just punish afterwards since Plant will still be off stage and falling below it (where again yoyo invalidates any attempt a grabbing ledge) Plant has to recover high and his Up b does not protect him enough from an up air or additional PKTs (And now he's being juggled, great!)


Ness is outranged on the ground but going air to air with Plant is very much in Ness' favor. His aerials are larger, deal much more damage, will win trades and are far less commital all being able to be canceled out of short hop and all aside dair allow for another action (jump, 2nd aerial, DJC special) before landing. Ness can apply much more pressure than Plant can deal with up close and getting in on Plant isn't hard since he lacks tools he was designed to do, he feels like Smash 4 Zelda, a defensive character that doesn't approach but also can't play the keep away game that well at all.

Ptooie works as a good anti air, but leaves Plant wide open to a PKF or even a PKT. Ptooie doesn't force Ness to approach nor does it heavily impede on his ability to do so.

Cross up dash attack, depending on how far Plant is after crossing up Ness can Nair OOS which is one of the better OOS in the game. If he's out of Nair range, bair OOS is slower but works, has good range and will be safe on shield if plant is out of Nair OOS range. Ness can also just throw a PKF if Plant is really far away, Plant will have his back to Ness and Plant's only option to cover his back would be his laggy bair which isn't stopping any of these options.

Ness is a mid weight character, weighs 94 units which is almost smack in the middle of weights in this game. For reference that's heavier than Wolf, Lucario, Marthcina and only 6 units lighter than Cloud. Plant's kill power is loaded into his F and Up smash and his bair. Ness can kill with nearly all of his moves.

 

[ZephyrZ]

I don't see how poison cloud can win Piranha Plant match ups against any zoner when they can just wait it out. He can't have that move out 100% of the time, so why can't Snake/Olimar just throw their grenades and pikmin inbetween his poison cloud windows?

Sounds like it could be useful when stalling when he has the lead, but otherwise I'd expect the burden of approaching to still be on him.

I mean I don't really play any of these characters so I could be wrong but I am skeptical.

 

[blackghost]

I don't see how poison cloud can win Piranha Plant match ups against any zoner when they can just wait it out. He can't have that move out 100% of the time, so why can't Snake/Olimar just throw their grenades and pikmin inbetween his poison cloud windows?

Sounds like it could be useful when stalling when he has the lead, but otherwise I'd expect the burden of approaching to still be on him.

I mean I don't really play any of these characters so I could be wrong but I am skeptical.

when a character requires you to assume they are already winning to be effective they arent very good. its like assuming a pokemon is good in competitive play and starting the reasoning with "well if i get a swords dance up..."
smash has never favored setup characters. There is no UMVC 3 rocket raccon or Guilty gear Jack-o. Plant is an underwhelming joke character. he's fun but he'sno mid tier. I really wish we'd stop defaulting to "____________ is decent, seems mid tier." Thats not how mid tier works. Starting looking at who is actually in mid tier and it becomes clear plant doesnt belong.

 

[$.A.F.]

You aren't lying this is one hot take but just...no.

The only thing Ness has to legitimately worry about off stage is is Ptooie. Any attempt to use Plant's down B or poison cloud can be avoided with an upwards angle. Down B doesn't reach low enough and has too much lag to actually allow Plant to followup before Ness has returned to stage. Ptooie is a threat...then you realize Ness has the best directional air dodge in the game with Lucas in terms of distance covered and he doesn't have to rely on Up B to recover most of the time, negating any threat of Ptooie messing over PKT2 to begin with. At high level, if Ness has to use PKT2 to recover he's already likely in a position to get his recovery stuffed and it's not just a Ptooie exclusive thing that can mess him over (If his opponent is in position to gimp him in the first place, if your not in position to do so the moment Ness has started PKT your already too late and attempting to stop if with anything other than a counter/absorber is likely going to get you killed for trying). On the flip side I legitimately ask how Plant is supposed to recover against Ness. Yoyo invalidates any attempt at grabbing the ledge, Plant has no answer for PKT coming at him other than using a Ptooie while high or his down b...which are both reactable and Ness can just punish afterwards since Plant will still be off stage and falling below it (where again yoyo invalidates any attempt a grabbing ledge) Plant has to recover high and his Up b does not protect him enough from an up air or additional PKTs (And now he's being juggled, great!)


Ness is outranged on the ground but going air to air with Plant is very much in Ness' favor. His aerials are larger, deal much more damage, will win trades and are far less commital all being able to be canceled out of short hop and all aside dair allow for another action (jump, 2nd aerial, DJC special) before landing. Ness can apply much more pressure than Plant can deal with up close and getting in on Plant isn't hard since he lacks tools he was designed to do, he feels like Smash 4 Zelda, a defensive character that doesn't approach but also can't play the keep away game that well at all.

Ptooie works as a good anti air, but leaves Plant wide open to a PKF or even a PKT. Ptooie doesn't force Ness to approach nor does it heavily impede on his ability to do so.

Cross up dash attack, depending on how far Plant is after crossing up Ness can Nair OOS which is one of the better OOS in the game. If he's out of Nair range, bair OOS is slower but works, has good range and will be safe on shield if plant is out of Nair OOS range. Ness can also just throw a PKF if Plant is really far away, Plant will have his back to Ness and Plant's only option to cover his back would be his laggy bair which isn't stopping any of these options.

Ness is a mid weight character, weighs 94 units which is almost smack in the middle of weights in this game. For reference that's heavier than Wolf, Lucario, Marthcina and only 6 units lighter than Cloud. Plant's kill power is loaded into his F and Up smash and his bair. Ness can kill with nearly all of his moves.

Okay, I never mentioned poison cloud. It sucks offstage. It’s used for trapping. I said up b into the blast zone is pretty good considering how long PKT takes to hit ness and his stationary stance allowing Plant a clear shot. Ness has a pretty good directional air dodge especially in terms of distance undeniably. However distance wise it still is a bit below mac’s up b in recovery vertically and while it carries his momentum when it’s to the side, it loses invincibility a good way through allowing them go offstage and hold Ptooie near ledge which forces him to get hit or PKT and get hit at any percentage past 25 or so. And Ptooie just busts Ness’s recovery because of it trading/or halting the momentum of it. Ness could be halfway to stage and being hit by Ptooie would do him in. He doesn’t need much positioning. And if you are at ledge, PKT, is reachable with run off up b a lot of the time. Even if you do hit plant however , it shortens his recovery by a large margin and the tech timing isn’t very hard to get down. For recovery, You use Plants numerous aerial stalls to bait out the nerfed hitbox, or recover high if needed which becomes much less punishable on platform stages. Also the length of time the yo-yo hitbox is out has been significantly shortened to the point where Plant can recover low unironically a lot of the time and leaves actually clank spaced correctly. Also for juggles, holding Ptooie means that it drops straight down if you hit him which will hit ness along with our various aerial timing stalls with specials. He doesn’t have much of a problem in disadvantage or at least not ridiculously so.

He beats Ness on the ground like you said. And yes, Ness is good in an aerial fight. However like you said, Ptooie. If Ness is in the air and tries PK Fire while Ptooie is being held, you can launch it before he gets it out. It has 20 or so frame of start up and so does PKT. And if PKT does hit Ptooie, then ness goes into free fall and ends up grounded where Plant has an advantage. Pk Fire actually is outranged on the ground not to mention by even uncharged Ptooie. It does somewhat force an approach because it does great shield damage/stun, is a good anti air, and goes farther than PK Fire which is the Ness projectile that is usually the best since flash is hella slow and thunder gets it’s hurtbox negated by touching Ptooie while coming out twice as slow.

You aren’t crossing up optimally if you can get naired. Bair isn’t true and Plant can shield it even if it’s safe which means no punish. As for PK Fire, why not jump instead of Bair? Literally jump over/away. Or shield because PK Fire has like 18 frames of startup. Am I missing something major, or were you mistaken? It could be something on my end.

Not to mention Ptooie, Up Throw, Up Air, and Edge-guarding at any percentage practically. Ness is light still compared to Plant. He’s 20 units lighter. Ness is not winning any war of survivability. Also a good number of Plant’s kill moves are Anti Airs or juggles which say that Ness can’t blow up Plant consistently via aerial approaches or he gets up smashed at 85 from a mistake or Ptooied at 100, or up aired at 120 off any mistakes.

Your post was very well written and brought some interesting perspectives I had forgotten to consider. This is probably the best response I’ve gotten so far and I look forward to your response since you know more about Ness than me. Keep it coming!

I don't see how poison cloud can win Piranha Plant match ups against any zoner when they can just wait it out. He can't have that move out 100% of the time, so why can't Snake/Olimar just throw their grenades and pikmin inbetween his poison cloud windows?

Sounds like it could be useful when stalling when he has the lead, but otherwise I'd expect the burden of approaching to still be on him.

I mean I don't really play any of these characters so I could be wrong but I am skeptical.

Glad you asked! Plant has a pretty large shield which is exacerbated by the low shield damage of these moves. Not to mention it regenerates consistently because of the projectile break Poison Cloud gives. Meanwhile, Ptooie can go as far and does very high shield damage. About 2-4 will break the opponent’s shield and due to cloud can be launched at a faster rate. So the opponent has to come to Plant at some point or in the case of Snake and Olimar stand at a range where Pikmin or Grenade won’t hit.

EDIT: Also Ptooie does more damage to them than their projectiles do to you.

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

I personally think that poison cloud needs a buff but if you give it hitstun then plant becomes top tier of doubles, and and in singles fighting her is like a megaman boss.

 

[$.A.F.]

when a character requires you to assume they are already winning to be effective they arent very good. its like assuming a pokemon is good in competitive play and starting the reasoning with "well if i get a swords dance up..."
smash has never favored setup characters. There is no UMVC 3 rocket raccon or Guilty gear Jack-o. Plant is an underwhelming joke character. he's fun but he'sno mid tier. I really wish we'd stop defaulting to "____________ is decent, seems mid tier." Thats not how mid tier works. Starting looking at who is actually in mid tier and it becomes clear plant doesnt belong.

A. Duck Hunt, PacMan, Link, and Snake are pretty to very good set up characters. The trope itself isn’t an argument.

B. Literally throwing out cloud doesn’t require you to be winning. WDYM?

I personally think that poison cloud needs a buff but if you give it hitstun then plant becomes top tier of doubles, and and in singles fighting her is like a megaman boss.

In general yes it needs a buff. It’s only good in specific matchups like the ones I’ve mentioned. Most of the time it just is a ledgetrap tool. Giving it hitstun could be busted though

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Yoyo's hitbox wasn't nerfed, the charge time nerf affected little to nothing you just need to time the release better. It still hits below the ledge just as good as it did before. The move also has mutlihits, if you are trying to clang leafs you would need to clang them all.

Also regarding juggles, Ptooie would be an effective way to stop them if Ness didn't have PKT but with PKT Ness doesn't have to be under his opponents to juggle them. If your on a platform stage Ness can sit under a platform and make landing very hard for Plant who lacks a good hitbox he can place below himself to clang the thunder ball, the tail is transcendent if you try to hit it you'll just get hit and then followed up into the thunder ball. Stalling in the air with Down B will just let the Ness get free damage and start another thunder while you are in lag before you begin descending again.

Again Ptooie in neutral isn't hard for Ness to get around. DJC PKF allows Ness to advance while throwing the fire out, at best for plant, Ness mis spaces and the fire doesn't hit Plant but Ptooie flies over head, at worst for plant Ptooie still whiffs overhead and plant is now stuck in PKF while Ness is close to him. If you've ever seen Ness vs Ivysaur, its a similar strategy to dealing with Razor leaf, DJC PKF punishes Razor Leaf very well due to the commitment of using it and allows Ness to completely avoid the leaf in return. Razor leaf being completely reactable much like Ptooie is helps with this. Ness also ha the option of just getting within Ptooie range making Plant uncomfortable, if you don't throw it it's likely you'll take a PKF, if you do throw it Ness just takes the time to go over it and get closer. Ultimately Plant's best option is to back off which gives up stage and is a net win for Ness. This isn't just Ness specific but rather anti-Ptooie counterplay. If you've ever seen Pichu or Pikachu chase after their thrown Tjolts to get grabs on opponents who shield them, it's the same concept. Don't shield it. Big difference being that the Chus are fast enough to actually capitalize if they read right after a Tjolt. Plant isn't nor can he advance once he's began a Ptooie.

 

[$.A.F.]

Envoy of Chaos Good post. Will respond in the morning. Gtg to bed however.

Envoy of Chaos and real quick, can you send me a video of the DJC PKF? I need to see the angle and analyze for my post to have much merit.

 

[Hippieslayer]

How do you use poison cloud effectively? In what scenarios? Genuinely wondering.

Move doesn't work for me, opponent can easily punish it since it has no kb and plant isnt that great at getting time to charge it up even though charging doent require much of it, and non charged is underwhelming and seems to be just not worth it cuz of the risk, whilst consistently charging it means ur consistently losing out on opportunities to set up with ptooie instead.

Also how can Ness not have any options to punish cross up dash attacks? It has that little endlag? Is that really true or is it more that most Nesses struggle hard to punish it?

 

[Lavani]

There's a lot being typed about Plant here, and I was originally planning on jumping into it, but rather than adding my own walls I'll trim it down: if Plant isn't in the bottom rungs, who's below it? I'll admit poison cloud's damage and ptooie's utility had me feeling the character was being slept on for awhile, but ever since Brood picked Plant up I have just generally felt that it's not a character that works without the opponent enabling it. I'd be more enthusiastic if it had faster specials (Ptooie is far slower as a projectile than when it spawns), better horizontal launching moves (its lowest angles are 361, which still allows for high recoveries at relevant percents; Ness shouldn't have to deal with PKT vs Ptooie without something going very wrong), and/or better hitboxes. As is, I feel like the character only gets away with things if the opponent doesn't fully understand its gimmicks.

 

[DelugeFGC]

There's a lot being typed about Plant here, and I was originally planning on jumping into it, but rather than adding my own walls I'll trim it down: if Plant isn't in the bottom rungs, who's below it? I'll admit poison cloud's damage and ptooie's utility had me feeling the character was being slept on for awhile, but ever since Brood picked Plant up I have just generally felt that it's not a character that works without the opponent enabling it. I'd be more enthusiastic if it had faster specials (Ptooie is far slower as a projectile than when it spawns), better horizontal launching moves (its lowest angles are 361, which still allows for high recoveries at relevant percents; Ness shouldn't have to deal with PKT vs Ptooie without something going very wrong), and/or better hitboxes. As is, I feel like the character only gets away with things if the opponent doesn't fully understand its gimmicks.

^ This. The final part, in particular. A lot of people give PP WAAAAY too much respect and end up losing in neutral for it, in reality once you know the MU PP is very easy to play around, which is a big part of his issue. PP doesn't really built THAT intimidating of a wall when you know the MU to navigate around his gimmicks, and lord knows he's not built to be aggressive or approach.. so what IS he good at?

 

[Hippieslayer]

^ This. The final part, in particular. A lot of people give PP WAAAAY too much respect and end up losing in neutral for it, in reality once you know the MU PP is very easy to play around, which is a big part of his issue. PP doesn't really built THAT intimidating of a wall when you know the MU to navigate around his gimmicks, and lord knows he's not built to be aggressive or approach.. so what IS he good at?

Looked up some of Broods PP and tbh it looks like like its just like that. Ptooie is too slow, down special must be used very sparingly, poison cloud can be traded with favourably for the opponent and as I suspected there is seldom time to charge it. I didnt watch that many games but still it just looked like PP struggled in all the areas PP was seen as struggling shortly after release.

Weren't we just on the topic of overhyping?

Or what am I missing?

Take this game for instance vs Hikarus Pichu for instance:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X9CjU-RKoug

The urine tinted fantasy rodent may be top tier but its not that fast in terms of horizontal movements and its range is poor, PP still barely has time to use specials in neutral and gets punished a lot when it does use them.

I can get PP having wicked edgeguards vs a lot of the cast tho IF it has sent its opponent far enough off the stage for there to be sufficient time to setup though. And Brood does some nice stuff with the characters, but its not with its specials, they seem to work mostly vs people who are unsure on how to counter and therefore give them too much respect. Saw a much more recent game where a japanese Yoshi tried to play a bit campy with eggs but all that did was cause him to occupy just the space that ptooie covered allowing the plant easy neutral domination via among other things a lot of favourable trades.

Seems to me that the specials generally speaking end up functioning as a way to make the opponent approach rashly in order to PP from using them, giving the plant opportunities to punish.

 

[PK Bash]

OK so the thing that makes Ness' recovery exploitable more than anything else is that characters with decent overall air mobility can cover everything he can do. The classic example is Marth, who has this + a disjoint and a counter. No matter how Ness moves/weaves, or when he uses his double jump, or when he uses PKT, Marth can position himself in ways that he can react and hit Ness 100% of the time pretty much.

I do not see how Plant does this.

Ness - unlike Little Mac, the original comparison - has a lot of flexibility in his recovery by virtue of his air acceleration (way more important than his top air speed here), bigass airdodge, and multiple angles on PKT2 (and PKT1).

If Plant could spit a ptooie quickly to cover the low and run off double jump bair to cover the alternative, then safe, he has a good edgeguard on Ness.

To my knowledge, Plant cannot do this. He is too slow, ptooie is too slow, and Ness is too flexible.
Either Plant needs a good read or Ness has to **** up for Plant's edgeguards to work. He has nothing special to swing the matchup in this regard like Marth or Chus for example, this totally relies on one player just outplaying the other.

IMO the best thing Plant has in this (and most?) matchups is his back air. I swear they copied that move from Zard, and it has a similar effect on the mu. It stops Ness from whaling on Plant with his forward air, which is otherwise stupidly good in this matchup since plant does not have the angles, disjoint, range, speed, or favourable risk-reward ratios to seriously discourage Ness abusing it with anything else except his back air. It plugs an important weakness for Plant in this mu, and it actually plugs it rather well.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

The urine tinted fantasy rodent

...Toot

 

[Plain Yogurt]

I’ve been messing around with maining Plant for about a month, myself. The tricky thing for its neutral is that while it’s very good at stuffing approaches, it’s not amazing at forcing them.

If you need to come towards me I’ve likely already set a poison cloud down to discourage grounded options. If you try to jump in over it Plant has anti-airs out the wazoo, between head invincibility on UTilt and USmash and Ptooie covering angles if I’m charging it instead. Decide to take the poison trade and run through for a grounded option? Jab is frame 2, DTilt has solid range and leads to a FAir follow-up, and if I’m charging Ptooie and you hit me too recklessly the spike ball falls on your head. Not to mention I can sit in the cloud to obscure these options (besides shielding, which displays over the poison).

The issue lies when the opponent has formidable projectiles, it seems. I’ve been struggling a bit with Young Link, myself, as fire arrow shoots fast enough that Ptooie can’t be effectively used in neutral, along with his disjointed making up-close fights difficult. When the opponent has the ability to put-patience Plant is when things feel hard, for me.

It’s other strengths and weaknesses seem tied to the ledge. In advantage it’s an amazing position. Simply cancelling Ptooie on ledge can cover ledge get-up, ledge attack, or ledge jump if the opponent isn’t careful, as displacing Plant while it’s trying to swallow the ball will make it fall on the opponent instead a lot of the time. If positioned right poison breath is almost guaranteed a few ticks as well. On the flip side though, with it’s slow-ish aerials and vulnerable Up-B, resetting to neutral off the ledge can be very difficult. At a recent tournament my opponent managed to keep me at ledge for what felt like an entire game with his Falcon.

The character is a bit unintuitive and I don’t feel the reward for learning it is quite there. But it IS pretty darn fun to play, and at least at lower levels will annoy the HECK out of players who live to hold forward without thinking. I’m totally with the guy who said that nobody wants this character to be good. It seems extremely frustrating to fight when things are going well.

 

[Glerma]

Hot Take: I’m going to be real, I think Plant is nowhere near bottom 5. I’m not going to start saying he’s like a top 3 character who’s absolutely broken, but he’s got the matchup spread of a mid tier or even high tier. First of all, he outright goes even with or beats Ness, Olimar, and Snake and possibly goes even with Wolf and Pichu. Ness legitimately becomes little Mac offstage vs Plant. It’s not even that his recovery is “exploitable” in the way Chrom’s is where in theory it’s trash, but you only get gimped once per set. No, I’m talking about up b and neutral b along with down b actually cancel Ness’s recovery. Ptooie shortens PKTII’s range, Hits the PKT and clanks sending Ness into free fall, and obviously is great for positioning. The other two specials do the last two as well. Not to mention Ness is outranged, and struggles with Ptooie along with having no options against cross up dash attack. Also he’s light enough where Plant can kill him very consistently along with his other advantages. This is a very clear winning Matchup. Next we have Snake who’s even better than Ness and arguably top 5. We should have a giant insurmountable problem winning neutral. And fairly enough, it’s no cakewalk and I won’t pretend that we win it. However, it becomes a lot easier since his best tool is neutered. Yep, poison blows up grenades, charged, uncharged or anything in between. You can also use a lot of floats and stalls you have to just generally bait him into doing stuff or try forcing an approach with poison. Also we can get in with an opening since we have a frame 6 dash attack and a projectile that does half his shield. Still, neutral is hard. Advantage against Snake is really good. We’re too heavy for him to grenade trade that often with us, and Plant’s advantage is really good already and is great at juggling. Not to mention we can exploit his high recovery pretty badly. Overall this matchup feels even or slightly in one or the others favor. Both kill off grab at 160, both beat the other pretty bad in disadvantage though Plant gets more out of it. Both also really don’t want to be IN disadvantage against the other since snake grenade trades will get him to general kill percentages for Plant faster than the other way around. Plant exploits his recovery better and gets slightly more out of advantage while, Snake wins neutral more often even if his neutral gets hampered by the loss of grenades. Olimar is possibly the best character in the game. However, Plant also counters his best neutral tool to a much greater degree, it instakills Pikmin. Playing the Olimar matchup consists of hiding in the cloud and harassing him since it stops him from hurting you at all basically. If Olimar combos weren’t so crazy damaging, we’d win hard, but as of now, it’s like 55/45 Plant Favor solely due to cloud. Pichu is another solidly top 5 character with opinions fluctuating on whether he’s #5 or #1 all the time. He dies at super low percentages, and we live to very high ones though Pichu has the KP to end stocks decently early on Plant even if he is really fat. Also he combos us pretty hard because we’re fat. However, preemptive Ptooie messes up a lot of stuff he wants to do and he can’t camp us since he hurts himself. Poison Cloud and Ptooie in general are very good vs Pichu. They play scared because they can’t commit a lot of the time. Pichu likes approaching from the air a lot. This is pretty good for Plant since he can up smash him at like 60-70 for a really early kill. Also we can extend aerials by hitting thunder jolt. We might actually be positive. As for wolf, I think we go even or lose. He can punish dash attack even if it crosses up, d smash 2 frames very well so you have to punishably recover high on occasion, and his kit is just pretty solid. However, Plant has a lot of stuff still going for him. Long Stem Strike and Ptooie (I think) do very well against his recovery. Jump Ptooie is good against laser, he’s not much faster than Plant, and he has a pretty bad disadvantage against Plant’s pretty good Advantage state. Still, not as confident in this matchup.

So yeah, that sums up some matchups that are really good against characters that are really common and good. I spent like a week looking at stuff and a good hour or two writing this in particular. I personally think that Plant is pretty good because of this or at least not bottom 5. Feel free to quote this post and let me know what you guys think, I’ll (almost) always respond in kind. Peace!

Could I get a tl;dr O_O

 

[Lacrimosa]

Could I get a tl;dr O_O

Plant apparently has a very solid MU spread against some of the top-tiers.
Ness is gimped and outranged, Plant can easily get rid of grenades and better disadvantage + grenade trade isn't favorable (Snake) and Olimar loses solely because of the cloud and spike ball kills Pikmin.
That are the main points. The Olimar MU was discussed a bit more further down.

 

[B_Burg]

You miss a little you miss a lot around here.

Honestly Megaman is fine...

Oh, I don't disagree at all. I think Mega Man is fine and more importantly to me personally, he's still really fun to play as.

I was basically just thinking out loud that the reasoning for Mega Man not being able to "separate himself from the pack" as that poster put it, is due to a few different factors than why a character like Ike is in that position. Him being pretty much the most nerfed character in the game at this point being one of those factors.

I'm glad Yeti is still confident in the character and I'm glad Kameme can still win a Japanese major with the character. I hope they keep playing Mega Man as I love watching him at a high level.

That said, I think the nerfs were a little more harsh than you make them sound and were a bit needlessly much, though mostly I'm concerned about the effects they might have on the character's scene going forward.

I may be projecting a bit though, so for now I'll spare everyone here a long(er) winded post from me about the "why's" that I'm a bit pessimistic about Mega Man's scene going forward and just hope that I'm wrong. While also not looking forward to future balance updates.