Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Envoy of Chaos]

How does it give Stage Control in MU's where you literally never have the time or means to use it? Plenty of those exist..

Also how does it give you stage CONTROL? It just shoves them back, it doesn't put them into disadvantage

Not a Mario main so Dunnobro touched on the uses of FLUDD better than I could elaborate but this is literally stage control. If your opponent is getting pushed backwards they are losing stage. When Mario moves forward in the space the opponent lost he's gaining stage control. Granted it has plenty of counterplay to avoid being pushed back far like running towards it but the fact remains it can still give stage, especially if you catch an opponent fading backwards with it, something that isn't uncommon especially when it comes to making aerials safe on shield. There aren't many characters that Mario can't charge up some bit of FLUDD from a distance due to their speed. He doesn't need to charge it all at once and has plenty of opportunities to do so during a match.

I'm not really arguing which move is better but I am making the point that FLUDD is by far from useless.

 

[Anomilus]

In Ganondorf's case, that basically a result of him being a slower, harder hitting last minute clone of a guy with an already bad recovery and him being stuck with that ever since. Characters like launch Incineroar, Doc, and Ridley have way less of an excuse though. Even considering the typical dumb unfounded excuse of being heavy balancing it out, Bowser, DDD, & K. Rool have better recoveries while being heavier.

Just want to note Ridley has no business at all being lumped up with Doc and pre-patch Incineroar in regards to recovery. Like his recovery isn't even close to being that bad. It's awkward at worst. As a Ridley main the only times I legit get gimped is if my opponent persistently hits me while trying to recover, or for some reason I end up off stage without any of my extra jumps and am forced into a predictable recovery trajectory. And in both these instances the fault typically falls on me as a player and not Ridley as a character. Ridley himself can recover high or low just fine and even mix it up a bit. And he can only be directly contested with a well-aimed strike as Wing Blitz will often trade or even beat out any gimp attempt that isn't disjointed or perfectly spaced.

The only time his recovery will legitimately not be enough is if he's knocked off stage at the most optimal angle, consolidating all of his recovery options into a predictable course of travel. Basically being parallel with the stage is the worst thing that can happen to Ridley as he has no choice but to fly straight and Wing Blitz to the ledge and give the opponent ample time to gimp. But that doesn't happen often enough nor is it an exclusive issue to Ridley.

 

[$.A.F.]

What do y’all think of ROB in terms of viability?

 

[DelugeFGC]

I still don't think FLUDD is better than Dr. Tornado as a lot of that stuff is situational / dependent on anti-airing poorly timed jumps and in some MU's you never get a good chance to use it to its full effect.

Dr. Tornado is always an important part of Doc's plan, FLUDD isn't on Mario. You can't tell me FLUDD is important in a MU against say, Greninja, or Sonic.. or my main Olimar. It's basically useless in those MU's outside of a quick panic button to get people off of you. They can each recover with EASE, and that's assuming you manage to even hit any of them with it. Olimar in particular can hard punish Mario for trying to edge-guard meteor him by clapping back with a DAir of his own to meteor Mario.. and with his Up-B / aerial mobility that's not hard to do.

I still don't see FLUDD as super valuable. It's a positional tool that sometimes cheeses people. Dr. Tornado has a ton of uses. Stage control implies you have control over an area of the stage, FLUDD doesn't give you that. Having someone far away from you OUTSIDE of disadvantage does not equate to having control. Especially if it's a character that benefits more out of being further away or has good edge game which Mario really doesn't.

The only character I play regularly that is threatened in the least by FLUDD is Ganon. I'm pretty familiar with the Mario MU, and I do not respect FLUDD the same way I respect Dr. Tornado when playing a Doc. Getting caught by the Tornado is always terrible, getting caught by FLUDD is sometimes bad and sometimes mildly annoying.

 

[The_Bookworm]

What do y’all think of ROB in terms of viability?

Solid high tier, with the reps and results to back it up thus so far.

We got some new tech here that is both practical and not too difficult to do.

 

[PsySmasher]

What do y’all think of ROB in terms of viability?

Between the great results he's gotten, decent number of notable people playing him and his overall solid moveset, I'd put him somewhere in high tier.

Decently heavy, great projectile game and has a decent neutral imo.

 

[DunnoBro]

I still don't think FLUDD is better than Dr. Tornado as a lot of that stuff is situational / dependent on anti-airing poorly timed jumps and in some MU's you never get a good chance to use it to its full effect.

Dr. Tornado is always an important part of Doc's plan, FLUDD isn't on Mario. You can't tell me FLUDD is important in a MU against say, Greninja, or Sonic.. or my main Olimar. It's basically useless in those MU's outside of a quick panic button to get people off of you. They can each recover with EASE, and that's assuming you manage to even hit any of them with it. Olimar in particular can hard punish Mario for trying to edge-guard meteor him by clapping back with a DAir of his own to meteor Mario.. and with his Up-B / aerial mobility that's not hard to do.

I still don't see FLUDD as super valuable. It's a positional tool that sometimes cheeses people. Dr. Tornado has a ton of uses. Stage control implies you have control over an area of the stage, FLUDD doesn't give you that. Having someone far away from you OUTSIDE of disadvantage does not equate to having control. Especially if it's a character that benefits more out of being further away or has good edge game which Mario really doesn't.

The only character I play regularly that is threatened in the least by FLUDD is Ganon. I'm pretty familiar with the Mario MU, and I do not respect FLUDD the same way I respect Dr. Tornado when playing a Doc. Getting caught by the Tornado is always terrible, getting caught by FLUDD is sometimes bad and sometimes mildly annoying.

Greninja, and Sonic: Not too much. Sonic's Spindash ignores FLUDD for some reason, and Greninja's Low profile + Dash and Air Speed make it really awkward even hitting him with it. (Though it does help set up for good 2-frame attempts vs them at times)

But Olimar? Oh hell yea. It pushes him super hard if he's thrown Pikmin, Fsmash, or just tried foxtrot/dash dancing to bait an approach. (FLUDD even makes Pikmin toss miss usually)

IIRC Logic thinks it's one of Oli's worst MU's now.

FLUDD is actually pretty bad at actually edgeguarding unless it's directly FLUDDing a special. (And honestly the only consistent way Mario can deal with Ganon Nair)

At frame 21, it's fairly reactable. And actually pushes you UP if you DI it inward.

And Mario's edgeguarding itself is also pretty mediocre. FLUDD is almost entirely a neutral tool to help set up ledge traps and corner pressure. (And edgeguards against low tier recoveries)

And no, Tornado is NOT always a part of Doc's plan. He only has real confirms into it at mid-percents. Dthrow, Dair, and Pills don't confirm at all at higher percents. (But do into SJP which kills at those percents so it's fine)

FLUDD isn't always part of Mario's neutral, but there are matchups he simply can't win consistently without it. Like any anti energy character, disjoints, heavy zoners, etc.

I honestly don't fault anyone for not quite understanding the benefits of it. It took me a long time in smash 4 to realize it. The best example I can find is actually in smash 4 of me vs Remzi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wkGWd5_1Co

First game I just approached and got punished hard. Next 2 I just FLUDD camped due to all the jumping around. (I almost beat Marss like this too, but double SD'd at 10~% trying to STP but didn't b-reverse so I SD'd :T)

FLUDD is even better in this game. And Mario's long-distance game as a whole, really.

I will say you, though you may be right he could be better off with Tornado simply because uair would confirm into it, essentially a straight upgrade to fair or cape. And it'd give him a WAY better recovery, and edgeguarding tool. But his neutral absolutely would not be better, just his advantage/disadvantage.

 

[The_Bookworm]

I have a curious question for the thread. I know that the thread was talking about a few pages ago.

Question: do you think Wii Fit Trainer needs further buffs in order to be truly viable? I have seen players like WaDi and BestNess bring out the secondary Wii Fit Trainer more often, particularly in smaller events, but does she need more? If so, what would you change/buff about her?

 

[TTTTTsd]

Greninja, and Sonic: Not too much. Sonic's Spindash ignores FLUDD for some reason, and Greninja's Low profile + Dash and Air Speed make it really awkward even hitting him with it. (Though it does help set up for good 2-frame attempts vs them at times)

But Olimar? Oh hell yea. It pushes him super hard if he's thrown Pikmin, Fsmash, or just tried foxtrot/dash dancing to bait an approach. (FLUDD even makes Pikmin toss miss usually)

IIRC Logic thinks it's one of Oli's worst MU's now.

FLUDD is actually pretty bad at actually edgeguarding unless it's directly FLUDDing a special. (And honestly the only consistent way Mario can deal with Ganon Nair)

At frame 21, it's fairly reactable. And actually pushes you UP if you DI it inward.

And Mario's edgeguarding itself is also pretty mediocre. FLUDD is almost entirely a neutral tool to help set up ledge traps and corner pressure. (And edgeguards against low tier recoveries)

And no, Tornado is NOT always a part of Doc's plan. He only has real confirms into it at mid-percents. Dthrow, Dair, and Pills don't confirm at all at higher percents. (But do into SJP which kills at those percents so it's fine)

FLUDD isn't always part of Mario's neutral, but there are matchups he simply can't win consistently without it. Like any anti energy character, disjoints, heavy zoners, etc.

I honestly don't fault anyone for not quite understanding the benefits of it.

(Though you may be right he could be better off with Tornado simply because uair would confirm into it, and it'd give him a WAY better recovery, and edgeguarding tool. But his neutral absolutely would not be better, just his advantage/disadvantage)

Inclined to agree that Nado isn't a big centrepiece to Doc's kit, so much as it is a threatening option that people have to account for which allows Doc to do other things. The limited airdodges and the limitations on evasive mechanics make it more of a threat in the prior game, and the fact that Doc has a very usable down air now (arguably his 2nd or even best aerial?) stacks very well with it.

TBH Doc's Uair is a better edgeguard tool than Nado. Insanely strong for a Frame 4 Uair, you can apply it as an edgeguard in similar ways to Ganon forward facing Uair as an edgeguard option, except more liberally since its F4.

 

[DelugeFGC]

R.O.B. is awesome, and personally I can't get a handle on the MU to save my life. His Gyro is the perfect means of getting in someone's head.. I swear. The amount of times you'll accidentally get interrupted by a Gyro when playing a good R.O.B. will almost always piss you off JUST a little.. and that mental warfare goes a long way with a neutral as good as R.O.B.'s.

He's tricky, he has a pretty bad disadvantage state but he can recovery from pretty much anywhere, he has amazing edge game, amazing ledge game, he can kill you pretty early, he has combo game, he's a damned good zoner.. his neutral is VERY safe. Outside of his bad disadvantage state and natural disadvantages from being a larger / heavier character.. I'd say the robot operating buddy is pretty solid. A definite candidate for the lower end of A-Tier / higher end of B-Tier.



I also in no way think Mario is a bad or even a negative MU for Olimar.. especially not because of FLUDD. Olimar has a really easy time playing / getting around FLUDD because of how high he can jump / how floaty he is AND he has one of the best recoveries in the game that he can also use in neutral to fake people out / stall. FLUDD isn't a problem. Mario isn't a problem either. The Belmonts are probably Olimar's worst MU imo.. ROB sucks too. Joker can be REAL rough.

Also when I say Dr. Tornado is always useful / a part of Doc's plan.. I more-so mean there's never really a time when you couldn't get use out of it. Even if it's just a low % read or a disadvantage reversal. It's more consistently useful than FLUDD, is what I meant.

 

[Sean²]

FLUDD wrecks bad recoveries. I'm more scared of FLUDD than I am Tornado unless I'm at kill percent or whatever his confirm percent is with it. Let's face it, we've all been gimped out of freefall at non-kill percent by the silly water gun before versus a good Mario player. Just like we've all been tornado-ed by Doc, but those don't necessarily always hit and you're not always killed by them.

 

[DelugeFGC]

FLUDD wrecks bad recoveries. I'm more scared of FLUDD than I am Tornado unless I'm at kill percent or whatever his confirm percent is with it. Let's face it, we've all been gimped out of freefall at non-kill percent by the silly water gun before versus a good Mario player. Just like we've all been tornado-ed by Doc, but those don't necessarily always hit and you're not always killed by them.

..Ditto for FLUDD?

The only character I play who is truly threatened by FLUDD is Ganon, so I'm probably biased. Idk.

 

[KirbySquad101]

What do y’all think of ROB in terms of viability?

My short thoughts on the guy:

R.O.B. does retain some of the same issues he had in Smash 4, but between being able to dock Gyros multiple times and new Arm Rotor shenanigans, his punish game is probably one of the scariest in the entire game.

Stuff like forward aerial, neutral aerial and most of all, down tilt make him a threatening character even up close, and he has some of the most disgusting edgeguarding tools in the game, with Gyro and Robo Beam being very safe cover options, and Arm Rotor covering the ledge for so long.

The biggest problem is that he doesn't have a lot of answers to juggling aside from some down aerial hovering shenanigans and he kind of has a thing with being huge while not being SUPER heavy (still heavy, though how the flying hell he ways less than Ike, I'll never understand), but he's definitely a solid high tier.

It helps that he has a lot of players backing him up, like WaDi, 8BitMan, Raffi-X, MJ, and Dill.

Solid high tier, with the reps and results to back it up thus so far.

We got some new tech here that is both practical and not too difficult to do.

I don't see it being used that match in the middle of the stage, but by the ledge, this looks like Doc's Tornado on crack; it would definitely make attempting to for the ledge suicide against Luigi, that's forsake.

 

[DunnoBro]

I honestly think FLUDD is a terrible edgeguarding tool. It actually helps a lot of recoveries. (Makes Yoshi Jump and Egg Toss go higher. Cypher and Grenade Pull go Higher)

It's nice vs chars who struggle to sweetspot, or awkward angle upbs like Quick Attack, Pk Thunder, etc.

But in general, it just helps force people in the corner, or ledge for traps. Which is nice, but edgeguards not so much. Not against good players who are aware of what it can do.

Even now, you see Dark Wizzy Charging while facing away from the stage. To threaten more effectively with Jump Cancel Bair, and keep the charge for when they get back to neutral.

Also fun fact: If you FLUDD a ledge jump, you create a very powerful landing trap since they HAVE to land onstage, or regrab with no invincibility.

 

[Lavani]

Apparently "multihits connect more consistently" with regard to Roy's upB in the 3.0.0 update carried some other implications:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Effectively, this means Blazer's multihits don't put any characters in tumble, and thus are now incapable of stagespiking, so players no longer have to fear dying at literally any percent for flubbing an edgeguard against Roy. While I feel Chrom's upB nerfs were overblown (Chrom's still killing you offstage, and he's still dying after you below the ledge), this doubles both as the loss of a cheesy kill option and the loss of a threat that deterred edgeguarding attempts, so I could see a more significant effect from this, even if it probably isn't to a tier-changing extent.

 

[Rizen]

What do y’all think of ROB in terms of viability?

High tier.

FLUDD gives stage control and discourages full hops. Sure you can shield it but that's requires you to be grounded. Stage control is useful in any MU. It has more use than a gimp tool.

What bugs me about fludd is you have to charge it and you can't move while using it so it's kind of a stalemate. You get a little bit of the stage but you lose a little time to ready it. That always seemed weird for squirt type moves. Given the lag, it seems kind of unnecessary.

I have to jump on board the Dr.Tornado is better train. Imagine Mario's Uair chains ending in an aerial smash attack. Mario's so good at combos that would be terrifying.

Give YL Dr.Tornado and watch him become complete cancer.

 

[Justin Allen Goldschmidt]

How does FLUDD on Mario compare to Water Gun on Squirtle, kit to kit?

 

[KirbySquad101]

While we are on the subject of Mario, Dark Wizzy posted his match-up chart for him a while back:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

The only placement I sort of have an issue with is , based on the matches I've seen between MastaMario against SweetT, it feels like Pichu's WAY too small for Mario to reliably combo him.

A few others are a little questionable, like being even with him, and being even or at a slight disadvantage. Both have huge hitboxes, and in the case of Ganondrof, I'm not sure how Mario can approach him reliably.

Aside from that, I think a lot of it seems accurate. Mario does well against characters where he can get into their bubble reliably and characters who don't really have answers to his cross-up attacks. That also explains most of the swordies giving him a hard time, particularly Lucina.

 

[DelugeFGC]

I honestly think FLUDD is a terrible edgeguarding tool. It actually helps a lot of recoveries. (Makes Yoshi Jump and Egg Toss go higher. Cypher and Grenade Pull go Higher)

It's nice vs chars who struggle to sweetspot, or awkward angle upbs like Quick Attack, Pk Thunder, etc.

But in general, it just helps force people in the corner, or ledge for traps. Which is nice, but edgeguards not so much. Not against good players who are aware of what it can do.

Even now, you see Dark Wizzy Charging while facing away from the stage. To threaten more effectively with Jump Cancel Bair, and keep the charge for when they get back to neutral.

Also fun fact: If you FLUDD a ledge jump, you create a very powerful landing trap since they HAVE to land onstage, or regrab with no invincibility.

FLUDDing a ledge jump actually is a pretty galaxy brain idea, I hadn't thought of that.

 

[DunnoBro]

What bugs me about fludd is you have to charge it and you can't move while using it so it's kind of a stalemate. You get a little bit of the stage but you lose a little time to ready it. That always seemed weird for squirt type moves. Given the lag, it seems kind of unnecessary.
.

You don't really need to charge it much anymore. Depending on stage.

Fully Charged FLUDD is better for edgeguards since it's less reactable. And ledge traps since it covers every option but hang. (Doesn't kill roll/standard/attack, but at least resets) And perfectly punishes the 'Oh **** I have no jump, lemme just drift off and go low-Ohhh no.

But No-Charge is sufficient for mid% ledge traps.

1/3rd Charge Covers half of BF, and 1/2 Charge Covers the common camping/dash dancing distance. (Great vs chars who like to space bairs Like Palu, Inkling, and Cloud since they have to constantly turnaround.)

And yea, Cyclone is crazy. But I think nearly every character would benefit from an aerial super armor smash attack which even doubles as a stall.

How does FLUDD on Mario compare to Water Gun on Squirtle, kit to kit?

Even 1/3rd charge FLUDD is superior to full charge Water Gun 1:1 due to the fatter windbox.

BUT Squirtle gets his charge easier due to retaining mobility, and also has better follow-ups due to having an actual fair/dash attack, and being shorter lets him better whiff punish.

FLUDDing a ledge jump actually is a pretty galaxy brain idea, I hadn't thought of that.

It's best vs Floaties and chars with low Air Accel. Especially those that like to buffer specials out of ledge jump. (Chus, Pacman, etc)

Nearly worthless vs Fast Fallers with Good Air Accel. (Fox, Wolf, Greninja etc. But Nair > Uair > Fair works on them anyway so you shouldn't bother)

And only really worth it at mid-percents when uair/grab still combos since good players will just eat the landing trap and not regrab.

 

[meleebrawler]

How does FLUDD on Mario compare to Water Gun on Squirtle, kit to kit?

Water Gun is better than FLUDD in every way except an almost trivial worse ability to be angled. Charges faster, pushes harder and has more range. If he's not gimping someone with it, it's creating space for his teammate Ivy to start zoning or ledgetrapping with both Ivy or Charizard.

 

[Justin Allen Goldschmidt]

I got two completely opposite and conflicting answers, which is exactly why I asked in the first place. I don't think most of us even know how the two moves *actually* work as well as we think we do, so I think it's time for some serious labbing by someone smarter than me.

 

[DunnoBro]

You can clearly see Water Gun isn't as Large a Windbox as FLUDD. Nor would it make sense for something with 1/3rd the charge time to be better/stronger. (Especially on PT, who has several moves which mirror others but are directly inferior 1:1)

I don't really see how it pushes harder either. They look the same, and it's easier to get all FLUDD's streams to overlap due to their size as opposed to WG's.

I don't really know much about PT or Squirtle, but that claim seems shaky.

 

[Frihetsanka]

While we are on the subject of Mario, Dark Wizzy posted his match-up chart for him a while back:

That's outdated, here's his new one:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

 

[KirbySquad101]

That's outdated, here's his new one:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Ah, okay, thanks for letting me know lol

This one looks fairly more accurate overall.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

In short to this Doc talk:
Doc is pretty decent.
But some global mobility buffs are needed.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Ah, okay, thanks for letting me know lol

There are two projects that are working on compiling MU charts that I'm aware of, which could be useful for checking out MU charts, this one: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...Uhyuyk5aX4s6k3HnBOVz6TZyc/edit#gid=1939438553

And this one: https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/bef485/matchup_chart_compilation/

 

[Rizen]

There are two projects that are working on compiling MU charts that I'm aware of, which could be useful for checking out MU charts, this one: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...Uhyuyk5aX4s6k3HnBOVz6TZyc/edit#gid=1939438553

And this one: https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/bef485/matchup_chart_compilation/

The problem with the first list is certain outliers are included and Pikachu ends up with the best MU spread in the game despite tournament results favoring several other characters more. The 1 player's opinion of Pika is much higher than the opponents' opinions. Characters like YL have 0 MU charts by players and end up going entirely by opponent's opinion.

I like the Reddit list better where I can look up MU charts by specific players rather than have them all compiled into one.

 

[ARISTOS]

In short to this Doc talk:
Doc is pretty decent.
But some global mobility buffs are needed.

The decision to basically just hit Doc with hidden -Speed equipment instead of actively changing his parameters baffles me.

For a series that has always been so meticulous it seems weird they basically slapped some stuff on Doc and said "Good enough"

 

[DungeonMaster]

These early game tier lists are hilarious. I think because the roster is so large even the pros have not had enough matchup experience to really say anything outside of their daily grind.
What I do notice is a lot of pros playing and losing against obscure characters on wifi and then blaming wifi. Unless the game is stutter lagging if you're a pro, you should be damn winning vs DDD on wifi. I really don't care to cut the pros wifi slack, it should not be a last-hit scenario regardless of some lag.

It's on the order of 7000 matches to play 100 matches vs every character. If matches are on average 5 minutes it's on the order of 600 hours to *sort of* know the game. And no one, not even the pros consistently play masters of all characters. And that's just one character, assuming you have a secondary the numbers double again.
If you turn on your switch and it doesn't say 600 hours of actual playtime, you probably don't know the game.
Pro opinions are valuable, since they've clearly played the most and are the closest to actually knowing the game, but always taken with a grain of salt. Everything is still really rough around the edges still with no real confidence and still a lot of smash4 carry-over. Parrying is still pathetically under-used even pro level.

It's fun times, the meta is not stale and likely big shifts still incoming with more patches and DLC. This is the best time to be playing and be a spectator.

 

[Hippieslayer]

I still don't think FLUDD is better than Dr. Tornado as a lot of that stuff is situational / dependent on anti-airing poorly timed jumps and in some MU's you never get a good chance to use it to its full effect.

Dr. Tornado is always an important part of Doc's plan, FLUDD isn't on Mario. You can't tell me FLUDD is important in a MU against say, Greninja, or Sonic.. or my main Olimar. It's basically useless in those MU's outside of a quick panic button to get people off of you. They can each recover with EASE, and that's assuming you manage to even hit any of them with it. Olimar in particular can hard punish Mario for trying to edge-guard meteor him by clapping back with a DAir of his own to meteor Mario.. and with his Up-B / aerial mobility that's not hard to do.

I still don't see FLUDD as super valuable. It's a positional tool that sometimes cheeses people. Dr. Tornado has a ton of uses. Stage control implies you have control over an area of the stage, FLUDD doesn't give you that. Having someone far away from you OUTSIDE of disadvantage does not equate to having control. Especially if it's a character that benefits more out of being further away or has good edge game which Mario really doesn't.

The only character I play regularly that is threatened in the least by FLUDD is Ganon. I'm pretty familiar with the Mario MU, and I do not respect FLUDD the same way I respect Dr. Tornado when playing a Doc. Getting caught by the Tornado is always terrible, getting caught by FLUDD is sometimes bad and sometimes mildly annoying.

Yes. The tornado is an OP move held back by the Doctors limited mobility. On Mario it would be even better, and he'd benefit a lot from it because his ability to kill isn't exactly his strong side. I don't understand how this can even be a discussion, on the one side we have a highly situational tool that can be super useful in very specific scenarios but doesn't do anything a vast majority of the time. On the other hand we have a strong, reliable, and long duration multihitting killing move that can be comboed into easily and also covers options like a ************ by the ledge. B****es please...

 

[SwagGuy99]

Ah, okay, thanks for letting me know lol

This one looks fairly more accurate overall.

I'm surprised that he thinks Mario wins the Bowser matchup. It's very hard for Mario to approach Bowser with Bowser's long reaching attacks and Bowser can abuse Mario's poor range pretty well. IMO it's even although I may be overestimating how good Bowser is here.

Edit: Just so it's clear I think that this is pretty accurate overall though.

 

[Arthur97]

The decision to basically just hit Doc with hidden -Speed equipment instead of actively changing his parameters baffles me.

For a series that has always been so meticulous it seems weird they basically slapped some stuff on Doc and said "Good enough"

Doc still got more than others. Let's be fair though, Doc is practically an echo with a separate number.

 

[Lacrimosa]

That's outdated, here's his new one:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Surprised he put Zelda as even.
How times have changed :3.

(Too bad Mario isn't as prominent as before)

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

The decision to basically just hit Doc with hidden -Speed equipment instead of actively changing his parameters baffles me.

For a series that has always been so meticulous it seems weird they basically slapped some stuff on Doc and said "Good enough"

I think Doc's design isn't as sad as all that. I actually like him and see his very inclusion as a love letter to the design of Mario in the past. I like him because I preferred his moveset prior to Brawl more than after. I also think he's super ****ing cute, I love his taunts and win poses, I love that his fsmash is a defibrillator. I think it's unfair to say that he was created as an afterthought or with no care at all.

I just think the Smash designers overvalued his many good qualities and in the process of looking for ways to differentiate him from Mario, did so in a way that is a classically bad idea. When a character's primary differences are all the ways they're worse "but they hit harder", that's when you've messed up. See the discussion from a few pages ago when we were talking about why Yoshi's shield was a bad idea in past games.

I also don't think Doc is far off from being a legit high tier character. Give him either better dash speed or a dash attack that kills, reduce the recovery and increase the upwards travel on his air tornado, and I think he'd probably be pretty good. I'm okay with his recovery being linear so long as he can generally make it back to the stage when far away, but right now there are a few too many cases where the KB angle sucks for him and he just dies without ever having had a chance.

 

[Sean²]

I'm surprised that he thinks Mario wins the Bowser matchup. It's very hard for Mario to approach Bowser with Bowser's long reaching attacks and Bowser can abuse Mario's poor range pretty well. IMO it's even although I may be overestimating how good Bowser is here.

Edit: Just so it's clear I think that this is pretty accurate overall though.

Bowser is combo food for Mario, though. He's combo food for everyone, but for Mario, he's like a combo delicatessen.

 

[DunnoBro]

Bowser is combo food for Mario, though. He's combo food for everyone, but for Mario, he's like a combo delicatessen.

That's not the main reason imo.

Bowser is just actually free to two-frame with dash attack. Easiest and more rewarding by far in the game. There's no consistent angle he can do to avoid it, few mix-ups, and it's effectively a 50/50 every time it happens for cape due to his very horizontal/hurtboxy recovery. (Can dash off for cape, or feint back to just fsmash a high/later recovery)

Even DK's intangible hands on upb make it way harder/riskier to cape him. (And if he goes high with spinning kong, it'll beat DA)

In general, 2-framing with dash attack kinda sucks. Mostly sets up for a mix-up for cape/bair, high recovery interception, or easier timing for fsmash 2-framing. Even vs ness, spacies, etc. But vs Bowser, since his recovery is SO hurtboxy/horizontal, it's a much more controllable situation.

You don't even generally wanna bother comboing bowser past 50%~ if you can just get him offstage. (Though it is nice dthrow > Utilt/bair still works on him)

 

[Hippieslayer]

I think Doc's design isn't as sad as all that. I actually like him and see his very inclusion as a love letter to the design of Mario in the past. I like him because I preferred his moveset prior to Brawl more than after. I also think he's super ****ing cute, I love his taunts and win poses, I love that his fsmash is a defibrillator. I think it's unfair to say that he was created as an afterthought or with no care at all.

I just think the Smash designers overvalued his many good qualities and in the process of looking for ways to differentiate him from Mario, did so in a way that is a classically bad idea. When a character's primary differences are all the ways they're worse "but they hit harder", that's when you've messed up. See the discussion from a few pages ago when we were talking about why Yoshi's shield was a bad idea in past games.

I also don't think Doc is far off from being a legit high tier character. Give him either better dash speed or a dash attack that kills, reduce the recovery and increase the upwards travel on his air tornado, and I think he'd probably be pretty good. I'm okay with his recovery being linear so long as he can generally make it back to the stage when far away, but right now there are a few too many cases where the KB angle sucks for him and he just dies without ever having had a chance.

Second biggest disappointment with Ultimate after how they screwed basic mechanics like powershielding is how they still haven't learned that extremely polarized character design isnt fun

There are still so many characters with extreme strengths and extreme weaknesses, and they seldom work good, Pichu is the One exception I can think of right now, and it works because they didn't go with their typical way of compensating extreme power with some combination of Huge hurtbox, slow movement, poor disadvantage, and ****y recovery. This in particular doesn't work, partly because they overdo it. Ridley is a step forward. And they've made other steps forward with other characters. But a lot of the time they've tried to fix it by just giving these characters more powerful moves with less lag. Leading to them destroying players not Good enough to exploit their weaknesses while they still underperform Hard at higher levels of play. Little Mac, DK, Kirby and Ganon come to mind. Its not fun for anyone.

Like you I think Doc could be high Tier with minor changes. Just give him Marios recovery... Really, he needs it. Don't think he needs anything else, unsure if this alone would bump him into high tier but it's not out of question. He would still have a worse recovery than Mario because of his atrocious speed. Low airspeed and crap recovery together is too much. How can the devs get so much right and still get such simple stuff wrong? : S

Wouldn't touch his nado; its in a good place imo, strong but not overcentralizing to the point that it becomes lame and boring like say.. the kill confirming grabs of the last smash entry. Giving him any form of a speed buff feels dangerous to me, but maybe that's a good idea. I'm currently entertaining this idea of slightly slowing down the speed of his pills. The downside being the opponent has more time to avoid them but the upside is Doc will have andra easier time keeping up with them. Thereby this change should enable more utilization of pills for combos and setups. I'd also have them deal slightly more damage or just more shieldstun, whilst not increasing their range and so nerfing their range. What do you think about such a change?

Sorry guys I know I'm doing too much speculation on things that will never happen. Next post will be about the actual game.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Second biggest disappointment with Ultimate after how they screwed basic mechanics like powershielding is how they still haven't learned that highly polarized character design isn't..

I'm not with you on powershielding. Somewhere in my top 3 changes post-brawl was "get rid of or change powershielding." It's just shielding but better and if you do it, you win. It succeeds in providing an incentive to alter your attack rhythms in theory, but smash isn't really a traditional fighter and you only have so many opportunities and timings that you can hit someone on block unless you're a select few characters. Even when you do, there's not really a reward because most attacks are either safe or unsafe and not expressly plus or frame trap tools like in traditional fighting games. Oh, and tomahawks are reactable.

Wouldn't touch his nado; its in a good place imo, strong but not overcentralizing to the point that it becomes lame and boring like say.. the kill confirming grabs of the last smash entry. Giving him any form of a speed buff feels dangerous to me, but maybe that's a good idea. I'm currently entertaining this idea of slightly slowing down the speed of his pills. The downside being the opponent has more time to avoid them but the upside is Doc will have andra easier time keeping up with them. Thereby this change should enable more utilization of pills for combos and setups. I'd also have them deal slightly more damage or just more shieldstun, whilst not increasing their range and so nerfing their range. What do you think about such a change?

Sorry guys I know I'm doing too much speculation on things that will never happen. Next post will be about the actual game.

I suggested buffing his nado for recovery because I thought it was a way to buff him there without making his up-b exactly like Mario's, but you're right, it's already pretty strong. It might be better just to homogenize it. You might also just give him a really good airdodge, but I dunno how much I like that idea either. His bad disadvantage is something I think should remain.

A speed buff is dangerous, but that's why I'm so into dash attack buffs. One of doc's big problems is that he sometimes just can't get to you with anything but the meatiest frames of his dash attack, and often he can't even get that. I've had stocks against some characters go on five-ever because I'm too slow to do anything but repeatedly dash attack punish them as they run away.

I'd love the pills to move more slowly, or start a high arc and then slow down and lower its arc with each bounce. It'd be great to be able to get into positions of advantage with them a bit more easily.

 

[TTTTTsd]

I would argue Doc's design and niche actually existing in this game is proof that he's been fixed given that it did not work at all in the previous game. IMO I think he's good as is but if they wanted to improve his performance I'd just say he needs a run speed increase relative to the rest of Ult's cast. He does run slightly faster but its by a far more marginal value than the general speed increase from 4 to Ult that most chars got, so tuning that up would probably be all I could suggest. He doesn't even need to be close to Mario's speed or anything, but maybe around D3's footspeed (which is where he was in the last game)

For perspective I like to compare him to Akatsuki from UNIST, including the fact that he has a fairly good reward fireball that's not particularly amazing for zoning. The fact that Doc is properly rewarded for winning neutral (I'd even argue rewarded incredibly high, the damage on his moves is insane) is a big step up from Smash 4.