Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Minordeth]

I started going to weeklies. A few observations:

Wario's really good. His mobility's great, good recovery, kill power, staying power and waft is the clutch factor he needs. I lost to one with YL after hitting him at 140% for him to survive then dying to waft and 70%ish. Wario has the tools to win his bad MUs with swords, and by tools I mean stats and waft. He works well with this engine. In terms of the YL MU, YL has no problem getting chip damage but all that time a bomb is brewing in wario's lower intestine. Wario's hard to hit with a kill move and lives forever while killing early. IMO it's +1 Wario.

Fox is good, duh.

I've changed my stance on the best Link; it's TL. The simple answer is he does the same things YL does but has an easier time. A big part of that is TL's sword swings are much wider than YL's. Sure YL's Fair 1 combos into Usmash but TL's is less punishable, bigger hitbox and kills on its own sooner. It's just easier. The same basically applies to Bair; YL must Bair1, land>Usmash where TL's Bair simply kills anywhere. TL's Uair kills sooner. TL has a kill throw where YL has a stock cap throw at extremely high %s. TL's heavier with better air and run speed so his projectile keep away is easier. His jab's f5 vs YL's f6. YL has all these combo setups but TL hits harder and more easily. It's not like TL completely outclasses YL but his game plan is backed by better stats.

TL's lower results show how big a factor popularity is atm.

I... agree with this.

I lost to a YL in bracket at a weekly as Wolf, and watching the replay, and various other VODs, it became apparent that YL just has to commit more to get a kill. I mistakenly stayed at a longer range than I should have, and YL's projectile game messed me up. But watching how often he had to actually make a commitment to get the kill made me wonder about TL.

And after watching some VODs from Japan, I don't see the same issue. YL can certainly wrack up damage, and has some great projectiles, but to echo your thoughts, TL seems like he can reach his end-game state more easily than YL can.

Maybe Japan's on to something?

There was a problem fetching the tweet

This seems rather relevant to this thread.

Also, GSP is a terrible system that isn't actually representative of your skill at the game. Elite Smash almost certainly contains the top 100k players, but it also contains some middling players who were able to cheese their way in.

Unrelated but I looked at the replies to that tweet and are there really people with such limited vocabularies that they don't know what "sensationalize" means?

As soon as I realized that there would always be the risk of running into some GSP farmer on quickplay, I opted out.

A Better Online Experience:

1. Create a battle arena.
2. If you have a wired connection, drop that in your title.
2a. Maybe drop the region you are in.
3. Make your total number of players in a lobby small, like 3-4.
4. Make sure your random stage select is all tourney-legal stages.
5. If you don't want to create one, join one that meets your criteria. Yeah, you may lose and wait a match, but - IMO - that's far superior to being forced to play a laggy GSP Lucas/Ness farmer on Elite for 5 minutes.

Bonus. You can kick laggy players.

Double Bonus: I have no idea what my GSP score is. 3 mil? Idk.

 

[trickroom]

Somewhat tangential but, Overwatch's balance patches are exclusively tailored to high level

The significant amount of patches and general dissatisfaction should speak to how effective they are

One of the biggest sources of dissatisfaction with regard to Overwatch patches that is worth discussing in terms of competitive game balance philosophy is that Overwatch patches are very incremental, and don't try to overshoot things when nerfing them. Blizzard famously left reworked Mercy as a broken character for many months because they kept making small nerfs instead of ever dropping one patch that gutted her completely. This is happening again with Brigitte, and the GOATs meta -- incremental changes, instead of one drastic patch that could or could not solve the problem accurately, fail to change the meta over and over until one finally pushes it over the line.

 

[Diddy Kong]

I started going to weeklies. A few observations:

Wario's really good. His mobility's great, good recovery, kill power, staying power and waft is the clutch factor he needs. I lost to one with YL after hitting him at 140% for him to survive then dying to waft and 70%ish. Wario has the tools to win his bad MUs with swords, and by tools I mean stats and waft. He works well with this engine. In terms of the YL MU, YL has no problem getting chip damage but all that time a bomb is brewing in wario's lower intestine. Wario's hard to hit with a kill move and lives forever while killing early. IMO it's +1 Wario.

Fox is good, duh.

I've changed my stance on the best Link; it's TL. The simple answer is he does the same things YL does but has an easier time. A big part of that is TL's sword swings are much wider than YL's. Sure YL's Fair 1 combos into Usmash but TL's is less punishable, bigger hitbox and kills on its own sooner. It's just easier. The same basically applies to Bair; YL must Bair1, land>Usmash where TL's Bair simply kills anywhere. TL's Uair kills sooner. TL has a kill throw where YL has a stock cap throw at extremely high %s. TL's heavier with better air and run speed so his projectile keep away is easier. His jab's f5 vs YL's f6. YL has all these combo setups but TL hits harder and more easily. It's not like TL completely outclasses YL but his game plan is backed by better stats.

TL's lower results show how big a factor popularity is atm.

Agreed on everything here! Wario is an absolute beast with his aerial oppression, strenght and mobility indeed. Been telling this for a while.

Toon Link is also clearly the best Link. Up B grounded kills. All projectiles are as fast as Young Link's and deal better damage. Smaller frame, yet heavier, floaty which works well with his game plan, wider hitboxes and can kill much earlier. Only downside is his D Air I would say.

 

[Tri Knight]

Agreed on everything here! Wario is an absolute beast with his aerial oppression, strenght and mobility indeed. Been telling this for a while.

Toon Link is also clearly the best Link. Up B grounded kills. All projectiles are as fast as Young Link's and deal better damage. Smaller frame, yet heavier, floaty which works well with his game plan, wider hitboxes and can kill much earlier. Only downside is his D Air I would say.

The biggest thing is his kill options. The game has a huge emphasis on singular kill moves over set-ups/combos as of right now. Kill throws are a massive advantage and as I've learned from playing Adult Link, big hits for KOs are much more viable with the nerfs to shields (finally). TL is simply doing what Young Link does, only slightly better with his floatiness, AND with reliable kill options.

Young Link is the best damage dealer of the three, no doubt. But it's almost redundant when every enemy he's up against lives to 180% consistently anyway. As an example, if I'm getting kills with Adult Link at 110% consistently, and 130% with TL, that's 50-70% damage less than I am killing with Young Link. That's a LOT of damage no matter how fast you rack it up, especially at high percents where damage starts to slow down tremendously. This is a problem I'm seeing with Young Link far too much. His early game is fantastic, but he starts to struggle at high percents. It's a clear weakness we've all known about, but it's a big one imo.

 

[Diddy Kong]

The biggest thing is his kill options. The game has a huge emphasis on singular kill moves over set-ups/combos as of right now. Kill throws are a massive advantage and as I've learned from playing Adult Link, big hits for KOs are much more viable with the nerds to shields (finally). TL is simply doing what Young Link does, only slightly better with his floatiness, AND with reliable kill options.

Young Link is the best damage dealer of the three, no doubt. But it's almost redundant when every enemy he's up against lives to 180% consistently anyway. As an example, if I'm getting kills with Adult Link at 110% consistently, and 130% with TL, that's 50-70% damage less than I am killing with Young Link. That's a LOT of damage no matter how fast you rack it up, especially at high percents where damage starts to slow down tremendously. This is a problem I'm seeing with Young Link far too much. His early game is fantastic, but he starts to struggle at high percents. It's a clear weakness we've all known about, but it's a big one imo.

Great comparison and yes I feel the same way. TL has Up B as a punish or aerial attack that can lead to KOs though. YL is more of a rush down character and struggles more to kill than the likes of Diddy and Sheik, and he doesn’t have the kill set ups Diddy has either. Link himself is more reliable yes but chunky frame data and being combo food don’t help much... yet he gets results. YL also has the weakness of having fast fall speed so damage is easily taken, while TL can avoid a lot being a floaty.

Overall TL seems the most consistent. And it’s much like comparing Lucina with Marth and Roy. On paper, the others have some more advantages maybe, but as time passes people rather go for the consistent character. Those being Lucina and Toon Link.

 

[Krysco]

Online being pretty meh is why I don't post much and didn't post much back in the Sm4sh CCI. I'm aware of the flaws it has compared to offline play. I do get to play offline with my buddy every few days but there's no competitive scene in our city and the closest for us is likely Ottawa which would require a train to get to. Plus work makes it so I could only attend weeklies on a bi weekly basis, one of which would be after a 12 hour night shift the day prior. That's why I just try to stick to stuff I can verify on my own such as in training or against my buddy like my Mewtwo post from a few days ago. I also try to speak up when I see misinformation regarding characters I'm familiar with. Best example being Roy since so many people seem to think his sword still acts like Melee's where the tip isn't even safe on hit. Roy can absolutely play at tipper range and do fine. Not so much against other swordies since they'll out reward him on hit but against those without disjoints, he can hit them before they can hit him. Plus many of his moves cause tech chase scenarios like jab, ftilt, dtilt and fair, both the base and the tippers.

Speaking of work, it's why I haven't gotten around to making that tech archive thread. Usually end up too drained on my days off but I might be able to get it up on a weekend off or worst case scenario, on vacation time.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Online being pretty meh is why I don't post much and didn't post much back in the Sm4sh CCI. I'm aware of the flaws it has compared to offline play. I do get to play offline with my buddy every few days but there's no competitive scene in our city and the closest for us is likely Ottawa which would require a train to get to. Plus work makes it so I could only attend weeklies on a bi weekly basis, one of which would be after a 12 hour night shift the day prior. That's why I just try to stick to stuff I can verify on my own such as in training or against my buddy like my Mewtwo post from a few days ago. I also try to speak up when I see misinformation regarding characters I'm familiar with. Best example being Roy since so many people seem to think his sword still acts like Melee's where the tip isn't even safe on hit. Roy can absolutely play at tipper range and do fine. Not so much against other swordies since they'll out reward him on hit but against those without disjoints, he can hit them before they can hit him. Plus many of his moves cause tech chase scenarios like jab, ftilt, dtilt and fair, both the base and the tippers.

Speaking of work, it's why I haven't gotten around to making that tech archive thread. Usually end up too drained on my days off but I might be able to get it up on a weekend off or worst case scenario, on vacation time.

Curious about your thoughts on Mewtwo. Am in Elite Smash with him, don’t see many there. On what page is that post about Mewtwo?

 

[ARISTOS]

In general it's no use to worry about patches, they will come and go and your character may or may not get affected. It will be what it will be.

3) The philosophy of the Smash team. Nerfing kill power correlates to #2. Sheik, Diddy, and Bayo cannot kill now. In S4 Sheik got every single kill move she had nerfed since 3DS. They think making this characters have less powerful attacks will make them weaker, in reality they just make matches drag longer and punish the poor devils who want to play this characters.

Early Smash 4 Sheik and Diddy were abominations who had way too much damage output and killpower for their ability to eject themselves out of bad situations and play safe. They were, in a sense, perfect. Compare that to the current top tiers of Ultimate, who all have some sort of *fatal* flaw that keeps them in check. Ult Diddy and Sheik are still well rounded characters that are hard to hit, but you have to be willing to play the long game

4) Scrubs influence nerfs. Ganon Side B was likely (and most surely) nerfed because scrubs online die to it. Little Mac Side B was nerfed in Smash 4 because scrubs got wrecked by him on FG. D3 got nerfed because scrubs got wrecked by him. Many scrub killers are suspect of being unfairly nerfed, because this players cannot learn.

Ganon side-B was probably nerfed to put it in line with other suicide kills

 

[SwagGuy99]

Reasons to be scared of nerfs:

1) Being punished for learning a character and pushing them. You play Peach or whoever, and without notice a patch drops and all your effort goes down the drain.

2) Makes characters blander and painful to play. Sheik became incredibly boring and punishing to play after all the nerfs in Smash 4. Honest question, who likes playing Sheik after 2016?

3) The philosophy of the Smash team. Nerfing kill power correlates to #2. Sheik, Diddy, and Bayo cannot kill now. In S4 Sheik got every single kill move she had nerfed since 3DS. They think making this characters have less powerful attacks will make them weaker, in reality they just make matches drag longer and punish the poor devils who want to play this characters.

4) Scrubs influence nerfs. Ganon Side B was likely (and most surely) nerfed because scrubs online die to it. Little Mac Side B was nerfed in Smash 4 because scrubs got wrecked by him on FG. D3 got nerfed because scrubs got wrecked by him. Many scrub killers are suspect of being unfairly nerfed, because this players cannot learn.

Smash 4 was truly patched in the sense it was a mess full of stupid design choices (proof is that tons of mechanics were removed in 3DS and the existence of Hoohah). It was easier to make the broken characters "weaker" than buff half of the worthless roster. And the DLC...it isn't a secret Bayo and Cloud were rushed and nobody tested them. Sakurai and the Smash team were done with Smash 4 by that point.

I'm really hoping this doesn't happen to Luigi. Right now, his weaknesses are balanced out by his absurd combos off of grabs and if they nerf either his grab, or his comboing tools, what does he have left? This is what happened to him for a long time in Smash 4 but he managed to gain popularity again because of cyclone. Only this time, he doesn't have cyclone to fall back on once he's been nerfed. This is why I think that we shouldn't call for nerfs yet for any character, and hope that instead of that, we should hope that the clearly worse characters (like Incineroar, Wii Fit Trainer, or Bowser Jr.) get buffed. And I'm not saying that they have to go the route of Smash 4 Mewtwo and completely change how he plays (except Wii Fit; she kind of needs this) or that they should go the way of Smash 4 Bowser and give characters 1 or 2 really good things and call it a day. I think it should be done the way that it was done to Marth over Smash 4. More subtle buffs that will eventually add up over time.

 

[Terotrous]

On the topic of online, by far the worst thing about it involves stage selection. You can have all stage with hazards on (obviously a nonviable choice), just FD, just battlefield, or all stages with hazards off. I opted for the latter, since it's the closest IMO to the competitive experience, but every now and then you get an absurdly atrocious stage like Mario Bros where you can't have anything resembling a competitive match. I'm sure Nintendo has some idea what the good stages are, I don't see why we can't just have that as an option.

Other than that I've generally been pleasantly surprised by the quality of the online in general, with a wired connection there's not much lag and the players I'm being matched against are generally decent. I feel like you can definitely have relevant matches here, it's not all just lag abuse or what not. If they are using the online for balance patches I'm cautiously optimistic at this point that weaker characters might get the changes they need.

 

[Krysco]

Curious about your thoughts on Mewtwo. Am in Elite Smash with him, don’t see many there. On what page is that post about Mewtwo?

It was just a simple little post I made about a kill confirm I found:

So I just posted this in the Mewtwo boards but I figured I'd mention it here especially with @Nobie bringing up Mewtwo every now and then but aerial Confusion can true combo into fair at 140% on Diddy and presumably others. The advantage from Confusion gets higher as the opponents percent goes up (similar to Snake's dthrow) but at 999% it caps at +7 for Mewtwo. On some characters like Bowser, you can connect a jab after a grounded Confusion but even Ridley got put too high from the Confusion for the jab to connect. So if for whatever reason Mewtwo is having a hard time getting a KO, eventually he can nearly guarantee one on an opponent on a platform with either a straight up fair or a Confusion to fair.

As for my thoughts on him, he was one of my better characters in Sm4sh so I've found myself adapting to Ultimate Mewtwo rather well. From what I've heard, most Sm4sh Mewtwo players seem pessimistic about Ultimate Mewtwo since he lost certain things in the transition. My playstyle doesn't seem to be as affected where I'd mostly poke with dtilt and call out jumps with fair and force approaches with Shadow Ball. I was never really one to approach with nair, partly cuz I never got around to learning how to best manipulate where the opponent ends up if I land before the final hit but also because I saw it as a short ranged, mutlhit on the second lightest character in the game and I wasn't one to take such a risk approaching with such a move.

I'd like to believe that Mewtwo is still a good character since he's still very fast and powerful despite his weight and if Fox is anything to go by, that archetype usually turns out well. There are a few noteworthy changes though. Confusion no longer helps with recovery but instead it can kill confirm. Fair has more endlag preventing dtilt -> fair -> fair which sucks but is mostly fine. You're still in advantage after the dtilt -> fair. More of his tail has a hurtbox which could be detrimental since it makes dash back for him very risky since his tail lags behind him, much like the issue he faced back in Melee. Jab lost the trample effect so it can clank now. Ftilt has more range making it not entirely outclassed by dtilt. Disable has invincibility now so it could be used as a sort of psuedo-counter. There's also general damage buffs like to his throws and Shadow Ball. Losing access to spammable short hop airdodges is a pretty big blow to him though. Being able to cancel Shadow Ball with double jump allows you to fake out a low edgeguard attempt by jumping up with an aerial. Along with djc, it also allows you to land with Confusion or Disable as you fall with Shadow Ball charging.

He also retained his tech from Sm4sh. You can cancel the momentum of your double jump by inputting Shadow Ball, Confusion, Disable or an item toss shortly after double jumping. He still has Teleport edge cancels. Footstool to djc Disable is still a thing.

Probably just a shallow surface level look at Mewtwo compared to what others could say about him but I also only recently got back into using him. Mainly because I've been using Ridley a lot, mostly for his dtilt and it reminded me a lot of Mewtwo's dtilt.

 

[Diddy Kong]

It was just a simple little post I made about a kill confirm I found:

As for my thoughts on him, he was one of my better characters in Sm4sh so I've found myself adapting to Ultimate Mewtwo rather well. From what I've heard, most Sm4sh Mewtwo players seem pessimistic about Ultimate Mewtwo since he lost certain things in the transition. My playstyle doesn't seem to be as affected where I'd mostly poke with dtilt and call out jumps with fair and force approaches with Shadow Ball. I was never really one to approach with nair, partly cuz I never got around to learning how to best manipulate where the opponent ends up if I land before the final hit but also because I saw it as a short ranged, mutlhit on the second lightest character in the game and I wasn't one to take such a risk approaching with such a move.

I'd like to believe that Mewtwo is still a good character since he's still very fast and powerful despite his weight and if Fox is anything to go by, that archetype usually turns out well. There are a few noteworthy changes though. Confusion no longer helps with recovery but instead it can kill confirm. Fair has more endlag preventing dtilt -> fair -> fair which sucks but is mostly fine. You're still in advantage after the dtilt -> fair. More of his tail has a hurtbox which could be detrimental since it makes dash back for him very risky since his tail lags behind him, much like the issue he faced back in Melee. Jab lost the trample effect so it can clank now. Ftilt has more range making it not entirely outclassed by dtilt. Disable has invincibility now so it could be used as a sort of psuedo-counter. There's also general damage buffs like to his throws and Shadow Ball. Losing access to spammable short hop airdodges is a pretty big blow to him though. Being able to cancel Shadow Ball with double jump allows you to fake out a low edgeguard attempt by jumping up with an aerial. Along with djc, it also allows you to land with Confusion or Disable as you fall with Shadow Ball charging.

He also retained his tech from Sm4sh. You can cancel the momentum of your double jump by inputting Shadow Ball, Confusion, Disable or an item toss shortly after double jumping. He still has Teleport edge cancels. Footstool to djc Disable is still a thing.

Probably just a shallow surface level look at Mewtwo compared to what others could say about him but I also only recently got back into using him. Mainly because I've been using Ridley a lot, mostly for his dtilt and it reminded me a lot of Mewtwo's dtilt.

Never knew that about Disable. I wasn't much affected either by the transition. Shadow Ball is stronger, Jab is MUCH better, recovery is still great, F Air is still great, F Tilt is buffed, I can't see why there's issues with Mewtwo only if you've been abusing the Smash 4 engine when you mained him in that game. Also, I prefer Confusion now over the Smash 4 version. Smash attacks are also stronger I believe. I can't see what's everyone's fuss about Mewtwo. Outside of that tail hurtbox though, because that's just... stupid. Very weird design choice.

Mewtwo still has a good neutral. advantage and even disadvantage (even if it's worse now) so the airdodge spam removal shouldn't really be all that bad. Just learn Teleport mind games, because it seems more rewarding this time. It's obviously not the same, but I never felt much for that 'tactic' anyway. I also completely share your opinion about N Air.

 

[Krysco]

Never knew that about Disable. I wasn't much affected either by the transition. Shadow Ball is stronger, Jab is MUCH better, recovery is still great, F Air is still great, F Tilt is buffed, I can't see why there's issues with Mewtwo only if you've been abusing the Smash 4 engine when you mained him in that game. Also, I prefer Confusion now over the Smash 4 version. Smash attacks are also stronger I believe. I can't see what's everyone's fuss about Mewtwo. Outside of that tail hurtbox though, because that's just... stupid. Very weird design choice.

Mewtwo still has a good neutral. advantage and even disadvantage (even if it's worse now) so the airdodge spam removal shouldn't really be all that bad. Just learn Teleport mind games, because it seems more rewarding this time. It's obviously not the same, but I never felt much for that 'tactic' anyway. I also completely share your opinion about N Air.

Yeah, going frame by frame with invincibility on in training shows that Disable is invincible from frames 10-16. I also just did some further testing with that Confusion to fair confirm on Ganondorf. Because Confusion doesn't put the opponent in a set position, it can sometimes miss. I was able to land a falling Confusion to fair on Ganondorf but not a rising Confusion to fair. It's possible that it's different for each character but that does make it less of a platform pressure tool and more of a landing one.

 

[J0eyboi]

4) Scrubs influence nerfs. Ganon Side B was likely (and most surely) nerfed because scrubs online die to it. Little Mac Side B was nerfed in Smash 4 because scrubs got wrecked by him on FG. D3 got nerfed because scrubs got wrecked by him. Many scrub killers are suspect of being unfairly nerfed, because this players cannot learn.

Correction: Scrubs influenced nerfs. Look at Smash 4's update history, and you'll notice that nothing* like that was really nerfed post-3DS. The dev team saw the negative reception to those changes and stopped making them.

Also, just in general. The dev team is a team. Of people. And as people, they learn things. You can already see this in action with Smash 4's patches. Have a little faith in their ability to learn from their mistakes maybe.

*Okay, so there was that one time DDD had his airspeed nerfed, but it was nerfed by a negligible amount and really I have no clue why that change was made.

 

[L9999]

Disclaimer: this post is coming from an excited and a little biased Ness main but the content is valid

Also Ness continues to have among if not the best tournament results in the game and it seems like more players are picking him up and actually seeing results. Yeah I know it’s early, yeah I heard about the Smash 4 hype, and yeah I know about his recovery problems (which are overblown and I’d take Ness’s recovery over Cloud’s without limit, Chrom’s, Belmont’s, and maybe a couple others). His double jump and movement options in the air including PSI Magnet air dodge maunvers gives him great versatility when recovering and PKT2 can straight up trade stocks or kill while trying to gimp it. Can we at least say he’s solidly high tier now with low top tier potential? Yeah he has potential to drop and he has flaws just like every other current top or high tier character but I think it’s more likely that he’ll stay right where he is.

Again I’m cool with people sleeping on him and not seeing him as a threat and putting him in mid tier or even low mid in some tier lists I’ve seen. That just makes him more dangerous. The results are getting impossible to ignore though and although they’re early and we don’t know how the meta is going to shape up Ness is making a strong statement for a big place in it

I see where you are coming from but Ness is still pretty vulnerable offstage. PKT is super slow so Ness has to rely on DJ airdodge, which is also slow and can be 2 framed really hard. PKT might be the worst Up B for recovery purposes in the game besides Mac's. It is a meme how many characters can cheese PK Thunder.

Gravitational gimp ()

Snipe the bolt ()

Counter ()

Cheese ()

Stand in the way, DI to the stage and tech. Ness dies you live.

PKT is so poor even can edgeguard Ness by 2 framing with Nair, grabbing ledge and repeat until Ness cannot reach anymore. Then the Dabuz quote "Ness used to be good, but then we thought "just Bair him," and he went downhill from there." Ness doesn't have the liberty to go to ledge quick like other characters. He has to commit to a mixup which admittedly he has many, with magnet stall and changing your timings on PKT control.

I agree with you 100%. Peach in particular I'm worried about. I fear they will look at her results and automatically think that warrants nerfs. She's still one of the hardest characters to master. Those who prove themselves with her in tournaments have put serious dedication and practice into what she can do. She's definitely an example of lots of learning and pushing to be played like that.

I don't know why the Smash 4/Ultimate community has a distaste for the existence of a best character. It is a natural phenomenon that will happen yes or yes.

 

[Minordeth]

Online being pretty meh is why I don't post much and didn't post much back in the Sm4sh CCI. I'm aware of the flaws it has compared to offline play. I do get to play offline with my buddy every few days but there's no competitive scene in our city and the closest for us is likely Ottawa which would require a train to get to. Plus work makes it so I could only attend weeklies on a bi weekly basis, one of which would be after a 12 hour night shift the day prior.

Massive side note:

So, I currently do this, and it’s kind of rough. After 24 hours of no sleep, a person’s level of impairment is similar to a BAC >0.08%. In other words: a bit buzzed.

If your autopilot is really good, I’d say still do it. I’m mostly going to support the local scene, as otherwise I’ve found it tough to learn what I messed up on, because the vast majority of my mistakes are technical/judgment errors that probably wouldn’t happen if I was rested.

I’d like to take a couple weeks off and attend all the stuff I could, to get a baseline of actual performance, but lololol I’m an adult with bills and a 401(k) and ****.

Second side note:
Speaking of technical issues, Ismon’s Falco did fairly well against Elegant recently, and would have possibly won, if not for his three SDs.

This guy took down Karna at TGC recently, with some of the most effective parrying I’ve seen yet.

 

[The_Bookworm]

*Okay, so there was that one time DDD had his airspeed nerfed, but it was nerfed by a negligible amount and really I have no clue why that change was made.

I have no idea why Dedede got nothing but nerfs during the SSB4 patch trials. The meme should've been "better nerf Dedede".

 

[Deleted member]

https://youtu.be/oIy2PEiJJKw
Jigglypuff has a nice Mu against Chrom Hungrybox gets a three stock in 50 seconds in the first match so if you use her correctly she can shred

 

[AxelVDP]

https://youtu.be/oIy2PEiJJKw
Jigglypuff has a nice Mu against Chrom Hungrybox gets a three stock in 50 seconds in the first match so if you use her correctly she can shred

Prepare to receive lots of comment in this same vein: that match is not representative of the matchup, there's a noticeable skill gap between the 2 players, bladeX was not spacing correctly with his sword and was mostly rushing in, but most importantly he handled his resources very poorly when near the ledge, just look at his super liberal use of jumps when getting back and basically never mixing up some airdodges or defensive aerials to keep jiggly away

edit: this is not to say that the matchup can't be in jiggs favor (tho I'm skeptical about that too), just that you cannot judge from that video alone

 

[Kellojolly]

Some time has passed since the Smash Conference. Now that people have tried out Ike and Link after Smash Conference, what are your thoughts on Ike and Link? Right after the tournament, many were calling Ike and Link top-tier, broken, etc. With some level-headedness and calmed hype, what do you think? In particular, I've been following T and Salem's Link recently and it's weird to see two very different approaches in playing Link. Salem plays more defensively with emphasis around stage control using his boomerang and bomb with a defensive usage of NAir to say "back off!". T, on the other hand, plays Link...as he would YL - aggressive and offensive with a rather straightforward usage of the remote bomb. I would've assumed T's approach to playing Link is just not effective due to Link's lack of top-tier CQC options with good frames and speed. But that may also not be the case since it seems like T is getting some notable tournament results. I would like to hear what you guys think.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Some time has passed since the Smash Conference. Now that people have tried out Ike and Link after Smash Conference, what are your thoughts on Ike and Link? Right after the tournament, many were calling Ike and Link top-tier, broken, etc. With some level-headedness and calmed hype, what do you think? In particular, I've been following T and Salem's Link recently and it's weird to see two very different approaches in playing Link. Salem plays more defensively with emphasis around stage control using his boomerang and bomb with a defensive usage of NAir to say "back off!". T, on the other hand, plays Link...as he would YL - aggressive and offensive with a rather straightforward usage of the remote bomb. I would've assumed T's approach to playing Link is just not effective due to Link's lack of top-tier CQC options with good frames and speed. But that may also not be the case since it seems like T is getting some notable tournament results. I would like to hear what you guys think.

T's playstyle with Link is effective to an extent, but his playstyle fits YL better. It is either that, or he is still adjusting to normal Link.

Both of those formerly mid tier heavy swordies are looking really good. Some are skeptimistic if they are top tier material, but in the current metagame, looking very strong.

 

[Diddy Kong]

https://youtu.be/oIy2PEiJJKw
Jigglypuff has a nice Mu against Chrom Hungrybox gets a three stock in 50 seconds in the first match so if you use her correctly she can shred

No, HBox is just a amazing player and the Chrom player made lots of mistakes.

However, HBox maining Jigglypuff and being a great player is good for Jigglypuff in general. This is the number 1 thing that will decide tier placements this time I feel, top players dedicated to a character. I would say for example that Jigglypuff is in general worse than Diddy, but due to HBox playing Jigglypuff, and ZeRo neglecting Diddy for Cloud, Jigglypuff might just rise above Diddy therefore.

This is also why Link will likely end up better than his smaller counterparts, Salem and other top players maining him. I still personally think that Young Link, and especially Toon Link are actually better characters.

 

[J0eyboi]

edit: this is not to say that the matchup can't be in jiggs favor (tho I'm skeptical about that too), just that you cannot judge from that video alone

I am very sure that matchup isn't Puff-favored; at best it's even and even that seems very unlikely. Here's a two-step guide to winning that matchup:

1. Stay out of Puff's puny burst range; which you have enough mobility to do without incident
2. Smack her repeatedly with your large variety of antiairs that specifically work well against low-angled jumpins and/or your great air-to-airs

Obviously, it's not quite that simple, but the fact that Chrom (or Roy) has a disjoint makes it very hard for Puff to get in on him. The best she can do much of the time is trade, and Chroy (Roy especially) will rarely lose trades, by virtue of not being the second lightest character in the game and having higher per-hit damage on most moves. Puff can try to bait an antiair and whiff-punish you, but that requires extremely good spacing on her part, and if you mix up your movement, spacing, and attack timings, you're going to be winning neutral a lot more than Puff.

For her part, Puff can edgeguard both Roy and Chrom quite well (though Chrom is way easier), and if she can get a lead and force them to approach, life instantly becomes easier for her, but getting to that point is really difficult. The fact that

https://youtu.be/oIy2PEiJJKw

this match only lasted 50 seconds is proof enough that it was played poorly; this matchup should be taken slowly by both sides at almost all times, because being too aggressive will just get you smacked hard.

Roy is easily better in the matchup tho

 

[Rizen]

This is also why Link will likely end up better than his smaller counterparts, Salem and other top players maining him. I still personally think that Young Link, and especially Toon Link are actually better characters.

Link has polarizing matches. He seems really good when he makes the right calls and kills early but also can't recover after getting chained by 2 Bairs offstage and dies at 38%. This is not a scrub Link, Arrow's gotten 9th of 132.

If Link and YL were one character with combined strengths he'd be a top tier. But when they buffed Link's reach and kill power they nerfed his frame data and recovery. Conversely YL got mobility and frame buffs but poor kill power and light weight.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Link has polarizing matches. He seems really good when he makes the right calls and kills early but also can't recover after getting chained by 2 Bairs offstage and dies at 38%. This is not a scrub Link, Arrow's gotten 9th of 132.

If Link and YL were one character with combined strengths he'd be a top tier. But when they buffed Link's reach and kill power they nerfed his frame data and recovery. Conversely YL got mobility and frame buffs but poor kill power and light weight.

I kinda think that all Links where meant to balance each other out. Might be best to play all of them therefore. That’s what I would do as a Link main though. I kinda rotate between them if I play them for fun, with slight preference to Toon Link.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Link has polarizing matches. He seems really good when he makes the right calls and kills early but also can't recover after getting chained by 2 Bairs offstage and dies at 38%. This is not a scrub Link, Arrow's gotten 9th of 132.

If Link and YL were one character with combined strengths he'd be a top tier. But when they buffed Link's reach and kill power they nerfed his frame data and recovery. Conversely YL got mobility and frame buffs but poor kill power and light weight.

The clip isn't the best example, as the Link had no jump and Game & Watch's back air is stupid powerful.

I still think that the nerfed shields of Ultimate and the ability to dash cancel compensates for the frame data nerf to Link's grounded attacks. The only time where it is a glaring problem is OoS, but Palutena also suffers from the same issues. Link's recovery isn't really nerfed that much, and it is honestly pretty good for his weight class.

I also can't believe it took this long to say this: Link's aerial up B is stupid. The move has large hitboxes, and the individual hits sends the opponent in the opposite direction of the move, which either puts the opponent into the rest of the move if behind Link, or simply hitting them with a single hit of the linking hits can lead into an edgeguard situation if it is on front, which can outright gimp them because the linking hits is deceptively strong for being linking hits. The final hit is also pretty powerful.

 

[LancerStaff]

Reasons to be scared of nerfs:

1) Being punished for learning a character and pushing them. You play Peach or whoever, and without notice a patch drops and all your effort goes down the drain.

2) Makes characters blander and painful to play. Sheik became incredibly boring and punishing to play after all the nerfs in Smash 4. Honest question, who likes playing Sheik after 2016?

3) The philosophy of the Smash team. Nerfing kill power correlates to #2. Sheik, Diddy, and Bayo cannot kill now. In S4 Sheik got every single kill move she had nerfed since 3DS. They think making this characters have less powerful attacks will make them weaker, in reality they just make matches drag longer and punish the poor devils who want to play this characters.

4) Scrubs influence nerfs. Ganon Side B was likely (and most surely) nerfed because scrubs online die to it. Little Mac Side B was nerfed in Smash 4 because scrubs got wrecked by him on FG. D3 got nerfed because scrubs got wrecked by him. Many scrub killers are suspect of being unfairly nerfed, because this players cannot learn.

Smash 4 was truly patched in the sense it was a mess full of stupid design choices (proof is that tons of mechanics were removed in 3DS and the existence of Hoohah). It was easier to make the broken characters "weaker" than buff half of the worthless roster. And the DLC...it isn't a secret Bayo and Cloud were rushed and nobody tested them. Sakurai and the Smash team were done with Smash 4 by that point.

I get the concern, but like... Smash 4 was still probably a better game in the end, even with Cloud and Bayo.

We don’t have a choice with patches. They’re inevitably going to nerf the **** out of several characters and we just have to take it. If nerfs bother you then come back in a year, because I don’t see them caring much about balance long term this time either.

TBH this first real patch needs to happen sooner rather than later because people need to know how patches are going to go down rather than get their hopes up like usual. Guess we’ll know in a month.

 

[J0eyboi]

The only time where it is a glaring problem is OoS,

What

Link doesn't have problems OoS. Up-B is one of the best OoS options in the game, especially with its buffed range and startup. Nair is a decent frame 10 option that hits things Up-B won't, and Usmash is a solid antiair that's frame 11 (or 10? Still not clear on how Usmash OoS works now) OoS. There's also item toss OoS if he has a bomb.

 

[LightLV]

lol every chrom matchup is basically the same imo -- he's bending you over hard...until he isn't

 

[DavemanCozy]

What

Link doesn't have problems OoS. Up-B is one of the best OoS options in the game, especially with its buffed range and startup. Nair is a decent frame 10 option that hits things Up-B won't, and Usmash is a solid antiair that's frame 11 (or 10? Still not clear on how Usmash OoS works now) OoS. There's also item toss OoS if he has a bomb.

U-smash is frame 10 just like N-air. His other OoS option is B-air at frame 9 if they're behind him.

Up-B is nuts for sure, it's very powerful and its reach is great in this game.

Regarding Palutena: her fastest OoS option is N-air at frame 8, after that it's B-air at frame 11; but it is worth noting that part of her body is intangible on frame 7 for b-air.

 

[LightLV]

Some time has passed since the Smash Conference. Now that people have tried out Ike and Link after Smash Conference, what are your thoughts on Ike and Link? Right after the tournament, many were calling Ike and Link top-tier, broken, etc. With some level-headedness and calmed hype, what do you think? In particular, I've been following T and Salem's Link recently and it's weird to see two very different approaches in playing Link. Salem plays more defensively with emphasis around stage control using his boomerang and bomb with a defensive usage of NAir to say "back off!". T, on the other hand, plays Link...as he would YL - aggressive and offensive with a rather straightforward usage of the remote bomb. I would've assumed T's approach to playing Link is just not effective due to Link's lack of top-tier CQC options with good frames and speed. But that may also not be the case since it seems like T is getting some notable tournament results. I would like to hear what you guys think.

Ike is a powerhouse with some dangerous combos and Link is a lesser powerhouse with projectiles and some functional zoning gimmicks.

IMO my favorite thing about Link is that there are probably going to be multiple viable ways to play him, he's got some neat gimmicks and I feel like he's GENERALLY well equipped to deal with the cast of the game.

He's got some speed issues, but nothing too polarizing -- Link doesn't have panic buttons in scramble situations, but he isn't slow by any means, in fact most characters in this game aren't and people need to realize that.

I think that being "slow" on this game generally just means that you have a harder time breaking out of disadvantageous situations / combos by mashing. But most characters like that have an above average weight and kill power, so i feel like it more or less balances itself out.


And i absolutely love how Spin Attack is a useful deliberate offensive move on this game. The bigger range coupled with things like evasive decay make it a great control move

I also can't believe it took this long to say this: Link's aerial up B is stupid. The move has large hitboxes, and the individual hits sends the opponent in the opposite direction of the move, which either puts the opponent into the rest of the move if behind Link, or simply hitting them with a single hit of the linking hits can lead into an edgeguard situation if it is on front, which can outright gimp them because the linking hits is deceptively strong for being linking hits. The final hit is also pretty powerful.

It was stupid in Smash 4 too, Link had some pretty dumb hitboxes but his spin attack was rage inducing if you edgeguarded him incorrectly.

 

[PK Bash]

I just really really really hope this doesn’t happen to PK Fire because people are too bad to play around it. I’ve already seen a TON of unjustified complaining about it and I’ve literally had players jump off stage three times when they saw I was playing Ness. Not looking good atm. It’s a completely fair move and while just one move in Ness’s kit it’s completely intregal to it. My main is finally a high tier viable character and to have that taken away from him over scrubby play, lag, and complaints would be heartbreaking

Disclaimer: this post is coming from an excited and a little biased Ness main but the content is valid

Also Ness continues to have among if not the best tournament results in the game and it seems like more players are picking him up and actually seeing results. Yeah I know it’s early, yeah I heard about the Smash 4 hype, and yeah I know about his recovery problems (which are overblown and I’d take Ness’s recovery over Cloud’s without limit, Chrom’s, Belmont’s, and maybe a couple others). His double jump and movement options in the air including PSI Magnet air dodge maunvers gives him great versatility when recovering and PKT2 can straight up trade stocks or kill while trying to gimp it. Can we at least say he’s solidly high tier now with low top tier potential? Yeah he has potential to drop and he has flaws just like every other current top or high tier character but I think it’s more likely that he’ll stay right where he is.

Again I’m cool with people sleeping on him and not seeing him as a threat and putting him in mid tier or even low mid in some tier lists I’ve seen. That just makes him more dangerous. The results are getting impossible to ignore though and although they’re early and we don’t know how the meta is going to shape up Ness is making a strong statement for a big place in it

People have been complaining about PK Fire since the grey dawn of time. They can't really make it much worse without making it borderline redundant lol. I think we're safe.
Just while I'm here, and you're of course completely free to disagree, I don't myself agree with your evaluation of PK Fire as integral to Ness' kit: to me the point of this move is to, for example, punish a roll away (you could also set this up if, say, you back air somebody's shield and read the roll backwards) or other punishes like that on some kind of commitment (such as a landing aerial or some certain mu-specific callouts (another mu specific use) etc) where you can't grab them. There's no matchup where your main goal is to land a PK Fire on somebody for example, it's just one of those options you use when you have an opening but you can't really grab them to set up another guessing game where you read their escape options (Army had shown using Olimar's Up B to escape PKF prior to this interaction). A little bit like Ganon's flame choke and subsequent tech chasing if you want some frame of reference, except you're chasing jump, shield, roll or occasionally an attack (and of course, with PKF you're not punishing shields directly). It's super useful in some situations, and very very powerful against people who do not understand the game that well, but when you're playing in tournaments it should be secondary to your grabs!

With regards to tournament results I'd say nothing is surprising me yet. We already knew FOW, Awestin, S1 etc were going to dominate their local scenes even if Ness was terrible! We have FOW and Shaky at Genesis 6 for sure - we'll see what happens there and going forward.

 

[Rizen]

What

Link doesn't have problems OoS. Up-B is one of the best OoS options in the game, especially with its buffed range and startup. Nair is a decent frame 10 option that hits things Up-B won't, and Usmash is a solid antiair that's frame 11 (or 10? Still not clear on how Usmash OoS works now) OoS. There's also item toss OoS if he has a bomb.

USmash is F10. UpB OoS is good but has the downside of being 76 frames if you miss or are blocked. That's not much worse than missing an upB that lifts into the air and causes freefalling :/

The clip isn't the best example, as the Link had no jump and Game & Watch's back air is stupid powerful.

I still think that the nerfed shields of Ultimate and the ability to dash cancel compensates for the frame data nerf to Link's grounded attacks. The only time where it is a glaring problem is OoS, but Palutena also suffers from the same issues. Link's recovery isn't really nerfed that much, and it is honestly pretty good for his weight class.

I also can't believe it took this long to say this: Link's aerial up B is stupid. The move has large hitboxes, and the individual hits sends the opponent in the opposite direction of the move, which either puts the opponent into the rest of the move if behind Link, or simply hitting them with a single hit of the linking hits can lead into an edgeguard situation if it is on front, which can outright gimp them because the linking hits is deceptively strong for being linking hits. The final hit is also pretty powerful.

The same thing applies if Link's hit offstage; he's gimped by weak attacks. UpB has good coverage but is vulnerable to Nairs/Dairs from above. Boomerang really helps all 3 Links recover. Link's recovery isn't terrible but he is susceptible to gimps.

 

[MG_3989]

People have been complaining about PK Fire since the grey dawn of time. They can't really make it much worse without making it borderline redundant lol. I think we're safe.
Just while I'm here, and you're of course completely free to disagree, I don't myself agree with your evaluation of PK Fire as integral to Ness' kit: to me the point of this move is to, for example, punish a roll away (you could also set this up if, say, you back air somebody's shield and read the roll backwards) or other punishes like that on some kind of commitment (such as a landing aerial or some certain mu-specific callouts (another mu specific use) etc) where you can't grab them. There's no matchup where your main goal is to land a PK Fire on somebody for example, it's just one of those options you use when you have an opening but you can't really grab them to set up another guessing game where you read their escape options (Army had shown using Olimar's Up B to escape PKF prior to this interaction). A little bit like Ganon's flame choke and subsequent tech chasing if you want some frame of reference, except you're chasing jump, shield, roll or occasionally an attack (and of course, with PKF you're not punishing shields directly). It's super useful in some situations, and very very powerful against people who do not understand the game that well, but when you're playing in tournaments it should be secondary to your grabs!

With regards to tournament results I'd say nothing is surprising me yet. We already knew FOW, Awestin, S1 etc were going to dominate their local scenes even if Ness was terrible! We have FOW and Shaky at Genesis 6 for sure - we'll see what happens there and going forward.

True I was pretty drunk when I wrote that post last night. I agree that PK Fire isn’t isn’t the the most important part of Ness’s kit nor is it ever the goal to land it’s still an important punish and landing tool when mixed up right. Maybe I was a little overzealous on Ness so far and I’m willing to wait to see how Genesis shakes out before we really judge anyone

 

[The_Bookworm]

Not sure if anyone mentioned this, but apparently Diddy has a banana infinite on characters on platforms:

Thoughts?

 

[J0eyboi]

Not sure if anyone mentioned this, but apparently Diddy has a banana infinite on characters on platforms:

Thoughts?

Yeah, I saw that a while ago. It's decidedly in the "not worth practicing" camp. It's not easy to do, and there are next to no practical setups. You have to throw a banana at someone who is standing on a platform and be in position to follow up on that banana toss with either a second banana toss or another banana pull, which just isn't happening in a real match.

 

[Terotrous]

Anyone have thoughts on who they think might be strong for doubles? Was watching Frosty Faustings tonight and there was a lot of Ike and Palutena. Palutena's ability to side B through her partner seems solid for flat stages, though I was expecting to see more cheap stuff like in 4 (ie, charging GW's bucket, pocketing stuff with Villager, etc). I guess it's also worth noting that unlike every other smash game, attacks in 2v2s do less damage compared to 1v1s, which might affect the viability of some characters. It seemed like gimps were much more prominent in doubles.

 

[MartinAW4]

Anyone have thoughts on who they think might be strong for doubles? Was watching Frosty Faustings tonight and there was a lot of Ike and Palutena. Palutena's ability to side B through her partner seems solid for flat stages, though I was expecting to see more cheap stuff like in 4 (ie, charging GW's bucket, pocketing stuff with Villager, etc). I guess it's also worth noting that unlike every other smash game, attacks in 2v2s do less damage compared to 1v1s, which might affect the viability of some characters. It seemed like gimps were much more prominent in doubles.

It's the other way around actually. In doubles you do the same damage as in past games (and same knockback as in singles), but in singles your damage is increased.

The gimps were likely just due to edgeguarding being better in this game, not because of lower damage output.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Never knew that about Disable. I wasn't much affected either by the transition. Shadow Ball is stronger, Jab is MUCH better, recovery is still great, F Air is still great, F Tilt is buffed, I can't see why there's issues with Mewtwo only if you've been abusing the Smash 4 engine when you mained him in that game. Also, I prefer Confusion now over the Smash 4 version. Smash attacks are also stronger I believe. I can't see what's everyone's fuss about Mewtwo. Outside of that tail hurtbox though, because that's just... stupid. Very weird design choice.

Mewtwo still has a good neutral. advantage and even disadvantage (even if it's worse now) so the airdodge spam removal shouldn't really be all that bad. Just learn Teleport mind games, because it seems more rewarding this time. It's obviously not the same, but I never felt much for that 'tactic' anyway. I also completely share your opinion about N Air.

It's mainly because the compensation they gave him for system changes don't really help or do anything for him. M2 as a character received major nerfs and some minor ones. Not only that but m2 was always a character with poor OoS options and nerfing shield grab doesnt help at all. Losing kill confims dont help. Losing combos dont help. I really could care less if he could dash and do dtilt (which ahs more end lag) that doesnt address him problems. The new nair is trash.. Shadowball is good cool. Not going to play m2 for shadowball when you can just play lucario. He's a massive floaty character who dies early and isnt as rewarded for getting hits as he was in sm4sh. But keep telling us how awesome m2 is while no top mewtwo player plays him. I love that.

 

[Browny]

It's mainly because the compensation they gave him for system changes don't really help or do anything for him. M2 as a character received major nerfs and some minor ones. Not only that but m2 was always a character with poor OoS options and nerfing shield grab doesnt help at all. Losing kill confims dont help. Losing combos dont help. I really could care less if he could dash and do dtilt (which ahs more end lag) that doesnt address him problems. The new nair is trash.. Shadowball is good cool. Not going to play m2 for shadowball when you can just play lucario. He's a massive floaty character who dies early and isnt as rewarded for getting hits as he was in sm4sh. But keep telling us how awesome m2 is while no top mewtwo player plays him. I love that.

SDX is still wrecking people solo Mewtwo, so what now lol.