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Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

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AEMehr

Mii Fighter
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I feel that it's a strong enough tool that the threat of it dictates the way the match is played. Against Mii Brawler, you have to approach, because otherwise I'll keep throwing Shotputs forever. I feel like he can actually force almost any character to approach, I'm trying to think of a character that can force him to approach instead and I'm not coming up with much. The fact that it arcs allows him to jump over projectiles while retaliating at the same time, and it also goes through any other projectile. Maybe Olimar but even then, I'd be willing to trade in that exchange because it's probably about the same amount of damage but a shotput hit puts Mii Brawler in advantage state and if they hit each other the pikmin just die and the ball goes right through.

Of course, the result is that your opponent will try to close in, so much of the match will be played in close quarters where you cannot easily throw shotputs. But being able to neutralize the long range game of various characters is still pretty good. For example, I wouldn't fear Snake at all as this character. You want to pull grenades to deter aggression? Go ahead, I've got way more iron balls where that came from. You can't really try to "slow down the match" vs him because he'll just go back to spamming if you give him any space to work with.
I would have to see this in action, from my experience Shotput tossing to countercamp doesnt seem to do much for you but waste time on the clock.
 

Terotrous

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I tried looking up matches on Youtube but there's very little Mii Brawler play out there. I did find this one, which sort of shows what I'm talking about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZFQsYTfXZ8

You'll notice that especially in the second match, he tends to throw the shotput whenever he has space, including in disadvantage to discourage aggressive pursuit by the Greninja. I would be throwing like twice as many Shotputs but this is the general idea (though Greninja is super fast so you probably can't throw quite as many vs him).

In any case, I did notice that in all the Mii Brawler matches I checked, Shotput is universal, even for players that don't spam it that much.
 
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DunnoBro

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I actually think Mii Brawler actually has crazy potential with ledge traps. Shotput lets Brawler safely harass offstage but also maintain positioning for ledge traps. And they have a plethora of other specials to help with that.

Plus, they honestly feel like they're meant to be ledge trappers due to very little in the way of reliable, low committal neutral or on-stage kill options.
 
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Diddy Kong

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Just stay out of his range and try to snatch the bana when he is trying to do it. There's a bit of lag that allows that and a ton of characters have caught up to Diddy when fighting up close. In Ultimate, Diddy has this problem.
It doesn’t help either that if the banana hits Diddy’s recovery, it’s over for him.
 

Sean²

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Doesn't he just die from literally anything hitting him out of his up B? The only possible deterrent is the jetpack flying directly into and exploding on whomever may be trying to edgeguard. I've seen Diddy players YOLO that thing directly into the opponent instead of to the ledge if they see an edgeguard coming, just for hopes that they'll get blown up and trade stocks.
 

DelugeFGC

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Shotput is a terrible projectile, it forces you to do literally nothing.

What is this talk of otherwise? I'm genuinely confused.
 

Hippieslayer

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Shotput is a terrible projectile, it forces you to do literally nothing.

What is this talk of otherwise? I'm genuinely confused.
It covers a bunch of options is godlike for edgeguarding and strong enough to trade favourably with most things. Despite having noticeable endlag its safer than it seems to throw out because it covers aerial approaches and will hit point blank, tall chars get hit while grounded even at a slight distance. Hitbox is active even AFTER it lands. Good att beating other projectiles like wolfs blaster, even if the Wolf jumps with you and hits you its ok so Long as you managed to throw it because the things does that much more dmg than your average spam projectile. It ****s Up characters with bad recoveries super Hard and forces those with Good ones to be more predictable with theirs. It is certainly among the better projectiles. Airdodge change and recovery nerfs make it that much more deadly, especially since it outright kills offstage at more than reasonable percents.

Try it. If you have try it more. Brawler feels borderline high Tier with the right setup, because his mobility specs are very good and his basic attacks combo into his specials. His utilt is Marios pre Nerf. His dsmash has very low endlag. He has both horizontal and vertical recovery. The Axe kick up-b is dangerous to Challenge cuz the downward hit is a strong meteor. If you combo into Said up-b on stage the grounded hit Will often pop opponents into the air just high enough for you to get a techchase usmash. The fact that he can finish via combos with His specials means he has a pretty good combo game. He also has that nair variation, the one which fox and Mario have. That one on a char with Good mobility is very useful.
 
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DelugeFGC

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It covers a bunch of options is godlike for edgeguarding and strong enough to trade favourably with most things. Despite having noticeable endlag its safer than it seems to throw out because it covers aerial approaches and will hit point blank, tall chars get hit while grounded even at a slight distance. Hitbox is active even AFTER it lands. Good att beating other projectiles like wolfs blaster, even if the Wolf jumps with you and hits you its ok so Long as you managed to throw it because the things does that much more dmg than your average spam projectile. It ****s Up characters with bad recoveries super Hard and forces those with Good ones to be more predictable with theirs. It is certainly among the better projectiles. Airdodge change and recovery nerfs make it that much more deadly, especially since it outright kills offstage at more than reasonable percents.
Okay so it's a decent projectile. How does it force one to approach, though? Granted I play Olimar and Snake, approaching isn't something I ever have to do if I don't want.
 
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Okay so it's a decent projectile. How does it force one to approach, though? Granted I play Olimar and Snake, approaching isn't something I ever have to do if I don't want.
I don't get the impression that it forces you to approach but not every projectile does that. Some of them are more for covering space in the advantage or disadvantage state.
 

Hippieslayer

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Okay so it's a decent projectile. How does it force one to approach, though? Granted I play Olimar and Snake, approaching isn't something I ever have to do if I don't want.
No, its a really Good one. At least for brawler. Its edgeguarding abilities is what makes it more than decent.

But I fail to see how it could let brawler outcamp the likes of your mains. Especially Snake, His dash attack is perfect for punishing liberal shotput usage. That being Said it does decent shield dmg and since it detonates nades it Will do more than decent shield dmg vs him. It Will Still help vs him. But outcamp? Nah thats just overstating it..

I think if its possible to find some way to reliably kill confirm into brawlers stronger moves like the down special headbutt he could see some competitive usage. Hes fun to play this time around.
 
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Sean²

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Shot put is great for edgeguarding, and is decent when you have your opponent in the corner. Mixing up aerial and grounded shot put can force opponents right into your clutches if they have nowhere else to go to avoid it.

Regardless, I still think Brawler is kind of mediocre. Maybe less of the bottom 3 character I had originally thought of him as, but I think there are other characters who can do what he can, but better (kind of like all the Miis tbh)
 

DunnoBro

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Okay so it's a decent projectile. How does it force one to approach, though? Granted I play Olimar and Snake, approaching isn't something I ever have to do if I don't want.
Hella shield damage. If you're in the corner, it opens you up to getting shield broken by more shotputs, bair, fsmash, or certain other specials.

Overall though, I do agree it's not a great neutral tool. It's a mix-up, and it is really great when you KNOW someone simply isn't going to approach (platform camping especially)

It's more like Banana. If you have time, great. But it's not always feasible.

The main neutral tool is Brawler's frame data. Dash Attack, Nair, Bair, and Grab are essentially the same as Fox's. Though his initial reward is WAY lower, they do set up for edge/ledgeguards with the specials consistently.

Shot put is great for edgeguarding, and is decent when you have your opponent in the corner. Mixing up aerial and grounded shot put can force opponents right into your clutches if they have nowhere else to go to avoid it.

Regardless, I still think Brawler is kind of mediocre. Maybe less of the bottom 3 character I had originally thought of him as, but I think there are other characters who can do what he can, but better (kind of like all the Miis tbh)
The main thing which gives Brawler an edge I think is the Feint Kick / Reversal Slash option. Since most of the other specials slots are kinda locked in. (Or at least shotput)

Feint kick really messes up a lot of edgeguarders, zoners, and ledge campers (pretty dangerous to challenge it with a ledge jump/drop/rising option, very consistently forces a real ledge return) In a similar(though inferior) manner to ZSS.

And Reversal Slash lets Brawler turn into a Zoner themselves. Able to bully hurtboxy characters trying to approach aggressively pretty hard. (Ledge Reversal can kill Ganon Dash attacking/Wizard footing around 70%)
 
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Lacrimosa

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What you effectively have to do is not lose neutral.

Anytime you're in disadvantage, that's a free banana.

That's not realistic unless you're just simply better.
I think we are trying to say the same thing, though. Yes, it is unrealistic to constantly win neutral but Diddy's neutral game was incredibly nerfed in Ultimate simply because everyone got faster. Meaning they can pressure Diddy more safely than in Sm4sh (I don't know what Brawl was like). That means that Diddy can still pull out a banana but it is much more riskier in this game than it was in Sm4sh. He will still get some bananas but the few he gets have to be played very precisely and that's something that became much more difficult for Diddy, mainly because the game is (much?) faster and safer now.
I think you probably mean the same thing, and I didn't make myself clear before but maybe we just have a dissent here^^.
 
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Sean²

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The main thing which gives Brawler an edge I think is the Feint Kick / Reversal Slash option. Since most of the other specials slots are kinda locked in. (Or at least shotput)

Feint kick really messes up a lot of edgeguarders, zoners, and ledge campers (pretty dangerous to challenge it with a ledge jump/drop/rising option, very consistently forces a real ledge return) In a similar(though inferior) manner to ZSS.

And Reversal Slash lets Brawler turn into a Zoner themselves. Able to bully hurtboxy characters trying to approach aggressively pretty hard. (Ledge Reversal can kill Ganon Dash attacking/Wizard footing around 70%)
Help me understand what you move you mean by Reversal Slash, as that's a Swordfighter move. Assuming the counter?

Feint Jump helps their otherwise fairly terrible recovery a bit as well.
 
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DunnoBro

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Help me understand what you move you mean by Reversal Slash, as that's a Swordfighter move. Assuming the counter?

Feint Jump helps their otherwise fairly terrible recovery a bit as well.
Err, sorry. I meant the grab counter.

And yea, though Dropkick imo is better for recovery. (And ledge return. Ledge Jump > Dropkick is a superb counter to reaction-based ledge trappers. And Feint kick to set-up based)
 

KirbySquad101

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I don't know much about the move or Mii Brawler as a whole, but the move seems about on par with Simon's Axe in terms of power, start-up, and lag, except it's tacked on to a much faster character; that seems pretty good overall.
 

The_Bookworm

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I don't know much about the move or Mii Brawler as a whole, but the move seems about on par with Simon's Axe in terms of power, start-up, and lag, except it's tacked on to a much faster character; that seems pretty good overall.
Simon's Axe is slightly slower, and is even worse overall in neutral due to its wider arc. Thanks to its wider arc, however, it covers more distance (despite leaving him more vulnerable). It is stronger (mostly due to its tendency to hit opponents directly upwards) and goes right through the stage.

Overall, Axe has advantages and disadvantages over Shotput, although Shotput has overall greater flexibility.
 
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AEMehr

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I tried looking up matches on Youtube but there's very little Mii Brawler play out there. I did find this one, which sort of shows what I'm talking about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZFQsYTfXZ8

You'll notice that especially in the second match, he tends to throw the shotput whenever he has space, including in disadvantage to discourage aggressive pursuit by the Greninja. I would be throwing like twice as many Shotputs but this is the general idea (though Greninja is super fast so you probably can't throw quite as many vs him).

In any case, I did notice that in all the Mii Brawler matches I checked, Shotput is universal, even for players that don't spam it that much.
I don't see what this does for your argument.
The player uses it in advantage (when the opponent is offstage/sent flying) and disadvantage (when they are offstage/sent flying). I guess they used it when they backed off? But I'm not seeing this meta-defining attribute that makes or breaks the character. As Brawler's only projectile option, it adds much more to their kit than the other neutral specials. So to see it universally used is not surprising, but it doesn't seem like the tool that defines a character.
It's just sort of something you do when you have nothing else to do. You really think I would want to go offstage with that fall speed, nah I'll just play some Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games. Additionally, even though the Venia didn't really need it at the end, the Shotputs halted his movement because he was jumping literally every chance he could. If he baited a full-hop shotput with a short hop he could've just dashed under it on the ground and got a bigger punish.
 

Kiligar

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Brawler Down Special head butted kills at 0, picks up opponents and takes them offstage from ledge. If you’re ahead a stock or behind in percent then it’s amazing. Also can tech chase kill.
 

Hippieslayer

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Speaking of Miis, overall they are so much better this time around. Especially Gunner and Swordfighter who no longer struggle to kill at all. All of them play like mid tiers to me. Swordfighter feels like the one with the weakest basic kit because of its meh frame data and poor range for a swordie, but makes up for it with a ranged game akin to pure zoners and whack kill confirms,
 

Sean²

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I still feel like Swordfighter is still the best Mii tbh, and that's ignoring his kill confirms. He has a lot of good BnB confirms too, Chakram is a fantastic projectile, aerials set up combos and juggles. He's slower and lacks the range other sword characters use, but he's barely a sword character anyway. Mii Zoner would have probably been a better title.

I've also heard of some special move confirms that don't involve Gale Strike, which is more promising for them/less revolving around a gimmick.
 

Hippieslayer

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Hella shield damage. If you're in the corner, it opens you up to getting shield broken by more shotputs, bair, fsmash, or certain other specials.

Overall though, I do agree it's not a great neutral tool. It's a mix-up, and it is really great when you KNOW someone simply isn't going to approach (platform camping especially)

It's more like Banana. If you have time, great. But it's not always feasible.

The main neutral tool is Brawler's frame data. Dash Attack, Nair, Bair, and Grab are essentially the same as Fox's. Though his initial reward is WAY lower, they do set up for edge/ledgeguards with the specials consistently.



The main thing which gives Brawler an edge I think is the Feint Kick / Reversal Slash option. Since most of the other specials slots are kinda locked in. (Or at least shotput)

Feint kick really messes up a lot of edgeguarders, zoners, and ledge campers (pretty dangerous to challenge it with a ledge jump/drop/rising option, very consistently forces a real ledge return) In a similar(though inferior) manner to ZSS.

And Reversal Slash lets Brawler turn into a Zoner themselves. Able to bully hurtboxy characters trying to approach aggressively pretty hard. (Ledge Reversal can kill Ganon Dash attacking/Wizard footing around 70%)
Because of feint jumps ridiculous endlag I never use it anymore, dropped it for the burning Side kick. Feint jump has so much end lag it oftentimes doesn't need to be Challenged. Also whats dangerous about it? Isnt it pretty darn weak? Also, what do you think about the last move.. dont remember its name? The counter throw always seemed too risky for its reward to me, I mean its not that strong, havent used in a Long time and only used it shortly.. I thought it only worked vs aerials lol. Genuinely wonderingg about these things.

I dig your posts you seem like a smart Guy AND ur rly Good att the game. You were also one of the people who quickly realized just how bonkers zig zag can was back in the day.. so when you say feint jump and counter throw are good I assume there's a big chance I'm missing something since I disagree, hence I would appreciate it if you could elaborate a Little if you have the time/energy.
I still feel like Swordfighter is still the best Mii tbh, and that's ignoring his kill confirms. He has a lot of good BnB confirms too, Chakram is a fantastic projectile, aerials set up combos and juggles. He's slower and lacks the range other sword characters use, but he's barely a sword character anyway. Mii Zoner would have probably been a better title.

I've also heard of some special move confirms that don't involve Gale Strike, which is more promising for them/less revolving around a gimmick.
Agree, looking back I made it sound like I thought swordfighter was the weakest of the bunch which wasnt my intention. Mii zoner is a much more accurate name yes. On the non gale strike confirms...

Gale strike into Up b isnt reliable. People drop out of it a lot. With the right kind of DI and some practice i believe -going by how often ppl drop out of it seemingly randomly- its not a true confirm on many characters. Prefer shuriken. Very low endlag projectile which confirms into chackram for a Quick 2 hit ranged combo. More importantly, it confirms into down special 3, allowing for a ranged kill confirm. This involves giving Up the counter or reflector, but swordfighters own ranged kit being solid enough that a reflector isnt that needed and the more reliable and super easy to perform kill confirm makes it worth it imo. Using both shuriken and chackram also throws up shield timing.

Tilt input chackram combos into most attacks, including fsmash. Must be performed using by hitting cstick (with tilt stick) and special simultaneously, otherwise you suffer start Up lag because you have to do the tilt input, try to do it fast and you Always get the smash version. Since you can angle chackram this confirm can be done from the air as well as from the ground, and from the ground it can be done onto airborne enemies.

:ultbrawler:: 1212 or 1312
:ultgunner:: 113X or 133X
:ultswordfighter:: 113X, 112X or 133X or 132X
Gonna answer this tomorrow.. Will take tio much time and I gotta get Up early for work : ( Edit: meant to quote Rizen, not you sorry!
 
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$.A.F.

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Because of feint jumps ridiculous endlag I never use it anymore, dropped it for the burning Side kick. Feint jump has so much end lag it oftentimes doesn't need to be Challenged. Also whats dangerous about it? Isnt it pretty darn weak? Also, what do you think about the last move.. dont remember its name? The counter throw always seemed too risky for its reward to me, I mean its not that strong, havent used in a Long time and only used it shortly.. I thought it only worked vs aerials lol. Genuinely wonderingg about these things.

I dig your posts you seem like a smart Guy AND ur rly Good att the game. You were also one of the people who quickly realized just how bonkers zig zag can was back in the day.. so when you say feint jump and counter throw are good I assume there's a big chance I'm missing something since I disagree, hence I would appreciate it if you could elaborate a Little if you have the time/energy.


Agree. On the non gale strike confirms...

Gale strike into Up b isnt reliable. People drop out of it a lot. With the right kind of DI and some practice i believe -going by how often ppl drop out of it seemingly randomly- its not a true confirm on many characters. Prefer shuriken. Very low endlag projectile which confirms into chackram for a Quick 2 hit ranged combo. More importantly, it confirms into down special 3, allowing for a ranged kill confirm. This involves giving Up the counter or reflector, but swordfighters own ranged kit and the more reliable and super easy to perform kill confirm makes it worth it imo. Using both shuriken and chackram also throws up shield timing.

Tilt input chackram combos into most attacks, including fsmash. Must be performed using by hitting cstick (with tilt stick) and special simultaneously, otherwise you suffer start Up lag because you have to do the tilt input, try to do it fast and you Always get the smash version. Since you can angle chackram this confirm can be done from the air as well as from the ground, and from the ground it can be done onto airborne enemies.



Gonna answer this tomorrow.. Will take tio much time and I gotta get Up early for work : (
Actually it’s very reliable. You just have to hold back on the last hit. Ya can start holding back halfway through or so.
 

Hippieslayer

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Actually it’s very reliable. You just have to hold back on the last hit. Ya can start holding back halfway through or so.
Well dang it, that changes things. Damn you I was just getting comfortable with my setup now I need to think things over again. Do you reckon it cant be Di'd out of either? That probably doesnt matter anyway, pretty much nobodys gonna optimize DI for a char that isnt an omnipresent threat in the meta. Thanks for stopping me from spreading misinformation.
 

$.A.F.

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Well dang it, that changes things. Damn you I was just getting comfortable with my setup now I need to think things over again. Do you reckon it cant be Di'd out of either? That probably doesnt matter anyway, pretty much nobodys gonna optimize DI for a char that isnt an omnipresent threat in the meta. Thanks for stopping me from spreading misinformation.
No worries! I didn’t know until like a couple of days ago either. Anyways I’m 90% sure you can’t DI out.
 

DelugeFGC

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Upon playing some Mii Brawler matches against a friend today, I will say I'm not super impressed with shotput. It's good on the ledge and such no doubt, but otherwise I found it to be awfully slow, easy to read and the range isn't great. I found myself parrying it more often than not, that was the big thing, parrying shotput or just spot dodging it was a really easy option that let me play around it WHEN it came up..

It's potentially the easiest projectile to parry or dodge in the entire game. I usually ended up spot dodging it.
 
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Hippieslayer

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Upon playing some Mii Brawler matches against a friend today, I will say I'm not super impressed with shotput. It's good on the ledge and such no doubt, but otherwise I found it to be awfully slow, easy to read and the range isn't great. I found myself parrying it more often than not, that was the big thing, parrying shotput or just spot dodging it was a really easy option that let me play around it WHEN it came up..

It's potentially the easiest projectile to parry or dodge in the entire game. I usually ended up spot dodging it.
If you find it easy to spot dodge or parry I think your friend needs to time it better. I mean you want to throw it away while your opponent initiates and thus is locked into some kind of action. Otherwise as you say its probably super easy to dodge or elsewise evade, but I kinda think that goes for a majority of the games projectiles, even ones considerably faster. Although if you play a character like Olimar with Little endlag on his standard neutral moves then yeah even if well timed by the opponent you can probs avoid getting hit.

I mean Pikmin throw is fast.. I used wolfs blaster as an example which takes longer to use. That extra time makes all the difference I reckon. But yeah its certainly been established that its not a spammable move and it doesnt outcamp characters either. I suspect the Guy who said it used wifi for a source, that or his training buddy sucks lol. Maybe I also overpraised it, I dont remember My exact words. Still think its a great projectile. With the caveat thats its great om brawler, I medan brawler resembles Fox in many ways compared to his or Falcos projectiles I think it rules. Compared to the projectiles of the characters you main it sucks but those characters are built around their projectile games.

Edit: goddamn I hate my phone, I set the language when writing to English but it keeps autocorrecting as if though Im writing in Swedish as well as just adding random capital letters and other weird ****.
 
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DunnoBro

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Because of feint jumps ridiculous endlag I never use it anymore, dropped it for the burning Side kick. Feint jump has so much end lag it oftentimes doesn't need to be Challenged. Also whats dangerous about it? Isnt it pretty darn weak? Also, what do you think about the last move.. dont remember its name? The counter throw always seemed too risky for its reward to me, I mean its not that strong, havent used in a Long time and only used it shortly.. I thought it only worked vs aerials lol. Genuinely wonderingg about these things.

I dig your posts you seem like a smart Guy AND ur rly Good att the game. You were also one of the people who quickly realized just how bonkers zig zag can was back in the day.. so when you say feint jump and counter throw are good I assume there's a big chance I'm missing something since I disagree, hence I would appreciate it if you could elaborate a Little if you have the time/energy.
It's mostly just the burst mobility is the only way to deal with certain zoners who have 'set up shop'

And yea, it's weak. But if they took a rising option, the auto-hit will stage spike them with no jump. And it also covers roll/ledge jump well enough.

It really isn't GREAT, but imo necessary in a lot of matchups where you have to do all the approaching.

And the counter throw is super strong by the ledge. Really good in matchups where you have to force the approaching yourself. But also not SUPERB. And kinda useless in most MUs tbh. (Though there may be some ledge tactics to mix up with feint/exploding kick to get cheesy kills. Since you gotta stuff Dropkick's start-up with an attack, and counter would punish this hard)

Neither are really 'good' moves imo. But definitely feel 'necessary' at times.
 

DelugeFGC

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If you find it easy to spot dodge or parry I think your friend needs to time it better. I mean you want to throw it away while your opponent initiates and thus is locked into some kind of action. Otherwise as you say its probably super easy to dodge or elsewise evade, but I kinda think that goes for a majority of the games projectiles, even ones considerably faster. Although if you play a character like Olimar with Little endlag on his standard neutral moves then yeah even if well timed by the opponent you can probs avoid getting hit.

I mean Pikmin throw is fast.. I used wolfs blaster as an example which takes longer to use. That extra time makes all the difference I reckon. But yeah its certainly been established that its not a spammare move and it doesnt outcamp characters either. I suspect the Guy who said it used wifi for a source, that or hos training buddy sucks lol. Maybe I also overpraised it, I dont remember My exact words. Still think its a great projectile. With the caveat thats its great om brawler, I medan brawler resembles Fox in many ways compared to his or Falcos projectiles I think it rules. Compared to the projectiles of the characters you main it sucks but those characters are built around their projectile games.
Snake is basically reserved for a handful of MU's Olimar doesn't like, as are my other two secondaries. For 95% of my MU's Olimar is who I use, and he's who I use in friendlies and such most of the time too. So anything I say can be assumed to be from through the scope of an Olimar player.. and I'm fully aware that probably skews things lmfao..

Nothing Olimar does outside of his grab (and with only one Pikmin even that's not super committal) is going to leave him 'locked up' in an animation long enough for a slow projectile like Shotput to be a substantial threat, I realize that.. even so, I still don't see Shotput being great ANYWHERE that isn't on the ledge.

Like other people have said, the problem with Shotput (and Mii Brawler as a whole) is that there's much better options to be had elsewhere on the roster. It's not like there's a rich history of lore and fandom behind the Mii's, so Brawler being as mediocre as they are pretty much seals their fate into obscurity unless they get buffed out the wazoo or become a viable counterpick against a top tier or two. You don't see the Mii's because on top of very few people feeling any kind of connection with the characters, they're not fantastic.. especially Brawler.
 
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Kiligar

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Like other people have said, the problem with Shotput (and Mii Brawler as a whole) is that there's much better options to be had elsewhere on the roster. It's not like there's a rich history of lore and fandom behind the Mii's, so Brawler being as mediocre as they are pretty much seals their fate into obscurity unless they get buffed out the wazoo or become a viable counterpick against a top tier or two. You don't see the Mii's because on top of very few people feeling any kind of connection with the characters, they're not fantastic.. especially Brawler.
The Miis aren’t top tier. Mii Swordfighter is bottom high tier. Mii Gunner used to be the same before the patch, but is now top mid tier. Mii Brawler was awful before patch 3.0.0, where people were calling him bottom 3. But that changed. And because like you said they don’t have lore or a fan following they don’t get used enough where players truly understand them. Mii Brawler benefited from patch 2.0.0 a lot, enough that after that patch he was definitely at least in the middle of mid tier. No debate, you can look at those patch notes for him, they basically stopped just short of a redesign. At that point he was no longer ‘absolutely mediocre’. It’s like calling Corrin or Captain Falcon absolutely mediocre. They have their fair share of weaknesses, to the point where their strengths don’t balance out enough for them to be amazing. But they’re not mediocre, they both are able to run away with games if you don’t take time to understand the MU. That’s mid tier. Low tier you do not even have to know the MU and you already have an advantage.

Anyway, so Mii Brawler received no direct buffs after. However, the projectile nerf was a change which universally nerfed zoner type playstyles, which Brawler struggled with. This was a huge indirect buff to him, the biggest he could get. With that, Mii Brawler moves to top mid tier.
Here’s an example. A grand finals where although the Brawler doesn’t win, he takes it to the last game, where the Greninja adapts and the Brawler player does not. He shows the speed of up smash Oos as a kill option, and utilize Brawler’s other tools fairly effectively. A low tier does not have these same capabilities. So to conclude, Mii Brawler isn’t amazing but has improved the most out of any character in this game’s span so far. The other Miis are slightly better than him, have many oppressive tools, and are decent characters and counterpicks. They are, but just aren’t popular due to not having a franchise behind them.
 
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Edit: goddamn I hate my phone, I set the language when writing to English but it keeps autocorrecting as if though Im writing in Swedish as well as just adding random capital letters and other weird ****.
I lived in Stockholm for 3 years and my phone still has Swedish language set up for autocorrect purposes. I love when "btw" gets autocorrected to "bra."

Anyway, it's been cool seeing Mars' success with ZSS, but I'm still bummed about how flat her design is now. She feels a lot like every speed character now that her stuns have been so de-emphesized. I also dislike that her grab is both slow and risky, and unrewarding when landed.

From a design perspective I think their biggest mistake was changing her up-b to what it is today. ZSS' recovery relying a lot on the creativity of the player made her interesting and gave her a real weakness. All they needed to do was fix her jab, make the pull on her up-b more reliable, change her fsmash, give her the zair, and tweak her aerials for balance. Instead they turned her into Captain Falcon with a tether and a high short-hop.
 

Hippieslayer

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Snake is basically reserved for a handful of MU's Olimar doesn't like, as are my other two secondaries. For 95% of my MU's Olimar is who I use, and he's who I use in friendlies and such most of the time too. So anything I say can be assumed to be from through the scope of an Olimar player.. and I'm fully aware that probably skews things lmfao..

Nothing Olimar does outside of his grab (and with only one Pikmin even that's not super committal) is going to leave him 'locked up' in an animation long enough for a slow projectile like Shotput to be a substantial threat, I realize that.. even so, I still don't see Shotput being great ANYWHERE that isn't on the ledge.

Like other people have said, the problem with Shotput (and Mii Brawler as a whole) is that there's much better options to be had elsewhere on the roster. It's not like there's a rich history of lore and fandom behind the Mii's, so Brawler being as mediocre as they are pretty much seals their fate into obscurity unless they get buffed out the wazoo or become a viable counterpick against a top tier or two. You don't see the Mii's because on top of very few people feeling any kind of connection with the characters, they're not fantastic.. especially Brawler.
Well swap great for good then. It really does help that it moves in an arch. Because thats what lets it covers more options than other projectiles by functioning as an antiair.

For instance... Suppose youve recently used a grounded shotput; now you once again find yourself at the distance where grounded shotput Will land on your opponent, and you decide to Short hop shotput then that will cover the opponent retreating slightly either with a dashback or roll, but the shorthop combined with the Arc Will also make it covers aerial approaches. This is good because the typical way to best a projectile is to jump over it and hit the opponent during endlag. Many do it instinctly. Since you already used it the opponent most likely noticed its limited range and so may decide to back up outside its range and then throw out a longer ranged projectile or start charging something like Samus charge shot or whatever. You will also cover this by shorthopping it. If they decide to charge in with a dash attack or other grounded burst option there's a high chance that will whiff because of your shorthop.

Its damage is also a big selling point. Because you have access to that ranged damage without any tell revealing your intentions to the opponent. When you charge a projectile you remind the opponent to be ready and watch out. And when you throw out a weaker projectile they might get hit once but throw out another and the opponent Will have alrdy entered a defensive mode. With shotput you hit once for pretty good dmg, without allowing ur opponent to be rdy for it.

That makes it Good onstage projectile in My Book, hell Id even say great, would Love to have it on many characters, not to spam it, not because its overbearing on its own but simply because its easy to counter or att least trade favourably with most other projectiles thereby discouraging their use (which benefits brawler who is a closeup fighter) and because its easy to land once or twice or thrice if used sparingly, and thats enough for it to have a noticeable impact, its strong enough that even just 3 shotput landed across a game is a good chunk of dmg.

So Long as you are somewhat adept at reading your opponent so that you have a feel for when to use it and if so whether to jump with it or not.

I dunno why you are using the words "substantial threat", it doesnt need to be a substantial threat to be good or even great.
 

Terotrous

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I don't see what this does for your argument.
I agree it's not a great example, but it was the best I could find out of the only 10 or so Brawler videos on youtube. Literally 95% of the Brawler videos on YT are the same two players and the rest are low level pool matches where the level of play is too low to be relevant.

I should probably just record some matches of me playing the character but then people will just nitpick that "oh the opponent should have just done this" or "oh this is an online match so that doesn't count" or whatever else, which is why I usually just try to stick to the explanation of how it works.

Also, note that a move doesn't have to be the majority source of all damage you deal to be one of the most notable parts of a character. Does any single move really do that? Snake's grenades are a huge part of his gameplan but I don't think most Snake players do >50% of their total damage with grenades. It's just something that is a key part of the Snake matchup and that you have to know how to deal with. I would consider Shotput to be this move for Mii Brawler since many of his other tools are either pretty typical or not all that great, Shotput is the move that makes him usable as a character IMO.

Okay so it's a decent projectile. How does it force one to approach, though? Granted I play Olimar and Snake, approaching isn't something I ever have to do if I don't want.
Shielding it isn't a great option because it does a ton of shield damage, shielding even one puts you on the defensive because any additional hit puts you at risk of a shield break or shield stab. You also can't simply jab or nair get rid of it either since it blows through hitboxes. You can try to parry but it's risky and doesn't get much advantage. It basically forces you to jump up and over to deal with it, and as we know from pretty much any fighting game being able to force an action out of your opponent is usually pretty strong.

I don't know much about the move or Mii Brawler as a whole, but the move seems about on par with Simon's Axe in terms of power, start-up, and lag, except it's tacked on to a much faster character; that seems pretty good overall.
Also the trajectory and knockback angle are much better.

What you effectively have to do is not lose neutral.

Anytime you're in disadvantage, that's a free banana.

That's not realistic unless you're just simply better.
Not really specifically responding to this post, but I think this is a similar issue. People were saying "Diddy can never pull Bananas because the opponent will always be on top of him." But obviously, this isn't realistic. Even in pro matches a decent part of every match is played with distance between the players. This is a key part of neutral in many matchups.

I wonder if some of us have a different definition of what neutral is. Let's consider the following situation. I land Brawler rapid jab and the opponent DIs away and neutral techs on the ground, putting us about 40% of a stage away. Is this situation "neutral"? I would have always defined it as such, but perhaps some people are considering this state to still be Brawler Advantage since he gets to act first. In any case, I would probably throw a short hop shotput here. There's basically no way the opponent can challenge it (I will be roughly at the point of releasing the ball by the time the opponent regains control), so there's not really a lot of risk, and if they shield or jump I have various options to respond to it. Depending on their response I might then throw another one.
 
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Kiligar

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I posted a thread about where I think my main is in the meta. Due to him being underused, in depth information on him is scarce, so using my experience and every source I have, I formed an argument on why I think Pit is High Tier.
Why Pit is High Tier
 
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Justin Allen Goldschmidt

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The problem with guessing about where underdeveloped characters should be stems from ideas about what makes them good or bad. Having good options is obviously good, but in my opinion covering or taking away the enemy's options is arguably more important in 1v1. So let's say a character is good at a ton of things, but they're not able to effectively halt the things that other characters are good at, or their own really good things are interrupted by other characters. To me, that makes them bad. I guess that's my dumb way of saying that things can look great (or sometimes bad) in a vacuum, but interactions are literally the point of the game.

Edit: not directed at the above post, in case it seemed that way
 
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Rizen

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One of my region's good players who gets top 8 a lot mains :ultdarkpit: so I have a good idea of what the character can do. Pit's a jack of all trades, master of none. He has some good tools for any situation but is burdened with swordsman frame data and limited hitboxes. He's one of the faster swordsman but a swordsman none the less. Pit's all around good, he has a good combo game, good anti-zoning with upperdash arm and orbitars and a good projectile himself.
The problem is he's not great at anything, besides his offstage game which is scary, and gets outmatched in other characters' areas of expertise. As YL I get the impression Pit has tools but I still out spam him and control midrange better. Pit's hitboxes have good disjoint but don't cover a wide area. IMO the MU ends up even. Pit isn't as oppressive and doesn't have the reward of top tiers. He's too honest. Saying he's high tier isn't unreasonable but I personally think he fits better in upper mid tier's power level. Which doesn't mean he's a bad character at all; mid tiers can compete and be threatening. He just doesn't seem on par with the destructive power of high tiers like Ike.
 
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Lavani

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The post two above may not be directed at the Pit post, but it's certainly relevant. Listing out good qualities of a character doesn't tell us much about that character's tier placement, as even the worst characters in the game have positive qualities to list out in a vacuum. The important part is how that character's entire package interacts with the other 72 characters in the game. With regards to Pit, skimming the top half of OrionStats, I don't see a single matchup that I'd feel comfortable giving Pit the upper hand in, and there's only maybe a few on the lower end of that which stick out as "maybe even" to me, which is not how I should be feeling about a high tier character. I don't see him controlling the pace of most matches, nor do I see the sort of explosive power he'd need to take the upper hand in spite of that (barring characters he's able to have his way with offstage, but that still opens the question of how often he can capitalize to the needed extent). Granted, with his well-roundedness he likely doesn't lose (m)any matchups hard, which for the sake of consistency is of merit with a cast as large as Ultimate's, but it'd take some heavy convincing for me to see the Pits as better than (lower-)middle of the pack.
 

Shaya

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Anyway, it's been cool seeing Mars' success with ZSS, but I'm still bummed about how flat her design is now. She feels a lot like every speed character now that her stuns have been so de-emphesized. I also dislike that her grab is both slow and risky, and unrewarding when landed.

From a design perspective I think their biggest mistake was changing her up-b to what it is today. ZSS' recovery relying a lot on the creativity of the player made her interesting and gave her a real weakness. All they needed to do was fix her jab, make the pull on her up-b more reliable, change her fsmash, give her the zair, and tweak her aerials for balance. Instead they turned her into Captain Falcon with a tether and a high short-hop.
The game engine makes grabbing a lot more reliable, even if the reward is meagre-ish (can still force tech chases, can still cover landings/look for frame traps). The cooldown buffs on it are also pleasant, if I'm trying to catch someone aggressively with grab and my opponent does essentially anything but roll through her or spot dodge (both of these things requiring the opponent to read zss is gonna grab) - you're not going to get hard punished as easily/often as you did in S4. A lot of players would try to jump to avoid any semblance of grab telegraphing in s4 because our out of dash options didn't commonly include rising aerials.
Catching landings with grab is also just that much easier due to the engine.

Her stuns have been weakened, but they're still important/prevalent IMO. They've taken the "free to do whatever you want" capability from them (a design philosophy observable throughout the game) and they're now more about %-tied guaranteed hit confirms (can get a dash landing nair on dsmash from like 50-60% upwards) or longer charges (5 frames of extra charge matches S4 paralyzer gun, second tier of charge which isn't much after is equivalent to wolf's blaster in terms of size and projectile speed that has less end lag and confirms into everything). Due to engine changes (hit lag on block for projectiles existing/etc) paralyzer is a lot more appropriate a neutral tool than it was in S4 too - with paralyzer having less end lag on landing ZSS is capable of having a mid-range shootout against Greninja.

Everyone would love up-b to be 'reliable' in terms of range again, but at the least it's reliable on hit and is still a potent kill option.
They didn't wanna give her "everything", although it wouldn't have spelt the end of the game's competitive integrity if they had. *shrug*
 
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