Does no one play G&W anymore?

[Homsar, a Trendy Tote Bag]

I was noticing the sheer deadness of the general place, and was wondering if as few people play him as it seems.

'Cause if it is that way, it explains why he's fallen behind so many characters in the tiers. I haven't been on in so long, it came as a bit of a shock.

 

[JustKindaBoredUKno]

Haven't seen many, but the best of the best still stick to him.

The main reason why is everyone else has a game that is developing / just really good as is. All we have it bucketbraking. So overtime, people stop playing as G&W, and no one switches to him.

But I can guarantee people like NoJ, Hylian, UTD, and even I will always use G&W. No matter how much we ***** about him

Probly shoulda posted this in the simple question forum tho

 

[Needle of Juntah]

I was noticing the sheer deadness of the general place, and was wondering if as few people play him as it seems.

'Cause if it is that way, it explains why he's fallen behind so many characters in the tiers. I haven't been on in so long, it came as a bit of a shock.

lol---------

 

[Kamikaze*]

Yeah, his progress is at a standstill. And he's so basic that he's uber predictable. That's why he's dropping.

 

[Splice]

I think that because GaW is really easy to learn how to play against, it is getting harder for people using him to continue winning, as other characters are getting better and people have learnt how to play Vs. him.

 

[Jamage]

A S U R A does main G&W

 

[PK-ow!]

I've been meaning to bring vids of my GaW to the critique thread for a time, but I am having trouble connecting with my YouTube-linked friend...

I can't believe GaW would be dead. He's so fun.

And being predictable is a symptom of having had such unintuitively answerable walls.

 

[kaak]

gaw till the end of brawl here tbh

 

[JustKindaBoredUKno]

The problem isn't so much that theres a lack of players (which could be indirectly our problem) but the biggest thing is that he has 0 advancement. Nothing new. He's just too simplistic. The best mix up he has is judge. He's too limited to his moveset.

Unfortunately, I think G&W is just gunna keep dropping on tier lists.

That is, unless we can get more players, and therefore, hopefully a better chance at discovering something new with him.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

He's not "limited" or "simple". Give me a break; he has just as many moves as anyone else, and he has only a few that are bad. He's just unpopular (probably because of his basic design, as in how he looks etc.), and there's a movement to always equate "unpopular" with "bad" or at least "overrated". It's not like he was ever popular in the first place even when the game was new. He was just overwhelming for some people.

I think a lot of people who just casually look at him don't realize that he's a serious spacing character as well. His turtle in this case does a good job of speaking for his character as a whole. The main reason turtle is good isn't "spam it wildly because it's hard to deal with". It's more like "it has the third most range of any aerial in the game and when properly spaced is really safe while doing good shield damage" (for range, #1 is Ike fair and #2 is retreating Ness fair). I think if instead of having assorted objects Mr. Game & Watch used a sword, it might be more obvious to people what kind of character he is.

 

[JustKindaBoredUKno]

Ugh. Game and Watch's back-air has only gotten worse. Anyone who doesn't see this is blind. Lain said it right: G&W's bair used to be nothing but profitable, no one knew what to do when it came at them properly spaced. Now, a lot of characters WANT to be hit by it. Marth and Wario love to take a hit from it, as its an easy punish everytime. Its a double edged sword, that more or less, ends up stabbing you.

And I've really grown sick of the term "safely-spaced b-air" because there is No. Such. Thing.

You can get grabbed out of it. Almost everybody even past decent that I play knows EXACTLY where to grab G&W out of it. And it'll happen every time.

Now here's where someone says "Well then you must not be spacing it safely/correctly/right"

How can anyone think that hitting with one or, at most, two hits of the turtle is effective? Because its not. If you want to not be grabbed out of it, or punished, that's the only way you're going to safely space it.
And safely spacing it by no means does any shield pressure.

Don't get me wrong, its a good aerial. But not one of the best anymore.

And what do you mean he has few bad moves? Granted, lately certain moves have had more use, but that still keeps about half his moves incredibly situational.

Try landing a U-tilt at a percent where its useful. You won't get anywhere. Chef is only good for linking into fairs. Buckets only good when used while jab-combing, but its unlikely you'll even get that far, because you'll be grabbed out of jab.

As far as smashes, hes a slow character. Wolf outranks G&W in smash speed. The only time its really even possible to hit with up-smash or f-smash is when the opponent messes up, and any character that needs to rely on the opponent messing up isn't really the greatest.

Game and Watch has an incredibly hard time killing nowadays. Fairs his best killing move.

Game and Watch's best move, without a doubt, is Nair.

I can see your point, however, on how dull a character he seems to be from the outside.

But i mean, thats why I picked him up to begin with, way back in those early days of brawl. It seemed he was such a surprising character, and I was right.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

You are really, really misrepresenting the usefulness of back aerial. Yes, you can SDI it. It's not a secret or a surprise. It's also not the end of the world, and if it wasn't obvious to you this was how it worked even when the game was pretty new, you just didn't have much foresight. It's also massively overrated how bad it is for Mr. Game & Watch. Do I expect to do 15 damage every time I land a turtle? Of course not. In fact, I expect only to do 1-2 hits. They are then knocked away from me and I can easily establish my optimal spacing to do... another turtle. As long as this keeps up, they are just forced to keep reacting to me. If they try to mix things up and get around it (which they will if they're smart), the zoning this ridiculously huge wall of hitboxes afforded me makes it pretty easy for me to deal with that as well.

You also seem to neglect one of the most important reasons turtle is really, really good and G&W's best move hands down. You can air control to a very non-negligible extent in the middle of the move. Here's how you shield pressure. Hit the shield with the first four hits, air control out of grab range (assuming they don't have a tether grab, yes if you had good spacing in the first place you can even avoid a grab from DDD), use the landing hitbox or the fifth aerial hit as a zoning tool if they decide to drop shield and run after you (mix it up). This does a lot of shield damage. If they start getting used to this, you can always mix it up and just let the fifth hit hit their shield which is blatantly unsafe, but it's fast enough that they can't punish it on reaction, only on prediction. That's actually a key point I'll come back to.

Utilt is his second worst move (his worst being Judgment Hammer). It's one of his few bad moves. Chef has all sorts of obscure uses though it's probably his third worst move so again you're picking from his worst here (note: try throwing out just one piece of food randomly; if you don't get hit for doing it, it was probably worth it). If you get a fully charged Oil Panic against some characters it kill at 0%. Do remember it's massively disjointed though at close range hits on frame 2. Just punish with it; it's not hard. Most G&W players are super antsy with Oil Panic and use it really soon or at really predictable times because it's so powerful and they only get one shot. It's much better than it seems if you base it off that performance, and even when uncharged your down special is working for you via bucket braking and protecting you from certain kinds of projectile spam. Before someone says"oh it's so slow they'll punish!" think about real matches where lots of situations happen, not the nonsense where they can teleport right next to you and hit you for ever doing anything laggy. I'm on one edge of the stage. The opponent is on the other edge of the stage and is Falco. Against most characters, his best option is to fire a laser. It probably won't actually hit, but who cares? It's free pressure with no possible downside. Even if there's only a .01% chance of hitting I'd use laser as Falco in that situation. Against G&W it isn't a good idea just because I could bucket it.

G&W's smashes are not that hard to land at all. They are extremely disjointed, dsmash and usmash have very low cooldown and charge release, and fsmash has massive lingering hitboxes. Sure they have fairly poor start up. It's fine; there are a lot of slow smashes that are not that unreasonable to hit with (Since when does Wolf have low smash speed? Is Meta Knight your average point?). You just have to... be unpredictable. The thing most people don't understand is that human reaction time, even among top level players, is not good at all. You can barely react to Ike's fsmash (even there I'm not sure if you can, though I know you can react to Falcon Punch and similarly slow moves); you reaction is honestly that bad. You don't THINK it's that bad because you use prediction to supplement your reaction abilities. However, if your opponent behaves in unexpected ways, you suddenly will get hit by "slow moves you shouldn't be hit by"... including all of G&W's smashes that have a bunch of really desirable properties that make them easy to use like this. For instance, what if I barely charge my usmash instead of just throwing out a max speed one? My opponent moves in to punish my usmash... and it goes off 2-3 frames later. There's no way to react to that; it looks like they just jumped into usmash. Everyone makes fun of them for being dumb, but in reality it was a very reasonable mistake for them to get hit. It's the same reason SDI in general does not ruin moves like the turtle even if you don't fully space it (which is completely safe even if not likely to do much damage). If they didn't expect to get hit by a turtle, they aren't going to SDI out of it. They'll complain that they are playing poorly, suspecting their own poor SDI as the cause, but in reality it is you who is causing them to fail.

The summary here is that predictability is a personal problem, and if you aren't predictable, everything is a lot easier to land. Constantly mix up very subtle timings and spacings, and don't do the same thing in the same situation every time. It's "hard" to do, but it's to be expected that the easy stuff and sloppy spacing that worked so well a few weeks into the metagame wasn't going to be eternal...

 

[A2ZOMG]

I still use G&W. He has a place in my heart as my counterpick character. =)

But man, it would have been so much better if he did in fact become the best character in this game. I mean it would have made sense.

 

[G&W X]

I think that in ssb4 he will get partially buffed due to a few of his flaws I think in ssb4 he will be able << to get to be the best character and also that in fact he will be noticed but right now. He has a few flaws its easy to admit that but you just have to roll with the punches and accept G&W for what he is really is....A really good character. And he isn't getting predictable we are the ones getting predictable....

 

[TheStig]

its all about the bucket dance

 

[kaak]

its all about the bucket dance

agree and uptilt

 

[Chaco]

I just have never felt like posting here.

 

[kewl]

lol i pretty much troll around these forums.
but i'm still a very active g&w player in panama.

 

[lou4222]

I have mained GW sine November and am finally beginning to take my game to the next level. I feel like there is always a "honeymoon" period with GW. What I mean by this is when people first pick him up they fall in love witht he turtle and killing people with hammers at 90%. Yes these moves become harder to use when your opponents adapt to the matchup. After this happens people will give up on Game and Watch. The reasons have already been stated. He has no room for tech advancement, he doesnt look cool, noone kows who he is except from this game, etc. IMO GW is underrated. I dont understand why he keeps falling in the rankings. UTD just went and got 9th at Genesis. He got 2nd in doubles at Apex and 3rd at Genesis. GW is absolutely top tier in teams and his "bad matchups" really arent all that awful.Hopefully with UTD really stepping it up GW gets his recognition back. GW is easy to pick up and be ok with him. It is very difficult to take him to the next level, because he deos have tech skill involved with him (perfect arial spacing, up b out of shield and after attacks, knowing when to throw out smashes and not get punished) I will never leave GW and its up to GW mains to advance him and share with each other our techs and strategies so we can all get better

 

[lucha5]

a local tourney i went to a month ago had like 7 g&w they won easily vs da noobs but when they played ppl who knew the match-up they got ***** sadly. and i agree what lou said on a higher lvl g&w is very hard to use

 

[Boxob.]

I started maining G&W maybe 3 weeks ago. People here already know the match up VERY well. And to say that after people learn the matchups, that you'll get ***** is just silly. If you're getting ***** as G&W, you're clearly doing SOMETHING wrong. He has so many options. His pokes are incredible and you can capitalize on almost every mistake, sometimes with a kill move. He lives to ridiculous percents, and completely shuts down a LOT of characters.

But yeah, I play G&W.

 

[EWING]

im pretty sure the people who think gw is predictable are the same people who start and finish every match by RARing towards an opponent and wondering why they lose

hes only as predictable as you make him. hes got great moves to approach with, so people think thats the only thing you should do with him. very few people utilize his grab game, and the last time ive seen a gw mix his approach with empty airdodge shorthops was never

seriously his moveset is only 'telegraphed' because people do the same exact thing in every situation: below someone thats on a platform? rising nair. across from someone? retreating bair. above someone? slowfall key. if they know what youre gonna do, youre going to get punished. mix it up.

 

[Boxob.]

Exactly.

My suggestion to make everyone better? Play sonic for like 3 weeks. Really. If you're predictable with him, you'll get 3 stocked. Simply learning that utilizing options at different times in different ways, unexpectedly, is the key to victory. Then, switch back to G&W and you'll **** hard when you realize that G&W has even more options, and they're all super good.

But don't actually do that, just try and mix it up. Actively think, convince yourself you are a smart player, and play like one.

 

[PoweredVolt]

Nah, switching to Meta Knight is the trendy thing.

 

[T3h Albino]

i don't play gnw much anymore.
Really the only reason i picked him up was to get better at the bad matchups ddd had, but my dedede has gotten a lot better at those bad matchups so i don't find myself using gdubs much anymore. I do occasionally break him out as a suprise character though and I'd like to think my game and watch is still very good.

 

[Grey Belnades]

I main G&W, he's my guy for tournaments though I started posting here about 1-2 months ago.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I'm going through G&W fever again.

Seriously, this character ***** MASSIVELY when you mindgame. In my honest opinion, he's the most rewarding character in this game if you have excellent mindgames. His power....is simply unmatched. The only characters who even come close in raw power are guys like Snake and DK and Ganondorf. Overall he has the most powerful Smashes in this game, and all of them are safe attacks.

That alone justifies him as a good character. You have to be a smart player to use him though, but you can always give your opponent a really hard time with him at least.

 

[KirbyIRL]

you can always give your opponent a really hard time with him at least.

This. A thousand times this. G&W isn't a superior character, per se. His power lies in the ability to anger your opponent to the point where they start making stupid mistakes. If you start spacing well and throwing in confusing mixups during a match (as it's been said before, being predictable is a large flaw for G&W as a character), your opponent will have literally hit a brick wall. They're thinking 'what can I do against that?' all the while getting it thrown at them relentlessly. I don't like playing G&W, or any member of the cast for that matter defensively since that gives your opponent entirely too much time to think about how to overcome your strategy. If you're on the offense most of the time they don't have much time to think for having to defend themselves against your constant barrage of disjointed wonders.

Face it, folks. Our character is ANNOYING! If you've ever played a G&W ditto (I hadn't until Genesis, and boy was it a slap in the face) you know exactly how annoying he is. I'd say G&W is the second most hated matchup in this game due to his arsenal of pokes, prods, priority, and remarkable ability to gimp with a far-beyond-average recovery. If that means you have to 'play gay' to win, then do it! I mean, look at meta knight. There isn't a way to play him that isn't considered gay.

/rant

 

[omegablackmage]

essentially in order to do well with gw, you have to camp. Not zone, camp. The best way to do this is getting a lead and then getting on platforms and jumping around, or stay near the edge and never approach while fending them off with turtles and up b oos. These strategies make gw difficult to deal with, but are really not fun in any way at all. When playing gw properly, 50% of your matches will probably go to time, etc etc.

Most gw mains realized that the zoning doesn't really work and didn't feel like having to camp to get all their wins. I've moved on to wario, essentially because playing him aggressively really pays off if done right, hylian now plays icies, leepuff with some mk, slik plays mostly peach and wario, again because you don't have to camp 100% of the time to get anywhere in a bracket with those characters.

 

[Hylian]

essentially in order to do well with gw, you have to camp. Not zone, camp. The best way to do this is getting a lead and then getting on platforms and jumping around, or stay near the edge and never approach while fending them off with turtles and up b oos. These strategies make gw difficult to deal with, but are really not fun in any way at all. When playing gw properly, 50% of your matches will probably go to time, etc etc.

Most gw mains realized that the zoning doesn't really work and didn't feel like having to camp to get all their wins. I've moved on to wario, essentially because playing him aggressively really pays off if done right, hylian now plays icies, leepuff with some mk, slik plays mostly peach and wario, again because you don't have to camp 100% of the time to get anywhere in a bracket with those characters.

Not only that, GW has yet to touch anyone nationally. The best we've seen is Zac's 9th at genesis. You never see GW beating top players so it's hard to believe it's even possible :/. We don't have a M2K/Ally/Fiction/Lain etc for GW...

 

[A2ZOMG]

essentially in order to do well with gw, you have to camp. Not zone, camp. The best way to do this is getting a lead and then getting on platforms and jumping around, or stay near the edge and never approach while fending them off with turtles and up b oos. These strategies make gw difficult to deal with, but are really not fun in any way at all. When playing gw properly, 50% of your matches will probably go to time, etc etc.

Most gw mains realized that the zoning doesn't really work and didn't feel like having to camp to get all their wins. I've moved on to wario, essentially because playing him aggressively really pays off if done right, hylian now plays icies, leepuff with some mk, slik plays mostly peach and wario, again because you don't have to camp 100% of the time to get anywhere in a bracket with those characters.

I honestly don't feel it's all that way. You can't really just camp with G&W. Someone like Metaknight or Marth if they are really patient can still poke past your defenses (unless you're allowed to edgecamp). Vs those two characters, I find what works better is constantly being on the move and randomly throwing out F-airs or D-tilts in between their attacks (or as they start jumps). Staying near the edge vs those characters is very difficult since there is less room to move around, and being able to move around a lot vs those characters matters a lot.

Vs DDD, camping is however the best way to win since he can't get past Chef anyway.

But honestly, what you're aiming for is to be able to keep your opponent guessing. That allows you to maximize G&W's strengths.

 

[omegablackmage]

well the thing is w/ mk/marth, you make mention of all these attacks that you could use to zone, but realize that many of their attacks will still go through those aforementioned moves. Your probably right, just camping the edge won't work for them, you'd need to be constantly running away, never approaching or attacking. Either way you slice it, mk and marth become nearly impossible matches at upper levels of play. Snake/diddy would come down to pure camping, etc.

and ya your right hylian, we haven't seen any good national performances from any gw player. Zac got 9th at apex and the only other thing that was close was my 13th at cot4. People just understand he doesn't perform well at a high level.

 

[KirbyIRL]

What happened to hope? You guys (OBM, Hyli) are dismissing G&W too quickly because he's beatable. I understand that you guys are centering on the professional aspect of Brawl, but just dropping a character because he's not doing well in tournaments or you think he has to be played a certain way you don't like doesn't mean you can't find ways to fix those problems. I didn't start playing G&W because he was high tier or because his turtle was virtually unbeatable at the time, I liked him because of his character concept, and learned to work with him as a character because of the love I held for him the minute I started playing him. Again, I respect you guys switching your main for professional reasons but that doesn't mean I agree with it =/.

 

[Hylian]

What happened to hope? You guys (OBM, Hyli) are dismissing G&W too quickly because he's beatable. I understand that you guys are centering on the professional aspect of Brawl, but just dropping a character because he's not doing well in tournaments or you think he has to be played a certain way you don't like doesn't mean you can't find ways to fix those problems. I didn't start playing G&W because he was high tier or because his turtle was virtually unbeatable at the time, I liked him because of his character concept, and learned to work with him as a character because of the love I held for him the minute I started playing him. Again, I respect you guys switching your main for professional reasons but that doesn't mean I agree with it =/.

I started playing GW 2-3 days after the game came out in Japan. It's not like we haven't tried nearly everything we could think of to get an edge at top level play. I threw everything I know about the game into GW and I still had trouble being creative with him. Bair Cancels, rar'ed b-reversaled sausages, all sorts of edgeguarding stuff...Top level players just don't fall for any of it. GW's safe options in match-ups often come down to dtilt and retreating nair...It just gets boring and is predictable.

Yeah, GW has some good set-ups..like baiting someone to jump, catching them with a full hopped rising bair in to a nair or uair..good edgeguards..BBings nice...he punishes spotdodges nicely..None of this really matters when you are playing against a top level player though. None of it hits them. At all. You just have to camp and poke with spacing. Against snake you are just supposed to hit him then basically never touch the ground. Just camp on platforms the whole time. It doesn't even feel like you are playing a game anymore when you HAVE to do that to win. Just pressing the jump button over and over waiting for your opponent to mess up. It's frustrating.


Don't get me wrong, GW is a beast. He has great killing power, edgeguarding, brickwalls, and is good at building damage. It's just that every top player I've played knows exactly what to do to just shut these options down.

GW may be good enough to compete with top level players, but I'm not good enough as a player to compete with them using GW. I don't think any of us are yet. I can compete on that level with my IC's however so I'm doing that. Good luck to anyone trying to jump over that wall we are running into.

Oh, and I still use GW in doubles and think he's the best doubles character .

 

[JustKindaBoredUKno]

I started playing GW 2-3 days after the game came out in Japan. It's not like we haven't tried nearly everything we could think of to get an edge at top level play. I threw everything I know about the game into GW and I still had trouble being creative with him. Bair Cancels, rar'ed b-reversaled sausages, all sorts of edgeguarding stuff...Top level players just don't fall for any of it. GW's safe options in match-ups often come down to dtilt and retreating nair...It just gets boring and is predictable.

Yeah, GW has some good set-ups..like baiting someone to jump, catching them with a full hopped rising bair in to a nair or uair..good edgeguards..BBings nice...he punishes spotdodges nicely..None of this really matters when you are playing against a top level player though. None of it hits them. At all. You just have to camp and poke with spacing. Against snake you are just supposed to hit him then basically never touch the ground. Just camp on platforms the whole time. It doesn't even feel like you are playing a game anymore when you HAVE to do that to win. Just pressing the jump button over and over waiting for your opponent to mess up. It's frustrating.


Don't get me wrong, GW is a beast. He has great killing power, edgeguarding, brickwalls, and is good at building damage. It's just that every top player I've played knows exactly what to do to just shut these options down.

GW may be good enough to compete with top level players, but I'm not good enough as a player to compete with them using GW. I don't think any of us are yet. I can compete on that level with my IC's however so I'm doing that. Good luck to anyone trying to jump over that wall we are running into.

Oh, and I still use GW in doubles and think he's the best doubles character .

All this. He's right, and I agree with 100% of what the man just said.

I think its just that G&W is too simple a character. He doesn't have anything exceptional.

 

[KirbyIRL]

I agree with him being the best doubles character. I've been wanting to do serious teams with a good ZSS for ages now.

 

[omegablackmage]

ya i still go 50/50 wario/gw in doubles, he's just too good and you don't have to worry about camping in doubles. Its not like me/hylian/leepuff/zac aren't dumb people, we can see his limitations and have been working on ways to correct them probably for like the past 9 months or so. Am i saying that there won't be some amazing gw player that will do well years down the road? no, but its going to take so much effort, patient play, camping, etc to do it, IM not willing to be that guy, simple as that.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Watch me be an idiot in tournament and make a lame attempt to become the number one Mario/G&W user on the WC. I'll never use anyone better than G&W. =)

 

[G&W X]

How about me and you A2ZOMG we try to ascend those two characters into greatness...I have felt that mario has been getting weakened or boring but no more I shall dedicate my Smashing Career to perfect that duo and helping Oli a bit.....

 

[cutter]

I'm going to have to agree with Hylian and OBM. Playing G&W at top levels of play requires a lot of defensive play in some manner. i.e. I was watching Zac vids against some Snakes and he basically does nothing but stay in the air all the time and painstakingly wait for openings.

Not only does what you do become repetitive, but for me personally, it gets BORING. That's right. I feel like I'm not having fun playing as G&W when I pretty much have to camp in the same manner for 6-7 minutes if the games don't timeout.

Even though in competitive Smash you play to win, I still want to have FUN while playing. That's why we play games in the first place.

This is why I play MK in singles, and he now officially my main in there now for the last week and a half or so. Go ahead, hate me all you want, but I actually have FUN playing with MK over G&W in singles. And if I'm having fun playing the character I want to play as, I'll naturally do better.

Now in teams, it's a whole different story G&W's niche in the future of Brawl will definately be in teams, because there he has way too much to pass up.