Smash 4's going to be an excellent game for both casual and the competitive scene, I've seen enough matches to see that. But I feel that certain aspects could be better, with high landing lag on certain moves, I feel that characters are limited in some spacing options (like Bowser's Nair), which considering how universally important spacing is to the meta of this game, limits its future. In addition, spacing techniques involving pivoting were recently discovered, but present a high difficulty for learning (and this is very important for those who want to space well at the high level play). Enter equipment effects like the Hard Braker ("stop your dash on a dime") and the Smooth lander (lowers landing lag). These tools alone allow for a even deeper spacing metagame for the future because they allow the potential movement techniques to become easier to learn for the average player and give more flexibility for characters to use more of their moveset to space. If you still space improperly on a shield you will be still punished for it, but you will have more tools at with to attack your opponent. In addition, if your opponent fails to space properly, your ability to punish them is greatly increased because lower landing lag results in the ability to do more combos thus get more damage and kills more reliably and quickly. This benefits the future meta of the game, a meta I'm extremely excited to participate and learn alongside new people to the competitive community. That being said...
Custom equipment will be BANNED because they come with random stats and effects assigned to them that greatly impact character performance in game. It is far too challenging to request TOs to get the proper equipment effects and balance the stats perfectly at 0 attack defense and speed on EVERY Wii U console used in tournament. Thus, we should press Nintendo and Namco to release a DLC equipment piece that enables the effects above without any stat modifications.
