TimG57867
Smash Ace
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2015
- Messages
- 513
Hello everyone, TimG57867 here. Now I am a relatively new member here and this happens to be my first thread so well, here goes nothing.
Now, I've read a lot of the threads here, both old and new, and the general consensus is that Kirby's pour approach is one of, if not, his greatest issues. Now, I've seen a lot of suggestions about how to help the pink puff out overall. These include a stronger Up Throw, quicker aerials, and more air and ground speed. All of these are great suggestions (although the speed buffs seem very unlikely). However, one buff that I am shocked doesn't get brought more is restoring Final Cutter's range to that of Brawl's (or giving it more!)
Generally, I have found that Final Cutter is one of the more poorly regard moves in Kirby's repertoire, and I have to admit that the sentiment is understandable. It already has a bad reputation for being one of the only moves bad Kirby players will use along with Down B and smashes. And as a recovery move, it's very poor as it can't sweetspot the ledge from below, has poor horizontal distance, cannot be canceled at the peak, and has annoying startup and end lag. With all these issues, it's little wonder that Kirby players that like customs are so quick to switch it out for Upper Cutter which can sweetspot the ledge from below, makes Kirby's gimp game godly, is difficult to gimp itself, makes for a potent combo breaker, makes a great kill move that combos out of Up Tilt and F-Throw, and makes Kirby's recovery go from solid to top tier. Given all these benefits, it's hard to justify using Final Cutter over it in customs settings, even if it had its Brawl range. However, since customs seem to be getting fizzled out of competitive SSB4 for the foreseeable future, Kirby will pretty much be stuck with Final Cutter as well. A shame but while Final Cutter will probably always be subpar recovery move, I feel that with a buff to its frame data and above all range in the cutter wave, it could become one of Kirby's most valuable options in the neutral and remedy his awful approach.
Underrated Utility
Now before I get into the moves potential with buffs, I want to talk about how underrated it is in its current state. Given all the flaws I just pointed out, calling it great or even good move would be an overstatement, especially in its nerfed state. And yet, I've gotten a ton of utility out of despite its flaws, so much so that I am shocked few Kirby players use it neutral. The main use I've gotten out it is as a spacing tool. Flawed it may be, it is Kirby's only transcendent attack and while Up Tilt and Up Smash are disjointed, but those have too little range to be challenging other disjoints. I can say from experience that this move as been a great spacing tool for me that's given me good breathing room in many pressure situations that would have been a nightmare without. For example, I find
to be a rather pesky opponent for Kirby to face as she can just float above our heads and out of reach and slam us good if we try to challenge her in the air head on. And given a how strong her F-Air is, a Peach floating in on you can be scary. But I've found Final Cutter to be a great anti air against her. Spaced it right, it'll snuff out any attempt by her to home in on you with an aerial can swat her back to the ground. I've had similar success with this against other foes like and that either love to spam their speedy N-Airs (wish Kirby had one. ) in our face or taunt us with their better aerial mobility. Speaking of disjointed properties, I've found the move to be a god send when dealing with characters who have a lot of disjoints, especially swordsman like and . While challenging their aerials head on with our small range is a mistake, I can often push them back and get some momentum with a well timed Up B. Final Cutter also makes life against super heavy and strong characters like , , and a bit easier for me. Given the range and power they possess, you have to be careful when getting in on them, and Final Cutter often allows me to throw them off more and make the back up when they go on the offensive. This especially applies on For Glory where lag makes their slow yet destructive moves much better than normal and makes it hard for us to punish them without getting blown away. One time, I met a laggy King Dedede player online that did nothing but spam stronger and long ranging moves at me. Were it not for Final Cutter, I might have gotten creamed just because of lag.
Another nice thing about Final Cutter that we all know is that it spikes on the way down. Now given its properties, it's hard to edge guard with it unless the opponent is right in front of the ledge and we only hit them on the way down as if we get them on the rise, the projectile could potential ruin the spike. But if used correctly, it can punish people hard for trying to gimp us. If we space and time it right, we can catch their gimp attempt and send them plummeting while we grab the ledge. Mike Kirby was actually able to do this in Grand Finals in PoPnOff 15. It was probably an accident, but shows how we can punish foes for tries to gimp us near the ledge:
(the last minute of the video)
Another nice thing about is that cuts through the ledge. Often foes would position themselves to punish my get up options. In response, I'd start up B right below the ledge to cut them and force them away allowing to me to get back on stage, similar to Ryu's Shoryuken. And it also makes a nice to move to punish spot dodges. And as pathetic as the projectile's current range is, it is never the less a projectile so if we throw it out raw, we can catch our opponent off guard, especially they are speedy and lacking projectiles of their own like. It can also help you land if you're being juggled high on top if you use it right.
Now I know that this is not the kind of move you should spam every second as it can be telegrahed if overused as For Glory Kirbys show. But used with a purpose Final Cutter makes a nice spacing tool which is a great thing to have a character with little range like Kirby.
It's Potential with Buffs
One of the main reasons Kirby suffers right now is that he has no effective way of safely approaching and maintaining stage presence. He's often forced to power shield a lot and jump in the air. As good as having multiple jumps is, it can only do so much since our air speed is poor and our aerials are bit on the slow side. Plus this approach falls short if our opponent is rocking disjoints or all rounding super speedy aerials. Our speed on the ground is somewhat better, but still mediocre so we can't really rush down if we want to get aggressive. All of these issues makes the neutral hard for Kirby and I see many wish that our specials were different moves. I find myself wishing that at times too, but if it got the right buffs, I think Final Cutter alone would make our neutral go from bad to decent.
Now some might feel that a range increase on the cutter wouldn't be a big game changer. After all, the projectile can only travel along the ground and the rise you have to do first means an opponent far away can see it coming and shield. But there lies the beauty of it: they would actually have a reason to do a defensive option while NOT being next to Kirby. Any good Smash player knows that projectiles are used for more than simply causing damage. They're used to hinder approach and get in safely. They are also used to force approaches from the opponent and punish their mistakes. Kirby suffers because he's almost always forced to approach. Sure he can be patient and camp, but it often isn't that effective due to not having a long range projectile and being slow. Sure we can punish approaches well with our tilts and combos, but if we have to approach, things can get tricky. However, a buff to Final Cutter's projectile would be a boon to this problem. One thing we need to remember is that the cutter wave is transcendent which means it doesn't trade with other hitboxes. It'll go right through other projectiles. This alone would vastly improve our matchup against. One of main struggles is that we have hard time getting through his fireballs, even with our crouch and jab. We can copy them, but we can't outmatch his use of them because unlike 's his fireballs go straight. With a long ranged Final Cutter, we could stop him from fireball camping us and actually zone him out as without that his approach is as bad as ours if not worse due to his poor aerial mobility. This would also prevent peanut camping from , allow us to hit 's Luma from a safe distance, make camping a bit harder for characters like , and keep and from outranging us with their Fire Breath. We could also keep speedy characters like , , and from charging in and trying to overwhelm us too. Back in Brawl, I would often use Final Cutter to keep Sonic from abusing his spin dash. With a long range projectile, they'd actually have to approach carefully. It would also give us a way to punish backward rolls. Because we're slow and lacking range, it's hard for Kirby to punish backward rolls from characters like and . With a long range projectile, we can read a roll and send it out to clip them. Final Cutter could potentially set up traps too. Sometimes your opponent may jump over the beam, which is exactly where Kirby loves to juggle his enemies. It would also make it easier for us to force shields from a distance and get grabs and Inhales to obtain other abilities. And just imagine Kirby with two long range projectiles! We'd be able to outcamp foes like and do a number on opponents' shields. We'd also be able to harass recoveries without jumping off the ledge. We could force opponents to recover low, putting them in the perfect spot for spikes.
It Needs to be Restored
Out of all the nerfs Kirby got in the switch, Final Cutter losing its range was easily the one that made me most upset. It wasn't the greatest projectile in Brawl, but it definitely had its use. Now that I am a much better player than I was in previous games, I can now understand all the more what a nice option we lost when they cut the range in half. Like it or not, its Kirby's only projectile and having its range dropped to the point where the high startup makes it near useless as a zoning tool was a big blow that I feel gets overlooked too often. Part of me feels they did that to increase the appeal of Wave Cutter, but the Final Cutter wave only deals 5-6% alone, Upper Cutter is a better option, and customs are getting phased out anyway so they might as well improve Kirby's base game.
Next to Up Throw killing between 140-160% again and less startup on D-Air, this is probably the biggest buff they could give Kirby. With less startup and endlag and its range restored to double its current distance like in Brawl, this move could singlehandedly make Kirby's neutral go from being one of the poorest in the game to an actually workable one. It's certainly possible for them as they wouldn't have to change the animation. They'd just have to tweek whatever number affects its travel distance and they've already changed the distance on things like Rosalina's uncharged Luma. It won't allow us to camp and wall characters out like or and spamming it mindlessly would still lead to getting punished, but with smart use it'd give Kirby a safer approaching tool and make his stage presence so much better. I don't know if this upcoming patch will change characters at all, let alone Kirby, but if it does affect him this what I'd personally love to see most along with an Up Throw buff. With the game more balanced than Brawl, Kirby having a viable projectile would make him more effective than ever if you ask me.
What do you guys think?
Now, I've read a lot of the threads here, both old and new, and the general consensus is that Kirby's pour approach is one of, if not, his greatest issues. Now, I've seen a lot of suggestions about how to help the pink puff out overall. These include a stronger Up Throw, quicker aerials, and more air and ground speed. All of these are great suggestions (although the speed buffs seem very unlikely). However, one buff that I am shocked doesn't get brought more is restoring Final Cutter's range to that of Brawl's (or giving it more!)
Generally, I have found that Final Cutter is one of the more poorly regard moves in Kirby's repertoire, and I have to admit that the sentiment is understandable. It already has a bad reputation for being one of the only moves bad Kirby players will use along with Down B and smashes. And as a recovery move, it's very poor as it can't sweetspot the ledge from below, has poor horizontal distance, cannot be canceled at the peak, and has annoying startup and end lag. With all these issues, it's little wonder that Kirby players that like customs are so quick to switch it out for Upper Cutter which can sweetspot the ledge from below, makes Kirby's gimp game godly, is difficult to gimp itself, makes for a potent combo breaker, makes a great kill move that combos out of Up Tilt and F-Throw, and makes Kirby's recovery go from solid to top tier. Given all these benefits, it's hard to justify using Final Cutter over it in customs settings, even if it had its Brawl range. However, since customs seem to be getting fizzled out of competitive SSB4 for the foreseeable future, Kirby will pretty much be stuck with Final Cutter as well. A shame but while Final Cutter will probably always be subpar recovery move, I feel that with a buff to its frame data and above all range in the cutter wave, it could become one of Kirby's most valuable options in the neutral and remedy his awful approach.
Underrated Utility
Now before I get into the moves potential with buffs, I want to talk about how underrated it is in its current state. Given all the flaws I just pointed out, calling it great or even good move would be an overstatement, especially in its nerfed state. And yet, I've gotten a ton of utility out of despite its flaws, so much so that I am shocked few Kirby players use it neutral. The main use I've gotten out it is as a spacing tool. Flawed it may be, it is Kirby's only transcendent attack and while Up Tilt and Up Smash are disjointed, but those have too little range to be challenging other disjoints. I can say from experience that this move as been a great spacing tool for me that's given me good breathing room in many pressure situations that would have been a nightmare without. For example, I find
to be a rather pesky opponent for Kirby to face as she can just float above our heads and out of reach and slam us good if we try to challenge her in the air head on. And given a how strong her F-Air is, a Peach floating in on you can be scary. But I've found Final Cutter to be a great anti air against her. Spaced it right, it'll snuff out any attempt by her to home in on you with an aerial can swat her back to the ground. I've had similar success with this against other foes like and that either love to spam their speedy N-Airs (wish Kirby had one. ) in our face or taunt us with their better aerial mobility. Speaking of disjointed properties, I've found the move to be a god send when dealing with characters who have a lot of disjoints, especially swordsman like and . While challenging their aerials head on with our small range is a mistake, I can often push them back and get some momentum with a well timed Up B. Final Cutter also makes life against super heavy and strong characters like , , and a bit easier for me. Given the range and power they possess, you have to be careful when getting in on them, and Final Cutter often allows me to throw them off more and make the back up when they go on the offensive. This especially applies on For Glory where lag makes their slow yet destructive moves much better than normal and makes it hard for us to punish them without getting blown away. One time, I met a laggy King Dedede player online that did nothing but spam stronger and long ranging moves at me. Were it not for Final Cutter, I might have gotten creamed just because of lag.Another nice thing about Final Cutter that we all know is that it spikes on the way down. Now given its properties, it's hard to edge guard with it unless the opponent is right in front of the ledge and we only hit them on the way down as if we get them on the rise, the projectile could potential ruin the spike. But if used correctly, it can punish people hard for trying to gimp us. If we space and time it right, we can catch their gimp attempt and send them plummeting while we grab the ledge. Mike Kirby was actually able to do this in Grand Finals in PoPnOff 15. It was probably an accident, but shows how we can punish foes for tries to gimp us near the ledge:
Another nice thing about is that cuts through the ledge. Often foes would position themselves to punish my get up options. In response, I'd start up B right below the ledge to cut them and force them away allowing to me to get back on stage, similar to Ryu's Shoryuken. And it also makes a nice to move to punish spot dodges. And as pathetic as the projectile's current range is, it is never the less a projectile so if we throw it out raw, we can catch our opponent off guard, especially they are speedy and lacking projectiles of their own like
. It can also help you land if you're being juggled high on top if you use it right.Now I know that this is not the kind of move you should spam every second as it can be telegrahed if overused as For Glory Kirbys show. But used with a purpose Final Cutter makes a nice spacing tool which is a great thing to have a character with little range like Kirby.
It's Potential with Buffs
One of the main reasons Kirby suffers right now is that he has no effective way of safely approaching and maintaining stage presence. He's often forced to power shield a lot and jump in the air. As good as having multiple jumps is, it can only do so much since our air speed is poor and our aerials are bit on the slow side. Plus this approach falls short if our opponent is rocking disjoints or all rounding super speedy aerials. Our speed on the ground is somewhat better, but still mediocre so we can't really rush down if we want to get aggressive. All of these issues makes the neutral hard for Kirby and I see many wish that our specials were different moves. I find myself wishing that at times too, but if it got the right buffs, I think Final Cutter alone would make our neutral go from bad to decent.
Now some might feel that a range increase on the cutter wouldn't be a big game changer. After all, the projectile can only travel along the ground and the rise you have to do first means an opponent far away can see it coming and shield. But there lies the beauty of it: they would actually have a reason to do a defensive option while NOT being next to Kirby. Any good Smash player knows that projectiles are used for more than simply causing damage. They're used to hinder approach and get in safely. They are also used to force approaches from the opponent and punish their mistakes. Kirby suffers because he's almost always forced to approach. Sure he can be patient and camp, but it often isn't that effective due to not having a long range projectile and being slow. Sure we can punish approaches well with our tilts and combos, but if we have to approach, things can get tricky. However, a buff to Final Cutter's projectile would be a boon to this problem. One thing we need to remember is that the cutter wave is transcendent which means it doesn't trade with other hitboxes. It'll go right through other projectiles. This alone would vastly improve our matchup against
. One of main struggles is that we have hard time getting through his fireballs, even with our crouch and jab. We can copy them, but we can't outmatch his use of them because unlike 's his fireballs go straight. With a long ranged Final Cutter, we could stop him from fireball camping us and actually zone him out as without that his approach is as bad as ours if not worse due to his poor aerial mobility. This would also prevent peanut camping from , allow us to hit 's Luma from a safe distance, make camping a bit harder for characters like , and keep and from outranging us with their Fire Breath. We could also keep speedy characters like , , and from charging in and trying to overwhelm us too. Back in Brawl, I would often use Final Cutter to keep Sonic from abusing his spin dash. With a long range projectile, they'd actually have to approach carefully. It would also give us a way to punish backward rolls. Because we're slow and lacking range, it's hard for Kirby to punish backward rolls from characters like and . With a long range projectile, we can read a roll and send it out to clip them. Final Cutter could potentially set up traps too. Sometimes your opponent may jump over the beam, which is exactly where Kirby loves to juggle his enemies. It would also make it easier for us to force shields from a distance and get grabs and Inhales to obtain other abilities. And just imagine Kirby with two long range projectiles! We'd be able to outcamp foes like and do a number on opponents' shields. We'd also be able to harass recoveries without jumping off the ledge. We could force opponents to recover low, putting them in the perfect spot for spikes.It Needs to be Restored
Out of all the nerfs Kirby got in the switch, Final Cutter losing its range was easily the one that made me most upset. It wasn't the greatest projectile in Brawl, but it definitely had its use. Now that I am a much better player than I was in previous games, I can now understand all the more what a nice option we lost when they cut the range in half. Like it or not, its Kirby's only projectile and having its range dropped to the point where the high startup makes it near useless as a zoning tool was a big blow that I feel gets overlooked too often. Part of me feels they did that to increase the appeal of Wave Cutter, but the Final Cutter wave only deals 5-6% alone, Upper Cutter is a better option, and customs are getting phased out anyway so they might as well improve Kirby's base game.
Next to Up Throw killing between 140-160% again and less startup on D-Air, this is probably the biggest buff they could give Kirby. With less startup and endlag and its range restored to double its current distance like in Brawl, this move could singlehandedly make Kirby's neutral go from being one of the poorest in the game to an actually workable one. It's certainly possible for them as they wouldn't have to change the animation. They'd just have to tweek whatever number affects its travel distance and they've already changed the distance on things like Rosalina's uncharged Luma. It won't allow us to camp and wall characters out like
or and spamming it mindlessly would still lead to getting punished, but with smart use it'd give Kirby a safer approaching tool and make his stage presence so much better. I don't know if this upcoming patch will change characters at all, let alone Kirby, but if it does affect him this what I'd personally love to see most along with an Up Throw buff. With the game more balanced than Brawl, Kirby having a viable projectile would make him more effective than ever if you ask me.What do you guys think?
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