Is Palutena really that bad?

[RedCap-BlueSpikes]

Same. People like Ryo and Trevonte consistently preform well with her and, even after making the switch to Diddy, AeroLink still believes she's mid-tier.

 

[Duplighost]

Personally I'm probably gonna use Palutena more. I get a Ganondorf feel off of her. Doesn't pack as much power but the playstyle is similar with punishing for mistakes and wants to go for strong single strikes but has a few more tools such as a warp, reflector, decent grab range, and a projectile wave, oh and a counter. And I find a trend that down throw sets up stuff for a lot of characters I play. DDD, Palutena, Meta Knight, ZSS, Ganondorf, etc.

I wouldn't say Palutena is bad. Just is more technical and has a learning curve.

I agree with you. Her custom moves don't make or break her as a character. The only thing I could criticize about default Palutena is the lag after her smash attacks, but other than that, she's good. Her Autoreticle (is that spelled right?) is an okay move, her Reflect can gimp, and she has a counter that's pretty useful.

She slightly reminds me of Ganondorf, but just a quicker and more technical Ganondorf.

 

[Wintropy]

Honestly, I feel like there's too much faith being put into imaginary tier lists and their respective reflections on particular characters.

Just play who you want to play and make the most of their moves. Not exactly difficult. I find myself consistently performing best with Palutena, even with characters that are much higher-tier and that I'm equally skilled with, simply because I love the character.

 

[Duplighost]

Honestly, I feel like there's too much faith being put into imaginary tier lists and their respective reflections on particular characters.

Just play who you want to play and make the most of their moves. Not exactly difficult. I find myself consistently performing best with Palutena, even with characters that are much higher-tier and that I'm equally skilled with, simply because I love the character.

I agree. I think if you put enough time and practice into a character who isn't speculated at a "whoa-awesome-S-Tier-character" can still be made viable. Just reading your opponent and practicing with your character is perfectly fine, and you can end up becoming a good player regardless of character choices.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Which characters are arguably worse? She sucks because her damage output is low, her grab game highly overrated (horrible endlag, can only reliably combo d-throw into fair unless opponent sucks once the opponent is past a small amount of %), she lacks kills outside of gimmicks which work online and against inexperienced opponents, she relies on increments due to lack of comboes and reliable high damage moves (exception being bair) but has a highly mediocre neutral game relying on low damage pokes.

Lacks a decent projectile (autoreticle is extremely punishable if baited or predicted), can't land against decently fast characters with aerial games (teleport mixups work a few times but becomes suicide once your opponent catches on, counter is even worse in the same regard), has some of the worst OOS options in the game and so can be safely approached by characters with long range attacks, and she has trouble punishing good dash attacks on block too. Meanwhile her own dash attack is meh because of the short distance it covers.

I play her and enjoy her anyway.

@ Duplighost : Viable as in "can make it to a tourney and even place, but will very rarely if ever win anything, and is bound to lose in big tourneys with top players"

 

[Wintropy]

Which characters are arguably worse?

It's not a case of "which characters are worse?", it's a case of "how can we make this character better?"

To answer OP: no, Palutena is not "really that bad", because there is no singular benchmark by which "that bad" is judged. At certain things? Yes, she's pretty terrible. At other things? Yes, she's pretty swell. Just do your best and try to focus on what's good about her, while taking care to mitigate her weaknesses as well - really, isn't that the point of being a Palutena player in the first instance?

EDIT: Okay, your edited post makes a much better point. I can respect your rationale now.

 

[SafCar]

I personally pocket Palutena just to deal with some of my bad matchups like Villager. She shuts down most defensive Villager players because they can't use Lloid, Harvest, Fair/Bair, or Fsmash safely and it causes them to resort to their short range attacks. A fellow Villager main of mine absolutely sucks at the Palutena MU (50/50, from what I've heard) because he's too used to effectively zoning everyone. Palutena just shuts him down and forces him to go aggressive, which he rarely does, and he gets too greedy and dies to a reflected Fsmash.

 

[Nymphbits]

I liked her before custom moves quite a bit, but the second I saw her custom moves I honestly just couldn't turn back.

 

[Wintropy]

I liked her before custom moves quite a bit, but the second I saw her custom moves I honestly just couldn't turn back.

Out of interest, which ones do you prefer?

I'm of the very, very small minority that prefers the default moveset, eheheh~

 

[Nymphbits]

Out of interest, which ones do you prefer?

I'm of the very, very small minority that prefers the default moveset, eheheh~

I'm a high risk high rewards kinda guy, so I lovvveee Lightweight.

I'm also a big fan of super speed, as it can punish pretty hard with multiple hits if done right.

 

[ChivalRuse]

@ Hippieslayer Watch Big D or Aerolink use Palutena before you make snap judgments.

 

[Mysteltainn]

Out of interest, which ones do you prefer?

I'm of the very, very small minority that prefers the default moveset, eheheh~

I feel like I'm one of the few who like her defaults as well. Most of my friends and people on here say her specials are useless, but honestly, I can't count the amount of times I've screwed random players and friends alike over with her Reflect Barrier (probably the most unique reflector in the game IMO) knock-back mechanics and her Warp mind games, as well as her strange F-Smash mechanics that knock people away slightly; nothing better than killing someone with that wisp of wind that pushed them ever so slightly away, making them fall to their death. I believe I have seen a chart that also shows everyone's counters, I recall Palutena's actually ranking quite well in terms of frames active and damage returned.

PS: Auto-Reticle is funny against Villager. Most Villagers try to pocket it, but they can only Pocket one beam, and get nailed by the other two.

To each their own though, what feels right to us will be the most awkward thing in existence to others, and vice versa.

 

[Hippieslayer]

@ Hippieslayer Watch Big D or Aerolink use Palutena before you make snap judgments.

Why wrongly assume I haven't seen Big D or Aerolink use Palutena? Snap your own judgements.

 

[HarajukuNinja]

When playing her I get this weird mix between Sheik and Ike. She has high mobility and can can get good combos off (Sheik), but has strong smash attacks that have a lot of cool down and should be used for punishing (Ike). But that's just me. I'm not a person who cares much about tier lists *hides my Sheik icon >.<* but I don't think that she's a bad character. I believe that many people are underestimating her abilities due to her obvious flaws (i.e. her laggy tilts) instead of focusing on her strengths.

 

[Wintropy]

When playing her I get this weird mix between Sheik and Ike. She has high mobility and can can get good combos off (Sheik), but has strong smash attacks that have a lot of cool down and should be used for punishing (Ike). But that's just me. I'm not a person who cares much about tier lists *hides my Sheik icon >.<* but I don't think that she's a bad character. I believe that many people are underestimating her abilities due to her obvious flaws (i.e. her laggy tilts) instead of focusing on her strengths.

I've seen it being suggested that you can play her in a similar manner to Ganondorf.

As a Palutena main / 'Dorf sub, this intrigues me~

 

[HarajukuNinja]

I've seen it being suggested that you can play her in a similar manner to Ganondorf.

As a Palutena main / 'Dorf sub, this intrigues me~

Now that you mention it, she kinda does play like Ganon but faster and has more approach options