Is Sonic Mid-tier material? Is he better than Bowser again? (Read the OP)

[JayBee]

why isn't bowser more viable in tourneys? Is it his size? that may be part of it, since, only one character with his size is top tier, and he has dem grabs, and faster moves. projectiles? how is he offstage? maybe im overthinking, and it all comes down to who is willing to rep him exclusively...

 

[Terios the Hedgehog]

Because when he gets ***** he gets ***** hard. He's NOT viable by himself.

 

[Chis]

Not really sure if this has been mentioned before, but does Bowser have any disjointed hitboxes? Sure he has range on some of his moves though.

 

[Kinzer]

If you count his shockwave from landing a Dair a disjoint, then yes.

 

[Chis]

So shall we move on the the next character, since this one seems unfinished :/

 

[DDM]

I would be in favor of that.

 

[Chis]

Finally Zelda, let's complete this one guys.

 

[Kinzer]

*Chokes on popcorn kernel.*

Buahahahahahahaha!!!!

Yeah, the above is probably spam, but it's sad.

This doesn't really have to do with this so much, but the Zelda player won't even use her against me anymore, he has to CP with G&W.

With that said and done, I don't think I'll trust anybody who says the MU is not even at worst, there's no way the MU is that bad when the only reason I get taken down to the last is when I don't feel like trying as much as I should to **** her (no pun intended). Granted this was quite a long time ago when we tried to discuss the MU, so times/people might've changed, but as for me I just confirmed how easy this matchup is.

What does that have to do with anything though? Well, if we're talking tourney viability, I think chances of winning against the whole cast kind of make a difference... so I ask anybody who has the/an answer... how does Zelda on her stand as a fighter? Don't I hear somewhere that she has it really rough, along with some counters here and there? I'm not going to discredit the character until I know who counters her/she counters, but I am a bit skeptical from my experience and current knowledge with her.

As I usually say, being able to be played alone should be a major factor, from what I see/hear Zelda cannot do on her own.

 

[<π]

zelda is horrible. one of the worst characters in the game.

 

[Terios the Hedgehog]

Zelda on her OWN? We're better. Straight up. Sheik it's basically a tie and Zelda/Sheik we lose.

 

[DDM]

EDITED for dip-****tedness. Sorry guise.

 

[Chis]

Please read the OP DDM.

 

[DDM]

^^^^ Too eager to participate / Doesn't take time to read.

Better against the entire cast than Zelda... hm....

*continues researching, mumbles to self*

EDIT: It's interesting. A good portion of the roster seems to go 50:50 or close to it with Sonic, yet with Zelda some are strongly in her favor and some are strongly against her. Mind games are the big thing with Sonic, and that's so hard to gauge.

And yet... Zelda ***** the piss out of C. Falcon, Ganondorf, Bowser... those guys.

I'm getting a headache. I'll think again later.

 

[JMan8891]

Id argue yea... Sonic is easily a better character for pure tourney viability than Zelda.

Matchups are on paper. And in game, we all know Sonic has many tools and strategies that can overthrow situiations. So many argue "zomg, Sonic phails if he can't mindgame!!!" Which, to an extent is true. He Ko's with slow, readable moves, and not much killing potential outside them. However, mindgames set up for the aformentioned moves... and therefore kills...

But, Sonic can do so many many things in just as many situations. Zelda (to me) has Din's fire. Thats about it..... KO potential... and Din's Fire. When she herself is getting ***** in battle... I don't see her having many escape-to-resets in that situiation. I don't view her as all that great on dmg racking either. She is too heavily reliant on the tandem of sheik. But, this argument is for her stand alone.

And... Sonic generally can fare better against higher tiered characters due to his versitility. Zelda is more limited, and therefore hindered.

 

[Kataefi]

Yeah sonic's definitely 100 times better imo. So many mixups it's unreal. You need to play patiently as Zelda. <3... you need more practise imo - I'm only going by the videos you posted in the video thread. If you're feeling down then play DM or someone and get some inspiration =p

The thing is Zelda doesn't have a good jab, grab and doesn't have good speed. This means it's tricky to break situations well with her imo and reset the spacing. Attacking her shield head on is generally quite safe as her grab is ridiculously slow. You need to have good DI and powershield all the projectiles about to be thrown at you. It's like the ganondorf effect.

Now with that said, what she does have is a few little tricks here and there and that I guess she's much much better than her melee counterpart, so zelda players from melee have easier times generally winning in brawl than before. Dtilt is her best move, lightning kicks and uairs sneak up during the most unexpected times, and really... that's it lol! Just don't get hit by Bair OoS...

I'm expecting a certain someone to come into this thread and give it his own lol, so with that I'll leave. =p

 

[B.A.M.]

zelda gets gimped like a hospitalized veteran. She doesnt have much options and with Sonic's versatile grab game it isnt too hard to get her offstage and slaughter her> She tries to gain space with dins fire, unfortunately for her Sonic being the fastest runner virtually blazes past anything she throws at him pun o so intended. Shes got some KO power, but in a match where sonic can get low percentage kills through fairly easy gimps, he wins. Shes simply too. slow.

 

[Orange_Soda_Man]

I don't know too much about Zelda, but I hear her spacing game is pretty good.

(matchup discussion)

READ THE OP

 

[B.A.M.]

sorry i completely forgot this isnt matchup discussion. Well in my opinion its the same reason why she loses to sonic. Its pretty easy to gimp Zelda in my opinion. She has more KO potential then Sonic (although some are DIable) , however she falls to pressure hardcore. When ur below her, she just takes it, as she really has no valid option in that scenario. She has more priority than sonic but she has such high predictability so good luck with KO sans Dsmash.

Basically.

Zelda

pros:
-high KO potential
-projectile
-nayru's love
-very quick smash in the form of Dsmash
-b-air OoS
-dtilt
-can air chas with upsmash (can be DI'ed out of)

cons:
-very very gimpable aka bad/predictable recovery
-limited options
-basically cant shield grab due to grab being waay too slow
-has basically no option when youre underneath her

Compare:

Sonic has a brilliant mixup game. In a game that basically about mix-ups and unpredictability, sonic excels where zelda falls short. that alone make Sonic's potential higher than zelda's in my opinion. Lacking the myriad of options to recover and weak shield grab (arguably one of the best techniques for ANY character) hits her hard. I just dont see how she can succeed like sonic plain and simple.

 

[Kinzer]

I don't know too much about Zelda, but I hear her spacing game is pretty good.

Quite a shame that she has other problems to the point where it almost doesn't even really matter.

For example, she's quite punishable if she can't hit you.

She's also a very linear character.

 

[Terios the Hedgehog]

Actually after 2 Usmashes it's staled enough that you can't pop out but unstale enough to fling your *** offscreen.

 

[Chis]

Also Zelda suffers from reliable approaches; usually being at a disadvantage if she's behind percentage/stock wise.

 

[sniperworm]

Sonic is better than Zelda, I'd explain but really it's pretty obvious.

I don't know too much about Zelda, but I hear her spacing game is pretty good.

Actually her spacing game is pretty bad. It's difficult to space when she moves slowly, all her attacks with range are slow, and her moves aren't safe on block/miss or (more commonly) both.

 

[-Mars-]

She has more priority than sonic but she has such high predictability so good luck with KO sans Dsmash.

Bair OoS- frame 5 aerial

Dtilt>Utilt- inescapable combo at certain percentages

Usmash-Frame 6

 

[Kinzer]

Doesn't it take some time to drop a shield?

'Cause God knows Zelda isn't going to land hits in the wide open when everybody fears/expects those attacks.

 

[Terios the Hedgehog]

Not if you jump out. You save like 7 frames. I saw SuSa mention it.

 

[infomon]

Shield drop is 7 frames, but iirc all button input is ignored on the very first frame after a jump. So you if your shield is up, you lose 2 frames before your aerial comes out (1 to jump, 1 frame ignored)

But that's the same as if your shield was down. ie. an aerial from the ground takes +2 to its startup lag to do the jump.

I might have the numbers wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's +2.

Edit: So yeah, you save 7 frames. I don't know why I posted here....

 

[Terios the Hedgehog]

So is Bair OoS on Frame 5 or frame 7 counting the jump and inactive frame? Guess it doesn't matter but the point is it's definitely not frame 12/14 like it would be if you let the shield drop.

 

[Kinzer]

You also have to consider shield-stun.

 

[Chis]

Gah, Bair OoS has ***** me so many times :/

 

[Jim Morrison]

Zelda just sucks.
You don't even need to discuss this. She should be below Ness.

 

[Chis]

Well she does have 30:70 match up vs MK and Snake...

So yeah, this is getting pretty obvious.

 

[JayBee]

LOL you sonica are so nice to zelda.

WHY are we still talking about this? sonic being better than zelda s is the most obvious thing this thread has so far.

 

[da K.I.D.]

no joke tho. zeldas really bad

 

[Ant-14]

ness isint really as good as sonic but he can keep sonic grouneded pretty well if given the chance my ive played a few good nesses not to many out there

 

[RenegadeRaven]

Big heads are big.

 

[Chis]

Alright, now time to rap up those unclear conclusions :D

Ike
From post 508# to 589# (Pages 34 to 40)
Decision: Maybe not

 

[JayBee]

To me, brawl is primarlily about:

mobility
recovery
safety
attack opportunity/punishment

in brawl nowadays, i put a high priority on being able to not get gimped/ recovery, and even though things can get worked around, a limited recovery like Ike's is something that when i look at the high tiers is the biggest problem.

for example, i compare Sonic vs DDD to Ike vs DDD, and thought about how much easier it is for DDD to do certain things, like bair you off the stage and keep you off ftw. I gave that situation to sonic. Then i thought about who has a better chance to avoid stupid things like chaingrabs, and again i give it to sonic, since only a frame perfect one will keep him in the CG.

though ike is more powerful, it doesn't mean he will kill faster than sonic. also, punishement is very important and i feel that against chracters like Meta, D3, and falco, he has an even harder time punishing than sonic, and at the same time, lack the mobility they do to survive if caught in horrible situations. Out side of jab, i dont really see what reliable move he has to get people off of him.

Compared to sonic, his jab isn't as good as ikes, but i've seen it still used oos, and he has more common oos options, in addition his mobility is superior to ike, so the possibility of being put in horrible situations is lower.

Ike can use his moves best it seems when opponents are trying to get back on stage, but that level of pressure can exist with sonic all across the stage, so i think sonic is better at controlling the field against more chracters.

to me, the fact that he can get killed in more ways than sonic and that his powerful offense doesn't deter that weakness enough, gives sonic the edge in a tourney setting, even thought the matchup between sonic and ike is close to even, and IMO, only because of sonic's lack of KO moves compared to Ike, which as you can see, still isn't enough to give Ike a more favorablt matchup against someone like Sonic.


tha'ts all i got...

 

[Camalange]

I like Kojin's way of thinking.

 

[Chis]

To me, brawl is primarlily about:

mobility
recovery
safety
attack opportunity/punishment

Personally I would put spacing/range on that list. And maybe aproaches.

though ike is more powerful, it doesn't mean he will kill faster than sonic.

Ike has more reliable kill set ups then Sonic. Sonic is able to punish more frequently but Ike can punish a lot harder when given the chance, potential taking a stock.

Compared to sonic, his jab isn't as good as ikes, but i've seen it still used oos, and he has more common oos options, in addition his mobility is superior to ike, so the possibility of being put in horrible situations is lower.

However Ike's range makes him safer in certain situations than Sonic.

 

[DDM]

Ike has more reliable kill set ups then Sonic. Sonic is able to punish more frequently but Ike can punish a lot harder when given the chance, potential taking a stock.

QFT.

Look, I'm sure Ike is low on the tier list for a reason, and when I feel like reading I'll look them up, but right now I'm going on what my eyes tell me. And what they tell me is that a smart Ike player can ****. No matter what character Sonic is up against, it seems like his matches take longer, because he has to needle with a million weak attacks, and we all know how hard it is to KO with him. Ike, on the other hand, is a strong son of a *****. Not sure exactly where he would rank in that dept., but it has to be in the top 5 with King Dedede, Snake, Bowser, et al. Think about how many guys he could potentially kill at well under 100%. Pikachu, Kirby, Jigglypuff, even the great Meta Knight, and probably more on the list.

I mean, I don't know. I go read now.