Is wolf one of the "good" characters?

[LCB12321]

So everyone pretty much knows snake and meta are @ the top (for now atleast). But after that theres a whole slew of characters with tons of potential which include g&w,dedede,falco,r.o.b,marth,wario,olimar....

The question is does wolf deserve to be in the same category as these other "good" characters...

IMO wolf is in a class below those other "good" characters, i think hes on about the same level as DK,pit,lucario,toonlink,pikachu,zelda....

I dont really have any experience against wolf nor do i play him, so im wondering how good wolf mainers think he is or will be?

Im trying to avoid a tier discusion although its inevitable....I just really wanna know more about wolf.

 

[AfroThunder396]

Not a Wolf main but I do think he has the potential to be a high tier character similar to Wario or Dedede. I think ROB, Marth, G&W, and Falco are all above him though.

 

[mysticwolf]

He has the lowest attack power of all three Star Fox characters, but he is the heaviest of the three.

 

[plasmawisp6633]

IMO, Wolf is one of the best characters in the game because he's well rounded. He's got range like you can't believe, a fair amount of advanced techs (scarring), some nice killing moves, and weight so he's not easily killed. He's got a down spike which pretty much owns. The downside to all of this, his overall movement and recoveries are a little stiff. If Wolf were in melee, he's be a god. I think he's the most Melee-like character in the game.

I personally think tiers are for people who can't think for themselves when choosing a character. I believe that, given a year or two, Wolf will climb to the top of the tier list, because I can't see why people wouldn't attract to Wolf.

 

[Sesshomuronay]

Wolf is good.

 

[LCB12321]

Wolf is good.

Thats pretty much what i wanted to know lol, i still think wolf is one of the least understood characters in terms of tourny placing, tier list prediction and character match ups... Alot of charctecters u/we have a good idea of how "good" or "bad" they are...... but theryre are a few that are almost completely uknown, and id put wolf at the top of this list with pit,toon link,pikachu and ike....

 

[ADHD]

Wolf players haven't met sheik yet have they? Enjoy....

 

[Drkfurryoverlord]

Silly LCB, tiers r 4 queers! (brawl taunts reference)

Seriously, tiers DONT matter. A "low tier" character can beat a "top tier" character with enough skill. Therefore, All the characters are "good" in the right hands. So to answer your question, Yes, Wolf is a good character.

 

[Christopher Rodriguez]

Yes, he is a good character.

 

[ScubaF_ingSteve]

Lol your asking if he is top or high tier. No matter how much I love wolf, he is top middle tier at best. He's good against most characters middle tier and bellow, but pretty much dies against high and top tier characters, but he can take on heavier characters like snake (yes he can =p) but not dedede. He's good, just not top.

 

[Falconv1.0]

Well, it depends. He has some uber, and I mean UBER gay counters that just burinate his *** like Sheik's F Tilt and Falco's grab, and his recovery is pretty bad, but all in all, he's not terrible.

Drkfurry is the epitome of idiotic scrub, ignore him. A low tier character only wins if the player is better, we base who is good off the idea that the characters are being played at their max potential with equally skilled players. Seriously, get educated you scrub.

 

[teekay]

As far as I can see it depends on how certain aspects of his game develop. I think there is a ton of potential left to be discovered especially with his reflector. How much of a difference this can make is pretty debatable.

The thing people fail to take into consideration a lot is not just how good of a character he is in general but how he does against the best characters. Right now, Wolf's main problem is that he does poorly against many of the characters who win the most at tournaments, which makes him a poor option for tournament play.

I sincerely think Wolf is a very good character who is just unfortunate when it comes to his matchups. You could go very far with him, but he will never come out top tier because of that. And that's fine with me. I think those who stick with Wolf and play competitively with him will be a very tough, and very respectable breed; not a lot of players are going to want to stick with a character who is "so close but so far."

That is, of course, assuming things don't change drastically. Like I said, I think Wolf has a lot of potential yet to be unlocked. You never know what might change about the game.

 

[NESSBOUNDER]

Silly LCB, tiers r 4 queers! (brawl taunts reference)

Seriously, tiers DONT matter. A "low tier" character can beat a "top tier" character with enough skill. Therefore, All the characters are "good" in the right hands. So to answer your question, Yes, Wolf is a good character.

Character A is low Tier. Character B is high tier.

Both are played by super robots who have exactly the same amount of skill.

Probability says that character B has the advantage.

Tiers are made with the assumption that both players are of equal skill. So saying that "any character can beat any character if player is skilled enough" doesn't work.

And I honestly believe that Wolf is a very good character, he's just not as safe as a lot of the other high tier characters. He's risky. People don't really like that in a high-stakes competition.

 

[Onxy]

Wolf is very reliable; except off stage.

IMO, people cannot be of equal skill because there has to be a winner.

 

[gritsniper]

eh hes ok but i dont think hes really at the point where ddd, falco, marth etc are. but hes one of the better characters. probably high mid tier.

 

[castorpollux]

Wolf is very reliable; except off stage.

IMO, people cannot be of equal skill because there has to be a winner.

So if 2 level 9 wolfs play each other, there can't be a winner?

If 2 people of equal skill play each other (assuming they are using the same character), luck determines the winner

 

[Onxy]

The CPU probably just performed better. I have watched level 9 dittos, and there are times when one just keeps loosing, I don't know why.

 

[Peregrinus Falconidae]

Well one CPU has to fall to the other, or else they would be at it forever. The computer would be designed to keep a battle from lasting so long.

 

[Onxy]

What I'm trying to say is, is that no one can be of equal skill... Approxmate, yes, but not equal... This is just my opinion.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

wolf = high tier

On first sight he doesn't really stand out. Neither very strong nor very fast but the whole is in his case more than the sums of each part. He has one of the most balanced movestes imo. Almost every move can be made good use of. If you know how to play with good spacing, he'll do a good job in your hands.

Seriously. If the only big complaint about him is his sub-par recovery (similar to Olimar), then you can be sure, that we're talking about a great character

 

[Ishiey]

Wolf is definitely a good character, but he's more risky than most of the brawl cast. Wolf needs to be agressive to be truly effective, with blasters used to buy some time by slowing approaches and the reflector to counter your opponent whenever they're going on the offensive so you can put pressure on them afterwards. The reason wolf isn't considered as good as, say falco, right now is because of the risks wolf has to take. I use wolf off the stage a lot, even though I know recovering is going to be a pain. It works, with the blaster and dair spike and bairs and fairs pissing people off (besides metaknight), but one little mistake and you die. Timing is everything, one mistake and you're boned. Anyways, wolf is very good, just risky.

 

[jaap]

i think he comes pretty near meta knight and snake and has a gr8 change 2 come in the top. he is the strongest of the 3 not the weakest and some of his attacks are faster. its a whole other style 2 play though but i liked him. i already liked him from the start but its definately also my best character. he has weaknesses though, i think he would lose against most of the top tier, g&w and falco. but i think more that its because they have gr8 advances against wolf. wolf is also a risky and can be rly aggresive ye (ppl dont like if u play defensive, thats more spamming tactics).

 

[ArcPoint]

Is Wolf "Good" Not really, lemme go over this bit by bit.

His recovery: Very easily edgehogged, both side B and UpB have a VERY small sweetspot box, arguable the smallest out of all the characters. This is the aspect you have to master in order to have a chance with Wolf. That's just getting onto the stage. If you by chance miss the ledge (Like, over shoot it) then you are going to get punished for it, the lag after UpB and SideB is horrible and just screaming "Punish me!" You can't make any mistakes here, or you're going to be punished/KOed.

Next aspect: His fall speed, His fall speed + his weight makes a bad combination. Or rather, a good combo for other characters. A LOT of characters can combo Wolf into oblivion, things like Falco's Utilt, Fox's Utilt, Peach's Dair, CHAINGRABS, all this crap can be done for longer on Wolf simply because of his fall speed and weight. This means that a lot of characters already have a percentage advantage if they hit you with such moves/grab you. Which means Wolf is often at a disadvantage already. Although, not every character can do this, but a lot can =/

Chaingrabbing: Wolf can be chaingrabbed a lot, automatically putting him at a disadvantage,a lot of characters can do it on Wolf. Oh well.


Next, his matchups. His matchups against the higher tiered people are horrible. The only matchup I feel like I have a chance in is against maybe Snake and GaW. But both of those have Wolf at a disadvantage. MK absolutely pwns Wolf, 7:3 easily. Falco pwns Wolf, due to 70% chaingrab. DDD can freakin' INFINITE Wolf. Marth simply outspaces Wolf. And Rob can camp Wolf hard (Also, Rob can gimp Wolf like crazy). This is what's going to get him to Mid tier, his matchups. They're simply not good.

The thing that makes Wolf Wolf, his Fsmash, is rather punishable, as this is more of a damage dealing move than a kill move, but if you use it correctly, it shouldn't be punished.

THe last thing: Wolf has trouble killing. His only reliable kill move is the Dsmash, and when you use that a little too much that can get a little predictable. But even if you save it for the kill, it can be difficult to get a hit in. Especially when you're donw a stock and they have 100 plus percent, they know a Dsmash is coming and can expect it. So getting kills for Wolf is a pain in the butt.

But other than that he's a good character, I don't think he'll make it to high tier, but he won't be low or bottom.

All that being said, I think he has potential, and a lot of it.

If any of you are wondering, yes I main Wolf, yes I've tried to main other characters, but Wolf chose me, I didn't choose Wolf, so I'm stuck with him.

 

[LCB12321]

Thanks for all the info.... Im also learning alot from the wolf metagame discussion.

Im actually thinking about picking up wolf now as a secondary to olimar. Ive always had a bad stigma about wolf i guess...the first tournament i went to i almost lost to a person using wolf simply spaming fsmash and blaster....

 

[ArcPoint]

Wow, that's really easy to get around, Wolf's Fsmash is the laggiest move I can do within my playstyle, as is blaster, if they do it too close and miss, you're getting punished.

But yeah, Wolf is still a good character, a freakin' beast in the air.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Wolf's offense is good, but I don't think Wolf is good enough to make high tier honestly. His recovery is just too horrible, and recovery is a really big deal in Brawl from what I've seen. Also he's a fairly easy character to combo. Although he has a reflector to somewhat help this, his weight and fall speed make him easily juggled by things like Sheik's F-tilt and Mario or Luigi's U-tilt to almost like 50% or something.

Mid tier probably. The other Starfox characters are better IMO. Fox has a little more KO power and better recovery, plus some better ledgeguarding. Falco is well...Falco haha.

 

[Manny G.]

I think hes one of the best ones with his great offence, weight, and speed. The biggest flaw is his recovery.

 

[Chuee]

Yeah wolfs recovery could use some work.
I think is a pretty good character.
His B attacks arent very powerful
EX: his over B only does 3 damage =/
Also his speed isnt too great either.
Id say those are probally the only down sides of wolf.

 

[ArcPoint]

His over B does 15% when sweetspotted. His "Dashing" speed isn't too great, however his attack speed (His Bair comes out in like 6-8 frames =P) is pretty good and his aerial mobility is absolutely excellent, up there with Wario, CF and Jiggz.

 

[jaap]

wolf has a better ko potention then fox and his fsmash can be punished ye but it has a amazing range and its has no start up lag.
weight is only a advance which makes ur character harder 2 kill and falling speed can be used as a kind of unpredicteble speed.
his shine works against juggling making him impossible 2 juggle. only chain grabs, well, u can try ur shine but this is a problem for wolf ye.
both his ground and his air game are very gd.
he is fast.
dsmash kills at average percentages.
his blaster doesnt have much lag and u use it from some range so u cant rly be punished for it.
recovery is pretty bad ye, but if he can catch the ledge and the stage is capable for doing scars on, then u can scar (recovery is probably his most worst quality of him).
it also takes some practice 2 controll it and some of the combos that said cant also be used cause u can counter it with shine.
and his match ups against high tiered characters is bad ye, a bit because of combos, but mostly its about other qualitys of wolf and high tiered characters
making him definately higher then mid tier, in my opinion 1 of the best characters. see some vids about wolf .

 

[jaap]

btw, shooting does 6-4 dmg and speed is 1 of his better points, its better then falco and pits projectile in my opinion. cant outmatch the blaster of fox sadly

 

[Master Raven]

I would put Wolf in low-high tier.

 

[teekay]

The reason wolf isn't considered as good as, say falco, right now is because of the risks wolf has to take.

A few people have mentioned this "risky" thing and I want to take a moment to disagree. I think what you're essentially saying here is that his recovery is difficult to master and easily gimped. The first is true, the second is sometimes true, but to a much lesser extent than people tend to think.

I don't think this is really the reason Wolf isn't considered as good as Falco. The reason is that Falco is capable of hugely damaging combos that Wolf isn't, and that gives him a tremendous edge in competition, and also that Falco has MUCH better matchups against the top tournament characters than Wolf.

When it comes to Wolf's recovery, yes, there are some bad things about it. But it's not nearly as bad as people think and in some ways it is actually very strong. We haven't yet seen players who have really mastered this part of his game, but when we do I think people are going to start changing their opinions about Wolf's offstage game.

Consider the fact that he has more ways of returning to the stage than most characters. OverB can be cancelled in two ways, allowing for him to mix up his recovery incredibly well. Combine that with the possibility to scar once he's grabbed the ledge, and Wolf is actually extremely unpredictable when coming back. You can illusion cancel and slide onto the stage right over their head when they weren't expecting it, illusion cancel into the edge and sweetspot, do a regular illusion, use up B at a variety of angles.

No players have really mastered the illusion cancel yet, but that doesn't mean they won't. I know it is VERY hard to do (I probably know better than most Wolf players, since I am actively working on mastering it... I practice it a bit every night and can execute it something like 40% of the time now). Germ's most recent match videos show him using it a couple times, and although I certainly have no wish to speak for him I THINK I saw places where he either tried to use it and messed up, or was thinking about using it but decided it wasn't worth the risk of messing up. I'm hoping that we will soon see him or another good Wolf player using the illusion cancel reliably, because I really think people will be surprised by how useful it can be.

With all that said, I still think Wolf is doomed to sit just below the top crop of tournament viable players, and to gain few overall victories, because as has been pointed out, his REAL problem is his matchups. He fares poorly against many of the best tournament characters, and that's what really kills a character for competitive play. Basically it looks like in Brawl, the things it takes to win are the ability to rack up a lot of damage very quickly with strong combos, and/or very very good recovery + kill moves. Neither of these are really Wolf's strong point. I think he would have been incredible in Melee.

But, like I said before, I think that will make we few who stick with him some of the noblest Smashers around.

 

[jaap]

well, ye i got convinced that its only hard 2 master and as gd as falco/fox + scarring. there are also pretty much ppl who h8 him as unpredicteble character which is also a advance. i also stick 2 him cause he pwns and matches my style of playing. it looks like its hard 2 do but if u watch those videos it looks like wolf is totally controlling the match while its still a close battle. he is pretty hard 2 play ye but like i also said, he is unpredicteble and agressive. i cant still say that his recovery is gd, its hard 2 master cause of the angle of fire wolf, but those recoverys of fox and wolf are also nerved from melee 2 brawl. there are lot of worster recoverys ye, but i still think this is the major problem. i mostly agree with teekay ye . and especialy that his matchups are bad against top tier characters

 

[ArcPoint]

Lol Teekay, keep in mind Wolf still has the reputation of "Blaster until they approach, then point C stick at bad guy"

But you're generally right on the recovery, Wolf doesn't have the problem of getting to the general area of the ledge (Unless gimped too far), he has the problem of actually getting ONTO the ledge, whether it be due to his really freakin' small sweetspot box, or edgehogging.

And as for the illusion cancel... I think that's a little impractical. For this move to be useful, you have to do it within a 2 frame window. That's 1/30 of a second. The reason I say 2 frames instead of three is because if you cancel it on the first frame -- you coul recover just as easily if you used Fire Wolf/Regular illusion. Not to mention that if you got onto the stage (not the ledge) You'd have an opponent there waiting to punish you there for it. You really would absolutely have to master it in order for it to be useful.

 

[teekay]

Isn't mastering it what I'm talking about? People act like the timing is impossible, but I've managed to do it 13 times in a row before. If I can do it that many times I'm pretty sure I can eventually learn to do it consistently.

The nice thing about this move is that it goes very far and actually does NOT have a lot of landing lag. Most characters, if you go right over their head, are not fast enough to punish you. Metaknight and Fox could give you problems in that department. But I think you're underestimating its speed and lack of lag.

And the point is that you use it to mix things up. If your opponent never knows where you're going to be recovering to, it's very difficult for them to effectively wait to punish you. They could be out in the middle of the stage expecting you to illusion cancel and wind up letting you get a free sweet spot.

Or, short version: that's what they said about roll canceling in CvS2.

 

[ArcPoint]

True true ^^ Epic mindgames in the making.

 

[NESSBOUNDER]

No, wolf is unsafe because he has hardly any attacks that don't get screwed by shields...

Dtilt, low Bair and shorthopped Nair are his only truly safe attacks. And even then they don't have incredible range or priority (with the exception of Bair)

He has lag problems.

He also gets chaingrabbed by all the usual suspects: Lucario, Falco, Pikachu, Popo, Dedede...and he gets tiltlocked by Sheik too.

 

[Ishiey]

Teekay, about illusion cancelling, I've been thinking about it before, but it seems too difficult for me to pull off consistently and I don't see any real use for it that isn't very situational. Do you use illusion cancelling for anything? Cause I'm kinda holding out on someone finding out good tactics involving it to evolve wolf gameplay, but I dunno...

And about the risk, recovering isn't the problem. I actually like his recovery a lot, besides the one pixel sweetspot on his up B. Wolf is risky because if you ever mess up, they can 'combo' you for a while because of wolf's physics, as was mentioned somewhere else in this thread. And as nessbounder said, shieldgrabs are not fun.

 

[teekay]

The use for illusion canceling is what I just described above. Not only does it allow you to gain more horizontal distance when recovering, it more importantly allows you to mix up your recovery game in a variety of ways, making you unpredictable as you return to the stage.

Check out this video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Kgc3er21ilk

Go to about 3:40 or so. Note that Wolf illusions in a situation where he is easily punished. This is one of those cases where I think Germ intended to do a cancel and whiffed. If he had, he would have gone way over Lucario and landed with little lag. He couldn't have been hit. This would actually have been a more reliable way of avoiding damage than what most people would have done, which is attempt to air dodge or maybe shine. (Admittedly, he doesn't end up getting punished for the illusion in this instance, but only because the Lucario player missed his throw attempt.)

A few seconds later, basically the same scenario occurs, but Germ successfully illusion cancels, flies right overtop of Lucario and safely avoids all possible attempts at edge guarding. This is the kind of thing I'm talking about. If the player DID anticipate this, Wolf could just drop safely to the ground without even illusioning in the first place.

As for it being too difficult: yes, it is VERY difficult. There are precious few frames in which you can cancel the move. With practice, though, you can get a lot better at it. I'm still not at the point where I can use it consistently enough for actual competition, but I am determined to get there. I don't actually spend that much time on it though. Really just about 20 to 30 minutes of practice most nights, and that's mixed up with some practice of other techniques I'm trying to get second nature. That's what I recommend. Don't beat yourself up over it, but do it for a little bit every day, and you'll notice that you can pull it off more and consistently.

When starting out, try to do the cancel JUST as Wolf seems like he is about to take off. He does a sort of "pulling back" motion first, and then seems to leap forward; it seems to me like the timing just just before he is about to do the leaping. Practice canceling it with either the short or long version first, don't worry about distinguishing between the two, just do either cancel as often as possible. Once you do it once, try to copy the timing you used exactly as quickly as possible and develop a rhythm so you can train your fingers to use that exact timing. Play a game with yourself where you develop a record of times you have done it in a row, and keep trying to break that record. That's how I know I did it 13 times in a row, it's currently my record.

I can often get it five or six times in a row, sometimes eight to ten. I whiff a little more than half the time. This is compared to when I first started practicing where I was lucky to get 2 or 3 in a row and I whiffed the vast majority of my attempts. So you can improve, and it doesn't even take THAT much effort, you just have to be patient and keep trying it over and over again, little by little.