MetaKnight: A deadend character?

[TTTTTsd]

Gimping is more match-up dependent than anything but it's certainly reliable overall if I need to; often I don't need to because of all the other aforementioned KO options MK has. You do need to get a little creative to gimp in this game sometimes tho but I've more than adjusted to that. MK is just as vicious off-stage as always so long as you don't make your gimping attempt extremely obvious by charging towards them off-stage like an idiot. (That video is exactly what you look like.) If you jump off-stage, you've limited your own options just as much you've limited theirs by launching them. Don't chase. Intercept. It's far safer to run off the ledge real quick and N-Air/B-Air as they recover than it is to go deep off-stage fishing for a F-Air before they've even used their mid-air jump.

Now I might have like, messed up or seen things when I tried it but, I think Footstool into Dair links REALLY smoothly and can legitimately stage-spike anyone who tries to double jump to the ledge if you do it right. I'll experiment more with it but it seemed like it was basically instant.

 

[ChivalRuse]

My question still hasn't been answered. Where is the sweetspot of Metaknight's up-b (the part that kills), and does this change depending on if you are on the air or on the ground?

 

[Lavani]

There isn't a sweetspot on it.

Grounded version has 3% more damage on the first hit, and a bit more knockback on the second hit.

 

[ChivalRuse]

Is it possible to only hit with the first/weaker hit? Where is the hitbox for the second hit then? Is it in front of him, above him, above+in front? This is what I'm trying to figure out.

 

[Lavani]

Ah, sorry. The first hit has a decent amount of vertical reach but set knockback, and the second hit is mostly in front of him (seems to actually match the sword for once), so for the two hits to link properly you don't want to be too far below them.

 

[ChivalRuse]

So it sounds like if I'm standing next to my opponent close enough to grab them, the up-b should always connect.

I guess it could be used as an anti-air too. Does it have any invincible frames?

 

[Lavani]

No invuln frames, sadly.

 

[ChivalRuse]

Ah well. Still useful. Thanks for the info!

 

[ぱみゅ]

Nice post there Katakiri, this is the kind of discussions I haven't had in a while

His range is fine, it's shorter than some but about on-par with what are currently considered the best characters in the game and it's all disjointed due to being a sword so when we win a trade, we're totally safe. (This really comes into play for Up-Tilt and Up-Smash as they beat just about any characters aerials.)

That is, if he wins a trade at all, the range is too short to be safe, if he trades chances are the opponent will get the best part, as MK's damage will probably be much lower.

To add to that, MK has some of the best frame data in the game for both ground and air. Unless you're attempting to short-hop B-Air for a KO or N-Air OoS, MK's landing lag should be a non-issue. (Short-hop F-Air is useless, don't even bother.)

I agree with that one part.

Even Nado shouldn't get you punished too often because A: You should always be jumping slightly before you nado due to it having faster start-up in the air and the option to rise high enough to cancel landing lag and B: If you just nado on someone's shield it will shield-poke most characters before the nado ends due its insane shield-pressure. And if you do shield poke, I like to Dimensional Cape more liberally because Cape Slash will break their shield if it's that low but enough of that tangent.

You obviously won't just throw random nados, or any move at all. MK needs to carefully select his moves when attacking.
I'll agree that Tornado is a great pressure tool, specially since the Shield animation now is a bit longer (shield damage is a bit more realistic), but it has a HUGE ending lag now making it very punishable if it doesn't poke.

Meta Knight has one of the best KO toolkits in this game: Shuttle Loop OoS Pretty Meh imo; Aerial SL is better, B-Air This is actually a nice move, F-Smash Will expand on this later, Back-half of D-Smash Lacks range and it's slow considering it comes after the first hit (good for punishing rolls/landings regardless), Up-Smash Not sure about this one,I'll experiment more with it, Dimensional Cape I feel it's slow and everyone reacts to it, will experiment more, too, combos from throws/D-Tilt that KO Yes, with ASL and Nair, both are nice moves, and just straight-up dominating the off-stage game Will expand on this later, too. Very few characters wouldn't trade in their KO moves for MK's KO options. Also Forward Smash is damn near lagless and its startup lag isn't enough to make MK miss out of punishing whiffed moves and rolls. I often find myself spamming it at mid-range to get a reaction out of my opponent due to the lack of ending lag making the move stupidly safe yet threatening enough to bait a reaction.

I think we all have agreed that Meta Knight in Smash 4 is a bait-and-punish kind of character, and his Fsmash is like the button that proves it.
Fsmash is a 13-ish smash move with nice damage and knockback. It *is* a good fakeout move, as it has good reach and low ending lag. But that's about it. In the end, the startup is slow and no one with enough care and awareness of its range shouldn't expect it (it's one of the few pokes/fakeouts he has left) and must play safe. So, spacing it, baiting opponents to approach and punish them in the way, that's what MK does better and more or less the only thing the game allows him to be.
It can argued that spaced well it can punish some whiffed approaches, but then again, an opponent whiffing an approach like that probably wasn't playing safe in the first place.

Gimping is more match-up dependent than anything but it's certainly reliable overall if I need to; often I don't need to because of all the other aforementioned KO options MK has. You do need to get a little creative to gimp in this game sometimes tho but I've more than adjusted to that. MK is just as vicious off-stage as always so long as you don't make your gimping attempt extremely obvious by charging towards them off-stage like an idiot. (That video is exactly what you look like.) If you jump off-stage, you've limited your own options just as much you've limited theirs by launching them. Don't chase. Intercept. It's far safer to run off the ledge real quick and N-Air/B-Air as they recover than it is to go deep off-stage fishing for a F-Air before they've even used their mid-air jump.

Nobody would chase opponents too deep offstage, not even MK can recover from a lot of angles as before.

And backing up to the damage, his combos net him a lot of damage and can be guaranteed to upwards of 70~%. At my last tourney, I was showing-off that MK is like Lay's potato chips: "You don't get hit just once." MK's attacks just chain into each other and have so much hitstun that they're basically hit-confirms, if you have an eye for it, you can look at your opponent's DI while you're chasing them and position yourself to pick-up the combo. And then Nado is still really good as long as you're using it intelligently as, again, it punishes anything.

I definitely need to see more videos and look for guaranteed combos. A 70% actual combo sounds too devastating for an underused character.
If they are DI-based strings/followups/traps, it is different than claiming an actual combo.

I struggle to think of a downside to MK that's not just his light weight.
He has speed, recovery, disjointed attacks, solid approach options, legitimate combos (not just low % strings), viable KO options, 6 jumps for evasion (he never has to approach if winning because no projectile beats 6 jumps), Nado that heavily punishes defensive options (shielding, rolling, and weak projectiles), and teleportation to just flat-up ignore ledge-guarding and projectile walls.

I'd like you to look at this picture again and say once more he doesn't lack range.
The only moves that actually retain good range are Shuttle Loop and Dsmash (Dtilt is decent, too). The others (particularly the aerial ones) are short, so Marth/Lucina could've just jabbed and beat all of them, safe from any bait attempt.
Speed, recovery, disjoint (even if nullified by short range), combos (specially kill combos), 6 jumps, teleportation (kinda, it is notably good for recovery), I agree are favorable points for him. I'll add his punish and juggle game (including Nado), and his ability to trap upon landings.
Lightweight (I honestly forgot about this one), lack of effective range (so he has to commit to hit with most moves), lag on his specials (unless trapping or combo'ing into, all are commitments; lag on his aerials is fine, imo), and low damage (ultimately losing trades), those are the backdraws.

Explain to me how that equation makes a "mediocre character." I think the problem is mediocre players or players with no frame of reference for high-level MK play giving the character a bad reputation spreading, largely, misinformation ('worst range in the game, MK wields a toothpick, more lag than Ganondorf, etc.') and the character himself being more demanding than Brawl's pick-up-and-play MK. No one on this board has ever created a remotely convincing argument as to why MK is bad and frankly I don't think it can be done.

Don't get me wrong, I do not think he's low tier or anything.
I think he's as bad as, say, Wolf was in Brawl: has many useful tools, and cannot be slept against because he can cause serious wreck, but his drawbacks are strong enough you won't see him winning many tournaments.

I feel like I'm the only one on this board that sees MK as a top character and has any legitimate frame of reference at high-level play as to why but that might be because I'm the only MK making money with him on a weekly basis.

I'd like to see more of your videos (or of any MK performing well) and begin judging from that. The game is still young, not many MKs are around, and is still hard to judge.

------------------------
After all of that I'll just say that my opinions are not set on stone, they never are; but after playing with him a lot (and I mean A LOT), I still don't have high (-tier dohohoho) hopes for him.

 

[Katakiri]

Good stuff, @ ぱみゅ . I've mostly said my piece but there are a few things I'd like to point out to you.

I probably should have mentioned this point before but MK's range issue only applies to F-Tilt and maybe D-Tilt. The reason why is that, unless I'm mistaken, aerials don't clash. That means that, due to MK's sword, he wins aerial trades from the primarily punching & kicking cast by virtue of having no hurtboxes on his blade. This also goes for Nado too in some cases. (Another reason you should jump slightly before you Nado: transcendent hitboxes)
So when you take aerials out of the equation, (Up-Air & D-Air are honestly pretty fantastic anyway post-patch) where are MK's range problems?
Up-tilt has deceptively great anti-air range and beats any aerial above MK due to the aforementioned aerial mechanics, Down-Tilt is serviceable, and his Smash Attacks are on par or even better than any non-swordsman. I'm not about to call MK's range bad because of one garbage F-Tilt, especially because this MK is barely attempting to space his moves half the time due to his very Melee-esque play-style. I mean we've already established that we're not short-hopping F-Air and Dash Attack/Dash Grab are nothing short of amazing, so where is the range issue functionally? I think it's not a range issue but just MK's lack of a safe poking option that people seemingly want.

To add to that, MK's tilts are little more than "get off me" options in most cases. His big tools are Dash Grab, Dash Attack, D-Air, Nado, and the combos/options he gets off them with Smash Attacks being for punishment or KO power. So saying MK's tilts lack range is like saying Fox's Blaster lacks knockback, it's not really the point of the option. Even if F-Tilt had range, Dash Attack or Dash Grab would be better options most of the time anyway because Dash Attack is still safer on shield and either one would yield combo options which MK needs to rack-up damage.

I should probably back up to when I said MK has a "Melee-esque play-style." That's honestly just how I play MK, I play very aggressively on-stage with Dash Attacks, Dash Grabs, Tornadoes, and combos. I've never mained MK in Brawl so I never had the baggage of "it's MK, I have to space and poke" when playing Sm4sh. I genuinely play MK like a high-level Melee Fox. I don't space you out, I open you up. I don't attempt to hit you for a 7% damage F-Tilt or a 6% F-Air, I break your open via pressure or mix-ups and combo you for 26%. The most spacing I actively use for MK's own attacks is deciding which of Dash Attack's two hitboxes I need to use to combo you with, D-Air spacing, or choosing when to fast-fall during an Up-Air chain to continue it. If you jump, I'll Up-Air you to the ceiling or just Nado OoS. I use a Wii U Pro Controller so due to that button layout I can Nado OoS or just Jump Nado in general without fail. In fact I really abuse Nado up-close, probably a little more than I should but the damage it nets is worth the risk; and because I jump Nado, I can always rise to the height where nado loses its landing lag so it's not nearly as punishable as it would be if I just grounded nadoed. The most anyone could get off a whiffed nado from me is an uncharged smash attack. (Keep in mind that Nado's horizontal movement speed is faster than a lot of character's running speed so I can boogie-away if needed.)
To add to that I've consistently beat ZSS player, Suyon, and Greninja player, Kero, two players that I not only consider two of the best in my region but two of the most cautious players I've ever had the pleasure of fighting in grand finals sets. If my seemingly reckless, aggressive MK play-style can get past their bait & punish play-styles, that's proof enough to me that I might be on the right track with this character and I'm definitely keen on sharing it soon with the rest of the board.

The next tournament I'll be at isn't until the 20th due to a family gathering today but I plan or bringing an SD card to get replays of every single tourney match I have (hopefully) so you'll see a lot of my MK in video soon. I might do a video showing off combos or just online matches before then now that classes are over but that depends of a few other factors. I got big plans for this character.

 

[Overswarm]

^I had some of his replays on my Wii U; I might have to do the old video camera -> TV thing, but videos will go up

 

[leekslap]

Hands down, Meta Knight is just not a good character. Yes, with alot of practice and skill you can do well with him but that is exactly the point. "The less skill you need to play with a character effectively the better he is." This is true for most competitive games I played but I hope this doesn't include Meta Knight.
I hope we will discover something about him that will make him a good character.

No, that's bull****. Why did you put in quotes? Nobody is stupid enough to say that. Look at Fox in Melee. You press 16 buttons per second and he's been considered to be the best character in Melee by pretty much everyone. Look at the Project M 3.0 top tiers. Wolf loses a stock if you mess up and you WILL mess up because he amps it up to 20 button presses per second. Lucas has so many techniques and has so much depth and flexibility in his combos and moves that it basically took 3 versions of the game for Lucas players to figure him out and show everyone how broken he is. When the game came out nobody played Rosalina because Rosalina is complicated as **** in her own right and players like Dabuz made everyone cry broken before 1.04 came to give us a bottle and still after 1.04. Easy characters have a history being high tier at first and going down because they are easy and thus predictable and unrewarding. I know there are tons of cases were easy characters are top tier like in 64 where you could use Captain Falcon and Kirby brain dead and still win, but those are just the obvious ones everyone cries broken about at first and what you are saying goes against the fact that difficulty has nothing to do with viability. If you meant that good, not great, players who use good characters can beat excellent players who use bad characters well then you are right but you said it horribky.

And do some of you people even know what priority is? Meta Knight doesn't have bad priority or OK priority, he has unbeatable priority because he has a sword! Or in other words, disjoints! In other words, unbeatable attacks.

 

[2busywinning]

I like MK. I basically only use fast characters regardless of how strong they are. I personally prefer speed over power. I agree that its annoying sometimes when you think you've got a guaranteed hit on someone and then the hit boxes deny you that satisfaction.

I think MK could be high tier at some point as long as we know how to use him effectively. I don't think using the drill is hardly ever a good idea. it seems to leave you open for punish too often and the risk just isn't worth the reward to me. His up-b is wonderful. I read someone say earlier that they hated his up-b in brawl and I didn't care for it either but this new up-b seems to be easier to operate and almost just as effective as a kill move and decent percentages.

When you're playing well with MK its almost like the opponent can't keep up b/c of his movements and how he disappears with certain moves.