Miracle Of Light - Palutena in SSB4 (Featuring Cereza from Bayonetta-series)

[AlvisCPU]

I tell ya what, guys. Knowing that down-throw combos into nair and uair is game-changing for me. I can now reliably KO people instead of throwing out a Smash attack and hoping for the best!

The most important thing to understand is that Palutena doesn't play like any other SSB4 character. You're still playing the same game, but you have to use her kit in a way that is unusual, even unintuitive. Nobody uses their jab1 quite like she does for example, and it's a central part of her kit. Do you have any specific things you're curious about?

I feel like this is quite true. With some exceptions, I feel most of the Smash Bros. cast can be picked up and played fairly easily (a great selling point) but it's hard to play effectively with others - Palutena's one of those. I can move her around and do attacks but I feel like I wasn't playing to her strengths because she can't afford to play like everyone else. I don't have any questions in particular (at the moment), just after whatever info could be helpful. Actually only question I'd have comes from your post - when you say "nobody uses their Jab1 quite like she does", I take it you mean just jab1? In what cases is that useful? I find jab combos for her to be very useful because it's quick, I'm now wondering if there's some benefits to be had from hitting A and... I dunno, running away or something.
I also like your display picture.

Palutena's an advanced character that, like InfinityCollision said, doesn't quite play like the others. A lot of her moves are slow or have low reward or have lots of end lag, but they are all useful in specific situations, giving her a lot of options to punish certain things. She has some quick and safe moves too though, jab, dash attack, and her aerials in general, especially fair and bair.

She has some flexibility in terms of what style you play her, but of course at some point to be most effective you would have to mix and adapt. She can be aggressive. When you can start reading your opponent, you could, for example, go for a hard punish and get an early kill at 60%. Or you can play very safe and make them approach you and try to wall them out, that is punish their approaches. You can try to be aggressive and get an early lead, or you could also stay on a sort of backfoot and play very defensively, taking it slow and learning your opponent so that in the final stock you can step up the aggression and finish it quick and clean with a hard punish and nullify any sort of lead the opponent may have had.

I think I'm going to have to play it a little more defensively and slow with her to learn what my opponent does so I can punish properly. A little difficult when I can't often play against real people, but I guess it's practise in reading people as well as understanding her range and attack speeds.

 

[Zediwonder]

I tell ya what, guys. Knowing that down-throw combos into nair and uair is game-changing for me. I can now reliably KO people instead of throwing out a Smash attack and hoping for the best!

dthrow doesn't combo at higher %, it's not Diddy's dthrow to uair unfortunately. Palutena has so much more to work with in terms of KO's though, she can KO at pretty low % with her smashes if you don't stale them and read a roll or something. A really gimmicky strategy I use with super speed on is going for f-smashes out of it, it's not a true combo at all but not a lot of people expect it when most people use aerials out of it.

 

[AlvisCPU]

dthrow doesn't combo at higher %, it's not Diddy's dthrow to uair unfortunately. Palutena has so much more to work with in terms of KO's though, she can KO at pretty low % with her smashes if you don't stale them and read a roll or something. A really gimmicky strategy I use with super speed on is going for f-smashes out of it, it's not a true combo at all but not a lot of people expect it when most people use aerials out of it.

That sounds awesome with the Super Speed, I really need to play around with customs a bit. I got a few decent kills off dthrow-uair earlier today so at least I know I've got something reliable for high-ish %s (around 110% I think?). As for the Smashes, I tend to have trouble landing them. Maybe that's just the Lv.9 CPUs talking at least dash attack and bair are still good for KOs, even if the % needs to be higher than for a Smash attack. Though if I understand correctly, Palutena's smash attacks get pretty early KOs anyway.

 

[InfinityCollision]

hen you say "nobody uses their Jab1 quite like she does", I take it you mean just jab1?

I do. Palutena's jab combo isn't that great - unexceptional damage, relatively easy to escape, doesn't launch effectively or set up for combos. Her jab1 on the other hand is really good. It's fast, has excellent range (extends beyond the tip of her staff), and because of the way it pops them up you can often follow it up with a grab, or occasionally another option like an fsmash. It's an important spacing tool for her.

I also like your display picture.

Thanks! It's an old favorite of mine. Found the original on a deviantart years ago and a friend touched it up for me.

 

[BJN39]

So, I just have a question for yew Palu users:

What do you all think of the widely growing idea that customs will not end up being tourney viable? Would you be willing to accept not getting to use customs in the majority of tournaments? Also, where would this put her viability-wise in comparison to her with optimal customs?

 

[InfinityCollision]

Did I miss something? Everything I've seen points to eventual adoptation of custom moves as legal.

 

[Ayoub]

Did I miss something? Everything I've seen points to eventual adoptation of custom moves as legal.

Well, I will be visiting three tourneys next month and non of them allow custom moves. Some characters' customs are just too vague to allow I guess, and it wouldn't be fair to ban certain moves ... But, I live in the Netherlands, don't know how it's going to be for you guys.

 

[InfinityCollision]

Emphasis on eventual. I'm well aware that most regions ban custom moves right now. They're tedious to unlock and most players don't have a whole lot of experience with them. Those things will be less of an issue as time goes on, especially with the standard custom moveset project helping to facilitate custom use at larger tournaments.

 

[Djent]

This will sound paranoid and cynical, but I honestly think some people just don't like customs and will say whatever is expedient for keeping them banned. In the past, Smash rulesets have grown more conservative with time; something going from illegal to legal is rare unless it involves an MLG stagelist or Meta Knight. I don't think people will just say "oh, let's turn them on now!" in a few months, even though that's supposedly what's going to happen.

 

[SLEEPING MAN]

So, I just have a question for yew Palu users:

What do you all think of the widely growing idea that customs will not end up being tourney viable? Would you be willing to accept not getting to use customs in the majority of tournaments? Also, where would this put her viability-wise in comparison to her with optimal customs?

I had a feeling they wouldn't be viable so I never bothered getting used to them. I think her default moveset is just fine.

 

[κomıc]

I did a good job at a tournament this past Saturday. Thank you Palutena for the blessings!

http://smashboards.com/.../cfl-smackdown-monthly-7.383691/

I also used Ness but only for 3 matches, one that I lost. With 5 wins, I won using Palutena 8 times. Had so much fun and was cool to see how well I would perform despite not playing the game as much as I'd like. I want to see Palutena reign dominance over everyone >=D

Especially the other ladies of Smash.

 

[Eisal]

I also used Ness but only for 3 matches, one that I lost. With 5 wins, I won using Palutena 8 times. Had so much fun and was cool to see how well I would perform despite not playing the game as much as I'd like. I want to see Palutena reign dominance over everyone >=D

Sounds awesome~

I myself just looked up a local gaming centre and they kind of let people use their premises to set stuff up, either it being playing Magic the Gathering or drag over a TV to play with consoles. Someone had set up a day for people to come over and play Smash 4, so I might go there and see what it is.

Not a tournament or anything, but it's a beginning to see how I fare against other unknown players that aren't in For Glory where it's a small delay from time to time. Of course I will be playing with Palutena.

Especially the other ladies of Smash.

Nothing to discuss here, the other ladies can't win over the green haired, pole dancing goddess in any way!

 

[C3CC]

Which one is better for you, guys? Auto-reticle or Explosive Flame?

 

[Thinkaman]

Explosive Flame seems distinctly better the more I play. It's good as an edge-guard, and has some nice (though niche) transitional uses in "neutral-ish" states. Ironically great against Super Speed.

 

[meleebrawler]

Flame is better because invincibility frames don't make
Palutena uselessly flash her staff.

 

[~Radiance~]

Hey folks. I've been lurking and reading for a while now and as a past brawl pika main I gotta say all of a sudden palutena just started to appeal to me more than anyone else so I'm joining the ranks. I have a lot of Input I could make based on stuff I've read but ill save it for now. Loving the ledge cancel up b, really similar to pikas. Hope to have some vids of ways to use it on respective stages soon

 

[AlvisCPU]

I'm hoping that even if Customs do get banned as standard (boooo), that Palutena would still have access to hers on a special case basis.

... Now that I type that out, I'm not sure what my reason for thinking that was.
I think I see her more as having 4/12 moves with none considered defaults. I guess it's not necessarily true though.

 

[Lavani]

Well much of the basis for not allowing custom moves is the issue of unlocking him, and Palutena starts with hers unlocked by default. Some people have tried to make a case for her going off of that.

I don't think non-Palutena mains would be very keen on allowing one character to use customs exclusively though, especially a character that substantially benefits from them.

 

[AlvisCPU]

Yeah, I agree that having to unlock them all on a several setups would be a factor against it. I don't think the judgment on customs should be based entirely on that, though. I still think she should be allowed to use them, but as I was writing that above, I realised that it's hard to defend it when it's not necessarily fair for the rest of the cast.

I kind of feel like between the so many restrictions on what is and isn't allowed in tournament play, it starts to suck the fun out of the game.

I did attend a tournament (my first, actually) recently that allowed customs, it was 3DS though so it was a different case.

 

[RedCap-BlueSpikes]

Well much of the basis for not allowing custom moves is the issue of unlocking him, and Palutena starts with hers unlocked by default. Some people have tried to make a case for her going off of that.

I don't think non-Palutena mains would be very keen on allowing one character to use customs exclusively though, especially a character that substantially benefits from them.

Actually, it wouldn't be just one character. Mii Fighters' custom moves are unlocked from the get-go, too. Still, I can understand why people would have a problem with only a few characters having access to their customs; it just wouldn't be fair.

I'm optimistic about the situation tho. I'm sure that they'll be allowed in the future. I mean, people are already able to create custom tracks in MK8. It's only a matter of time until someone finds an easy way to create/obtain 100% savefiles for this game.

 

[Lavani]

Actually, it wouldn't be just one character. Mii Fighters' custom moves are unlocked from the get-go, too. Still, I can understand why people would have a problem with only a few characters having access to their customs; it just wouldn't be fair.

I'm optimistic that they'll be allowed in the future tho. People are already able to create custom tracks in MK8. It's only a matter of time until someone finds an easy way to create/obtain 100% savefiles for this game.

The difference is Miis can still use their "customs" with customization set to off, as per their status as a build-a-fighter sort of character. Though I guess rulesets might restrict Miis to 1111 at some point too (Apex is actually doing this I think?), but that's for a different thread.

With things like Ampharos' project alleviating the accessibility concerns, I can only really hope customs will catch on.

 

[AeroLink_the_SoulMaster]

All of our aerials beat out his side b?
You sure abouT this sistren?

I'm pretty sure none of ours beat out his f air, other than our b air.




Sis unlike a certain bottom tier garbage princess we don't need customs to shine the LIGHT on the competitive community.
I've already accepted customs won't be allowed, and I still think she will end up being solid.
She has nice tools for camping and one of the best grab game out of the entire roster.

You ready to converT??

You can hit Diddy Kong out of his side special if he doesn't opt to kick out of it, in which case, yeah, bair is the answer for that. As for Diddy's fair, it comes out so fast and has little cooldown, so you have to respect it and react with shield; sometimes you can punish it out of shield if it's not spaced correctly.

 

[C3CC]

Since I don't have a 3DS and I'm not planning on getting one, I just decided to watch walkthroughs of Kid Icarus: Uprising. I love this woman's personality, and her voice is just awesome. I love her.

 

[Zediwonder]

I'm pretty lucky cause the guys who organize tournaments in my state are really pro customs and so far all the tournaments have been customs allowed though this WILL change if the rest of the smash community opts against customs, which there's a lot of people trying really hard so that doesn't happen.

Palutena is still a special case for customs either way in my opinion, hers are actually different moves for the most part, with custom animations for them unlike most the rest of the cast who's customs are all: normal, powerful but slow, weak but fast. They all use the same animation played at a different rate based on the custom move and generally don't have as much effort put into them as Palutena's. I still think customs should be allowed, a lot of the newer characters have actually different moves for some of their custom slots and I want to see a competitive scene that has most of the cast equally tiered.

 

[NovemberMan]

I don't want to bother practicing with customs because they aren't ever used in tournaments around here.

I think they're very complicated to use.

 

[Zediwonder]

You can't use the arguement that Palutena's are different or that she already has hers unlocked, you're basically saying, "no customs allowed, except for my character".
I don't want to bother practicing with customs because they aren't ever used in tournaments around here.

The issue with customs is that they're hard to unlock for everyone on wii u that's why it was allowed on 3ds, so it's a completely valid argument to say customs for Palutena are special, same with Mii fighter, it'd be the same as setting up your controls before a match.

I don't see that "they're hard to unlock" as a good excuse for not allowing customs it's just a ****ty excuse so that players don't have to wait 5 minutes while someone sets their customs especially with all the custom project stuff going on. I personally don't want this game to end up like brawl where all the best players played metaknight, ice climbers or Diddy kong becayse they were vastly superior to the rest of the cast. Customs are a great way to level the playing field and will be better for competitive longevity for smash 4 in the long run.

 

[meleebrawler]

I'm pretty lucky cause the guys who organize tournaments in my state are really pro customs and so far all the tournaments have been customs allowed though this WILL change if the rest of the smash community opts against customs, which there's a lot of people trying really hard so that doesn't happen.

Palutena is still a special case for customs either way in my opinion, hers are actually different moves for the most part, with custom animations for them unlike most the rest of the cast who's customs are all: normal, powerful but slow, weak but fast. They all use the same animation played at a different rate based on the custom move and generally don't have as much effort put into them as Palutena's. I still think customs should be allowed, a lot of the newer characters have actually different moves for some of their custom slots and I want to see a competitive scene that has most of the cast equally tiered.

Megaman is probably second to Palutena when it comes to unique
customs. They still use same animations, but there's a pretty
significant difference between a Crash Bomber and Danger Wrap, or
Metal Blade and Hyper Bomb.

 

[Admiral Pit]

So any information or talk that I missed? Only thing I know is that customs should be legal, except for the obvious OP'd ones (like the one tree) that can be evaluated. All of Palutena's are just fine to be legal if you ask me, In other news, hope this Christmas will be a good one.

 

[FlareHabanero]

Happy Holidays for the Palutena players out there.

 

[Eisal]

Happy Holidays to all Palutena players! Grab your Celestial Fireworks and have some fun!

 

[Admiral Pit]

I await the New Year's so we can have a potential Palutena party, with tons of Celestial Fireworks! It'll be something nice to get us in more spirits.

 

[Death Arcana]

Merry Christmas everyone
Reppin Palutena Strong into the new year as well

 

[Admiral Pit]

Merry Xmas to fellow Palutena friends! We await the New Year for some potential goodness!

 

[BTFO_lewd_goddess]

Merry Christmas everybody, hope you enjoyed our Christmas gift and that you will have a nice New Year full of no Super Speed!

Sincerely, from the bottom of the tier list,

Apex 2015

 

[Zediwonder]

Merry Christmas everybody, hope you enjoyed our Christmas gift and that you will have a nice New Year full of no Super Speed!

Sincerely, from the bottom of the tier list,

Apex 2015

The competitive scene is just TOO AFRAID of the goddesses power

 

[Admiral Pit]

I still think the competitive routine is making stupid decisions by not allowing Palutena's customs be allowed, let alone that they wouldn't ban Brawl MK. I mean it's part of Palutena's gimmick, the game gives you her customs at the start, and none seem to be broken (though custom evaluation on all characters would be nice). I know there's times where Celestial Fireworks would be much better than Counter, for example.
At least we can battle each other with customs if anything.

 

[Death Arcana]

i honestly dont mind it that much because my hopes for customs were not high to begin with
and super speed is probably the best move in the game,
and MK is beatable in brawl

 

[Zediwonder]

I still think the competitive routine is making stupid decisions by not allowing Palutena's customs be allowed, let alone that they wouldn't ban Brawl MK. I mean it's part of Palutena's gimmick, the game gives you her customs at the start, and none seem to be broken (though custom evaluation on all characters would be nice). I know there's times where Celestial Fireworks would be much better than Counter, for example.
At least we can battle each other with customs if anything.

It's true but the problem with this is most players playing friendlies are still really doing it to practice or learn match up's in an environment with no pressure so if the standard is no customs not many people will want to play with them on regardless. My friend today got so fed up with some of them (kept getting his shield broken by stuff like DK's side special and Ganon's sword) that he straight up turned them off, it's not too big a deal cause I play default Toon Link and Jiggs anyway and Palutena against certain MU's is better with default but most of the time customs are better for her which sucks cause no characters benefit as immensely as Palutena does from having customs.

Edit: When Metaknight was banned everyone realized how broken ice climbers were and brought him back which didn't fix either problem. I quit playing smash for a long time because my friend played IC and it felt completely unfair. Customs have in no case made a character as broken as meta knight and are generally pretty well balanced out, any player not willing to put the time into learning what a custom does is not bothered to play competitive, it's like a melee player complaining they have to learn how to wave dash and L cancel to win because it'd take the same amount of time to learn what some customs do as compared to learn how to wave dash and apply it and all that ****.

 

[Admiral Pit]

It's true but the problem with this is most players playing friendlies are still really doing it to practice or learn match up's in an environment with no pressure so if the standard is no customs not many people will want to play with them on regardless. My friend today got so fed up with some of them (kept getting his shield broken by stuff like DK's side special and Ganon's sword) that he straight up turned them off, it's not too big a deal cause I play default Toon Link and Jiggs anyway and Palutena against certain MU's is better with default but most of the time customs are better for her which sucks cause no characters benefit as immensely as Palutena does from having customs.

Edit: When Metaknight was banned everyone realized how broken ice climbers were and brought him back which didn't fix either problem. I quit playing smash for a long time because my friend played IC and it felt completely unfair. Customs have in no case made a character as broken as meta knight and are generally pretty well balanced out, any player not willing to put the time into learning what a custom does is not bothered to play competitive, it's like a melee player complaining they have to learn how to wave dash and L cancel to win because it'd take the same amount of time to learn what some customs do as compared to learn how to wave dash and apply it and all that ****.

I suppose the game is still young as well and there still needs to be more data to be gathered. But like I said, some customs can be removed from play if they're deemed too broken or something of the sort, and I know some consider that one "Wobbuffet" Tree for Villager is one of them for example.
ICs are cheap, we know that, which makes me glad that they're not in this game. Still, some customs can be a bit OP'd and need to be looked into. Not sure what I'm saying from this point on, but players are gonna have to learn or at least take a look at customs eventually. While I personally want Palutena's customs to be legal not only because it helps her and they're not broken not to mention it adds more diversity, many will complain that she's getting special treatment, let alone how her specials are there from the start. In turn, taking away her gimmick feel like a painful handicap to us Palutena mains. For me, I like the default, but I still want to see customs sometime.

 

[Zediwonder]

My friend has been playing Villager lately and the TO for my states tournaments also using them and I can say for a fact that the tree isn't that bad, if you fall for it it's your own fault kind of deal. I don't think the problem is with over powered customs, because I really don't think there are any customs that are too OP(maybe shulk's super Monado but the same can be said about default Monado).

I will advocate for customs day and night because I think they're a massive improvement to the game overall. The issue, I personally think, is a lot of players not wanting to play around the customs, saying that the diversity just makes it harder to learn MU's to which I have to say boo hoo, there's a general threshold of skill required to play competitively, we've all seen the melee tournaments and how it's always the same characters and the same counterpick, customs are just a way to avoid this same stale competitive scene where MU's change and vary and the game becomes more interesting to watch as you see a guy in the finals of a tournament using a custom set no one has ever seen and changes everything. Bad players use this argument, play with the customs for 3 rounds and you'll figure out how to deal with it.

edit: I should mention that with the game as young as it is it's no surprise Apex has customs off, no one is quite ready to organize tournaments with customs yet and I think this will change. with the game being so young there's no way anyone knows the roster 100% perfectly yet so we'll still see the diversity and different MU's I want to see in a competitive scene say 2 years down the line with customs.