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Omni: Are You Smarter Than A Braindead Character?

Omni is back yet again with a vlog! Many people know Omni for some of the vlogs he has released including Diddy Is Innocent, Why Smash 4 Will Die, Why You Should Pick A Top Tier and others. This video with its title parodying a well known game show, Omni sits down to talk about a term that is normally associated with certain kinds of characters: braindead. He talks about how this statement may not be a fair one to use and how these characters that people do call braindead might be what players actually need to improve. Give it a watch and sound of with thoughts in the comments below!

 

Comments

I agree with Omni, people instantly jump into "tech skill" and "hard to use" characters (G&W, Ryu, etc) instead of focusing on the fundamentals first. In my opinion, the smash 4 community focuses more on the character rather than the player: for example Dabuz, despite being a top Smash 4 player, gets a lot of hate for using Rosalina while on the other hand players like DK Will (not trying to fire shots here) receives a lot of praise just because he uses DK a "low" tier character (ironically, he uses Sheik as much as DK).
 
Whatever happened to no Johns?
There are no braindead characters, just some more simple to learn, but nothing is easy to master.
Yor opinion on a character doesn't matter, if you lose to anyone, then you simply were not the best player. Deal with it.
eh, for his definition there is.
At a lower level, there are things you can exploit since people don't know how to get over it at that level.
 
eh, for his definition there is.
At a lower level, there are things you can exploit since people don't know how to get over it at that level.
And why does lower level matter then?
I mean why does a bunch of people who only play on for glory raging everytime they lose blaming the character or the connection or whatever is suddenly the meta people should worry about?
 
Didn't bother playing the whole thing. But yeah he has a slight point. But in the long run it only comes down to brain dead strategies, not the character itself unless it is intentionally designed like that, which is never the case in smash 4.
 
And why does lower level matter then?
I mean why does a bunch of people who only play on for glory raging everytime they lose blaming the character or the connection or whatever is suddenly the meta people should worry about?
I have a feeling this video isn't aimed towards top level players...
...but I could be wrong.
 
I have a feeling this video isn't aimed towards top level players...
...but I could be wrong.
Well no. But i suppose my point wasn't very clear.
What i mean is, that the whole thing about calling a character "braindead" is just a way for people to ventilate their rage, to keep their ego intact by blaming their faults on other players.
It's the kind of attitude that keeps people from improving, at any game really, or even any competitive activity, like sports or whatever competition.
There are no braindead characters, just characters that are easier to pick up, but when it comes to matches, how long it took you to get the hang out of your character doesn't really matter, since you're both expecting one another to be able to control their respective character properly.
And wether some characters are better than others also is irrelevant, since if you picked a character who you knew wasn't as good as the top tiers, then you made the commitment to learn that character, no excuses.
Everyone gets angry or has their pet peeves with characters, i know, but people should realize that it's just that, pet peeves, and stop blaming other players for their own faults.
 
I never really considered any character in any Smash game braindead. Overpowered yes, but never braindead for example, MK was really overpowered, but even then, at high levels of play, it really took skill to beat guys like M2K. I personally main Mario in sm4sh not only because he is a character that is easy to use, but because im character loyalist who has mained him in every itaration of smash and suits my style. Any character takes skill at high level play but like in every fighting game ever made, some simply just have it easier than others.
 
Yeah Im gonna admit it, Mario is easy to pick up, and not that hard to reach higher levels with comparatively to others in Smash 4. But in competetive play, NOTHING is easy. Winning isnt easy, winning neutral to start just one combo isnt easy, nothing comes for free in games with such viscious competetive scenes like Melee and Smash 4.
 
I was Top 10 in Melee for MD/VA.
Moved to Brawl.
Best MK in MD/VA.
Won plenty of tournaments.
Invited my region over for free pizza and training to get the region better.
Coached a lot of our players.
Last tournament Brawl tournament I went to I won.
Retired because I stopped liking Brawl.
And now I just work a 9-5.

There are just people here that enjoy bashing me every time I release a video. I'm not sure y but das koo. Probably trying to force another reaction outta me. But ya. I did lots of stuff. Been around the corner. So ya.

Hope you guys enjoyed the video. Was really fun to make.
Hope you don't think I was bashing, I just don't know a lot of the major players, especially from the Brawl era. I have 0 issues with you and your vids, and would never try to drag anyone down for doing their thing :)
 
There are just people here that enjoy bashing me every time I release a video. I'm not sure y but das koo. Probably trying to force another reaction outta me. But ya. I did lots of stuff. Been around the corner. So ya.

Hope you guys enjoyed the video. Was really fun to make.
Don't take it too much to heart. The comments here are as bad as YouTube most of the time. Bunch of new players who started with PM or Smash 4 who probably didn't even bother to watch the entire video.

YouTube is a hard medium to speak your mind when you're challenging new players to improve. You're pretty blunt when it comes to it too and that's gonna bring unjustified hate.

Just keep doing what you're doing.
 
I personally learned something from this video. I've been trying to co-main Sheik and Villy, but Sheik is freaking hard, mostly because I don't have the fundamentals down like you said. I've been realizing lately that I'm bad at baiting, I don't have an idea of what to do for my neutral game for Sheik, and I'm not great at punishing.

Having noticed these things lately, this video encouraged me to focus on my Villager. So thanks, Omni Omni .
 
Can we please stop giving this pretentious asshole the front page? I don't care if people are saying he has decent advice this time; if it's HIM saying it, I don't want to hear it.
 
Thanks for the video Omni, I always like to hear different points of view.

I disagree with what you have to say about braindead characters though. They teach players to rely on their flowchart/powerful options and it stunts their growth as players.

Just look at the Luigi nerf. People are losing thier **** about it. The combos got toned down and early guranteed kill setups removed. That's it and people are still freaking out and dropping Luigi. They didn't learn anything apart from leaning on that down throw crutch.

The only ones that aren't really getting effected that much are players like Boss that never relied on the things that made Luigi "braindead" (I still hate that term) to begin with. So why even bother with characters like that in the first place? You could just be playing a character that you love or fits your preffered playstyle and actually have to fight for your victories. I think that would help you more than playing a "braindead" choice

Just so we're clear though, I don't think Luigi was ever an easy win button. I also don't think he needed a nerf that severe, and already has many exploitable weaknesses. I'm just using him as a familiar example.
 
Summary of what he said in that video?
He said that if the Smash 4 community don't get an agreement over the meta (customs on/customs off? 2 stocks/3 stocks?), and some other stuff that I don't remember right now, competitive Smash 4 would die.
As you can see, that video was made very earlier on, when the community couldn't decide over those things, and he was right, if we didn't get a damn agreement competitive Sm4sh would just fade.... so his video was more like an warning "hey, get your sh*t together" and not a "SM4SH IS BAD AND WON'T LAST LONG" as the title implies....
 
I was Top 10 in Melee for MD/VA.
Respectable. Pretty solid region to be on the Power Ranking.

Moved to Brawl.
Boooo

Best MK in MD/VA.
Metaknight... meh.

Won plenty of tournaments.
Small ones sure. If we count weeklies / smash fests I've won a few "tournaments" myself. I've never gotten close to 9th place though at a big melee event so you're probably better than most at the maylay.

Invited my region over for free pizza and training to get the region better.
Coached a lot of our players.
Humblebrag?

Retired because I stopped liking Brawl.
And now I just work a 9-5.
Brawl sucks. I work a 9-5 too & have two kids but there's always time for smash if you make time.

There are just people here that enjoy bashing me every time I release a video. I'm not sure y but das koo. Probably trying to force another reaction outta me.
Just stop using click-bait titles and bait in general. Would change the reaction you get to your videos by a large margin.

You have very good points & your video editing is on point. But the way you present those points is all wrong. There's a difference between trying to catch the audience's attention & being the youtube video equivalent to a pop up ad. You're treating your audience like it's dumber than you are and people hate that, which is why you'll see a lot of people calling you pretentious which, quite frankly, you are.
 
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Omni is using rather unflattering and quite frankly, incorrect language to describe skill ceilings of characters, and basically says that people should stick to characters around their skill level. But I, once again, disagree with Omni who knowingly makes a career around making his opinions highly conversational as an intent to generate buzz for himself and the community as a whole, and he often comes as forceful or unfair in his attempts to generate hypuu.

For one, how is intelligence really, truly involved in skill ceilings? Sure, more technical players are generally more 'intelligent' but that doesn't mean all top, technical players are intelligent in the absolute sense of the word. A moron could easily become an incredible Shiek/Ryu/Shulk player if they put the time, dedication, research and skill into doing so. Intelligence helps to do some of these quicker but it should not factor into what character you play as. The right word is dedication, some characters require more dedication than others due to their skill ceilings.

Look at his Diddy Video, nobody is arguing today that the Diddy nerf was a bad idea, nor did it totally kill Diddy as a competitive character, evened the playing field a lot more and made watching Smash 4 much more fun because of less Diddy Hoo-Hah combos. By Omni's logic in this video, Diddy would've been a "brain-dead" character because his skill ceiling pre-nerf was lower than others characters. So he was defended a so-called brain-dead character with an obviously broken move set while also chiding, by his implication, dumber people to play dumbed-down style characters. Is he saying that only dumb people played Diddy during his dominance in Smash 4 meta? We all know that is wrong since incredibly intelligent players like ZeRo and M2K played him and continue to do so after his nerf.

Quite frankly, Maybe Omni should focus on making videos which help progress meta rather than trying to be so controversial all the time and insulting his viewers. I still do respect him as a player and a Smasher, but his videos keep getting more ludicrous every time I see one.
 
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Sigh...if you picked up Diddy pre patch or Luigi or Mio Brawler Pre Patch, abusing their down throw over and over again wouldn't have progressed your playstyle, it would have done the opposite, or stunted your growth.

Though I don't get how you can get angry at this guy. Hes just stating his opinions.
 
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Omni is using rather unflattering and quite frankly, incorrect language to describe skill ceilings of characters, and basically says that people should stick to characters around their skill level. But I, once again, disagree with Omni who knowingly makes a career around making his opinions highly conversational as an intent to generate buzz for himself and the community as a whole, and he often comes as forceful or unfair in his attempts to generate hypuu.

For one, how is intelligence really, truly involved in skill ceilings? Sure, more technical players are generally more 'intelligent' but that doesn't mean all top, technical players are intelligent in the absolute sense of the word. A moron could easily become an incredible Shiek/Ryu/Shulk player if they put the time, dedication, research and skill into doing so. Intelligence helps to do some of these quicker but it should not factor into what character you play as. The right word is dedication, some characters require more dedication than others due to their skill ceilings.

Look at his Diddy Video, nobody is arguing today that the Diddy nerf was a bad idea, nor did it totally kill Diddy as a competitive character, evened the playing field a lot more and made watching Smash 4 much more fun because of less Diddy Hoo-Hah combos. By Omni's logic in this video, Diddy would've been a "brain-dead" character because his skill ceiling pre-nerf was lower than others characters. So he was defended a so-called brain-dead character with an obviously broken move set while also chiding, by his implication, dumber people to play dumbed-down style characters. Is he saying that only dumb people played Diddy during his dominance in Smash 4 meta? We all know that is wrong since incredibly intelligent players like ZeRo and M2K played him and continue to do so after his nerf.

Quite frankly, Maybe Omni should focus on making videos which help progress meta rather than trying to be so controversial all the time and insulting his viewers. I still do respect him as a player and a Smasher, but his videos keep getting more ludicrous every time I see one.
These sort of videos are counterproductive to actually "help" the community.
The fact remains that his videos scream toxicity. Saying at the end "I'm just having fun" does not nullify this.

He literally says that anyone that hasn't won a tournament is not eligible to have an opinion. I use Marth and I've never won a tournament. I'm not allowed to say Ness and Mario are cheap characters?

I would say more, but then I realized it's all click bait and I took it line and sinker.

Honestly, the community would be better off if these videos were ignored.
 
For me, "braindead" = "easy to use". Captain Falcon is easy to use, while Wii Fit Trainer isn't. Some characters are much easier (and therefore more "braindead") than others, that's just the truth. Some characters are low-risk, high-reward while others are high-risk, low-reward. Some characters have to think more than other characters, and some characters are safe (so safe that it doesn't really matter if you fail an attempt or not) while other characters are not (meaning you have to think twice or even thrice to make your attempt successful).

I see (not limited to) Mario, Yoshi, Captain Falcon, Zero Suit Samus, Diddy Kong, Sonic and to some extent Little Mac as "braindead"; however, that doesn't mean anyone can pick them up and do well with them. No, they are just easier to learn and have relatively safer commitments which makes them not require as much thinking as the other more "brainy" characters do.

For example (not limited to), I see PAC-MAN, Wario, Dr. Mario, Wii Fit Trainer, R.O.B., Ryu, Olimar and Lucario as really "brainy" since they require strategy to do well in matches while not having the safest options available. They have to commit to more riskier play that may very well backfire hard if they don't succeed with their game plan. (For example, Dr. Mario trying to punish with Up-B out-of-shield: If it works - good. But if not - you're in helpless now, whereas if Zero Suit Samus wants to punish with down-b but she misses, it doesn't really leave her wide open (compared to Dr. Mario's up-b).)

Then some characters really struggles to do good amounts of damage and getting a KO (like Mii Gunner), while others do not struggle with that (like Captain Falcon). And rage effect is literally the most braindead thing in Smash 4, along with no hitstun (people mash A like there's no tomorrow) and how the ledge mechanic now works. Smash 4 is the most braindead Smash game so far.
 
I'll still main Kirby, but take out Mario when matchup calls for it or I am in need of some cheese.

Now looking at my playtime of my smash game I see this:

Time played

Kirby: 189 hours with 17 minutes
Mario: 20 hours

I can safely say I had a waaaaay easier time learning how to put Mario at a decent level, with Kirby it was a lot harder to get him to compete with the best players around my area! I still gotta perfect my Mario and polish the really advanced playing that he can achieve but I have no problems admitting that Mario is just so intuitive and simple that you don't really need to push im into insane practice sessions to be good with him.
 
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Sigh...if you picked up Diddy pre patch or Luigi or Mio Brawler Pre Patch, abusing their down throw over and over again wouldn't have progressed your playstyle, it would have done the opposite, or stunted your growth.

Though I don't get how you can get angry at this guy. Hes just stating his opinions.
Disagreeing with somebody isn't getting angry or bitter at all, You would do well to realize this difference. Also, nobody said anything about spamming/abusing the move over and over. If you spam anything you are liable to be read and beaten fairly easy by anybody capable of taking advantage of move spamming, this is a fact in any fighting game.

Put pre-nerf Diddy in the hands of somebody like ZeRo and he'd literally be even more impossible to beat than he is right now.
 
eh, for his definition there is.
At a lower level, there are things you can exploit since people don't know how to get over it at that level.
I mean it always goes full circle(it's a loop) there are certain play styles (mind games) you can play with your opponent. The majority of the time it equates to doing what works, gimmicks and all included you don't branch out unless said opponent actually shows composure

In that way you can condition your opponent or, he can also condition you to do certain actions.(It's always good to have a trick up your sleeve)


The variety in styles is something truly important there comes a case when you can beat a friend but your friend can beat someone you can't beat kinda like Pokemon. :004::007::001: And let's just dumb it down and say it's with the same character, a lot of times even analyzing a match might be useless cause it's not all apparent. Combofiend and old FGC player(that now works for capcom) one time looked forward to understanding Alex Valle's style he would eventually figure it out not from Valle himself but from another player similar to Valle.

And that's the thing there's certain strategies and character archetypes that are easily perceived characters like Captain Falcon:4falcon::4lucina::4charizard: and others, but there's also characters that aren't very well understood by the naked eye:4olimar::4gaw::4wiifit:.

Yes there's simple characters and while I for instance am greatly annoyed by Warios and Sonics. This goes back to another principle you sometimes lose at the character select screen, in which case you might be able to beat a player if you say counter pick or beat him with his own strategy, that per say doesn't make you a bad player but it does show another form of composure.

Another thing to note is that while there is a lot of simple characters(braindead) there's also plenty of matchup hurdles which brings up another layer on top of everything.

you sometimes look back at videos or ask for advice here's somethings that I keep in mind when practicing


Lack of Knowledge
You don't know how to punish properly

Lack of Ability
You lack fundamentals and or can't execute properly

Lack of Condition
You're in a different state of mind, low self awareness

Lack of Vision
You don't look for you opponents tendencies

Lack of Options
You can't play other characters

Edit: last but not least a braindead character isn't always per say a good character(top tier)
 
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personally, if there's something I found annoying, it's not so much the idea of "Braindead Characters" but rather what I'd like to call "Flowchart Players".

some characters are easier to use and have more potent bread and butter attacks and combos than others. Take Mario's D-Throw to up-tilt chains in early percents,, as opposed to Link doing the same thing, the difference is pretty easy to spot: Mario has an easier time following up with Aerials than Link would once the chain becomes escapable.

unfortunately, some of these are a bit more difficult for ordinary players to get around., I have a serious problem of getting grab countered a lot, which is only made worse by the fact that Mario's best means of getting damage often starts with that.. I'll usually win just as much as I lose against Mario, because while both sides take advantage of my weakness to grabs, skilled ones will fall back on other reliable tricks he has at his disposal, whereas "Flowchart Players" will have difficulty improvising once I start to catch up.

also, Omni Omni , considering some of the descriptions, I get the impression most of this stuff is not written down, and just rehearsed off the top of your head, right?
 
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I was Top 10 in Melee for MD/VA.
Moved to Brawl.
Best MK in MD/VA.
Won plenty of tournaments.
Invited my region over for free pizza and training to get the region better.
Coached a lot of our players.
Last tournament Brawl tournament I went to I won.
Retired because I stopped liking Brawl.
And now I just work a 9-5.

There are just people here that enjoy bashing me every time I release a video. I'm not sure y but das koo. Probably trying to force another reaction outta me. But ya. I did lots of stuff. Been around the corner. So ya.

Hope you guys enjoyed the video. Was really fun to make.
I'm gald that you sent the message out there because it needed to be said. Thanks for sticking up for competitive players like Dabuz.

I think the real question is, are you smarter than a fifth grader?
Or a third grader?
 
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I'll still main Kirby, but take out Mario when matchup calls for it or I am in need of some cheese.

Now looking at my playtime of my smash game I see this:

Time played

Kirby: 189 hours with 17 minutes
Mario: 20 hours

I can safely say I had a waaaaay easier time learning how to put Mario at a decent level, with Kirby it was a lot harder to get him to compete with the best players around my area! I still gotta perfect my Mario and polish the really advanced playing that he can achieve but I have no problems admitting that Mario is just so intuitive and simple that you don't really need to push im into insane practice sessions to be good with him.
This is the reality of literally every fighting game ever.

There will always be characters that are easier to use than others. There are more "great Ryu players" than "great Gen players" in SFIV because Ryu is incredibly simple to learn. Majority of players will always flock to the stronger characters that don't require much commitment but are still rewarding. Such is the case with Mario in Smash 4.
 
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