Opinions On The Plant?

[The Mystic Kiddo]

What do you think of the character itself? Do you think they need a nerf, buff, or any adjustments at all?

 

[Grump]

It's far too early to tell. First impression is that he's going to be mid high-tier. He has enough options and gimmicks to keep things interesting and in his control, but they are just that: gimmicks. Individually, each one can be countered pretty well; it'll all fall down to how well the player can string them together cohesively.

 

[$.A.F.]

I think they’re surprisingly good against FE characters in my experience (don’t take that as fact). Ptooie and Poison make approaching hell. They suck against the Links though. Those are in my opinion their surprise good and bad matches. I’d say they’re anywhere from mid to high tier. They have combos, a great recovery , great edge guarding, a really good projectile, and a good throw game. They do however have no neutral, average aerials, average tilts, and is pretty gimmick centered. Overall it’s too early to tell. But I think he could really “bloom” into something beautiful.

 

[Sudz]

He's dope. I've been bopping a good number of people around online, and I've had a decent time in Elite Smash so far. It is entirely possible that this is just because people aren't used to him, but his stage control seems pretty tight imo. With practice it will only get better. We'll see in time.

Too early to talk about balancing I think but he feels comfortable for me so

 

[Redica_v.2]

DoWn B Is L O N G

 

[DelugeFGC]

High tier, but not top tier. He has very good area control / denial & zoning tools that can either screw you over on their own or force you to react and potentially get punished in a number of ways. He's terrifying to have on the ledge when you're recovering, because pretty much everything he has works out well when used creatively on the ledge.

His recovery is god-tier, on top of being amazing in terms of speed / distance gained, it has pretty good offensive capability too if you manage to get someone caught up in the leaf blades. Definitely one of the best in the entire game. Patooie (Neutral B) has a multitude of options that it covers well and is overall one of the better things in his kit along with the poison Side B move. You can deny landings with a delayed Patooie or force them to veer to the left or right due to its vertical space denial, which you can then react to with a Down B if you have the time, or a NAir or BAir (or any aerial of PP's, really) which is just really fun to do.

He has a lot going for him, but he's not an OP brickhouse like I've seem some make him out to be. In terms of raw kill power, he's kind of lacking. To kill with him on-stage you really need the player at higher percents, and then it's usually going for a Smash Attack (typically FSmash or DSmash, USmash isn't that great though) or a Neutral B Patooie. Up throw can kill okay as well, but only at pretty high percents. I'd say his difficulty scoring kills is his biggest drawback, he's very good at racking up damage, edge guarding and zoning / area control but you will really have to work for your kills with him unless you spike them down off-stage or something.

I've managed to catch someone pretty high up on the stage (near the blast zone) with an Up B once, then proceeded to carry us both to our deaths. It was his final stock, so I won with it, and my god it felt good. It seemed very once-in-a-lifetime, though, as I caught the guy VERY high up on the screen. So I suppose that's.. something?

Overall I really like him, he's fun as hell to play and naturally meshes with the sort of playstyle I have (I love zoners who can force reactions that can lead to punishes, which is why I'm a Richter main atm) in Ultimate and he's made 100% for that it seems. Outside of his lack of kill options and meh grabs, he's extremely good. Definitely technical enough to have a skill floor, though, he's not a character that anybody can immediately pick up and pubstomp with like Krool or Ganondorf.. but he has hella potential. It's too early to say definitively one way or the other, though. Only time and matchups will tell.

 

[Bobert]

It's too early to tell honestly, but he feels very lack luster from my experience. He has no reliable OoS options, slow aerials with a lot of landing lag, and struggles to land a KO. He has virtually no neutral and gets eaten alive by combos and juggles. Ptooie is very slow as well and has a huge blind spot right infront of him. He's got a great recovery though and is decent at edge guarding. Not really impressed so far.

 

[Midoriki]

In general I've been able to get lots of damage but have had difficulty getting kills. Most of my kills have been edge-guards or up-throws. Up-smash works too, but that's kinda stage dependent.

Biggest weakness is recovery. Its distance is amazing but not being able to cancel it or move downwards makes you very vulnerable, especially if recovering low since your head has no hitbox so you're very easy to spike.

I still think down-b off stage has enough potential for Piranha Plant to be amazing in some matchups, but the skill floor is pretty high for that, and if they can recover low and have a spike (e.g. Pikachu) it's often more risk than its worth.

 

[DelugeFGC]

In general I've been able to get lots of damage but have had difficulty getting kills. Most of my kills have been edge-guards or up-throws. Up-smash works too, but that's kinda stage dependent.

Biggest weakness is recovery. Its distance is amazing but not being able to cancel it or move downwards makes you very vulnerable, especially if recovering low since your head has no hitbox so you're very easy to spike.

I still think down-b off stage has enough potential for Piranha Plant to be amazing in some matchups, but the skill floor is pretty high for that, and if they can recover low and have a spike (e.g. Pikachu) it's often more risk than its worth.

I agree for the most part, PP definitely has problems getting kills but I feel like where he really shines is once he gets you off the ledge and the guarding begins. With a proper amount of skill, you could damned near guarantee someone didn't make it back with PP.. or at least make them pay for it dearly in damage. His recovery is pretty easy to keep safe in most situations, if you fear getting spiked (which I've thought of, actually after getting hit during a Down B) try to recover from far out into high-to-mid stage. You're not 100% safe, but it makes jumping out to spike you extremely risky. If they miss, then they have to worry about recovering (and against PP that can be scary) now.. otherwise they're liable to get caught in the blades from PP going sideways a bit.

It's not fool-proof, but I've found it covers basic enough options people usually take when you're recovering to go for a more sideways-tilted recovery from further outside of stage. You can't REALLY be spiked unless it's done delicately, as once tilted your head is more off to the side. You could still be hit like this, but the odds of you being straight up spiked into hell are much lower. You can also fast fall out of the recovery ending animation, which I say is mandatory at this point. The worst part of the recovery IMO is that slow, laggy fall to the ground where you're vulnerable as hell afterward.

Overall, I think what really hurts him are his lack of kill options and grab range. Grab-to-UThrow is one of his best kill options, yet can be hard to set up outside of well timed pivot grabs out of poison cloud or something. This usually means going for Smash attacks, which outside of FSmash isn't always a confirmed kill.

 

[Dsull]

Projectile characters gave me the most hell.
PPlant feels like it has no approach, nowhere near fast enough to jump in and only longer reach attacks are too slow to use in a non-gotcha scenario (like poison, dash in, downb surprise the guy that jumped over it)
Ptooie is a strong projectile but it doesnt lob very far unless you can hold it for a couple seconds so thats out.
Poison has no effect on fast projectiles (i swear ive seen some slow ones vanish in a poison cloud though)
Air game has poor reach as most projectile spammers have hella good air reach.

Any time i faced a non-projectile spammer, i actually felt pretty dang powerful. Ganondorf gave me some issues because he kinda just powers through half what i was used to doing so sorta have to figure him out differently.

 

[Midoriki]

The worst part of the recovery IMO is that slow, laggy fall to the ground where you're vulnerable as hell afterward.

Yeah, this is why I thought it was kinda a catch 22:
- If you recover past the ledge, your opponent would catch your landing because you can't mixup recovery height and the plant has poor aerial mobility.
- If you recover to the ledge, your vulnerable head will be exposed.

But after playing on Battlefield a lot I'm starting to like the recovery more. Unless your opponent has a really good up-air, recovering to the top platform is generally fairly safe. And if you are recovering low, you can angle into the stage to keep your head safe and your leaf at a good angle to intercept attackers.

Also, since you can't cut the recovery short, you can do a fun mix-up by holding down as you fly past the ledge at full speed. Not safe at all so don't spam it, but it might catch someone waiting to ledge trap you

 

[Erimir]

Too slow to be high tier, in general.

Ptooie is good, and learning how to use it properly - consistently and quickly getting the long distance on throw when you want it, when to hold it, when to use it offstage or the like - is going to be a big thing. Up-B is great and can get stage spikes when people try to challenge it. The Poison Breath is interesting but while it has potential to do huge damage when properly set up, ultimately I won't be surprised if it's not terribly useful particularly once people learn the proper amount of respect to show it. It seems it's great if you can get a grab, but then the plant has a weak grab range. Down-B can be good but it's slow and can leave you vulnerable.

It's tricky enough and it has powerful moves and great recovery, so maybe (probably?) it won't end up bottom tier, but I dunno why people think it'll be high tier without buffs. Characters with good projectiles are a problem, particularly if they are fast or have good up-close tools. For example, Cloud can throw the blade beam to force you to approach, Ptooie doesn't have enough range and the long throw takes too long, so you don't really have a long distance punish, so you approach but you're slower than him and his attacks outrange yours. What do you do in that match up?

 

[Rocketjay8]

Too slow to be high tier, in general.

Ptooie is good, and learning how to use it properly - consistently and quickly getting the long distance on throw when you want it, when to hold it, when to use it offstage or the like - is going to be a big thing. Up-B is great and can get stage spikes when people try to challenge it. The Poison Breath is interesting but while it has potential to do huge damage when properly set up, ultimately I won't be surprised if it's not terribly useful particularly once people learn the proper amount of respect to show it. It seems it's great if you can get a grab, but then the plant has a weak grab range. Down-B can be good but it's slow and can leave you vulnerable.

It's tricky enough and it has powerful moves and great recovery, so maybe (probably?) it won't end up bottom tier, but I dunno why people think it'll be high tier without buffs. Characters with good projectiles are a problem, particularly if they are fast or have good up-close tools. For example, Cloud can throw the blade beam to force you to approach, Ptooie doesn't have enough range and the long throw takes too long, so you don't really have a long distance punish, so you approach but you're slower than him and his attacks outrange yours. What do you do in that match up?

PP can probably approach by dashing and jabbing the beam blade to approach. His jab comes out on frame 2.

 

[DelugeFGC]

Too slow to be high tier, in general.

Ptooie is good, and learning how to use it properly - consistently and quickly getting the long distance on throw when you want it, when to hold it, when to use it offstage or the like - is going to be a big thing. Up-B is great and can get stage spikes when people try to challenge it. The Poison Breath is interesting but while it has potential to do huge damage when properly set up, ultimately I won't be surprised if it's not terribly useful particularly once people learn the proper amount of respect to show it. It seems it's great if you can get a grab, but then the plant has a weak grab range. Down-B can be good but it's slow and can leave you vulnerable.

It's tricky enough and it has powerful moves and great recovery, so maybe (probably?) it won't end up bottom tier, but I dunno why people think it'll be high tier without buffs. Characters with good projectiles are a problem, particularly if they are fast or have good up-close tools. For example, Cloud can throw the blade beam to force you to approach, Ptooie doesn't have enough range and the long throw takes too long, so you don't really have a long distance punish, so you approach but you're slower than him and his attacks outrange yours. What do you do in that match up?

I've found approaches are best done as a sort of compromise with PP. You're right in that he doesn't have any truly great way to just straight-up approach.. BUT, it isn't terribly difficult to use his kit to manipulate the situation into one that DOES favor an approach. It's also not that hard to approach closer into the stage because his jab, DTilt and dash attack (plus a NAir could work here too) all work for catching/punishing quick reactions. Again, no, it's not fool-proof or anything.. but I've found it works with enough consistency to where it isn't an issue.

If anything I'd say the best way to approach with PP (in a trickier situation) is through careful use of either Side B and/or Neutral B or Down B. I myself have found Down B to work surprisingly well, as if you do it at enough of a distance to not risk getting hit on the end (or hit them by extension), you're not really in danger and most people (though not all, certainly) will STILL react and retreat back or try to jump onto platforms just out of pure reflex. This gives you a small, but existent, window to approach though you will more than likely have to think about it and plan it out just a bit, as just straight-up dashing in will likely get you punished. I feel like NAir really shines for this specific way of approaching, his dash attack does well too if you space it right, but NAir pretty much always trips up anyone who tries to go back in and halt my approach (typically because they're doing it via dropping down from a platform or via jumping in from further down stage, which sets up the NAir perfectly) while also opening up a window (however small it may be) to get some damage or even a KO in.

He's a bit technical in how you have to play him. By intentional design or not I cannot say, but he isn't just a character you can pick up and play like most other zoners & such. I don't know if I'd really call it a raw 'skill floor' per-say, just more of a certain playstyle that PP meshes well with. Either way, he certainly isn't perfect and has some drawbacks.. but that was to be expected. I still think that the end of his recovery (if not outright landing with it or catching an opponent in the blades), lack of KO / finish options and his poor grab range are what hurt him the most. I haven't had too many problems approaching with him regardless of the matchup, even Simon/Richter can get messed up by the Plant's kit if the Plant really has a feel for itself. He's also surprisingly hard to launch.

It's still waaaay too early to say even a single thing definitively.. as the meta of the game entirely isn't even developed yet, so this brand new character obviously won't be either. I'd say, if anything, he excels at space control, edge guarding and punish-reads. You can certainly make him work, but he isn't a pubstomper that any JoeShmoe can pick up and wreck face with.

But take all that with a grain of salt, I am a man wearing rocks for armor after all.

 

[Eggimannd]

absolutely ****ing broken beyond belief.

 

[$.A.F.]

absolutely ****ing broken beyond belief.

Why would you say they're broken? Genuinely curious if I'm not getting r/woooshed.

 

[Erimir]

I've found approaches are best done as a sort of compromise with PP. You're right in that he doesn't have any truly great way to just straight-up approach.. BUT, it isn't terribly difficult to use his kit to manipulate the situation into one that DOES favor an approach. It's also not that hard to approach closer into the stage because his jab, DTilt and dash attack (plus a NAir could work here too) all work for catching/punishing quick reactions. Again, no, it's not fool-proof or anything.. but I've found it works with enough consistency to where it isn't an issue.
[etc]

Right, I'm not saying he/she/it's terrible, but your explanations don't really make it sound... great. Still not seeing it as high tier. Could be mid tier, but I'm skeptical of it being high, is all I'm saying.

I mean, Wii Fit Trainer isn't top tier, and Cloud is not a great matchup for her either, but in that situation, you can hit the soccer ball at Cloud, if you have a charged Sun, it will beat the blade beam, and you're not so much slower than Cloud... Most Clouds will be forced to approach since your projectile options are just better than his projectile. Mega Man can cancel the blade beams with pellets, has good air speed if he wants to jump over it, or simply beat the blade beams with Leaf Shield. These both seem far easier than dealing with it as the plant.

 

[link2702]

Fun to play as, not that great a character though imo. I’d say mid low. It’s aerials are all way to slow, poison isn’t that scary (unless you are crazy enough to shield it) and it’s spike ball is situational from what I’ve seen.

 

[DelugeFGC]

Right, I'm not saying he/she/it's terrible, but your explanations don't really make it sound... great. Still not seeing it as high tier. Could be mid tier, but I'm skeptical of it being high, is all I'm saying.

I mean, Wii Fit Trainer isn't top tier, and Cloud is not a great matchup for her either, but in that situation, you can hit the soccer ball at Cloud, if you have a charged Sun, it will beat the blade beam, and you're not so much slower than Cloud... Most Clouds will be forced to approach since your projectile options are just better than his projectile. Mega Man can cancel the blade beams with pellets, has good air speed if he wants to jump over it, or simply beat the blade beams with Leaf Shield. These both seem far easier than dealing with it as the plant.

I feel 'great' on that end is subjectively entirely down to a mix of your own personal playstyle / skill with that particular character, as I've been able to pull off wins more consistently on the plant than with my main (Richter) and I haven't really had approach issues. All I'm saying. Your descriptions are of specific situations with specific characters and are assuming a specific reaction. The plant, objectively on this matter, is NOT that limited in options if you get a feel for it.

Tier lists and all are great, but it's too early to place any character in this manner because everything doesn't exactly boil down to an -as simply- as if it were on paper in every single situation. Beyond that, in both my plays with and in my watching of people using the Plant, I haven't specifically noticed approach issues. They're entirely directed elsewhere. The Plant is surprisingly hard to launch, and isn't exactly what I would call slow though it certainly isn't fast. Add in the spacing tools and certain moves like Dash Attack, and I'd say it's in a really good place. Perfect? No. But not lacking in approach options either.

Grab range is what I feel hurts it the MOST at this point, as now that I've had more experience with the Plant I've gotten more a feel. Most people seem to have adopted strategies around dealing with and respecting the plant, but my god is it easy to completely throw people off and get in their head with it to completely undo all of that. Even though the plant does struggle with kills, I think since people have caught onto that fact it is conditioning them to play a certain way (not unusual at all) at higher percents. With this, you can switch up your game to specifically punish their now defensive / retreating mixups and I've found that this kind of nulls his KO issues. People KNOW he has KO issues, so once PP damages them up (which can happen pretty fast) they KNOW he's gonna be going for a grab, smash, etc as they would with several other characters. But, with PP, his kit is just phenomenal for mixing it up and going for a punish-read or a creative edge guard in those situations. This can cause panic, leading to an even easier kill.

From online experience alone, it seems the biggest advantage the plant currently has is that people fear/respect it a little too much, which makes it easy to punish them if you expect that kind of reaction ahead of time and plan for it. That will probably change, my my god it works right now.. very VERY well.

 

[Crynomite]

Piranha is so far as we know high tier with strong moves and great air game. I did a poll to see what other people thought.
Top tier
23.02%

93
High tier
17.82%

72
High mid tier
21.29%

86
Mid tier
21.04%

85
Low mid tier
9.16%

37
Low tier
4.46%

18
Bottom tier
3.22%

 

[Deleted member]

I agree.
It is a fantastic pick who is also easy to use.

 

[Crynomite]

I don't enjoy him very much but I also like Marth, Falcon, Lucas, Cloud, and Incineroar. So I don't really like projectile characters.

 

[BlackCephie]

Pretty good and getting kills doesnt seem to be hard tbh. All of his smash attacks are good, with fsmash having invul frames and a big enough hit boxe to stuff high profile. If spaced right its also pretty safe on block. Ptooie can be abused like crazy and nets kills for the plant left and right. Dash back to ptooie negates the small blind spot (which I say with a grain of salt since ur opponent can actually get bopped by it by removing you from underneath the ball) front, and can lead to more pressure since it recovers so quickly. Down b also a kill move. I think he just gives the illusion that hes hard to kill with because he racks up damage so fast. You look up and see your opponent in dark red and ur like "why arent you dead yet?" even though you did like 160 damage in the first minute and a half from punishing their landings with poison and then nailing them with a few spike balls simply because they made any number of bad calls on approaching you.

 

[DelugeFGC]

I've found through more playtime with the plant that his kill problems are even less of an issue than I originally thought, something about PP just leads to perfect RAR opps and PP's backair is pretty lethal at higher percents. If not that, up throw to down B is a good combo (as it's harder to avoid the down B than you might think with some characters when falling straight down toward it, PP can angle in any direction you can go, only slow fallers and floaters / fliers are safe from it 100%) if the Up Throw didn't kill them to begin with. I've also been too hard on Up Smash, I find it's great for crossing people up. Forward Smash is probably your safest bet for a kill, but man I don't struggle at all to get them. PP racks up damage so fast that he really doesn't NEED moves that kill early.. one grab mid-cloud is going to do 40-60%+.

At this point, his two main weaknesses would be the landing lag on his aerials and his weak grab range. The grab range isn't the end of the world because of how easy it is to cross someone up with PP though, but the landing lag does suck. I feel without it he actually might be a bit TOO good, though.

Also, there's something about Down B.. man. You think it would be a move you wouldn't use often, but I've gotten a surprising amount of kills with it. PP is like the bane of a rusher, because right when you get used to Patooie smacking you in the face, the damned plant goes onto its side and Down B's you off the stage. The mind game, game, with PP is on fire.

Using poison cloud to obscure yourself is also a riot, most people expect a Down B to come out of it and go high, only to get hit by my Up Smash that I specifically chose for that situation. PP's greatest strength has got to be sheer versatility.

 

[Love Tap]

I haven't played as him, but I've played against him. If you don't have a fast projectile to deal with him, he's pretty tough when those neutral b's are on point. Approaching is a nightmare.

 

[DelugeFGC]

I haven't played as him, but I've played against him. If you don't have a fast projectile to deal with him, he's pretty tough when those neutral b's are on point. Approaching is a nightmare.

Yeah, that's pretty much the size of it. Between Patooie, Down B and Side B (Poison Cloud) you can shut down a lot of stage options and limit the route of approach to a very specific area / window which opens up the perfect opp for a RAR or a good punish read otherwise.. or even just another well placed Patooie. PP is great in the air, though has a lot of landing lag, so if you can outspace his aerials and quickly find footing, he will be open for punish. That window is small and it's also likely to result in a side B coming out right before you grab or something, making you eat WAY more damage in the trade.

I'd talk more about his weaknesses.. but he is my main and I do play competitively, so maybe it's best I shut up.

 

[Dsull]

one thing ive never seen plants do is just crouch in a scenario where you'd probably want to downb to mess with your opponent.
There is an animation difference between the two but its very subtle. Ive been having people suddenly airdodge for no reason against me lol

 

[BlackCephie]

one thing ive never seen plants do is just crouch in a scenario where you'd probably want to downb to mess with your opponent.
There is an animation difference between the two but its very subtle. Ive been having people suddenly airdodge for no reason against me lol

This. The sheer amount of mindgames you can play with Plant is insane. Same goes for faking the patooie. People will straight up freeze or charge at you.

 

[Judgement]

Absolutely love the character, looking forward to his tournament results!

 

[DelugeFGC]

After time with the plant, I'd actually put him in mid-tier. The landing lag on his aerials is a massive con in certain matchups, resulting in pretty much everything he does leaving him open for punish. His lack of kill moves isn't a huge problem with how fast he does damage and the grab boost tech does help his range, but a lot of people will start playing REALLY defensively against a PP when they get above 120% or so. PP has like, nothing, to penetrate a solid turtle-defense like a Link who has battened down or something. Patooie lacks precision a lot of other projectile characters / zoners have on their projectiles.. and even though it has a ton of knockback and hits hard.. it's slow and inaccurate.


Once you fight people who are used to fighting PP, a lot of his cross ups simply won't work anymore. Down B becomes near useless outside of the ledge and after throws, Patooie (B) is more likely to get you punished than to punish when against fast characters and/or characters with good hitboxes for walling you back. Side B gets really easy to read. His recovery leaves him SUPER vulnerable. Add in the landing lag on his aerials, a lack of kill power and an overall low speed and.. I think I overestimated the plant. He kind of melts in a lot of matchups now that people are used to him.

 

[BlackCephie]

After time with the plant, I'd actually put him in mid-tier. The landing lag on his aerials is a massive con in certain matchups, resulting in pretty much everything he does leaving him open for punish. His lack of kill moves isn't a huge problem with how fast he does damage and the grab boost tech does help his range, but a lot of people will start playing REALLY defensively against a PP when they get above 120% or so. PP has like, nothing, to penetrate a solid turtle-defense like a Link who has battened down or something. Patooie lacks precision a lot of other projectile characters / zoners have on their projectiles.. and even though it has a ton of knockback and hits hard.. it's slow and inaccurate.


Once you fight people who are used to fighting PP, a lot of his cross ups simply won't work anymore. Down B becomes near useless outside of the ledge and after throws, Patooie (B) is more likely to get you punished than to punish when against fast characters and/or characters with good hitboxes for walling you back. Side B gets really easy to read. His recovery leaves him SUPER vulnerable. Add in the landing lag on his aerials, a lack of kill power and an overall low speed and.. I think I overestimated the plant. He kind of melts in a lot of matchups now that people are used to him.

So for one thing I think people are having trouble grasping pp design philosophy. Ptooie and down b both supplement each others weaknesses, and one thing to note is that the bite part of down b can be done early when b is pressed before max range, so it has its own mix up. Imho, down b is the move that makes up for many of plants weaknesses in neutral. It does massive shield damage if not parried, and because you can active if immediately following a ptooie, it functions as an amazing follow up in almost every situations. This means that if plant is mixing up the opponent with ptooie, ptooie canceles, and down b , all with cloud mixed in, he is probably winning neutral. It should actually be abused. The biggest mistake I see plant players making is NOT using down b enough. Yes, it extends your hurt box, but it also happens to have more priority over most moves in the game, including peach aerials. If the plant player is skilled, trying to punish it purposely will often just get you killed. Its also plants main answer to projectiles and pressure up close. The super armor is invaluable. I used it against Snake throughout the entirety of our matches and i was beating Snakes wall clean. Also tanking nikita with the armor.

 

[Deleted member]

I love how it plays and is animated.
I hope that we get more characters like it in the future.

 

[DaBluePittoo]

Personally I really enjoyed Piranha Plant. His poison is surprisingly unlike other fighting games. I presumed it would be like Street Fighter's poison, but it instead racks up insanely fast.

The Ptooie is a really neat projectile too. When I tried using my Orbitars of it, the ball went flying and completely missed up both! It's also a good Anti-Air and Mixup option.

 

[DelugeFGC]

So for one thing I think people are having trouble grasping pp design philosophy. Ptooie and down b both supplement each others weaknesses, and one thing to note is that the bite part of down b can be done early when b is pressed before max range, so it has its own mix up. Imho, down b is the move that makes up for many of plants weaknesses in neutral. It does massive shield damage if not parried, and because you can active if immediately following a ptooie, it functions as an amazing follow up in almost every situations. This means that if plant is mixing up the opponent with ptooie, ptooie canceles, and down b , all with cloud mixed in, he is probably winning neutral. It should actually be abused. The biggest mistake I see plant players making is NOT using down b enough. Yes, it extends your hurt box, but it also happens to have more priority over most moves in the game, including peach aerials. If the plant player is skilled, trying to punish it purposely will often just get you killed. Its also plants main answer to projectiles and pressure up close. The super armor is invaluable. I used it against Snake throughout the entirety of our matches and i was beating Snakes wall clean. Also tanking nikita with the armor.

Down B isn't a very good move period, it's extremely easy to read and you're vulnerable if your opponent has good spacing after because your head is STILL an active hurtbox when doing that move.

PP was a lot of hype and a lot of people not knowing the matchup. I said a lot of the same things you did (scroll up), I still think he's mid tier at best now.

WAY too much landing lag on his aerials, poison cloud is WAY better in theory than in practice, down B is very rarely a good idea, Patooie (Neutral B) has some of the oddest projectile control of any in the game and is in no way a consistent zoning tool compared to what other characters have in their kit. PP was fun and seemed REALLY deadly when he was new and nobody knew the matchup.. now that we understand him better, he falls short in almost every department when compared to other characters. He is a zoning archetype Jack of All Trades.. but a master of none. Hence.. mid-tier.

Patooie gets little-to-zero benefit from techs like wave bouncing. The dash cancel grab boost tech does help PP a lot, but I see very few people incorporating this into his meta. Poison cloud is very easy to read, takes too long to charge and does piss to shut down space when half the roster can easily play around it without many problems. The plant is best on the ledge, and even there moves like Down B can screw him because again.. his head is STILL an active hurtbox when he extends from the pot. If hit, his ENTIRE BODY is pulled out to where the head is, potentially killing him when it happens off the ledge like that or at the VERY LEAST leaving him in a bad spot. Any move that can outright reverse advantage stage into disadvantage state in a split second like that is a bad move in my opinion. Patooie and Side B are his only potentially 'safe' zoning tools.. and they're just predictable as hell.

I promise you, my man, there is NO mix-up / cross-up you can pull with Patooie I wouldn't see coming. Why? Because I've thought of them all myself playing PP, and I watched as all of them were slowly adapted to and stopped working entirely. PP doesn't have what it takes to dominate a match when people know all of his tricks, plain and simple. Off the ledge? Punishable. Canceled / out of dash? Punishable. At a distance? Punishable. That move is safe NO WHERE, it's a horrible projectile. It has a ton of knockback and kill power, but avoiding it is as easy as spot dodging or playing a safe neutral game 95% of the time. It's just.. bad, there's MUCH better options on other characters.

The plant, now.. eh. Feels like a gimmick character. When put in a match with ANY character that either A. Has a good zoning kit themselves or B. Has a kit that is a counter to zoning kits combined with the person playing that character knowing PP's tricks.. it's an uphill battle from the Get-go. PP gets absolutely SHREDDED to pieces by characters like the Links, Simon/Richter and Dark Samus/Samus in my experience, so basically any other zoner / turtle character. He's also torn to pieces by any character that has access to speed and/or decent reach on their hitboxes. The landing lag on his aerials makes them so risky, you'll NEVER get a follow up opp when doing PP's aerials. 9 times out of 10, if they didn't land it's an immediate trip to punish-town. You have virtually zero chance of escape.

He is helped by things like being hard as hell to launch and things like FSmash coming out deceptively quick.. but I don't know. Maybe it's because I mained him for almost two straight weeks and I can just see through the matchup now, but every PP I fight is usually pretty free and when I play PP I get ****wrecked by anyone half-decent. I'm now a Shulk main, and when I fight PP I find myself taking stocks in as little as 10-15 seconds after respawn sometimes because of how slow he is and how predictable his mixups and zoning tend to be. It's so easy to fake PP out into a grab combo with buster that ends up going upwards of 80-100% damage, then buster-cancel into a backslash which usually kills unless I caught him in the combo at lower percents to begin with. Any time he goes for a Down B, I can quickly switch to Smash and jump in for a DAir/NAir which kills pretty frequently when he's above 50%. PP just falls apart when you know the matchup, I guess.

 

[NarBäk]

What do you think of the character itself? Do you think they need a nerf, buff, or any adjustments at all?

its the greatest achievement of mankind, truly perfection, its sole purpose its to convince cience that a god and overlord truly exists

 

[DelugeFGC]

I think if they toned down the landing lag on his aerials, made Patooie have a little bit more range OR come out slightly faster and reduced the time to fully charge poison cloud.. he could be low high-tier at best. His kit by-design prevents him from ever going far into the high tier or getting close to top tier, but he definitely could be very high mid tier or low high tier if they tweaked him a little bit. As it is, his moves are really easy to punish, his mix-ups even easier to read and moves like Down B are just outright bad. There's potential in the design, to a point, but as-is he's too easy to punish and too slow overall to really warrant using him over other zoners who can play his games to a much greater extent with more overall potential.

 

[Sudz]

I think if they toned down the landing lag on his aerials, made Patooie have a little bit more range OR come out slightly faster and reduced the time to fully charge poison cloud.. he could be low high-tier at best. His kit by-design prevents him from ever going far into the high tier or getting close to top tier, but he definitely could be very high mid tier or low high tier if they tweaked him a little bit. As it is, his moves are really easy to punish, his mix-ups even easier to read and moves like Down B are just outright bad. There's potential in the design, to a point, but as-is he's too easy to punish and too slow overall to really warrant using him over other zoners who can play his games to a much greater extent with more overall potential.

My thoughts:
1) Reduce all lag on aerials
2) Somehow give the option to immediately blow Ptooie at a steep upward angle in either direction such that it falls directly adjacent to the plant quickly
3) I had the thought that they change it to an automatic charge timer that takes roughly 15 seconds to max (and make the plant not flash at full charge, but just have the poison effect). Tbh I don't think it should be reflectable but I could be argued out of that stance I'm sure
4) Make down-b such that it can be cancelled during start-up with either a dodge or a jump