Data PacMan's M & Ms (Metagame and Match-Up) Discussion Thread

[Daxter]

Here's a simple one; what in the world do you do against Zero Suit Samus? She gives my main, Donkey Kong, serious trouble already, so Pac's the only one who stands a chance, but I've only returned to him this week since the launch, and she almost literally dances over everything you set or throw, especially the all important keys. And that grab-! Impossible to avoid without to-the-millisecond-reactions as far as I'm concerned. I've got a replay here. I'm actually pretty pleased about how long I lasted, never mind pushing her to the limit, but I still lost as usual.

What kind of tricks work on her, and how do I go about using them please?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztc1icbb-W0

Sorry about the quality

 

[Firedemon0]

Here's a simple one; what in the world do you do against Zero Suit Samus? She gives my main, Donkey Kong, serious trouble already, so Pac's the only one who stands a chance, but I've only returned to him this week since the launch, and she almost literally dances over everything you set or throw, especially the all important keys. And that grab-! Impossible to avoid without to-the-millisecond-reactions as far as I'm concerned. I've got a replay here. I'm actually pretty pleased about how long I lasted, never mind pushing her to the limit, but I still lost as usual.

What kind of tricks work on her, and how do I go about using them please?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztc1icbb-W0

Sorry about the quality

ZSS is fast, but this fight was more about fundamentals. You started off strong, attacked diagonally, and did not seem to have too much of an issue. Then you just kinda fell apart, I saw you throwing up moves seemingly randomly trying to catch zss. Do not randomly throw hoping they run into it because Pac-man has high endlag. Also, keep in mind that you can just shield to stop charging fruit instead of rolling, you died at the end because you rolled when you should of shielded. This ZSS was very flowchart, paralyze > throw > attack if they jump instead. This can be exploited, and you were doing that at the beginning, but when it came time for the kill, you kinda just lost your groove. You also burned your double jump much too quickly, leaving your landing options extremely limited. Apple/Key/Side-B traps, all should of killed at the 167 you had her at, nair as well, closer to the edge.

For the matchup itself, I recommend checking out the metagame thread, we have discussed her briefly there.

 

[Daxter]

ZSS is fast, but this fight was more about fundamentals. This ZSS was very flowchart, paralyze > throw > attack if they jump instead. This can be exploited, and you were doing that at the beginning, but when it came time for the kill, you kinda just lost your groove.

I can see how many FG Zamus' fight like that, but I'm not a very smart person, so after facing at least 50 of them, I still don't know how to counter her. I also wasn't even thinking about being in a diagonal position, or stopping her attacks, I just wanted to get past her guarding.

 

[dragontamer]

Feel free to create a new thread. This one is growing a little long in the tooth and was never really organized to begin with. I'm up for keeping this the "unorganized matchup discussion", while someone else creates a "weekly matchup discussion" thread.

I can of course sticky both threads.

 

[Nu~]

I'll do it. It would be an honor to lead the matchup thread.
I'm not very detail oriented though, so don't expect the OP to be as pretty as CostLow's lol

 

[MachoCheeze]

Okay so I got bodied by two Marios at a tournament yesterday who just spammed Fireballs and I literally could do NOTHING against them. Fireballs bounce onto and over hydrant, I can't launch the hydrant or fruit because of cape, if I tried to approach from the air I would get up smashed, or if the up smash was whiffed he had enough recovery time to down smash before I could land perform an arial.

Help guys im being a scrub.

 

[dragontamer]

I think the Mario matchup is in Mario's favor.

Where PacMan wins is staying just outside of Mario's range and punishing all of his approaches. Good Marios will spam Fireballs all day, which eat up our fruits, so you have to mostly rely on simply out-meleeing the Mario.

Use Fruits to neutralize fireballs, maybe side-B (but Mario is often super quick, I'm not confident on using Side-B pellets as a block very often). Beyond that, stay outside of his range. Your jab is longer than his, your FTilt is longer than his, and your FSmash is longer than his. PacMan should win the air game: SH Fairs all day stuff out Mario's best air approaches.

Its a hard matchup IMO, but not unwinnable. You just can't rely on your typical fruit options because of those fireballs.

 

[BSP]

Okay so I got bodied by two Marios at a tournament yesterday who just spammed Fireballs and I literally could do NOTHING against them. Fireballs bounce onto and over hydrant, I can't launch the hydrant or fruit because of cape, if I tried to approach from the air I would get up smashed, or if the up smash was whiffed he had enough recovery time to down smash before I could land perform an arial.

Help guys im being a scrub.

Steer your side B pellet into Mario's fireballs so that it hits the pellet and cancels the move. Pick up the pellet and heal yourself. Mario will stop using the fireballs as much, trust me.

Edit: Mario is not that bad of a MU for Pac-Man. I think it's 55:45 his favor at worst.

Pac-Man's side B can neutralize the fireball game completely. I thought the MU was awful too until I realized just how good Side B is for dealing with them. Fireballs do not bounce very high, unlike Doc's pills, so they're very easy to side B on reaction and heal yourself.

Mario's aerial options when he's facing you are not good at all. If you use trampolines to control the ground and side B his fireballs, he's going to be forced to approach you from the air, and he has no way to beat our own Uair. Our Bairs will probably trade though, but you can attack his landings. Fsmashing his landings is pretty effective due to Mario's poor range.

Cape is a pain, but it does have ending lag that can be punished, and it is awful on shield.

If you use hydrant to cover your landings, Mario can cape it up back at you, or Fair it out of the air, so be careful of that. Even then, he still can't just outright juggle you because of the threat of hydrant. When the hydrant is on the ground, I wouldn't launch it because a caped hydrant hurts a lot, but you can still use it as bait for Mario to smash and it still disrupts his ground game.

 

[Nu~]

I have a brand new matchup thread up. We should all post matchups there for now on.
So come on down

 

[dragontamer]

I have a brand new matchup thread up. We should all post matchups there for now on.
So come on down

I'm not sure about that. The current discussion in this topic is... whatever anyone wants it to be. While in your topic, the focus for the next few days is Sonic and Sonic only.

If a newbie has an issue against Luigi, or Robin... they shouldn't have to wait days or even weeks to post their question.

I'm for keeping your topic the "organized" matchup discussion, while this topic will remain the "unorganized", less formal discussion. Fewer rules, more freedom and less order on this topic.

 

[Nu~]

I'm not sure about that. The current discussion in this topic is... whatever anyone wants it to be. While in your topic, the focus for the next few days is Sonic and Sonic only.

If a newbie has an issue against Luigi, or Robin... they shouldn't have to wait days or even weeks to post their question.

I'm for keeping your topic the "organized" matchup discussion, while this topic will remain the "unorganized", less formal discussion. Fewer rules, more freedom and less order on this topic.

Ah yeah. What am I talking about. Having a free discussion is a great option. This can be like a Q&A for questions about pacman's matchups in general

 

[MachoCheeze]

Buncha info

Thanks for this man! I'll try it out!

Would anyone give me some advice for Pit. I literally played my first Pit yesterday too and was a little bewildered. The matches didn't go as bad as the Mario games, but I was have a hard time handling Pit.

 

[dragontamer]

Anyone got Wario experience?

I wouldn't call this a particularly difficult matchup (yet). Virtually all bonus fruit (even Cherry) knocks him off the bike due to weird mechanics with the bike. The Waft can KO pretty easily, even when not fully charged. The main issue is that zoning Wario at neutral is basically impossible. His bite eats bonus fruit and hydrant and has excellent cooldown when he does eat it. So you have to basically win in fisticuffs combat to win.

Wario KOs you much sooner than you can KO Wario, and it feels like Wario has a strong advantage on the ground.

And yet... it doesn't seem like a disadvantaged fight. Nothing Wario does in particular felt "hopeless" (like Rosalina), just that he was a strong character that I didn't have much experience up against yet. I also wasn't able to understand his rolls: he seems to have longer invincibility frames than the rest of the cast, a lot of my attacks were whiffing. I probably have to lab-it-out and learn the timing to his roll.

 

[Firedemon0]

Anyone got Wario experience?

I wouldn't call this a particularly difficult matchup (yet). Virtually all bonus fruit (even Cherry) knocks him off the bike due to weird mechanics with the bike. The Waft can KO pretty easily, even when not fully charged. The main issue is that zoning Wario at neutral is basically impossible. His bite eats bonus fruit and hydrant and has excellent cooldown when he does eat it. So you have to basically win in fisticuffs combat to win.

Wario KOs you much sooner than you can KO Wario, and it feels like Wario has a strong advantage on the ground.

And yet... it doesn't seem like a disadvantaged fight. Nothing Wario does in particular felt "hopeless" (like Rosalina), just that he was a strong character that I didn't have much experience up against yet. I also wasn't able to understand his rolls: he seems to have longer invincibility frames than the rest of the cast, a lot of my attacks were whiffing. I probably have to lab-it-out and learn the timing to his roll.

Wario secondary.

Wario is not that hard of a match up for Pac-man, as long as you respect bite and Waft. It only protects his front, and it stops momentum. You cannot hurt him with attacks from the front when he has that gaping maw open. However, a hydrant from above works wonderfully. You can knock him off bike easy with orange. His Waft is invincible, you will not be able to trade with it.

His ground game is very weak, his tilts have poor hit boxes, and ftilt is almost as slow as his smash. Jab knocks you upwards and away, and at lower percents should go right into a fair or up air. His Up-smash is his best, and one of his better kill moves. It is basically a Mario up smash, if he hard reads, his forward smash will kill as well, but it will seldom be used. Down smash is ok at best at punishing rolls, but has high end lag. His dash attack trips easily, if you will shield it, make sure to wait till after he hits the ground and passes you. Dair is a great spacing move for Wario, trampoline is not a threat for Wario at all because of his air capabilities, he can also throw bikes right through them. He has a strong nair OOS, and his fair is comparable to Pac-man.

He is normally able to gimp easily, but not Pac-man. His recovery is normally low. You want to knock him off his bike before he jumps off while recovering, that will pretty much seal his fate, apple or orange should be best used to do this. He also may be forced to use his waft to recovery if you keep him off stage long enough

 

[fabz97]

Anyone got tips for rushdown-esque characters? (Especially ZSS)

 

[Gam3rALO]

I'm back and watched a lot of apex matches especially abadango and he lost against Rosalina. Seems to be an unfavorable matchup. Mario also seems to be kind of hard for Pac man.

Any good secondaries that can counter Pac's bad matchups?

 

[Po3T]

Indeed Pac-man has some bad match ups but I believe that you can switch your style to mix the game up and surprise a few people. Example, I use "Fruit-less" Pac-man against "reflectors" (Zelda, Rosa-Luma, Fox/Falco, Villager, etc) I am a bit more aggressive as a Pac-Player and want to know how to use his keep away tactics more in my play style. As for a secondary for his bad match ups, Zelda is typically my go to if Pac can't do the job (But he tends to)

I really can only go by experience but I use the Bell for people who tend to jump around like the Yoshis, Robins, ZSSs, and others. The Bell is a great anti air. Also, not many people try this but if the fire hydrant is out, if you throw a melon when someone tries to jump over the fire hydrant, the melon goes straight up against the water. The key goes I believe like a 45 degree angle forward if you throw it against the water. I am still new to playing smash competitively, so I will definitely give you a more in-depth information once I start streaming.

 

[Nu~]

I really can only go by experience but I use the Bell for people who tend to jump around like the Yoshis, Robins, ZSSs, and others. The Bell is a great anti air. Also, not many people try this but if the fire hydrant is out, if you throw a melon when someone tries to jump over the fire hydrant, the melon goes straight up against the water. The key goes I believe like a 45 degree angle forward if you throw it against the water. I am still new to playing smash competitively, so I will definitely give you a more in-depth information once I start streaming.

Yup, bell is an awesome anti air, and sets up early kills.
We know about the different trajectories that the water sends the fruit. You can even z drop a fruit on the hydrant, then the water will blast it forward. If you run in front of it, you can use the fruit to cover your end lag since the opponent has to avoid the fruit instead of trying to punish you.
Also, not using the fruit against reflector characters is unwise. Fruit don't fly back at us when they hit a reflector from far range, because they have a set distance. That said, you should use your fruit in midrange. That way, the opponent gets punished hard for throwing out a reflector, and you can get follow ups for all of your fruit. And don't be afraid to use the hydrant. It isn't that easy for the opponent to use against you if you plant it away from them. If they attack it, you can punish their end lag.

 

[Po3T]

Yup, bell is an awesome anti air, and sets up early kills.
We know about the different trajectories that the water sends the fruit. You can even z drop a fruit on the hydrant, then the water will blast it forward. If you run in front of it, you can use the fruit to cover your end lag since the opponent has to avoid the fruit instead of trying to punish you.
Also, not using the fruit against reflector characters is unwise. Fruit don't fly back at us when they hit a reflector from far range, because they have a set distance. That said, you should use your fruit in midrange. That way, the opponent gets punished hard for throwing out a reflector, and you can get follow ups for all of your fruit. And don't be afraid to use the hydrant. It isn't that easy for the opponent to use against you if you plant it away from them. If they attack it, you can punish their end lag.

And this is why I came here, I knew I needed to tweak my game play. Thanks for the info, Didn't even cross my mind about the opponent's end lag if they try to attack the Fire Hydrant. I am trying to use it more though.

 

[Gam3rALO]

I also change my play style against characters that can reflect projectiles. I'm more up in their face. I still use projectiles, but at non-predictable times (when I'm close to them)

 

[Nu~]

Just ignore this...

 

[Po3T]

Please help me with Lil Mac - Of all the Characters, he is by far my worse to play against, then Sonic. I don't even have trouble with Rosa-Luma.

What do you guys do to keep Lil Mac off of you? Trampoline?

 

[Nu~]

Please help me with Lil Mac - Of all the Characters, he is by far my worse to play against, then Sonic. I don't even have trouble with Rosa-Luma.

What do you guys do to keep Lil Mac off of you? Trampoline?

Well a trampoline with a hydrant right behind it is a setup that little Mac can never get past safely. In the meantime, you can charge to whatever fruit you want. Orange gimps him in one hit offstage. Just stay at a distance, and it's incredibly hard for him to get in.

 

[Jay-kun]

I really can only go by experience but I use the Bell for people who tend to jump around like the Yoshis, Robins, ZSSs, and others. The Bell is a great anti air. Also, not many people try this but if the fire hydrant is out, if you throw a melon when someone tries to jump over the fire hydrant, the melon goes straight up against the water. The key goes I believe like a 45 degree angle forward if you throw it against the water. I am still new to playing smash competitively, so I will definitely give you a more in-depth information once I start streaming.

WELCOME!!!

Wario secondary.

Wario is not that hard of a match up for Pac-man, as long as you respect bite and Waft. It only protects his front, and it stops momentum. You cannot hurt him with attacks from the front when he has that gaping maw open. However, a hydrant from above works wonderfully. You can knock him off bike easy with orange. His Waft is invincible, you will not be able to trade with it.

His ground game is very weak, his tilts have poor hit boxes, and ftilt is almost as slow as his smash. Jab knocks you upwards and away, and at lower percents should go right into a fair or up air. His Up-smash is his best, and one of his better kill moves. It is basically a Mario up smash, if he hard reads, his forward smash will kill as well, but it will seldom be used. Down smash is ok at best at punishing rolls, but has high end lag. His dash attack trips easily, if you will shield it, make sure to wait till after he hits the ground and passes you. Dair is a great spacing move for Wario, trampoline is not a threat for Wario at all because of his air capabilities, he can also throw bikes right through them. He has a strong nair OOS, and his fair is comparable to Pac-man.

He is normally able to gimp easily, but not Pac-man. His recovery is normally low. You want to knock him off his bike before he jumps off while recovering, that will pretty much seal his fate, apple or orange should be best used to do this. He also may be forced to use his waft to recovery if you keep him off stage long enough

I went against a Wario who spammed SHFF nair....(he was good as well) ....Wario is so weird he rekt me

 

[Po3T]

Thank you very much.

 

[Jay-kun]

Thank you very much.

haha np here they call me "master" but you can call meh senpai

 

[Nu~]

haha np here they call me "master" but you can call meh senpai

That's a funny way of saying "weiner"

 

[warionumbah2]

-no longer valid-

 

[Jay-kun]

apple

I finally got MU experience against PM and i think its 55:45 in PM favor, i researched every fruit before hand so i wouldn't be caught off guard like a noob. Sure MK can set up kills against PM but he can really get easy escapes using trampoline which can disrupt his ground game completely.

Best approach option against a PM charging a fruit from my experience is Mach Tornado, it allows me to catch his roll,spot dodge and if he shields he will get poked hard. MK will have to stay at mid range and be extremly patient(playing PM game pretty much). Every game i had which was 3 stocks 8mins always ended around 1min because i refuse to go aggressively and he obviously was doing what any smart player was doing: Zoning a non projectile user out.

Off Stage:
On Stage

The bulk of the fight will be on the stage and the majority of the fight will be in neutral and i feel PM has the edge in neutral, although one hit from DA,Down throw,Dtilt can lead into a combo for MK and if your at 80% off stage a bair can kill you. I won't take F-Smash reads into consideration as that's more down to the player. If i said anything that's false about PM just tell me, cause i hate false information.

It seems all 3rd party characters give MK trouble mainly Sonic though...

Or you can bait a special by charge fruit canceled hydrant and push him offstage in his helpless animation :3

 

[makemesmellbad]

I think the main problem with Pac-Man matchups is that most people in America don't play Pac (or many other characters for that matter) patiently. Pac-Man is one of the best defensive characters, as well as one of the trickiest and slipperiest zoners. When you go in with Pac, you can almost always fade right back out if you play smart, and in that sense, his melee game works about the same as Mario's or Falcon's, and his range and stage control is... well, it's on his own tier, lol. Pac is pretty versatile, but you can't play him like Shiek or Fox--you have to be artistic and crafty, know the ins and outs of your moves as well as your opponents, and most importantly, learn how players react to Pac-Man's amazing momentum-disrupting gameplay. Of course, his weaknesses include zone breakers and other defensive characters, but Pac-Man is one of those characters that rewards patience as well as smart aggression. There were many times where I'd play defensively throughout most of a match and catch my opponent off guard with a really long f-air chain off of the stage. If they wasted their jump, they're pretty much dead. If they didn't, then you can force them to recover high by Pellet chaining towards the ledge at a lower angle. If they recover low, Pellet chain, then get ready for more edge guarding. Pac's off-stage game is ridiculously fluid, and--as long as you play smart--relatively safe.

 

[BSP]

So Paper Maribro said this in the customs thread:

A character that invalidates our entire move set with one unpublishable move AND Luma and a character that invalidates our moveset by out maneuvering us in every sense and abuses our lack it range and safe moves.

Yeah, I'd say 60:40 minimum... Not

If you don't believe R&L is 70:30 then please play against a R&L player that KNOWS the MU because it's utterly disgusting. There's literally only one thing we have over R&L and that's projectiles

But wait

Grav Pull is a move that invalidates two of our most important moves and our most important recovery move. Totally destroying and ignoring our projectiles. Without that we have 0 safe luma pokes. Okay, our side b can be used to heal. But what's more important is that we still can't practically use our projectile game without an inherent risk of grav pill and then punishing the lag of our projectile. Customs changes nothing.

As for others, Yoshi can use his superior range, camping ability, weight and power to demolish us. There's very little we get out of customs in this MU either (one I'd like to note, many in the Pac skype group think is one of our worst three).

Lucario is a character that preys upon those that cannot kill him. Freaky fruit may alleviate that slightly with strawb/cherry but that has yet to be seen as a reliable kill set up (It may work, it may not idk). Other than that, I always see that as a bad MU for us. Lucario is just a lot better than us in a lot of key areas and makes short work of us after we destroy his neutral. Which is kinda dumb but he is who he is.

I haven't got enough Mario experience to know how customs would change anything.

Fox's jab combo still works on us no matter our custom set up, this is still a challenging MU

Sheik might not enjoy Lazy fruit (I remember you saying have fun learning 24 different fruit trajectories, have fun us remembering what MUs each set of 8 is best for and which one to use at a specific time. If anything, it's a tougher thing for us to lean as an opponent can just unlock the specials, use them, and know what they do. We can't unlock the specials and inherently know when to use them. Anyway, Sheik might be easier for us with customs. She doesn't gain much but we gain th on fire hydrant.

Bowser is a challenge for us, don't deny it. He has excellent range and DPH which are two things we don't want to see on a character, add in his impressive ground mobility and (if you will) his superior gains from customs, Bowser is a genuine threat to us. Play a Bowser that knows the MU reasonably well and you're gonna have a tough time doing typical Pac stuff.

Sonic becomes easier with customs for sure, but that doesn't mean those MUs are any easier as standard. I know you love our character and think the world of him, but I'm pretty sure you are the only person that believes we have three 60:40 MUs. If we only have three, we would probably be an easy top 10 character, maybe higher. Pac Man top 10? definitely not. In a grab heavy meta that is currently evolving, not having a usable grab is really kinda harsh on us. As someone so excellently put it, it's like using rock and paper only in a rock, paper, scissors competition.

I want to see how Side B healing and, consequently, more hydrant spam play into the Rosalina MU because I think it's going to be a big deal. I don't think we'll ever beat her, but healing off of GP is still a thing. She neuters our BF game quite a bit, but as I pointed out, she has to GP hydrant or we can KO Luma pretty easily. I still see this as a MU where Pac-Man will have to abuse the timer, but I could be wrong. I think the best approach will be setting up trampolines to cover a charge to Key and flinging hydrants at her, plus side B'ing on GPs to heal yourself. It will be difficult, but I think it can happen.

I haven't fought any great Lucarios, but I imagine our KO'ing trouble will be abused by him. Sonic had the same problem with Lucario in Brawl. It really wasn't that bad until Sonic had to somehow KO him, which he just couldn't do reliably.

I think Mario is overrated as a difficult MU for Pac-Man.

Fox scares me about as much as Rosalina as Pac-Man. He is bad, and he has a KO confirm off of jab. I think that MU will get worse with time.

Even Abadango goes secondaries vs. Sheik, and I see why. I don't think it's 70:30 or anything, but I don't think it's worth the effort.

I've only played a decent Bowser online, but it was enough to make me lean towards even on that MU. I will record those replays and they should explain why. His speed + power is a problem for us.

Sonic is bad for us and will probably get worse.

 

[Nu~]

I think it may be more of Abadango's playstyle that makes him switch from pac to wario. I know that wario mains always say how hard the matchup is for them. You can see how his wario gets destroyed by Shiek harder than his pacman, but he wins due to waft. He builds so much rage it's rediculous. That's the one advantage wario has over Shiek, but other than that he gets destroyed.

With freaky fruit, lazy fruit, and on-fire hydrant, we may have an easier time against Shiek. But with our default hydrant and fruit, it's a lot harder.

 

[makemesmellbad]

Even Abadango goes secondaries vs. Sheik, and I see why. I don't think it's 70:30 or anything, but I don't think it's worth the effort.

You have to keep in mind, though, that Abadango doesn't mix up his Pac-Man playstyle. He mainly plays patiently, which is the most rewarding and lowest risk style for Pac, but there are still more aggressive options. Shiek has a hard time punishing an SOS b-air, and due to Shiek's natural ability to not have consistent kill moves, most long-distance pokes with clever fruit play and hydrant and trampoline baits can disrupt a lot of Shiek's approaches. With that said, Abadango is still one of the best (if not the best) Pac-Man player I've seen in the competitive scene, almost solely based on his patience and creativity.

 

[Jay-kun]

I think it may be more of Abadango's playstyle that makes him switch from pac to wario. I know that wario mains always say how hard the matchup is for them. You can see how his wario gets destroyed by Shiek harder than his pacman, but he wins due to waft. He builds so much rage it's rediculous. That's the one advantage wario has over Shiek, but other than that he gets destroyed.

With freaky fruit, lazy fruit, and on-fire hydrant, we may have an easier time against Shiek. But with our default hydrant and fruit, it's a lot harder.

WHAAAT (though I wouldn't mind switching to Wario either)

 

[Paper Maribro]

I find the Skype group in general to be very negative to Pac-man's matchups and playstyle. Quite often I find just frustration from players there, which I think is unfounded and untrue, otherwise Abadango would of stuck with Wario at this point. Kool-aid is doing some crazy offensive things as well.

Rosalina is not 70:30, we can still apply pressure, just not with our specials. The reason Gravity pull is so effective, is that it does invalidate the special moves, but if they are spamming it and cancelling everything, that is exploitable.

The real reason it is a tough matchup, is gravity well combined with her aerial moveset and luma, keeps Pac-man out because of her hit boxes. It is a combination of these tools. That works again Pac-man.

Without Luma however, we have nothing to really fear being offensive, because she does not have a small portable hit-box that eats our attacks. Pac-man is also able to properly react to her aerials without getting poked by Luma. Her hit box is HUGE. There is no reason you are unable to hit her. Luma is what makes that difficult. Your projectiles are used to kill Luma, end stop.

If Rosalina has the fruit she becomes horribly gimped in the air, because even zdropping it causes too large a startup on those same aerials. We can spam Hydrant if she insists on using Gravity well when we use it. The matchup is not hopeless, it just forces Pac-man into a particular and meticulous play-style, she cannot approach us, or pressure Pac-man like Sonic or Fox can, because she stops dead while using gravity pull. She is a very campy character, and aggressive Pac-mans should not have issues once you learn the other players gravity pull preference. It would at most be 65-35, but I still lean towards 60:40 because she is unable to really apply pressure on Pac-man.

Moving this discussion here, to the appropriate thread.

The problem isn't that Rosalina on her own destroys us, the problem lies in getting Luma off her. With down b, she stops our safest Luma pokes. Fair and Bair are both high risk moves due to their landing lag and low range. Pac has no reliable option for dealing with Luma besides throwing himself at her and trying to use our safest options as mixups, else they be invalidated. This is horribly unsafe and once a Rosalina player understands the MU, it gets even harder.. Notice how Dabuz played a lot differently in the first match against Abadango compared to in the second and third matches where he began to understand how to deal with Pac. I play as an aggressive Pac, all it does is end up with me getting hurt a lot of the time. A balanced needs to be struck because, as Abadango found, trying to be campy just leads to timeouts, which we will almost certainly lose.

As for the skype group, a lot of us are frustrated because Pac seems to have a lot of horrid MUs and the more I play, the more I discover. Being one of the few Pac mains in Australia means a lot of the time I can get by on MU inexperience but even then, people can either figure him out pretty quickly or have the tools to stuff Pac up. I'm not giving up on this character though. I know I can be pretty negative about him at times, but I've put 100 hours into this guy and I'm not about to throw in the towel.

So Paper Maribro said this in the customs thread:



I want to see how Side B healing and, consequently, more hydrant spam play into the Rosalina MU because I think it's going to be a big deal. I don't think we'll ever beat her, but healing off of GP is still a thing. She neuters our BF game quite a bit, but as I pointed out, she has to GP hydrant or we can KO Luma pretty easily. I still see this as a MU where Pac-Man will have to abuse the timer, but I could be wrong. I think the best approach will be setting up trampolines to cover a charge to Key and flinging hydrants at her, plus side B'ing on GPs to heal yourself. It will be difficult, but I think it can happen.

I haven't fought any great Lucarios, but I imagine our KO'ing trouble will be abused by him. Sonic had the same problem with Lucario in Brawl. It really wasn't that bad until Sonic had to somehow KO him, which he just couldn't do reliably.

I think Mario is overrated as a difficult MU for Pac-Man.

Fox scares me about as much as Rosalina as Pac-Man. He is bad, and he has a KO confirm off of jab. I think that MU will get worse with time.

Even Abadango goes secondaries vs. Sheik, and I see why. I don't think it's 70:30 or anything, but I don't think it's worth the effort.

I've only played a decent Bowser online, but it was enough to make me lean towards even on that MU. I will record those replays and they should explain why. His speed + power is a problem for us.

Sonic is bad for us and will probably get worse.

I've been punished in the air before for dropping hydrants and then R&L punishing the cool down so I dunno if that would be a great way of testing it. Unless you're trying to force grav pull spam. It wouldn't be a bad idea, but one that no R&L player should be allowed to do anyway so it's good that we can outright force them to stop.

It is. I've played a few and it's always fairly easy to get him to about 130% where he suddenly becomes the best character in the game and a command grab can kill you at approximately 60-70%. If an opponent goes on the defensive at this point and decides to shield a lot, our lack of a grab option is horrible as we can risk going for it but if we whiff, you're utterly dead.

I'm yet to play against a good Mario. I have limited experience with this MU but know a solid Mario so should probably ask him for some MU experience soon.

Agreed, Fox is disgusting for us. His speed, kill confirm and power makes him a really problematic opponent. Yoshi also has a kill confirm off of a jab (jab > Down b) so he's pretty difficult too.

I think we have a better Sheik MU than other characters, but it's still probably in her favour.

It could be even but I'd lean to in favour due to superior range as well as speed and power. As always though, he is a floaty heavy so can be juggled quite easily. A lot of the time, the problem can be going in on Bowser.

Agreed, I'm now leaning towards a worst five matchups of Rosalina and Luma, Sonic, Fox, Yoshi, Lucario. These are the five characters we should probably focus our efforts on and how we can stop them invalidating us.

 

[Nu~]

Hmmm...you make it seem like our main may end up just a mid tier character...
Invalidated by the top tiers...

I still strongly feel that we are high tier, but hearing all the pessimism from the rest of the pac-mains makes me feel like the minority.
I think we should wait and discover more about pac-man before we label all of top tier as disadvantageous for us (we really have only scratched the surface. Current results are only a small portion of the big picture)
but eh. That may have to be an individual goal for me.

 

[Jay-kun]

Moving this discussion here, to the appropriate thread.

The problem isn't that Rosalina on her own destroys us, the problem lies in getting Luma off her. With down b, she stops our safest Luma pokes. Fair and Bair are both high risk moves due to their landing lag and low range. Pac has no reliable option for dealing with Luma besides throwing himself at her and trying to use our safest options as mixups, else they be invalidated. This is horribly unsafe and once a Rosalina player understands the MU, it gets even harder.. Notice how Dabuz played a lot differently in the first match against Abadango compared to in the second and third matches where he began to understand how to deal with Pac. I play as an aggressive Pac, all it does is end up with me getting hurt a lot of the time. A balanced needs to be struck because, as Abadango found, trying to be campy just leads to timeouts, which we will almost certainly lose.

As for the skype group, a lot of us are frustrated because Pac seems to have a lot of horrid MUs and the more I play, the more I discover. Being one of the few Pac mains in Australia means a lot of the time I can get by on MU inexperience but even then, people can either figure him out pretty quickly or have the tools to stuff Pac up. I'm not giving up on this character though. I know I can be pretty negative about him at times, but I've put 100 hours into this guy and I'm not about to throw in the towel.



I've been punished in the air before for dropping hydrants and then R&L punishing the cool down so I dunno if that would be a great way of testing it. Unless you're trying to force grav pull spam. It wouldn't be a bad idea, but one that no R&L player should be allowed to do anyway so it's good that we can outright force them to stop.

It is. I've played a few and it's always fairly easy to get him to about 130% where he suddenly becomes the best character in the game and a command grab can kill you at approximately 60-70%. If an opponent goes on the defensive at this point and decides to shield a lot, our lack of a grab option is horrible as we can risk going for it but if we whiff, you're utterly dead.

I'm yet to play against a good Mario. I have limited experience with this MU but know a solid Mario so should probably ask him for some MU experience soon.

Agreed, Fox is disgusting for us. His speed, kill confirm and power makes him a really problematic opponent. Yoshi also has a kill confirm off of a jab (jab > Down b) so he's pretty difficult too.

I think we have a better Sheik MU than other characters, but it's still probably in her favour.

It could be even but I'd lean to in favour due to superior range as well as speed and power. As always though, he is a floaty heavy so can be juggled quite easily. A lot of the time, the problem can be going in on Bowser.

Agreed, I'm now leaning towards a worst five matchups of Rosalina and Luma, Sonic, Fox, Yoshi, Lucario. These are the five characters we should probably focus our efforts on and how we can stop them invalidating us.

In order from highest to lowest threats.
Rosalina and luma, Sonic, Bowser Jr, Yoshi, Pacman.
I dont agree with Lucario because Pac can kill fast.

 

[Jay-kun]

Hmmm...you make it seem like our main may end up just a mid tier character...
Invalidated by the top tiers...

I still strongly feel that we are high tier, but hearing all the pessimism from the rest of the pac-mains makes me feel like the minority.
I think we should wait and discover more about pac-man before we label all of top tier as disadvantageous for us (we really have only scratched the surface. Current results are only a small portion of the big picture)
but eh. That may have to be an individual goal for me.

Now, I can agree, but I am a diehard default Pacman player, no customs, so it may be harder for players like me.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

The Rosalina Match-Up Analysis thread is currently analyzing PAC-MAN. Got anything to say about the match-up? If so, PAC-MAN's discussion period will last until the end of 2/16.

 

[makemesmellbad]

As presented on Abadango's YouTube channel, Pac can, in fact, edge cancel off of his Hydrant and edge cancel his Power Pellet's recoil bounce.
This new tech could possibly make his hydrant play much faster, and his edge guarding can now cover a much larger, more intimidating distance. This means Pac's already monstrous gimping ability is suddenly even more powerful, being able to launch his hydrant much faster and cover more area with active hitboxes (as well as a point with super armor) along edges. If we can figure out ways to implement this tech to a multitude of setups, this could change Pac-Man's viability by a marginal sum.