Preferred stages to play for you.

[Tornado]

I know there's a stage matchup thread pinned up top but that's one stage at a time over the course of a week for each one or something.

I'm asking this in a simple and sweet fashion because I was in my first live tournament last weekend (3rd of 77) and when I'd get asked what stage I want, I just said FD because it's flat, normal, no random things to interfere, and quite frankly I have no clue about the kinds of stages pac-man does better with.

But for Pacman, what type of stages does he like and generally favor him?

 

[dragontamer]

I don't think FD is actually to our favor.

PacMan has a very strong "harass" game, but a very weak "lockdown" game. When you are facing opponents like Mario or Yoshi, who can punish high (USmash), mid (Fair spikes or Nair), and low (Bair backstage spikes) recoveries basically on reaction, even PacMan's extremely strong recovery game begins to falter.

Due to PacMan's weaker coverage of high-recoveries, PacMan favors stages where recoveries are easier. Battlefield, Smashvile, even Halberd to an extent over Final D.

PacMan has very strong mid (Fair / Nair or Hydrant) and low (Bair or Hydrant) coverage. We also have getup ledge traps with Hydrant. But... our only good high coverage seems to be UTilt, UAir, and maybe Side-B. So good opponents will take advantage of that.

Final D / Omegas favor "lockdown" strategies, characters who can cover every recovery option. Now, if the opponent has a similarly weak anti-recovery game (ie: Ganondorf pretty much hopes for a low / mid recovery into his awesomely powerful aerials. But like PacMan, Ganondorf has a blind-zone against high recoveries, especially with Apple and Hydrant covering our landing), Final D is a strong choice. But against the majority of 1.0.3 top tiers (Diddy, Shiek), or our poor matchups (RosaLuma, Yoshi, Lucario), we definitely favor the slower, safer "platform" based games.

Furthermore, our side-B provides excellent platform coverage and super-armor. PacMan is one of the best characters at covering multiple landing possibilities with the super-armor killing move Side-B. A well timed Side-B on Duck Hunt, or Battlefield's platforms can lock in a kill. With proper timing, and even erradicate the "fast fall through platform" option from the recovering opponent.

 

[Nu~]

I don't think FD is actually to our favor.

PacMan has a very strong "harass" game, but a very weak "lockdown" game. When you are facing opponents like Mario or Yoshi, who can punish high (USmash), mid (Fair spikes or Nair), and low (Bair backstage spikes) recoveries basically on reaction, even PacMan's extremely strong recovery game begins to falter.

Due to PacMan's weaker coverage of high-recoveries, PacMan favors stages where recoveries are easier. Battlefield, Smashvile, even Halberd to an extent over Final D.

PacMan has very strong mid (Fair / Nair or Hydrant) and low (Bair or Hydrant) coverage. We also have getup ledge traps with Hydrant. But... our only good high coverage seems to be UTilt, UAir, and maybe Side-B. So good opponents will take advantage of that.

Final D / Omegas favor "lockdown" strategies, characters who can cover every recovery option. Now, if the opponent has a similarly weak anti-recovery game (ie: Ganondorf pretty much hopes for a low / mid recovery into his awesomely powerful aerials. But like PacMan, Ganondorf has a blind-zone against high recoveries, especially with Apple and Hydrant covering our landing), Final D is a strong choice. But against the majority of 1.0.3 top tiers (Diddy, Shiek), or our poor matchups (RosaLuma, Yoshi, Lucario), we definitely favor the slower, safer "platform" based games.

Furthermore, our side-B provides excellent platform coverage and super-armor. PacMan is one of the best characters at covering multiple landing possibilities with the super-armor killing move Side-B. A well timed Side-B on Duck Hunt, or Battlefield's platforms can lock in a kill. With proper timing, and even erradicate the "fast fall through platform" option from the recovering opponent.

Is the bell not a good coverage move for high recoveries?

 

[dragontamer]

I forgot about Bell, but you don't always have Bell (maybe you have Key Charged and are waiting for the right moment), or maybe you used an Orange to get the opponent off-stage. So its definitely an unreliable option at best. (mostly because you usually don't have Bell).

In any case, PacMan doesn't "lockdown" a flying opponent in the same manner as Mario or Yoshi.

 

[Pegasus Knight]

It's not legal in all areas, but Skyloft is worth a look. It has a lot of slopes, and on-stage walls where you can bounce keys off of to easily get them. If your area allows it, I'd think about this stage very hard.

Pilotwings offers similar advantages, but most areas understandably ban it.

Wuhu Island also has many slopes to get some fruit off of with ease. Its bullseye-shaped arena also has a side wall that is fairly easy to bounce keys against off-stage. Volcano side walls also work for on-stage keys if you stand at the edge and then throw. Same deal with the water fountain.

Mind you, this requires playing in an environment where any of these maps are allowed and that's not a sure thing as far as I'm aware.

 

[COLINBG]

If we want to decide what stages are good or not, we can't look at them as a whole from the start of the discussion. We have to analyse the possible features a stage can have.

- Do we want platforms? What good can they do to Pacman? Pac being prone to being rushed down, having a good gimping game, and having good projectiles, is giving the opponent an alternative place to land/rest worse than the benefits Pac can gain from them? Do we prefer go-through platforms or solid ones? How many platforms is a good number? Do we want them to move?

- Are slopes useful? Is the easier fruit pick-up attractive enough to see past the fruit throwing obstruction they cause? Is the hydrant dropping made better or worse?

- Pac has trouble killing (arguably) but has a good recovery/weight. Do we benefit more from smaller or from bigger blastzones?

- Are stage transitions good? They can screw up the hydrant play; is this a big deal?

- Is a big stage better than a small one?

There's more aspects to talk about when it comes to stage features. But I think determining these kind of things is much more constructive than saying ''this stage is better than this one''. If we want to arrive to this discusion, we have to think about what Pac likes or not in a stage, do the same thing for his bad MUs, and THEN we can decide what stages fit the most criterias and help Pac do his job the most efficiently.

For example, Kongo Jungle has slopes, is fairly big, has two go-through immobile platforms, two go-through mobile platforms, and something to help people recover (barrel). Smashville has no slopes, is kind of small, much more FD-looking, and has only one moving go-through platform. Delfino has transitions, a good number of platforms, mostly large stage transformations, a fair number of walls, water. What stage has the best good features/bad features ratio? I think this is what we need to get on if we want to determine the best stage(s).