ROB Stage Discussion

[Xaqwais]

NOTE: I ended up writing a lot more than I initially thought I would for this post, but I've been thinking about this and discussing it with my training partners quite a bit. I don't think this should be thought of as a guide! I'm just an average player looking for discussion/advice/etc. Please post your thoughts!

This Saturday I will be going to my first Smash 4 tourney. I'm practicing my character control, my reactions, general awareness, and specific tech for ROB but in my preparation I thought of something I think would make for interesting discussion.

What do you guys think as the best stages for ROB? I think as a character, ROB is pretty well rounded and doesn't hate any stages in particular. But you always will and should have preferences. Don't be complacent and go to Smashville over and over because it feels fair, you want to get an advantage any time you can!

The way I approach the idea is to think about what ROB likes and dislikes about stages. Then you can compare to the legal stage list and see where your priorities lie.

What ROB likes

-Low Ceilings: With uair, uthrow, and usmash all getting quicker kills, I think this is obviously a great advantage for ROB in most matchups.

-Long Stages: ROB's zoning game is strong and he wants the room to deal with characters who like to rush him down or are forced to approach.

-Options for coming down: It's passable, but ROB's options when coming down to the stage after being launched upwards are limited. In my experience faster characters with a good juggle game can make life difficult for ROB.

-Platforms: ROB's aerials, as well as utilt and usmash, can hit people on platforms pretty well. Some characters do this better, so it may be match up dependant. There's also uthrowing up to a higher platform for slightly earlier kills.

-Thin stages: Being able to uair through stage is a nice bonus.

Dislikes

-Small stages: ROB can fend for himself, but in general you don't want a good portion of characters that close to you

-Walls: With no wall jump, ROB doesn't get much from walls. Coming in from under the stage is usually a solid option for ROB to avoid Bowling Balls, Gordos, a character coming in with Dair, etc.

-Projectile Blocks: It's never fun having your gyro get blocked.

I probably missed a lot! Feel free to post about anything else you think should factor into stage selection.

When I look at the generic starter list for Smash 4, one stage sticks out: Lylat Cruise. Lylat's ceiling feels unreasonably low when you are used to playing on Smash 4 stages. I haven't tested specifics, but uthrow should kill much earlier here, especially if you raise up to a platform.

The other benefit of Lylat is that ROBs recovery allows imprecision. Many characters have to be very careful with their recovery due to not being able to ride up the bottom of the stage and snap to the ledge. ROB won't bonk on the stage, and can get to the ledge pretty easily. Higher level opponents will be good enough to not mess their recovery up, but it's still an advantage for ROB as you can anticipate their recovery better since they have fewer options. Lylat is also thin enough that you can uair people through the stage.

The tilting of Lylat does not seem like a weakness to me. Laser tilts enough that you won't be hitting the floor if you don't want to. Gyro can travel the whole length of the stage if you are on the high side. It's less useful when you are on the lower side of the ship but you will at least be able to pick it up even sooner this way. Maybe in actuality the tilting is bad for ROB, but I have not found it prolematic.

I honestly think Lylat Cruise will be banned by most opponents in a heartbeat as it's probably ROBs best stage. (Feel free to prove me wrong!)

The other starters are less clear. I think majority of matchups ROB will prefer the longer stages. Maybe this makes Battlefield a stage you strike. With Final Destination, I think you are probably fine with it against most characters.

Between Town and City and Smashville, I'm at a loss. I think I would slightly lean towards TnC as the platforms are more varied and I feel ROB likes those more. This is a gut feeling that's not backed by much real logic. I personally need more time on each stage in more matchups before I think I could say which one is better.

Counterpicks seem less set in stone (I actually quite like @Amazing Ampharos's Stage System), but I'll talk about the ones that stick out to me.

Halberd seems strong for ROB because of it's low ceiling. Aside from that, I'm not entirely sure if a pass through stage is useful for ROB. His recovery lets you control your landing through the stage pretty well, so in theory it checks out.

Castle Siege, on the other hand, is a stage I'll probably try to stay away from more than any other stage. The first layout is cramped and doesn't give ROB the space he likes having. The second layout isn't the worst, but gyro become much less effective.

And speaking of counter picks, I think if you ever want to counter pick Final Destination, you should head to Omega Lylat. It has the same advantages of normal Lylat in terms of character recovery.


So that was a lot of text dropped all at once, sorry about that! I'd love to hear @ChiboSempai's opinions on stages, but not even just him, any player should feel free to reveal your knowledge/tech.

EDIT: Bias is pretty crazy, I thought for sure that I was killing earlier on Lylat and attributed it to Brawl Blast zones, simlar to Halberd. Turns out I'm totally wrong and ROB uthrow kills at the same damage as FD!

 

[Mister Eric]

Hey, Xaq, glad you're getting the ball rolling on stage discussions. I would suggest copying your thoughts to another post and leaving the OP clean in order to place specific Stage analysis stuff. That way everyone who visits can have a quick reference by checking the first post. You can have it labeled like:

[COLLAPSE="Smashville"]<Insert stage analysis here>[/COLLAPSE]

or:

Smashville

Spoiler

<Insert stage analysis here>

you know, something neat!

Anywho, first, I think the % you kill someone off the top on Lylat is dependent on the tilt. I personally don't like Lylat bc of the tilt messing up my movement. I like to play aggressively when I can and weaving in and out with jabs, tilts, b-reversals can be rough for me when someone does a light attack to me that brings me off the ground, landing can be a pain b/c depending on the tilt, I can be airborne for longer than I had wished. This can happen to everyone, but ROB has a hard enough time landing as it is. Not sure tho, I just don't enjoy it.

I do enjoy bf and town and city a lot due to the platform assistance for upthrows. Not to mention on TnC we have a suicide throw now. But it all depends on what the MU is. I haven't enjoyed the low ceilings and platforms too much against chars like diddy and greninja.

I don't enjoy FD because of the visuals. But if I look past that, it's definitely not a bad stage for ROB. ROB has a lot of space to work with, but quick chars can get inside his camp game, and the raised ceiling doesn't do us any favors for killing.

Unfortunately, ROB's up+b isn't really all that great when it comes to recovery when playing against people who know how to combat it. You just have to be patient, creative, and ready to tech. Always ready to tech. I think I've tech'd more in this game already than I have in 6 yrs in Brawl. So maybe stages you can fly through will help. I haven't been to enough tournaments or played the game long enough to have a thorough opinion on a lot of the stages. I won that last tournament I entered, and faired pretty well on TnC and BF.Those were my go tos. I tried halberd out, but that was a dumb cp against Diddy. It used to be good against him in Brawl, back when he couldn't kill off the top like a monster.

Those are some of my random thoughts. I'll litter more throughout this thread as time goes on. I just need more time with the game first. I wasn't enjoying ROB at first so I wasn't playing much but now I am.

 

[R.O.B. the Red Rocket]

i play ROB more offensively and not defensively

 

[Rajikaru]

i play ROB more offensively and not defensively

Then you're not going to make it very far as ROB has very few non-grab combos and is focused mostly on his projectile game, but that's for another thread.

In my personal opinion, I'd stay away from Halberd. As appealing as the lower ceiling sounds for upgrab KOs at early percents, it's still a relatively small stage and will put ROB at a huge disadvantage, plus his Gyro can be avoided much more easily with the large dropthrough, meaning his lazer is his only spacing tool. I'd say Smashville would probably be the best starter, as the moving dropthrough allows more recovery options when launched and it's a big enough stage that you can control effectively with the Gyro.

 

[R.O.B. the Red Rocket]

Then you're not going to make it very far as ROB has very few non-grab combos and is focused mostly on his projectile game, but that's for another thread.

In my personal opinion, I'd stay away from Halberd. As appealing as the lower ceiling sounds for upgrab KOs at early percents, it's still a relatively small stage and will put ROB at a huge disadvantage, plus his Gyro can be avoided much more easily with the large dropthrough, meaning his lazer is his only spacing tool. I'd say Smashville would probably be the best starter, as the moving dropthrough allows more recovery options when launched and it's a big enough stage that you can control effectively with the Gyro.

ok, i'll do that, i do be defensive sometimes and use spacing but not all the time

 

[Mister Eric]

Then you're not going to make it very far as ROB has very few non-grab combos and is focused mostly on his projectile game, but that's for another thread.

In my personal opinion, I'd stay away from Halberd. As appealing as the lower ceiling sounds for upgrab KOs at early percents, it's still a relatively small stage and will put ROB at a huge disadvantage, plus his Gyro can be avoided much more easily with the large dropthrough, meaning his lazer is his only spacing tool. I'd say Smashville would probably be the best starter, as the moving dropthrough allows more recovery options when launched and it's a big enough stage that you can control effectively with the Gyro.

That's a mistake a lot of ROBs made in Brawl. They thought ROB couldn't be crazy offensive. I actually think he has the tools for it.

I think if we break this way of thinking early, we can uncover quite a few more options for our robotic buddy. But you aren't wrong in thinking our projectile game is strong. It is. Very.

 

[Rajikaru]

That's a mistake a lot of ROBs made in Brawl. They thought ROB couldn't be crazy offensive. I actually think he has the tools for it.

I think if we break this way of thinking early, we can uncover quite a few more options for our robotic buddy. But you aren't wrong in thinking our projectile game is strong. It is. Very.

As soon as I learned how powerful the Gyro could be if you kept it in your hands instead of just relying on the special itself, the world opened up. Not to mention the Fire Gyro which is even stronger with a very little downside (has a little bit more ending lag).

Rob could possibly be offensive, but his moves don't really give him any viability for it. Most of his moves, especially his airs, have horrible start-ups, and I've really only found the Down Smash to be the most usable consistently. His sideB is great, but if it gets shielded, it suddenly becomes absolutely useless.

 

[R.O.B. the Red Rocket]

That's a mistake a lot of ROBs made in Brawl. They thought ROB couldn't be crazy offensive. I actually think he has the tools for it.

I think if we break this way of thinking early, we can uncover quite a few more options for our robotic buddy. But you aren't wrong in thinking our projectile game is strong. It is. Very.

We Agree

 

[Mister Eric]

As soon as I learned how powerful the Gyro could be if you kept it in your hands instead of just relying on the special itself, the world opened up. Not to mention the Fire Gyro which is even stronger with a very little downside (has a little bit more ending lag).

Rob could possibly be offensive, but his moves don't really give him any viability for it. Most of his moves, especially his airs, have horrible start-ups, and I've really only found the Down Smash to be the most usable consistently. His sideB is great, but if it gets shielded, it suddenly becomes absolutely useless.

I'm referring to his grab game, and neutral game. Jabs, tilts, and grabs up smash for roll reads. Dsmash is a bit worse in start up lag when compared to Brawl, but it packs more of a punch now so to use it, you have to make reads or hope you catch them slipping. I feel like the best playstyle of ROB is similar to Brawl: a good mix up of offensive and defensive. That way you don't just have one style to figure out. We can play online some if you'd like.

I'm also not big on the fire gyro due to the distance nerf. It packs punch, but I love the long distance punishes I get from the default gyro. The only custom I've enjoyed is the up+b custom (3).

 

[GwJ]

What do you guys think of Halberd? I always avoided it in Brawl because we never really had a good vertical killer, but now we have a viable Usmash and Uair.

 

[Mister Eric]

What do you guys think of Halberd? I always avoided it in Brawl because we never really had a good vertical killer, but now we have a viable Usmash and Uair.

I loved halberd in brawl vs diddy but that was about it. It also made our nair a worthy kill move i suppose.

But I'm CP'ing it a ton atm. I'm on the fence on whether or not I want to take Diddy there simply because I'm pretty sure his d-throw > u-air will string together enough to kill off the top when, on the other hand, a taller ceiling might allow you to exit out of the d-throw u-air kill range.

Other than Diddy, Greninja and maybe Shiek, I dig it. I score a ton of early % kills. You have 1 min 20 seconds to clear out a stock on the first transformation by doing an up throw on top of the platform. We have an extra recovery option. We kill earlier in general. I've landed uair kills at 60%. Mmm...I like Halberd <3

 

[B_Bech]

Okay, I'll break down my experience... (Against players with skill at tournaments)

List from best to worst:

1. Duck Hunt:

+ Easy to recover on, tree helps a ton
+ Low ceiling
+ Grass to hide gyro
+ Tree Uthrow at EARLY %
+ Duck assisted gyro bombing
+ No stage spiking
+ Easy to camp
+ Easy to get the meteor off

2. Delfino Plaza*
+ Easy to camp and shark
+ Nice angles for lasering
+ Relatively easy to stall so not hard to avoid edgeguards
+(!) Extremely low ceiling at points, you can kill EARLY with uthrow and uair
- Walk offs that will get you killed
- loss of platforms at some transformations
- Bzzzt! Water!!!

*This honestly depends on the character you fight... If you are playing against Sonic for example, I would say this is a bad stage to chose. Walk-offs + Sonic = death...

3. Halberd
+ Low ceiling and huge platform for tombstoning
+ Sharking opportunities
+ Not hard to recover on the first form
- Hazards tend to aim for the slower target (us)
- 2nd form has a really poor angle that can waste our fuel if we recover low


4. Smashville
+ Moving platform aids tombstone kills and Usmash greatly
+ Moving platform helps us conserve fuel and avoid edgeguards
+ Can perform the ROBcide gimmick kill
- a bit on the small side so it may be harder to zone
- Easy to get stage spiked if we recover low

5. Town and City
+ Plenty of platforms to play with to help recovering high on the first form
+ Second form is argueably better for Usmash/uthrow than smashville
+ ROBcide possible
+ Bigger than Smashville so easy to camp
- Stage spiking when recovering low
- There are points where there are no platforms and you are basically fighting on FD
- platforms are less reliable than the smashville one

6. Battlefield
+Platform assisted kills/ combos.
+You can uthrow at the top most platform a super early kill
+Platform set up helps recovering high
+Fairly easy to set up traps and zone
- Getting stage spiked is a thing
- A tad smaller
- Some characters can capitalize on the platforms to set up long combo chains if you let them get in

7.Kongo Jungle
+Nice angles to play with for gyro and laser
+Nice sharking
opportunities
+Barrel helps avoid edgeguards, as do the high platforms
+ You can live forever here
-.... so can your opponent
-Hard to gimp
-Harder to zone with the way the platforms are set up and floor
-You cannot use platforms for tombstone uthrow from the ground
-Ceiling is super high making kills difficult

8.Castle Siege
+Usually your opponent will ban it anyway
First form:
+Can't get stage spiked on right side
- Bad angle on the floor
- Small
- Platforms don't help us much
- Can die via transformation coming from third form
Second form:
+Technically don't have to worry about fuel
+Can camp the edges
+Laser pierces statues
+Low ceiling for UAIR kills, uthrows at top platforms
- Statues ruin your gyro game
- Walk offs usually end in death for us
- Terrible platform set up for anything we want to do
Third form:
- Everything bad about lylat and FD combined
- Very hard to zone and camp
- Super easy to get edgeguarded
- bad, bad, bad

9. Lylat Cruise**
+ Platforms to assist with kills
- Terrible angles for zoning
- The tilting stage really messes with laser and gyro
- Star Wolf theme plays and you get sad about the senseless cut
- Why do u do this sakurai
- Also, why doesn't ROB have a stage yet?
- Really, like two crappy Star Fox stages and not one Gyromite stage?
- This is Duck Hunt's first game and he got a stage... He's unlockable too...
- *ahem*

**I don't have much tournament experience here but thus far it has not been good


10. Final DON'T GO HERE
+ What large stage you have
- All the better to kill ROB with
- super hard to not get edgeguarded
- NO platforms for assisted kills
- High ceiling
- If your opponent can perfect shield say good bye to any zoning opportunities as there is nothing but a flat stage so you can't angle your laser or shoot a gyro onto a platform etc... They can get in fast... leading to combos and more combos with no platforms to interrupt.
- It's just bad news guys (For me)

 

[Xaqwais]

I'm really glad this thread is getting discussion, sorry for being absent from Smashboards so long that I wasn't keeping up with it!

About ROB's offense vs defense: I think ROB is secretly a jack of all trades character. His projectile game is very strong and what people will first think about when they see him. But ROB has some pretty good offensive tools. Retreating Fair gives you a safe attack. Short hop Nair beats a lot of options, as well as combos into another attack at lower percents. Gyro in hand is ridiculous. You have a good throw.

I'm not saying he's a fantastic offensive character like Sheik. But to say his offense is bad is pretty untrue. I feel there are quite a few matchups where you want to play much closer to your opponent than you would against others.

Anyway this is about stage discussion! I've been playing in tourney and in competitive settings in the past few weeks and have gotten to test more of the theory craft I initially had, especially for starters.

For Starter stages:
I think Lylat is not as good as I thought it was before but I don't think I'd regret going there. The way it changes the recovery game for other characters more than it does ROB is definitely a nice advantage. But overall it's not as good as I thought it was.

FD is obviously solid. I don't think its a bad stage for ROB at all, honestly. The real estate is very nice. I definitely think you should go to Omega Lylat, still. No one lets ROB go to FD on the starter pick anyway.

Battlefield still seems like a nightmare against faster characters, but honestly might be the better choice against characters who also like to zone or can use their reflector well. I do like shooting gyro onto the edge of the outer platform so it bounces off and falls at a nice angle when people try to recover. It's a pretty neat setup and I think you can go down and edge guard normally if timed right. Still need to practice it more.

Smashville/TC: Mister Eric and B_Rech are so right about it. I'm definitely leaning towards TC on this one. Smashville is fine for ROB. But I think the fact that the platforms are so high on TC, you're often able to get very nice early vertical kills. It seems pretty easy to get TC in the first game as well.

 

[Lunix7]

That's a mistake a lot of ROBs made in Brawl. They thought ROB couldn't be crazy offensive. I actually think he has the tools for it.

I think if we break this way of thinking early, we can uncover quite a few more options for our robotic buddy. But you aren't wrong in thinking our projectile game is strong. It is. Very.

As soon as I learned how powerful the Gyro could be if you kept it in your hands instead of just relying on the special itself, the world opened up. Not to mention the Fire Gyro which is even stronger with a very little downside (has a little bit more ending lag).

Rob could possibly be offensive, but his moves don't really give him any viability for it. Most of his moves, especially his airs, have horrible start-ups, and I've really only found the Down Smash to be the most usable consistently. His sideB is great, but if it gets shielded, it suddenly becomes absolutely useless.

I'm really glad this thread is getting discussion, sorry for being absent from Smashboards so long that I wasn't keeping up with it!

About ROB's offense vs defense: I think ROB is secretly a jack of all trades character. His projectile game is very strong and what people will first think about when they see him. But ROB has some pretty good offensive tools. Retreating Fair gives you a safe attack. Short hop Nair beats a lot of options, as well as combos into another attack at lower percents. Gyro in hand is ridiculous. You have a good throw.

I'm not saying he's a fantastic offensive character like Sheik. But to say his offense is bad is pretty untrue. I feel there are quite a few matchups where you want to play much closer to your opponent than you would against others.

I agree with all these posters. I find R.O.B.'s offense to be greatly under appreciated and is actually very good. Though I tend to be balanced of both defensive play and offensive play. As the above posters said the gyro is one of the best tools that R.O.B. has and is absolutely amazing for pressure and mind games when in hand. R.O.B. can also space well with Nair and Dtilt, two moves that are both valuable to a R.O.B. player since if used correctly can be difficult to punish. I apologize for going off topic but I just wanted to address this.

Anyway back on topic how would R.O.B. fare in yoshi's island and prism tower? I know R.O.B. has a hard time on battlefield due to being floaty and the platforms make it hard to come back on stage from above. I'm assuming it wouldn't be so bad on yoshi's island but I'm kind of wondering about prism tower since it constantly changes.

 

[B_Bech]

It is interesting that you guys love FD so much and I have nothing but terrible tournament experience there. I think perhaps it was good for ROB in Brawl... But not so much here...

That said, if I can get a decent omega I aactually do really well. Ironically, you lot tend to steer clear of Battlefield and that's been doing amazing by me lately. I think it might heavily depend on which character you're fighting.

 

[Green Spiny]

@ B_Bech I like your list a lot, my one disagreement is FD. I think FD is at least decent for ROB, even though lasers get a bit predictable there's plenty of room for him to reach the ground without being trapped on platforms. You'll be angling your laser from the air or against aerial enemies anyway. Also you mention Delfino's low ceiling transformation... I've won tourney matches with Uthrow there. xD

I don't really like Battlefield because I get trapped by jugglers before ever reaching the floor. But it's an alright stage in most cases. Utilt through the platform is very good, and I think (?) Uthrow from the floor launches from the lower platforms if you are right below them.

Anyway, my favorite ROB stage is Delfino. It's like Battlefield but with more room (fast characters don't catch you above or below platforms as much), and ROB generally appreciates pass-through floors. The slants and most transformations are good. Or maybe I'm just personally comfortable there... Fun fact: ROB has a very quirky swimming animation.

When it comes to stages with pass-though floors (Halberd, Delfino, Kongo Jungle), how good it is is very dependent on the matchup. It's usually good, but characters with multiple jumps like Meta Knight and Kirby can abuse it too. And the last thing ROB wants is an enemy directly below him.

 

[B_Bech]

I think what it comes down to is, ultimately, your playstyle. If you are charged gyro and laser heavy- FD. Combo Gyro heavy and grab combo focused - BF. People think all RoBs play the same but reading this thread I'm thinking tthat might not be the case. I'm extremely in your face and spacing focused with combos heavy in my game. Most of my kills come from Uair

 

[GwJ]

I think ROB is really an open book when it comes to playstyle. He's able to competently play aggressively and competently play a more defensive/campy style. He's definitely not the best in either of these ways of playing, but at the very least you can't say ROB isn't versatile.

 

[Piford]

I feel like Halberd is R.O.B.s best stage. It's really the only stage with a low ceiling in the game, and R.O.B. has a ton of vertical kill moves. Town and City is the next lowest ceiling (outside of specific transformations), but it's not really that much lower than the other stages. The traveling stages (Delfino, Wuhu Island, and Skyloft) all seem pretty good for R.O.B., but I can't quite say why outside sharking.

Battlefield is the only starter I always strike, but I might just be underutilizing the moves that are good on Battlefield (up-tilt maybe). Kongo Jungle 64 seems like the stage to always strike because of the large blastzone and inclines.