David, it's almost unfair to be comparing Kirby to the "big three", whom are almost untouchable beyond anyone besides "high tier" (dedede, falco, ICs, the like) and themselves.
Though I personally don't think kirby's too bad. Kirby's a useful counter to spacies, who he can score a free 50 damage on and gimp easily. (also, dair's pretty useful for gimping in general, expecially followed by a footstool)
Not to say he's the greatest, but he's certainly not awful. I'd go to say he's juuuuust higher than the median of the characters.
EDIT: oh, well you just posted what I was getting at
NEVAR MIND
ic are awkward i personally feel that while they are not horrible against snake they are destroyed very easily by meta and gaw but that's a bit of a tangent
kirby does
not counter spacies. fox and wolf, maybe, but he's definitely at a disadvantage against falco because of how shine, laser, and falco's superior shield game keeps him out. oh it's not as bad as say gaw but he's clearly not at advantage.
also, even with the gonzo combos i'd argue that a defensive fox will beat him by killing him at 80 with u-smash and lasering him and basically doing what fox did to him in melee only how instead of u-throw --> u-air the combo is u-throw --> laser. fox's u-smash makes fox's shield game superior to kirby's. add in that fox is faster and we have a winner. kirby may have better priority than fox but he's still slow and weak and constantly forced to fight, which tends to suck when you're not meta or gaw (who are the only characters imho who have the movesets to be able to approach and rambo during games most of the time).
also, being slightly over the median means nothing. everyone below high tier in brawl sucks. this is fact.
in melee you could play mid and do well, but melee was actually fairly balanced as far as fighters go. this is not melee. in melee the mid tier was composed mainly of characters with enough weapons to put themselves at disadvantage to the top but could still win with proper playing (jiggs, ic, ganon, dk, etc). due to the limiting nature of brawl and how the lower characters are slower and weaker and gameplay is more basic, the mids and under have much less available to mitigate their numerous weaknesses and cover them up. their glaring flaws are glaring. in kirby's case, it would be his lack of speed, priority, and moves.
so. kirby isn't high. kirby is mid.
mid is unviable in tournament play where the top tiers run the show.
the sooner everyone accepts this, the sooner people will improve and stop holding stupid delusions about winning with a bad character. it won't happen. it never happens in games like brawl. it just doesn't.
