the 4 main criteria of solo viability.

[anas abou]

lately many top players have disscussed solo viability in characters or rather the lack of it, many have even claimed that the metagame is heading towards a new so called "counterpick meta" where the usage of multiple main characters (sometimes secondaries or even pocket characters) is the solution to difficult matchups that are commonly seen in bracket, but does this line of thought hold true ?

it's no secret that solo maining the great majority of characters is a challenging feat at a high level, but what makes a character solo viable ??


1- how well can it deal with defensive play/options : this is a big (very complicated) one, as matchups with characters that like to sit in shield or play evasivly, in the case of shielding having a rewarding grab can condition the opponent away from shielding although a good grab game is not always required to do this as characters like andachieve this by having good pressuring and safe on shield moves, while evasive play can be simply shut down if the characters has right kit whith mostly good speed and frame data.


2- recovery : this one is really simple, a character with a short()/exploitable() recovery can be simply shut down by characters with a better recovery or better edgeguarding tools, making offstage play heavily one sided.


3- neutral vs punish game and kill power (risk/reward) : characters that can win neutral very often but don't get to punish as hard at later percents and have limited kill power like and WILL suffer from bad matchups against heavies and due to the rage mechanic, while the opposite is true for characters with good punish games like usually have shortcomings in neutral (laggy grab in this case) and will be countered by characters with good neutral, so a good balance of the two is important to insure a great matchup spread.


4- having a projectile/charge : this one deserves it's own placement, having an option like a projectile or a charge mean you can control the pace of the match by forcing approaches (you can't just jump around playing footsies if is charching limit or if is camping) and it's very detrimental to certain matchups.


keep in mind that a character can still be really good while having several bad matchups making him less solo viable, and a wharacter can be very solo viable while not being particularly great (like for example) a character can also have good matchups while not fullfilling some of these criteria if he has a great redeeming quality, also some matchups/characters are gimmicky and do not adhere to these criteria.


can someone make a good tldr i suck at doing those.

 

[Crystanium]

I think a solo viable character is a character who lacks too many bad match-ups. If Sheik performs well against most characters, she could be considered solo viable. Of course, I think Sm4sh is a more balanced game than the previous SSB games, so variables will play a role in how far you can get using only one character.

 

[anas abou]

I think a solo viable character is a character who lacks too many bad match-ups. If Sheik performs well against most characters, she could be considered solo viable. Of course, I think Sm4sh is a more balanced game than the previous SSB games, so variables will play a role in how far you can get using only one character.

but shiek still loses to many of these are very prominent and meta defining characters.

 

[Crystanium]

but shiek still loses to many of these are very prominent and meta defining characters.

Out of the 58 characters? That's still an 87% lead. Furthermore, just how bad are her match-ups against these seven?

 

[anas abou]

Out of the 58 characters? That's still an 87% lead. Furthermore, just how bad are her match-ups against these seven?

counter her.
slightly counters her.

again she struggles from the neutral vs punish game and kill power problem, she has win 4 time in neutral for every time one these characters win neutral, she dies at 80%, and she kills them at 140% giving them massive rage, she's still really good she has possible the best early game of all but she struggles in the late game

 

[Crystanium]

counter her.
slightly counters her.

again she struggles from the neutral vs punish game and kill power problem, she has win 4 time in neutral for every time one these characters win neutral, she dies at 80%, and she kills them at 140% giving them massive rage, she's still really good she has possible the best early game of all but she struggles in the late game

I agree that Sheik has poor kill moves. I wonder if this was a choice on Nintendo's part to balance Sheik, granting her combos to rack up damage quickly, but suffering from killing. Do you have a link to show Sheik's match-up list?

 

[anas abou]

I agree that Sheik has poor kill moves. I wonder if this was a choice on Nintendo's part to balance Sheik, granting her combos to rack up damage quickly, but suffering from killing. Do you have a link to show Sheik's match-up list?

there is no official list but this is the sheik matchup thread : https://twitter.com/vinnie516/status/727601090338893825
you can also check out vinnies list : http://smashboards.com/threads/hyrule-warrior-the-sheik-matchup-database.414010/

 

[Crystanium]

So Vinnie's opinion is that Bayonetta, Sonic, Mewtwo, and Mario are even. You were portraying this differently, or that's how I took it. Nice to see that Vinnie thinks Samus doesn't perform badly against Sheik. I'd say Sheik is solo viable, however, which is why she's performed so well in tournaments. There are other characters who are solo viable, not just Sheik. I just used Sheik as an example.

 

[Infinite901]

Here's how I think about solo-viability at top level:

If a character has no unwinnable matchups at top level, they're solo viable.

If they have an unwinnable matchup at top level, they're not solo viable.

 

[anas abou]

So Vinnie's opinion is that Bayonetta, Sonic, Mewtwo, and Mario are even. You were portraying this differently, or that's how I took it. Nice to see that Vinnie thinks Samus doesn't perform badly against Sheik. I'd say Sheik is solo viable, however, which is why she's performed so well in tournaments. There are other characters who are solo viable, not just Sheik. I just used Sheik as an example.

what i said in the beggining was my opinion not vinnies honestly i just looked up sheik matchup chart and i found him and was like yeah he's pretty good with sheik lol

Here's how I think about solo-viability at top level:

If a character has no unwinnable matchups at top level, they're solo viable.

If they have an unwinnable matchup at top level, they're not solo viable.

there's only like 4 unwinnable matchups in this game IMO (many really bad ones tho).

 

[ぱみゅ]

This is the kind of topics to be discussed at the Character Competitive Impressions Thread