The Dr. Prescribes Victory? Post-MLG Attention on Dr. Mario

[The Legendary DJXYZ]

After seeing Nairo and ESAM playing "low-tier characters" in finals at MLG, the Smash community's thoughts of tier lists and character order are being turned completely around. Can it be true that every character in Smash 4, even the (until recently) highly neglected Dr. Mario, can be viable in a tournament setting? As more players venture out into new characters, this is becoming ever more evident. It also appears that Sheik has been dethroned as the top character in the metagame.

So with all this in mind, what shall become the fate of Dr. players everywhere after this groundbreaking performance?

 

[HeroMystic]

All Nairo really showed is Dr. Mario is an excellent counterpick character. I do not expect him to be a consistent tournament solo character. His future looks really bright as a secondary but not as a main.

A lot of mid/low tier characters are like this, some better than others.

 

[CasteHappy//]

Nairo's Doc could have played A LOT BETTER, he did great but he didn't show the full potential of the char.

Doc has one of the best OOS options in the game, the Up B, and also Up Smash.
He can kill Pikachu with Dthrow -> Fair at ~70 - 80 and it's guaranteed.

If Nairo had more experience playing Doc, he could have taken the set.

Anyway I'm glad to see the Doctor doing well at high level, BUT IT PISSES ME OFF that suddenly everybody is like "wow doc is good haha" when he's been the most underrated character since the beggining of the game.

I'm sure that people will be placing him higher on the tier lists just because Nairo take a game with him, and it's like... bruh.
There are some great Doc players out there aiming to develop the Doc meta, like TRC, 2ManyCooks and myself included, and we are just in the shadows, just because we are not top players, it doesn't mean our character is bad.


People that started with Doc reading this post, and didn't give up. You're awesome <3

 

[BasedGamerAce]

Nairo's Doc could have played A LOT BETTER, he did great but he didn't show the full potential of the char.

Doc has one of the best OOS options in the game, the Up B, and also Up Smash.
He can kill Pikachu with Dthrow -> Fair at ~70 - 80 and it's guaranteed.

If Nairo had more experience playing Doc, he could have taken the set.

Anyway I'm glad to see the Doctor doing well at high level, BUT IT PISSES ME OFF that suddenly everybody is like "wow doc is good haha" when he's been the most underrated character since the beggining of the game.

I'm sure that people will be placing him higher on the tier lists just because Nairo take a game with him, and it's like... bruh.
There are some great Doc players out there aiming to develop the Doc meta, like TRC, 2ManyCooks and myself included, and we are just in the shadows, just because we are not top players, it doesn't mean our character is bad.


People that started with Doc reading this post, and didn't give up. You're awesome <3

That's exactly what I was thinking when I heard Nairo took some games with Doc. I'm kinda happy, but I wish it was a "true" doc main who did this. Hopefully some doc mains (myself included) can reach this level and we can represent our character.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Sheik is still #1 (don't ever knee-jerk after an event), we always were solo-viable (who blew us up? No one) and we're not even a great counter pick (our character is Not extreme lol, little Mac is better at counter picking than us).

 

[Eight_SixtyFour]

Ah, the never ending cycle of underrating and overrating characters, especially the ones that you don't main, and have NO knowledge of. Nevertheless, there's some footage of Doc being used against top level players and I'm happy with that. I hope that this pushes people to learn Doc. Speaking of which, it's probably best to start uploading Doc combos and/or execution tips soon.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Ah, the never ending cycle of underrating and overrating characters, especially the ones that you don't main, and have NO knowledge of. Nevertheless, there's some footage of Doc being used against top level players and I'm happy with that. I hope that this pushes people to learn Doc. Speaking of which, it's probably best to start uploading Doc combos and/or execution tips soon.

And neutral game tips plz

 

[Dokokashira]

All I hope is that Dr. Mario doesn't become the new Donkey Kong or the new Meta Knight, where everyone starts picking him up for no reason other than to be cool and buy into the hype, and then suddenly there's a flood of new "players" of that character everywhere. Of course, having more dedicated Dr. Mario players is always great, but it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth when so many people pick up a character for no reason but because some top player used them.

 

[The Legendary DJXYZ]

"All I hope is that Dr. Mario doesn't become the new Donkey Kong or the new Meta Knight, where everyone starts picking him up for no reason other than to be cool and buy into the hype, and then suddenly there's a flood of new "players" of that character everywhere."

I was a Meta Knight main before the flood happened, and I agree that it is not fun to have that many people hype up a character. I still try to main Meta Knight but it's just not the same knowing that there's so many people who play the same character and do the same things.

 

[busken]

"All I hope is that Dr. Mario doesn't become the new Donkey Kong or the new Meta Knight, where everyone starts picking him up for no reason other than to be cool and buy into the hype, and then suddenly there's a flood of new "players" of that character everywhere."

I was a Meta Knight main before the flood happened, and I agree that it is not fun to have that many people hype up a character. I still try to main Meta Knight but it's just not the same knowing that there's so many people who play the same character and do the same things.

That's just how it go, please.

 

[Axel311]

I want to know Nairo's reasoning for choosing Doc for that matchup over regular Mario. Or other potential counterpicks for that matter.

 

[BasedGamerAce]

I want to know Nairo's reasoning for choosing Doc for that matchup over regular Mario. Or other potential counterpicks for that matter.

In that matchup, I'd probably use Lucas, and if that doesn't work I'd go Doc and Bair wall pika (I can't say if I'd go metaknight or not, never played that mu)

Other potential counterpicks? Well...If we're speaking on top/high tiers, I like going doc against Diddy (bair walling his recovery is fun, and we have dthrow fair), Sheik (that matchup is just comfortable to me, also, dthrow fair), Sonic (Doc's tools can slow him down, and I'm used to this mu since one of my training buddies mains sonic), Fox (I suck at lucas v fox, and don't know metaknight v fox, and again, dthrow fair), and C. Falcon (Edge-guarding him is fun, I'm not sure if dthrow fair is true here).

These are just the top/high tier matchups I prefer going Doc against. In my opinion, doc does well against the extreme lightweights (Jiggs, and M2), and Fast Fallers. This all just might be my style that makes matchups easier/harder though.

 

[CasteHappy//]

I've just saw a tweet from ZeRo, saying that he's going to make a NEW VIDEO about Dr. Mario. I can't believe that the "best" smash 4 player keeps doing character analysis without even playing the character a little bit, his Doc video made me so mad. And now he saw Nairo winning ONE GAME and he is like "I oppened my eyes".

Well, Smash community in a nutshell.

 

[TTTTTsd]

I've just saw a tweet from ZeRo, saying that he's going to make a NEW VIDEO about Dr. Mario. I can't believe that the "best" smash 4 player keeps doing character analysis without even playing the character a little bit, his Doc video made me so mad. And now he saw Nairo winning ONE GAME and he is like "I oppened my eyes".

Well, Smash community in a nutshell.

It's what happens with by and large underrated low tier characters. Doc has a place as a strong secondary and people are just gonna have to hold that now haha. This was pretty strong proof.

 

[Eight_SixtyFour]

I've just saw a tweet from ZeRo, saying that he's going to make a NEW VIDEO about Dr. Mario. I can't believe that the "best" smash 4 player keeps doing character analysis without even playing the character a little bit, his Doc video made me so mad. And now he saw Nairo winning ONE GAME and he is like "I oppened my eyes".

Well, Smash community in a nutshell.

Most pseudo-intellectuals in a nutshell. "This guy sounds smart and I will listen to him 100% of the time and echo his opinions as if they are my own."

Next Video's title will be: Is ZeRo wrong about characters he doesn't play very often?

C. Falcon (Edge-guarding him is fun, I'm not sure if dthrow fair is true here).

It is but I'm not sure if it's worth doing on him. Dthrow -> Fair works on 5 heavy characters but the percentage window for all but one of them is relatively high. You might as well try to kill these characters with something else. Btw, the 5 characters I am referring to are: Ryu, Cap, Link, ROB and Megaman. Roy isn't a heavy but he falls so quickly so he can be considered a "heavy" for this purpose. His percentage window, while on the high side, is hilariously generous and I believe you can do dthrow- shorthop fair on him because of his fall speed.

Generally, the combo works best on light fastfallers. I believe that both Doc and Mario's dthrow is weight dependent. The heavier the character, the harder it is to combo at low percents. Super heavyweights just don't get comboed. Juggled for sure, but not comboed.

 

[Clock Tower Prison]

That's exactly what I was thinking when I heard Nairo took some games with Doc. I'm kinda happy, but I wish it was a "true" doc main who did this. Hopefully some doc mains (myself included) can reach this level and we can represent our character.

Check out Kudemo on youtube he does great work with Doc.
Also tier lists are trash I have been saying this for awhile now. MU > Tier Not directed at you just in general.

 

[BasedGamerAce]

Most pseudo-intellectuals in a nutshell. "This guy sounds smart and I will listen to him 100% of the time and echo his opinions as if they are my own."

Next Video's title will be: Is ZeRo wrong about characters he doesn't play very often?




It is but I'm not sure if it's worth doing on him. Dthrow -> Fair works on 5 heavy characters but the percentage window for all but one of them is relatively high. You might as well try to kill these characters with something else. Btw, the 5 characters I am referring to are: Ryu, Cap, Link, ROB and Megaman. Roy isn't a heavy but he falls so quickly so he can be considered a "heavy" for this purpose. His percentage window, while on the high side, is hilariously generous and I believe you can do dthrow- shorthop fair on him because of his fall speed.

Generally, the combo works best on light fastfallers. I believe that both Doc and Mario's dthrow is weight dependent. The heavier the character, the harder it is to combo at low percents. Super heavyweights just don't get comboed. Juggled for sure, but not comboed.

The only reason I mentioned Dthrow Fair for falcon was because I mentioned it for those other characters. Personally, Bair and Usmash are the kill moves I use the most no matter what character.

Check out Kudemo on youtube he does great work with Doc.
Also tier lists are trash I have been saying this for awhile now. MU > Tier Not directed at you just in general.

Oh...I've seen his doc. I used his doc as inspiration when I began remaining this character (after I saw Zero's video on him. I was very mad). Now I feel my doc is very similar to his (in decision making and skill). Also, I agree (involving tier lists). Tier list don't matter much in (almost) any game, but it's much, much more apparent in SSB4. In my opinion, every character is viable, and has at least a few good options. It's just harder to use certain characters in the competitive environment.

 

[Axel311]

I've just saw a tweet from ZeRo, saying that he's going to make a NEW VIDEO about Dr. Mario. I can't believe that the "best" smash 4 player keeps doing character analysis without even playing the character a little bit, his Doc video made me so mad. And now he saw Nairo winning ONE GAME and he is like "I oppened my eyes".

Well, Smash community in a nutshell.

Just because you're the best smash player doesn't mean you are always right about what you say. I think ZeRo has said a lot of things without thinking and has his biases. And at the end of the day he's a 20 year old kid as well so he's going to do that.

I never understood why people like ESAM put Doc in the bottom 5. ESAM actually put Doc at 2nd last on his tier list video on his youtube channel and said he doesn't even think he's viable (he might be second guessing himself now!). I by no means think Doc is a great character but he has good frame data, does good damage, has a projectile for spacing and has decent combo potential. I never understood how he could possibly be considered anything below mid tier.

In that matchup, I'd probably use Lucas, and if that doesn't work I'd go Doc and Bair wall pika (I can't say if I'd go metaknight or not, never played that mu)

I heard Nairo say in the post interview he went Doc because he "liked him". There might not be anymore reason than that. It might just be a comfort thing. Or maybe it was for mindgames. Or maybe he went Doc over regular mario because a tiny character like pika is hard to combo so he'd rather have the extra damage on individual hits. Who knows, hopefully Nario gives a detailed explanation at some point because I'm very curious.

 

[Axel311]

double post...oops.

 

[mr medicinal]

guys i missed th dr since brawl, and have never liked fludd..
i was allways gunn a rep the doc teirs be dammed.
dont let the new guys picking him up disscourage you from developing the meta.... what ever reasons they have for bandwagoning cant change your reasons for reping the doc in the firstplace

people got gimped early on, plus the fact you need to play in a more cerebral way than mario lead people to belive he was an inferior clone with bad recovery...
its just taken time for people to get over their first impression

 

[Wtfwasthat]

I never thought Doc was bottom tier, his frame data is too good to be below midtier in my opinion

 

[Thinktron]

All I hope is that Dr. Mario doesn't become the new Donkey Kong or the new Meta Knight, where everyone starts picking him up for no reason other than to be cool and buy into the hype, and then suddenly there's a flood of new "players" of that character everywhere. Of course, having more dedicated Dr. Mario players is always great, but it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth when so many people pick up a character for no reason but because some top player used them.

I founds 4 dr mario players on for glory last night :/ before yesterday iv only seen 3 since i got wii U back when it was released

 

[HeroMystic]

This reminds me of when people thought Mario was still trash until Ally started cleaning up tournaments with him.

As a player that has been playing Mario ever since Smash 64 out of pure love for the character, it feels like a strange phenomenon whenever it happens. At first you feel like you're the only player on the local scene using your favorite character, but then suddenly there's a surge of players picking up Mario (and doing terrible with him). And then suddenly you see your character on stream a lot more.

In Mario's case, this led to him being a top tier character, so that's just the metagame doing it's thing. Personally, it can be somewhat tasteless as this happens because that novelty factor is gone. You're no longer seen as a player that loves Mario, but rather just another typical Mario player. At the same time though, is it really a bad thing?

It almost always takes a top player doing amazing things with a low tier for people's eyes to open. That goes with any fighting game but especially so in Smash due to the nature of it. The funny part is Nairo only used him for one set, didn't do anything amazing about his play and yet that was enough to get the entire community to look into him. There's literally nothing Nairo did that set that was anything new to me, but it did show off the patchwork that Doc got the past year.

My advice is to just embrace the meta and be thankful that commentators will actually have to take time to not spout bull**** about your character anymore. You're still the Doc mains here to show people how it's done.

 

[WritersBlah]

I've always been kind of iffy on the commonly spouted theory that Doc was bottom tier, and Nairo's victory over ESAM has been the game changer in that regard. In my personal opinion, even though I think Doc lies somewhere in the bottom half of the tier list, I'm starting to wonder how much that even really matters. This game seems to have a meta similar to Smash 64 actually, where despite the bottom tier is indeed noticeably worse than the top tiers, still have character aspects that are effective against the rest of the cast and allow them to still be viable. It becomes a game where matchup knowledge is more important than outright tier placement. I think Doc might be that case, the Pikachu matchup in particular being kind of a Melee Fox vs Falco case. In theory, Mario has the potential to wreck Pikachu harder than Doc (like Fox), but the way Doc's character works might just make the matchup easier to fight, starting at a higher skill floor than Mario, though the height of the skill ceiling between the two might be more debatable (like Falco.)

 

[Will_]

Nairo just sorta stole the momentum in those sets. Not saying doc is garbo tier but I am saying that people are overreacting to the single set in relation to doc's tier placement. Nairo landed grab after grab in that set, using things like empty jump grab and careful spacing in his approach. Your average player picking up doc will not do that and that won't(usually) happen in high level play because 1. Nairo had momentum and reads 2. He could have done what he did with other characters with similar grab frame data.

But as stated before the tier placement doesn't really matter. New people playing him is fine. Just don't think that you can clean up your locals with doc for free.

 

[Onoh]

Praise be to our savior Nairo! Seriously though, recovery is an important attribute in this game, but Dr. Mario just has all the right tools other than that. It just took one major tournament and a 3-0 victory over a pikachu (and samus) to show everyone that he isn't a horrible character.

 

[Thinktron]

Praise be to our savior Nairo! Seriously though, recovery is an important attribute in this game, but Dr. Mario just has all the right tools other than that. It just took one major tournament and a 3-0 victory over a pikachu (and samus) to show everyone that he isn't a horrible character.

To be fair esam had no idea what to do against doc since he always dismisses him as terrible, i hope this pushes doc to the bottom of mid tier, he didnt deserved to be in lower tier but people are starting to over-hype this

 

[mr medicinal]

tbh with docs cape /b reverse cape ,off stage tornado,pills and his up b ledge trumps
you shuold be messing up as many recovery's as your getting gimped yourself

mixing up your recovery with wall jumps, dr tornado mashing , pills from above and using the cape to lege snap will greatly help you geting back on the stage

 

[MarioMeteor]

I always believed Doc was a viable character. Still do. I think he's a solid mid tier. This didn't really surprise me, it was only a matter of time before somebody came to show everyone that Doc is indeed a good character.

 

[jigglesthepuff]

Doc isn't horrible, but he isn't really that good either. His kill power and frame data, along with his sluggish speed and sub-par recovery, probably land him in the low part of mid tier.


Something that also bothers me when someone plays Doc is that they never use down b as a recovery move.

 

[Clock Tower Prison]

So I just found out Zero did another analysis on Doc. This truly just proves he doesn't give anyone below top 10 a chance just dismisses them without even playing them. He shouldn't be allowed to do analysis videos. He keeps changing his mind more than [insert metaphor here] I never had to change my mind about any character since I have played all of them frequently and while I may not love them all I'm aware that each is capable of great things.

 

[teluoborg]

I see a lot of over reaction in this thread while the only things we know for sure is that Doc is a good character to play if you want to beat Esam and you are Nairo.
Is Doc better than what most people account him for ? Yes, because people don't do their homework and do not learn every single matchups. Remember Nairo used to beat people with Zelda too.
Is Doc a viable character ? Now that's strecthing it a bit. Just because Nairo, a very good player with very solid basics, went 50-50 against Esam's Pikachu doesn't mean Doc has the tools to deal with the high tier crowd that populates tournaments. If anything Nairo has proven that the Doc Pika matchup is manageable.
Will Zero stop giving his insights about recent smash events ? As long as people keep asking him, no.

 

[_Brawler]

Doc is a good character, I main him in SSB4 and in Melee he really plays out different than Mario, and ZeRo really needs to kinda shut up about lower tier characters.

 

[Gamingpro208]

Tbh, This Doc hype thing is really only because Nario played as him and beat a top player at MLG... wanna bet that Nario could have done this with a Character like Zelda or Charizard or Ganon and they wold have gto thE same hYPE, lwaving Doc in the dust. I see many more Docs on FG now.... considering that I mained doc since day 1..... most of the people on FG play Doc as if there where playing Mario.... they do stuff like D-Throw to U-tilt, nor knowing the knock back of the move is to high for that 'combo'

But soon, Just like how Donkey Kong and Meta Knights hype was lowered down to Nothing, I hope that Doc does the same, I don't like the unnecessary 'Your Doc is hype' comments I get when I fight someone with Doc

And then there just ZeRo who just complety changes his mind on him within the span of... wut... 5 months? XDDDD

 

[Dobbston]

Dr. Mario's biggest problem is still mostly range. His moveset could easily be great if pills either just did more stun, had way less lag, or if his cape had way better horizontal range. No matter what you do, Dr. Mario has a huge blind spot right in front of him in the air since Fair is way too slow and his cape has basically no horizontal range.

 

[Jmon101]

Nairo's Doc could have played A LOT BETTER, he did great but he didn't show the full potential of the char.

Doc has one of the best OOS options in the game, the Up B, and also Up Smash.
He can kill Pikachu with Dthrow -> Fair at ~70 - 80 and it's guaranteed.

If Nairo had more experience playing Doc, he could have taken the set.

Anyway I'm glad to see the Doctor doing well at high level, BUT IT PISSES ME OFF that suddenly everybody is like "wow doc is good haha" when he's been the most underrated character since the beggining of the game.

I'm sure that people will be placing him higher on the tier lists just because Nairo take a game with him, and it's like... bruh.
There are some great Doc players out there aiming to develop the Doc meta, like TRC, 2ManyCooks and myself included, and we are just in the shadows, just because we are not top players, it doesn't mean our character is bad.


People that started with Doc reading this post, and didn't give up. You're awesome <3

Love from edmonton <3