The Knightmare Returns! Meta Knight Discussion Thread

[Keeshu]

Tornado at 9:15

So what do you guys think of Meta Knight's Tornado that we saw in today's direct? It's looks crazy huge in this game. Like the width of the mach tornado is the same as in brawl, except in ultimate, it's that wide everywhere, not just the top. However, Meta Knight didn't move with the tornado in this clip for some reason. Though, we only get to see it for a second. It makes me wonder if it'll be like the Dreadful Tornado custom that was in Smash 4.

 

[Sol0ke]

Let's hope the range actually matches up with the hitboxes.

 

[IAmMetaKnight]

My only concern or desire for change is the end lag. I thought Mach Tornado was fine in smash 4 except for the crazy long end lag. It was only really rewarding on hard reads or as an out-of-shield option, and MK has plenty of other OOS options that lead to combos that will deal more damage, and not be as risky to pull. Honestly, the extra range would be much appreciated, but unless it kills significantly earlier than up throw or unless they get rid of the end lag, Mach Tornado will continue to be a benched move for me.

 

[Krysco]

I used Mach Tornado a lot in Sm4sh since my cousin and I mostly did FG dubs which has team attack off. You hit one or both opponents with it, get a free 20 or so % and then your partner gets an easy follow up. MK was also great in that mode to deal with projectile spam thanks to Drill Rush and could get cheesey kills with the descending hitbox on uthrow. Hopefully if FG dubs returns, it allows Battlefield so the projectile spam isn't as frequent.

 

[kirbstr]

Tornado at 9:15

So what do you guys think of Meta Knight's Tornado that we saw in today's direct? It's looks crazy huge in this game. Like the width of the mach tornado is the same as in brawl, except in ultimate, it's that wide everywhere, not just the top. However, Meta Knight didn't move with the tornado in this clip for some reason. Though, we only get to see it for a second. It makes me wonder if it'll be like the Dreadful Tornado custom that was in Smash 4.

It looks a lot bigger now but I that is mostly due to the wind effects around the nado. The true hitbox is represented by the yellow on the inside of the white. The hitbox looks very similar to smash 4 but it looks like it barely covers him on the top so it is probably going to function very similarly to smash 4. Hopefully it has way less endlag than before though. Also I just want to say that aesthetically it looks 100x better in ultimate than the monstrosity it was in smash 4

 

[Keeshu]

Good catch, I didn't notice the different colors. The white wind might be just eye candy. However, what if it was actually a wind box? I mean, does make sense since it is a tornado after all. I don't see that changing the move much, just a slight buff that's kind of like having more range, but not really.

 

[SirPainsalot]

Smash 4 Meta Knight was awful to watch cause of the massive (deserved) nerfs, so I'm hoping that Ultimate will do him more justice. I don't have much hopes, it seems like a lot of his moves still don't have much KO potential again, but I think it'll at least be better than whatever happened in 4. In any case it looks like he'll look as cool as he did in Brawl at least.

 

[kirbstr]

Going back through some of the footage in metaknight's character trailer, I've noticed that a lot of the attacks shown looked like they had more range.

F-tilt specifically looks a lot bigger compared to smash 4. I tested it myself in training mode and the move looks like it covers a much wider area than in smash 4 and it also seemed like it had slightly more reach.

Similarly Dimensional Cape strike also looks like it covers a much wider area and also has a bit more range.

Unfortunately most of the footage is zoomed in on in the trailer, but using marth's sword as a reference I was able to confirm that at least the first and second hits of f-tilt had more range.

His jab finisher also has a much wider arc than in smash 4, but has similar range.

Hopefully this is a good sign for us.

 

[Keeshu]

I can be quite busy, but next time I have some spare time I will try to go in-game and recreate a screenshot of the attacks in question and then try to overlap them, or at the very least put them side-by-side so we don't have to be all "it seems like this is the case". I at least want to show the comparison with the down smash because that is a massive difference but I plan to do all of the moves (unless someone beats me to the punch).

 

[MERPIS]

I get an odd feeling that people are blowing the supposed nerfs to dash attack and dthrow way too out of proportion
Also, here's hoping for brawl dair

 

[Sol0ke]

Yeah people are assuming dash attack and dthrow are nerfed when we don't even know percents.

I'm hoping MK also benefits from reduced landing lag (most likely will considering how everyone in the demo had their aerials' landing lag reduced), would make his aerials feel better.

 

[Gemba Board]

In the video where zero "analyzes" MK's moves, we don't actually know at which percents these are being done. It's like if someone made a trailer for smash 4 mk and performed all of his combos at percents they don't work at or trying to link moves at the wrong timings, etc... Like the part where dthrow knocks Lucario really far... but then the drill follow up shows black lightning kill effects... Lucario was obviously at such a high percent that drill might have killed.

Also, I'm seeing that some of you in here are speculating on "hitboxes"? Listen, the animations of these moves are good indicators of what the hitboxes look like, but without access to the game right now, determining the range of a hitbox at this point is silly. I'd say that it is unreasonable to determine if mach tornado is better or worse than the smash 4 iteration regardless of the white and yellow visual effects. We should all know by now that visual effects lie... a lot.

 

[Keeshu]

Well yeah, literally anything we see now can be changed before the game is released since it's in development. It's almost done sure, but we also don't know how old the footage is before they showed us. Could buff/nerf/or change how something operates by changing the range, hit stun, angle it sends opponents, speed, knockback growth, etc.. So yeah, any speculation right now is pretty pointless even if he was playable in the demo. Which is probably why the Meta Knight forum is so quiet.

With that said, it can be fun to speculate. The animations are basically the best shot we have to see where the hit-boxes are, better than going off of nothing.

 

[Nebunera]

Looking forward to playing this character again, my second favorite (first is Squirtle--or technically just Pokemon Trainer).

 

[MasterOfKnees]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Dark Meta Knight is on the menu boys.

 

[New_Dumal]

Meta Knight looks so much better/stronger than it was on Smash 4.
I already thought that airdodge changes were awesome for his aerial combo game, but now we can see it happening :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYO9GDUnLcI ( around 0:30, Mk forces a airdodge and takes the stock later with Dair, taking Chrom UpB was not needed).

Ladder combos are back, but it seems that S.Loop is a lot weaker so we may end it with tornado or Fair (if horizontal DI).
Also it's possible to see Fair drag K.Rool down at 2:10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziicmnkmZr4&t=109s
Here Osuma goes to Fair->Ftilt but there are a lot of possibilities. This was present in Smash4 early days but patched, let's hope it's not patched again. Fair and Uair ranges seems to be better.

 

[MERPIS]

Aw hell he's disgusting
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UXLiIWd_4BQV6fV2cUa3THz59ib9BlP6Sy9E5bnMq0o/edit
LOOK AT THIS

 

[kirbstr]

Yessss Metaknight is looking so good.

Better range on nearly all his attacks

F-tlit and Jab are viable moves now

Dthrow still has the same angle as in smash 4 at low percents

His Pseudo-Dashdance is amazing becuase of his speed and early dash startup

Less landing lag on all his arials so Dair camping, Uair strings on plats, Bair dragdowns, and Landing fairs exponentially better.

Arial combo game and edgeguarding look nearly as good as Pika due to airdogde mechanics.

Only fear is his lack of kill power but running Dsmash or dragdown bair into Fsmash/Dsmash might be a viable kill option at >110%

 

[MERPIS]

Only fear is his lack of kill power but running Dsmash or dragdown bair into Fsmash/Dsmash might be a viable kill option at >110%

Fsmash is still as stupid as it always was and buffed dsmash is actually stupid. Does the front hit kill sub 130%?
He's basically a slightly watered down brawl MK without the stupidity of uair or shuttle loop/mach tornado.

 

[New_Dumal]

DSmash could be so powerfull if crossup was not removed.
You could crossup and directly DSmash to hit the back (stronger) hit, covering the spot dodge option.
I hope DSmash become useful again.
In Smash4 it was (almost) never the best option. S.Loop killed faster and DTilt puts into a tech situation.
Brawl's infamous DSmash will never appear again, but I expect something in between.

 

[MERPIS]

DSmash could be so powerfull if crossup was not removed.
You could crossup and directly DSmash to hit the back (stronger) hit, covering the spot dodge option.
I hope DSmash become useful again.
In Smash4 it was (almost) never the best option. S.Loop killed faster and DTilt puts into a tech situation.
Brawl's infamous DSmash will never appear again, but I expect something in between.

It has brawl's damage and I saw it almost kill falcon at 109% from middle stage, he went in that weird part of the screen where its off screen but not close to the blast zone. So maybe we might get it at 125% or so.

 

[Voluptuous Meat]

DSmash could be so powerfull if crossup was not removed.
You could crossup and directly DSmash to hit the back (stronger) hit, covering the spot dodge option.
I hope DSmash become useful again.
In Smash4 it was (almost) never the best option. S.Loop killed faster and DTilt puts into a tech situation.
Brawl's infamous DSmash will never appear again, but I expect something in between.

Overall though this mechanic change seems to favor him imo. He definitely seems like a character with good spacing tools and gimping this time around rather than a purely bait and punish character reliant on throws and dash attacks. Being able to maintain stage control and pressure people to the corner then finish the job with strong offstage options sounds just peachy to me.

 

[MasterOfKnees]

Overall though this mechanic change seems to favor him imo. He definitely seems like a character with good spacing tools and gimping this time around rather than a purely bait and punish character reliant on throws and dash attacks. Being able to maintain stage control and pressure people to the corner then finish the job with strong offstage options sounds just peachy to me.

Agreed, I think in terms of playstyle he'll at least be a lot more fun to play this time, in Smash 4 he felt fairly linear, but with this game it seems like he'll be able to make better use of his overall kit than before, there are a lot more variables to his potentially new gameplan than before. I'm optimistic that'll be the case at least.

 

[MERPIS]

Agreed, I think in terms of playstyle he'll at least be a lot more fun to play this time, in Smash 4 he felt fairly linear, but with this game it seems like he'll be able to make better use of his overall kit than before, there are a lot more variables to his potentially new gameplan than before. I'm optimistic that'll be the case at least.

The only thing he really lost was the kill power on the ladder combo but he can still use it for great damage at least. And in return he got so many substantial buffs to pretty much all of his kit. Imo he, at absolute worst, will be top 15, he looks so damn ridiculous, especially when looking at his worst matchups in smash 4, netta, Zss, sonic, and somewhat mario all got brutally nerfed into the ground, while diddy is just barely holding up with the dtilt nerfs. MK is now a character that is gonna be able to use his kit similarly to brawl, dair camping looks actually stupid as hell again and with the airdodge changes, his gimping suddenly became godlike again. I honestly think, that at his best, he could be top 3. His only actual problem now in this game is killing but he still has the stupidity of fsmash, dsmash looks like its making a comeback, dair gimping exists, bair is still a thing, and he still has that up and back throw in emergencies. I am so damn excited to see his new combo opportunities with things like ff fair or ff nair, ftilt, and he still has dash attack too. Hell he might even have things like forward air chains and walls of pain at earlier percents. God I'm excited for him there's no actual way he's going to be bad.

 

[SupriceSupplies]

Oooh man, with these buffs and the Galacta Knight and Dark Meta Knight costumes I'm really inclined to use Meta Knight as one of my go-to characters. I'll be looking forward to trying him out when the game releases.

 

[MERPIS]

Does anyone have clear footage of dair yet? I wanna see how stupid its hitbox is now. Since it apparently got a major hitbox buff.
Top tier MK!

Don't yell at me for the double post but I think I found dair's hitbox.

Doesn't look very easy to spot does it?
That's why I kinda took the liberty to roughly outline what I think is the hitbox
Here:

If this is accurate, which looking at the animation, I think it is, this move is gonna be utterly broken in a gimping and air camping situation, look at that horizontal range!

 

[kirbstr]

Don't yell at me for the double post but I think I found dair's hitbox.
View attachment 175652
Doesn't look very easy to spot does it?
That's why I kinda took the liberty to roughly outline what I think is the hitbox
Here:
View attachment 175653
If this is accurate, which looking at the animation, I think it is, this move is gonna be utterly broken in a gimping and air camping situation, look at that horizontal range!

I'm salivating, god has joined the server and his name is brawl MK.

Who's ready for the 70-30 matchup against Falcon and Mario lmao.

 

[MERPIS]

I'm salivating, god has joined the server and his name is brawl MK.

Who's ready for the 70-30 matchup against Falcon and Mario lmao.

I'm ready for the 60-40 vs cloud and the 55-45 against netta
Also since you liked dair so much, I might as well do up air.
Here you are:

 

[kirbstr]

I'm ready for the 60-40 vs cloud and the 55-45 against netta
Also since you liked dair so much, I might as well do up air.
Here you are:
View attachment 175657

Hmm it definitely looks buffed, but it might seem a bit bigger just because if K. Rools big body.

It still looks great, nothing near brawl's insanity, but way better than smash 4. How is hit hitbox on Fair? I'm looking through footage and can't find much. That move was so bad in smash4 it would be nice if it was actually usable this time.

 

[MERPIS]

Hmm it definitely looks buffed, but it might seem a bit bigger just because if K. Rools big body.

It still looks great, nothing near brawl's insanity, but way better than smash 4. How is hit hitbox on Fair? I'm looking through footage and can't find much. That move was so bad in smash4 it would be nice if it was actually usable this time.

You want a specific hitbox on it or all 3?
Also, just praise the fact that up air actually hit k rool at that distance, u air in smash 4 would've grazed right through him.

 

[MERPIS]

Don't answer that. Here:

I won't lie, this one is sorta inaccurate since the best video of it I could find has him so damn small. Fair's range is actually a lot better than this.
I stole a video from twitter and uploaded it to youtube and that's the only way I could view it in frames.
If you wanna view it yourself here:

Twitter video is from Osuma on twitter

 

[MERPIS]

Do we know or can we at least theorize the full extent of Meta Knight's new combo potential?

 

[New_Dumal]

If they don't patch out, and I think they will, Fair will be great to reset combos from Dthrow at 0%.
Something like Dthrow-> Fair drag opponent to the ground -> Dthrow -> Fair -> DThrow -> Uair/Nair/Bair
I think Dtilt locks wil be impossible because of the new mechanics, but Fair is doing this again:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fllS4Ke2IN8

Now it's possible to tech footstools, so DThrow/Fthrow-> Uair + footstool is also completely gone.
Still possible to fall over the footstooled opponent and techchase either direction with Dimensional Cape

We need to test what is useful to finish ladder combos this time around (aside S.Loop).

• It's possible to finish with Nair ?
• It's possible to finish with Tornado ?
• It's possible to finish with D.Cape ? (I think it's safe that this will be impossible but it's the main finisher in PM)

Horizontal ladders still exists ? It seems that the angle people are going after being hitted by Mk's Uair is more vertical again, so maybe Uair->Dair-> Fair/Bair it's gone, but we need to test.
A lot of stuff I want to try out when the game launchs:

• FTilt1 or Ftilt2 can link into something ? Now we can run and use tilt attacks, so if S.Loop/USmash connects after interrupting FTilt attacks, it's possible to achieve new kills setups from dash, since dash attack -> S.Loop is gone.
• UTilt can link into something ? UTilt will be more usefull as a juggle option now that we can apply out of dash, but we need to test if it's possible to connect a S.Loop afterwards or not.
• DTilt-> D.Cape is true combo at some characters again ? A lot of people don't know but DTilt was a true combo to D.Cape in some character at Smash4.
• Jab at the ledge can be interrupted to specials ?
• DThrow->Fair . I think this option needs to be looked into because Fair knockback is more horizontal and will probably be good to keep the advantageous stage against characters without disjointed hitboxes, not able to escape another Fair and another...

Something that is very big to Mk and people uses to forget is that airdodging is quite worse in Smash Ultimate so we need to develop flow charts considering their airdodge. If something doesn't connect because they can airdodge between hits, it's possible to yet cover the airdodge option after the missed attack (Sheik does this with Bouncing Fish-> Bair, for example).

 

[MERPIS]

If they don't patch out, and I think they will, Fair will be great to reset combos from Dthrow at 0%.
Something like Dthrow-> Fair drag opponent to the ground -> Dthrow -> Fair -> DThrow -> Uair/Nair/Bair
I think Dtilt locks wil be impossible because of the new mechanics, but Fair is doing this again:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fllS4Ke2IN8

Now it's possible to tech footstools, so DThrow/Fthrow-> Uair + footstool is also completely gone.
Still possible to fall over the footstooled opponent and techchase either direction with Dimensional Cape

We need to test what is useful to finish ladder combos this time around (aside S.Loop).

• It's possible to finish with Nair ?
• It's possible to finish with Tornado ?
• It's possible to finish with D.Cape ? (I think it's safe that this will be impossible but it's the main finisher in PM)

Horizontal ladders still exists ? It seems that the angle people are going after being hitted by Mk's Uair is more vertical again, so maybe Uair->Dair-> Fair/Bair it's gone, but we need to test.
A lot of stuff I want to try out when the game launchs:

• FTilt1 or Ftilt2 can link into something ? Now we can run and use tilt attacks, so if S.Loop/USmash connects after interrupting FTilt attacks, it's possible to achieve new kills setups from dash, since dash attack -> S.Loop is gone.
• UTilt can link into something ? UTilt will be more usefull as a juggle option now that we can apply out of dash, but we need to test if it's possible to connect a S.Loop afterwards or not.
• DTilt-> D.Cape is true combo at some characters again ? A lot of people don't know but DTilt was a true combo to D.Cape in some character at Smash4.
• Jab at the ledge can be interrupted to specials ?
• DThrow->Fair . I think this option needs to be looked into because Fair knockback is more horizontal and will probably be good to keep the advantageous stage against characters without disjointed hitboxes, not able to escape another Fair and another...

Something that is very big to Mk and people uses to forget is that airdodging is quite worse in Smash Ultimate so we need to develop flow charts considering their airdodge. If something doesn't connect because they can airdodge between hits, it's possible to yet cover the airdodge option after the missed attack (Sheik does this with Bouncing Fish-> Bair, for example).

MK looks quite a lot more varied in smash ultimate as opposed to dash attack or dthrow spam. And trust me, as soon as they’re off stage just dair spam them to death since dair is now ridiculous again, not as bad as brawl but p damn close from what I see

Ff fair or sh fair in general just looks amazing, I can see it linking into fair chains or stuff like dash attack or a grab seeing as how many frames of landing lag it has now its ridiculous. How many frames is it exactly though?

 

[kirbstr]

MK looks quite a lot more varied in smash ultimate as opposed to dash attack or dthrow spam. And trust me, as soon as they’re off stage just dair spam them to death since dair is now ridiculous again, not as bad as brawl but p damn close from what I see

Ff fair or sh fair in general just looks amazing, I can see it linking into fair chains or stuff like dash attack or a grab seeing as how many frames of landing lag it has now its ridiculous. How many frames is it exactly though?

Most of the footage I've seen hasn't been 60fps, so I don't know how accurate this is, but I'd estimate around 8 +/- 2 frames based on frame-by-frames of youtube videos.

EDIT: Is there any footage of Nair or nado that someone can link me?

 

[MERPIS]

Most of the footage I've seen hasn't been 60fps, so I don't know how accurate this is, but I'd estimate around 8 +/- 2 frames based on frame-by-frames of youtube videos.

EDIT: Is there any footage of Nair or nado that someone can link me?

Frame 6 fair....
Oh lord my sugar levels
I didnt find much nair but nado is now much faster and hits once if that helps much.

 

[Nu~]

Single hit nado sounds terrible ngl. It better have no lag or something at least

 

[MERPIS]

Single hit nado sounds terrible ngl. It better have no lag or something at least

It’s faster than brawl and it actually has good knockback, it’ll probably be good for getting out of disadvantage

MUCH better footage of some of MK's garbage now

Looking at fair it looks like it comes out on frame 7 or 8 and it has 10 frames of landing lag which is actually really good. Also his horizontal range isn't as good as it seems but his horizontal range, up air and dair are both stupid
Literally at 3:24 on that video MK hits bowser jr with uair while he was literally beside him.

 

[Sol0ke]

MK will be a good time in Ultimate for sure. I'm just grateful daddy Sakurai didn't outright nerf him and even decided to buff him.

 

[MERPIS]

For the record, is 10 frames of landing lag good? Like is it safe on shield