The Status of Palu's Meta, and the Issues We Must Address to Improve It

[sjb.dario]

It's been about two years since the release of Smash 4. Quite a long time has passed since then. There have been many changes in tier lists, updates, and such that heavily affected the meta of the game; the game right now looks vastly different from the game when it was first released.

But, the important question here is, what about Palutena?

As someone who did not pay attention to her for a long while, I am not entirely sure how she played in the early early days. But, I know that she was regarded as one of the worst characters in the game. Nearly all of her moves were not safe on shield and very laggy in terms of frames. Her only saving grace was her custom moves (which met a terrible fate in the competitive scenes). The only notable Palutena player during this time was Aerolink, but with his failure to produce significant results with Palutena without customs, the character fell into the void of irrelevance.

Months passed, and with a few major updates that helped Palutena, she gained some popularity. Her moves became more safe on shield (such as her d-tilt), she got a few setups, and she found ways to rack up damage. Players like IceNinja and TLTC showed that Palutena can be more than just a d-throw -> u-air character. During this period of time, people were able to develop Palutena's neutral game to a decent level.

Despite these advancements made to a bottom-dwelling character, however, she is still thought to be unviable in high-level competition. At most, she is thought to be a mid-tier character with clear drawbacks that make her a situational pick.

There have been no significant advancements in her meta since then.

Arguably, Palutena's current position in the tier list is, at the highest, mid-tier. Her meta has evolved to her becoming a decent hit-and-run type of mostly-defensive spacing-heavy character with a decent number of options in the neutral game.

So, what are the things that are holding her back?

1. Lack of ways to deal with fast-fallers.
Palutena's worst MUs are mostly consisted of characters with fast-falling characteristics. Another trait that ties in with this is good frame data. A good example to look at in this case is Fox. Fox is a fast-faller with great frame data. Naturally, he solidly beats Palutena in the MU. The biggest reasons why Palutena struggles against fast-fallers with good frame data are:
-Palutena's lack of reliable confirms against them
-Palutena's moves becoming more punishable due to their end-lag.
-Lack of quick aerials with good start-up frames.

Palutena's jab (which is pretty essential in terms of combos) becomes a relatively useless confirm because fast fallers can land on the ground to immediately punish her with any moves that are faster than her jab's endlag. Her f-air, which is another confirm during the opponent's early % phase, becomes less reliable as well. This leaves her with little-to-no confirms that are safe to use against them.

Due to their significant recovery lag, Palutena's moves require more commitment than ever when she is facing fast-fallers with good frame data. Whiffing them can open her up to significant punishment, which can cause some serious problems for her.

Alot of Palutena's aerials aren't slow, but they aren't exactly fast, either. Obviously, the first thing anyone can say about Palutena lacking a legitimately quick aerial is that she cannot outpace aggressive characters in the neutral game. A bigger issue I want to point out, however, is that Palutena has no moves in the air that allow her to easily get out of pressure or strings of attacks. For example, Luigi has a very quick nair that allows him to escape combos a lot of times. Palutena doesn't have any of these kind of moves. She has a n-air that starts at frame 5, but the hitbox is relatively unreliable for escaping pressure. She has a b-air that enables invincibility at frame 3, but that only covers her backside, so it's very situational when escaping pressure.

These problems plague Palutena when she faces a fast-faller with good frame data, making those MUs very hard.

2. Bad (or lack of) landing options.
It's pretty clear that Palutena's disadvantage state is pretty bad due to her lack of combo-escaping tools as stated earlier. Another thing that makes her disadvantage state bad is her lack of landing options.

Palutena gets juggled to death.

She has a lackluster air-dodge, a not-so-stellar fast-fall, bad air-velocity, and aerials that don't really cover her well when she is landing.

There are a good number of characters who are good at juggling that can hurt Palutena in their MUs (i.e. Cloud, Corrin, Mario, etc.). Ability to juggle and punish landings efficiently is a much bigger factor in MUs than people realize, and Palutena's lack of known options when landing seriously hurts her in the meta.

3. Lack of high-damaging combos
Palutena may have not-so-great-but-existing combos, but her lack of high-damaging combos can be troublesome. Having powerful combos really help characters because that would mean that they could win the neutral a lot less times than their opponents and still win the whole game. A good amount of high-tier characters (and even mid-tiers) have this trait (obvious one being Bayonetta, but also ZSS, Fox, etc.). But, because Palutena doesn't have any of this, she has to win the neutral a lot more times than her opponents most of the time. This leads me to the next point...

4. Lack of hit confirms
Having many hit confirms is awesome. This means that you have many options in the neutral that can be converted to a combo when you land the moves.

Unfortunately, Palutena only has about two or three known reliable hit confirms: Jab, f-air, and b-air. And, of these three confirms, only jab confirms reliably most of the time. This means that, most of the time, you'll be heavily relying on these three moves in the neutral. Kinda sucks when you have to rely on only three options to win the neutral while some of the other high-tier characters have many.

Having little hit confirms also makes the character very stale in terms of versatility. It's hard to get creative with your character in the neutral game when you have only 3 hit confirms. This would mean that you have to mindgame your opponent more, but even that can prove to be very difficult if your opponent catches on to what you are trying to do. Mindgames are not the most reliable way to win neutral for this reason.

5. Lack of killing options
Palutena doesn't have a reliable option to really kill the opponents outside of d-throw -> u-air/b-air/u-smash read (and this is already hard to perform due to Palutena having to read the opponent's movements and moves). Her only other known option is to stack up the opponents' % to about 160 and jab -> n-air/u-air/u-smash read. Other than this, what Palutena can do is b-air when the opponent reaches a very high % or gimp the opponent offstage. A lot of high-tiers, however, have very good recovery options, so beating them out offstage can be a lot more difficult than people realize.

6. Lack of zoning options
Palutena's autoreticle is not as terrible and "unusable" as many people point it out to be, but they're right in that it's definitely not stellar in any way. Due to her lack of effective projectile usage and super-long reaching moves in general, she lacks zone control that can seriously give the high-tier characters a run for their money.

These are the main problems of Palutena that I can think of right now. There may be more; if that is the case, feel free to say them so that I can add them on to this post.

Obviously, it would be very difficult to address all of these problems. But, fixing these problems (or mitigating their effects) will seriously help Palutena's meta. Another thing that can help her is significantly improving her strengths. For instance, her offstage game is decent at the moment, but it still can be unreliable against characters with good recoveries at times. Finding a way to make her offstage game incredibly powerful can still help her meta a bit even if her problems aren't addressed.

Anyways, this is my thoughts on Palutena's meta currently, and the issues that are hindering her from becoming a significant force to be reckoned with in the competitive environment. What are your thoughts on this issue? Any other points that I might have missed?

 

[snook]

Just for the sake of posting something I'll just throw in a quick overview of what I think about your thoughts.

The biggest reasons why Palutena struggles against fast-fallers with good frame data are:
-Palutena's lack of reliable confirms against them
-Palutena's moves becoming more punishable due to their end-lag.
-Lack of quick aerials with good start-up frames.

I feel the first point here depends on the specific match-up to an extent, but really this is just a problem with Palutena in general, not only against fast fallers.


I say that in relation to kill confirms, but when you're talking about just standard hit confirms it's not too bad at certain percent ranges. Once you get at least 20% on fast fallers from d-throw or stray hits like f-air, you can definitely get some decent confirms like f-air to dash attack, f-air to grab, even f-air to f-air once the damage builds up. And down throw is pretty much always guaranteed damage against them, the only problem really being getting the grab in the first place. But yeah confirms aren't TOO much of a problem for just damage dealing, it's getting the initial hit that's pretty hard against fast mobile characters and of course getting the kill confirm.

This just means she has to kill through other means by conditioning the opponent into worrying about other setups rather than going for the obvious kill confirm, being down throw up-air. For example setting up edgeguarding situations with either b-throw or f-throw repeatedly to the point your opponent expects this option.


She definitely has to throw out moves extremely carefully but end lag isn't too much of a problem with properly spaced aerials like f-air. Mixing in empty hops and tomahawks can really help get in safe hits too. It really depends on how your opponent prefers to play, hyper aggressive players calling out your empty hops and constantly trying to rush you down are susceptible to moves like retreating b-air or cross up f-airs.
If anything I think the start ups are the problem for most of Palu's moves(as your say in your next point), particularly out of shield she'd have a hard time against characters with good pressuring tools.

Palutena's jab (which is pretty essential in terms of combos) becomes a relatively useless confirm because fast fallers can land on the ground to immediately punish her with any moves that are faster than her jab's endlag. Her f-air, which is another confirm during the opponent's early % phase, becomes less reliable as well. This leaves her with little-to-no confirms that are safe to use against them.

I feel like jab gets a different use with fast fallers, gaining stage positioning and edge-guarding. You should pretty much always just rapid jab against fast fallers. It's pretty good for stopping approaches if you just hold it out but you definitely shouldn't just do this randomly, try to get a grasp of when your opponent likes to run in and what they do when they run in ( be it shielding, going for grabs, dash attack etc...)
At low percents don't hold it for too long due to them being able to di down and shield but at 20% or more it's definitely advisable to go for the rapid jabs. Again it depends on which fast faller but in general rapid jab is the safer option.
Honestly at low percents you have to feel out your opponent to get a grab to deal up some base damage before you get any confirms. I feel like f-air still works decently though.
Palu isn't too heavy on confirms anyway so I'm assuming most players using her should be used to trying to bait out approaches and trying to read the opponent anyway.

Due to their significant recovery lag, Palutena's moves require more commitment than ever when she is facing fast-fallers with good frame data. Whiffing them can open her up to significant punishment, which can cause some serious problems for her.

I agree with this, she does have to basically just has to get a read on the opponent with a lot of moves when going in herself but really I think the main part of her neutral is staying defensive, observing the opponents movements and options, and going for a counter attack at just the right time. This, in a way, by-passes the high commitment of most of her punishing or offensive moves but having to do this constantly when neutral is reset is pretty stressful to deal with, especially against fast characters.
You really have to make the most of your opportunists after getting that one counter attack in, be it getting a nice edge guarding situation or planting an idea in your opponents head (depending on your chosen punish or offensive option, put the idea in your opponents head that THAT option is what your going for, leading to possible mix up options etc..)

There are a good number of characters who are good at juggling that can hurt Palutena in their MUs (i.e. Cloud, Corrin, Mario, etc.). Ability to juggle and punish landings efficiently is a much bigger factor in MUs than people realize, and Palutena's lack of known options when landing seriously hurts her in the meta.

Though I agree she gets combo'd pretty hard by characters like sheik at low percents I don't think her landing options are as bad as you're making them out to be.
Two things I think help Palu out a lot when landing are the stage and her teleport. Teleport canceling is actually really good for landing and mixing up where you're actually going to go, for example in battlefield when sent upwards after a strong hit, too far for your opponent to follow up but still putting you in a position where they can try to read your descending option to the ground, you have multiple ways you can decide to teleport, be it just a straight up teleport to a lower platform or canceling on the top one into another teleport mixing up your direction entirely.
I think this is always over-looked when considering Palu's move kit but imo it's one of her important movement options that really help out with recovering. The mix ups become even more complex when your opponent realises you can ledge cancel because they're aware of the additional option, they will also try to cover those options allowing you to get down with more simple options like air dodging or falling n-air or even a crazier mix up like ledge cancel counter anticipating their read on your mix up.

It's actually for this reason the main stages I ban are FD and Duck Hunt, the movement options gained through ledge canceling are taken away making it much harder to land.

Spoiler: Example

Examples of falling n-air to cover landing as well as teleport cancelling to mix up the landing and even get a punish.
I couldn't really find a more appropriate example of the teleports but it's demonstrating the general concept I'm talking about.

Unfortunately, Palutena only has about two or three known reliable hit confirms: Jab, f-air, and b-air. And, of these three confirms, only jab confirms reliably most of the time. This means that, most of the time, you'll be heavily relying on these three moves in the neutral. Kinda sucks when you have to rely on only three options to win the neutral while some of the other high-tier characters have many

It's true that you'll be relying on these a lot for confirms as you said, but that is exactly why you have to mix things up with empty hops, tomahawks, dash attack, baiting d-tilts and something I think is pretty under-used which is rising full hop n-air.
It auto-cancels on landing and can follow up into every other aerial (excluding d-air) if you follow the di. If you notice your opponent approaching in the air a lot this option is something that can either trade or lead to you getting a confirm yourself when counter attacking. It's a good mix up especially if the opponent prefers to approach from the air.
Something I personally like doing in neutral is autoreticle, when you have enough space it does bait an approach or condition the opponent into making a certain option when you're at that specific distance. I find people I play against shielding a lot when I do it twice in a row allowing me to get a grab usually leading to an edge-guarding situation.
Obviously this doesn't always work but it's just another example of a tool she can use in neutral, the moves your talked about are most likely her strongest but this doesn't mean she doesn't have anything else. She's very mix up heavy when it comes to what you're going to do out of a short hop, the main problem I find myself getting into is having my short hops read and caught out.

This would mean that you have to mindgame your opponent more, but even that can prove to be very difficult if your opponent catches on to what you are trying to do. Mindgames are not the most reliable way to win neutral for this reason.

Honestly don't really get this point as it can be said about pretty much any character in the game. Sure there are some characters with very strong tools they can use in neutral, but just repeatedly doing them will always lead to an eventual punish if the player is good enough to realise the repetition. Mix ups and mind games are essential to the game in general regardless of character, and being able to read your opponent is the essence of winning neutral.

Palutena doesn't have a reliable option to really kill the opponents outside of d-throw -> u-air/b-air/u-smash read (and this is already hard to perform due to Palutena having to read the opponent's movements and moves). Her only other known option is to stack up the opponents' % to about 160 and jab -> n-air/u-air/u-smash read. Other than this, what Palutena can do is b-air when the opponent reaches a very high % or gimp the opponent offstage. A lot of high-tiers, however, have very good recovery options, so beating them out offstage can be a lot more difficult than people realize.

Dash attack works at high percents (maybe 130% + depending on the character and rage). Back throw at the ledge works pretty well as well as up throw in specific situations, like on the top platform of TnC or dreamland, or at quite high percents.
It's best to go for options like these on landing opponents, staying aware of how they land or even how they approach you. Dash attack has definitely gotten me out a last hit win more than once anticipating an approaching opponent or catching their landing.
Getting a jab into grab will lead into the throws I just mentioned as well.

But yes Palu doesn't really have a reliable way of getting the kill easily, you have to read your opponent and learn what they like to do otherwise you're not gonna have a good time.
And I don't see a point in going for anything but a grab out of a jab at high percents unless you have a good read on your opponent.
As for edge guarding, AR covers high instant jump and can condition opponents to go low more often. Ledge cancel trumps are a good mix up and can condition buffered get ups or get you a surprise trump b-air kill. Up smash can hit under the ledge and cover both high recoveries and quick horizontal ones such as fox's side b.
Holding jab at the ledge can cover multiple get up options at the ledge on a few characters, beating out normal get up, jump and ledge attack. This can bait out rolls if you do it repeatedly leading to a possible back throw which again puts the idea in your opponents head that you want to edge guard. This can lead to di mix ups later in the set if they're anticipating a back throw leading to the perfect di for down throw up air, or back throw killing faster due to di'ing towards the blast zone.
Dropzone n-air is good against certain characters as it can either trade sending the opponent downwards ( like falco's f-air) or outright beating out moves sending the opponent towards the stage, possibly stage spiking, or sometimes even killing due to it's pretty good knockback.
She's not AMAZING at edge guarding but she's got some tools to deal with people.

Spoiler: Example

Here's an example of the AR catching a high recovery jump, leading to a reaction based punish

Palutena's autoreticle is not as terrible and "unusable" as many people point it out to be, but they're right in that it's definitely not stellar in any way. Due to her lack of effective projectile usage and super-long reaching moves in general, she lacks zone control that can seriously give the high-tier characters a run for their money.

Yeah it's not amazing but it's something that can force reactions that you can note, as I said earlier. As for zoning it depends on the character really. Ironically I think she has a better time zoning against other zoning characters like the two links. A combination of long lasting reflect to AR can actually be pretty obnoxious and surprisingly safe enough to do, making your opponent second guess how they want to throw out projectiles and making things easier for your when approaching, or even forcing them to approach you.

Spoiler: Example

There was actually a much better example of this about 20 seconds after this part of the match but I'm not bothered to gyfycat again with my crappy connection right now lol

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/DelayedSleepyCob-size_restricted.gif

Overall I think you focus too much about her problems in the current meta rather than her stronger points in her move set.
Don't get me wrong, she does have a lot of trouble against a lot of characters but you have to think about what good things she can do and try to work on optimizing those tools to the highest potential.

I also think you should consider stages a lot more when thinking about Palu's gameplay, the animal crossing levels being particularly good for kill setups and tri-platform stages helping mobility drastically.

I'm probably giving Palu too much credit but this is just my opinion based on my own experiences.

 

[sjb.dario]

I do think your counterpoints are good. It's true that Palutena does have a bit of landing options that do work. It's also true that you can make up for the lack of neutral options with movement options and such. I also agree that Palutena's edgeguarding tools work, as I stated in the original post.

As I stated before, Palutena has evolved to become a solid character in the Smash 4 meta game. Your points clearly show some of her strengths that many people seem to forget a lot of times.

However, what I really wanted to point out in this post is that she still lacks the tools to become a consistently competent character in high-level play. She just has many good-but-not-great characteristics while lacking in some areas.

For instance, you have said that Palutena still has movement options that add up to her neutral options. While this is true for Palutena, it's also true for other characters. For example, Diddy Kong has jab, d-tilt, banana, f-air, b-air, and n-air in the neutral game. Just imagine how devastating that becomes for Palutena when he adds those up to his movement options.

The thing about characters that work in high-level play is that they have clear weaknesses and excellent strengths that cover their weaknesses for the most part. Corrin doesn't have many hit confirms, but he has high-damaging combos. Pikachu doesn't have high-damaging combos, but he has many hit confirms that are reliable and he can get out of combos easily. Mewtwo can get killed easily, but he has moves and options that kill opponents really easily.

Meanwhile, Palutena has good traits, but they don't really outweigh her problems. Her strengths are good, but not great enough. She's a decent hit-and-run kind of character, but there are a few characters in the high-tiers that do better with that kind of playstyle.

It's true that I focused mostly on the negatives of Palutena, but I did so mostly in hopes that some people will find a way to address them, which will definitely help her a lot. As you say, though, focusing on optimizing her positive aspects can help her a lot, too, like her movement options. That's something that I mentioned in the original post, so don't worry, it hasn't escaped my pessimistic mind lol.

Thanks for your thoughts. It's great to see a good Palu player comment on this. Here's hoping that Palutena continues to rise in the ranks.