Tier List Speculation

[InfinityCollision]

Since we're talking about jump normalization, normalized landing lag for Ganon and Mewtwo when?

I highly doubt we'd ever see cast-wide alterations to jumpsquat speed regardless of merits/criticisms tbh.

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

if dreamland blast zones won't get changed then what can we expect

edit: more alt costumes, that's what

 

[nimigoha]

Dreamland blast zones shouldn't get changed, that's a losing fight.

Dreamland just shouldn't be in stagelists.

 

[Rᴏb]

dreamland's blastzones shouldn't be changed, just make DS not ****

edit: fug ninja'd

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

if warioware is in stagelists then so should dreamland, the blastzones should just be changed to make it more palatable for the general public

but that's an argument for another thread

 

[tasteless gentleman]

Bowser dair has some good uses. The one I like the most is trading the first hit of dair with spacies upb so they get spiked and cry while the pop up I recieved saves me.

Another use for dair is that if you are high in the air and your opponent is right below you, come down with a ff dair racking up damage and dragging your opponent with you.

1. Aren't there better options on a recovering space animal? Even if we look at trades i can argue that any smash attack clobbers space recoveries (because of armour) and a simple backwards crawl to grab ledge beats them or forces them to land on stage (setting up for KK or get up attack). I don't feel like this is really a good option to use as an edge guard especially with bowser's heavy edgeguard tool kit.

2. If you opponent is over extending as in your scenario, would a bowser bomb be better as it does more damage than the dair AND can easily kill an over extending opponent from the top? Maybe this is a use, but Bomb outclasses it. If they are over extending, they will need to air dodge or trade/take the hit and youll plummet down and land before they can act (on some characters this leads to an Uair also). Maybe i am being picky or knitpicking the scenario, but an option on an over extending opponent is barely a viable use.

Granted i will say that quake hit boxes are very good and i wish bair had a quake box (and shell intangibilty like it use to) and where quake boxes make the DAIR safer, its still really punishable and i think this and a lack of use (that is not outclassed) make it...invalid?

He already corrected himself, he meant Zelda went from 6 to 5.

You want more homogenization, not normalization. Normalization is making them exactly the same, homogenization is making them more similar. Range of 3-5 is perfect.

In a nutshell, I think things relying on muscle memory and/or hours and hours of practice shouldn't be normalized. It would mess with so many timings for so many characters. However I would be surprised if there were any people at all who wished DDD and Bowser remained at 6 frame jumpsquats. Bringing them down to 5 I imagine would be very well received.

Standing grabs are another thing that confuse me. DK and Zelda have a frame 8 grab, Bowser has a frame 9, and everyone else is frame 7, then you have tether grabs which shouldn't be normalized because they have wildly different lengths and whatnot. Bringing those three characters down to 7 would be a nice start. Bowser and DK have invincible OOS options but it's still nice to be able to shield grab once in a while.

Can we discuss how a frame 4 jump squat would effect bowser's game play?
As oppose to say... a frame 7 grab?
Or a grab goes out farther than bowsers nose? (I can't tell you how many tmes i whiff grabs OOS and Dash grabs, He looks like he goes out so far but falls backwards or momentum stops)
Or more air speed?
Or neutral options in general?
Or Recovery mix ups?

Get where I am going here? Lets prioritize what NEEDS to be changed over things that CAN be normalized.

And this does not apply to just bowser.

 

[Jamble]

Not gonna lie, I'd actually prefer more costumes over some stages being rebalanced for competitive. We have Fusion Suit Samus FFS. Rule of cool and all. Don't underestimate the number of players sheer coolness brings in.

T tasteless gentleman So you're suggesting that Bowser should get a great neutral game, brutal punish game, armored attacks, strong aerial game, strong ground game, a quick grab (besides the command grab he has from klaw), several recovery mixups, and what else? I'm not trying to be rude, and I'm not saying Bowser doesn't need work. But sweeping changes in so many different factors and facets of his overall game can interact with and screw the meta so fast you'll think we were playing vanilla Brawl.

Even to the worst characters, at this stage in the game sweeping changes are a bad bad bad idea IMHO. If you want to help a character, small tweaks that lend to their style and let them better capitalize on what they're good at, not bandage what they're less good at I think is a better design philosophy. It also instills a better sense of character identity. If bowser leans really heavily on his aerial game, aerial buffs would make sense. If he doesn't, I really don't think buffing it would.

The jumpsquat thing is something most people could probably agree on, and it'd be a tweak in the right direction to make Bowser a little more accessible which would also likely help his meta get better developed. The fact that it's a pain in the ass to do just the simplest movement maneuver is just ridiculous from a general player-usability/accessibility level.

 

[CORY]

if warioware is in stagelists then so should dreamland, the blastzones should just be changed to make it more palatable for the general public

but that's an argument for another thread

yoshi's melee is smaller than wario ware and is no longer on (most/sane) stagelists.

delphino's is smaller than dreamland and takes dl's place on (most/sane) stagelists.

dreamland can remain the same, a large stage/large blastzone replacement is in the official build and it's not as polarizing, same with the small/small (though, it can be argued that both are a bit too polarizing in their respective ways, still).

so, dreamland doesn't need to be changed, but its issues have been addressed, meaning that things are able to be addressed.

Get where I am going here? Lets prioritize what NEEDS to be changed over things that CAN be normalized

porque no los dos? having a better jump squat and landing animation means that he has closer to the same basic tools as the main cast, allowing for better comparisons of what needs to be adjusted. getting a 5frame jump squat and 4frame heavy landing isn't suddenly going to preclude any other changes that might occur, including changes to kits for grabs/oos/neutral/etc...

better jumping/landing animations might even help with some of those slightly, as well, since you won't be at as large a commitment everytime you want to take to the air, anyway.

 

[_Chrome]

To be fair, I feel like all seven of the stages on the bottom row are cool for starters with a 1-2-2-1 stage strike system and the right 6 for counterpicks with 3 bans, but I'm just biased because it means sometimes I get to start on YS with MK, even though we almost always start on SV, BF, and PS2 like pretty much every other region.

As for the whole jump squat and landing lag debate, just make the super fatties have 5 frame jump squats and normal landing lag like everyone else, including M2 or whatever. Problem solved, it's really simple. I don't care too much about the standing grabs; those characters suck until they get changed to be better. DK doesn't need too much help, but Bowser is dumb to play against and Zelda is just bad.

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

yoshi's melee is smaller than wario ware and is no longer on (most/sane) stagelists.

delphino's is smaller than dreamland and takes dl's place on (most/sane) stagelists.

dreamland can remain the same, a large stage/large blastzone replacement is in the official build and it's not as polarizing, same with the small/small (though, it can be argued that both are a bit too polarizing in their respective ways, still).

so, dreamland doesn't need to be changed, but its issues have been addressed, meaning that things are able to be addressed.


porque no los dos? having a better jump squat and landing animation means that he has closer to the same basic tools as the main cast, allowing for better comparisons of what needs to be adjusted. getting a 5frame jump squat and 4frame heavy landing isn't suddenly going to preclude any other changes that might occur, including changes to kits for grabs/oos/neutral/etc...

better jumping/landing animations might even help with some of those slightly, as well, since you won't be at as large a commitment everytime you want to take to the air, anyway.

tbf the stagelist I run has both dreamland and yoshi's as counterbalances to each other but it also has three bans so

 

[Player -0]

I think edge of stage -> blastzone WL (Wario Land derp) is smaller than YS:M.

If blastzones of WL were expanded a tad I think it would be a lot better in general.

 

[Deleted member]

Zelda is just bad.

zelda is just fine thank you very much

 

[_Chrome]

zelda is just fine thank you very much

When I said bad I meant in comparison to the better characters in the game, though that was a use of hyperbole on my part: she is by no means "bad", sorry for the miscommunication. What I meant to say is she isn't as competitive as many other characters in the game.

Sure, I guess she's just fine, but she's not great.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

@G13_Flux

Somehow I got mega ninja'd. Thought I refreshed but whatever. I was mostly referring to the "Pit's jump squat shouldn't be 5" arguments. The OoS argument, as I mentioned, is the only truly valid part, though I guess I could see the 6 framers being dropped to 5. Idk, looking at my comment now I'm not really getting the context I meant, other than going from 5 to 4 or something is dumb. I was (am) on mobile and was in between things/not a lot of times. I think I was agreeing with Boiko. Sorry I guess. I hate one liners too.

On empty landing:
Empty landing (not heavy landing) has a much better case for being normalized. DK also has 5. Could be for cc like I said, also auto cancel balance as well.

Boiko

Ordered within tiers?

 

[Boiko]

Yes. 10char.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

Oh, and @Umbreon
I think I have seen you say this before. Something along the lines of "Zelda players don't know how to play Zelda, if you expect to spam bairs and win, you are delusional". Maybe even in response to someone lamenting about "campy" characters losing to camping from the "Fox's" of the game. I don't necessarily agree, but I think this could be really helpful to a lot of people here (mostly me, but I bet there are others out there...). Care to explain?

 

[Deleted member]

Oh, and @Umbreon
I think I have seen you say this before. Something along the lines of "Zelda players don't know how to play Zelda, if you expect to spam bairs and win, you are delusional". Maybe even in response to someone lamenting about "campy" characters losing to camping from the "Fox's" of the game. I don't necessarily agree, but I think this could be really helpful to a lot of people here (mostly me, but I bet there are others out there...). Care to explain?

basically zelda has overpowered moves but ****ty attributes so it balances out to some extent- between the two, having better attributes is probably better, but realistically speaking adding weight and run speed would run how she feels to play. either way putting zelda's moves on any character with decent attributes would be unforgivably ********. so basically as zelda you know that 1 you're kinda floaty and 2 you have no neutral. being kinda floaty is a trade off as you get combo'd less and less kill setups work on you, but you get juggled more and are more susceptible to vertical kills. so that's whatever. but having basically garbage neutral means you have to constantly be the one applying pressure some way or another because you have zero reason to expect to win the long game by camping, good players can just take stage and wait for you to do something stupid and kill you. if you want a camping character, you need some way to hold stage position, which is why faster characters and/or characters that have means to prevent losing stage control are so much better at it. this is also why choosing when you can attack is so incredibly powerful (and hilariously underrated by fox players). hence, if you want to be good at zelda, you don't have the luxury of stage control, you have to win with other stuff. thankfully, her combo weight, recovery, range, and attacks are all very good. you have to kill them. the zelda players generally want to play "passive aggressive" but if you really wanted to do that you would pick one of the 35+ characters in the game better equipped to do that.

this was also the problem with 3.02 zelda. the zelda players would say "zelda is fine, you can beat her, you just have to learn the match-up". i mean, sure, when the opponent with no neutral just sits back and throws out a weak projectile in din's for stage control, any smart player with a neutral game can systematically learn how to negotiate din's and kill her when she has no stage control. the real issue with 3.02 zelda was that her base design was stupid. opposing approaches on her were basically suicide because you were constantly challenging her even more overpowered attacks and your only real way to win was forcing her to play into her weak neutral by camping her out, so you basically had no incentive to attack her. but zelda has a **** neutral and can't play from behind, so if she's down a stock for whatever reason she can't really get back into the game unless the opponent lets you, and if you're up a stock you have zero incentive to approach back. so zelda doesn't want to approach the opponent ever, and the opponent doesnt want to approach zelda ever, and that's just not interactive at all.

 

[_Chrome]

basically zelda has overpowered moves but ****ty attributes so it balances out to some extent- between the two, having better attributes is probably better, but realistically speaking adding weight and run speed would run how she feels to play. either way putting zelda's moves on any character with decent attributes would be unforgivably ********. so basically as zelda you know that 1 you're kinda floaty and 2 you have no neutral. being kinda floaty is a trade off as you get combo'd less and less kill setups work on you, but you get juggled more and are more susceptible to vertical kills. so that's whatever. but having basically garbage neutral means you have to constantly be the one applying pressure some way or another because you have zero reason to expect to win the long game by camping, good players can just take stage and wait for you to do something stupid and kill you. if you want a camping character, you need some way to hold stage position, which is why faster characters and/or characters that have means to prevent losing stage control are so much better at it. this is also why choosing when you can attack is so incredibly powerful (and hilariously underrated by fox players). hence, if you want to be good at zelda, you don't have the luxury of stage control, you have to win with other stuff. thankfully, her combo weight, recovery, range, and attacks are all very good. you have to kill them. the zelda players generally want to play "passive aggressive" but if you really wanted to do that you would pick one of the 35+ characters in the game better equipped to do that.

this was also the problem with 3.02 zelda. the zelda players would say "zelda is fine, you can beat her, you just have to learn the match-up". i mean, sure, when the opponent with no neutral just sits back and throws out a weak projectile in din's for stage control, any smart player with a neutral game can systematically learn how to negotiate din's and kill her when she has no stage control. the real issue with 3.02 zelda was that her base design was stupid. opposing approaches on her were basically suicide because you were constantly challenging her even more overpowered attacks and your only real way to win was forcing her to play into her weak neutral by camping her out, so you basically had no incentive to attack her. but zelda has a **** neutral and can't play from behind, so if she's down a stock for whatever reason she can't really get back into the game unless the opponent lets you, and if you're up a stock you have zero incentive to approach back. so zelda doesn't want to approach the opponent ever, and the opponent doesnt want to approach zelda ever, and that's just not interactive at all.

That's so incredibly true... I used to play against a few Zeldas back in 3.0 and 3.5 and I used to use Link since I actually mained him in Melee at that time, and the MU has always been in Link's favour because Zelda never wants to interact with the opponent, and Link is okay with that... he's better at non-interactive gameplay than she is in that case. Also, I fully agree that having good attributes is better than having good moves: most of the characters that are less competitive have poor attributes when compared to the more competitive characters, which normally have both but always have good attributes.

 

[FreeGamer]

zelda's niche is polarizing by nature and lands her in some strange corner of mid tier, but that doesn't make me enjoy her any less

if she had some form of reliable zoning or stage control, like maybe 2 din's fires or a new projectile to replace transform, she would be pretty much perfect

i bet i'm in the minority here, but i'd rather preserve unique designs than homogenize them toward being DD/rushdown machines :x

 

[Karmaic Avidity]

but having basically garbage neutral means you have to constantly be the one applying pressure some way or another because you have zero reason to expect to win the long game by camping

My problem with this is that you're suggesting a character with no good aggressive tools play aggressively. She has no real way to exert stage control, she has no more exceptionally good shield pressure options, and she doesn't have the speed, friction, or poking tools that allow her to exert the kind of pressure needed. I think you also forget that even with her weight, Zelda falls prey to really harsh combos against certain characters.

The reason that old Zelda worked was because she had a lot of ways to control the stage, then could use that to her advantage by microspacing with teledashing and exerting meaningful shield pressure by using LC Nayru's. Granted, her design was a bit overkill in certain aspects, it worked for the design she has. In this patch, she has the same design, but they took away all the tools she had. She can't control the stage well, she can't exert the shield pressure well, and she doesn't have the speed to keep up with the fast rushdown characters that already gave her trouble in 3.02.

This character has major glaring flaws that people like to complain about because "omg LKs so strong QQQQQQ" but that doesn't make her any more powerful than she truly is, but the changes implemented seemed like ones to mitigate what people complained about. The underlying issue I keep trying to allude to is that they didn't give her anything to compensate. They turned her into a very generic combo character that hopes and prays to Din herself that she can combo the hell out of someone before she herself falls prey to something equally as disgusting.

I believe the easy answer to this is to just redesign her. Change her radically and take it from there. Make some of her normals not as ridiculous (usmash, LKs, etc) but give her something in the movement/shield pressure department.

I don't think Zelda's "fine," but she is however, a noob slayer. I think she's destined to always be that way unless the development team decides to actually tackle changing her.

 

[DrinkingFood]

Adding another dins or another projectile, seriously wtf no stop trying to make Zelda more cancer

 

[Sardonyx]

lol Zelda's fine. In what backwards universe? Yeah she's designed less cancerous now, but now usmash is beyond stupid and kicks are stupid. Hey guys, lets remove some cancer from here and paste it over here now! Literally how she is.

 

[Karmaic Avidity]

lol Zelda's fine. In what backwards universe? Yeah she's designed less cancerous now, but now usmash is beyond stupid and kicks are stupid. Hey guys, lets remove some cancer from here and paste it over here now! Literally how she is.

Don't forget how they removed all of her AT (bar Nayru's Gliding) and stuck it all into Din's Fire LOL. But this isn't that kind of thread, I'll keep my ******** to a minimum <3

 

[FreeGamer]

Adding another dins or another projectile, seriously wtf no stop trying to make Zelda more cancer

sorry, not all of us want rob vs. zelda to keep being a 65-35

 

[Justbngoode]

Adding dins is a pretty bad idea, IMO a large factor of 3.5 changes for zelda was to reduce the smoke and mirrors in her moveset.

That being said this is a fairly slow character that on paper is expected to rely on a tool that she can't use in neutral. One of the safest ways for zelda to approach is to time it so the endlag matches the din's return. Without it, she relies on reading her opponent and capitalizing off of it. With the current nature of how dins works, she should probably have some other ways of exhibiting pressure without the large amounts of commitment that's prevalent in the rest of her kit (Upsmash, nayru's, teleport are all very commital).

Upsmash chains are ****ing stupid and idk why they patched it in 3.5 to work on more characters, it seems like a bandaid fix to me.

 

[Life]

"Cancerous" is the new "gay."

If I were designing a Nintendo-themed fighting game without using Smash as a reference, I would see Zelda as akin to the mage archetype seen in other games such as RPGs: big individual hits, works best at a range, some unusual utility because lolmagic, super fragile.

Compared to her PM design:

Big individual hits: Check. Smashes, kicks, uair, even ftilt and utilt hit like a train.

Works best at a range: Debatable. She doesn't want people on top of her, but with only Din's for long range pressure, she doesn't do well against camping, either.

Unusual utility: Check. Din's qualifies. Has a reflector. Turns into Sheik. Teleport cancels are neat I guess.

Super fragile: Eh. She gets out of true combos by virtue of being floaty, but she's still probably in a bad spot if she gets hit. Recovery is pretty decent, but takes some mastery.

Conclusion: she's not in need of literally being turned into another character. Smash Zelda is at least true to what I see as her aesthetic.

What she does need is a way to threaten people at long range. Currently you can pretty much navigate Zelda's zoning, which is literally Din's and her melee-range hitboxes, at your leisure. Her zoning is bad and her approaching is bad--she has to kind of do both at once to get anything done, and that doesn't really work against a cast that by and large moves faster than her.

If only there was precedent in this game for a character being able to force an opponent into being uncomfortably close by easily tacking on small amounts of safe damage at a long range. But I doubt we'll ever see anything like that. Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

FreeGamer
"i bet i'm in the minority here, but i'd rather preserve unique designs than homogenize them toward being DD/rushdown machines :x"

This. I made a rant about this awhile ago. Might dig it up, but it probably wasn't as good as I remember it. Something something fatties and campy characters can't be good because fun to play against has the potential to force a character change.

Karmaic Avidity
I think you are misinterpreting what Umbreon said. He isn't saying that Zelda needs to fight like an aggressive character. He is saying that playing Zelda and expecting a "campy" style to work against most characters (like Fox) is playing the character/archetype wrong. Slow characters can't really be campy in mu's vs fast characters because speed in this game, when is disparate as this character vs a fox is, doesn't let you do that. DD solves all. This is actually why I asked the question because I remember it the last time it was brought up and Umbreon responded with a less thorough answer that alluded to that.

 

[Karmaic Avidity]

Slow characters can't really be campy in mu's vs fast characters because speed in this game, when is disparate as this character vs a fox is, doesn't let you do that. DD solves all.

Zelda can't do a whole lot in this regard either. She doesn't have the baiting tools to do anything about Fox's speed, camping, or dash dancing. She doesn't have the speed, she doesn't have a way to force interactions, and she doesn't have a threatening DD. All she can hope for is that the fox screws up in some way or another so that she can CG him until 60, then LK at the edge.

 

[nimigoha]

"Cancerous" is the new "gay."

Yeah don't love it. It's really buzzword-y like "toxic" or "jank". If you guys want to describe something you don't like, describe exactly what is wrong with it instead of throwing it under a catch-all term that is incredibly subjective and very difficult to refute.

If only there was precedent in this game for a character being able to force an opponent into being uncomfortably close by easily tacking on small amounts of safe damage at a long range. But I doubt we'll ever see anything like that. Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

 

[Ripple]

why are people complaining about moves that comboes into itself? namely zelda up-smash.

is it simply because it is a SMASH attack? because other moves combo into themselves but its zelda's up-smash that really gets everyone's panties in a bunch.

I bet if her upsmash and up-tilt were swapped people wouldn't be complaining at all

 

[nimigoha]

Haha I hate to sound like a broken record (for the whole thread, not myself) but Fox vs fast fallers is like Upsmash 5 times, Uair 4 times, stock gone.

I think people generally dislike Zelda's Usmash because it feels and looks like a move you should be able to SDI out of but I'm like 90% sure it's impossible to. Just sorta frustrating. I'm pretty indifferent about it personally but I get where people are coming from.

Other multihit Usmashes are pretty easy to SDI out of if you're ready for it. After playing a Link player all summer by the end of August I wasn't getting hit by any of his 3rd swings. Pit's you don't even need to SDI out of. MK's is pretty fast but decently small...

But the worst offender for a move that combos into itself? Weak knee into strong knee get that outta here, crikey.

 

[Karmaic Avidity]

why are people complaining about moves that comboes into itself? namely zelda up-smash.

is it simply because it is a SMASH attack? because other moves combo into themselves but its zelda's up-smash that really gets everyone's panties in a bunch.

I bet if her upsmash and up-tilt were swapped people wouldn't be complaining at all

Zelda players don't like usmash right now, lol. The BKB on it is extremely low and leads into double usmashes on most of the cast. It doesn't really need to be like that. It's a bit too auto-combo-y and it'd be nice to have that 'power' moved somewhere else in her kit. I think being able to chain it on fast fallers is fine, that's the price they pay, but being able to double usmash just about everyone is 30% for way too little effort.

 

[FreeGamer]

speaking of zelda's u-smash, what are this thread's opinions on characters/moves that oppress entire weight classes (ex: zelda cheese against fastfallers, falcon jank against floaties)?

should it be accepted as a fact of nature? should the victims be buffed? should the predators be nerfed? i'm not sure what to think tbh

 

[MLGF]

why are people complaining about moves that comboes into itself? namely zelda up-smash.

Probably because the attack itself lasts a lot longer then most moves that combo into itself, giving you more time to think about how you got hit by an up smash from a character that can't even approach in the first place.

Feels bad man

 

[CORY]

personally, i think if it's truly just polarized on one weight class, but not another, then it's not too bad, but it'll be a really big case by case basis.

like, does the character itself counter that class? or is it just one or two moves they have?

is this a 70-30 or 80-20 counter? or just a 60-40 counter?

are they super hard counter against that class, but really free against the rest of the cast? or are they a super hard counter and still decent against the rest of the cast? and other permutations there of.

the less polarizing the less of an issue. if it's just a kit full of strong launchers that let you juggle light fast fallers and you have pretty decent tech chase options, you can't do much without notably changing that character. if they don't just invalidate that entire class of characters, you can probably just let it be.

if they have one move that invalidates them, though, that's much easier to adjust and fix and should probably be done.

 

[Justbngoode]

why are people complaining about moves that combos into itself? namely Zelda up-smash.

is it simply because it is a SMASH attack? because other moves combo into themselves but its Zelda's up-smash that really gets everyone's panties in a bunch.

I don't dislike it because it's a move that does ~15% that chains into itself, I dislike it because it's such a big part of her kit.
So much of her combo game is dependent on these chains that it really shows how her combo game isn't varied at all. It's easy mode combo's that most Zelda mains can do with their eyes closed, but there really is nowhere to go from there; It's the most optimal combo she has.
If she didn't have the chains, she would probably be a very bad character. Zelda is very reliant on having a strong punish game and upsmashes are a large factor of that. I LOVE Upsmashes, but if she can have large combos without chaining them together I would probably be happier.

IMO Upsmash is a very defined feature for this character and is often her saving grace, but as it stands it really is just the glue that holds her current design together. Besides Upsmash, most of her kit doesn't have synergy with the rest of her moveset. Jab is a great move for most characters, but it sends too far out for Zelda to do anything with it most of the time. Din's provides numerous opportunities to whiff punish, but Zelda is too slow to actually take advantage of it most of the time. Land Cancelled Nayru's gives Zelda an opportunity to block-string, yet her grab is slow and her fastest options are high committal, but she is also too slow to run away as a mix-up.
It's almost like having 2 puzzle pieces that almost fit and just trying to force it together, upsmash chains is just the glue you use so it doesn't fall apart.

How to DI upsmash: You can SDI out of Upsmash if you're clipped by the side of it, it really only works well on "clean hits." characters that aren't excessively tall might be able to escape with superb downwards SDI if the upsmash got them while they were grounded.
In any other case, DI'ng SDI'ing to the side stops chains and can even stop kicks depending on how well you SDI.

 

[DrinkingFood]

Yeah don't love it. It's really buzzword-y like "toxic" or "jank". If you guys want to describe something you don't like, describe exactly what is wrong with it instead of throwing it under a catch-all term that is incredibly subjective and very difficult to refute.

I just say it because I'm too lazy to "describe exactly what is wrong with it instead of throwing it under a catch-all term that is incredibly subjective and very difficult to refute."
lazy enough to copy paste that
unfortunately there are people who will take a single or a few good players' word at face value instead of getting a variety of top player inputs so they just kinda repeat it for any number of things without knowing the reasoning
the reasoning is that zelda literally gave me lung cancer, I went to the PM 1K in Dallas 8 days ago and came back with a cough, ergo there was a zelda in the room that gave me cancer without even playing me, plz nerf

 

[TheGravyTrain]

Losing fox mu aside, do you get the idea? In smash, supposed campy characters are very unlikely to have the tools to beat a DD character. I don't necessarily agree this is the way it should be, but the current state of things, it doesn't look like "campy" characters will ever get the tools to truly compete in neutral with DD based character.

Lol Ripple Where were you when 3.6F dropped and Squirtle lost a reasonable dsmash because it combo'd, so it was changed to be like a get off me dsmash a la pika/rob/bowser, without the speed needed to function as a get off me move.

 

[DrinkingFood]

I don't think Pika/ROB/Bowser can slide halfway across the stage in the start-up of their moves... and keep sliding into the hitbox duration
also doesn't it still combo at lowish percents? And of course you'll still get stage positioning at higher percents

 

[TheGravyTrain]

They can't, but they also don't have 16 frame down smashes. The point is they aren't very comparable. The only reason I heard from DT (was it cmart, someone came in here and explained the kb curve was homogonized to those characters levels) was smashes shouldn't combo (from Umbreon iirc). Hydroplane dsmash is a different argument. The sliding helps mask the start up. The thing is, if boosting downsmashes, grabs, flying through the air, etc are all problematic, that is not part of the dsmash can combo. That is the premise of keeping Squirtle's tech from Brawl. That is more the issue than specifically dsmash. You can't totally separate the two (obviously), but if your neutral is relying on dsmash + other hydroplane options outside of pivot shield, you are putting it all on the line in weird 25/75 options between spotdodge, shield, jump, etc. Squirtle doesn't have to risk that. He can play a simpler wd + bubble + rar + dash game that abuses mobility rather than committed burst options. And if those burst options are a problem, I think that is a discussion I will save for someone else as I am not qualified to discuss that. This comment was mostly other people's opinions, not as mad about dsmash as they are.