Tier wars pt.2

[Sai_]

What do you mean by aerial game? Do you mean in neutral position? Off the stage? Comboing? Juggling?

I'm not sure what neutral position is, but juggling at low percentages is helpful for me to get enough damage for a kill. Off stage aerial game is pretty bad since one mistake can lead me to a kill because of the terrible recovery. For comboing, I usually SHFFL Fairs and then proceed for ground game.

 

[KariteSama]

Its already been said that a lot of the metagame has yet to be unfolded, however. As time goes on though, I will be very interested to see who is getting kills at lower percents on average, and still out surviving their opponent

I think there is a huge difference in the meta game between melee and P:M in that I don't think you can successfully play just one character. In melee there are 4 or 5 characters who can deal with the entire cast but that's just not the case in P:M. It's much more of a rock, paper, scissors game.

As far as what neutral position is, I'll try to define it but probably fail It refers to when neither player has positional advantage on the stage. That is, neither is in hit stun, off the ledge, in a corner etc. At the point it's a game of footsies and whoever spaces their attacks and movement better will be able to gain an advantage. Marth is better than (imo) in neutral position due to his higher mobility, longer ranged aerials, and tippers. But mostly mobility. The reason Fox is the best character in melee (and probably P:M) is his combination of run speed, jump start up, fall speed, lack of landing lag, WD length, and DD abilities. He beats Falco for the same reasons Marth does. Better mobility and better off the stage game.

 

[KariteSama]

Double post. Sorry.

 

[Sai_]

I've only played with Roy for about 10,000 stocks, which is around 2,500 matches, which really isn't a lot. I've noticed that Roy can keep combos going with weak knock back hits such as his DED and sourspot Dairs alongside with Uairs and then finish it off with an explosive attack such as neutral-B, Bair, or a sweetspotted Fsmash. I think Roy's greatest strength to Marth is his ability to keep fast combos going from combining DED with many aerial games.

As for neutral position, it's kind of iffy. I like to approach opponents at the start of a match but it can cost me if I don't land that first hit (which usually is an aerial or a DED attack)

The transition between A-attacks and DEDs is pretty fast. I've seen CPUs utilize one DED attack (just the first forward-B) in the air and immediately go into a Fair.

As for YouTube, not many people are posting videos about Roy, and the few I've seen are from tournaments, so we don't know what other people's game are like.

EDIT:
Is there a way to decrypt brawl replays from P:M if you don't have the replay-safe P:M set? I'd like to embed a video here to show what I do with Roy and we can critique my Roy.

 

[G13_Flux]

I think that's a great v way to put it. Marth is definitely a bit better in the neutral game, But once you've transitioned into combo and tech chase position, Roy gets much more output from his hits, and leads to kills more consistently

And no I don't believe you can access the pm replays without the WiFi safe set

 

[Sai_]

I strongly think DED should be part of Roy's ledge guard metagame (if I understand, metagame means the global playstyle of a character). It can kill enemies at low percentages.
when opponents are sent flying off the edge and want to recover, you can take a risk and jump off the stage and do a DED → ↑ x. This will spike them if you hit them with the 3rd hit of DED. If they are below the ledge to the point where you can't hit them with DED, you can Dtilt which usually has enough range to hit them, and then start your spike DED.

If your opponent is at about 20% damage, you should be fine to perform this amazing spike. If it's not close to that, say, plus or minus 20%, then you won't be able to perform it because anything less than 20%, the opponent will be to close and you'll probably miss, and if it's higher than 30%, your opponents can easily DI out of it.

EDIT: maybe I was exaggerating: I think the safety threshold is 20% to 80% or so, and thing more or less is not good.

 

[FlashingFire]

DED offstage beyond the first hit is way too risky as an edgeguard. You're better off using neutral B, Dtilt, Fsmash, or ledgehop Dair. The last option is one of the more difficult edgeguards to time properly, but if you hit with the move, one of three things will happen: 1) You meteor the opponent. 2) You hit the opponent with the sourspot, popping him or her up for a neutral B or Bair. 3) You catch him or her with the very tip of the sword, smacking the poor character away at a really awkward angle that's incredibly hard to recover from.

 

[Raccoon Chuck]

I've been taking Roy out for some semi competitive runs at some small tournaments, and I agree that DED does have some great edgeguard potential with some good foresight. The best hits for me have been DED 3 Up, DED 3 Down, and DED 4 Down (This may be my favorite). DED 3 Up is going to give you a meteor, but it's pretty easy to read IMO, which leads to me questioning it unless it's a spike. As for the other two, DED 3 Down seems to have a similar effect to DED 4 Down, although it seems lacking in comparison to the latter's lingering flurry of hitboxes. This is the first I've appeared in a character specific thread in a grand while, so if anyone has better insight, please help me catch up.

Edit: In retrospect, Flare Blade is going to be more reliable unless one is trying to look absolutely chivalrous.

 

[G13_Flux]

I wont disagree that DED has its uses for edge guarding, the only thing is exactly what was said above by Raccoon Chuck: flare blade is just more reliable. It has fantastic coverage past and underneath the ledge, and even uncharged, it kills on the edge at mid percents. DED has great reward with the meteor smash, but its just much harder to land it as efficiently and easily as flare blade, which you are most likely going to getting a much higher percentage of your kills with.

 

[KariteSama]

DED is great for style though I've seen M2K spike people with Marth in the exact same way but I've only seen it against scrubs. i.e. it's so easy to get around. 1.) any character with half decent recovery will be able to maneuver around it/hit you out of it and gimp you 2.) any character with a sweetspot will be able to avoid the on stage hit without any difficulty 3.) I feel like you might be able to ledge-tech the DED down 3 hit. So I feel like there are just so many options around it that make it more or less useless. Flare blade is just a way better option both on and off the stage. I like the idea of comboing into DED with Dtitlt, though. That's really interesting and I want to try it now.

 

[G13_Flux]

Yeah that's actually not a bad method. That combo would only work at low percents, but that's really when it would be the most useful anyways. I can see it being a better option than a dair follow up if you've got a fast faller that doesn't get hit high enough to allow a safe dair follow up offstage. You would trade using a risky, rewarding move offstage for a safe one that allows an opponent to DI it to possibly escape. The only real limitation i see is that it probably only would work on fast fallers at low percents, or above average ff'ers at like 0%.

 

[Blade-Fox]

What about F-tilt through the ledge? If you angle it down, the sourspot goes through the ledge and a good portion of the tip is visible. It might pop people up into a side-smash or DED combo but so far, it only knocks people away. F-tilt not angled sometimes pops people up though so I was thinking that maybe it can do that when you angle it downwards.

 

[G13_Flux]

In my experience with ftilt, its definitely an amazing poke, but it doesnt really lead to much. If you poke with the sourspot, you are going to be too far away to follow up with anything really, and the sweetspot isnt effective for comboing. Even angled down doesnt change too much. It pretty much just functions to pester your opponents recovery when you are too far away for anything else, or nothing else will supply the range below the stage that it offers. The only move that roy has that competes with ftilt for ledge coverage is neutral B, which obviously has much more reward. Its slower though, and obviously doesnt have as much range. Not sure which one actually has more ledge coverage, but theyre both extremely effective even against opponents sweetspotting opponents from certain angles. When recovering against roy, you really need to take the lowest angle possible and sweetspot it. Otherwise, your going to eat a lot of fire..

 

[Sai_]

Ftilts are good at high percentages. If they DI bad, they are pretty much launched across the stage into a curved, downward angle. This gives Roy an opportunity for easy ledgeguard if he times his DED or neutral-B correctly.

 

[KariteSama]

neutral b covers way more options than f tilt

 

[Blade-Fox]

I'm not saying F-tilt as a replacement to Neutral B. I'm saying it as a compliment since it just goes straight and can reach below the ledge and through the ledge. I know Neutral B can hit below the ledge now but I figured F-tilt's straightforward nature might be of some use for preventing people from grabbing the ledge from below further than (and maybe quicker) Neutral B.

 

[PsionicSabreur]

Ftilt requires decent spacing to poke the ledge properly, but Flare Blade needs to be aerial, so there are advantages to each.

One thing I'm interested in is the best way to edgeguard with Flare Blade. SH N-B seems the most obvious, but I've also tried a few things like using it out of a dash so my momentum carries me off the edge, allowing me to wall off the entire area with an aerial Flare Blade at ledge-level (this is pretty difficult to pull off in a timely manner, since it needs to happen before they make it to the ledge, but then again, so is the standard SH). Short hopping off the ledge and b-reversing as they recover underneath also seems useful, since you can read a low recovery by reversing and a high recovery by not reversing (again, takes time prepare and reversing hits them toward the stage and could actually aid recovery, especially if teched). Any other good ways to pull off the edgeguard?

 

[G13_Flux]

ftilts are only more advantageous when you need something quicker and more ranged than neutral B can offer. most of neutral b's use, in my experience is from aerial usage, but ive still made a lot of use out of it on the ground right next to the ledge. Like i said before, if your opponent is going for a sweetspot, they literally need to get it perfect or a neutral b will snag them. and this is a neutral b from the ground, so i think it does have some use.

 

[PsionicSabreur]

Not sure if any of that was directed at me, but I was referring to the fact that Flare Blade hits further below Roy when he's in the air (I'm unsure of the exact difference, or just how precisely effective it is, though). With the right timing (getting the end of the swing out just before he lands on the stage) it should be able to actually cover the ledge instead of demanding a perfect sweetspot.

 

[G13_Flux]

Oh I actually didn't know that. Interesting. But yeah most of that was directed from what you said, I didn't read it too fully so I thought you meant that a grounded flare blade wasn't really that useful. I should have read better though.

You could probably incorporate some interesting ledge canceling tactics with it too. I imagine they would come in handy if you have an opponent that stalls their recovery to throw of the timing of your edge guard. You could combine it with the b reverse too if your fingers are feeling fast lol.

 

[Mr.Random]

I like Roy more then Marth at this point. He's just so fun to play and I feel he has a chance to give Marth a run for his money.