Ultimate Platform Camping

[Octorockandroll]

So I felt as though smash 4 really promoted platform camping as a viable strategy. I'm not a very good player and the only time I took a set off of a player significantly better than me was when I got an early lead and camped him out until the time was almost up and he got desperate and tried unsafe stuff to get in. And this was with Mario, not some zoner, so the fact I was able to win by stuffing attempts to approach my platform was endemic of how defensively focused the game was.

But Ultimate seems to bring the focus back on offense, allowing things like wavelanding and good dash dancing and stuff that could potentially help people get in. Do you think this could change the viability of camping?

 

[maxistrife]

With the changes to the core gameplay mechanics, I think edge guarding and ledge camping will lose viability, based on characters used, which is good because cowardly tactics like those are annoying. Like, OBVIOUSLY you (not you, but when someone resorts to those tactics to win) are either too scared, or not good enough to defeat your opponent properly =P (and even you admitted you could do this to beat better characters...ergo it is cheesy) Then again, I hate 1v1, no items, omega stages, no hazard only type battles. I prefer the chaos of a FFA 4-8 players, all items, all hazards, all stages......sooooo I guess I can't talk since I am sure I have won many times because of powerful items or an unlucky opponent to stage hazards. *shrug* XD

 

[-Ran]

With the changes to the frame data for air dodges along with aerial landing lag, it should be significantly harder to simply platform camp against most characters. You simply aren't going to be safe up there. According to early data, neutral air dodges last ~50 frames, and are invulnerable from 3-30 in most cases. Directional air dodges last anywhere from 60-108 frames pending the direction picked. Comparatively, in Smash 4 air dodges were invulnerable from frame 3-27, and typically ended on frame 32. In Brawl, the frame data was 4-29, with a total frame count of 39.

In both Smash 4 and Brawl you were able to do multiple air dodges. This meant that in Smash 4, you were typically only had 8 frames of vulnerability between two air dodges, while in Brawl you had 14. That simple change made is substantially harder to edge guard between the two games. Given that now you are limited to a single air dodge in Ultimate, you will not be able to create situations where you are just air dodging to avoid moves all day. It is exceedingly likely that if you air dodge early in Ultimate you will be punished for doing so.

So to recap:
Vulnerable frames after air dodge:
Brawl: 14 between air dodges.
Smash 4: 8 between air dodges.
Ultimate: 20, and cannot air dodge again.

Now, some characters in Ultimate will have counters they can use after an air dodge, or very strong aerial options with good hitboxes to stuff moves. Those will all have various amounts of frame lag. Marth's counter for example comes out on frame 5 in Smash 4. This still gives an opponent 24 frames to punish accordingly.