Unpopular opinion: Yoshi is not high tier. Evidence inside.

[JBones]

Yoshis double jump is one of the most amazing things in the game :/

Yeah if you're below your opponent and they air-dodge you've got a guaranteed followup if you're fast enough. you can go a fair distance left and right and up incredibly fast.

 

[White_Pointer]

From a game design perspective, yes. Yoshi requires the armor because of how his recovery is designed. I'm not debating whether this is good or bad design - it's not relevant to the discussion.

From a game play perspective, we have armor on our double-jump. It is a strength of the character and denying it is simply putting your head in the sand. There's no point arguing, "We would suck if we didn't have it!", because we do have it and have had it for a number of games now.

We've also had that same side-b for a number of games now too but I wouldn't call that a strength.

 

[YoHeKing]

We've also had that same side-b for a number of games now too but I wouldn't call that a strength.

Side B can cancel momentum. Example.. if fox's down smash hits you at a kill percent and you Di down and slide off the edge into a side B you cancel all that momentum and you hit the edge of the stage with the egg lay. Technically Its not completely useless and barely any characters have a momentum stoper.

 

[Shadó Chimera / シャドーキメラ]

@ White_Pointer Like, you can take that logic with anything really. Sheik wouldn't be good if she didn't have low lag moves. Sheik's low lag moves aren't a "strength" they're a "necessity"

tbh the armor hardly helps with recovery in the first place, it's often better to airdodge if you're trying to avoid getting hit away. He has a high DJ, the fastest air speed, is floaty and his eggs which act as little jumps. These little things allow him to reach the stage from somewhat far distances and mixup where he's going. It's not the best, or free, but it works well enough for the most part.

 

[YoHeKing]

@ White_Pointer Like, you can take that logic with anything really. Sheik wouldn't be good if she didn't have low lag moves. Sheik's low lag moves aren't a "strength" they're a "necessity"

tbh the armor hardly helps with recovery in the first place, it's often better to airdodge if you're trying to avoid getting hit away. He has a high DJ, the fastest air speed, is floaty and his eggs which act as little jumps. These little things allow him to reach the stage from somewhat far distances and mixup where he's going. It's not the best, or free, but it works well enough for the most part.

Yeah thats like the only reason sheik Is so good right now. If fair and back air had 10 frames of lag and started on atleast frame 5 people really would stop using her and act like it was a "big nerf". TBH her combo throws are not anything that special its just that she has them but they don't do high damage.

What if they made her kill easier and nerfed her so she was laggier like luigi lmao.

 

[White_Pointer]

Gotta say big shout outs to The Wall, who managed second place at Absolute Battle 6 this past weekend. Colossal effort and easily the best result from a Yoshi main I'm aware of at a good sized tournament.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Wrong thread for this.
But think Polt got 17th at CEO and another tournament he placed high at but lost to Ryo to get 2nd after beating M2k? Might be wrong on the last bit in terms of placements

 

[hotdogtaco4321]

But yes Utilt uair is a true combo












at low percents.

Utilt -> Uair isn't just a true combo at low %. It works well over 100% and the training mode counter counts it as a true combo even at 150% if you do it right. It works better if you jump then immediately double jump while you upair because it extends your range if they di up and away

 

[Sinister Slush]

Yoshi is super overplayed in many regions but very little get any results that matter or make a big enough boom to be talked about everywhere without the need of making like 3 or so threads/posts about it on the smash reddit.

Yoshi is gud tho, just result based just not great for the past year cause of outlying problems not many see cause all people look at is his 33 dair and combos that can tack on 50+%

He's not sheik tho

 

[The Wall]

Personally I'm glad Yoshi isn't Sheik. I think I'd need some Bengay for my damn hands if I had to put in that many inputs just to fair string someone across a stage for ~30%.

I feel like Yoshi is honestly a lot better than a lot of the Yoshi mains are giving him credit for which is odd. A lot of people in these forums seem to think that Yoshi is sitting around 10-15 or even lower on the list. Just going to throw my personal opinion in there but I feel like Yoshi is more around the 5-6 position. We don't have proper representation or mastery yet for this character and that's why the results aren't there at nationals. Look at how hard it is to properly space and use this character and you understand why everyone was able to pick up things like Diddy/Sheik and just run to tournaments and blast through the brackets. Once we get some more highly dedicated people picking up the dinosaur and going to multiple tournaments we'll see just how scary this guy can be.

I'll be repping you fellas on the bigger stages soon enough.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

I was wondering, how many Top 16 placements has Yoshi made at majors and by whom?

 

[Sinister Slush]

Firefly at P@X
Raptor maybe made a couple?
Was gonna say polt and KDB but nvm they were 17th and 25th at some big tournament, although that's still pretty good

That's all I remember right now unless there's some secret ones in regions nobody pays attention too.
http://smashboards.com/rankings/smash-for-wii-u.8/league/team?rank=16&value=0&team=yoshi
Over 1k results of yoshi in top 16 that was submitted on snoreboreds over keeping it in the depths of facebook or twitter. Go nuts digging through what nationals you can think of.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

Yeah I must have been salty that's too much lol. My outlook on Yoshi has changed a lot though so maybe it's that too.

OH YEAH, Ryu too. **** Ryu. Does anyone else struggle against Ryu?

I've actually been under this impression that Yoshi is one of Ryu's worst MUs, and even outside some personal experience, I could also bring up The Wall vs Trela in their first set.

Though you could be right.

 

[The Wall]

I lost to Trela vs his Robin and vs his Mewtwo back months ago. Ever since he's picked up Ryu I'm up 2-1 over him. Honestly it's not as bad a matchup as you think, you just have to camp a little harder than usual.

 

[Yikarur]

The match-up is completely fine. I guess it's even or +1 for us.

 

[The Wall]

I'd go with +1. He has silly confirms like Down tilt (frame 2) to true Shoryu which will end you at ~90-95 depending on if he has rage or not (Max rage he can end you at like 75). His Fair and Bair basically out trade anything you do so you have to evade those and try to get a clean hit in. Eggs break his focus due to them being 2 hits and he is a nice weight to get combo'd. Be careful of trying to do multi up air strings though as he can easily focus one, dash out into a shoryu which leads to early deaths.

 

[White_Pointer]

I was wondering, how many Top 16 placements has Yoshi made at majors and by whom?

As mentioned in the OP...not many. It's pretty slim pickings at majors. Certainly not the representation you would expect out of a top tier character.

 

[Phyr]

The problem is not as much killing, which i think Yoshi has many setups at the right percents (although it costs him a little too much). The problem with yoshi is the lack of an "auto" move.

Rosalina for example has a danger zone in Luma. Sheik has her needles and basic combos. Mario can always get some good things from throws and has guaranteed combos. Sonic has his spin dash.

While yoshi has...

nothing.

Yoshi is a very situational character. He has strong tools that are really strong in the right moments, but you have TO READ people into them. The only pressure tool yoshi has is his egg throw and B, also sometimes grab to put people into the air. Other than that? There are no moves that yoshi can use as a filler that are not punishable.

What attack do you use in an opponent that is gonna shield you?
Dash attack -> lol
Rising Uair -> Good but lacks a BIT of horizontal range
Landing Uair -> Best. Can be continued with a down b, jab, or grab, (when it hits shield) and every one of them converts to jab, usmash, fsmash, or uair. At low percent starts a true combo with uairs and utilts that can go as high as 70%.
Short hop Nair -> Worst. Noob bait. You get 30 frames of "please hit me" if it gets shielded. (still good as a retreating tool or as a follow up tool thanks to yoshi's air mobility)
Full hop Nair -> Ok, but you are high into the air. At least you are mostly unpunishable thanks to your air mobility plus it combos well if you happen to land it.
Short hop fair autocancel -> Almost every character dash attack has a free punish in this.
Short hop fai no cancel (done in the right frame so it has perfect spacing and ends just as it lands) -> Can be grabbable but is less punishable. Also you can bait an autocancel fair punish, fastfall, and do this variant. People usually don't expect it and you have enough shield stun to make a quick plan in what to do next.
DownB -> lol. I have been hit by Ike's Fsmash because it's so easy to roll by ACCIDENT if you hit their shield in the first hit. (Although is a GREAT counter tool for aproachs or to punish overly defensive opponents)
Grab -> I have also been hit by a DDD Dsmash becuase of a missed grab. The grab release is great and even against the 2 frame characters you can try to go for both the jab combo confirms, or for the direct downB (which mostly don't expect). But other than that, every one of yoshi's throws are terrible
B -> Telegraphic. You are gonna use it in a jump. And it's easily hit over (most dash attacks win against it for a fact).
UpB -> Best move but doesn't give you any frame advantage, plus take care of possible perfect shield punishes.
Jumping UpB -> Lets you space while you throw projectiles. If someone lands it has an easy follow up. Problem is you are extremely vulnerable in the air to a running upsmash.
SideB-> I have done this in a desperate attempt against Sonics. It won. Once.
Smashes -> NONE of yoshi's smashes are safe on shield. In fact, they are, in terms of zone control, three of the worst.
Although they have very high reach and kill early, they take TOO long to start (yoshi's fsmash is frame 10+ i think), last too little time (fsmash lasts 1 or 2 frames) making them very painful to use against rollers/airdodgers/spotdodgers, and have too much lag.
Their range make them excellent punish and combo tool. Jab can combo to usmash, dsmash and fsmash at varying percent and fsmash has a tipper at yoshi's eyes which hits at an extreme distance from yoshi and kills Mario as early as 80 with good DI. But they are punish tools. And like i said, Yoshi has no tools to force opponents to commit.

And that's the problem. You have great tools, they are really good but they all are really situational. You use them in some situations and try to make the game flow go in your favor. But in the moment the opponent gains the game flow or they have a somewhat safe character which makes yoshi have to commit (like sonic, for example) the game becomes a nightmare. Because while sonic has sideb and fsmash, which are relatively safe attacks on whiff and block, yoshi has NOTHING. And it becomes a game of when this guy will make a mistake which i can punish. Which is very, very bad.

Still i think all this versatility is good and the character can be developed further. Even with the best spotdodges we have some attacks that go out pretty fast in the air, and we have also fair which can punish airdodges or make people have to go to deep before being able to recover (if they double jump and airdodge, is easy to retaliate with double jump nair).

My 2 cents, have been playing Yoshi in Spain since the game's launch and i compete at a national level and i have been trying hard to get new tools for the character.

The problem is just that. He has no safe tools. Everything is good but situational. And you can't do much if you don't have any "danger zones". People will just stop respecting you or just wait for your miss and then punish. I tell you: it gets VERY frustrating when most people will just go to the other side of the map and wait for me to commit. And egg throw can do just so much....

P.D. Some more stuff.

-You can kill as early as 40% if you get a shield break with down b and push people walking into them up to the edge. Then charge an Fsmash at tipper range. Look at the magic.
-Bair second hit leaves people locked in the ground. Yoshi has no lock with his jab but has guaranteed downb and Smash setup. But it's tricky and needs the opponent to be hit by it (reaaally unsafe on whiff and shield).
-All grab release stuff is great and is one thing to abuse because most people don't know yoshi's matchup or won't get the timing right for the release. And is a really free ticket to a kill move or shield break. Even in the worst case it will keep them pressured, which is what we want.
-One trick i use to get people nervous is to aim UpBs to where they would want to go. Which some times it will make them frustrated and it makes even easier to land even more upb or fish for good oportunities for the other moves.
-Rising upair can hit everyone except pikachu i think, and is much, much safer than usmash.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

Smashes -> NONE of yoshi's smashes are safe on shield.

Then again, most smashes are unsafe on block.

As for the rest of your post, this is why I think Yoshi is a character that rewards creativity and unpredictability. He capitalizes on that very well. Predictable is the worst you could be as a Yoshi, so you should always change your game plan. This is only part of the reason why I think Yoshi is a character lacking in high level rep. It would merely take a master for people to consider how good of a character I believe he is (almost like aMsa in some way; on top of that, a lot of what you said could also apply to Melee Yoshi).

As a result, Yoshi is just a character that is not easy to use at that level at all. He has great options that just don't flow very well together.

Edit: Now I may come off as a fanboy for saying this, but I don't need Yoshi needs an "auto" move. Not only would that kind of destroy the basic design of his character (frantic and reckless), but it would give lower-leveled players more of a reason to call him "braindead".

 

[Phyr]

Then again, most smashes are unsafe on block.

The thing is, all top tiers have things that are mostly safe on block or pose an HIGH risk on block (i mean, higher risk than killing at 130%+ in average).

Rosalina is mostly safe on block with most of his luma moves + grab.
Sheik lol.
Mario lol. Frame data galore.
Sonic has many different tools to get out of a bad spindash.
C. falcon smashes are mostly safe, and his down B as well. High shield stun and long range. Also really powerful and dangerous. Also grab.
ZSS grab and UpB. Although ZSS has sort of the same problem than yoshi, but his grab makes up for it.

And others.

The only other top tier with the same situation as Yoshi is Fox, which also lacks any key tool to apply pressure other than "being able to run a lot to usmash or bair you in the face if you do something", and which is also considered to not be as much an A tier like the rest.

Two more key notes:

Yoshi has one of the worst rolls in the game. It's mostly punishable on reaction.
Yoshi has one of the worst recovery moves in the game. If you use your jump to escape a combo, you are in for a bad time against a good player.

Conclusion: yoshi lacks tools to pressure opponents into his desirable zone, making him to rely too much on reads and opponent's mistakes.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

Mario lol. Frame data galore.

I honestly think this is more a case of people not quite being so encumbered with the Mario MU. True, his frame data is better than Yoshi's, but he doesn't really have a large enough hitbox to force people to respect them considering none of his moves are particularly safe on block either. Fast characters can easily punish him for such responses as much as they can punish Yoshi (though Mario arguably gets it worse).

Yoshi has one of the worst recovery moves in the game. If you use your jump to escape a combo, you are in for a bad time against a good player.

The way you describe it sounds like his disadvantage state, and if that's the case, then I absolutely disagree. I mean, it rarely happens to me even when I play against competent players.

But outside of that, I would argue that Yoshi is one of the best characters at getting out of a disadvantaged state. Frame 3 Nair, landing mixups like Egg Lay (normal, B reversed, and wavebounced), and spacing Fair in a way that it's safe to land with (of course, this is pretty MU dependent).

As for recovering in and of itself, I've rarely seen a high level Yoshi get gimped. Usually whenever I've seen them get gimped (and usually whenever I get gimped), it's usually because we made a bad move, or the opponent caught onto our methods. Most Yoshis recover high as a result because his options around the ledge are pretty poor, especially with the loss of ECE.

 

[The Wall]

The big thing that stuck out to me about your first post was landing with an up air. People are rather privy to that and adapt quickly. I fought Karna who is our best Sheik in Texas right now and it took him all of about 2 times getting hit by it until he started crouching as I came down from the air. Sheik's crouch is so good and he would use that to D-tilt as well if I threw the up air, put me into hit stun for combo city.

Recovery has not really been an issue for me as Yoshi. I don't go high almost ever because I have enough low mix-ups to not warrant it (unless I'm against a Rosaluma, that's a different story).

The key is just using eggs first and saving the DJ for last. Ness's employ the same technique except they don't really have anything to throw out like we do before they approach, but a lot of them will DJ air dodge just to touch the ground again, or float that air dodge back to the ledge, grab it and recover. You can do that as yoshi, or use the eggs as a cover material to grab the ledge. Saving your jump for last I've actually caught people who are footstool heavy into letting them foot stool me and get overconfident, not realizing that I saved my DJ, then I just jump back and recover like it was nothing.

 

[White_Pointer]

Edit: Now I may come off as a fanboy for saying this, but I don't need Yoshi needs an "auto" move. Not only would that kind of destroy the basic design of his character (frantic and reckless), but it would give lower-leveled players more of a reason to call him "braindead".

Won't make a difference, they call him braindead (and "easy to play", "mash face into controller") anyway, despite the fact that they probably haven't tried to play him in any kind of competitive sense. It's pretty frustrating really.

I found some comments by Dunnobro recently interesting. He made some comments while on commentary at a recent Xanadu and said point blank that Yoshi isn't high tier. He said he's good, but not that good, and is probably high mid tier.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Top tier to me is basically the top 10 characters in the game ( possibly 60+ character game, so in the grand scheme of things yeah that seems fair) and high tier is 11-25 maybe.
Saying he's mid tier is a bit much but I guess maybe that's true depending on what peoples opinions for high tier cutoff is, I think Yoshi is top 20 so there's that.

Also a certain quote comes to mind when Yoshi was thrown into peoples top 5 in the early days of 3ds/wii u, something along the lines of "toss controller down a flight of stairs which turns into a 70% combo and the stock ending from a fair spike" so yeah the whole brainless and easy thing is already and still is a thing for Yoshi lol

Just go to any vids about yoshi on YT, yeah it's YT about as worse as twitch chat but it's also the common smash player.

 

[muddykips]

the way i see a character being qualified for high tier is "can feasibly solo win a tournament", whereas top tier would be "reliably". as long as a character fits one of those descriptions they're fine, it shouldn't necessarily come down to number of slots in a tier.

i think yoshi still qualifies for high tier at the moment, but i can see him landing in high mid, too. stuff like his poop grab and general aerial-ness might end up being really debilitating in the future meta.

though, patches are still on the table. maybe they'll nerf our higher-tier threats? cough cough shiek

 

[Yikarur]

You are so pessimistic. I still think he might be a solid Top10.
I don't really see much things that go against him except killing Problems that are more of a problem in a 3 stock environment and more match-up pending.

 

[The Wall]

You are so pessimistic. I still think he might be a solid Top10.
I don't really see much things that go against him except killing Problems that are more of a problem in a 3 stock environment and more match-up pending.

Well the funny part with that is I don't seem to have a problem killing in the 3 stock format at all.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

You are so pessimistic. I still think he might be a solid Top10.
I don't really see much things that go against him except killing Problems that are more of a problem in a 3 stock environment and more match-up pending.

While I don't agree with the pessimism myself (specifically from Slush), I do find it rather justified in a sense. Skeptical disadvantages in a game where those probably hold first priority can really make someone question your viability (Villager also kinda suffers from this, but at least he's got the camping game for him).

As for kill setups, while I completely disagree with the notion that he has none (jab into any smash as a mixup, jab down B, Fair to Uair, soft Utilt to Uair, Egg to Uair or Fair), I will, however, agree with the notion that they're either not reliable or not consistent, except for debatably the fourth one.

 

[The Wall]

There's plenty to work with. People just complain because it isn't as cut and dry as someone like Sheik with down throw into Up air / Up B. You have to be marginally more creative and you can't confirm off of a throw, so what? You have options out of throw / neutral b to get them into the air for those confirms.

 

[Delta-cod]

Well the funny part with that is I don't seem to have a problem killing in the 3 stock format at all.

It's not that killing is harder, it's that the difficulty in killing becomes more pronounced the longer the game goes.

If I take an extra 50% to kill you, then over the course of a 2 stock game I only need to do 100% more damage. In a 3 stock game, this is 150%.

We basically have to spend more time trying to get in more damage/reads the longer a game goes on for (stockwise).

 

[The Wall]

That's the thing. Is it really taking you an extra 50% each stock over what the enemy is putting on you to end stocks? If that's the case you're either using damage building moves too much or just not landing the hits that kill when it matters.

Probably a solid 85% of my kills are happening off stage or right at the ledge. That's just the nature of the game. Another 10% can be added to in the air with an up air, with probably a measly 5% to F or Up smashes on the ground. Not to mention that using that momentum when you have it to force your opponent into bad situations where they may SD. Trela and Fliphop have SD'd multiple times vs me in sets just due to that pressure, and those are the most delicious stocks.

 

[Delta-cod]

Well, that's just a concrete example to get the point across.

Maybe it's not always a percent differential. But the effort that must be put forth is larger, since we don't have the auto pilot kills. Maybe this means putting your opponent into bad positions more often. Against safe characters (Sheik, Diddy), this can be a MONUMENTAL task. It means you have to outplay your opponent for much longer to win, which makes it a pretty horrible disadvantage in the end.

 

[The Wall]

Well, that's just a concrete example to get the point across.

Maybe it's not always a percent differential. But the effort that must be put forth is larger, since we don't have the auto pilot kills. Maybe this means putting your opponent into bad positions more often. Against safe characters (Sheik, Diddy), this can be a MONUMENTAL task. It means you have to outplay your opponent for much longer to win, which makes it a pretty horrible disadvantage in the end.

I dunno man. I find that outplaying people who play that character doesn't require you to do a bunch more extra work physically, it's just a slight mindset change to not do what you've taught yourself normally. Like "Oh I have a bad habit of constantly spacing fairs, maybe do just 1 this time then mix it up". Things like that make you look like you're doing a bunch of extra work when it really isn't that taxing. Soon as you get that one confirm off you go. I played footsies with Fliphop where he put about 30 on me. I managed to sneak in a falling up air and put 77 on him for it. At that point it's a cake walk.

 

[Delta-cod]

Yes, but that's damage. Not killing. We can hit them a bunch of times no problem, but getting the necessary kill can be nigh impossible. It's VERY easy to play in a manner that avoids death when playing against Yoshi (using a top tier, anyways). They can really make you work for it. And having to face that through multiple rounds in bracket can be very taxing, especially when your opponents are having an easier time (so they're already favored to close out the game).

 

[The Wall]

Getting the early lead with damage like that though forces a playstyle change by them most of the time, which if you're quick to adapt can lead to tons of openings allowing for those kills. That or just position yourself where it becomes easier. If I get them to a higher percent I like to do small tactical moves to put them closer to the ledge so anything I do basically guarantees an edge guard attempt. If they're at 80+, I use a lot more down and up tilts than I did before. If that down tilt hits they're now off stage and low which means it's up to them to guess if I'm going to run off fair for the spike or come down with a down air.

That reminds me, why does nobody else use down air to kill as an edge guard attempt? I feel like I'm alone in this venture... >.>

 

[Sinister Slush]

Especially once they realize Yoshi's neutral isn't that great and outside of command grab, they can't get punished too hard if they sit in shield or roll.
That's why camping works decently well against Yoshi, especially Needles.

 

[11volt]

It's irrelevant, but your signature is golden. My sides are in orbit.

 

[The Wall]

Especially once they realize Yoshi's neutral isn't that great and outside of command grab, they can't get punished too hard if they sit in shield or roll.
That's why camping works decently well against Yoshi, especially Needles.

Just noticed there was a reply on here. Sitting in shield is my favorite thing to have enemies do, down air. Simple as that and now their shield is wrecked. You can mix up the side you're landing on last minute and get a free punish off of it as well. Yes, camping can be effective but unless they're in it for the time out it doesn't do anything. They have to hit you to get that kill so as long as you play it properly while they're camping and not go headstrong rush down you'll be just fine. If it's a time out situation well... then good luck. You probably shouldn't have let the match drag on that long in the first place.

 

[Shady Shaymin]

If yoshi had a regular grab and a hoo-hah, would he be diddy level broken?

 

[The Wall]

If the grab had Lucas levels of end lag, or if it was converted into a melee grab with follow ups then yes, Yoshi would be insanely broken.