Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[FullMoon]

Oh, and for the record, you don't space with Greninja's Fair. You're better off using his Bair instead which Link also does.

Yes you do. B-Air stretches Greninja's hurtbox and it also doesn't auto-cancel out of shorthop. F-Air doesn't either but at least it's disjointed.

You see aMSa spacing with F-Air all the time.

 

[InfinityCollision]

You know, I just realized that Sheik being broken in this game is funny because she's also pretty broken in Hyrule Warriors.

Sheik, forever broken (except in Brawl)

Pretty sure Sheik has at no point been the best character in HW. Water barrier is only "useful" early on (when it's not really needed), as it's insufficient to fully protect her from damage in the later maps. Definitely not a top contender at the very least.

 

[Ffamran]

Yes you do. B-Air stretches Greninja's hurtbox and it also doesn't auto-cancel out of shorthop. F-Air doesn't either but at least it's disjointed.

You see aMSa spacing with F-Air all the time.

But Bair is so fast! *is biased towards Bairs* If only we knew Greninja's short hop air time... that 2 frames less landing lag makes it seem less risky. Welp, I hope they change Greninja's landing lag and/or auto-cancel window so he can Bair everyone like Link.

 

[Kofu]

Yes you do. B-Air stretches Greninja's hurtbox and it also doesn't auto-cancel out of shorthop. F-Air doesn't either but at least it's disjointed.

You see aMSa spacing with F-Air all the time.

Greninja's part of the "none of our aerials autocancel from a low jump/short hop club" along with Game & Watch, Shulk, and IIRC Roy and Lucas. Mega Man is an honorary member since NAir is weird.

 

[Nobie]

Re: Mega Man

What makes Mega Man a nightmare for Luigi (until he can actually grab and combo the robot) is that Mega Man's entire kit seems specially designed to give Luigi hell.

Lemons aren't just about spamming them to keep Luigi out. It's more that they negate his main approach tool, which is his fireball, and to make matters worse, Mega Man can choose to shoot 1, 2, or 3 times, AND he can move during it. it's like, congratulations you powershielded my last pellet, too bad I'm already jumping away. Pellets also stop Cyclones, green missiles, and a lot more. Luigi can powershield and walk forward, but then he has to deal with every other projectile.

Mega Man has some of the best aerial maneuverability in the game, and Luigi has some of the worst air speed in the game. It's an unpleasant experience for Luigi because Mega Man not only can weave in and out like no other character can (while not top in air speed he's top or near it in aerial friction and deceleration), but it also means Mega Man on offense can exploit Luigi's biggest weakness.

Mega Man's vulnerable to getting juggled due to high fall speed, but even that's not as bad as other characters because he's relatively small, but heavy, so he can also take a lot of punishment.

Re: Some other stuff

Mobility is an important trait in Smash, and I even talked about how Mega Man's mobility is a big issue for Luigi, but I think that a lot of people don't understand well enough how to use slower characters even after almost a year. This is in some ways no fault of the players themselves. Historically, Smash has been unkind to slow characters, and I think there's no better example than seeing what optimal Mewtwo and Bowser play was like in Melee. What does Mewtwo do? DJC fairs, chain grabs, etc. What does Bowser do? Frame 1 Up B's, l-cancels, etc. Both characters' best methods are basically trying to mimic fast characters.

While I don't think becoming super good at slow characters is going to suddenly make all of them top tier, I do think that Smashers simply have a hard time understanding the mindset, the necessary weighing of risk and reward and the willingness to indeed take risks. Players in Melee take risks of course, but that's because the reward can be so danged high.

Two examples: First, is Rosalina. While she isn't a heavy bruiser type, she is defensive and slow in certain respects, but while she's considered top tier, almost no one uses her. Why is that? She IS a complex character with a semi-unique mechanic, but I think it's more that she plays this super rooted, defensive style, and I don't mean that in a runaway sense.

Second, is Ryu. Ryu doesn't exactly count as a slow character either, but you see people arguing for Ryu all over the tier list. In this thread and on Reddit and such, I've seen him referred to as anything from top to bottom tier! The only other character who gets that is Roy! For Ryu, I believe it's because his super stable playstyle, rooted in footsies and space control in neutral, is kind of a foreign concept, partly because this is pretty much how you play a lot of the slower characters as well (and Falco if he counts as a slow character). Roy's actually the opposite: people see in him all of the qualities that made Smash "Smash" (whether that's true or not), and so like to place him highly due to throw combos and sheer speed, until they start to see the chinks in his armor.

 

[FullMoon]

Pretty sure Sheik has at no point been the best character in HW. Water barrier is only "useful" early on (when it's not really needed), as it's insufficient to fully protect her from damage in the later maps. Definitely not a top contender at the very least.

The other maps came out later though, on release Sheik was probably really strong.

I never really finished the first adventure mode map so.

But Bair is so fast! *is biased towards Bairs* If only we knew Greninja's short hop air time... that 2 frames less landing lag makes it seem less risky. Welp, I hope they change Greninja's landing lag and/or auto-cancel window so he can Bair everyone like Link.

Greninja's landing lag is fine, I doubt they're going to change any of that.

B-Air is better used for edgeguarding thanks to the horizontal knockback and also for juggles. It has its functions and it does them very well.

 

[Djent]

You know, I just realized that Sheik being broken in this game is funny because she's also pretty broken in Hyrule Warriors.

Sheik, forever broken (except in Brawl)

had / syndrome; i.e. she's a strong character on paper that was nonetheless invalidated by & , meaning that she could never get that far in bracket by herself later in the game's lifespan.

And is in an analogous situation to 1.0.4 – the only reason she isn't the clear-cut queen is because there exist other(s) who are even more absurd.

 

[Ffamran]

Greninja's part of the "none of our aerials autocancel from a low jump/short hop club" along with Game & Watch, Shulk, and IIRC Roy and Lucas. Mega Man is an honorary member since NAir is weird.

Really? *checks* Oh, that explains it, his Nair only has 12 frames of landing lag... That still doesn't explain his Fair and Bair, though... Hitboxes?

Greninja's landing lag is fine, I doubt they're going to change any of that.

B-Air is better used for edgeguarding thanks to the horizontal knockback and also for juggles. It has its functions and it does them very well.

IT NEEDS TO BE FASTER. MY BAIR NEEDS DEMAND IT. Still, intercepting with Bair is better for on reaction moments, right? You're hitting before they hit, so it's probably a good air-to-air move. Fair is as well, but you need to read them first, space it, and then hit them. Different moves; different purposes.

 

[Wintropy]

@ Nobie 's post reminds me of something I wanted to share with the thread.

I think a fundamental part of what makes a character truly viable is diversity. There are a few essential factors common to characters deemed "viable" - safety, mobility, good frame data, solid neutral / advantage / disadvantage, etc - but I think diversity is a trait that's seldom mentioned. Characters like Rosalina and Ryu, by virtue of their totally unique playstyles and complex mechanical depth, have a ton of versatility in their moves: Rosalina has her puppet, Ryu has near twice the amount of moves that every other character has in their toolkit. I think the reason we don't see much of them in top-level play is because, quite frankly, both characters are a massive commitment, to the extent that safer characters like Sheik and ZSS dominate due to their relatively easy playstyle to get to grips with. I think that, even if and when Rosalina and Ryu are "decoded" by others and we know how to counter them, the fact that both characters can play a totally different game to anybody else, and most importantly, maintain that innate sense of diversity to ensure their matchup spread remains fluid and consistent, will ensure their continued stability in future.

 

[Vipermoon]

had / syndrome; i.e. she's a strong character on paper that was nonetheless invalidated by & , meaning that she could never get that far in bracket by herself later in the game's lifespan.

And is in an analogous situation to 1.0.4 – the only reason she isn't the clear-cut queen is because there exist other(s) who are even more absurd.

There are huge things that give Sheik success in this game compared to other versions of Sheik.

They are the way buffed air speed (buffs recovery as a bonus). Brawl/Melee Sheik has horrible air speed. Much better run speed. And that new down B (also buffs recovery as a bonus).

 

[FullMoon]

Really? *checks* Oh, that explains it, his Nair only has 12 frames of landing lag... That still doesn't explain his Fair and Bair, though... Hitboxes?


IT NEEDS TO BE FASTER. MY BAIR NEEDS DEMAND IT. Still, intercepting with Bair is better for on reaction moments, right? You're hitting before they hit, so it's probably a good air-to-air move. Fair is as well, but you need to read them first, space it, and then hit them. Different moves; different purposes.

I also made the mistake of thinking N-Air autocanceled =V

And yeah I guess B-Air is a good reaction move at least if you're not going against someone who's attacking you with disjoints, F-Air is just better for spacing but B-Air is more niche as far as spacing is concerned.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

http://pulse-gaming.challonge.com/SFW2

Ryuga beat Ally's Mario.

Do I need more proof about Ike being high tier yet?

 

[outfoxd]

http://pulse-gaming.challonge.com/SFW2

Ryuga beat Ally's Mario.

Do I need more proof about Ike being high tier yet?

I saw that and im kicking myself that i didn't go to this event today.

 

[Vipermoon]

http://pulse-gaming.challonge.com/SFW2

Ryuga beat Ally's Mario.

Do I need more proof about Ike being high tier yet?

Nice. I was actually going to go to this tourney.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

I saw that and im kicking myself that i didn't go to this event today.

Sadly nobody there is streaming it. Don't know what the break down is either, he just gave us a heads up in the Ike Skype.

 

[outfoxd]

Sadly nobody there is streaming it. Don't know what the break down is either, he just gave us a heads up in the Ike Skype.

Bad internet in the venue.

 

[Vipermoon]

Yeah this new venue may not have internet (I believe that's what I heard) unlike the old one. But they will be recorded and uploaded with commentary is what I understood.

 

[Nu~]

I would assume that Mario falters against Ike due to the range difference and mario's game plan being about trying his best to get in. Ike can swat away whatever approach option Mario takes with little repercussion due to his lack of landing lag.

 

[Cassio]

To be fair most of the ZSS community at large loses to characters with shields and frolls, so my list is a pretty solid compromise imo

lol, Im still waiting on the froll revolution.

I dont think ZSS loses to froll though, she has decent enough spacing tools she just has to not commit which Im guessing is the mistake a lot of ZSS will make if they lose to roll. People say the same thing about Lucina but getting hit out of roll by Lucina (probably by fsmash) is demoralizing. Her spacing tools arent as dependent on SH so getting in range for a roll specifically isnt easy, as pika rolls arent out of the question but are a bigger risk then standard approaches.

I do think that ZSS has a +2 adv. over Pit but she's imo the easiest out of the counters Pit has, the others being Sheik, Luigi, Rosalina and Pikachu. It could maybe just be +1 but I haven't played enough against good ZSS to be sure. Anyways I agree that Pit's bad match-ups are at worst 40-60 and he should be able to win against any character.

Pika would be even if many of our punish didn't whiff because of his stupid size. Our grab will literally go above him after many of his moves. I think Esam vs Nairo at SSC shows how hard the match-up is. THere's stuff he could have done better like using dsmash to punish pika when he can't be grabbed but then again that doesn't get Pit that much of a reward. Actually he could have used the better version of the character lol.

Wasn't Nairo just off that entire tournament? I've heard Pikachu players in general say that he struggles against disjoints, and Pit shouldn't be an exception.

Pikachu doesnt suffer disjoints as much in this game since they were heavily nerfed along with his improved size/mobility. But the pits are still among the best picks against pika since they have a moveset that can combat pika on the ground. I know its hard to punish pika being short put at least pits have something a lot of characters have nothing except to go for 50/50's especially if they have to run. Pit has his dash attack, and probably dair? Dash attack is really good vs pika in general. His punish game is among the more solid vs pika as well, fthrow to upsmash, and because of the space (not necessarily disjoint) his large sweeping aerials cover its harder for pika to use his size to his advantage esp in the air and get around them.

Also I wouldnt worry about nairo getting owned by pika one game it happens, games can be very chaotic.

 

[san.]

I would assume that Mario falters against Ike due to the range difference and mario's game plan being about trying his best to get in. Ike can swat away whatever approach option Mario takes with little repercussion due to his lack of landing lag.

Mario gets tons of reward when he gets a hit in though. Both characters can edgeguard each other easily. Mario is one of the easiest characters to eruption or just swat away. Ike has to save his jump/DI well and/or read the fludd (SM popularized holding quick draw against fludd and not releasing too early for mario to capitalize).

I believed it was one of Ike's worse MUs in the past, but frequent buffs seemed to have changed this to the +/-1 area.

Theoretically, Ike can keep away quite a few characters that I consider he loses to, like Luigi.

 

[Yonder]

http://pulse-gaming.challonge.com/SFW2

Ryuga beat Ally's Mario.

Do I need more proof about Ike being high tier yet?

Yay! Tourney results from Ike against a very notable player! Before I just wasn't seeing Ike as high tier with most of it being theorycraft and whatnot, but I just have to take note when a big player loses, like Leo vs Mr.R as Meta Knight. Ike may very well be LOW high tier.

So, since Ike has been more nullified from the "all theory, no results" category for now, who's the next big perpetrator/s? Biggest one is Yoshi, of course. Roy could be a runner up, any players of note with him? Mario only has Ally and is regarded as one of the best too but he's more off the hook. Pac Man doesn't fall in this category since he's not considered "amazing" yet and only has one amazing rep, Abadango.

Side note with Pac Man, he has the coolest, flashiest, and most diverse combos in the game bar none. But are they practical to pull off? Even Abadango uses no combos like the ones listed in the best Pac Man combo vids at a high tourney level. If I see people pull these combos off at high level tournies, I'll call Pac Man a high tier easily with a massive learning curve.

 

[Nu~]

Yay! Tourney results from Ike against a very notable player! Before I just wasn't seeing Ike as high tier with most of it being theorycraft and whatnot, but I just have to take note when a big player loses, like Leo vs Mr.R as Meta Knight. Ike may very well be LOW high tier.

So, since Ike has been more nullified from the "all theory, no results" category for now, who's the next big perpetrator/s? Biggest one is Yoshi, of course. Roy could be a runner up, any players of note with him? Mario only has Ally and is regarded as one of the best too but he's more off the hook. Pac Man doesn't fall in this category since he's not considered "amazing" yet and only has one amazing rep, Abadango.

Side note with Pac Man, he has the coolest, flashiest, and most diverse combos in the game bar none. But are they practical to pull off? Even Abadango uses no combos like the ones listed in the best Pac Man combo vids at a high tourney level. If I see people pull these combos off at high level tournies, I'll call Pac Man a high tier easily with a massive learning curve.

Abadango is a very reserved player. He doesn't go for the most optimal combos with Pac-Man because he either doesn't practice them/know them (especially most of the ones that we players in the Pac-Man thread have come up with) or because he prefers to slowly zone and keep his opponent out with consistent defensive pressure. Kinda like his wario in brawl.

We all need to practice his traps/combos more, while also minimizing the many situational ones that won't work more than once in a match lol.

 

[Shaya]

Dang I missed so much Falchion talk.

I maintain there's a tier difference. But it's going to show more so how close tier gaps are more so that Marth is that much better than her.
Lucina at low levels at this stage is going to be a similar power level to Marth. All those unique damage buffs have really helped her. Despite this, moves like Jab, Up Tilt and Forward Tilt and arguably several aerials are just straight up better on Marth at every level.

Lucina however will always be held back by lack of depth to her moveset. The difference between having sour spots/sweet spots is huge. So so so huge. Look back at any other past smash game and tell me this isn't a huge factor to long-term character development/meta advancement.

Cassio/Reflex, kinda surprising that I'm sure you've heard the sour/sweet spot argument before but have completely forgotten?
Even at this early stage of the game's life time, the nuances of marth having sour spots are already pretty significant:

Marth has sour spot aerials (and other things) into tipper moves at kill percent.
Marth has tipper aerials at low percent to give enough frame advantage for combos while Lucina has to 'wait' to pick up. The difference between hit stun on Marth's sours and Lucina's is pretty minor (nair1 is a good comparison), but the KNOCK BACK differences are very very noticeable. Lucina has fair to fsmash for like a 20-30% window where the fsmash will only kill if near a ledge and bad DI, Marth's window is noticeably larger.
Obviously "into kill moves" isn't the only point, this difference is giving Marth follow ups Lucina cannot get nearly all the time.
In general, Marth gets to make strategic decisions between his spacing while Lucina does not. This means an opponent has a much better time anticipating and evaluating what's going on in a match.

The "marth getting tippers requires the opponent to be spacing bad just as much as marth is being precise" is... terrible. This made sense before these characters got buffs and were too laggy to ever combo, they were deduced to a one trick game plan of trapping only and smash attack reads. But if you've gotten hit, and you're about to get hit again, that's all about Marth's spacing/precision and very little to do with an opponent being "bad". Lucina wants to hit people close to her to extend how long she can get hits just like Marth does, except Marth is fully rewarded for this while Lucina is not.

Well spaced pokes from Lucina at this stage are likely close to safe[r]. Thank goodness because otherwise there would be no merit to her at this point where Marth players basically only want to hit people with sour moves "on first strikes". Her spacing well finally has merit. Although Marth spacing well still gets at least twice or thrice the returns in rewards and available strategic decision.

 

[Asdioh]

So it looks like Ally ran it back and won both sets in GFs... what happened :/?

 

[Nidtendofreak]

http://pulse-gaming.challonge.com/SFW2

Ryuga beat Ally's Mario.

Do I need more proof about Ike being high tier yet?

To follow up on this: Ally won in Grand Finals. No clue if he stuck with Mario or any of the breakdown.

Still. Sending Ally to losers? Not exactly a bad thing.

 

[thehard]

inb4 Ally beat Ryuga with his Marth

 

[Shaya]

Oh and @ Asdioh
I think the match up in Brawl was close to even. It was one of those match ups that if you were West Coast based you felt it was even/maybe kirby's advantage, while East Coast was like "nup, hard counter to kirby, kirby sucks".

Smash4 changes don't have the same result in my mind.
Marth's hitbox placement was standardised from Brawl to Smash4, generally buffering the range/disjoint/reach of all of his aerials noticeably.

Now outspacing Kirby's back air without trading or losing is noticeably easier and without that single factor to the match up it does (to me) feel like Marth's advantage now.
He can now jump at an aerial kirby without fear, while in Brawl he had to respect aerial Kirby and attempt to punish landings only.

To follow up on this: Ally won in Grand Finals. No clue if he stuck with Mario or any of the breakdown.

Still. Sending Ally to losers? Not exactly a bad thing.

He'll probably PM me within a day to tell me to bump him to degree 2~

 

[Asdioh]

Marth's aerial hitbox placement was standardised, generally buffering the range/disjoint/reach of all of his aerials noticeably.

Now outspacing Kirby's back air without trading or losing is noticeably easier and without that single factor to the match up it does (to me) feel like Marth's advantage now.

Made even easier by the fact that Kirby's Bair range was noticeably nerfed from Brawl!
Interestingly, Smash G0D beat False's Marth with Kirby at Smashcon, wish it was recorded.

 

[Shaya]

Likely not much of an advantage either way. That is/was an early release impression from me and although both characters have received buffs, Kirby's ones may impact this match up more/better than what Marth got.
i.e. better grab game.

I'll happily smile at any East Coast Marth player losing to Kirby forever though, in any game.

 

[Cassio]

@ Shaya I actually did forget the sweet spot/sour spot thing, but Im pretty sure this wasnt as big a thing in Brawl (I remember it now though). And in melee sour spot just meant it was easier to crouch cancel and punish and were only situationaly better then sweet spots at extending combos (if not crouch cancelled). I could see this being something more important in smash 4 with more hitstun (then brawl), larger disparity between tipper and non tipper, and removal of melee style crouch cancel. Mostly I was explaining a sentiment I felt between playing marth and lucina but ill admit I havent had a chance to really explore or play against a decent marth after his buffs.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

@ Nobie 's post reminds me of something I wanted to share with the thread.

I think a fundamental part of what makes a character truly viable is diversity. There are a few essential factors common to characters deemed "viable" - safety, mobility, good frame data, solid neutral / advantage / disadvantage, etc - but I think diversity is a trait that's seldom mentioned. Characters like Rosalina and Ryu, by virtue of their totally unique playstyles and complex mechanical depth, have a ton of versatility in their moves: Rosalina has her puppet, Ryu has near twice the amount of moves that every other character has in their toolkit. I think the reason we don't see much of them in top-level play is because, quite frankly, both characters are a massive commitment, to the extent that safer characters like Sheik and ZSS dominate due to their relatively easy playstyle to get to grips with. I think that, even if and when Rosalina and Ryu are "decoded" by others and we know how to counter them, the fact that both characters can play a totally different game to anybody else, and most importantly, maintain that innate sense of diversity to ensure their matchup spread remains fluid and consistent, will ensure their continued stability in future.

Diversity clearly isn't the whole picture though, or else Shulk wouldn't be stuck in that weird tier limbo. I'm mostly thinking of his Arts -- it's true they only last for a limited amount of time but they do let him basically pick one of five stats (jump height, speed, weight, damage output, ko power) and say "I'm better than you at this now." He has a few other problems that still hold him back, notably frame data, plus the fact that his Arts all come with drawbacks. (Come to think of it, how would Shulk rank if his Arts didn't have downsides?)

To be clear, I don't think you were actually arguing diversity = top tier. In general though I think you're absolutely right that diversity, or at least having flexible options, is definitely a factor.

 

[Shaya]

Smash4 is the first game Marth doesn't want to only tipper forward air people.
Tipper fair in melee was required for combos (had the same trajectory as our jab does now), while as you say, sour spot is easy to crouch cancel and overall was somewhat useless.
In Brawl there was a really minor nuance in trying to not-hit tippers, but this was only for vertical-spacing purposes and if that came out as tippers in practice it wouldn't have been any different. Hit stun cancelling in a game meant maximising damage was really the only metric, and when it came to us and forward air and how frequently it was heavily staled (13% fresh, I'm sure most marth mains experience 7% fairs almost as a majority) actually let it combo (as pre-tumble hit stun couldn't be cancelled). To top it off, sour spot fair wasn't safe on hit until like 50% on most of the cast unless it was fast fallen.

Now...
yeah I only want to tipper fair people if I'm trying to hit a shield well spaced, "end" a string (untipper fair to fair combos reliably mid-air almost forever past early percent) or edge guarding.
Otherwise, untippered uair, down air, fair and bair are much better combo starting/"advantage maintaining" tools.

Neutral air you still want to always tipper, at least.
Nair1s are somewhat gimmicky (and tipper nair1 is "better" for that gimmick in practice anyway...)

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Smash4 is the first game Marth doesn't want to only tipper forward air people.
Tipper fair in melee was required for combos (had the same trajectory as our jab does now), while as you say, sour spot is easy to crouch cancel and overall was somewhat useless.
In Brawl there was a really minor nuance in trying to not-hit tippers, but this was only for vertical-spacing purposes and if that came out as tippers in practice it wouldn't have been any different. Hit stun cancelling in a game meant maximising damage was really the only metric, and when it came to us and forward air and how frequently it was heavily staled (13% fresh, I'm sure most marth mains experience 7% fairs almost as a majority) actually let it combo (as pre-tumble hit stun couldn't be cancelled). To top it off, sour spot fair wasn't safe on hit until like 50% on most of the cast unless it was fast fallen.

Now...
yeah I only want to tipper fair people if I'm trying to hit a shield well spaced, "end" a string (untipper fair to fair combos reliably mid-air almost forever past early percent) or edge guarding.
Otherwise, untippered uair, down air, fair and bair are much better combo starting/"advantage maintaining" tools.

Neutral air you still want to always tipper, at least.
Nair1s are somewhat gimmicky (and tipper nair1 is "better" for that gimmick in practice anyway...)

I'd consider this an interesting design, giving Marth an incentive to not always tipper, but I don't actually use him (or Lucina) all that much so I may be completely off base with that. Because giving Marth a reason to not use his unique gimmick is weird to think about.

 

[LancerStaff]

I'd consider this an interesting design, giving Marth an incentive to not always tipper, but I don't actually use him (or Lucina) all that much so I may be completely off base with that. Because giving Marth a reason to not use his unique gimmick is weird to think about.

His gimmick isn't tippers, it's spacing. Combos or raw power, chosen by how you position yourself.

Or at the very least the devs realized this somewhere along the line.

 

[Shaya]

Marth's "unique" (not really anymore) gimmick is how his sweet spots/sour spots work compared to the other characters.
Original and core designs (Smash64/most of melee) are early hits are sweet spots and late attacks are sour spots. Anti-"design" like having Doctor Mario's nair and spacing based sweet/sour spots may have been most prominent with Marth but is a big part to a lot of the newer characters (well, I play ZSS, her shoes are tippers~)
Marth in Brawl also had his neutral air gain KO power the longer it stayed out. This was actually so ridiculous too, his regular tipper nair would've been close to the strongest nair in the game, yet the late super sweetspot nair was one of the strongest horizontal knockback moves, second only to his tipper fsmash in marth's kit...
I'm not sure if any non-smash attacks/super specials were stronger in Brawl, and the fact it was up to +2 on shield too because it auto cancelled after hitboxes ended *dreams*

However, strategic use of sweet or sour spots should've always been there, just like with every other character. In Melee this wasn't the case (they really wanted to accentuate the "difference" in spacing well to not spacing well [i.e. top tier to likely super below average]).
In Brawl they gave his sour spots less hit lag to make them safer on shield, it was a start. But all of his non-tipper moves weren't safe on hit in Brawl basically and shield was king, so why would you want to?

In Brawl you would go for sour up air sometimes but not really. Actually, our Up tilt was a better KO move "sour" too.
In short though, there was never much of a reason not to go for tippers.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

So, an ultimate air dodge punish from Captain Falcon is a bad move? Not only is it a good air dodge punish, but you can set it up from a Uair, a common and very good move Captain Falcon has. It may be situational, but it's a good move. In the same scenario, apparently Toon Link can setup his Fair out of Bombs which I think Peach can do with her Fair with Turnips. DK? He can setup his Fair out of cargo U-throw which alone is a good move when it covers behind, above, in front, and below him which in a similar case, Triple D can easily get a Fair out of his D-throw. Greninja can sort of 50/50 people from Dtilt or D-throw with Fair. The only Fairs I don't think you can setup with are (Dr.) Mario, Yoshi, Ganondorf, Link, and Shulk's. They are slow and situational moves, but nevertheless, they are good moves in those moments.

Yoshi approaches and spaces with Fair. Yoshi in Brawl used to use Bair instead, but because at launch, Bair wasn't so great as Brawl, Yoshi players don't use it. Now it has auto-link angles, so it won't flub up hits and you can do a Bair spike to Up Smash. Can Yoshi use Nair? Yes, but it doesn't have the hitbox or the strong hit as Fair. With Yoshi's air speed and fall speed, he can drift in and out with Fair. That's what makes it work: the drifting means you don't really where Yoshi's going to be. Who else does that? Peach. Peach has 2 common options out of a low float: Dair pressuring and Fair spacing and baiting. Vegetable in hand, she can cover her approach or make you guess if she's going to throw or not. Yoshi can sort of do that with Egg Throw by pressuring you with eggs. At the same time, it's the ability to weave in and out that makes Peach's a good move. Oh, and it's her common kill move too at frame 16.

Results? So, the common complaint of Yoshi being overrated, Japan doesn't understand how to deal with Yoshi, or the fact you can look at the PR thread and see many Yoshi players? Yoshi might not be top 3'ing tournaments, but being in the top 10 is pretty damn good for an overrated character with Captain Falcon syndrome of doing well, but not doing well enough to beat top tiers. Toon Link is not played as much, but Zan and Artemis - she? was at EVO, right, but lost to something that I don't remember - do pretty well. Then you have Ganondorf with results from Ray Kalm in Canada and I'm not sure, but Gungnir in Japan. For a character that pretty much shouldn't be winning is doing well is fine. What about Peach, Link, DK, or Shulk? For Peach, she's a good character who with the few players she has from lloD, Pink Fresh, SlayerZ, and even freaking False, she does fine. Link pretty much doesn't have much nor do Shulk and DK only has like DKWill as the most notable player. Hell, Mario only has Ally and Bowser Jr. only has Tweek making dents while the rest are doing so-so like many Yoshi, Ganondorf, Shulk, Link, Toon Link, etc. players.

How about Sonic's frame 13 Bair? Slow isn't it? Low-level play would be able to easily setup it after a Spin Dash jump. That's why it works and even alone, it works because of Sonic's good ground and air speed. Same with Fox's frame 9 Bair which Fox players will use to pressure shields and approach. Why? Good auto-cancel, good shield push, and if hit with it, good damage. After that, Fox doesn't have anything as safe for aerial approaches. In a way, Fox is doing the same thing, but with a frame 9 Bair instead of a frame 16 Fair. A character that is well-known for his fast hits and fast ground speed relies on a slow aerial for aerial approaches. A frame slower and we've got Captain Falcon, Ganondorf, and the Pits' frame 10 Bairs. Ganondorf might not have as much of results, but Captain Falcon and the Pits definitely do. These frame 10 kill moves that early on people suggested Captain Falcon use as an approach? The frame 10 Bair that people are complaining because it was powerful and others are complaining that it was nerfed by 1%?

Oh, and for the record, you don't space with Greninja's Fair. You're better off using his Bair instead which Link also does.

Edit: Forgot about this: my original post was asking what your point was. Why did you just pick Fair and after finding out it's frame 16, just sigh, and say Greninja's in a worst spot than possible?

Situational uses of a move makes it situational. Those aren't good moves. Falcon doesn't need to bait air dodges after uair. Certain percentages it combos into fair. Yoshi can actually weave in and out of his fair greninja cannot.

I thought fair was faster. 16 frames is an unacceptable greninja is bad and I was just starting to change my opinion on him. If they don't fix his frame data he's screwed.

 

[Nu~]

Situational uses of a move makes it situational. Those aren't good moves. Falcon doesn't need to bait air dodges after uair. Certain percentages it combos into fair. Yoshi can actually weave in and out of his fair greninja cannot.

I thought fair was faster. 16 frames is an unacceptable greninja is bad and I was just starting to change my opinion on him. If they don't fix his frame data he's screwed.

How can Greninja be bad with that kind of mobility and all of those combo options?

Frame data doesn't exactly determine everything...

 

[Tri Knight]

I could see ZeRo almost losing to a Link.
Seriously.

He's got a really solid game play at the single step level but I still think he's lacking mid range capabilities.
Although down throw up smash is kinda stupid, that's more damage than Diddy ever did, please Sakuwhy.

On the contrary, Link's ranged game is where it should be. The problem is Link's sword game. Link is practically unsafe with any kind of sword attack. He's got great range with his sword but unfortunately he suffers from terrible end lag and just laggy attacks in general. His jab alone is frame 7. I mean thats just disgusting. Faster characters (like Sheik and Fox) easily body Link. Because of Link's lack of speed, he can't get away. Because of Link's awful melee attack frame data, he can't even really defend himself.

Link doesn't have the necessary speed to capitalize on projectile followups at high % like Toon Link does. So what he needs is better sword attacks. Keep his projectiles the way they are, allowing for short combos at low percents and later used as a way to pressure opponents while approaching. I wouldn't consider him anything higher than mid-tier until his sword game gets an overhaul in frames. A frame 5 jab would mean the world at this point. Less end lag on all tilts would be a blessing.

It won't happen though since FG's get wrecked by Link cuz they don't know how to shield. FG is the reason why we're going to lose Dthrow as well.

 

[FullMoon]

"Greninja's F-Air is 2 frames slower than I thought. Character is ruined forever."

Amazing logic.

How can Greninja be bad with that kind of mobility and all of those combo options?

Frame data doesn't exactly determine everything...

Frame data is clearly everything, I mean, it's not like Captain Falcon has been high tier since forever despite having a frame data that's almost as bad as Greninja's or anything.

Oi.

 

[Locke 06]

"Greninja's F-Air is 2 frames slower than I thought. Character is ruined forever."

Amazing logic.

2 frames slower in the realm of 10-20 frames can make a huge difference. f14 is verging on unreactable. f16 is reactable. ZSS' grab at f14 would be extremely different to play against. Luckily it's f16.