Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[FullMoon]

If Duck Hunt could actually kill at reasonable percents, where do you guys think he would stand?

 

[Wintropy]

If Duck Hunt could actually kill at reasonable percents, where do you guys think he would stand?

I think they'd get more representation, that's for sure. They've got a decently diverse toolkit, good harassment tools, very dirty tricks if you know what to do, could be a solid stage-control character with a few kill tweaks.

More so than a kill buff, I'd be happy if the hitboxes on their smashes were fixed. Disjoints are fine and dandy if the disjoint...actually connects.

Unless this was fixed yonks ago and I am stupid.

It's been a while since I played this character.

 

[⑨ball]

It makes you wonder why we haven't gotten a real boon in patches.

Anyone think they might be afraid of over buffing DH because of his kit?

Core projectile users in general are probably pretty terrifying to them. It's understandable, since if you overlook how their kits can function as a whole rather than individual parts you end up with with an archetype that lacks a trade off for their strength(ex: Sheik needles).

Sword users probably come in at a close second as far as fear goes, but it seems those fears have been largely dispelled for some reason or another.

I think they'd get more representation, that's for sure. They've got a decently diverse toolkit, good harassment tools, very dirty tricks if you know what to do, could be a solid stage-control character with a few kill tweaks.

More so than a kill buff, I'd be happy if the hitboxes on their smashes were fixed. Disjoints are fine and dandy if the disjoint...actually connects.

Unless this was fixed yonks ago and I am stupid.

It's been a while since I played this character.

I ran a few tests post patch and they're still pretty wonky. At least he's pretty great in customs.

 

[Blobface]

All Duck Hunt needs is for his smashes to function. They all kill at decent %'s and come out at a decent speed, but none of that matters when they never link. They're at least aware of the issue at this point, so hopefully he'll get a few more hitbox buffs.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Ryus hadoukens should be transcendent.

 

[outfoxd]

Ryus hadoukens should be transcendent.

You monster.

 

[adom4]

Ryus hadoukens should be transcendent.

And Ganondorf should have Falcon's jab.

 

[outfoxd]

All Duck Hunt needs is for his smashes to function. They all kill at decent %'s and come out at a decent speed, but none of that matters when they never link. They're at least aware of the issue at this point, so hopefully he'll get a few more hitbox buffs.

He's got other issues. Even his one or two reliable kill options are weak (uair and nair). He's got a great grab but no kills or combo throws.

I almost wish can would kill earlier to incentivise even further getting surgical with it.

 

[FullMoon]

Maybe we could give Greninja his pre-patch Hydro Pump and Up-Smash too, maybe reduce the lag on the shuriken while keeping the start-up the same as it is now.

I mean it's totally not going to make him abusive or anything.

Anyway does Duck Hunt even have true combos that don't rely on shenanigans with the can?

 

[outfoxd]

Maybe we could give Greninja his pre-patch Hydro Pump and Up-Smash too, maybe reduce the lag on the shuriken while keeping the start-up the same as it is now.

I mean it's totally not going to make him abusive or anything.

Anyway does Duck Hunt even have true combos that don't really or shenanigans with the can?

Fthrow to dash attack at low percents on fastfallers.

Hurling people into the can.

Reversing the direction of the can with bair or nair leads to fun stuff like can stage spiking.

 

[FullMoon]

Fthrow to dash attack at low percents on fastfallers.

Hurling people into the can.

Reversing the direction of the can with bair or nair leads to fun stuff like can stage spiking.

I think the last two fall into the "shenanigans with the can" category. Granted, I made a couple horrible typos there lol.

Didn't know about the F-Throw thing though.

 

[outfoxd]

I think the last two fall into the "shenanigans with the can" category. Granted, I made a couple horrible typos there lol.

Didn't know about the F-Throw thing though.

Sorry, misread.

Yeah, true combos with duck hunt involve planning and teamwork between all components. Like following a gunshot to an aerial, or off delayed pigeons. Duck Hunt is like playing three or four really crappy characters in unison.

 

[san.]

To me, Gunner seems like a functional projectile character, but I don't see how people put him as low as they do with such certainty.

Smashes kill and he can use 3 high-top tier projectiles at once, 4 if you count fair. I underestimated upB1's buff. The hitbox angle changed, but depending on which way Gunner is facing, he can decide to gimp (or kill far offstage) or stage spike with it. Cannon uppercut upB's knockback was also increased. I think I've said enough about the new missile at this point. Reducing lag by 10 makes it really good now (around -4 on shield drop point blank for super missile).

Usmash and Dsmash aren't dependable with 0/0, but usmash is spammable and is powerful when the last hit works. Fsmash works just fine and is a kill if the opponent normal getups. It's fairly weak, but you frequently have chances to charge it up. Uair is also very reliable for killing and damage as well.


The Chibo loadout (1312 iirc) has been buffed and is great with a 0/0 size as long as you don't rely on smash attacks as much.

 

[adom4]

To me, Gunner seems like a functional projectile character, but I don't see how people put him as low as they do with such certainty.

Smashes kill and he can use 3 high-top tier projectiles at once, 4 if you count fair. I underestimated upB1's buff. The hitbox angle changed, but depending on which way Gunner is facing, he can decide to gimp (or kill far offstage) or stage spike with it. Cannon uppercut upB's knockback was also increased. I think I've said enough about the new missile at this point. Reducing lag by 10 makes it really good now (around -4 on shield drop point blank for super missile).

Usmash and Dsmash aren't dependable with 0/0, but usmash is spammable and is powerful when the last hit works. Fsmash works just fine and is a kill if the opponent normal getups. It's fairly weak, but you frequently have chances to charge it up. Uair is also very reliable for killing and damage as well.


The Chibo loadout (1312 iirc) has been buffed and is great with a 0/0 size as long as you don't rely on smash attacks as much.

How much did the grenade launcher nerf affect gunner? were the other buffs enough to compensate?

 

[TMNTSSB4]

Maybe we could give Greninja his pre-patch Hydro Pump and Up-Smash too, maybe reduce the lag on the shuriken while keeping the start-up the same as it is now.

I mean it's totally not going to make him abusive or anything.

Anyway does Duck Hunt even have true combos that don't rely on shenanigans with the can?

Grab, back throw, dash attack, side smash, nair, then finally uair.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Maybe we could give Greninja his pre-patch Hydro Pump and Up-Smash too, maybe reduce the lag on the shuriken while keeping the start-up the same as it is now.

I mean it's totally not going to make him abusive or anything.

Anyway does Duck Hunt even have true combos that don't rely on shenanigans with the can?

He can combo off of gunmen.

 

[san.]

How much did the grenade launcher nerf affect gunner? were the other buffs enough to compensate?

Not much, other than making grenade launch a somewhat weaker pick. It's still a pain to get around it, but hitboxes stuff it now. I think it was a good balance decision and doesn't feel as cheesy anymore. The reward is still the same.

The buff to missile makes it better than old grenade in many ways, even though hitboxes can still destroy them.

Gunner actually received a sizable amount of buffs for this patch.

 

[Ffamran]

@ Ffamran Huh? You presume to call a match-up for a character unlike any in this series before and he is only 2 months old?

Thats the kind of thinking that gets you utilt locked my friend.

You do remember who I am, right? The pessimist? The guy who believes Falco has no winning matchups? When I say Ryu is one of Falco's better MUs, I'm saying there's a small chance it's 50:50 with a larger, but still small chance of it being 40:60 in this point of the meta's development. Of the 4 released DLC characters, Ryu's probably Falco's better MU when they do want to fight at similar ranges. Roy? Captain Falcon and Marth's illegitimate child with some of granddad Ganondorf's power? Lucas? Ness with a better mid-range game and better gimp and edgeguard game? Mewtwo? Glass cannon extraordinaire? Yeah, it wasn't like Falco dies at low percents and gets comboed to hell, but let's add a faster Ganondorf with disjoints. The main difference is that Ryu's a definite high tier, Roy, Lucas, and Mewtwo aren't (as of yet or they just aren't). Assuming no patches and a massive expansion of Ryu's development, Falco's going to get steamrolled as usual, but right now, he's going to do somewhat fine.

But Hadoken is painfully slow and doesn't have much range. Maybe it's just because Pit's arrows beat Hadoken so soundly...

Most anything, last I checked. Falco has tons of KBG.

Similar, not the same.

I swear Hadouken has either Falco's default Blaster range or Fox's Impact Blaster range, but because I don't own Ryu, I can't check. THE MUSHROOMY KINGDOM BLOCKS ARE LIFE. Also, Ryu's Hadouken and Shakuntesu have enough knockback and hit stun where it doesn't leave him screwed at max range. Falco is screwed at any range unless the opponent is off stage which most projectiles do well at already so... yeah...

Anyway, the ability to vary your projectile's speed is amazing in a game where only 2? characters can: Samus and Ryu. In other fighting games, it's pretty common for characters to have at least a fast and slow projectile. I don't think Juicebox has a video about Street Fighter's projectiles, but this video on projectiles in KoF is a helpful.

I do share the feeling that Falco is a bit like Ryu, but more so of how they work with moves and something else... Falco and Ryu setup with similar moves, but if we go with that, then you could say Ike is like Falco because they can setup with Dtilt... yeah... Something else might be more of they are monsters at close range, but Ryu has a better projectile game for all-around use and Ryu's punish game is much, much safer - invincible Shoryuken. After that, it's pretty much like talking about Ryu and Chun Li - I don't know if that's even a comparable thing, but that's the point. With my limited knowledge of Street Fighter and what I've been seeing, Falco is more like Nash in Street Fighter V. Considering that Falco has Somersault Shell and Fox has Flash Kick, it's possible they were based on Guile and Charlie.

Ryus hadoukens should be transcendent.

I would like a yellow jacket and green pants alt and Sonic Boom for Falco so he can finish his impression of Charlie, please and thank you. Still, the ability to cancel a projectile with a projectile would be nice, especially considering that Falco's transcendent lasers results in trades that end up with the opponent taking no damage or 3% while Falco can take anywhere from no damage to +30%.

Edit: Forgot to ask this, but can people tech roll past Hadouken? Probably not the slow one, but I'm not sure. Messing around with Marth and I had chances to tech roll Hadoukens and either you can't or I got the timing wrong. Consider that it's heading towards you and that you're not teching right before it hits you.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Yeah you can roll past hadoukens. Even slow ones. Its just..ya know...hard to do consistently due to variance in timing and speed of the hadoukens.

 

[san.]

Anyway, the ability to vary your projectile's speed is amazing in a game where only 2? characters can: Samus and Ryu. I

Gunner is 3rd.

Noted changes on the patch thread.

• Up Air landing lag reduced 26 → 22 frames
• Charge Shot (Neutral 1) any charge end frame reduced 45 → 39
• Missile (Side 3) end frame reduced 76 → 62 on homing, 59 → 49 on smash
• Up Air
  • Final hit damage increased 3% → 4%
  • End frame reduced 66 → 62
• Lunar Launch (Up 1) projectile knockback angle altered 70° - > 55°
• Laser Blaze (Neutral 2) damage increased on both close and long range hits 3.6%/2.6% → 4%/3%
• Grenade Launcher (Neutral 3) projectile now dissipates upon hitbox clash rather than exploding

Additionally:
There is a moderate knockback increase on Cannon Uppercut (UpB2). +6 knockback growth on the punch and +20 knockback growth on the spike.
Uair's total damage seems to have increased by 2 rather than 1. It deals a respectable 12% max damage.


Missile's change is very nice considering it's a 10 frame reduction on an alright move, and they removed the bug of the incredibly long lag in the air.
Charge shot ending on frame 39 makes it weak compared to Samus', but so much safer to use. Now it has a pretty nice use and is difficult to challenge/punish. 39 is less lag than many of the faster smashes in this game.
Laser Blaze change is kinda useless until the end lag is reduced.
Uair's change is great and allows for kills and uair dragging opponents into another attack
Lunar launch doesn't save opponents anymore if you know what you're doing now.

 

[Ffamran]

Yeah you can roll past hadoukens. Even slow ones. Its just..ya know...hard to do consistently due to variance in timing and speed of the hadoukens.

Hmm, I think I was tech rolling too early then... That and I don't know if Marth's tech roll is considered fast or not.

Gunner is 3rd.

Should the Links count? You can sort of vary their arrows speeds, but it's not like Ryu, Mii Gunner, and Samus where it's 2-3 speeds; the Links are more like really slow, slow, not slow, medium speed, not fast enough, and fast while their arrows arc differently.

 

[RedBeefBaron]

Ryus hadoukens should be transcendent.

wtf?

"Mewtwo should be able to teleport out of the startup and end lag of all his moves."

 

[Nu~]

Ryus hadoukens should be transcendent.

Pac-Man's hydrant should spike and break shields

Fair and balanced

 

[TriTails]

Luigi should have Mario tier airspeed.

While we're at it. Reduce the end lag on B-air and give F-air 8 frames of landing lag.

Real talk: Robin has varying speeds on Thunder variants, Yoshi can kinda alter his Egg Throw speed? Zelda's Din's Fire. Greninja's Water Shurikens, etc.

 

[SpottedCerberus]

Samus's up-smash should connect flawlessly from across the stage, and KO 30% earlier.

 

[Trifroze]

I wonder if most people are aware of how much rage changes their optimal kill options (I for one wasn't except when it came to Falcon's raptor boost). Would be interesting to compile all the moves rage affects considerably for every character, and they're pretty easy to spot; any move that is considered a kill move to any extent that also has high base knockback will get ridiculous with rage. For example on Mario from the center of omega:

Falcon's side b without rage: 115% | Max rage: 75%
ZSS' utilt without rage: 150% | Max rage: 110%
ZSS' usmash without rage: 140% | Max rage: 100%
Samus' up b without rage: 145% | Max rage: 95% (over 1/3 decrease UUOO)

Then we have moves (the large majority) where it's more like 120% -> 100%. If the move doesn't knock your opponent away into the air at 0% it's most likely among these, and even the knee works like this even though it starts knocking them at about 1-5%.

 

[Shaya]

Marth's up throw on light weights is like 170% to 110%ish based on rage.

I think the real "thing" is maximising rage and throws to get roof KO's really.
I've been meaning to look into what percent dthrow full hop uair (into jump uair) will work on ZSS. Then figure out how much earlier/later rage will alter the dthrow. You can get sub 100% kos with up air off the top (i.e. highest zamus can reach) with reasonable rage.


Also dthrow fair -> upair is like my go to early percent combo, not really caring much about the uair being air dodged when it does.
But from about 90% rage or so that fair to uair is real. But at too high rage, dthrow fair won't combo.

 

[TriTails]

Infractions. I just KNEW these were coming .

I wonder if most people are aware of how much rage changes their optimal kill options (I for one wasn't except when it came to Falcon's raptor boost). Would be interesting to compile all the moves rage affects considerably for every character, and they're pretty easy to spot; any move that is considered a kill move to any extent that also has high base knockback will get ridiculous with rage. For example on Mario from the center of omega:

Falcon's side b without rage: 115% | Max rage: 75%
ZSS' utilt without rage: 150% | Max rage: 110%
ZSS' usmash without rage: 140% | Max rage: 100%
Samus' up b without rage: 145% | Max rage: 95% (over 1/3 decrease UUOO)

Then we have moves (the large majority) where it's more like 120% -> 100%. If the move doesn't knock your opponent away into the air at 0% it's most likely among these, and even the knee works like this even though it starts knocking them at about 1-5%.

Raptor Boost killing Mario at 75% at max rage dammit.

So rage affects base knockback-based killing moves more than knockback growth-based killing moves? No wonder Robin's Wind jab friggin kills and I don't see much difference with Luigi's smashes.

 

[san.]

Infractions. I just KNEW these were coming .


Raptor Boost killing Mario at 75% at max rage dammit.

So rage affects base knockback-based killing moves more than knockback growth-based killing moves? No wonder Robin's Wind jab friggin kills and I don't see much difference with Luigi's smashes.

Rage affects total knockback.

It'll make high base-knockback kill earlier, especially if you can land the hit somewhat close to the blastzone.

It'll help high knockback growth moves kill from anywhere once they begin scaling well above 100%.

 

[LancerStaff]

I wonder if most people are aware of how much rage changes their optimal kill options (I for one wasn't except when it came to Falcon's raptor boost). Would be interesting to compile all the moves rage affects considerably for every character, and they're pretty easy to spot; any move that is considered a kill move to any extent that also has high base knockback will get ridiculous with rage. For example on Mario from the center of omega:

Falcon's side b without rage: 115% | Max rage: 75%
ZSS' utilt without rage: 150% | Max rage: 110%
ZSS' usmash without rage: 140% | Max rage: 100%
Samus' up b without rage: 145% | Max rage: 95% (over 1/3 decrease UUOO)

Then we have moves (the large majority) where it's more like 120% -> 100%. If the move doesn't knock your opponent away into the air at 0% it's most likely among these, and even the knee works like this even though it starts knocking them at about 1-5%.

Care to tell us Raptor Boost's KB and KBG?

 

[Lavani]

Ninja'd by san while typing, but expanding on his point, it's not that base knockback is affected more so much as the fact that a high base knockback move is going to have more knockback to have multiplied at low percents.

 

[Ffamran]

Care to tell us Raptor Boost's KB and KBG?

Gee, I wonder what this site is used for: http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Captain Falcon? On the ground, 9%, 100 BKB and 75 KBG. In the air, 8%, 60 BKB, and 80 (normal hit) or 70 (spike) KBG.

 

[⑨ball]

-deleted-

god dammit Sky

 

[FullMoon]

Hmm.
My brother just texted me. Apparently ZeRo's streak has been broken by a Pit player named Andres.

If that's true then that's super anticlimatic.

 

[⑨ball]

If that's true then that's super anticlimatic.

https://twitter.com/SkyWilliamsTho/status/632724538057363456

For further emphasis: God ****ing dammit Sky.

 

[DunnoBro]

All Duck Hunt needs is for his smashes to function. They all kill at decent %'s and come out at a decent speed, but none of that matters when they never link. They're at least aware of the issue at this point, so hopefully he'll get a few more hitbox buffs.

That is NOT all he needs. Even if they linked 100% of the time they'd still be the worst set of smashes in the game.

No shield push, weak as hell, bad hitboxes in general, and pretty substantial endlag despite the animation also being so long.

Fsmash is decently strong, but usmash and dsmash are straight ass. (dsmash mostly because of the trajectory it sends them at)

 

[A2ZOMG]

People say characters like Shulk, DK, and Ike have great air speed but acceleration is more important and they just don't have it.

Maximum air speed is CLEARLY more important than air acceleration, because it affects recovery, strings, and B reverses, and does more than acceleration for bypassing zoning and forcing people to go on the defensive. Air acceleration helps to a smaller extent in footsies, edgeguarding, and mixing up negative states.

The main characters where air acceleration is really obvious are primarily Peach, Rosalina, and Jigglypuff who already are able to force a lot of respect in spacing wars and also depend on air acceleration way more than most characters for their negative state. Especially Rosalina.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

ZeRo's weakness has been discovered: Tournament mode.

 

[Trifroze]

Gee, I wonder what this site is used for: http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Captain Falcon? On the ground, 9%, 100 BKB and 75 KBG. In the air, 8%, 60 BKB, and 80 (normal hit) or 70 (spike) KBG.

those difficulty bars tho

http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Samus
http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Ganondorf

E: To clarify some more, Ganondorf doesn't have all that much technical depth but instead feeds off of reads and punishes, and he also has really good hitboxes and reward off of landing hits, it's just hard for him to do that. Obviously though the difficulty isn't determined by character viability or how hard it is to do well with them because Samus and Ganondorf are considered close in that regard. Also to be able to judge such things to begin with you'd need to possess character mastery.

master trole ?

 

[Ffamran]

those difficulty bars tho

http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Samus
http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Ganondorf

Sonic's page uses Brawl Sonic's render and Zero Suit Samus's tab name is... Zero Skill Samus. Also, Ness is known as Ebola Back Throw for the Running Speed list.

Back on topic, forcing ledge re-grabs, something that should be done more? Characters like Little Mac and Shulk don't have good or fast enough Bairs, but they still have good options to clip the ledge. And still, even if a character has a good ledge trump Bair like Mega Man, he could just not and get back on the ledge to Down Smash or something. It would turn those lottery ticket 1-frame attempts into freebies. Hell, Luigi could setup a Down Taunt kill with forced ledge re-grabs. On stages with platforms, you've made one option less safe and with characters like Sheik, Greninja, Roy, etc. who have strong Up Smashes, probably deadly if they can force you to land on a platform and then punish you.