Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Shaya]

@DumberChild, Nietono apparently ONLY used Mii Brawler [edit: except for the last match which he went Sheik thxdbzz]

 

[Ffamran]

Looking at the frame data Falco's ftilt is vastly superior to dark pit's out on frame 6 ends on frames 27 compared to d pit which is out on frame 10 ends of frame 40. Granted the range goes to Dark pit.

Also almost all of pits aerials are slower than Falco's. Pits nair is 4 frames Falco's is 3 pits fair is 11 frames Falco's is 10 pit's uair is 12 frames while Falco's is 7 frames pit's bair is 10 frames while Falco's is 4 with tremendous kill powe and probably the best bair in the game. Pit dair is 10 frames while Falco's is 16. This is the only aerial pit has over Falco in terms of speed.

Pits grabs are superior but falco has better follow uls from grabs. I think most of their ground moves goes towards Falco in terms of Speed. Looking at Falco's frame data is going to be pretty hard to deny this character IMO. His stuff looks extremely potent.

Let me repeat again, Falco's only disjoints are Dtilt, landing Fair, Blaster, and Reflector. The Pits have natural disjoints on everything, but Utilt. The Pits' Ftilt is "better" than Falco's because they're disjointed while just being 3 frames slower. Pit's is better than Dark Pit's since he has more base knockback... Wait, I thought Pit had tippers on his Ftilt and Bair... Aero's frame data suggests otherwise... Whatever.

Disjoints means the Pits can put out hitboxes without putting out hurtboxes. That's huge when they're quick on the ground and their moves are around Captain Falcon speed. If Falco's moves were all disjointed, this would be a no contest, he'd win and would probably be bordering broken considering his hit speed, damage, and knockback. But they're not, so it's an unfair contest where the Pits can quickly (for sword users) move and put out hitboxes. As two of the quicker sword users with good kill power, good combos, good edgeguarding, good grab game, good throws, and good recovery, they fare well compared to Marth where his moves pre-patch worked, but weren't as rewarding as the Pits. Even with a 1 frame difference, their Nair has much more range than Falco's and that goes for all their moves.

 

[Shaya]

Falco's ftilt is better than Pits, unless your only criteria is disjoint.
It is HUGE range, fast, is a combo starter/functional poke, can be safe well spaced and the animation for it is superb, allowing him to avoid opponent moves that would normally be more range/disjoint due to the posture he takes while kicking (e.g. Falco will kick someone in the face while avoiding their down tilt)

 

[Ffamran]

Don't take away the one thing DK has on the cast (best bair in game). This is DK only move in the air. If it was on like Ganon or other characters.....my goodness.

Falco's bair is good, but not DK good.

Not to mention that Falco's Bair has short range. Unfair since it's DK, but Fox's Bair covers slightly more range than Fox's despite that Falco is taller than Fox. Problem with Falco's aerials are that they're mostly centered around him or don't extend far. Falco just kicks back for Bair, Wolf orientates his body so he can extend his leg more, and Fox leans back while sweeping his leg like ZSS. This is the opposite with Falco on the ground where he moves, leans into, extends more, or just has a disjoint like with jab, Side Smash, Ftilt, or Dtilt.

Falco's Bair having short range is what stops it from being broken alongside his air speed. I mean, could you imagine his Bair on any character? Even with "his" range, it would be killer like if Mario had his Bair since Mario would still have fast air speed to abuse it. Now, with their range, Fox, Sheik, Captain Falcon, and Diddy would be murdering stuff.

Falco's ftilt is better than Pits, unless your only criteria is disjoint.
It is HUGE range, fast, is a combo starter/functional poke, can be safe well spaced and the animation for it is superb, allowing him to avoid opponent moves that would normally be more range/disjoint due to the posture he takes while kicking (e.g. Falco will kick someone in the face while avoiding their down tilt)

I'm saying that because the Pits' Ftilt is disjointed, serves a different purpose, and I'm pretty sure Pit can decently kill with it, comparing them isn't fair. Now, Falco's Ftilt vs. Fox, ZSS, (Dr.) Mario, Luigi, or Captain Falcon's? Sure, but if I compared Falco's Fair with Zelda's Fair, it wouldn't be fair - pun intended.

 

[Man Li Gi]

Unfair since it's DK, but Fox's Bair covers slightly more range than Fox's despite that Falco is taller than Fox.

I don't know what this statement supposed to mean. Do mean Falco has less range despite Falco being taller?

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Let me repeat again, Falco's only disjoints are Dtilt, landing Fair, Blaster, and Reflector. The Pits have natural disjoints on everything, but Utilt. The Pits' Ftilt is "better" than Falco's because they're disjointed while just being 3 frames slower. Pit's is better than Dark Pit's since he has more base knockback... Wait, I thought Pit had tippers on his Ftilt and Bair... Aero's frame data suggests otherwise... Whatever.

Disjoints means the Pits can put out hitboxes without putting out hurtboxes. That's huge when they're quick on the ground and their moves are around Captain Falcon speed. If Falco's moves were all disjointed, this would be a no contest, he'd win and would probably be bordering broken considering his hit speed, damage, and knockback. But they're not, so it's an unfair contest where the Pits can quickly (for sword users) move and put out hitboxes. As two of the quicker sword users with good kill power, good combos, good edgeguarding, good grab game, good throws, and good recovery, they fare well compared to Marth where his moves pre-patch worked, but weren't as rewarding as the Pits. Even with a 1 frame difference, their Nair has much more range than Falco's and that goes for all their moves.

Having disjoints is greats but I do believe that have fast frame data is more important. With the exception of nair their frame data is lacking a bit. The importance of a teo frame jab vs a 5 frame jab is huge. There's only two characters with a faster jab than Falco's.

I maybe overrating falco a bit. However, I think thede changes were pretty huge for him. Falco main issues to me would be mobility and he's lacking in neutral. However, it doesn't seem like he's ridiculously poor in neutral it more like he disrupts the opponents flow.

Also I think you're selling your character short a bit and thr gap between him and the pit's is pretty negligible. Also having disjoints doesn't make a character. Look at shulk.

 

[oldkingcroz]

I know that's more of a generalization but still, those two statements seem rather contradictory without any explanation given.

I'll write a more in depth report on why I believe ROB fairs well against Sonic some time Wednesday, but long story short: Sonic isn't quite like the other characters that are good against ROB. His way of punishing and style of approach contrasts other speedy characters like Falcon and Greninja.

And to add to that, the banning system allows the ROB player to instantly bann FD and DuckHunt. So that's a plus. More on Sonic in my next post.

As for the Zero Suit: ROB matchup? Why is it nowhere near as bad as the characters that I listed as "poor" matchups? The key difference as to why I believe ROB does OK against her is he isn't playing "her game". There's characters like Villager, Pikachu, Megaman, and Rosalina that force ROB to play their game. The can force options and influence the style of play/ approach of the other competitor. Their mix of projectiles and deflectors outclasses ROB's, and they can control space much more efficiently. Zero Suit's projectiles, grab, and spacing tools are quite punishable. The fight is pinning a punish heavy combo-er with laggy attacks against a punish heavy trapper/ zoner.

Yes, she can juggle him. But so can a lot of the high/ top tier characters. Yes, she can escape combos with down B. But ROB isn't a combo oriented character, and relies more on traps, punishes, and footsies. Sure she is tough to edge guard, but so is Sheik, Pikachu, Villager, Fox, Marth, DK, Mario, etc. She is not ROB's worst matchup. That spot belongs to Pikachu or Villager, in my opinion.

 

[Ffamran]

I don't know what this statement supposed to mean. Do mean Falco has less range despite Falco being taller?

Yes, but only on some moves. Fox's Fair involves kicks which I swear his legs are stretched, but Falco's involves being parallel to the ground and spinning. That's just a difference between how they're attacking. For Bair, Falco just kicks back while Fox extends his leg to sweep behind him. It also helps that Fox's Bair always does a constant 14% from frames 9-11 while Falco only has frame 4-5 to do 13% or hit with the late hit at frames 6-11 for 7%. It's not major since Fox is only about 7 inches shorter than Falco; Fox is supposedly 5' 7" while Falco is 6' 2" according to Assault. What's major is how they attack which makes Falco's Fair and Bair have less range. So, their Ftilts? Nothing major there, but jab and Utilt? Yeah, there's a difference, but that's like Mario and Luigi's Utilt and Dtilt being different.

 

[Shaya]

I'm saying that because the Pits' Ftilt is disjointed, serves a different purpose, and I'm pretty sure Pit can decently kill with it, comparing them isn't fair. Now, Falco's Ftilt vs. Fox, ZSS, (Dr.) Mario, Luigi, or Captain Falcon's? Sure, but if I compared Falco's Fair with Zelda's Fair, it wouldn't be fair - pun intended.

How does it serve a different purpose? It is a poke. It reaches far horizontally and majority of the time is setting up for a positional advantage (i.e. falco gets dash attacks, pit starts charging up arrows). And decently kill with it is somewhat of a stretch, sure it can (better than Falcos but I wouldn't be surprised if not by much), but for the majority of their usages, Falco just plainly seems better.

Falco kicks and retracts his leg almost as quickly as the hitbox ends, leaving him less vulnerable / not extending his hurtbox for an extended period of time. Pit is not so lucky.

 

[Dabuz]

@DumberChild, Nietono apparently ONLY used Mii Brawler. Nothing else.

He went Sheik in his last game vs. Tearbear in losers

 

[Ffamran]

How does it serve a different purpose? It is a poke. It reaches far horizontally and majority of the time is setting up for a positional advantage (i.e. falco gets dash attacks, pit starts charging up arrows). And decently kill with it is somewhat of a stretch, sure it can (better than Falcos but I wouldn't be surprised if not by much), but for the majority of their usages, Falco just plainly seems better.

Falco kicks and retracts his leg almost as quickly as the hitbox ends, leaving him less vulnerable / not extending his hurtbox for an extended period of time. Pit is not so lucky.

The Pits get to throw out a hitbox without a hurtbox, but they will have more end lag to counter that. They're poking in a way where you cannot easily challenge or hurt them. Falco is poking quickly and ending quickly, but it can be challenged and he can be hurt during his Ftilt. Falco can angle his, but it's a bit of a skinnier hitbox compared to the Pits' which have a thicker hitbox, but they can't angle theirs. So, different pokes, but still pokes. And this is the part where we can break down moves to such a low detail it would bore us all to death.

 

[Routa]

Also having disjoints doesn't make a character. Look at shulk.

Ike disagrees.

 

[TriTails]

Yes, but only on some moves. Fox's Fair involves kicks which I swear his legs are stretched, but Falco's involves being parallel to the ground and spinning.

Meanwhile, Fox's F-air is useless at gimps (Unless it somehow MHS... is that even possible?) because it sends people upwards of all places, is awkward to use with his fall speed, and doesn't have much knockback. Falco's a spinning mini-cyclone that sucks people in perfectly, great for gimps, great for killing, and thanks to his slower fall, he can at least last its hitbox around the same spot for longer than Fox's. If it had longer range, it'd be pretty damn good despite its landing lag, because it does well on its job.

That's just a difference between how they're attacking. For Bair, Falco just kicks back while Fox extends his leg to sweep behind him. It also helps that Fox's Bair always does a constant 14% from frames 9-11 while Falco only has frame 4-5 to do 13% or hit with the late hit at frames 6-11 for 7%. It's not major since Fox is only about 7 inches shorter than Falco; Fox is supposedly 5' 7" while Falco is 6' 2" according to Assault. What's major is how they attack which makes Falco's Fair and Bair have less range.

Falco's B-air is as strong as ****.

It comes out on frame 4, kills at like 110~% at the center of FD(?), deals 13%, and combined with Falco's high jump, you can hit people high up with it and potentially surprise them and KOs them too. Of freaking course it has short range. Even if it had like Luigi's B-air range, it'd be pretty damn good to the point where people might start complaining about it. And heck, give Falco better airspeed and he can abuse this to death, which they won't, because that'd be very janky because he then can WoP you with it AND kill you with the same move. I'm against comparing his to Brawl's Wolf because, while I never played Brawl, we all know how balanced Brawl is.

If we want to compare moves, compare Falco's B-air with Luigi's. Luigi's comes out 2 frames slower, kills Mario at 140% at the center of FD, has the same or even more end lag, and Luigi has much worse airspeed. All of that for 1% more damage and longer range.

Sometimes, you gotta see the move's properties bruh. There're reasons why Falco's moves are designed as such.

 

[Aunt Jemima]

I have a question.

Marth, Lucina, Roy, Little Mac, and Falcon can frame-perfect execute Dance Trotting, Fox Trotting and Perfect Pivots. This includes different Dance Trot lengths/timings and all that stuff. How much better would they be?

 

[Browny]

@ Browny
Varying degrees of sarcasm can be hard to accurately gauge but... it seems like you're asserting mewtwo outdisjoints Marth... although you're definitely down tilting on Marth for a different timing than Mewtwo.
AND that "measuring disjoint" is also suss due to the way Z-axis shenanigans go.

oi m8

Did you see my post shortly after that, I asserted so hard. Seriously though, nothing against Marth hes just an easy test subject as his hitboxes are easily visible.

What do you think of my method for determining the disjoint? I'm actually interested right now to see what the biggest normal attack disjoint is.

 

[ZTD | TECHnology]

I dunno man, I was at a tournament yesterday and there were some people there being like "I think Dedede has some real potential to be good." and I had to be like "Well the thing is..."

The message needs to be spread more, it seems!

But yeah, yesterday reminded me how good Sonic is. How many characters consider him their worst MU in the game? I feel like there's more than a few.

Actually that's a funny discussion to have - which characters tend to be at the top of characters' 'worst MU' lists? Which top tier characters is probably the least offensive in this regard?

I've never heard any character board say that is their worst MU for instance (which surprised me), but I have heard a few character boards say etc.

does not lose to . That's one of the top/high tier MUs we don't fear at all. Most MKs will agree that we actually beat Ness.

 

[Yikarur]

Meanwhile, Fox's F-air is useless at gimps (Unless it somehow MHS... is that even possible?) because it sends people upwards of all places, is awkward to use with his fall speed, and doesn't have much knockback.

One of fairs main uses is gimps.
Look at this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9WXmeB9jRw#t=7m55

 

[Smog Frog]

i thought the main use of fair was to set up a usmash(its extremely hard to tech and it basically guarantees a usmash)

 

[Shaya]

oi m8

Did you see my post shortly after that, I asserted so hard. Seriously though, nothing against Marth hes just an easy test subject as his hitboxes are easily visible.

What do you think of my method for determining the disjoint? I'm actually interested right now to see what the biggest normal attack disjoint is.

Yes I did. I know you have had an unhealthy obsession with Marth over the past 7 years, it's fine (just come out and be a Marth main already, it's okay, society accepts it now).

I would think two of the same character attacking at the same time would be better
And if you think it's a normal, Zero Suit Zair. Otherwise probably something from Yellow Pikmin Olimar, or Shulk/Ike.

I have a question.

Marth, Lucina, Roy, Little Mac, and Falcon can frame-perfect execute Dance Trotting, Fox Trotting and Perfect Pivots. This includes different Dance Trot lengths/timings and all that stuff. How much better would they be?

We'd lose to everyone with a good dash attack or dash grab or needles still.

 

[Spinosaurus]

does not lose to . That's one of the top/high tier MUs we don't fear at all. Most MKs will agree that we actually beat Ness.

I think he meant that a few character boards think that MK is their worst MU. Ness doesn't get brought up as the worst MU for anyone, in comparison.

 

[ZTD | TECHnology]

I think he meant that a few character boards think that MK is their worst MU. Ness doesn't get brought up as the worst MU for anyone, in comparison.

Ah okay. It's still early. Haven't had mah morning cup of joe yet.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Oh didn't know we moved to this for the new social with the CCI thread locked.
I don't see many Foxes (even megafox) use Fair consecutively to get Usmash, more of just Dthrow Fair Uair and maybe Fair offstage like Yika's example.

Also all the Yoshi discussion a few pages back and nobody tagged Yika or I. Dang.

 

[Coffee™]

I have a question.

Marth, Lucina, Roy, Little Mac, and Falcon can frame-perfect execute Dance Trotting, Fox Trotting and Perfect Pivots. This includes different Dance Trot lengths/timings and all that stuff. How much better would they be?

I can't say much for Marth, Lucina and Roy but for Mac and Falcon it really opens up their spacing game quite a bit in my opinion. PP Jabs from both characters are amazing for spacing in neutral considering how far they slide. I think Mac easily benefits the most though.

i thought the main use of fair was to set up a usmash(its extremely hard to tech and it basically guarantees a usmash)

Teching Fair isn't too hard once you get the timing down for it. However it isn't primary use is as a combo extender, the fact that it can set up for Usmash is more of an icing on the cake kinda thing.

 

[Man Li Gi]

Meanwhile, Fox's F-air is useless at gimps (Unless it somehow MHS... is that even possible?) because it sends people upwards of all places, is awkward to use with his fall speed, and doesn't have much knockback. Falco's a spinning mini-cyclone that sucks people in perfectly, great for gimps, great for killing, and thanks to his slower fall, he can at least last its hitbox around the same spot for longer than Fox's. If it had longer range, it'd be pretty damn good despite its landing lag, because it does well on its job.


Falco's B-air is as strong as ****.

It comes out on frame 4, kills at like 110~% at the center of FD(?), deals 13%, and combined with Falco's high jump, you can hit people high up with it and potentially surprise them and KOs them too. Of freaking course it has short range. Even if it had like Luigi's B-air range, it'd be pretty damn good to the point where people might start complaining about it. And heck, give Falco better airspeed and he can abuse this to death, which they won't, because that'd be very janky because he then can WoP you with it AND kill you with the same move. I'm against comparing his to Brawl's Wolf because, while I never played Brawl, we all know how balanced Brawl is.

If we want to compare moves, compare Falco's B-air with Luigi's. Luigi's comes out 2 frames slower, kills Mario at 140% at the center of FD, has the same or even more end lag, and Luigi has much worse airspeed. All of that for 1% more damage and longer range.

Sometimes, you gotta see the move's properties bruh. There're reasons why Falco's moves are designed as such.

Comparing Falco's Bair to Weegee's is just as flawed. Weegee has 2 aerial killing moves, I mean one comes out on frame 3 for goodness sakes. With Falco, bair is really only reliable kill move and unlike Weegee, setups for his kill moves are like.... nonexistent. So, actually buffing it to have more range or maintain power for like 3 of frames doesn't seem like too much as long as other characters have setups or generally have better options for a kill.

Also, please don't start talking mess about a game you've never played (Brawl). Explains why the top players in this game came from the game that was "unbalanced".

 

[Shaya]

If you air dodge his up air you're getting back aired. Ditto to his forward air (yes, fair into bair on a meh horizontal aerial mobility character, but fair hits everywhere, that's why).
Grounded Down Air.
Sour spot back air into it.
Side-B
Sweet spot dtilt at the right percent.
Up Tilt

Yeah it isn't Luigi's down throw reliability, but various things can allow it, including up throw.
His entire moveset kinda revolves around easily setting up for up air, fairs or nairs atm.

Also a semi-related but not really thing I'd like to point out. B-reverse/wavebounced lasers are pretty alright. Now with nair being more reliable and with the aforementioned in mind, a backwards fighting bair-centric stance for Falco can get a lot of "safe" chip damage with lasers either as a "follow up", if another follow up isn't available or they're being overly passive to you jumping facing backwards.

If people can't visualize the concept well, I can link a certain ZSS player's vids who does this frequently and to great affect as well (beating Ally and the likes )

 

[thegrovylekid]

I was thinking about Mewtwo's weaknesses, and I think there's one crucial weakness that hampers him more than anything else. It's not the size, nor the floatiness, nor the light weight, though those all contribute.

It's that Mewtwo literally has fewer invincibility frames on evasive moves compared to most if not all characters. Every time you roll, what would have whiffed if you used a different character hits Mewtwo. When you do a regular get-up from the ledge, Mewtwo somehow gets hit when others would be able to shield in time. It makes it so that his rolls are literally only really good for getting distance and not actually being used for reads.

The only saving grace is that his air dodge has fewer invincibility frames but also allows him to act earlier than any other character out of an air dodge. It's great for avoiding attacks that require precise timing.

Basically, lingering hitboxes are hell for Mewtwo, and if Mewtwo could only get some invincibility frames closer to the standard, then it would help a lot.

This. I've had a Mewtwo air dodge and land right into a Falcon Punch.

 

[wm1026]

Oh didn't know we moved to this for the new social with the CCI thread locked.
I don't see many Foxes (even megafox) use Fair consecutively to get Usmash, more of just Dthrow Fair Uair and maybe Fair offstage like Yika's example.

Also all the Yoshi discussion a few pages back and nobody tagged Yika or I. Dang.

Feel free to weigh in on what you saw. Honestly I didn't know how to tag. On mobile right now because wifi is scarce around where I am.

 

[Ffamran]

Meanwhile, Fox's F-air is useless at gimps (Unless it somehow MHS... is that even possible?) because it sends people upwards of all places, is awkward to use with his fall speed, and doesn't have much knockback. Falco's a spinning mini-cyclone that sucks people in perfectly, great for gimps, great for killing, and thanks to his slower fall, he can at least last its hitbox around the same spot for longer than Fox's. If it had longer range, it'd be pretty damn good despite its landing lag, because it does well on its job.

There's also the fact that Fox's jump isn't as high as Falco's. I'm willingly to bet even with it's 70 degree hit angle, Fox with Falco's jump or close to it could gimp people without having to fast fall and risk SDing. Fox could send people up enough, but far enough where unless they have an amazing horizontal and/or vertical recovery, they're not making it back.

Fox's Fair's basic use is damage like all moves... Wait, really? It only does 7.4%? So, it's weaker, slightly faster, and has 3 frames more landing lag than Falco's. Well, whatever. After that, you get into gimping which is risky, and fast falling it out to force a get-up animation - pretty sure you can't tech this, but I might be wrong - allowing Fox to setup combos and kills. It's a good move like Falco's, but works differently. Patch 1.0.4 removed Falco's ability to fast fall and spike people and with the landing hitbox, Falco can't setup moves like Fox can with his Fair. Falco's Fair is more for basic damage, gimping, edgeguarding, and intercepting since it's kind of a stupid move...

Falco's B-air is as strong as ****.

It comes out on frame 4, kills at like 110~% at the center of FD(?), deals 13%, and combined with Falco's high jump, you can hit people high up with it and potentially surprise them and KOs them too. Of freaking course it has short range. Even if it had like Luigi's B-air range, it'd be pretty damn good to the point where people might start complaining about it. And heck, give Falco better airspeed and he can abuse this to death, which they won't, because that'd be very janky because he then can WoP you with it AND kill you with the same move. I'm against comparing his to Brawl's Wolf because, while I never played Brawl, we all know how balanced Brawl is.

If we want to compare moves, compare Falco's B-air with Luigi's. Luigi's comes out 2 frames slower, kills Mario at 140% at the center of FD, has the same or even more end lag, and Luigi has much worse airspeed. All of that for 1% more damage and longer range.

Sometimes, you gotta see the move's properties bruh. There're reasons why Falco's moves are designed as such.

I know which is why I mentioned this. I know why its range is like that to stop it from being really strong. Even if Falco had decent air speed, Falco doesn't have a low jump like Dr. Mario, Fox, or infamously, Wolf who also had ridiculous air speed. Falco's current Bair looks like Wolf's, but internally, it's his old Bair with the front hitbox removed, BKB removed, and KBG boosted up. He doesn't have Wolf's separate hitboxes - imagine Falco's Dtilt, but as Wolf's Bair. What you end up with is a move with amazing power-speed ratio kept in check with short range, short active frames for the strong hit, and Falco's high jump and slow air speed. Wolf's Bair was already bordering way to damn good, but let's boost the KBG to match Falco's current Bair, it would become just as powerful if you space it right, but even more powerful with Wolf's air speed and low jump.

Falco's Bair having short range is what stops it from being broken alongside his air speed. I mean, could you imagine his Bair on any character? Even with "his" range, it would be killer like if Mario had his Bair since Mario would still have fast air speed to abuse it. Now, with their range, Fox, Sheik, Captain Falcon, and Diddy would be murdering stuff.

 

[Sir Tundra]

i thought the main use of fair was to set up a usmash(its extremely hard to tech and it basically guarantees a usmash)

Fairs primary use is used for both combo extending and gimp opponents off stage. However the latter is hard to execute because of his fall speed. Why @DEHF executes it all the time we'll never know.

On a side note though a fun thing to do with fox's fair onstage is doing up tilt to fair dunk to up tilt into another fair spike at mid % although the opponent can just tech out of it so you gotta keep that in mind.

 

[M@v]

Fairs primary use is used for both combo extending and gimp opponents off stage. However the latter is hard to execute because of his fall speed. Why @DEHF executes it all the time we'll never know.

On a side note though a fun thing to do with fox's fair onstage is doing up tilt to fair dunk to up tilt into another fair spike at mid % although the opponent can just tech out of it so you gotta keep that in mind.

Fox's Fairs are also used as a potential downthrow followup, and at low percents fair to upair is a true combo (you need to use your 2nd jump though to do it).

 

[Vipermoon]

It also helps that Fox's Bair always does a constant 14% from frames 9-11 while Falco only has frame 4-5 to do 13% or hit with the late hit at frames 6-11 for 7%.

Fox's does 13%.

I've always thought of Fox's Bair as really bad. It's weak, has slow start-up, extremely high end lag (Fox can't even usually stay in the air for that long), and a decent amount of landing lag when not ACed.

The only way this Bair remotely works despite looking so bad on paper is because it's tied to a character with good land speed.

 

[hypersonicJD]

Fox's Back air is hard to land. But it's powerful. Athough Fox doesn't have that end lag when you use it in the full hop.

Match-up time: vs How is this match-up? Does Sonic have any trouble on Peach? Sonic wrecks her stuff? Or just an even match?

 

[Dagon97]

Match-up time: vs How is this match-up? Does Sonic have any trouble on Peach? Sonic wrecks her stuff? Or just an even match?

This MU is REALLY bad for Peach. Peach is forced to float higher than spin dash's jump to be somewhat safe. Peach has to wait for Sonic to mess something up and then she can go to town with all sorts of hard reads. Once the match goes to neutral or Sonic punishing Peach it becomes really dumb for Peach. Peach can perform turnip shenanigans but those are easily telegraphed and can be caught which Peach can bait a turnip catch and punish (Meta!). Peach won't get many opportunities to pull turnips so that sucks....

 

[Ffamran]

Fox's does 13%.

I've always thought of Fox's Bair as really bad. It's weak, has slow start-up, extremely high end lag (Fox can't even usually stay in the air for that long), and a decent amount of landing lag when not ACed.

The only way this Bair remotely works despite looking so bad on paper is because it's tied to a character with good land speed.

Whoops, mixed up the damage with Samus's; sweet-spot Samus Bair does 14%. The funny thing is that Fox, Samus, and ZSS all have the same Bair startup, but Fox's is probably the best because it's that stupid in terms of frame data. Too lazy to type stuff up...

A frame 9-11, so 3 active frames, move that pushes shields, does 14% 13%, has 20 base knockback, 88 knockback growth, has 15 frames of landing lag, and auto-cancels before frame 9 or after frame 15. Fox can't act until frame 49, but why should you wait? Just fast-fall and do something else like another Bair.

Fox's Bair is essentially a 1 frame slower ZSS Bair without a sour-spot and less range since well, dem legs.

ZSS's Bair comes out at frame 8-9, so 2 active frames, has a sweet-spot that does 12% and sour-spot that does 10% both with 42 BKB and 98 KBG. It'll auto-cancel before frame 4 and after frame 30, has 11 frames of landing lag, and she gets to act after frame 40, so she can sort of do what Fox does, except not as insane.

Contrast this with Samus who has a frame 9-10 Bair, so 2 active frames, with the sweet-spot doing 14% with 42 BKB and 98 KBG and a sour-spot doing 12% with 30 BKB and 98 KBG. The late hit comes out at frame 11-14, does 9% with 20 BKB and 90 KBG. All with 18 frames of landing lag and auto-canceling before frame 9 and after frame 42. Bear in mind that Samus can't act until frame 39. Yeah, no wonder Samus players are ******.

I can see why Fox's Bair is like that since he falls fast and has a short jump, but when other characters have it worse off like Samus whose Bair is probably weaker than ZSS's purely because it's not going to be as easy to use or as safe. I know Fox's Bair can push shields which if Samus can't, then yeah, not as great. Not sure about ZSS's Bair, but I know Falco can't push shields.

Summary? Fox's can auto-cancel his Bair pretty much right after it ends since frame 15 is only 5 frames after the last active frame. There's not much of a reason to not auto-cancel his Bair or use it in a short hop. Unless you're going for a throw followup or something, Fox's Bair used in short hops is just something that works. Landing lag isn't much of an issue since it's his second fastest with 15 frames of landing lag to Nair's 11 and Fox's fast on the ground. End lag isn't an issue either when Uair has 36 frames of end lag, Nair with 42, Bair with 49, and Fair and Dair have 50.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Okay, I'm going to evaluate the contrasts between Evo top 16, and CEO top 16.

Top 16 CEO (500~ entrants) | Top 16 Evo (1900~ entrants)

1. ZeRo
2. Nairo
3. Dabuz
4. Larry Lurr
5. MVD
6. ESAM
7. Shaky
8. VS NickRiddle
9. Vinnie
10. VS Master Raven
11. Mr. R
12. Static Manny
13. UGC NME Tyrant
14. Fresh Die Nasty
15. ANTi
16. KamiKario

|

1. ZeRo /
2. Mr R
3. Nairo
4. Abadango //
5. Dabuz /
6. Ally
7. ESAM
8. FOW
9. Larry Lurr /
10. Rain
11. SS
12. Static Manny
13. False
14. DaPuffster
15. Regi
16. Mocha

"Forcing" smashboard tables to work nicely for me. Color coding is "actually the same placement". Bolding are those who appear in both. Italics are those who didn't compete at the other (although please let me know if I've missed someone).

So before I start, let me just say that Evo is a much bigger/important tournament than CEO was. Whilst CEO had some foreign continental visitors it definitely lacked the "MAJOR" "INTERNATIONAL" feel Apex had; customs on or otherwise, results at EVO mean a lot more than CEO.

Of those who competed at both, only ZeRo, Nairo, Dabuz, Ramin, Larry, ESAM and Manny reached top 16. Seven out of 16.
The remaining 9 out of 16 were all unique to Evo. Anti was the only CEO top 16 not to compete at both I believe (Kami maybe as well?)
On one metric, competition at Evo was roughly 4x as fierce as CEO by entrant numbers. On another by the contrasts in top 16 results, it was over 2x as "harsh".
Out of the other 9 CEO placers; Tyrant, Shaky, Falln and Vinnie placed top 32 at Evo. 11/32; so with enlarged sample size the comparator becomes "3x". The rest of CEO's top 32 didn't show up at Evo top 32 with the exception of 8bitman.

So what happened?

• Firstly I thought Awsum knocked out Rain (I guess just into losers?)
• The Sheik slayer of MVD (his first S4 non-major top 8 result) was slain, as was Dabuz, by StaticManny. StaticManny placed the same at CEO as he did Evo although the competition was arguably 2-4x harder, taking out players who outplaced him noticeably from before.
  
• Villager, unseen at CEO top 32 comes up with three placers, however SS and awsum did not attend CEO.
• Four Sonics showed up in top 32 at CEO but only two showed up at Evo. 1 of the CEO Sonics may not have attended, and the other 2 are known for their results with customs-off Sonic. I can't say anything about Mocha, who I may not know (the only one I recall is a female vegas player, but I don't remember Sonic?).
• Nairo and ZeRo are obviously two of the best three smash four players on Earth.
• Ramin did not seem to run into any "kryptonite" on his run to second place, no "early" MVD/Larry/Dabuz/ZeRo (previous major losses to) [but i'm not 100% sure who ramin played actually].
• Rain, a player who has dominated Japan to an extent not too unlike ZeRo (well, Rain has dropped tournaments), got 9th. Japan's last major attendance of Apex had Nietono at 5th. Japan's best placement this time being Abadango at 4th.
• Abadango used two characters relatively unseen in the West plus used customs (the only Japanese player who seemed to obviously have labbed extensively with them), his results back home have him as Nineteenth in their rankings. Not to take away from Abadango, but one could say his results are just as "unusual" as Captain Awesum (although he did get 7th at Apex). People should be quite wary of hyping up Wario either way.
• Ness players yet again are forced into playing Dabuz and wasting 3-5 minutes of their life when they could've forfeited and started drinking. Otherwise still, the character maintained their "representation" in a harder environment, (two Ness' in top 32 compared to 1 at CEO). FOW, one of the most underrated top level smash players of all Brawl/S4 time, bows out unable to place any of the other top players on his mantle (this guy essentially only has losses against ZeRo, Tyrant (pre-diddy nerf) and Dabuz).
• Sheik, like Ness maintains it's "representation". Considering everything, this goes to show Sheik is not just strong, but really really strong. Many are non-customs Sheik players, with some probably taking a grenade custom because they can. Her kit can seemingly handle everything in this game and come out on top with little variance in expectation. I could argue that Sheik is even more dominant in a custom meta due to her more even match ups existing in Vanilla not being as capable/strong in the customs meta. If we're going by results, Sheik loses most often to Diddy, Rosalina, ZSS and Sonic, and the former two struggled against the latter and others. Is sheik more of a sore thumb in the customs meta as she maintains no poor match ups whilst her even match ups gain feasibly many poor match ups?
• Larry went with the tide getting 9th over 4th. Fox gets potent customs but obviously not enough.
• Mii Brawler breaks top 16 with negligible non-custom results (tis obvious why) to compare it to.

Okay so overall I think the following things are "upsets" (based on consistency measures):
1. Abadango (significantly outdoing his home-based results). Well versed with customs usage.
2. Rain; undoubted best player in Japan with losses to customs.
3. MVD not placing top 32 although he's placed top 8 at every other major/national thus far (but all were customs off).
4. StaticManny overcoming the 2-3x competition increase, the main custom meta star for Sonic, while other notable Sonics drowned.
5. Dabuz went with the tide, but this is his worst Smash4 tournament result thus far. Rosa/Oli seemingly not being able to "ignore" customs like Sheik can.

ESAM placed 7th over 5th. Custom Meta star for Pikachu. Did 1.25x worse. Soso point.

Anyway just my observational evaluation, remember: subjective and I'm slightly anti-customs.

Quite positive Abadango would've beaten Mr R and could've given Zero a run for his money if he had used rose scented fart vs them. It's just straight out better vs Sheik because of its gigantic 360 hitbox. It still KO's Shiek at high percents and is still lethal if used for edge guarding, add to that it deals enormous amounts of damage meaning even if the opponent lives they end up at KO% for throws, bair, and bike much faster. That and it charges in 1 min and 40 seconds allowing it to be consistently used at least twice a game and often thrice. So while he was certainly somewhat versed in customs I think that was still a fatal mistake he made in regards to them. Regular Wario just struggles really hard vs Sheik, and using fart once a game the way Abadango did vs Zero is just not the way to go. Reflex agrees on this I believe.

 

[Vipermoon]

Whoops, mixed up the damage with Samus's; sweet-spot Samus Bair does 14%. The funny thing is that Fox, Samus, and ZSS all have the same Bair startup, but Fox's is probably the best because it's that stupid in terms of frame data. Too lazy to type stuff up...

Summary? Fox's can auto-cancel his Bair pretty much right after it ends since frame 15 is only 5 frames after the last active frame. There's not much of a reason to not auto-cancel his Bair or use it in a short hop. Unless you're going for a throw followup or something, Fox's Bair used in short hops is just something that works. Landing lag isn't much of an issue since it's his second fastest with 15 frames of landing lag to Nair's 11 and Fox's fast on the ground. End lag isn't an issue either when Uair has 36 frames of end lag, Nair with 42, Bair with 49, and Fair and Dair have 50.

ZSS no doubt has the best Bair out of those Bairs (and IMO one of the best Bairs in the game). Slightly faster than Fox at frame 8 but 1 less active frame. Using her air speed and her Bair's lower end lag, I've seen Nairo combo Bair into Bair. It ACs much later but along with 12 frames landing lag she does have slower fall speed and a larger short hop/jumps. It's easy to sweetspot and when you do it's very strong with the combination of good BKB (for ledge kills) and KBG. She has long legs so while I'm unsure I bet it outranges Fox's. Her Bair is amazing IMO, I can't believe it's that strong on a character with mobility like that. I definitely see ZSS mains abuse this Bair a lot more than Fox's which I still think isn't a very good Bair mostly because it isn't strong on a character who isn't in the air very long nor has good air speed. But ZSS's is like C. Falcon's Bair in many ways.

Edit: ZSS definitely has more set-ups into Bair. Probably a huge reason why ZSSs get so much mileage out of it.

 

[FullMoon]

Something I saw on EVO that I was curious about, aMSa often picked up and Z-Dropped Diddy's bananas so as to leave them on the ground, is that a good strategy against Diddy?

 

[NegaNixx]

Match-up time: vs How is this match-up? Does Sonic have any trouble on Peach? Sonic wrecks her stuff? Or just an even match?

This is literally the reason I had to pick up as a secondary. I couldn't keep up, I can D-Air to break up grounded spin dash and spin charge but I simply couldn't win neutral consistently enough, no matter the amount of turnip tricks and baits and if a good Sonic who could mix up running approaches and spin dash approaches were to face Peach I'm definitley under the impresssion that she just can't keep up with him or pressure him enough to take advantage of her great advantage state. Float Cancel Turnip Throw may be able to impede him for a bit...

Still makes me die on the inside though.

 

[Yikarur]

Also all the Yoshi discussion a few pages back and nobody tagged Yika or I. Dang.

To be honest, I've read it all but I couldn't really disagree that much People are finally realizing Yoshis flaws.

 

[hypersonicJD]

Soo I have been having troubles with Peaches because maybe I suck I need more Sonic training. For Glory training time!

How's vs ? I haven't even seen this match-up and I would love to know more about Bowser.Jr and Duck Hunt. What they can do and that stuff.