Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[alexthepony]

thanks for all the likes on this post

 

[Diddy Kong]

>That feel you get when you've been preaching for eternity that Zelda / Sheik are probably the worst balanced characters in all Smash games they're in

 

[hypersonicJD]

Actually yeah. Zelda sucks in Melee and Sheik is awesome in Melee, the same in Brawl, Project M and Smash 4. Maybe Nintendo wants to make Sheik her own character and leave Zelda behing. Besides she's really useless quite honestly.

vs How's this match-up? I want to get better at dealing with some top tier characters and just know more about them. I have been trying out DIddy Kong though. And now he's really fun to play. Not just a broken character.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

He never was IMO. We just cried a lot.

Anyway, regarding sonic vs diddy, I believe bananas, when managed correctly, can cause sonic some trouble, you're going to have to play more methodical with your spins. However, sonic controls the stage to a tee when he gets his opponent in the air, since on landing, his opponents are going to have to deal with 50/50s all the time. But take this with a grain of salt and go to boards for additional help.

 

[Vipermoon]

Ever since the game came out the community continued to amaze me with how everyone seemed to forget Brawl Diddy. In this game, where almost nothing is OP, Brawl Diddy would have been SSSS tier.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Nah Diddy was like objectively broken before the first patch. I'm not quite sure how you can justify a character that's so mobile, combo heavy, safe, and is able to kill at 90% off of one of the best grabs in the game. Not to mention being able to get to 90% by doing hardly anything. And an Up Air that does literally everything from combo breaking to landing to comboing to KOing. And that's just the tip of the iceberg of banana shenanigans, popgun b-reverse canceling, edgeguarding galore, a plethora of approach options, banana traps...
He was completely broken no matter how you spin it.

 

[Mario766]

Thinkaman plz dont put Ryu in upper mid tier. People will think he is competent. I need my opponents to underestimate me so when I kill them at 80% I can see that soul crushing look in their eyes.

80?

Sounds boring.

Try 40.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Nah Diddy was like objectively broken before the first patch. I'm not quite sure how you can justify a character that's so mobile, combo heavy, safe, and is able to kill at 90% off of one of the best grabs in the game. Not to mention being able to get to 90% by doing hardly anything. And an Up Air that does literally everything from combo breaking to landing to comboing to KOing. And that's just the tip of the iceberg of banana shenanigans, popgun b-reverse canceling, edgeguarding galore, a plethora of approach options, banana traps...
He was completely broken no matter how you spin it.

wait.a.minute.
Broken is when the character breaks the rules of smash (brawl MK could not be edgeguarded by anybody. he lived longer than mid weights, and could kill better than heavy weights off of gimping alone, not to mention Dsmash, aerial Up-B, etc..). Diddy is no where near close to this. he was overtuned and had alot of strengths and little weaknesses, but he be edge guarded, he dies at the respective weight, his neutral game was beaten by sheik back then (1.0 needles were better), and all of his options had counter play. in all of smash, metaknight was the first character who was truly broken. 64 pikachu is fine, melee fox is fine, smash 4 whoever and whatever version was and is fine.

 

[warionumbah2]

More buffs incoming.

I would be so pissed if that happened, but you got tier lists putting him low and Roy lovers preaching about how he's the best swordsman/FE character in the game. I predict more landing lag reductions,make Ftilt 2 frames faster and a 1% damage buff across the board.

 

[Ikes]

Hmm... Is there any great custom move that buries your foe other than Sonic's spin?

Burying Bike
phenomenal custom

 

[Mario766]

I would be so pissed if that happened, but you got tier lists putting him low and Roy lovers preaching about how he's the best swordsman/FE character in the game. I predict more landing lag reductions,make Ftilt 2 frames faster and a 1% damage buff across the board.

I'm hype.

 

[Yonder]

I'm going to jump feet-first into this thread with a bold statement, after lurking in it since day 1; Pac-Man is a character that will not be theorycrafted into the correct tier for a long, long time. The sheer amount of pressure he puts out once he gains stage control is unique across all Smash games, and until players figure out that the only way to take him on is to never let him set up in the first place (or counterpick to Sonic and play incredibly lame) then good Pacs will always place well, and he will keep winning matchups that theorycraft says should be bad for him.

Speaking of Pac, he's decent but Rosalina shuts him down so badly it hurts. Even Abadango knows and why he refuses to use Pac Man against her. Also can't Villager pocket Pac Man's fruit or hydrant and he loses that tool for good?

 

[RonNewcomb]

I fail to see any similarities in their weaknesses outside of grab. Care to elaborate?

Both Link & Pac rely on slow, hard-hitting projectiles which cover unusual angles, both have a CQC game that's on the slow side, and so both have a gameplan that crumbles in the face of good rushdown. And both have a lot of optimists on their subforums. Both want to camp and throw crap, except in the same matchups where they're both outclassed by speedier thrown crap (Olimar). Both use their nair as a "let's respect each other's personal space" move instead of a "let's cuddle up together" or "no combos please" move. Both *can* go in when they need to because both have a move or two that's decent enough if the opponent is particularly weak to sluggish aggression (like, again, Olimar). Oh, and then there's the punishable grab, which gives both of them some trouble with run-up shield, further necessitating the same particular playstyle to work around such.

EDIT: and I forgot the minor point they both have a setup projectile that needs prep time (bomb / fruit) as opposed to a stock-ending projectile that needs prep time (Samus, Robin, Lucario, Mewtwo).

 

[Nidtendofreak]

I would be so pissed if that happened, but you got tier lists putting him low and Roy lovers preaching about how he's the best swordsman/FE character in the game. I predict more landing lag reductions,make Ftilt 2 frames faster and a 1% damage buff across the board.

Nah man, they'll eventually cave and give us back the ability to grab the ledge with our back during aether.

AKA: we get to spike anyone who has to grab the ledge.

 

[Nu~]

Both Link & Pac rely on slow, hard-hitting projectiles which cover unusual angles,

Somewhat true,

both have a CQC game that's on the slow side,

4/5/7/7 (jab, ftilt, utilt, ftilt) are the frames in which his ground moves come out, while none of his aerials go over frame 9. Including a frame 3 combo breaking nair and frame 1 trampoline.

and so both have a gameplan that crumbles in the face of good rushdown.
Both want to camp and throw crap, except in the same matchups where they're both outclassed by speedier thrown crap (Olimar)

Just...no. Firstly, Pac-Man doesn't have a default game plan. His tools are used to adapt to the situation. His game plan depends on what opponent he fights. For example, a hydrant can be used as a wall to protect us from rush down, or a giant hitbox that we can run behind to protect us from projectile spam. Pac-Man can create a minefield for opponents to get through, or a forward moving wave of projectiles to safely run behind and combo off of. There are even cases in which we force another character to play a different nuetral game (like pellet healing of of gravitational pull, or trampoline camping against sonic)

He doesn't automatically lose to rush down because of one important tool: trampoline. With this, pacman can say nope to any ground approach and completely change the way his opponent plays nuetral. The likes of Fox, Captain falcon, Mario, luigi, diddy, and others lose their dash grab and must find a way to safely fight around it. Meanwhile, pac-man can sit on the other side of it and invincible utilt through their landings. He doesn't auto lose to better camping because he can shift his plan to revolve around breaking through the wall. Running behind item tossed melons/Galaxians/Fair launched hydrants to get in is one way.
So far, your reply just sounds like a bad case of "unexplored character" syndrome. You don't fully understand the character, so you make assumptions based on the fragments that you do have. What's worse, is that you falsely tried to compare them to what you already know.

Both use their nair as a "let's respect each other's personal space" move instead of a "let's cuddle up together" or "no combos please" move.

Incorrect again, my friend. Our frame 3 nair is used as both a combo breaker and extender. It's even a kill move. I swear, people forget just how fast it is. I hear all this praise over luigi and mario's frame 3 Nairs, but pacman's is always ignored. Funny how people say that lack of knowledge is scary, when nearly everyone will look at pacman, take him at face value, and miss everything important behind the scenes (not you specifically, more like, most people here)

Both *can* go in when they need to because both have a move or two that's decent enough if the opponent is particularly weak to sluggish aggression (like, again, Olimar)

Our aggression is nowhere near similar to
the *sluggish aggression* that link has. Ours is more like a wall flying at you with us running in front or behind it. Like I said before, a hydrant can be used to make our approach safe. Once we get in though, frame 5 fairs and frame 3 nair BnB combos hurt. Including galaxian kill combos, but that's another story.

and then there's the punishable grab, which gives both of them some trouble with run-up shield, further necessitating the same particular playstyle to work around such.

This is partially correct. They both share the weakness to run up and shield, but the difference is that Pac-Man has a trampoline to beat it, while link has zip. Also, while link's "camp and throw crap" playstyle may have been molded due to his grab, Pac-Man's ever changing playstyle isn't. Instead of working around it by avoiding the situation altogether (by camping) Pac-Man can use his tools to create scenarios in which he can beat shield head on with trampoline/hydrant traps and so on. Of course, they don't work as well as a normal grab, but he can mitigate the problem by "simulating" a grab.

Speaking of Pac, he's decent but Rosalina shuts him down so badly it hurts. Even Abadango knows and why he refuses to use Pac Man against her. Also can't Villager pocket Pac Man's fruit or hydrant and he loses that tool for good?

I'm guessing you haven't heard of "pellet healing".

Here is an example:
http://youtu.be/Hd7RROJ3LM0
Rosa is forced to rush us down, or we heal off of her GP.
@BSP is the creator of this rosa specific technique, so he should be able to provide more insight. Also, our dair puts luma into tumble. Easy luma death.
And no. Villager can pocket a hydrant and we'll just make another. Same with fruit. Although, if villager takes the fruit out and holds it in his hand, we can't charge. But villager can't camp us out with just special moves, so it's detrimental to him.
Sometimes I wonder if people actually do their research before talking a lick about pacman.

 

[Luco]

Actually that's quite funny, and I never noticed it before.

is the undisputed best character in the game, whilst her old transformation, is the most common pick for the worst character in the game.

This game has taught me that throwing your weak links overboard is the best option.

 

[meleebrawler]

Both Link & Pac rely on slow, hard-hitting projectiles which cover unusual angles, both have a CQC game that's on the slow side, and so both have a gameplan that crumbles in the face of good rushdown. And both have a lot of optimists on their subforums. Both want to camp and throw crap, except in the same matchups where they're both outclassed by speedier thrown crap (Olimar). Both use their nair as a "let's respect each other's personal space" move instead of a "let's cuddle up together" or "no combos please" move. Both *can* go in when they need to because both have a move or two that's decent enough if the opponent is particularly weak to sluggish aggression (like, again, Olimar). Oh, and then there's the punishable grab, which gives both of them some trouble with run-up shield, further necessitating the same particular playstyle to work around such.

EDIT: and I forgot the minor point they both have a setup projectile that needs prep time (bomb / fruit) as opposed to a stock-ending projectile that needs prep time (Samus, Robin, Lucario, Mewtwo).

The only slow moves in Pac-man's arsenal are his smashes. He suffers more from a general lack of range in his normals than speed.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

This was mentioned briefly on the Rosalina boards a while back and I want to float it by you guys.

Luma's uair, unlike nearly every other uair in the game that I can think of, hits the target up and slightly behind Luma. This is because it's intended to link into Rosalina's uair when the two are together, and Luma is normally in front of Rosalina.

Unless I'm mistaken, this means that holding away from Luma when hit by its uair, thus straightening the launch angle, is basically the worst possible DI option for the move. Is it at all feasible that this is the cause for some of the weirder uair kills?

 

[Mario766]

You ALWAYS DI into Rosalina for mutliple reasons.

1) It sends you away from Luma
2) You live longer. If you're DIing into Luma you're asking for another Luma up air which is what actually kills you.

 

[Djent]

This game has taught me that throwing your weak links overboard is the best option.

With this in mind, who's gonna need the blue tunic? /

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

About Sonic vs Diddy, I'd like to point out that Sonic has an amazing item game if he grabs the banana peel. Z-drop the peel while doing spinning shenanigans, and the Diddy won't know what hit him. Due to how side-B and down-B work, Sonic can keep attacking for a long time before finally doing so as well so he can really execute effective mix-up with a banana in hand. Sonic's dash attack is also even better than Diddy's at picking up the peel, and Sonic is uniquely good at abusing Diddy off-stage. Even in 1.0.4, we locally thought Sonic was probably the closest to even MU Diddy had, and now that Diddy has been nerfed so hard (and Sonic nerfed some I guess), it seems very likely this one is clearly in Sonic's corner.

 

[Ikes]

Actually that's quite funny, and I never noticed it before.

is the undisputed best character in the game, whilst her old transformation, is the most common pick for the worst character in the game.

This game has taught me that throwing your weak links overboard is the best option.

I've been making this joke for weeks now

the fact that the same person is simultaneously the best and worst character in the game is hilarious

 

[FullMoon]

It's all Zelda's cunning plan to hide her identity. Nobody would suspect that the best fighter and the worst fighter are the same person.

 

[Vipermoon]

I actually don't know if this was discussed before:

If Sheik could turn into Zelda again (but they keep their down B using a taunt for the transformation) would Sheik improve at all (assuming the trans isn't laggy)?

 

[Smog Frog]

not really. already has decent kill potential(usmash and upb particularly) and all of stock ending stuff is risky. the entire point of playing is that you're safe, right? she actually has safe kill setups. transforming into her inferior alter ego is basically saying "im fishing, please punish me for it"

 

[Shaya]

It would be alright given this average Sheik scenario and not much else

"Hi I'm Sheik"
"Hey Sheik I just want to try to - WAIT STOP, STOP HITTING ME, OMG YOU'RE STILL HITTING ME..."
"HUUUU"
"god i'm 120% and sheiks at 12%, better grind really hard to avoid kill moves"

"HUUUUU *badadadadadaduuun*" ~sparkle~
as the enemy somehow feels coerced into suddenly approaching while you spam the real broken move in neutral, Naryu's Love.
-dash attack, up smash or ftilt out of shield KO-
"that was easy"

back to d/fthrow, ftilt, fair shenanigans.
"Huaaarrrrrrr"

and a lot more instances of
"THIS GAME'S WINNER IS ....

ZELDA"

But, unlike in Brawl where it was actually possible, not much merit theorizing about it here. It would help Zelda a lot I suppose, and maybe give a little to Sheik depending on the situation. But they're completely separate characters at this stage.

 

[Nobie]

@Thinkaman You helped truly make these threads about discussion and sharing ideas as opposed to arguing and balance whining. Just being able to get into game design philosophy while also keeping play to win in mind without THAT also overwhelming the conversation is amazing.

 

[hypersonicJD]

LOL. I loved Shaya's Post.

Zelda could be good by giving her a new taunt to make her transform into Sheik. That would be really huge for her. But the point of this stuff is to make Zelda good on her own. Not by relying on Sheik. Although F-Tilt and Up Smash are just plain stupid for me. They are pretty good zoning moves and have ridiculous advantage (that's on me though. I really do need more professional training ;_; )

 

[Mario766]

You know what, I want to hear why people are still putting Ike in low tier.

Most of his issues from previous patches are fixed. He gets strong reward off his grabs and hits. Any hit at low percents is easily 20+ percent, with opportunities for more percents. His throws combo until 70-80 depending on floatiness and his back and forward throws send them off stage at a low angle which makes them useful always. His aerials have less landing lag, f-air and back air both auto cancel, N-Air is -1/-2 on block at worst. Up Air is a great platform pressure tool, down air goes through platforms which makes them a nice surprise factor. Eruption is one of the best edgeguard tools in the game, even beating out teleport recoveries like Sheik with minimal issues.

His kill power is one of the best in the game, dash attack alone kills at 100 on middle weights with little rage at all and can follow from a back throw for a kill set-up. He doesn't have many guaranteed kill set-ups, but up air is always an air dodge read due to how long it lingers and how disjointed it is. Do I even have to mention how large Ragnell is? Second largest disjoint in the game. His Jab is also one of the best in the game even AFTER the heavy nerfs from Brawl. 11 percent, combat walk and huge range for frame 4? ok.

 

[Aunt Jemima]

Doesn't Zelda kill at like... 40% with Rage from Farore's Wind?

 

[Shaya]

Because the character is yet to do anything at all.
He isn't frequently being put in bottom 10 anymore, much like Falco, most can see these buffs have helped them and they're now "not useless".
But you do realise 1 character out of 50-odd having changes isn't going to suddenly make someone believe 20-30 other characters are now worse. Think about that.

Getting buffs in this game has not made any character we're near certain was weak into one that can suddenly handle top tier characters. Falco can now combo people 0-80%, Ike now functionally zones and has his jab working as a great CQC crutch he needed.
Does that mean anything in light of Sheik, Zero Suit or others? You have nothing to show it does. Stop thinking your character has been given the right to be thought of as "amazing" just because you're amazed by the changes.

Micro changes are going to have macro impacts but only very slowly. Perception/etc is going to follow the same path most "natural" processes do.

 

[ZcK]

I actually don't know if this was discussed before:

If Sheik could turn into Zelda again (but they keep their down B using a taunt for the transformation) would Sheik improve at all (assuming the trans isn't laggy)?

It might maybe if you are still at advantage of course but unless transforming were to take less than 10 frames, you are giving the opponent a chance to make a comeback because you are taking away the pressure by transforming and zelda has not many options to get herself out of trouble outside of quite laggy moves.

That and the fact that zelda is way more gimpable that sheik. I think that was one of her niches back when sheik could transform, but noooooooo they decided to make her untouchable because of ninjas.

Now the point I think is to make sheik have a reliable kill move by transforming, but then does zelda has one reliable kill move? F- Smash is almost unpunishable on shield and that landing it on the first place is easy anyway. Her dash attack and f-tilt could be but anyway why are those 2 moves better than bouncing fish.

Maybe just me, but in every smash Zelda was more of a gimmick while Sheik was the real character. Those faults are more than apparent now that she is alone .

 

[Mario766]

When did I say Ike was "amazing" I asked why was he still seen as low tier, which is exactly where people put him at even now after all the changes which make Ike a very solid character who actually has gotten results, they just aren't a majors. The latest results for Ike come at E2C 16 which had very solid Midwest turn-out including Ally, and Ryuga took 7th going purely Ike, only losing to Loe1, a fantastic Luigi and Shel who pulled out an amazing performance almost like Coco did earlier this year. Ike may not have super amazing results but he still has some even out of locals which is more than some characters can say.

 

[san.]

Better than getting good results and being called an outlier. Best to just let people think what they want. It's easiest for me to analyze the frame data and character properties.

 

[meleebrawler]

There's probably a stigma cloud of "heavy+slow = bad" that people tend to classify Ike as.

 

[Shaya]

For what it's worth, I think Ike is pretty good. The removal of many blind spots with various hitbox changes are awesome.
Every throw to fair is not... fair.
His three tilts are amazing.
He has jab mix ups again (although nothing too real, but he does).

I'm sure his match ups with most of the cast now feel pretty good. As a "fast" sword wielder, his power level going up could be pretty dangerous as he may end up polarizing match ups as a result (but we're yet to see it).

Better than getting good results and being called an outlier.

And yet I would be comfortable analyzing this (who/what they played, play styles from videos). "Oh yeah this would definitely **** on low tiers" or "Yeah they can handle -this match up- pretty well doing -this- it probably applies well to -THOSE-".
Otherwise.. that attitude is... bizarre.
Yes yes, "more buffs because people think we're low tier" mentality, but if you know the character is good the question remains "when will we see it" and "why haven't we seen it yet?", not apathy.

-

And the original notion of mine was if a character has no way to make a splash around top characters, people having a low perception of them are pretty justified.
Contrast "this" to Meta Knight, who also still gets the random "low tier" feels, yet we have an army of passive aggressors AND proof/results/solid theory to combat that with. Don't feed into the dark side and become the next passive aggressive sword wielding character army until it's really obvious people aren't justified feeling that way.

 

[ZcK]

There's probably a stigma cloud of "heavy+slow = bad" that people tend to classify Ike as.

Which in itself doesn t help his representation and that is what keeps him from getting good results because not many people use him. The thing with tournament results is the fact that if a character is used a lot for how good it is perceived to be, that character obviously is going to get some some results (Luigi), even if such character is not thaaaat good (Thats why some tournament results arguments doesnt hold too much ground). In the end that will affect how some people see a character and how low they will put them on their tier lists which will then affect other people opinions.

 

[san.]

I dunno about other Ike players, but I personally had a house fire and some other things keep me busy from tournaments since February.

I think it's fair to look at what the character can/can't do as well as character representation. There were times I felt something was the case with a character, then it was verified/debunked once I learned the frame or character data.

It's definitely not apathy, just speaking from experience.

 

[⑨ball]

You know what, I want to hear why people are still putting Ike in low tier.

Because there are about 2 reputable Ike mains on the scene. Tier lists are essentially educated guesses on how likely a character is to win a tournament, not even how well they are likely to perform. Ike is has never been particularly bad. Even before his patches we had Ryuga coming in second at stacked tournaments.

However, we can also look at tier lists as a type of character usage list as well. Just how likely are you to see any of the bottom 10 in even a local? This is one of the reasons I believe Lucina and Doc despite being clones of respected characters also tend to be at the bottom.

So we have two factors playing a part in his position. It pretty much boils down to people really still having little to no idea what Ike can do because of his lack of representation/results. For a lot of people CEO was the first time they'd even seen a good Ike and it was only really during doubles that he had the spotlight on him.

 

[Yikarur]

So Yoshi is as good as Ike in regard to "when are we going to see it?"

Ike is a solid high tier, I just think he lacks the player base... Thats sad. Ike is so cool.