Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Ghostbone]

I also think as time goes on, Spin Dash may be mostly fazed out from Sonic's gameplan. I mean, as Palutena, I can jab through it almost on reaction. It's pretty telegraphed, but I imagine some characters can't reliably punish it.

Sonic can just jump over and punish your jab (psyching you out with starting spindash then going straight into homing attack punishes your jab pretty well for example)

Seems more like a case of the sonics you're fighting not adapting their gameplan rather than spindash being bad.

Also if we're talking about player habits, Diddy's ALWAYS try to land with bair or fair, and they always try to recover high with side-b (and why wouldn't you).

 

[Nidtendofreak]

In Ike news:

Ryo beat M2K and Polt to win CFL Smackdown. And completely embarrassed Polt's Luigi. Ryo pulled out Palutena once against Polt and lost, stuck with Ike every other match. Was 3-2 overall.

Polt beat M2K in losers in the same tournament and 3-0'd him. Got a pretty crazy kill against M2K to take M2K's final stock of the tournament.

 

[Jaguar360]

In Ike news:

Ryo beat M2K and Polt to win CFL Smackdown. And completely embarrassed Polt's Luigi. Ryo pulled out Palutena once against Polt and lost, stuck with Ike every other match. Was 3-2 overall.

Polt beat M2K in losers in the same tournament and 3-0'd him. Got a pretty crazy kill against M2K to take M2K's final stock of the tournament.

Did Poltergust go Yoshi at all?

 

[Mario766]

In bigger Ike news

Big House 5. Ike will be there in storm. Ryo, San and Ryuga confirmed for BH5.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

In bigger Ike news

Big House 5. Ike will be there in storm. Ryo, San and Ryuga confirmed for BH5.

Ike confirmed to take the top 3 spots at BH5.

And Polt went mostly Yoshi. Only used Luigi once against Ryo. Don't remember if he used him against M2K at all.

 

[Rikkhan]

good, finally we're gonna see if all this ike hype is real or not.

 

[san.]

Ugh, Ike's barely high tier at most.

His smash attacks are still dysfunctional, sideB too low damage, and aether/counter startups too slow.

 

[Vipermoon]

If anyone needs a TBH teammate message me please. I'm putting this here because I trust you guys to be decent in this game. Please don't flame me for this post and no one reply to it.

I got one nvm

And NVM again I still need one!

 

[Nidtendofreak]

good, finally we're gonna see if all this ike hype is real or not.

inb4all3getswarmedbySheiksinpool/bracket

 

[Ffamran]

In Ike news:

Ryo beat M2K and Polt to win CFL Smackdown. And completely embarrassed Polt's Luigi. Ryo pulled out Palutena once against Polt and lost, stuck with Ike every other match. Was 3-2 overall.

Polt beat M2K in losers in the same tournament and 3-0'd him. Got a pretty crazy kill against M2K to take M2K's final stock of the tournament.

It's up on YouTube; Ryo vs. Poltergust https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqWgQWzB4B4.

Ryo vs. M2K: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNY_vomSLdI.

Did Poltergust go Yoshi at all?

Round 1, 2, 4, and 5 only.

Edit: Let's also not ignore Sol's Little Mac: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z88-33jHGw.

 

[Minordeth]

Damn. Sol's Mac interrupting Fair strings with Up-B is something that I should have expected but was still surprised by. Guess Sheik has to work hard for those carries off stage.

 

[Vipermoon]

Yeah it makes perfect sense. Frame 1 inv.

 

[Minordeth]

Due to his dash speed and Haymaker, it seems like he can actually pressure and punish Sheik for using needles carelessly as well. Huh. Seeing Sol develop as a high level Mac is pretty interesting, and makes a joke out of the "just throw him off stage ftw!" jokes.

Wizzrobe really seemed at a loss for what to do.

 

[Ffamran]

Damn. Sol's Mac interrupting Fair strings with Up-B is something that I should have expected but was still surprised by. Guess Sheik has to work hard for those carries off stage.

Off the top of my head, (Dr.) Mario's Super Jump Punch, Ryu's Shoryuken, Little Mac's Rising Uppercut, Marth/Lucina's Dolphin Slash - aerial only, right? -, DK's grounded Spinning Kong and aerial Kong Cyclone, Roy's grounded Blazer, Pac-Man's Trampoline, Samus's Screw Attack - if only it had armor or invincibility frames -, Charizard's Fly, Sonic's Spring Jump, and maybe Wario's Corkscrew can all be used to escape combos. Oh, and Yoshi's flutter jump. I'm not sure about the Mii Fighters.

The only issue is that you commit to a lot since you're going to be in the air waiting to land. For everyone except Ryu, DK on the ground, and Sonic who loses his ability to use his other Specials, everyone's in helpless mode when they use their Up Specials. Also, the ultimate combo escape move would be Jigglypuff's Rest and maybe Luigi's Super Jump Punch, but you risk so much if you miss with those. So, the more practical ultimate combo escape move would probably go to Ryu, Pac-Man, and (Dr.) Mario.

 

[Minordeth]

I guess I haven't seen it enough, or as blatantly as Sol's usage, to make an impact. It could also be that the risk/reward for using it for Mac is so skewed toward using Rising uppercut if caught in Sheik's Fair strings (due to the risk of being carried off stage) that Sol just goes for it.

It's no big deal if Charizard, for instance, gets carried out, because multiple jumps.

 

[Ffamran]

I guess I haven't seen it enough, or as blatantly as Sol's usage, to make an impact. It could also be that the risk/reward for using it for Mac is so skewed toward using Rising uppercut if caught in Sheik's Fair strings (due to the risk of being carried off stage) that Sol just goes for it.

It's no big deal if Charizard, for instance, gets carried out, because multiple jumps.

It's probably a player by player basis thing which includes whether or not they know you can do that, recognizing the situation to doing that, and well, reaction. The things that can happen in a fight are different for the observer and the fighter. When people say things like, "He could have done X", you're going to have to ask if the player was thinking about that, knew about that, or could have reacted in time. There's also the habits I mentioned where you do end up having set followups happen even though it clearly won't work like how Fox's Nair could send someone backwards, but the Fox player runs forwards and Up Smashes... What's that thing called... There was a study about it with a goose or something where it would do something to an egg, but if you removed the egg right when it was doing whatever, the goose would still complete the full action.

So, you see Ally abuse Up Smash with Mario and use FLUDD to stall people's momentum, but other Mario players might prefer something else like getting Side Smash reads instead and using FLUDD exclusively for edgeguarding. It's really clear between dittos like watching M2K fight Riot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-In_oxBWc7Y. Or this between 2 Falco players and 1 clearly prefers controlling space and hanging out pelting you with lasers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh57jCd8DzM.

Also, doesn't Charizard only have 3 jumps which means he only has 2 jumps in the air?

 

[DunnoBro]

After my sheik got bodied at xanadu I decided to vent my frustrations in the lab for DHD.

A little more optimistic about him now, while dthrow > fair itself doesn't kill, depending on % and Sweet/Sourpot, it does frame trap for frisbee which true combos into kill moves, and is the best option to punish di away + jump/no air dodge. Faster fallers actually have to tech at times to avoid it. Often times, characters will be too low to air dodge properly, and they can only jump towards DHD if they want to jump away from frisbee since away/straight up will get them hit by the frisbee. Against most of the cast, this is an almost guaranteed upair if reacted to properly.

If it sends them offstage, it's a similar situation if frisbee connects it true combos into fair which while that close to the blastzone can certainly kill reliably early. Otherwise, they have to jump again in towards dhd. He actually doesn't gimp too well, the angles his moves put people at just don't allow it and his spike is very weak. So this mostly just sets up for a kill opportunity.

Furthermore, my findings with fair prove American DHDs really have been playing this character wrong. Just standard pokes with it accomplish this frame trap, but the move itself frame traps for grabs at certain percents, and sourspot combos into itself, start tech chases, so just one fair connecting is pretty significant.

(Personally I thought most always played him wrong, trying to camp with slow, combo starting projectiles but never being there to follow up? And you wonder why you don't kill?)

There's also a lot of untapped potential in the reverse shot game. I don't want to sound conceited but I think I'm the only one that really knows how to use it.

Self-plug

It's a frame trap in the truest form. When coming back, you can't air dodge it, you can't jump into the stage or ledge for safety... It's really easy and potent offstage pressure imo. Almost guaranteed against a lot of characters. Similar to Ness's pkthunder pressure though much more technical.

Some Concerns Though:

Diddy, Ness, and Sonic remain about the same awful MU wise.

For some reason, diddy's hurtbox just after a landing airdodge is lowered, disallowing dhd to punish it with frisbee. (Wtffff)

Ness's air dodge and options out of it means when we read the air dodge, it's still a 50/50 on whether we get the punish cause we need to read the direction too. Due to the endlag on frisbee, ness can convert a kill off this himself if we guess wrong or even space wrong. You also need to commit HARD to punish ness's air dodge. Like, perfectly timed between short and full hopped and going deep as hell.

Since this MU is so dependent on negating rage ness as much as possible, I don't think this is a huge boon.

And sonic has the dash speed to consistently punish frisbees on shield from like almost the entire range of the move with dash grab, then set up an edgeguard opportunity. Spring lets him opt out of the option select, and there's absolutely no way dhd will kill a spring landing sonic.

 

[Teshie U]

After my sheik got bodied at xanadu I decided to vent my frustrations in the lab for DHD.

A little more optimistic about him now, while dthrow > fair itself doesn't kill, depending on % and Sweet/Sourpot, it does frame trap for frisbee which true combos into kill moves, and is the best option to punish di away + jump/no air dodge. Faster fallers actually have to tech at times to avoid it. Often times, characters will be too low too air dodge properly, and they can only jump towards if they want to jump away since away/straight up will get them hit by the frisbee. Against most of the cast, this is an almost guaranteed upair if reacted to properly.

If it sends them offstage, it's a similar situation if frisbee connects it true combos into fair which while that close to the blastzone can certainly kill reliably early. Otherwise, they have to jump again in towards dhd. He actually doesn't gimp too well, the angles his moves put people at just don't allow it and his spike is very weak. So this mostly just sets up for a kill opportunity.

Furthermore, my findings with fair prove American DHDs really have been playing this character wrong. Just standard pokes with it accomplish this frame trap, but the move itself frame traps for grabs at certain percents, and sourspot combos into itself, start tech chases, so just one fair connecting is pretty significant.

(Personally I thought most always played him wrong, trying to camp with slow, combo starting projectiles but never being there to follow up? And you wonder why you don't kill?)

There's also a lot of untapped potential in the reverse shot game. I don't want to sound conceited but I think I'm the only one that really knows how to use it.

Self-plug

It's a frame trap in the truest form. When coming back, you can't air dodge it, you can't jump into the stage or ledge for safety... It's really easy and potent offstage pressure imo. Almost guaranteed against a lot of characters. Similar to Ness's pkthunder pressure though much more technical.

Some Concerns Though:

Diddy, Ness, and Sonic remain about the same awful MU wise.

For some reason, diddy's hurtbox just after a landing airdodge is lowered, disallowing dhd to punish it with frisbee. (Wtffff)

Ness's air dodge and options out of it means when we read the air dodge, it's still a 50/50 on whether we get the punish cause we need to read the direction too. Due to the endlag on frisbee, ness can convert a kill off this himself if we guess wrong or even space wrong. You also need to commit HARD to punish ness's air dodge. Like, perfectly timed between short and full hopped and going deep as hell.

Since this MU is so dependent on negating rage ness as much as possible, I don't think this is a huge boon.

And sonic has the dash speed to consistently punish frisbees on shield from like almost the entire range of the move with dash grab, then set up an edgeguard opportunity. Spring lets him opt out of the option select, and there's absolutely no way dhd will kill a spring landing sonic.

Definitely agree on the reverse shots. Watched Brood nearly beat Rain with some truly clever reverse shot to automatically nail the snapback on sheik's recovery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIixO6sf1a4&t=2m46s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIixO6sf1a4&t=5m11s

I really appreciate how Duck Hunt is able to surround his opponent with his zoning options. That is kind of the point of the character. Its a trio and you can cut off alot of options for forcing your opponent to watch out for alot of stuff at once.

 

[Browny]

Why is it so difficult to find any videos of Marth winning a match on youtube? It doesn't help when his major players seem to never use him anymore.

Just sayin'. Even the perceived 'worst 11' have a lot of footage people can watch of them not losing.

 

[Sinister Slush]

I've known Polt for like almost a decade and he's always played a careful campy style since Brawl, he does it against Ryo and it doesn't bode too well for him.
But seeing him be as aggressive as I've ever seen against m2k is funny cause it's DK and he's most likely telling himself "I can play brainless Yoshi and do well" Was fun seeing a slight playstyle change from him finally.

His use of Bair tho isn't great, that move is so bad Ryo/m2k was able to shield all three hits and still run up and get a grab on him during the landing lag of the move (tho m2k missed it and died cause of it), bair buffs plz

 

[Routa]

So from time to time (well all the time tbh) I hear people whining about lack of off-stage game in Sm4sh. I have been wondering which characters can go for off-stage kill and recover back to the stage. I mean first characters that comes to my mind are Mii Swordfighter, Wario and Jigglypuff.

 

[Wintropy]

So from time to time (well all the time tbh) I hear people whining about lack of off-stage game in Sm4sh. I have been wondering which characters can go for off-stage kill and recover back to the stage. I mean first characters that comes to my mind are Mii Swordfighter, Wario and Jigglypuff.

Pit.

I mean, that kinda goes without saying. Short of going for a side-b recovery below the stage (which, to be honest, happens to the best of us) and if you've got your jumps good to go, chances are you can make it back no bother.

His up-b can recover even from the blastzone and autosnaps if you hit the stage from below, and his side-b is invincible and can be used for near-edge recoveries. Catch is that both can be easily intercepted by an opponent that knows what to do: up-b's straightforward trajectory and absolute vulnerability means it's a mobile hurtbox, while side-b can be interrupted by a projectile, the opponent's own hurtbox or, in Greninja's case, up-b. Greninja's up-b just messes with both of Pit's recoveries, it's a fine option.

But yeah Pit's got f-air strings, b-air for stage spikes, a decently risk-free d-air that can combo into itself and spike and a u-air that can go for edge juggles. Recovery isn't a problem for him. There's no for Pit excuse to evade going deep, exception is if your opponent has a comparable off-stage game and is gonna intercept your recovery for the effort, or if the opponent's recovery is difficult to intercept itself (i.e. Mario's up-b, Yoshi's double-jump), which can make it difficult to go for it. Off-stage is Pit's zone, friend~

 

[Smog Frog]

gigantic powerful aerials all around that send at a mostly horizontal angle are a boon for any edgeguarder

 

[outfoxd]

After my sheik got bodied at xanadu I decided to vent my frustrations in the lab for DHD.

A little more optimistic about him now, while dthrow > fair itself doesn't kill, depending on % and Sweet/Sourpot, it does frame trap for frisbee which true combos into kill moves, and is the best option to punish di away + jump/no air dodge. Faster fallers actually have to tech at times to avoid it. Often times, characters will be too low too air dodge properly, and they can only jump towards if they want to jump away since away/straight up will get them hit by the frisbee. Against most of the cast, this is an almost guaranteed upair if reacted to properly.

If it sends them offstage, it's a similar situation if frisbee connects it true combos into fair which while that close to the blastzone can certainly kill reliably early. Otherwise, they have to jump again in towards dhd. He actually doesn't gimp too well, the angles his moves put people at just don't allow it and his spike is very weak. So this mostly just sets up for a kill opportunity.

Furthermore, my findings with fair prove American DHDs really have been playing this character wrong. Just standard pokes with it accomplish this frame trap, but the move itself frame traps for grabs at certain percents, and sourspot combos into itself, start tech chases, so just one fair connecting is pretty significant.

(Personally I thought most always played him wrong, trying to camp with slow, combo starting projectiles but never being there to follow up? And you wonder why you don't kill?)

There's also a lot of untapped potential in the reverse shot game. I don't want to sound conceited but I think I'm the only one that really knows how to use it.

Self-plug

It's a frame trap in the truest form. When coming back, you can't air dodge it, you can't jump into the stage or ledge for safety... It's really easy and potent offstage pressure imo. Almost guaranteed against a lot of characters. Similar to Ness's pkthunder pressure though much more technical.

Some Concerns Though:

Diddy, Ness, and Sonic remain about the same awful MU wise.

For some reason, diddy's hurtbox just after a landing airdodge is lowered, disallowing dhd to punish it with frisbee. (Wtffff)

Ness's air dodge and options out of it means when we read the air dodge, it's still a 50/50 on whether we get the punish cause we need to read the direction too. Due to the endlag on frisbee, ness can convert a kill off this himself if we guess wrong or even space wrong. You also need to commit HARD to punish ness's air dodge. Like, perfectly timed between short and full hopped and going deep as hell.

Since this MU is so dependent on negating rage ness as much as possible, I don't think this is a huge boon.

And sonic has the dash speed to consistently punish frisbees on shield from like almost the entire range of the move with dash grab, then set up an edgeguard opportunity. Spring lets him opt out of the option select, and there's absolutely no way dhd will kill a spring landing sonic.

The time i started actually winning matches is the same time i started playing a lot more mid range pressure instead of campy and converting into pseudo-sheik fair strings and occasional regrabs or the newly awesome rapid jab. I've been getting better at walking with the can and using it to bail me out or extend combos instead of only ever using it as a third projectile.

This dog has one of weirdest set of kit interactions in the game. Is this change of playstyle and misconceptions about his ranged game really what the character needs (buff would still be nice)?

 

[DunnoBro]

This dog has one of weirdest set of kit interactions in the game. Is this change of playstyle and misconceptions about his ranged game really what the character needs (buff would still be nice)?

The character is clearly very unique to begin with, but is also clearly designed around frame trapping which is much harder to understand than "oh this true combos..." or "this safe on shield move kills at 60!"

But he still needs buffs/tweaks lol Objectively the WORST smashes in the game by a large margin.

IMO The reason he isn't played more isn't because he isn't fun to play so much as he lacks the ability to be scrubby and use hail mary smashes like every other character.

 

[outfoxd]

The character is clearly very unique to begin with, but is also clearly designed around frame trapping which is much harder to understand than "oh this true combos..." or "this safe on shield move kills at 60!"

But he still needs buffs/tweaks lol Objectively the WORST smashes in the game by a large margin.

IMO The reason he isn't played more isn't because he isn't fun to play so much as he lacks the ability to be scrubby and use hail mary smashes like every other character.

An almost entirely projectile based non-camper, especially one without some brute power (Snake) may well be an odd concept.

 

[Teshie U]

The character is clearly very unique to begin with, but is also clearly designed around frame trapping which is much harder to understand than "oh this true combos..." or "this safe on shield move kills at 60!"

But he still needs buffs/tweaks lol Objectively the WORST smashes in the game by a large margin.

IMO The reason he isn't played more isn't because he isn't fun to play so much as he lacks the ability to be scrubby and use hail mary smashes like every other character.

worst smashes? I think Samus could definitely give him a good run. Dsmash is unsafe and never kills til 200+. Fsmash is a nasty blindspot, big sourspot and is unsafe, Upsmash doesn't scoop because Samus is so tall and lacks the sense to aim her cannon lower, characters still fall out of it and punish her.

In my experience fighting vs Duck Hunt, when his smashes fail to link, at least his opponent goes flying away and Duck Hunt doesn't get punished.

 

[Marcbri]

worst smashes? I think Samus could definitely give him a good run. Dsmash is unsafe and never kills til 200+. Fsmash is a nasty blindspot, big sourspot and is unsafe, Upsmash doesn't scoop because Samus is so tall and lacks the sense to aim her cannon lower, characters still fall out of it and punish her.

In my experience fighting vs Duck Hunt, when his smashes fail to link, at least his opponent goes flying away and Duck Hunt doesn't get punished.

Samus' Fsmash is actually quite decent, it may have a blindspot next to it but it's range is good and it comes out in frame 10 with pretty good kill power. It gives Samus the ability to punish a lot of stuff with a strong kill move. The other 2 smashes could use some help though.

 

[outfoxd]

Samus' Fsmash is actually quite decent, it may have a blindspot next to it but it's range is good and it comes out in frame 10 with pretty good kill power. It gives Samus the ability to punish a lot of stuff with a strong kill move. The other 2 smashes could use some help though.

If you space fsmash i assume it always works, right? Probably one of the biggest issues with DHs smashes is that you are almost always rolling the dice on all three smashes. Watching a jigglypuff slipping out of a fellow dhs fsmash three straight times on attempting to punish a missed Rest really irked me.

 

[DunnoBro]

worst smashes? I think Samus could definitely give him a good run. Dsmash is unsafe and never kills til 200+. Fsmash is a nasty blindspot, big sourspot and is unsafe, Upsmash doesn't scoop because Samus is so tall and lacks the sense to aim her cannon lower, characters still fall out of it and punish her.

There's 3 distinct reasons duck hunt's smashes are worse as a set than anyone else's.

1: Animation length. All smashes are three part animations making them longer than average. Dsmashes with two side hits, or swooping up/fsmashes. How often have you seen people throw these moves out, go for the grab and they're just barely able to roll away? Well, you'll grab duck hunt every time.

2: Shield Push. There isn't any, these are irrefutably the least safe on shield smashes in the game. You can fully charge them and they'll still be in range to grab or fsmash you.

3: Hitboxes/Finnickiness: Downsmash doesn't hit inside dhd and is very precise. Fsmash has random angles, the most important of which being the first shot. It's a 50/50 of the hitbox being higher, or equal to DHD's hitbox and allowing trades with aerials. (If you trade on the first shot you don't take the strong hit) Upsmash is the most usable, but you note that samus's can't scoop... Duck hunt's can ONLY scoop. If it catches an opponent in the air by some miracle of pinpoint timing on the multihits, they're still highly likely to fall out.

No other character has these issues. Samus's dsmash and fsmash are way safer since they are shorter animations with more shield push and better covering hitboxes. Duck hunt's usmash is better but that's it really.

 

[Nobie]

I recently watched this James Chen video where he goes over the idea of "opening up your opponent" in various fighting games. He briefly mentions Smash and how it approaches this concept, but another thing caught my attention.

James's basic principle of opening up your opponent is that blocking is overpowered and SHOULD be overpowered in fighting games, and that your goal should be to force your opponent to be afraid to block. You are essentially trying to tear down their defenses through psychological intimidation, and that's what allows mixups, traps, and other tactics to work, and he mentions this as a universal regardless of whether the game you're playing emphasizes crossups, high-lows, guard/shield break mechanics, or whatever. You don't win the neutral by doing a mixup, you win the neutral in order to do a mixup.

The reason I mention all of this is because it seems so different from the Smash Bros. mindset, where it's often argued that a fighting game should emphasize offense over defense, and "overly defensive" play is looked down upon. Sure, the idea of "I just want to FIGHT, not chase after some coward" is prevalent in all fighting games, but the mentality seems to bleed through in Smash even to the highest levels.

 

[Zelder]

Escaping is way, way easier in Smash brothers than traditional 2d fighters, for one.

 

[Spinosaurus]

Smash also gives the players way more options from shielding than other fighters. You can't really just shield all day anyway.

 

[juddy96]

Here's a video of vs. two NorCal PR'd players in Winners Finals of a local

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m69ARxUq094

 

[Megamang]

Making the universal options powerful leaves a good base for balancing, as no ones defense is unusable (think melee Game and Watch). For instance, the power of airdodging is often lamented, but imagine ZSS/Shiek/Rosa's traps against a significantly worse airdodge... suddenly everyone dies to every ZSS grab, unless they have an amazing special to help their return to earth.


Same with shields power, if powershield can punish everything then no move is unpunishable, as long as they keep the command grabs reasonable.

 

[DunnoBro]

James's basic principle of opening up your opponent is that blocking is overpowered and SHOULD be overpowered in fighting games, and that your goal should be to force your opponent to be afraid to block. You are essentially trying to tear down their defenses through psychological intimidation, and that's what allows mixups, traps, and other tactics to work, and he mentions this as a universal regardless of whether the game you're playing emphasizes crossups, high-lows, guard/shield break mechanics, or whatever. You don't win the neutral by doing a mixup, you win the neutral in order to do a mixup.

This is actually a mindset I think I've been gravitating to on my own. I think some characters lack the tools to properly deal with defensive options but the ones that do (high tiers) do so wonderfully.

Lots of amazing, deep, FUN things are enabled when we read or trap the opponents defensive options. Which is a lot deeper than guaranteed stuff and a lot easier to design competitively.

imagine ZSS/Shiek/Rosa's traps against a significantly worse airdodge

Or duck hunt in a melee ledge environment. :^)

 

[Nate1080]

I recently watched this James Chen video where he goes over the idea of "opening up your opponent" in various fighting games. He briefly mentions Smash and how it approaches this concept, but another thing caught my attention.

James's basic principle of opening up your opponent is that blocking is overpowered and SHOULD be overpowered in fighting games, and that your goal should be to force your opponent to be afraid to block. You are essentially trying to tear down their defenses through psychological intimidation, and that's what allows mixups, traps, and other tactics to work, and he mentions this as a universal regardless of whether the game you're playing emphasizes crossups, high-lows, guard/shield break mechanics, or whatever. You don't win the neutral by doing a mixup, you win the neutral in order to do a mixup.

The reason I mention all of this is because it seems so different from the Smash Bros. mindset, where it's often argued that a fighting game should emphasize offense over defense, and "overly defensive" play is looked down upon. Sure, the idea of "I just want to FIGHT, not chase after some coward" is prevalent in all fighting games, but the mentality seems to bleed through in Smash even to the highest levels.

Reading this reminded me of Mr.R vs Ally at Paragon, where you can see Ally's Mario was too afraid to approach Ryu in shield (especially game 4). In fact Ally was obviously scared to shield against Ryu in general since the shield was so easily punishable.

 

[Quickhero]

Ugh, Ike's barely high tier at most.

His smash attacks are still dysfunctional, sideB too low damage, and aether/counter startups too slow.

Barely high tier is kind of what people expect of Ike now, anyways. Quick Draw could use some more damage, but it isn't enough to make Ike feel underwhelming. Aether having super armor properties starting at frame 1 would be awesome, but Aether isn't a bad recovery move as is, especially with the whole spiking property. Counter moves in-general are read and counter isn't a move that should ever be relied up on for anyways.

I'm so confused on what you mean on the smash attacks being dysfunctional. D-smash may be incredibly mediocre and should be a lot safer, but it still functions. F-smash is designed to be incredibly read based, and with how good Ike is at racking up damage, and being able to have quite a few safe ways to attack, having a smash attack that can get you a kill as early as 65% with a hard read really doesn't hurt Ike.

Which leads to u-smash. I think it's safe to say that if u-smash were to get buffed, hell would break loose.

 

[DunnoBro]

Aether isn't a bad recovery move as is

As far as Smash 4 recoveries go it seems pretty ass. It has some applications with ledgeplay but non-sweetspot recoveries are instant mid-tier at best.

Quickdraw is the main reason he isn't free offstage.

 

[NickRiddle]

I think this set does a good job of showcasing Marth's strengths. Give it a shot.

2-day old Marth hype!