Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[DanGR]

It's an awkward match up for Diddy now, that's for sure. Like, the reason people thought Rosalina hard countered Diddy during 3DS (it obviously isn't nor wasn't that bad) has come back to haunt.
He doesn't reliably kill her earlier than she kills him anymore. His action's average rewards are less so his trading (which isn't too uncommon for him) or losing while attempting fairs/bairs/dtilts is a lot worse for him now.
As Diddy is focusing towards his specials for game play since his nerfs, Rosalina/Luma completely annihilated this at every stage of the game thus far. It makes it a lot harder for him to garner momentum and also "scare" and restrict Rosalina, who now aturally sets the pace of the match up and can spend a lot of time punishing Diddy rather than trying to zone away from his devastating aerials and grabs.

I'm not here to argue any matchup ratios, but I do want to point out a few things that leave me thinking the matchup is much closer than other people seem to think.

One of the biggest things that hasn't changed in the matchup is the hitbox placements on Diddy's best neutral options against Rosalina's very tall frame. Fair and monkey flip are both still great at getting Rosalina in the air and killing Luma simultaneously- as much as they did before the nerfs. I don't know if monkey flip is one of the specials you're talking about that Rosalina annihilates. If so, I vehemently disagree on that point. Anyways, moving on.

I understand typical reasoning behind saying Diddy's average rewards are less than Rosalina's, but I have to disagree that in general this isn't true. On the surface, Rosalina has more damaging combos, more rewarding edgeguards, and generally hits Diddy more than he hits her. But a vast majority of her ability to rack damage is from setups out of grabs, and juggling opponents vertically with upair, and upsmash and DA for covering landings. The poke damage from Luma dtilt/ftilt/jabs in neutral are really quite pitiful, and happen all the time. Dsmash, nair, and any solo Luma hit barely does any damage either. The Rosalina player generally has to get good reads to convert jab-> upair juggles, and dtilt-> offstage pressure when those are applicable. Those are what rack damage, and it's not the average hit confirm that does it for her. Rosalina generally has to work for the hit confirms that lead to her juggle traps and general damage output. Of her zoning and poking tools, jab is easily the best at converting into upair/upsmash/DA juggles, but jab in neutral particularly in the Diddy matchup isn't very potent. The poking (that does little damage, and only sometimes lead to big conversions) is what's so safe and free. You can honestly ignore the potential solo Luma/solo Rosa (I mean if you're hit by just one when both are together) damage in neutral if you know getting hit by any of them wouldn't knock you into the air/offstage. This is often the case with dtilt/ftilt/nair/dsmash. It's no wonder she loses to pretty much all the high/top tier characters with free recoveries/disadvantaged states, considering her single hits do so little damage. She has to win neutral all game to win.

Monkey flip/b-reverse peanuts in disadvantage helps tremendously in relieving pressure and helps prevent these kinds of conversions. On the reverse side, when Diddy lands a hit he goes hard. His best neutral options knock Luma offstage or set up easy Luma kills. I'll suffice to say he's got plenty of options for consistently knocking Luma offstage/into tumble. He has enough quick enough aerial autocancels to easily cover the air->ground transitions during Rosalina's disadvantaged states. Peanuts and bananas, while somewhat useless against Rosalina's neutral, have plenty of good uses in advantaged states where using gravitational pull only puts a big target on her face.

I also can't disagree more with the totally incorrect way most Diddys are trying to play the matchup nowadays. I understand this is a big claim, but it's really easy to find plenty of mistakes in high/top level Diddy play. Just take a look at Paragon. Too much time is spent in neutral trying to zone with his aerials instead of hitting with them or not using them at all, using bananas in poor ways that simply don't work against Rosalina (toss out of shield is pointless, for example), and not enough time playing more patiently around Luma (or hitting straight through her) and finding openings for monkey flip/kick setups which kill Luma from half way across the stage.

For the record, yes, the gap has closed considerably since the huge nerfs to Diddy's kill power (the biggest impact on the evolution of the matchup imo), but not enough to justify that she "destroys" him.

 

[Vipermoon]

Opinions on Pikachu magically changed very recently. Odd. Sometimes I wonder if you guys have your own opinions.

 

[Ffamran]

I'm confused, what distinguishes these two things other than a grab being a grapple and a throw being a throw, like I mean sure Fox doesn't have good options out of a throw but can get grabs relatively well, but doesn't that contribute to the full fact that he just doesn't have a good grab game, I don't know, it seems superfluous, I'm sorry if I'm coming off as condescending or just awkward and rude, but that's a weird sentiment.

Grab game refers to how a character gets a grab. So, Fox can get grabs easily by confirming it after a jab and his run speed allows him to run in and grab much more easily than say, Falco. What Fox does after grabbing, his throw options, aren't exactly good. They're mostly positional options rather than combo setups or kill options. Now, ZSS can't really do anything as far as I know to get grabs easily. She'll rely on reads to get them which is much more difficult when she has a frame 16 grab with long end lag. What she gets out of grabbing, mostly D-throw, is the ability to combo into a kill or just combo.

As a whole, I guess grapple game would work since that's the process of grabbing and throwing. Command grabs would also influence this, but could be considered as a another category. If we followed an MMA format of stand-up, grapple, and ground game, Smash would be something like ground game, air game, and grapple.

 

[Vipermoon]

Looks like Ike can do it too

 

[Ffamran]

Looks like Ike can do it too

Yep, and they even have a thread on it: http://smashboards.com/threads/up-b-kill-on-falco-at-0.416969/. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9GhnZra0IQ#t=1m32s.

Really feel like they should change how rage interacts with knockback against charged Smashes.

 

[Pyr]

I think the bigger offender is the fact that set knockback things are affected by other factors, namely rage and the penalty for getting hit when charging a Smash, making them not truly "set." Seems like a silly oversight for something so vital to some attack functionality.

Fix that and we fix instakills and inconsistencies with moves linking while allowing the full penalty of getting hit by someone with rage, and while charging a smash, intact. Only thing it wouldn't take care of is the Luma BS.

 

[thehard]

How comes people talk about Ranai's success and not even mention the fact that Japan plays almost exclusively on Omega Stages and thus skewing character viability?

Well, it's like anywhere else really, some characters are always going to be advantaged no matter the stage list and player habits (we love to harp on players for defaulting to SV against Sheiks don't we?) He's still an extremely talented player and deserves his accomplishments. Plus with recent SoCal rulesets + some top player backing it seems America is starting to transition to a condensed stage list too (though I sense resistance from EC players). We'll see if Ranai solidifies the hype at APEX now won't we?

-American players run it back to Smashville, Japanese players run it back to Omega Gaur Plains.-

Opinions on Pikachu magically changed very recently. Odd. Sometimes I wonder if you guys have your own opinions.

Pika has magically done very little very recently, and in the past year for that matter. I think the thread "feel" is starting to shift towards results over theorycraft now that we have so many results to choose from, and now that some of the theorycraft was blown out of the water.

Pretty sure most of us didn't really understand what Pikachu was capable of 9 months ago, but we did see QA and small frame and fast moves and assumed all that would birth a super strong character (and at least for me, ESAM retiring from the public eye created this romantic storyline in my head where he'd one day return and destroy everyone's Diddy with this sleeper top tier). Now that we've seen what is supposed to be the absolute highest level of Pika play multiple times [being bested by other top tiers and high tiers on the regular] our expectations have been tempered. Yep, I remember SSC WF, do you remember Grands?

Opinions WILL change the more people understand the game and its meta, there's nothing wrong with that?? We're not wishy-washy, we're just learning... and I think it's pretty natural that there's some backlash after the riches we were promised... Eric played us like fools man...

At the risk of turning this into a "Pika sucks" post I'll close by saying he's...good.

 

[TriTails]

Rosalina vs Luigi isn't even that bad honestly. Rosa has better matchups against more relevant characters (she DESTROYS Diddy) and I'd argue that ZSS is significantly worse for Luigi than Rosa is. It's certainly not a good matchup for Mr L but it's doable, very far from being horrendous or Sheik-level. Sheik nerfs would boost this character a lot (although she would probably still win the matchup unless her entire gameplan changes).

Related: Luigi vs Fox isn't even that good for Luigi, but that's a post for another time. (Luigi still wins pls dont jump down my throat)

Luigi mains sees ZSS as a near even MU (leaning to ZSS' favor) but I dunno about that.

Though, we are one of the few people who can capitalize (very) hard on her whiffed grab or Boost Kick. Fireballs beating Paralyzer (But a wrong Fireball and you're dead from Down-B), N-air being crouch-able I think? Especially useful if true due to Luigi's ability to crawl.

But IDK. I actually think Rosa is more of a threat than ZSS. Or rather, Luma is a threat to Luigi. Hitting Rosa with Luma is HARD. Hitting ZSS is hard, but not on that level.

And Luigi vs Fox is no more than 60:40. Search me on people saying Luigi destroys Fox.

And.

Mr L

Sthap.

 

[Jaxas]

N-air being crouch-able I think? Especially useful if true due to Luigi's ability to crawl.

Nair isn't crouch-able, but the ZSS player has to be more precise with the timing (of both Nair and/or Bair) to hit low opponents.

 

[Dre89]

The only time when results tell me that a character is overhyped is when a character is being repped by multiple high level players but most or all of them don't do well. Saying that Pika is overhyped because of his lack of results is pointless because the only high-level player using him does well. Who cares if 20 average players play him too. Average players are not going to get above-average results regardless of who they use.

The fact that Pika has low usage in tourneys despite being the mascot of the second largest gaming franchise in the world tells me that he's hard to play, not that he's overhyped.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

The only time when results tell me that a character is overhyped is when a character is being repped by multiple high level players but most or all of them don't do well. Saying that Pika is overhyped because of his lack of results is pointless because the only high-level player using him does well. Who cares if 20 average players play him too. Average players are not going to get above-average results regardless of who they use.

The fact that Pika has low usage in tourneys despite being the mascot of the second largest gaming franchise in the world tells me that he's hard to play, not that he's overhyped.

With that, however, comes the factor of matchup unfamiliarity. This could be part of the reason why ESAM is doing so well right now, but at the end of the day, his skill at this game is still among the best.

 

[Trifroze]

Any decent ZSS player will always throw their nair out just a few frames or less before landing unless it's to mess with the opponent's powershield timings. For instance G&W, a character competing for the second lowest crouch with Kirby and Jigglypuff just after WFT, transitions between 2 animations when he crouches, with one being just slightly taller than the other one (the taller one is the initial animation) and if ZSS nairs one frame before landing it'll hit him. Hitting something like Luigi's or Pikachu's crouch is hardly a problem at all, although I do wish the hitbox placement on nair was lower like the graphics imply.

ZSS vs Luigi matchup is in ZSS' favor but even one zoning mistake per stock can easily turn it around. At top level I could see it being a hard counter, but drastically on mid to high level (the distinction between these is a bit blurry) I could see it being close to even. Luigi can easily punish a spotdodged grab with an up b killing ZSS at 40-60% depending on rage, forcing ZSS to only use grab when it's guaranteed or when she's at very low percents, although I'd still advice not to. ZSS' BnB also works very unreliably on Luigi unless you do the rage version (killing with the initial hits of up b). Luigi's up smash is something to look out for when zoning him out with aerials, meaning you have to retreat and eventually get through him again or push him forward in return. Essentially Luigi has a really hard time getting in and getting off of the ledge safely, but when he gets in it really hurts. Luckily ZSS can SDI down out of Luigi's tornado pretty easily to my experience, forcing Luigi to use it low so it's not going to kill before 130% or so.

 

[Antonykun]

How comes people talk about Ranai's success and not even mention the fact that Japan plays almost exclusively on Omega Stages and thus skewing character viability?

If that was true then Ranai would be worse off like IIRC the worst stage allowed in Japanese tournaments is FD/Omegas

 

[Illuminose]

You're the only person in this thread to ever think Sheik goes even with Pika and every time you incite said conversation you ignore what people say and bring up the same completely unaltered opinion at another opportunity.

This alone is a crock of ****. The best Pikachu player and the best Sheik player in the world have the same opinion. The Sheik AND Pikachu character boards subscribe to this belief. It's AT WORST a -1 for Pikachu, probably leaning toward even. I thought that this was accepted as a given at this point.

Also, the best player of your character thinks Zero Suit loses the matchup and so does the best Pikachu player. It's been proven at top level to be an uphill battle for Zero Suit. All logic points toward this being the case. I don't care that you play Zero Suit. Maybe you just haven't played a good Pika?

 

[HFlash]

How comes people talk about Ranai's success and not even mention the fact that Japan plays almost exclusively on Omega Stages and thus skewing character viability?

Doubt anyone knows for sure but I am legitimately curious, why does Japan play only on Omega? It'd imagine that predominate use of that stage polarizes viability more so than the "American SV runback." Very interesting point to bring up.

 

[Greward]

How comes people talk about Ranai's success and not even mention the fact that Japan plays almost exclusively on Omega Stages and thus skewing character viability?

They play in BF and SV for sure too.
I've heard Abadango mention they started using T&C and Lylat in some tournaments, but I guess the majority wants to play on those 3 stages anyways.

Anyways, western scene plays like 70% of the games in Smashville. It's not hard to imagine they also have a preferred stage in Japan and that those are the omegas.

I doubt Ranai's success is because of the stage list only. It's not like DH / Lylat / DL64 are bad for Villager.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

People seem to have high hopes about their characters benefiting from a Sheik nerf when they shouldn't. Sheik being a bit stronger or weaker is quite irrelevant for most of the cast. The characters that are directly affected by a Sheik nerf are those that are already top/high tier in the first place. So while Rosalina and Yoshi would likely benefit more from a Sheik nerf than Fox or MK or Sonic do, to a character like Bowser Jr or Falco it wouldn't really matter. So for a good 70% of the cast or more a nerf of Sheik will have little to no meaning. Or to be more precise, it will only have a meaning in theory.

Since there are only few characters that are directly held back by Sheik and Sheik only [or very few other things beside Sheik] chances are that they are also held back by about 3-5 different characters from the Cockblock Bridage™:
with some and in it. is pending but might end up there as well.

Basically, if a character loses to at least 3 of those, then losing to Sheik a bit less than before can be considered irrelevant to all intents and purposes.

Diddy, Mario, and Ness are/were often flipflopped on who had the slight edge. That's the worst it gets after sheik/pika though.

I dunno about Mario beating ZSS ... I'm always sceptical about Mario beating any high-tier character tbh. Diddy and Ness are probably difficult for her, I'll give you that, but it can't be bad to the point that it somehow makes her worse than Pikachu.

Most underrated character is def . I would put him in my top 3-5. His frame data is absurd. He can be safe almost anytime he wants. Frame 3 Utilt. Frame 4 DA. A full jab that cannot be escaped. True combos. Part of his side b is invincible.

Fighting him feels almost unfair at times. I know he loses to likely and , but that's if those characters grab him. On any large or medium sized stage, I feel like can just run with a game.

Fox doesn't lose to Mario ... he loses to Luigi and Rosalina for sure and I have feeling that Ryu will turn out to be a difficult matchup as well. But apart from that Fox doesn't really have a lot of losing matchups. I agree that he's top 3-5. I agree that it feels really unfair at times to fight him ... a lot of his moves in neutral are BS and uair is just absurd.

I disagree he's underrated though. Lots of top players aknowledge that Fox is one of the best characters in the game.

The fact that Pika has low usage in tourneys despite being the mascot of the second largest gaming franchise in the world tells me that he's hard to play, not that he's overhyped.

He's not really hard to play either tbqh. He may have a few more tricks or "gimmicks" up his sleeve than other characters but his basics are NOT hard to understand. It's not hard to see what neutral B, dtilt, jab, dthrow and utilt do in neutral. It's not hard to see how you can deal out some quick damage with utilt / uair / nair combos. It's also fairly easy to understand how to use Pikachu's defensive options to get out of sticky situations. There really isn't anything "deep" about the characters until you start to get on Esam's level where you can mix in crazy upB shenanigans so for the most part there really isn't anything complex about how Pikachu wins stuff.

Which makes it all the more confusing to me why more people aren't playing him.

 

[Shaya]

This alone is a crock of ****. The best Pikachu player and the best Sheik player in the world have the same opinion. The Sheik AND Pikachu character boards subscribe to this belief. It's AT WORST a -1 for Pikachu, probably leaning toward even. I thought that this was accepted as a given at this point.

Also, the best player of your character thinks Zero Suit loses the matchup and so does the best Pikachu player. It's been proven at top level to be an uphill battle for Zero Suit. All logic points toward this being the case. I don't care that you play Zero Suit. Maybe you just haven't played a good Pika?

last time I read, I thought ESAM agreed Pika lost at least slightly. Character boards are not necessarily fantastic places, especially when they have little to refer to anecdotally. I kinda patrol the Sheik boards pretty hard, it's one of the boards I care for and have modded for months, I don't really see you there at all.
And no, nothing is accepted as a given, especially in a match up where the best Pika in the world has no top level Sheik wins, has dropped sets to Sheiks across his history and.... has absolutely no one else out there to accomplish anything with the dominant tools you spoke of.

I didn't say ZSS doesn't lose the match up or that it wasn't an uphill battle. My pikachu experience includes ESAM, albeit it very little and I've played just about every well-off Brawl Pikachu in Smash4 thus far as well.

I've laid out the challenges to Pika-supporters and I'm willing to be proven wrong. Bring me the knowledge I need to know to stop seeing Pikachu as average among high tiers, let alone the crème de la crème/queens/darlings of Smash4 we're seeing out in their spades globally.

 

[Ulevo]

I would argue Meta Knight stands to gain a lot from a Sheik nerf. She is likely Meta Knights hardest match up when played properly. Characters like Rosalina, however, have a much more polarized and unstable match up spread.

 

[Mister M]

Something I'm having trouble understanding.

Match up spreads obviously differ at different levels of play, depending on how easy or hard it is to implement character options or overcome opponents tactics. So does discussion here avoid this phenomenon by defaulting to discussing highest level of play, or does it consider all levels of play. Because some of the advantages and counter strategis listed in match up considerations almost become more or less irrelevant the better you get.

Secondly, even if it is esam is the only real pikachu rep, does that mean the performance matters less? For better or worse he takes pikachu toe to toe with other top players who use widely regarded top tiers. Even if it's just because Esam is blessed, doesn't that show that pikachu has the tool kit capable of standing in the top tier, (even if it takes practice).

Why does a character need other representatives. Surely thatd be a better measure of popularity and ease of use. And do these factors contribute to tier list crafting.

Are tiers and match up charts based on a characters tool kit potential or just a way of documenting what the meta has shown so far.

If any player is able to demonstrate a characters viability in the meta, why does they need others to do the same before the character is widly recognised. Thinking about some of the things dunnoBro found with duck hunt Frisbee, its not unreasonable that players are not utilising their characters tool kit optimally. Not saying any one can be top tier, but if some one is doing the job, then shouldn't you recognise their play style as the most advanced version of said character

These are all actual questions I'm asking. Alot of answers will be subjective, but I'm interested in opinions

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I would argue Meta Knight stands to gain a lot from a Sheik nerf. She is likely Meta Knights hardest match up when played properly. Characters like Rosalina, however, have a much more polarized and unstable match up spread.

You can argue that but I trust you understand that you're arguing against empirical evidence then.

 

[wedl!!]

A character needs more than one representative because they show the results aren't just individual skill, it's also character based.

It's not that it matters less that ESAM performs extremely well with solo Pika, it's that it only really proves that ESAM is an expert at Pika, not that Pika has results that can be replicated.

 

[Ulevo]

You can argue that but I trust you understand that you're arguing against empirical evidence then.

Which would be what, exactly.

 

[bc1910]

@ Nu~ @ BSP How good is Dee? Seen him in a lot of Shi-G videos lately. How does he rank against other Pac-mains? Top 3, 5, 10, worse? How does he compare to Abadango?

 

[Mister M]

I

A character needs more than one representative because they show the results aren't just individual skill, it's also character based.

It's not that it matters less that ESAM performs extremely well with solo Pika, it's that it only really proves that ESAM is an expert at Pika, not that Pika has results that can be replicated.

It important that the results be replicated? If it's a measure of viability, I'm unsure how it factors in. I suppose that it means other pikachu mains need to catch up to Esam's level, but it at least demonstrates that pikachu works at that level of play right?

Also does he play other characters? Just curious. How does he perform with others.

 

[Dre89]

He's not really hard to play either tbqh. He may have a few more tricks or "gimmicks" up his sleeve than other characters but his basics are NOT hard to understand. It's not hard to see what neutral B, dtilt, jab, dthrow and utilt do in neutral. It's not hard to see how you can deal out some quick damage with utilt / uair / nair combos. It's also fairly easy to understand how to use Pikachu's defensive options to get out of sticky situations. There really isn't anything "deep" about the characters until you start to get on Esam's level where you can mix in crazy upB shenanigans so for the most part there really isn't anything complex about how Pikachu wins stuff.

Which makes it all the more confusing to me why more people aren't playing him.

People understand how his basics work in theory. Theorycrafting or labbing the character isn't the hard part. His movement, his range, and therefore his spacing is different to most characters and this 'getting the feel' for him is harder than others. Having these kinds of things down in muscle memory to whip out on the fly in tourneys is harder with Pika than it is with most other characters.

 

[DunnoBro]

I dunno about Mario beating ZSS ... I'm always sceptical about Mario beating any high-tier character tbh. Diddy and Ness are probably difficult for her, I'll give you that, but it can't be bad to the point that it somehow makes her worse than Pikachu.

Was just pointing out these are common claims, I don't particularly believe these.

Luigi mains sees ZSS as a near even MU (leaning to ZSS' favor) but I dunno about that.

Boss thinks it's ass. He prefers rosalina cause he can edgeguard her, and kills her at like 50 with rage if luma's gone.

He's a weird guy though.

Edit: ah **** keep forgetting doubleposts don't automerge on this site lmao

 

[LiteralGrill]

We'll see if Ranai solidifies the hype at APEX now won't we?

I really REALLY hate to have to say this guys but there is like, an insanely huge change Apex won't event take place. A date for 2016 hasn't even been announced yet and last we heard via Twitter there's a lot of things that have to be settled before it could even happen. Heck some players haven't even gotten payed yet. Ranai in all honesty probably picked the wrong event to go to.

 

[RedBeefBaron]

I'm not here to argue any matchup ratios, but I do want to point out a few things that leave me thinking the matchup is much closer than other people seem to think.

One of the biggest things that hasn't changed in the matchup is the hitbox placements on Diddy's best neutral options against Rosalina's very tall frame. Fair and monkey flip are both still great at getting Rosalina in the air and killing Luma simultaneously- as much as they did before the nerfs. I don't know if monkey flip is one of the specials you're talking about that Rosalina annihilates. If so, I vehemently disagree on that point. Anyways, moving on.

I understand typical reasoning behind saying Diddy's average rewards are less than Rosalina's, but I have to disagree that in general this isn't true. On the surface, Rosalina has more damaging combos, more rewarding edgeguards, and generally hits Diddy more than he hits her. But a vast majority of her ability to rack damage is from setups out of grabs, and juggling opponents vertically with upair, and upsmash and DA for covering landings. The poke damage from Luma dtilt/ftilt/jabs in neutral are really quite pitiful, and happen all the time. Dsmash, nair, and any solo Luma hit barely does any damage either. The Rosalina player generally has to get good reads to convert jab-> upair juggles, and dtilt-> offstage pressure when those are applicable. Those are what rack damage, and it's not the average hit confirm that does it for her. Rosalina generally has to work for the hit confirms that lead to her juggle traps and general damage output. Of her zoning and poking tools, jab is easily the best at converting into upair/upsmash/DA juggles, but jab in neutral particularly in the Diddy matchup isn't very potent. The poking (that does little damage, and only sometimes lead to big conversions) is what's so safe and free. You can honestly ignore the potential solo Luma/solo Rosa (I mean if you're hit by just one when both are together) damage in neutral if you know getting hit by any of them wouldn't knock you into the air/offstage. This is often the case with dtilt/ftilt/nair/dsmash. It's no wonder she loses to pretty much all the high/top tier characters with free recoveries/disadvantaged states, considering her single hits do so little damage. She has to win neutral all game to win.

Monkey flip/b-reverse peanuts in disadvantage helps tremendously in relieving pressure and helps prevent these kinds of conversions. On the reverse side, when Diddy lands a hit he goes hard. His best neutral options knock Luma offstage or set up easy Luma kills. I'll suffice to say he's got plenty of options for consistently knocking Luma offstage/into tumble. He has enough quick enough aerial autocancels to easily cover the air->ground transitions during Rosalina's disadvantaged states. Peanuts and bananas, while somewhat useless against Rosalina's neutral, have plenty of good uses in advantaged states where using gravitational pull only puts a big target on her face.

I also can't disagree more with the totally incorrect way most Diddys are trying to play the matchup nowadays. I understand this is a big claim, but it's really easy to find plenty of mistakes in high/top level Diddy play. Just take a look at Paragon. Too much time is spent in neutral trying to zone with his aerials instead of hitting with them or not using them at all, using bananas in poor ways that simply don't work against Rosalina (toss out of shield is pointless, for example), and not enough time playing more patiently around Luma (or hitting straight through her) and finding openings for monkey flip/kick setups which kill Luma from half way across the stage.

For the record, yes, the gap has closed considerably since the huge nerfs to Diddy's kill power (the biggest impact on the evolution of the matchup imo), but not enough to justify that she "destroys" him.

His normals are not nearly as good as they once were at killing Luma because of the damage and knockback nerfs. Things like fair and dtilt need to strike Luma a few times before it will start to launch, and Rosalina can punish these with dash attack and up smash OOS. Money flip kick still kills Luma well but it is unsafe on her shield. Even if she doesn't get a clean punish a trade is heavily favorable for Rosalina since she kills so much earlier without having to take risks to close stocks.

The additional trouble safely killing Luma is quite damaging in this matchup because of how much salt Luma throws in diddy's game. Luma face checks peels and peanuts, while making it difficult to safely approach her or deal with her creeping in on Diddy. Diddy relies on throw follow-ups and juggles for his damage which are often unsafe to attempt against Rosalina with Luma alive because it just flies up and punches him as he goes for it.

And I'm not sure what you mean by Rosalina having a bad damage output and having to win nuetral more. Her throw combos, layered double hitboxes, juggles and wombo combos give her damage that is great for a character with so many low risk killing options. Diddy also has much more trouble closing the stock since up air is a bad kill option now unless the opponent gets baited trying to land.

People needing to learn the matchup goes both ways. If a Rosalina player is having trouble understanding how they can safely stuff or punish diddy's options, follow his b reverses for juggles, nueter his advantage with Luma combo breakers and gimp/harass his recovery they are not playing the matchup very well. Diddy's recovery is not free at all, especially against a character like Rosalina.

Yes, if Diddy can safely damage Luma to the point where it launches, successfully take it out, and capitalize on the short window where it's gone to wrack up damage and land a horizontal kill setup he can beat her. But he has to do this while nailing reads and baiting her hard to safely get hits, land, and recover.

In this situation the Diddy Kong player is better than the Rosalina player and its still an even matchup. I know you don't want to start arguing about matchup ratios and that's fine, but IMO if both players have equal skill its at least 6-4 Rosalina.

 

[Nu~]

@ Nu~ @ BSP How good is Dee? Seen him in a lot of Shi-G videos lately. How does he rank against other Pac-mains? Top 3, 5, 10, worse? How does he compare to Abadango?

Better than abadango. Holy ****, his Pac-Man is beauty. Perfect z drop game, guaranteed 0-48% galaxian combos, excellent kill setups, and using bonus fruit as a recovery move...

He's a glimpse into the future of Pac-Man's meta

 

[DunnoBro]

Yep, and they even have a thread on it: http://smashboards.com/threads/up-b-kill-on-falco-at-0.416969/. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9GhnZra0IQ#t=1m32s.

Really feel like they should change how rage interacts with knockback against charged Smashes.

If nothing else just change luma's rage/set knockback interactions.

It happens very consistently since you can just be trying to catch her landing with a smash and die at 30% (How I lost at smashcon)

 

[Sir Tundra]

So about Pikachu

Theirs no denying that pikachu is a good character i mean being able to edgeguard sheik so easily is a feat in it of it self.

But really if we were to really look beyond esam. Pikachu wouldn't even be considered top 15.

The little yellow rat only has esam carrying him. Literally no one else is able to play pikachu at the same level as esam.

Maybe their might be someone who could in the future but as of the present their isn't.

And really representation is important because it can help a character get more results as well as prove if the characters either good because of the character or if it's because of the player.

Let's look at a list of how many character's have more representation then Pikachu.










/




(customs)


Did you catch that? If so good.

Yes I kid you not even Peach has more representation then Pikachu.

You know when you have a character who was considered one of the most underused/underrated character's for months have more usage then a character who's considered by a majority to be top 5.

You know something's wrong

 

[juddy96]

I think you forgot Choco, the second best Zero Suit in the world. Also Nietono who he has never lost to. Ranai's style of Villager is pretty zany and effective at dealing with overzealous styles. He's the type of guy to walk up slowly and drop a bowling ball in your face. That's obviously not the extent of Ranai's play, but I feel that Villager has pretty good tools for combatting aggression: ranged attacks, a fast nair out-of-shield, and disjointed anti-airs/anti-poke options in general are things that Villager has.

In general about Ranai: I think he's a lot more inconsistent than we tend to realize. He gets a lot of praise and wins a lot, but he never wins tournaments from winners and can kinda just lose to people for no reason. I think he's amazing, but he's on point or he isn't. He played pretty awful vs Aki at Sumabato 5. I can't remember Ranai ever losing to a Sheik before that (maybe Edge? I don't think he's ever lost to Rain), and I'll just say right now that Aki's Sheik is...above average at best. So with the hype for Ranai in the upcoming Umebura FAT and whatever tournament he's going to in the winter, it's worth noting imo that he could totally flop

He lost to J! (another Sheik) and Saiya at Sumabato 4. He lost to Choco at Umebura 18 and still won the tournament. He lost to Aki at Hyper Sumabato and still beat Edge twice to win the tournament. And now at Sumabato 5 he loses to Aki twice more. So his last 3 losses have all been to Aki

 

[Seagull Joe]

Lol @ Cockblock brigade.

 

[Jaguar360]

Um do people forget NAKAT when talking about Pikachu? He's not ESAM-level, I know, but he does well with the mouse when he pulls it out over Ness or Fox. He was even going toe-to-toe with ZeRo at SSC, even though he ended up not taking a game off of him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19ZpbUPl28g

NAKAT's Pika also beat Mr. R once some months ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzXyOiyojeM

I don't know why more people don't pick this character up. You'd think a character that's been top or high tier in every game and has such great mobility, recovery and combos would be more popular, but you don't see many people playing the rat. Strange.

I can see why Pikachu wouldn't be the 2nd best like ZeRo and ESAM say with his mediocre kill setups and supposed problems in the Luigi matchup, but I think that saying that he isn't solo viable or in the top 10 at least is going too far.

 

[Kung Fu Treachery]

Pikachu being underrepped is actually very interesting, in my opinion. Even if we were to accept that he's not Top 3 or whatever, he almost certainly underplayed for how good he is. I'm inclined to say that this is a phenomenon that's much more noticeable in this game due to the sheer size of the roster. There are so many characters that could be mid-tier at the least that we just don't have reliable data for. If you're a Pokemon fan, are you inclined to pick one of the many other reps over Pika (is he really the face of the franchise to Smash players, who are mostly males age 15-25? I'm drawn more towards Charizard and Mewtwo, personally.)?

Captain Falcon is probably overplayed. There was discussion about Duck Hunt being underplayed. Even if Marth were truly awful, he'd probably still have a dedicated group of players. Lord knows that Ganon mains march on.

I think the most interesting characters with respect to "unearned" popularity representation are the Miis. I think they'll always be underrepped for their actual strength because they're not that interesting, or at least not nearly so much as other iconic characters. I'd say for a Mii to be the most-played character, they'd have to be the best in the game by a sizeable margin.

 

[T4ylor]

@ Nu~ @ BSP How good is Dee? Seen him in a lot of Shi-G videos lately. How does he rank against other Pac-mains? Top 3, 5, 10, worse? How does he compare to Abadango?

I've asked Zage and other Pac mains the same last question and they all said that they believe Dee's Pac Man to be better than Abadango's. And since Abadango has always been considered the best Pac Man... Hopefully Dee will show us some offline games in the future.

@ Kung Fu Treachery I think the Miis are underrepresented because of the TO's rules. Almost everyone limits them to 1111 (makes them among the worst characters) or flat out bans them. I'd really like to main Swordfighter myself, even 1111, but there's no reason to try since every local TO bans the Mii Fighters.

 

[HFlash]

Pikachu being underrepped is actually very interesting, in my opinion. Even if we were to accept that he's not Top 3 or whatever, he almost certainly underplayed for how good he is. I'm inclined to say that this is a phenomenon that's much more noticeable in this game due to the sheer size of the roster. There are so many characters that could be mid-tier at the least that we just don't have reliable data for. If you're a Pokemon fan, are you inclined to pick one of the many other reps over Pika (is he really the face of the franchise to Smash players, who are mostly males age 15-25? I'm drawn more towards Charizard and Mewtwo, personally.)?

Captain Falcon is probably overplayed. There was discussion about Duck Hunt being underplayed. Even if Marth were truly awful, he'd probably still have a dedicated group of players. Lord knows that Ganon mains march on.

I think the most interesting characters with respect to "unearned" popularity representation are the Miis. I think they'll always be underrepped for their actual strength because they're not that interesting, or at least not nearly so much as other iconic characters. I'd say for a Mii to be the most-played character, they'd have to be the best in the game by a sizeable margin.

Until a reliable rule set is made (allowing for customs for Miis), they will never have a decent representation. Why would I want to work on a Mii just to go to a tournament, and find out last second I can't play him/her the way I wanted. I was actually playing Brawler for a good while (fell in love with his/her air game and up B shenanigans) till I found out last second that custom miis were banned. This has really discouraged me from playing them aside from the occasional friendly. Plus, default brawler is just.... terrible. I think putting him in Mid tier would be pushing it, as the big things that made Custom Brawler so good is the help in recovery/movement options with feint jump and essentially, the less punishable ZSS up B. If ZSS isn't criticized for having such a good up B (as well as a better feint jump) why should Mii brawler be scrutinized for having similar moves?

Maybe from a TO standpoint, it's too encumber some to accommodate, but if Miis are viewed this way, good luck for the pro-customs people out there

Edit: I don't really play the other Miis if someone would like to give their input/experience with those characters.

 

[BSP]

@ Nu~ @ BSP How good is Dee? Seen him in a lot of Shi-G videos lately. How does he rank against other Pac-mains? Top 3, 5, 10, worse? How does he compare to Abadango?

Dee is the best Pac-Man right now for sure. He needs to go to offline events.

 

[bc1910]

Better than abadango. Holy ****, his Pac-Man is beauty. Perfect z drop game, guaranteed 0-48% galaxian combos, excellent kill setups, and using bonus fruit as a recovery move...

He's a glimpse into the future of Pac-Man's meta

I've asked Zage and other Pac mains the same last question and they all said that they believe Dee's Pac Man to be better than Abadango's. And since Abadango has always been considered the best Pac Man... Hopefully Dee will show us some offline games in the future.

Dee is the best Pac-Man right now for sure. He needs to go to offline events.

Cool, thanks for clarifying.

I ask because Some recently came from losers to take 1st at SHI-G's second most recent Wifi tourney, beating Dee in 2 grand finals sets.

I knew it was a solid result especially because Greninja blows online (though Japanese online play is usually very smooth) but I wanted to know if it was especially notable.

Hearing that Dee is this good gives weight to my suspicion that Some is (significantly) better than aMSa.