Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Mr. Johan]

The Robins typically think he's in the 21-26 range overall.

The outlooks on the matchups to justify it tend to differ though. I.e. Raziek and Dath think Olimar beats Robin slightly while I think it's even. Conversely, common consensus among Robins says Robin beats Luigi decently enough; I think Luigi beats Robin into the dirt and is his hardest matchup.

We've never been able to construct a MU spread that we all can agree on. We just think that, at the end of the day, Robin is just not bad.

 

[DunnoBro]

You designate Robin's Nair as one of the worst but fail to mention Bowser's or Kirby's.

I'd argue that Sonic's even goes in that category when used as a standalone move.

Nah sonic's is fine

Frame 6 but a great lingering and conservative hitbox that pops people straight up for combos.

Just the move connecting can be a kill set-up. (air dodge/nair and get fsmashed. Jump away and get uaired/rar baired)

Duck hunt's is frame 6 with a worse hitbox and trajectory. Though it kills raw better.

 

[Pazzo.]

Wait, ROBIN'S N-air is the worst?

That's so laughingly wrong, I don't know how to respond.

Not only is Nair an important spacing tool for Robin, it's essential for his offstage game.

 

[Antonykun]

You designate Robin's Nair as one of the worst but fail to mention Bowser's or Kirby's.

I'd argue that Sonic's even goes in that category when used as a standalone move.

First of all i can't beleive anyone said Robin's n-air is is bad (especially considering how you specifically taught me about the evilness of that move)
Second of all I highly doubt Kirby's n-air to be one the worst. It's functionally similar to Greninja's and Kirby can get some sweet comboes from it.

at the same time i keep thinking about a clear "worst" n-air and I'm kinda drawing blanks maybe bowser's but idk

really goes to show how good n-airs are.

and now as the local Swordfighter guy talking about n-airs, I will say two things about Swordfighter's N-air:
one, beginning Swordfighter (myself included back when i was new to him) mains tend to overrate it, I mean it's an ok disjointed bubble but at it's slowness (i don't have access to his frame data atm) Swordfighter's air speed/acceleration and poor reward (only 8% and a poor launching angle that's neither good for followups nor edgeguards) means that it is simply is not as good as say jabs or down-tilt for spacing, not to say it doesn't have its uses (it's easily Swordfighter's best retreating hitbox)

Two, I keep having dirty dreams about Swordfighter's n-air having simmilar combo properties to Ike's n-air (as Swordfighter borrowed Ike's N-air)

 

[Mario766]

I keep having dirty dreams of Ike's Up Air doing Swordfighter up-air damage, but we don't get everything.


Also for teleporting recoveries: They always snap at the same time, it just depends on if they are Above or below the stage.

All recoveries have I-Frames before you can hit them from the stage if they are above the stage, as the game doesn't have the 2 frames of vulnerability. If they are below the stage, they ALWAYS have the 2 frames. For teleport recoveries? It's. Always. The. Same. Learn the timing and you should, in theory, hit it every time.


As an Ike main, we are the ones who use this fact the most, because we have a massive 35 damage move that lingers to annihilate everything that moves.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Almost all of mewtwos moveset is swag and tbh i prefer it that way instead of him being too powerful, generic and boring like luigi.

Also speaking of Mewtwo being able to keep people out, so few people understand just how safe his dsmash is. Its only got 22 frames of end lag.

To put that in perspective;

Mario ftilt: 25
Falco ftilt: 20
Marth jab: 24
Sheik dtilt: 24
Zss ftilt: 21

Mewtwos dsmash is unpunishable on block to many characters who lack long-range tethers or without top-tier dash attacks and dsmash whiff into dtilt is safe on block if the enemy runs in to try and punish the dsmash but shields the dtilt. It's pretty good

When Mewtwos don't use d-smash in neutral it tells me they have no concept of footsies and I get very sad.

That move is insane.

 

[Nobie]

When Mewtwos don't use d-smash in neutral it tells me they have no concept of footsies and I get very sad.

That move is insane.

Mewtwo Down Smash is so important for fighting Sonic. You're not going to land it most of the time but it's so important for forcing him to take to the air where he's a lot more manageable.

 

[TDK]

Any predictions for TBH5?

 

[Locke 06]

I keep having dirty dreams of Ike's Up Air doing Swordfighter up-air damage, but we don't get everything.


Also for teleporting recoveries: They always snap at the same time, it just depends on if they are Above or below the stage.

All recoveries have I-Frames before you can hit them from the stage if they are above the stage, as the game doesn't have the 2 frames of vulnerability. If they are below the stage, they ALWAYS have the 2 frames. For teleport recoveries? It's. Always. The. Same. Learn the timing and you should, in theory, hit it every time.


As an Ike main, we are the ones who use this fact the most, because we have a massive 35 damage move that lingers to annihilate everything that moves.

Until they hold down so they appear above the ledge and snap with no vulnerability.

 

[Antonykun]

I keep having dirty dreams of Ike's Up Air doing Swordfighter up-air damage, but we don't get everything.

Dear Lord, those are dreams of the Ikecalypse.
Ike throws a hitbox the size of a rural county that can be comboed from a wide variety of moves, and having that move deal 16% and the knockback buff of the increased damage.

 

[Megamang]

Any predictions for TBH5?

Uhh... my friend is definitely getting 2-0d in his pool by Nairo. Im more scared of ike than shiek for this tournament. Its gonna be super fun and everyone should come watch. Zero vs ESAM will hopefully happen again.

 

[Prometheus16]

So, is this where the monthly tier lists are made?

 

[Planty]

So, is this where the monthly tier lists are made?

I do believe that's Reddit. Here we just discuss and laugh at the monthly tier lists. When I say that we discuss, that's literally all we do. Posting tier lists is discouraged.

 

[Mr. Johan]

I swear if Robin's Nair was just a centimeter longer it would be a top tier Nair.

As it stands though I thoroughly enjoy what I call Double Nair Drop edgeguards. The endlag of Nair is low enough that Robin can throw out two off a SH offstage and be able to double jump Elwind back afterward. Unless you're Villager or Lucario, the second Nair puts tremendous pressure on recovering correctly, whether you have a double jump or not, but especially so if you lost the double jump. Very fun to use at mid percents.

 

[Thinkaman]

Mewtwo doesn't have a d-smash, but has 3 f-smashes: a safer version, and a stronger version that only works under numerous but ordinary conditions. C'mon guys, we've talked about this.

I think Mewtwo is bottom 3 or so for sure, but would never regard him as a broken character.

Broken gets thrown around a lot. Here, have a litnus test:

If you can increase all of a character's damage by 1.2x + improve the startup of every move by 1 frame, and the character no longer has any matchups worse than even, then that character is not fundamentally broken.

A lot of dumb people would insist that this does apply to characters X, Y, and Z, thus exposing how silly they are. People who theorycraft need to at least have the math down to do it properly. Doing extra damage doesn't just mean 1.2x damage, it also means:

• You do 1.44x growth-based knockback distance even before taking their increased cumulative damage into account!
• You deal asymptotically more shield threat + poke; Shields only have 50 HP, so the difference between doing 25 damage to a shield vs. 50 damage is not double, it's usually infinite.
• You may gain priority over certain weak moves via out-damaging them by 9%+.
• You gain crucial shield push + additional safety on block.

Hell, you can go put attack badges on people and try it. Anyone you want becomes a monster.

Honestly, I'd say that only Zelda, Mac, Bowser, and maybe DDD and Ganon can claim to slightly meet the above criteria.

Meanwhile, we've got a lot of really basic criteria that only sort of counts.

If a character's problems can be addressed by these simple solutions, then they are at worst "half-broken":

• Adjusting knockback, angles, and/or hitbox structure to make hitboxes link better
• Adjusting knockback to make moves safe on hit
• Adjusting end-lag on specific attacks/dodges (need a good reason)
• Adjusting auto-cancel windows slightly
• Adjusting landing lag slightly
• Adjusting character specific special parameters: Deep Breathing, Monado, Luma, tough guy, clown car defense, tomes, gunmen, special animation/fall speeds, charge speeds, ect.

By this definition, no character in this game is beyond "half-broken", no matter what you think. (Keep in mind that these are potential solutions, not a diagnosis of a problem. People fall out of Boost Kick all the time, and ZSS is not a "half-broken" character.)

Even beyond all that, there's nothing else in smash history that a certain amount of carefully placed invincibility or super armor can't fix.


Working under these constraints, we could make any character but Mac as good as current Sheik ez-pz. (And I could totally do it with Mac if you let me use Grounding Blow instead of Jolt Haymaker.) We could give Bowser at least 8:2 matchups against everyone in the game without changing his mobility, including the oh-so-flawed jump-squat that started this rant. It wouldn't just be possible, it'd be easy.


Somehow, over the course of discussion, weaknesses and shortcomings mutate into flaws and "bad design." There will always be a natural gravity to homogenize game content. Emphasis: There will always be a natural gravity to homogenize game content.

There will always be a voice in the head saying "Gee, wouldn't all these problems go away if we just gave everyone the same jump squat length, or made everyone's grabs more similar in speed? C'mon, just this one time, in this single key area, let's make them equal--that's it, then we'll stop, I promise."

The point of balance is to safeguard and protect the diversity of game content. Balance is sub-servant to diversity. Balancing by removing diversity is HAL 9000 killing the crew for their own safety.

The correct answer is almost always adding more diversity in some way. Like in Smash, are heavy/big characters too disadvantaged on average? Maybe instead of normalizing jump-squats we go from giving everyone 50 HP shields to ~45-60 HP shields, with bigger shields going to heavies. (+Mewtwo because dat Barrier) Maybe instead of making their attacks faster, we give them more super armor.


Anyway, I'm looking forward to tomorrow night. Holy crap do I love Smash patches.

Edit: Wow, this new HTML editor craps all over my formatting any time I make an edit, including to fix formatting.

 

[PK Gaming]

Wait, ROBIN'S N-air is the worst?

That's so laughingly wrong, I don't know how to respond.

Not only is Nair an important spacing tool for Robin, it's essential for his offstage game.

It has its uses, but it's definitely not an important spacing tool. I wouldn't even call it essential for his offstage game either

Robin's Nair is just "ok"

 

[Radical Larry]

I didn't say Robin's was the worst; that belongs to Toon Link's. But I decide to withdraw from saying Robin's was one of the worst; I remember, Sonic definitely has one of the worst N-Airs stand-alone. But I still stand on Toon Link and Samus's being the worst because the attacks are too narrow and the first part of the attack doesn't last very long. You see, there are 5 types of N-Airs in the game:

There are Front-Back N-Airs, like Robin, Marth, Toon Link, Roy, Zero Suit Samus, Samus and Lucina's.
There are Spinning N-Airs, like Dark Pit, Meta Knight, Pikachu and Kirby's.
There are the Horizontal Spinning N-Airs, like DK, Ness, Falco and Peach.
There are One-Directional/Piston N-Airs N-Airs, like Link, Mario, Little Mac and Fox.
Then there are Double-Kick N-Airs, like Ganondorf and Captain Falcon's.

The Front-Back N-Airs, for the most part, are quite decent at least with the exception of Toon Link and Samus's. This can be attributed because the two characters jump too high, have less-than-likable air speeds and the attacks transition from the front to the back too quickly. Not only that, but the attacks deal less-than-desirable damages and knockback; although Samus has a Semi-Spike, Toon Link doesn't have one on the front nor the back. They also don't stay out very long to be potent edge-guarding tools, and Toon Link's isn't even a good combo tool; Samus can actually combo from D-Throw > N-Air.

Robin's is an "okay" N-Air, but it's still not as good as one may think it is. PK Gaming Robin's N-Air is indeed just "ok", but it's not a desirable N-Air.

And as for N-Airs that should be desirable, Link, Meta Knight, Pikachu, Captain Falcon and Ganondorf have pretty decent N-Airs, what with good edge-guarding capability or even raw power (Ganondorf's N-Air can deal 21% damage raw). But what do you guys think is the best N-Air and what is the worst?

 

[Nobie]

Mewtwo doesn't have a d-smash, but has 3 f-smashes: a safer version, and a stronger version that only works under numerous but ordinary conditions. C'mon guys, we've talked about this.

I think Mewtwo is bottom 3 or so for sure, but would never regard him as a broken character.

Broken gets thrown around a lot. Here, have a litnus test:

If you can increase all of a character's damage by 1.2x + improve the startup of every move by 1 frame, and the character no longer has any matchups worse than even, then that character is not fundamentally broken.

A lot of dumb people would insist that this does apply to characters X, Y, and Z, thus exposing how silly they are. People who theorycraft need to at least have the math down to do it properly. Doing extra damage doesn't just mean 1.2x damage, it also means:

• You do 1.44x growth-based knockback distance even before taking their increased cumulative damage into account!
• You deal asymptotically more shield threat + poke; Shields only have 50 HP, so the difference between doing 25 damage to a shield vs. 50 damage is not double, it's usually infinite.
• You may gain priority over certain weak moves via out-damaging them by 9%+.
• You gain crucial shield push + additional safety on block.

Hell, you can go put attack badges on people and try it. Anyone you want becomes a monster.

Honestly, I'd say that only Zelda, Mac, Bowser, and maybe DDD and Ganon can claim to slightly meet the above criteria.

Meanwhile, we've got a lot of really basic criteria that only sort of counts.

If a character's problems can be addressed by these simple solutions, then they are at worst "half-broken":

• 
  
  
  • Adjusting knockback, angles, and/or hitbox structure to make hitboxes link better
  • Adjusting knockback to make moves safe on hit
  • Adjusting end-lag on specific attacks/dodges (need a good reason)
  • Adjusting auto-cancel windows slightly
  • Adjusting landing lag slightly
  • Adjusting character specific special parameters: Deep Breathing, Monado, Luma, tough guy, clown car defense, tomes, gunmen, special animation/fall speeds, charge speeds, ect.

By this definition, no character in this game is beyond "half-broken", no matter what you think. (Keep in mind that these are potential solutions, not a diagnosis of a problem. People fall out of Boost Kick all the time, and ZSS is not a "half-broken" character.)

Even beyond all that, there's nothing else in smash history that a certain amount of carefully placed invincibility or super armor can't fix.


Working under these constraints, we could make any character but Mac as good as current Sheik ez-pz. (And I could totally do it with Mac if you let me use Grounding Blow instead of Jolt Haymaker.) We could give Bowser at least 8:2 matchups against everyone in the game without changing his mobility, including the oh-so-flawed jump-squat that started this rant. It wouldn't just be possible, it'd be easy.


Somehow, over the course of discussion, weaknesses and shortcomings mutate into flaws and "bad design." There will always be a natural gravity to homogenize game content. Emphasis: There will always be a natural gravity to homogenize game content.

There will always be a voice in the head saying "Gee, wouldn't all these problems go away if we just gave everyone the same jump squat length, or made everyone's grabs more similar in speed? C'mon, just this one time, in this single key area, let's make them equal--that's it, then we'll stop, I promise."

The point of balance is to safeguard and protect the diversity of game content. Balance is sub-servant to diversity. Balancing by removing diversity is HAL 9000 killing the crew for their own safety.

The correct answer is almost always adding more diversity in some way. Like in Smash, are heavy/big characters too disadvantaged on average? Maybe instead of normalizing jump-squats we go from giving everyone 50 HP shields to ~45-60 HP shields, with bigger shields going to heavies. (+Mewtwo because dat Barrier) Maybe instead of making their attacks faster, we give them more super armor.


Anyway, I'm looking forward to tomorrow night. Holy crap do I love Smash patches.

Edit: Wow, this new HTML editor craps all over my formatting any time I make an edit, including to fix formatting.

You've made may excellent points, but all I want to say is one thing.

Give me that Frame 6 grab and 14.4% damage up throw and we're good to go. Come from behind KO throw all day every day.

On a more serious note, I think it's been clear how afraid they've been up of buffing Mewtwo too overboard. Last patch, he got a couple of buffs in improved f-throw and stronger d-smash, and while it's not like he rocketed to the top those changes have made Mewtwo feel better to use. Giving an extra percent or two to some vital killing throws could change things significantly, but we'll see, provided a big patch is indeed coming.

 

[LightLV]

I'm sorry but now your opinion on the matter means nothing to me. You saying it's "obvious" is like everybody who thought it was "obvious" that Mac was the best singles character. Come back with some real experience and we'll talk.

my opinion means nothing to lancerstaff, ohhhhh noooooooo

You've been spouting the same silly nonsense about FFA-centric balance for the length of the thread, and people have been ripping your non-logic to pieces for a good minute now. And that's before DungeonMaster came and completely ripped the rug from under you. And then you say Samus does better in FFA than heavies like Bowser, Gannon or Ike? Do YOU even play FFA? Do you even play this game?

Samus being "better in FFA" still doesn't make her good, she still a terrible character. For the Samus boards to be full of people who main that poor character and STILL dont agree with you, and you still to be going strong with this...come on bruh.

 

[Routa]

Now now... Stop Fairing will you?

I have been recently testing some Rob and I find him to be rather odd character when it comes to his gameplan, but anyway what are your opinions about Rob? Is he solo viable or is it more of a Counterpick viable and is he for the 1v1 or 2v2 format?

 

[LancerStaff]

my opinion means nothing to lancerstaff, ohhhhh noooooooo

You've been spouting the same silly nonsense about FFA-centric balance for the length of the thread, and people have been ripping your non-logic to pieces for a good minute now. And that's before DungeonMaster came and completely ripped the rug from under you. And then you say Samus does better in FFA than heavies like Bowser, Gannon or Ike? Do YOU even play FFA? Do you even play this game?

Samus being "better in FFA" still doesn't make her good, she still a terrible character. For the Samus boards to be full of people who main that poor character and STILL dont agree with you, and you still to be going strong with this...come on bruh.

"It's obvious Roy is top tier!" ~ Smash Bros. Reddit, 2015

Just face it, you don't understand what you don't play. Reddit doesn't play tournaments, and you don't play FFAs. The minute you accept that you don't need to remotely pay attention to something to make an intelligent observation is when you validate every armchair theorist ever. And I somehow doubt you want that.

And I'll say it again... I'm not saying Samus doesn't need buffs, nor that she won't. But she's not getting gigantic changes ever because they are balancing for FFAs. Nobody's stupid enough to leave Sheik on top and Bowser on the bottom this long without a reason.

 

[KenMeister]

Back on nair discussion, I'm pretty sure Bowser has the worst nair in the game. Gets beat out by almost everything due to its low damage output per hit, and can't even be used as a cross up due to the abysmall landing lag. Even if you do land it, you can't really follow up or kill with it. I can't think of a single niche situation to use it in.

 

[Planty]

I didn't say Robin's was the worst; that belongs to Toon Link's. But I decide to withdraw from saying Robin's was one of the worst; I remember, Sonic definitely has one of the worst N-Airs stand-alone. But I still stand on Toon Link and Samus's being the worst because the attacks are too narrow and the first part of the attack doesn't last very long. You see, there are 5 types of N-Airs in the game:

There are Front-Back N-Airs, like Robin, Marth, Toon Link, Roy, Zero Suit Samus, Samus and Lucina's.
There are Spinning N-Airs, like Dark Pit, Meta Knight, Pikachu and Kirby's.
There are the Horizontal Spinning N-Airs, like DK, Ness, Falco and Peach.
There are One-Directional/Piston N-Airs N-Airs, like Link, Mario, Little Mac and Fox.
Then there are Double-Kick N-Airs, like Ganondorf and Captain Falcon's.

The Front-Back N-Airs, for the most part, are quite decent at least with the exception of Toon Link and Samus's. This can be attributed because the two characters jump too high, have less-than-likable air speeds and the attacks transition from the front to the back too quickly. Not only that, but the attacks deal less-than-desirable damages and knockback; although Samus has a Semi-Spike, Toon Link doesn't have one on the front nor the back. They also don't stay out very long to be potent edge-guarding tools, and Toon Link's isn't even a good combo tool; Samus can actually combo from D-Throw > N-Air.

Robin's is an "okay" N-Air, but it's still not as good as one may think it is. PK Gaming Robin's N-Air is indeed just "ok", but it's not a desirable N-Air.

And as for N-Airs that should be desirable, Link, Meta Knight, Pikachu, Captain Falcon and Ganondorf have pretty decent N-Airs, what with good edge-guarding capability or even raw power (Ganondorf's N-Air can deal 21% damage raw). But what do you guys think is the best N-Air and what is the worst?

I think it would make sense to change the "double kick" Nair types into "other". That way you could also include Megaman, Mewtwo, and Rosalina (Also other than Falcon and Ganon, who has a double kick Nair?)

So for best Nair, that would go to Luigi. That thing is frame 3, with deceptive range and it kills! Why does a frame 3 aerial kill??? A few notable ones would be all the other frame 3 ones, Megaman's, Shulk's, Marth (and Lucina's), Roy's, and maybe Villager. i probably missed a few good ones though.

For worst, a lot of people would say , but he has some redeeming properties in it. It's super quick (frame 2 I think), it has very little lag and it combos into kill moves.

I would say that the worst would go to Luma. Not Rosalina. Just Luma. Pretend Rosalina doesn't exist. So the main reason I say Luma is because of mobility issues. Moving Luma around is slow, hard, and oftentimes inconsistent so getting him into the right position is difficult. If you do manage to land the hit though, it does very little damage and only kills at very high percents. At low percents, you could do some basic combos off it with Rosalina, but we're pretending Rosalina doesn't exist. That makes Luma's Nair difficult to land and not rewarding in the slightest.

However, this Luma thing is probably not what you were searching for. The worst Nair on a regular character would have to go to Samus. It's slow, the hitbox sucks, and she jumps way too high to use it out of a SH. It has some use offstage or near the ledge for semi spikes but that's it. I'm not too familiar with Samus's Nair though. Can anyone tell me if the front or back hits will kill?

EDIT:Completely forgot about Bowser. He definitely has the worst. It's slow, immensely easy to punish, and isn't even all that powerful. Overall it's kinda horrible. There's not much more to say.

 

[Radical Larry]

P Planty Rosalina goes into the category of Spinning N-Airs (like Pikachu's) without Luma and both Spinning and Piston N-Airs. Mega Man's fits the One-Directional/Piston N-Air category, since it goes only one direction. And Mewtwo, despite having a multi-hitting N-Air, is fitting the Front-Back N-Air, since it has hitboxes on both sides.

With Samus, it doesn't kill except extremely late (like, very, very late) unless you edge-guard the opponent. The back hit's no better since it doesn't deal but 1% more damage. Although, there are times were both kicks will collide on the opponent, but the opponents needs to be like Bowser or D3 for that to happen.

Also, you missed some good ones like Jigglypuff's (for the lightest character, hers kills very early), Link's and Ganondorf's (21% damage is hype). Link's is really great for edge-guarding, KOs and getting rid of combo characters easily.

 

[LightLV]

"It's obvious Roy is top tier!" ~ Smash Bros. Reddit, 2015

Just face it, you don't understand what you don't play. Reddit doesn't play tournaments, and you don't play FFAs. The minute you accept that you don't need to remotely pay attention to something to make an intelligent observation is when you validate every armchair theorist ever. And I somehow doubt you want that.

And I'll say it again... I'm not saying Samus doesn't need buffs, nor that she won't. But she's not getting gigantic changes ever because they are balancing for FFAs. Nobody's stupid enough to leave Sheik on top and Bowser on the bottom this long without a reason.

1) I don't remember the last time i brought up Roy, and i dont even care about Reddit, what are you talking about

2) I play enough FFAs, sorry to say i don't play them competitively or anything, because it's a stupid mode to ever take serious. But I don't need to exclusively play FFA to realize that what your saying is complete nonsense. Nobody does. All you have to do is...well, play FFAs.

3) And I, and plenty of other people will say it again. What you're saying has no logical basis, no facts or quotes or trends to back this claim up, yet you keep saying it like everyone knows it, when nobody agrees with you.

And, again, to poke another hole in your crappy logic, A good Bowser will beat the breaks off samus, 1v1, 2v2, FFA or otherwise. He will beat her 1v1, he will outlive her in FFA, he will score more kills in timed. Bowser is not even the worst character in this game, but there goes your tunnel vision again.


Just accept the fact that the balance in this game is just as terrible as it was in Melee and Brawl and leave it at that, FFS. I mean jesus, even if Samus WAS somehow super good in FFA, what happens at the end of the match when 2 characters are left and she gets 2-stocked and loses anyway? Just let it goooooooo

 

[meleebrawler]

@Browny I think what you are describing is the wonkiness people dislike. The whole point of those hit trails is to help people understand the hitboxes around them; why don't mewtwo's correlate to his hitboxes when almost every other move does. Hell, we've even had patches to fix when other trails don't match, as with meta knight.

The bair i can accept as a cool animation; a matching hitbox on that would me massive and hard for many characters to bypass. But fair having a bright purple swipe that does nothing, jab missing after the purpevil clearly hits, and grabs sparkling people's faces without working is very frustrating, especially on such an unforgiving character.

The thing about Meta Knight's pre-patch trails is that not only were they nearly omnipresent, they obscured how much forward range he had making the mere act of spacing unnecessarily difficult. Mewtwo's don't really do anything like that for the most part; as long as you know where the attacks actually hit the trails won't steer you wrong when it comes to spacing.

"Fix" the hitboxes for all I care, doesn't really change the fact that it's really a very small issue in the grand scheme of things. No Mewtwo worth his salt is hardly ever going to lose because he missed a move that he thought should have hit.

Mewtwo Dsmash is slow enough to roll behind him on reaction, no shieldstun/drop, no safety. Most dsmashes are especially unfriendly to people rolling behind. The ones that hit on only the front usually do something spectacular. Ryu's is crazy fast for such a damaging ranged move, ZSS gives her free whatevers, Lucas Dsmash hits alot and kind of covers close rolls behind him too.

You don't use Mewtwo's dsmash at a distance where they can roll behind you. Even if they do end up doing so Mewtwo can usually just short-hop nair or airdodge away thanks to move's low endlag. That same endlag also helps with shield safety too; you're not truly punishing it unless you powershield. And it has just enough pushback to put them in Mewtwo's mid-range spacing comfort zone.

And for what it's worth Lucas's dsmash is way more unsafe on shield due to the other hits becoming ghosts once one of them lands.

 

[the king of murder]

Just gonna throw this out.

nair is a great set up for all kind of combos, sets up for kills, great range which also hits behind, eats spotdodges without fastfall and pretty safe if spaced correctly.

nair is also pretty stupid, great range, pretty safe, pretty fast and it also sets up for combos.

Then we have these guys with their frame 3 nair.

Choices, choices.

 

[TDK]

Uhh... my friend is definitely getting 2-0d in his pool by Nairo. Im more scared of ike than shiek for this tournament. Its gonna be super fun and everyone should come watch. Zero vs ESAM will hopefully happen again.

I can't wait for the Ikapocalypse. Let us also take note that this tournament is within a week of a balance patch...

 

[monzer]

Just accept the fact that the balance in this game is just as terrible as it was in Melee and Brawl and leave it at that, FFS.

But Brawl and Melee have like, 8 viable characters.

 

[Wintropy]

I have been recently testing some Rob and I find him to be rather odd character when it comes to his gameplan, but anyway what are your opinions about Rob? Is he solo viable or is it more of a Counterpick viable and is he for the 1v1 or 2v2 format?

R.O.B. falls into the same theoretical grey area as Yoshi in terms of my understanding of the character. That is to say, I don't know quite what to make of him, save that he is a projectile fiend and can zone for days.

My (very uninformed) opinion of R.O.B. is that he is very, very, very, very scary in the right hands: disjointed n-air that catches rolls and airdodges, impressively quick frame data on his CQC moves (jab, f-tilt, d-tilt, f-air) that can confirm into combos and kills, extremely potent recovery for a heavy, and the gyro. The gyro in itself is something that entire essays can be written on (probably by cleverer people than me), but the fact that you've got a storable, tangible, reusable, stage control enabling projectile on hand with a button input - I think that's R.O.B.'s crowning glory. The only potential drawback is that your opponent can use it too, but considering it's as much a trap as it is a weapon, even going to get it can put your opponent in disadvantage. Very potent is the gyro.

That said, I don't know quite why he's cited as a potential threat in the OP. I can't provide absolute answers. I don't know the character well enough. I don't know his matchups or tournament results either (beyond a cursory glance, that is), so I can't say if he's solo-viable. Even so, watching folks in the vein of Mr Eric and Tantalus, the way they can keep out even the most aggressive of opponents and control the stage - magic science.

I can't wait for the Ikapocalypse. Let us also take note that this tournament is within a week of a balance patch...

Isn't Big House 5 running 1.1.0?

I remember HFlash discussing it.

 

[LightLV]

But Brawl and Melee have like, 8 viable characters.

Im just trying to make some kind of compromise with the guy. Melee and 64 at this point are still the most balanced games, with respect to their roster size. Brawl's top tier was super polarizing, and this game...well.

 

[monzer]

Has a pretty good Nair as its useful in a lot of his combos, but only in lower percents.

But the best nair has to be Luigi's, as it's frame 3, as mentioned before, and down this combos into it that kills at around 120-130 percent.

 

[LancerStaff]

1) I don't remember the last time i brought up Roy, and i dont even care about Reddit, what are you talking about

2) I play enough FFAs, sorry to say i don't play them competitively or anything, because it's a stupid mode to ever take serious. But I don't need to exclusively play FFA to realize that what your saying is complete nonsense. Nobody does. All you have to do is...well, play FFAs.

3) And I, and plenty of other people will say it again. What you're saying has no logical basis, no facts or quotes or trends to back this claim up, yet you keep saying it like everyone knows it, when nobody agrees with you.

And, again, to poke another hole in your crappy logic, A good Bowser will beat the breaks off samus, 1v1, 2v2, FFA or otherwise. He will beat her 1v1, he will outlive her in FFA, he will score more kills in timed. Bowser is not even the worst character in this game, but there goes your tunnel vision again.


Just accept the fact that the balance in this game is just as terrible as it was in Melee and Brawl and leave it at that, FFS. I mean jesus, even if Samus WAS somehow super good in FFA, what happens at the end of the match when 2 characters are left and she gets 2-stocked and loses anyway? Just let it goooooooo

Did you even read what I said..? You're saying you don't actually need experience to understand something. Try putting in more then ten seconds and playing with players that actually know how to punish Bowser. Doesn't matter if you think it's stupid, people actually do take FFAs seriously.

Don't see anybody agreeing with you either. Truth is that nobody here cares directly about FFAs and would rather see us leave.

Stock FFAs suck. Time is the "competitive" standard and as a result Samus won't ever have to fight a lone opponent. Not that hard to figure out...

 

[Teshie U]

The thing about Meta Knight's pre-patch trails is that not only were they nearly omnipresent, they obscured how much forward range he had making the mere act of spacing unnecessarily difficult. Mewtwo's don't really do anything like that for the most part; as long as you know where the attacks actually hit the trails won't steer you wrong when it comes to spacing.

"Fix" the hitboxes for all I care, doesn't really change the fact that it's really a very small issue in the grand scheme of things. No Mewtwo worth his salt is hardly ever going to lose because he missed a move that he thought should have hit.



You don't use Mewtwo's dsmash at a distance where they can roll behind you. Even if they do end up doing so Mewtwo can usually just short-hop nair or airdodge away thanks to move's low endlag. That same endlag also helps with shield safety too; you're not truly punishing it unless you powershield. And it has just enough pushback to put them in Mewtwo's mid-range spacing comfort zone.

And for what it's worth Lucas's dsmash is way more unsafe on shield due to the other hits becoming ghosts once one of them lands.

The range is nice, but its not like its so big people can't roll past it. As I said, even if the situation arises and you can't 100% punish him, his only recourse is to escape, not fight back because his moveset is slow and awkward.

 

[Vipermoon]

No doubt the best Nairs are the sex kicks.

 

[Pyr]

Just an FYI, since this is relevant right now: in multiple interviews, Sakurai has stated that balance is being done for FFA and 1v1. Online battles are taken into account, as well as feedback via the internet.

This is reflected in the general trend that perceived weak characters have been getting buffed across multiple patches and perceived strong characters have been getting nerfed.

Also, LancerStaff : Sheik has been nerfed in 3 of the last 4 balance patches. (1.0.4, 1.0.6, 1.1.0) She is getting slowly tuned down. She might still be on top, but it isn't the tip top anymore.

Additionally, you talk like what you're saying is fact. It's not. A 2013 interview explicitly states that FFA and 1v1 are both considered when balancing is done, and "The Act of Balancing," from Famitsu, vol 480, confirms that internet feedback is taken into consideration. That's also known as the competitive 1v1 crowd.

To take "FFA is considered along with everything else" and turn it into "this will never happen because it's also balanced for this thing" shows a lack of understanding on your part.

 

[Thinkaman]

Melee and 64 at this point are still the most balanced games, with respect to their roster size.

I think I'm going to start appending this to explain random false statements.

"Ness b-throw was strongest in Melee, relative to roster size."
"Bowser could walk faster in Melee, relative to roster size."
"Vanish was superior in Melee, relative to roster size."
"Zelda toes were stronger in Melee, relative to roster size."
"DK's down-B was a better move in Melee, relative to roster size."
"Rollout was more useful in Melee, relative to roster size."
"Luigi cyclone was easier to mash in Melee, relative to roster size."
"Melee had the most legal stages, relative to roster size."
"Smash 64 had the most control input options, relative to roster size."
"There are more menu options in Melee, relative to roster size."

Roster size affects the amount of work it takes to balance something (substantially) but is only relevant to balance results... relative to roster size.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Just accept the fact that the balance in this game is just as terrible as it was in Melee and Brawl and leave it at that, FFS.

disagrees.

 

[Antonykun]

No doubt the best Nairs are the sex kicks.

I love how Villager's n-air and turnips are a sex kick despite being neither sexual nor a kick

seriously how did that term come to refer to anymove with a lingering hitbox :/

I still stand by my view that villager's n-air is the god move

 

[L9999]

Fighting Lucas in Smash 4 reminds me of fighting puff in Melee. Combos don't work on those guys and the matchup is usually annoying as hell but it's okay because nobody uses those guys.

I'd rather play Dabuz with Ness using a 2011 3DS as a controller than fighting a Lucas player in FG. He is even more obnoxious than Yoshi, and online Yoshi is just as obnoxious as Brawl MK. In online he punishes every single thing you do with that damn snake and stick, and unless the Lucas sucks really hard, gimping him is impossible.