Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[TurboLink]

Link's Bow, Bombs and grab can be a bit of a bother, but Link really doesn't have the frame data or mobility to stop Charizard from doing his thing once he gets through a couple of projectiles. Edgeguarding Link with Flamethrower is just like edgeguarding Falcon and Ganon in that you can either gimp him with hitting it at maximum range, or just repeatedly hit him out of his up-B for free damage and potentially force him to land on-stage for you to punish.

Honestly, it's like you people forget Link has a tether recovery. :/

 

[Nobie]

The main thing that I think gives Mega Man the advantage over Charizard is that Metal Blade is more often than not going to hit Charizard 3 times, and also never stales. That's a solid 9% per Metal Blade getting tacked on throughout the match.

I still believe Mewtwo at least goes even or better with Charizard, and it mainly has to do with how easy it is to combo Charizard (and how easy it is to mess with his anti-combo tools). It's never going to be more than a +1 for Mewtwo given how light Mewtwo is, but I just feel like Mewtwo has way too many tools that work on Charizard for it to be in Charizard's favor.

 

[Ffamran]

I swear if I have to read or hear someone say that Falco has slow moves and is weaker than Fox. **** it! Falco's fastest move is frame 30 and average move is frame 100! Oh, and he can't kill until 1000% which doesn't exist so he's royally screwed.

Where the **** does this misconception even come from? Barely any of the characters from previous games have changed and if Falco was hitting quickly because of Fox then what brings the idea that Falco suddenly became slower-hitting that Ganondorf Volcano Kicks and slower-moving than Robin with more end lag than the lag transformations caused using Transform with Zelda or Sheik in Brawl. This can apply to all characters, so seriously, where the **** do people pull this **** from?

 

[zeldasmash]

Am I late to the matchup chart party? Too bad, I spent too long writing this to not post it.


+1:

Charizard beats Link.............how exactly? Everything Charizard has when shielded is incredibly unsafe due to Link's grab which will combo Charizard to no end. And gimping Link with Flamethrower is as easy as gimping someone like Falcon and Ganondorf..........you do know Link has bombs to help him land and has a tether recovery........right? Once Link has a bomb in hand off-stage, there is very little Charizard can do stop him from returning.

 

[**Gilgamesh**]

So here's my view of Top 10

#1. - The only character in the game to not have a losing MU and very few If any, Even MU's while also beating the rest of the cast to varying degrees. The only MU that might be Even is ZSS due to her advantage state being bonkers while also having one of the best disadvantage states + having a workable enough neutral against Sheik.

#2. - To be honest ZSS has attributes similar to Sheik in terms of MU (They both bodies many characters), however she goes Even with Diddy Kong, Fox, Ness, and Mario while slightly losing to Pikachu something of which Sheik doesn't. To be honest I won't be surprised if she ends up having a positive MU vs these characters considered even ones in the future once people get better and more consistent at converting her advantage - > Stocks like Nairo does.

#3 - Now while she does have a bad MU vs ZSS, and loosing MU's to Olimar and Meta Knight ( Even though Dabuz changed his play-style vs Meta Knight and seemingly 2-0'ed Tyrant, that MU might have room to grow at top level). Her tools are all very good and adaptive and she can win vs any character. Did I mention she also have positive MU over most of Top Tier like Fox, Diddy Kong (might legit be a counter depending on how effective Rosa is at gimping Diddy Kong) Mario, and Sonic while also having a very positive MU vs Ness. She also bodies most Mid/low Tiers while outright invalidating some characters (Yes Rosa invalidates some characters deal with it instead of being oblivious and thinking the MU is doable and wondering why you got eliminated so easily.

#4 - One of the most unique Top Tiers in how he can counter characters who have trouble combating Spin-dash by doing the campy or aggressive style in certain MU'S. Although he's not as strong as the first 3 and have issues with characters who can easily negate his spin-dash[].He has reliable ways of racking up damage, very good mix ups due to his mobility and can break combo's with his Up-B.

#5 - More so because I see what 9B does with this character before the shield nerf and can just imagine what he can do now. I see Ryu being a very strong character once mastered and prolly going to beat more characters then he already does just because of the fact True Shoryuken is a kill-confirm off of certain combos + killing characters around 70-100% on top of Ryu having ABSURD Damage per hit is just ridic. He more so Top 5 because of the fact it's becoming more apparent that reliably killing + having good tools at building damage is a major factor in this game which is why characters like ZSS, Rosa and him are sooo strong.

#6 - Very solid character with a solid MU spread across the board, however Pika doesn't get it as good as the others above him vs the entire cast. He seems to have trouble vs random mid/low tiers while also a all his Top Tier MU's in the 40:60 - 60:40 Range. Pikachu also has few ways of reliably closing the stock outside of gimping, and raw smashes / reads.

#7 - One of the best characters to Solo-Main in Smash 4; although he has issues closing the stock, he 's pretty much solid everywhere else having close to Even MU in Top Tier bar Rosalina. Can't be top 5 though just because there are characters with better and richer options []

#8 - Another solid character with the 2nd best neutral in the game and with reliable kill set-ups. Diddy Kong on the other hand has a bad recovery which forces him to rely on Side-B which vs characters who can challenge Monkey Flip and Rocket Barrel (notably ) allows him to be exploited heavily then the others. Similar to Mario he also doesn't really beat any Top tier while also having a notably bad one in Rosalina.

#9 - I see a lot of people thinking Fox has the potential to be Top 5; while I don't necessarily agree with that notion, I don't disagree either. But looking at Fox; he has no off noticeable off-stage game, bad disadvantage due to being a fast faller while having a good neutral / advantage state. He also doesn't have a kill throw at any reasonable percentage either.

#10 - IMO the last Top Tier of Smash 4. Ness is pretty solid but like the bottom of top 10, he really don't win against any Top Tier (use to be a slight advantage vs pikachu but with Pika having increased safety, the MU is prolly even now) but doesn't lose to any either (exceptions are ). Ness also possesses one of the best set of aerials (3 of which possessing kill power) and is infamously known for his b-throw allowing him to always be a threat.


S Rank Requirements [To be in this category; You either have no losing MU's while also possessing tools to body most characters at Top Level or you have very few TRUE disadvantage MU while also possessing tools that not only body characters but can end matches in less then 2 mins]
S :
A+ :
A :
A- :

Do Note : I use results, theory, and Match-Ups to determine these positions.

 

[Vipermoon]

When it comes to Marth's aerials, back air is on the weaker end compared to other back airs when it comes to killing, and nair kills even later (around 150% on Mario center stage). Forward air can't be considered a kill move when you need close to 200% to kill with it, but uair kills quite early (~130%). All these assume tippers, and you're not going to get them a lot of the time since spacing isn't only dependent on you, it's also dependent on your opponent, relating to fsmash and shield breaker as well. Dancing blade is a dysfunctional move with hits missing especially if you go for the vertical finish, and dolphin slash doesn't really kill either. If only they did. Lucina has it even worse, but while her fsmash lacks the tipper clutch factor it's better in many situations where you're presented with a punish chance that you'd miss if you took the time to space properly. Gimping is something that they can indeed do, but I feel like this is always the final crutch and doesn't really amount to any sort of reliable KO capability since it's heavily matchup and read dependent. What your argument made me realize though is that shield breaker is quite a good move when spaced, however I'm still anything but convinced Marth let alone Lucina doesn't have trouble killing (Lucina in particular because of aerials and Marth's SB tipper being so much stronger than Lucina's SB). You'll see Marth kill at 50% sometimes, but compare it to all the times he struggles until around 150%.

I could say almost the same things about Shulk, just that his aerials are considerably slower, but uair and bair are also quite a lot stronger. His smashes kill well enough and come out relatively fast but they're punishable, and when you have to rely on smashes to kill, unless it's a Mario/Doc/Luigi smash (both fast and safe) you tend to end up in situations where your opponent knows it's your only option and they can avoid and punish it until you die first, or more preferably for you, you have to deal some extra hits and kill with something else and often take damage or die yourself in the process when you inevitably lose some of those exchanges.

Smashes I think are a considerable factor for kill capability only when they're safe or when you have setups into them. They're just a small bonus otherwise. Contradictorily they're often better if you also have other kill options to threaten and occupy the opponent's mind with, but at the same time if you do have other kill options you really shouldn't be throwing out many smashes anyway. Fox's up smash is the most extreme example of a smash that's arguably almost overpowered as a single punish option because of its speed and power, but even he can't just solely rely on that because he needs a punish or a successful read to connect with it safely because of its long cooldown, and the opponent is doing all they can to avoid it. Even though he still has some setups into it, Fox can struggle with killing sometimes and he's by no means bad at it. Smashes just don't take you far. Aerials, grabs, projectiles and setups starting from safe hits do. What really hurts Marth, Lucina and Shulk is the fact that not only do they mainly have to rely on smashes to kill, but you can also abuse shield against them because of their low grab rewards. Shieldbreaker can arguably almost always be rolled on reaction as it's 19 frames.

You are exaggerating on tipper aerials' kill power. Since Nair was buffed in damage it is once again the strongest Nair in the game (like Brawl). Even stronger than Ganon's. Center of the stage is more like under 130%. Same for Bair (though there are definitely stronger "foot" Bairs like you said). Fair only kills at 200% if you're on the very end of FD, it normally kills much sooner. With rage, 100% before the edge area is common. Uair normally isn't connecting close to the ground so that will kill quite early too. Too bad Uair's tipper is so small and inconsistent in this game.

You can react to shield breaker but you can't act to avoid it in time with I think it's 7 frames before your controller input happens if on a lagless monitor. You could maybe react and act if you expect it beforehand. Plus the audio helps. But who cares? Unless your shield is unhealthy it won't be breaking anything.

Edit: DS is actually pretty strong too after the buff. And with the base KB it kills nasty early at the ledge with heavy modification from rage too. Too bad the range sucks.

 

[warionumbah2]

another duck hunt (yusan) made top 8 at sumabato 6

eagerly waiting on those vods

It was off stream sadly, apparently it was a quick 2-0 as abadango went metaknight similar to the hayato match. Im shocked yusen got sent to losers on round 2 and got 7th in the end.

 

[TurboLink]

I swear if I have to read or hear someone say that Falco has slow moves and is weaker than Fox. **** it! Falco's fastest move is frame 30 and average move is frame 100! Oh, and he can't kill until 1000% which doesn't exist so he's royally screwed.

Where the **** does this misconception even come from? Barely any of the characters from previous games have changed and if Falco was hitting quickly because of Fox then what brings the idea that Falco suddenly became slower-hitting that Ganondorf Volcano Kicks and slower-moving than Robin with more end lag than the lag transformations caused using Transform with Zelda or Sheik in Brawl. This can apply to all characters, so seriously, where the **** do people pull this **** from?

Why so angry? And I think that's because a lot of people automatically equate slow movement with slow attacks and any other undesirable traits unbecoming of a good character.

 

[thehard]

It was off stream sadly, apparently it was a quick 2-0 as abadango went metaknight similar to the hayato match. Im shocked yusen got sent to losers on round 2 and got 7th in the end.

Japan saves replays of every match so they could still go up on SHI-G's channel

 

[Nu~]

It was off stream sadly, apparently it was a quick 2-0 as abadango went metaknight similar to the hayato match. Im shocked yusen got sent to losers on round 2 and got 7th in the end.

Nah, he fought Yusan with Pacman.

 

[RedCap-BlueSpikes]

Palutena's DA is frame 6 but you need to start a dash first meaning a minimum of 1 extra frame, so even that is a 7 frame option. I'll now take back what I said about her tilts, but I'd still call them below average overall.

Regarding dthrow to uair, all I can urge you to do is to try it with DI and airdodging with slowed down speed in training mode. I guarantee it straight up doesn't work on most characters at kill percents (or otherwise), and often you don't even need to airdodge for that. It may work on floaties.

I... didn't think to take the startup for dashing into consideration for that lol. You got me there.

Like I said about D-throw>U-air, I doubt it myself. The only reason I mentioned it is because one of our better players says it's a thing and I see him do it occasionally.

 

[|RK|]

But that also means Jiggs, G&W, and Wii Fit have even MUs with Sheik too? Ducking helps, but the startup on needles is too fast to react to. you have to read a needle throw to avoid it.

I said that ducking is an oversimplification; it's not the only reason, or even the biggest reason.

 

[Mazdamaxsti]

I said that ducking is an oversimplification; it's not the only reason, or even the biggest reason.

What else do we have on Sheik? Her neutral is too good and her moves are too fast to punish and start combos, we can't edge-guard Her or kill her, like idk I can't see it being anything better than 40:60.

 

[Trifroze]

You are exaggerating on tipper aerials' kill power. Since Nair was buffed in damage it is once again the strongest Nair in the game (like Brawl). Even stronger than Ganon's. Center of the stage is more like under 130%. Same for Bair (though there are definitely stronger "foot" Bairs like you said). Fair only kills at 200% if you're on the very end of FD, it normally kills much sooner. With rage, 100% before the edge area is common. Uair normally isn't connecting close to the ground so that will kill quite early too. Too bad Uair's tipper is so small and inconsistent in this game.

You can react to shield breaker but you can't act to avoid it in time with I think it's 7 frames before your controller input happens if on a lagless monitor. You could maybe react and act if you expect it beforehand. Plus the audio helps. But who cares? Unless your shield is unhealthy it won't be breaking anything.

Edit: DS is actually pretty strong too after the buff. And with the base KB it kills nasty early at the ledge with heavy modification from rage too. Too bad the range sucks.

I tried all the aerials on Mario at the center of FD and wasn't even using VI/DI though, and uair I tried from a full jump. Fair 175-180%, bair 140%, nair 145-150%, uair 125-130%.

What makes you think there's 7 frames of additional lag before your input registers? My reaction time averages at around 210-220ms in a visual click test on the computer, and I've tried reaction times in Smash 4 by shielding CPU hits in training mode on a lagless monitor and recording it in 60fps, averaging around 14 frames there which is roughly 235ms. For there to be a 7 frame additional delay for my inputs to register would mean my reaction time would need to be an inhuman value of 116ms and I've never scored anything better than 150 visually. Instead, there's 1-2, maybe 3 frames of unexplained delay. Add 2-3 frames to that for roll/spotdodge startups and it's around 3-5. 19 frame moves are definitely reactable although probably not if you're not actively anticipating one.

 

[MistressRemilia]

Ik this is kind of a useless post that doesn't bring much but:
For the love of god, if you make matchup charts, don't try to rate matchups you've never even played. Theory is nice & all but it actually isn't nice at all, so please, for any matchup, even god damn lucina matchup with you having knowledge on the marth matchup, if you haven't played it vs someone good or watched it being played & taking things out of it, then don't rate it, it's okay.

 

[|RK|]

What else do we have on Sheik? Her neutral is too good and her moves are too fast to punish and start combos, we can't edge-guard Her or kill her, like idk I can't see it being anything better than 40:60.

She's a fast faller, so we get at least 40% guaranteed off of a combo. She can't combo us as easily since we're both floaty and we're a small target. We can airdodge Bouncing Fish offstage because of multiple jumps. We can copy Needle Storm, which we can combo into out of F-Throw, and use to deal damage from afar. If we pass the percentage where D-Throw to U-Air is guaranteed, we can live much longer than we do against other characters. Also she's not heavy, so we can kill relatively easily.

 

[Blobface]

rrrRandy what moves does Charizard have that out range Ganon?

 

[Vipermoon]

I tried all the aerials on Mario at the center of FD and wasn't even using VI/DI though, and uair I tried from a full jump. Fair 175-180%, bair 140%, nair 145-150%, uair 125-130%.

Decided to do it myself since this is actually useful info for me in general.

Tipper aerials, training mode (no rage), cpu control, no di, respawn point of FD (center), mario:

Nair (2nd hit only): 133%
Fair: 164%
Bair: 130%
Uair (grounded): 147%
Uair (max Mario FH height): ≤125%
Dair (13% tipper sakurai): 169%
Dolphin Slash: 144%
Dolphin Slash ledge: 88%

What makes you think there's 7 frames of additional lag before your input registers? My reaction time averages at around 210-220ms in a visual click test on the computer, and I've tried reaction times in Smash 4 by shielding CPU hits in training mode on a lagless monitor and recording it in 60fps, averaging around 14 frames there which is roughly 235ms. For there to be a 7 frame additional delay for my inputs to register would mean my reaction time would need to be an inhuman value of 116ms and I've never scored anything better than 150 visually. Instead, there's 1-2, maybe 3 frames of unexplained delay. Add 2-3 frames to that for roll/spotdodge startups and it's around 3-5. 19 frame moves are definitely reactable although probably not if you're not actively anticipating one.

Based on this which was actually on a CRT:

 

[Trifroze]

Decided to do it myself since this is actually useful info for me in general.

Tipper aerials, training mode (no rage), cpu control, no di, respawn point of FD (center), mario:

Nair (2nd hit only): 133%
Fair: 164%
Bair: 130%
Uair (grounded): 147%
Uair (max Mario FH height): ≤125%
Dair (13% tipper sakurai): 169%
Dolphin Slash: 144%
Dolphin Slash ledge: 88%



Based on this which was actually on a CRT:

If you put CPU on control and don't hold towards the stage after your hitstun ends, the character will slowly keep drifting even when the hitstun is over, making them die considerably earlier. It's an unrealistic and skewed way to test kill %s, much more so than leaving VI/DI out (which I did).

The video says a couple times that it is not to indicate there is that much lag present in the game but that all controllers have an equal amount of lag because that's what his setup is designed to measure, and like he explains he got less lag in a previous video he made despite not using a CRT TV, so obviously something is inconsistent about his setup if you're trying to determine the universal lag in Smash 4 (which could be 0 for all I know, but I'm guessing 1-2 frames based on my own tests).

 

[ILOVESMASH]

let's try this for fun!



slight disadvantage


even


slight advantage


advantage


heavy advantage

IMO ZSS has a slight advantage vs Sheik. I also feel Diddy goes even with her.

 

[Vipermoon]

If you put CPU on control and don't hold towards the stage after your hitstun ends, the character will slowly keep drifting even when the hitstun is over, making them die considerably earlier. It's an unrealistic and skewed way to test kill %s, much more so than leaving VI/DI out (which I did).

The video says a couple times that it is not to indicate there is that much lag present in the game but that all controllers have an equal amount of lag because that's what his setup is designed to measure, and like he explains he got less lag in a previous video he made despite not using a CRT TV, so obviously something is inconsistent about his setup if you're trying to determine the universal lag in Smash 4 (which could be 0 for all I know, but I'm guessing 1-2 frames based on my own tests).

I didn't even think about that let alone know you did it that way lol. By the way, separate question, vectoring doesn't work if inputted after hitlag correct?

 

[bc1910]

Just won grands from losers side of Nova Knockout vs F.O.E's greninja.

I think it was bad pre-patch because my pressuring kit was incomplete. If I daired greninjas shield he could oos usmash, now I retain full frame advantage. And shuriken goes through my projectiles so not being able to efficiently pressure up close really hurt, I had to jump around a lot and try to set-up from the air. It was really awkward and scary just to establish a neutral. Now I could just approach.

He seemed to have a lot of trouble dealing with the shield pressure of dair and fair, Also duck hunt's natural damage output being higher and trick shot beating uair means if greninjas at higher percent than dhd it's risky trying to uair him high up.

My mario got bodied game 1, that MU feels really bad and the DHD MU felt really good. He did one set then after getting nearly jv3'd game 1 of set 2, he told me he never wants to do that mu again and pulled out some other chars lol

The dthrow set-ups don't work right on greninja at all and he gets out of delay shot frisbee at crucial combo percents a lot, his awkward hurtbox and slide definitely screws with my smashes too, but I edgeguard him really good and duck hunt's fair presents a similar issue that sheik's does for greninja, you don't really get to bait his air dodges due to it.

I think DH is a pretty annoying MU. Due to frisbee's high shield hitlag approaching can be a pain in the arse. Although if you're saying Greninja forces the approach, his work is done there anyway.

I don't think DH is especially good at pressuring our shield. Firstly our shield sucks against everyone. Secondly to truly abuse if you need the mobility and raw frame data to stay in our face, DH has neither. Thirdly, it seems like DH's aerials would be safe vs everyone now? Fair is -10 so we can jab if you missspace and can't punish otherwise, but surely this is true of every character (everyone would have to shield drop to punish which puts you at -3). Dair idk the frame data for but I just tested it and again can be jabbed if the move ends close to us, whether you fastfall for the autocancel or not. If you drift away you're safe, but again that should be true vs everyone. I think DH is good-ish at pressuring now but Greninja's not especially weak to his particular brand of pressure.

Greninja's pressure kit was also completed by the patch I feel, his aerials and Ftilt on shield are pretty good now. In terms of Fair beating our airdodge baits we should be able to run under and Uair or Usmash.

I actually think smart placement of frisbee forces us to approach in this matchup (time it so that even when we jump and charge the shuriken we land on the frisbee) so that'd be a point for you but I could be wrong. I think it's volatile who has to approach, it can swing either way.

Agree on DH's high natural damage output being a problem.

It worries me for DH if you say your throw kill setups don't work because I don't think you edgeguard us very hard; not your problem, Gren's recovery is just really good. But I could be wrong here. What sort of edgeguard setups were you using? Killing Greninja probably won't be easy for you in any case.

Overall I'd have thought this would be a +1 for Greninja but you've posted some interesting thoughts. Might have to look at this again as more seems to have changed for DH vs shields than I thought.

My anecdotal evidence would be me beating the best DHD in my area repeatedly and forcing him off the character, at which point he said "stupid frog", sadly this was 1.1.0. I can't see it having got THAT much worse for us though.

 

[rrrRandy]

Honestly, it's like you people forget Link has a tether recovery. :/

You're vulnerable the entire time from when you use your tether up until the time you've fully retracted it to the ledge, and if you get hit out of it you don't get your jump back. Charizard doesn't have to edgeguard with Flamethrower and is fully capable of going off-stage with aerials (often forward-air), Flamethrower is just particularly good at it once some characters drop below a certain height under the stage. Flamethrower's range at maximum charge is actually quite long, it just doesn't usually appear so since it's angled down into the ground on startup when used on-stage and the move is probably being used a lot. Even when not used to gimp people, it's a lot of guaranteed damage that can often lead into a kill if the opponent doesn't deal with it correctly. (Being unable to ledge snap for a certain number of frames after being hit basically means you're forced to repeatedly recover into the fire until Flamethrower weakens enough, then you've either been forced onto the ledge, or landed on stage with your up-B if you're not careful.)

The main thing that I think gives Mega Man the advantage over Charizard is that Metal Blade is more often than not going to hit Charizard 3 times, and also never stales. That's a solid 9% per Metal Blade getting tacked on throughout the match.

I still believe Mewtwo at least goes even or better with Charizard, and it mainly has to do with how easy it is to combo Charizard (and how easy it is to mess with his anti-combo tools). It's never going to be more than a +1 for Mewtwo given how light Mewtwo is, but I just feel like Mewtwo has way too many tools that work on Charizard for it to be in Charizard's favor.

Metal Blade is the main "pressure tool" I was talking about. 9% obviously isn't nothing, but it's less significant than the fact that Mega Man can use Metal Blade (among other things) to pressure Charizard into shielding so that Mega Man can grab him, which hurts Charizard a lot more than an extra 9% every so often (outside of a hard punish with, say, Mega Upper, Charizard's still going to be taking a lot of hits). Mega Man is quite likely one of the worse matchups I'd listed in the -1 group, but nothing stands out enough for me to consider the matchup as bad as any in the -2 group at this point.

Charizard might get knocked around a little by Mewtwo (haven't noticed anything particularly painful playing the matchup in tournament myself), but to say it's in Mewtwo's favour because of that would be ignoring everything Mewtwo doesn't have over Charizard: weight, (disjointed) range on a lot of moves, ground mobility and relative safety when recovering being big ones. I also highly doubt Mewtwo has any truly guaranteed strings that would give Mewtwo great enough reward on hit to overcome the immense weight difference; Charizard has some fairly damaging set-ups of his own, and has more lenient auto-cancel windows compared to Mewtwo, making him somewhat smoother moving air-to-ground to continue a string. Mewtwo's moves tend to come out very slightly earlier on average, Charizard's tend to have slightly more disjointed range, but overall their damage outputs are extremely similar and neither has a clear advantage in neutral. The deciding factor really is the weight difference in most situations; Mewtwo simply has to win the neutral a noticeably greater number of times, and is put in a comparatively worse position should the characters trade.

Charizard beats Link.............how exactly? Everything Charizard has when shielded is incredibly unsafe due to Link's grab which will combo Charizard to no end. And gimping Link with Flamethrower is as easy as gimping someone like Falcon and Ganondorf..........you do know Link has bombs to help him land and has a tether recovery........right? Once Link has a bomb in hand off-stage, there is very little Charizard can do stop him from returning.

Again, Charizard can go off-stage and challenge characters like Link whose recoveries are generally restricted to an area level with or below the stage very easily. Even if you're using a Bomb (that's more free damage for Charizard as well) or your tether to recover, you're still only going to be recovering from a specific set of angles that Charizard can capitalise on.

And as much as I talk about Charizard's ground game, dash and use of shield, the character can, in fact, jump to some reasonable extent as well as having some offensive options fast enough to beat out something like Link's grab within range. I know people that play Link, and I quite enjoy playing Link myself, and it can be very easy to play around Link's options if you know the matchup well enough due to how early he has to commit to them because of the startup on all of his moves and low mobility. Of course hitting a shield with Charizard is going to be unsafe, but why would Charizard have to hit a shield when he gets most of his reward out of throws and has one of (if not) the largest non-tether standing grab ranges in the game? Charizard can down-throw up-smash (among other things) Link as well, just so you know, so comboing off throws isn't a point for either character in the matchup.

what moves does Charizard have that out range Ganon?

Most of Charizard's moves will have longer range (or some favourable combination of range and speed) than Ganondorf's functional equivalent (jab, f-tilt, d-tilt, f-air and b-air come to mind as common moves Charizard uses to challenge Ganondorf). Ganondorf's F-tilt and D-tilt are the only notable things Charizard can't beat out with range on normals alone, but Charizard still has the disjoints and a "projectile" to challenge them. Massively disjointed u-tilt and u-smash also beat out any form of aerial approach. All before the fact that Charizard has much more freedom to space his moves than Ganondorf.

I swear if I have to read or hear someone say that Falco has slow moves and is weaker than Fox.

Here, I'll run some numbers through the knockback formula for you (Fox vs. Falco).
U-smash: frame 8 16%/BKB 30/KBG 94 vs. frame 8 (first hit) 12%/BKB 30/KBG 98 (second hit) = killing Mario from centre stage Battlefield at around 103% vs. 134%, before the killing hit.
U-air: frame 9 (first hit) 11%/BKB 30/KBG 100 (second hit) vs. frame 7 10%/BKB 35/KBG 95 = (from ground level) 143% vs. 161% (lower growth would mean the difference is greater on heavier characters, also actually comes out on the same frame after taking into account jumpsquats).
D-smash: frame 6 14%/BKB 30/KBG 75 vs. frame 7 15%/BKB 20/KBG 76 = 158% vs. 156%.
F-smash: frame 13 14%/BKB 20/KBG 98 vs. frame 17 15%/BKB 42/KBG 96 = 123% vs. 98%.
Jumpsquat: 4 frames vs. 6 frames.

There's the source of the "misconception". You could argue direct comparison between moves isn't really fair, and you may be right (to my knowledge Falco KOs a lot more often with B-air and going deep with F-air), but there's a lot less subjectivity when it comes to comparing numbers. I could still say things like "Fox's frame 8 U-smash comes out faster and kills earlier than Falco's frame 4 B-air when taking into account the added 6 frames from his jumpsquat, and Fox will be able to punish even more things due to being able to close the gap faster with his superior dash speed", if I didn't want to do direct 1-to-1 comparisons.

As a final note, I'm not saying Charizard is a good character; my matchup chart would imply the opposite of that. What I probably am saying is that he's a flawed character with niche strengths that give him a really funky matchup spread. When I said I spent a lot of time writing it up, I meant a lot of time. "Several months of tournament experience playing Charizard against everyone" kind of time. The explanations were kept brief to save space.

 

[Wintropy]

Am I late to the matchup chart party? Too bad, I spent too long writing this to not post it.


-2:

Really? I mean, Pit is a safe character with disjoints, but I struggle to think Pit has any +2 matchups...

But hey, you know more about Charizard than I do. I won't dispute it.

At this point I realize Palutena's jab is f7 and not f8 the latter of which is how I remembered it. Not a huge difference though as it still means her fastest normal is no faster than her grab, and that's the main issue I was onto. Her CQC is basically jab, it has a lot of utility when you have the time to use it. Her aerials aren't any better in this regard, in fact they're all considerably slower because of jump squat, the only advantage is that you can use them out of shield. Still, fair, nair and bair all miss / don't work properly on grounded characters who aren't particularly tall.

Oh, I know. I didn't say they were good, just that they do have a purpose.

Counters and reflectors, especially when they're sub par, aren't particularly useful despite having niches (reflectors more so like you said). Counters are, in almost every case, a worse option than powershielding and punishing with something else unless you're in the air, your counter is very strong or you're certain that the opponent will challenge you, and the latter isn't going to happen in a tournament setting most of the time. Reflectors are a 100% useless in most matchups and serve a niche in some others, which I don't think warrants a move status anything higher than "fairly useless". I disagree about autorectile as well, it's decently safe after hitting but the startup is very long, so unless you use it from around max range the opponent can punish you on reaction before anything happens or at the very least shield it right in front of you and then go for the punish.

Agreed on Counter, I tend to forget it even exists. Reflect is basically one or the other, it's either very useful or totally useless. Overall, considering every potential matchup, it's definitely veering towards the "useless" end of the spectrum, but I don't think we can deny that it does have some uses somewhere. Autoreticle is meant to be used at max range for maximum safety, it just so happens that its max range is (for better or worse) mid-range for most characters. Niche use, same as the rest of her specials, but I think it has good potential as a zoning tool if nothing else is available.

Personally, I'd ditch every special except maybe Warp or, depending on the matchup, Reflect in customs. No dispute here, customs make her a damn sight better.

Her dtilt is safer than I recalled, but it definitely doesn't set up into anything. Utilt and ftilt seem to have very little utility to me, anti-air and punish maybe?

Yeah, that's about it. They're admittedly not great, but they're not absolutely useless.

It does work on a few characters, but the large majority can avoid it by DI'ing away and there's never any reason they shouldn't if they're at kill percents. The biggest reason it's so good with lightweight (in addition to the fact that it works on everyone) is that Palutena jumps so high while uairing them they die pretty much 30% earlier.

Oh, definitely. It's not a combo by any means, it's barely a string. But it is possible within a certain window, and I know bigger characters and characters with poor landing options can be juggled well with u-air.

RedCap-BlueSpikes said everything else I wanted to say. I don't disagree with most of what you said, you're absolutely right with what you have to say, I just wanted to point out that Palutena does have options. Thanks for explaining your opinions, it's nice to have a civilised and educative discussion!

 

[Wintermelon43]

What else do we have on Sheik? Her neutral is too good and her moves are too fast to punish and start combos, we can't edge-guard Her or kill her, like idk I can't see it being anything better than 40:60.

We can use needles. Being lightweight makes it hard for her to forward air chain. Up tilt works really great aganist her, similar to Fox. Throw combos and even other combos are extremely effective.

 

[bc1910]

That Zard spread is very comprehensive and well-explained. I understand your thought process behind each MU. Kudos.

Antonykun Do you have any thoughts on Greninja vs Villager?

 

[Dee-SmashinBoss]

Ugh it's so unfortunate that whenever your mains best players can't/don't often post

Anyways who do you guys think have among the best Usmashes?
Some good or notable ones I can think of are
?.....??

I bet there are more, but these guys seem to have noteworthy Usmashes

 

[warionumbah2]

**Gilgamesh** Dabuz beat tyrant because tyrant not only has little experience against a rosa using fallns playstyle but also because dabuz is straight up better than tyrant as a player. However things can change since tyrant adapts so quick.

His playstyle doesn't change much as falln after beating ito at indigo and then sending ito to losers the landiego after, he has yet to beat itos metaknight since. At some point ito finally started killing luma and then destroyed falln every game forcing him to once again switch to ZSS. He does better with zss but still loses, he's back to playing with secondaries against ito. I think dabuz said on stream at some point to use a different character.

Felt like pointing this out since some members had knee jerk reactions(shaya) and went on to say that this MU is 50:50. Falln can win neutral 8 times but ito wins literally once and takes a stock.

 

[Wintermelon43]

Ugh it's so unfortunate that whenever your mains best players can't/don't often post

Anyways who do you guys think have among the best Usmashes?
Some good or notable ones I can think of are
?.....??

I bet there are more, but these guys seem to have noteworthy Usmashes

TBH Kirby's frame data in up smash may make it not good enough to this list. Although i guess if Zelda, Ganondorf, and Peach are in it, then it's okay.............

Or is this just in knockback?

 

[Luco]

Unless something changed drastically, doesn't Sonic still suck vs ZSS? Like, that was the premise behind NR eating through like 3 different top Sonic mains at CEO right? Does anyone care to explain why ZSS doesn't still murder the darn hedgehog?

This came off strong, but I realise it's been like half a year and the meta has changed and stuff.

 

[adom4]

TBH Kirby's frame data in up smash may make it not good enough to this list. Although i guess if Zelda, Ganondorf, and Peach are in it, then it's okay.............

Or is this just in knockback?

Ganondorf's U-smash is good since it's incredibly safe for it's power & startup.

 

[Kirby Dragons]

Anyways who do you guys think have among the best Usmashes?
Some good or notable ones I can think of are
?.....??

I bet there are more, but these guys seem to have noteworthy Usmashes

Uh...

 

[Wintropy]

- Palutena's u-smash -

I appreciate the representation, but Palutena's u-smash is incredibly slow and easy to punish. It has great vertical range and can punish opponents in the air, but when she has more versatile and potentially fatal anti-airs in u-air and b-air, it doesn't justify its own viability.

 

[meleebrawler]

Y


Charizard might get knocked around a little by Mewtwo (haven't noticed anything particularly painful playing the matchup in tournament myself), but to say it's in Mewtwo's favour because of that would be ignoring everything Mewtwo doesn't have over Charizard: weight, (disjointed) range on a lot of moves, ground mobility and relative safety when recovering being big ones. I also highly doubt Mewtwo has any truly guaranteed strings that would give Mewtwo great enough reward on hit to overcome the immense weight difference; Charizard has some fairly damaging set-ups of his own, and has more lenient auto-cancel windows compared to Mewtwo, making him somewhat smoother moving air-to-ground to continue a string. Mewtwo's moves tend to come out very slightly earlier on average, Charizard's tend to have slightly more disjointed range, but overall their damage outputs are extremely similar and neither has a clear advantage in neutral. The deciding factor really is the weight difference in most situations; Mewtwo simply has to win the neutral a noticeably greater number of times, and is put in a comparatively worse position should the characters trade.

Charizard may have a ground speed advantage but it's not that big, mainly in walking, and Mewtwo is way faster in the air. And Charizard is NOT safer when recovering than Mewtwo, especially if he has a charged shadow ball ready to intercept Flare Blitz, plus Mewtwo can go deep enough to attack Charizard before he can Fly safely.

But most of all, you've neglected to mention Mewtwo's most important tool of all, Shadow Ball. It's this versatile projectile that stymies Charizard's ground advantage and can either force him into the air where he's slower, try to Flare Blitz through which can be punished on shield by shadow ball lock into disable, and just generally lets Mewtwo set the pace of the match better.

 

[Deleted member]

I appreciate the representation, but Palutena's u-smash is incredibly slow and easy to punish. It has great vertical range and can punish opponents in the air, but when she has more versatile and potentially fatal anti-airs in u-air and b-air, it doesn't justify its own viability.

Furthermore it's great vertical reach is notably hindered by its mediocre horizontal reach (IMO) , especially near the top edge of the U-Smash's vertical reach (as far as I can tell her U-Smash is a bit wider horizontally at the very base).

 

[Wintropy]

Furthermore it's great vertical reach is notably hindered by its mediocre horizontal reach (IMO) , especially near the top edge of the U-Smash's vertical reach (as far as I can tell her U-Smash is a bit wider horizontally at the very base).

Yeah, but it's great that her f-smash has good horizontal range to make up for...

Wait a minute!

Yeah, Palutena doesn't have great smashes. The fact that the sweetspot is right next to her means you have to be on top of the opponent to really kill. In that context, you might as well just jab -> grab, since it decreases the chance of getting punished.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Im shocked yusen got sent to losers on round 2 and got 7th in the end.

That happens like all the time in Japan.

 

[Jamble]

I... what? Since when did Zard have advantage on Link? Maybe against a really crappy Link but his projectiles and grab are more than just a "bother", they're downright lethal to Charizard. Not only is Link's grab amazingly long and fairly quick for its range, but getting grabbed once by Link pretty much means you're going to get comboed to hell and back. Charizard is a big target and incredibly easy to grab in a relative sense too. I don't play on a terribly high competitive level but I play both characters and I'd say the matchup is handily in Link's favor. Charizard has very few approach options as is, and even jumping over projectiles perfectly on approach usually means you're going to eat a fair from a good Link IMHO.

Building on from Zard's approach, I actually don't think Shulk is necessarily in his favor in this game either. Quite frankly the range and mobility on his aerial game really can mess him up badly, and his counter actually has the range to punish any use of flamethrower pretty hard too, removing another of Charizard's fairly limited options. Though I don't know enough about the matchup to say for sure. I just feel like a good Shulk is going to use jump and dominate the aerial game from ranges that are hard for Zard to punish at.

I think Charizard has very, very few "good" matchups, but over brawl, I feel like he also has much fewer really really "bad" ones

 

[warionumbah2]

That happens like all the time in Japan.

Well it shocked me.

 

[Antonykun]

That Zard spread is very comprehensive and well-explained. I understand your thought process behind each MU. Kudos.

Antonykun Do you have any thoughts on Greninja vs Villager?

my friend @ArhyLis plays the frog that amphibian has way too many ways to beat Lloyd and the dude is so short you aren't consistently hitting hit with slingshots and he's so flabbergastingly fast he can run away and pelt villager with shurikens
truly frustrating