Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Dee-SmashinBoss]

Sorry if this is dumb, but what is this "vacuum" people keep talking about.

 

[Mr. Johan]

"In a vacuum" is a term used to compare moves' utility based strictly and solely on the mechanics of that move alone. No outside factors affect it.

So, Zamus's Dthrow is among, if not the best in the game by itself. Hell, Robin's Dthrow may be even better, since Robin gets something out of it from 0% up to 90-100/kill percent for 15% damage per throw at the least in a perfect world. But, by virtue of it being a throw, the utility of the move depends on the character's grab as well. That's where Zamus's Dthrow's utility gets knocked down a few pegs due to the long starting tether grab, and Robin's gets knocked down a lot because of the grab's low range and cooldown compounded with Robin's ground speed.

Still think Zamus's Dthrow is among the best in the game all things considering though.

 

[Wintropy]

Sorry if this is dumb, but what is this "vacuum" people keep talking about.

To follow up on what SS said, a vacuum is a space devoid of matter or physical ephemera, so the phrase "in a vacuum" means "considered by itself without relation or comparison to anything else". In other words, content divorced from context.

If I said "Pit's side-b is great in a vacuum", that means I'm considering the move just by itself, instead of in the context of a fight or the rest of Pit's moveset. So in a vacuum it's great because it's invincible and it can kill, but in effect or in context, it isn't that great because it's slow and easy to shield, etc.

Please don't discuss the viability of Pit's side-b, it's just a demonstration.

Yes I just went full English Lit / Theory MA student.

 

[LancerStaff]

Slow day eh?

So I'm just curious... How good would a move be if it's -6 on shield but can't be perfect shielded?

 

[Ghostbone]

lolwut

Go to Tekken Zaibatsu, Dustloop and SRK.

Then get back to me.

EVERYONE DOES IT

I went to SRK and skimmed through their USF4 tier list thread and looked for matchup discussion, everyone was using out of 10 ratios, so 6:4 or 7:3 most of the time. Again, out of 100 ratios is something I only see on smashboards, though even if it occurs elsewhere it's still bull**** lol.
Though there was the same discussion we have here about people not being brutal enough with matchup ratios, assigning essentially unwinnable matchups low ratios like 7:3 when they should clearly be 8:2. Here it's even worse because people start calling 6:4s heavy advantages and 65:35 unwinnables. Realistically, 6:4 should be a slight advantage, 7:3 a counter, and 8:2 a relatively braindead matchup (something like ZSS vs Bowser is easily 8:2 or worse) These equate to +1, +2 and +3 respectively (+4 being left for even more trivial matchups like Brawl D3 vs DK, where an astronomical skill difference is required to win)
The out of 100 ratios just get more and more ridiculous, and people claim this game is balanced because there are few matchups worse than "60:40", but that's only because in their mind 60:40 is a heavy advantage, which is ridiculous.

 

[Mario766]

It'd be punishable by OoS options.

Not being able to be perfect shielded however would be nifty.

 

[**Gilgamesh**]

I don't think ZSS is quite an invalidating matchup for DK, since despite her combos working on him so well they won't kill unless she gets them started near the ledge or is aided by platforms. Whiffing grabs is also pretty dangerous against DK, although zair to grab is pretty easy on him. It's probably tough but I don't think either ROB or DK have anything worse than -2 or 30:70 vs ZSS because while her bnb does about 40%, it won't kill them the large majority of the time when you consider proper DI, and after that 40% she won't be able to pull it off properly again. Sometimes though ZSS will grab them near the ledge and it's an almost guaranteed kill.

Nairo vs DKWILL [3 - 0'ed] after DK got his buffs but before the shield nerf (which favors ZSS anyways), the set ended in less then 5 minutes and 1/4 of that time was spent in the loading and character select screen.The MU is pretty garbage ; DK can't deal with ZSS pressure at all and the fact he can't get back into neutral vs her is just bad, pretty much the entire 3 games which all ended in double 2 stock from Nairo was just DKwill being in disadvantage and getting blasted by ZSS advantage state. I mean obviously Nairo is better then DKwill but that still doesn't excuse the fact of DKwill was unable to get out of disadvantage against Nairo in ALL 3 games and got bodied because of it. My friend who also mains says he will never play DK vs ZSS as well.

 

[bc1910]

-6 is pretty good on shield and not being able to powershield it speaks for itself.

The move would be good, specifically how good depends on its range.

 

[meleebrawler]

To follow up on what SS said, a vacuum is a space devoid of matter or physical ephemera, so the phrase "in a vacuum" means "considered by itself without relation or comparison to anything else". In other words, content divorced from context.

If I said "Pit's side-b is great in a vacuum", that means I'm considering the move just by itself, instead of in the context of a fight or the rest of Pit's moveset. So in a vacuum it's great because it's invincible and it can kill, but in effect or in context, it isn't that great because it's slow and easy to shield, etc.

Please don't discuss the viability of Pit's side-b, it's just a demonstration.

Yes I just went full English Lit / Theory MA student.

A lot of slow characters have moves that by themselves are extremely good. We've already mentioned how ridiculous Ganondorf's moveset could be in Falcon's hands, and Robin's aerials minus dair are never considered anything less than great.

There are also, of course, moves that seem bad in a vacuum but actually work well with a given character or plan. Throws that don't combo or kill, like most of Marth's or Mewtwo's fthrow and dthrow work by giving good positional advantage (Marth to get favorable spacing, Mewtwo to get time to charge or apply pressure), tend to get this treatment.

As for the debate of people using 45-55s in matchups or not... at the end of the day it's just semantics. As long as you can justify why you put those numbers, that's all that matters. The reasoning. No point on getting hung up over whether one person's 45-55 is another person's 40-60.

 

[LancerStaff]

Let's say move has range comparable to Dorf's grab, but works well as a cross up since it's also an aerial.

 

[Flux0r]

I went to SRK and skimmed through their USF4 tier list thread and looked for matchup discussion, everyone was using out of 10 ratios, so 6:4 or 7:3 most of the time. Again, out of 100 ratios is something I only see on smashboards, though even if it occurs elsewhere it's still bull**** lol.
Though there was the same discussion we have here about people not being brutal enough with matchup ratios, assigning essentially unwinnable matchups low ratios like 7:3 when they should clearly be 8:2. Here it's even worse because people start calling 6:4s heavy advantages and 65:35 unwinnables. Realistically, 6:4 should be a slight advantage, 7:3 a counter, and 8:2 a relatively braindead matchup (something like ZSS vs Bowser is easily 8:2 or worse) These equate to +1, +2 and +3 respectively (+4 being left for even more trivial matchups like Brawl D3 vs DK, where an astronomical skill difference is required to win)
The out of 100 ratios just get more and more ridiculous, and people claim this game is balanced because there are few matchups worse than "60:40", but that's only because in their mind 60:40 is a heavy advantage, which is ridiculous.

Smash 4.
The game where it's either 45-55 or even, anything worse is unwinnable.

 

[NairWizard]

I actually play Doc in tournament and almost never get gimped. In SoCal, one of the most stacked regions in the USA, and my PR rarely ever gimps me. I also have really bad reaction time, meaning I go for very general conservative options when recovering. Where are your grounds to argue that Doc's recovery is bad?

If I, a mere mid level player rarely ever get gimped offstage by players with considerably superior mechanics and reactions, I can safely confirm Doc's recovery is not a relevant weakness competitively.

There's a contradiction hiding in your reasoning.

In the quoted segment above, you use your experience of not getting gimped in tournament to justify your claim that Doc's recovery is passable. But then:

Vipermoon said it best. Most of us are bad at edgeguarding, citing the number of times Mac makes it back to the stage.

This doesn't mean that Robin's recovery isn't one that can't be autopilot punished.

Here you dismiss Raziek's defense of Robin's recovery, which is predicated on the same premise (i.e., that in his experience Robin doesn't get gimped that often), on the grounds that we just aren't good enough at edgeguarding for Robin's recovery weakness to show.

If a player of ZeRo's caliber finds Robin's recovery difficult to punish consistently, yet that's not a satisfying justification for saying that she has a passable recovery, then how on earth can you make the same claim for Doc based on players in the SoCal PR?

Now, as to your actual point: I fully agree that Doc is difficult to gimp consistently if the Doc player conserves his double jump and DIs intelligently. But I think that the same can be said of Robin--it's difficult to reactively punish Robin's buffed Elwind, especially given that Robin doesn't need to use it from far below thanks to her impressive aerial coverage and b-reverse.

If I said "Pit's side-b is great in a vacuum", that means I'm considering the move just by itself, instead of in the context of a fight or the rest of Pit's moveset. So in a vacuum it's great because it's invincible and it can kill, but in effect or in context, it isn't that great because it's slow and easy to shield, etc..

But at the same time, you can say that the move isn't great in a vacuum because being slow and easy to shield are properties of the move just like invincibility and the ability to kill. These attributes are all relative, so it's actually impossible to say one way or another if moves are great in a vacuum or not. Pit's side-b for instance may have kill power, but what if every other move in the game has twice as much kill power and every other character is killing at 30-40? Kill power by itself "in a vacuum" (in the truest sense) is just a number, like 53 or 74; without comparing it to other numbers, you can't say whether that's good or bad or average.

In general, "in a vacuum" is a hand-wave phrase, an excuse to justify looking at something from a different angle. What people actually mean to say is, "selectively ignoring factors x, y, and z, this move is great," which is another way of theorycrafting just like these types of questions: "What if this move were on another character?" or "What if this knockback angle applied to this other character's special?" Or more to the point, "What if ZSS' d-throw were attached to a character with a normal grab?" or "What if ZSS had a normal grab?" These questions are useful insofar as asking them increases our fundamental understanding of the game and its mechanics, but we should understand what we are trying to say when we use the phrase as opposed to what the phrase actually means.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

D-throw F-air true combos Falcon somewhere around like 100%-130% no rage factored. Even though Rage makes it harder to KO confirm with D-throw F-air, it still can KO Falcon at a pretty generous range.

Wouldn't rage make it easier for doc to land D-Throw Fair because of the increase hit stun? I've done this in a couple of games online and it seems like its not possible to Airdodge out of.

 

[Mario766]

Rage would also send them farther. Doc's mobility would make it impossible to make it in time.

 

[Vipermoon]

Wouldn't rage make it easier for doc to land D-Throw Fair because of the increase hit stun? I've done this in a couple of games online and it seems like its not possible to Airdodge out of.

Exactly. It simply pushes both ends of the combo window down.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Wouldn't rage make it easier for doc to land D-Throw Fair because of the increase hit stun? I've done this in a couple of games online and it seems like its not possible to Airdodge out of.

The most important part is Dthrow F-air doesn't KO confirm at high rage. At high rage D-throw F-air on the appropriate characters combos closer to like 40-60%, making it a damage dealing combo.

NairWizard you have a fair point that I contradicted myself, however I definitely think Robin has more limitations recovering from high than Doc. They both have inherently pretty bad landing options and depend on a B reverse, but Doc effectively gets an extra jump from Tornado, which gives him another layer of chance to fish for an opponent's commitment before coming down to reset to neutral. Elwind ultimately is still considerably slower than Doc's Up-B even at short ranges.

 

[Mazdamaxsti]

The most important part is Dthrow F-air doesn't KO confirm at high rage. At high rage D-throw F-air on the appropriate characters combos closer to like 40-60%, making it a damage dealing combo.

NairWizard you have a fair point that I contradicted myself, however I definitely think Robin has more limitations recovering from high than Doc. They both have inherently pretty bad landing options and depend on a B reverse, but Doc effectively gets an extra jump from Tornado, which gives him another layer of chance to fish for an opponent's commitment before coming down to reset to neutral. Elwind ultimately is still considerably slower than Doc's Up-B even at short ranges.

It's true that Robin has more limitations do hurt his recovery, but the distance it gives off means you could dip low to bait something out, which Doc can't do.

 

[A2ZOMG]

It's true that Robin has more limitations do hurt his recovery, but the distance it gives off means you could dip low to bait something out, which Doc can't do.

Except Robin's Up-B is REALLY slow. Meaning you can literally wait for it either on stage or on the ledge and react.

 

[Mazdamaxsti]

Except Robin's Up-B is REALLY slow. Meaning you can literally wait for it either on stage or on the ledge and react.

That's true, can't really argue with that.

 

[Antonykun]

I think this discussion on doc's recovery might actually eclipse the saltfest on luigi we had a while back as far length goes.
I think this discussion is also running in circles at this point so instead I'm going to talk about something else.

I personally believe Villager is among, if not, the best edgeguarder in smash 4. Her Floatyness and access to either fast or disjointed but both lingering hit boxes while also having access to a spike and a long range projectile and two high knockback kill moves that don't even require to be offstage while also having a really strong recovery to make it back to the ledge after an edgeguard

 

[Tri Knight]

Villager is definitely a great edge guarder. Hes got tools to edgeguard even on stage. Same with Ike. Ike's Eruption alone is enough to freak the opponent out a bit. His F-air is absolutely dangerous as well since it covers such a huge area. Characters with lingering hitboxes usually have an easier time edgeguarding than all the others as well. Link's Nair is extremely powerful offstage with its pretty long lasting hitbox. His D-air is also great for anyone trying to recover low.

It's funny because there's many characters that are great at edgeguarding yet you rarely see anyone make great use of it.

 

[Apeirohaon]

It's interesting how ZSS was widely considered something like 5th-8th best in the game before around late July even though everyone knew about her setups since way back. Late July however is when all the majors started happening and Nairo started placing top 3 basically everywhere. Nothing new was discovered about the character but everyone just got to see her being played by a good player over and over, and Japan jumped into it so hard that they're actually considering her to be above Sheik. A ZSS who gets most of her grab reads right is above Sheik, a ZSS who gets about half of them is probably right behind Sheik, and a ZSS who gets a realistic amount of them which is maybe one in three is more likely to be somewhere with or behind Sonic and Rosalina, maybe even Ryu depending on how far his meta can develop.

For some reason when we judge ZSS' position in tier lists, we judge her based on how consistently Nairo lands grabs with her, but this is not a fair judgment when half of those grabs and neutral wins can clearly be attributed to differences in player skill between him and his opponents and those neutral wins are all that matters. Somehow we convince ourselves that "no, even when the opponent is the same level this is exactly how well ZSS will work". It's simply false and it can be seen when other good ZSS players play her versus opponents that are roughly the same level as them.

The only reason I've personally placed ZSS 2nd lately is that I think she's right on the same level with Sonic and Rosalina but someone simply has to go first, so it might as well be the character who has a decent chance of beating everyone in every situation or just losing unconvincingly, but in retrospect someone with this sort of inconsistency shouldn't necessarily have the 2nd spot. Look at ZSS' results outside of Nairo and they aren't any better than the results of Rosalina, Sonic or even Mario, Diddy and Fox. Yet there are other good players using ZSS and getting some results, but a clutch character like her is bound to get those every now and then as is every other top tier, it's just that we should be surprised why there aren't more of that for ZSS who's supposed to be the 2nd best.

ehh, i kinda disagree with this

ZSS was widely considered something like 5-8th best in the game before around late July

mid july (right before evo) (1.09) -
(during EVO) July 18, ZSS @ 5th [4th not including Luigi]: http://smashboards.com/threads/viab...ive-impressions.410551/page-182#post-20076154
July 15, ZSS @ 3rd: http://smashboards.com/threads/character-competitive-impressions.367669/page-863#post-19657786
July 15, ZSS @ 3rd: http://smashboards.com/threads/character-competitive-impressions.367669/page-862#post-19655115
July 15, ZSS @ 8th (it's a radical larry tier list tho): http://smashboards.com/threads/character-competitive-impressions.367669/page-862#post-19654975
July 14, ZSS @ 3rd: http://smashboards.com/threads/character-competitive-impressions.367669/page-858#post-19648809
July 14, ZSS @ 8th, though he says she's "almost an S tier". not sure how to interpret that: http://smashboards.com/threads/character-competitive-impressions.367669/page-859#post-19650237
early-mid june (1.06/7) (pre-second Diddy nerf, pre-Luigi nerf) -
June 19, ZSS @ 5th [3rd not including Diddy and Luigi]: http://smashboards.com/threads/character-competitive-impressions.367669/page-759#post-19455648
June 12, ZSS tied 2-5 [tied for 2nd/3rd not including Diddy and Luigi]: http://smashboards.com/threads/character-competitive-impressions.367669/page-730#post-19393247
June 2, ZSS @ 6th [4th not including Diddy and Luigi]: http://smashboards.com/threads/character-competitive-impressions.367669/page-700#post-19321282

Seems like the general consensus in early/mid July was 3rd behind Sheik and Rosalina. In May-June it was more in the 5-8 range, but that was before the Luigi nerf and the second Diddy nerf.
Both are before the string of majors that you mention (that being EVO, SSC, Paragon, Umebura, TBH, and MLG)

You also have to keep in mind that ZSS enjoyed the latest patch - most of her aerials are safe on shield now. Not sure what it was like pre-patch and how much hitstun modifiers affected nair and zair though.

Japan jumped into it so hard that they're actually considering her to be above Sheik.

I don't feel like the Japanese players are the type to do this, considering their opinion of Pikachu
Also there are only a couple top players that actually think ZSS > Sheik afaik

For some reason when we judge ZSS' position in tier lists, we judge her based on how consistently Nairo lands grabs with her, but this is not a fair judgment when half of those grabs and neutral wins can clearly be attributed to differences in player skill between him and his opponents and those neutral wins are all that matters. Somehow we convince ourselves that "no, even when the opponent is the same level this is exactly how well ZSS will work". It's simply false and it can be seen when other good ZSS players play her versus opponents that are roughly the same level as them.

Nairo still gets plenty of grabs when playing against ZeRo, Ally, and other top players that are definitely on his level.
I also don't think she's that reliant on raw grabs. Up air also starts death combos (can be hard to land but it can catch landings and pressure platforms), and zair and nair can combo into grabs at lower percents. Nairo also hit zero with jab -> grab a few times. And of course down smash and paralyzer are pretty good moves.

Look at ZSS' results outside of Nairo and they aren't any better than the results of Rosalina, Sonic or even Mario, Diddy and Fox.

assuming you mean take away the best player from each character, I still think ZSS wins the results war, mainly because of Choco. He's better than the second best sonic (6wx/manny), the second best rosa (kirihara), the second best fox (idk who) and probably the second best diddy (mvd) and mario (anti). Third best in Japan (as of 3 days ago) is no joke
If you want to go down even further then it gets pretty close and it's really hard to say. Though ZSS has Nick Riddle, Rosa has Rayquaza and Falln, Fox has a ton of people, Sonic has 6wx or Static Manny (depends on which one you think is second), and Mario has Zenyou.

If you mean just ignore Nairo exists and compare with the others, then, uh.. well yeah of course it's worse (well it's only by a little actually). You're taking away her best player.

So I think it's safe to say ZSS has the second best results fairly easily. the only other characters that have 2+ top players are sheik, rosalina, and diddy

 

[Ffamran]

But at the same time, you can say that the move isn't great in a vacuum because being slow and easy to shield are properties of the move just like invincibility and the ability to kill. These attributes are all relative, so it's actually impossible to say one way or another if moves are great in a vacuum or not. Pit's side-b for instance may have kill power, but what if every other move in the game has twice as much kill power and every other character is killing at 30-40? Kill power by itself "in a vacuum" (in the truest sense) is just a number, like 53 or 74; without comparing it to other numbers, you can't say whether that's good or bad or average.

In general, "in a vacuum" is a hand-wave phrase, an excuse to justify looking at something from a different angle. What people actually mean to say is, "selectively ignoring factors x, y, and z, this move is great," which is another way of theorycrafting just like these types of questions: "What if this move were on another character?" or "What if this knockback angle applied to this other character's special?" Or more to the point, "What if ZSS' d-throw were attached to a character with a normal grab?" or "What if ZSS had a normal grab?" These questions are useful insofar as asking them increases our fundamental understanding of the game and its mechanics, but we should understand what we are trying to say when we use the phrase as opposed to what the phrase actually means.

Fantastic, someone who looks at not just both sides of a coin, but the side as well! In a vacuum, all moves are good and bad. Relative to everything else or factored with everything else, all moves are still good and bad. How good or how bad? Well, that's up to how we interpret everything. Strict comparisons don't work out well in practice and even in theory. Maybe - completely hypothetical/silly scenario - in a strict comparison between Fox and ZSS's Bair and in practice, Fox somehow manages to win despite in theory, Fox's attributes and his Bair itself aren't good compared to ZSS and in practice, for whatever reason, despite evidence that ZSS can setup Bair while Fox gets at most 50/50s, Fox ends up having a more practical Bair.

I don't believe "in a vacuum" is a handwave when used correctly. It's basically a control like removing everything else and focusing on purely what a move does and comparing it to similar or even different moves to hypothesis which is better, worse, excels in certain applications, etc. Used incorrectly, it becomes a shallow and misguided way of analyzing moves and characters. Yes, in a restricted scenario, Fox/Roy would be a much better rushdown character than Falco/Marth, but would Fox/Roy be truly a better Falco/Marth? Saying yes or even a lonely no isn't right. You'd have to look at everything else, all the other factors, adding other factors, and be able to look at different angles or even dimensions. Basically, you'd have to be a bit kooky when looking at things - think outside of the box and if that's not enough, think within the box's walls, think as if you were the particles of the box, and think away from the box, perhaps think outside of the basket.

For future reference, whenever people say Z character should have A character's J move, ask them why. And before you even ask, think about why it would or wouldn't work and why it works for A character. It's fine to say, F character has H character's L move because of a patch or whatever for simple comparison. I mean, what's easier to say? Patch 1.0.8 gave Falco auto-link angles on his loop hits 1, 2, and 3, reduced the total damage to 11%, and altered some of the hitboxes or just saying patch 1.0.8 gave Falco a Zelda Nair? Both work, but one's simpler while the other's more detailed. For summary purposes, it's fine to say Roy ended up with an Ike Dair, but for analytical and understanding purposes, it's better to go in detail even if it's slightly like saying Roy has Ike's Dair, but with a higher air acceleration and ground speed, Roy can perhaps land a Dair more easily than Ike like how Captain Falcon's high ground speed makes it easy to catch up and land his Dair compared to Ganondorf.

And last, but not least: Why the hell did I explain to you all on how to write a proper essay in context to Smash? If you answer this question, you get a Boo Biscuit.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I think this discussion on doc's recovery might actually eclipse the saltfest on luigi we had a while back as far length goes.
I think this discussion is also running in circles at this point so instead I'm going to talk about something else.

I personally believe Villager is among, if not, the best edgeguarder in smash 4. Her Floatyness and access to either fast or disjointed but both lingering hit boxes while also having access to a spike and a long range projectile and two high knockback kill moves that don't even require to be offstage while also having a really strong recovery to make it back to the ledge after an edgeguard

Top 6 edgeguarders imo (not in order):


You can basically harass and potentially kill ANYONE offstage with these characters if you're clever.

 

[Blobface]

I wouldn't even say Villager is "among" the best edgeguarders, I'd say she's unarguably the best. Pikachu and Ganon, her two closest competitors, get good option coverage and high reward, but Villager gets both while having a recovery that lets her chase people to the bloody blastzone.

And the bloody turnips, seriously, what the hell does she put in those things anyway? Osmium?

Tri Knight
Well, I don't think Ike really goes offstage much/deep since a lot of his aerials are pretty laggy in the air despite their good Autocancelling. Ike mains feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

But I do agree. A lot of characters should be going offstage... but don't. I think we had this same discussion awhile ago, and quite a few people came to the conclusion that edgeguarding was usually inferior to covering ledge options, but I still don't really agree with that. IMO ledge options aren't even that much safer or more reliable than edgeguards, and any character that can cover ledge options well can usually cover edgeguarding just as well, if not better.

There are reasons that people don't edgeguard though. It's true a few of our top tiers (ZSS, and especially Sheik) have really, really, really good recoveries, and people might not see it as rewarding in a meta with a lot of these characters. That doesn't really explain why people don't try to edgeguard Fox at all though. So I think it's more in the fact that edgeguarding is almost completely different on a matchup to matchup basis. Edgeguarding Mario with Ganon is nothing like edgeguarding Marth with Ganon, and that level of complexity can be intimidating to even high level players, especially when a position as bad as offstage is involved.

With that said though, as long as you really learn to understand your opponents options when recovering it's really not very hard to switch up your edgeguarding between matchups.

Top 6 edgeguarders imo (not in order):


You can basically harass and potentially kill ANYONE offstage with these characters if you're clever.

I'm surprised Ganon isn't on here. Does it have to do with option coverage or is it that his edgeguarding doesn't work too well against specific characters?

 

[A2ZOMG]

I'm surprised Ganon isn't on here. Does it have to do with option coverage or is it that his edgeguarding doesn't work too well against specific characters?

Both.

Ganon optimistically could fit in the top 10 or 15, but he does have trouble edgeguarding some characters given he can't go that deep. Whereas the characters I mentioned can make literally any recovery not safe, at least with decent reads.

Ganon's edgeguards are fantastically good, the absolute best in the game for killing people when they are applicable though.

 

[Dre89]

It's pretty hard to be a superheavy. Even DK is considered just barely viable if even that, depending on who you ask, despite possessing all of these attributes:

- Second heaviest in the game and above average fall speed
- Pretty good recovery
- By far the most mobile superheavy, probably top 15 most mobile in the game overall (combined with the above two points and his safety this roughly amounts to what might be the best survivability in the game, sorta like he was in Brawl)
- Reliable kill setup at 70-90%
- Pseudo kill throw (ledge) at 120%+
- Several safe / pretty safe kill options outside of throws (uair, bair, utilt sweetspot, fsmash, punch)
- Very high damage per hit like all superheavies
- Good edgeguarding with bair, nair and up b, can go horizontally as deep as he wants
- Frame 3 aerial combobreaker in up b and does 20-32% if the opponent overextends
- Rising SH bair hits short characters and can be used a second time before landing
- Unpunishable attacks on shield: dtilt, bair, nair, punch
- Very safe attacks on shield: jab 1, fsmash (thank you 1.1.1, check it out)

Yet DK somewhat struggles because of his size and landing options. Now look at Dedede, Bowser, Charizard and Ganondorf all of whom have poor overall mobility, no reliable early kill setups, no quick ways to break combos and nowhere near the same amount of safe options as DK. Whether they have powerful kill moves or throws, DK kills earlier, and whether they have high damage output once they get in, DK does more damage. Mobility aids at relieving pressure, getting grabs, approaches and recovery, and DK gets the most out of rage even among these characters because he combines really high weight, above average fall speed, decent safety and a quite reliable recovery. Ganondorf is arguably not a superheavy though, he doesn't make the jank sound effect when he lands. Still, it's easy to see why they'd all eventually cluster into bottom tier while DK keeps doing DK things well above them, his design is competitively so much more forgiving.

People say that DK is bottom tier without cargo uthrow to uair and mid tier with it, but to me it seems he's mid tier without it and high tier with it. He dies to Sheik and ZSS but what else?

The thing about DK though is that he gets combod way harder than the other heavies due to having worse landing and on-the-ledge options.

The other thing people overlook is that he really doesn't like rage that much because it can ruin your grab window. If he misses that window he can have trouble killing until 120% unless they have a gimpable recovery.

Bowser at least likes rage because he doesn't lose anything from it. It's much riskier punishing Bowser than DK because his landing options are much more varied and threatening. DK is better than Bowser now but if he had DK's grab game he'd be top 5-10.

 

[Illuminose]

sheik definitely has better edgeguarding than g&w, mega man, and link. she can cover options off-stage really well and can even effectively catch ledge snap vulnerability with down tilt or even aerial needles. I'd also argue that zero suit's ability to go so deep off-stage so quickly and efficiently with powerful bairs/fairs to gimp or outright kill, and the down b spike for easy kills. both have better edgeguarding than those three chars.

 

[Apeirohaon]

another thing about sheik and zss is that they can kill off stage with bouncing fish / bair and flip kick respectively. I don't think mega man and g&w can do that as well

 

[A2ZOMG]

sheik definitely has better edgeguarding than g&w, mega man, and link. she can cover options off-stage really well and can even effectively catch ledge snap vulnerability with down tilt or even aerial needles. I'd also argue that zero suit's ability to go so deep off-stage so quickly and efficiently with powerful bairs/fairs to gimp or outright kill, and the down b spike for easy kills. both have better edgeguarding than those three chars.

Sheik and ZSS have limited options to directly beat low recoveries. They don't have a lot of business directly challenging many Up-Bs.

Link just craps on low recoveries completely for free and has projectiles to control space and options. G&W has a ton of lingering hitboxes and it can be difficult to react to him trying to stage spike you due to the multihit nature of his B-air, same goes for Mega Man B-air who can go deeper than both Sheik and ZSS and also has Metal Blades.

 

[Vyrnx]

's up b is one of the game's best edge guarding moves. It's ridiculously hard to react to it in time to tech the stage spike. That combined with all of his disjointed lingering hitboxes, dair, even neutral b make him more than likely top 6.

 

[Ffamran]

's up b is one of the game's best edge guarding moves. It's ridiculously hard to react to it in time to tech the stage spike. That combined with all of his disjointed lingering hitboxes, dair, even neutral b make him more than likely top 6.

He's also intangible from frames 5-13 during its frame 2-8 launch.

 

[Rikkhan]

ZSS can punish a lot of low recoveries by abusing the 2 frame vulnerability with her flip jump also z-air is pretty good to surprise kill people, she is definitely a great edgeguarder imo she is at least top 10.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

Falco is pretty amazing at edgeguarding as well just because of his fair. This move is amazing for catching recoveries since it semi spikes the opponent if it clanks, lingers for a while, and can ko pretty early off stage. His nair, bair, and dair are also very good moves for edge guarding.

 

[A2ZOMG]

ZSS can punish a lot of low recoveries by abusing the 2 frame vulnerability with her flip jump also z-air is pretty good to surprise kill people, she is definitely a great edgeguarder imo she is at least top 10.

I'm not seeing why that's a remotely good option. Of all the 2 frame punishes that can happen in this game, ZSS flip jump is both short duration and ultra telegraphed.

 

[Nobie]

People used to say that if you could read minds/read the opponent perfectly, then Ganondorf would be unstoppable. Is this still a valid idea?

 

[David Viran]

I'm not seeing why that's a remotely good option. Of all the 2 frame punishes that can happen in this game, ZSS flip jump is both short duration and ultra telegraphed.

Err 6 frames isn't really that short.

 

[A2ZOMG]

People used to say that if you could read minds/read the opponent perfectly, then Ganondorf would be unstoppable. Is this still a valid idea?

By design Ganon is never really unstoppable, he just kills you faster than anyone else on a read given he both has the reward and option coverage to capitalize on a bad position extremely effectively.

Err 6 frames isn't really that short.

Okay found that bit of frame data. That's more reasonable, but that still doesn't change that Flip Jump is super linear and telegraphed and that ZSS doesn't exactly have very good options to pressure low recoveries. Almost every character in the game that isn't explicitly a fastfaller can easily mix up their timing beyond a really telegraphed 6 frame window.

 

[Trifroze]

If you mean just ignore Nairo exists and compare with the others, then, uh.. well yeah of course it's worse (well it's only by a little actually). You're taking away her best player.

So I think it's safe to say ZSS has the second best results fairly easily. the only other characters that have 2+ top players are sheik, rosalina, and diddy

That was the entire point of my post. Nairo is considerably better than the best players of every other character except Pikachu (who's clearly not top 5) and Sheik/Diddy, and he's the standard everyone sets for ZSS. This is very likely to change in the future and anyone can quote me on this. Poor Pikachu often gets mistaken for top 5 because of Esam as well.

 

[Tri Knight]

I wouldn't even say Villager is "among" the best edgeguarders, I'd say she's unarguably the best. Pikachu and Ganon, her two closest competitors, get good option coverage and high reward, but Villager gets both while having a recovery that lets her chase people to the bloody blastzone.

And the bloody turnips, seriously, what the hell does she put in those things anyway? Osmium?

Tri Knight
Well, I don't think Ike really goes offstage much/deep since a lot of his aerials are pretty laggy in the air despite their good Autocancelling. Ike mains feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

But I do agree. A lot of characters should be going offstage... but don't. I think we had this same discussion awhile ago, and quite a few people came to the conclusion that edgeguarding was usually inferior to covering ledge options, but I still don't really agree with that. IMO ledge options aren't even that much safer or more reliable than edgeguards, and any character that can cover ledge options well can usually cover edgeguarding just as well, if not better.

There are reasons that people don't edgeguard though. It's true a few of our top tiers (ZSS, and especially Sheik) have really, really, really good recoveries, and people might not see it as rewarding in a meta with a lot of these characters. That doesn't really explain why people don't try to edgeguard Fox at all though. So I think it's more in the fact that edgeguarding is almost completely different on a matchup to matchup basis. Edgeguarding Mario with Ganon is nothing like edgeguarding Marth with Ganon, and that level of complexity can be intimidating to even high level players, especially when a position as bad as offstage is involved.

With that said though, as long as you really learn to understand your opponents options when recovering it's really not very hard to switch up your edgeguarding between matchups.


I'm surprised Ganon isn't on here. Does it have to do with option coverage or is it that his edgeguarding doesn't work too well against specific characters?

Yes, Ike's F-air shouldn't be used low stage cuz he'll probably die but it's still viable to jump out there and throw out a F-air from a higher position.