Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Ghostbone]

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.

Not that many moves from on-stage actually hit the vulnerability. Flip jump has a ridiculous hitbox and you have some leeway on when to attack and still hit the vulnerability. Plus it kills at like 40%.

Flip jump kick is used very often at top level play to hit ledge invulnerability, it's obviously pretty good at it.

 

[Patriot Duck]

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?

I'm pretty sure this notion could be applied to every character in the game.

 

[Mario766]

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.

This isn't Brawl. Ike can F-Air below the stage just fine and still make it back. The only recoveries he can't drop zone are super low vertical recoveries.

Everyone keeps hyping Ganon edgeguards

I never see Ganons edgeguard at all unless they are doing a high up air edgeguard.

Also no, if a Ganon main could read minds he would still have to deal with his absurdly bad neutral game. Try playing against a Sheik who can read you. You're losing your jump and your stock early to gimps 24/7.

 

[Dre89]

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?

Literally every character in the game could be unstoppable if you could predict every single move and they couldn't.

Why apply that logic to him when you could just apply it to Bowser. He's faster, isn't countered in neutral solely be shielding and assuming mind reading, will kill way earlier than Ganondorf because he has pre100 kill confirms off a frame 7 move.

Even if you could read someone's mind perfectly doesn't mean they're going to open themselves up to a Ganondorf fsmash or even his frame 16 sideb. Especially when you can just shield and cover all of his options in neutral.

 

[Trifroze]

Ganondorf's main strength by far is the reward off of reads. Like I mentioned earlier this isn't very sustainable competitively since top level players are always similar enough in skill that you won't make those reads as much as you should. Conversely if you are noticeably better than your opponent, Ganondorf gives you much more reward for it than probably 50 other characters, hence Ganondorf works so much better on lower levels where there are greater skill gaps and more mistakes to punish.

 

[Blobface]

Everyone keeps hyping Ganon edgeguards

I never see Ganons edgeguard at all unless they are doing a high up air edgeguard.

Ganondorf's aerials cover massive amounts of space and are almost all partially, if not entirely, disjointed. He barely even "gimps" people, he just straight up kills them. N-air has a big, long-lasting hitbox, B-air is incredibly fast both in startup and endlag, and F-air covers a wide arc, is disjointed, and hit's very hard.

And then there's U-air. Hits all the way around Ganon, is fast, and has insane versatility, basically allowing you to choose where your opponent goes when you hit them. Ganondorf's aerials are completely absurd tbh, they're only fair because they're on a character with such crap air mobility.

D-air is basically there if you're desperate and way behind

In fact, Ganondorf would be considerably better if it weren't for the recoveries that are just too hard for him to edgeguard. Given he has few if any kill setups out of throws, he relies a lot on throwing people offstage to snag kills. It's when his edgeguarding isn't threatening (most notably against ZSS and Sheik) that he starts having trouble with shields, and starts having to fall back almost entirely on reads.

 

[MysteriousSilver]

This isn't Brawl. Ike can F-Air below the stage just fine and still make it back. The only recoveries he can't drop zone are super low vertical recoveries.

Everyone keeps hyping Ganon edgeguards

I never see Ganons edgeguard at all unless they are doing a high up air edgeguard.

I only pocket Ganon but I edgegaurd all the time with him. Fair and Uair give massive reward (Uair covers a lot, too, and tipman is outrageous) and Nair is meaty enough to stuff Robin/Falcon/etc. easily enough.

I feel like if Ganons aren't edgeguarding, they should be.

 

[Dre89]

Ganondorf's main strength by far is the reward off of reads. Like I mentioned earlier this isn't very sustainable competitively since top level players are always similar enough in skill that you won't make those reads as much as you should. Conversely if you are noticeably better than your opponent, Ganondorf gives you much more reward for it than probably 50 other characters, hence Ganondorf works so much better on lower levels where there are greater skill gaps and more mistakes to punish.

People always talk about how he's flawed but he punishes hard, but he has no way to force those situations.

He needs to be in advantage to even have a chance of getting these hard punishes. Playing heavies against top tiers at a higher level is more about getting reads with bread and butter moves in neutral than it is about killing at 60% with hard reads. He has the worst neutral in the game because it loses to shield and everything he does is punishable because he's slow.

 

[NairWizard]

ZSS has a solid case for being the best character in the game. Sheik probably edges her out (Sheik's options out of dash and jump are just so good, never fails to impress me), but it's not so clear-cut any more after the last patch.

The thing is that she has more ways to end your stock than any other character, and defending against all of them is just not feasible for most (any?) characters.

"But bad grab!"

The real problem with her advantage (what makes ZSS in advantage so terrifying) is not the grab but actually her jump height and aerial mobility, which allow her to chase you out all the way to the blastzone before using an aerial. As most characters (including Pikachu and Sheik) I am quite scared of ZSS f-air and b-air (and even z-air!) when I'm offstage, and her abnormally high airspeed allows her to drift back and punish me with a flip jump spike or tether back and set up d-smash at the ledge on me even if I avoid her edgeguard attempt with a well-timed airdodge. The knockback values don't matter so much when you're almost at death's door (the blastzone) already when you get hit by these moves. Then of course you have up-airs into up-b vertically, which is facilitated by grab -> d-throw but doesn't require it.

If she had only that strength then it might not be so bad, all things considered, but all of this and her grab (which, though bad-ish, can still kill you) are in addition to safe onstage moves like n-airs and z-airs and raw b-airs that can spell death too, and there's even a strong up-b out of shield option to boot (though it won't kill so early from center stage).

You're just not safe against ZSS at all. Your percent and stage position can't safeguard you from all of her setups at any given moment, so getting hit is usually death if the ZSS can optimize her punish. The reverse is almost never true, though, because of her f4 escape option and excellent recovery and good general mobility like air speed. Thus the risk:reward ratio is fantastically skewed toward ZSS in almost every matchup.

Her neutral is supposed to be her weakness, and while yes, it's true that it's worse than Sheik's--which is also trivially true of every character in the game, by the way)--I don't think her grab alone is enough to justify calling her neutral subpar overall. Most importantly, ZSS does not have to play an offense/rushdown game, although she is fully capable of doing so given her reward. She has one of the best defensive kits in the game. up-b that kills, 12% invincible-on-startup up-tilt, and shield drop f1 jab give her a great, even amazing, OoS kit so she doesn't need grab OoS; she has the best mobility in the game with as much range as sword characters; she has a safe high-range poke in f-tilt and disjointed/spacing aerials; and to go with all of it she has great defensive frame data, an f4 jumpsquat and great options out of sh airdodge. How is that a subpar neutral? It seems like a pretty clearly top-tier or at least top of high tier neutral to me, independent of her advantage/disadvantage, which are both very clearly top of top tier.

She has a handful of minor weaknesses that might add up to be something significant. One is her oft-cited grab, which is indeed a problem (though it is the best or second best tether grab and can catch spotdodges even at top level). Another is minor difficulty spacing her high-reward moves against short characters (she can get down-angled f-tilts very easily/safely but that won't set up into kills). Yet another is her jump height off the ground, which requires her to reach the apex of her jump before acting in some cases--sh airdodge can alleviate this problem to an extent, but I think aggressive forward rolls can still cause her some trouble as a result. And finally, she is susceptible to true combos because of her height and physics (though again if your combos aren't airtight she's getting out with her f4 escape option). Notice how I had to qualify or consider counterpoints on each of these weaknesses, and that they aren't tremendous weaknesses in the first place, excepting the punishability of her grab.

Even if these weaknesses turn out to be significant, this game is about risk:reward, and ZSS is proving to be the best at that besides maybe Sheik. If all of her setups truly depended on grab I would be saying that she's top 15 at best, but she has an impressive array of options in advantage, neutral, and disadvantage, all over the stage, entirely befitting a #1/#2 character.

 

[Nu~]

https://vine.co/v/eYjzmTLvBPJ
https://vine.co/v/eYP2DU0iu5q
https://vine.co/v/eYppezWtPOI
https://vine.co/v/eYDhxzQuHIi

...can we talk about this?

 

[Trifroze]

Having to rely on SHFF to hit with ZSS' aerials is in my opinion her biggest weakness, and calling it a minor one is unfair when you combine it with the fact that her ground game isn't that great, mainly due to super punishable grabs and dash attack. This means that hitting grounded opponents with nair and bair for instance takes about 28-32 frames total if you count jumpsquat, depending on how late you want to hit with them (the later the safer, also late is required for shorter characters). I'd like to stress that very few other characters in the game combine bad options out of a dash with non-existent rising shorthop aerial options like ZSS does, and none of those are top or high tier, plus there are very few of them to begin with. This is not a minor weakness, it's her major flaw.

Her CQC is good and fast though and down smash is still decent for ground spacing even though it became unsafe with 1.1.1. It's a serious nerf in my opinion when people start realizing that you can just dashgrab her after shielding it, and it's sad to see people unanimously say that the patch was good for her when it tampered two of her central ground options, down smash and paralyzer.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

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.

DK has no problem KOing without his grab. I get more kills off of B-reverse punch mixups and offstage Bairs than the Ding Dong. Rage just makes his entire moveset KO earlier. Utilt, Uair, Up B offstage, up b ONstage, Dsmash... If you're relying 100% on his grab for KOs then I don't know what you're doing.

 

[the king of murder]

People always talk about how he's flawed but he punishes hard, but he has no way to force those situations.

He needs to be in advantage to even have a chance of getting these hard punishes. Playing heavies against top tiers at a higher level is more about getting reads with bread and butter moves in neutral than it is about killing at 60% with hard reads. He has the worst neutral in the game because it loses to shield and everything he does is punishable because he's slow.

"He loses to shields"...uhh no he doesn't. U-smash, Utilt, F-smash, and air down-b obliterates shields for 90%. Sure they don't break them outright but close enough to make shielding against him scary. Flame Choke for punishing holding shields and even though the grabrange is abysmal, by conditioning he can still grab them out of shield. Not the best options admittedly but he doesn't "outright lose" against shield. This isn't ****ing Brawl dorf. I swear, just like Ike, he is always seen in his past version.

Looking for safe moves in Ganon? U-smash, Dtilt, Ftilt, Bair, Reverse Uair, Fair are all safe on shield and can be whiffed(except Fair). Some of them have to be spaced but let's be honest which not-spaced move doesn't get punished. Saying he has nothing safe(everything is punishable) is outright false.

I am not saying Ganon is a good character, in fact, I even said he needs some serious buffs to compete if you view my previous posts but would you please look past his brawl dorf days? Thank you.

Also as much as you dislike it, you cannot ignore the fact that he is been getting way too much results for a low tier. If a perceived good character is getting few result, I am open to believe because he is underplayed(Ike main here, I know that feel at least until Ryo and Ryuga started to become infamous).

But if a supposed bottom tier trash character is getting results there has to be something wrong. He doesn't have the tools, he shouldn't win any MUs, why is he getting results? MU inexperience? No way, Kalm, Verm, GanonTheBeast and some others are placing consistently high(top 8) in their tournies they go. (Kalm outplaced Mew2king in a very big tourney once for godsake).
Skill level? Maybe but you can't prove that considering they face a lot of notable players. Maybe he is a better character than you think he is? Maybe?

Although I have to concede that having a combination of terrible disadvanatage and meh(but workable) neutral aren't the best traits to have, he isn't unviable garbage due to his workable tools and reward that everyone, even Shiek, have to watch out for.

 

[⑨ball]

https://vine.co/v/eYjzmTLvBPJ
https://vine.co/v/eYP2DU0iu5q
https://vine.co/v/eYppezWtPOI
https://vine.co/v/eYDhxzQuHIi

...can we talk about this?

Pacman's setups are always impressive to see. Though, as someone who's dabbled quite a bit in the Pac. It doesn't look practical at all. Likely not to work on anyone but fast fallers, doesn't account for DI, and looks to require a full hop to setup which means it gives the opponent upwards of 60 something frames to do literally anything and ruin it. Could be fantastic for shield break punish!

The biggest thing to take from this at a glance is that item dropped galaga hits twice which makes it great shield pressure.

------------

Talking about edge guarding and who's the best at it needs to account for the ability to force second/multiple jumps or frame traps/ consistently hit the ledge vulnerability. Otherwise your character isn't much better than anyone else at it and is pretty much looking for the read at which point among those characters you're just comparing risk/reward.

 

[wedl!!]

Pretty surprised no one's brought up MK when talking best edgeguarders.

 

[meleebrawler]

Pretty surprised no one's brought up MK when talking best edgeguarders.

That's because nobody even gets the chance to be edgeguarded by MK with his vertical death combos.

 

[wedl!!]

I mean, I suppose that's true but it doesn't hide the fact that it's there. If you get baired or naired, prepare to die at 80. But to be fair by that point you probably would've died to a dash attack combo.

I think we had a discussion about this a few months back (before MK got overhyped because of LOL LEO, and he was an accepted upper mid tier or higher).

 

[Man Li Gi]

DK has no problem KOing without his grab. I get more kills off of B-reverse punch mixups and offstage Bairs than the Ding Dong. Rage just makes his entire moveset KO earlier. Utilt, Uair, Up B offstage, up b ONstage, Dsmash... If you're relying 100% on his grab for KOs then I don't know what you're doing.

Being M2K.

 

[warionumbah2]

That's because nobody even gets the chance to be edgeguarded by MK with his vertical death combos.

LOL LEO

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E8kB5RhF5l8&t=3m43s

 

[Jink8]

Is Marth any viable in Sm4sh?

 

[Vipermoon]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E8kB5RhF5l8&t=3m43s

See this is really interesting. Abadango's MK is almost all cheese (but very optimal cheese). Leo's is well developed everywhere else and I much much much prefer Leo's. His opponent wasn't that great though and it was Falcon.

J Jink8 not really but he's fun so use him

 

[Zelder]

https://vine.co/v/eYjzmTLvBPJ
https://vine.co/v/eYP2DU0iu5q
https://vine.co/v/eYppezWtPOI
https://vine.co/v/eYDhxzQuHIi

...can we talk about this?

Yeah I think this matchup is a lot of trouble for Falcon if he stands motionless in the center of the stage and doesn't DI or do anything to stop Pac Man from full hopping on him.

 

[warionumbah2]

See this is really interesting. Abadango's MK is almost all cheese (but very optimal cheese). Leo's is well developed everywhere else and I much much much prefer Leo's. His opponent wasn't that great though and it was Falcon.

J Jink8 not really but he's fun so use him

WTF they both cheese just as bad as each other. I'd argue leo being more relentless with the cheese.

I agree with everything else.

 

[Radical Larry]

Hasn't anyone noticed how stupid of a range Samus's D-Tilt can have? There's not a single D-Tilt that was intended to go through the stage and hit an opponent far below the character other than Samus's. And think of it this way, if there's perfect spacing and timing, an opponent could even get stage spiked by the attack since again, its hitbox goes through a good portion near the edge. So this is an attack meant to beat opponents who try recovering below.

But now I digress, the two best edge-guarders in the game are Link and Villager. These two basically cover any option an opponent would want to use for getting to the edge.

Want to come back horizontally?
Villager's N-Air, F-Air and B-Air will take you out; Link's F-Tilt, U-Tilt, F-Air and N-Air will do the trick.

Above the stage?
Villager and Link's U-Airs and F-Airs, and Link's N-Air, will get you.

Below the stage?
Villager's Timber or Bowling Ball will get you, Link's D-Air or N-Air will also get you.

Diagonally from the bottom?
Both characters' N-Airs will do the trick.

Diagonally from the top?
Their aerials are the key.

Use PK Thunder?
Pocket and Link's N-Air.

My point is, these two are unarguably the best edge-guarders in this game, as they can do quite the number on opponents. They have all the options to edge-guard and gimp opponents so incredibly hard, that it's silly not to call them both the best edge-guarding characters in the game. But the character who can get more off his attacks is Link, as his F-Tilt, U-Tilt, D-Tilt, F-Smash, U-Smash, D-Smash (Second Hit), N-Air, F-Air, U-Air, B-Air, Spin Attack and Arrows are all viable moves for his edge-guarding set.

 

[Dre89]

"He loses to shields"...uhh no he doesn't. U-smash, Utilt, F-smash, and air down-b obliterates shields for 90%. Sure they don't break them outright but close enough to make shielding against him scary. Flame Choke for punishing holding shields and even though the grabrange is abysmal, by conditioning he can still grab them out of shield. Not the best options admittedly but he doesn't "outright lose" against shield. This isn't ****ing Brawl dorf. I swear, just like Ike, he is always seen in his past version.

Looking for safe moves in Ganon? U-smash, Dtilt, Ftilt, Bair, Reverse Uair, Fair are all safe on shield and can be whiffed(except Fair). Some of them have to be spaced but let's be honest which not-spaced move doesn't get punished. Saying he has nothing safe(everything is punishable) is outright false.

I am not saying Ganon is a good character, in fact, I even said he needs some serious buffs to compete if you view my previous posts but would you please look past his brawl dorf days? Thank you.

Also as much as you dislike it, you cannot ignore the fact that he is been getting way too much results for a low tier. If a perceived good character is getting few result, I am open to believe because he is underplayed(Ike main here, I know that feel at least until Ryo and Ryuga started to become infamous).

But if a supposed bottom tier trash character is getting results there has to be something wrong. He doesn't have the tools, he shouldn't win any MUs, why is he getting results? MU inexperience? No way, Kalm, Verm, GanonTheBeast and some others are placing consistently high(top 8) in their tournies they go. (Kalm outplaced Mew2king in a very big tourney once for godsake).
Skill level? Maybe but you can't prove that considering they face a lot of notable players. Maybe he is a better character than you think he is? Maybe?

Although I have to concede that having a combination of terrible disadvanatage and meh(but workable) neutral aren't the best traits to have, he isn't unviable garbage due to his workable tools and reward that everyone, even Shiek, have to watch out for.

Utilt? Really?

Fsmash has zero threat unless he's in advantage, and we're talking about neutral

Sideb also has next to no threat in neutral. It's reactable (if they don't commit to anything, which you shouldn't against him) unless he's really close to the target, in which case it's super unsafe to be at that range in neutral anyway.

And no, I'm not looking for safe moves on shield. I never said he doesn't have stuff that's safe on shield. When I said he loses to shield I simply meant that he can't get in on someone who shields. Having stuff that's safe is good but it doesn't fix his problem because he still can't threaten you that much. If your shield gets daired or something you can just run away from him and space attacks and let your shield recharge for a bit.

Ganondorf gets better results than Bowser and Charizard because they don't have high level players. Also I've seen some Verm's matches, people aren't playing the match up properly. Versing Ganondorf is kind of like versing Little Mac. If you want to play it properly you stop playing traditional Smash and you degenerate the game into a minigame. It sounds stupid but it's the truth.

Optimal play against Ganondorf for most characters is just moving around and shielding, and occasionally safely zoning with aerials just for the sake of not being too predictable. Then either you punish something on block, or wait for him to commit to something and punish it. Any character with a semblance of mobility or some kind of long ranged punish like a good dash attack or tether grab can do this all day to Ganondorf in neutral.

If you knock him into the air, you pretty much never have to follow him and try aerial him, his landing options are so bad, and his neutral is so terrible it's often not worth the risk. I play DK and sometimes I don't even bother try gimping, despite him being very gimpable. I figure it's not worth the risk when DK destroys him so hard on-stage.

You basically just bait with unpredictable movement and not commit to anything. The reason why this doesn't work on other characters is because they have multiple options that aren't reactable that aren't all countered by the one defensive option.

If you try aerial him in neutral, you're committing unnecessarily. You never have to commit to an option unless it's a punish. I main DK, and the MU is lat least 7-3 for DK, but I still hate playing the MU because of how much conscious effort you have to put into making sure you play differently to how you normally do. The only reason why players like Verm are getting results is because people are playing how they'd play against other characters. If you play against him the way you do against other characters, then yeah he's fine because he actually can earn advantaged state and terroirse you with reads. But if you just play really anal there's nothing he can do.

 

[Nu~]

Yeah I think this matchup is a lot of trouble for Falcon if he stands motionless in the center of the stage and doesn't DI or do anything to stop Pac Man from full hopping on him.

I thought it was interesting that z drop galaxian can chain so well. Never did I imply that the combo was practical or invalidates falcon.

What was your purpose in typing this outside of baseless jest?

 

[Trifroze]

MK is definitely one of the best at edgeguarding but that Falcon was mashing jump and died because of it. Mashing airdodge after the first two dairs instead would've probably saved him. In my opinion when it comes to edgeguarding:

> > > > >

Villager's nair is godlike especially for gimping and fair can be followed up from it or used individually for eating jumps from far away, dair is at best a fast powerful meteor and at worst a lingering disjoint, and bowling ball hits ledge vulnerability and deep recovery attempts killing people at 40%. He's also floaty and can go wherever he wants offstage, for instance he can eat ZSS' flip jump with fair or nair and then screw her tether recovery by just dropping offstage and nairing due to how long it lingers. If there were gimping tiers Villager would be in a tier of his own in my opinion. He's also really good at ledge coverage, right up there with ZSS and Rosalina.

 

[Zelder]

I thought it was interesting that z drop galaxian can chain so well. Never did I imply that the combo was practical or invalidates falcon.

What was your purpose in typing this outside of baseless jest?

I'm just having fun man. Real talk though, those are some pretty combos and if I ever saw it landed in a tournament (probably off a shield break), I'd probably freak out, destroy my laptop in shock, and then dedicate myself to maining PacMan.

 

[LancerStaff]

Surprised we can be talking about edgeguarding and not mention Pit.

Dair is heavily disjointed, very low endlag especially for a spike, and even if you screw up your opponent is likely going to get launched away from the stage at a 60 degree angle.

Fair lingers a while and launches low. Bair is really powerful, especially when tippered. Nair's also got uses offstage for catching airdodges and things like that.

Arrows wreak havoc on characters who rely on horizontal recovery moves or otherwise have "special" Uspecials like Villager or Bowser Jr.

Guardian Orbitars, while somewhat niche in use, it's often against harder to gimp Uspecials such as Ike's or MK's. You can't just aim above the ledge and expect to not get windbox'd into the abyss, either.

If you're planning on going for the ledge, you have a frame 5 Dsmash that hits ledges to deal with. Or if Pit want to be cheeky, he can use the back hit and launch you at a nearly horizontal angle. Dair's also an option since it's not too hard to hit opponents on the ledge, and Fair's good for stage spikes too.

Even if you can land on the stage with your Uspecial, you have Fthrows, Dash Attacks, fox-trot frame 10 Fsmashes, and arrows (namely for dealing with slippery folk like Pikachu or Greninja) to contend with.

 

[meleebrawler]

Mewtwo's edgeguarding is another great aspect of the character. Shadow balls can restrict horizontal recoveries or bait reactions (particularly uncharged ones). Nair is hell on hitboxless recoveries and can cheese low-distance ones by simply dragging them away from the stage. Shadow Claw is Shadow Claw. Bair has huge range, can wall-of-pain when the conditions are right and also makes a great stage spike. If you don't have a fast vertical recovery he can easily get you even if he misses you on the way down.
And of course dair is your typical meteor.

Finally, Mewtwo can go very deep in any direction to do the job (and get back to the stage very quickly with teleport if he goes to the side). Dsmash at the ledge is a last resort or beats reckless ledge grabbers, as does down-angled ftilt.

 

[Mario766]

Link isn't as good at edgeguarding as characters like MK, Villager or even Ike.

All those 'options' you said about Link, Ike does but...better. We also have that really neat option of a 4 second charge move that kills everyone at 60

Oh wait


Eruption. RIGHT!

Yeah, free edgeguards on almost the entire cast! We also have a much better F-Air and B-Air for covering recoveries, and our F-Tilt is much better for hitting fast horizontal recoveries like Fox Side-B. Ike's down tilt hits people far under the stage for ??? reasons, easily getting the 2 frame on recoveries that aren't superb at snapping the ledge. Anyone who goes high gets F-Aired to death.

 

[meleebrawler]

Link isn't as good at edgeguarding as characters like MK, Villager or even Ike.

All those 'options' you said about Link, Ike does but...better. We also have that really neat option of a 4 second charge move that kills everyone at 60

Oh wait


Eruption. RIGHT!

Yeah, free edgeguards on almost the entire cast! We also have a much better F-Air and B-Air for covering recoveries, and our F-Tilt is much better for hitting fast horizontal recoveries like Fox Side-B. Ike's down tilt hits people far under the stage for ??? reasons, easily getting the 2 frame on recoveries that aren't superb at snapping the ledge. Anyone who goes high gets F-Aired to death.

That's kinda hyperbolic. Eruption is only free if your recovery is slow, bad at ledge-snapping and/or limited to grabbing the edge. There's not really a huge portion of the cast with recoveries like that.

 

[Kaladin]

MewTwo has good edge guarding, just like literally every other character in the entire game. Long recoveries were obviously balanced by good edge guarding. MewTwo's edgegaurding isn't top 5 or 10. Maybe top 15.

 

[Routa]

Edgeguarding eh? What make a character good at edeguarding? Low risk high reward? Most of the character named before have indeed rather great options when it comes to edgeguarding, but one question remains... Can they go for deep and make it back on stage untouched?

When people talk about edgeguarding the first character that pops in my mind is Swordfighter. Swordfighter has all the tools you need for edgeguarding. Want to take care of Luigi? Use off-stage counter. Want to stop gimp someones Up-B? Use the cape. Want to take someones jumps away? Use SoL, Chakram or Tornado to interrupt foes recovery. Want to go deep? No problemo mah brah. He/she/thing has multi hit Fair just like Pit(s), Nair that works pretty much like Ike's (expect it is a lot faster), his/her/thing's Dair is simply amazing (no sane man should challenge it) etc.
The thing is Swordfighter has hard time killing normally, but when you go off-stage... oh boy the fun starts. I simply cannot see how Ganondorfs edgeguarding game is better overall.

 

[Kaladin]

Mario766 I'm curious (not trying to be snarky, actually curious) do you have any tournament results or footage of yourself? You make it sound like your Ike regularly wrecks house, but I've never heard of you.

 

[Zelder]

Link isn't as good at edgeguarding as characters like MK, Villager or even Ike.

All those 'options' you said about Link, Ike does but...better. We also have that really neat option of a 4 second charge move that kills everyone at 60

Oh wait


Eruption. RIGHT!

Yeah, free edgeguards on almost the entire cast! We also have a much better F-Air and B-Air for covering recoveries, and our F-Tilt is much better for hitting fast horizontal recoveries like Fox Side-B. Ike's down tilt hits people far under the stage for ??? reasons, easily getting the 2 frame on recoveries that aren't superb at snapping the ledge. Anyone who goes high gets F-Aired to death.

You talk about Ike like he's far and away the #1 character in this game.

 

[Tri Knight]

Link isn't as good at edgeguarding as characters like MK, Villager or even Ike.

All those 'options' you said about Link, Ike does but...better. We also have that really neat option of a 4 second charge move that kills everyone at 60

Oh wait


Eruption. RIGHT!

Yeah, free edgeguards on almost the entire cast! We also have a much better F-Air and B-Air for covering recoveries, and our F-Tilt is much better for hitting fast horizontal recoveries like Fox Side-B. Ike's down tilt hits people far under the stage for ??? reasons, easily getting the 2 frame on recoveries that aren't superb at snapping the ledge. Anyone who goes high gets F-Aired to death.

Right right I forgot, Ike is god tier now isnt he... he does it all.

Anyway, everything you said Ike can do Link can do. Fox's side-b? Really? Like Link can't just throw out HIS F-tilt or any of his moves and do the same thing. You're F-air covers high recoveries. That's great. But Link's N-air does the same thing, but high and low. Sweetspotting can kill and sour is enough to gimp someone. And lasts a lot longer.

You got eruption for low recoveries. That's also a very good move in ways. But Link also has D-air which can be used to sit just above the ledge to either rack damage, kill at kill percents, or even stage spike. Ike's Eruption is all about timing and even then it's tough to land on characters with good recovery.

So I think Link's 'options' are just fine.

 

[Kaladin]

Ike is high tier imo, mayyyyyyyyyyyyyybe even top 10, but he's objectively worse than ZSS, Sheik, etc. Simple as that.

 

[Mazdamaxsti]

When people talk about the best characters to edge-guard, I always mention Kirby's d-air. Because Kirby's gimping is not that great but his D-air is literally one of the best moves in the entire game for edge-guarding. It lasts long, combos into a footstool or even another d-air, disjointed, and you can fastfall it when they're trapped to take it your opponent down with.

Kirby's d-air foostool is THE best edge-guard combo in the game, no exaggeration (D-smash flip kick isnt really an edge-guard before you tell me it is) here are two examples:

http://www.twitch.tv/xyrohip/v/21022301?t=1h54m46s (wasnt uploaded to YT) here I'm facing a Roy, mess up my edge-guard, but I catch his up-b with a d-air at 40% and he is dead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQraGcnd1Uo&t=2m34s Against a Link on Anthers, I finally even up the game, and a single airdodge bait after an f-throw at 36%.

Both these characters have sub-par recoveries, but look at how far down the d-air footstool puts them. Most of the cast would die to this. On my computer I have a Rosa clip where I got the 15% gimp on her. If the footstool is too risky, just hop again and hope to catch their recovery (works really well on pit, rosa, and duck hunt)

 

[Zelder]

Ike is high tier imo, mayyyyyyyyyyyyyybe even top 10, but he's objectively worse than ZSS, Sheik, etc. Simple as that.

I wouldn't feel comfortable putting him in top 10, but I would feel comfortable putting him in top 15.

But top x is a silly argument, Ike is doing great work right now with great mains and that's pretty important. I dream of a world where every character has a series of mains that bring out their potential on the big stage so that we finally see that nothing can be done with Shulk no matter how much people try