Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Wintropy]

Now I can only picture you speaking like Dark Pit.

Still...
Despite that people still play said characters whether others think of them of unviable or not. Maybe they want to develop them or be the best with that character. Why doesn't everyone just use Sheik if she's regarded as the best character in a competitive level? (as of now)

There's the patches as well but I'm guessing some people like putting in the extra work at times.

I liked this just for the Dark Pit thing, heh~ ;3

I've spoken about this before, but yeah, there's no accounting for taste. And just because she's bad doesn't mean people shouldn't use her; she just has way fewer options than others and therefore isn't the best or most convenient choice for competitive play. People will and should play the characters they want to, but it's healthy to know when your character is competitively weaker than everybody else.

 

[Nu~]

Can we talk about bowser Jr.?

What are your opinions on him? I see him being tossed in mid tier to bottom tier, but no one ever says why. May it be a case of special snowflake syndrome?

 

[C0rvus]

I mean, on paper he's not good. Poor grab with no followups. Mediocre neutral. But he has some decent setups and reward on certain hits, good recovery and is on the heavier side. Also Tweek has some results and is a super cool player, so it's hard to watch him play and put the character in low tier (Also Vicegrip). He's likely floating in the massive group of middle of the pack characters, more towards the bottom imo.

 

[Green L]

It's probably not a huge deal cause her air speed is still really good, but it's just one more thing that contributes to her inferiority compared to the rest of the cast. If they're not gonna center her around a few extremely good tools, then in toning down her ridiculous strengths they should've improved her weak points to make her a more all-around character. But they didn't buff her in other areas to make up for the powerful tools she lost, so instead of being centered around a few strong options she has to make due with a larger amount of bad to mediocre options.

No, jigglypuff's airspeed isn't best but it's far better than luigi's, kirby's and D3's. Jigglypuff isn't bad at anything she's isn't in melee. Melee jigglypuff had setups into rest. That's the ONLY difference between the two. Both Jiggs spam back air but sm4sh jigglypuff has to work harder to edgeguard. Jigglypuff can still edgeguard a huge chunk of the cast in sm4sh you just need to put in more effort. You acting like Jiggs was nerfed big time like Brawl MY to smash 4 MK but the reality is jigglypuff plays nearly the same as she did in melee

 

[Y2Kay]

Hows his aerial speed compared to hers?

I sense your getting smart with me
It's about the same as Link's, so not so great.

 

[Project Quarantine]

I mean, on paper he's not good. Poor grab with no followups. Mediocre neutral. But he has some decent setups and reward on certain hits, good recovery and is on the heavier side. Also Tweek has some results and is a super cool player, so it's hard to watch him play and put the character in low tier (Also Vicegrip). He's likely floating in the massive group of middle of the pack characters, more towards the bottom imo.

I agree with this, but it isn't just the lack of grab follow ups that hold him back. Bowser jr write-up:

He has trouble killing when he can't get an early setup, like Kart->UpB hammer (with rage can kill as early as 60% on floaties and light characters). Upsmash is fast, but when the opponent is safe, it requires a decent read. Bair and fsmash are also good options both onstage and for edgeguarding, and fair will eventually kill.

Junior has major approaching issues against the likes of rosalina, sheik, toon link, villager, megaman, olimar and even ZSS especially. This is the result of clown kart being considerably more vulnerable and less mobile than spindash, for example. If jr is walled out and the opponent isn't confused by mecha, the matchup becomes very unfavorable.

In advantage:

He can exploit numerous recoveries with above average edgeguarding with setups like dthrown mecha to side-b spin, something vicegrip is known for well. At the ledge, his option coverage is arguably in the top 3 most potent in the game when mecha walks around (that is, if you are not rosa or villager). He has 2 strong multihit smashes, great aerial disjoint and combo potential, and a large upb kart hitbox to accompany the walking toy.

Bowser Jr can bait shields exceptionally well with great pressure options in neutral such as kart and mecha, allowing for grabs. These grabs grant stage control and can catalyze the aforementioned ledge setups. He also has a solid pummel and great throw %s for good damage in general.

To conclude:

Junior has a very limited neutral and disadvanataged stance, allowing many high and top tier characters to overwhelm him offensively or shut him down defensively. He aldo has some killer mus like rosalina and villager, which often require a secondary at the top level. However, his ledge and combo games both stand out amongst the cast, molding the koopa kid into a polarizing character. For these reasons, I like to call him a "niche" character that requires 1 or more secondaries to compete at the top level as a main.

Tl;dr: he ok

 

[Baby_Sneak]

I agree with this, but it isn't just the lack of grab follow ups that hold him back. Bowser jr write-up:

He has trouble killing when he can't get an early setup, like Kart->UpB hammer (with rage can kill as early as 60% on floaties and light characters). Upsmash is fast, but when the opponent is safe, it requires a decent read. Bair and fsmash are also good options both onstage and for edgeguarding, and fair will eventually kill.

Junior has major approaching issues against the likes of rosalina, sheik, toon link, villager, megaman, olimar and even ZSS especially. This is the result of clown kart being considerably more vulnerable and less mobile than spindash, for example. If jr is walled out and the opponent isn't confused by mecha, the matchup becomes very unfavorable.

In advantage:

He can exploit numerous recoveries with above average edgeguarding with setups like dthrown mecha to side-b spin, something vicegrip is known for well. At the ledge, his option coverage is arguably in the top 3 most potent in the game when mecha walks around (that is, if you are not rosa or villager). He has 2 strong multihit smashes, great aerial disjoint and combo potential, and a large upb kart hitbox to accompany the walking toy.

Bowser Jr can bait shields exceptionally well with great pressure options in neutral such as kart and mecha, allowing for grabs. These grabs grant stage control and can catalyze the aforementioned ledge setups. He also has a solid pummel and great throw %s for good damage in general.

To conclude:

Junior has a very limited neutral and disadvanataged stance, allowing many high and top tier characters to overwhelm him offensively or shut him down defensively. He aldo has some killer mus like rosalina and villager, which often require a secondary at the top level. However, his ledge and combo games both stand out amongst the cast, molding the koopa kid into a polarizing character. For these reasons, I like to call him a "niche" character that requires 1 or more secondaries to compete at the top level as a main.

Tl;dr: he ok

what exactly makes his neutral basic? don't most of his normals have disjoints and decent to ok startup?

 

[UberMadman]

People seem to forget that Tweek made top 32 at EVO, a customs-on tournament, using exclusively Bowser Jr., who has crap customs. He's definitely one of the lesser characters in the game but played to his strengths he's certainly usable. What holds him back is awful matchups against the highest tier characters in the game, but his decent mobility, combo game, and disjointed kill moves gives him workable matchups aginst the majority of the cast. Just outside the bottom 10, most likely.

what exactly makes his neutral basic? don't most of his normals have disjoints and decent to ok startup?

He's highly reliant on Mechakoopa frame traps and setups, which become invalidated against characters like Rosalina and Villager, among others. He is also overly reliant on his Kart for setups into his aerials, and so his approach is very limited. He also lacks some tools that a lot of characters rely on in their neutral game due to a poor jab and poor oos options.

 

[FlynnCL]

No, jigglypuff's airspeed isn't best but it's far better than luigi's, kirby's and D3's. Jigglypuff isn't bad at anything she's isn't in melee. Melee jigglypuff had setups into rest. That's the ONLY difference between the two. Both Jiggs spam back air but sm4sh jigglypuff has to work harder to edgeguard. Jigglypuff can still edgeguard a huge chunk of the cast in sm4sh you just need to put in more effort. You acting like Jiggs was nerfed big time like Brawl MY to smash 4 MK but the reality is jigglypuff plays nearly the same as she did in melee

Yet her smash attacks and Rest are far weaker than in Melee. Heck, up-smash and down-smash are weaker than they were in Brawl. Her grounded KO power has suffered tremendously, so she has to work harder there too. Losing jab resets from Brawl and Melee sucks too.

Her aerials are far slower, especially up-air and back-air. You can't perform two back-airs, up-airs or forward-airs in a short hop yet it was possible in Brawl. This makes her aerial game far less threatening to me.

Her back-air range in Smash 4 is nothing compared to Melee where it was heavily disjointed. Coupled with her worsened mobility and back-air itself having significant speed nerfs it's no longer the safe spacing move it once was. It's not a good move when it takes 40 frame to end, is active for only 2 frames and can barely outrange anything while extending your hurtbox.

Jigglypuff's most important aspects (mobility, safe aerials, edge guarding and Rest) have all seen significant nerfs as she went to Brawl and now Smash 4. Everything she was good at has been toned down to a point where other fighters can do what she does better.

She may still be forced to stick with a similar game plan than Melee as her moveset is yet to change, but the nerfs have almost wiped out its effectiveness and is why I believe she's easily one of the worst fighters in the game (if not the worst). She's just poorly designed at this point.

 

[Nobie]

I swear that Rest is easier to hit outside of combos in Smash 4 compared to Melee.

 

[Thinkaman]

I guess I have to talk about Jiggs, since I'm uniquely qualified to do so.

I played only Jiggs in Melee, was considered for a few years to be the best Jiggs in Brawl (a half-joke title, since no one played Jiggs), and at least won one local tourney in Smash 4 with Jiggs.

I don't want to get into a data dump comparing all 3 Jiggs, but I'll try to cover the high level stuff.

In all three games, Jigglypuff is an aerial-focused character dependent almost exclusively on spacing, who has a f1-invincible wild-card kill move in the form of Rest. Her ground game revolves around high-damage throws and a formidable dash attack. She suffers intensely at being out-disjointed, and her handful-of-aerials-moveset is impacted more intensely by stale moves than any other character. Sing, d-tilt, and d-smash are not actually moves, just extra taunts.

Melee Jiggs is a pretty broken cheese character with abusive edgeguarding, insta-kill Rest combos, and hardcore planking potential. I think the other top characters are clearly better, but these 3 aspects are so borked that Jigglypuff will never not be viable (at all levels of play) in Melee.

Brawl Jiggs had Rest neutered to the point of uselessness in most matchups, though it was still useful against MK, Diddy, and as a hail mary against the likes of G&W. Bair WoP was ruined by the changes in knockback, the reduction in hitstun, and the new air dodge, but it was still workable against Snake. Fair became an all-purpose spacing and KO move. Rollout was no longer helpless off-stage, and was a shockingly okay move in advantage and off-stage recovery situations. DACUS, a great dash grab, and decent roll options gave her a workable defensive ground game. She also had a very situational but plausible jab-lock. Jiggs was unambiguously one of the worst characters in Brawl, but more viable than probably any of her bottom-tier peers due to shockingly decent matchups against MK, ICs, and Diddy, the latter of which she actually countered. In her worst matchups, Jigglypuff relied on Pound's priority as a crutch--able to win virtually any exchange with a hard read.

Smash 4 Jiggs, first off, is without a doubt overall better than Brawl Jiggs.

• She favors more hitstun.
• Bair hits like a truck, and has the insane 13% 100kbg hitbox that Sheik fair had in Melee.
• Fair is no longer doing double duty as her primary spacing tool and only aerial KO option.
• Nair is more useful than ever.
• More recoveries are back in the gimpable range, while her recovery is still solid.
• Rest is worth using again, even if it's not broken.
• Roster-wide nerfs to disjointedness, her true bane. (Her worst matchups were G&W, Marth, Snake, Olimar...)
• Shield nerfs make Pound super scary!

Obviously, as many have said, it's not all good though. In fact, there's tons of bad things:

• Her moveset is slower and less spamable, especially bair.
• No DACUS.
• No ledge-hogging, which favored her quite a bit.
• Significant reduction in Pound's travel distance, neutering it as a trump card.
• Significant reduction in rising Pound's vertical gain, hurting her recovery quite a bit.
• Rollout bounces off shields, making it truly useless as a recovery option in all matchups.
• Dash grab distance nerfed.
• Jab-lock removed.
• Safety of air-dodging into the ground, an option that meant more to her than others, was killed.
• Non-star-KOs off top are more common. (Affects Rest safety)
• Vertical KOs are more dominant in the meta. (And Jigglypuff's gravity is the least.)
• Rage. (Relatively helps heavies and hurts lightweights)
• Her customs are garbage.

Ultimately, Jigglypuff lost a lot of options, but her fundamentals were overall improved substantially from Brawl--and this is a case where fundamentals outweigh gimmicks. I can promise you, from my pitiful position of a premier Brawl Jigglypuff player, that Jigglypuff is a better character with better overall matchup ratios in the Smash 4 environment, even if she's not particularly good and I frankly dislike playing her.

I think people underestimate the wild-card potential that Rest has. People will say "oh, but Ganon is always 3 reads away from a win, can we ever truly dismiss that?" I mean, I think Ganon is underrated, but uh... yeah, we can. (Did you play Brawl?)

But Rest, as a f1 invincible move, that does great damage and KOs pretty early? Frankly, no, I don't think we can ever fully dismiss that. In Brawl we more or less could, but in Smash 4 I don't buy it; the KO potential is too real.


It wouldn't be hard at all to make Jiggs good or even broken in Smash 4. Turning the timing dials on bair would go a long way, as would reverting distances on Pound. I'd like to see fixes to Rollout myself--both no bouncing off shields, and the changes we did in BBrawl. (IASA on bounce, allow interrupt by pivot grab at end of reversal)

DACUS is missed, but I don't think Jigglypuff actually has a fundamental issue with away rolls. Similarly, I don't see slow jump squat as an issue; you are supposed to want to stay in the air as Jigglypuff, it's mechanically consistent for the transitions to be something you seek to avoid. I'd sooner improve dash attack and her aerials to improve her in either of these areas respectively.


Stop talking about Sing. Yes, Sing is useless, but the game is better off for it. A Smash Bros. in which Sing is a good move is a bad game, it's the type of move that is destined to be either useless or heavily abusive, and frankly just shouldn't exist.

Also stop talking about Yoshi's air speed somehow making Jigglypuff worse. Yoshi's airspeed only affects Jigglypuff in one matchup, and that's Yoshi. Yoshi has better max horizontal air speed than Jigglypuff, but is worse in every other category. Wario has better horizontal acceleration too, but is also worse in every other category.

Jigglypuff is still the overall aerial movement queen, and arguing over isolated exceptions is avoiding the real question of "Why isn't Smash 4 Jigglypuff able to leverage her aerial mobility advantage into a potent neutral?"

 

[Nobie]

I guess I have to talk about Jiggs, since I'm uniquely qualified to do so.

I played only Jiggs in Melee, was considered for a few years to be the best Jiggs in Brawl (a half-joke title, since no one played Jiggs), and at least won one local tourney in Smash 4 with Jiggs.

I don't want to get into a data dump comparing all 3 Jiggs, but I'll try to cover the high level stuff.

In all three games, Jigglypuff is an aerial-focused character dependent almost exclusively on spacing, who has a f1-invincible wild-card kill move in the form of Rest. Her ground game revolves around high-damage throws and a formidable dash attack. She suffers intensely at being out-disjointed, and her handful-of-aerials-moveset is impacted more intensely by stale moves than any other character. Sing, d-tilt, and d-smash are not actually moves, just extra taunts.

Melee Jiggs is a pretty broken cheese character with abusive edgeguarding, insta-kill Rest combos, and hardcore planking potential. I think the other top characters are clearly better, but these 3 aspects are so borked that Jigglypuff will never not be viable (at all levels of play) in Melee.

Brawl Jiggs had Rest neutered to the point of uselessness in most matchups, though it was still useful against MK, Diddy, and as a hail mary against the likes of G&W. Bair WoP was ruined by the changes in knockback, the reduction in hitstun, and the new air dodge, but it was still workable against Snake. Fair became an all-purpose spacing and KO move. Rollout was no longer helpless off-stage, and was a shockingly okay move in advantage and off-stage recovery situations. DACUS, a great dash grab, and decent roll options gave her a workable defensive ground game. She also had a very situational but plausible jab-lock. Jiggs was unambiguously one of the worst characters in Brawl, but more viable than probably any of her bottom-tier peers due to shockingly decent matchups against MK, ICs, and Diddy, the latter of which she actually countered. In her worst matchups, Jigglypuff relied on Pound's priority as a crutch--able to win virtually any exchange with a hard read.

Smash 4 Jiggs, first off, is without a doubt overall better than Brawl Jiggs.

• She favors more hitstun.
• Bair hits like a truck, and has the insane 13% 100kbg hitbox that Sheik fair had in Melee.
• Fair is no longer doing double duty as her primary spacing tool and only aerial KO option.
• Nair is more useful than ever.
• More recoveries are back in the gimpable range, while her recovery is still solid.
• Rest is worth using again, even if it's not broken.
• Roster-wide nerfs to disjointedness, her true bane. (Her worst matchups were G&W, Marth, Snake, Olimar...)
• Shield nerfs make Pound super scary!

Obviously, as many have said, it's not all good though. In fact, there's tons of bad things:

• Her moveset is slower and less spamable, especially bair.
• No DACUS.
• No ledge-hogging, which favored her quite a bit.
• Significant reduction in Pound's travel distance, neutering it as a trump card.
• Significant reduction in rising Pound's vertical gain, hurting her recovery quite a bit.
• Rollout bounces off shields, making it truly useless as a recovery option in all matchups.
• Dash grab distance nerfed.
• Jab-lock removed.
• Safety of air-dodging into the ground, an option that meant more to her than others, was killed.
• Non-star-KOs off top are more common. (Affects Rest safety)
• Vertical KOs are more dominant in the meta. (And Jigglypuff's gravity is the least.)
• Rage. (Relatively helps heavies and hurts lightweights)
• Her customs are garbage.

Ultimately, Jigglypuff lost a lot of options, but her fundamentals were overall improved substantially from Brawl--and this is a case where fundamentals outweigh gimmicks. I can promise you, from my pitiful position of a premier Brawl Jigglypuff player, that Jigglypuff is a better character with better overall matchup ratios in the Smash 4 environment, even if she's not particularly good and I frankly dislike playing her.

I think people underestimate the wild-card potential that Rest has. People will say "oh, but Ganon is always 3 reads away from a win, can we ever truly dismiss that?" I mean, I think Ganon is underrated, but uh... yeah, we can. (Did you play Brawl?)

But Rest, as a f1 invincible move, that does great damage and KOs pretty early? Frankly, no, I don't think we can ever fully dismiss that. In Brawl we more or less could, but in Smash 4 I don't buy it; the KO potential is too real.


It wouldn't be hard at all to make Jiggs good or even broken in Smash 4. Turning the timing dials on bair would go a long way, as would reverting distances on Pound. I'd like to see fixes to Rollout myself--both no bouncing off shields, and the changes we did in BBrawl. (IASA on bounce, allow interrupt by pivot grab at end of reversal)

DACUS is missed, but I don't think Jigglypuff actually has a fundamental issue with away rolls. Similarly, I don't see slow jump squat as an issue; you are supposed to want to stay in the air as Jigglypuff, it's mechanically consistent for the transitions to be something you seek to avoid. I'd sooner improve dash attack and her aerials to improve her in either of these areas respectively.


Stop talking about Sing. Yes, Sing is useless, but the game is better off for it. A Smash Bros. in which Sing is a good move is a bad game, it's the type of move that is destined to be either useless or heavily abusive, and frankly just shouldn't exist.

Also stop talking about Yoshi's air speed somehow making Jigglypuff worse. Yoshi's airspeed only affects Jigglypuff in one matchup, and that's Yoshi. Yoshi has better max horizontal air speed than Jigglypuff, but is worse in every other category. Wario has better horizontal acceleration too, but is also worse in every other category.

Jigglypuff is still the overall aerial movement queen, and arguing over isolated exceptions is avoiding the real question of "Why isn't Smash 4 Jigglypuff able to leverage her aerial mobility advantage into a potent neutral?"

I've noticed that Jigglypuff players in Smash 4 do more things on the ground than one would expect from Jigglypuff, and even in my dabblings I find myself sticking to the ground more. Is there something to this? Is it just that dash attack is legitimately good, or that run up + rest actually works sometimes as a punish?

 

[Trifroze]

You acting like Jiggs was nerfed big time like Brawl MY to smash 4 MK but the reality is jigglypuff plays nearly the same as she did in melee

That's true, in the transition from Brawl to Smash 4 MK went from 1st to ~10th, and Jigglypuff only dropped from 3rd last to approximately dead last !

Both Jiggs spam back air but sm4sh jigglypuff has to work harder to edgeguard. Jigglypuff can still edgeguard a huge chunk of the cast in sm4sh you just need to put in more effort.

Effort in the context of Smash amounts to better reads and timings with your attacks, so more effort than before means you need to be better than your opponent to get the same result as before. This is literally the definition of a nerf, the character can still achieve the same result as before but only if you make up for their weakened tools with more effort. Brawl Ganondorf can achieve the same result as Brawl MK, but the amount of extra effort required for that is inhumanely massive.

 

[Thinkaman]

I've noticed that Jigglypuff players in Smash 4 do more things on the ground than one would expect from Jigglypuff, and even in my dabblings I find myself sticking to the ground more. Is there something to this? Is it just that dash attack is legitimately good, or that run up + rest actually works sometimes as a punish?

I've heard this before, but it has not been my experience.

The better I got with Jigglypuff in Brawl, the more I leveraged her ground moveset--be it dash attack, u-tilt, DACUS, Ganon-style f-smash reads, or doubling down on dash grabs. It was important to minimize the impact of stale moves on my standard aerial options. (To this day I am normally very good about "counting cards" and knowing exactly what is in my stale moves list at all times, a skill that came purely from playing Brawl Jigglypuff competitively.)

In Smash 4, maybe I'm just faking it and don't actually understand the character, but I just do tons of fairs, bairs, and especially nairs. Coming from Brawl, it feels like that basic core game is just more workable--even with bair trading speed for (absurd) power.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Well, since you're apparently back to some level Thinkaman:

Thoughts on upping the shield damage on Jigglypuff's Dair/Fair as a way to try to buff her?

 

[Thinkaman]

Well, since you're apparently back to some level Thinkaman:

Thoughts on upping the shield damage on Jigglypuff's Dair/Fair as a way to try to buff her?

Jesus that was creepy. I literally went to the kitchen to get a snack, and thought "Shield damage on Jigglypuff's aerials is probably a better way to help her than timing tweaks, since it really does appear to boil down to a shield problem."

That said:

• I'm concerned about making Jigglypuff this one-dimensional shield-break-is-life character.
• Shield damage on both of those is fine, but why not bair? That'd be my first place to look at adding shield pressure.

Also, all her shield problems stem from her dash grab nerf, just saying.

 

[wedl!!]

When talking about Jigglypuff, one needs to remember how she gets absolutely destroyed by defensive play. It's not even just shields (where her only response is stupid gimmick shield breaks). Rolls and walling characters basically shut her down.

Also please god don't make her centralized around shield breaks. We REALLY don't need that in this game.

 

[Thinkaman]

When talking about Jigglypuff, one needs to remember how she gets absolutely destroyed by defensive play. It's not even just shields (where her only response is stupid gimmick shield breaks). Rolls and walling characters basically shut her down.

I'm not so sure about rolls. Inward rolls seem transparently bad against Smash 4 Jigglypuff, what with bair and Rest existing.

Meanwhile, I know away rolls has come up a lot--Jigglypuff has neither the dash speed nor projectiles to punish away rolls, so they get to do them willy-nilly.

But... as a long-time Jigglypuff main... in no Smash game do I give a crap about someone rolling away from me as Jigglypuff. I'm just going to... float after them and continue the status quo--which is still a bad neutral but hasn't really gotten worse in any way as a result of our shuffle. If they want to roll all the way to the edge, sweet, works for me!

I'm more irritated with away rolls as someone like Robin, where even if I have a clear answer to them, it still "beats" much of what I want to ordinarily do.

 

[UberMadman]

Also please god don't make her centralized around shield breaks. We REALLY don't need that in this game.

Come on, don't lie, this would make Jiggs dittos the most entertaining sets ever.

 

[Thinkaman]

Come on, don't lie, this would make Jiggs dittos the most entertaining sets ever.

A ranking of the top 3 least enjoyable Smash matchups of all time, starting with the worst:

1. Brawl Jiggs ditto.
2. Melee Jiggs ditto.
3. Smash 4 Jiggs ditto.

 

[wedl!!]

If you really wanted an unenjoyable MU, you could always have Kirby or Bowser against spacies in Melee. Lazers going across the screen for 4 minutes isn't exactly entertaining.

 

[Trifroze]

When we talk about new mechanics helping Jigglypuff and making her better that way, isn't that the case for basically every character in the game, especially Brawl low tiers, and some much more than others? New ledge mechanics, removal of chaingrabbing and additional hitstun alone moved someone like Falcon from bottom to highly viable, although dash grab and new uair angle are also to thank, but at the same time he lost a couple good autocancels. On the other hand, with Jigglypuff still mostly relying on dishing out single hits and previously benefitting from bad recoveries and effectively not being chaingrabbable (although there was some grab release jank), I'd argue she's among the characters who least benefit from the mechanic changes, so relative to the rest of the cast she's as bad as before, and that's what ultimately matters.

 

[Wintermelon43]

VS. is boring in Smash 64

Staticmanny VS. Ally at EVO 2015 was boring as crap too.

 

[wedl!!]

I instantly regret making that post, because I know now this is going to become a debate of boring MUs/sets.

Oh god.

still partially on you, thinkaman, but even so I feel I started this by responding to that

 

[DblCrest]

A ranking of the top 3 least enjoyable Smash matchups of all time, starting with the worst:

1. Brawl Jiggs ditto.
2. Melee Jiggs ditto.
3. Smash 4 Jiggs ditto.

I found it entertaining watching dittos with two Level 9 Jiggz . The sound it makes whenever their Nair connects is a distinct *WHACK* and they do that to eachother over and over. . Since they counter just about every attack with that.So yea the match up is totally whack. (*brick'd*)

Anyway
I really don't like how she is now :x
Rest set ups are still 'kinda' there mostly Oos or crouching into rest after dodging grabs.I recall someone made a video showing set ups for jumping rest one of her customs if you throw or juggle the open in the air .So what's Jigglypuff's 'best' match ups in Smash Wii U and Pocket Smash?

 

[Thinkaman]

When we talk about new mechanics helping Jigglypuff and making her better that way, isn't that the case for basically every character in the game, especially Brawl low tiers, and some much more than others? New ledge mechanics, removal of chaingrabbing and additional hitstun alone moved someone like Falcon from bottom to highly viable, although dash grab and new uair angle are also to thank, but at the same time he lost a couple good autocancels. On the other hand, with Jigglypuff still mostly relying on dishing out single hits and previously benefitting from bad recoveries and effectively not being chaingrabbable (although there was some grab release jank), I'd argue she's among the characters who least benefit from the mechanic changes, so relative to the rest of the cast she's as bad as before, and that's what ultimately matters.

I mean, it varies on an individual basis for each mechanical change, and it's all relative.

Removal of ledgehogging hurt some (like jigglypuff) and helped some (like falcon).
Addition of air dodge landing lag hurt some (like jigglypuff) and helped some (like ganon).
Nerfs to disjointed hurt some (like marth) and helped some (like jigglypuff).
Nerfs to projectile spam helped some (like bowser/ganon) and hurt some (like falco).
Rage helped some (like bowser/DK) and hurt some (like jigglypuff/sheik).
Removal of chain grabs and release crap helped some (like ness/fox/wario) and hurt some (like DDD/bowser/pikachu).
Increased hitstun helped some (like falcon/jigglypuff/yoshi/diddy/mario/luigi), hurt some (bowser/ganon/DDD), and gave others a sharply mixed bag (MK/sheik/peach/ness).

It's a very complex equation to sum up overall changes between the game, especially when they are all relative, all debatable, and all only viewable in the context of the final game to begin with.

 

[wedl!!]

Removal of CG and releases didn't hurt Marth? wat.

 

[Thinkaman]

Removal of CG and releases didn't hurt Marth? wat.

Those 1-3 character example lists were not comprehensive.

I instantly regret making that post, because I know now this is going to become a debate of boring MUs/sets.

Oh god.

still partially on you, thinkaman, but even so I feel I started this by responding to that

I tried infracting myself, but it wouldn't let me.

 

[wedl!!]

Well obviously they're not comprehensive, but Brawl Marth is the poster child of that sort of thing.

Also Jiggly apparently has a good Sheik MU because she can punish Fair on perfect shield with a rest or something else entirely stupid and unfounded. Maybe it's her crouch. IDK really.

 

[Thinkaman]

I'm starting to think that the best solution to Smash 4 Jigglypuff would actually just be to buff her max horizontal aerial speed up a bit (and maaaaybe acceleration?), doubling down further on aerial mobility.

What this would primarily do is enable her to follow knockback (of fair/bair) at wider %s, especially against lightweight characters who are sent farther relative to the hitstun they receive. Mid-% deep-fair-to-rest combos (following DI) would open up on more characters rather than just heavies.

It would also address away roll chasing concerns people have, and shore up her neutral game by focusing on her mobility asymmetry. Buffing acceleration vs. max speed is really just a matter of how much you want to push her neutral in a Wario-like direction.

 

[Y2Kay]

Would talking about About Competitive Smash in theoretical terms (What if? Subjects) allowed on this thread, or is there a dedicated thread for that? I'm not against it, But the subject seems to be a stand alone thing, and could congest this page. But hey, what do I know?

 

[Thinkaman]

This is the appropriate place for that, with some caveats. (Which we'll be clarifying and formalizing very soon!)

This gist is, we want discussion to always tie back to the real game, and never spiral down a rabbit hole of alternate universe hypotheticals.

For example, these past few posts of hypothetical changes to Jigglypuff have remained firmly rooted in a discussion of "What are Jigglypuff's problems in Smash 4? What tools does she have, what tools are missing or insufficient, and how can players fighting against Jigglypuff exploit that?"

Considering hypotheticals is fun, but only useful as long as it provides an educational reflection back into reality. It should keep the discussion going, not divert it.

 

[Trifroze]

I mean, it varies on an individual basis for each mechanical change, and it's all relative.

Removal of ledgehogging hurt some (like jigglypuff) and helped some (like falcon).
Addition of air dodge landing lag hurt some (like jigglypuff) and helped some (like ganon).
Nerfs to disjointed hurt some (like marth) and helped some (like jigglypuff).
Nerfs to projectile spam helped some (like bowser/ganon) and hurt some (like falco).
Rage helped some (like bowser/DK) and hurt some (like jigglypuff/sheik).
Removal of chain grabs and release crap helped some (like ness/fox/wario) and hurt some (like DDD/bowser/pikachu).
Increased hitstun helped some (like falcon/jigglypuff/yoshi/diddy/mario/luigi), hurt some (bowser/ganon/DDD), and gave others a sharply mixed bag (MK/sheik/peach/ness).

It's a very complex equation to sum up overall changes between the game, especially when they are all relative, all debatable, and all only viewable in the context of the final game to begin with.

Agree, although my point is that if you were trying to validate why Jigglypuff is better in this game than in Brawl for instance, then "new mechanics" is a quite vague argument for that since it applies to most characters that were seen as bad in Brawl. Although it's complex, the new mechanics remove extremes and tie characters together more, making top characters less abusive and bottom characters less abusable thus creating better balance. In this sense Jigglypuff is a better character but so is Ganondorf and even Zelda. If there were 5 entire tiers (A, B, C, D, E) between top and bottom tiers in Brawl, it's now more like 2-3. Relative to other characters however I'd claim Jigglypuff remains about as bad as she was in Brawl, and that is most likely what some people have meant here when saying Jigglypuff is worse or as bad as before, because better overall situation for every underwhelming character due to better balance should be obvious at this point.

 

[Thinkaman]

Agree, although my point is that if you were trying to validate why Jigglypuff is better in this game than in Brawl for instance, then "new mechanics" is a quite vague argument for that since it applies to most characters that were seen as bad in Brawl. Although it's complex, the new mechanics remove extremes and tie characters together more, making top characters less abusive and bottom characters less abusable thus creating better balance. In this sense Jigglypuff is a better character but so is Ganondorf and even Zelda. If there were 5 entire tiers (A, B, C, D, E) between top and bottom tiers in Brawl, it's now more like 2-3. Relative to other characters however I'd claim Jigglypuff remains about as bad as she was in Brawl, and that is most likely what some people have meant here when saying Jigglypuff is worse or as bad as before, because better overall situation for every underwhelming character due to better balance should be obvious at this point.

Sorry, allow me to clarify.

I am not saying that I think Jigglypuff's relative positioning within the roster (in any terms) is superior in Smash 4 vs. Brawl. (I don't know either way.)

I am asserting that Jigglypuff in Smash 4 is a "better" character than in Brawl in the raw sense that if you required someone to play Jigglypuff, they would usually win more in Smash 4 than Brawl. (aka matchup ratios are on average better)

 

[Ffamran]

I thought Samus' bottom trash stigma was long gone?

You only need to mention Link or Zelda and BOOYAH! instant low or bottom tiers. Even in a balanced as hell fighting game, KoF XIII had Leona labeled the worst character by top players and that's saying a lot when low tier in KoF XIII is the equivalent to like, mid to mid-high tier in Smash. Leona (at that time and probably continues today) never lived that down and it really sucks when her damage output is on par with Shen, a character play purely for his damage output.

Characters once labeled, will never live it down no matter how balanced or in Smash 4's case as patches are a new concept, even through patches, characters can still drop tiers. Remember when Charizard was buffed, but according to (mostly) the public, he was even worse off? What kind of log- Oh wait, there's no logic. Oh, and worst case scenario: they get overhyped so badly that people never realize they're that bad or they're not really that good. People thought Falco suddenly became mid-tier or even high tier because his Nair connects properly, his Fair was 2 frames faster, and his Uair became ZSS's in function. Yeah, that +1 to our already good aerials and air combat is great when we still have a -10 to our zoning (in)capabilities. Or how despite Meta Knight being relatively fine outside of dumb hitboxes, he was always capable of Space Shuttling you for a 1 time payment of death.

a good recovery for Mac

Never going to happen. Not for FFA, 8v8, 6v6, 4v4, 3v3, 2v2, 1v1, or even 1v0 if that somehow existed. The point of Little Mac is be an extremely polarized character. In other fighting games even with an emphasis on or existence of air combat, Little Mac would perform much, much better. Case in point: Balrog, Vanessa, and Steve Fox. Why? Because boxing and extremely good standup game is just a style. Boxing, Jeet Kune Do, Tae Kwon Do, Muay Thai, and Sambo are all just (play) styles that do not harm a character in other fighting games. It's like if Little Mac was just a fighter with no projectiles or real way to get in, but when he's in, he's going to do damage and that's perfectly fine in other fighting games. Little Mac would not care if projectiles sent him flying across the stage or could rain hellfire too high up and/or far away for him to duck or even jump over. In Smash? Yeah, you've essentially made Melee Falco, but not broken and even more pathetic off-stage.

What's not fine? Dr. Mario's really pitiful recovery moves. Not (overall) recovery, but recovery moves. His Super Jump Punch seems to travel even shorter because his jump's already low and then you have other low jumpers like Ike, Roy, and Ganondorf with much better vertical recovery on their Up Specials. Mario's vertical recovery isn't amazing, but it's good enough when his double jump's good. Horizontal? It's a sad day when Luigi's Luigi Cyclone travels well on the ground and travels even higher up in the air than the Doc's Doctor Tornado. Oh, and somehow, Mr. Jumpman and Glideman himself needs to be able to stall with Cape while the Doc gets zip from his Sheet.

Marth would become viable with a low knockback, low hitstun combo throw that can set up into fsmash at certain ranges, dancing blade working properly and dolphin slash getting a small damage (and knockback) increase.

Whenever I see this, I'm always tempted to tag Emblem Lord. There were theories of Marth being a potential high tier albeit, probably a really difficult one to play. Also, doesn't Dancing Blade work properly now and I remember that Dolphin Slash was given buffs recently - 1.0.8? -, but I don't remember what.

I don't know enough about Falco and Kirby, only that they're low mobility CQC fighters with no glaring flaws, but bigger reward for landing hits and maybe better lasers for Falco and E3 uthrow for Kirby would do it.

Yknow, with the posts I make, I wonder why people don't automatically assume Falco's bottom -1. No, not bottom 1 or bottom 10, but bottom -1. He is so bad that he would have to be isolated away from everyone else.

Spoiler: Flawed flappy Falco ft. Zelda... somewhere

Also, with my posts, I've mentioned many glaring flaws Falco has. One: jab's issue where practically anyone with a frame 5 and below - although the hit stun formula theoretically says Falco would be -8 on-hit at 0% on Mario - move can punish him for going for jab mixups or potentially even going for a full jab as people can jump out whether you hold it or go the minimum 4. What does this mean? This means that Luigi, Yoshi, Little Mac, Ryu, Roy if grounded, and more can hard punish/kill him for going for a jab. A basic option means death and even Samus was exempt from this. Grounded, characters like Captain Falcon, Fox, Mario, and Luigi can jab him back for a better trade; 3% for whatever their full jab does. What's the problem? +7 total frames to both jabs and +2 to +4ish frames to the transition between jab 2 and rapid jab. Also, maybe a hit angle change as well; Brawl was weird where it lifted you slightly up and you were forced to land meaning 2 frames at least of landing lag before you do anything and Falco can continue to jab you while in Smash 4, Falco will always lift you up meaning characters like Luigi and Yoshi with their strong Nairs can hard punish him. This isn't limited to Falco, though. Apparently Sheik's rapid jab has an issue, Diddy and Fox had issues, but were patched, and not limited to rapid jabs, Ike's was said to have an issue and Marth and Lucina's old jabs not really doing much compared to their current jabs.

Another thing, Falco plays at only 50% of his game. 50% being close-range in any situation: spacing, footsies, edgeguarding, kills, combos, etc. The other 50%? Zoning. Mid-range and at times, long-range, Falco's at a severe disadvantage even against characters like Ganondorf who have "no" means to combat projectiles. Fox's Blaster is a nuisance while Falco's is also a nuisance that can be punished easily. Seriously, just walk up and hit him. Fox has time to run and he runs fast while Falco doesn't have time to run and he runs slow.

Take any zoner in the game and remove their projectiles. You'll end up crippling them and halving what they can or should be doing. Some characters can make it up, especially if their projectiles are inconsequential like Fox and Wolf: high ground speed and high air speed, or Ryu and Mario who with average speed don't really use their projectiles much unless to control space and even then, they sometimes don't even need to use them with their close-ranged approaches like Ryu's Nair and Fair or Mario's Nair, Dair, and sometimes Bair. What if they can't make it up? Falco and Zelda in particular have almost nothing they can make up for a lack of at least decent zoning. Zoners don't have to be mobile to be good. Zoners can make up speed or even boost their strengths. Pac-Man, Villager, Link, Samus, Olimar, and Mega Man aren't exactly the fastest characters, but they have options; Link, Mega Man, Villager, and Samus have multiple projectiles and none of them are all linear while Pac-Man and Olimar have projectiles that vary depending on what they are. Ryu, Mii Gunner, Samus, and the Pits also have control: they can choose how their projectiles work through varying speeds like Ryu, Mii Gunner, and Samus, varying function like Ryu, or varying how they travel like the Pits. Lucario is a special one who can use his projectile as a close-range option and even setup out it, Sheik, Mewtwo?, Luigi, Fox, and Greninja's projectiles are safe through low recovery or high reward, and Mario, Pikachu, Link, and Toon Link have coverage through non-linear projectiles.

Now, ask yourself: what does Falco and Zelda not have? Both lack, most importantly, safety and reward. In Falco's case, his reward is a notch down Fox's - neglible hit stun and hit stun ledge abuse for lower DPS and lower range - while being more unsafe than say, a Falcon Punch in neutral. He also lacks any form of coverage and control when his lasers are thin, linear projectiles. Zelda at least can get high rewards, but her projectiles are very questionable - it's almost like gambling when using her projectiles - and while she has coverage, varying projectiles, control, she lacks speed in any of her projectiles.

Spoiler: Falco's Original Sin

There's also this "final" issue: many of Falco's moves borderline broken or have been broken. Infamously, Dair, D-throw, Blaster, Falco Phantasm, and Reflector. Some of them were oversights like Dair in Melee, chain-grabs being overlooked in Brawl, or the interaction of autolink angles and fast-falls like with Fair in Smash 4. Some were just unaccounted for like Blaster's hit stun and auto-cancel interaction, Reflector's close-range use and sheer speed, and in a way, Falco Phantasm's existence. And then there are the ones that somehow were inexplicably made too strong: Blaster and Falco Phantasm in Brawl. There's also Bair which borders broken, but isn't thankfully. The easiest way is to reduce its total frames by at least 3 frames. Falco would essentially have a Uair in total frames, but much, much more power. Worse case is if you reduce the total frames by 7 making it Wolf's Bair in spam-ability.

I don't need to say much about Blaster, but there is something: I can't think of any projectile that can be rapid-fired and does hit stun like Falco's Blaster. That's problem #1. The ones that do "rapid-fire" are basically multi-hitting moves like Mii Gunner's Uair or Side Smash or Dante and Deadpool's level 1? Supers. Mega Man's doesn't really count since there's checks to his lemons: you don't do hit stun unless you're up close and Mega Man's limited to 3 lemons before having to wait again. Falco? Falco can fire as he pleases which was a major issue when he has no recovery in Melee and infamously, Brawl. There is, in my opinion, no reason for Falco to have a rapid-fire projectile that does hit stun. Now, let's say Falco swaps with Fox and Fox doesn't end up with a rapid-fire one, but his old 64 Blaster or Impact Blaster. That wouldn't really matter as all Falco can do is tack on damage without noticeably interfering with your options and while Fox would end up being even more scary in Melee and perhaps Brawl, Fox wouldn't be able to continually fire like Falco. Fox's position probably wouldn't noticeably change if his default Blaster was his 64/Impact Blaster, but Falco? Falco would end up probably being a secure mid-tier as he would be able to zone by harassing from afar.

Another option is this: Falco takes Fox's 64/Impact Blaster as his default; Falco loses the ability to continually fire. Like I said, there's no reason for Falco to be able to continually fire. In return, he'd have the ability to safely harass from afar and still do hit stun. Still mid-tier in my opinion. And this option: give him the equivalent to Leona's Earring Bomb or Nash's Sonic Boom; give him a really high startup (for a projectile), but almost negligible recovery. This probably would involve removing his ability to continually fire. So, say 23 frames to fire on the ground, 20 recovery frames, 43 total frames, does 6%, and can only fire once per shot. Scary? I'm not insane, so there's other "checks". One, the laser travels faster than Falco's walk speed (1.28), but faster than his run speed (1.472), so say, 1.33, and the range is cut to about 2/5's of Final Destination. Falco spamming this won't get much at all since there's basically no range and the startup is very high, but if Falco fires it, he can follow his projectile and occupy multiple parts of the screen: directly behind the projectile, in the air, or on the ground if he fires in the air. Still does set knockback, so he can't really kill with it, but he can setup with it. This "solves" Falco's low mobility as he can cover his low ground and air speed with a projectile/ The only issue is that this is a strictly 1v1 and maybe 2v2 move now. I'd have to think about this more for FFA +3v+3.

Falco Phantasm is by design, broken. Notice that the difference between Fox and Falco's Side Specials and Down Specials were that Falco's were inverted. Fox's Reflector sent people downwards and Fox Illusion sent people upwards while Falco's Reflector sent people upwards and Falco Phantasm sent airborne people downwards. Melee Reflector's crazy, but at least Fox's had a small hitbox, especially compared to Falco Phantasm which is a straight line of Soft-Spike City. Sure, it's a soft spike, but Melee recoveries weren't exactly good and even in Brawl and Smash 4, a straight line like that is crazy, especially in FFA where it's chaotic. Falco Phantasm is not a good move, but its design is very questionable, especially with the decline of Fox Illusion, and leaves it as this, "What the **** do we do about this now?" Halving the hitbox still doesn't stop that it's now an unsafe recovery on a character known for having a bad recovery and that it still spikes. It still has half of its ability to spike unsuspecting players. That's not a good move. A good move that spikes like that is Wolf Flash which has a fixed, small sweet-spot. Wolf Flash is what Falco Phantasm should have "evolved" into instead of buffing to high hell with intangibility frames, lower startup, and lower total frames which leads to this: the developers are scared of Falco. Silly idea, but hear me out.

Falco is a monster they created; a monster in Brawl, irritated the hell out of players. The trigger-happy and interrupter, Falco is a monster they don't know what to do. It also doesn't help that Falco's play style changes in each game despite them keeping pretty much most of his moves functioning like they were in Melee. They can't stay "true" to the fans like with Ganondorf who's still a walking tank or even Bowser who despite being more "lore-friendly", still is a pro-wrestling powerhouse. Falco? Falco went from being a combo-happy zoner, to a zone-happy game exploiter, and now a slow-moving ground-happy and air-happy fighter. He still keeps his vertical-inclination for combos, setups, and kills, but he's not similar in any game compared to Marth, Mario, Fox, Captain Falcon, Link, or Samus. The other thing is that Falco kept his high damage and high knockback from previous games... and he can still combo with them. The wrong move and Falco can suddenly jump to an oppressive character which happened already in Melee and Brawl.

Falco's major flaws are game design flaws while minor flaws... er... jab? are just minor things a tune-up can fix like what happened to his Up Smash, Nair, Uair, Fair, and Dair or what happened to Ike. The major flaws of what the hell is Fire Bird even for, the issue with Falco Phantasm's existence in the chaos of FFA and even though it's a telegraphed move, it's still a soft spike with that much range, and Blaster's design. It's funny because out of those moves, none of them evolved unlike Ganondorf, Roy, Luigi, and even Young/Toon Link and Dr. Mario's clone moves being much more different in function than in Melee and to their counterparts. Falco's are just different moves inexplicably and severely buffed in Brawl; Falco's Blaster didn't get "toned down" and "strengthened" as something like a 64 Fox Blaster, Impact Blaster, dual Burst Blasters, or Wolf Blaster, his Fire Bird didn't become anything like Fire Wolf, Twisting Fox, Flying Fox, or Fast Fire Bird, his Falco Phantasm didn't become a Wolf Flash or Falco Phase. Fast Fire Bird and Falco Phase exist, but not as defaults and even then. I'm also not saying what Wolf had should have been Falco's; I'm saying that Wolf had better designed moves derived from Fox while Falco's are just property changes - they're almost like Fox customs on Falco which already exists with Ness having Lucas customs that Lucas still has, but at least Lucas's Specials are more than property changes.

Off topic-y stuff:

Spoiler: COLORFUL LASERS!

The Star Fox (and Wolf) characters... Notice their laser colors... For those that played Star Fox games, Wolf's green laser should be the worse one as that's the starting laser. Incidentally, it functions like the starting laser: fires a single laser at a time. Falco's should be the strongest laser as the best lasers you get in most Star Fox games are colored blue and fire two lasers with the second best being two green lasers. When has Falco ever used two Blasters? In a cutscene. Thinking about it, Falco dual-wielding would be broken as hell in Brawl and would make his projectiles have a large hitbox if placed "badly" - if Falco fired them so they overlapped, he'd essentially have something like a rapid-fire, transcendent Hadouken. The only way it wouldn't be broken is if his Blaster didn't do any knockback like Burst Blaster. What about Fox? Red/pink lasers were reserved for the enemy. Unless it's supposed to be a Star Wars reference, there's absolutely no reason why Fox should be using red lasers... Unless... Unless Smash is telling us Fox is actually the villain in Star Fox... DUN, DUN, DUUUUUH! Still, lore-wise, Fox and Falco should have green or blue lasers and Wolf red. Funny, since people complained about Ike not having blue flames, but completely ignore the plight of the Star Fox characters.

Zelda: make her multi-hitting attacks more consistent if those haven't been brought up to a proper level yet. I know they've at least poked at that issue before. After that, speed up her jab a tad, increase the base knockback of Dsmash, reduce the endlag on her Ftilt and Utilt by a tad, increase the number of active frames for the sweetspot of her aerials by 1, have Nair start 2 frames sooner, increase the hitbox, speed, and controllability of Din's Fire a tad. Don't know if they would consider making her Down B able to hold a charge or not within their patch philosophy. If they would, that would help her quite a fair bit right there actually. Her specials need just better functionality outside of Up B, her ground game needs to be a bit better at actually poking, and her aerials need to have a marginally better chance of actually being worth the risk.

Zelda's Nair was the highly-acclaimed 1.0.8 Falco Nair except something's wrong... Oh, right, Falco's is frame 3 instead of frame 6 - hers is still pretty fast, but not frame 3 fast -, does 11% total instead of 11% in front or 9% in back like Zelda, and has 15 frames of landing lag instead of 19 with only a slightly worse auto-cancel window, before frame 3 and after frame 43 to Zelda's before frame 4 and after frame 38. Zelda's might be disjointed though since it's magical unlike Falco's regular, flappy wings of doom. Basically, they didn't give Zelda anything in return for straightup buffing Falco's Nair and making hers look worse. It's really stupid when you think about it.

Zylach or someone else might have mentioned this already, but Zelda does have a Uair setup out of D-throw. Problem is getting the grab. I don't know if it's true or not, but she can force option picks... sort of.

Also, the "Ike treatment"... If it's defined by changes to startup, total frames, properties, hitboxes, damage, etc., it should be called the "Falco & Ike treatment" 'cause y'know... patch 1.0.8 did the same to these 2.

 

[TTTTTsd]

If Doc got momentum on his sheet it would ruin a lot of its current setups. Sorry FFam, but I'd like to retain its functionality. You could make either of his other moves better even if I think he only needs a good fireball haha.

 

[meleebrawler]

Incidentally, the Smash wiki, last I checked, claimed that Mewtwo was nerfed overall from Melee, even though almost everything besides his weight, teleport and debatably shadow ball if you miss charging damage are improved. Some of his moves got slower (bair and ftilt mainly) but gained power to match. Not only does he have a dash attack now, but it's one of the best. All of his smashes have the power they're supposed to have, fair's hitbox is improved to the point you're no longer forced to rely on setups to consistently land it, he no longer has a ******** hurtbox that a shield can't cover and confusion/disable speak for themselves.

The site mainly cites the loss of wavedashing and double-jump cancel combos (although the latter makes his recovery even better) as the reason he's nerfed.

If Doc got momentum on his sheet it would ruin a lot of its current setups. Sorry FFam, but I'd like to retain its functionality. You could make either of his other moves better even if I think he only needs a good fireball haha.

It's also the only ledge-snapping tool that doesn't affect momentum in any way.

 

[ARGHETH]

Also, doesn't Dancing Blade work properly now and I remember that Dolphin Slash was given buffs recently - 1.0.8? -, but I don't remember what.

Yeah, the 1.0.6 patch fixed DB so it works up to percents where you really should be trying to kill anyways and Dolphin Slash's knockback was buffed in 1.0.8.

 

[KirbySquad101]

Incidentally, the Smash wiki, last I checked, claimed that Mewtwo was nerfed overall from Melee, even though almost everything besides his weight, teleport and debatably shadow ball if you miss charging damage are improved. Some of his moves got slower (bair and ftilt mainly) but gained power to match. Not only does he have a dash attack now, but it's one of the best. All of his smashes have the power they're supposed to have, fair's hitbox is improved to the point you're no longer forced to rely on setups to consistently land it, he no longer has a ******** hurtbox that a shield can't cover and confusion/disable speak for themselves.

The site mainly cites the loss of wavedashing and double-jump cancel combos (although the latter makes his recovery even better) as the reason he's nerfed.

Don't... don't ever go to the SmashWiki for character analysis. Like, EVER.

 

[Routa]

If you ask me increasing Doc's Up-B range would not improve his overall game much. Why? Due to his short Up-B it is harder to punish if it misses. Ofc it would be okish trade, but in my eyes current Up-B is fine. If you ask me increasing the horizontal distance travelled with Tornado could be a bit better for him.