Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Browny]

He himself said he's considering dropping Luigi and going to give Marth or Peach a shot so...

This sounds exactly like what Ally said with switching to Marth.

Until he got a taste of what it was like to be a pot filler.

And that was the end of that! (Sorry Shaya it was too easy Marth is OK now dont ban me)

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

This sounds exactly like what Ally said with switching to Marth.

Until he got a taste of what it was like to be a pot filler.

And that was the end of that! (Sorry Shaya it was too easy Marth is OK now dont ban me)

You're not a pot monster if you place in the money.

 

[TriTails]

I play Marth and he feels solid.

At least SSF2 Marth is not in here... he was insane. 3rd strike upward DB spikes and setups into a lot of stuffs. SH double F-airs. Jab being lagless.

But on topic. How is Lucina vs Roy?

 

[Ikes]

if you want SH double fair, play Pac Man

B)

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

if you want SH double fair, play Pac Man

B)

Or Lucario...

 

[Space thing]

In theory you can also HP down and out from the ledge to spray him, do damage, and push him back and then use the second HP to snap the ledge again. Do thrown aura spheres reach under the ledge to punish this?

He could punish the re-grab by doing the same thing I mentioned before if he's at high enough Aura (70% would be enough most of the time, 100% pretty much all of the time). I doubt that could be punished if it landed properly. Now if you mean doing this BEFORE Greninja grabs the ledge the first time, then this is definitely a way to get around Sphere pretty safely. Of course, the Lucario might be able to bait it out and hit you doing the HP, but still, it's a great option if you can do.

EDIT: To add, Greninja could also use Shuriken to stall in the air and knock Lucario out of his charge (or get him to shield), and then grab the ledge. You might even be able to do this safely after grabbing the ledge if you're precise enough and clever enough, idk.

 

[Tainic]

if you want SH double fair, play Pac Man

B)

Pac Man Ken Combo when.

Also yeah Marth became solid as ****, that Nair buff made it soooooooo godly, if they add even 1 more percent to it it might become over the top lol. Imo Marth just needs like 2/3 less landing lag frames on some aerials (Mostly Fair/Dair/Uair.) and he'll be perfect, he's extremely well balanced atm, I dont think there's a character as balanced as him other than the Pits.

 

[RedBeefBaron]

Pac Man Ken Combo when.

Also yeah Marth became solid as ****, that Nair buff made it soooooooo godly, if they add even 1 more percent to it it might become over the top lol. Imo Marth just needs like 2/3 less landing lag frames on some aerials (Mostly Fair/Dair/Uair.) and he'll be perfect, he's extremely well balanced atm, I dont think there's a character as balanced as him other than the Pits.

I seem to be in the minority here but I don't really think marth needs anything at this point.

At least not like some other characters do.

 

[Shaya]

Forward air to tipper fsmash is not balanced.
But he isn't national threat level yet.

Definitely still losing badly against: ZSS, Sheik, Luigi (imo); and very likely loses noticeably to Diddy and Fox too.
That isn't BALANCED enough.

 

[Zelder]

I don't think anyone

I play Marth and he feels solid.

At least SSF2 Marth is not in here... he was insane. 3rd strike upward DB spikes and setups into a lot of stuffs. SH double F-airs. Jab being lagless.

But on topic. How is Lucina vs Roy?

SSF2 & 3rd Strike made me think we were talking about Street Fighter for a hot second there.

Marth feels good. I'm glad that fans of anime prettyboys have somewhere to go now.

 

[Tainic]

I seem to be in the minority here but I don't really think marth needs anything at this point.

At least not like some other characters do.

Yeah he's not one of the big "BUFF HIM PLS" characters anymore, there definitely are other characters needing some focus now.

I'd love it if Samus had a Marth-esque jab, jab into charge shot would feel sooooo good and give her a somewhat good damage racking/killing combo.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Ganon isn't good. Plenty of characters can lame him out, especially without customs. I think Ganon has no place in high level play, but I'm a bit of a pessimist. There's plenty I don't know about the character, but nothing impresses me. "I move slow but I hit hard." Doesn't evoke fear beyond lack of an understanding of the character.

Ganon is kind of a noob slayer in this game and by that I mean a character who's amazing against low skilled players who don't have a good grasp of fundamentals yet but gets trashed by high level players who understand the basic concept of matchups. and arguably fit this bill for this game while claimed this moniker in the last. As you said, they hit hard so they can capitalize on big mistakes or overwhelm players who play predictably or have bad reaction time. To his credit though, is far more threatening than was and might have more of a competitive future with some minor buffs. He's not very good but he's far from someone who's an absolute trainwreck ().

So... Who wants to talk about Wii Fit Trainer? He/she has got very nice buffs lately. Her/his off-stage game is great and her/his customs make shielding a bad option in a game where shields are so stronk.

So... Who is she/he good against?

The new buffs were pretty much a godsend because they addressed exactly all the main problems that WFT had: weird grab (characters like Pikachu and Kirby were hella rage inducing because of this), lack of power, and aggravating range on Smash attacks. Like Charizard, DK, and Palutena, this is someone who is now on the right track to be decent even without customs and possibly terrifying with them on.

As for who she's good against, it's hard to say exactly because of how much was recently changed. She has a reliable projectile game, is pretty good at juggling, and has a severely underrated off stage game. Her offstage game is really something else. Two air stalls, two projectiles that can easily be used off stage (including one that can bounce off walls for rage quit worthy edge guards), one of the best wall jumps in the game, a deceptively fantastic recovery, three spikes, and some of the best edge trump options in the game. Off stage, she's like a shark in the water and the recent buffs have made her even deadlier so I think she has a lot of potential to grow. The problem is though that a lot of people don't play her and even when there were 3 in the top 32 at EVO, most people still just shrug their shoulders when asked about the character.

 

[Smog Frog]

i'd add to that noob slayer group

but thats just me

 

[outfoxd]

Ganon is kind of a noob slayer in this game and by that I mean a character who's amazing against low skilled players who don't have a good grasp of fundamentals yet but gets trashed by high level players who understand the basic concept of matchups. and arguably fit this bill for this game while claimed this moniker in the last. As you said, they hit hard so they can capitalize on big mistakes or overwhelm players who play predictably or have bad reaction time. To his credit though, is far more threatening than was and might have more of a competitive future with some minor buffs. He's not very good but he's far from someone who's an absolute trainwreck ().




The new buffs were pretty much a godsend because they addressed exactly all the main problems that WFT had: weird grab (characters like Pikachu and Kirby were hella rage inducing because of this), lack of power, and aggravating range on Smash attacks. Like Charizard, DK, and Palutena, this is someone who is now on the right track to be decent even without customs and possibly terrifying with them on.

As for who she's good against, it's hard to say exactly because of how much was recently changed. She has a reliable projectile game, is pretty good at juggling, and has a severely underrated off stage. Her offstage game is really something else. Two air stalls, two projectiles that can easily be used off stage (including one that can bounce off walls for rage quit worthy edge guards), a deceptively fantastic recovery, three spikes, and some of the best edge trump options in the game. Off stage, she's like a shark in the water and the recent buffs have made her even deadlier so I think she has a lot of potential to grow. The problem is though that a lot of people don't play her and even when there were 3 in the top 32 at EVO, most people still just shrug their shoulders when asked about the character.

My friend mains wft. Not looking forward to him getting better.

 

[LightLV]

I seem to be in the minority here but I don't really think marth needs anything at this point.

At least not like some other characters do.

Haven't put much time into him post-patch, but he could use some love. He really didn't have anything going for him without any real combos. His range sucks on this game and his tipper hitbox could honestly serve to be a bit larger.


I really wish Ike would get some love. I feel like he's way weaker than he deserves to be for the amount of work you have to put in to make his moveset useful. Bair, Nair and jab is basically his entire gameplan. Fair feels extremely weak for a heavyweight Fair, he cant recover backwards in a game where characters with way less downsides can recover up from the blast zone, his throws all suck, ect ect ect.

It feels like Bair fishing, or edgethrow > Eruption is like everything he has.

 

[Illuminose]

i'd add to that noob slayer group

but thats just me

Except Luigi is actually good so...

 

[Xeze]

Eh, is not that bad. Granted, she has huge flaws but her strong points can't be overlooked.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Definitely still losing badly against: ZSS, Sheik, Luigi (imo); and very likely loses noticeably to Diddy and Fox too.
That isn't BALANCED enough.

I dunno, I think Fox vs Marth is pretty even now tbh.

Fox kinda used to walk all over Marth. But then he got a jab and now he can actually fight back so it's not so bad anymore.

 

[Planty]

Is Samus really the worst character in the game? She's got a few nice things like very heavy weight, good recovery, a way to mix up her landings with down-b, a projectile (And while it is a poor projectile, it still forces approaches), a pretty solid combo game, grab followups, a zair for spacing, and Charge Shot mindgames.

When you put all those things together (And possibly more I forgot about), can you really say that Samus is the worst character in the game?

 

[TriTails]

I really wish Ike would get some love. I feel like he's way weaker than he deserves to be for the amount of work you have to put in to make his moveset useful. Bair, Nair and jab is basically his entire gameplan. Fair feels extremely weak for a heavyweight Fair, he cant recover backwards in a game where characters with way less downsides can recover up from the blast zone, his throws all suck, ect ect ect.

It feels like Bair fishing, or edgethrow > Eruption is like everything he has.

Ike sucks guys. Bottom tier confirmed.

Don't worry Ike mains. More buffs are being prepared.

And I would be SO pissed if that happens again.

 

[Rashyboy05]

Is Samus really the worst character in the game? She's got a few nice things like very heavy weight, good recovery, a way to mix up her landings with down-b, a projectile (And while it is a poor projectile, it still forces approaches), a pretty solid combo game, grab followups, a zair for spacing, and Charge Shot mindgames.

When you put all those things together (And possibly more I forgot about), can you really say that Samus is the worst character in the game?

This video explains everything wrong with Samus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IiMvw3dltU

 

[Sinister Slush]

So all moves with Samus miss if you're small and standing right next to her when she uses them while DA is the former, being next to them when you use it.
Side-b and Throws don't kill? Jeez sounds like Yoshi and many other characters that don't have kill throws :^)

Ok.

 

[Zelder]

Samus deserves a kill throw, on account of how bad her grab is + the fact that she gets no real reward beyond spacing off a kill throw.

Well, "deserves" is a strong word but substitute "could really use".

 

[TriTails]

Yeah. She kinda like pre-patch Link. He got no big rewards off his grabs that shields were so strong against him.

Samus could definitely use a kill throw instead of 'I'll throw you off-stage for a Charge Shot' throws.

And also, U-air linking properly.

 

[LiteralGrill]

You know everyone keeps talking about potentially bad characters all the time and lamenting Samus, but I haven't seen anyone discussing Palutena in a customs off environment for a long time now.

So how about some discussion there? Where is she going to fall on the list?

 

[warionumbah2]

Ike doesn't need **** all, they need to chill with buffing ike and marth (yea I didn't forget him).

 

[Fatmanonice]

Is Samus really the worst character in the game? She's got a few nice things like very heavy weight, good recovery, a way to mix up her landings with down-b, a projectile (And while it is a poor projectile, it still forces approaches), a pretty solid combo game, grab followups, a zair for spacing, and Charge Shot mindgames.

When you put all those things together (And possibly more I forgot about), can you really say that Samus is the worst character in the game?

In response to this, here's just a few examples of why Samus is comically terrible:

Ultimately, I feel like there's really only four characters that are absolutely deserving of a buff dump and those characters are . Everyone else just kind of needs minor tweaks at this point (characters like are so close to being "fixed" that they can practically taste it) while these four have traits that significantly cripple them competitively.

 

[Gunla]

I personally place Palutena with Miis, because she's outright much worse without them.

• Autoreticle has a great alternative (I'd argue a better option) with Explosive Flame.
• Super Speed > Reflector, but both have uses.
• Jump Glide and Warp are both good options.
• Lightweight, while Heavenly Light and Firework are decent options, are nowhere near as huge as Lightweight.

I think she greatly suffers in the non customs environment, and would much rather her get something.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Eh, is not that bad. Granted, she has huge flaws but her strong points can't be overlooked.

This is literally every post I ever see about Samus. People saying she's not that bad followed by a couple vague sentences that don't mean anything at all.
If you're going to make a claim at the very least give me a reason to believe it other than "she has flaws but she's good"

 

[Zelder]

Playing as Palutena in customs off is such a painful experience. It's like...being locked out of heaven. On the other side of those pearly gates is a great character, but on this side of hell, all you've got is crappy tilts and bad smashes (and a great jab).

She's easily bottom 10 without customs.

 

[C0rvus]

Samus has decent grab reward. Down throw combos into up airs into up airs into Screw Attack. That's her bread and butter, and it can kill early in the right circumstances. It's not Meta Knight up air to Shuttle Loop levels of stupid, but it's not bad. But I agree, if anyone should have a kill throw it should be Samus. Or Dedede. He desperately needs back throw to kill imo. He's got a great grab with throw combos and resets, but he needs a kill throw to be scary. Shave some recovery off of forward tilt and gives Gordos just a bit more health and Dedede would be much better off.

On the topic of Palutena, she has always had good moves in all the places necessary to be usable (jab to grab, up smash, dash attack, and all of her aerials are pretty good). Her throw combos are still solid, she moves pretty fast, her specials have mostly niche use, but they do have uses. Auto Reticle can jab lock and is decent while descending or covering a platform from afar. Reflect is a reflector. Warp gets the job done, and has some cool applications with edge cancelling that may or may not be practical. Counter is meh. Palutena is bland without customs, but she's a fully functioning character, unlike Samus and Zelda and Dedede to an extent.

 

[Ffamran]

Or they could do something like with Roy's throws where they don't kill (well), but they allow Samus to combo off of them. So, reduced end lag? The only throw I know that is remotely useful for Samus is D-throw which lets her setup Fair and maybe Uair.

Another thing is reduced FAF on her jab 1. Seriously, she can't act until frame 18 which might seem good, but factor in that her jab does little to no knockback, especially at low percents. If it was an actual jab, y'know, like what boxers do where they use jabs to measure space, poke, and distract, it'd actually be useful even if it had horrid knockback and can't true combo into her jab 2.

As for her dead zones on Side Smash, Greninja and I think (Dr.) Mario and Marth and Lucina's Shield Breaker have that too if you walk into them. Do you think you can walk into a Side Smash that comes out at frame 10? Unless you have good walk speed or are aware of it, you're more likely going to stand right in front of her Side Smash and die. Nair on the other hand considering that she is clearly kicking her legs around her, shouldn't have a dead zone.

 

[Rashyboy05]

Palutena is an odd case. In one hand she's got decent mobility and recovery, decent throw combos, good aerials, has her own version of a Hoo-hah and a great Jab. On the other hand, her specials are on the "meh" side. Forward and Down Smash and her Tilts are kinda bad. She's easily Bottom 10 but it doesn't feel right to pit her into the same side with characters like Samus and Zelda imo.

 

[RedBeefBaron]

Haven't put much time into him post-patch, but he could use some love. He really didn't have anything going for him without any real combos. His range sucks on this game and his tipper hitbox could honestly serve to be a bit larger.


I really wish Ike would get some love. I feel like he's way weaker than he deserves to be for the amount of work you have to put in to make his moveset useful. Bair, Nair and jab is basically his entire gameplan. Fair feels extremely weak for a heavyweight Fair, he cant recover backwards in a game where characters with way less downsides can recover up from the blast zone, his throws all suck, ect ect ect.

It feels like Bair fishing, or edgethrow > Eruption is like everything he has.

Marth has already received a lot of love. He has received significant buffs in all the patches, now having more damage, less landing lag, and better setup potential. He doesn't have amazing combos which are true all the time but he did get some crazy trap based stuff. His range sucks and his tipper should be better? That's pretty bold. He has an amazing range to speed ratio with an intense disjoint, and the tipper is extremely threatening for its raw kill power at that range.

Ike is the second best swordsman in the game behind MK and the best heavyweight. Fair is an incredible spacing tool, his recovery is great for a heavy if you know how to use it, and his throws are kind of amazing for the damage and pressure they lead to. His tilts are ridiculous, he is extremely mobile for his weight. He has great damage output and kill potential. Ike getting buffed again over others would be face palm worthy.

 

[the king of murder]

Haven't put much time into him post-patch, but he could use some love. He really didn't have anything going for him without any real combos. His range sucks on this game and his tipper hitbox could honestly serve to be a bit larger.


I really wish Ike would get some love. I feel like he's way weaker than he deserves to be for the amount of work you have to put in to make his moveset useful. Bair, Nair and jab is basically his entire gameplan. Fair feels extremely weak for a heavyweight Fair, he cant recover backwards in a game where characters with way less downsides can recover up from the blast zone, his throws all suck, ect ect ect.

It feels like Bair fishing, or edgethrow > Eruption is like everything he has.

As much as I wanted to stay a lurker here, I just couldn't ignore how much things you got wrong. Don't take this as an direct attack though.

If Ikes Fair would be any stronger, this move would be stupid. It has good(disjointed) reach, is a good and safe combo follow up for about anything which works at even higher percents, does 12% damage which is as strong as DDDs and Bowsers(sourspot arm) fair, has good killpower if fresh(although it never will be fresh it will still kill if near the edge), good spacing tool, roll punisher and can autocancel. Only weakness is the startup.

Also Ike has more than just Bair, Nair and Jab. He has D-tilt as a shield and spacing poke, grab as a punisher for shield which can be conditioned, Fair as spacing tool, Dash Attack for short hop happy people and midrange mixup(which also kills) and of course like you mentioned Bair, Nair and Jab. He has a lot of options, he is just a bit slow compared to the speedy top tiers.

His up and down throw can lead to just about anything at low to mid % and to a potential kill at high %. B-throw and Fthrow are good techchase starters and sends them offstage. I don't know why you think his throws suck.

Yes Ike requires work because you have to utilize your good fundamentals all the time. But the work actually pays off now.

In response to this, here's just a few examples of why Samus is comically terrible:

Ultimately, I feel like there's really only four characters that are absolutely deserving of a buff dump and those characters are . Everyone else just kind of needs minor tweaks at this point while these four have traits that significantly cripple them competitively.

I would include too. Considering every character(and I mean every) character board thinks it is in their favor against Ganon (although I don't fully trust them)that's got to mean something. Also his terrible neutral because of lack of mobilty, OoS option ect.

At least Ganons can brag about how he has the best advantage in the game. He still needs some big buffs to become fully viable.

 

[Fatmanonice]

You know everyone keeps talking about potentially bad characters all the time and lamenting Samus, but I haven't seen anyone discussing Palutena in a customs off environment for a long time now.

So how about some discussion there? Where is she going to fall on the list?

Hmm... Palutena's one of those characters that has been gradually getting better with almost every update. When the game first came out, she was arguably the worst character in the game next to Zelda and Mii Swordsman but now she might be low mid tier. Non custom Palutena still isn't viable but she isn't the frustrating mess she was last September. Let's do a run down on what's improved since last year:

-Improved grab
-Improved grab follow ups
-tilts that are no longer slow as holy hell and actually have lingering hit boxes
-Improved aerials


Honestly, I don't think she needs all too much to be taken seriously without customs. Maybe more knockback on her uair and less end lag on her smash attacks (plus bigger wind boxes for f/dsmash for more edgeguarding shenanigans) and she'd be largely balanced in my opinion. With customs, a lot of stigma against them being eased after EVO, and the latest patch though, she might have moved even further into "where is your god now? Oh wait, it's me" mode since 1.10 improved things that already worked really well when Palutena's used super speed and lightweight but we'll see how things develop.

Add in: To Ganon's credit, standard Ganon is lackluster but at least he has decent customs to help him. The four I mentioned don't (Zelda doesn't either but we'll see how the last two buff dumps help her with time) and I think that's why they should take priority in the next major patch. A common problem that all five characters face though is that they're really good... against bad players. You don't see a lot of people just try to wing it with Samus and Jigglypuff, for example. If people are playing these characters, they typically have a decent idea what they're doing so it kind of gives off the impression that they're better than they really are. I would be surprised if these five have impressive For Glory statistics which may be why they've largely been unchanged despite their respective players pulling their hair out over their shortcomings. Unpopular "bad" characters + above average players = skewed data going back to Nintendo. Despite this, there's still light at the end of the tunnel given how WFT and Robin were in the same boat too until recently so it may just be a matter of waiting until October or December for Sakurai to go all the Creation of Adam on them.

 

[Blobface]

I would include too. Considering every character(and I mean every) character board thinks it is in their favor against Ganon (although I don't fully trust them)that's got to mean something. Also his terrible neutral because of lack of mobilty, OoS option ect.

At least Ganons can brag about how he has the best advantage in the game. He still needs some big buffs to become fully viable.

I find a lot of people assume that Ganon can't do anything if you don't make a mistake. Getting hit by Dash Attack/Flame Choke is not a mistake, eating a random F-smash is. You don't beat Ganon by not making mistakes, you beat him by messing up his spacing.

Side note: do even the kirby boards think this matchup is in their favor?

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Ike is the second best swordsman in the game behind MK

Don't sleep on the Mii Swordfighter though. That character is real now.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Forward air to tipper fsmash is not balanced.
But he isn't national threat level yet.

Definitely still losing badly against: ZSS, Sheik, Luigi (imo); and very likely loses noticeably to Diddy and Fox too.
That isn't BALANCED enough.

I think Marth beats Luigi since the Fireball nerf is SERIOUSLY HUGE and allows you to actually do stuff out of powershield to keep Luigi out. Marth also has really good edgeguards on Luigi's high commitment recovery.

I mean Luigi's still pretty stupid to play against, but the significance of the fireball nerf cannot be understated given it was effectively 70% of his neutral game.

 

[Asdioh]

Side note: do even the kirby boards think this matchup is in their favor?

Kirby loses to sword characters in general, and Ganondorf's feet are basically swords, and he kills us in like 3 hits, so probably not.

Samus would be less of a joke if her Dash Attack and Uptilt weren't literally worse in every possible way versions of Falcon's. There are so many minor changes that could be made to characters to make them suddenly much more viable, and Nintendo is making those changes, but only to some characters at a time. Like the Kirby buffs this patch were very, very nice. He got buffed in the Mewtwo (I think) patch, but they were pretty inconsequential to his overall viability: Inhale got a little less endlag, but was still slow and easy to punish with the opponent's move of choice. Dsmash and Upsmash got a little more knockback... killing at a few % lower is nice, but not a big deal. Dthrow got buffed from 6% to 10%, which honestly changed nothing, because you could have just used Upthrow for the same results. But this patch, Inhale got the endlag reduced again, as well as the startup this time, making it finally a decent move. Jab now links correctly, so you don't get punished by fast Nairs, or fastfallers that could shield or jab you in between. And best of all, Fthrow is now one of the best combo throws in the game. Do people think this patch was the best one, as far as bringing weak characters up to more threatening levels? If they continue this trend, which it seems they will, I'd be willing to bet they'll fix other weak characters in similarly intelligent ways and life will be great :D just imagine what Samus would be like if her moves worked properly! Or even like cracklin oats just said, if Dedede had a more viable kill throw, that alone would make him better.