Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Mario766]

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

Totally, but he isn't on MK or Ike's level.

Ike still has issues. His down air has Brawl FAF stat without the lingering hitbox. Down Air lingered as long as up air, so he lost 10+ frames because he still can't act and he doesn't have a hitbox to protect himself anymore. The spike box also changed heavily, so it's worse in hitbox terms also.

 

[Tainic]

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?

imo changing the properties of her ftilt so it multihits instead of being 2 5% hits would be for the best, at least she doesnt get punished for landing a hit because their opponent got out of hitstun too early.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Totally, but he isn't on MK or Ike's level.

If Tiny size is allowed I'm betting swordfighter comes out on top of both.

 

[RedBeefBaron]

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

Yeah I did forget him. No one around here does miis. Do you think he's better than Ike?

Edit: ninja'd. Interesting.

 

[Ffamran]

People do understand how Samus's dash attack works, right? It's not like a traditional tackle that linebacker Ganondorf and quarterback Captain Falcon do. She's using the thrusters on her suit to propel herself, so before she actually tackles, she's setting herself up. It's like how Ganondorf's Wizard's Foot works where he sets himself up and then rockets through with evil wizard powers.

Her Utilt is essentially like Peach's Dtilt, but the issue is that you can tech those. If it was untechable, it'd be great and it would keep the charm of slamming someone down and launching them. At the same time, they could just make it so has a high hit angle and keep the spike sound effect just because. As of right now, Samus's Utilt is frame 15-18 and does 13% on ground targets and 12% on air targets. Peach's Dtilt is frame 13-14 with her arm being intangible from frames 9-14 and does 7% regardless. Those are slow moves, especially Samus's. If it was frame 12-15 and did 11%/10% instead, that might make it much more useful, but it could kill its greatest asset: anti-airing. Samus's Utilt is a much better anti-air than Captain Falcon's. Why? 'Cause it doesn't spike airborne targets; it punishes or kills airborne targets. Captain Falcon's Utilt is useful as a spike and that's it. In terms of ground to air and ground to ground, Samus's is probably better even though you can tech. Oh, and Captain Falcon's Utilt is frame 17-20 that does 11% regardless. That's Captain Falcon's slowest tilt by 7 frames - Dtilt is frame 11 - and his 3rd slowest ground move followed by Side and Down Smash (19) and Up Smash (22).

When you look into each move Samus has, some of them like Utilt, Dtilt, Side Smash, Uair, Fair, Bair, and Dair are really good moves, but how does everything connect and interact with each other? They don't really do well like jab, Up Smash, Down Smash, Nair, Zair, Missiles, and her throws. I mean, between Utilt and Up Smash, which would you use for anti-airing? I'd say Utilt since it covers above and in front of her while doing a constant 12%. Cool, she can anti-air, but she needs more than just Utilt and angled Ftilt? For example, Falco will anti-air you with angled Ftilt, Utilt, Up Smash, and even jab and Side Smash if you let him since his jab arcs and Side Smash is transcendent. The commitment Falco makes with his anti-airs aren't heavy and he can do them on reaction outside of Side Smash because none of them are slower than frame 9. Samus has to pick between a frame 8 Ftilt, frame 15 Utilt, frame 10 Side Smash, and frame 11 Up Smash. Of those options, Utilt's the best because of how large its hitbox is, but it's the slowest. Also, with a freaking Power Suit, you'd expect her Side Smash to be transcendent or at least partially invincible, but nope, the bird with weird-*** fingers has a transcendent Side Smash.

 

[oldkingcroz]

Ike was decent before the patches, back on the 3ds, but now he is great. Killing with Dash attack and ftilt is huge for the character, and probably his biggest buffs. He still slightly has trouble against the top, but I do feel he does [rather] well against (non customs) Rosalina and Yoshi. Custom Yoshi can land super easy ranged kills with his egg launch, and custom Rosalina is just better at pressure. So I don't think customs in those particular MU help Ike (side Bing thru Luma is nice, though). Ike doesn't lose pitifully to the top tier, but Ness and Mario are pretty grim.

Ike's arsenal is great. Side B charging for tech chasing/ missed tech is something I feel isn't utilized enough by the better Ikes out there. Dtilt is great and sets up into fair/ bair untill 70% on most characters. Smash attacks and tilts (bar dtilt) kill around 100. Up air and fair kill around 110-130 (depending on where you are on the stage/ good DI). Dthrow is also a kill throw around 150-160, if the opponent is playing it extreme safe and avoiding tilts/ airs. Everything kills, and his combo potential at low percents is insane. Getting from 0-60% is easy, but getting from 60%-100% is tough.

High/ Top tier in doubles, though.

 

[Emblem Lord]

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.

Stop trolling.

Also stop being bad at the game.

And stop not understanding the game.

What the ****

 

[bc1910]

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.

Greninja can get around that ledge trap very easily because Shurikens aren't affected by gravity. You can always ledgedrop Shuriken which forces Lucario to either take the hit or shield as you said, and if he shields he can't hold the sphere out any more. Greninja can then Hydro Pump back on stage over Lucario's head most of the time because aerial shurikens are so lagless, and he won't always be able to catch Greninja because HP moves so fast. You can also probably just HP back to the ledge, does Lucario have any on-stage move that can hit below the ledge?

 

[Mario766]

Ike was decent before the patches, back on the 3ds, but now he is great. Killing with Dash attack and ftilt is huge for the character, and probably his biggest buffs. He still slightly has trouble against the top, but I do feel he does [rather] well against (non customs) Rosalina and Yoshi. Custom Yoshi can land super easy ranged kills with his egg launch, and custom Rosalina is just better at pressure. So I don't think customs in those particular MU help Ike (side Bing thru Luma is nice, though). Ike doesn't lose pitifully to the top tier, but Ness and Mario are pretty grim.

Ike's arsenal is great. Side B charging for tech chasing/ missed tech is something I feel isn't utilized enough by the better Ikes out there. Dtilt is great and sets up into fair/ bair untill 70% on most characters. Smash attacks and tilts (bar dtilt) kill around 100. Up air and fair kill around 110-130 (depending on where you are on the stage/ good DI). Dthrow is also a kill throw around 150-160, if the opponent is playing it extreme safe and avoiding tilts/ airs. Everything kills, and his combo potential at low percents is insane. Getting from 0-60% is easy, but getting from 60%-100% is tough.

High/ Top tier in doubles, though.

Ness MU is bad?

News to me. Ike does decently well unless he gets grabbed.

 

[Antonykun]

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

It's surprising what giving a character a badass projectile will do to their viability

 

[Fatmanonice]

Stop trolling.

Also stop being bad at the game.

And stop not understanding the game.

What the ****

Do you honestly have to act like this every time someone says something you don't agree with in this thread? Yes, he (she?) is wrong but surely there's a better way to go about addressing it than the standby "OMG why are you so unforgivably dumb?! I'm literally debating killing myself over this post" approach that I've seen several times in the past couple of days alone. Some tact would be greatly appreciated.

 

[DungeonMaster]

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

The Samus boards (and myself primarily) are actually assembling a video to try to give exposure to some of the, um, poor, design decisions in the hope that they get fixed. We are that frustrate.
The issues have gone un-patched, or poorly implemented like the up-smash *fix*, to the point where our frustration needs to be heard.
When it's complete, I'll post it here for you guys to spread the word.

My opinion is still that I actually really enjoy the design principles for the character relative to previous editions of the game. It is the particulars of the execution with some truly frustration inducing decisions that
need to be adjusted.
Also from old footage of E3 and early examples of the game I'll try to explain Sakurai's famous comments relating to "Samus being the best in the game" and provide proof of how she got nerfed significantly (too much) pre-release.
An excellent Samus player @Unholydeath123 managed 49th at EVO with solo Samus, which is nothing to sneeze at.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Like you I'm an OG, and I have long since passed the point of wanting to be nice. Especially to people who repeatedly make silly statements.

Blunt and to the point. No BS. No nonsense. No nice nice.

Feel free to put me on ignore if you take issue with my approach.

 

[Zelder]

I'm an extremely tough guy when it comes to this game where Pikachu fights Kirby.

 

[Space thing]

Greninja can get around that ledge trap very easily because Shurikens aren't affected by gravity. You can always ledgedrop Shuriken which forces Lucario to either take the hit or shield as you said, and if he shields he can't hold the sphere out any more. Greninja can then Hydro Pump back on stage over Lucario's head most of the time because aerial shurikens are so lagless, and he won't always be able to catch Greninja because HP moves so fast. You can also probably just HP back to the ledge, does Lucario have any on-stage move that can hit below the ledge?

Lucario should have plenty of time to punish a HD after shielding (or rolling even) whichever why Greninja goes as far as I can tell -- maybe not with an Aura Sphere but even that looks doable (45 frames between when Suriken is fired and when HP JUST starts is a pretty big window). The ledge trap is about either getting them into the AS Charge, or forcing them into a bad position where they can be punished. This option can work against it, but again, it has it's flaws. And Lucario can hit Greninja at the ledge with: Fully charged AS (sometimes, also a big threat and he will probably have it if he doesn't get hit mid charge), Dtilt (minor threat), and he can do a grounded Dair (can kill sometimes). Greninja has a really low hurtbox at the ledge, lol.

But yea, you can mix up HP stuff and make it really hard for the Lucario to punish things properly. Going below the stage, HD horizontal and then up; going straight for the ledge, and going above stage (probably the worst without a platform). Greninja can also ledge drop -> Fair, which is, if nothing else, scarier than his other options.

Greninja actually has a pretty decent set of options here lol.

 

[FullMoon]

Basically don't let Lucario bring you to FD and you should be fine.

 

[PhlipDarkRiot]

In talking about characters being improved with patches, where do we stand with Bowser?

It seems like, of the super heavyweights, Ganon and Dedede definitely need things more practical, and the buffs for Charizard and DK have been pretty good. What about King Koopa? I mean I know he kept winning tournaments early on, but now does he do alright for the kinda character he is?

 

[Djent]

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
-Better jab
-autoreticle is more reliable (and annoying)

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.

When were her grab follow-ups, jab, and autoreticle buffed? Also, I thought dtilt was the only one that actually got faster (though they all had hitbox improvements).

I don't think she's top tier even with customs. The problem is that in order to make her decent (viable) in default, you'd have to buff her kit far enough that she'd be verging on broken. Super Speed and Lightweight are moves that don't belong on a good character, period.

 

[Man Li Gi]

In talking about characters being improved with patches, where do we stand with Bowser?

It seems like, of the super heavyweights, Ganon and Dedede definitely need things more practical, and the buffs for Charizard and DK have been pretty good. What about King Koopa? I mean I know he kept winning tournaments early on, but now does he do alright for the kinda character he is?

IMO, Ganon's only buff was his down smash kb increase. Everything else (lol there has been only 2 updates for him) was tacking 1% more on slow attacks. The only buff for Bowser I remember is fair getting less landing lag and utilt getting one frame faster.

 

[adom4]

In talking about characters being improved with patches, where do we stand with Bowser?

It seems like, of the super heavyweights, Ganon and Dedede definitely need things more practical, and the buffs for Charizard and DK have been pretty good. What about King Koopa? I mean I know he kept winning tournaments early on, but now does he do alright for the kinda character he is?

Ganon mostly needs a slightly faster jab and/or a slightly longer grab, everything else is a bonus.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Like you I'm an OG, and I have long since passed the point of wanting to be nice. Especially to people who repeatedly make silly statements.

Blunt and to the point. No BS. No nonsense. No nice nice.

Feel free to put me on ignore if you take issue with my approach.

I don't run like that. I may disagree with your approach but I'd like to think I'm above pretending you don't exist as a poster because of it. The thing I take issue with is that people don't learn from it and, obviously, not everyone who comes into this thread is going to be super knowledgeable about the game. Hell, even some top level players who stop by for a visit have been made to eat a John Goodman portion of crow from time to time just because of the simple fact that it's almost impossible to fully understand every character and every match up in the game. This being said, ignorance is a crime that's easily forgiven and we're all here to learn more, whether we're only trying to hold our own in For Glory or wanting to make Top 8 at Apex. We all start out somewhere. If you look at Mew2king's earliest posts, for example, he legitimately thought Mewtwo was one of the best characters in Melee so if someone stumbles in here with Forest Gump levels of naivety, I think we can cut them some slack. I'm not saying to coddle or delude them but I think pointing them in the right direction is a better approach.

 

[Espy Rose]

Fatman's a punk, a wimp, and a nerd.

 

[bc1910]

Lucario should have plenty of time to punish a HD after shielding (or rolling even) whichever why Greninja goes as far as I can tell -- maybe not with an Aura Sphere but even that looks doable (45 frames between when Suriken is fired and when HP JUST starts is a pretty big window). The ledge trap is about either getting them into the AS Charge, or forcing them into a bad position where they can be punished. This option can work against it, but again, it has it's flaws. And Lucario can hit Greninja at the ledge with: Fully charged AS (sometimes, also a big threat and he will probably have it if he doesn't get hit mid charge), Dtilt (minor threat), and he can do a grounded Dair (can kill sometimes). Greninja has a really low hurtbox at the ledge, lol.

But yea, you can mix up HP stuff and make it really hard for the Lucario to punish things properly. Going below the stage, HD horizontal and then up; going straight for the ledge, and going above stage (probably the worst without a platform). Greninja can also ledge drop -> Fair, which is, if nothing else, scarier than his other options.

Greninja actually has a pretty decent set of options here lol.

You know, generally you don't even have to bother with the shuriken, you can just ledge drop HP over Lucario's head. It's a lot quicker and shouldn't result in punishment on reaction. Fair is disjointed which is nice if nothing else.

Seems like Lucario's options to hit Greninja hanging off the ledge aren't too scary besides Aura sphere. He doesn't have many, at least. Greninja does hang really low, it's only his hand that's on the stage. He's not a small character yet he has such a good/small hurtbox in so many situations. Hangs off the ledge low, very good crouch, low idle stance and more.

But yeah Greninja has plenty of options in this situation. So does everyone with good horizontal burst movement, really. Pikachu is also great, he can just ledge drop QA into the ground.

 

[Planty]

I'm an extremely tough guy when it comes to this game where Pikachu fights Kirby.

This made my day.

 

[Fatmanonice]

When were her grab follow-ups, jab, and autoreticle buffed? Also, I thought dtilt was the only one that actually got faster (though they all had hitbox improvements).

Er... scratch jab and autoreticle... I thought they were improved in earlier updates...

As for grab follow ups, ftilt, nair, usmash, fair have all been improved in the past year. Depending on weight and fall speed, all of these can be reasonably used out of dthrow. Utilt had it's ending lag reduced with the first major update (1.04).

 

[Space thing]

You know, generally you don't even have to bother with the shuriken, you can just ledge drop HP over Lucario's head. It's a lot quicker and shouldn't result in punishment on reaction.

What? Then he just shoots the damn thing that he's been charging at you. If there's a platform, he jump cancels an aerial. He can't really react to a ledge drop aerial, so he has to commit himself a bit early on whether he's going to keep charging or just move out of the way and try to punish. Just HP'ing over his doesn't really do anything that a ledge drop aerial doesn't and it's much less scary. Hell, trading with an aerial is actually better because it removes the Aura Sphere problem AND gives you invincibility on re-grab.

General, you want to mix up rolls on stage, ledge drop aerials, stall off stage, and maybe regular get because it's hard to be ready to react to all of those options at once. Committing to HP on stage like that is bad IMO.

 

[oldkingcroz]

Ness MU is bad?

News to me. Ike does decently well unless he gets grabbed.

I personally have trouble with this matchup. Dunno if it's just me, but Ness has some pretty annoying attributes/ moves.
Grabs are easy damage/ kills very early. Fair combos are insta-death. PK fire messing up horizontal recovery. PK thunder for safe juggles. PK thunder stagespikes/ messes up Ike's Up b. Ike can't really mess Ness's recovery up (unless he fastfalls to bair, but still it's risky). Ness is light/floaty, so he can't be combo'd quite as easily. Ike outrages him, but Ness can still work wonders with fair, dash attack, and projectiles.

 

[Tainic]

Er... scratch jab and autoreticle... I thought they were improved in earlier updates...

As for grab follow ups, ftilt, nair, usmash, fair have all been improved in the past year. Depending on weight and fall speed, all of these can be reasonably used out of dthrow. Utilt had it's ending lag reduced with the first major update (1.04).

Palutena is going to need a lot of buffs to offset her horrendous problems though, while, imo, characters like Zelda are fundamentally flawed because of their kit, (For instance, Zelda is a defensive character with no defensive tool whatsover, imo she needs a complete overhaul to be somewhat good in the next game, unless they crazy buff Din's Fire/Down B and make her aerials usable for spacing. (not really gonna happen.)) Palutena remains a salvageable character, and can still have an Ike treatment that would make her rise a few spots on the rankings. The only problem would be that if you were to buff her to be on the level of a normal character, she would become a problematic character in customs, so unless Nintendo tones down her custom moves, we will someday probably have to do something about her in customs if she were to become somewhat viable in standard play.

tbh I'd modify the dthrow trajectory a lil bit so she could chain with something else than nair/fair at lower percents. (Say, back air.)

 

[bc1910]

What? Then he just shoots the damn thing that he's been charging at you. If there's a platform, he jump cancels an aerial. He can't really react to a ledge drop aerial, so he has to commit himself a bit early on whether he's going to keep charging or just move out of the way and try to punish. Just HP'ing over his doesn't really do anything that a ledge drop aerial doesn't and it's much less scary. Hell, trading with an aerial is actually better because it removes the Aura Sphere problem AND gives you invincibility on re-grab.

General, you want to mix up rolls on stage, ledge drop aerials, stall off stage, and maybe regular get because it's hard to be ready to react to all of those options at once. Committing to HP on stage like that is bad IMO.

Oh oops, I was talking about a platformed stage, since you mentioned them. I didn't make that clear at all looking back. But on a platformed stage you just HP over his head to a platform and you're fine.

Fair doesn't always outrange Aura Sphere sadly, depends on spacing. And regular getup always just gets you hit. Getup attack can trade about 25% of the time though. Rolling is quite easy for him to react to. Such a dumb trap.

 

[Mario766]

I personally have trouble with this matchup. Dunno if it's just me, but Ness has some pretty annoying attributes/ moves.
Grabs are easy damage/ kills very early. Fair combos are insta-death. PK fire messing up horizontal recovery. PK thunder for safe juggles. PK thunder stagespikes/ messes up Ike's Up b. Ike can't really mess Ness's recovery up (unless he fastfalls to bair, but still it's risky). Ness is light/floaty, so he can't be combo'd quite as easily. Ike outrages him, but Ness can still work wonders with fair, dash attack, and projectiles.

Ike actually destroys Ness' recovery. All of Ike's aerials are very strong against Ness, you don't have to mess with the thunder itself, just smack Ness, or if you want to go for another route you can counter either the projectile or Ness himself. Ness lets himself be put into trump positions with every recovery. Ike shouldn't have a problem with side-bing unless he gets hit by PK Thunder during it, just side-b so you sweet spot the ledge. PK Fire isn't usable in neutral, Ike's aerial mobility lets him punish it by a simple hop over it, and he can punish a close range PK Fire on shield with jab or down tilt.

 

[SpottedCerberus]

The issue with buffing Palutena is that she's already so good in customs. If they buffed her based on her lackluster default game, she could legitimately become OP in the custom metagame. The hallelu-hah combo is already ridiculous. I mean, I remember seeing some video on Zero's youtube where it took someone from 0-death in a matter of seconds, killing Falco at 20-something percent. (I think M2K was the Palutena.)

And isn't that infinite lightweight glitch still around?

Ike actually destroys Ness' recovery.

Almost everyone destroys Ness's recovery. I think that will become more clear as the metagame progresses and people learn how to deal with it.

I was about to say "almost everyone except for Little Mac," because he can't go offstage without dying, but then I remembered that a well-timed quick counter can net an early offstage KO.

 

[Fatmanonice]

I personally have trouble with this matchup. Dunno if it's just me, but Ness has some pretty annoying attributes/ moves.
Grabs are easy damage/ kills very early. Fair combos are insta-death. PK fire messing up horizontal recovery. PK thunder for safe juggles. PK thunder stagespikes/ messes up Ike's Up b. Ike can't really mess Ness's recovery up (unless he fastfalls to bair, but still it's risky). Ness is light/floaty, so he can't be combo'd quite as easily. Ike outrages him, but Ness can still work wonders with fair, dash attack, and projectiles.

It's a lot more manageable now than when the game first came out. From everything you're saying, you'll want to work on DI, taking a hard look at which attacks you are using, and making your recovery less predictable. For example, aether shouldn't be used to recover unless you absolutely have to. The faster you get the edge/the stage, the better. Don't be afraid to try to go over Ness's head with quickdraw, even if it means flying to the other side of the stage. Sometimes the best solution to PK Thunder camping on the edge is to just go ahead and slam right into Ness with a quick draw or use fair on your way down to his level. To summarize: aim for the edge, aim for Ness, or aim above him.

Ness is floaty but I think you underestimate how good of a set up throw Ike's dthrow and uthrow now are. Fair, uair, aether, and nair are all reliable options and, if you want to go for a hard read, usmash or fsmash on their way down can work too. Off stage, Ness's floatiness gives you an opportunity to strike back. Fair is the safest option and while bair (especially a ledge trump bair if you can manage it) is a particularly ballsy option that can lead to early kills. Countering the PKT2 is practically a guaranteed kill at 50% if you want to give that a whirl but do keep in mind that it's very risky and how hard PKT2 hits (especially when it comes to stage spikes) shouldn't be underestimated.

As for the other things you mentioned, fair and dash attack can be shield grabbed, PK Fire can be jumped out of, and fair strings are not the end of the world as long as you don't panic if you're offstage and don't waste your second jump on impulse. His fair is good but Ike's is now just as good, Ike has just as many grab set ups as Ness does (minus the reliable kill throw), and Ike can easily bat Ness away as long as you're not mindlessly using smash attacks. Also, never underestimate who good Ike's jab is and how important it is to help wrack up damage. With characters like Ike and Ganondorf, I know there's the temptation to always want to hit with strong, clavicle shattering attacks and that's where you'll suffer with characters with fantastic shield grabs and OoS options like Ness so focus on getting the small, quick attacks in before trying to go for the hard hit to finish them off.

 

[HeavyLobster]

In talking about characters being improved with patches, where do we stand with Bowser?

It seems like, of the super heavyweights, Ganon and Dedede definitely need things more practical, and the buffs for Charizard and DK have been pretty good. What about King Koopa? I mean I know he kept winning tournaments early on, but now does he do alright for the kinda character he is?

Bowser really needs a combo Dthrow. His footsies are good enough to get grabs fairly reliably, but his reward isn't good enough to make up for the fact that he gets juggled forever. Dedede's gotten nothing that I'm aware of since the first patch, when he got nerfed for no apparent reason. Ganon really just needs a grab range buff and for all the broken stuff that lets high tiers reset for free to be toned down. His advantages don't work too well vs. Vanish + Bouncing Fish, Flip Kick, Luma, Quick Attack, or Sonic in general, but other than that his punish game is generally enough to keep him relevant in spite of his many weaknesses.

 

[Smog Frog]

why does it have to be a combo dthrow? thats so overused and homogenous that i'd appreciate some variety in combo throws.

 

[Tobi_Whatever]

why does it have to be a combo dthrow? thats so overused and homogenous that i'd appreciate some variety in combo throws.

This, I've seen Smash 4 being called dThrow uAir: the game many times now.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Why do DK, Charizard, and Ike get combo throws but not Bowser? DK and Charizard had theirs patched in so it's not a change that's impossible.

 

[thehard]

From a game design standpoint, it wouldn't really make sense if Bowser could follow-up out of his d-throw anyway. He falls onto the ground in his animation. Notice how characters like Mario preserve their "stance" with their d-throws. Natural flow into u-tilt.

 

[Tainic]

why does it have to be a combo dthrow? thats so overused and homogenous that i'd appreciate some variety in combo throws.

It's probably because shields are what are ruling the game atm, they are a safe, reliable way of dealing with all king of situations, aerial approaches, can allow you to bait an ennemy approach/gain stage control by canceling you dash with it, giving a somewhat safe way to approach for all the characters. Very few characters can pressure those and the few moves that get outright get rid of em (Think Bowser, Falchions, DK.) are very punisheable, making them barely viable outside of an occasional use here and there, making Grab the universal answer to shields, (I'm not learning you anything here I guess) a character that doesnt get a good reward of a grab is automatically hampered heavily, because it means in most cases (Maybe not Yoshi's.) that shields are a low cost answer to your kit.

That's also why command grabs are so good, because they give you another way to get rid of shields and allow you to pressure your opponent who can't really instashield when you're in the air.

 

[FullMoon]

It's probably because shields are what are ruling the game atm, they are a safe, reliable way of dealing with all king of situations, aerial approaches, can allow you to bait an ennemy approach/gain stage control by canceling you dash with it, giving a somewhat safe way to approach for all the characters. Very few characters can pressure those and the few moves that get outright get rid of em (Think Bowser, Falchions, DK.) are very punisheable, making them barely viable outside of an occasional use here and there, making Grab the universal answer to shields, (I'm not learning you anything here I guess) a character that doesnt get a good reward of a grab is automatically hampered heavily, because it means in most cases (Maybe not Yoshi's.) that shields are a low cost answer to your kit.

That's also why command grabs are so good, because they give you another way to get rid of shields and allow you to pressure your opponent who can't really instashield when you're in the air.

I think what he was talking about was why D-Throw specifically. Like, Greninja uses Up-Throw for combos for example.

 

[Tainic]

Ah, yeah.

Nevermind that then, any throw is fine lol as long as it gives the character a way to deal with shields lol.