Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Fatmanonice]

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

That's just the way it's set up across the board. Dthrow typically a character's weakest throw so that's why it usually turns out like that. Uthrow could work for Bowser as another option for a combo throw I suppose since it's already his worst throw.

 

[Smog Frog]

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.

falls over on his back, falls and drops her leg on the enemy, and sits down on the opponents back. animation doesnt have to make sense for combos to work.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Bowser has a command grab that does 18% and gives him huge positional advantage.

 

[Cassius.]

UThrow is not Bowser's worst throw lol.

Bowser has UThrow combos on a large amount of the cast (UThrow -> N/F/UAir) based on weight and size, but the issue is consistency. It stops past 60%, which...I guess to an extent makes sense, since one Up throw sequence does 25+% damage.

It doesn't have to be Bowser's DThrow, and it honestly wouldn't make sense for it to be that. Like someone mentioned, he squishes you.

And UThrow is his least damaging throw, so all of the signs are there.

I'll go back to lurking now ;-;

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Bowser has a command grab that does 18% and gives him huge positional advantage.

And kills. At like 90.

 

[Hippieslayer]

I thought Bowsers issue was that he has a horrible disadvantaged state which it's somewhat easy to put him into, and can't land, not dealing with shields.. or anything else in particular really.

 

[thehard]

falls over on his back, falls and drops her leg on the enemy, and sits down on the opponents back. animation doesnt have to make sense for combos to work.

Those are all nimble characters and their animations make sense. What would they do to Bowser? Speed the throw up? Cut off endlag? Lower the BKB/trajectory change? That would all look stupid.

 

[Tainic]

Bowser deals ok with shields, his downtilt applies a ton of shield pressure and the opponent cant really shield like he wants with that Side B lurking around.

Bowser has UThrow combos on a large amount of the cast (UThrow -> N/F/UAir) based on weight and size, but the issue is consistency. It stops past 60%, which...I guess to an extent makes sense, since one Up throw sequence does 25+% damage.

Are they guaranteed ? It feels to me that you can di out of em.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

UThrow is not Bowser's worst throw lol.

Bowser has UThrow combos on a large amount of the cast (UThrow -> N/F/UAir) based on weight and size, but the issue is consistency. It stops past 60%, which...I guess to an extent makes sense, since one Up throw sequence does 25+% damage.

It doesn't have to be Bowser's DThrow, and it honestly wouldn't make sense for it to be that. Like someone mentioned, he squishes you.

And UThrow is his least damaging throw, so all of the signs are there.

I'll go back to lurking now ;-;

I just tested that on Mario, Sheik, Kirby, Pit, and Fox. It doesn't even work without DI.

 

[SpottedCerberus]

Shields should have been nerfed instead of rolls and spot dodges. (Not that I don't appreciate those nerfs as well.) They regenerate so fast that it's impossible for a lot of characters to properly apply shield pressure. A shield can go from the verge of breaking back to full-size absurdly fast.

Nerfing air-dodges would also be a plus.

They should try to make the game a bit less defensive. If not for the sake of competitive play, then just so it's more fun casually. They've succeeded in this somewhat by giving various characters combo and KO options via patching, but I'd still like a little more.

That's the main issue with nerfing characters. They have to be careful to not encourage time-outs and such. They nerfed Shiek's KO power and damage output all over the place, but not her ability to camp with needles. This encourages Shiek players to camp as much as possible.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Shields should have been nerfed instead of rolls and spot dodges. (Not that I don't appreciate those nerfs as well.) They regenerate so fast that it's impossible for a lot of characters to properly apply shield pressure. A shield can go from the verge of breaking back to full-size absurdly fast.

Nerfing air-dodges would also be a plus.

They should try to make the game a bit less defensive. If not for the sake of competitive play, then just so it's more fun casually. They've succeeded in this somewhat by giving various characters combo and KO options via patching, but I'd still like a little more.

Air dodges aren't nearly as bad as shields. But it doesn't matter. Making such a huge universal change like that could destroy the balance of the game. Since they haven't made any change like that in the past, hoping for one in the future won't really get us anywhere imo.

 

[Cassius.]

They're guaranteed at low percents, with and without DI, yes. (Which is horrible, because that means that once you do one UThrow combo at the start of the round, it doesn't work again because Bowser does too much damage LOL)

Low, meaning up until ~30%. It sucks, but I'm kind of okay with it since all of Bowser's moves except for firebreath do over 10% damage. One throw combo would be around 25% every time, for a character who starts killing people around 80-90% and above.

Forward Air out of UThrow is the easiest to land. You can act after UThrow a lot faster than you think. NAir and UAir are a lot more difficult, and usually don't work past 15%, aside from on fast fallers, or taller/larger characters. Light weight characters avoid this entirely.

So basically, Bowser has no consistent combo throw once you get towards the middle and end of the stock. I just wanted to let it be known that it's not actually his worst throw, due to what I just explained. There are only two ways to DI Bowser's UThrow; you either go forward or directly up. The knock back on it isn't fixed in this game since UThrow can actually kill (at like 900% lol)

Bowser's worst throw is DThrow. He doesn't really get a lot out of it, it launches mostly horizontally and does the same damage as FThrow. UThrow keeps opponents at a close-ish distance and puts them above him, where Bowser can exert whatever advantage he has.

His main issue is that he can't land. I'd rather get help with that than giving him a combo throw, honestly.

 

[SpottedCerberus]

Air dodges aren't nearly as bad as shields. But it doesn't matter. Making such a huge universal change like that could destroy the balance of the game.

A one frame difference, like with rolls? I don't think that would result in too much imbalance. I agree that shields are a much bigger issue though.

 

[Vipermoon]

The only nerf to shields should be increased shield stun. Maybe not as much as Brawl, but stun = damage/2 would be nice.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

A one frame difference, like with rolls? I don't think that would result in too much imbalance. I agree that shields are a much bigger issue though.

Sure a one frame change would be welcome but the question is: can it even happen?

 

[Tainic]

The only nerf to shields should be increased shield stun. Maybe not as much as Brawl, but stun = damage/2 would be nice.

That or decrease their regeneration rate.

 

[bc1910]

Brawl didn't have much shieldstun either.

And I recall seeing a chart that showed shieldstun in Sm4sh is actually slightly higher than it was in Brawl. It's just everything does less damage and aerials tend to have more landing lag so it makes everything seem a lot less safe. Not totally sure if the chart was right, though.

 

[ChronoPenguin]

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.

A grab happy metagame makes shields ****.
What does your shield matter if the person goes to grab you. That doesn't create a need for homogenisation basically everyone has value in their grabs whether they have a direct combo or not.

Movement rules this game not sitting rooted in a shield. I wish shields ruled this game, they're so easy to ignore. Getting in landing your crap that leads into XYZ means a lot and since the main starter for many of the cast also ignores shields...

Forcing someone to shield is great, just means more grabs then you link into normals.

Even if shield wasn't there players would go for grabs. All shield has going for it is the high regen preventing it from getting broken on a dime.

If anything movement and invulnerability hurt nornals more then shield.

 

[Blobface]

Adding more shieldstun sounds like a very bad idea. It's very likely that a small group of characters would get safe, possibly even positive-on-block aerials while everyone else gets to just shamble away into unviable limbo.

If I were to give any nerf to shields, I'd decrease their hp by 20/33% (so about 35-40 hp) as well as giving a slower regeneration rate. Shieldbreaks being more viable as an option would buff/nerf everyone relatively equally, bringing balance closer, in addition to allowing a lot of interesting options. For instance, you could throw out a smash attack you know isn't safe on shield and eat a punish, but then your opponent is dealing with a gimped shield.

 

[Vipermoon]

That or decrease their regeneration rate.

That too. Do both. But not by much.

@ bc1910 That is not true, there's a lot less shieldstun in this game. I forgot the equation differences, someone else will know.

 

[Mario766]

20-30 percent nerf on shields would make some moves super deadly to even be near by. That's a little extreme.

 

[Emblem Lord]

You dont want Ryu to have a game engine with more shieldstun

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Shield health can't go any lower without being stupid easy to break. I lol at the very idea of a Decisive buster Shulk. Flipping Ryu, or hell Kirby in a game with less shield health.

The most overtuned aspect of shield 1v1 is the regen because shield chip doesn't matter only high burst penetration.

Even still everybody is trying to grab you anyways, shield is over exaggerated

 

[Planty]

I really doubt more shieldstun would ever happen, just because the entire game would have to be rebalanced. Characters with many attacks that are unsafe on block now (heavyweights) would rise up the tiers dramatically. Characters with attacks that are safe on shield now wouldn't gain anything and would be indirectly nerfed. The whole game would change so I really doubt we'll see such a big change.

 

[Smog Frog]

You dont want Ryu to have a game engine with more shieldstun

doesnt more shield stun lead to less oos shoryukens? im curious as to how this would work

 

[Emblem Lord]

You want Ryus aerials to be safe on shield? You want Marth to be plus on shield?

OoS SRK is one option. Ryu is NOT lacking in kill confirms and set ups

 

[Planty]

Doesn't Ryu's entire moveset (except hadoken, d-smash, weak f-tilt, and strong d-tilt) kill or sets up into a kill?

 

[Emblem Lord]

Doesn't Ryu's entire moveset (except hadoken, d-smash, weak f-tilt, and strong d-tilt) kill or sets up into a kill?

GAWD YES

****in love this character

 

[Luigi player]

Bowser has many of the really bad problems DK has as well.

Generally framedata for heavies is pretty bad overall. Even if they have some decently fast moves here and there, most are kinda laggy and slow on startup, landing and jumping (from the ground) takes more frames, etc.
Bowsers normal grabs have bad framedata if they miss (and even the startup for a normal grab). Having to deal with 2 frames faster grab during his fights just cries for the ones with faster grabs to get them more often.

Heavies are also big targets, and have terrible landinglag on aerials. This makes it so difficult for them to land. At least Bowser has a command grab for that. But if the opponent spaces his moves well it's still difficult to land.
DK and Bowser have a absolutely terrible time landing. Though DK even worse than Bowser, while Bowser might struggle more when he's on the ledge. They often have to retreat to the ledge just to be able to get back to the ground safely. And then they still have to get back up unharmed. And with such an obvious getup roll that DK has for example, it's a really though job too.
They can't use an aerial, because that will just be shieldgrabbed, they can't always use their sideB to catch shielding opponents offguard (sometimes it can happen, but for DK a small shield will not stop the opponent from harassing him some more in the air in non-shieldgrab ways). How in the world are they supposed to land? Oftentimes I'm hit as DK without my doublejump and not hit far enough to be able to reach the ledge while falling down. This means the only thing he can do is hope the opponent messes up, or just get hit (his aerials can be shieldgrabbed, his sideB only shieldbreaks if it's already somewhat weakened). He can literally not do anything else. In Brawl he could've retreated with an aerial upB onto a platform with no lag, but now he even has lag on a good landing.
And of course on top of that their aerial mobility is absolutely terrible. B-reverse is possible, but even that won't help most of the time.
They're also big and easy-to-hit targets because of that. While making them easier combofood.

All of this together and most of their heavyweight-advantages yield much worse disadvantages for them.

And while some of their smashes are really strong, they more often than not have to rely on their tilts or aerials or something to get KOs, because their smashes are made so slow (I guess with Bowser it's a little different, because of his super good invincibile usmash). While their other moves don't really create setups to "frametrap" their opponents into them.

DK now has a superlegit combo that works most of the time against non-floaties, while even being able to KO most of the cast at like 80 % (depends on stage, weight, rage, staleness, etc, of course), which is a huge buff for him and no other heavyweight had this before (talking about Smash4). Finally one heavy has something that heavies usually don't have (which is another reason why they're generally bad characters). He has his own hoo-hah.

In Brawl Dedede was a special heavyweight too.
He actually had pretty fast framedata for some things. Like grab and stuff, while having that superuseful Z-axis dodges which made him super difficult to hit, while being super scary if you miss your stuff or he shields it, because he can grab you most of the time, while additionally gaining so much reward from that grab. He also couldn't be juggled for free like DK, because of his many jumps and inhale could catch off guard as well (while having that precious grabarmor). In Brawl characters could also land easier through airdodges, but now in Smash4 even that option was taken away from them.

So, heavies are usually just made to be bad, because Sakurai wants them to be slower, laggier, bigger, without many combos and bad mobility. All these things together are pretty bad.

Brawl Dedede and now Smash4 DK at least have some of the things "normal" characters have. But they still weren't / aren't that great characters. Because they're inherently made worse.

When they finally realize that heavies need a few fast attacks and some form of mobility or at least a few of the better aspects of characters we might see some rise higher than before.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Brawl Snake was a special heavyweight too.

 

[san.]

Too much shield stun would make OoS options feel clunky. Decreasing shield regeneration and re-implementing shield edge slips would easily fix the problem. Regeneration doesn't even have to be decreased that much, maybe Brawl levels or slightly worse.

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.

Ike, poor throws? Am I in bizarro world? Both uthrow and dthrow are very good combo throws, and fthrow and bthrow are great for positioning. 7% for all throws and a decent pummel is appreciated as well. What he has is a poor standing grab, though.

The latest patch made Ike's uair one of the strongest in the game with rage (stronger than Charizard's uair until like 75%, which matters with rage combos at 60-70%). Ike's power is respectable for the current speed of his attacks. Fair can be 13% I guess but you can combo almost his entire moveset into fair already and it's already kinda strong. Pretty much everything else Ike has is strong for the most part.

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

He already was, but now the latest patch gave him some good projectiles and buffed slash launcher and reversal slash, rounding him out a lot. He has plenty of combos and a lot of his moves are like -2 to -7 on shield drop. I didn't know how safe ftilt was until the frame data came out for it. I think many have already seen my post about his dtilt, utilt, jab, throws, etc. Landing with ftilt actually combos into stuff more easily, too, even though I still think ftilt is too slow.

I still think Ike is better though (second swordfighter along with gunner). Swordfighter can handle different character archetypes more directly by switching his downB.

Also, while chakram is good now, the infinite is pretty much false. You can string a few of them together though.

 

[oldkingcroz]

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.

Trust me, I don't underestimate Ike ;p Just he has serious issues with fair strings, seeing that he has either purely vertical or purely horizontal recovery. If a character like Ness, Sheik, Rob, Pikachu, or the like strings these moves together, and end the string at stage height near the blast zone, Ike is in a bad situation. DI'ing out and recovering low aren't really two things that go together, when playing as Ike, seeing that his horizontal aerial speed is nothing really to write home about. And recovering high with quick draw becomes unsafe because the person who just stringed you is literally right there, and can accidentally activate the strike on quick draw, or they can just do another strike if they see that you double jumped and started charging. It's a lose lose for Ike, if he is fair stringed.

And PK Thunder can be maneuvered in a way that completely prevents recovery. Ness can just keep the thunder at whatever horizontal level Ike is and follow him, as he descends. It's the perfect move to stop him. PK Fire works in a similar fashion, but only works if Ike is going for the sweetspot.

Offstage counters are very risky, because of the endlag. They are great when they work on the last stock, but otherwise it's the equivilent to going too deep. Not to mention they might accidentally go off from the PK thunder itself (opposed to the Ness). And while fairs do work decently well (and the range was increased pretty heavily in the patches), it is frame 12 and Ike must jump off stage to use it. Ness's recovery takes, what, 3/4 of a second to go off, if not sooner? Ike's cutting it pretty close if he goes for it, honestly. The windbox special/ bair might be the best things to stop him, though.

 

[Luco]

Any character with weight, infinite recovery at the cost of some self-damage, the ability to efficiently zone and control the pace of the match whilst having whack mobility/offensive options in the form of an exploit (DACUS) and one of the fastest, most disjointed kill moves in the game is probably going to be pretty good.

Weight isn't inherently bad - if you create unorthodox "heavies" they can often work quite well - but there are certain connotations to this design philosophy that tends to throw heavyweights into the dirt in 1v1s, yeah.

 

[san.]

I think the tool given to DK makes him *really good now. I hope is competitive players prove me right over the next few months.

DK now doesn't need to overextend for good reward. His general movement is good for his weight, and can rely on his tilts, safe aerials, and grab.

From a short time using it, I still think that Ike's grab game is better if you utilize footstools and stage positioning, but DK's is just so easy to perform.

Trust me, I don't underestimate Ike ;p Just he has serious issues with fair strings, seeing that he has either purely vertical or purely horizontal recovery. If a character like Ness, Sheik, Rob, Pikachu, or the like strings these moves together, and end the string at stage height near the blast zone, Ike is in a bad situation. DI'ing out and recovering low aren't really two things that go together, when playing as Ike, seeing that his horizontal aerial speed is nothing really to write home about. And recovering high with quick draw becomes unsafe because the person who just stringed you is literally right there, and can accidentally activate the strike on quick draw, or they can just do another strike if they see that you double jumped and started charging. It's a lose lose for Ike, if he is fair stringed.

Ike's horizontal air speed is a touch below Falcon's and Sheik's. That's decent enough imo.

If you trigger your quick draw at the top of the stage, you can simply initiate another quick draw or jump, air dodge, etc. Ike's recovery is overall quite good, especially if you have any resemblance of decent DI.

And PK Thunder can be maneuvered in a way that completely prevents recovery. Ness can just keep the thunder at whatever horizontal level Ike is and follow him, as he descends. It's the perfect move to stop him. PK Fire works in a similar fashion, but only works if Ike is going for the sweetspot.

If Ike is below the stage, depending on the stage, Ike can throw the sword up through a decent part of the stage. Ness' PKT isn't going to be very scary unless Ness is pretty close. There's also the option of DIing towards the stage and teching when necessary. It's scary, but can be handled with enough skill.

Above, Ike can reaction quick draw based on where PKT is heading.

Offstage counters are very risky, because of the endlag. They are great when they work on the last stock, but otherwise it's the equivilent to going too deep. Not to mention they might accidentally go off from the PK thunder itself (opposed to the Ness). And while fairs do work decently well (and the range was increased pretty heavily in the patches), it is frame 12 and Ike must jump off stage to use it. Ness's recovery takes, what, 3/4 of a second to go off, if not sooner? Ike's cutting it pretty close if he goes for it, honestly. The windbox special/ bair might be the best things to stop him, though.

No need to counter. You can easily just eruption and kill Ness at 50% every time? Ike can also aerial if he wants or the traditional option of air dodge into the PKT ball. Even if you do try counter for some reason and mess up, DI towards the stage and tech.

 

[thehard]

Hey guys.

Fighting Sonic with high shield-stun.

That is all.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Any character with weight, infinite recovery at the cost of some self-damage, the ability to efficiently zone and control the pace of the match whilst having whack mobility/offensive options in the form of an exploit (DACUS) and one of the fastest, most disjointed kill moves in the game is probably going to be pretty good.

Weight isn't inherently bad - if you create unorthodox "heavies" they can often work quite well - but there are certain connotations to this design philosophy that tends to throw heavyweights into the dirt in 1v1s, yeah.

Honestly, I think ryu fits that mold. He doesn't have snakes ftilt or utilt. But he's still dangerous and probably the best heavy.

 

[Ikes]

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

I wanna see a bthrow combo throw, that would be fresh

 

[warionumbah2]

I wanna see a bthrow combo throw, that would be fresh

Drop that weak sword boy Tink and sell your soul to MK.

 

[Nobie]

When someone continues to consistently repeat Week 1 complaints that have since either changed or been debunked, but insists that, no, it has to be this way, I think it's hardly surprising that they get the cold shoulder.

Also seriously why are people so obsessed with wanting Marth to have throw combos?

 

[Tobi_Whatever]

When someone continues to consistently repeat Week 1 complaints that have since either changed or been debunked, but insists that, no, it has to be this way, I think it's hardly surprising that they get the cold shoulder.

Also seriously why are people so obsessed with wanting Marth to have throw combos?

>not wanting throw combos